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The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher
The Philosophy
of Philip Kitcher
Edited by Mark Couch

and
Jessica Pfeifer
1
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress

ISBN 978–0–19–938135–7
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan, USA
CONTENTS
Contributors vii
Introduction 1
Mark Couch and Jessica Pfeifer
1. Kitcher against the Platonists 14
Gideon Rosen
Reply to Rosen
2. Kitcher’s Two Design Stances 45
Karen Neander
Reply to Neander
3. Proximate and Ultimate Information in Biology 74
Paul E. Griffiths
Reply to Griffiths
4. Bringing Real Realism Back Home: A Perspectival Slant 98
Michela Massimi
Reply to Massimi
5. Unificationism, Explanatory Internalism, and Autonomy 121
James Woodward
Reply to Woodward
6. Special-Science Autonomy and the Division of Labor 153
Michael Strevens
Reply to Strevens
7. Toward a Political Philosophy of Science 182
John Dupré
Reply to Dupré
8. Kitcher on Science, Democracy, and Human Flourishing 206
Lorraine Daston
Reply to Daston
9. Deliberating Policy: Where Morals and Methods Mix 229
Nancy Cartwright and Alexandre Marcellesi
Reply to Cartwright and Marcellesi
10. Function and Truth in Ethics 253
Michael Smith
Reply to Smith
11. What to Do While Religions Evolve before Our Very Eyes 273
Daniel Dennett
Reply to Dennett
References 289
Index 301
[ vi ] Contents
CONTRIBUTORS
Nancy Cartwright is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Durham

and the University of California, San Diego.
Mark Couch is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Seton Hall University.
Lorraine Daston is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of
Science, Berlin.
Daniel Dennett is University Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University.
John Dupré is Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of
Exeter.
Paul E. Griffiths is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney.
Philip Kitcher is John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia
University.
Alexandre Marcellesi is a graduate student in philosophy at the University
of California, San Diego.
Michela Massimi is Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of
Edinburgh.
Karen Neander is Professor of Philosophy at Duke University.
Jessica Pfeifer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County.
Gideon Rosen is Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University.
Michael Smith is McCosh Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University.
Michael Strevens is Professor of Philosophy at New York University.
James Woodward is Distinguished Professor of History and Philosophy of
Science at the University of Pittsburgh.
Introduction*
MARK COUCH AND JESSIC A PFEIFER
1.
Philip Kitcher is one of the most influential philosophers in the contempo-

rary period. He is known for a number of important works he has written
during the course of his career. He has written over fourteen books and
160 papers and other publications. The scope of these works spans many
of the traditional areas of philosophy, including, among other things, phi-
losophy of science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of religion, ethics,
philosophy of mathematics, and epistemology. He is commonly read by
students and scholars who work in these areas and who need to be familiar
with the important positions he defends on these subjects. But it is also
the case that Kitcher has been widely read by the general public. His book
Abusing Science: The Case against Creationism (1982), for example, has had
many printings, and he has written articles for such venues as the New
Republic and the New York Times, among others. It is fair to say that Kitcher
has been a very influential figure both within and outside of the academy.
* For help with this volume we are grateful to a number of people, including Kyle
Stanford, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Laura Franklin-Hall, Jim Thomas, Silvena Milenkova,
Philip Kitcher, the contributors, Seton Hall University, University of Maryland,
Baltimore County, and discussions with several others. A special thanks to our editors
at Oxford University Press, Peter Ohlin and Emily Sacharin, for their guidance dur-
ing this project, and Nisha Dayalan and Judith Hoover for their help in preparing the
manuscript. Philip Kitcher would also like to say thank you to the contributors for each
of their chapters.
This volume provides an examination of various areas of Kitcher’s phi-
losophy. In this introduction we provide some background for the reader by
describing a number of his major works and how his interests have devel-
oped over the years. Given the many works that have been written, there
won’t be an attempt to cover everything.
A good place to begin is with the first book Kitcher published, which
was on the issue of scientific creationism. In the 1970s some of the cre-
ationists in the United States were becoming more open with their view
that the scientific evidence that existed did not undermine the creation
story in the Bible. This culminated in a number of books defending scien-
tific creationism. In 1982 Kitcher wrote Abusing Science: The Case against
Creationism in reply to the emergence of this view, arguing that the cre-
ationist authors were bending the science to support their positions. In
this work Kitcher carefully explains how to think about scientific evidence
and the content of evolutionary theory and other issues that were rel-
evant to the creationists’ approaches. He patiently describes their mis-
takes in trying to make the science appear to support their positions. He
explains that the problems with their approaches become apparent once
one is clear about what the science actually says and how to understand
it properly. Several of the ideas Kitcher touches on in this book he would
develop further at a later time.
In other work during this period Kitcher turned his attention to issues in
the history and philosophy of mathematics (which was the area of his doc-
toral work). While the focus was different, this raised issues related to what
came before. In The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge (1983), Kitcher aimed
at understanding the historical development of mathematical knowledge.
His interest here is with understanding how mathematics developed as a
practice and how an appreciation of this informs our account of mathemat-
ics itself. He takes the view that mathematical knowledge is empirical in the
tradition of John Stuart Mill. We should understand mathematical practice
as depending on perceptual experiences in the origins of the subject and
developing from there through a sequence of rational transitions to more
complex parts of mathematics. Such an approach does not involve making
reference to abstract objects to explain mathematics. Characterized in this
way, mathematics takes its place alongside other empirical disciplines that
serve to improve our knowledge.
Around this time Kitcher also devoted several years to gaining a better
understanding of the sciences and their features. One area on which he
focused was the notion of scientific explanation. The proposal he offered
was an account of explanation that drew on earlier work in the area. The
distinctive feature of the account was to appeal to the notion of unification
[2] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

