Thomas Hofweber argues that the thesis of direct reference is incompatible with physicalism, the claim that the nonphysical supervenes on the physical. According to Hofweber, direct reference implies that some physical objects have object-dependent properties, such as being Jones’s brother, which depend on particular objects for their existence and identity. Hofweber contends that if some physical objects have object-dependent properties, then Local-Local Supervenience (the physicalist doctrine on which he concentrates) fails. In this note, we argue that Hofweber has (...) failed to show that the possession by physical objects of object-dependent properties implies the falsity of Local-Local Supervenience. (shrink)

Ontic structural realists hold that structure is all there is, or at least all there is fundamentally. This thesis has proved to be puzzling: What exactly does it say about the relationship between objects and structures? In this article, I look at different ways of articulating ontic structural realism in terms of the relation between structures and objects. I show that objects cannot be reduced to structure, and argue that ontological dependence cannot be used to establish strong forms of (...) structural realism. At the end, I show how a weaker, but controversial, form of structural realism can be articulated on the basis of ontological dependence. (shrink)

SummaryIn a theory of representational or intentional states content is generally supposed to play various roles. It has to be the bearer of a truth‐value, it has to determine the way a representation is about something , and finally it has to 6e used in order to give intra‐ and interpersonal psychological explanations. It has been argued that no unique kind of content can play all these roles. What criterion should one adopt in order to draw the dividing line? We (...) suggest that the divide be based on ontological considerations related to the way content depends on external factors. There is a fundamental difference, we submit, between object‐dependent and property‐dependent contents. The requirements concerning modes of presentation as well as cognitive significance can be met by one kind of content. This content, it will appear, is property‐dependent, but never object‐dependent. (shrink)

When unknowingly experiencing a perceptual hallucination, a subject can attempt to think specifically about what is, as far as he or she can tell, the perceived object. Is the subject then deceived about his or her cognitive situation? I answer negatively. Moreover, I argue that this answer is compatible with holding that thought specifically about a certain object – singular thought – is object-dependent. By contrast, both critics and advocates of the view that singular thought is (...) class='Hi'>object-dependent have assumed this view to be committed to postulation of illusions of object-dependent thought in cases like that mentioned. The core ingredient in my illusion-free version of the view is a special form of disjunctivism. Alleged cases of illusion are not considered parasitic on ‘the good case’ where the object thought about is perceived. (shrink)

There has been much work on ontological dependence in recent literature. However, relatively little of it has been dedicated to the ways in which individual physical objects may depend on other distinct, non-overlapping objects. This paper gives several examples of such object-dependence and distinguishes between different types of it. The paper also introduces and refines the notion of an n-tet. N-tets (typically) occur when there are object-dependence relations between n objects. I claim that the identity (...) (or, rather, what I call the n-dentity) conditions for n-tets are not grounded in the individual identity conditions of each of the n objects, but instead are metaphysically basic. The paper then briefly discusses some ramifications of accepting object-dependence (and n-tets) on the philosophy of biology, ethics, and logic. (shrink)

The theory of object-dependent singular thought is outlined and the central motivation for it, turning on the connection between thought content and truth conditions, is discussed. Some of its consequences for the epistemology of thought are noted and connections are drawn to the general doctrine of externalism about thought content. Some of the main criticisms of the object-dependent view of singular thought are outlined. Rival conceptions of singular thought are also sketched and their problems noted.

Gareth Evans and John McDowell have challenged the traditional reading of Frege according to which Frege accepted propositions that are not object dependent, i.e., propositions that can exist even though the proper names that occur in the sentences that express them do not refer. A consequence of the Evans‐McDowell interpretation of Frege is that if someone hallucinates that there is an oasis in front of her, then there is no thought of an oasis but only an illusion of a (...) thought. No reference entails no sense, and no sense entails no thought.This paper will focus on Frege's views on the issue and, in particular, whether there is any evidence that the mature Frege, i.e., after he introduced the sense/reference distinction, did not accept propositions that are not object dependent. It will also address one of the consequences of the Evans‐McDowell reading of Frege, arguing that they have ignored one of his important insights into natural languages. (shrink)

This is a defence of the role of object-dependent content in psychological action. I argue against the two-list argument against object-dependent content as articulated by Noonan.

