As some readers are no doubt already aware, the Academy of Finland has selected me as an Academy Research Fellow, starting this September in Helsinki. This is a lucrative five year, senior research position — something of a Holy Grail in Finland’s highly competitive academic research circles. I’m obviously rather pleased about this, especially since it was the first time I applied for the position. You can expect to see a series of posts related to this in the near future, as I set out my plans for the next five years. This includes several conferences, international visitors in Helsinki, two longer visits abroad by myself (first of these most likely to Reading, UK), an online presence for the project, recruiting grad students and post-docs (I will post a call for expressions of interest in due course) etc.

The list of new Academy Research Fellows is available here (pdf). There were 20 awards this year, and only two in philosophy. The applications are assessed by an international panel of experts, and I have to say that I was impressed by its standard (the panel included multiple ‘household names’ from Anglo American analytic philosophy) — even if I am a little biased given the results!

My current Post-Doctoral Fellowship is also funded by the Academy of Finland, but it would have ended at the end of 2013, so I’ve been on the market this year. I haven’t had much luck with permanent positions, but earlier I managed to secure a so called EURIAS Fellowship at the Central European University Institute for Advanced Study, in Budapest. I was looking forward to going to Budapest, but unfortunately there isn’t much flexibility with these types of Fellowships (the EURIAS one or the Academy one), so I had no choice but to turn down the EURIAS Fellowship. My EURIAS profile is still up, but I imagine that they’ll take it down at some point. The project, entitled ‘Truth-grounding and Fundamentality’, was pitched for an interdisciplinary audience, but I do have ‘serious’ research interests in this area (and a couple of papers in the works).

The Academy Research Fellow project, however, is on a different topic, more directly related to my on-going research on the foundations of metaphysics. The title is ‘Essential Knowledge: The Metaphysical Basis of Scientific Realism’. This is a very broad project, involving research on metaontological themes, modal epistemology, epistemology of essence, apriority, formal ontology (logic of essence, grounding, fundamentality), natural kinds, philosophy of science (chemistry, biology), Aristotle, ‘Neo-Aristotelianism’, realism, and so on. Of course, these are all themes that I’ve worked on before, at least to a certain extent, but this project ties a lot of threads together. The goals are quite ambitious, but I do have five years at my disposal, with minimal teaching commitments.

The actual research proposal for the project is too long to post here (12 pages), but let me post an outline of the project’s primary Research Focuses as well as the abstract, which will give you an idea about the primary themes and extent of the project, even if not the technical aspects:

Outline of Research Focuses

Natural science studies the natural world, but what makes the world natural? According to scientific realism, nature comes with a designated structure, and it is this structure that natural science investigates. Biological species, chemical substances, and subatomic particles are all part of this structure. The assumption underlying scientific inquiry is that we have some means to identify where one kind of structure ends and another kind begins: the notion of natural kind captures this assumption. But what fixes the identity of a natural kind? What guarantees that a given organism belongs to one biological species rather than another? Why should we consider two isotopes of a chemical element to constitute distinct chemical substances? Moreover, what reasons do we have to think that natural kinds are mind-independent rather than merely conventional, a product of our psychological makeup?

This project aims to determine the metaphysical foundations for any attempt to answer these questions. The hypothesis is that there are indeed genuine natural kind essences. The notion of essence has a long philosophical history — it has made its way back into analytic metaphysics via the ‘neo-Aristotelian’ movement — but it is often misunderstood in contemporary contexts. The consensus among those working in the neo-Aristotelian tradition is that the notion of essence has been misrepresented in much of contemporary work. This is largely due to a misconception of what essences are, or rather, the misconception is that essences are ‘things’ in the first place. Essence, I suggest, is shorthand for whatever it is that makes a given natural kind the very natural kind that it
is. Since the majority of philosophers and scientists subscribe to some form of scientific realism, the theme of this project is of enormous importance.

