Abstract
There is a recent and growing trend in philosophy that involves deferring to the claims of certain disciplines outside of philosophy, such as mathematics, the natural sciences, and linguistics. According to this trend—deferentialism, as we will call it—certain disciplines outside of philosophy make claims that have a decisive bearing on philosophical disputes, where those claims are more epistemically justified than any philosophical considerations just because those claims are made by those disciplines. Deferentialists believe that certain longstanding philosophical problems can be swiftly and decisively dispatched by appeal to disciplines other than philosophy. In this paper we will argue that such an attitude of uncritical deference to any non-philosophical discipline is badly misguided. With reference to the work of John Burgess and David Lewis, we consider deference to mathematics. We show that deference to mathematics is implausible and that main arguments for it fail. With reference to the work of Michael Blome-Tillmann, we consider deference to linguistics. We show that his arguments appealing to deference to linguistics are unsuccessful. We then show that naturalism does not entail deferentialism and that naturalistic considerations even motivate some anti-deferentialist views. Finally, we set out deferentialism’s failings and present our own anti-deferentialist approach to philosophical inquiry.
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Notes
A point of clarification. One might argue that the possibility of a mathematically successful fictionalist shows that mathematics and fictionalism are consistent. But that is not our argument. Indeed, we think it is little better than the (naïve) argument that, because some scientists are fundamentalist Christians, fundamentalist Christianity is consistent with the content of science. We have said that fictionalism is inconsistent with the content of mathematics. Rather than trying to show that they are consistent, we have argued that the internal standards of mathematics do not require mathematicians to believe that content; and that (Deference to Mathematics) therefore goes beyond respect for those standards. (Thanks to an anonymous referee.).
One might worry that this objection to the track record argument conflates (Deference to Mathematics) with the denial of fictionalism. But this worry is unjustified. As we mentioned earlier in this section, the doctrines are distinct. Deferentialism is often invoked in arguments against fictionalism; our criticism is that the track record argument for (Deference to Mathematics) begs the question in this dialectical context.
One might try to evade this objection by phrasing the track record argument in terms of what conclusions should be accepted, thereby ignoring issues about the truth and interpretation of mathematical claims. But such a move would fail. ‘Accept’ here cannot mean ‘accept as true’—for the deferentialist was hoping to avoid questions of mathematical truth. And if ‘accept’ means ‘accept as following from the relevant axioms’, then the track record of mathematics is compatible with mathematical fictionalism, and the argument against fictionalism collapses.
We thank an anonymous referee for this point.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to members of our audience at a conference on fictionalism at the University of Manchester, September 2009. Thanks also to Michael Blome-Tillmann, Antony Eagle, Carrie Jenkins, Daniel Nolan, Michael Scott, Tom Smith, Robbie Williams, and an anonymous referee.
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Daly, C., Liggins, D. Deferentialism. Philos Stud 156, 321–337 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9596-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9596-y