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Ideology and its role in metaphysics

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Abstract

Metaphysicians now typically distinguish between a theory’s ontology and its ideology. But besides a few cursory efforts, no one has explained the role of ideology in theory choice. In this paper I develop a framework for discussing how differing approaches to ideology impact metaphysical disputes. I first provide an initial characterization of ideology and develop two contrasting types of criteria used to evaluate its quality. In using externalist criteria, we judge the quality of a theory’s ideology by its relation to external features of the world. In contrast, in using internalist criteria, we judge the quality of a theory’s ideology by features internal to the theory and the theorizer, e.g. the intelligibility of the terminology employed. I then argue for an unrestricted application of externalist criteria, what I call maximal realism. According to maximal realism, we ought to apply externalist criteria to the entirety of a theory’s ideology—to not only predicates but also to quantifiers and logical operators. I defend maximal realism from what I take to be the best objection to it: that the view leads to bad questions. As part of my defense, I argue that those who would restrict their application of externalist criteria either adopt an unjustified partition of ideology or reject seemingly benign questions. Finally, I apply my discussion of ideology to two extant metaphysical disputes.

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Notes

  1. This meta-ontological turn is best exemplified by the contributions in Chalmers et al. (2009). Not only did distinct camps emerge [e.g., the “pessimists” and “optimists” as labeled by Wilson (2011)], but these camps exhibited and continue to exhibit remarkable diversity.

  2. From van Inwagen (1998): “What are we asking when we ask ‘What is there?’?”

  3. For recent sustained discussion of ideology, see Cowling (2013), Decock (2002, 2004), Fisher (2012), and Sider (2011).

  4. The Quinean approach to ontology is of course controversial. I assume it in this paper, however, because I do not have the space to fully discuss how different meta-ontological positions influence our answer to the meta-ideological question. For more, see van Inwagen (1998).

  5. She might instead claim that mathematics is dispensable.

  6. See, for example, Field (1980).

  7. Thanks to Jeffrey Tolly for helpful discussion in framing this and related terminology.

  8. This stipulation implies that endorsement of a bit of ideology is more demanding than endorsement of a theory. Suppose that there are exactly two theories that you are equally inclined to endorse. Whatever falls outside the intersection of their ideologies are bits that you do not endorse. For example, suppose that you are equally inclined to endorse two theories whose ideologies only differ with respect to their truth-functional connectives: the first theory employs negation and conjunction while the second theory employs negation and disjunction. By stipulation, you endorse negation but do not endorse conjunction or disjunction. While perhaps counterintuitive, I think that my stipulation provides the right result. This ideological split is a kind of ambivalence or agnosticism. I want to reserve the word ‘endorsement’ for a whole-hearted commitment to a bit of ideology. If you like both conjunction and disjunction, you should only endorse the redundant theories that include both (thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pushing me to clarify what I mean here).

  9. Examples of the linguistic answer: Bennett (2009), Bricker (2008), Dasgupta (2009), Hawthorne (2009), Pickel and Mantegani (2012), Turner (2016), and van Inwagen (2008). Melia (2000) doesn’t say enough to easily classify him but does strike me as endorsing the linguistic answer. McDaniel (2010a) half-heartedly endorses the linguistic answer and attributes it to Quine (631). A.R.J. Fisher at times explicitly gives a semantic answer, but lately seems to prefer a linguistic answer (e.g. Fisher 2016).

  10. It might be useful to understand these as interpreted items. On this approach, a bit of ideology is an ordered pair of a “purely” syntactic element and an interpretation of that syntax (thanks to Jason Turner for helpful discussion on this point).

  11. Examples of the semantic answer: Burgess and Rosen (1997), Cowling (2013), and Schaffer (2014). Oliver (1996) says that “the ideology [of a theory] consists in the ideas which are expressed within the theory using predicates” (2). Cameron (2012) refers to bits of ideology as “notions” (17–19). Though it’s less than clear, I think Cameron means to provide a semantic answer. He talks of reducing possibility and tense, as opposed to ‘\(\lozenge \)’ and ‘It was the case that...’.

  12. Examples of the worldly answer: Torrengo (2014), who seems to identify ideology with fundamental properties and Krämer (2010), who seems to identify ideology with facts.

  13. An expression is primitive relative to a theory just in case that theory does not define the expression. Thus my notion of primitiveness is theory relative. Often, primitiveness is said to be relative to a language, which is in turn used to construct theories. Sometimes ‘primitive’ is used to denote some sort of psychological relationship between an expression and a theorizer—see, e.g., Shapiro (1993). These three notions of primitiveness are importantly different. I favor the theory-relative notion of primitiveness because it allows for a more direct comparison of the ideological differences between theories that seem to be in the same language—e.g. two English theories of color.

  14. Many thanks to Jeff Speaks for invaluable help in developing this and connected lines of reasoning.

  15. Many thanks to Michael Rea, Meghan Sullivan, and others for their help in developing the distinction between externalist and internalist criteria.

  16. Thanks to Jack Himelright for raising both the underlying issue as well as the illustrative example.

  17. I hope I can extract the exegetical material I want without having to engage in this dispute, let alone resolve it. Perhaps my interpretation of Quine’s argument is misguided. Even so, the argument I present is one that would be available to him.

  18. ‘Verständlichkeit’ is perhaps better translated as ‘understanding’. Yet ‘understanding’ and ‘intelligibility’ are in this context interchangeable. For more historical detail, see Frost-Arnold (2013, especially pp. 34–37).

