I present a novel view on the nature of time: primitivism. This view is the conjunction of two theses: that presence is concreteness and that the present changes, where change is a fundamental process that cannot be analyzed. After explaining this view in-depth, I look at how it explains the flow of time and solves many puzzles, for example, McTaggart’s famous paradox about the unreality of time.

I present a novel view on the nature of matter: Primitivism. This view is the conjunction of two theses: 1. Matter can make up anything that takes up space; 2. Matter is not composed of anything. I argue for this view in depth, answer questions, and explain major implications, such as the conceptual dissolution of the mind/body problem.

This essay offers an account and defense of conceptual primitivism about truth: the view that the concept of truth is a fundamental concept that cannot be analyzed or defined in terms of concepts that are more fundamental. It considers three arguments in defense of primitivism, and meets a familiar objection that fundamental concepts are by their nature obscure and mysterious. It concludes by considering the ways in which primitivism is similar to and different from other theories of (...) truth, both substantive and deflationary. (shrink)

Books 8-10 and sections of books 11-16 of the Zhuangzi anthology represent an important and underappreciated contribution to Warring States ethical and political philosophy, known as “primitivism.” This article offers a general introduction to Zhuangist primitivism. It focuses on primitivism’s exploration and development of a normative conception of human nature, particularly xing 性, as well as primitivism’s subsequent rejection of the elaborate moral, social, political, and cultural artifices championed by their philosophical opponents, chiefly the Ruists and (...) the Mohists. After a brief introduction to Zhuangist primitivism and the limited scholarship on them, I divide this discussion into three parts pertaining to the primitivists’ three distinct approaches to and uses of human nature, which in turn serve as the basis for primitivist ethics and political thought. (shrink)

本文提出了一个统一的概念框架，称为“能量原初论”，旨在建立一个共享的本体论和动态基础，以理解从基本物理过程到有意识现象的连续谱。该框架建立在四个核心公理之上：存在即差异;差异不可避免地会有所差异;差异 化推动互动;相互作用趋向于动态稳定性。我们将现实最根本的单位定义为“能量原初”——“差异”及其内在“潜能”不可分割的统一体“。通过区分为“受限态”和“自由态”，原始能量由“实现能量”驱动，趋向于系统的 “最佳差分区间”——秩序与混沌之间的动态平衡。基于此，物质、时空、生命和意识被解释为同一原理中以不同尺度和复杂度出现的稳定模式。作为纯哲学和概念构造，本文旨在提出一个连贯的假设体系，并为未来的形式建模 和跨学科实证研究提供清晰的概念蓝图和协作邀请。.

This article is on a precise kind of color primitivism, ‘ostensivism.’ This is the view that it is in the nature of the colors that they are phenomenal, non-reductive, structural, categorical properties. First, I differentiate ostensivism from other precise forms of primitivism. Next, I examine the core belief ‘Revelation,’ and propose a revised version, which, unlike standard statements, is compatible with a yet unstated but plausible core belief: roughly, that there are interesting things to be discovered about the (...) nature of the colors. Finally, I show that ostensivism is the only view on color that can accommodate both proposed core beliefs. (shrink)

Tarski’s pioneering work on truth has been thought by some to motivate a robust, correspondence-style theory of truth, and by others to motivate a deflationary attitude toward truth. I argue that Tarski’s work suggests neither; if it motivates any contemporary theory of truth, it motivates conceptual primitivism, the view that truth is a fundamental, indefinable concept. After outlining conceptual primitivism and Tarski’s theory of truth, I show how the two approaches to truth share much in common. While Tarski (...) does not explicitly accept primitivism, the view is open to him, and fits better with his formal work on truth than do correspondence or deflationary theories. Primitivists, in turn, may rely on Tarski’s insights in motivating their own perspective on truth. I conclude by showing how viewing Tarski through the primitivist lens provides a fresh response to some familiar charges from Putnam and Etchemendy. (shrink)

The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the proper formulations of physical theories. It is sometimes assumed that the governing view requires a fundamental / intrinsic direction of time: to govern, laws must be dynamical, producing later states of the world from earlier ones, in accord with the fundamental direction of (...) time in the universe. In this paper, we propose a minimal primitivism about laws of nature (MinP) according to which there is no such requirement. On our view, laws govern by constraining the physical possibilities. Our view captures the essence of the governing view without taking on extraneous commitments about the direction of time or dynamic production. Moreover, as a version of primitivism, our view requires no reduction / analysis of laws in terms of universals, powers, or dispositions. Our view accommodates several potential candidates for fundamental laws, including the principle of least action, the Past Hypothesis, the Einstein equation of general relativity, and even controversial examples found in the Wheeler-Feynman theory of electrodynamics and retrocausal theories of quantum mechanics. By understanding governing as constraining, non-Humeans who accept MinP have the same freedom to contemplate a wide variety of candidate fundamental laws as Humeans do. (shrink)

