E. J. Lowe

(1950 - 2014)

La connaissance métaphysique est accessible et nous possédons un tel type de connaissance. Il faut pratiquer la métaphysique de manière directe, sans passer par des considérations de philosophie du langage ou de l'esprit. Les deux principales critiques de la métaphysique sont : le naturalisme évolutionniste et le kantisme. Le naturalisme est incohérent car il nie la possibilité défaire des hypothèses métaphysiques et pourtant il repose sur de telles hypothèses. Kant également ne va pas au bout de son projet, car on ne peut éviter la question du contenu des pensées, une fois qu'on a réduit la métaphysique à une théorie de la connaissance. L'examen des arguments de Barcan-Kripke confirme la possibilité d'une argumentation métaphysique et l'impossibilité d'y échapper. Metaphysical knowledge is accessible and indeed, we have such a knowledge. Metaphysics shoud be done directly, without starting with considerations of philosophy of language or philosophy of mind. The two main critiques of metaphysics are evolutionary naturalism and Kantianism. Naturalism is inconsistent because it denies any possibility to make metaphysical hypotheses, but it hinges upon such hypotheses. Kant is also inconsistent because one cannot avoid the question of the content of thoughts once metaphysics has been reduced to epistemology. A scrutiny of the arguments by Barcan and Kripke confirms the possibility of a purely metaphysical argumentation and the impossibility to do without it.

It has long been debated whether objects are ‘sortally’ individuated. This paper begins by clarifying some of the key terms in play—in particular, ‘sortal’, ‘individuation’, and ‘object’. The term ‘individuation’ is taken to have both a cognitive and a metaphysical sense, in the former denoting the singling out of an object in thought and in the latter a determination relation between entities. ‘Sortalism’ is defined as the doctrine that only as falling under some specific sortal concept can an object be successfully singled out in thought. It is argued that such a view is too strong, but that a weaker one, ‘categorialism’, can be defended, this implying that a thinker cannot successfully single out an object in thought without having at least an implicit grasp of the criterion of identity that the object satisfies.

Locke notoriously included number amongst the primary qualities of bodies and was roundly criticized for doing so by Berkeley. Frege echoed some of Berkeley's criticisms in attacking the idea that ‘Number is a property of external things’, while defending his own view that number is a property of concepts. In the present paper, Locke's view is defended against the objections of Berkeley and Frege, and Frege's alternative view of number is criticized. More precisely, it is argued that numbers are assignable to pluralities of individuals. However, it is also argued that Locke went too far in asserting that ‘Number applies itself to ... everything that either doth exist, or can be imagined’.

There is currently intense interest in the question of the source of our presumed knowledge of truths concerning what is, or is not, metaphysically possible or necessary. Some philosophers locate this source in our capacities to conceive or imagine various actual or non-actual states of affairs, but this approach is open to certain familiar and seemingly powerful objections. A different and ostensibly more promising approach has been developed by Timothy Williamson, according to which our capacity for modal knowledge is just an extension, or by-product, of our general capacity to acquire knowledge of true counterfactual conditionals — a capacity that we deploy ubiquitously in everyday life. Williamson’s account crucially involves a thesis to the effect that modal truths can be explained in terms of counterfactual truths. In this paper, I query Williamson’s account on a number of points, including this thesis. My positive proposal, which owes a debt to the work of Kit Fine on modality and essence, appeals instead to our capacity to grasp essences, understood in a neo-Aristotelian fashion, according to which essences are expressed by ‘real definitions’.