as a criterion for what counts as a good explanation. A scientific explana-
tion, he writes in “Explanatory Unification” (Kitcher 1981), aims to unify
the phenomena of nature as a way of improving our understanding. The
account is intended to move beyond the traditional deductive-nomological
model of explanation that had been accepted earlier and provide an account
that better reflected the practice of scientists. This approach remains one of
the central models of explanation in the literature to the present day and
continues to be widely discussed.
Another interest he developed during this period was improving our
understanding of the biological sciences, which had been neglected by
previous generations of philosophers of science. Kitcher wrote a number
of papers focusing on issues in biology that have become well-known in
the field. These include “1953 and All That: A Tale of Two Sciences” (1984),
concerning the attempted reduction of classical genetics to molecular biol-
ogy. He also did work on the notion of function (“Function and Design”
[1993c]), altruism (“The Evolution of Human Altruism” [1993b]), and how
to make sense of the levels at which natural selection operates (“The Return
of the Gene” [Sterelny and Kitcher 1988]). A focus on the different aspects
of biological theory and its implications would remain an area of interest
for many years.
This period of work raised issues related to our understanding of some
particular features of the sciences. It was during this time that Kitcher
also described his perspective on the sciences in broader terms. In 1989
he was instrumental in the founding of the Science Studies Program at the
University of California, San Diego that focused on philosophy, history,
and sociology of science. His major work that developed from his interest
in this area, The Advancement of Science (1993a), provides an account of sci-
entific knowledge in general. The immediate concern was to deal with the
problems that existed after the publication of influential work in the his-
tory and sociology of science by Thomas Kuhn and other critics that called
into question the traditional conception of scientific knowledge. The critics
claimed that people are often held captive by a simplistic image of science
as developing in an ideally “rational” and “objective” way. Kitcher agreed
that the traditional image is misleading and that the historical record
reveals the development of science is in fact a messy affair. However, he
suggested that the view that scientific development is merely the product
of sociological and historical forces resulted in its own form of simplifica-
tion. In contrast he argued that we can accept that science develops in a
broader, social context, but this should not lead us to think that we should
view the growth of science as irrational in the end. What is needed is a
more nuanced understanding of the practice of science and how it is able
Introduction [3]
to provide us with objective knowledge about the world. To explain this
Kitcher offers his readers improved accounts of such notions as explana-
tion and rationality as they occur in the practice of science. Once these are
understood, we are in a better position to understand the development of
scientific knowledge. We can recognize the critics’ concerns without having
to give up the view that science develops in a largely rational manner.
After this Kitcher continued to develop his work along these lines. While
he worked on other issues, he never strayed far from his interest in under-
standing the sciences in general. Several years had passed since the publica-
tion of The Advancement of Science before Kitcher’s next book on the subject
appeared, and in the intervening years he had come to think that some of
his earlier views needed to be revised. In a sequence of works he explains
what should be retained from this previous work and how it should be
modified to better reflect the practice of the sciences. In Science, Truth, and
Democracy (2001b), he makes a number of suggestions. Whereas previously
he had thought there was a single, overriding goal of the sciences, he came
to think this was misleading. The sciences develop in their individual ways,
and we should recognize a plurality of practical and epistemic aims that
exist since this view is more consistent with how the sciences have arisen
historically. In addition, Kitcher argues that more attention should be paid
to the issue of how the sciences fit into society, particularly its democratic
aspects. It is evident that science develops in relation to the broader society
of which it is a part. For this reason part of understanding science involves
understanding the role of science in society and how to think of the relation
between scientists’ interests in their research and the needs of the larger
society (e.g., think of how some scientists are interested in pure research
and how this may differ from citizens’ interests in solving particular medi-
cal conditions). The suggestions Kitcher made tried to be sensitive to the
interests of both and describe the proper role of science in society. The view
he presented he called “well-ordered science.”
The details of this view are further developed in Science in a Democratic
Society (2011b). Here Kitcher provides more specific accounts of what
a well-ordered science would look like under his conception, making his
suggestions more concrete and working out how they apply in the circum-
stances. There is a balance that needs to be struck between the expertise of
the scientist on factual questions relevant to public policy and the recogni-
tion that value-laden decisions about which policies to pursue should be
informed by input from the public. How this balance should be struck, and
the difficulties involved in it, are addressed with a number of proposals.
These works focus on understanding the role of science in society and
the value of scientific research. But the specific issue of value and its

