Asya Passinsky (NYU) "Metaphysics of Social Objects"

Asya Passinsky is a PhD student at NYU and a visiting student at the IJN.

Title : "Metaphysics of Social Objects"
Date, Time, Place : 17/05/2013, 4pm, Salle de Réunion du Pavillon Jardin

Abstract : Ordinary experience suggests that under certain circumstances, we can create things like money, boundaries, stocks, governments, nation-states and corporations by mere declaration. But we cannot likewise create other kinds of objects in this way. For example, we can cannot create H2O molecules, trees, tab les or numbers by mere declaration. So how is it that we can create social objects in this way ? I will argue against a reductivist answer to this creation-by-declaration puzzle which identifes every token social object with a token physical object, and against an eliminativist answer which maintains that social objects do not exist. I will conclude with some speculative remarks about a realist answer to the puzzle.