Reference Magnetism: Can It Help Explain Non-Substantive Disputes?

Certain big philosophical terms seem fundamental, yet cause big problems. Existence, being, real, cause, freedom, good, and true are a few examples. These terms have acquired meanings, and then more meanings, and then yet more meanings, resulting in camps of philosophy who seem to say opposite things using the same words.

Are these disputes non-substantive? True, they often revolve around terminological disagreements, but they are not about terms, or at any rate we don’t want them to be. We want them to be about the things to which they refer: about existence, reality, causation, the good, and what grounds what. The disagreements begin to look terminological when the debaters realize that they are talking past each other, using those fundamental terms in different ways. But isn’t that a false impression, as long as each person is claiming truth for their position? Doing that is very substantive indeed; it’s not a mere acknowledgment that “We’re using the terms differently.”

Borrowing some concepts from Theodore Sider (all the references are from Writing the Book of the World), I want to sketch out a way of understanding what’s going on here.

One of the key concepts Sider has endorsed is “reference magnetism.” (He attributes the term to a 1984 paper by Harold Hodes, but it’s usually associated with David Lewis.) According to reference magnetism, we don’t simply assign words to things or concepts in such a way that our statements about them come out true. Truth on an interpretation isn’t enough. We also want the references of our words to have certain characteristics, certain external constraints on meaning. Here Sider’s preferred term is “joint-carving,” borrowed from Plato, by which he means “corresponding to actual ontological structure.” (I find the term disgusting, but it’s too central to Sider’s thought to be simply dropped.)

An example of joint-carving that Sider offers: Imagine two electrons, alike in every respect, plus a cow. We could find ways of grouping one of the electrons with the cow, forming the mereological item “electron-plus-cow,”and go on to say true things about it, and the remaining lone electron. Sider’s contention is that to do this is to carve reality very badly; it’s a “bizarre interpretation.” “The three objects should be divided into two groups, one containing the electrons, the other containing the cow. The electrons go together, and neither goes with the cow.” Sider also follows Lewis in calling this a “natural grouping,” which is problematic, but let it pass. It’s enough to understand the kind of thing that joint-carving is. (Though I can’t help pointing out that “natural” itself is one of those terms with more than one eligible reference magnet.)

So the idea is that we have a selection of words (exist, real, etc.) and a conceptual field which contains opportunities for those words to refer perspicuously – to carve at the joints. Sider is saying that the conceptual field has natural structural divisions, so when we try to match words with concepts we can be more or less perspicuous. A word like “exist” can be pulled toward one or more of these “reference magnets,” and made to refer to them. How does this happen? Through historical usage, primarily, which may evolve into ordinary language as well. So there may be a number of joint-carving candidates for what “exist” ought to refer to – but Sider’s point is that it’s a limited number, we can’t just say that “exist” will hereafter mean “go for a walk.” Indeed, for most non-philosophical terms (that are sufficiently precise), there will only be one reference, and it will be uncontroversial. Example: For a while, “leopard” was probably used to refer to several large cats. But now that we’ve agreed on what the leopard species is, the only reference magnet in the vicinity is Panthera pardus. Any other non-metaphorical use of the term is wrong.

The problem is, the “big” words are so encrusted with centuries of varying uses at the hands of varying philosophies, that they now get drawn to many different reference magnets. Sider (and I) would say that trying to argue for a single meaning for a word like “good” is a non-substantive debate. It really is a wrangle over terminology. But . . . the possible “magnets” are not themselves words, and the issue is not merely linguistic. It is as substantive as can be: ontology, what the world is like. Our problem is that we can’t settle on which of our big terms ought to be coupled with which magnet. This entire picture, as you can see, assumes that reference is to some degree external to theory, that we need to do more than make an internally consistent interpretation.

So this is very far from a skepticism or relativism about metaphysics. (It’s true that philosophers unsympathetic to metaphysics might stop right here and say, “See? There’s no ‛there’ there. If you don’t even know what the words mean . . .”) Rather, it’s an acknowledgment that we don’t know which (potentially meaningful) words belong with which concepts. We don’t know, for instance, whether we ought to let “exist” be drawn toward the concept of number, and say that numbers exist. We don’t know whether “cause” should be drawn toward the concept of having reasons, and say that a reason is a cause. Etc.

Sider suggests a different approach: “Sometimes fundamental metaphysics can be conducted in ordinary language. But not always. Metaphysicians need a plan B.” Rather than continuing to try to work with ordinary language, we can “enter the metaphysics room” and coin new, improved terms that we all agree to use . . . and then disagree about those. At least we’ll know what they refer to.

Sider imagines a natural-language expression E, and a reference magnet m. (You can also just think of a reference magnet as a plausible candidate meaning, if you prefer.) Should E be paired with m? How would we know if E meant m, and only m? This question is non-substantive, because “its answer would turn on linguistic usage, not reality’s structure”:

That is, the ordinary, natural language question, phrased in terms of the ordinary, natural language expression E, would be non-substantive. But we could discard E and enter the metaphysics room, so to speak. We could replace the ordinary expression E with an improved expression E* that we stipulate is to stand for the joint-carving meaning in the vicinity. The question we ask in the metaphysics room, cast in terms of E* rather than E, is substantive. Indeed, it is superior to the original question, for it concerns reality’s fundamental structure, rather than its merely conventional or projected aspects. This is plan B. — Sider, 74.