relation to ethics was something that Kitcher had yet to examine in detail.
This is the subject of his other work during this period where he turned to
the nature of ethics. In The Ethical Project (2011a), he offers an account of
moral evaluation. The account he develops views moral evaluation as an
ordinary form of human behavior like others. He argues that we should
conceive of ethics as arising out of our ancestors’ altruistic tendencies and
that these later developed into agreement about ethical rules that apply to
members of our group. Ethics is a type of social technology that enables the
members of society to navigate certain problems that arise in living with
others. Human societies work out ethics as they develop over time and
reflect upon the character of their previous practices and how these may be
changed. The result is that ethics is a normal part of human behavior and
shouldn’t be seen as requiring religious backing or appeals to unusual fac-
ulties of ethical perception. Kitcher not only offered a distinctive approach
to explaining ethics as it has been understood by philosophers through the
years, but he provided the materials to address issues that he had yet to
examine in his other works, and so was able to round out his perspective.
In other work Kitcher continued to develop his previous views and took
on other areas of interest. One area he returned to was the subject of reli-
gion in his book Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of
Faith (2007b). He again discusses the question of religion in the context
of evolutionary theory and shows that intelligent design theorists have
misunderstood the scientific evidence. He considers the implications of
evolutionary theory for belief, as well as the role of religion in society.
In addition, he ventured into issues related to literature, analyzing the
work of James Joyce in Joyce’s Kaleidoscope: An Invitation to Finnegans
Wake (2007a) and Thomas Mann in Deaths in Venice: The Cases of Gustav
von Aschenbach (2013). The focus of these concerned a number of themes
regarding what gives meaning to our lives and the tensions that exist
between certain social and ethical values. These represent merely some
of the ways that Kitcher’s interests have developed as he has continued to
refine his views.
This review has tried to describe a number of areas that Kitcher has worked
on over the years. There are two points that become clear to anyone familiar
with reading his works we would like to emphasize. The first concerns the
interesting analysis Kitcher provides of the issues he discusses in his writ-
ings. Kitcher is known for writing with clarity and for developing his views
with careful attention to detail in working out the positions he considers. It
is evident to his readers that in doing this he frequently raises fundamen-
tal and deep questions about whatever philosophical issues he is consider-
ing. These are the kinds of works that open up new ways of thinking about
Introduction [5]
important problems and repay careful reading. The second point relates to
the breadth of Kitcher’s knowledge, which becomes apparent as soon as one
considers the several areas on which he’s worked. The range of his contri-
butions to traditional areas of philosophy, as well as other areas of broader
interest, is seldom found today among scholars in any field. We would sug-
gest that anyone who believes philosophy has become narrow in scope should
see in Kitcher an example of someone who has avoided this sort of parochial
perspective.
2.
The above review has described some of the central areas of Kitcher’s
large body of work. While it would be impossible to cover all the areas in
which Kitcher has made a significant contribution, we have tried to cre-
ate a volume that represents the breadth of his research. The contributors
have been asked to raise critical issues about different aspects of this work,
and Kitcher has been given the opportunity to reply. The remainder of this
introduction provides a summary of the chapters.
Gideon Rosen’s essay, “Kitcher against the Platonists,” is a critique of
Kitcher’s anti-platonism in mathematics that focuses on Kitcher’s (2012b)
more recent work. In both that work and his earlier work (1983), Kitcher
attempts to avoid platonism by arguing that the truth of mathemati-
cal claims does not require the existence of mathematical objects of any
sort. Kitcher (1983) defends a non-face-value semantics for mathematical
claims, arguing that the subject matter of mathematics is actually a hypo-
thetical collecting activity of idealized agents. Later (2012b) he defends
the view that mathematics is a collection of games and that mathematical
claims are not descriptions and don’t have a subject matter of any sort. He
provides a novel defense of this formalism by arguing against any view that
attributes a subject matter to mathematics, including platonism. In par-
ticular he argues that platonists have no good explanation of how symbol
manipulation could lead to the discovery of new abstract objects. There is a
gap between the basis for mathematical claims and the ultimate standard
of correctness in mathematics on the platonist view. In response, Rosen
argues that a version of platonism—moderate platonism—can answer
Kitcher’s charge. Unlike Benacerraf (1973), Kitcher’s critique of platonism
does not rely on a general constraint on knowledge. Rosen argues that
without such a general constraint Kitcher’s conclusion does not follow for
a moderate platonist. The moderate platonist can accept that there is a gap

but argue that the gap is unproblematic. Rosen also discusses objections to
Kitcher’s formalism, most significantly that it fails to make sense of vari-
ous aspects of mathematical practice and especially applied mathematics.
Hence even if Kitcher’s argument against platonism were successful, his
own formalism would fare even worse in making sense of the practices
of mathematicians, which is precisely the sort of concern Kitcher raises
against the platonist.
Karen Neander’s “Kitcher’s Two Design Stances” is a response to
Kitcher’s (1993c) account of functions and his criticisms of etiological
accounts. Kitcher is critical of etiological accounts on two grounds: first, on
such accounts the role that selection must play in explaining the presence
or maintenance of traits is too demanding; second, etiological accounts fail
to make sense of the practices of many biologists who appear unconcerned
with the selective history of a trait when ascribing functions. In response
to the latter, Neander argues that the etiological account can in fact make
sense of biologists’ focus on the current selective utility of a trait, so long
as we are careful to distinguish what individuates a trait’s function (its eti-
ology) from how biologists figure out what that function is, which often
involves looking at a trait’s current utility. In response to Kitcher’s first con-
cern, Neander argues that his criticisms rightly apply to an “ultra-strong”
etiological notion but that there is a middling-strong notion that is defen-
sible against his objections. Where the middling-strong account requires
only that selection played some role (relatively recently) in explaining the
presence or maintenance of the trait over some of the available alternatives
that actually existed, the ultra-strong etiological notion requires consider-
ation of whether the trait would have offered a selective advantage over
all possible alternatives. Kitcher’s view, in contrast, is even less demand-
ing. It attempts to combine the insights of both the etiological account and
Cummins’s (1975) causal role account. Traits of an organism have a func-
tion because of the causal contribution they make to the whole organism in
light of the general constraint provided by selection—that organisms need
to survive and reproduce. Neander is critical of Kitcher’s view for failing to
make sense of the very practices he is interested in capturing. In particular
his view leaves underspecified how to account for the possibility of mal-
function of token traits.
Paul Griffiths’s “Proximate and Ultimate Information in Biology”
focuses on Kitcher’s principle of causal democracy, which Kitcher (2003a)
argues is integral to an appropriate response to genetic determinism. In
contrast to the views Griffiths defended a decade ago, he here attempts to
use the concept of information to buttress Kitcher’s principle, motivated
by recent advances in our understanding of information that Griffiths and
Introduction [7]
others have been engaged in developing. He distinguishes between proxi-
mate and ultimate information and describes new accounts of each that can
be used to help characterize gene-environment interaction in a way that
respects Kitcher’s causal democracy principle. He argues that we can com-
bine the insights of interventionist accounts of causation with Shannon’s
information theory to develop an account of proximate information in
terms of causal specificity. Moreover by revising Shea’s (2013) account of
ultimate, teleological information, Griffiths defends a notion of biologi-
cal teleology that can figure in proximate explanations of development.
This also allows him to show how the teleological notion of information
might be more closely aligned with the proximate account he discusses.
Both notions of information are consistent with Kitcher’s principle since
both leave open which causal factors—genetic or environmental—might
be carriers of information. Hence rather than being a barrier to under-
standing gene-environment interaction, Griffiths argues, biological infor-
mation might prove useful in vindicating Kitcher’s argument that a correct
response to genetic determinism requires patient, empirical study of the
relative importance of various causal factors in development in a way that
respects the principle of causal democracy.
Michela Massimi’s “Bringing Real Realism Back Home: A Perspectival
Slant” is an attempt to rescue Kitcher’s (2001a) Real Realism from an inad-
equacy she believes it faces by bringing it back to Kitcher’s earlier Kantian
roots. Massimi focuses on Kitcher’s response to Laudan’s (1981) histori-
cal argument against realism, and specifically his use of the distinction
between working posits and idle wheels of theories. While she considers
Kitcher’s argument one of the most persuasive replies to such challenges,
there are historical cases wherein Kitcher’s approach seems inadequate. She
diagnoses the problem as resulting from his stringent notion of success.
She distinguishes “success from above” (which might be Nagel’s view from
nowhere or the real realist’s view from now) and her own preferred “success
from within.” She argues that our current vantage point is not privileged; it
is just one perspective among many. Rather than assess past theories from
our current perspective, we should assess them using their own standards
of success, but from other subsequent or rival perspectives, which include
the richer information such perspectives have at hand. She maintains that
false claims could not satisfy such a criterion of success. Her perspectival-
ism thereby provides the Real Realist with an alternative route to defend-
ing realism without privileging our own perspective. Where Kitcher relies
on our own perspective to pick out those parts of theories that are deemed
true from our own perspective, her perspectival realism identifies claims
that we have reason to believe are true, since they are justifiably retained

