As some of you may know, Wiley-Blackwell has a new popular philosophy series aptly titled Philosophy for Everyone. One of the forthcoming volumes, edited by Dale Jacquette, is Cannabis & Philosophy: What Were We Just Talking About?. When I saw the call for papers I was reminded of my high school years when I used to write poorly argued papers about drugs for all sorts of courses. One of the papers was entitled Drugs, the Individual, and the Society. It was mainly because of this nostalgic factor that I decided to submit a paper for the Cannabis & Philosophy volume, and since it got accepted, I actually had to write the paper. Yes, you guessed it, the title is Cannabis, the Individual, and the Society. I have finished the first draft of the paper and I invite comments on it – not just from philosophers! Download it from here. The volume itself will consist of the following sections:

History and Aesthetics of Cannabis Gourmandise
Expanding Consciousness, Laughing at Nothing and Paranoia: Psychology and Phenomenology of Cannabis Intoxication
Ethical, Legal and Social Dimensions of Marijuana Prohibition
Naturally High on THC: Pharmacology, Medicinal Applications, and Public Health Issues
Marijuana, Spirituality, and the Impact of Cannabis Subculture on Society

I had a lot of fun writing this paper, as I got to browse journals that I had never even heard of and do some research of a very different kind from what I normally do. It’s also nice to write about something that actually has a bearing on the real world for a change! As the title suggests, my paper is a survey of the pros and cons of cannabis use from the point of view of the individual on one hand and of the society on the other hand. Unsurprisingly, my conclusion is that the current drug policy is obsolete, as it is still based on the idea that the production and use of drugs such as cannabis can be eliminated. With some 166 million cannabis users this seems like a ludicrous idea. I came across a number of recent studies into both the specific health effects of cannabis use as well as implications on public health. Some of the most interesting are the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) report, issued shortly before the reclassification of cannabis from class C to class B in the UK (in January 2009). As some may know, the report actually recommended against the reclassification. What makes this particularly interesting is that the goverment nevertheless accepted the other 20 recommendations of the ACMD. Why the most important one of them was ignored is a mystery. In a similar vein, The Beckley Foundation’s 2008 Global Cannabis Commission Report concludes as follows:

The principal aim of a cannabis control system should be to minimize any harms from cannabis use. In our view this means grudgingly allowing use and attempting to channel such use into less harmful patterns (e.g. by delaying onset of use until early adulthood, encouraging all users to avoid substantial daily use, driving a car after using, and smoking cannabis mixed with tobacco). (p. 183.)

Other interesting discussion includes critical notices of the recent UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs that took place in March 2009 in Vienna. The consensus among public health experts is that the whole event was a bit of a charade. See also Robin Room’s comment in New Scientist. As if all this weren’t enough, the Guardian recently reported that in these tough economic times, employers are starting to use drug tests to get rid of staff without having to pay redundancy fees. Most often these drug tests will reveal cannabis use, as it can remain detectable several weeks after use. However, whether this has any effect whatsoever on the efficiency of the employee is questionable at the very least.

That’s all for now, more news in due course. And please, do comment!

A paper of mine with the above title has been accepted for publication in the Swedish journal Theoria. It’s an old journal and not at all bad, although not really world class either. Wiley-Blackwell acquired it recently. Anyway, I thought it would be appropriate as Kripke’s latest paper was recently published there. There’s also a paper by Nick Zangwill in a recent issue. My paper was under review for quite a long time (since October 2008), and I have thought about the matters that I discuss in this paper in more detail. In the light of that, this paper is really just an introduction. However, it is 7,000 words long in any case, so I couldn’t have extended it much more. I’ve posted a copy of the paper here. Grab it now if you’re interested, because I will have to take it down when it appears in print. Wiley-Blackwell insists that the paper will not appear on a personal home page until 24 months after the publication. Obviously I can still e-mail it to people.

The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate that the classic Kripkean story about a posteriori necessities omits a couple of important things. The primary case that I analyse is the classic ‘Water=H20′. Basically I argue that the a priori principle that the modal content of this identity statement is grounded in has not received sufficient support. The a priori principle that I am referring to is that compounds such as water have their molecular structure by necessity, i.e. that it is part of the essence of compounds that they have the very molecular structure that they do. While this might seem like an obvious thing, it is far from clear how we are supposed to come to know this a priori principle. I discuss this in some detail in the paper, but more recently I’ve learned about some peculiar cases, such as so called non-stoichiometric compounds or Berthollides, as they are sometimes called. These are compounds which at least seemingly violate the law of definite propositions, namely they are compounds which do not always contain exactly the same proportions of elements by mass and would hence seem to cause problems for the a priori principle that compounds have their molecular structure by necessity. There is some interesting chemistry behind this, I recently had a chat about this with Robin Hendry; he has got a couple of papers about the problems concerning water. As to Berthollides, they do not seem to have been discussed in any detail in philosophical connections. I got a couple of references from another philosopher who knows his chemistry, Paul Needham (see his ‘Resisting Chemical Atomism: Duhem’s Argument’, Philosophy of Science, 75: 921-31, 2008), but this appears to be something that philosophers haven’t really picked on yet. Anyway, I plan to look into this matter in some more detail when I’ve got some time. This is also core content for the book that I am supposedly working on, so I will extend on this there at the very latest.

