{"id":11642,"date":"2024-04-30T05:38:46","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T04:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.st-andrews.ac.uk\/philevents\/event\/metaphysical-explanation-workshop\/"},"modified":"2024-05-30T07:23:11","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T06:23:11","slug":"metaphysical-explanation-workshop","status":"publish","type":"tribe_events","link":"https:\/\/www.st-andrews.ac.uk\/philevents\/event\/metaphysical-explanation-workshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Metaphysical Explanation Workshop"},"content":{"rendered":"
The University of 58³Ô¹Ï Arch\u00e9 Philosophical Research Centre for Logic, Language, Metaphysics and Epistemology will be hosting a workshop on Metaphysical Explanation.<\/div>\n

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Description:\u00a0<\/strong>The purpose of the workshop is to bring together and promote research in the nature of metaphysical explanation, exploring what it is and how it works. In addition, the workshop seeks to explore the applications of metaphysical explanation to issues in metaphysics and related issues in analytic philosophy.<\/div>\n

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Speakers:<\/strong> Naomi Thompson (University of Bristol), Jessica Wilson (University of Toronto), Boris Kment (Princeton University), and Ross Cameron (University of Virginia).<\/div>\n

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DATE AND VENUE:<\/strong> 30 May 2024, Online on Teams.<\/div>\n

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REGISTER HERE:<\/strong> https:\/\/forms.gle\/JoSwMCx1edkzPW7N9<\/a><\/div>\n

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PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE (Note: All times are in British Summer Time):<\/strong><\/div>\n
Every time slot includes: the main talk (45 mins), a commentary and reply (15 mins) and Q&A (15 mins).<\/div>\n
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11:55 \u2013 12:00<\/span> Preliminary Remarks<\/p>\n

12:00 \u2013 13:15 Naomi Thompson: \u201cSocial Metaphysical Explanation\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

13:15 \u2013 13:30<\/span> Break<\/p>\n

13:30 \u2013 14:45<\/span> Boris Kment: \u201cGround and Paradox\u201d<\/p>\n

14:45 \u2013 15:00<\/span> Break<\/p>\n

15:00 \u2013 16:15 Ross Cameron: \u201cExplanation and Plenitude in Non-Well-Founded Set Theories\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

16:15 \u2013 16:30<\/span> Break<\/p>\n

16:30 \u2013 17:45 Jessica Wilson: \u201cMetaphysical Skepticism, Relativized Metaphysical Modality, and Moderate Modal Naturalism\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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TITLES AND ABSTRACTS<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Title:<\/b>\u00a0Social Metaphysical Explanation (Naomi Thompson<\/span>)<\/div>\n
Abstract: <\/b>This paper argues that grounding and metaphysical explanation as they are ordinarily conceived are ill-suited to modelling the social world. Social facts are neither necessitated nor generated by their full grounds, and there are good reasons to think of social metaphysical explanations as non-factive. Where grounding and metaphysical explanation are generally taken to form strict partial orders, social metaphysical explanations are plausibly holistic. Social metaphysical explanation occurs in a context, and it requires that in that context, a social fact be represented as being determined on the basis of further facts, and that concepts corresponding to social kinds featuring in the social fact to be explained are salient in that context<\/div>\n
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Title:<\/b>\u00a0Ground and Paradox (Boris Kment)<\/div>\n
Abstract:<\/b>\u00a0At the beginning of the 20th\u00a0century, Betrand Russell discovered a cluster of paradoxes that showed that certain initially very appealing principles of plenitude and individuation for sets, properties, and propositions are classically inconsistent. The search for a plausible, unified, and independently motivated solution has met with only limited success. I argue that recent ideas in the theory of grounding yield a new and promising approach. A ground-theoretic analysis of the Russellian paradoxes shows that they rest\u00a0on assumptions that should be rejected because they violate a plausible non-circularity constraint on grounding. In some of the paradoxes, the problematic assumption is a principle of plenitude. These paradoxes should be resolved by restrictions on our ontology. In the remaining paradoxes, the assumption to be abandoned is an instance of the Law of Excluded Middle. The failure of Excluded Middle reflects the fact that reality is incomplete, in the sense that some questions cannot be answered. We can settle such questions only by ruling out every possible answer.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Title:<\/b>\u00a0Explanation and Plenitude in Non-Well-Founded Set Theories (Ross Cameron<\/span>)<\/div>\n
Abstract:<\/b>\u00a0Non-well-founded set theories allow set-theoretic exotica that standard ZFC will not allow, such as a set that has itself as its sole member. We can distinguish plenitudinous non-well-founded set theories, such as Boffa set theory, that allow infinitely many such sets, from restrictive theories, such as Finsler-Aczel or AFA, that allow exactly one. Plenitudinous non-well-founded set theories face a puzzle: nothing seems to explain the identity or distinctness of various of the sets they countenance. In this paper I aim to sharpen this puzzle, make clear who it does and does not apply to and, ultimately, to argue in favor of a plenitudinous theory like Boffa.<\/div>\n
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Title: <\/b>Metaphysical Skepticism, Relativized Metaphysical Modality, and Moderate Modal Naturalism (Jessica Wilson<\/span>)<\/div>\n
Abstract: <\/b>One route to skepticism about metaphysics (drawing on Rosen 2006, Chalmers 2009, Clarke-Doane 2019) proceeds by observing the following tension. On the one hand, metaphysical claims are supposed to be metaphysically necessary; for example, if Platonic universals are the metaphysical basis for resemblance between objects, then this is supposed to be necessarily so. But on the other hand, the operative modal epistemologies seem to offer support for the possibility of incompatible metaphysical claims; for example, it seems conceivable both that Platonic universals might be the basis for resemblance between objects, and also conceivable that tropes might be such a basis. Here I consider two strategies of response. The first—resistance—maintains that a better modal epistemology, based in abduction (IBE) as opposed to conceiving and the like, might justify one metaphysical claim over others (per Biggs and Wilson 2018, 2020). The second strategy \u2014 accommodation \u2014 appeals to Relativized Metaphysical Modality, or RMM (Murray and Wilson 2012; Hellie, Murray, and Wilson 2020), according to which what is possible or necessary may depend on facts about how the world actually is. RMM makes room for just one of a set of competing metaphysical claims to be true and hence metaphysically necessary, while at the same time explaining intuitions that competing metaphysical claims are possible, as reflecting (mere) speculative consideration of what would be possible or necessary against the backdrop assumption that a different world is actual. This strategy can be seen as expanding the application of Kripke’s notion of necessary a posteriori truths beyond the standard natural kind expressions to general metaphysical claims.<\/div>\n
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