Ideology in a Desert Landscape*

Abstract

On one influential view, metaphysical fundamentality can be understood in terms of joint‐carving. Ted Sider has recently argued that (i) some first order quantifier is joint‐carving, and (ii) modal notions are not joint‐carving. After vindicating the theoretical indispensability of quantification against recent criticism, I will defend a logical result due to Arnold Koslow which implies that (i) and (ii) are incompatible. I will therefore consider an alternative understanding of Sider's metaphysics to the effect that (i) some first order quantifier is joint‐carving, and (iii) intensional notions are not joint‐carving. Another result due to Koslow entails that (i) and (iii) are also incompatible. I will argue that this second result is inconclusive. Nevertheless, (iii) is incompatible with another tenet of Sider's metaphysics, namely that (iv) ‘being joint‐carving’ is itself joint‐carving. In order to resolve the inconsistency, I will tentatively argue that condition (iv) should be renounced.

Structural Indeterminacy

“…12 The Barnes-Williams view, however, is unable to account for indeterminacy at the microphysical level, since quantum mechanics tells us that there are pairs of properties (such as position and momentum) which cannot have precise values for the same particle at the same time and, therefore, that the world cannot be made completely precise. 13 The issue is addressed in Torza (2017b), where I put forward an alternative, non-precisificational view according to which it is metaphysically indeterminate whether p just in case 'p' is neither true nor false, and no terms in 'p' are semantically defective (i.e., either vacuous or semantically indeterminate). 14 This proposal has the virtue of being able to account for quantum metaphysical indeterminacy.…”

“…. but we cannot know which' specifies that certain structure-involving facts are epistemically inaccessible, and so that an agent will never have to face the 20 It is noteworthy that if (4.1) and (4.2) are both true, the underlying logic is not compositional-as predicted by the characterization of metaphysical indeterminacy of Torza (2017b). uncomfortable choice of picking either horn in the dilemma.…”

“…In the previous section a case was made for a hitherto unexplored variety of ontological deflationism, which happens to be compatible with realism about joint-carving. In particular it was argued that, if quantifier structure is indeterminate, ontological disagreement can be non-substantive*; and that realism about joint-carving gives us reasons to believe that structure is indeed indeterminate, as structural indeterminacy offers a way out of a 23 An analogous dialectics can be found in the debate about quantitative vs. qualitative ideological parsimony (Torza, 2017a;cf. Cowling, 2012, Finocchiaro, 2019.…”

“…Beginning with F2 , we are presented with two subcases, depending on whether ‘structural’ is itself structural. In Torza (), I have entertained the denial of , on the grounds that ‘’ is intensional. For, on the one hand, disjunction ‘∨’ is structural (Sider (, ch.…”

“…Indeed, structural indeterminacy is compatible with F1 on the present construal of metaphysical indeterminacy; and F2 is 16 Notice that either way, Sider's position appears to be inconsistent. For, since 'structural' is intensional, it cannot be maintained both that intensional terms are not structural and that 'structure' is structural (Torza, 2017a).…”