Against a view currently popular in the literature, it is argued that Kant was not a niıve realist about perceptual experience. Naive realism entails that perceptual experience is object-dependent in a very strong sense. In the first half of the paper, I explain what this claim amounts to and I undermine the evidence that has been marshalled in support of attributing it to Kant. In the second half of the paper, I explore in some detail Kant’s account of hallucination (...) and argue that no such account is available to someone who thinks that veridical perceptual experience is object-dependent in the naive realist sense. Kant’s theory provides for a remarkably sophisticated, bottom-up explanation of the phenomenal character of hallucinatory episodes and is crucial for gaining a proper understanding of his model of the mind and its place in nature. (shrink)

The existence of object-dependent thoughts has been doubted on the grounds that reference to such thoughts is unnecessaryor 'redundant'in the psychological explanation of intentional action.This paperarguesto the contrary that reference to object-dependent thoughts is necessary to the proper psycho- logical explanationof intentional action upon objects. Section I sets out the argument for the alleged explanatory redundancy of object-dependent thoughts; an argument which turns on the coherenceof an alternative'dual-component' model of explanation.Section II rebutsthis argumentby showing the dual- component (...) model to be incoherent precisely because of its exclusion of object-dependentthoughts. Section III concludes with a conjectureabout the furtherpossible significanceof object-dependenthoughtsfor the predictionof action. (shrink)

In this paper I consider whether disquotationalist accounts of reference can accommodate our intuitions concerning reference. I argue that, if our intuitions are to be satisfactorily accommodated, the disquotationalist must regard the semantic content of a referring singular term as depending upon the object which is the intuitive referent of that singular term. Granted this, however, the way then looks open for the inflationist about reference to simply identify the object dependence relation with the reference relation. I (...) consider how damaging this is for the disquotationalist, and how she might respond, concluding on a note of pessimism for disquotationalist accounts of reference. (shrink)

Sean Crawford; Discussions: In Defence of Object-Dependent Thoughts, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 98, Issue 1, 1 June 1998, Pages 201–210, ht.

According to the presentist the present time is the only one that there is. Nevertheless, things persist. Most presentists think that things persist by enduring. Employing E. J. Lowe’s notion of identity-dependence, Jonathan Tallant argues that presentism is incompatible with any notion of persistence, even endurance. This consequence of Lowe’s ideas, if soundly drawn, is important. The presentist who chooses to deny persistence outright is a desperate figure. However, though Lowe’s notion is a legitimate and worthwhile one, this application (...) is faulty. The incompatibility of presentism and persistence is not part of Lowe’s heritage. A positive conclusion can be drawn. A form of persistence is compatible with presentism. It is one on which persistence is defined in tensed terms using an adverbial tense operator: x persists iff x exists and existed or will exist. Unsurprisingly, so understood persistence is endurance. The commonly held view is correct. (shrink)

What sorts of things are there in the world? Clearly enough, there are concrete, material things; but are there other things too, perhaps nonconcrete or non-material things? Some people believe that there are such things, which are often called abstract ; purported examples of such objects include numbers, properties, possible but non-actual states of affairs, propositions, and sets. Following a long-standing tradition, I shall describe persons who believe that there are abstract objects as ‘platonists’. In this paper, I shall not (...) directly address the plausibility of platonism, as compared with its rivals; instead, I shall confine my attention to one way in which some people have tried to combine platonism and theism. More specifically, I shall concentrate upon the claim that abstract objects depend upon God ontologically ; I shall argue that platonistic theists should reject DEP in favour of the claim that abstract objects exist independently of God . In order to evaluate the relative merits of DEP versus IND, it will be helpful to examine in some detail a particular articulation of DEP. When it comes to recent work on DEP, we can do no better in this regard than to examine the recent work of Thomas V. Morris and Christopher H. Menzel. According Morris and Menzel, there is a sense in which God literally creates such abstracta through engaging in intellective activities. (shrink)

I argue that the semantic thesis of direct reference and the meta- physical thesis of the supervenience of the non-physical on the physical cannot both be true. The argument first develops a necessary condition for supervenience, a so-called conditional locality requirement, which is then shown to be incompatible with some physical object having object dependent properties, which in turn is required for the thesis of direct reference to be true. We apply this argument to formulate a new argument (...) against the claim that a thisness is analyzable in purely general terms, one that does not rely on complete symmetry nor the falsity of the identity of indiscernibles. I outline a strategy at the end how the conclusion could be avoided, at a price. (shrink)