Now I want to depart from Sider on one point. (And I should emphasize that much of the above is my own interpretation of Sider.) I’m not convinced that “reality’s fundamental structure” is the best way to talk about what Sider wants to talk about. I don’t know how fundamental the various reference magnets may be, or whether it’s necessary to drag in “reality” (one of those very terms whose ambiguity causes so much trouble). This is a version of the same question raised about “natural” groupings. I certainly don’t know whether “naturalness” or “fundamentality” are properties we can treat the same way we treat things like “yellow” or “square”. I’d rather say that words map imperfectly onto concepts, and that the structure of concepts – their relations, groundings, logics – is something we can discern regardless of the words we use. Plan B is an attempt to help everyone concerned to find a way to stop disagreeing about words and get on with doing metaphysics.

How might we come up with E*? Sider uses the example of C, a relation that is in many ways like our ordinary-language use of “cause” but, as it happens, applies only at the subatomic level.

Now the ordinary English term ‛cause’ may well not mean C. For i) C fits terribly with ordinary usage of ‛cause’ [because we use ‛cause’ to talk about macro-level events as well] . . . and ii) ‛cause’ may well be a nontheoretical term in English. Rather than standing for C, ‛cause’ may instead stand for the non-joint-carving relation that best fits our usage of ‛cause’. A debate involving ‛cause’ would then not be substantive. But we could enter the metaphysics room, and coin a new term, ‛cause*’, for the joint-carving relation in the vicinity of causation. ‛Cause*’ will stand for C – fundamental causation, we might call it – and our new debate about causation* will be substantive. — Sider, 75-76.

In some ways, this approach is familiar, even truistic: Define your terms! And if that doesn’t work, coin a new one! But the way Sider lays it out, we have the advantage of a much clearer insight into why philosophers fall into non-substantive disputes.

Consider how a certain type of philosopher might respond to this proposal: “Sorry, can’t do it. You want me to agree that there is more than one of these so-called ‛reference magnets’ in the vicinity of my term ‛exist’. Well, yes, I agree that people have used ‛exist’ incorrectly; they haven’t spotted the correct definition of what it means to exist, whereas I, along with [fill in favorite famous philosopher], have. But there’s no need to enter your metaphysics room and come up with fancy terminology. Instead, I’ll keep working to convince you that my use of ‛exist’ has indeed trumped all the other reference magnets in the vicinity, just as ‛leopard’ did.” And so the terminological/historical bickering goes on . . .

Another type of philosopher might respond, “I’m wary about this division between word and concept – between a term and its ‛reference magnet’. Are we really able to perceive structure (‛joint-carving’ or not) apart from the words we use to describe it? Does this depend on a special sort of intuition, and/or a multiplication of entities? Surely our challenge, if we’re going to do metaphysics at all, is to use the words we have in order to create the most plausible, parsimonious, and complete account we can. The words are the structure.”

Two things should be said about this latter response. First, you don’t need special powers to see the structure of the way concepts relate. And while it may require words to do so, you can notice these relations while at the same time realizing that the words you’re using to think about them are imprecise and conventional. The map is not the territory. Second, “using the words we have” does work well in some areas of philosophy, but we all appreciate the power of logical languages that can remove vagueness and allow us to clearly see what we’re talking about. The question is whether this (broadly) analytic approach is the right one to use for metaphysics, not whether it can be used at all. That said, we should expect difficulties in trying to translate familiar terms into Ontologese.

Both of these responses seem to me to invite a retreat into non-substantive disputes. The first philosopher wants to prevail in a debate about what a word ought to mean, based (I presume) on a story about what it has often meant in the past, and the successes that this meaning engendered. Of course, this individual wouldn’t put it that way. They would say that the word does mean X, not that they think it ought to. So from this position, “real,” for instance, would be like “leopard” -- there’s only one reference magnet in the vicinity.

The second philosopher doesn’t see daylight between word and reference; for them, to discuss reference can only be a discussion about how to use words, not about independent concepts or structures. But, as Sider puts it, reference is explanatory: It’s supposed to do more than pair word A with object B and show us what true things we can now say; that would be a kind of theory-internal version of reference. Rather, “one can explain certain facts by citing what words refer to.” This is why we regard “‛theories’ based on bizarre classifications as being explanatorily useless.”

Sider adds a caveat:

Reference must have the right sort of basis in the fundamental if it’s to be explanatory. It’s highly unclear what exactly the “right sort” of basis is [my itals]. . . but it’s quite clear that a relation connecting us to bizarre semantic values would have the wrong sort of basis – for the same reason that arbitrary [my itals] correlations between the motions of the planets and the stock market have the wrong sort of basis. — Sider, 29.

