May 29–June 1, 2016
Science and Metaphysics: 50 Years of Philosophy of Science at the University of Calgary
How should metaphysics be informed by scientific theories, methods, and practice? Five current and former Calgarian philosophers of science will discuss this question, starting with Jack McIntosh (who came to Calgary in 1966), followed by Marc Ereshefsky, Travis Dumsday, and Kerry McKenzie, and concluding with Ken Waters (who came to Calgary in 2014). The breadth of discussion will be wide, covering the history and philosophy of science, analytic metaphysics and contemporary science. We will hear about Kant’s views on causality. We will learn about contemporary dispositional accounts of scientific laws, as well as the fractious relation between today’s metaphysics and the philosophy of physics. We will also discuss what metaphysical lessons that can be drawn from the history of biology and contemporary biological practice.
Organizer: Allen Habib (University of Calgary) anhabib@ucalgary.ca
Participants:
Travis Dumsday (Concordia University of Edmonton)
Marc Ereshefsky (University of Calgary)
Jack MacIntosh (University of Calgary)
Kerry McKenzie (University of California at San Diego)
Ken Waters (University of Calgary)
Travis Dumsday (Concordia University of Edmonton)
Substance Ontology And the Metaphysics Of Laws: Neglected Connections
In the literature on substance ontology, one of the foundational debates is that between advocates of substratum theory, bundle theory, primitive substance theory, and hylomorphism. These theories address in part the underlying nature of substances (e.g., is a substance qua substance necessarily a compound of substratum and attributes, or is a substance just a set of compresent attributes?). In the literature on laws, the main parties to a similarly foundational debate are regularity theory, nomological necessitarianism, and dispositionalism. Work on these two sets of debates is typically done independently, with little attempt to draw implications between them. For instance, dispositionalists have been known to pair that theory of laws with each of the four main substance ontologies: Brian Ellis (2001; 2002) was a dispositionalist primitive substance theorist but in hois work (2009) converted to being a dispositionalist bundle theorist; C.B. Martin (1980; 2008) was a dispositionalist substratum theorist; and David Oderberg (2007) is a dispositionalist hylomorphist. None employs dispositionalism to argue for their favoured substance ontology or vice versa. Similar diversity exists with respect to the other main ontologies of law and of substance. It is time to curtail this sunny ecumenism, for in fact certain ontologies of law entail certain substance ontologies and vice versa. In a larger project I seek to survey the range of these neglected interconnections. However, in this short paper I develop only one example of this relationship: I argue that bundle theory not only entails dispositionalism but a certain specific version of that theory, pan-dispositionalism.
Marc Ereshefsky (University of Calgary)
Science and Metaphysics: Lessons from Microbiology
The typical view of biological individuality holds that biological individuals are just like us: organisms have two parents from the same species and start life as single zygotes. However, recent work in microbiology challenges this view. Microbial consortia act just like individuals in natural selection, yet they have hundreds of parents from dozens of different species, and they don’t start life as a single zygote but as a complex aggregate. The lesson here is not merely that we have been wrong about individuality, or that there are counterexamples to our favoured account. The lesson is deeper than that. What is being challenged is the assumption that there is one correct theory of individuality; that the biological world is ultimately carved in one particular way. Given the contingent nature of evolution we should expect a plurality of kinds of biological individuals. Moreover, given the contingent nature of evolution we should allow that new and different kinds of individuals might evolve; that the category ‘biological individual’ is in fact open-ended. What does this imply for metaphysics? First, we should not assume that there is a fundamental structure to the world such that there is one ultimately correct way to divide the world into biological individuals. Second, we need to be more pluralistic and more pragmatic about biological individuality. Third, when we answer the question ‘What is a biological individual?’ with a plurality of accounts, we may be more successful than we think.
Jack MacIntosh (University of Calgary)
Kant's Defence of Quantum Mechanics (Yet another look at Kant on Causality)
Kant’s remarks on causality have given rise to a great deal of comment, mostly unsympathetic. In this paper I argue that the Second Analogy contains one strong central response to Hume’s worry. (Lewis White Beck pointed out that there are two principles involved in the Second Analogy: "every event has a cause," and "same cause, same effect." In this paper I focus on the first.) Given Kant's assumptions his argument is valid, but it does not have quite the conclusion that Kant believed it to have. Not to be mysterious, Kant's defence really amounts to a defence of quantum mechanics, not, as he understandably assumed it did, of classical mechanics. My defence of Kant aims to show that his unacceptable (phenomenalistic) premises are replaceable by more plausible ones which he could have accepted. En route I suggest that this re-interpretation avoids a number of current criticisms. I also note that although Kant writes, as do many of his commentators, as if causality were the central issue, the real issue turns around the notion of reliable law-like regularities. Kant's argument aims to show that there are such regularities, without any need to say precisely what they are. However, the laws he in fact believed could be shown to be necessary strengthen the point that the real interest is nomological rather than simply causal.
Kerry McKenzie (University of California at San Diego)
On the Prospects of an Effective Metaphysics
Metaphysicians have fallen into disrepute yet again, at least among philosophers of science. Topping the list of grievances is metaphysicians’ failure to incorporate real physics into their theories of basic ontology, presenting it instead as a toy version of classical physics when in fact we believe it to be quantum mechanical. But what is curious about all this is that such grievances appeared just as philosophers of physics moved to embrace non-fundamental ontology—including classical ontology—as bona fide physical entities. Thus the formal continuities we now know to exist between the quantum and the classical are claimed to sanction our belief in everyday objects, and moreover sanction them as conceptualized independently of anything more fundamental. But this scenario suggests an escape route for the despondent metaphysician. Given that we now recognize effective physics—the study of non-fundamental physical ontology as conceptualized in non-fundamental terms—cannot the metaphysician likewise aim to produce an effective metaphysics: an accurate though approximate metaphysics of the non-fundamental, developed independently of what lies beneath?
In this talk I will argue that the effective paradigm in physics in fact supplies no warrant for the viability of an effective metaphysics. As such, while it seems that we can profitably pursue the scientific study of the non-fundamental in blissful ignorance of the more fundamental, this profitability does not transfer to the metaphysics of science. Although that is a conclusion that has depressing implications for metaphysicians, the process of seeing why it is true helps shed light on the perennially perplexing question of what it is that makes metaphysics metaphysics.
Ken Waters (University of Calgary)
Historically-informed Scientific Metaphysics: An argument for the No General Structure Thesis
Scientific metaphysics can be described as an attempt to theorize about the fundamental nature of the world by drawing upon the best scientific theories of our day. I challenge this approach to metaphysics by applying it to the science of genetics. But instead of applying it to today’s genetics, I apply it to the genetics of the 1930s. I draw upon the best biological theories of this earlier period to theorize about the fundamentals of heredity, development, and evolution. I show that if philosophers of the 1930s adopted today’s favored approach to scientific metaphysics, and if they wanted to identify the fundamentals of life, they could have drawn upon the best theories of their day to support the idea that genes are the fundamental units of heredity, development, and evolution. But subsequent developments in biology have shown that genes are not fundamental units of heredity, development, and evolution. But I will not advance an antirealist view. I will maintain that classical geneticists were right about the causal relationship between genotype and phenotype, they were right about gene differences being located in linear fashion in chromosomes, and they were right about the roles that chromosomal mechanics in meiosis play in producing patterns of gene transmission. The problem with this approach to metaphysics does not stem from realism; it stems from the metaphysical assumption that life has an overall, fundamental structure and the epistemological view that scientific theories provide a basis for describing that fundamental structure.