Objects and Objectivity
Philosophy 607

Fall 1997

Outline

This seminar will look at the widespread practice of writing "objects" into the truth-conditions of claims that are not intuitively about those objects. The truth of

• "Argument A is invalid"
• "It is possible that B"
• "There are exactly as many Cs as Ds"
• "There are over five Es"
• "I did it F-ly"
• "There are some Gs who like only each other"
• "The so and so is H"

is said to depend on the existence of

• a model that makes A's premises true and its conclusion false
• a possible world at which B
• a one-to-one function from the Cs to the Ds
• a number that numbers the Es and that exceeds 5
• an event of doing it, with me as agent, that is F
• a set of Gs such that each member likes only the others
• a property of being H that the so and so possesses

But there are plenty of people who can't bring themselves to believe in models, worlds, numbers, and the rest, and plenty more who can't believe that such things need to exist for the quoted claims to be correct. Is it possible to do justice both to the naturalness, and the peculiarity, of allowing objects to "call the shot" in the way we routinely do?

Instructor

Stephen Yablo, Philosophy Department
Office: 2235 Angell Hall
Phone: 763-3744 (my office), 764-0285 (departmental office)
Office Hours: Fridays 11-12 and by appointment
E-mail: yablo@umich.edu

Meetings

Tuesdays 4:00-6:00 in 1164 Angell

• Austin on existence: "like breathing, only quieter -- ticking over...in a metaphysical sort of a way"
• Quine on objectivity: "The fundamental-seeming philosophical question How much of our science is merely contributed by language and how much is a genuine reflection of reality? is perhaps a spurious question which itself arises from a particular type of language" Readings

  Almost all readings will be from a coursepack available at Michigan Document Service on South University; see below for a table of contents. There may be the odd classroom handout as well.
  

  Requirements
  • one 25-page term paper, due at the end of term
  • two 7-page expository essays, due in the fifth and ninth weeks
  • participation
  Credit

  The course is good for metaphysics distribution credit; no extra work is required.
  

  Notes
  • The readings are hard; some of them presuppose a certain amount of logic.
  • Not all the readings listed for a given week will be equally important, though all are recommended. I'll try to indicate the week before what the focus will be.
  • Not everything in the coursepack will be discussed during the seminar. But feel free in your term paper to draw on any materials relevant to your topic. I can help you figure out what that might include.
  • There are books on reserve in Tanner Library (see below) which may also prove to be useful resources.

  TENTATIVE SCHEDULE: coursepack pagination in bold

  September 9 De-ontology: Means, Motive, Opportunity

  • Quine, "On What There Is," 273-282
  • Wright, Introduction to Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects, 367-371
  • Railton & Rosen, "Realism" -- to be distributed

  September 16 Means: Automatic Objects

  • Rosen, "The Refutation of Nominalism(?)," 316-335
  • Wright, Chapters 1 and 3 of Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects, 372-411
  • Field, "Platonism for Cheap?," 127-139
  • Schiffer, "Language-Created, Language-Independent Entities," 336-345

  September 23 Means: Funny Quantification

  • Gottlieb, excerpts from Ontological Economy: Substitutional Quantification & Mathematics, 178-194
  • Lewis, "Plural Quantification," 226-230
  • Boolos, "To Be Is To Be A Value Of A Variable," 19-28
  • Boolos, "Nominalistic Platonism," 29-38
  • Prior, "Platonism & Quantification," 262-270

  September 30 Means: Fictionalism

  • Lewis, "Modal Realism at Work: Modality,"233-240
  • Rosen, "Modal Fictionalism," 300-314
  • Nolan & O'Leary-Hawthorne, "Reflexive Fictionalisms," 245-250
  October 7 Means: Metaphor
  • Walton, "Metaphor & Prop-Oriented Make Believe," 346-364
  • Yablo, "How in the World?," 436-452
  October 14 -Motives: Traditional
  • Burgess & Rosen, "Why Nominalism?," from A Subject With No Object, 54-71

