Dear all, This coming Wednesday Alex Moran (Queens College) will be giving a paper entitled "A Puzzle about Material Things: Russell's Principle and 'Grounding-qua' " at the Serious Metaphysics Group.
The seminar will take place at the Philosophy faculty Board Room from 4.30 to 6.00pm. The talk should last about 45 minutes followed by questions and discussion. Hope to see you there, Carlo Abstract: According to Bertrand Russell, it is a basic philosophical principle that facts concerning complex objects (and hence material things composed of particles) in some sense depend on or are constituted by facts mentioning only the proper parts of these things and their properties and relations. This attractive principle, however, is threatened by two further observations. First, that it is possible for certain material parts (e.g. some particles) to have certain properties and relations whilst composing an object O in possible world W whilst still having those same properties and relations in some other possible world W* but whilst composing O* rather than O. Second, that if one fact B is metaphysically dependent on another fact A (or if B is metaphysically grounded by A, or if B holds in virtue of B, or if A grounds B, or if A is constituted by B, or if A is true because of B, or whatever), then B necessitates A, so that if B holds then so too does A. The trouble is that these two claims plus Russell's Principle lead to contradiction, as I will show. (I just need there to be a non-symmetric, reflexive relation of constitutive determination--that's all I mean when I use the word grounding; so nothing too controversial!) Now to solve the puzzle I suggest two key moves. First, we hold that if the Xs being G is what grounds the fact that some composite object O (composed of the Xs) is F, then this is so only on the condition that the Xs compose O. To make sense of this we have to invoke something like the notion of conditional grounding or, in Ted Sider's terminology, that of 'grounding-qua]. The idea is that the Xs being G, qua composing O (rather than O*, say), ground the fact taht O is F.) Second, that since we can distinguish between the grounds and the conditions of a fact, it turns out that in some cases the fact that a composite object has an intrinsic property can in some sense depend on extrinsic factors. On 2017-10-30 09:43, C. Rossi wrote: Thank for this, Alex. Would you mind sending me an abstract of your talk of this coming Wednesday that I could circulate? Best, Carlo On 2017-10-25 18:57, Alex Moran wrote: Lots turned up and twas great success! Don't worry! On 2017-10-25 10:15, C. Rossi wrote: Thanks, Alex. As I'm not so sure how many people will turn up today, perhaps it could be a good idea to wait a few minutes before starting. I'm already away from Cambridge, but do get in touch if you need anything. Best, Carlo On 2017-10-23 18:44, Alex Moran wrote: Not a problem---! Alex On 2017-10-23 17:46, C. Rossi wrote: Hi Alex, Just in case you're not too busy, do you think you could giving me a be a hand chairing the SMG this coming Wednesday? Unfortunately, I'll be at a conference in Finland starting on Wednesday. There's literally nothing more to do than showing up at 4:30pm on the Board room. I'm taking care of advertising and John Marenbon, the speaker, told me he would print his own handouts. The title of the talk is "Avicenna and Duns Scotus on Universals". All the best, Carlo _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.