This paper presents a systematic application of Energy Elementalism to the field of discrete dynamical systems. The exposition proceeds along four progressive layers. At the first layer (foundational), we map every core element of the Collatz iteration into the conceptual system of Energy Elementalism, establishing a precise correspondence between positive integer states and the energy potential function. At the second layer (criterional), we rigorously prove a sufficient convergence criterion: if the long-term average of a trajectory's compression exponents exceeds log₂(3), then (...) the trajectory must fall into the Optimal Differentiation Range. This criterion transforms the proof of the Collatz conjecture into an arithmetic-statistical problem concerning the sequence of compression exponents. Simultaneously, we prove a logarithmic upper bound on consecutive free chain lengths and construct a conservative truncation reduction that reduces verification of the infinite system to a maximum cycle mean computation on finite graphs. At the third layer (structural), we develop a "modular space metabolic structure" analytical method, proving local metabolic theorems modulo 2, 3, and 4, and describing the irreversible metabolic outlets through which non-survivor classes exit under the mapping. On this basis, we propose the "cross-modular survivor constraint" conjecture and prove the free-state frequency upper bound lemma: f₁ ≤ 1/3. At the fourth layer (synthetic), we construct a three-part exclusion argument by reductio. The first part (k̄>λ) is guaranteed by Theorem 1; the second part (k̄=λ) is excluded by the product inequality; the third part (k̄<λ) is excluded by Lemma A. With these three parts closed, the trichotomy of real numbers leaves only k̄>λ, hence all trajectories converge to {1,4,2}. A complete hand-computable verification at the modulo 64 level is provided, and n=27 is used as a case study to demonstrate the framework's diagnostic capability. This paper does not claim to have completed a final proof of the Collatz conjecture, but rather to provide a unified conceptual lens and a clear line of attack. It is an open research program. (shrink)

Trenton Merricks argues for and defends a novel version of primitivism about truth : being true is a primitive monadic but non-intrinsic property. This examination consists of the following triad: a critical discussion of Merricks’ argument for his view, a rejection of his objection against Paul Horwich’s minimalist theory of truth, and a direct objection against his view on the grounds that it entails being true is a mysterious and suspicious property. The conclusion is that Merricks’ primitivism should (...) be rejected. (shrink)

In the language of second-order logic, first- and second-order variables are distinguished syntactically and cannot be grammatically substituted. According to a prominent argument for the deployment of these languages, these substitution failures are necessary to block the derivation of paradoxes that result from attempts to generalize over predicate interpretations. I first examine previous approaches which interpret second-order sentences using expressions of natural language and argue that these approaches undermine these syntactic restrictions. I then examine Williamson’s primitivist approach according to which (...) second-order sentences are not offered readings in a previously understood language. I argue that the syntactic restrictions alone do not block the derivation of the paradox, unless they are backed by a principled reason that the language cannot be expanded to allow the grammatical substitution of first- and second- order variables. I argue that there is neither a syntactic nor a semantic principle that prohibits such an expansion. (shrink)

Kit Fine's logic of ground treats ground as a primitive metaphysical relation whose strict form is governed by asymmetry. This paper does not challenge the formal coherence of that logic or the legitimacy of grounding primitivism. Its narrower claim is diagnostic: Fine's framework characterizes the direction of ground, but it does not explain the source of that direction. The paper distinguishes the formal asymmetry of a grounding operator from the metaphysical ordering in virtue of which one fact is ground (...) and another is grounded. It then formulates a Midchain Constraint: a theory that already employs a directed explanatory relation cannot non-circularly derive the ordering of that relation using only resources whose explanatory force depends on the same relation. Applied to Fine, the constraint shows that asymmetry can be built into the primitive, but this stipulation does not by itself account for why grounding explanations run one way rather than the other. The strongest primitivist reply is that direction belongs to the essence of ground. The paper argues that this reply is available, but costly: it converts Fine's account from a source explanation of direction into a primitive characterization of it. The result is not a refutation of Fine's theory, but a clarification of its explanatory limit and of a residual problem for grounding theory. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is on the metaphysical nature of multidimensional properties, properties like virtue, beauty, or health which can be had in different ways and to different degrees. Do such properties form their own sui generis kind, as existing discussions seem to suggest, or can we rather reductively account for them, relying on notions which may already be present in our ontology or ideology? In this paper, I will introduce a reductionist account of multidimensional properties, making a partial (...) case for Reductionism. (shrink)

The paper compares dispositionalism about laws of nature with primitivism. It argues that while the distinction between these two positions can be drawn in a clear-cut manner in classical mechanics, it is less clear in quantum mechanics, due to quantum non-locality. Nonetheless, the paper points out advantages for dispositionalism in comparison to primitivism also in the area of quantum mechanics, and of contemporary physics in general.

This paper develops the Explicative Collapse Argument (ECA), a critique of unrestricted ontological bruteness and primitivism. It does not assume a universal Principle of Sufficient Reason, ask what caused the universe, or insist that every proposed primitive must be derived from something deeper. Instead, it grants the stopping point and asks what has actually been placed there. Primitive status may terminate derivation, but it cannot terminate explication. ECA distinguishes epistemic, theoretical, declarative, local, and genuinely ontological primitives. Its central device (...) is the Attribution Mirror: whatever actuality, unity, law, contingency, physicality, modal standing, or closure is declared brute must still be located within the proposed terminal ontology. The proponent must identify whether the terminus is a bearer, an obtaining fact, a plurality of cofundamental factors, or a wider integrated constitution. The argument then audits actuality, source-completeness, sustenance, modal absence, physical mode, wholehood, complete history, bearerhood, and unrestricted closure. Candidate expansion continues until every factor required for the alleged terminus’s foundational roles belongs to one fixed-point actuality, or the original claim of a complete terminus is abandoned. Primitive pluralism is treated separately: several irreducible principles may be intrinsic articulations of one actuality, while several independently complete actualities remain genuinely plural termini. The result is a controlled disjunction. A merely unknown, theory-relative, declarative, or local primitive leaves only epistemic residue and does not constitute an unrestricted rival ontology. A substantive completed primitive, by contrast, must be intrinsically actual, positively source-complete, modally non-lapsable, and framework-independent. On the one-actuality branch, this is an aseitic absolute; on the plural branch, each independently complete actuality possesses the same aseitic profile. ECA therefore argues that unrestricted bruteness does not survive explication as a stable third category between epistemic limitation and aseity. (shrink)

