Apriority and Relativity in the Theoretical and Ontological Presuppositions for Identity

Paolo Valore (Università degli Studi di Milano)

Abstract: 

A recent and promising innovative approach in contemporary ontology is an improved accounting of the  often hidden metaphysical, background presuppositions of taxonomies and categorizations in our sciences (Xu et al. 2022; Valore 2016). This approach aims to disclose the a priori, but contextual, assumptions that give sense to the formal frameworks of our theories (Valore 2017b, Valore 2018). The set of contextual  a priori presuppositions involve, among others, the identification of relevant properties for the objects of  our domain as a guiding principle in uncovering what it is to be considered intrinsic and what could be the  effect of selection preferences in building the correct classes of objects. 

How we can select the meaningful ways of carving up the world and reject arbitrary ways of grouping things? The assumption according to which the taxa recognized by different systems of classification may be natural  in different respects and the impact of intentions and goals when we organize a plurality of data in genera  and species seem confirmed by recent research in experimental psychology on the effects of previous beliefs 

on categorization tasks (Rehder & Hastie 2001; Ahn & Kim 2000; Benitez et al. in press). Nonetheless,  the acknowledgment of the relativity of categories in itself risks to underestimate the relevance of the set  of a priori principles and categories that are not included in our data and are an indispensable component of the human reason. 

The approach we are testing echoes the fundamental Kantian intuition presented in The Critique of  Judgment, according to which aims and purposes play an essential role in discovering similarity in Nature,  and in general in a given set of data and can be considered an acknowledgment of the “locality” of the a  priori principles of our understanding of Nature. These a priori principles of our reason are rooted in  psychological, anthropological, and cultural dimensions of human knowledge and linked to different  interests and goals and, nonetheless, they are not arbitrary. Understanding the ramifications of this position  can facilitate the mutual understanding across theories, research fields, and even generations and  communities. 

Applications in this sense have already been tested in several fields: questioning, together with a team of  astrophysicists, the metaphysical and ontological presuppositions of such notions as kinds and similarity in cosmology (Valore et al. 2020), addressing the notion of relevant property and kinds of patients in bio medical sciences (Valore 2017b), and in an ongoing research at the Department of Psychology of Columbia  University about the ontological presuppositions for the notion of personal identity in psychology. 

Zoom link: https://uw-edu-pl.zoom.us/j/98143658086

Meeting ID: 981 4365 8086

Passcode: 163713