This indicates that we still have a lot of work to do in cashing out “the right sort of basis.” The term “non-arbitrary” looks to be important. I’d be interested to know what others (who find Sider’s view appealing) might suggest here. I’m also interested in knowing whether the idea of reference magnetism sheds any light on what happens when “big” terms are employed in philosophy. I think it does. I think it explains something I’ve noticed for years about how certain words can be pulled by different meanings. But it’s a metaphor. We need more clarity about “natural,” “fundamental,” and “right sort” if we’re going to make it plausible.

bongo fury

I could have sworn that Ian Hacking had opened a paper somewhere with the conclusion: "Nelson Goodman was right: there are no natural kinds." Google doesn't confirm.

Anyway, quite to the contrary, Plato still rules (the magnetic waves)? The cookies are ready-cut?

Wayfarer

↪J

One of the things that comes to my mind is a discussion I read years ago about 'thick terms' in philosophy. Most of those are those terms with great depth of meaning, such as the examples you provide - goodness, existence, reality, consciousness, mind, and so on. Looking it up, it was Bernard Williams, another philosopher I believe you have mentioned. Thick terms are both descriptive and evaluative (or normative). He situated the discussion in the context of the fact/value distinction, and whether the descriptive and evaluative aspects of the terms can be separated. (Examples included courageous, brutal, kind, etc).

Seems to me that Sider is doing something different - he is trying to come up with a kind of meta-philosophical framework against which the incommensurability of divergent explanatory paradigms can be interpreted. It is, tongue-in-cheek, post Tower of Babel - a situation where the fragmentation of discourse has become all-pervading. We need a kind of Rosetta Stone to enable analytic philosophers to make sense of what existentialists are saying.

Do you think that’s what it is about?

Leontiskos

I find the term disgusting — J

You should try carving up a cow or a pig without any regard to the joints.

the structure of concepts – their relations, groundings, logics – is something we can discern regardless of the words we use. — J

No, it's not. Concepts are conveyed and understood via words.

Plan B is an attempt to help everyone concerned to find a way to stop disagreeing about words and get on with doing metaphysics. — J

Any disagreement involves disagreements about words, including metaphysical disagreements.

The problem with Sider's proposal is this. Suppose we coin a new word, call it 'yik'. Yik has no meaning, and in order to give it meaning one must stipulate its meaning in terms of common words. Given that those common words were the subject of disagreement in the first place, coining a new word and defining it in terms of the controversial words won't help at all.

The way one overcomes disagreements is first by understanding what the other person is saying. If there is a term that is being used differently between two interlocutors, then it can be helpful to disambiguate that equivocation for the sake of clarity and mutual understanding, but there is no magic bullet where one overcomes metaphysical impasse by coining new words. :grin:

Two things should be said about this latter response. First, you don’t need special powers to see the structure of the way concepts relate. — J

You are falling into an equivocation between concept and reality. Whether or not insight into reality requires words, an understanding of concepts does, especially in a dialogical context.

Both of these responses seem to me to invite a retreat into non-substantive disputes. The first philosopher wants to prevail in a debate about what a word ought to mean, based (I presume) on a story about what it has often meant in the past, and the successes that this meaning engendered. Of course, this individual wouldn’t put it that way. They would say that the word does mean X, not that they think it ought to. So from this position, “real,” for instance, would be like “leopard” -- there’s only one reference magnet in the vicinity.

The second philosopher doesn’t see daylight between word and reference; for them, to discuss reference can only be a discussion about how to use words, not about independent concepts or structures. But, as Sider puts it, reference is explanatory: It’s supposed to do more than pair word A with object B and show us what true things we can now say; that would be a kind of theory-internal version of reference. Rather, “one can explain certain facts by citing what words refer to.” This is why we regard “‛theories’ based on bizarre classifications as being explanatorily useless.” — J

You always deal in these strange, artificial dichotomies. Words and word meaning are contextual, and it is folly to try to "solve" word meaning as an end in itself. We use words to convey meaning (among other things), and if the meaning is being conveyed then there is no problem.

So we should ask about the motive for disagreement (especially because so many on TPF are apt to disagree irrationally or emotively, even dreaming up fictional points of view in order to disagree). If John says something and Joe disagrees with what John is saying, then Joe has sufficient reason to disagree with John. This requires that Joe has an implicit theory about how John is using the words with which he disagrees. Interlocutors who are intellectually honest should never run into the problem where they are arguing over words themselves, as if they must insist on a word-use. True disputes about word-use belong to lexicography, not philosophy proper.

In making an argument one is using words that are fit to function within one's argument (and this is one way in which words serve a contextual role). It would make no sense to disagree with a word without at the same time disagreeing with the greater function that the word is serving within the argument. More simply, one primarily disagrees with an argument, not with words. If a disagreement about an idea or argument becomes a disagreement about a word, then intellectually honest interlocutors solve this quickly by disambiguating the word and avoiding it altogether if it cannot be used fruitfully (given the semantic difference).

What this means is that the "problem" of the OP is never a problem for the intellectually honest, and therefore is not a problem. Indeed, it is primarily a problem for propagandists who cannot dispense with the connotative sense of certain words and who wish to persuade not by argument or reason, but by emotion or association.

