Krisztina Biber
Department of Philosophy
Coordinator
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Central European University
Nador u. 9. | 1051 Budapest, Hungary
The CEU Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to a talk
(as part of its Departmental Colloquium series)
by
Debbie Roberts (Edinburgh)
on
Explanatory Indispensability Arguments in Metaethics and Philosophy of Maths
Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 5.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412
ABSTRACT
My aim is to defend explanatory indispensability arguments in metaethics against a certain objection, drawing on recent work in the philosophy of mathematics. Explanatory indispensibility arguments claim, roughly, that an entity or property is a genuine feature of the world if reference to that entity or property figures ineliminably in the best explanation of some phenomena. The objection that I’m concerned to defend such arguments against holds that even if the relevant terms (be they mathematical, ethical, or whatever) are indispensible to the best explanation of some phenomenon, this does not generate ontological commitment to the particular entities or properties that the relevant kind of realist is keen on admitting to our ontology. I draw on recent work by platonists in philosophy of maths to reply to the metathical version of this objection.