The Primitivist (responsible for chapters 8-11 of the heterogeneous Zhuangzi) has largely been interpreted as just another exponent of the philosophy of the Laozi or Daodejing. This is a shame, because the Primitivist is an idiosyncratic thinker whose theories do not simply reiterate those found in the Laozi. In this essay, I argue that even though the Primitivist embraced some of the values of the Laozi’s brand of Daoism, (e.g. simplicity, harmony with nature, being rid of knowledge, etc.) he would (...) have censured its prescriptions; he had little faith that order could be achieved through an emphasis on minimalism, by doing nothing, or by advocating a change (or reversal) in values. Instead, the Primitivist suggests that the only way to curb the massive disorder of the late Warring States period was to purge the world of its root causes—namely, of all the artifice that kept the masses in competitive, violent strife—and suppress their reappearance. Without such a purge, the masses would be helpless to lead a natural, instinctual, pre-reflective mode of existence. By advocating such a strategy, the Primitivist seems to have membership in what must be a very exclusive group: he is a Daoist who thinks the world can only be brought into order by doing something—indeed, doing a whole lot of unpleasant, nasty things. I thus situate the Primitivist within the trend toward authoritarianism that characterized the period in which he wrote (3rd century BCE). (shrink)

Conceptual primitivism is the view that truth is among our most basic and fundamental concepts. It cannot be defined, analyzed, or reduced into concepts that are more fundamental. Primitivism is opposed to both traditional attempts at defining truth (in terms of correspondence, coherence, or utility) and deflationary theories that argue that the notion of truth is exhausted by means of the truth schema. Though primitivism might be thought of as a view of last resort, I believe that (...) the view is independently attractive, and can be argued for directly. In this paper I offer what I take to be the strongest argument in favor of conceptual primitivism, which relies upon the Fregean doctrine of the omnipresence of truth. (shrink)

Colour primitivism is the thesis that the colours are simple qualitative properties of items in the external world—just as they appear to be. This paper considers colour primitivism in relation to a version of Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument. On the one hand, this argument seems to support primitivism, by delivering the conclusion that the colours cannot be reduced to underlying physical features of a sort that Mary might have known about even in the room. On the other (...) hand, however, the argument threatens to show that primitivism cannot be combined with even a fairly minimal (non-reductive) form of physicalism, on which the colours are conceived as supervenient upon or grounded in underlying physical properties. To resolve the tension, the paper recommends a novel primitivist take on the knowledge argument, which turns crucially on the classical empiricist thesis to the effect that certain facts about the colours can only be learned on the basis of sensory experience. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical assessment of the current state of the debate about the identity and individuality of material objects. Its main aim, in particular, is to show that, in a sense to be carefully specified, the opposition between the Leibnizian ‘reductionist’ tradition, based on discernibility, and the sort of ‘primitivism’ that denies that facts of identity and individuality must be analysable has become outdated. In particular, it is argued that—contrary to a widespread consensus—‘naturalised’ metaphysics supports both the (...) acceptability of non-qualitatively grounded (both ‘contextual’ and intrinsic) identity and a pluralistic approach to individuality and individuation. A case study is offered that focuses on non-relativistic quantum mechanics, in the context of which primitivism about identity and individuality, rather than being regarded as unscientific, is on the contrary suggested to be preferable to the complicated forms of reductionism that have recently been proposed. More generally, by assuming a plausible form of anti-reductionism about scientific theories and domains, it is claimed that science can be regarded as compatible with, or even as suggesting, the existence of a series of equally plausible grades of individuality. The kind of individuality that prevails in a certain context and at a given level can be ascertained only on the basis of the specific scientific theory at hand. (shrink)

In (2011) McLeod suggested that the first century Chinese philosopher Wang Chong 王充 may have been a pluralist about truth. In this reply I contest McLeod's interpretation of Wang Chong, and suggest "quasi-pluralism" (albeit more as an alternative to pluralism than as an interpretation of Wang Chong), which combines primitivism about the concept of truth with pluralism about justification.

One of the classic debates in cognitive science is between nativism and empiricism about the development of psychological capacities. In principle, the debate is empirical. However, in practice nativist hypotheses have also been challenged for relying on an ill-defined, or even unscientific, notion of innateness as that which is “not learned”. Here this minimal conception of innateness is defended on four fronts. First, it is argued that the minimal conception is crucial to understanding the nativism-empiricism debate, when properly construed; Second, (...) various objections to the minimal conception—that it risks overgeneralization, lacks an account of learning, frustrates genuine explanations of psychological development, and fails to unify different notions of innateness across the sciences—are rebutted. Third, it is argued that the minimal conception avoids the shortcomings of primitivism, the prominent view that innate capacities are those that are not acquired via a psychological process in development. And fourth, the minimal conception undermines some attempts to identify innateness with a natural kind. So in short, we have little reason to reject, and good reason to accept, the minimal conception of innateness in cognitive science. (shrink)

I analyze the meaning of mass in Newtonian mechanics. First, I explain the notion of primitive ontology, which was originally introduced in the philosophy of quantum mechanics. Then I examine the two common interpretations of mass: mass as a measure of the quantity of matter and mass as a dynamical property. I claim that the former is ill-defined, and the latter is only plausible with respect to a metaphysical interpretation of laws of nature. I explore the following options for the (...) status of laws: Humeanism, primitivism about laws, dispositionalism, and ontic structural realism. (shrink)

