The Adequacy of Resemblance Nominalism about Perfect Naturalness

2016

Universalien-Realismus, Nominalismus und Tropen-Theorie

2017

Universalien, Sing. das Universal(e), sind Allgemeinheiten, d. h. wiederholbare (engl. repeatable), typischerweise mehrfach exemplifizierte Eigenschaften und Beziehungen (Relationen, s. Kap. 13): Rote und elektrische Ladung, Liebe und raumzeitlicher Abstand.

Transcendental Apperception: Consciousness or Self-Consciousness? Comments on Chapter 9 of Patricia Kitcher'sKant's Thinker

2014

AbstractA core thesis of Kitcher's is that thinking about objects requires awareness of necessary connections between one's object-directed representations ‘as such’ and that this is what Kant means by the transcendental unity of apperception. I argue that Kant's main point is the spontaneity or ‘self-made-ness’ of combination rather than the requirement of reflexive awareness of combination, that Kitcher provides no plausible account of how recognition of representations ‘as such’ should be constituted and that in fact Kant himself appears to lack the theoretical resources to clearly distinguish between (first-level) consciousness and self-consciousness or apperception properly so-called.

Against Metaphysical Structuralism

2020

Abstract Inductive Metaphysics (IM) combines an anti-aprioristic emphasis on an empirical and scientific basis for metaphysics with an insistence on a specifically philosophical abductive theory-building. Since the latter specifically philosophical work is not empirical itself, it may in a liberal sense be called apriori. This paper highlights this apriori dimension within IM by a case study on Structuralism, the view that fundamental reality consists of a network of relations (and properties), which a number of philosophers consider to be suggested by modern physics. Focussing on Dasgupta’s algebraic Generalism, the author argues that Structuralism suffers from a severe entailment problem,…

A Logical Reconstruction of Leibniz’s Argument for His Complete Concept Conception of the Nature of Substance in Discours §8

2020

Abstract This paper develops a valid reconstruction in first-order predicate logic of Leibniz’s argument for his complete concept definition of substance in §8 of the Discours de Métaphysique. Following G. Rodriguez-Pereyra, it construes the argument as resting on two substantial premises, the “merely verbal” Aristotelian definition and Leibniz’s concept containment theory of truth, and it understands the resulting “real” definition as saying not that an entity is a substance iff its complete concept contains every predicate of that entity, but iff its complete concept contains every predicate of any subject to which that concept is truly attributable. An account is suggested of why Leibniz…

Class Nominalism, Wolterstorff's Objection, and Combinatorial Worlds

2016