Michael Devitt

Resurrecting Biological Essentialism

The article defends the doctrine that Linnaean taxa, including species, have essences that are, at least partly, underlying intrinsic, mostly genetic, properties. The consensus among philosophers of biology is that such essentialism is deeply wrong, indeed incompatible with Darwinism. I argue that biological generalizations about the morphology, physiology, and behavior of species require structural explanations that must advert to these essential properties. The objection that, according to current “species concepts,” species are relational is rejected. These concepts are primarily concerned with what it is for a kind to be a species and throw little light on the essentialist issue of what it is for an organism to be a member of a particular kind. Finally, the article argues that this essentialism can accommodate features of Darwinism associated with variation and change.

Linguistic Intuitions Revisited

Why are linguistic intuitions good evidence for a grammar? In ‘Intuitions in Linguistics’ ([2006a]) and Ignorance of Language ([2006b]), I looked critically at some Chomskian answers and proposed another one. In this article, I respond to Fitzgerald’s ‘Linguistic Intuitions’ ([2010]), a sweeping critique of my position, and to Culbertson and Gross’ ‘Are Linguists Better Subjects?’ ([2009]), a criticism of one consequence of the position. In rejecting these criticisms, I emphasize that the issue over linguistic intuitions concerns only metalinguistic ones. And I argue that my critics, like many others, make too much of the distinction between grammaticality and acceptability intuitions. 1 Summary and Developments 1.1 Summary 1.2 ‘Intuitions’ in what sense? 1.3 Grammaticality versus acceptability 2 Fitzgerald 2.1 Do Chomskians subscribe to VoC? 2.2 The main case against VoC 2.3 Fitzgerald’s defense of VoC 2.4 Two additional criticisms of VoC 2.5 Fitzgerald’s criticisms of my alternative 2.6 Conclusion 3 Culbertson and Gross 3.1 Acceptability versus grammaticality 3.2 The experiment 1 Summary and Developments 1.1 Summary 1.2 ‘Intuitions’ in what sense? 1.3 Grammaticality versus acceptability 1.1 Summary 1.2 ‘Intuitions’ in what sense? 1.3 Grammaticality versus acceptability 2 Fitzgerald 2.1 Do Chomskians subscribe to VoC? 2.2 The main case against VoC 2.3 Fitzgerald’s defense of VoC 2.4 Two additional criticisms of VoC 2.5 Fitzgerald’s criticisms of my alternative 2.6 Conclusion 2.1 Do Chomskians subscribe to VoC? 2.2 The main case against VoC 2.3 Fitzgerald’s defense of VoC 2.4 Two additional criticisms of VoC 2.5 Fitzgerald’s criticisms of my alternative 2.6 Conclusion 3 Culbertson and Gross 3.1 Acceptability versus grammaticality 3.2 The experiment 3.1 Acceptability versus grammaticality 3.2 The experiment

Incommensurability and the priority of metaphysics

I aim to reject a semantic doctrine, “Incommensurability”, commonly attributed to Kuhn and Feyerabend. They also subscribe to the neo-Kantian metaphysical doctrine of “Constructivism” which stands opposed to “Realism”. I argue that the Incommensurability issue comes down to the Realism issue. On the Realism issue I reject four arguments for Constructivism. Two Kantian arguments make the mistakes of using an a priori methodology and of not “putting metaphysics first”. Two arguments by Hoyningen-Huene and his co-authors support relativism but do nothing to support the Kantian core of Constructivism. I conclude by arguing against “meta-incommensurability”.

Species Have (Partly) Intrinsic Essences

The paper defends the doctrine that Linnaean taxa, including species, have essences that are, at least partly, underlying intrinsic, mostly genetic, properties. The consensus among philosophers of biology is that such essentialism is deeply wrong, indeed incompatible with Darwinism. I argue that biological generalizations about the morphology, physiology, and behavior of species require structural explanations that must advert to these essential properties. The paper concludes by summarizing my responses to the objection that, according to current “species concepts,” species are relational, and to the objection that essentialism cannot accommodate features of Darwinism associated with variation and change.