This thesis is an argument for the view that there are problems for Modal Reductionism, the thesis that modality can satisfactorily be defined in non-modal terms. -/- I proceed via a case study of David Lewis’s theory of concrete possible worlds. This theory is commonly regarded as the best and most influential candidate reductive theory of modality. Based on a detailed examination of its ontology, analysis and justification, I conclude that it does badly with respect to the following four minimal (...) conditions on a satisfactory reductive theory of modality: that it be (a) genuinely reductive, (b) materially adequate, (c) conceptually adequate and (d) that its justification provides good reason to think it true. -/- These problems for Lewis’s theory are not, I suggest, due to his idiosyncratic conception of possible worlds as concrete entities. Rather, because Lewis’s theory can be seen to represent an important class of structurally similar reductive theories of modality, the problems for Lewis’s theory generalise to problems for these other theories. This suggests that Modal Reductionism is unpromising. In the light of this, the alternative approach to understanding modality, Modal Primitivism, appears more attractive. (shrink)

In the contemporary landscape about temporal experience, debates concerning the “hard question” of the experience of the flow—as opposed to debates concerning more qualitative aspects of temporality, such as change, movement, succession and duration—are gaining more and more attention. The overall dialectics can be thought of in terms of a debate between the realists (who take the phenomenology of the flow of time seriously, and propose various account of it) and deflationists (who take our description of temporal phenomenology as “flowy” (...) to be spurious, and propose various explanation of this spuriousness). In this paper we look inside the realist side. We distinguish primitivist realism, according to which the feeling of time flowing is an irreducible sui generis phenomenology, and various forms of reductionist realism, according to which the experience of the flow is ultimately explainable in terms of a more basic phenomenology. We present reasons to be sceptical against the various reductionist proposals. The conclusion is thus disjunctive: either primitivism or deflationism is the correct account of the purported experience of the flow of time. (shrink)

In paradigm exercises of agency, individuals guide their activities toward some goal. A central challenge for action theory is to explain how individuals guide. This challenge is an instance of the more general problem of how to accommodate individuals and their actions in the natural world, as explained by natural science. Two dominant traditions–primitivism and the causal theory–fail to address the challenge in a satisfying way. Causal theorists appeal to causation by an intention, through a feedback mechanism, in explaining (...) guidance. Primitivists postulate primitive agential capacities in their explanations. The latter neglect to explain how primitive capacities integrate with findings from natural science. The former do not explain why some feedback mechanism’s activity amounts to the agent’s guidance. In this paper I argue that both traditions should acknowledge a capacity to guide, as actually constituted by the executive system. I argue that appeals to this empirically discovered psychological system explain how individuals guide in a way that integrates with explanations from cognitive science. Individuals’ capacity to guide is embedded in the natural world through the activity of its constituent (mechanistic) components. (shrink)

Are there aesthetic obligations, and what would account for their binding force if so? I first develop a general, domain‐neutral notion of obligation, then critically discuss six arguments offered for and against the existence of aesthetic obligations. The most serious challenge is that all aesthetic obligations are ultimately grounded in moral norms, and I survey the prospects for this challenge alongside three non‐moral views about the source of aesthetic obligations: individual practical identity, social practices, and aesthetic value primitivism. I (...) conclude by raising questions for further work in this area. (shrink)

I take issue with recent enthusiasm for the alleged epistemic powers of imagination and argue that imagination cannot generate knowledge and justification. I distinguish two conceptions of imagination that have emerged from recent debates: primitivism, according to which imagination is sui generis and essentially sensory or imagistic, vs. reductionism, according to which imagination is akin to other psychological states and “propositional” or non-necessarily imagistic. Both conceptions are problematic. Sensory imagination has been shown to be largely unreliable; besides, it doesn’t (...) play either a necessary or sufficient role for knowledge. Propositional imagination, on the other hand, seems virtually indistinguishable from inferential reasoning, hence it’s unclear that it can yield distinctively imaginative justification. The issue reflects a broader dilemma for candidate accounts of the imagination and its epistemic powers: either imagination is primitive and sui generis but epistemically suspect; or it's reducible to more familiar inferential processes but lacks independent epistemic power. (shrink)

Integrated Information Theory (IIT) is currently one of the most influential scientific theories of consciousness. Here, we focus specifically on a metaphysical aspect of the theory’s most recent version (IIT 4.0), what we may call its idealistic ontology, and its tension with a kind of realism about the external world that IIT also endorses. IIT 4.0 openly rejects the mainstream view that consciousness is generated by the brain, positing instead that consciousness is ontologically primary while the physical domain is just (...) “operational”. However, this philosophical position is presently underdeveloped and is not rigorously formulated in IIT, potentially leading to many misinterpretations and undermining its overall explanatory power. In the present paper we aim to address this issue. We argue that IIT’s idealistic ontology should be understood as a specific combination of phenomenal primitivism, reductionism regarding Φ-structures and complexes, and eliminativism about non-conscious physical entities. Having clarified this, we then focus on the problematic tension between IIT’s idealistic ontology and its simultaneous endorsement of realism, according to which there is some kind of external reality independent of our minds. After refuting three potential solutions to this theoretical tension, we propose the most plausible alternative: understanding IIT’s realism as an assertion of the existence of other experiences beyond one’s own, what we call a non-solipsistic idealist realism. We end with concluding remarks and future research avenues. (shrink)

It has become common to take reasons to form a basic normative category that is not amenable to non-circular analysis. This paper offers a novel characterization of reasons in terms of how we ought or it would be good for us to think in response to our awareness of facts, and thus rejects such Reason Primitivism. Briefly, for r to be a normative reason for A to φ is for it to be the case that A ought to conduct (...) her φ-relevant thinking in a φ-friendly manner, given her awareness of r. In mechanistic terms, this is to say that the psychological mechanisms responsible for A’s potentially φ-ing ought to be causally influenced in the direction of φ-ing by her awareness of r. For r to be an evaluative reason for A to φ is for it to be the case that it is desirable for A to conduct her φ-relevant thinking in a more or less φ-friendly manner, given her awareness of r. What someone ought to do or what it is desirable for someone to do is in turn to be understood in terms of fittingness of different positive or negative reactions. Linking the favoring relation between a fact and an action or belief explicitly with fittingness of attitudes towards the subject reveals the sense in which reasons are normative or evaluative. The paper also responds to six potential challenges to the view and argues it has certain advantages over competing reductionist proposals. (shrink)