I gave a paper yesterday at our weekly postgraduate seminar Eidos with the above title and I thought I might post about it here as well. The paper is available here. It is inspired by the recent Metametaphysics volume, edited by Chalmers, Manley and Wasserman. I’ve just reviewed the volume for our journal, Philosophical Writings. The volume is interesting and everyone working in metaphysics should take a look, but I’m not happy about one thing: the Quinean metaontology that nearly all of the contributors assume, with the exception of Kit Fine and Jonathan Schaffer. In my paper I discuss Fine’s contribution and Thomas Hofweber’s contribution; Hofweber criticises Fine and Schaffer and is generally opposed to the Aristotelian conception of metaphysics that they defend. Especially the positive part of the paper is very sketchy, so I would appreciate any comments as to how I should develop it. The problem is that it would become way too long if I included the full positive story. Maybe I should focus on a single example and show how we can settle it with the help of my proposed method?

Anyway, I thought I might briefly summarise what I find problematic about this topic. A common example that many of the authors use in one form or another concerns the existence of numbers. Now, the problem is that this seems like a very trivial question and metaphysics is not supposed to be trivial. There is an easy and rather irritating argument which supposedly establishes the existence of numbers:

(1) The number of elves is zero.
(2) There is such a thing as the number of elves.
(3) Hence, there are numbers.

If only metaphysics were this easy… The worry that one should have here is that if metaphysics is really about existence questions such as ‘Are there numbers?’ or ‘Are there tables?’, then it becomes either trivial, or metaphysical questions are handed over to science; after all, you might think that mathematicians should answer the question about the existence of numbers, and physicists about the existence of electrons, for instace. This is strictly a result of the Quinean understanding of ontological commitment: we commit ourselves to the existence of numbers when we quantify over them in the manner that we do in the premises of the above argument. Kit Fine and Jonathan Schaffer challenge this assumption, but I won’t go into the details of their suggestions here. I will, however, quote a splendid passage from Fine’s paper:

Quine’s approach to ontology appears to be based on a double error. He asks the wrong question, by asking a scientific rather than a philosophical question, and he answers the question he asks in the wrong way, by appealing to philosophical considerations in addition to ordinary scientific considerations. This marriage of a misguided methodology to an ill-conceived question produces the semblance of a question properly asked and properly answered, since the philosophical considerations to which he appeals are in many ways appropriate to the question he should have asked; and it [is] no doubt partly because the one error compensates for the other that philosophers have found it so easy to be oblivious to both. Perhaps something useful can come from following such a cockeyed procedure but true enlightenment can only be achieved by getting the question right and getting the methodology to fit the question. (p. 161.)

What is the right question, then? Well, I think that it has something to do with the nature or essence of the entity under investigation rather than its existence. In fact, I think that we have to assume that things like numbers exist in the traditional sense if we wish to have any debate at all. Accordingly, the real metametaphysical question is: how do we gain knowledge about the essences of entities? The answer to this question, which I have defended elsewhere, is that our epistemic access to essences is based on a priori reasoning. But not in any mysterious sense of ‘a priori’, or, at least, not any more mysterious than it is when scientists use the very same faculty of reasoning. I have a story about how this all works, basically I think that a priori reasoning deals with metaphysical modality and that metaphysical modality is grounded in essences pace Fine. See my paper ‘A New Definition of A Priori Knowledge: In Search of a Modal Basis’ for details.

Incidentally, I had a chat about this with Peter van Inwagen, who gave a paper here in Durham earlier today. He has also got a paper in the Metametaphysics volume, but van Inwagen is of course a hardcore Quinean. I asked him what he thought about Fine’s paper and his answer was: ‘bullshit’. But when I queried about the above argument concerning the existence of numbers and the threat of metaphysical questions being either trivial or handed over to science, I didn’t really get a satisfactory answer. This seems like a major challenge for Quinean metaontology and I would like to see how Quineans are supposed to cope with it. At the very least, I think that this problem calls for a re-assessment of Aristotelian metaontology, which does not seem to have such unfortunate consequences.

I’m glad to announce that my symposium proposal for the second conference of The European Philosophy of Science Association has been accepted. The conference will take place in Amsterdam between October 21st and 24th. It’s also a good excuse to go to Amsterdam again, it’s one of my favourite European cities. My symposium is entitled The Structure of Scientific Knowledge and in addition to my own paper it will include papers by Professor Alexander Bird from Bristol, Dr. Robin Hendry from my department at Durham, and my friend Paul Winstanley, who is finishing up his Ph.D. also at Durham.

The symposium focuses on the epistemology of science and related metaphysical issues. The four papers deal with topics like the essences of natural kinds, the connection between apriority, necessity, and essences, the role of a priori knowledge in scientific inquiry, and the relationship of a priori and empirical knowledge, specifically in early modern chemistry. The question that connects the papers is: to what extent if at all do we need a priori knowledge in scientific inquiry, and how is apriority connected with issues concerning essences and modality? The speakers are in consensus that there are at least some a priori elements present in scientific knowledge, but their opinions differ, sometimes substantially, concerning the role of a priori knowledge as well as its relationship with modality and essences. Alexander’s paper is entitled ‘Knowledge of Kinds and Their Essences’ and Paul’s paper, ‘Apriority, Necessity and Essence’, deals with similar topics. Robin’s paper is called ‘The Elements and Conceptual Change: A Priori and Empirical Knowledge in Early Modern Chemistry’, which is an interesting case study, and finally my paper, ‘The A Priori and Scientific Knowledge’, focuses on a more abstract analysis of the relationship of a priori and a posteriori knowledge and proposes a novel way to interpret it.

I’m looking forward to seeing what else the conference has to offer, and will post updates in due course.