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SCIENTIFIC ONTOLOGY
ii
Advisory Board
Anouk Barberousse (European Editor)
Robert W. Batterman
Jeremy Butterfield
Peter Galison
Philip Kitcher
Margaret Morrison
James Woodward
SCIENTIFIC ONTOLOGY
Anjan Chakravartty
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1
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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© Anjan Chakravartty 2017
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Chakravartty, Anjan, author.
Title: Scientific ontology : integrating naturalized metaphysics and
voluntarist epistemology / by Anjan Chakravartty.
Description: Oxford, UK : New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017001545 | ISBN 9780190651459 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Ontology. | Science—Philosophy.
Classification: LCC Q175.32.O58 C43 2017 | DDC 501—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017001545
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
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CONTENTS
Preface xi
PART I
NAT U R A L I Z ED META P H Y S IC S
C ontents
PART II
IL L USTR ATI ON S A N D M O R A L S
viii
ix
C ontents
PART III
VOL U N TA R I S T EP I S TEMO L O G Y
ix
x
C ontents
Bibliography 253
Index 265
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xi
PREFACE
P reface
xii
xii
P reface
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xvi
P reface
xiv
xv
P reface
xv
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P reface
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P reface
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P reface
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1
PAR T I
NATURALIZED
METAPHYSICS
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3
[ 1 ]
Ontology
Scientific and meta-s cientific
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4
S cientific O ntology
1. For a recent defense of the independence of metaphysics generally, see Paul 2012. Some
contrary views will crop up in the discussion to follow in chapters 2 and 3.
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1.2 DEFLATIONARY ONTOLOGY:
HISTORICISM; SOCIOLOGY;
PRAGMATICS
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9
propositions or beliefs that explains why they are true; talk about
truth does not add anything substantive to the everyday phenom-
ena of certain propositions being asserted and certain things being
believed. Similarly, a deflationary view of ontology is one that recasts
the study of what things and kinds of things exist, and what they are
like, in terms of something else. Most deflationists in this domain
are willing to grant that there is nothing wrong with talk of scientific
ontology per se, so long as this is understood in an appropriate way.
Let us consider these views—historicist, sociological, and pragmatic
approaches to scientific ontology—in turn.
The 1960s were a time of significant upheaval in the philosophy
of science, marked by what many now refer to as a “historical turn.”
Fueled by work associated with authors including Norwood Russell
Hanson, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend, the idea that attention
to the details and history of scientific practice is crucial to any philo-
sophical examination of it gained impressive currency. Thus was born
the dream of history and philosophy of science as a unified discipline,
which was then reified institutionally with the advent of a number
of dedicated departments and programs at universities internation-
ally. In particular, Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions played
a telling role in crystallizing a form of historicism about scientific
knowledge which has deflationary implications for scientific ontol-
ogy. Though Kuhn was certainly not alone in championing this kind
of view, let me single him out here as a prominent exemplar for the
purpose of illustration.
Kuhn described the history of the sciences in terms of a cyclical
pattern of development: periods of so-called normal science punctu-
ated by scientific revolutions, the latter overturning the established
order and thereby laying foundations for new periods of the former.
Classical physics in the wake of Isaac Newton, for example, spanned
an era of normal science that was ultimately supplanted by the nor-
mal science of our own era, dominated by the relativistic spacetime
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2. Among the great number of studies of these topics, a useful handful includes Horwich 1993,
Hoyningen-Huene 1993, Sankey 1994, and Bird 2000. For a later statement and clarifica-
tion of Kuhn’s thoughts on the failure of meaning-preserving translations from the lexicon
of one paradigm to another, see Kuhn 1983.
10
1
3. A sampling of formative approaches to the sociology of science can be found in Knorr-
Cetina 1981, Pickering 1984, Shapin & Schaffer 1985, Latour & Woolgar 1986, Collins &
Pinch 1993, and Barnes, Bloor & Henry 1996.
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1.3 ONTOLOGICAL LIMITS: EMPIRICISM;
SCIENTIFIC REALISM;
METAPHYSICS
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4. I will return to this issue in chapter 3. Some certainly appear to claim that the subject matter
of metaphysics is literally meaningless (i.e., nonsense), but I do not see how this claim can
be defended except as a hyperbolic assertion regarding matters not worth theorizing about,
given an assessment of the potential epistemic gain. I suspect that finding metaphysics lit-
erally meaningless is likely indicative of a lack of effort given to understanding it. And of
course, failing to understand a proposition does not, by itself, render it meaningless.
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The debate about case studies in this setting follows from a prior
debate surrounding an influential argument against scientific real-
ism, commonly known as the ‘pessimistic induction’ (or the pes-
simistic meta-induction). Consider the history of the sciences, full
of past theories that were once widely accepted but then eventually
replaced as newer theories were developed and surpassed their pre-
decessors. The track record of the history of science, so the argu-
ment goes, is one of discontinuity over time. As history reveals,
updating theories has entailed repeated changes in our descriptions
of all manner of things, but perhaps most impressively, repeated
and often radical changes to our descriptions of the unobservable
objects, events, processes, and properties that scientific realists are
wont to endorse. From the perspective of any given moment, most
past theories are regarded as mistaken, and thus by induction, surely
it is likely that our best theories today will be regarded as mistaken
at some future time. The general worry here can be expressed more
precisely in a number of ways, one of which is in terms of recur-
rent discontinuity in accounts of scientific ontology over time.5 On
this basis, some contend that case studies from the history of sci-
ence make plain the silliness of thinking about scientific ontology
as realists do.
In the following, I will use the term ‘case study’ in a completely
ahistorical way to refer to studies of both past and present science,
for the latter are no less relevant to thinking about questions regard-
ing the promise of scientific ontology. Indeed, since presumably any
potential for success in the project of scientific ontology is closely
tied to the quality of scientific theories, and since it seems uncon-
troversial to assume that our best theories are likely the ones that
5. Laudan 1981 is the source of much of this literature, though a related challenge is clearly
implicit in Kuhn 1970/1962. Stanford 2006 adds an important twist to these sorts of his-
torically motivated contentions.
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we have presently (as the present rumbles on into the future), the
outputs of current science are always the obvious starting point.
Nevertheless, as we have seen, the threat posed by the pessimis-
tic induction to the wisdom of engaging in the project of scientific
ontology at all turns on a consideration of what it makes sense to
say about theory change over time, leading up to the present. It is
for this reason that so much of the energy given to discussing this
argument, expended by philosophers and historians of science alike,
is historical in nature.
Given that the challenge here stems from historical cases and, con-
sequently, that responses must delve into cases from the past leading
up to the present, is it not obvious that case studies are important to
thinking about scientific ontology? Surely they are, not least because
until some such work has been done, it is often extremely difficult
to appreciate just what the relevant theory is supposed to be in the
first place. Commonly, emanating from a complex whirl of scientific
practice, conducted by different people in different places over sig-
nificant periods of time, there is simply a mess of stuff: mathematical
formalisms; partially overlapping models; journal articles; archived
documents and preprints; conference presentations and proceed-
ings; press conferences; textbooks; and many claims, not all of which
may be entirely consistent with one another. It is part of the function
of the case study to tell us what the theory is.6 In order to demarcate
the relevant descriptions of the natural world that may then serve as
a starting point for engaging with questions of scientific ontology,
much work needs to be done. Clearly, this work is a necessary condi-
tion for considering scientific ontology, because it furnishes the very
claims whose ontological interpretation one may then discuss. There
can be no debate here without cases. They are essential.
6. For a similar view citing articles, textbooks, and scientific practice in particular, see Burian
1977, p. 29: ‘ “Actual scientific theories” are not givens …’
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7. Laudan 1977, chapter 5, considered the evidential weight of cases even earlier, but
with the different concern of testing accounts of scientific rationality (e.g., in theory
choice) against the history of science, pointing (p. 157) to the phenomenon of ‘self-
authentication’: ‘the history we write will presuppose the very philosophy which the
written history will allegedly test.’ For more comprehensive discussions of the daunting
challenges facing the testing of philosophical theses with cases, see Schickore 2011 and
Kinzel 2015, 2016.
8. See Saatsi 2012 and Vickers 2013, for example, for thoughts on how better case studies might
help to advance debates about scientific realism. I agree, with the caveat that advancing a
debate is not the same thing as settling it. Advancement often takes the form of more refined
views on all sides of a question.
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9. Some early, canonical statements of this idea are found in Hacking 1982, 1983, Cartwright
1983, chapter 5, and Giere 1988, chapter 5.
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3
[ 2 ]
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1. For examples of some iconic figures from the history of philosophy who made contributions
to the sciences of their day, see Callender 2011, footnotes 1 and 11, pp. 51–52.
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There are two sides to the question of whether any sort of meta-
physics is part and parcel of contemporary science. These sides are
strongly opposed and the arguments in favor of each are, I think,
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41
that it is the job of philosophy, inter alia, to reveal to us the ways things
are quite independently of how they may appear on the surface, and
I am sympathetic to that reply here. The empiricist’s (and instru-
mentalist’s—I will take this inclusion for granted in what follows)
recasting of surface descriptions of scientific practice is potentially
worrying, I will now suggest, not because it requires that one view
the sciences in a way that seems surprising, but rather because of
the extent of the surprise, the enormity of which, I think, has not yet
been widely appreciated.
Recall that even strongly empiricist approaches advocate a con-
ception of scientific ontology: an ontology of observable objects,
events, processes, and properties. Now recall my earlier conten-
tions that any exercise in scientific ontology involves the applica-
tion of philosophical commitments in interpreting the practice
and outputs of scientific work, and that this process of interpreta-
tion involves making metaphysical inferences.2 If one accepts this
contention, it follows that if the empiricist is nonetheless intent
on refraining from metaphysics altogether in the context of the
sciences, she must do so at the cost of any sort of investigation
into scientific ontology at all. It is doubtful that many empiricists
would be happy to pay this cost. Indeed, the cost is too dear for
anyone who views the sciences as affording ontological knowl-
edge, for it requires that one view science itself as a thoroughly
non-ontological activity—not impossible, but surely startling. To
take such a view would be to identify science itself with whatever
zombies who behaved like actual scientists but lacked their aims
and mindful engagement (since zombies have none) would do.
