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    Carmelics

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    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Material bodies (in a broad sense) are the basic items of reference.

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Events, not substances, are the primary ontological constituents of reality, as argued by Whitehead's process philosophy and Davidson's event ontology.
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    • 2.If events are ontologically primary, the referential framework is grounded in occurrences, undermining Strawson's dismissal of them as dependent particulars.
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    • 3.Davidson's anomalous monism shows events can bear causal and spatio-temporal relations sufficient to anchor reference without appeal to enduring material bodies.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Quine's ontological relativity demonstrates that what counts as a 'basic' object of reference is always relative to a background theory, not an absolute metaphysical fact.
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    • 2.If referential basicness is theory-relative, Strawson's claim that material bodies are privileged presupposes a folk-physical framework rather than establishing a language-independent truth.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.There is a basic category of items of reference.
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    • 2.The candidates for referential basicness, after setting aside theoretical entities and experiences, are material bodies and occurrences.
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    • 3.Occurrences are not referentially basic because they are picked out dependently and do not ground the spatio-temporal framework.
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    Strongest counterpoint
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