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Single Idea 16259

[filed under theme 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / e. Ontological commitment problems ]

Full Idea

Naïve translation from natural language into formal language can obscure necessary ontology as easily as it can create superfluous ontological commitment. …The lion's share of metaphysical work is done when settling on the right translation.

Gist of Idea

Naïve translation from natural to formal language can hide or multiply the ontology

Source

Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 3.1)

Book Ref

Maudlin,Tim: 'The Metaphysics within Physics' [OUP 2007], p.82

A Reaction

I suspect this is more than a mere problem of 'naivety', but may be endemic to the whole enterprise. If you hammer a square peg into a round hole, you expect to lose something. Language is subtle, logic is crude.

The 31 ideas from 'The Metaphysics within Physics'

16241 The metaphysics of nature should focus on physics [Maudlin]
16244 If the universe is profligate, the Razor leads us astray [Maudlin]
16243 The Humean view is wrong; laws and direction of time are primitive, and atoms are decided by physics [Maudlin]
16242 Laws of nature are ontological bedrock, and beyond analysis [Maudlin]
16245 Laws should help explain the things they govern, or that manifest them [Maudlin]
16247 Laws are primitive, so two indiscernible worlds could have the same laws [Maudlin]
16249 A counterfactual antecedent commands the redescription of a selected moment [Maudlin]
16248 Evaluating counterfactuals involves context and interests [Maudlin]
16250 We don't pick a similar world from many - we construct one possibility from the description [Maudlin]
16251 'Humans with prime house numbers are mortal' is not a law, because not a natural kind [Maudlin]
16254 Induction leaps into the unknown, but usually lands safely [Maudlin]
16253 A property is fundamental if two objects can differ in only that respect [Maudlin]
16255 The Razor rightly prefers one cause of multiple events to coincidences of causes [Maudlin]
16257 Kant survives in seeing metaphysics as analysing our conceptual system, which is a priori [Maudlin]
16258 To get an ontology from ontological commitment, just add that some theory is actually true [Maudlin]
16259 Naïve translation from natural to formal language can hide or multiply the ontology [Maudlin]
16260 Existence of universals may just be decided by acceptance, or not, of second-order logic [Maudlin]
16263 Fundamental physics seems to suggest there are no such things as properties [Maudlin]
16264 I believe the passing of time is a fundamental fact about the world [Maudlin]
16265 If time passes, presumably it passes at one second per second [Maudlin]
16266 There is one ordered B series, but an infinitude of A series, depending on when the present is [Maudlin]
16268 The counterfactual is ruined if some other cause steps in when the antecedent fails [Maudlin]
16267 If we know the cause of an event, we seem to assent to the counterfactual [Maudlin]
16269 If the effect hadn't occurred the cause wouldn't have happened, so counterfactuals are two-way [Maudlin]
16270 If laws are just regularities, then there have to be laws [Maudlin]
16272 Fundamental laws say how nature will, or might, evolve from some initial state [Maudlin]
16271 Lewis says it supervenes on the Mosaic, but actually thinks the Mosaic is all there is [Maudlin]
16273 If the Humean Mosaic is ontological bedrock, there can be no explanation of its structure [Maudlin]
16275 The 'spinning disc' is just impossible, because there cannot be 'homogeneous matter' [Maudlin]
16276 Wide metaphysical possibility may reduce metaphysics to analysis of fantasies [Maudlin]
16277 Logically impossible is metaphysically impossible, but logically possible is not metaphysically possible [Maudlin]