1. The spatial perception requirementCassam surveys arguments for what he calls the ‘Spatial Perception Requirement’ . This is the following principle: " SPR: In order to perceive that something is the case and thereby to know that it is the case one must be capable of spatial perception. " A couple of preliminary glosses. By ‘spatial perception’ Cassam means either perception of location, or perception of specifically spatial properties of an object, such as its size and shape. Second, Cassam (...) takes it that there is something basic about cases in which one's perceiving that something is the case depends on perception of an object. That is, he takes it that there is something basic about such cases as that in which, for example, you perceive that the door is open by perceiving the door.On this second point, it is not quite obvious that one could not perceive that things are thus and so if one could not perceive material objects. Cannot someone lost in fog, for example, perceive that it is foggy, even if they cannot see a thing because of the fog? Moreover, suppose we have someone who cannot perceive that things are thus and so. This person has only a series of sensations. Is it obvious that this person could not come to have knowledge of their world by reasoning about the probable causes of those sensations? These points seem to me to have some interest, but I will not pursue them here. I will assume we are considering cases in which propositional knowledge is grounded in perception that such and such is the case, and that this in turn depends on perception of objects.One sort of argument you might give for SPR runs as follows. Perception of an object demands that you have perceptually differentiated the object from its …. (shrink)

There is a widespread sentiment that social objects such as nation-states, borders, and pieces of money are just figments of our collective imagination and not really ‘out there’ in the world. Call this the ‘antirealist intuition’. Eliminativist, reductive materialist, and immaterialist views of social objects can all make sense of the antirealist intuition, in one way or another. But these views face serious difficulties. A promising alternative view is nonreductive materialism. Yet it is unclear whether and how nonreductive materialists can (...) make sense of the antirealist intuition. I develop a version of nonreductive materialism that is able to meet this explanatory demand. The central idea is that social objects are materially constituted, response-dependent objects. I go on to offer an independent argument in favor of this response-dependent view of social objects. I then suggest that a proponent of this view can appeal to the response-dependent nature of social objects to explain, or explain away, the antirealist intuition. (shrink)

This paper discusses and criticizes Segal’s 1989 argument against singular object-dependent thoughts. His argument aims at showing that object-dependent thoughts are explanatorily redundant. My criticism of Segal’s argument has two parts. First, I appeal to common anti-individualist arguments to the effect that Segal’s type of argument only succeeds in establishing that object-dependent thoughts are explanatorily redundant for those aspects of subjects’ behaviour that do not require reference to external objects. Secondly, Segal’s view on singular thoughts is at (...) odds with his view on the semantics of proper names, which favours the singularity and object-dependency of the truth-conditions of sentences in which they occur. In particular, his views are at odds with a position he holds, that truth-conditional semantics can adequately account for all aspects of speakers’ linguistic competence in the use of proper names. (shrink)

Intuitively, when all goes well, we adopt beliefs based on inference because we realize that their truth is established by the truth of the involved premises. If this intuitive picture of our successful reasoning is correct, then it must be possible that our reasoning is motivated by our sensitivity to the soundness of the involved inference. This paper argues that such a view of ideal reasoning can only be upheld if we accept the minority view that the proper inferential role (...) of our thoughts is individuated in terms of object dependent Fregean senses. I consider respectively Millian, Guise–Fregean, and object dependent Fregean views, and show how only the latter view provides a picture of our theoretical reasoning where sensitivity to soundness can be what motivates a subject’s reasoning. (shrink)

Does thought depend on language? Primarily as a consequence of the cognitive turn in empirical disciplines like psychology and ethology, many current empirical researchers and empirically minded philosophers tend to answer this question in the negative. This book rejects this mainstream view and develops a philosophical argument in favor of a universal dependence of language on thought. In doing so, it comprises insights of two primary representatives of 20 th century and contemporary philosophy, namely Donald Davidson and Robert Brandom. (...) Barth offers an introduction to the debate concerning the language-dependence of thought and lays the methodological foundation for the subsequent argument in favor of a universal dependence of thought on language, presenting an account and defense of the transcendental method in reference to the writings of Peter F. Strawson. He then offers a transcendental argument in favor of a universal language-dependence of thought, beginning with a reevaluation of a basic idea for an argument originally presented by Donald Davidson. Later, two main objections to the conclusion of this transcendental argument are addressed and rejected using Robert Brandom’s inferentialist and normativist account of thought and language. In the course of doing so, the recent debate on Brandom’s work is addressed extensively, and main objections to Brandom’s work are presented and answered. (shrink)

The composition of objects is a much discussed issue in metaphysics. In this paper I look at various approaches to this issue in the context of two examples: the relationship between ‘everyday’ objects, such as tables, and their constituent physical entities, and the relationship between structures and objects, from the perspective of structural realism. My aims are first, to defend forms of eliminativism in both cases, whereby one can still make statements about the entities to be eliminated ; and second, (...) to highlight some of the metaphysical moves that are available to the structuralist in articulating their ontology. In doing so I hope also to indicate how metaphysics and the philosophy of science can be brought into a more productive relationship. (shrink)