in the shift from the original perspective to the perspective(s) from which
they are assessed.
“Unificationism, Explanatory Internalism, and Autonomy” by Jim
Woodward is directed at Kitcher’s unificationist account of explanation, as
well as how unification relates to arguments about autonomy. Following
Morrison (2000), Woodward maintains that not all unification is associated
with explanation; moreover something more than unification is required.
In particular explanations must capture the “external” or ontic relation of
difference-making that Woodward (2003) defends elsewhere. Nevertheless
one significant lesson we can learn from Kitcher is that “internalist” or epis-
temic concerns are crucial to providing an adequate account of explanation.
It matters what we can calculate and measure, and our interests clarify why
we focus on the explananda we do. These internalist and externalist con-
cerns are not in fact in conflict with one another. Rather it is because of
the stable patterns in nature that we are able to construct tractable models
of phenomena that interest us. Woodward also distinguishes two types of
unificationist projects: EU1 involves explaining a large number of phenom-
ena in terms of a few factors and is often tied to successful reduction; EU2
involves showing that certain factors are irrelevant to some phenomena
and is often tied to showing that some “upper-level” phenomena are auton-
omous from “lower-level” micro details. EU1 notes a common cause of mul-
tiple phenomena, whereas with EU2 it is the commonality or universality
that is itself being explained. Moreover different levels of explanation are
typically not competing with one another since they often cite difference
makers that are relevant to different explananda. Hence Woodward argues
that the defense of the autonomy of special sciences does not depend
on one explanation being more unifying than another. The autonomy of
the special sciences can be established by showing that they successfully
describe stable difference-making relations for their intended explananda.
Michael Strevens’s “Special- Science Autonomy and the Division of
Labor” takes aim at Kitcher’s arguments against reductionism. Strevens
argues that explanatory autonomy (and the division of cognitive labor that
goes along with it) is in fact compatible with explanatory reductionism. He
distinguishes two senses of explanatory relevance: objective and contex-
tual. Based on his kairetic account of explanation and his view on transitiv-
ity, Strevens claims that fundamental physics is “always and everywhere”
objectively explanatorily relevant. However, this does not entail that phys-
ics is always contextually relevant for explanations. Contextual relevance
is decided in part by us, based on how cognitive labor is divided. Strevens
discusses two ways that scientists divide labor among complementary
fields: functional compartmentalization and functional stratification. The
Introduction [9]
approach of compartmentalization involves plugging black boxes into
a system’s inputs and outputs, while stratification involves black-boxing
lower-level phenomena and building a model of the system out of the black
boxes. Stratification makes clear how explanatory autonomy is compat-
ible with reductionism. While objective irrelevance can lead to functional
stratification, scientists often decide to black-box lower-level phenomena
that are objectively relevant as a way of efficiently dividing cognitive labor;
in such cases the lower-level phenomena are objectively relevant, but prac-
tical considerations about how to efficiently divide labor entail that they
are contextually irrelevant. Such practical considerations do not entail that
contextual irrelevance is merely pragmatic or observer relative but depends
on what Strevens calls “functional difference-making.” Hence the world
allows for functional stratification, which enables scientists to efficiently
divide cognitive labor. Explanatory autonomy is thereby preserved in a way
that is consistent with explanatory reductionism.
In “Toward a Political Philosophy of Science,” John Dupré directs his
attention to Kitcher’s notion of a well-ordered science. While he thinks
Kitcher’s goals are laudable, he is less sanguine about whether or to what
extent well-ordered science is achievable and skeptical that Kitcher’s pro-
posed methods for realizing it are the most fruitful. Dupré focuses on two
main issues: how we ought to decide which research to fund (or even allow
to be pursued) and how democratic decisions should be made about the
application of science to public policy. He argues that implicit in Kitcher’s
work is the idea that science, democracy, and ethics are all social technolo-
gies. What he considers especially enlightening in Kitcher’s work are the
ways that science and democracy can come into conflict, which Dupré
sees as especially problematic in the information age. However, Dupré is
skeptical that Kitcher’s proposed solutions to ill-ordered science are either
workable or helpful. He argues that it is unclear how Kitcher’s idealized
conversations can be harmonized with actual conversations. He also ques-
tions the relevance of such idealized conversations for addressing the dis-
cord between democracy and science, given that such discord is a problem
of social technology. In addition, while he thinks the citizen juries that
Kitcher recommends are perhaps successful in some cases, such juries are
often ill-suited to the task. Given the current social system we inhabit, more
systematic political changes are needed. Where Kitcher’s focus is primarily
on equality of voice, Dupré argues that well-ordered science is hampered by
the inequality of resources that our current social system promotes.
Lorraine Daston, in “Kitcher on Science, Democracy, and Human
Flourishing,” focuses on Kitcher’s attempt to reconcile science and democ-
racy and his use of history in defending his views. First, she questions
[ 10 ] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