The notion of essence has been a central theme in my work for nearly a decade – and it is one of three topics pursued in my previous, Academy of Finland funded project. What are essences, how do we come to know them, and why do they matter? These are some of the questions explored in this project, giving raise to the following core objectives:

1. To establish a rigorous definition of the notion of ‘essence’.
2. To examine and revise the ontological status and logic of the established notion.
3. To develop an epistemology of essence.
4. To develop applications of the established notion, specifically with regard to philosophy of science and neo-Aristotelianism.

If you’re intrigued by any of this and want to know more, do drop me a message! Make sure to stay tuned for announcements from Dynamis: The Finnish Network for Metaphysics as well, as we’ve got a couple of things planned…

Bringing to front from September 2012.

Continuum Publishing is launching a new series called Critical Introductions to Contemporary Metaphysics, and I’m proud to be a member of the distinguished Editorial Board. We’re now accepting book proposals for the series. The first title in the series is on Fictionalism by Frederick Kroon and Jonathan McKeown-Green. Another volume, on Realism, is being discussed. Potential further topics include, but are not limited to Modality, Identity, Fundamentality, Causation, Universals, Properties, and Existence. At this time, we would especially welcome proposals related to Existence.

I trust that anyone even remotely familiar with contemporary metaphysics will be impressed by the Editorial Board of the series, which, I’m pleased to say, includes four of the contributors to my Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics volume (although I would’ve also liked to have seen some women on this list):

• Bill Brewer, Susan Stebbing Professor of Philosophy (King’s College London, UK)
• Albert Casullo, Professor of Philosophy (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA)
• Thomas M. Crisp, Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy (Biola University, USA)
• Kit Fine, Silver Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics (New York University, USA)
• E. J. Lowe, Professor of Philosophy (University of Durham, UK)
• Eric T. Olson, Professor of Philosophy (University of Sheffield, UK)
• Peter Simons, Professor of Philosophy (Trinity College Dublin)
• Tuomas Tahko, Postdoctoral Researcher (University of Helsinki, Finland)

Here is the series description:

Each critical introduction provides a comprehensive survey to important metaphysical subjects. Covering the methodological and practical contexts, these introductions identify and explore major approaches, theories and debates. A focus on the historical background, as well as changes to how the discipline is being studied, allows connections to be made between contemporary issues and the wider history of modern philosophy.

Designed for use on contemporary metaphysics courses, each introduction is defined by a clear writing style and equipped with features to facilitate and encourage further study.
For upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals wishing to stay informed of issues and arguments shaping twenty-first century metaphysics, Critical Introductions to Contemporary Metaphysics presents an invaluable series of up-to-date introductory research resources.

Each volume will be between 80,000 and 90,000 words and include:

• an introductory historical overview
• chapter summaries
• an end-of-chapter guide to additional readings and research resources
• an end-of-chapter set of discussion questions (which could be used in tutorials and/or as essay topics)
• a complete annotated bibliography a glossary

If you’re interested in submitting a proposal, feel free to get in touch with me.

After spending some ten months in the review process, I’m pleased that my article ‘Soames’s Deflationism About Modality‘ is finally seeing the light of day in Erkenntnis. Although it took a while, I got some remarkably helpful and acute comments from one anonymous referee and I believe that the paper is much better for them. As the title suggest, I focus on Scott Soames’s account of modality, which he has sketched in a number of books and articles, most notably Beyond Rigidity (2002, OUP) and Reference and Description (2005, Princeton). The idea for the paper came to me when I saw a call for papers for a workshop with Soames in Cologne; it took place in 2010 (I wrote about it here). I gave one of the four talks at the workshop and my paper there was a sort of a pre-cursor to the Erkenntnis paper, although it in fact split into two papers (no doubt you’ll hear about the other part in due course…). Anyway, it was a pleasure to meet Soames, who seemed receptive to my argument. I’ve sharpened the main idea somewhat in the present paper, we’ll see if Soames reacts. The abstract is below and the penultimate version is available here.

