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Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology
Metaphysics asks questions about existence: for example, do numbers really exist? Metametaphysics asks questions about metaphysics: for example, do its questions have determinate answers? If so, are these answers deep and important, or are they merely a matter of how we use words? What is the proper methodology for their resolution? These questions have received a heightened degree of attention lately with new varieties of ontological deflationism and pluralism challenging the kind of realism that has become orthodoxy in contemporary analytic metaphysics. This volume concerns the status and ambitions of metaphysics as a discipline. It brings together many of the central figures in the debate with their most recent work on the semantics, epistemology, and methodology of metaphysics.
529 pages, ebook
First published February 19, 2009
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About the author
David J. Chalmers
28 books526 followersDavid Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and codirector of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at New York University. He is the author of The Conscious Mind, The Character of Consciousness, and Constructing the World. He has given the John Locke Lectures and has been awarded the Jean Nicod Prize. He is known for formulating the “hard problem” of consciousness, which inspired Tom Stoppard’s play The Hard Problem, and for the idea of the “extended mind,” which says that the tools we use can become parts of our minds.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 20, 2013
Below is my old review of the book, right after it came out. It's a bit polemical, but I still stand behind most of it.
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If the number of dragons is zero and thus there is such a thing as the number of dragons, does that commit us to the existence of numbers? In this collection of 17 essays on metametaphysics, the previous and other similar questions occupy the centre stage. Other usual suspects include the debate between three- and four-dimensionalism, the status of mereological sums such as the sum of my nose and the Eiffel tower, and the notorious debate over the existence of tables vs. particles arranged tablewise. Interesting as these debates are, one might think that they are not particularly 'meta'. Indeed, many if not most of the essays in this volume continue on-going debates on these topics and to an outsider the extra 'meta' will make very little difference: these are metaphysical debates. The contributions by Karen Bennett, Matti Eklund, John Hawthorne, Eli Hirsch, Theodore Sider and Amie L. Thomasson at least fall into this category.
Another group of essays is more historical in character, focusing on the classic debate between Carnap and Quine. These essays as well are extremely interesting, but they are metametaphysical only insofar as the original debate between Carnap and Quine was. Matti Eklund's, Huw Price's, Scott Soames' and Peter van Inwagen's contributions will be especially interesting for anyone who is intrigued by Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions, the analytic/synthetic distinction, or Quine's criteria for ontological commitment.
Needless to say, the list of contributors is straight from an analytic philosophy all-star match, and the overall quality of the volume is excellent. But is there anything in it for those who are not interested in Carnap and mereology? Well, there are some contributions, most notably David Chalmers', which try to introduce a taxonomy for metametaphysics. Chalmers introduces four broad categories: lightweight realism, heavyweight realism, ontological anti-realism, and deflationism. These are fairly self-explanatory; of the contributors of this volume, at least Hirsch, Bob Hale & Crispin Wright, Thomasson, and Eklund could be described as lightweight realists, whereas Bennett, Kit Fine, Jonathan Schaffer, Sider, and van Inwagen are perhaps heavyweight realists. In his own contribution Chalmers defends ontological anti-realism.
For a non-analytic philosopher there is very little in this volume, although Kris McDaniel's discussion of Heidegger's metaontology may have a wider appeal, and even van Inwagen discusses Heidegger briefly.
By far the most courageous and genuinely metametaphysical contributions come from Fine, Thomas Hofweber, and Schaffer. These seem to be the only contributions that manage to break free from the shadow of Quine, that is, they acknowledge that there might be more to metaphysics than existence questions. If there is a flaw in this volume, it is that there are not more contributions which address this question head on. Indeed, as Kit Fine notes, nearly all of the contributions make a Quinean assumption concerning the form of metaphysical questions such as 'do numbers exist?'. The assumption is that we can formulate this question with the help of the existential quantifier as follows: '[E]x(x is a number)?', i.e. 'are there numbers?'. What Fine goes on to suggest is that questions of this type, quantificational questions, are not, in general, philosophical questions. Why? Well, for one thing, the answer to the above question is trivial, and philosophical questions are supposed to be non-trivial. So, ontological claims should not be analysed in terms of existential quantification: if we wish to say 'integers exist', the logical form of the claim is not [E]xIx, where I is the predicate for being an integer, but rather [A]x(Ix -> Ex), where E is the predicate for existence; we wish to say that every integer exists, not that an integer does (cf. p. 167).
