Naturalism Without Mirrors

347 Pages·2011·7.078 MB·English

by  Huw Price

Naturalism Without Mirrors

Naturalism Without
Mirrors
HUW PRICE
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Price, Huw, 1953-
Naturalism without mirrors I by Huw Price.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-19-508433-7 (alk. paper)
1. Philosophy, Australian. 2. Philosophy, Modem-20th century. I. Title.
B5704.P751 2010
199'.94-dc22 2009047836
1 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
nocs~H.UaiO One

CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
1. Moving the Mirror Aside
3
2. Metaphysical Pluralism
34
3. Semantic Minimalism and the Frege Point
54
4. Two Paths to Pragmatism
80
5. How to Stand Up for Non-cognitivists
112
6. Naturalism and the Fate of theM-Worlds
132
7. Ramsey on Saying and Whistling: A Discordant Note
148
8. Truth as Convenient Friction
163
9. Naturalism Without Representationalism
184
10. Immodesty Without Mirrors: Making Sense of Wittgenstein's
Linguistic Pluralism
200
11. Pragmatism, Quasi-realism, and the Global Challenge
228
12. The Semantic Foundations of Metaphysics
253
13. Metaphysics after Carnap: The Ghost Who Walks?
280
14. One Cheer for Representationalism?
304
References 323
Index 329
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This volume brings together thirteen previously published essays, written over a
period of more than twenty years. In addition, a new introductory chapter
describes the general philosophical program to which the remaining chapters all
aim to make some contribution-an exploration of a distinctive brand of prag
matic naturalism, distinguished from popular forms of philosophical naturalism
by skepticism about the centrality of representation.
As might be expected in essays written over such a long period, there are some
variations in terminology, from one chapter to another. And as might be expected
in thematically linked essays written by the same author in this particular
period-when technology has made it so easy to reuse one's own words-there
are some significant overlaps between chapters, of text and arguments as well as
of targets and conclusions. I have made some small changes to ameliorate the
most egregious of these blemishes, but by and large the essays appear as they
were first printed. Indeed, each remains a piece that may be read in isolation from
the others-though I strongly recommend the new introduction (chapter 1) to
readers approaching the volume in this way.
I am grateful to the editors and publishers who have given their permission
to reprint the following pieces. Chapter 2 was first published as H. Price (1992)
"Metaphysical Pluralism," Journal of Philosophy, 89: 387-409 (Copyright© 1992
by The Journal of Philosophy). Chapter 3 was originally published as H. Price
(1994) "Semantic Minimalism and the Frege Point," in S. L. Tsohatzidis (ed.),
Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives (London
and New York: Routledge, 132-155). (The present version also includes a post
script added for B. Garrett and K. Mulligan, [eds.], Themes from Wittgenstein
[Canberra: Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU, 1993,
15-44].) Chapter 4 first appeared as H. Price (1991) "Two Paths to Pragmatism,"
in P. Menzies (ed.), Response-Dependent Concepts (Working Papers in Philosophy,
No.1) (Canberra: Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU,
46-82). Chapter 5 was first published as J. O'Leary-Hawthorne and H. Price
IX
X PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
(1996) "How to Stand Up for Noncognitivists," Australasian Journal of Philos
ophy, 74: 275-292. (The journal is available at http:// www.informaworld.com.) I
am grateful to John Hawthorne for his permission to reprint it here. Chapter 6
was my contribution to a two-part symposium with Frank Jackson, originally
published as H. Price and F. Jackson (1997) "Naturalism and the Fate of the
M-Worlds," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. LXXI: 247-267,
269-282. I am grateful to Frank Jackson for his permission to reprint it here.
Chapter 7 originally appeared as R. Holton and H. Price (2003) "Ramsey on
Saying and Whistling: A Discordant Note," Nous, 37(2): 325-341. I am grateful
to Richard Holton for his permission to reprint it here. The first draft of chapter
8 was written for a conference in honor of Richard Rorty at ANU in 1999. It was
subsequently published as H. Price (2003) "Truth as Convenient Friction," Jour
nal of Philosophy 100: 167-190 (Copyright© 2003 by The Journal of Philosophy).
Chapter 9 was originally published as H. Price (2004) "Naturalism Without Rep
resentationalism," in David Macarthur and Mario de Caro (eds.), Naturalism in
Question (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 71-88) (Copyright© 2004
by the President and Fellows of Harvard College). Chapter 10 was first published
as H. Price (2004) "Immodesty Without Mirrors-Making Sense of Wittgen
stein's Linguistic Pluralism," in Max Kolbe! and Bernhard Weiss (eds.), Wittgen
