eidos -- the Centre in Metaphysics of the University of Geneva
Properties and Relations
SNSF project 2007-2009
Twentieth century research in philosophy and logic on the theory of properties and relations falls under two categories. First, a number of investigations have dealt with the general theory of properties and relations. Here questions such as the following have been central - are properties unit-properties or multiply exemplifiable? Do all binary relations have order properties? What are order properties? Is there a predicative tie? What is the relation between properties, on the one hand, and events, states and processes, on the other hand? What is the relation between properties, modality and essence? Secondly, different types of properties and relations have been investigated - secondary qualities, in particular colours, social properties, value properties and a variety of physical properties such as vectors and forces.
The present project seeked, for the first time, to pursue a completely general theory of properties and relations together with detailed consideration of two specific types of properties and relations - the most basic and the most controversial. Physical properties, as these are countenanced by contemporary physics are, for all contemporary naturalists, the most basic properties there are. Value properties, on the other hand, are the most controversial type of properties. But any philosophy of common sense or of the natural world view has to have a theory of values and such a theory is also the underpinning of all the human sciences.
The present project aims to provide a general theory of properties and relations which is supported by and grows out of philosophies of basic physical properties and of value properties. It is divided into five subprojects: the first subproject (Stephan Leuenberger, Philipp Keller) deals with two of the most important and difficult issues in the metaphysics of properties: what, if anything, ties properties to the particulars that have them? what is the relation between properties and the properties they have? Answers to these questions are of crucial importance to any account of properties, and will shape the form answers to many other questions about properties may take. The second subproject (Vincent Lam, Christian Wüthrich) delves into the philosophy of physics and goes right to the fundamental level of reality. Fundamental physical properties are in many ways anomalous: it is therefore of general interest to assess the challenge they pose to the common-sense view of change and the Humean proscription of necessary connections between distinct existents. The third subproject (Fabian Dorsch, Andri Töndury) examines another species of recalcitrant properties. Axiological properties, while less basic physically, are of great value to us. Philosophical understanding of their pecularities is therefore of the utmost importance. The fourth subproject (Kevin Mulligan, Philipp Keller), finally, ties together the different strands of research, aiming to integrate them into a comprehensive theory.
Click here for the detailled scientific program (for a period of three years).
Click here for the intermediate report (after the first year).
Click here for the final report (after two years).
Subprojects
Fabian Dorsch's subproject:
There are two important views widely accepted in aesthetics - as well as other domains of value theory - which I aim to challenge in this research: first, the sentimentalist thesis that emotional responses are constitutive of, or grounds for, evaluations; and second, the claim that the normativity of such evaluations consists primarily in the demand that we should make or accept them just in case they are adequate (i.e., have the right kind of ground).
In opposition to these two claims, I intend to defend the rationalist and anti-particularist view that aesthetic assessment is a matter of true or false judgements about the aesthetic worth of artworks, made on the basis of inductive considerations and
inferences to the best explanation concerning the non-aesthetic features of the objects. In addition, I will argue that aesthetic values establish norms for our emotional attitudes towards artworks, rather than demands of the kind mentioned above.
Besides, I hope to show that the centrality of emotions in aesthetic experience is due to their role in drawing our attention to those features of artworks which are evidence of their aesthetic merit. I shall argue that this is the best explanation of why our emotional responses to artworks, despite not constituting aesthetic grounds, are sensitive to reasons for aesthetic assessment and subject to norms intimately linked to aesthetic value.
Stephan Leuenberger's subproject:
Properties themselves have properties, some of which are philosophically more interesting than others. I am investigating three second-order properties that are important for contemporary philosophical debates. First, the property of being intrinsic, as opposed to extrinsic or relational. Secondly, the property of playing a certain nomic or causal role, and of possibly playing such a role. Thirdly, the property of having a certain intrinsic nature, sometimes called "quiddity''.
Philipp Keller's subproject:
One of the theses most firmly entrenched among contemporary philosophers is the Fregean claim that the logical form of a simple proposition is "Fa". While this may seem innocuous enough, it has wide-ranging consequences: with the copula relegated to mere juxtaposition, the so-called 'unity of the proposition' becomes problematic. Frege's theory of unsaturated concepts can be read as answers to the question what, if anything, holds a proposition together. Whenever something has a property, that property is exemplified by it. Before Frege, it seemed obvious to many that this makes a property stand in some kind of relation to the particular exemplifying it, this exemplification relation being represented within the sentence by the copula. Frege did away with the logical reasons to hold such a view, while Strawson and Armstrong criticised its metaphysical motivations, invoking Bradley's regress. In this subproject, I plead for a return to our pre-Fregean innocence. More specificially, I want to defend the exemplification relation against Bradley's regress, give an account of it as (a type of) parthood, use it to develop a general theory of adverbial modification and defend the copula. Fruitful applications to the theories of tense, location and modality should be the result.
Gian-Andri Töndury's subproject:
The epistemic-value-part of the subproject on value (of the "Properties and Relations"-FNS project) is focused on two topics, the justification of basic deductive inference and the justification of conceptual claims. These topics are sometimes thought to be related: to both the idea of "knowledge in virtue of understanding" and the idea of "rational intuition" have been applied (Boghossian for the application of the former idea to both topics, Bonjour for the application of the latter idea). With respect to both topics the project aims to investigate the (real or alleged) pragmatic aspects of the epistemic value in question.
