Comments on: Fundamentality and Ontological Commitment http://carvingnature.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/fundamentality-and-ontological-commitment/ Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:20:15 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Robbie http://carvingnature.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/fundamentality-and-ontological-commitment/#comment-14 Robbie Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:23:46 +0000 http://carvingnature.wordpress.com/?p=12#comment-14 There is a worry around here... that is whether minimizing fundamental OC's is a general theoretical virtue, or a sort of special-purpose metaphysics one. Suppose e.g. that you think that only microphysical ontology fundamentally exists. Then---aside from the physicists---what should we make of appeals to parsimony in science? It's not very sensible to interpret this as e.g. minimizing the number of kinds of quarks they're committed to. This is sharp esp. if we're thinking of quantitative parsimony---the number of fundamentals each theory postulates. If we're talking about qualitative parsimony, it's less clear. But I guess it's in the spirit of the fundamentals-first folks to count by the number of fundamental qualitities attributed to objects---and e.g. being arranged table-wise won't be among those. If so, two biological theories with very different ideologies, but which can be supported by distributions of the same fundamental kinds, will be equal on qualitative commitments too. There is a worry around here… that is whether minimizing fundamental OC’s is a general theoretical virtue, or a sort of special-purpose metaphysics one. Suppose e.g. that you think that only microphysical ontology fundamentally exists. Then—aside from the physicists—what should we make of appeals to parsimony in science? It’s not very sensible to interpret this as e.g. minimizing the number of kinds of quarks they’re committed to.

This is sharp esp. if we’re thinking of quantitative parsimony—the number of fundamentals each theory postulates. If we’re talking about qualitative parsimony, it’s less clear. But I guess it’s in the spirit of the fundamentals-first folks to count by the number of fundamental qualitities attributed to objects—and e.g. being arranged table-wise won’t be among those. If so, two biological theories with very different ideologies, but which can be supported by distributions of the same fundamental kinds, will be equal on qualitative commitments too.

]]> By: Ross Cameron http://carvingnature.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/fundamentality-and-ontological-commitment/#comment-13 Ross Cameron Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:34:14 +0000 http://carvingnature.wordpress.com/?p=12#comment-13 I hope so. The other main motivation I have for neo-Carnapianism about what merely exists is that I want to say we can admit that the Moorean truths about what there is are all true, but that this isn't incompatible with revisionary metaphysics (which are about what there really is). I hope so. The other main motivation I have for neo-Carnapianism about what merely exists is that I want to say we can admit that the Moorean truths about what there is are all true, but that this isn’t incompatible with revisionary metaphysics (which are about what there really is).

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