David Armstrong (Philosophy Now)

217 Pages·2007·3.77 MB·English

by  Stephen Mumford

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David Armstrong
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Philosophy Now
Series Editor: John Shand
This is a fresh and vital series of new introductions to today’s most
read, discussed and important philosophers. Combining rigorous
analysis with authoritative exposition, each book gives a clear, com-
prehensive and enthralling access to the ideas of those philosophers
who have made a truly fundamental and original contribution to the
subject. Together the volumes comprise a remarkable gallery of the
thinkers who have been at the forefront of philosophical ideas.
Published
David Armstrong W. V. Quine
Stephen Mumford Alex Orenstein
Donald Davidson John Rawls
Marc Joseph Catherine Audard
Michael Dummett Richard Rorty
Bernhard Weiss Alan Malachowski
Nelson Goodman John Searle
Daniel Cohnitz & Marcus Rossberg Nick Fotion
Saul Kripke Wifrid Sellars
G. W. Fitch Willem A. deVries
Thomas Kuhn Peter Strawson
Alexander Bird Clifford Brown
David Lewis Charles Taylor
Daniel Nolan Ruth Abbey
John McDowell Bernard Williams
Tim Thornton Mark P. Jenkins
Robert Nozick Peter Winch
A. R. Lacey Colin Lyas
Hilary Putnam
Maximilian de Gaynesford
Forthcoming
Robert Brandom Thomas Nagel
Jeremy Wanderer Alan Thomas
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David Armstrong
Stephen Mumford
ACUMEN
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© Stephen Mumford, 2007
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2007 by Acumen
Acumen Publishing Limited
Stocksfield Hall
Stocksfield
NE43 7TN
www.acumenpublishing.co.uk
ISBN 978-1-84465-099-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-84465-100-9 (paperback)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Typeset in Hong Kong by Graphicraft Limited.
Printed and bound by Cromwell Press, Trowbridge.
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Contents
Preface vii
Abbreviations x
1. Naturalism 1
2. Universals 19
3. Laws of nature 41
4. Possibility 61
5. Dispositions 79
6. States of affairs 95
7. Sensations and perceptions 111
8. Metaphysics of mind 129
9. Knowledge and belief 149
10. Truthmaking 165
11. Necessity 183
Bibliography 195
Index 201
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Preface
David Malet Armstrong has a claim to being the greatest philosopher
produced by the young and vast country of Australia. It is primarily
through his work that Australian philosophy, and Australian meta-
physics in particular, enjoys such a high reputation in the rest of
the world. Students of an older generation will know of Armstrong
chiefly as a philosopher of mind. He was one of the big three Australian
materialists, who argued that our mental lives are nothing more
that a series of states in our brains or central nervous systems.
Not content with overturning centuries of thinking about the mind,
however, Armstrong went on to have a second career as a philoso-
pher. In providing his theory of mind, he came to see that we needed
accounts of states, properties, dispositions, the nature of identity,
causation and laws of nature. He saw that metaphysics was an area
where serious work was yet to be done. Perhaps with the intention
of being a better philosopher of mind, he became a metaphysician
in the mid-1970s. He only seldom returned to his former discipline,
however, perhaps seeing that metaphysics was where all the real
action was.
This book aims to offer an introduction to the full range of
Armstrong’s thought for readers already familiar with the nature
and methods of twentieth-century analytic philosophy. I have delib-
erately not, however, offered a purely chronological account of
his work. I would maintain that Armstrong’s chief philosophical
achievement is the development of a core metaphysical programme,
embracing the topics of universals, laws, modality and facts. It is a
naturalistic metaphysics, consistent with a scientific view of the
natural world. The philosophy of mind is important, particularly to
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David Armstrong
those of us who want to understand our minds. But minds, and even
human beings, are just one small part of the natural world. I have
presented Armstrong’s thought, therefore, with the core programme
first and his accounts of mind, sensation and knowledge afterwards,
as special topics of this naturalistic metaphysics.
There are still issues about the order of presentation, however.
“Metaphysics is a serpent that has itself by the tail”, Armstrong
once said (WSA: 28). A theory of metaphysics is often integrated and
interconnected. But this makes order of exposition a problem. One
