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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Abstract objects necessarily lack causal powers.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Mathematical structures like the natural numbers causally constrain which physical computations are possible, as Penelope Maddy argues in 'Realism in Mathematics'.
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    • 2.If X's existence is necessary for Y to occur, X bears a counterfactual-supporting relation to Y that satisfies standard analyses of causal relevance.
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    • 3.Therefore, abstract objects can satisfy causal relevance conditions without being concrete, undermining the supposed necessary connection between concreteness and causal power.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.The abstract/concrete distinction in P2 is question-begging if 'concrete' is defined precisely as 'having causal powers', collapsing the argument into circularity.
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    • 2.Frege's Platonism treats the logical laws as abstract yet normatively governing thought in a way that Frege himself described as a form of efficacy over rational agents.
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    • 3.Normative governance of cognition by abstract objects constitutes a species of causal influence under interventionist accounts of causation like Woodward's, since ideal reasoners' beliefs co-vary with logical facts under intervention.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Necessarily, anything with causal powers is concrete (□∀x(Cx → E!x)).
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    • 2.Abstract objects are, by definition, not concrete at any possible world.
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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.