In this chapter I offer two novel arguments for what I call strong primitivism about cognitive phenomenology, the thesis that there exists a phenomenology of cognition that is neither reducible to, nor dependent upon, sensory phenomenology. I then contend that strong primitivism implies that phenomenal consciousness does not require sensory processing. This latter contention has implications for the philosophy of artificial intelligence. For if sensory processing is not a necessary condition for phenomenal consciousness, then it plausibly follows that (...) AI consciousness (assuming that it is possible) does not require embodiment. The overarching goal of this paper is to show how different topics in the analytic philosophy of mind can be brought to bear on an important issue in the philosophy of artificial intelligence. (shrink)

On a highly influential way to think of modality, that I call ‘relationalism’, the modality of a state is explained by its being composed of properties, and these properties being related by a higher-order and primitively modal relation. Examples of relationalism are the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong account of natural necessity, many dispositional essentialist views, and Wang’s incompatibility primitivism. I argue that relationalism faces four difficulties: that the selection between modal relations is arbitrary, that the modal relation cannot belong to any logical (...) order, that to explain how the modal relation can relate properties of different adicities additional ideological complexity has to be introduced, and that not all modal constraints are relational. From the discussion, I will extract desiderata for a successor theory of modality. (shrink)

Two approaches to elevating certain laws of nature over others have come to prominence recently. On the one hand, according to the meta-laws approach, there are meta-laws, laws which relate to laws as those laws relate to particular facts. On the other hand, according to the modal, or non-absolutist, approach, some laws are necessary in a stricter sense than others. Both approaches play an important role in current research, questioning the ‘orthodoxy’ represented by the leading philosophical theories of natural laws—Humeanism, (...) the DTA view, dispositional essentialism and primitivism. This paper clarifies the relations between these two emerging approaches, as well as their applicability to physical laws and the status of the challenges they pose for standard theories of laws of nature. We first argue that, despite some significant similarities between the two approaches (especially in the context of Lange’s counterfactual account of laws), they are in general distinct and largely independent of each other. Then, we argue that the support for meta-laws from physical theory and practice is more questionable than usually presented. (shrink)

This work develops a genealogical framework for the nomic structure of an Evolving Block Universe (EBU). The central idea is that: (i) there exists a minimal protological level L0, characterised by the act-type of total exclusion NON, devoid of any physical or nomic content; (ii) physical laws are neither eternal Platonic entities nor mere Humean summaries of the facts, but genealogical outputs of this logical core, fixed at the first emergence of new domains; and (iii) the growth of an EBU (...) universe does not consist only in the addition of events, but in the growth of a logical memory of resolved successions and genealogical laws, measured by a logical time ordered by L_type (normed types of succession) and L_token (integrated instances). Building on the results of For a Genealogy of Proto-Logic, I introduce the tripartition L0/L1/L2, characterise NON as a content-neutral global coherence constraint, and define the fixing of laws via the space of admissible extensions Adm(D,M) for each genealogically new domain D (three cases: empty / singleton / multiple). The resulting laws are historical and path-dependent, with a share of primitive nomic contingency but without optimisation metalaws of a best-system type. I then reformulate the EBU as the growth of the “domain of what has already been resolved”, discuss truthmaking for events and laws in this context, and compare the framework with Smolin’s precedence proposal, with Humean best-system theory, with nomic primitivism, and with dispositionalism. The aim is to show that one can have a universe with historical, non-Humean laws, without initial nomic chaos or rich meta-Platonism, and with a notion of logical time that does not introduce a “second” physical time. The paper is the fourth part of a four-paper project on the genealogical structure of logic, laws, and the universe. (shrink)

This paper (from 2006) is now defunct. I argue against "realist primitivism". One of my arguments is a kind of "evolutionary debunking argument". Some of the material of this was incorporated into “Can Disjunctivists Explain Our Access to the Sensible World?” and "How Does Color Experience Represent the World?".

Pluralists argue for the distinctness of coinciding objects on the grounds that they have different properties. The grounding problem is the problem of explaining how the supposed difference in properties can arise in the first place. This paper considers this problem as an instance of a more general phenomenon, namely, the problem of dealing with underdetermination in asymmetrical systems admitting of non-trivial automorphisms. It argues in favour of primitivism by developing an account of stochastic grounding that makes room for (...) non-fundamental bruteness and substantially mitigates the costs of primitivism. (shrink)

This paper focuses on 3 features of Freyenhagen's Aristotelian version of Adorno. (a) It challenges the strict negativism Freyenhagen finds in Adorno. If we have morally relevant interests in ourselves, it is implicit that we have a standard by which to understand what is both good and bad for us (our interests). Because strict negativism operates without reference to what is good, it seems to be detached from real interests too. Torture, it is argued, is, among other things, a violation (...) of those interests. (b) Freyenhagen identifies the “impulse” in Adorno as an untutored yet moral reaction to morally demanding situations. The plausibility of this primitivism and its compatibility with Adorno's general worries about immediacy are considered. (c) The disruptive character of Adorno's version of the categorical imperative, its willingness to complicate action through wholesale reflection on the norms of what we are committing ourselves to, is set in contrast with Freyenhagen's Aristotelian claim that certain notions, such as “humanity,” cannot be intelligibly questioned. (shrink)