One might well regard this as an implausibly severe conception
of science.
2. The idea that even empiricist ontologies are underwritten by metaphysical inferences is con-
troversial and calls for more argument than I have given thus far. I will return to this idea in
section 4 and, until then, ask the reader to consider this a promissory footnote.
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What about the opposing view, that the modern sciences incor-
porate metaphysics as a matter of course? Edwin Burtt (1959/
1925) documented the ways in which metaphysical concepts such
as substance, essence, and form played central roles in the work of
Copernicus and Kepler, but as the protagonists of his study (addi-
tionally: Galileo; Descartes; Hobbes; Boyle; Newton) suggest, these
reflections on the metaphysical foundations of science are confined
to the early modern period (see also Buchdahl 1969, Woolhouse
1988). R. G. Collingwood (1998/1940) gave a famous account
of the nature of metaphysics in which he described several argu-
ably metaphysical assumptions underlying physics from Newton’s
mechanics to Einstein’s theories of relativity, which brings us up to
the contemporary period. As mentioned in chapter 1, Thomas Kuhn
(1970/1962) held that metaphysical commitments, such as prefer-
ences for teleological or mechanistic explanations, are one of the
main ingredients constituting the paradigms that govern most of sci-
ence. The tangled nature of science and metaphysics is also a theme
of some more recent work. Consider this representative assertion by
Craig Callender (2011, p. 48):
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3. This brings to mind the discussion in chapter 1 of Carnap’s deflationary account of scientific
ontology, in which the linguistic frameworks used to describe these ontologies are chosen
pragmatically. Some commentary, such as Friedman 1999, characterizes this as exemplify-
ing a neo-Kantian view of a priori principles (more on which in chapter 3).
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Assiduous readers will recall my serving notice from the start that one
of the themes of this work would be that differences among various
philosophers and scientists regarding ontological commitment are a
function of differences in some of the epistemic commitments these
individuals are wont to make. This was the basis of my claim that sci-
entific ontology is deeply interwoven with issues in epistemology.
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energy), and whether carbon dioxide is used in the process. There are
facts of the matter about whether the moon is made of green cheese
and whether Santa Claus lives at the North Pole or, as some conspir-
acy theorists maintain, at an undisclosed location. If endorsed, the
appropriate attitude toward propositions is belief. Stances have a
rather different character, for unlike propositions, they are not claims
about the world. A stance is an orientation, a cluster of attitudes,
commitments, and strategies relevant to the production of allegedly
factual beliefs. They determine how human agents go about generat-
ing claims about the world that they may then believe. Stances them-
selves are not believed, but rather adopted by people, held by them,
and expressed in their actions. Unlike propositions, their relation to
those who seek knowledge cannot be understood in terms of belief in
any strictly propositional content, but their adoption can eventuate
in belief.
Consider the stance typical of empiricists. Granted, empir-
icism is often (and traditionally has been) described in straight-
forwardly propositional terms as the view that the only source of
knowledge of the world is experience and, furthermore, where
strong empiricism is concerned, that this knowledge is ultimately
about such experiences. Defining ‘empiricism’ in an alternative
way in terms of a stance, as van Fraassen prefers, may be some-
what idiosyncratic, but this is of no concern here. Quite independ-
ently of how best to define the term ‘empiricism’ (an argument that
empiricists are welcome to have among themselves), it is fair to
say that a certain stance is characteristic of empiricists generally.
Let us call this the ‘empiricist stance.’ The commitments typical
of this stance are ones that follow from an austere attitude toward
ontology and, in particular, a distaste for what is perceived to be
the excessive nature of metaphysical inference. Those who hold
the empiricist stance often describe the use of a priori reasoning in
formulating ontologies as profligate and philosophically repellent.
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resolved. The former issue is the subject of the rest of this chapter
and the next; the latter will be the focus of Part III. Before con-
tinuing with the current assignment, however, it is worth taking a
moment to flag some of the issues that will come up for deeper con-
sideration later, as they will surface again here and there en route.
Perhaps the most obvious questions concern the basis on which
different stances are adopted and how they are to be assessed, one
against the other. Van Fraassen (2002) identifies two criteria for
adoption and, with certain caveats that will emerge later regarding
whether these criteria are exhaustive, I am inclined to agree with
him. The first criterion is rationality: a stance should be rational,
where this is understood in a broadly pragmatic way as internal
coherence. As van Fraassen (2004, p. 184) puts it, the ‘defining
hallmark’ of irrationality is ‘self-sabotage by one’s own lights.’ So
long as the adoption of a stance is not demonstrably self-defeating
according to its own standards of success, its adoption and the epis-
temic project associated with it are rational. The second criterion
for stance adoption is one’s values, in the sense that one may value
certain kinds of information and forms of explanation, for example,
informed by one’s sense of the importance of these things and the
likelihood of success in acquiring them.
As is no doubt obvious immediately, this is a very permissive
account of rationality. Prima facie, it would appear to allow that dif-
ferent and mutually incompatible stances could be rational. Those
adopting the empiricist and metaphysical stances (for instance),
respectively, clearly have incompatible values, but on the con-
ception of rationality just indicated it would seem that neither
is irrational so long as their proponents are each, so far as they
can ascertain, succeeding by their own lights in doing what they
set out to do, or at the very least, have no cause for concern that
their stances are promoting epistemic inquiries that are doomed
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2.4 METAPHYSICAL INFERENCES:
LOWERCASE ‘m’ VERSUS CAPITAL ‘M’
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4. We will encounter this sort of attempt to divide metaphysics into two camps—a laudable
camp and a reproachable one—with a vengeance in the next chapter, where we will find
that (for instance) some authors aim to separate laudable “naturalized” metaphysics from
reproachable “non-naturalized” metaphysics.
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5
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and light filtered through the trees in interesting ways (or so they
claim). The recourse to metaphysical inference is important not only
to distinguish straightforward, ontology-guiding experiences from
optical illusions and hallucinations, but also to help in determining
the quality of the empirical information one does acquire. Not all
observations are created equal, whether in the lab or in the field.
Differentiating good from bad and better from best once again typi-
cally requires the employment of metaphysical inferences involving
theories or hypotheses concerning things (e.g., the functioning of
instruments of detection and measurement) beyond the realm of
the observable.
Lest anyone worry that suggesting the importance of meta-
physical inferences to the integrity of one’s knowledge of observable
phenomena is somehow outré, it is probably worth noting that this
suggestion is not entirely new. Indeed, though perhaps underappre-
ciated in the present context, a number of related suggestions have
surfaced in a number of important and influential works of philoso-
phy of science this past century.5 Wilfrid Sellars (1956), for instance,
is famous for arguing against what he called ‘the myth of the given,’
maintaining (among other things) that no cognitive state, including
experiential states, can serve all by itself as a foundation from which
facts about the world are simply or transparently read. Similarly, in
part comprising the historical turn in the philosophy of the science
mentioned in chapter 1, Norwood Russell Hanson (1958, chapter 1),
Paul Feyerabend (1975), and Kuhn argued that scientific and even
everyday observations are theory laden in the sense that theoreti-
cal beliefs held prior to observation significantly shape how they are
experienced and described.
5. For practically the only detailed, recent discussion of the challenges faced by empiricism in
this regard, see Nagel 2000. Relating some of these challenges to the present discussion, see
Ribeiro 2015, pp. 69–70, and Robus 2015, pp. 854–855.
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ontology of the world. Once one accepts this premise, even the most
minimal conceptions of what it could mean make recourse to met-
aphysical inferences. In working to establish the indispensability of
metaphysical inference to the least ambitious conceptions of what
scientific ontology might look like, however, I have not said much
about the more expansive ontologies of interest to those inclined
toward the metaphysical stance. As ambitions for scientific ontology
increase, one moves along the spectrum I described earlier in terms
of magnitudes of metaphysical inference. It will be the task of the
next chapter to spell out this metaphor of lesser and greater “magni-
tudes” in more detail.
To prepare the ground for this next task in one last way, let us
leave the minimalist end of the spectrum of metaphysical inference
inhabited by those attracted to the empiricist stance and consider
for a moment the opposite end. We have been preoccupied with the
question of whether scientific ontology need involve metaphysics.
Let us now turn this question around and ask whether metaphysics
need involve scientific ontology. In effect, this is a question about just
how big the ‘M’ in our most thoroughgoing metaphysical inferences
can and should be. It is an extremely important question not least
in our time, in an age during which the sciences have become the
ultimate arbiter of our prospects for knowledge of the natural world.
There was a time when metaphysicians ruled in ontology, but increas-
ingly, throughout the transition from the period of natural philoso-
phy to the present and outside the cloistered halls of departments
of philosophy, more intensive a posteriori investigation has ascended
the throne at the expense of more purely a priori reasoning. Is there
is anything left for metaphysicians to do now apart from facilitating
scientific ontology?
As mentioned in passing at the start of chapter 1, the most com-
mon response to the question of what might make philosophical
ontology (in contrast to ontological concerns in other domains) a
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genuine subject matter in its own right is that it concerns more gen-
eral or fundamental questions of existence than those one might find
in other places. Where scientists and philosophers of science, for
example, are interested in specific objects, events, processes, proper-
ties, the various types or kinds of these things, laws of nature, causes
and effects, and so on, metaphysics apart from science concerns more
general or fundamental things and kinds of things, of which scien-
tific subjects of interest are exemplifications. This is a widespread
view among metaphysicians, well expressed by Laurie Paul (2012):
the subject matter of metaphysics is ‘systematic, general truths con-
cerning fundamental facts’ (p. 4), describing ‘features of the world
that are metaphysically prior to those of the scientific account (p. 5).’
On the other side of the balance, there are skeptics. As Kyle Stanford
(2017, p. 134) contends: ‘The most pressing worry here, I think, is
whether these metaphysical proposals are really adding anything to
the conception of the fundamental constitution of the natural world
offered by the relevant scientific theories themselves.’
