Metaphysics: The Key Concepts

Nikk Effingham, Helen Beebee, Philip Goff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136855177
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Geschichte & Theorie der Philosophie

'Informative, accessible, and fun to read— this is an excellent reference guide for undergraduates and anyone wanting an introduction to the fundamental issues of metaphysics. I know of no other resource like it.'– Meghan Griffith, Davidson College, USA

'Marvellous! This book provides the very best place to start for students wanting to take the first step into understanding metaphysics.Undergraduates would do well to buy it and consult it regularly. The quality and clarity of the material are consistently high.' – Chris Daly, University of Manchester, UK

Ever wondered about Gunk, Brains in a Vat or Frankfurt's Nefarious Neurosurgeon?

With complete explanations of these terms and more, Metaphysics: The Key Concepts is an accessible and engaging introduction to the most widely studied and challenging concepts in metaphysics. The authors clearly and lucidly define and discuss key terms and concepts, under the themes of:

• time
• particulars & universals
• realism & antirealism
• free will
• personal identity
• causation and laws.

Arranged in an easy to use A-Z format, each concept is explored and illustrated with engaging and memorable examples, and accompanied by an up-to-date guide to further reading. Fully cross-referenced throughout, this remarkable reference guide is essential reading for students of philosophy and all those interested in the nature of reality.

METAPHYSICS

The Key Concepts

ABSTRACT VS CONCRETE

Concrete objects (‘concreta’) are not, as you might expect, those that are mainly made of cement. In metaphysics, the concrete things include tables, chairs, mountains, cars, stars, you and me (although it does, also, include those things that are made mainly of cement). In other words, material objects are said to be concrete. However, other things are usually said to be concrete as well: if there are immaterial objects (ghosts, angels, souls, God, etc.) they, too, are concrete; events (such as Second World War or your lunch yesterday) are often labelled as being concrete; immanent universals are concrete; tropes are usually said to be concrete; and for those who believe in them, holes are concrete objects. Roughly, then, the things in space and time are concrete (with exceptions made for angels and God, which are not in space and time – but that is why we used the word ‘roughly’).

Concreta are to be contrasted with abstract objects (‘abstracta’). Examples of abstracta include platonic universals, numbers and classes (see the entry on platonism for more examples). The received wisdom is that such things are not to be found anywhere in space and time – that is, you would not find the number six lurking around somewhere in Liverpool, nor will you accidentally trip over the property redness any time soon. There are some dissenters, so again the rough characterisation of the abstract objects not being in space and time is not to be taken as the last word.

There are two main parts to the debate concerning abstract and concrete objects. First, whether there are any abstract objects. For instance, whether properties, numbers and so on exist is the crux of the debate concerning whether platonism is true or not and a major issue in the contemporary debate over ontology. Second, what exactly the correct definitions of ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’ are. As the rough sketch above adequately demonstrates, it is a bit tricky to pin down exactly what it takes to be abstract or concrete. A lot of ink has been spilt trying to get the correct necessary and sufficient conditions for both of those terms, and doubtless more ink will be spilt in the future (see Lewis 1986a: 81–6; Rosenkrantz 1995).

Further reading: Swoyer (2008)

AGENT CAUSATION

Some philosophers hold that it is only by being an ‘uncaused cause’ of one’s actions that an agent can truly be said to be ultimately responsible for their actions and hence to act freely and be morally responsible (see free will and moral responsibility). Such philosophers hold that the relation between the agent and her free actions (normally thought to be her intentions or, in more old-fashioned terms, her ‘acts of will’ or ‘willings’) is that of ‘agent causation’.

Most contemporary philosophers hold that the causal relata – the entities that stand in causal relations to one another – are spatiotemporally located entities, such as events (or facts or states of affairs). Thus, when we say the short circuit caused the fire, we are saying that the causal relation obtains between two events: the short circuit and the fire. In the mental case, the events in question will be mental events: for example, someone is having a particular belief or desire at a particular time. Hence, for instance, Jane’s being hungry at time t₁ caused her decision to order a pizza at time t₂. Agent causation (if it exists) is a different kind of relation, because in this case, the cause is not an event (or fact or state of affairs) but the agent herself, conceived as a substance. Jane herself – and not the event of her being hungry at t₁ or the fact that she was hungry at t₁ – agent causes her intention or decision to order pizza.

Agent causation is sometimes thought to require the falsity of determinism, that is, the truth of indeterminism. For, it is claimed, it must be the case both that the agent is not causally determined to bring about her act (a decision, let us say) by any preceding state of the world (hence ‘uncaused cause’) and that the decision itself is not determined by the laws of nature plus facts about the past. If Jane’s causing her decision to order pizza – or the decision itself – was itself fully determined by past facts (about Jane’s level of hunger, liking for pizza, knowledge of the local pizza delivery number, etc.), this would not count as genuine agent causation. However, some agent-causalists (e.g. Markosian 1999) are compatibilists: they think that agent causation is compatible with determinism.

