Metaphysical Openness

My current research project explores the (radically contingent and incomplete) nature of the social world. Specifically, I spell out the consequences of two views.
  1. Anti-essentialism: some social kinds lack definitions (or essences). (Example: there is no definition of the kind woman that characterizes every possible woman.)
  2. Incompleteness: there are cases where there is no matter of fact about whether an individual has a social property. (Example: some people are neither racially Black nor non-Black; there is no matter of fact about whether some folks are Black.)
Call this package of views the openness hypothesis: that social reality is open (or undetermined) in some way. The openness hypothesis is quite popular among social theorists and progressive activists. However, the details of this hypothesis are murky, and we currently lack a systematic account of what the social world would be like if this hypothesis were true. 

This is where I come in. I’m writing a series of papers where I (a) clarify the basic openness hypothesis and (b) clarify the consequences (particularly with respect to language and action) of the hypothesis.

Drafts

  • ​"Real Anti-Essentialism"
    • I sketch a novel theory of gender anti-essentialism. It makes two claims: (a) genders lack essences because they are metaphysically indeterminate, and (b) genders are nonetheless stable because the possess stable metaphysical grounds.
  • "Metaphysical Engineering"
    • Social construction is about how we construct new kinds. Conceptual engineering is about how we construct new concepts. One natural thought is that we can construct new kinds by constructing new concepts. But can kinds genuinely be constructed in this manner? And if they can, how does this work, exactly? I think the answer to the first question is yes. To answer the second question, I explore various accounts of (what I call) metaphysical engineering. 
  • "Indeterminacy, Error, and Expression"
    • ​What happens when there is no matter of fact about a social kind but we nonetheless talk as if there are such facts? For example, there may not be a matter of fact about whether I am Black, but I nonetheless self-identify as Black. In some of these cases, we are simply wrong about the facts. In other cases, I argue, we construct the facts; we make determinate what was previously indeterminate. I give an account of this kind of construction, and use it to make sense of tensions surrounding self-identification in social metaphysics and philosophy of language.

Grounding Pluralism

Dependence is said in many ways.
  • Donating to charity is right because it promotes happiness.
  • It’s true that people exist or unicorns exist because it’s true that people exist.
  • The ball is colored in virtue of being red.
Many philosophers take these claims to be underwritten by kind of dependence (or explanation) called metaphysical grounding.

I defend grounding pluralism, the view that there are multiple kinds of grounding. I posit three kinds: why-grounding (which tells us why things are the case), how-grounding (which tells us how things are the case), and what-grounding (which tells us what it is for something to be the case). 

Publications

  • ​"Varieties," Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding, 2020.
    • Grounding pluralism tells us that there are varieties of grounding. But there are also varieties of grounding pluralism! In this article, I survey the different ways in which one might be a pluralist about grounding.
  • ​"On What (in General) Grounds What", Metaphysics, 2020.
    • ​Consider a generic grounding claim like: an act is right in virtue of maximizing happiness. Traditionally, this claim is understood as simply quantifying over relationships of ground. Against this view, I argue that generic grounding claims are almost always claims of real definition.
  • "Grounding is Necessary and Contingent", Inquiry, 2019.
    • It is common to think that grounding is necessary in the sense that: if P grounds Q, then necessarily: if P, then Q. Though most accept this principle, some give counterexamples to it. Instead of straightforwardly arguing for, or against, necessity, I explain the sense in which grounding is necessary and contingent. I argue that there are two kinds of grounding: what-grounding and why-grounding, where the former kind is necessary while the latter is contingent. 
  • "Grounding Pluralism: Why and How", Erkenntnis, 2018.
    • Grounding pluralism is the view that there are multiple kinds of grounding. In this essay, I motivate and defend an explanation-theoretic view of grounding pluralism. Specifically, I argue that there are two kinds of grounding: why-grounding—which tells us why things are the case—and how-grounding—which tells us how things are the case.​
For drafts/questions, please contact me at kevinrichardsonphd (at) gmail (dot) com.