The question of whether there is sui generis work to be done in
metaphysics is a difficult one to settle, in part because those on either
side appear to be divided, ultimately, by strongly opposed intuitions
the assessment of which is difficult to fathom. The best case, I believe,
for thinking that when it comes to facts about the natural world,
there is no domain of ontology that is neatly separable from onto-
logical concerns elsewhere—a case I take to be suggestive but not
conclusive—stems from what I will call the exclusivity problem. One
might wonder whether the meaning of ‘generality’ or ‘fundamental-
ity’ in this context is sufficiently clear as to allow a clear-cut demar-
cation between a somehow purified metaphysics and other concerns
about ontology. Historians are interested in the moon landing of
1969, but they are also interested in space missions more generally.
The latter collection of events forms a category to which the former
event belongs; thus, shifting from the former to the latter involves
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6. It is worth noting that the question of whether some conception of pure metaphysics is
viable as a direct means of generating facts about the world is independent of the question
of whether highly metaphysical inferences may be potentially, indirectly useful as heuristics
for ontology in other domains. For a general discussion of the former question, see Tahko
2015, c hapter 9. Baron 2016, pp. 2250–2254 offers an argument to the effect that metaphys-
ics should be informed by the sciences. The question of the possible heuristic functions of
“purer” metaphysics will surface again in chapters 3 and 5.
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purists, but be that as it may. To the extent that the question remains
open, it is a useful primer for a more pressing concern presently. One
might wonder whether it is possible to demarcate genuinely scien-
tific ontology from ontological theorizing that may begin to appear,
in light of the magnitudes of metaphysical inference involved, so ten-
uously connected to the empirical content of the sciences that it is
effectively cut off from a serious consideration of scientific objects,
events, processes, and properties (in which case it would belong, at
best, to a domain of purely philosophical investigation). Is there a line
to be drawn somewhere along the spectrum of metaphysical infer-
ence, beyond which the ontology is no longer scientific? Let us turn
to this question now.
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[ 3 ]
Naturalism and
the Grounding Metaphor
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what one might call implicit subject matters. These are things whose
natures are not the face-value targets of scientific work, but which are
rather mentioned in passing. Scientific descriptions make explicit ref-
erence to certain properties, causal relations, laws of nature, possibili-
ties and necessities, and so on, but the sciences make no attempt to
describe the nature of causation itself, for instance, as opposed to the
natures of putative instances of causation found in specific domains.
Arguably, the implicit subject matters of science are also possible
aspects of scientific ontology. After all, one might argue, given that the
sciences investigate (for instance) so many things commonly referred
to as laws of nature, it is reasonable to think that reflection on what
the sciences reveal about specific laws is a good starting point for met-
aphysical inferences concerning the nature of laws themselves, more
generally. The same would go for the natures of objects and events,
the natures of their properties, the natures of categories of things into
which nature is classified, and so on. This is not to assume, of course,
that any one account of these subjects is tenable. Perhaps there are
necessary and sufficient conditions for causation, or perhaps there
is no one nature here and, instead, lots of different causal relations
with different natures. Perhaps the entities described in biology and
chemistry are ultimately reducible to entities described in physics, or
perhaps they are not. These sorts of issues are not pondered in labo-
ratories, yet one might think that their very proximity to the sciences,
as features of the world that are implicated in descriptions of scien-
tific phenomena, makes them good targets for ontological theorizing.
Much recent philosophy of science has aimed to do precisely this: to
grapple with the ontological underpinnings—the implicit subject
matters—of our best science.
It is now obvious, I suspect, why many different conceptions
of the proper scope of scientific ontology are not merely possible
but actual. Among scientific realists, for example, there are dif-
ferent conceptions of where along the spectrum of metaphysical
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1. For statements to this effect, see Maudlin 2007 and especially Ladyman & Ross 2007, chap-
ter 1. For a reply to the latter, see Dorr 2010. For an exploration of some of the ways in
which metaphysics may suffer as a consequence of being disconnected from the sciences,
see Humphreys 2013.
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2. See Hacking 1991 on ‘styles of reasoning,’ Jardine 1991 on ‘scenes of inquiry,’ Friedman 2001
on the ‘constitutive a priori,’ and Stump 2003 on the ‘functional a priori.’ This list would
grow very long if we included antecedents such as Rudolph Carnap, Michel Foucault, Henri
Poincaré, Hans Reichenbach, and more.
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3. For example, as discussed earlier, Carnap fits here. More generally, anyone who, in a neo-
Kantian spirit, views these presuppositions as conventions fits here too. Though relatively
uncommon, there is another way that one might label some views in this vein: as opposed
to traditional metaphysics but not (neo-)Kantian metaphysics, which holds that the world
is, in part, a product of our ways of understanding it, which includes substantive shaping by
frameworks of a priori principles.
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4. Examples are ubiquitous. For a nice list pertaining mostly to physics, see Ladyman 2012,
pp. 47–48.
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5. An exception is the small corner of philosophy occupied by so-called ‘experimental philoso-
phy’, or ‘X-Phi,’ which has until now focused on areas (such as philosophy of mind, action
theory, and epistemology) other than scientific ontology.
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3.4 UNPACKING THE METAPHORS:
“GROUNDING” AND “DISTANCE”
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6. This brings to mind Popper’s (1989/1963) different but related suggestion that ‘falsifiabil-
ity’ (susceptibility to empirical confirmation or disconfirmation) is the mark of genuinely
scientific theories and hypotheses. For reasons that I have mentioned already, though, con-
cerning the diversity of the sciences, and for further reasons that will become clear in Part
III, I think it would be a mistake to stipulate that empirical vulnerability is the sine qua non
of science.
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let alone well. Why attempt to explain things that are fairly evident
in terms of other things whose putative natures are inevitably much
less clear? On the flip side, those attracted to the metaphysical stance
are generally optimistic about the prospects of describing underlying
realities and greatly value the explanations these descriptions provide
as furnishing, in some cases, genuine insight into what the sciences
are revealing about the nature of the world. Explanatory power can
serve as a massive counterweight to a lack of empirical vulnerability
in dissolving epistemic risk, but only if it does, in fact, have weight.
And if it does, the question of precisely how much weight it should
be given is a very difficult one to answer univocally, as we will see.
Ultimately, epistemic risk is determined by weighing the contribu-
tions of empirical vulnerability and explanatory power. The resulting
determination is what yields an answer to the question of how far a
given exercise in ontology is from the ground of empirical inquiry
and, in turn, the question of whether the norm of naturalized meta-
physics has been satisfied.
Having spelled out the metaphors in terms of which the idea of nat-
uralism figures in scientific ontology, we are now in a position to see
how, more precisely, the notions of grounding and distance play out
in arguments concerning empirical vulnerability and explanatory
power. The issue before us is that of how trade-offs between these fac-
tors relevant to epistemic risk can be judged in such a way as to iden-
tify supposed instances of scientific ontology as bona fide, as opposed
to, at best, belonging to a different sort of philosophical inquiry or, at
worst, amounting to what some authors would describe as a frivolous
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7. Horwich 1982, chapter 5, and Schlesinger 1987, for example, emphasize predictive power
over novelty in assessing evidential strength. For representative arguments in support of the
view favoring novel prediction over accommodation, see Lipton 2004/1991, chapter 10,
and Leplin 1997.
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8. This points to larger debates that I cannot engage here. Underdetermination is sometimes
cited as a reason to doubt scientific descriptions of unobservables generally, and this is hotly
contested. Relatedly, it would seem that scientific ontology is contingent on a reply to con-
cerns about different accounts of the data in the form of historical discontinuities in scien-
tific knowledge. For recent versions of the view that historical discontinuity is compatible
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with partial continuity (which might then serve as a basis for scientific ontology), see
Worrall 1989, Psillos 1999, French 2006, and Chakravartty 2007. For a different approach
to identifying the most defensible parts of physics in particular, see Ney 2012, and for cau-
tion regarding metaphysics in connection with physics, see Monton 2011.
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PAR T II
ILLUSTRATIONS
AND MORALS
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Dispositions
Science as a basis for scientific ontology
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1. This focus on metaphysical issues arising distinctively in the context of the sciences is also
exemplified in contributions to further topics which exceed my ambitions here, such as in
Bird 2007 and Morganti 2013.
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2. Having made this distinction, there are several possibilities for dispositional realism. Some
hold that dispositional properties are “anchored by” or “grounded in” categorical proper-
ties, without which the former would be ontologically unstable or incomplete. Some hold
that dispositions can exist without being grounded (independently of whether categorical
properties exist). Some hold that one and the same property has both categorical and dis-
positional aspects (see the discussion of Martin’s view in Armstrong, Martin & Place 1996,
and Heil 2003, chapter 11). The discussion of dispositional realism to follow is neutral with
respect to these options.
3. Relatedly, for a history of attempts to define disposition concepts using conditional state-
ments, thus analyzing them away in favor of categorical predicates and properties, see
Malzkorn 2001. There is no clearly unproblematic account of this sort (cf. Mumford 1998,
chapter 3, and Bird 2007, chapter 2.2), but the semantics of dispositional terms is hardly
straightforward even for the dispositional realist (see Lipton 1999).
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4. For some nice case studies of structural continuity, see Post 1971 and French &
Kamminga 1993.
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From here it is a short step to the idea that the very knowledge
of dispositions used to explicate entity realism is tightly interwoven
with a knowledge of structures, as advocated by structural realism.
Dispositional realism, after all, characterizes properties of scientific
interest as dispositions for specific kinds of relations—a knowledge
of which facilitates experimental detections, manipulations, and
interventions. The behaviors that entities display in virtue of the dis-
positions they possess are generally described in scientific theories
and models as relations, often in the form of mathematical equations,
for example, relating variables whose values are magnitudes of the
relevant properties. Dispositional realism reveals an intimate con-
nection between properties of scientific entities and their structural
relations and, in this way, the most compelling insights of entity real-
ism and structural realism are fused together: the kind of knowledge
that is required in order to interact with unobservable entities in
highly systematic ways, as per the former, is structural knowledge, as
per the latter. Dispositions are dispositions for relations. Structures
are “encoded” in the properties of entities, because these properties
confer dispositions for precisely those relations that the sciences
describe in terms of structure. Dispositional realism thus facilitates a
rapprochement between the best insights of entity realism and struc-
tural realism.
