Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T10:44:12.757Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Salvaging Truth from Ontological Scrap

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2021

David M. Cornell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What should one do when one's philosophical conclusions run counter to common sense? Bow to the might of ordinary opinion or follow the indiscriminate force of philosophical reason, no matter where it leads? A few strategies have recently been proposed which suggest we needn't have to make this difficult choice at all. According to these views, we can accept the truths of common sense whilst simultaneously endorsing philosophical views with which they seem to conflict. We can, for instance, accept it as true that the Taj Mahal is in India, whilst also eliminating the Taj Mahal from our ontology. I argue that these strategies generate a new conflict with common sense and thus undercut one of the central motivations that drives them. I also argue for the stronger claim that these kinds of ‘truth-salvaging’ strategy are incapable in principle of reconciling theory with common sense. This does not mean that they must be abandoned, for there may be good independent reasons for endorsing them, but it does eliminate one of their most promising advantages. The upshot of the paper will be two-fold. First, one of the major motivations for endorsing these kinds of strategy will be severely undermined. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, it will mean that for those who think philosophy should be strictly constrained by common sense, all radical ontological views will effectively be off the table.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 96 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 433 - 455
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Armstrong, David, Truth and Truthmakers, (Cambridge: CUP, 2004).10.1017/CBO9780511487552CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armstrong, David, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Beebee, Helen & Dodd, Julian (eds.), Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate, (Oxford: OUP, 2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Ross, ‘How to have a radically minimal ontology’, Philosophical Studies, 151, (2010a) 249–64.10.1007/s11098-009-9442-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Ross, ‘Quantification, Naturalness and Ontology’ in Hazlett, A. (ed.) New Waves in Metaphysics, (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010b), 8–26.Google Scholar
Cameron, Ross, ‘There are no things that are musical works’, British Journal of Aesthetics, 48, 3, (2008a) 295–314.10.1093/aesthj/ayn022CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Ross, ‘Truthmakers and Ontological Commitment’, Philosophical Studies, 140, (2008b) 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornell, David M., ‘Taking Monism Seriously’, Philosophical Studies, 173, (2016), 2397–2415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornell, David M., ‘Mereological Nihilism and the Problem of Emergence’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 54, 1, (2017), 77–87.Google Scholar
Descartes, Rene, A Discourse on Method, (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1934).Google Scholar
Dorr, Cian, ‘There Are No Abstract Objects’ in Sider, T., Hawthorne, J. & Zimmerman, D. (eds.) Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).Google Scholar
Dorr, Cian, ‘What we disagree about when we disagree about ontology’, in Kalderon, M. (ed.) Fictionalism in Metaphysics, (Oxford: Clarendon, 2005), 234–86.Google Scholar
Fine, Kit, ‘A Question of Realism’, Philosophers’ Imprint, 1, (2001) 1–30.Google Scholar
Heil, John, From an Ontological Point of View, (Oxford: OUP, 2003).10.1093/0199259747.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heil, John, The Universe As We Find It, (Oxford: OUP, 2012).10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596201.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horgan, Terry & Potrč, Matjaz, ‘Abundant Truth in an Austere World’, in Greenough, P. & Lynch, M. P. (eds.) Truth and Realism, (Oxford: OUP, 2006), 137–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horgan, Terry & Potrč, Matjaz, ‘Blobjectivism and Indirect Correspondence’, Facta Philosophica, 2, (2000) 249–70.Google Scholar
Horgan, Terry & Potrč, Matjaz, Austere Realism: Contextual Semantics Meets Minimal Ontology, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keller, John, ‘Paraphrase, Semantics, and Ontology’ in Bennett, K. and Zimmerman, D. (eds.) Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol.9, (Oxford: OUP, 2015), 89–124.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198729242.003.0006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korman, Daniel, ‘Unrestricted Composition and Restricted Quantification’, Philosophical Studies, 140, 3, (2008) 319–34.10.1007/s11098-007-9147-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merricks, Trenton, Objects and Persons, (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001).10.1093/0199245363.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Bertrand, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, (London: Routledge, 1972).Google Scholar
Schaffer, Jonathan, ‘On What Grounds What’ in Chalmers, D., Manley, D., & Wasserman, R. (eds.) Metametaphysics, (Oxford: OUP, 2009), 347–83.Google Scholar
Sider, Theodore, ‘Against Parthood’, in Bennett, K & Zimmerman, D. (eds.) Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 8, (Oxford: OUP, 2013), 237–93.Google Scholar
Sider, Theodore, ‘Replies to Gallois, Hirsch, and Markosian’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 68, 3, (2004) 674–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sider, Theodore, Writing the Book of the World, (Oxford: OUP, 2011).10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199697908.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siderits, Mark, ‘Persons and Selves in Buddhist Philosophy’, in LoLordo, A. (ed.) Persons: A History, (Oxford: OUP, 2019), 301–325.10.1093/oso/9780190634384.003.0012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unger, Peter, ‘I Do Not Exist’, in MacDonald, G. F. (ed.) Perception and Identity, (London: Palgrave, 1979)Google Scholar
van Inwagen, Peter, Material Beings, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar