Tobias Alexius: Apparent Objects: Essays on the Identity and Existence of Manifest Entities

Abstract

This dissertation investigates questions of ontology, i.e. questions about what exists, focusing primarily on the existence (and identity) of ordinary objects like tables, chairs, and mountains, but also, at times, objects, such as e.g., abstracta and persons. The overarching theme is whether and how the “manifest” objects we encounter in everyday experience fit into a world best described by fundamental physics and its sparse ontology of particles, waves and void. 

In paper one I critique "easy realism," the view that ordinary ontological claims can be trivially settled in favor of realism through empirical and linguistic inquiry alone (with no need for metaphysics). I argue that easy realism fails because it underestimate the extent to which ordinary language use is predicated on (defeasible) folk-metaphysical beliefs. 

Paper two targets a related view which I call “quasi-eliminativism.” This view says that ordinary object-talk can be true even if ordinary objects are not part of reality’s true ontology. I challenge some key metasemantical assumptions of this view, and argue that it fails given a typically sparse, eliminativist physics-ontology.

In paper three I discuss grounding-based "easy ontology," according to which nonfundamental entities can be posited without adding theoretical cost provided they are metaphysically grounded in fundamental entities. I argue that this approach succeeds only if the fundamental base assumes full metaphysical responsibility for the grounded entities, and that this requires postulating metaphysical laws/principles which end up inflating the fundamental, cost-bearing domain instead. 

Paper four offers a more constructive contribution. Here I present a novel theory of the indeterminacy in cases of radical, gradual change (think ship of Theseus-type cases). I propose that the indeterminacy in such cases is genuinely de re, i.e., that it concerns the existence of the objects themselves (as opposed to the standard view that it concerns the application of concepts to objects). 

Finally, paper five, (really an appendix to paper four), offers a rebuttal to Gareth Evans’ influential argument against indeterminate identity. I show that this argument fails because it doesn't account for the effects of indeterminate identities on property distribution and certain issues to do with indeterminate self-referentiality.