There is another way in which invoking dispositions in the sphere
of scientific realism does striking explanatory work, and this further
work may also be viewed in terms of unification. It is common in
scientific realist discussions of scientific knowledge to hear claims
to the effect that the sciences reveal information concerning a num-
ber of features of the world; not only entities, properties, and rela-
tions, but also causal processes, laws of nature, and the numerous
categories of things that populate the natural world. A little reflec-
tion on the natures of these bits of ontology would remind us that
they are all subjects of metaphysical presupposition and inference
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(as discussed in Part I), and while they mostly comprise the implicit
content of scientific theorizing, modeling, and experimentation, they
are explicitly center stage in descriptions and defenses of scientific
realism. Dispositional realism furnishes a unified ontological frame-
work for these different metaphysical concepts, and as we have noted
on several occasions now, the ability of a theory to unify phenom-
ena that would otherwise remain disparate is generally considered
an explanatory virtue. The organization of the metaphysical concepts
underpinning scientific realism into a unified ontological framework
is, I submit, no mean feat, and as we will see, the hypothesis of dispo-
sitional realism achieves it with notable elegance.
Let us begin once again with the observation that ‘disposition’ is
typically regarded as a causal concept par excellence. A number of dif-
ferent descriptions of the nature of causal interaction are compatible
with a realist attitude toward dispositions, but one such view naturally
suggests itself: entities are engaged in continuous processes of causal
interaction in which the dispositions they possess are manifested in
accordance with the presence and absence of other entities and prop-
erties. Entities with disposition-conferring properties are, on this
view, in a continuous state of causal interaction, a state in which rela-
tions between the relevant properties obtain.5 Consider, for example,
a sample of gas that comes into contact with a source of heat. The
gas expands in virtue of the dispositions it possesses, conferred by
properties such as volume, temperature, and pressure, and in accord-
ance with their relations to the properties of the heating source. As
it expands into other regions of space the gas may encounter further
entities and properties. The property instances present in these new
regions together with those of the original sample determine how
5. For an elaboration of this sort of view, see Chakravartty 2007, chapter 4. Though different
in important respects, a process-type view of causation and dispositions is also presented in
Mumford & Anjum 2011.
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both are further affected, and so on. In this way, dispositional real-
ism can be employed to unify our concepts of entities and properties
with the causal processes in which they participate.
With some such understanding of causation in hand, the scien-
tific realist is then nicely placed to offer an integrated account of laws
of nature and scientific categories, or kinds. The idea of “natural”
kinds, which suggests that nature comes prepackaged into objective
categories of things, has a long and storied history. But quite inde-
pendently of whether one subscribes to this particular view of kinds,
arguably the primary motivation for theorizing about them more
generally, among scientific realists, is to connect the classificatory
practices of our best sciences to successful practices of inductive gen-
eralization and prediction regarding the observed natures and behav-
iors of the members of these categories. A number of philosophers
have suggested that the primary goal of scientific systematizations of
nature into categories is to demarcate groupings of things that allow
for reliable generalizations and predictions of scientific phenomena
(cf. Kornblith 1993, Boyd 1999, Hacking 2007, Magnus 2012). The
ambition here is to explain how taxonomic practices in the sciences
facilitate this success. As we will see, this connection between taxon-
omies of kinds and successful inductive practice is suggestive of a fur-
ther connection between scientific categories and laws of nature—in
terms of dispositions.
It is presumably because of the fact that the members of a given
kind share certain properties and behaviors that they are grouped
together, and it is precisely this sort of knowledge regarding spe-
cific classes of entities that is traditionally identified with laws. Now,
a neatly unified account of kinds and laws follows immediately
from dispositional realism and the concomitant view of causation
described above, for in the sciences, statements of laws are often
simply descriptions of relations between properties (e.g., Newton’s
second law of motion, F = ma; the ideal gas law, PV = nRT). In these
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6. I would distinguish these arguments from another involving science, about whether the dis-
positions associated (by some authors) with elementary particles in physics can exist inde-
pendently of categorical properties. For a discussion of the latter issue with comprehensive
references to earlier discussions, see Williams 2011. My focus here is on the prior question
of whether there are dispositions at all.
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from clear that there is anything here that requires explanation. From
the perspective of someone who adopts the empiricist stance and is
suspicious of the ontological import of disposition talk, for instance,
there are no dispositions whose apparent inabilities to manifest can
result in perplexity, which is then resolved by theorizing about how
dispositions are exercised. Rather, there are simply states of affairs
that follow one after the other. When there are net forces, there are
motions. When there is no net force, as in the case considered here,
there is no motion. That is simply the way things are. There is no fur-
ther demand for an explanation.
Earlier I mentioned that arguments for the reality of dispositions
based on considerations of explanatory practice in the sciences come
in two forms. Having reviewed arguments that focus on explanations
of scientific phenomena directly, let us turn now to the second, more
indirect form, associated with what I earlier called the argument from
abstraction. ‘Abstraction’ here refers to a selective attention to certain
features of a target system of scientific interest for purposes of model-
ing or experimentation. The phenomena we hope to understand are
often complex, and efforts to grapple with them scientifically often
take the form of model building that focuses on certain parameters
and ignores others that may be relevant to the system’s behavior, and
experimental setups in which only the relationships between certain
parameters are studied and the experimental system itself is shielded
from other, potentially interfering factors. The argument here is again
transcendental, but this time focused on explanations of the efficacy
of scientific methodology in cases of abstraction. The basic idea is
that the effective use of abstractions in scientific practice would be
inexplicable were it not for the fact that they yield information about
dispositions.
Roy Bhaskar (1975) was an important early advocate of the argu-
ment from abstraction though, to be fair, he did not himself elabo-
rate much support for the conclusion. What Bhaskar did is turn a
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One might worry that on such a view, one has sacrificed what many
would naturally take to be part of the job of science: to tell us about
the natures of things, about what they are.
Here I believe we have returned, via an interesting but circuitous
route, to the now familiar division between those who invest the
hypothesis of dispositional realism with genuine explanatory power
and are thus keen to admit dispositions into an ontology of science,
and those who asses the weight of this power for scientific ontology
rather differently. For the dispositionalist, there is no price to be paid
(or at least, no price not worth paying) for their consolidation of sci-
entific knowledge across seemingly inconsistent models and descrip-
tions. There is no lack of ambition here to explain what the subjects
of these descriptions are, for according to dispositional realism, the
properties of entities of scientific interest—on some versions of the
view, many such properties, on other versions, all of them—simply
are dispositions. Thus, a description of the dispositions of something
to behave in the ways it does, under the kinds of circumstances that
elicit those manifestations, is unavoidably part of a description of the
nature of the thing.
Historically, the overriding source of suspicion regarding the
explanatory force of dispositional realism has been the concern that
dispositional ascription is empty with respect to ontology. It is, at best,
a placeholder awaiting the development of further science, which will
reveal the underlying natures of things that dispositional descriptions
merely gesture toward. It may be convenient to talk about putatively
dispositional properties like solubility and fragility— associated
with manifestations of dissolving in solvents and breaking under
the application of moderate force, respectively—but these ascrip-
tions are merely placeholders for properly scientific descriptions of
some underlying facts. For example, chemistry explores the molec-
ular structures of solutes and solvents and inter-and intra-molecular
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7. Shoemaker 1980 and Swoyer 1982 are canonical sources of this type of view, and there are
many subsequent discussions. For one of the latter and further references, see Chakravartty
2007, chapter 5.
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and thus consider empirical science the gold standard for inquiry
into its subject matter. As noted above, however, in thinking about
the natures of scientific properties, the dispositional antirealist-cum-
empiricist adopts the view that the identities of such properties are
ultimately empirically inscrutable. Is this a coherent combination of
views? On the one hand, the sciences are regarded as our best bets
for learning about aspects of the natural world; on the other hand,
the sciences are regarded as powerless to describe the differences
between the properties they investigate. There is nothing inconsist-
ent in this, strictly speaking, for one’s best bets may be unsuccess-
ful, but one might reasonably worry about the pragmatic coherence
of regarding empirical science as the exemplary means of producing
knowledge of scientific properties while simultaneously holding that
these efforts are guaranteed to fail.
In order to avoid this charge of incoherence, one might consider
simply avoiding the recourse to quiddities, which by their nature can-
not be described in qualitative terms, when confronted with the issue
of property identity. Thus steering clear of ontological commitments
to both dispositions and primitive principles of property identity, our
imagined empiricist would then simply refrain from saying anything
at all about what makes properties like positive charge the properties
that they are. It is unclear, I think, whether this will suffice. From the
perspective of a certain kind of metaphysical stance, on which ques-
tions of property identity call for an answer, it is doubtful that remain-
ing quiet offers much if any help in evading the worry of incoherence,
because it is doubtful that refusing to say anything about property
identity sits much if any better (than appealing to quiddities) with
the view that empirical science is the exemplary means of knowledge
production regarding properties of scientific interest. Put abstractly,
the question of what constitutes the identities of properties may not
sound like one that falls within the remit of scientific ontology, but
more concretely, the question of what constitutes the identities of
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properties like charge and fitness surely does. From this perspective,
the assertion of pragmatic incoherence has not been defeated here,
merely reformulated.
From quite another perspective, however, say that of a certain kind
of empiricist, one might wonder whether the very question of the
ultimate determinants of property identity, whether posed abstractly
or even more concretely in the context of the sciences, is merely a fine
example of a metaphysical question that does not properly admit of
a response. Some questions, one might think, are symptomatic of an
ambition to look for answers that reach beyond our ability to know
things on the basis of scientific knowledge and practice. It may be that
the sciences are our best bets for producing knowledge of the natural
world, but that is not to say that scientific ontology can be expected
to answer all conceivable questions regarding it. Some questions
can only be answered by means of metaphysical inferences of such
magnitude that they are, viewed from the empiricist stance, utterly
incapable of producing knowledge. Here, once again, we see the deep
divide between more and less metaphysical stances, and between
fundamentally opposed conceptions of the demand for explanation.
