Social objects, response-dependence, and realism

Research output: Contribution to journalReview Articlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

There is a widespread sentiment that social objects such as nation-states, borders, and pieces of money are just figments of our collective imagination and not really 'out there' in the world. Call this the 'antirealist intuition'. Eliminativist, reductive materialist, and immaterialist views of social objects can all make sense of the antirealist intuition, in one way or another. But these views face serious difficulties. A promising alternative view is nonreductive materialism. Yet it is unclear whether and how nonreductive materialists can make sense of the antirealist intuition. I develop a version of nonreductive materialism that is able to meet this explanatory demand. The central idea is that social objects are materially constituted, response-dependent objects. I go on to offer an independent argument in favor of this response-dependent view of social objects. I then suggest that a proponent of this view can appeal to the response-dependent nature of social objects to explain, or explain away, the antirealist intuition.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)431-443
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of the American Philosophical Association
Volume6
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Dec 2020
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Material constitution
  • Metaphysics
  • Ontology
  • Social metaphysics
  • Social ontology

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