David J. Chalmers constructs a highly ambitious and original picture of the world, from a few basic elements. He develops and extends Rudolf Carnap's attempt to do the same in Der Logische Aufbau Der Welt (1928). Carnap gave a blueprint for describing the entire world using a limited vocabulary, so that all truths about the world could be derived from that description--but his Aufbau is often seen as a noble failure. In Constructing the World, Chalmers argues that something like the Aufbau project can succeed. With the right vocabulary and the right derivation relation, we can indeed construct the world.
The focal point of Chalmers's project is scrutability: roughly, the thesis that ideal reasoning from a limited class of basic truths yields all truths about the world. Chalmers first argues for the scrutability thesis and then considers how small the base can be. All this can be seen as a project in metaphysical epistemology: epistemology in service of a global picture of the world and of our conception thereof.
The scrutability framework has ramifications throughout philosophy. Using it, Chalmers defends a broadly Fregean approach to meaning, argues for an internalist approach to the contents of thought, and rebuts W. V. Quine's arguments against the analytic and the a priori. He also uses scrutability to analyze the unity of science, to defend a conceptual approach to metaphysics, and to mount a structuralist response to skepticism. Based on Chalmers's 2010 John Locke lectures, Constructing the World opens up debate on central areas of philosophy including philosophy of language, consciousness, knowledge, and reality. This major work by a leading philosopher will appeal to philosophers in all areas.

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xiii

How to Read This Book xxv

1 Scrutability and the Aufbau 1

1 Primitive concepts 1

2 Objections to the Aufbau 7

3 From definitional to a priori scrutability 12

4 From descriptions to intensions 16

5 The scrutability base 20

6 Reviving the Aufbau

First Excursus: Scrutability and Knowability 29

Second Excursus: The Inscrutability of Reference and the Scrutability of Truth 34

2 Varieties of Scrutability 39

1 Scrutability theses 39

2 Sentences or propositions? 42

3 Inferential scrutability 47

4 Conditional scrutability 53

5 A priori scrutability 58

6 Generalized scrutability 60

7 Idealization 62

8 Objections from idealization 64

Third Excursus: Sentential and Propositional Scrutability 72

Fourth Excursus: Warrants and Support Structures 92

Fifth Excursus: Insulated Idealization and the Problem of Self-Doubt 101

3 Adventures with a Cosmoscope 108

1 A scrutability base 108

2 The Cosmoscope argument 114

3 The argument from elimination 120

4 The argument from knowability 125

5 Inferential scrutability with a Cosmoscope 134

6 Conditional scrutability 138

7 The objection from recognirional capacities 139

8 The objection from counterfactuals 148

Sixth Excursus: Totality Truths and Indexical Truths 151

4 The Case for A Priori Scrutability 157

1 From Conditional to A Priori Scrutability 157

2 The argument from suspension of belief 159

3 The argument from frontloading 160

4 Causal roles, mediating roles, and justifying roles 167

5 Generalized A Priori Scrutability 169

6 Objections from self-knowledge 171

7 Objections from theories of concepts and reference 173

8 Objections from acquaintance and from nonpropositional evidence 176

9 The objection from empirical inference 181

Seventh Excursus: Varieties of Apriority 185

Eighth Excursus: Recent Challenges to the A Priori 193

5 Revisability and Conceptual Change 199

1 Introduction 199

2 The arguments of 'Two Dogmas' 200

3 Catnap on intensions 204

4 A Carnapian response 205

5 Refining Catnap's account 207

6 A Bayesian analysis of holding-true 211

7 A Bayesian analysis of revisability 214

8 Quinean objections 217

9 Condusion 224

Ninth Excursus: Scrutability and Conceptual Dynamics 226

Tenth Excursus: Constructing Epistemic Space 233

Eleventh Excursus: Constructing Fregean Senses 244

6 Hard Cases 259

1 Introduction 259

2 Mathematical truths 261

3 Normative and evaluative truths 264

4 Ontological truths 267

5 Other philosophical truths 271

6 Modal truths 273

7 Intentional truths 274

8 Social truths 279

9 Deferential terms 280

10 Names 282

11 It Metalinguistic truths 283

12 Indexicals and demonstratives 285

13 Vagueness 288

14 Secondary qualities 289

15 Macrophysical truths 290

16 Counterfactual truths 298

17 Condusion 299

Twelfth Excursus: Scrutability and the Unity of Science 301

7 Minimizing the Base 312

1 Introduction 312

2 Heuristics 313

3 Microphysical expressions 319

4 Color, other secondary qualities, and mass 325

5 Spatiotemporal expressions 325

6 Causal and nomic expressions 336

7 Phenomenal expressions 340

8 Compression using laws 344

9 Quiddities 347

10 Other expressions 353

11 Packages 357

Thirteenth Excursus: From the Aufbau to the Canberra Plan 362

Fourteenth Excursus: Epistemic Rigidity and Super-Rigidity 366

8 The Structure of the World 379

1 Principled scrutability bases 379

2 Definitional Scrutability (and conceptual analysis) 381

3 Analytic and Primitive Scrutability (and primitive concepts) 385

4 Narrow Scrutability (and narrow content) 393

5 Acquaintance Scrutability (and Russellian acquaintance) 399

6 Fundamental Scrutability (and the mind—body problem) 404

7 Structural Scrutability (and structural realism) 409

8 Generalized Scrutability (and Fregean content) 423

Summation: Whither the Aufbau? 426

Fifteenth Excursus: The Structuralist Response to Skepticism 435

Sixteenth Excursus: Scrutability, Supervenience, and Grounding 445

Seventeenth Excursus: Explaining Scrutability 461

Glossary 468

Bibliography 475

Index 485

David J. Chalmers is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University, and Professor of Philosophy at New York University. After studying mathematics at Adelaide and Oxford, he completed a PhD in philosophy and cognitive science at Indiana University in 1993. His 1996 book The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory was highly successful with both popular and academic audiences. As director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona from 1999 to 2004, and as a founder of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, he has played a major role in developing the interdisciplinary science of consciousness. He is well known for his formulation of the 'hard problem' of consciousness and his arguments against materialism. He has also written on topics as diverse as the nature of meaning, the foundations of artificial intelligence, and philosophical issues in The Matrix.

中科院文献情报中心