Abstract
This paper discusses Sosa’s via media between existential relativism and absolutism. We discuss three implications of Sosa’s account which require some further clarification. First, we distinguish three alternative readings of Sosa’s account – the indexicalist, the homonymist and the (proper) relativist reading – and argue that they differ with respect to two crucial points: (a) they lead to different analyses of the lack of disagreement in existential discourse, and (b) they differ with respect to the question of whether conceptual schemes pick out different senses of “exist” or whether they pick out different entities to exist. Second, we ask Sosa to answer on four problematic implications of his final position: (a) Sosa appears to change the topic from ontology to semantics without solving the ontological issue. (b) It is puzzling why Sosa finally accepts the initially implausible explosion of reality. (c) Sosa is forced to accept that disputants really disagree in existential disputes (although faultlessly). (d) We offer an even simpler alternative option to reconcile the realist and the relativist intuitions by clarifying what is meant by “conceptual relativism”, without arguing for existential relativity at all. Third, we argue that Sosa’s argumentative reliance on an appropriate development of conceptual schemes drives him not only to a position of pure conceptual absolutism, but even to a more traditional form of ontological absolutism according to which nature itself manages to cut the cookies. In contrast to his apparent intention, this discharges Sosa’s via media from any relativist intuition.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Sosa discusses different formulations of realism in Sosa (2003, 666ff.). We think his discussion is not entirely satisfying. First of all, the just quoted definition of realism continues: “in that it might have existed propertied and interrelated much as it is in fact propertied and interrelated even in the absence of anything mental” (ibid.). We think that it is difficult to reconcile this formulation with the idea of conceptual relativism. Second, Sosa’s discussion of Devitt’s realism is inadequate. For one thing he leaves out Devitt’s restriction to “most current common-sense” (Devitt 1991, 23) in quoting him to mean “most common-sense” types (Sosa 2003, 666). Devitt’s restriction, we believe, can more easily deal with changes in common-sense like in the whale-fish case. And for another thing, Devitt distinguishes between common-sense and scientific realism (cf. Devitt 1991, 24), whereas Sosa appears to interpret Devitt’s definition of realism only as a common-sense realism; scientific realism somehow gets lost in translation. This is especially surprising since Sosa attacks Putnam for making scientific realism a necessary condition of realism in general and thus insists on distinguishing between common-sense realism and scientific realism (Sosa 1993, 618).
- 2.
Perhaps the example of snowballs is not very fortunate: it might be that a necessary criterion for calling a round piece of snow a snowball is a certain genesis in which human manufacturing plays a decisive role – probably snowballs are artifacts such that no snowball exists independently of anybody’s making. In his discussion Sosa does not attend to the differences between artifacts and natural objects (cf. e.g. Sosa 1999, 132). However, we will not dwell on this issue.
- 3.
That means that snowballs and pieces of snow “could be absolutely the same in all their non-modal properties and relations, while yet differing in de re modal properties” (Sosa 1987, 176).
- 4.
- 5.
We think this metaphor of an “explosion of reality” is inadequate for the following reasons: first of all, it is less reality that explodes but rather the number of entities. And this is not that implausible anymore (cf. Sosa 1999, 136). Second, what exactly is the problem of the explosion of reality? The term “explosion” suggests that the counterintuitive consequences of absolutism are a matter of quantity. But it seems that the counterintuitive consequences here do not multiply by inventing more and more prima facie absurd entities but by the absurdity of even one additional entity at the same space-time slice (cf. for this point also van Cleve 2004, 255). Third, there are different ways in which reality might be said to explode ontologically: (a) There might be a multiple number of entities at one and the same space-time slice (snowball-snowdiscall example). (b) There might be an infinite number of ways to conceptualize different space-time slices (cf. John Searle’s example of “klurgs” [Searle 1995, 160]). (c) There might be an infinite number of ways to combine different kinds of space-time slices (cf. Sosa’s “caog example” [Sosa 1999, 135]).
- 6.
- 7.
Also Alston suspects – in a similar way – that Sosa’s middle way between latitudinarian, objective metaphysics and a restrictive existential relativism leads to self-defeating claims (Alston 2004, 207f.). Sosa’s definition continues: “Moreover, existential claims are true or false relative to the context of speech or thought, which restricts the sorts of objects relevant to the assessment” (Sosa 1999, 142). We will discuss the whole definition in Sect. 7.4.
- 8.
Obviously, the discussion about the correct interpretation of indexicals in philosophy of language is very complicated and we simply adopt a broadly Fregean distinction between “sense” and “reference” at this point. Since our paper is not about indexicals and since we believe nothing in the following will hinge on our Fregean assumption we are justified not to go into the discussion deeply.
- 9.
- 10.
We do not want to claim that this is the most plausible explanation for the relevant disputes in philosophy of mind: surely, the disputants are not merely talking past each other.
- 11.
- 12.
