83. Mark Balaguer | Metaphysics, Sophistry, and Illusion

What if many of metaphysics’ biggest disputes are “sophistry and illusion” because there is simply no fact of the matter about their answers, even when the debates are not merely verbal?My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy.1. GuestMark Balaguer is Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles, and his work has focused primarily on metaphysics, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of logic, free will, and metaethics.His book is "Metaphysics, Sophistry, and Illusion".https://global.oup.com/academic/product/metaphysics-sophistry-and-illusion-97801988683612. Book SummaryIn Metaphysics, Sophistry, and Illusion: Toward a Widespread Non-Factualism, Mark Balaguer defends a “widespread” version of non-factualism: for many central metaphysical questions, there simply isn’t any fact of the matter about the correct answer, even when the dispute is not “merely verbal.” He situates this within a broader anti-metaphysical research program he calls neo-positivism, inspired (in spirit) by David Hume: for any metaphysical question, careful decomposition should reveal only (i) “metaphysically innocent” modal/logical questions, (ii) ordinary empirical questions (to be handled scientisticly), and/or (iii) genuinely non-factual subquestions. He stresses that this stance is “metaphysics-friendly” rather than dismissive—engaging the problems seriously, even if the upshot is anti-metaphysical.A major part of the book is devoted to showing how non-factualism can be a live option without collapsing into triviality. One key move is to pair non-factualism with a kind of fictionalism about our object-talk: even if there’s no fact of the matter whether claims are “strictly and literally” true, our mathematical and everyday theories can still be “for-all-practical-purposes” true and useful, and Balaguer develops this strategy starting with numbers and ordinary objects like tables. He then argues for non-factualism about two famous ontological debates: whether there are composite material objects at all, and whether there are abstract objects—where the latter is tied to the idea that the relevant existential claims are so semantically imprecise that there may be no determinate truth conditions to settle them.To keep anti-metaphysicalism from forcing heavy-duty metaphysical commitments about modality, Balaguer proposes “modal nothingism”: roughly, some modal sentences are substantively true even though “there’s nothing about the world that makes them true,” yielding a metaphysically innocent way to treat modality (and certain counterfactuals) without building in contentious ontology. The later chapters then frame neo-positivism as an empirical thesis about the actual cluster of metaphysical questions in the literature—one to be supported via case-by-case analyses (and ultimately, an inductive pattern), rather than by a single “global” a priori argument. The book closes by gesturing at the broader worldview suggested by this program and urging a kind of “neo-positivist humility”: even a well-supported neo-positivist picture would remain provisional, revisable, and incomplete until the research program has been pushed much further.3. Interview Chapters00:00 - Introduction00:47 - Metaphysics, Sophistry, and Illusion02:25 - Metaphysical questions04:06 - Scientism04:37 - Conceptual analysis08:01 - Free will10:31 - Folk concepts12:21 - Non-factualism vs. meaningless15:13 - Huemer and vagueness18:29 - Propositions and logic20:31 - Plenitude of propositions22:06 - Conceptual choices25:00 - Mathematical objects28:51 - Understanding platonism31:48 - Plenitudinous platonism38:34 - Non-factualism about abstract objects41:48 - Platonist rejoinder49:21 - Platonism as necessary58:27 - Category mistake?59:31 - For all intents and purposes true1:02:05 - Does the world need abstracta?1:06:19 - Indispensability arguments1:07:34 - Truth as not the primary goal1:11:17 - Atom example1:20:05 - Counterfactuals and causal relevance1:22:32 - Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics1:23:48 - First additional surprising fact1:27:05 - Second additional surprising fact1:29:07 - Composition1:32:32 - Language of composite objects1:36:00 - Privileging simples1:39:52 - Conceptual pluralism1:43:29 - Thin language1:45:45 - Modality1:49:58 - Analytic truths1:52:09 - Metaphysical vs. logical modality1:56:22 - Rigid designators1:57:59 - Basic modal truths1:59:42 - Conventions2:04:07 - Modal nothingism2:05:37 - Understanding brute modal truths2:08:03 - Modal conventionalism2:13:17 - Neo-positivism2:20:27 - Supporting neo-positivism2:21:02 - Different views of metaphysical modality2:26:35 - Application to metaethics2:30:37 - Non-factualism2:32:37 - Value of philosophy2:35:36 - Conclusion This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fric.substack.com/subscribe