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[ 5 ]
Structures
Science as a constraint on scientific ontology
We often don’t have the faintest idea what entities and proper-
ties are being posited by our foundational physical theories. It
is just those fundamental theories that are notorious for leaving
us befuddled as to what kind of a world they are talking about.
Our foundational theories usually exist in a scientific framework
in which they are subject to multiple, apparently incompatible,
interpretations. (Sklar 2010, p. 1123)
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empowered’’ (p. 98; cf. French 2006, 2014, chapter 8.8). Likewise,
in advocating his version of structuralism, Michael Esfeld (2009,
p. 180) maintains that ‘fundamental physical structures are causal
structures.’ In light of these sorts of commitments, it is possible to
identify a shared ontological project: to describe the ontology of fun-
damental physics in a way that is compatible with the notion that it
has some causal or physical oomph. This shared project will serve as
the case study of this chapter.
Even while being easygoing, for present purposes, about the pre-
cise nature of causation and causal talk, it is important to recognize
at least one commitment that seems common to what I will call “tra-
ditional” views of causation. This is the idea that whatever causation
may be, precisely, it involves objects, or events involving objects,
or their properties. This commitment surfaces in different ways,
depending on the view under consideration. Some hold that causa-
tion is a sui generis relation between certain objects or events. Others
maintain that causation is a process in which objects transmit certain
quantities through spacetime, and whereby the trajectories of differ-
ent transferences can intersect and sometimes facilitate an exchange
of these quantities. Yet others describe causation in terms of the
manifestations of the dispositions of objects. Some contend that
causation is a form of counterfactual dependence between objects or
events which entails that if one such object or event had been dif-
ferent, something else would have ensued. Deflationary accounts of
causation typically unpack causal locutions in terms of the behaviors
of objects or sequences of events. In sum and very generally, tradi-
tional views describe or analyze causation in terms of the relations
of, or properties of, or relations between the states or properties of
objects or events involving them. Objects and events are the locus of
causal oomph.
Now, admittedly, given that they are regularly used as terms of art
in discussions of ontology, this talk of ‘objects’ and ‘events’ is vague,
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2. The term ‘eliminative structural realism’ was first used by Psillos (2001, pp. S18–S19)
in contrast to ‘restrictive structural realism,’ a label for the position commonly attrib-
uted to Worrall 1989, often called ‘epistemic structural realism.’ At that time, what I call
‘non-eliminativism’ had not yet been clearly articulated in the contemporary literature.
Eliminative and non-eliminative structuralism are both attempts to describe the ontology
of fundamental physics and, as such, are often described as versions of ‘ontic structural real-
ism,’ in contrast to the epistemic project, as distinguished in Ladyman 1998.
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suggest. This is the thought that only the “lowest level” of theoriz-
ing is properly the subject of serious ontological consideration,
since anything at “higher levels” of organization simply reduces
to the subject matter of the lowest, which some take to suggest a
reductive skepticism about the reality of composite or higher-level
entities generally. This brand of reductionism is controversial and
I will simply assume, as is common among those who are interested
in scientific inquiry in fields other than quantum gravity, that soci-
eties, aardvarks, proteins, and electrons are no less real than what-
ever more fundamental theorizing may reveal, and no less worthy
of ontological scrutiny.
With these caveats and assumptions laid bare, we are ready to
face up to the significant challenge that particles present to any hope
of rendering them ontologically intelligible. The precise ontological
natures of the particles described by the Standard Model are notori-
ously difficult to understand, in ways that go beyond the mere object-
event ambiguity mentioned above. In experimental setups, particles
appear to behave much like everyday or classical objects in having
properties that can be detected, and whose values or magnitudes can
be measured. On the other hand, they appear to be utterly unlike
everyday or classical objects in the sense that it is unclear whether
these properties, values, and magnitudes are well defined at all times
during which the particles with which they are associated may be
thought to exist. Furthermore, quantum theory describes particles
as exhibiting a form of ‘permutation invariance’: in contrast to what
one would say about everyday or classical things, swapping one par-
ticle with another of the same type within a system of particles does
not constitute a new physical arrangement, which raises intriguing
questions about their individuality. There is no established consen-
sus on the matter of whether particles can be individuated or distin-
guished from one another on the basis of any of their properties or
otherwise.
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5.3 STRUCTURALIST INTERPRETATIONS
OF THE METAPHYSICS OF PARTICLES
Among the different strategies one might take in grappling with the
ontology of subatomic particles, the most discussed approach over
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the past couple of decades has been the structuralist approach, com-
prising a collection of views aiming to describe the ontology of fun-
damental physics. The self-avowed starting point of many of these
accounts is to take contemporary physics as an explicit constraint on
metaphysical responses to the challenges inherent in particle ontol-
ogy outlined above, by downplaying or recasting the ontological
status of the particles themselves. Thus, in very general terms, what
these different forms of structuralism share is the goal of reorienting
what I will call the “standard” (i.e., the common or received) picture
of the relative ontological status of entities and their relations. On
the standard picture, physical entities have what may be described
as a non-derivative ontological status vis-à-vis the physical relations
(I will simply speak of ‘relations’ henceforth) in which they
stand: their existence is independent of these relations. Conversely,
relations have a derivative status vis-à-vis the entities they relate: their
existence depends on some things of which they are relations.
Consider an arrangement of chairs around a table. The arrange-
ment, which is a particular set of spatial relations between those items
of furniture, clearly depends on the existence of the table and chairs.
If one were to destroy the table and chairs there would be no arrange-
ment of them at all, let alone any particular arrangement. Any given
physical arrangement, or structure, is thus ontologically derivative of
the relevant entities. Conversely, one could destroy the arrangement
simply by moving the table or chairs this way and that, but otherwise
leaving them intact. This asymmetry of dependence between rela-
tions and relata exemplifies the standard picture. As it was originally
framed, structuralism in the domain of fundamental physics sought
to downplay the ontological status of particles by inverting this pic-
ture of ontological dependence. The properties associated with par-
ticles in the Standard Model are described mathematically in terms
of certain quantities that are invariant under certain (so-called ‘sym-
metry group’) transformations, such as translations through space,
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3. For a comprehensive survey of different forms of structuralism, see Ladyman 2014/2007.
I will assume here that eliminative and non-eliminative structuralism are distinct options,
but it is arguable (see Chakravartty 2012) that non-eliminativism ultimately collapses into
eliminativism.
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4. There are two variants of the view: one according to which particles depend on their rela-
tions and not vice versa; and one according to which they are symmetrically dependent. On
the second variant the ontological status of relations and relata are on a par, and one might
wonder whether such a position is properly viewed as a form of structuralism per se. For
example, Esfeld & Lam 2011 suggests that the distinction between particles and their rela-
tions is merely conceptual rather than ontological, inspired by Spinoza’s substance monism.
Traditionally, this sort of holism has gone by names other than ‘structuralism.’ Cf. French
2003, Esfeld 2003, 2004, Pooley 2006, p. 98, Rickles 2006, pp. 188–191, Esfeld & Lam
2008, and Floridi 2008, pp. 235–236.
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5. See Caulton 2013 for an overview of the recent literature on whether particles are relation-
ally discernible as individuals. On my setting the issue aside here, cf. Wolff 2013, p. 614 on
the singlet state of two electrons: ‘The question is not so much whether electrons are indi-
viduals, but whether they are reducible to the role they play.’
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6. French assumes that this structure is amply described using the mathematics of group the-
ory. See Bain 2013 for a recommendation of category theory instead and, for criticisms of
this view, Lam & Wüthrich 2013 and Lal & Teh 2014.
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regard the posit as failing to provide any insight into something that
calls for better understanding.
When presented with this sort of choice regarding very basic ques-
tions of ontology, between accounts that are (so far as one can tell)
internally consistent, the decision as to whether to place a bet or fold
one’s hand splits the world into two kinds of people. Embracing the
new ontological category may save the hypothesis at issue—in this
case eliminative structuralism—but those who cannot bring them-
selves to accept relations-in-themselves may reject this hypothesis
for failing to make causal efficacy intelligible. The cost-benefit anal-
ysis of accepting or rejecting ontological propositions in these kinds
of circumstances may vary between sincerely engaged inquirers, and
decisions one way or another cannot be forced by any presumptive
canons of ontological reasoning. Likewise, given that eliminativism
is simply one among other apparently consistent interpretations of
the physics of particles, the choice here cannot be forced on scientific
grounds either. In Part I of this work I contended that all claims of
scientific ontology involve the application of some or other (explicit
or implicit) metaphysical presuppositions or inferences. Now we
may add to the complexity of the task of scientific ontology the fur-
ther complication that ontological posits are themselves underdeter-
mined by the methods of metaphysical inquiry.
Let us turn now to the second of our two versions of structural-
ism: non-eliminativism. Recall that the non-eliminative structuralist
has the option of following the eliminativist in associating causal effi-
cacy with relations-in-themselves. However, since non-eliminative
structuralism is unlike eliminativism in that the former but not the
latter recognizes entities as part of the ontology of the world, non-
eliminativists have the further and rather different option of locating
causal efficacy in these entities themselves, in a manner analogous
to traditional accounts according to which the oomph of causa-
tion is associated in various ways with entities and their properties.
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7. Some challenges to the notion of intrinsicality in connection with the properties of particles
can be found in French 2013, pp. 6–8. For a discussion of these challenges see Chakravartty
2013, pp. 43–45.
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8. This challenge bears a family resemblance to others historically suggesting a circularity
or regress in, for example, versions of functionalism in the philosophy of mind, and dis-
positional essentialist views of properties. Moore 1919, pp. 47–49, can be read as a classic
argument against extrinsic identity. Heil 2012, chapter 7, holds that all relational facts have
non-relational truthmakers. Lam 2014, p. 1163, contends that some concerns about circular-
ity in the context of fundamental physics are ‘mere prejudice.’