Methodology in the Philosophy of Linguistics

Both Louise Antony (‘Meta-Linguistics: Methodology and Ontology in Devitt’s Ignorance of Language’) and Paul Pietroski (‘Think of the Children’) are committed to a Chomskian perspective on linguistics. My book, Ignorance of Language [2006a], argues for fourteen theses, seven ‘major conclusions’ and seven ‘tentative proposals’, many of which are, or at least seem to be, decidedly unChomskian. Antony’s paper is largely a trenchant criticism of my methodology. Pietroski’s paper is also critical of that methodology. I aim to show, in part II, how misguided these criticisms are. But I also want to return the favour. So, throughout this paper, I aim to expose the methodological flaws of my critics. There is a pattern to Chomskian criticisms of Ignorance. The pattern is one of misrepresentation, ex cathedra pronouncements, relentlessly uncharitable readings, and a wearingly impolite tone. Papers by John Collins [2007, 2008a,b], Peter Slezak [2007], and Barry Smith [2006] are paradigms; for responses, see Devitt [2006c, 2007, 2008a,b]. Antony’s paper is another paradigm. Pietroski’s is unusual in its civility. The main focus of these critics, including Antony and Pietroski, has been on the book’s first major conclusion: ‘Linguistics is not part of psychology’ [40]. I later called this ‘the linguistic conception’ of linguistics/grammars. It stands in contrast to the Chomskian ‘psychological conception’ [2006c: 571]. I shall defend the linguistic conception in part I.

Coming to Our Senses: A Naturalistic Program for Semantic Localism

Introduction 1. A critique of the case for semantic holism 2. The methodology of naturalistic semantics 3. A case for semantic localism 4. Meanings and their ascription 5. Eliminativism and revisionism.

Relying on Intuitions: Where Cappelen and Deutsch Go Wrong

Abstract In Philosophy without Intuitions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), Herman Cappelen challenges the ‘almost universally accepted’ thesis of ‘Centrality’: ‘philosophers rely on intuitions as evidence (or as a source of evidence) for philosophical theories’. Cappelen takes there to be two arguments for Centrality and rejects both. According to the first, Centrality is supported by the way philosophers characterize key premises in their arguments as ‘intuitive’. Central to Cappelen’s rejection of this is his lengthy argument that philosophers’ ‘intuition’-talk is very hard to interpret, indeed often ‘meaningless’. I argue, in contrast, that this talk is easy to interpret. The great mass of philosophers who would endorse Centrality mean by ‘intuition’ just what it ordinarily means: ‘immediate judgment, without reasoning or inference’. Cappelen claims further that philosophers’ ‘intuition’-talk, however it is interpreted, does not support Centrality. I argue that this talk, interpreted in the ordinary way, does indeed support Centrality. According to the second argument, Centrality is supported by the very practice of philosophy. Cappelen rejects this with a thorough examination of several philosophical arguments. Deutsch has attacked Centrality similarly, in effect, with a thorough examination of one famous argument from Kripke. How are we to tell whether philosophical practice relies on intuitions? Cappelen, and Deutsch to some extent, answer by looking to the opinions of intuition-theorists about the nature of intuitions. This approach is quite mistaken. Rather, we should look to our ordinary ability to recognize intuitions. Adopting this approach, and discussing Deutsch’s Kripke example in most detail, I argue that Centrality gets support from all of these examples of philosophical practice.