According to 'Ontic Structural Realism' (OSR), physical objects—qua metaphysical entities—should be reconceptualised, or, more strongly, eliminated in favour of the relevant structures. In this paper I shall attempt to articulate the relationship between these putative objects and structures in terms of certain accounts of metaphysical dependence currently available. This will allow me to articulate the differences between the different forms of OSR and to argue in favour of the 'eliminativist' version. A useful context is provided by Floridi's account of (...) the relationship between 'ontic' and 'epistemic' structural realisms and I shall conclude with some brief remarks on possible extensions of OSR into other scientific domains. (shrink)

Adherents of Ockham’s fundamental razor contend that considerations of ontological parsimony pertain primarily to fundamental objects. Derivative objects, on the other hand, are thought to be quite unobjectionable. One way to understand the fundamental vs. derivative distinction is in terms of the Aristotelian distinction between ontologically independent and dependent objects. In this paper I will defend the thesis that every natural number greater than 0 is an ontologically dependent object thereby exempting the natural numbers from Ockham’s fundamental razor.

Face recognition is a computationally challenging classification task. Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) are brain‐inspired algorithms that have recently reached human‐level performance in face and object recognition. However, it is not clear to what extent DCNNs generate a human‐like representation of face identity. We have recently revealed a subset of facial features that are used by humans for face recognition. This enables us now to ask whether DCNNs rely on the same facial information and whether this human‐like representation depends (...) on a system that is optimized for face identification. In the current study, we examined the representation of DCNNs of faces that differ in features that are critical or non‐critical for human face recognition. Our findings show that DCNNs optimized for face identification are tuned to the same facial features used by humans for face recognition. Sensitivity to these features was highly correlated with performance of the DCNN on a benchmark face recognition task. Moreover, sensitivity to these features and a view‐invariant face representation emerged at higher layers of a DCNN optimized for face recognition but not for object recognition. This finding parallels the division to a face and an object system in high‐level visual cortex. Taken together, these findings validate human perceptual models of face recognition, enable us to use DCNNs to test predictions about human face and object recognition as well as contribute to the interpretability of DCNNs. (shrink)

This paper argues for a distinction between fictional characters, as parts of intentionally created abstract artifacts, and intentional objects, as nonexistent objects generated by referential acts that fail to refer. It argues that intentional objects as the nonexistent objects of imagination and other objectual attitudes are well-reflected in natural language, though in a highly restricted way, reflecting their ontological dependence on referential acts. The paper elaborates how that ontological dependence can be understood.

The usefulness of contextually guided processors is investigated a little further. A more general use for binding V1 cell responses than the one in Phillips & Singer's target article is proposed, which takes into account that strong responses of these cells can mean more than the presence of lines and edges. The possibility of different grouping depending on the activities of neighboring cells is essential to the approach.

A fully developed sophisticated response-dependent account would fill in specifications for B (the beings) and C (the conditions), would probably replace the reference to disapproval with a reference to a more complex response, and might involve a more complex scheme.[ii] For simplicity, however, I shall focus my argument on the above simple scheme of moral wrongness, since added complexities will be irrelevant to my argument.

The first part of this book is of an epistemological nature and develops an original theory of scientific objectivity, understood in a weak sense (as intersubjective agreement among the specialists) and a strong sense (as having precise concrete referents). In both cases it relies upon the adoption of operational criteria designed within the particular perspective under which any single science considers reality. The "object" so attained has a proper ontological status, dependent on the specific character of the criteria of (...) reference (regional ontologies). This justifies a form of scientific realism. Such perspectives are also the result of a complex cultural-historical situation. The awareness of such a "historical determinacy" of science justifies including in the philosophy of science the problems of ethics of science, relations of science with metaphysics, and social dimensions of science that overstep the traditional restriction of the philosophy of science to an epistemology of science. It is to this "context" that the second part of the book is devoted. (shrink)

This is the first of three essays which use Edmund Husserl's dependence ontology to formulate a non-Diodorean and non-Kantian temporal semantics for two-valued, first-order predicate modal languages suitable for expressing ontologies of experience (like physics and cognitive science). This essay's primary desideratum is to formulate an adequate dependence-ontological account of order. To do so it uses primitive (proper) part and (weak) foundation relations to formulate seven axioms and 28 definitions as a basis for Husserl's dependence ontological theory (...) of relating moments. The essay distinguishes between dependence v. independence, pieces v. moments, mediate v. immediate pieces and moments, maximal v. non-maximal pieces, founded v. unfounded qualities, integrative v. disintegrative dependence, and defines the concepts of the completion of an object, the adumbrational equivalence relation of objects, moments of unity which unify objects, and relating moments which relate objects. The eight theorems [CUT90]-[CUT97] show that relating moments of unity provide an adequate account of order in terms of primitive (proper) part and (weak) foundation relations. (shrink)