(Regarding "reference magnetism," the Analytic notion of stipulated reference is extremely artificial. If one understands philology and language development they understand that we are continually drawing on a rich but finite resource of historical meaning. We inherit the palette of linguistic meaning from those who have gone before us. This idea that meaning is somehow stipulated or that words can be coined willy-nilly is fundamentally confused. In a disagreement one is taking words and meanings that are known to both parties and have a philological pedigree, and then utilizing those words to argue for diverse positions. We never think or act in a purely stipulative or abstract manner.)

Half the controversies in the world are verbal ones; and could they be brought to a plain issue, they would be brought to a prompt termination. Parties engaged in them would then perceive, either that in substance they agreed together, or that their difference was one of first principles. This is the great object to be aimed at in the present age, though confessedly a very arduous one. We need not dispute, we need not prove,—we need but define. At all events, let us, if we can, do this first of all; and then see who are left for us to dispute with, what is left for us to prove. Controversy, at least in this age, does not lie between the hosts of heaven, Michael and his Angels on the one side, and the powers of evil on the other; but it is a sort of night battle, where each fights for himself, and friend and foe stand together. When men understand each other's meaning, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless. — John Henry Newman, Oxford University Sermons, #10

Leontiskos

We need a kind of Rosetta Stone to enable analytic philosophers to make sense of what existentialists are saying. — Wayfarer

And it's really interesting the way this intersects with your and @J's interest in "the view from nowhere," because Sider is presupposing it. He thinks there is a neutral conceptual space where interlocutors can communicate without misunderstanding, and the only question is how to arrive at this holy grail. Apparently in this iteration it is to be done by the coining of new terms.

Or course in one sense it is true that we overcome disagreement by being clear about what our words mean, and disambiguation can aid in this—including the disambiguation that occurs via the coining of new terms in order to distinguish the various senses of a contentious term. But this never leads to a Rosetta Stone. There is no master key to be had that will unlock all of the doors of meaning and mutual understanding—at least this side of heaven.

Sider is doing something different - he is trying to come up with a kind of meta-philosophical framework against which the incommensurability of divergent explanatory paradigms can be interpreted. . . Do you think that’s what it is about? — Wayfarer

This is an interesting context to put it in. First off, I agree there's some similarity with what Williams is doing with "thick terms," in that Williams is pointing out the difficulty of using them merely descriptively, as if their meanings could be read off from some common lexicon. The difference I see is that the unclarity around what I'm calling "big terms" has to do with conflicting usages on the same linguistic level, so to speak. It's not that "real" is ontological in one construal and aesthetic in another (though I suppose that could happen), but rather that different philosophers, or philosophic traditions, will tend to reserve "real" to demarcate different conceptual territories.

So, is Sider offering a meta-philosophical replacement for the Tower of Babel? Yes, in part. As I read him, he's suggesting that it's often possible to sharpen up a contested term in a way that all the parties can agree to. But he's not saying we should do this by dubbing one use of "real", for example, to be the correct one, even for purposes of argument. He recognizes, I think wisely, that even if this could be made to stick, in the course of a single discussion, its usefulness would rapidly fall away as others join in, bringing their own preferred meanings, and the terminological clarification would have to begin all over again.

Instead, he thinks we can be upfront about needing a new (but related) term that "carves better at the joints." Whether one thinks there are metaphysical joints to carved, and whether one thinks those joints are perceptible apart from the language used to describe them, will greatly influence whether one thinks Sider's proposal has merit. But assuming one does, then we can look at possible uses of "Ontologese," as Sider calls it. I don't want to get too off-topic, but I'll just say that Sider approaches this in terms of quantification; the idea is that, in Ontologese, quantifiers are stipulated to carve at the joints. In other words, they are attracted by the correct, eligible reference magnets.

You ask whether this is also about "the incommensurability of divergent explanatory paradigms." I'm not sure about this. If the example of two such paradigms is analytic philosophy and existentialism, then it seems broader than what Sider intends. I haven't read everything he's written, by any means, but as best I can tell he's only interested in sorting out problems within analytic phil, especially as derived from logic and semantics. I don't know if he'd be happy with describing two uses of "real" or "good" as two explanatory paradigms. But that may not matter, since he'd agree they're incommensurate at whatever level you want to take them.

Leaving Sider aside, it does seem as if joint-carving terms for non-asterisked words like "real" or "good" could be part of an explanatory framework that potentially reaches across philosophical schools. An obvious obstacle would be to get some agreement about whether there are such things as joint-carving or ontologically privileged concepts. Some versions of post-modernism, for instance, would stop right here and ask for an account of this that makes sense in their tradition. Can we give one? Food for thought.

T Clark

This is a great OP--clear, well written, and, even more important, something I'm really interested about.

Certain big philosophical terms seem fundamental, yet cause big problems. Existence, being, real, cause, freedom, good, and true are a few examples. These terms have acquired meanings, and then more meanings, and then yet more meanings, resulting in camps of philosophy who seem to say opposite things using the same words.

Are these disputes non-substantive? True, they often revolve around terminological disagreements, but they are not about terms, or at any rate we don’t want them to be. We want them to be about the things to which they refer: about existence, reality, causation, the good, and what grounds what. The disagreements begin to look terminological when the debaters realize that they are talking past each other, using those fundamental terms in different ways. — J

Yes, this happens a lot. I have made the case many times that it's important to agree on the definition of a term at the beginning of the thread unless the discussion's specific purpose is to figure out what it means. I get lots of pushback on that position. In my particular case, the most troublesome concept is "metaphysics." That idea is right at the heart of my interest in and understanding of philosophy. I have my own understanding of what it means. If you've paid attention to my posts, you've heard me spout out about it numerous times.