whether his account of the history of modern science is correct and whether
its being wrong might affect his argument. She argues that the insistence
on the autonomy of science emerged in the twentieth century primarily
as a way to defend basic research during a period of increased public fund-
ing of science. This correction to the history, she contends, might require
rethinking his arguments. Her second focus is on whether his use of his-
tory is legitimate. Kitcher uses history to ground his claim that mutual
engagement and well-ordered science might be approximated and that sci-
ence and democracy would be better off if they were. The argument for the
former relies in part on what she calls “speculative history” about early
human social groups. While she is skeptical of such a history, her primary
concern is whether it can ground the kinds of claims on which Kitcher’s
arguments depend. In particular she questions whether it gives us reason
to believe that we are capable of enlarging our domain of mutual engage-
ment to all humans in the way Kitcher envisages and, more significantly,
whether we ought to do so. She distinguishes two ways we might make use
of history: to broaden our perspective on what is possible and to ground
normative claims. The former is legitimate, and in that regard Kitcher’s
work is highly successful. However, she questions the second, arguing that
history alone is not sufficient but requires “a compelling vision of a better
way of life,” which she thinks might be supplied by his notion of human
flourishing. She argues, though, that Kitcher’s requirements for mutual
engagement on a global scale might themselves undercut the possibility of
human flourishing.
In “Deliberating Policy: Where Morals and Methods Mix,” Nancy
Cartwright and Alexandre Marcellesi honor Kitcher by discussing a topic
about which he would no doubt care deeply. Kitcher has had a long-stand-
ing concern with the use of science in public policy. As they note, Kitcher
takes “moral and social values to be intrinsic to the practice of the sci-
ences” (Kitcher 2001b, 65), believing that great care should be taken in
determining how such values ought to enter scientific practice. Cartwright
and Marcellesi’s essay focuses on how morals and methods can mix in del-
eterious ways, especially when science is used to guide policy decisions in
the age of evidence-based policy. Policy decisions ought to be based on (1)
whether the policy will be effective and (2) whether it is morally, politi-
cally, socially, and culturally acceptable. Greater weight is often given to
(1) because it is believed that we have better methods for answering (1)
than for answering (2). However, we are overconfident in our judgments
about (1) based on mistaken ideas about objectivity, certainty, and cau-
sality. We “bank on” certainty, believe that “objective” methods—such as
randomized controlled trials (RCTs)—are the best path to such certainty,
Introduction [ 11 ]
and think that causality is linear and “God-given.” Causal relations are far
more complex, while the objective relations we discover through RCTs are
local, surface-level, and expressible only in language specific to the RCTs.
Instead of using other types of investigation that would be a better guide
to causal structure and hence a better guide for policy decisions, we over-
generalize from a few “objective” RCTs without adequately addressing the
moral ramifications of doing so.
In “Function and Truth in Ethics,” Michael Smith raises concerns about
Kitcher’s (2011a) account of ethical truth as developed in The Ethical Project.
Kitcher builds ethical truth out of ethical progress. Ethical rules count as
true if they are retained as ethical codes progress. Smith argues that this
account of moral truth leads to problems once we realize that progress is
to be understood in terms of promoting ongoing cooperation. On Kitcher’s
account there is a gap between the ethical rules we need to adopt in order
for ethical practice to serve its function—which Smith argues Kitcher must
understand as promoting ongoing cooperation—and the moral beliefs
many of us (including Kitcher) hold. Hence Kitcher’s views about the func-
tion of ethical practice, together with his pragmatic naturalist account of
the truth of ethical claims, entail that many of our ethical beliefs are false.
Moreover ongoing cooperation is sometimes aided in crucial ways by the
fact that such “false” beliefs (beliefs that are false by Kitcher’s lights) are
widely shared. Fortunately we can accept Kitcher’s account of the function
of ethical practice without adopting his account of ethical truth. Smith
considers two alternatives he maintains are preferable: noncognitivist and
Kantian accounts of ethical truth. He defends both of these possibilities
against Kitcher’s objections. Either would also allow us to disambiguate the
causal question of why we have adopted the rules we have and the justifi-
catory question of what rules we ought to adopt. We can thereby accept
Kitcher’s account of the function of ethical practice, while leaving open
what function ethical practice ought to serve and what moral beliefs we
can legitimately assert are true.
Daniel Dennett’s essay, “What to Do While Religions Evolve before Our
Very Eyes,” focuses on Kitcher’s (2011c) essay “Militant Modern Atheism,”
in which he argues that the New Atheists fail to account for the positive
role religion can play in people’s lives. Consequently their militant athe-
ism is likely to be counterproductive in the end. Kitcher argues that it
is possible to maintain a religious life even in the face of criticisms the
modern atheists have effectively wielded, and for at least some people it
is beneficial to do so. He distinguishes between the belief model of reli-
gion and the orientation model, arguing that the orientation model opens
up such possibilities and more adequately accounts for the aspects of

religion that provide fulfillment in people’s lives. While noting that he and
Kitcher agree in most respects, especially in the ultimate goal they seek,
Dennett takes issue with Kitcher on the best strategy for achieving this
goal. This difference results from two fundamental disagreements: about
the benefits and costs of maintaining religion and about whether the ori-
entation model is ultimately sustainable. Dennett agrees that religion can
provide people’s lives with meaning, but he argues that the potential costs
of maintaining religion are too great: xenophobia, violence, and so on.
Moreover he sees the maintenance of religion in any form as a distraction
from and a means of delaying the work needed to replace religion with pref-
erable secular institutions. Dennett also argues that the nonsecular variet-
ies of the orientation model are unsustainable. Once the orientation model
is made explicit, those with religious commitments either lapse into the
belief model or engage in faith fibbing. He sees these problems as particu-
larly acute in the modern age of informational transparency.1
1. A bibliography of Kitcher’s works can be found in the useful volume by Wenceslao

J. Gonzalez (2011).
Introduction [ 13 ]
CHAPTER 1
Kitcher against the Platonists

GIDEON ROSEN
THE CASE FOR PLATONISM
Mathematics is replete with results that affirm (or seem to affirm) the exis-
tence of mathematical objects. For example:
(1) There are at least three prime numbers greater than 15