Similarly, Schaffer observes that metaphysics supposedly asks deep and difficult questions whereas existence questions are generally shallow and trivial. He wishes to guide metaphysics back towards its Aristotelian roots and focus on questions of grounding: according to Aristotle the task of metaphysics is to study substances, modes, and kinds. This is done by an inquiry into fundamental entities and ontological dependence; we should study what grounds what (cf. p. 351).
The only contribution that challenges Fine and Schaffer is Hofweber's, who argues for what he calls ambitious, yet modest metaphysics, and dubs Fine's and Schaffer's approach as 'esoteric' metaphysics. However, Hofweber's conception of what this type of metaphysics amounts to is flawed:
"Esoteric metaphysics appeals to those, I conjecture, who deep down hold that philosophy is the queen of the sciences after all, since it investigates what the world is REALLY like. The sciences only find out what the world is like, but what philosophy finds out is more revealing of reality and what it is REALLY like." (p. 273.)
Hofweber continues to make esoteric metaphysics the laughing stock of analytic philosophy by suggesting that it opens the door to views such as the one familiar from Thales: everything is ultimately water. But this is just a straw man; the real question, one that ought to be the central theme of any essay that claims to be metametaphysical, is whether metaphysical questions can be formulated in the manner that is commonly assumed in contemporary analytic metaphysics. The answer that Fine offers is a resounding 'no', and I am inclined to agree with him.
It is true that the positive input of 'esoteric' metaphysics is not particularly developed, but it is difficult to develop it if the approach is not taken seriously to begin with. Metaphysics, although I indeed do believe that it is the queen of the sciences, is continuous with science. I suspect that the methodology of theoretical sciences bears a remarkable similarity to the methodology of metaphysics, for they both try to find out what the world is REALLY like. Thus, if anything, it is the remnants of Quinean metaphysics that should be the laughing stock.
To conclude, I believe that this collection of essays suffers from the same problem that most of contemporary analytic metaphysics: it misconstrues the nature of the discipline. Having said that, the collection is extremely interesting and many of the contributions have already gained a central position in the contemporary debate. I can only hope that Kit Fine's contribution finds its way into this canon.
----------
If the number of dragons is zero and thus there is such a thing as the number of dragons, does that commit us to the existence of numbers? In this collection of 17 essays on metametaphysics, the previous and other similar questions occupy the centre stage. Other usual suspects include the debate between three- and four-dimensionalism, the status of mereological sums such as the sum of my nose and the Eiffel tower, and the notorious debate over the existence of tables vs. particles arranged tablewise. Interesting as these debates are, one might think that they are not particularly 'meta'. Indeed, many if not most of the essays in this volume continue on-going debates on these topics and to an outsider the extra 'meta' will make very little difference: these are metaphysical debates. The contributions by Karen Bennett, Matti Eklund, John Hawthorne, Eli Hirsch, Theodore Sider and Amie L. Thomasson at least fall into this category.
Another group of essays is more historical in character, focusing on the classic debate between Carnap and Quine. These essays as well are extremely interesting, but they are metametaphysical only insofar as the original debate between Carnap and Quine was. Matti Eklund's, Huw Price's, Scott Soames' and Peter van Inwagen's contributions will be especially interesting for anyone who is intrigued by Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions, the analytic/synthetic distinction, or Quine's criteria for ontological commitment.
Needless to say, the list of contributors is straight from an analytic philosophy all-star match, and the overall quality of the volume is excellent. But is there anything in it for those who are not interested in Carnap and mereology? Well, there are some contributions, most notably David Chalmers', which try to introduce a taxonomy for metametaphysics. Chalmers introduces four broad categories: lightweight realism, heavyweight realism, ontological anti-realism, and deflationism. These are fairly self-explanatory; of the contributors of this volume, at least Hirsch, Bob Hale & Crispin Wright, Thomasson, and Eklund could be described as lightweight realists, whereas Bennett, Kit Fine, Jonathan Schaffer, Sider, and van Inwagen are perhaps heavyweight realists. In his own contribution Chalmers defends ontological anti-realism.
For a non-analytic philosopher there is very little in this volume, although Kris McDaniel's discussion of Heidegger's metaontology may have a wider appeal, and even van Inwagen discusses Heidegger briefly.
