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Ratiocination

Just for Fun


The named philosophy chairs at Oxford, who has them now, and when they were founded. It's nifty to think that Broome, for example, occupies a 384-year-old post. =)

John Broome: White's Chair of Moral Philosophy, 1621
Timothy Williamson: Wykeham Chair in Logic, 1859 (though its predecessor dates back to 1839)
John Hawthorne: Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, 1859
Martin Davies: Wilde Readership in Mental Philosophy, 1903
Brian Leftow: Oriel (Nolloth) Chair of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion, 1920

Unoccupied: Chair in Ancient Philosophy

Some Things I'll Miss


If all goes as planned, I'll be leaving Biola in the fall for a new philosophical department to call home. But I'll miss some things when I go. Here are some of them:

1. The Circle Game
2. Office hours with Crisp and Ten Elshof
3. Ciocchi's famous (but purposeful!) tangents
4. Goofing off during philosophy club meetings
5. The so-widespread-as-to-be-hegemonic-belief in incompatibilism and (agent causal) libertarian free will
6. PHIL 350 (aka, "let's get all the philosophy majors and professors together to joke around and occasionally ask a philosophical question")

A Joke


The best I've ever heard, in fact.

On Presentism


From Van Halen's (almost) classic single, "Right Now:"

Right now,
C’mon, it’s everything


=)

A Meme


I've been tagged by Sean Choi. I hear it's bad luck to not pass these things on. So pass them on I will. =)

Four Jobs I Have Had:

1. Research Assistant (or whatever it is I do these days)
2. Office Gopher (“you! boy! make some copies now!”)
3. Web Designer ("I get paid that--for doing this?? woo-hoo!")
4. Slave Laborer (in the lovely gardens of Thornton, CA)

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over Again:

1. Being John Malkovich (trippy)
2. The Big Lebowski (funny)
3. Anchorman (goofy)
4. Spirited Away (captivating)

Four Books I Could Read Over and Over:

1. An Essay on Free Will, by Peter van Inwagen (inspiring)
2. The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien (beautiful)
3. Anarchy, State, and Utopia, by Robert Nozick (delightful)
4. The Metaphysics of Free Will, by John Martin Fischer (right)

Four Places I Have Lived:

1. Pullman, WA (worst town ever)
2. Seattle, WA (best town ever)
3. Stockton, CA (second-worse town ever)
4. Whittier, CA (I like it here)

Four TV Shows I Watch:

1. The Office, US and BBC (the smartest comedy on TV)
2. Lost (gripping)
3. Family Guy (flashbacks)
4. The Simpsons (not as funny as it used to be)

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation:

1. New York City, NY (happiness: being alone in a big city)
2. Colorado Springs, CO (the air was clear)
3. Princeton, NJ (happiness: one week, a half dozen friends, and open bar)
4. Moclips, WA (the sand is sandy there)

Four Websites I Visit Daily:

1. Philosophical Weblogs
2. Mac.com
3. The Way I See It
4. Too many others

Four Favorite Foods:

1. Tacos
2. Steak
3. Chocolate Mint Sticks
4. Homemade bread (Bailey style)

Four Places I'd Like to be Right Now:

(this one is dumb)

Four Bloggers I'm Tagging:

1. Brian Breed
2. Evan Sparks
3. Naomi Geier
4. Cate MacDonald

Near-Total Dominance of M&E?


Greg Recco laments the "near-total dominance of M&E" in the profession in a recent (and quite interesting) thread at the Leiter Reports. This suggestion seems odd to me, however.

While those who work in metaphysics and epistemology (broadly construed) by and large control the graduate schools in the US, this is far from the whole of the story. A cursory look through the latest edition (and supplement) of Jobs for Philosophers reveals many dozens of positions open for specialists in eastern philosophy, African-American philosophy, feminist theory, environmental ethics, applied ethics, and so on. Not to mention posts for specialists in ancient, modern, and contemporary european philosophy. I haven't compiled any numbers, but it looks to me like these far outstrip job openings for specialists in core M & E areas.