The problem for me is that, sometimes, I don't want to talk about what metaphysics is, I want to talk about what the implications and consequences of my specific understanding are. I've had knock down drag out fights trying to keep my own discussions on subject. The moderators are often unsympathetic and unwilling to intervene. In my experience, every discussion of metaphysics turns into an argument about what the term really means. It never goes any deeper than that. I think the same thing is sometimes true of terms you identified--existence, being, real, cause, freedom, good, and true--and others.

One of the key concepts Sider has endorsed is “reference magnetism.” (He attributes the term to a 1984 paper by Harold Hodes, but it’s usually associated with David Lewis.) According to reference magnetism, we don’t simply assign words to things or concepts in such a way that our statements about them come out true. Truth on an interpretation isn’t enough. We also want the references of our words to have certain characteristics, certain external constraints on meaning. Here Sider’s preferred term is “joint-carving,” borrowed from Plato, by which he means “corresponding to actual ontological structure.” (I find the term disgusting, but it’s too central to Sider’s thought to be simply dropped.) — J

This is really interesting. For the record, I love the term "joint-carving." I think it gets right to the heart of the issue, although I'm not sure the idea there is some "actual ontological structure" makes any sense. This use of the term makes me think of a passage from Brook Ziporyn's translation of the Chuang Tzu. I'm going to hide it so it doesn't distract from the flow of my argument.

Reveal

The cook put down his knife and said, “What I love is the Course, going beyond mere skill. When I first started cutting up oxen, all I saw for three years was oxen,5 and yet still I was unable to see all there was to see in an ox.6 But now {30} I encounter it with the imponderable spirit in meC rather than scrutinizing it with the eyes. For when the faculties of officiating understanding come to rest, imponderable spiritlike impulses begin to stir,D relying on the unwrought perforations.E Striking into the enormous gaps, they are guided through those huge hollows, going along in accord with what is already there and how it already is. So my knife has never had to cut through the knotted nodes where the warp hits the weave, much less the gnarled joints of bone.

An example of joint-carving that Sider offers: Imagine two electrons, alike in every respect, plus a cow. We could find ways of grouping one of the electrons with the cow, forming the mereological item “electron-plus-cow,”and go on to say true things about it, and the remaining lone electron. Sider’s contention is that to do this is to carve reality very badly; it’s a “bizarre interpretation.” “The three objects should be divided into two groups, one containing the electrons, the other containing the cow. The electrons go together, and neither goes with the cow.” — J

The only reason electron-plus-cow seems like a bad way of carving reality is context--not any absolute ontological structure. I can think of not too goofy situations where two electrons and a cow belong together. An example--let's say I have one group containing two electrons and another containing sunlight, gravity, and gamma radiation. Which group does the cow belong in? To me, it's clear it belongs with the electrons--they're examples of matter while the other group includes only radiation. The so-called ontological structure in Sider's example is based on a narrow understanding of the context of human experience and thought. And that may be fine in a particular situation as long as it is recognized. It is not any kind of universal truth.

Sider is saying that the conceptual field has natural structural divisions, so when we try to match words with concepts we can be more or less perspicuous. A word like “exist” can be pulled toward one or more of these “reference magnets,” and made to refer to them. How does this happen? Through historical usage, primarily, which may evolve into ordinary language as well...

...The problem is, the “big” words are so encrusted with centuries of varying uses at the hands of varying philosophies, that they now get drawn to many different reference magnets. — J

I think you're exactly right. Usage of the big words leads to situations where Sider's scheme doesn't work because we don't seem to be able to agree on an appropriate ontological structure.

Sider (and I) would say that trying to argue for a single meaning for a word like “good” is a non-substantive debate. It really is a wrangle over terminology. But . . . the possible “magnets” are not themselves words, and the issue is not merely linguistic. It is as substantive as can be: ontology, what the world is like. Our problem is that we can’t settle on which of our big terms ought to be coupled with which magnet. — J

Again--exactly right. When every discussion ends up an argument about definitions, we never get anywhere with any substance.

That is, the ordinary, natural language question, phrased in terms of the ordinary, natural language expression E, would be non-substantive. But we could discard E and enter the metaphysics room, so to speak. We could replace the ordinary expression E with an improved expression E* that we stipulate is to stand for the joint-carving meaning in the vicinity. The question we ask in the metaphysics room, cast in terms of E* rather than E, is substantive. Indeed, it is superior to the original question, for it concerns reality’s fundamental structure, rather than its merely conventional or projected aspects. This is plan B. — Sider, 74.

How is this different from just agreeing on the definition of the word in question at the beginning of the discussion? There's already vastly to many "improved expressions E*" out there.

