SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The apparent force of the Placement Problem appears to lend considerable weight to philosophical projects such as reductionism, eliminativism, and instrumentalism. These theories, it is thought, are united by vocabularies and conceptual schemes better suited than their more metaphysically inclined rivals to make sense of things, since reductionism and eliminativism are thought to be prices very much worth paying to avoid supernaturalism. Central to Hegelianism is a committed opposition to treating the nomothetic qualities of the Laplacian model of rationality which Verstand instantiates most explicitly as exhaustive of critical thinking. The Placement Problem problematizes where ‘odd’ phenomena, such as norms and intentionality, might ‘fit’ in the world described by physics, chemistry, and biology. The Laplacian model of quantitative rationality gives rise to the Placement Problem; and the force of the Placement Problem lends considerable weight to philosophical projects such as reductionism, eliminativism, instrumentalism, and nonfactualism.