One type of deflationism about metaphysical modality suggests that it can be analysed strictly in terms of linguistic or conceptual content and that there is nothing particularly metaphysical about modality. Scott Soames is explicitly opposed to this trend. However, a detailed study of Soames’s own account of modality reveals that it has striking similarities with the deflationary account. In this paper I will compare Soames’s account of a posteriori necessities concerning natural kinds with the deflationary one, specifically Alan Sidelle’s account, and suggest that Soames’s account is vulnerable to the deflatonist’s critique. Furthermore, I conjecture that both the deflationary account and Soames’s account fail to fully explicate the metaphysical content of a posteriori necessities. Although I will focus on Soames, my argument may have more general implications towards the prospects of providing a meaning-based account of metaphysical modality.

The modal status of the laws of nature is a topic that I come across frequently, but on which I haven’t really formed a solid opinion on. This ought to change, as they play an important role on a number of arguments and views that I’m interested in (for some recent discussion, see my ‘Counterfactuals and Modal Epistemology‘). Recently I’ve been thinking about the topic a little more and I just went back to an old draft about laws and Humean Supervenience. A possible view occurred to me while I was revising the paper and I’m now trying figure out if it’s feasible.

As I see it, there are three popular views about laws: the Humean Supervenience (HS) approach due to David Lewis’s work, the nomic necessitation approach primarily familiar from David Armstrong’s work, and the scientific/dispositional essentialist approach defended for instance by Brian Ellis and Alexander Bird. All of these views come in many varieties and there are also alternative approaches such as Stephen Mumford’s lawlessness approach and E. J. Lowe’s essentialist approach. Of these, I find myself closest to Lowe, since it is the only view that can accommodate variation in the modal status of laws, that is, Lowe’s view is compatible with the necessity of some laws and the contingency of some other laws. Note that I am here interested in metaphysical modality. Both HS and the nomic necessitation approach consider all laws to be contingent in the metaphysical sense, whereas scientific/dispositional essentialism generally hold all laws to be metaphysically necessary. But Lowe thinks that only some laws are metaphysically necessary, and his case to this effect builds on connecting laws and natural kinds:

What I can say […] is that the uniformities in question [concerning the powers and liabilities of electrons] are explained by the fact that electrons are all particular instances of the same fundamental natural kind, which is governed by a number of laws linking this kind with certain attributes. And I can explain the absence of other regularly occurring combinations of powers and liabilities in terms of the non-existence of any kinds of particle governed by suitable laws.

(Lowe, The Four-Category Ontology, OUP 2006, p. 161.)

I sympathise with the general line of thought, but it seems to me that Lowe’s view struggles with some typical examples of laws, such as Coulomb’s law, since some laws do not seem to involve any natural kinds. Bird puts this forcefully in his paper ‘Are Any Kinds Ontologically Fundamental‘, published in my Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics:

[T]he kind governed by Coulomb’s laws includes every object. Is this kind then, the charged-or-neutral kind, the most inclusive kind of all? That seems odd — what is so special about charge? Indeed, returning to Newton’s law, in Einstein’s reformulation, that too encompasses bodies of zero (rest-)mass (photons are subject to the same law). Hence there is a charged-or-neutral all-encompassing kind and there is a massive-or-massless kind, and these are coextensive. This is straining the position. What seems to be clear is that such laws have nothing to do with kinds at all. Rather, these are universal laws (they cover everything, without exception) and concern not the kinds to which entities belong but the properties (mass, charge) that the entities possess.

(Bird, ‘Are Any Kinds Ontologically Fundamental’, in T. E. Tahko, Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics, CUP 2012, p. 98.)

However, a natural reply suggests itself, namely, the distinction between laws that feature natural kinds and laws that do not feature kinds reflects the distinction between metaphysically necessary and metaphysically contingent laws. To my knowledge, Lowe himself has not entertained this type of reply, and I doubt that he would. There are at least two reasons why this reply conflicts with Lowe’s view. Firstly, it entails that there are probably very few genuine natural kinds, contrary to what Lowe seems to think. Secondly, Lowe leaves room for contingent laws which nevertheless feature natural kinds.

