Much of our knowledge comes through our successful explanations and it is striking that among these explanations we have many, from very different areas, that are underpinned by what we neutrally term “vertical” relations.1 To avoid begging important questions about the characterization of these phenomena that we will shortly see are at the heart of ongoing debates, let us simply start by highlighting some examples.
Perhaps most famously, across the sciences we find explanations that explain higher-level entities (whether individuals, properties, or processes) in terms of lower-level entities that scientists take to compose them and hence these explanations use vertical relations. For example, we explain the inheritance of traits between parent organisms and their offspring using molecules taken to compose them. We explain the refractive index of a crystal using the properties and relations of the atoms that compose it. Or we explain the movement of the earth’s surface using the tectonic plates, and currents of magma, taken to compose the earth. We use the term “compositional explanation” to refer to such explanation, though philosophers have used various names for it.2 And we term the vertical relations that such explanations posit “scientific composition” relations where this includes relations between individuals, properties/relations, and also processes.3
We could provide many more such explanations in the sciences, but scientists are not the only ones who use vertical relations in successful explanations. For instance, in semantics and related fields we explain the meaning of sentences or statements, such as “Dogs have sharp teeth”, in terms of vertical relations to words, such as “dogs” and “sharp”. And in logic, set theory, or mathematics we also find successful explanations deploying vertical relations as well. Thus, for instance, we explain features of sets using vertical relations to the entities treated as their members.
We have recently seen two prominent bursts of research on verticality. There is a surge of work on scientific composition, and the vertical relations posited in scientific explanations, with the rise of the so-called “New Mechanism” in philosophy of science and this has spawned what we term the “neo-Causal” research tradition. And we have also recently seen the sudden rise in analytic metaphysics of a research tradition focused on vertical relations understood as so-called “Grounding” relations. However, as well as these new developments, we should also mark that there have also been other long-standing bodies of philosophical work on verticality. For example, there is a research tradition, over a number of decades, in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science in what we term “neo-Functionalist” accounts focused on vertical relations in nature, and science, which understands them as so-called “realization” relations. And there are still other research traditions in philosophy focused on vertical relations.4
The sudden increase of interest in verticality is an important sociological development in contemporary philosophy and it has a couple of interesting features. Although we find theoretical accounts of the nature of verticality, or what we term “V-frameworks”, across a number of areas of philosophy, including philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and analytic metaphysics, it is striking that such work on verticality has been what we may term “siloed” within particular areas. Apparently following recent academic trends toward specialization, discussions of verticality are usually confined to a particular area of philosophy and have proceeded either in total isolation from, or with very little contact with, work in other areas of philosophy.
This situation is obviously unhealthy. For example, it leaves unanswered how research, and associated V-frameworks, in different areas of philosophy relate to one another: Are the V-frameworks in different philosophical areas simply focused on unrelated and independent issues? Are such accounts compatible or even complementary? Or are some of these V-frameworks competing, rival accounts of the same phenomena? And what should we ultimately conclude about the nature of verticality either universally or for particular particular kinds of phenomena (i.e., in the sciences, in nature, in mathematics, etc.)?
The driving idea of the project that eventuated in this anthology was to rectify this unhealthy situation and begin to address these important foundational questions. The main instrument was that of bringing together prominent writers on verticality from various philosophical research traditions. Initially, writers from various approaches, and areas of philosophy, were brought together at a small workshop focused on discussion of pre-circulated papers.5 And this collection draws together the results of these interactions in revised papers from the workshop.
Bringing together the proponents of various research traditions has been highly productive. Each of the coming Chapters makes important contributions to discussions of verticality at various philosophical levels. Furthermore, we suggest that the discussions at the workshops, and in later Chapters, also make it clear we have now entered into an exciting new set of debates about verticality featuring a number of fresh, but important, questions.
As with any significant dialectical transition, we are facing some meta-methodological growing pains as we slowly come to appreciate the nature of these new debates and their requirements. To ease this transition, our goal in the remainder of this Introduction is therefore to provide a very simple roadmap to the basic contours of the new debates, both to facilitate future discussion and to set up a number of important issues, and threads of discussion, in later Chapters. We should explicitly note that, as we hope will become clear, we do not seek to adjudicate which research tradition and its V-frameworks should be favored for particular projects. We aim simply to map out the shape of the new debates and let the contributors try to resolve the key issues in coming Chapters. Our focus is solely focused on facilitating more productive work in future debates, so we also largely avoid discussion of where past discussions and accounts might have had problems or have been unproductive.
Briefly summarized, we are moving from the previous, siloed stage of discussions of verticality to a new phase of debate where we have a range of distinct V-frameworks, from different areas of philosophy, that make diverging claims about the nature of verticality. Furthermore, as we highlight below, writers from each area of philosophy are also often offering competing accounts of the same vertical relations or phenomena involving verticality. We have universal accounts, such as Grounding V-frameworks, that claim all vertical relations, from the natural across to the abstract realms, are of a kind. In contrast, we have competing positions that claim that the vertical relations we find in nature or science are unlike those in the abstract realm or disciplines. We have positions, such as neo-Causal V-frameworks, that claim vertical relations in science and nature are of a kind with causation, and we have others, like neo-Functionalist accounts, that claim verticality in science is unlike both causation and the vertical relations in the abstract realm of mathematics or set theory. These approaches all make competing claims, for example, about scientific conceptions of verticality and/or the vertical relations in nature.