(2) The equation x3 + 1 = 0 has three complex solutions
(3) There exists a finite simple group of order 246 · 320 · 59 · 76 · 112 · 133 · 17
· 19 · 23 · 29 · 31 · 41 · 47 · 59 · 71
These results furnish the basis for what appears to be a straightforward

argument for platonism: the view that mathematics is concerned, inter
alia, with a domain of abstract entities. Take (1): Unless you are willing to
reject grade school arithmetic, you must agree that there are prime numbers
greater than 15, from which it follows that there are numbers. But it is obvi-
ous on reflection that numbers are not physical objects. It is just silly to ask
where the number 17 is located, or how much it weighs, or how fast it’s mov-
ing. And it is likewise silly to think that the number 17 might be a nonphysi-
cal mental entity, like a Cartesian mind or an afterimage. So the only thing
to think about the number 17—and the complex solutions to x3 + 1 = 0, and
the monster group—is, first, that these things exist and, second, that they
are neither physical nor mental and that they are therefore abstract objects.1
1. There are several senses in which an object may be said to be “abstract.” This
usage follows a tradition deriving from Frege ([1918] 1984), but the objects of pure
There are exactly three ways to resist this argument. You can take the
eccentric view that numbers and the rest are (despite appearances) con-
crete entities (Forrest and Armstrong 1987). You can step back from ordi-
nary mathematics and hold that while the existence theorems may be good
mathematics, they are not true and so cannot serve as premises in a sound
argument (Field 1980). Or you can hold—and this is trickier—that while
the existence theorems are true and so fit to serve as premises, their truth
does not require the existence of mathematical objects of any sort.
This last position is tricky for obvious reasons. It is a plain contradiction
to say:
There are prime numbers greater than 15, but there are no numbers.2
And it sounds almost as bad to say:
There are numbers, but there are no abstract objects.
The anti-platonist who takes this route is therefore in a tight corner—a

corner so tight that it is unclear whether his view makes any sense at all.
Does he agree that that there are prime numbers greater than 15? He must,
if he accepts basic mathematics. Does he believe that these numbers are
concrete entities? Surely not, if he is sensible. So how can he deny that
numbers are abstract entities without simultaneously denying their exis-
tence and so contradicting the ordinary mathematical assertion with which
he began?3
KITCHER’S ANTI-P LATONISM
Philip Kitcher’s views in the philosophy of mathematics have evolved,

but early and late he has always been an anti-platonist of this third sort.
mathematics are presumably abstract in every sense if they exist at all. See Rosen
(2014) for discussion of the terminological point.
2. Compare the closing sentence of Benacerraf (1965, 73): “If truth be known, there
are no such things as numbers; which is not to say that there are not at least two prime
numbers between 15 and 20.”
3. One important feature of this argument for present purposes is that it is not a
semantic argument. It does not assume a “Tarskian” account of mathematical truth,
or any other such determinate account. The argument uses, but does not mention,
mathematical vocabulary. It thus puts pressure on any theorist who is happy to use
mathematical vocabulary in the usual ways, regardless of his or her semantic views. For
a more complete statement of the argument, see Rosen and Burgess (2005).
K i t c h e r a g a i n s t t h e P l at o n i s t s [ 15 ]
Kitcher has never been tempted to identify the objects of mathematics
with concrete things or to dismiss ordinary mathematics as a false but use-
ful fiction. His view has always been that settled mathematics is just fine as
it is, but that its claims, properly understood, do not concern a domain of
mathematical objects.
Kitcher’s 1983 book, The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge, defends a
version of anti-platonism according to which the subject matter of math-
ematics is not a domain of entities but rather the hypothetical “collecting
activity” of an idealized human agent. Like many anti-platonist strategies
from the period, this one works by constructing a “non–face value seman-
tics” for (part of) the language of mathematics. Such semantic theories yield
a mapping S → S* from ordinary mathematical claims like “There is a prime
number greater than 15” to claims in a modal language that do not seem to
require the actual existence of abstract entities: roughly, claims of the form
“If the concrete world had been thus and so, then such and such would have been
the case.” The mapping is designed to associate truths (falsehoods) in the
mathematical language with truths (falsehoods) in the modal language in
such a way as to preserve intuitive entailment relations among claims. But
more than this: the mapping is supposed to give the meaning of the original
mathematical claim and so to show it to be the sort of claim that does not
require the existence of mathematical objects for its truth.
Since Kitcher has abandoned this approach I will not dwell on his par-
ticular version of it. But it is worth asking how views of this sort respond
to the quick argument for platonism sketched in the previous section. The
reductive nominalist cannot deny that there are prime numbers greater
than 15, since his view will map this mathematical claim onto a modal
claim he accepts by means of a semantic mapping that is designed to pre-
serve truth value. Nor can he deny that there are numbers, since the lat-
ter claim is a logical consequence of the first and his mapping is designed
to preserve logical relations.4 Instead he must say—and this is the tricky
bit—that while there are indeed infinitely many numbers of various sorts,
it is a kind of nonsense to ask whether these numbers are abstract or con-
crete, whether they exist in space, and so on. The paraphrase procedure that
“gives meaning” to statements in the language of mathematics associates
each ordinary mathematical statement with a definite (modal) content; but
4. These points are emphasized in Alston (1958). The neglect of this paper in the
literature on mathematical platonism is striking, especially in view of the fact that
Alston’s paper was reprinted in the field-defining collection Benacerraf and Putnam
(1964). A striking exception is Wright (1983), the first important work to emphasize
the significance of Alston’s point for the metaphysics of mathematics.