Now I want to depart from Sider on one point. (And I should emphasize that much of the above is my own interpretation of Sider.) I’m not convinced that “reality’s fundamental structure” is the best way to talk about what Sider wants to talk about. I don’t know how fundamental the various reference magnets may be, or whether it’s necessary to drag in “reality” (one of those very terms whose ambiguity causes so much trouble). This is a version of the same question raised about “natural” groupings. I certainly don’t know whether “naturalness” or “fundamentality” are properties we can treat the same way we treat things like “yellow” or “square”. I’d rather say that words map imperfectly onto concepts, and that the structure of concepts – their relations, groundings, logics – is something we can discern regardless of the words we use. Plan B is an attempt to help everyone concerned to find a way to stop disagreeing about words and get on with doing metaphysics. — J

I agree with this.

But we could enter the metaphysics room, and coin a new term, ‛cause*’, for the joint-carving relation in the vicinity of causation. ‛Cause*’ will stand for C – fundamental causation, we might call it – and our new debate about causation* will be substantive.
— Sider, 75-76.

In some ways, this approach is familiar, even truistic: Define your terms!...

Yes.

But there’s no need to enter your metaphysics room and come up with fancy terminology. Instead, I’ll keep working to convince you that my use of ‛exist’ has indeed trumped all the other reference magnets in the vicinity, just as ‛leopard’ did.” And so the terminological/historical bickering goes on . . . — J

Rather than trying to convince me, perhaps it makes more sense for you to say "You and I just see things too differently for this to be a fruitful discussion." Then you go find someone else to talk with. I end up doing that a lot. I just learned the meaning of the word "incommensurable" recently and I find myself using it often.

Another type of philosopher might respond, “I’m wary about this division between word and concept – between a term and its ‛reference magnet’. Are we really able to perceive structure (‛joint-carving’ or not) apart from the words we use to describe it? Does this depend on a special sort of intuition, and/or a multiplication of entities? Surely our challenge, if we’re going to do metaphysics at all, is to use the words we have in order to create the most plausible, parsimonious, and complete account we can. The words are the structure.” — J

I like this, even though I'm not sure I know what it means. I'll have to think about it more.

“using the words we have” does work well in some areas of philosophy, but we all appreciate the power of logical languages that can remove vagueness and allow us to clearly see what we’re talking about. — J

This is true. I believe we can express most of what we want to say without having to use highfalutin philosophical language. At the same time, I think some technical terms, for example "metaphysics," are important and refer to things that aren't easy to express in everyday language.

bizarre semantic values — Sider, 29.

If no definitive ontological structure exists, perhaps no bizarre semantic values do either. Or at least they're not likely to show up in a normal discussion.

I’m also interested in knowing whether the idea of reference magnetism sheds any light on what happens when “big” terms are employed in philosophy. — J

I think using the term might be trying too hard. Of course words take on multiple meanings, sometimes only differing in subtle ways. Of course this is confusing and distracts from substantive discussion. Of course it makes sense to recognize this and try to avoid it. Having discussions about the meaning or meanings of important terms can be useful and interesting, but there comes a time when you have to put your money down if you want to get anywhere. By which I mean--agree on the meaning of the concepts you're going to discuss.

Again--good OP.

T Clark

The way one overcomes disagreements is first by understanding what the other person is saying. If there is a term that is being used differently between two interlocutors, then it can be helpful to disambiguate that equivocation for the sake of clarity and mutual understanding, but there is no magic bullet where one overcomes metaphysical impasse by coining new words. — Leontiskos

This is right, but what it leads to is that every discussion about a difficult or obscure concept ends up as an argument about the meaning of words, and we never get around to a substantive discussion of consequences.

T Clark

in Ontologese, quantifiers are stipulated to carve at the joints. In other words, they are attracted by the correct, eligible reference magnets. — J

Can you give an example of this?

An obvious obstacle would be to get some agreement about whether there are such things as joint-carving or ontologically privileged concepts. Some versions of post-modernism, for instance, would stop right here and ask for an account of this that makes sense in their tradition. Can we give one? Food for thought. — J

As I understand it, at the most fundamental levels, joints are established based on biological and neurological characteristics. Visually, the world gets broken up initially in the eye before it ever gets to the central nervous system. Some animals are most sensitive to motion while others are to shadows. Some see color and some don’t. Some have much better visual resolution than others. Tactually, it would make sense if there were a joint between things that caused pain and things that didn’t.

How those various very primitive conceptualizations, if they can even be called that, lead to the complex conceptual reality humans live with every day is a question to be answered by biology, neurology, psychology, and cognitive science.

↪T Clark

Thanks for your appreciation, and I'm really glad the concepts made sense, and spoke to experiences you've previously had doing philosophy. It was much the same way for me, reading and thinking about Sider's ideas. They rang so many bells, and seemed to put questions very clearly that I'd been inchoately trying to formulate.

To respond to a couple of things:

For the record, I love the term "joint-carving." — T Clark

(My vegan sensibilities squirm. :wink: Leave those joints alone!)