stein's Lasting Significance (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 179-205). Chapter
11 was originally published as D. Macarthur and H. Price (2007) "Pragmatism,
Quasirealism and the Global Challenge," in Cheryl Misak (ed.), The New Pragma
tists (Oxford: Oxford University Press). I am grateful to David Macarthur for his
permission to reprint it here. Chapter 12 first appeared as H. Price (2009) "The
Semantic Foundations of Metaphysics," in Ian Ravenscroft (ed.), Minds, Worlds
and Conditionals: Essays in Honour of Frank Jackson (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 111-140). Chapter 13 was originally published as H. Price (2009) "Meta
physics after Carnap: The Ghost Who Walks?' in D. Chalmers, R. Wasserman,
and D. Manley (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations ofO ntology
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 320-346). Finally, chapter 14 was originally
published as H. Price (2010) "One Cheer for Representationalism," in R. Auxier
(ed.), Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. XXXII: The Philosophy of Richard Rorty
(La Salle, IL: Open Court, 269-289).
As I noted above, these essays span about two decades-years I have had the
good fortune to spend with congenial and challenging philosophical colleagues, in
Sydney and in Edinburgh. I feel especially privileged to have been a member of the
Australian philosophical community, in an era in which it has been one of the
nation's quiet treasures; all the more fortunate, perhaps, because my own philo
sophical dispositions are somewhat un-Australian (at least by the standards of the
analytic end of the subject). Many of the essays in this volume were attempts to
clarify some aspect or other of my disagreements with distinguished compatriots.
How much poorer I would have been to have lacked that incentive. ("The fewer
men, the greater spur to rigor," as it were.)
PREFACE xi
Michael Devitt touches on the Australian philosophical character, in the pref
ace to his Realism and Truth:
Some say Australian philosophers are born realists. I prefer to attri
bute our realism to nurture rather than nature. David Atmstrong has
suggested (lightly) that the strong sunlight and harsh brown landscape
of Australia force reality upon us. In contrast the mists and gentle green
landscape of Europe weaken the grip on reality. (Michael Devitt, Realism
and Truth, 2nd ed., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991, p. x)
For my part, I think that the step from sunlight to metaphysics pays insufficient
attention to the difference between seeing and saying. (The relevant fact about
Europeans may not be that they see less but that they talk more.) The basic ques
tion that drives metaphysics is less "What are we looking at?" than "What are we
talking about (what makes our claims true)?" And this opens the door to an alter
native philosophical approach, more anthropology than metaphysics, that takes
the interesting question to be, "Why are we talking this way?" My disposition has
always been to ask this last question, rather than its metaphysical predecessor
(though if there is a single issue underlying these essays, it is about the difference
between the two).
Late in his life, Bertrand Russell wrote that until his mid-forties, he had always
taken for granted that language is transparent. I think it is important to distin
guish two ways in which one might disagree with this assumption. One, with
some distant affinity with Armstrong's remark about sunlight, challenges only
the transparency (allowing, as an Australian apostle might have put it, that
language shows us the world "as through sunnies, darkly"). But a more radical
view is that the metaphor itself is misleading: the problem is not that the glass is
not fully transparent, but that the glassy metaphor itself is entirely empty. The
heresy so generously tolerated by my philosophical compatriots is the latter view.
David Armstrong and Michael Devitt were both still members of the Depart
ment of Traditional and Modern Philosophy at the University of Sydney when I
first joined it; and in different ways, had each done much to shape the landscape
from which I found it so useful to try to differentiate myself. From that period, I
am grateful also to Keith Campbell, Lloyd Reinhardt, and Michaelis Michael;
and-though by now in a different part of the philosophical landscape-to Paul
Redding, from whom I learned a great deal in discussions and joint classes in the
1990s. Among Australian philosophers more generally, I am especially indebted,
over many years, to Philip Pettit, Peter Menzies, Frank Jackson and David Brad
don-Mitchell. More broadly still, I am especially grateful to Simon Blackburn, Bob
Brandom, Paul Horwich, Jenann Ismael, Richard Rorty, and Mike Williams, from
all of whom I have not yet learned enough.
I would also like to acknowledge the generous support of the Australian
Research Council and the University of Sydney. Some of the research for essays in