that procedure does not extend to mixed claims like “The number 15 exists
(does not exist) in space” or “The monster group weighs more than a kilo-
gram.” Statements that mix the languages of mathematics and physics or
metaphysics in this way are not false, as the quick argument for platonism
sketched above assumes, but rather meaningless on the model of “It’s five
o’clock on the sun” (Wittgenstein 1953, §350). The plausible reasoning that
leads us from ordinary existence claims in mathematics to the metaphysi-
cal claims characteristic of platonism thus involves a subtle lurch from
sense to nonsense. We can all agree that the existence theorems are true
and that certain mixed statements like “The number 17 exists in space” are
to be rejected. The mistake is to assume that because this statement is to
be rejected, its negation must be true. The right response, licensed by the
semantics, is rather to insist that the mixed statement and its negation are
both to be rejected. And so the case for platonism is blocked.5
This subtle position is worth exploring, but the main point against it
should be clear. It is always awkward to rest a philosophical argument on
claims to the effect that certain apparently meaningful statements are
really meaningless, especially when clear-headed speakers of English rou-
tinely affirm the claims in question. If we had a credible theory of meaning-
fulness, that would be one thing. But we don’t. And in the absence of such a
theory, the fact that many competent speakers find a claim fully meaning-
ful and indeed true is powerful evidence that it is ultimately meaningful
and apt for truth. But let us put this issue to one side for now, since, as
I say, Kitcher no longer endorses this sort of reductive nominalism.
Kitcher’s (2012b) latest work in the philosophy of mathematics defends
a more radical anti-platonist position: the formalist view that mathemat-
ical statements do not have a subject matter of any sort. Platonists and
reductive nominalists agree that mathematics is a descriptive science, in
the sense that it normally makes sense to ask whether things are as any
given mathematical claim says they are. The platonist takes mathematics
to be in the business of describing abstract entities; the modal nominal-
ist assigns it a modal subject matter—not a domain of objects, but still
a putative domain of facts. For the formalist, by contrast, the so-called
statements of mathematics are not representations or descriptions of
any sort. Despite their superficial resemblance to meaningful declara-
tive statements in other areas, they are more like configurations of chess
pieces. It makes sense to ask whether a configuration of chess pieces is
5. To my knowledge the reductive nominalists have not made this point explicitly,
but I believe it is the only way for them to evade Alston’s point.
“derivable” in chess, that is, whether it can arise through play accord-
ing to the rules. But it makes no sense to ask whether a configuration of
chess pieces correctly represents its subject matter. According to the view
Kitcher now holds, mathematics is a collection of “games” for transform-
ing strings of nonrepresentational squiggles. These games are governed
by rules implicit in our practices and sometimes known explicitly to
mathematicians. We can make combinatorial, metamathematical state-
ments about these strings and the rules that govern them. These state-
ments constitute what Frege ([1903] 2013, §93) calls the theory of the
game, and for all Kitcher says, they may be genuinely representational.
But “There are prime numbers greater than 15” is not a metamathemati-
cal statement about the game. It is a configuration of pieces within the
game. The rules governing the manipulation of these pieces may give the
string a kind of “meaning.” But the string and its parts do not stand for
anything, so it makes no sense to ask what the objects it describes are
like, or whether it describes them correctly.
How does this position block the quick argument for platonism
sketched at the outset? Kitcher does not say, but the answer must be
this: Whereas a string like “17 is a prime number” may be derivable in
the game of arithmetic and hence assertible in a sense, metaphysical
statements like “The number 17 is not in space” or “The number 17 is an
abstract object” are like
is green.
This is neither a configuration of chess pieces nor an English sentence,

but a monster. And the same must go for statements that mix the lan-
guage of mathematics and the language of metaphysics. We could try to
extend that mathematics game so as to include rules governing the trans-
formation of such strings, but that would invite confusion and serve no
purpose. So, like the reductive nominalist, the formalist blocks the case

for platonism by insisting that certain mixed statements involving math-
ematical vocabulary and vocabulary drawn from other areas amount to
nonsense.
Kitcher’s innovation in this recent work is not the formalist view itself,
versions of which have been known for many years (Detlefsen 2005), but
rather the argument for it. Kitcher’s paper develops a new critique of pla-
tonism that emphasizes the role of “free postulation” in the history of
mathematics. As Kitcher notes, if this argument is successful, it threatens
any view according to which mathematics has a subject matter, including
reductive nominalism of the sort Kitcher himself once endorsed, leaving
formalism or something like it as the only view left standing. My aim in
this paper is to restate this argument and to say how the platonist might
respond.
VARIETIES OF PLATONISM
Before we turn to the argument, I should say a word about its official tar-
get. As is well known, the view we have called “platonism” comes in two
flavors (Chihara 1973). Both hold that mathematics is concerned with a
domain of immaterial abstract objects. The hardcore platonist’s distinctive
claim is that these objects play something like a causal role in mathemati-
cal practice: that mathematicians are somehow aware of them or sensitive
to them, and hence that our mathematical beliefs are sometimes shaped
by the objects they represent. The moderate platonist denies this, insist-
ing that abstract objects do not impinge on us in any way. To put the con-
trast dramatically, the hardcore platonist holds that if the numbers had not
existed (per impossible, but so what?), the history of mathematics would
have been quite different, whereas the moderate holds that it might have
unfolded just as it did.6
I mention this familiar contrast because Kitcher often writes as if hard-
core platonism were the only form of platonism on offer. Thus after an ele-
gant review of the history that led to the acceptance of imaginary numbers,
6. In the recent history of the philosophy of mathematics, hardcore platonism is

standardly imputed to Gödel (probably incorrectly) on the strength of a famous sen-
tence: “We do have something like a perception also of the objects of set theory, as
is seen from the fact that the axioms force themselves on us as being true” (Gödel
1964, 271). Moderate platonism has been defended by many authors, most notably
Quine (1961).
a history in which certain early figures (Cardano and Bombelli) stumbled
on the complex roots of cubic equations only to dismiss the new numbers
as “subtile and useless,” Kitcher (2012b, 182) writes:
We have, I claim, a satisfactory historical explanation of what occurred, even

though it never reveals a change in the relations between any mathematician and
any abstract objects. Moreover, dragging in the world of abstract objects would
be quite mystifying. It would generate the puzzle of why Cardano and Bombelli
hesitate because the new numbers are “subtile and useless”—isn’t the impor-
tant issue whether they are part of the abstract realm, and if so, why don’t they
sneak a Gödelian peek?
More generally Kitcher supposes that any platonist must hold that when
the domain of mathematics is extended, new objects are “discovered”—
or worse, “detected”—in roughly the sense in which Mendel discovered/
detected genes. Thus after entertaining the view that the sort of symbol
manipulation that led to complex arithmetic simply counts as a way of
“detecting” new abstract objects, Kitcher responds:
In none of these instances do we have any serious account of how the symbolic
manipulations serve as a way of detecting the alleged abstract entities. In the
Mendelian case, it’s possible to provide a positive causal explanation for why
the detection via pea plants works. Mendel himself saw part of this, and that’s
why he could take his observations of the pea plants to be ways of detecting
underlying “factors.” He could justifiably use his “instrument” because he had
an account of how the phenomena he was trying to detect were related to the
properties he was able to observe . . . . Imagine properly educated counterparts
of Bombelli, Euler, Hamilton and Lagrange who fully subscribe to the Platonic
wisdom. Like Mendel, they would surely reflect on how their “instruments,” in
this case their symbolic practices, enable them to detect the underlying entities,
and platonic wisdom would supply them with no answer. Thus if they had what
is supposed to be the correct philosophical view of the matter, they would not
have been able to proceed as they did. (184–85)
I will return to this passage later. The point to emphasize for now is that this
talk of “detection” makes sense only if the view under discussion is hard-
core platonism. Moderates deny that mathematical objects are detected, on
the ground that detection is a causal process, and so reject the demand to
say how the complex numbers were detected.
Of course the moderate platonist does believe in mathematical discovery
in a bland sense. To discover a fact in the bland sense is simply to come to