  October 21 -Motives: Insubstantiality, Indeterminacy

  • Burgess & Rosen, "Overview" and "What is Nominalism?," from A Subject With No Object, 42-53
  • Frege, excerpts from Foundations of Arithmetic, 142-150
  • Wright, "Julius Caesar and the Natural Numbers," and "Natural Numbers and Progressions," 400-411
  • Rosen, "Are Directions Abstract Objects?," "Indeterminate Reference is not Enough," and "Wright's Solution to the Caesar Problem," from "Refutation of Nominalism(?)," 326-329
  October 28 -Motives: Impatience, Paraphrase
  • Etchemendy, excerpts from The Concept of Logical Consequence, 109-124
  • Alston, "Ontological Commitment," 1-5
  • Wright, "Ontological Reductionism," in Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects, 384-390
  • Burgess & Rosen, "The Relevance of Hermeneutical Nominalism," from A Subject With No Object, 85-92

  November 4 +Motives: Expressive Gain

  • Balaguer, "A Fictionalist Account of the Indispensable Applications of Mathematics," 6-18
  • Melia, "On What There's Not," 241-244
  • Burgess & Rosen, "Why Reconstrual?," 71-74
  November 11 +Motives: Saying & Showing:
  • Frege, "Comments on Sinn and Bedeutung," 151-155
  • Frege, "On Concept & Object," 156-162
  • Frege, "Notes for Ludwig Darmstaedter," 163-165
  • Geach, "Saying and Showing in Frege and Wittgenstein," 167-175
  • Hugly, "Ineffability in Frege's Logic," 214-223
  • Ricketts, "Objectivity and Objecthood,"284-299
  • Parsons, "Why Frege Should Not Have Said 'The Concept Horse is Not a Concept'," 251-259
  November 18 +Motives: Non-Nominal Quantification
  • Prior, "Platonism & Quantification," 262-270
  • Grover, "Propositional Quantifiers," 197-208
  • Grover, "Prosentences and Propositional Quantification," 209-213
  • Yablo, "How in the World?," 436-452
  November 25 Prospects for Ontology
  • Carnap, "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology," 98-108
  • Yablo, "Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?" -- to be distributed

  
  Books on Reserve in Tanner Library

  • Benacerraf & Putnam., Readings in the Philosophy of Mathematics
  • Dummett, Frege: Philosophy of Language
  • Dummett, Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics
  • Field, Realism, Mathematics, and Modality
  • Gottlieb, Ontological Economy
  • Hale, Abstract Objects
  • Putnam, Philosophy of Logic
  • Weiner, Frege in Perspective

  Coursepack Table of Contents

  1. Alston, "Ontological Commitments"
  2. Balaguer, "A Fictionalist Account of the Indispensable Applications of Mathematics"
  3. Boolos, "To Be Is To Be A Value Of A Variable"
  4. Boolos, "Nominalistic Platonism"
  5. Burgess & Rosen, A Subject with No Objects, excerpts
  6. Carnap, "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology "
  7. Etchemendy, The Concept of Logical Consequence, excerpts
  8. Field, "Platonism for Cheap?"
  9. Frege, Foundations of Arithmetic, excerpts
  10. Frege, "Comments on Sinn and Bedeutung"
  11. Frege, "On Concept and Object"
  12. Frege, "Notes for Ludwig Darmstaedter"
  13. Geach, "Saying and Showing in Frege and Wittgenstein"
  14. Gottlieb, Ontological Economy, excerpts
  15. Grover, "Propositional Quantifiers"
  16. Grover, "Response to Zimmerman"
  17. Hugly, "Ineffability in Frege's Logic"
  18. Lewis, "Plural Quantification," from Parts of Classes
  19. Lewis, "Modal Realism at Work: Modality," from Plurality of Worlds
  20. Melia, "On What There Is Not"
  21. Nolan & O'Leary-Hawthorne, "Reflexive Fictionalisms"
  22. Parsons, "Why Frege Should Not Have Said 'The Concept Horse is Not a Concept'"
  23. Prior, "Platonism and Quantification," from Objects of Thought
  24. Quine, "On What There Is"
  25. Ricketts, "Objectivity and Objecthood"
  26. Rosen, "Modal Fictionalism"
  27. Rosen, "The Refutation of Nominalism(?)"
  28. Schiffer, "Language-Created, Language-Independent Entities"
  29. Walton, "Metaphor & Prop-Oriented Make Believe"
  30. Wright, Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects, excerpts
  31. Yablo, "How in the World?"
  
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