EMPTY IDEAS EMPTY IDEAS A Critique of Analytic Philosophy Peter Unger Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Peter Unger 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Unger, Peter K. Empty ideas : a critique of analytic philosophy / Peter Unger. pages cm ISBN 978-0-19933081-2 (hardback : alk. paper) ebook ISBN 978-0-19-933083-6 1. Reality. 2. Substance (Philosophy) 3. Matter—Philosophy. 4. Analysis (Philosophy) I. Title. BD331.U49 2014 110 —dc23 2013042262 1 3 5 7 8 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For three younger Ungers, My son, Andrew, my daughter-in-law, Nishi, and, by far the youngest, their son, Cole, my grandson CONTENTS Acknowledgments 1. HOW EMPTY IS MAINSTREAM PHILOSOPHY? 1. Most Recent Mainstream Proposals Are Concretely Empty Ideas 2. A Working Idea of Concrete Reality 3. Observing the Concretely Empty in Some Recent Mainstream Philosophy 4. Our Central Distinction and Three That Have Been Philosophically Salient 5. The Concretely Empty, the Analytically Empty and Mainstream Philosophy 2. PROMISING EXAMPLES OF CONCRETELY SUBSTANTIAL PHILOSOPHY 1. Some Pretty Promising Examples of Concretely Substantial Philosophy 2. The Substantial Scientiphicalism of Mainstream Philosophy 3. Memory, History and Emptiness 4. Various Specifications of Scientiphicalism and Various Departures from Scientiphicalism 5. Interactionist Entity Dualism and the Problem of Causal Pairings 6. Exploring Philosophical Thoughts that May Be Analytically Empty Ideas 3. THINKERS AND WHAT THEY CAN THINK ABOUT: EMPTY ISSUES AND INDIVIDUALISTIC POWERS 1. Language, Thought and History 2. Thinking about “The External World” 3. Earth, Twin Earth and History 4. The Banality of Successfully Investigating Unfamiliar Individuals 5. A Concretely Substantial Possibility: Individualistically Directed Powers 6. The Propensity to Acquire Individualistic Powers and Its Historical Manifestation 7. A Concretely Substantial Possibility: Individualistically Directed Mental Powers 8. Generalistic Propensities to Acquire Real-kind Directed Mental Powers 9. Wishful Blindness to Emptiness: Putnam’s “Transcendental” Pronouncement 10. Reading Modal Claims Substantially and Widening Our Philosophical Horizons 4. THE ORIGINS OF MATERIAL INDIVIDUALS: EMPTY ISSUES AND SEQUENTIALISTIC POWERS 1. The Origin of a Particular Wooden Table 2. Some Thoughts about Tables and Some Thoughts about Shmables 3. Origination Conditions, Persistence Conditions, and Boxing a Logical Compass 4. A Tenet of Scientiphicalism: Basic Individuals Have No “Memory-like” Propensity 5. How a Wooden Table Could Have First Been Made from a Hunk of Ice 6. Tood and Tice, a Table First Made of Wood and a Table First Made of Ice 7. Using Modal Terms Substantially: The Case of Determinism 8. Distinctive Material Objects and These Objects’ Distinctive Matter 9. Sequentialistically Propensitied Concrete Particulars 10. Wooden Tables, Ice, and Sequentialistically Propensitied Concrete Particulars 5. THE PERSISTENCE OF MATERIAL INDIVIDUALS: EMPTY ISSUES AND SELF-DIRECTED PROPENSITY 1. Material Sculptures and Pieces of Matter 2. Are There Inconveniently Persisting Material Individuals? 3. Pieces, Lumps and Hunks: A Problematic Plethora of Persisting Individuals? 4. Is There a Plethora of Extraordinary Persisting Individuals? 5. Ordinary and Not So Ordinary Persisting Material Individuals 6. Using These Sentences Differently and Expressing Substantial Ideas 7. Fundamentals of Fundamental Material Persistents 6. EMPTY DEBATES ABOUT MATERIAL MATTERS 1. Matter Distributed Particulately, but Not Even a Single Material Individual? 2. Matter Distributed Particulately, but Only a Single Material