Criticisms of agent causation

Agent-causal views have come in for a lot of criticism. One criticism focuses on the fact that to act rationally, an agent must somehow or other act on the basis of reasons. (Jane orders the pizza because she is hungry and thinks that pizza will satisfy her hunger.) According to a standard non-agent-causal story, this requirement is easy to satisfy: the agent’s reasons are also causes of her action, and it is in this causal sense that an agent acts ‘on the basis of’ reasons. An agent-causal view, however, would seem to preclude this explanation of the agent’s rationality: it is the agent herself, and not her reasons, that cause her intention, so in what sense does she act on the basis of reasons? Some recent accounts of agent causation have attempted to show that, in fact, agent causation is not incompatible with allowing reasons to play a causal role in intentions and decisions (see Clarke 1993).

Another criticism is that it is mysterious what agent causation really is. What is it about agents – and agents alone – that give them (as opposed to, say, their mental states) this ability to cause things? After all, on the standard view of causal relata, other objects (e.g. rocks and dogs) do not, strictly speaking, cause anything; rather, events or states of affairs involving them, or perhaps their properties, are what do the causing. (Hence, when a dog fetches a ball, it is features of the dog, including, presumably, mental or at least quasi-mental features, that do the causing: its seeing the ball, its wanting to fetch it, its running in the ball’s direction, etc.) How is it that agents get to have this special causal status? One answer to this question is that the mind of a genuine agent, capable of free action, is an immaterial substance; hence, on this view, dualism is required for agent causation. This would of course deliver a salient difference between free agents on one hand and dogs and rocks on the other (both of which lack immaterial minds). However, not all agent-causalists hold that dualism is required for agent causation.

Further reading: Clarke (1993, 2008, §§ 3–4)

ALEPH

Aleph-zero, Aleph-one, Aleph-two and so on are names of the different sizes of infinity.

ANALYSIS

See conceptual analysis.

ANALYTIC VS SYNTHETIC TRUTHS

Analytic truths are true merely in virtue of the meaning of words (e.g. ‘all bachelors are unmarried’), whereas synthetic truths are all the rest (e.g. ‘some bachelors are tall’).

Intuitively – and according to some philosophers – the analytic truths are just those truths that we can know a priori, whereas the truth of synthetic truths can only be known a posteriori (i.e. through empirical investigation). However, Immanuel Kant (who is responsible for the terms ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’) famously held that some truths (e.g. the truths of mathematics) are synthetic and yet knowable a priori. More recently, W. V. Quine (1951) famously argued that there is no genuine distinction to be drawn between the analytic and the synthetic (see also conceptual vs logical truths and metametaphysics).

A second related distinction is that between necessary truths (see necessity) and contingent truths: a necessary truth has to be true (it is, as it is sometimes put, true in all possible worlds), whereas a contingent truth might have been false (there is at least one possible world where it is false). Whether the distinction between necessary and contingent truths lines up neatly with the distinction (if there is one!) between analytic and synthetic truths is a matter of dispute; in particular, Saul Kripke argues, in effect, that there are some necessary truths that are not analytic and so cannot be known a priori (see necessary a posteriori truths).

Further reading: Quine (1951); Grice and Strawson (1957)

ANCESTRAL RELATION

Take any relation of your choosing and call it R. If x₁ is R related to x₂, and x₂ is R related to x₃, x₃ is R related to x₄ and so on, then, although x₁ may not be R related to anything else in that chain other than x₂, we can say that x₁ stands in the relation of being in a chain of R relations to such things. Call that relation – the relation of being in a chain of R relations – the ancestral relation of R. This is sometimes called the transitive closure of R: transitive because ancestral relations are always transitive.

Here is an example (indeed, this example is responsible for the term’s name). My father stands in the parent of relation to me, my grandfather stands in the parent of relation to my father, my great-grandfather stands in the parent of relation to my grandfather and so on. In that example, only my father stands in the parent of relation to me, but my grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather and so on are all in a chain of parents that connects, ultimately, to me. Hence, they all stand to me in the ancestral relation of parent of. That ancestral relation is, funnily enough, the ancestor of relation (i.e. my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc. are all my ancestors). Note that the parent of relation is intransitive, if a is a parent of b, and b is a parent of c, one would very much hope that a is not a parent of c. However, the ancestor of relation is transitive: if a is an ancestor of b and b is an ancestor of c, then a must be an ancestor of c.

Another example: If I am touching you and you are touching someone else who I am not touching, then I do not stand in the touches relation to them. However, there is a chain of people who touch one another, and both they and I are part of that chain. Hence, we all stan...