Grounded Shadows, Groundless Ghosts

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8399579
AutoresEzra Rubenstein (0000-0002-6331-773X, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume73
Fascículo3
Páginas723-750
Data de publicação2022-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537
EditoraOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/bjps/axaa008
OpenAlexW3005954994
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas18

According to a radical account of quantum metaphysics that I label ‘high-dimensionalism’, ordinary objects are the ‘shadows’ of high-dimensional fundamental ontology (for example, Albert [2013], [unpublished-a]; Ney [2015]). Critics—especially Maudlin ([2007], [2010], [2019])—allege that high-dimensionalism cannot provide a satisfactory explanation of the manifest image. In this article, I examine the two main ideas behind these criticisms: that high-dimensionalist connections between fundamental and non-fundamental are (1) inscrutable, and (2) arbitrary. In response to the first, I argue that there is no metaphysically significant contrast regarding the scrutability of low- and high-dimensionalist connections. In response to the second, I argue that the arbitrariness of high-dimensionalist connections has been overstated, and what arbitrariness there is afflicts low-dimensionalist connections too. Thus, the debate should not be focused on whether high-dimensionalism can provide a satisfactory explanation of the manifest image—as it has been in recent literature—but rather on the broader question of whether there is a good all-things-considered reason to prefer low-dimensionalist theories.

Arbitrariness · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Ontology · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science