  19. It’s unclear if even Sider would endorse extreme externalism. But for what it’s worth I find it to be the superior position. Arguably, there is historical precedent for endorsing unintelligible ideology. ‘Extended simple’ and ‘metaphysical structure’ come to mind.

  20. Thanks to Callie K. Phillips for this point.

  21. See, especially, Hirsch (2013: pp. 713–715) and Thomasson (2017: pp. 14–19).

  22. Rayo (2013): 1.3.1. See, also, 1.2.1 and 1.3.2. Robert Stalnaker raised a similar point at the 2014 Central APA book symposium of Williamson’s Modal Logic as Metaphysics, though I am unable to find written documentation of this.

  23. See Sider (2011: pp. 18–20), Turner (2016: pp. 7–8), Tahko (2016: p. 67). There may be some disagreement about precisely what knee-jerk realism amounts to, but I hope that my characterization is fairly accommodating.

  24. I’ve defined knee-jerk realism generically to allow for disagreement among realists on what features the world has. A modal anti-realist and a moral anti-realist can both still be knee-jerk realists, assuming the rest of their beliefs are sufficiently in line with (i)–(iii).

  25. Why the unusual name? The position I sketch here is commonly attributed to David Lewis. (See Sider (2011), Weatherson (2003), and Williams (2015).) But some philosophers (like Schwarz 2014) have argued that this is an unfaithful reading of Lewis. Maybe so. Nevertheless, this position has been so regularly attributed to Lewis that it has earned the status of philosophical folklore. Many thanks to Jason Turner for helpful discussion on these interpretive issues.

  26. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for encouraging me to address this sort of realist in this paper.

  27. Here I focus the version of the model-theoretic argument found in Lewis (1984). For the original presentation, see Putnam (1977).

  28. See Carnap (1950). He talks of the decision as “practical, not theoretical.” What we can do is evaluate the extent to which the language is “expedient, fruitful, [and] conducive to the aim for which [it] is intended” (31).

  29. Some of what I say here is in line with Michaela McSweeney’s work on logical realism—see, e.g., McSweeney (forthcoming). I take my response to be not that far away from McSweeney’s own conclusions. I’m inclined to think that the perfectly correct logical ideology is as of now unfamiliar. But this happens all the time, e.g. previously unfamiliar scientific predicates used to characterize quarks.

  30. To put it another way: the epistemology associated with maximal realism is no less problematic than the epistemology associated with folkloric Lewisian realism, at least so far as distinctly “metaphysical” predicates are concerned. A more naturalistically-inclined metaphysician might refuse to apply external criteria to these metaphysical predicates. If so, then she makes herself vulnerable to Putnams’s model-theoretic argument. Either both views can utilize some sort of non-causal reasoning to provide answers, or both views are unable to answer their respective external questions. (Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for helping me to phrase my point this way).

  31. See, e.g., Haslanger (2000: p. 35).

  32. For simplicity, I am ignoring the difference between quantifier pluralism and ontological pluralism.

  33. This point, and many more, are developed in McDaniel (2017).

  34. For related discussion, see Finocchiaro (Forthcoming a, b).

  35. See Sider (2001: 2.3) and Cameron (2011).

  36. For more on the use of tense operators, see Prior and Fine (1977), Zimmerman (2005), and Sullivan (2016). There are alternative ways to formulate tensed sentences. For brevity’s sake, here I focus on the standard approach. What I say extends to these alternatives.

  37. Maybe the commitments attached to tensed operators are in fact more desirable than the commitments attached to so-called Lucretian predicates. Perhaps, even, they are more desirable because they are simpler. But we would only know this after an intricate discussion of the metaphysical commitments of tense operator, a discussion cheaters want to avoid.

  38. Cf. Kierland and Monton (2007), Sullivan (2016).

  39. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for encouraging me to address this issue. Note that this issue isn’t unique to quantification. The maximal realist faces similarly uncomfortable questions of comparison for truth-functional connectives, tense operators, and modal operators. What I say here is largely adaptable to those cases.

  40. See Hirsch (2013), Sider (2013). While Hirsch and Sider call this view a form of quantifier variance, I think it is better characterized as an extreme form of quantifier pluralism.

  41. A maximal realist who uses this defense can still privilege externalist criteria over internalist criteria, using familiarity merely as a tie-breaker.

  42. See Sider (2011: 10.2).

  43. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for drawing my attention to this challenge.

  44. See Finocchiaro (Forthcoming a, b): Sect. 2. This is, of course, a controversial claim.

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Acknowledgements

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to many people for their contributions to the development of this paper over the past few years. Among those people are: Sara Bernstein, Andrew Brenner, Anjan Chakravartty, Rebecca Chan, Justin Christy, Michael Longenecker, Daniel Nolan, David Pattillo, Callie K. Phillips, Benjamin Rossi, Margaret Schmitt, S.C. Schramm, Jeff Snapper, Jeff Speaks, Meghan Sullivan, Jeffrey Tolly, Jason Turner, Peter van Inwagen, and two anonymous reviewers for Synthese. I owe an even more enormous debt of gratitude to Michael Rea for the philosophical, practical, and emotional wisdom that he so generously shared throughout this paper’s journey.

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  1. School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Bayi Road 299, Wuchang District, Wuhan, 430072, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China

    Peter Finocchiaro

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Finocchiaro, P. Ideology and its role in metaphysics. Synthese 198, 957–983 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02077-6

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