Now, what occurred to me is that this result fits my own views about natural kinds rather well (see my Natural Kind Essentialism Revisited). In particular, I think that there may be very few genuine, mind-independent natural kinds — and accordingly very few metaphysically necessary laws of nature. Moreover, I take it that the burden of proof is upon those whose postulate natural kinds in the first place and it is my aim to tie the idea of a genuine natural kind with the metaphysical necessity of laws in which such kinds feature. This, at any rate, seems to be a possible view. I’d be curious to hear any reactions to it (drop me a message and I can send you the draft as well).

Which laws would turn out metaphysically necessary on this view? I think that one of the best candidates is the Pauli Exclusion Principle (PEP). PEP states that if we have two identical and indistinguishable electrons (or other fermions), the wavefunction for the system of those two electrons must be anti-symmetric. It is sometimes said that the Pauli Exclusion Principle is responsible for the space-occupying behaviour of matter, as it prevents atoms from collapsing together. The electrons must occupy successively higher orbitals to prevent a shared quantum state and hence not all electrons can collapse to the lowest orbital. So, it is a property of any closed system, such as an atom, that any two electrons in that closed system cannot have the same set of the four quantum numbers. When the conception of laws at hand is applied to this case, a plausible way to understand PEP is in terms of the attributes of electrons and other fermions. In particular, it is part of the nature of fermions that they behave in a manner that is constrained by PEP. This may be the result of a combination of the modal constraints that particular attributes of fermions — such as their half-integer spin — have. The role of spin is highlighted by the fact that particles of half-integer spin must have anti-symmetric wavefunctions, whereas particles of integer spin must have symmetric wavefunctions. The latter, bosons, are not subject to PEP.

Clearly, the fact that the behaviour of fermions is constrained by PEP is at least partly due to their half-integer spin, given that on the view under consideration, metaphysically necessary laws are simply facts about the natures of natural kinds. It is also plausible that half-integer spin is essential for fermions, since it is what differentiates them from bosons; the behaviour of fermions and bosons is radically different especially at low temperatures. If Lowe (2006: 169–170) is right, we can be fairly confident that both fermions and bosons have most of their attributes essentially, that is, they depend for their existence and identity on these attributes. Hence, both are likely candidates for genuine kinds. For further discussion to the effect that PEP must feature genuine natural kinds, see my ‘Boundaries in Reality‘.

If I am correct, it might seem that there is very little reason to consider contingent laws to be laws at all. Why shouldn’t we just say that all laws are metaphysically necessary — because they feature natural kinds — and what remains are not laws at all? Indeed, the view at hand does suggest that there is an ontological difference between contingent and necessary laws. I do not consider this to be ‘untidy’, pace Bird, since the difference between these two classes of laws can be explained in virtue of their source. But I am open to calling the contingent laws something else than laws. Perhaps better, we could call contingent laws weak and necessary laws strong, reflecting their source and applicability. Well, I’m curious to see if this view holds water, but it would seem to fit nicely with my views about natural kinds.

I’m giving a talk entitled ‘Natural Kind Essentialism Revisited’ at the Departmental Research Seminar at Helsinki on November 1, 4-6pm. The talk takes place at Room A110, Metsätalo, 1st floor, Unioninkatu 40A. The basement is rather difficult to get to, so if you’re interested in coming but don’t know where the venue is, do get in touch with me. A full draft of the paper is available here, the abstract is below — any comments are welcome!

Recent work on natural kind essentialism has taken a deflationary turn: biological and chemical kinds in particular have come under scrutiny. The assumptions about the grounds of essentialist truths concerning natural kinds familiar from the Kripke-Putnam framework are now considered questionable. The source of the problem, however, has not been sufficiently explicated. I will focus on the Twin Earth scenarios and demonstrate that the essentialist principle at its core (which I call IDENT), namely that necessarily, chemical substance A is identical with chemical substance B if and only if A and B have the same molecular composition, must be re-evaluated. The Twin Earth scenarios also assume the falsity of another essentialist principle (which I call INST): necessarily, only the actual molecular composition of any chemical substance can produce the chemical properties of that substance. I will call this assumption into question and argue that, in fact, the best strategy for defending IDENT is to establish INST. I will then assess the prospects for natural kind essentialism and microstructural essentialism regarding chemical substances, with reference to some recent work in the philosophy of chemistry.