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5.5 DISSOLVING THE DILEMMA:
THE VARIABILITY OF BELIEF
AND SUSPENSION
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details are hard to come by. There are often different, apparently
internally consistent proposals, each of which is underdetermined by
the relevant science.9 The fact of this underdetermination is reflected
in the dilemma we have just explored: for each version of structur-
alism one appears to face a choice between accepting a contentious
ontological primitive or rejecting the view.
Debates about structuralism exemplify in miniature a challenge
facing the project of scientific ontology very generally, and by con-
fronting this challenge here, I mean to link the discussion of natural-
ized metaphysics in Part I to the epistemological issues of Part III to
follow. Recall from Part I the idea that metaphysical inferences com-
prise a spectrum of increasing magnitude from small ‘m’ metaphysics
to larger ‘M,’ locations in which are assessed by the degrees to which
these inferences are informed by or sensitive to empirical investiga-
tion. Thus I spoke of the norm of naturalized metaphysics, the prin-
ciple according to which scientific ontology is properly delimited by
inferences that are sufficiently “close” to the empirical content of the
sciences, and of different conceptions of how far one can go along the
spectrum before ceasing to engage in properly scientific ontology at
all. The case of structuralism beautifully illuminates how, on some
occasions, different magnitudes of metaphysical inference pertain
(ostensibly) to one and the same thing. One may entertain the hypoth-
esis that there are subatomic particles, conceived as entities subject
to various detections, measurements, manipulations, and novel pre-
dictions. But one may also entertain the hypothesis that there are
subatomic particles conceived as entities having the finer-grained
9. It is all too easy to forget this in the cut and thrust of arguing for a specific view. For example,
consider Dorato & Morganti’s (2013, p. 592) suggestion that fine-grained ontology can
be ‘straightforwardly extracted from the relevant scientific description.’ Cf. Arenhart &
Krause’s (2014) observation that “extractions” inevitably make recourse to metaphysical
assumptions.
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PAR T III
VOLUNTARIST
EPISTEMOLOGY
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[ 6 ]
Knowledge Under Ontological
Uncertainty
6.1 INCONSISTENT ONTOLOGIES
AND INCOMPATIBLE BELIEFS
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and higher degrees at the other, was central to the account of natural-
ized metaphysics presented in Parts I and II. Throughout that dis-
cussion I suggested that assessments of where (if anywhere) a line
should be drawn between small ‘m’ and big ‘M’ metaphysics, or mag-
nitudes of metaphysical inference that are conducive to knowledge
and those that are so large as to suggest a suspension of belief instead,
are ultimately and ineluctably in the eye of the beholder. Granted,
this variability leads to significant, collective uncertainty in scientific
ontology across the opinions of those who draw these lines in dif-
ferent places or not at all, and perhaps even feelings of uncertainty
within individuals who feel the weight of these differences of opinion
strongly. Uncertainty is at least one natural reaction upon coming to
appreciate the voluntary nature of the act of drawing lines in the spec-
trum of metaphysical inference. That we should not fear this kind of
voluntarism, but instead recognize and accept it as part of the nature
of scientific ontology, is the theme of Part III.
Before exploring in more detail what the notion of a voluntarist
epistemology in the realm of scientific ontology amounts to, some
clarification is in order, for throughout the preceding chapters we
have in fact encountered two distinct forms of ontological uncer-
tainty. One form concerns the question of where if anywhere to draw
lines between domains of ontology in which belief is appropriate and,
conversely, in which suspension of belief is appropriate. For instance,
one may believe certain claims about gene transcription—the proc-
ess whereby segments of one sort of nucleic acid, DNA, is copied
in the production of another, RNA—and yet hold that finer-grained
questions and answers about what processes themselves are, as con-
ceived more generally in ways discussed by some metaphysicians, go
beyond what is required to give an account of a scientific ontology
of DNA, RNA, and gene transcription. One might even worry that
answers to questions regarding the nature of processes generally, in
themselves, so to speak, exhibit a degree of epistemic risk that makes
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them unpromising candidates for knowledge per se. The nature of this
particular kind of ontological uncertainty will be the subject of chap-
ters 7 and 8.
In the meantime, let us focus on the other form of ontological
uncertainty, which has also been lurking in the preceding chapters if
perhaps less transparently. This further uncertainty concerns differ-
ent accounts of ontology, not in connection with different domains
of ontological theorizing but in connection with a given object, event,
process, or property considered within a domain. For example, some
philosophers think that properties like hardness or electric charge are
abstract entities which exist independently of any concrete thing or
things that may be said to have, instantiate, or exemplify them; others
think that properties are abstract but exist only when instantiated;
yet others think that they are not abstract at all but rather concrete
entities which (typically) form groups, thereby forming other enti-
ties. These different views of properties—as transcendent universals,
immanent universals, and tropes, respectively—are contested within
one and the same domain of theorizing. Likewise, scientific theories
and models sometimes offer different characterizations of something
within a domain; chapter 4 gave the example of different descrip-
tions of fluids according to which they are continuous media and
collections of discrete particles, respectively. Once again, differing
accounts may produce collective and perhaps even individual uncer-
tainty regarding the relevant ontological claims. This chapter is about
this kind of uncertainty.
The distinction between uncertainty regarding where to draw the
line between domains in which different doxastic attitudes (belief or
suspension of belief) are appropriate, on the one hand, and uncer-
tainty within a given domain, on the other, rests upon the notion of
“domains” of ontological theorizing. In hopes of clarifying this dis-
tinction one might hope for an analysis of how domains are demar-
cated. This is a tall order, but luckily, all that is required presently is
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1. Giere 2006 provides the label ‘perspectival realism.’ On the shared theme that human
purposes and actions are central to scientific observation, measurement, and representa-
tion, see also Teller 2001 and van Fraassen 2008 (but note the exceptions, p. 86). Several
approaches to pluralism about scientific aims, methods, and descriptions are collected in
Kellert, Longino, & Waters 2006, but as in the case of perspectivism, not all versions of
pluralism suggest explicit consequences for ontology (see Cat 2012).
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scientific ontology, then, the sense of the term mirrors the everyday
use, not the artistic—it should afford an answer to the question of
what or what kinds of things exist. The scientific use shares with both
the everyday and artistic uses the connotation that the ways in which
things appear from a given perspective need not match the ways in
which they appear from another. One explanation of this is that typ-
ically, in virtue of taking a certain perspective, our representations
unavoidably leave out aspects of, obscure, or otherwise misrepresent
their subjects in various ways.
Consider, for example, the different ways in which the continents
and oceans of the earth are represented in different types of maps.
Meeting the technical challenge of mapping the three-dimensional
surface of the earth onto a two-dimensional surface that one can place
easily on a table or in one’s pocket requires a mathematical projection
from three dimensions onto two, and this can be done in different ways.
The most familiar to most people is the Mercator projection, but there
are others such as the Gall-Peters projection, each of which generates
visual representations in differing ways. The Mercator projection, for
instance, functions extremely well for navigational purposes because
straight lines drawn on a Mercator map correspond to lines of con-
stant compass bearings, allowing navigators to plot simple, straight-
line courses. At the same time, it gives a highly misleading sense of
the relative sizes of land masses due in part to the way it increasingly
distorts their dimensions as one approaches the poles. Disliking the
incorrect impression this gives of northern hemisphere lands being
proportionately large in comparison to their southern hemisphere
counterparts, some prefer the Gall-Peters projection, which is highly
accurate in depicting the areas of these lands but nonetheless exag-
gerates horizontal distances near the poles and vertical distances near
the equator, thus distorting their shapes. There are many other projec-
tions in use, all having their own idiosyncrasies of representation.
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2. Cf. Giere 2006, p. 81: ‘For a perspectivist, truth claims are always relative to a perspec-
tive.’ For related thoughts on the perspectival assessment of such claims, see Brown 2009,
pp. 214–215.
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It should be clear that while P1 and P2 are distinct theses, they need
not be mutually exclusive. Both associate the perspectival nature of
scientific ontology with limitations on what can be known, but while
P1 says nothing at all about the ontology of the world itself—that
is, the world apart from our ways of knowing it—P2 goes further,
asserting that there are no ontological states of affairs in the world
apart from those that inhabit different perspectives. Thus, P2 implies
P1, for if there is nothing non-perspectival to be known, it is hardly
surprising that we lack the ability to know such things. (This claim
must be read in a particular way: there is a trivial sense in which if P2
is true, no epistemic abilities will extend as far as non-perspectival
facts, simply because there are none. This is analogous to saying that
no epistemic abilities would allow one to plot a continuous walk that
fully traverses all the seven bridges of Königsberg, Prussia, crossing
each bridge only once. Leonhard Euler proved in 1735 that given the
layout of the city, such a walk is impossible.) P1 does not imply P2,
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however, since P1 is compatible with the idea that there are, in fact,
non-perspectival states of affairs, in which case it would amount to the
thought that we simply lack the epistemic wherewithal to grasp them.
In the next section I will examine a number of suggestions that have
been made in favor of perspectivism and argue that none of them estab-
lishes P1 or P2. This leaves intact the challenge to those who aspire to
ontological knowledge emanating from mutually inconsistent theories,
models, and approaches to scientific investigation. The news is not all
bad, though, for as we will see, there are options remaining to those who
aspire to ontological knowledge in these circumstances nonetheless.
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3. For an account of perspectivism in terms of scientific investigation specifically, see Massimi
2012, and for further thoughts on triviality, see Votsis 2012, p. 95. It is all too easy to slip
tacitly but without warrant from acknowledging the perspectival nature of investigation
into suggesting that all scientific representations are perspectival in a deeper sense (e.g.,
Elgin 2010).
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even stronger claim, there is no support for it here either. This kind
of perspectivism amounts to the truism that we are finite creatures
and, as such, when learning things about the world, we must start
somewhere.