Inter-twined with the latter disputes, we also have competition between accounts pitched as treatments of the genus of verticality, such as some Grounding V-frameworks, and other accounts focused on particular species of verticality, like many neo-Functionalist V-frameworks. Initially, one might suppose that accounts of genus and species are pursuing different, though interconnected, set of issues. However, in our new debates various accounts focused on genus and species are each often intended by their proponents to answer the same questions—thus still ending up as rivals. For example, neo-Functionalists take their V-framework to articulate the species of vertical relation that is best taken to back compositional explanation in science or underpin the formulation of physicalism. But proponents of Grounding V-frameworks take their accounts to illuminate a genus relation of verticality that they in turn argue is the relation best taken to back compositional explanation or formulate physicalism. So, we have debates not just between V-frameworks offering different accounts of the vertical relations in same object phenomena, but also differing over whether species or genus relations provide the best accounts of such phenomena.
Furthermore, each of these competing V-frameworks has also used to offer distinct accounts of various issues connected to verticality. For example, with regard to verticality in nature, in our new debates we have distinct treatments of physicalism, reduction versus emergence, and more. In the remainder of the Introduction, we focus primarily on the differing V-frameworks themselves, but we highlight where disputes over applications are important and a number of coming Chapters address such applications.
Finding that we have competing V-frameworks leads to a range of meta-methodological changes. Since theory appraisal is comparative, for instance, one can only ultimately justify one’s favored account of verticality after comparing it to relevant rivals. It is thus no longer the case that metaphysicians can only read other metaphysicians, let alone only writers in their research tradition; or that philosophers of science can stick to work by other philosophers of science; and so on. To justify one’s favored account of verticality with regard to some object phenomenon one must critically engage rival accounts from different areas—and one’s account is not justified until one shows one’s V-framework is better than these rivals.
Lastly, and just as importantly, we also suggest that we are moving to debates looking in more depth at particular object phenomena involving verticality, whether scientific conceptions of verticality or vertical relations in the mathematical realm, and so on. The new debates seek to construct V-frameworks to provide focussed accounts of such specific vertical relations, paying special attention to their features, and assessing whether competing V-frameworks succeed in providing adequate accounts of these particular phenomena involving verticality. We are thus also moving into a new phase of the debates where V-frameworks are assessed by contact with specific object phenomena.
Given our future-oriented goals, in Part 1 we provide a more precise picture of the new debates framing key points about them using four theses which we fill out, and support, in subsequent sections. To better orient newcomers to the debates, in Part 2, we provide minimal sketches of work from the three research traditions that arguably figure most prominently in recent debates and we support the claim that our new debates involve competing accounts. In Part 3, we then outline the kinds of account, types of project and methods of assessment, and meta-justification, that we find in the new debates. We finish, in Part 4, by providing the reader overviews of each of the coming papers, linking to our survey where appropriate.
Part 1: A Simple Map of the New Debates: Some (Widely Acceptable?) Theses
We want to frame the broad contours of the new debates using a few target theses. We hope these theses will be widely acceptable, but at worst they each provide a stalking horse in needed discussions about a number of key meta-methodological issues.Perhaps the most obvious conclusion from bringing together proponents of V-frameworks from different areas of philosophy is that many of their accounts are often indeed rivals making competing claims about the same phenomena. We thus frame this thesis:
We should mark that some V-frameworks from different areas of philosophy, when used to pursue certain projects, may well be compatible or even complementary. Below we give some examples. But we focus on COMPETITIVE, since it corrects unhealthy assumptions or practices in earlier debates and has substantial consequences.(COMPETITIVE) There are multiple V-frameworks in distinct areas of philosophy that offer diverging accounts of the nature of at least some of the same vertical relations, and/or offer conflicting answers to some of the same questions about phenomena involving verticality, and these distinct V-frameworks are rivals.
One implication of COMPETITIVE is that researchers on verticality can no longer continue to pursue the siloed approach. Theory appraisal and justification are always comparative where a theory is assessed by comparison to its relevant rivals. So defenders of V-frameworks need to acknowledge and engage rival accounts from other areas—and then show their V-frameworks are better accounts of the relevant object phenomena than these competing treatments. So a second thesis is also plausibly true about the new phase of discussion:
The significance of COMPARATIVE should be clear—to justify their views of verticality as the best account of certain object phenomena involving verticality writers must critically engage relevant rivals in other areas.(COMPARATIVE) A V-framework, offered as an account of certain object phenomena involving verticality, is justified only if it is shown to provide a better account of the object phenomena than its relevant rivals regardless of the area of philosophy in which these rivals are offered.
It is far from mysterious how one might go about justifying one’s favored V-framework as the best account of some phenomena in these new discussions. One simply has to engage relevant rivals and show ones’ favored view provides a better account of the relevant object phenomena. However, this point brings us to the issue of what work a V-framework must do.
A V-framework is always offered as an account of certain object phenomena involving verticality. And we use the awkward term “object phenomena involving verticality”, since some accounts seek to illuminate conceptions of verticality from some discourse, or body of explanation, and so on, while other accounts focus on vertical relations in the world or some portion of it, and some accounts seek to do both. Whatever object phenomena a V-framework is intended to cover, the primary work of this account is to accommodate the nature, and various features, of the object phenomena and related evidence such as the characteristics of associated explanations and formal systems. A corollary of this requirement is that prior work is also necessary, since one must consequently provide a detailed treatment of the nature of the specific vertical relations involved in the object phenomenon under consideration, the characteristics of associated explanations, and so on.
The new debates therefore addres...