part of the theory cannot be understood without the other parts. How,
then, is one to explain that theory in a sequential order? My approach
has been to start with what I think are the key commitments. I begin
with Armstrong’s naturalism, his most general commitment, and
then move on to his realism about universals. Once they are in place,
theories of laws, modality and dispositions follow quickly. We can
then move on to see these all in terms of facts or states of affairs. By
that point we will have all the basics of his core theory. We will then
move through perception, mind and belief before a further metaphys-
ical flourish in the last two chapters, looking at truth and the new
view of instantiation. I have attempted to present a dispassionate,
fair and unbiased account of Armstrong’s thought. His is a body of
work that I regard highly and think of as significant, but I have
drawn the reader’s attention to areas of weakness and issues about
which there is room for further debate. My own views on these
matters are often at odds with Armstrong’s but I have been careful
not to use this book as a forum to air my alternatives. This book
definitely is about Armstrong’s work, not about mine.
I have used a system of referencing in which Armstrong’s books
have abbreviated titles. See the list of abbreviations that follows.
Papers by him are referred to with just a date. For works by other
authors, I have used a standard system of referencing.
A significant portion of this book has been written “on the road” so
I must thank various people and institutions for their invitations and
financial assistance that allowed this research time away. Chapter 4
was written in Buenos Aires, where I was the guest of GAF (Grupo
de acción filosósfica) at the invitation of Eduardo Barrio. Chapter 6
was written at the 2006 APA in Chicago, for which I am grateful
to the British Academy for their travel grant and the University of
Nottingham’s Overseas Conference Fund. Chapter 7 was written in
Tromsø, in the Arctic Circle. I was the guest of the University of
Tromsø for their Alternative Conception of Nature conference, at the
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Preface
invitation of Svein Anders Noer Lie. I was able to work through the
whole draft of the book while at Niagara Falls, Canada, at the IAPS
conference (with a view of the Falls from my room, no less), again
funded by the University of Nottingham. Other parts of the book
were written on visits to the Universities of Lund and Halle-
Wittenberg, and the final, revised draft was completed at the
University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, at the Philosophical Society
of Southern Africa 2007 conference. Finally, the end period of re-
search on this book was assisted by the AHRC-funded Metaphysics
of Scienceproject.
I am grateful to Rani Lill Anjum and Sonya Barcant, who read the
whole manuscript and offered many comments, making it a better
and more readable book. As an undergraduate, Sonya Barcant
worked through the consequences of Armstrong’s new theory of
instantiation before the same points were published as objections
by Peter Simons (2005). Chapter 11 in particular benefits from her
input. I am grateful to the two anonymous readers for Acumen who
gave constructive feedback on the manuscript. I must also express
my gratitude to Lindsay Hutchinson, who made 2005–07 very
smooth years for philosophy at Nottingham. Without her highly
efficient running of the department, this book would not have been
completed so soon. Maggie, William, Oliver and Charlie are to be
thanked for their support and tolerance of frequent work-related
absences. I thank also E. J. Lowe and D. H. Mellor for their continued
support, and David Armstrong himself for his encouragement of
my own work in recent years. I did discuss with Armstrong the
possibility that he should see the manuscript of this book before
publication. He had, after all, commented on a draft of my previous
book. He was keen, however, that in this case he should not comment
on the draft. Perhaps there was a principle behind this thinking: the
subjects of books in this series ought not to be inputting into nor
influencing their own volumes. These books should be another’s view,
distanced and critical, of the thinker in question.
A special issue of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, volume
84 (2006), number 2, on the work of David Armstrong appeared just
too late to be of use during the writing of this book. But readers look-
ing for some more detailed critiques of special topics in Armstrong’s
work may wish to turn there next.
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