Ziel meines Aufsatzes ist es, die Frage zu stellen, ob die Art und Weise, wie Nietzsche sich auf das Verhältnis zwischen Philosophie und Wissenschaft bezieht, mithilfe des zeitgenössischen methodologischen Naturalismus beschrieben werden kann. Leiter (2009) hat diese Frage mit einem entschiedenen Ja beantwortet, ohne jedoch die Spannungen, die eine solche Antwort mit sich bringen, ausführlich zu diskutieren. Zumindest aus zwei Gründen scheint die Philosophie Nietzsches sich mit der stärkeren Version des methodologischen Naturalismus nicht so leicht in Einklang bringen zu lassen: (...) Erstens aufgrund des Prinzips des Willens zur Macht, das die These impliziert, dass das Intentionalitätsvokabular primitiver bzw. gründlicher als das physikalistische Vokabular sei, als einer Konsequenz aus der Verwendung des pragmatischen Prinzips der Sparsamkeit auf die ontologische Debatte (JGB 36, KSA 5, 54 f.); zweitens aufgrund Nietzsches Auffassung der spezifischen Aufgabe der Philosophie als einer normativen Aufgabe (JGB 211, KSA 5, 144 f.; GM I Anmerkung, KSA 5, 289). Gegen die starke Interpretation Leiters werden hier die folgenden Thesen vertreten: Nietzsche kann nur insofern als ein Vertreter des methodologischen Naturalismus betrachtet werden, als er der Auffassung ist, dass der Philosoph epistemische Tugenden erst dann gewinnt, wenn er sich mit einer wissenschaftlichen Methode vertraut macht (MA I 256, KSA 2, 212). Das bedeutet, dass er sich zumindest vorläufig den Regeln unterwirft, die innerhalb einer bestimmten wissenschaftlichen Gemeinschaft gelten (MA I 635, KSA 2, 360 f.; JGB 188, KSA 5, 108 ff.). Der Philosoph soll dies tun, um die epistemischen Tugenden zu erlangen, die für die normative Aufgabe der Philosophie unentbehrlich sind. Diese epistemischen Tugenden sind wesentlich skeptischer Natur. Sie zu kultivieren, bedeutet sicherlich, epistemische Werte zu fördern, nicht aber unbedingt für sie (AC 54, KSA 6, 236 f.), geschweige denn für ein kausales, bzw. monokausales Erklärungsmodell Exklusivität beanspruchen zu müssen (JGB 21, KSA 5, 35 f.). (shrink)

Mit steigender Autonomie werden künstliche Systeme vermehrt mit Situationen konfrontiert, die komplexe moralische Handlungsentscheidungen erfordern. Doch sind Maschinen überhaupt zu einem eigenständigen moralischen Handeln fähig? In diesem Aufsatz wird zunächst erläutert, inwiefern künstliche Systeme als in primitiver Form handlungsfähig gelten können. Darauf aufbauend werden relevante maschinenethische Positionen entlang verschiedener Kriterien moralischer Handlungsfähigkeit skizziert. Dabei wird begründet, weshalb artificial moral agents (AMAs) nur in einem sehr eingeschränkten Maße als moralische Akteure gelten können. Während die einschlägige Forschungsliteratur in diesem Zusammenhang vornehmlich die (...) fehlende Verantwortungsfähigkeit von Maschinen diskutiert, wird in diesem Aufsatz deren begrenzte Fähigkeit zur Kontextsensitivität in den Vordergrund gerückt. Auf der Grundlage eines partikularistischen Moralverständnisses wird argumentiert, dass insbesondere auf maschinellem Lernen basierende Systeme die spezifischen Umstände komplexer moralischer Entscheidungssituationen nur in begrenztem Maße berücksichtigen können. Dies wird schließlich am Fallbeispiel moralischer Dilemmata im Anwendungskontext autonomer Fahrzeuge veranschaulicht. (shrink)

A common philosophical move treats knowledge as if it were an agent with aims, for example, that knowledge “exists for” action, utility, or flourishing. This paper argues that such claims conflate two questions: what completes knowledge as knowledge, and what agents do with what they know. Only agents have imperatives, projects, and goals; knowledge is a completed epistemic state. On this view, “purpose” is telos (constitutive completion), not intention. The thesis is direct: the purpose of knowledge is to know. Three (...) claims structure the framework: (1) knowledge has no agency and therefore no imperatives; (2) inquiry into knowledge is reflexive because it presupposes epistemic resources; and (3) knowing completes knowledge, while application, action, and utility are agent-level purposes. The paper distinguishes reflexive inquiry from stronger explanatory primitivism, treating the latter as a further thesis that requires independent support rather than a direct entailment of reflexivity. It also frames inquiry more carefully: inquiry never begins from absolute blankness, but from operative epistemic orientation. Finally, it defends a strong completed-knowing thesis on which understanding is constitutive of epistemic completion rather than a later optional add-on. (shrink)