Historical biological essentialism

What is it to be a member of a particular taxon? In virtue of what is an organism say a Canis lupus? What makes it one? I take these to be various ways to ask about the ‘essence’, ‘nature’, or ‘identity’ of a particular taxon. The consensus answer in the philosophy of biology, particularly for taxa that are species, is that the essence is not in any way intrinsic to the members but rather is wholly relational, particularly, historical. Thus, in their excellent introduction to the philosophy of biology, Sex and Death, Kim Sterelny and Paul Griffiths have this to say: there is ‘close to a consensus in thinking that species are identified by their histories’ (1999, p. 8); ‘the essential properties that make a particular organism a platypus... are historical or relational’ (1999, p. 186). Samir Okasha endorses the consensus, describing it as follows: we ‘identify species in terms of evolutionary history...as particular chunks of the genealogical nexus’ (2002, p. 200). Philosophers of biology like to emphasize just how different their historical essentialism is from the influential views of Saul Kripke (1980) and Hilary Putnam (1975). Let us call this consensus doctrine ‘Historical Essentialism’. It raises two questions. (A) Why believe it? (B) What precisely is this wholly relational essence? I shall address these questions in turn. In ‘Resurrecting Biological Essentialism’ (2008), I rejected the consensus. I presented an argument that there is an intrinsic component to a taxons essence and responded to the well-known objections to such a view: that it is at odds, first, with the relational nature of species according to current ‘species concepts’; and, second, with the variation and change that are central to Darwinism. Let us call that doctrine, ‘Partly Intrinsic Essentialism’. So, my opening response to (A) is that we should not believe Historical Essentialism. Still I accepted, without argument, that there was also an historical component to a taxons essence. Let us call that doctrine, ‘Partly Historical Essentialism’. It needs an argument just as does the consensus Historical Essentialism. I offer an argument in section 3, analogous to my earlier one for Partly Intrinsic Essentialism, and drawing on the literature: the historical component is required by historical/evolutionary explanations. Clearly, if this argument is good, and if the consensus were right in rejecting Partly Intrinsic Essentialism, then the argument would establish Historical Essentialism. That ends my discussion of (A). But most of the paper is concerned with (B). An answer to (B) must be complete in that it distinguishes one taxon from another; for example, zebras (Equus quagga) from horses (Equus ferus); and a species with descendants from its descendants. (I take it that the latter issue does not arise for the higher taxa which can only end when all their descendants are extinct.) And it must be plausible in that it posits an essence that can bear the burden of historical/evolutionary explanations. Despite asking around, I have been surprisingly unable to find a worked out complete and plausible answer in the literature. In sections 4–5 I argue against the two answers I have been able to find. The signs are that we should move away from the consensus Historical Essentialism. In ‘Resurrecting’, in accepting that there was an historical component to a taxons essence, I aired the suspicion

Sub-Sententials: Pragmatics or Semantics?

Stainton points out that speakers “can make assertions while speaking sub-sententially”. He argues for a “pragmatics-oriented approach” to these phenomena and against a “semantics-oriented approach”. In contrast, I argue for a largely semantics-oriented approach: typically, sub-sentential utterances assert a truth-conditional proposition in virtue of exploiting a semantic convention. Thus, there is an “implicit-demonstrative convention” in English of expressing a thought that a particular object in mind is F by saying simply ‘F’. I note also that some sub-sentential assertions include demonstrations and argue that these exploit another semantic convention for expressing a thought with a particular object in mind. I consider four objections that Stainton has to a semantics- oriented approach. The most interesting is the “syntactic ellipsis” objection, which rests on two planks: (A) the assumption that this approach must claim that what appears on the surface to be a sub-sentential is, at some deeper level of syntactic analysis, really a sentence; (B) the claim that there is no such syntactic ellipsis in these sub-sentential utterances. I argue that (A) is wrong and that (B) may well be. I also reject the other three objections: “too much ambiguity”; “no explanatory work”; and “fails a Kripkean test”. Nonetheless, occasionally, sub-sentential utterances semantically assert only a fragment of a truth-conditional proposition. This fragment needs to be pragmatically enriched to yield a propositional message. To this extent a pragmatics-oriented approach is correct.

Realism and Truth.

Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the First Edition Part I Introduction 1 Introduction Part II Proposals 2 What is Realism? 3 What is Truth? 4 What has Truth to do with Realism? 5 Why be a Common-Sense Realist? 6 Why do we Need Truth? 7 Why be a Scientific Realist? Part III Polemics 8 Van Fraassen against Scientific Realism 9 Kuhn, Feyerabend, and the Radical Philosophers of Science 10 Davidsonians against Reference 11 Rortys Mirrorless World 12 The Renegade Putnam 13 Worldmaking 14 Dummetts Anti-Realism Part IV Conclusions 15 Conclusions Afterword List of Major Named Maxims and Doctrines Bibliography Index