Factualism and the Scientific Image

Cumpa, Javier

doi:10.1080/09672559.2018.1533713

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The basic assumption is that propositions like "Pablo believes that the toy is on the table" must be understood from the a categorial structure that allows understand the two component of the proposition from common-sense realism: "a person named Pablo", "a particular mental state", and from the perspective of the scientific image like "A biological organism P", "a neuronal state M". Then, the Sellarsian question of ontology is to reconcile the tension that, for instance, "a mental state" and "a neural state M" does not seem to have the same properties but are really the same object (Cumpa 2018). The tension, Cumpa and Buonomo argue, is resolved when a particular category like "facts" allow to say that the propositions "A person named Pablo is in a particular mental state M" and "A biological organism P is in a neuronal state M" represent the same fact.…”

Section: The Challengementioning

confidence: 99%

Factualism and Anti-Descriptivism: A Challenge to the Materialist Criterion of Fundamentality

Castro¹

2022

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Inspired by the work of Sellars, Cumpa (2014 and Buonomo (2021) have argued that we can evaluate our metaphysical proposals on fundamental categories in terms of their capacity for reconciling the scientific and the manifest image of the world. This criterion of fundamentality would allow us to settle the question of which categories among those proposed in the debate-e.g., substance, structure or facts-have a better explanatory value. The aim of this essay is to argue against a central assumption of the criterion: semantic descriptivism. Specifically, I aim at showing that the criterion rests on the idea that the manifest picture is mostly a description of the world, and thus, it commits us with certain realism. Instead, I argue that at least some of the vocabulary we use to construct our manifest picture of the world, mental vocabulary, is evaluative rather than descriptive and thus creates problems in reconcile the manifest picture with scientific psychology and neurosciences. I conclude with some remarks on alternatives that could provide a way out of the fundamentality criterion.

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Section: The Challengementioning

confidence: 99%

Factualism and Anti-Descriptivism: A Challenge to the Materialist Criterion of Fundamentality

Castro¹

2022

orgf

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“…Cumpa (, ) has proposed a naturalistic criterion of categorial fundamentality according to which we should answer the question of whether our world is a world of substances, structures, or facts by considering the explanatory power of those categories in accounting for the relationships between what Sellars () called “the manifest image” and “the scientific image” of the world. The so‐called “manifest” and “scientific” images of the world are the frameworks of common sense and science, respectively.…”

Section: Categorial Fundamentalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cumpa (, ) has argued against the neo‐Aristotelian approach to the ontological question. He argues that categories are not ontologically fundamental but have certain degrees of epistemic value .…”

Section: Categorial Metaontologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Categories are invoked in support of a number of projects in contemporary metaphysics: Substantialism (Lowe, ; Heil, ), Structuralism (French, , ; Ladyman & Ross, ), and Factualism (Buonomo, ; Cumpa, , , ), among others. But the nature of the categories has become an object of epistemological and ontological scrutiny.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By the “epistemic value of a category,” Cumpa () refers to the explanatory power that a category has to improve our understanding of the different relationships between the manifest and the scientific images. Accordingly, a certain category has more epistemic value than other category when it helps us to better understand a particular relationship between the two images, for example, emergence or scientific explanation.…”

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confidence: 99%

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