Over the past 50 years, there has been a great deal of philosophical interest in laws of nature, perhaps because of the essential role that laws play in the formulation of, and proposed solutions to, a number of perennial philosophical problems. For example, many have thought that a satisfactory account of laws could be used to resolve thorny issues concerning explanation, causation, free-will, probability, and counterfactual truth. Moreover, interest in laws of nature is not constrained to metaphysics or philosophy of (...) science; claims about laws play essential roles in areas as diverse as the philosophy of religion (e.g., in the argument from design) and the philosophy of mind (e.g., in the formulation of Davidson’s anomalous monism). In my dissertation, I consider and reject the widely-held thesis that the facts concerning laws can be reduced to the facts concerning the particular entities that the laws “govern,” and that the laws thus have no independent existence. I instead defend a version of nomic primitivism, according to which the facts about laws cannot be reduced to facts that are themselves non-nomic – i.e., to facts that do not fundamentally involve laws, counterfactuals, causes, etc. Insofar as the truth or falsity of reductionism about laws has implications for many of the problems mentioned above, I think that this result should be of interest even to those who who do not work in metaphysics or the philosophy of science. My methodology, which I lay out and defend in Chapter One, is a version of Carnapian explication. This method emphasizes the importance of articulating and maintaining clear distinctions between (1) the vague concept (or concepts) law of nature inherent in ordinary language and scientific practice and (2) the precise analyses of “law of nature” that philosophers have proposed as potential replacements for this concept. I argue that metaphysics-as-explication has clear advantages over rival conceptions of metaphysical methodology; in particular, it allows us to formulate evaluative criteria for metaphysical claims. In Chapter Two, I offer an example of how careful attention to concepts already in use can help resolve philosophical debate. Specifically, I argue that much recent literature has mistakenly assumed that there is only one concept of “law of nature” in use, while there are in fact at least two. Strong laws are the principles pursued by fundamental physics: they are true, objective, and bear distinctive relationships to counterfactuals and explanation. Weak laws, by contrast, lack at least one of these distinctive characteristics but play central roles in both the “special sciences” and in everyday life. In Chapters Three and Four, I offer extended arguments against the two most prominent versions of reductionism about laws – Humeanism and law necessitarianism. According to philosophical Humeans, the laws of nature supervene upon the non-modal, non-nomic facts concerning the behavior of particular things at particular times and places. Law necessitarians, by contrast, argue that the laws are in fact metaphysically necessary, and that which laws there are is determined by a class of primitive, modally loaded facts concerning the essences, natures, or dispositions. I argue that both of these views are mistaken insofar as they disagree with well-entrenched scientific practices and those in favor of reductionism have failed to provided sufficient reason for thinking that these practices should be revised. Much of my argument is focused on the role played by a number of supposed methodological principles, including appeals to intuition, parsimony, and methodological naturalism. While the conclusions of this dissertation are explicitly constrained to laws, many of the arguments should be of interest to those who are concerned about philosophical methodology (especially in the role of intuition in philosophical argument) or the appropriate relation between metaphysics, science, and the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Objective idealism holds that the physical world we perceive is a kind of interface generated by cognition, while the fundamental reality beneath it is experiential or mental in nature. This paper presents what I take to be a serious structural pressure on that view. I argue that any causal event in the perceptual interface exemplified by carbon monoxide poisoning generates a dilemma: either the in- terface is causally complete, in which case the postulated hidden reality does no work, or the (...) hidden reality must supply determinate causal properties, in which case it requires either a subject or a structural framework to individuate those properties. I call this the determinacy collapse. I then evaluate the most sophisti- cated responses available to the objective idealist phenomenal primitivism, the thick experiential base, and the dissociation move and argue that none escapes the dilemma without either abandoning the distinctive commitments of idealism or relocating its explanatory debt without reducing it. The argument is offered as a dilemma rather than a decisive refutation; a committed idealist may well reject one of its premises. My aim is to show that the cost of doing so is high, and to make that cost visible. (shrink)

Why does something exist rather than nothing at all? This paper demonstrates that Mono-Primitivist grounding (Law of Contradiction as the only self-defining primary) is insufficient to explain existence. It solves the problem in a novel way by introducing Primitive Stochasticity. It is a radical proposition because it asserts Contingency is Necessary, making it not logic-level proof but a self defining logic-parallel ontological necessity.

Wie wäre es mit einer anderen Ausg. der Reichen und Berühmten? Zuerst das Offensichtliche – die Harry-Potter-Romane sind primitiver Aberglaube, der Kinder dazu ermutigt, an Fantasie zu glauben, anstatt Verantwortung für die Welt zu übernehmen – natürlich die Norm. JKR ist genauso ahnungslos über sich und die Welt wie die meisten Menschen,aber etwa 200 Mal so destruktiv wie der durchschnittliche Amerikaner und etwa 800 Mal mehr als der durchschnittliche Chinese. Sie war verantwortlich für die Zerstörung von vielleicht 30.000 Hektar Wald, (...) um diese Müllromane zu produzieren, und die ganze Erosion, die sich daraus ergibt (nicht trivial, da esmindestens 6 und vielleicht 12 Tonnen/Jahr Boden in den Ozean für alle auf der Erde oder vielleicht 100 Tonnen pro Amerikaner ist, und so etwa 5000 Tonnen/Jahr für Rowlings Bücher und Bewegungenundihre 3 Kinder). Die Erde verliert jedes Jahr mindestens 1% ihres Oberbodens, so dass der größte Teil ihrer Nahrungsmittelanbaukapazität weg sein wird, wenn sie sich dem Jahr 2100 nähert. Dann gibt es die riesige Menge an verbranntem Brennstoff und Abfall, die gemacht werden, um die Bücher und Filme, Plastikpuppen usw. herzustellen und zu vertreiben. Sie zeigt ihren Mangel an sozialer Verantwortung, indem sie Kinder hervorbringt, anstatt ihre Millionen zu verwenden, um familienplanerisch zu sein oder den Regenwald aufzukaufen, und indem sie die konventionelle liberale Dummheit der Vorherrschaft der Dritten Welt fördert, die Großbritannien, Amerika, die Welt und die Zukunft ihres Nachkommen zerstört. Natürlich unterscheidet sie sich nicht so sehr von den anderen 7. 8 Milliarden ahnungslos - nur noiser und zerstörerischer.. Es ist das keine kostenlose Mittagessen Problem schreiben groß. Der Mob kann einfach nicht sehen, dass es nichts gibt, wie einer Person zu helfen, ohne anderen zu schaden. Rechte oder Privilegien, die Neuankömmlingen in einer überfüllten Welt gewährt werden, können die Rechte anderer nurvereist enden. Trotz der massiven ökologischen Katastrophen, die sich jeden Tag überall vor ihnen abspielen, können sie sie nicht an die hemmungslose Mutterschaft der "Vielfalt" heften, die für den größten Teil des Bevölkerungszuwachses des letzten Jahrhunderts und all das in diesem jahr erklärt. Ihnen fehlt eine Kombination aus Intelligenz, Bildung, Erfahrung und Gesunden, die erforderlich sind, um die täglichen Angriffe auf die Ressourcen und das Funktionieren der Gesellschaft auf den letztendlichen Zusammenbruch der industriellen Zivilisation zu extrapolieren. Jede Mahlzeit, jede Fahrt mit dem Auto oder Bus, jedes Paar Schuhe ist ein weiterer Nagel im Sarg der Erde. Es ist ihr wahrscheinlich nie in den Sinn gekommen, dass ein Sitz in einem Flugzeug von London nach San Francisco etwa eine Tonne Kohlenstoff produziert, der etwa 3 Quadratmeter Meereis schmilzt, und als eine der Überprivilegierten hat sie wahrscheinlich Hunderte solcher Flüge geflogen. Nicht nur die Reichen und Berühmten, sondern fast jede öffentliche Persönlichkeit überhaupt, einschließlich praktisch aller Lehrer, werden unter Druck gesetzt, politisch korrekt zu sein, was in den westlichen Demokratien heute sozialdemokratisch(neomarxistisch – d.h. verwässerte Kommunisten) bedeutet, dass die Supremacisten der Dritten Welt für die Zerstörung ihrer eigenen Gesellschaften und ihrer eigenen Nachkommen arbeiten. Diejenigen also, deren Bildung,Erfahrung, Intelligenz (und der grundlegende gesunde Menschenverstand), die ihnen verbieten sollten, überhaupt öffentliche Erklärungen abzugeben, völlig alle Medien beherrschen und den Eindruck erwecken, dass die Intelligenten und Zivilisierten Demokratie, Vielfalt und Gleichheit begünstigen müssen, während die Wahrheit ist, dass dies die Probleme und nicht die Lösungen sind und dass sie selbst die Hauptfeinde der Zivilisation sind. Siehe my Suicide by Democracy 2nd ed (2019) und andere. (shrink)