In his final monograph, Barry Stroud argues that certain fundamental concepts, like the concept of causation, are not only indispensable to any thought of an objective, independent world, but that they are also, therefore, invulnerable to skeptical attack. Given some assumptions about thought and objectivity, this leads him into the following metaphysical aporia: We can neither metaphysically establish that the objective, independent world is as we must think of it nor that it is not that way. I will argue that (...) the source of this aporia is a notion of objectivity in terms of the complete independence from any relation to thought whatsoever. This is a notion never explicitly argued for, as Stroud does not identify its origin. I then argue that a Kantian notion of objectivity can both be justified by tracing it to its origin in what we understand thinking and perceiving to be and dissolve Stroud’s aporia. If there is a way we must think of the world, and if we conceive of this world as completely independent of any relation to thought, then it is indeed hard to see why the world would agree with the fundamental form of thought. But if the objective, independent world is instead conceived of in relation to thought rather than independently of it and in terms of the independence from subjects and acts of thinking and perceiving, then it becomes intelligible how the world in relation to thought can agree with our fundamental concepts, while the world independent of any relation to thought might not. (shrink)

Entities that are, in ordinary perceptual situations, veridically presented as objects can be called ‘perceptual objects’. In the philosophical literature, one can find various approaches to the crucial features that distinguish the class of perceptual objects. While these positions differ in many respects, they share an important general feature: they all characterize perceptual objects as largely subject-independent. More specifically, they do not attribute a significant constitutive role to the perceptual relation connecting a fragment of the environment with a perceiving subject. (...) Fragments of the environment are perceptual objects no matter whether they stand in a perceptual relation to any subject, mainly by virtue of having a certain physical structure. I question this common assumption, relying on Green’s ( 2019 ) definition of perceptual objects, arguing that a proper theory of perceptual objects should accommodate the constitutive role of perceptual relations. This is because there exist fragments of the environment that are perceptual objects only when they stand in a perceptual relation to a subject. (shrink)

Priority Monism, as defined by Jonathan Schaffer, has a number of components. It is the view that: the cosmos exists; the cosmos is a maximal actual concrete object, of which all actual concrete objects are parts; the cosmos is basic—there is no object upon which the cosmos depends, ontologically; ontological dependence is a primitive and unanalysable relation. In a recent attack, Lowe has offered a series of arguments to show that Monism fails. He offers up four tranches (...) of argument, with different focuses. These focal points are: being a concrete object; aggregation and dependence; analyses of ontological dependence; Schaffer’s no-overlap principle. These are all technical notions, but each figures at the heart of a cluster of arguments that Lowe puts forward. To respond, I work through each tranche of argument in turn. Before that, in the first section, I offer a cursory statement of Monism, as Schaffer presents it in his 2010 paper, Monism: The Priority of the Whole. I then respond to each of Lowe’s criticisms in turn, deploying material from Schaffer’s 2009 paper Spacetime: the One Substance, as well as various pieces of conceptual machinery from Lowe’s own works to deflect Lowe’s attacks. In the process of defending Monism from Lowe, I end up offering some subtle refinements to Schaffer’s view and explain how the resulting ‘hybrid’ view fares in the wider dialectic. (shrink)

This paper compares Kant’s and Leibniz’s views on the relation between knowing subjects and known objects. Kant discusses Leibniz’s philosophy in the ‘Amphiboly’ section of the first Critique. According to Kant, Leibniz’s main error is mistaking objects in space and time for mind-independent things in themselves, that is, for monads. The paper argues that, pace Kant, Leibniz regards objects in space and time as mind-dependent. A deeper divergence between the two philosophers concerns knowing subjects. For Leibniz, they are substances. For (...) Kant, we cannot know whether they are substances. Kant conceives of knowing subjects as complex systems of cognitive capacities. (shrink)

This chapter accepts for the sake of argument Ronald Dworkin’s point that the only viable form of normative skepticism is internal, and develops an internal skeptical argument directed specifically at normative realism. There is a striking and puzzling coincidence between normative judgments that are true, and normative judgments that causal forces led us to believe—a practical/theoretical puzzle to which the constructivist view has a solution. Normative realists have no solution, but are driven to conclude that we are probably hopeless at (...) recognizing the independent normative truths they posit. Since this is an unacceptable conclusion, we must conclude that normative realism is false. Drawing on evolutionary considerations, it is explained why this internal skeptical argument does not carry over to our knowledge of objects in our manifest surroundings, and why the challenge does not depend on any assumption that the epistemology of the normative domain must be a causal one. (shrink)