How is [Sider's plan B] different from just agreeing on the definition of the word in question at the beginning of the discussion? — T Clark

I think it both is and isn't the same. Sider is urging us to give up, or at least view with suspicion, the idea that we can agree on how to use "exist", for instance, for purposes of discussion, and then retreat back into our usual practices. Let's say you and I had quite different construals of how "exist" ought to be used. I'm sure that, being reasonable people, we could stipulate a meaning to employ in examining some given question. And we might learn quite a bit about this term -- call it E^. But neither of us really believes it means "exist"! We're clinging to the idea that there is some right way to use "exist", even as we agree to stipulate E^ for this discussion.

Sider's E* is different. With E*, we stipulate that it does refer to whatever joint-carving meaning is in the vicinity. Each of us gives up the idea that our respective "exist" terms do that. Another way of putting this: The move from E to E^ would be regarded by both disputants as a move away from metaphysical accuracy, again for the purposes of securing agreement on a given discussion. Whereas the move from E to E* is, as Sider says, to frame a superior question, not a less accurate one. The disputants agree that E* is what they really want to talk about, and drop their insistence that their respective Es are helpful in doing so.

Rather than trying to convince me, perhaps it makes more sense for you to say "You and I just see things too differently for this to be a fruitful discussion." Then you go find someone else to talk with. — T Clark

Yes, I'd far rather do that than keep wrangling. But as we know, a lot of philosophy consists of people insisting that Great Philosopher X was right about Big Term A, and they're sure they can come up with the persuasive argument somehow. That said, I enjoy talking with people who tone this down a bit, and want to show me how a particular philosopher's construal can be helpful, insightful, creative, et al., without necessarily settling the question for all time.

I also want to respond to your thoughts about fundamental ontological structure; whether it really must be context-dependent. But I've run out of time. I'll return to it.

Leontiskos

As I read him, he's suggesting that it's often possible to sharpen up a contested term in a way that all the parties can agree to. But he's not saying we should do this by dubbing one use of "real", for example, to be the correct one, even for purposes of argument.

[...]

Instead, he thinks we can be upfront about needing a new (but related) term that "carves better at the joints." — J

This is pretty basic self-contradiction. "No one use of 'real' is more correct than another, even in the context of an argument, and yet we do need a substitute word for 'real' that 'carves better at the joints'."

Even the dogmatic pluralist must admit that something which "carves better at the joints" is something which is better, or more correct, particularly within the contextual fabric of an argument.

Pierre-Normand

I could have sworn that Ian Hacking had opened a paper somewhere with the conclusion: "Nelson Goodman was right: there are no natural kinds." Google doesn't confirm. — bongo fury

You likely had read Hacking's A Tradition of Natural Kinds:

'They are the kinds that we talk about in daily life, what Nelson Goodman calls "relevant kinds", kinds of garment or furniture or labourer. A student of kinds or classification or categories will want a theory of those, within which natural kinds (whatever they turn out to be) take their proper, rather limited place.

But most philosophers of kinds expect a discussion of kinds to be about natural kinds. Worse: theories of natural kinds seem to me to wreck much reflection on kinds by importing a good deal of obscure
philosophy. That is why students of kinds such as Goodman, George Lakoff or John Dupre say or imply that there are no natural kinds, or that the concept of a natural kind is not worth saving.'

T Clark

Let's say you and I had quite different construals of how "exist" ought to be used. I'm sure that, being reasonable people, we could stipulate a meaning to employ in examining some given question. And we might learn quite a bit about this term -- call it E^. But neither of us really believes it means "exist"! We're clinging to the idea that there is some right way to use "exist", even as we agree to stipulate E^ for this discussion. — J

The problem with that for me is, again sticking with metaphysics as the example, I need the idea as formulated in my understanding of philosophy. The way I’ve dealt with that in discussions that I started is to specify in the OP exactly the definition of metaphysics I want to use for the purposes of that particular thread. As I noted, it’s often a struggle to keep other posters on that path.

But as we know, a lot of philosophy consists of people insisting that Great Philosopher X was right about Big Term A, and they're sure they can come up with the persuasive argument somehow. That said, I enjoy talking with people who tone this down a bit, and want to show me how a particular philosopher's construal can be helpful, insightful, creative, et al., without necessarily settling the question for all time. — J

I enjoy those kinds of discussions to. As I mentioned, I’m happy to participate, but, as I see it, that limits how substantive the discussion can be. You never get any further than what the term does or doesn’t mean

T Clark

That is why students of kinds such as Goodman, George Lakoff or John Dupre say or imply that there are no natural kinds, — Pierre-Normand

I think there are natural kinds, but they are natural human kinds. They are manifestations of our human nature and, beyond that of our own specific personal natures.

But that’s kind of a pragmatic approach to the subject, which works well for me since I like to call myself a pragmatist. I don’t think the universe has a structure independent of us that allows it to be separated at the joints as @J discussed. I’ll bring a little Lao Tzu into the discussion. This is from the first verse of Steven Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching.

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Naming is the process that divides, categorizes, the universe, the Tao, into the multiplicity that we experience. Naming is something humans do.

bongo fury

You likely had read Hacking's A Tradition of Natural Kinds: — Pierre-Normand

True, but there was definitely a paper with the more striking opening.