When idealization is involved the situation is more complex, but
here too there is no support for P1 or P2, this time for reasons of
instability. What does it mean to say that a given theory or model is
a representation of something that distorts its nature? Prima facie, it
is to say that the theory or model represents some thing, but in a way
that is untrue. On the surface this amounts to a claim of mixed suc-
cess from the point of view of ontology: success in that the existence
of some target in the world is affirmed, but failure in that by our own
admission, questions regarding the nature of that thing do not seem
answerable in a wholly veridical way—the degree of deviation from
the truth here depending on the extent of the idealization. When one
idealizes an inclined plane as frictionless in theorizing about how a
ball rolls down its surface, one employs a distorted representation
of actual planes (since no surfaces in the world are completely fric-
tionless), but this hardly compromises one’s belief in the existence of
worldly planes. Population genetics models in evolutionary biology
often assume infinite populations of organisms in order to eliminate
the effect of random drift in the frequencies of gene variants (alleles)
on gene frequency calculations (the smaller the population, the
larger this effect), but in idealizing an actual population this way one
does not thereby doubt the existence of the population itself.
That said, perhaps one could imagine cases in which a represen-
tation is so out of touch with our best scientific judgment concerning
what things exist that one finds oneself doubting that there is any-
thing in the world of which it reasonably qualifies as an idealization.
This would be to say that the extent of the distortion is so great that
one does not actually think it plausible to interpret the representation
as denoting anything in the world. In this case one has ceased to treat
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shows is not directly what the measured is like but how it appears in
that particular measurement set-up’; thus, it would be a mistake to
believe that ‘what is represented is simply like what is presented in
the representation.’
Let us stipulate that the use of a particular kind of instrument
under some specifiable conditions of application in detecting or mea-
suring some feature or features of a given target constitutes a context
of investigation. Furthermore, let us grant that varying instruments
or conditions in application to a target can produce different charac-
terizations of ostensibly one and the same thing. This sort of variabil-
ity is widespread, of course, not merely in scientific practice but more
broadly. Animals with different kinds of visual systems see objects
in different ways. The outputs of telescopes which are sensitive to
radiation emanating from distant galaxies are represented in glorious
color images that are produced by arbitrarily assigning colors to dif-
ferent wavelengths of radiation. But once again, if the visual images
formed in either case, though variable, are taken to represent one and
the same thing, it follows that belief in the existence of that thing is
not context-relative, in which case neither P1 nor P2 obtains. A more
pressing matter is whether anything can be said about what these
objects of detection and measurement are like, and here we have an
illustration of the sort of instability and collapse suggested above. In
some cases we have underlying or background knowledge that allows
us to infer from different representations of things to an underlying
nature that transcends perspectives. In other cases, such inferences
are more challenging. What follows?
In cases where one may work with the appearances, data, or rep-
resentations generated in a specific context, combining it with fur-
ther knowledge so as to answer the ‘what is it like’ question in a way
that goes beyond the perspective in which it is generated, P1 and
P2 gain no traction. For example, though there are many kinds of
detections one may perform and kinds of images one may produce
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using telescopes, taking the data they yield together with information
about how they work and the conventions we employ in producing
images reveals perspective-independent facts about what distant gal-
axies are like. In cases where one is unable to make such inferences to
non-perspectival facts but has grounds nonetheless for thinking that
different representations share a common target, one is left with the
more modest success of non-perspectival existence claims. Perhaps
there are even cases in which the outputs of detections of what one
previously took to be one and the same thing are so wildly diver-
gent that one is unsure, upon reflection, whether the supposition of
a unique referent was appropriate to begin with. In such cases, to the
extent that these models are useful at all, they are useful for reasons
other than ontology. In none of these cases is ontological knowledge
irreducibly perspectival.
In our discussion of perspectivism thus far, all of the consider-
ations offered in favor have been linked directly to P1, the idea that
ontological knowledge stops at the boundaries of scientific contexts
due to our epistemic limitations. Since P2 asserts the same limita-
tions, in denying P1, I have simultaneously sought to undermine P2.
The latter thesis goes further, however, in offering an ontological diag-
nosis of these limitations in terms of an absence of non-perspectival
states of affairs in the world, and there is at least one perspectivist
consideration that would seem to offer direct support to P2 by facili-
tating this ontological picture: a consideration of meaning and refer-
ence. Before giving up on the idea of perspectivism altogether, let us
consider this putative support carefully.
In chapter 1 (section 2), I described Kuhn’s historicism about
scientific knowledge as an example of deflationism about ontology.
The idea was that by thinking about the meanings of scientific con-
cepts as exhausted by their relations to other concepts in specific his-
torical contexts, one binds these meanings within such contexts. It is
this contextual view of meaning or meaning holism that leads to the
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the fact that it only makes sense to talk about one and the same thing
in different contexts precisely because one assumes that something
with the same nature is present in each. Having fundamentally dif-
ferent natures precludes this kind of identity. One could avoid the
incoherence suggested here by biting the bullet and accepting that a
fluid in one context of investigation is simply not the same thing or
kind of thing as a fluid in another, but the violence this would do to
basic assumptions of scientific practice is ample reason not to.4
These reflections on where perspectivism about ontology leads
may be startling to those who are sympathetic to perspectivism sim-
pliciter. Giere (2013), for instance, goes so far as to describe the work
of Hans Reichenbach and the later Kuhn as exemplifications of per-
spectival realism. But as representatives of the tradition of logical
empiricism and the historical turn, respectively, both appear to exem-
plify the notion of Kant on wheels and, as we have seen, the upshot
of this for ontology is either deflationism or incoherence. In a recent
examination of different approaches to studying human aggression
and sexuality, Helen Longino (2013, pp. 7–8, 125–133, 206) sug-
gests that quantitative behavioral genetics, molecular behavioral
genetics, social-environmental studies, and neurobiological studies
render the subject matter in ways that are ‘incommensurable’ with
one another, admitting of no shared ontology. Claims such as these
are music to the ears of perspectivists, some of whom self-identify
as ‘pluralists,’ but what do they mean? The more precise ontological
implications are usually left unspecified. I have argued that where
ontology is concerned, perspectivism is either irrelevant, or unstable
4. One can find disagreement with this if one looks hard enough. Arguably, Goodman 1978
is an example, though his support for the view is obscure (see Wieland 2012, pp. 12–16).
Without arguing that there are in fact such things in the world, Colyvan 2008 suggests that
scientific realists should accept the idea of inconsistent objects, but this rests inter alia on an
assumption that realists should regard idealized descriptions as true, which is itself peculiar
given that deviating from truth is definitive of idealization.
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5. For arguments relating to ontological pluralism in the much discussed case of biological spe-
cies, see Kitcher 1984, Dupré 1993, Ereshefsky 1998, Chakravartty 2007, chapter 6, Magnus
2012, pp. 83–96, and Slater 2013, chapter 7. For a nice example of how properties can be
grouped in different ways to constitute particular objects, see Danks 2015 (pp. 3612–3613)
on ‘ocean indices’: large regions that have effects on other regions and terrestrial weather
patterns.
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6.5 ONTOLOGICAL EXPLANATION
AND CONTRASTIVE WHAT-Q UESTIONS
The notion that the ontology of the world should admit of any sort
of pluralism is unintuitive to many. The preceding remarks notwith-
standing, it would be understandable if even now, some felt a certain
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6. For recent discussions of this approach to explanation see van Fraassen 1980, chapter 5,
Garfinkel 1981, chapter 1, and Lipton 2004/1991, chapter 3. Bromberger 1992, p. 160, foot-
note 34 argues that emphatic stress on different components of sentences having the same
surface structure produces different sentences.
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[ 7 ]
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205
In everyday speech the term ‘stance’ refers to the way one stands, one’s
posture, or one’s attitude with respect to something in particular. The
idea of having a certain attitude toward something is reflected in the
figurative notions of taking a stand or having a posture in relation to a
subject of reflection. The philosophical use of the term borrows from
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207
1. This description has elements in common with Teller’s (2004) characterization of stances
as ‘policies,’ which he offers as an exegesis of van Fraassen 2002. Rowbottom & Bueno
2011a describes an even more determinate conception in which stances are made up of
modes of engagement (e.g., dogmatic, open-minded), styles of reasoning (e.g., inferential
techniques and tools), and propositional attitudes (e.g., hopes and desires).
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It is easy to see how the deflationary stance resonates with some who
especially value the pragmatic dimensions of the sciences. If one’s
primary mode of thinking about scientific knowledge is framed by
considerations of utility, the question of where to draw lines between
domains of theorizing in which one makes ontological commitments
versus those in which one is agnostic instead may seem uninterest-
ing or peculiar, since a theory or a model can be useful entirely inde-
pendently of whether it is viewed as describing an ontology in the
traditional, realist sense. If one takes the meanings of propositions to
be exhausted by their practical consequences for human experience,
as some within the philosophical tradition of pragmatism are wont
to do, the traditional conception of ontology is not merely peculiar
but confused, since it is (ex hypothesi) befuddled about how to think
about the meanings of terms for scientific entities.2 Likewise, the
quietism inherent in the idea of remaining silent about traditional
ontological concerns fits neatly here. Consider Arthur Fine’s (1996/
1986, chapters 7, 8) rejection of the traditional ontological picture
in favor of his ‘natural ontological attitude’ (NOA), which he (1998,
p. 583) describes in a way that echoes our notion of a stance: ‘NOA
is … simply an attitude that one can take to science … minimal,
2. Blackburn 2002 illustrates this nicely in connection with certain debates between scientific
realists and antirealists: some of their disputes collapse if one deflates the ontological claims
sanctioned by each camp in a pragmatic way.
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3. Van Fraassen 2002 is the source of much contemporary discussion of what he calls the
‘empirical stance,’ though it is likely that he has something broader in mind than the strictly
epistemic stances I aim to discuss here. Critical commentary has followed in the form of
collections such as Monton 2007 and Rowbottom & Bueno 2011b. For some contextualiza-
tion of van Fraassen’s conception within his philosophy more generally, see Okruhlik 2014.
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7.3 A VOLUNTARIST PRIMER ON
CHOOSING STANCES AND BELIEFS
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4. For some important recent defenses of the thesis that human beings have control over at
least some of their beliefs, see Winters 1973, Steup 2000, and Ginet 2001. For denials, see
Williams 1973 and Alston 1988.
