Dubious by nature

There is a charge sometimes made in metaphysics that particular commitments are ‘hypothetical’, ‘dubious’ or ‘suspicious’. There have been two analyses given of what this consists in—due to Crisp (2007) and Cameron (2011). The aim of this paper is to reject both analyses and thereby show that there...

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Main Author: Tallant, Jonathan
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2392/
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author Tallant, Jonathan
author_facet Tallant, Jonathan
author_sort Tallant, Jonathan
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
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description There is a charge sometimes made in metaphysics that particular commitments are ‘hypothetical’, ‘dubious’ or ‘suspicious’. There have been two analyses given of what this consists in—due to Crisp (2007) and Cameron (2011). The aim of this paper is to reject both analyses and thereby show that there is no obvious way to press the objection against said commitments that they are ‘dubious’ and objectionable. Later in the paper I consider another account of what it might be to be ‘dubious’, and argue that this too fails. I use Bigelow's (1996) Lucretian properties as a vehicle for the discussions of dubiousness that follow. As a consequence, the paper ends up offering a partial defense of Lucretianism.
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spelling nottingham-23922020-05-04T16:37:59Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2392/ Dubious by nature Tallant, Jonathan There is a charge sometimes made in metaphysics that particular commitments are ‘hypothetical’, ‘dubious’ or ‘suspicious’. There have been two analyses given of what this consists in—due to Crisp (2007) and Cameron (2011). The aim of this paper is to reject both analyses and thereby show that there is no obvious way to press the objection against said commitments that they are ‘dubious’ and objectionable. Later in the paper I consider another account of what it might be to be ‘dubious’, and argue that this too fails. I use Bigelow's (1996) Lucretian properties as a vehicle for the discussions of dubiousness that follow. As a consequence, the paper ends up offering a partial defense of Lucretianism. Taylor & Francis 2013-07-16 Article PeerReviewed Tallant, Jonathan (2013) Dubious by nature. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 43 (1). pp. 97-116. ISSN 0045-5091 Presentism Lucretianism Hypothetical properties Dubious properties Suspicious properties Point beyond http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00455091.2013.812372#.UyTYOFF_sb0 doi:10.1080/00455091.2013.812372 doi:10.1080/00455091.2013.812372
spellingShingle Presentism
Lucretianism
Hypothetical properties
Dubious properties
Suspicious properties
Point beyond
Tallant, Jonathan
Dubious by nature
title Dubious by nature
title_full Dubious by nature
title_fullStr Dubious by nature
title_full_unstemmed Dubious by nature
title_short Dubious by nature
title_sort dubious by nature
topic Presentism
Lucretianism
Hypothetical properties
Dubious properties
Suspicious properties
Point beyond
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2392/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2392/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2392/