By far the most courageous and genuinely metametaphysical contributions come from Fine, Thomas Hofweber, and Schaffer. These seem to be the only contributions that manage to break free from the shadow of Quine, that is, they acknowledge that there might be more to metaphysics than existence questions. If there is a flaw in this volume, it is that there are not more contributions which address this question head on. Indeed, as Kit Fine notes, nearly all of the contributions make a Quinean assumption concerning the form of metaphysical questions such as 'do numbers exist?'. The assumption is that we can formulate this question with the help of the existential quantifier as follows: '[E]x(x is a number)?', i.e. 'are there numbers?'. What Fine goes on to suggest is that questions of this type, quantificational questions, are not, in general, philosophical questions. Why? Well, for one thing, the answer to the above question is trivial, and philosophical questions are supposed to be non-trivial. So, ontological claims should not be analysed in terms of existential quantification: if we wish to say 'integers exist', the logical form of the claim is not [E]xIx, where I is the predicate for being an integer, but rather [A]x(Ix -> Ex), where E is the predicate for existence; we wish to say that every integer exists, not that an integer does (cf. p. 167).
Similarly, Schaffer observes that metaphysics supposedly asks deep and difficult questions whereas existence questions are generally shallow and trivial. He wishes to guide metaphysics back towards its Aristotelian roots and focus on questions of grounding: according to Aristotle the task of metaphysics is to study substances, modes, and kinds. This is done by an inquiry into fundamental entities and ontological dependence; we should study what grounds what (cf. p. 351).
The only contribution that challenges Fine and Schaffer is Hofweber's, who argues for what he calls ambitious, yet modest metaphysics, and dubs Fine's and Schaffer's approach as 'esoteric' metaphysics. However, Hofweber's conception of what this type of metaphysics amounts to is flawed:
"Esoteric metaphysics appeals to those, I conjecture, who deep down hold that philosophy is the queen of the sciences after all, since it investigates what the world is REALLY like. The sciences only find out what the world is like, but what philosophy finds out is more revealing of reality and what it is REALLY like." (p. 273.)
Hofweber continues to make esoteric metaphysics the laughing stock of analytic philosophy by suggesting that it opens the door to views such as the one familiar from Thales: everything is ultimately water. But this is just a straw man; the real question, one that ought to be the central theme of any essay that claims to be metametaphysical, is whether metaphysical questions can be formulated in the manner that is commonly assumed in contemporary analytic metaphysics. The answer that Fine offers is a resounding 'no', and I am inclined to agree with him.
It is true that the positive input of 'esoteric' metaphysics is not particularly developed, but it is difficult to develop it if the approach is not taken seriously to begin with. Metaphysics, although I indeed do believe that it is the queen of the sciences, is continuous with science. I suspect that the methodology of theoretical sciences bears a remarkable similarity to the methodology of metaphysics, for they both try to find out what the world is REALLY like. Thus, if anything, it is the remnants of Quinean metaphysics that should be the laughing stock.
To conclude, I believe that this collection of essays suffers from the same problem that most of contemporary analytic metaphysics: it misconstrues the nature of the discipline. Having said that, the collection is extremely interesting and many of the contributions have already gained a central position in the contemporary debate. I can only hope that Kit Fine's contribution finds its way into this canon.
February 17, 2010
"Metametaphysics" is a collection of essays that offer arguments and counterarguments for and against the possibility of doing metaphysics (and ontology in particular). There are a few specific problems in metaphysics that the authors of this book focus on, such as mereological composition and realism versus nominalism with respect to numbers.
I think that grappling with the issues discussed in this book is essential to understanding and doing metaphysics. I take it that there are currently enough philosophers that are critical of doing ontology that it is worthwhile to get clear on the various criticisms and responses to critics' worries.
I found chapters written by David Chalmers (3), Jonathan Schaeffer (12), and Ted Sider (13) to be particular helpful and insightful.
I think that grappling with the issues discussed in this book is essential to understanding and doing metaphysics. I take it that there are currently enough philosophers that are critical of doing ontology that it is worthwhile to get clear on the various criticisms and responses to critics' worries.
I found chapters written by David Chalmers (3), Jonathan Schaeffer (12), and Ted Sider (13) to be particular helpful and insightful.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews