Existence problems in philosophy and science

Authors: Peter W Ross Dale Turner

Publish Date: 2013/03/19

Volume: 190, Issue: 18, Pages: 4239-4259

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Abstract

We initially characterize what we’ll call existence problems as problems where there is evidence that a putative entity exists and this evidence is not easily dismissed however the evidence is not adequate to justify the claim that the entity exists and in particular the entity hasn’t been detected The putative entity is elusive We then offer a strategy for determining whether an existence problem is philosophical or scientific According to this strategy 1 existence problems are characterized in terms of causal roles and 2 these problems are categorized as scientific or philosophical on the basis of the epistemic context of putative realizers We argue that the first step of the strategy is necessary to avoid begging the question with regard to categorization of existence problems and the second step categorizes existence problems on the basis of a distinction between two ways in which an entity can be elusive This distinction between kinds of elusiveness takes as background a standard account of inference to the best explanation Applying this strategy we argue that the existence of a multiverse is a scientific problemWe presented now somewhat distant ancestor versions of this paper to the Philosophy Department of UC Riverside and work in progress groups at the Claremont Colleges and at Cal Poly Pomona We thank the audiences at those events and in particular Patrick Todd who provided comments at UC Riverside as well as Michael Liston and Brian McLaughlin Larry Wright and two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions We are especially grateful to Suketu Bhavsar and Michael Hatfield for helpful suggestions regarding cosmology

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