While these are largely teaching (not research) posts at liberal arts colleges, the point stands, I think. Quite practically speaking, jobs matter. And there appear to be far more jobs available for those specializing in areas outside M & E. The near-total dominance of M & E isn't quite what it may appear to be, then--and there are distinct advantages (eg, employment) available to those outside the fold.

So cry me a river. =)

SCP 2006


The upcoming Pacific Regional meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers is in San Diego this year. The plenary speakers include Peter van Inwagen and Paul Churchland, so I expect it to be well-worth-attending. The theme for the plenary talks is "Selves, Souls, and Survival."

From a glance at the accepted paper lineup, there should be a fun free will session or two at the conference. In addition to a paper I'm presenting on "Some Unsound Arguments for Incompatibilism," there will be talks on Frankfurt-style cases, the consequence argument, and some related issues in the metaphysics of free will and moral responsibility.

Objects and Persons


Some detractors of analytic philosophy suggest that it is boring, stodgy, out-of-touch, or obscure. These detractors have not encountered Trenton Merricks’ Objects and Persons (Oxford, 2001).

Merricks is a fine young philosopher, and ably argues for eliminativism, the thesis that there are no non-human macrophysical objects like baseballs, statues, and pools of water. But beyond this, Merricks is a skilled stylist. The book is not (ever!) gratuitously technical; it can be read in a sitting or two. His wit is sly, but always worth attending to. And Merricks’prose crackles with confidence. Confidence in the capacity of philosophy to contribute to what we know about the world. He prefaces the book: “Ontological discovery is not empirical. But ontologists do make discoveries. Or so say believers in ontology. And I believe. If seeing were believing, then by the end of this book you would believe, too. For—assuming my arguments are successful—ontological discoveries follow.”

The sentiment is contagious. I, too, believe. And it's hard not to, after drinking in a bit of ontology like this.

On to the arguments. Merricks’ eliminativism is parallels that of Peter van Inwagen (and perhaps Aristotle). There are no macrophysical objects composed of proper parts. There are, however, atoms arranged in certain ways (chairwise, starwise, etc). Strictly speaking, chairs, stars, baseballs, rocks, and statues do not exist. But we do, and we are human organisms composed of proper parts. So like van Inwagen, Merricks’ eliminativism has an exception for humans (and perhaps for other conscious entitites).

Merricks’ view is not entirely original, but his defense of it is. And taking center stage is a fascinating and unique (in the material composition literature) line of reasoning—The Overdetermination Argument. An instance of the argument (and it can be generalized) applies to baseballs. It goes like this:

1. The baseball—if it exists—is causally irrelevant to whether its constituent atoms, acting in concert, cause the shattering of the window.
2. The shattering of the window is caused by those atoms acting in concert.
3. The shattering of the window is not overdetermined
4. Therefore, if the baseball exists, it does not cause the shattering of the window.

The Overdetermination Argument, if sound, relegates macrophysical objects to causal inertness. They are all (if they are at all) causally redundant, overdetermining at best. And there seems to no reason to believe in the existence of widespread overdetermination (as we must, if we reject eliminativism and accept the conclusion of The Overdetermination Argument).

But this isn’t quite Merricks’ goal. He doesn’t only want to remove our reasons for believing in macrophysical objects—he wants to argue for their removal from our ontology. This stronger conclusion can be reached, given the generalized conclusion of The Overdetermination Argument (for any macrophysical object, it is causally irrelevant) and one other ingredient: a causal criterion of existence (for any macrophysical object, to be is to have causal powers). But I find it difficult to construct arguments in favor of the causal criterion of existence, and (as Tom Crisp points out in a recent review), it lacks that obvious luster of truth that other a priori principles like the law of non-contradiction have. We can’t just see whether it is true, but Merricks' agument depends on it being so. Thus, until I discover an argument for the causal criterion, I find elusive the stronger conclusion Merricks is after.

Incidentally, a more extensive discussion of Merricks’ arguments and their soundness can be found in a recent volume (67) of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (a symposium on Merricks’ book with critical notes and a response from the author).