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5. There is an inevitable parallel here with Wittgenstein’s (1963, §217) advice regarding intrac-
table questions: ‘If … I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned … Then I am
inclined to say, ‘This is simply what I do.’’ Cf. Richardson & Uebel 2005, p. 77. Shah 2002,
p. 442 characterizes doxastic voluntarism simply in terms of ‘the capacity to be moved’
upon considering evidence.
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one set of beliefs because while they clearly facilitate beliefs, they do
not of necessity facilitate any one set of them. In this way, stances
underdetermine the beliefs they facilitate, and given the option of
belief revision, even a demonstration of false or inconsistent beliefs
would not by itself demonstrate the incoherence of an associated
stance.
If revealing incoherence in a set of ontological beliefs can-
not serve as an indirect way to demonstrate the irrationality of a
stance, why not simply tackle the stance head-on? Recall, however,
the moral of James’s reflection on the nature of pursing truth and
avoiding falsity: there is no one way to chart a path between the bad
epistemic consequences of doing too much of one at the expense
of the other. That is, there is no way to compel by force of plausi-
ble constraints of rationality alone the choice of any one particular
stance. This was the observation that motivated voluntarism about
stances to begin with: there are, it seems, different ways of cop-
ing with the uncertainty of inferring ontological conclusions from
the kinds of evidence produced by observation and experimenta-
tion. Thus it would appear that the only way to undermine a stance
directly is by targeting the source of these different ways of cop-
ing, namely, the different values inherent in different assessments of
epistemic risk, arising from different assessments of the extent and
import of empirical vulnerability and explanatory power, and tak-
ing into account factors such as the kinds of things—predictions,
explanations, and so on—considered important and thus desirable
by different agents.
Once it is clear that the only way to proceed in the attempt to
undermine a stance, however, is to target the values favoring it, it
also becomes clear that with respect to well-entrenched stances that
have been subject to extensive scrutiny and discussion for some
time, one is doomed before one begins. The sorts of values that we
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6. At this level of depth of disagreement, hints of fundamentality, intractability, and tren-
chancy have appeared in a number of important discussions of the nature of scientific
knowledge. See Laudan 1984, pp. 48–49 for readings of Popper and Reichenbach in this
way; see also Rescher 1985. For intimations of collaborative epistemology see Forbes
forthcoming, which argues that historical case studies of science (here, nineteenth-century
electrodynamics) may furnish information that is useful in determining which stances best
serve specific epistemic values.
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7. Analogously, Lipton (2004, p. 153) describes Kuhn’s account of the assessment of theo-
retical virtues (accuracy, consistency, scope, simplicity, fruitfulness) by scientists, which is
offered as a descriptive account of choices between rival theories, as a ‘constructive proof
of voluntarism.’ While different in substance and application, Kuhn’s suggestion that the
interpretation and relative importance of these putative virtues are often differently but
nonetheless rationally assessed by scientists bears significant similarities to the present case.
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[ 8 ]
Coda
Ontology with lessons
from Pyrrho and Sextus
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8.2 SKEPTICAL ARGUMENTS: SOME
MODES OF AGRIPPA
We began this journey all the way back in chapter 1 with the observa-
tion that scientific ontology is by its very nature meta-scientific, in the
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sense that scientific practice all by itself does not entail unequivocal
ontological commitment. It is only to the extent that both practitio-
ners (scientists) and certain admirers, commentators, and analysts
(philosophers of science) bring interpretations to bear—employing
reasoning that is appropriately labeled ‘philosophical,’ whether con-
sciously or unconsciously or explicitly or implicitly—that ontologies
are articulated. Scientific practice all by itself underdetermines sci-
entific ontology. Seeking greater depth of explanation and under-
standing, one may value a richer ontology. Eschewing the idea of
some or all of this kind of seeking, one may value something sparser.
Throughout the intervening chapters the revelation of a central role
for voluntarism about stances in formulating ontological commit-
ments has served, I hope, as an illustration of the power of philoso-
phy to lay bare the upshot for ontology of the wide-ranging collection
of practices we call sciences. At the risk of being overly bold, let me
now suggest that having come this far, what we find is nothing less
than a transformative epistemology of scientific ontology.
To begin unpacking this claim it will help to draw an analogy to
an illustrious and much earlier example of a transformative philosoph-
ical project. Pyrrho of Elis, the philosopher of Greek antiquity, is rec-
ognized as perhaps the first skeptical philosopher and certainly, at the
very least, the inspiration for the philosophical tradition of Pyrrhonian
skepticism which arose after his death (in the early third century bce).
Pyrrho did not himself record any of his philosophy, and through what
little we know of his thought as recorded by his student Timon of Phlius,
Pyrrho is not himself perhaps the most helpful source of my intended
analogy, in part because what we have of him admits of some poten-
tially complicating ambiguity. One might take him to have a metaphys-
ical agenda, suggesting that in themselves, things in the world have no
definite or differentiating features; their (distinctive) natures are thus
indefinite or indeterminate. Alternatively, one might interpret him in
an epistemological way, to the effect that whatever may be the features
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214
8.3 A PYRRHONIAN ANALOGY:
ISOSTHENEIA AND APHASIA
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further about the matter let alone the truth value of the proposition.
Thus one enters a state of suspension of judgment. It is something
very much like this, no doubt, namely, an impression to the effect
that no party to a given ontological dispute is more compelling than
another, and a resultant inability to say anything further, that often
results in agents identifying certain ontological questions or domains
of theorizing as ones regarding which we should suspend belief
(chapter 5 gave a detailed illustration of a specific case).1 But quite
apart from this observation, here finally is the analogy I most want
to draw: when one comes to understand that, ultimately, differences
between agents regarding belief and suspension are a function of dif-
ferent stances, the outcome is very much like what Sextus describes.
What I am suggesting is that, in a way analogous to Sextus, who
in connection with conflicting propositions takes the evidence and
arguments before him and argues to a standstill, we have argued the
question of where to draw the line between belief and agnosticism
about scientific ontology to a number of standstills. Once we appreci-
ate that more than one stance is internally coherent in the ways I have
specified, both logically and pragmatically, and that this is the mark
of rationality for stances, we have argued to something analogous to
isostheneia: since rationality is the only stance-neutral criterion for
the acceptability of a stance, there are no further grounds on which to
prosecute a non-question-begging case for the epistemic superiority
of one over another; they are, qua rationality, the only relevant meas-
ure, “equally strong.” And given this state of affairs, while I believe
1. It is worth noting an obvious disanalogy here. Commentators disagree about the intended
scope of the Pyrrhonist’s lack of belief. Some take it to be absolute, others hold it to include
only philosophical and scientific matters, where reasoning is involved, as opposed to beliefs
that are “forced” by experience or acculturation, and others allow only beliefs regarding
impressions, as opposed to beliefs about the putative objects of impressions. But all inter-
pretations of Pyrrhonism preclude most of the metaphysical presuppositions and inferences
that I have associated with those holding different stances in this work, involving belief in
the reality of various entities considered across the sciences and parts of metaphysics.
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8.4 EXTENDING THE ANALOGY
A BIT FURTHER: ATARAXIA
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8.5 A TRANSFORMATIVE EPISTEMOLOGY
OF SCIENTIFIC ONTOLOGY
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are necessary in order to collate this information and reason with it.
One considers thought experiments and intuitive assessments of how
different ways of describing or explaining the targeted feature of the
world, or knowledge, stack up against each other, in all the ways that
one deems salient. One then derives the best account of the relevant
phenomenon one can.
The best philosophy in this vein has the power to transform our
conceptions of the things it seeks to describe or explain. If one hopes
to understand what a property is, or what causation is, or what kind
of modal force laws of nature have if any, or if one hopes to determine
whether we need to know how precisely a belief is justified before
it counts as knowledge, or whether knowledge-that (e.g., that one is
riding a bicycle) is the same sort of thing as knowledge-how (e.g.,
of how to ride a bicycle), or whether some knowledge is irreduc-
ibly social and not in fact possessed by individual knowers, one may
engage with putative instances of the relevant phenomena, philo-
sophically, with the aim to describe or to explain. This is the nature of
what one might call descriptive-explanatory philosophy, producing
transformation in the modest sense.
On some occasions, however, the change in one’s reckoning of
something that comes of philosophical analysis has further repercus-
sions for how one goes on inquiring into matters of philosophy—
that is, for how one lives, philosophically—and perhaps even more
broadly. This is the sort of transformation I had in mind when I sug-
gested a moment ago that some changes in philosophical points of
view may be personally significant in constructive ways.2 As in the
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and values, and social epistemology of science all consider the per-
sonal, social, economic, political, and other factors that infuse the
practice, reception, and impact of the sciences. Much of this is done
with the hopeful intention of contributing toward improving the
situations of both those who participate in and those who are ulti-
mately affected by scientific investigation. None of this is news and
most of it is widely appreciated. But what about debates concerning
scientific ontology?
So much of the metaphysics and epistemology of the sciences
aims to describe and to explain, and this includes many of the
approaches to ontological inquiry that we have discussed here,
which aim to describe what there is and what those things are like,
and to explain the features and behaviors of these things where this
seems tenable. For most who undertake this difficult work, that
is surely ambition enough. That said, the conclusions of exercises
in scientific ontology are often replete with further transforma-
tive potential, simply in virtue of representing our best attempts
to describe the nature of the world. Our conceptions of the cat-
egories of objects, events, processes, and properties that populate
this reality have consequences, in just the ways appreciated by logi-
cal empiricists, Popperians, feminist philosophers, and those who
think about science and values. This is perhaps most transparent in
the social sciences, and many have pressed this case regarding the
biological and medical sciences. These consequences of scientific
ontology, however, can be found across the board, which is evident
when one considers how the metaphysical claims and presupposi-
tions inherent to other domains such as physics and chemistry have
an impact on (for instance) how resources are allocated for research,
and how theories and models informed by these domains end up
themselves informing policy on everything from genetic modifica-
tion to climate change.
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