Price Naturalism
—-
What is it?
An argument that the Quinean ontological project doesn’t lead to the hard realist/ Anti - Realist distinction that many have argued it does. Furthermore, replacing the Quinean naturalistic criterion for existence with one based on causal necessity for scientific explanation doesn’t work either. Therefore, if one is sympathetic to this sort of science-centric approach to ontology, one is forced to rethink the ontological spectrum (i.e. to move away from a hard and fast real/not real distinction into more relativistic territory).
Where is it?
Price, H., 2007, Quining Naturalism, Journal of Philosophy, Vol. CIV, No. 8 (Aug 2007).
How does it fit in?
For the thesis: If one can undermine the sense in which things exist in general as a result of a Quine-based ontological argument, then this should also hold for similar arguments (such as the Quine-Putnam one) for the existence of mathematical entities.
For the metaphysics paper: gives a nice account of pluralistic existential discourse (thus minimising the role of the object).
—-
The Argument
Quine’s ontological program - There are 2 versions of Quine’s ontological program: — Thick: in which science used as evidence for ontological inference. — Thin: in which phil. complements sci by clarifying, interpreting and determining appropriate entity ranges. - The thick version conflicts with Quine’s naturalism in that it separates philosophy from science (ontology must be first-order in Quine’s view). Thus we need to go for the thin interpretation.
The problem with thin indispensability arguments - Price points out that anyone who is willing to accept Colyvan’s second premise (that mathematical entities are indispensable to our best scientific theories) is already committed to the existence of said entities under the Quinean program (unless on e distinguishes between scientific and ontological beliefs, which Quine would not want to do). Thus his argument is redundant in this positive sense. - The indispensability argument may however be employed if one is attempting to defend against the anti-realist (if they didn’t agree with the original Quinean program, it may be the case that they would be convinced by the indispensability argument).
Quine and Carnap - Quine actually agrees with Carnap on the status of metaphysics. — His criticism on the basis of the invalidity of the analytic/synthetic divide is not actually a move in the direction of restoring the non-pragmatic, external perspective necessary for traditional ontological investigation. - Furthermore, Quine’s criticism of Carnap’s logico-syntactic pluralism does not affect Carnap’s deeper pragmatic/functional existential pluralism. — Quine’s point is that there is only one existential quantifier whereas Carnap’s point is that it is a category mistake to assimilate different types of existence claim. — Additionally, there are many fundamentally different, non-scientific uses of existential quantification. — Thus there is no reason for scientific existential usage to be treated as the basis for general ontological claims (as the naturalist would want). Indeed, such claims (external to linguistic frameworks) are non-sensical as they are category mistakes.
Against Eleatic naturalism - The pragmatic need for existential quantification in no-causal situations implies 2 levels of ontological belief which again is a problem for the naturalist. - And again, this position suffers from lacking justification for looking at linguistic frameworks in general from within the framework of science (of course science looks privileged from this perspective). — Thus ontological commitments made in this way are applicable only within the scientific linguistic framework.
—-
What do I think?
- A great little paper for both the thesis and my metaphysics paper!
- For the thesis it gives a sort of structured approach to criticisms of indispensibility: first to point out the problems with using it positively (i.e. tension between the thick version and naturalism and the vacuity of the thin version), and then to argue against it viability as a negative argument.
- For the metaphysics paper it gives a nice account of how the existential quantifier can be thought of as empty in terms of meaning.
- I guess Price’s conclusions are not necessarily fatal for the naturalist though: all they need to do is give a convincing account of why the scientific framework is of primary importance when contemplating matters ontological.
- {[olive Hmmm … might Price’s ‘Naturalism Without Representationalism’ (<<http://www.usyd.edu.au/time/price/preprints/naturalism-final.pdf)>>>>) be relevant at this point? ]}
- {[green Woo, looks tasty! I’ve just printed a copy. ]}
—-