Physical laws are strikingly simple, yet there is no a priori reason for them to be so. I propose that nomic realists—Humeans and non-Humeans—should recognize simplicity as a fundamental epistemic guide for discovering and evaluating candidate physical laws. This proposal helps resolve several longstanding problems of nomic realism and simplicity. A key consequence is that the presumed epistemic advantage of Humeanism over non-Humeanism dissolves, undermining a prominent epistemological argument for Humeanism. Moreover, simplicity is shown to be more connected to lawhood (...) than to mere truth. (shrink)

We apply recent ideas about complexity and randomness to the philosophy of laws and chances. We develop two ways to use algorithmic randomness to characterize probabilistic laws of nature. The first, a generative chance* law, employs a nonstandard notion of chance. The second, a probabilistic* constraining law, impose relative frequency and randomness constraints that every physically possible world must satisfy. The constraining notion removes a major obstacle to a unified governing account of non-Humean laws, on which laws govern by constraining (...) physical possibilities; it also provides independently motivated solutions to familiar problems for the Humean best-system account (the Big Bad Bug and the zero-fit problem). On either approach, probabilistic laws are tied more tightly to corresponding sets of possible worlds: some histories permitted by traditional probabilistic laws are now ruled out as physically impossible. Consequently, the framework avoids one variety of empirical underdetermination while bringing to light others that are typically overlooked. (shrink)

There has been much discussion of powers or real dispositions in the past decade, but there remains an issue that has been inadequately treated. This concerns the precise modal value that comes with dispositionality. We contend in this paper that dispositionality involves a non-alethic, sui generis, irreducible modality. Dispositions only tend towards their manifestations; they do not necessitate them. Tendency is, of course, a dispositional term itself, so this last statement offers little by way of illumination. But given our thesis (...) on the irreducible nature of dispositionality, we maintain that it cannot be explicated correctly in non-dispositional terms. Nevertheless, we all have experience of dispositionality at work, through the exercise or our own powers and the action of other powers upon us. The notion of dispositionality that we acquire is one that involves a modality stronger than pure contingency but weaker than necessity. The recognition of this distinct modal value for dispositionality is one of the biggest oversights in the growing literature in the area. Yet it is there for all to see in even the most mundane example. (shrink)

Pluralism about truth is the view that there are many properties, not just one, in virtue of which things are true. Pluralists hope to dodge the objections that face traditional monistic substantive views of truth, as well as those facing deflationary theories of truth. More specifically, pluralists hope to advance an explanatorily potent understanding of truth that can capture the subtleties of various realist and anti-realist domains of discourse, all while avoiding the scope problem. I offer a new objection to (...) pluralism that challenges its fundamental commitment to there being a set of alethic properties in virtue of which claims are true. In its place I offer an alternative view that merges standard truthmaker theory with a primitivist conception of truth. This combination of views satisfies the theoretical desires that pluralists claim for themselves, but without taking on pluralism's host of challenges and problems. (shrink)

Debunking arguments aim to show that a subject’s justification for a belief is undercut by their learning that the belief, or the justification supporting it, is not appropriately connected—explanatorily, modally, or otherwise—to the truth of its content. A common reply to such arguments is that a subject can be shielded from losing their justification if they hold relevant “Linking Views”, views on which the targeted belief is connected to the truth of its content, often via supervenience theses or other metaphysical (...) views. It seems, then, that the would-be debunker must rebut the relevant Linking Views before being able to run their debunking argument. Drawing on a probabilistic account of debunking developed elsewhere, and using edenic color realism as a case study, we show how this obstacle can be avoided, allowing us to debunk without rebutting. (shrink)