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Three arguments for humility

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Abstract

Ramseyan humility is the thesis that we cannot know which properties realize the roles specified by the laws of completed physics. Lewis seems to offer a sceptical argument for this conclusion. Humean fundamental properties can be permuted as to their causal roles and distribution throughout spacetime, yielding alternative possible worlds with the same fundamental structure as actuality, but at which the totality of available evidence is the same. On the assumption that empirical knowledge requires evidence, we cannot know which of these worlds is actual. However, Lewis also appeals to a range of familiar semantic principles when framing his argument, which leads some authors to suppose that he can also plausibly be interpreted as offering a purely semantic argument for humility in addition. In this paper I grant that these arguments are Lewisian, but argue that Lewis is also committed to a theory of mind that licenses a purely metaphysical argument for humility based on the idea that mental properties supervene on fundamental structure. Given that knowing which x is the F requires knowing that a is the F, the supposition that we could come to know which properties actually occupy the fundamental roles entails differences in mental properties between worlds with the same fundamental structure, violating supervenience. Humility follows right away, without any further epistemic or semantic principles. This argument is immune to almost every way of rebutting the sceptical and semantic arguments; conversely, almost every way of rebutting the metaphysical argument tells equally against the others.

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Notes

  1. See for instance Shoemaker (1980), Whittle (2006), Bird (2007).

  2. Leuenberger (2010), Kelly (2013).

  3. Lewis (2009, p. 208).

  4. Op. cit., p. 209 (all my italics).

  5. Op. cit., pp. 207–208.

  6. Armstrong (1983); see also Lewis (2009, nn. 11–12).

  7. Leuenberger (2010, pp. 331–332).

  8. Lewis (1996), p. 553.

  9. Op. cit. p. 553. I draw the reader’s attention to the fact that Lewis explicitly uses the locution having E. I shall return to this in Sect. 4, where I consider the relationship between Lewisian evidence and metaphysics of mind.

  10. I return to these issues in Sects. 4 and 5.

  11. Schaffer (2005) argues this way, and Leuenberger (2010) concurs; see Locke (2009) for opposition.

  12. Lewis (2009), p. 216.

  13. Leuenberger (2010), p. 330; simplified for exposition.

  14. Again, simplified. See Leuenberger (2010), pp. 338–341 for details.

  15. Kelly (2013).

  16. Kelly (2013), p. 718.

  17. Here is Lewis on identification: ‘I spoke of “an uncommonly demanding and literal sense of ‘knowing what’”. Let me elaborate. I say that according to the Identification Thesis, the knowledge I gain by having an experience with quale Q enables me to know what Q is—identifies Q—in this sense: any possibility not ruled out by the content of my knowledge is one in which it is Q, and not any other property instead, that is the quale of my experience. Equivalently, when I have an experience with quale Q, the knowledge I thereby gain reveals the essence of Q.’ Lewis (1995), p. 142. Lewis rejects the identification thesis for qualia, but there is evidence that he takes identification of the referent(s) to be necessary for singular propositional grasp, which is correspondingly very rare; see for instance the resolution offered to Kripke’s puzzle about belief in Lewis (1981).

  18. Lewis (2009), pp. 214–215.

  19. Leuenberger (2010), pp. 344–345.

  20. Lewis (1994), p. 292.

  21. See for instance Lewis (1970, 1980, 1994).

  22. Lewis (1980).

  23. Lewis (1966), p. 17.

  24. Lewis (1966), p. 19, (1994), p. 307. Lewis identifies mental state M with the occupant of the M-role, rather than the common second-order state, on causal grounds: given that M has a causal role, it must be identified with the occupant of the M-role, because only the first-order state is efficacious.

  25. Lewis (1994), p. 324.

  26. For details see Lewis (1974); for an overview see Lewis (1994).

  27. Schaffer (2007).

  28. Williamson (2000) argues against analysing knowledge in terms of truth on the grounds that knowledge is a mental state, whereas truth is mind-independent.

  29. ‘Just about all there is to a Humean fundamental quality is its identity with itself and its distinctness from other qualities. A Humean fundamental quality is intrinsically inert and self-contained,’ Black (2000), p. 91.

  30. I thank an anonymous referee for the objection in question.

  31. Locke (2009).

  32. Whittle (2006).

  33. C.f. Bird (2007), pp. 77–79.

  34. Similar points are made in Locke (2009).

  35. I shall use Sceptical(i) and Sceptical(ii) to refer to the individual premises listed under Sceptical, etc.

  36. Chalmers (2013).

  37. Putnam (1975). Putnam’s arguments were intended to establish semantic externalism, but extend in a natural way to mental content; see McGinn (1977). I trust the details are sufficiently familiar and omit them for brevity.

  38. Schaffer (2005, pp. 21–22) discusses direct realism as a response to Lewis’ sceptical argument.

  39. Schaffer (2005) argues that traditional anti-sceptical strategies, including abductionism, can be marshalled against Lewis. Locke (2009) responds that Lewis’ argument differs from traditional sceptical arguments in ways that block abductionism and other traditional anti-sceptical strategies—although in some cases, Locke appeals to Lewis’ semantic principles to make his case.

  40. Williamson (2000) argues at length against the phenomenal conception of evidence.

  41. Lewis (1996), p. 556.

  42. Lewis (1996). I have adopted a metalinguistic formulation to highlight Lewis’ contextualism.

  43. Recognising this difficulty, Kelly (2013, p. 714) argues that Lewis’ epistemology is incomplete unless supplemented with a belief clause.

  44. See Langton (2004), Schaffer (2005) and Locke (2009) for discussion of contextualist replies to humility.

  45. Lewis (2009), pp. 217–218.

  46. Leuenberger (2010, p. 336) considers fundamental phenomenal properties as counterexamples to Structuralism, the claim that O-language expressible propositions supervene on FS.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Grant No. IF/01736/2014). Based in part on research carried out while I was a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford, funded by the European Research Council. I am grateful to David Chalmers, David Papineau, Jonathan Schaffer, Célia Teixeira, Jessica Wilson and several anonymous referees for very helpful discussion and criticism.

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  1. Centro de Filosofia, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    David Yates

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Yates, D. Three arguments for humility. Philos Stud 175, 461–481 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0877-6

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