We leave out a fourth option at this point which has been recognized by Allan Hazlett and Eli Hirsch. At points, Sosa presents examples that he thinks to be similar to the snowball-snowdiscall case: “‘There is nothing in that box.’ (What about the air?) Or ‘there is only a hammer here.’ (What about the doorstop?) Or even ‘there is only a snowball here.’ (What about the snowdiscall?)” (Sosa 1999, 142). These examples suggest that Sosa’s existential relativism consists in a claim about the contextual restriction of the universe of discourse – Allan Hazlett calls this option “quantifier domain restriction” (Hazlett 2013, 48; cf. also Hirsch 2004, 225 and Sosa 2003, 681). Hazlett objects to this reading that “there is an obvious sense in which the party with the less-restricted quantifier is offering a fuller and more complete metaphysical picture of reality than the person with the less-restricted quantifier” (Hazlett 2013, 48). Whatever the merits of Hazlett’s criticism – we take him to mean “more-restricted quantifier” at the end of the quote – we think that the quantifier-domain restriction is not a case of conceptual relativism in the sense discussed here: even people with the same conceptual scheme do apply contextually dependent restriction on the domain of discourse (note that the same goes for the indexical “nearby”: compare Person A standing at Cologne station asking “Where is the cathedral?” – Person B “It is nearby” and Person A in an astronomy class “Where is the moon?” – Person B “It is nearby”. Even if the astronomy class takes place at Cologne station, such that there is no difference with respect to the spatial position of the speaker, the difference in more or less-restricted quantification of discourses is still there). In any case, we skip this fourth reading of Sosa’s existential/conceptual relativism.
- 13.
Agreeing with Sosa, Kris McDaniel (2010, 706ff.) reads Sosa in this “Kantian” manner as tracking “two ways to exist: to exist absolutely, and to exist relative to a scheme.”
- 14.
Note, that this sense of “exist just for us” here only means “exist relative to us/our conceptual scheme” and not “exist in virtue of our conceptual scheme”: as Sosa emphasizes snowballs exist only relative to our conceptual scheme but in virtue of matter-form pairs (cf. Sosa 1999, 134; Sosa 2003, 673).
- 15.
Or perhaps even both? This would mean that “exist” picks out different kinds of entities on different layers and at the same time has different meanings on every layer of existence.
- 16.
The same point is made by Allan Hazlett: “What appeared a striking metaphysical thesis has been transformed into a modest semantic one. […] And conceptual relativism’s virtues as a semantic thesis can’t offset the metaphysical vices of the explosion of reality—whatever they are” (Hazlett 2013, 40f.).
- 17.
Cf. Sosa 1999, 143: “But in the end I do express a preference for the latitudinarian ‘explosion’”.
- 18.
Also Allan Hazlett makes this point: “But if the exposition [sic!] of reality was offensive to intuition above, why should it be any less offensive to intuition now? If a metaphysical claim strikes us as wrong, how can conjoining it with a semantic thesis diminish our sense of its being wrong?” (Hazlett 2013, 41).
- 19.
Hirsch (2004, 226) comments in a similar way on Sosa’s final position: “Why did Sosa give up on existential relativism, which, we recall, was initially introduced as an alternative to explosionism?”
- 20.
Cf. for a reconstruction of Sosa’s argument Alston 2004, 205f.
- 21.
Cf. for this distinction Seidel and Weber 2010, 146.
- 22.
Hirsch in a similar way conceives of “absolutism” that he contrasts with Sosa’s use of the term “absolutism”: “I take it that to believe in the ‘absolute philosophical truth’ in the sense relevant to the present discussion is to believe that, amongst the various conceptual schemes and selection functions that we seem able to make intelligible to ourselves, one is somehow uniquely privileged, uniquely right in some sense” (Hirsch 2004, 228).
- 23.
This does not imply that reaching the truth is the only epistemic goal.
- 24.
Note that Kitcher himself does not subscribe to this position. Alston also mentions this position as an alternative not discussed by Sosa (cf. Alston 2004, 209).
References
Alston, William P. 2004. Sosa on realism. In Ernest Sosa and his critics, ed. J. Greco, 201–214. Malden: Blackwell.
Boghossian, Paul A. 2006. What is relativism? In Truth and realism, ed. P. Greenough and M.P. Lynch, 13–37. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Devitt, Michael. 1991. Realism and truth. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hazlett, Allan. 2013. Realism and relativism. In Virtuous thoughts: The philosophy of Ernest Sosa, ed. J. Turri, 33–53. Dordrecht: Springer.
Hirsch, Eli. 2004. Sosa’s existential relativism. In Ernest Sosa and his critics, ed. J. Greco, 224–232. Malden: Blackwell.
Kitcher, Philip. 2001. Science, truth, and democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kusch, Martin. 2010. Kripke’s Wittgenstein, On Certainty, and epistemic relativism. In The later Wittgenstein on language, ed. D. Whiting, 213–230. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
McDaniel, Kris. 2010. A return to the analogy of being. Philosophy and phenomenological research LXXXI(3): 688–717.
Priest, Graham. 2014. Sein language. The Monist 97(4): 430–442.
Searle, John R. 1995. The construction of social reality. New York: The Free Press.
Seidel, Markus, and Arne Weber. 2010. Trivial, platitudinous, boring? Searle on conceptual relativism. In John R. Searle. Thinking about the real world, ed. D. Franken et al., 143–162. Frankfurt: Ontos.
Sosa, Ernest. 1987. Subjects among other things. Philosophical Perspectives 1: 155–187.
Sosa, Ernest. 1993. Putnam’s pragmatic realism. The Journal of Philosophy 90(12): 605–626.
Sosa, Ernest. 1999. Existential relativity. Midwest Studies in Philosophy XXIII: 132–143.
Sosa, Ernest. 2003. Ontological and conceptual relativity and the self. In The Oxford handbook of metaphysics, ed. M.J. Loux and D.W. Zimmerman, 665–689. New York: Oxford University Press.
van Cleve, James. 2004. On what there is now: Sosa on two forms of relativity. In Ernest Sosa and his critics, ed. J. Greco, 249–262. Malden: Blackwell.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Seidel, M., Thinius, A. (2016). A Snowslide of Entities. In: Bahr, A., Seidel, M. (eds) Ernest Sosa. Münster Lectures in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32519-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32519-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32517-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32519-4
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)