Troubles with Words

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 1 discusses problems of mutual misunderstanding—both chronic and acute—that arise in philosophy on account of terminological divergences and unclarities. It considers how philosophers fall into thought ruts, and lock on to narrow ways of hearing particular words, in such a way that they cease to be able to respond rationally to arguments. It reviews the greatest catastrophe that has occurred in metaphysics in the last three centuries: the rise of ‘epistemologized metaphysics’. One classical example of epistemologized metaphysics is the illegitimate conversion of Hume’s non-metaphysical, semantic-cum-epistemological claim regarding what we can know about causation (only regularity) into a metaphysical claim about what causation is (only regularity). The chapter then briefly introduces the key notions of the book: stuff, quality, structure. And it defines naturalism in an unorthodox way: the first commitment of the true naturalist must be to qualia, or the reality of consciousness.