Reviews for Textual Interaction

The average rating for Textual Interaction based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-05-05 00:00:00 Matthew Measmer The foundation of the authors' ontological claims rests on the impossibility of ontological vagueness. If an object is ontologically vague, it is open to sorites susceptibility, which states: "For any vague constituent of language or thought, and for any putatively vague object, property, or relation, there is a sorites sequence directly involving that item" (p. 21). A sorites sequence "is a progression of statements, or of states of affairs (actual or possible), that generates a sorties-paradoxical argument" (p. 21). (An example of a sorites sequence is baldness). One example of a sorites-paradoxical argument is the conjunction of the following claims: The Difference Condition: Initially in the sorites sequence there are items with a specific status, and every predecessor of an item with this status has the same status. Eventually in the sequence there are items with the polar-opposite status, and every successor of an item with this status has the same status. No item in the sequence has both the initial status and the polar-opposite statues (p. 21). The Transition Condition: There is no determinate fact of the matter about status-transitions in the sorites sequence. The Individualistic Same-Status Principle (ISS Principle): Each item in the sorites sequence has the same status as its immediate neighbors. The Collectivistic Status-Indeterminacy Principle (CSI Principle): There is no correct overall assignment of statuses to the items in the sequence (p. 21-22). From these principles the authors argues that all material objects are putative vague objects, but because ontological vagueness is logically impossible, these material objects do not exist. The authors attempt to save commonsense ideas about the truth of statements like: "That chair is green" by developing a view called Contextual Semantics, which is a set of semantic theses: AS1: Correspondence Conception of Truth: Truth is correspondence between language and thought on the one hand, and the world on the other. AS2: Abundance of Truth: Numerous statements and though-contents involving posits of common sense and science are true'including numerous counting statements about such posits. AS3: Refined Construal of Correspondence: Truth is semantic correctness under contextually variable semantic standards, and sometimes the contextually operative semantic standards require only indirect correspondence rather than direct correspondence. AS4: Truth as Indirect Correspondence in Most Contexts: In most contexts of discourse and thought, including most contexts of scientific inquiry, truth (under the contextually operative semantic standards) is indirect correspondence rather than direct correspondence. AS5: Refined Construal of Ontological Commitments: When a thought or statement is governed by contextually operative semantic standards under which truth is indirect correspondence, the thought or statement is not ontologically committed to its posits. Contextual Semantics helps the authors to save the truth-value of commonsense beliefs and statements (however, by re-defining 'truth'). This allows the authors to be unencumbered in the defense of their ontological theses: Austere Realism and Blobjectivism (they are more dedicated to the former). Austere Realism states: AO1: Metaphysical Realism: There is a mind-independent, discourse-independent world. AO2: Refined Commonsense Ontology: The right ontology excludes most of the posits of everyday belief and discourse and also excludes many of the posits of mature scientific theories (p. 164). Blobjectivism is the following view: BO1: Strong Monism: There is just one concrete particular, namely, the whole universe (the blobject). BO2: Structural Complexity: The blobject has enormous spatiaotemporal structural complexity and enormous local variability'even though it does not have any genuine parts (p. 165). The theses defended in this book are interesting and in many ways compelling. The first few chapters are far more interesting and impressive than the latter few. The latter chapters are often redundant and do not do a great job of dealing with difficult objections (that is to say, they do a fine job of dealing with weak objections). One might first deny the authors' characterization of vagueness. Why buy into the Difference Condition or the ISS principle? There is no question in my mind that certain objects have vague boundaries, but do all objects really have vague boundaries? By the authors' own standards, I suspect that the blobject might itself be a putative vague object. Imagine a world in which the blobject is a tiny bit smaller. Is this still the blobject? With the Difference Condition, the authors seem to be dedicated to the idea that, as far as material objects go, there is always a difference so small that it does not make a difference. If this is the case, is not the blobject a vague object? The arguments developed by the authors directly contradict at least one statement I take to be obviously true: Persons exist. According to Austere Realism/Blobjectivism, persons do not exist'they are local variations in the blobject. This might be considered a reductio against Austere Realism/Blobjectivism. (However, one might assent to an austere ontology of material objects but then argue that person are immaterial objects.) It also raises the question: why define a material object by its boundaries? I think there is a case to be made for materialist ontologies that agree that the boundaries of certain objects do exhibit putative vagueness, but the objects themselves are not vague. I am thinking of essentialism as one example. All in all, this is a great book with attractive theses. Yet, something is not quite right.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-01-10 00:00:00 Tom Larson I was only aware of Horgan and Potrc's work because they had an essay in a volume that Lance edited on moral particularism, where they discuss contextualism and metaphysics. H&P endorse what they call "contextualist semantics", which is not spelled out in great detail--they claim that there are parameters that get shifted and so alter what gets expressed by sentences, but that's about as far as the contextualism goes. There is, for example, no discussion of the huge literature on various versions of contextualism, criticisms of contextualism, minimalism, or relativism. The focus of the book is on metaphysics, and it makes oblique contact with the more familiar debates in philosophy of language. H&P give some well-known arguments against ordinary ontology: van Inwagen's special composition argument (which is a demand for some principled explanation for why certain collections of simple objects make up complex objects, but not other collections, and arguments that no principled explanation is available), an argument more or less from "common sense" that social entities like corporations and battalions don't "really" exist, and an argument that since ontological vagueness is impossible, and ordinary objects are vague, ordinary objects can't exist. They endorse these arguments. That means--hold on to your hat--that they think there aren't tables and chairs and cats and people. That's the austerity in the title of the book. Then there's the part where they (kind of, and, of course, context-sensitively) take it back. They disagree with eliminativists and fictionalists who share the belief that ordinary objects don't exist by insisting that TALK about ordinary objects is literally true. That's the realism in the title of the book. How is that possible, if objects don't exist, and truth is the correspondence of talk and thought with the way the world is? It's possible if you reject, as H&P do, that truth is "direct correspondence" with the way the world is. They replace direct correspondence with "indirect correspondence", which I only have a vague understanding of, though I'm sympathetic to the idea. This is an idea that I think relativists like MacFarlane and Predelli are in one way or another committed to, and that Travis must also endorse in some form or other. There are various ways to have an austere metaphysics, one that denies that ordinary objects exist. H&P endorse a form of austere metaphysics they call, not being able to resist the pun, "blobjectivism" (other similar puns also feature prominently: "snobjectivism", which is commitment to objects only if they have precise boundaries and principles of composition, and "slobjects" (putative vague objects) (165)). Blobjectivism is the view that there is only one object, the blobject. The blobject is analogous to a lump of jello, which may have different aspects or attributes, but has no parts. Our ordinary talk about objects is made true by the way the blobject is, but not by, say, medium sized objects bearing properties. I'm not sure quite what to make of all of this, although I'm sympathetic to the idea of indirect correspondence. I think the arguments marshaled against ordinary objects aren't very convincing. And I find appeals to parsimony as reasons for favoring one view over another utterly unmoving. What are we spending? Why is parsimony a virtue? John Haugeland once said that while some people may be fans of desert landscapes, if you grew up in one, you may want a little more variety.