Christian Wuthrich's subproject:
Contemporary fundamental physics is dominated by the idea of so-called gauge theories. A prominent example of a (classical) gauge theory is the Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity. The general theory of relativity must be recast in the so-called Hamiltonian formalism in order to render it amenable to one of the most successful recipes for cooking up a quantum theory from a classical theory. Although strictly speaking neither necessary nor sufficient for unification, such a quantization is believed by many to constitute an ineliminable step toward the final unification in fundamental physics. But this Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity requires that time, qua inextricable aspect of 'spacetime,' be itself part of the structure subjected to quantization. This means that there exists no longer a fiducial external time with respect to which any evolution could be understood. This feature is captured in the mathematical fact that reparametrizing (space-)time is a gauge symmetry of the theory. But if time reparametrization invariance is a gauge symmetry, then change itself is pure gauge: any assignment of fundamental properties must be gauge-invariant and thus invariant under time reparametrizations. This means, however, that this assignment must be the same for all times and thus be constant over time. Parmenides strikes back: there is no change at the most fundamental level of nature.
Some philosophers like John Earman have argued that this radical consequence must be accepted, while others like Tim Maudlin and Richard Healey have tried to resist it. The first goal of this project is to appraise the merits of Maudlin's and Healey's resistance vis-à-vis the force of the neo-Parmenidean argument. The second objective of the project seeks to determine what the costs of the neo-Parmenidean conclusion would be if accepted. It is clear that the neo-Parmenidean owes an account explaining why it is that we incessantly perceive the booming, buzzing confusion of perpetual change when in reality, there is absolutely no change at the most fundamental level of physical theories. The third aspect of this research project will explore wider philosophical issues in the context of gauge theories, most particularly its claimed support of a structural realist point of view in fundamental physics.
Members
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Fabian Dorsch Collaborateur scientifique, "Properties and Relations" |
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Since completing his MA at the University of Tübingen and his MPhil and PhD at University College London, Fabian Dorsch has been lecturer at the University of Fribourg (since 2005) and SNF-sponsored research fellow at the Universities of Fribourg (2004-2006) and Geneva (since 2007). His research concentrates on issues in aesthetics (pictorial experience, expressiveness, aesthetic norms, the ontology of artworks); philosophy of mind (perception, imagination, emotion, mental agency, rational motivation, phenomenal consciousness, mental norms); and epistemology (our phenomenal awareness of normativity, the epistemology of values, self-knowledge, the epistemic role of imagining). |
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Philipp Keller Collaborateur scientifique, "Properties and Relations" |
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Philipp Keller works mostly in metaphysics. He tries to articulate non-modal theories of essence, supervenience, truthmaking and determination, to understand the nature of representation and to defend the claim that exemplification (the having of properties) is a relation. He got his first degree from the University of Berne (2000) and his PhD from the University of Geneva (2007). He coordinates the SNF research project "Properties and Relations". |
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Vincent Lam Assistant (University of Lausanne), "Properties and Relations" |
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Stephan Leuenberger Collaborateur scientifique, "Properties and Relations" |
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Stephan Leuenberger works mainly in metaphysics (properties, modality, supervenience) and the philosophy of mind (physicalism, conceivability, intentionality). From August 2006 to August 2007, he was a Research Fellow at the Philosophy Program of the Research School of Social Sciences of the Australian National University, as part of the ARC-project "The Contents of Consciousness." He studied for his first degree (Lic.Phil) at the University of Bern (1999), for a BPhil at Oxford (2001), and a PhD at Princeton (2006). In September 2007 he takes up a Research Fellowship at the Centre for Metaphysics and Mind at the University of Leeds. |
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Olivier Massin Assistant DIP, "Properties and Relations" |
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I am assistant in the Philosophy Department of the university of Geneva. I am writing my thesis entitled "On pleasures" under the supervision of Kevin Mulligan. My main interests are metaphysics, philosophy of perception (especially tactile perception), philosophy of emotions and axiology. I am a member of Thumos and Eidos. |
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Kevin Mulligan Professeur ordinaire in analytic philosophy, "Properties and Relations" & "The Formal Ontology of Properties and Relations" |
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Andri Töndury Collaborateur scientifique, "Properties and Relations" |
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Gian-Andri Töndury has completed undergraduate studies in philosophy and physics at the University of Fribourg. He is about to complete his graduate studies in philosophy at the Department of philosophy of the University of Fribourg where he was assistant of Martine Nida-Rümelin until June 2007. His main research interests are in epistemology, in particular with accounts of inferential justification and a priori justification. |
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Marcel Weber Professeur suppléant en histoire et philosophie des sciences, "Properties and Relations" |
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| I studied molecular biology and philosophy in Basel and Konstanz, eventually obtaining a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Konstanz (1996) and the German degree of "Habilitation" from the Leibniz University Hannover (2002). Since 2004, I am "professeur boursier FNS" at the Science Studies Program and Department of Philosophy, University of Basel. I work on various topics in philosophy of science, especially the life sciences, including causation, laws, explanation, reduction, natural kinds, reference and conceptual change, realism, and the epistemology of experiments. | |
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Christian Wüthrich Collaborateur scientifique, "Properties and Relations" |
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Christian Wüthrich is assistant professor of philosophy and of science studies in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). His philosophical interests most prominently include foundational issues in physics, particularly in classical general relativity and quantum gravity. Of course, he also gets excited about the implications of philosophy of physics for general philosophy of science and metaphysics. More specifically, he enjoys thinking about issues such as space and time, persistence, laws of nature, determinism, and causation. |
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