Joaquim Giannotti

It is plausible that the models of our scientific theories correspond to possibilities. But exactly which models of which scientific theories stand in this correspondence? The answers to this question hinted at so far in the literature are too restrictive: they don't support the idea that the models of many of our best scientific theories correspond to physical possibilities. The paper thus provides a novel proposal for guiding belief about physical possibilities based on physics. The proposal draws on the notion of an effective theory: a theory that applies very well to a particular, restricted domain. We argue that it is the models of effective theories that we should believe correspond, at least in part, to physical possibilities. It is thus effective theories that should guide modal reasoning in science.

Naturalized metaphysics aims to establish justified metaphysical claims, where metaphysics is meant to carry its usual significance, while avoiding the traditional methods of metaphysics—a priori reasoning, conceptual analysis, intuitions, and common sense—which naturalized metaphysics argues are not epistemically probative. After offering an explication of what it means to do metaphysics, this paper argues that naturalized metaphysics, at the outset, is hospitable to doing metaphysics. The underdetermination of metaphysics by science, however, changes the picture. Naturalized metaphysics has to break this underdetermination, but the criticism of the traditional methods of metaphysics leaves no resources with which to do so. Naturalized metaphysics must therefore be more restrictive than originally intended to ensure that some metaphysical features avoid underdetermination. In this restrictive naturalized metaphysics, however, metaphysicians are only left the task of surveying the opinions of scientists which, it is argued, does not qualify as doing metaphysics. Thus, to fulfill its promise to save metaphysics, naturalized metaphysics displaces the metaphysician. Furthermore, the attempt to re-employ them via the principle of naturalistic closure is argued to fail. Metaphysicians should therefore not be happier with naturalized metaphysics than they are with the more explicitly eliminative trends in contemporary metametaphysics, such as neo-Carnapian deflationism, despite the promise of naturalized metaphysics, likely to Carnap’s dismay, to deliver justified claims about ultimate reality.

Many discussions in the metaphysics and philosophy of physics literature aim to use physics as a guide to elucidate what the world really, fundamentally is like. However, we don’t yet have a confirmed fundamental theory of physics—what’s the next best thing we can possibly say about the fundamental that is properly informed by our best theories of physics? This paper offers a starting point to address this question. It focuses on the literature on the ontology of quantum mechanics, where the problem is especially salient: Many proposals aim at drawing the fundamental ontology of the world from quantum mechanics, even though they often focus on a non-fundamental theory such as nonrelativistic quantum particle mechanics. I argue that quantum mechanics can plausibly be informative about the fundamental if it is taken as a general framework theory, which covers a range of specific concrete theories, including nonrelativistic quantum particle mechanics, the Standard Model of particle physics, and string theory. I use Wavefunction Realism as an example to demonstrate what kind of ontological lessons about the world at the fundamental level the quantum framework may teach us.

The unification of grounding and causation has been proposed in the literature. Also, it has encountered many objections. In this paper, I argue that there is a strategy that enables us to reply to many of the objections to the unification. That is the ‘blame the relata strategy’ which claims that all the differences between grounding and causation come from relata rather than relation. I clarify this strategy by appealing to positionalism about relations, and present three arguments for this strategy. Also, I argue that the difference between causal relata and grounding relata is that the former are distinct entities, while the latter are non-distinct. I suggest the ‘essential connections criterion’ to define ‘distinct’ and ‘non-distinct’, showing that grounding is partly grounded in essence in an indirect manner. Given the above strategy and criterion, we can see that there is no real objection to the unification of grounding and causation.

It is often assumed that theorizing in terms of natural properties is more objectively valuable than theorizing in terms of non-natural properties. But this assumption faces an explanatory challenge: explain the greater objective value of theorizing in terms of natural properties. In this paper, I answer that challenge by proposing and exploring three different accounts of the objective value of naturalness. Two appeal to constitutive natures: it is part of the constitutive nature of explanation, or of objective value, that theorizing in terms of natural properties is more objectively valuable. The third appeals to the theoretical role that naturalness plays.

What grounds the facts about what is identical to/distinct from what? A natural answer is: the facts about what exists. Despite its prima facie appeal, this view has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. Moreover, those who have discussed it have been inclined to reject it because of the following important challenge: why should the existence of some individuals ground their identity in some cases and their distinctness in others? (Burgess 2012, Shumener 2020b). This paper offers a sustained defense of the view. The first half provides some positive motivations in terms of other natural principles involving ground. The second half considers various ways of distilling the challenge into a precise objection to the view, and argues that none of the resulting objections proves persuasive.

Thinking about metaphysical problems in terms of grounding has its uses, but those uses are limited. This paper argues against attempts to see issues of grounding as having a central and organising role in metaphysical inquiry. After arguing that grounding does some useful work, this paper will argue that grounding is neither the central tool for understanding explanation in metaphysics, nor defines the subject matter of metaphysics. Instead, grounding tracks only some of the metaphysical explanations we should be looking for, and is only one among many of the topics metaphysics aims to address.