The electrons go together, and neither goes with the cow.” -- Sider — J

The only reason electron-plus-cow seems like a bad way of carving reality is context--not any absolute ontological structure. — T Clark

Now I want to depart from Sider on one point. (And I should emphasize that much of the above is my own interpretation of Sider.) I’m not convinced that “reality’s fundamental structure” is the best way to talk about what Sider wants to talk about. I don’t know how fundamental the various reference magnets may be, or whether it’s necessary to drag in “reality” (one of those very terms whose ambiguity causes so much trouble). — J

I think there are natural kinds, but they are natural human kinds. They are manifestations of our human nature and, beyond that of our own specific personal natures. — T Clark

With all of these quotes, we're focusing on a key point for Sider and the idea of reference magnetism. I believe it's a somewhat open question. If we could adopt the ultra-objective "view from nowhere/anywhere," would the same reference magnets exert their influence? Is that what we require in order to talk about "reality's fundamental structure"? Sider declares himself to be an ontological realist; he thinks the answer is Yes. Yet, in his discussion of the electrons and the cow, he never claims that a cow-plus-electron grouping is impossible, or incoherent, or even wrong according to some principle. He calls it "bizarre," and says that "the three objects should be [my itals] divided into two groups" as custom would dictate.

When I ended the OP by saying that we needed to do a lot more work on concepts like "right sort of basis," this is the kind of situation I had in mind. In Sider's favor: There is surely such a thing as a non-bizarre interpretation, in which the two electrons do "go together"; he isn't making that up. Your suggestion is that bizarre vs. ordinary is a referendum on human uses and contexts. And that too seems plausible. The question, I think, is whether we can argue that our human uses are themselves not arbitrary, but reflect actual ontological structure of some kind. I was jibbing at "fundamental," but there may be other kinds of structure which are to some extent invariant, though depending upon the life-world of humans for their perceptibility. Arguably, that's enough to satisfy Sider; he could reply that these kinds of structure are all that logic and metaphysics means to deal with. Quantification isn't a statement about ultimate reality, or even an endorsement that there must be such a thing.

in Ontologese, quantifiers are stipulated to carve at the joints. In other words, they are attracted by the correct, eligible reference magnets.
— J

Can you give an example of this? — T Clark

First, a little more elaboration. This gives us the context:

Suppose . . . that there exist, in the fundamental sense, nothing but sub-atomic particles. Given such a sparse ontology, the most plausible view about natural language quantifiers might be that they do not carve at the joints. The best metaphysical semantics of an ordinary sentence like 'There is a table' might be . . . a tolerant semantics, which interprets it as making the true claim that there exist sub-atomic particles appropriately arranged. The English 'there is', according to such a semantics, would not express fundamental quantification. . . So even if there is a joint-carving sort of quantification, the quantifiers of ordinary language might not carve at the joints. — Sider, 171-72.

Thus, Sider's E* is introduced as the quantifier that does carve at the joints -- on this example, it would refer to sub-atomic particles.

We're talking here about the "big" term "exist". Let's move to a less austere term: "happiness". Philosopher A maintains that happiness refers to a state that's measured in terms of pleasures and pains. Thus, it's possible, though unusual, for a person to fail to seek their own happiness, due to some defect of the psyche. Philosopher B maintains that happiness is best understood as that state which all people do in fact seek, since we are egoistic hedonists, and cannot fail to act in our own behalf.

This is a classic dispute about terms. A and B can go on (and on) to argue out their respective uses of "happiness" (perhaps joined by Philosopher C, who will maintain that happiness has nothing to do with pleasures and pains). Or . . . they can pose the Siderian question, "Is there something here that carves at the joints, ethically or psychologically? Is there a way of putting aside the divergent use of terms and discovering some actual structural item to which we can agree to refer?" With a term like "happiness," there are those who would claim that there is no such item. But I think there is. We can point out that there is such a thing as experiencing pleasure. Likewise, we might agree that there is such a thing as attempting to act in one's own best interests. These are reference magnets; they are "in the vicinity" of the term "happiness," and exert pressure on different philosophers to make the identification with "happiness." But we can resist that pressure, and instead decide to talk about the references, not the terms. Sider suggests this is best done not by stipulating one use of "happiness" for purposes of the discussion, but by coining or adapting a new term that is stipulated to carve at whatever joint may be available to be carved at.

Sider warns us, "Whether the introduction of Ontologese succeeds depends on the facts, on whether there is a joint-carving sort of quantification." He compares this with a proposal to introduce the term "dirt" as meaning "that element of the periodic table that allows trees to grow, etc." This isn't going to work, because there is no such element, and presumably no other reference magnet in the vicinity that is joint-carving.

The problem with that for me is, again sticking with metaphysics as the example, I need the idea as formulated in my understanding of philosophy. The way I’ve dealt with that in discussions that I started is to specify in the OP exactly the definition of metaphysics I want to use for the purposes of that particular thread. As I noted, it’s often a struggle to keep other posters on that path. — T Clark

I sympathize, and I think Sider has this sort of thing in mind. Is there a way to bracket your use of "metaphysics," so to speak, and instead specify the (joint-carving) way in which you use that term? It could be set out not as a definition of 'metaphysics', but as an interesting conceptual or structural category you've noticed. I dunno . . . people might still want to argue terms.

Reference Magnetism: Can It Help Explain Non-Substantive Disputes?

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