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1896 (JUNE-NOVEMBER); and 1900 (MAY-NOVEMBER).
SI-NGAN-FU,
SINGAN FU, The Chinese Imperial Court at.

CHINA: A. D. 1900 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
SIRDAR, Egyptian.

EGYPT: A. D. 1885-1896; and 1897-1898.
SLAVERY: A. D. 1885.
Emancipation in Cuba.

CUBA: A. D. 1868-1885.
New anti-slavery law in Egypt.

EGYPT: A. D. 1895.
Abolition in Madagascar.

MADAGASCAR: A. D. 1894-1896.
SLAVERY: SLAVERY: A. D. 1897.

Abolished in Zanzibar.
AFRICA: A. D. 1897 (ZANZIBAR).
Compulsory labor in Rhodesia.

SOUTH AFRICA (BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY):
A. D. 1897 (JANUARY).
Subjugation of Fulah slave raiders in Nupé and Ilorin.

AFRICA: A. D. 1897 (NIGERIA).
Forced labor in Congo State.

CONGO FREE STATE: A. D. 1899.
SLESWICK:
Complaints of German treatment.

GERMANY: A. D. 1899.
SMOKELESS POWDERS, Invention of.

SCIENCE, RECENT: CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.
SOCIAL DEMOCRACY, Encyclical Letter of Pope Leo XIII. on.

PAPACY: A. D. 1901.
SOCIALIST PARTIES.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1897, and after;
BELGIUM: A. D. 1894-1895;
FRANCE: A. D. 1896 (APRIL-MAY), and 1900 (JANUARY);
GERMANY: A. D. 1894-1895, and 1897 (JULY);
ITALY: A. D. 1898 (APRIL-MAY);
SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1894-1898;
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1896 (JUNE-NOVEMBER),

and 1900 (MAY-NOVEMBER).
SOKOTO.

NIGERIA: A. D. 1882-1899.
SOLOMON ISLANDS, The:

Definite division between Great Britain and Germany.

SAMOAN ISLANDS.
SOMALIS, Rising of, in Jubaland.

BRITISH EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE: A. D. 1900.
SOUDAN.
SUDAN.
"SOUND MONEY" DEMOCRATS.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1896 (JUNE-NOVEMBER).
{456}
----------SOUTH AFRICA: Start--------
SOUTH AFRICA: Cape Colony: A. D. 1881-1888.

Organization of the "Afrikander Bund."
The "Afrikander Bund" or National Party was formed in Cape

Colony in 1881, but held its first Congress, or convention, in
1888, at which meeting the following platform, or formal
statement of objects, was adopted:
"1. The Afrikander National party acknowledge the guidance of

Providence in the affairs both of lands and peoples.
2. They include, under the guidance of Providence, the

formation of a pure nationality and the preparation of our
people for the establishment of a 'United South Africa.'
3. To this they consider belong:
(a) The establishment of a firm union between all the

different European nationalities in South Africa, and
(b) The promotion of South Africa's independence.
4. They consider that the union mentioned in Article 3 (a)

depends upon the clear and plain understanding of each other's
general interest in politics, agriculture, stock-breeding,
trade, and industry, and the acknowledgment of everyone's
special rights in the matter of religion, education, and
language; so that all national jealousy between the different
elements of the people may be removed, and room be made for an
unmistakable South African national sentiment.
5. To the advancement of the independence mentioned in

Article 3 (b) belong:
(a) That the sentiment of national self-respect and of

patriotism toward South Africa should above all be
developed and exhibited in schools, and in families, and in
the public press.
(b) That a system of voting should be applied which not

only acknowledges the right of numbers, but also that of
ownership and the development of intelligence, and that is
opposed, as far as possible, to bribery and compulsion at
the poll.
(c) That our agriculture, stock-breeding, commerce, and

industries should be supported in every lawful manner, such
as by a conclusive law as regards masters and servants, and
also by the appointment of a prudent and advantageous
system of Protection.
(d) That the South African Colonies and States, either each
for itself or in conjunction with one another, shall
regulate their own native affairs, employing thereto the
forces of the land by means of a satisfactory burgher law;
and
(e) That outside interference with the domestic concerns of

South Africa shall be opposed.
6. While they acknowledge the existing Governments holding

rule in South Africa, and intend faithfully to fulfil their
obligations in regard to the same, they consider that the duty
rests upon those Governments to advance the interests of South
Africa in the spirit of the foregoing articles; and whilst, on
the one side, they watch against any unnecessary or frivolous
interference with the domestic or other private matters of the
burgher, against any direct meddling with the spiritual
development of the nation, and against laws which might hinder
the free influence of the Gospel upon the national life, on
the other hand they should accomplish all the positive duties
of a good Government, among which must be reckoned:
(a) In all their actions to take account of the Christian

character of the people.
(b) The maintenance of freedom of religion for everyone, so

long as the public order and honor are not injured thereby.
(c) The acknowledgment and expression of religious, social,

and bodily needs of the people, in the observance of the
present weekly day of rest.
(d) The application of an equal and judicious system of

taxation.
(e) The bringing into practice of an impartial and, as far

as possible, economical administration of justice.
(f) The watching over the public honor, and against the
adulteration of the necessaries of life, and the defiling
of ground, water, or air, as well as against the spreading
of infectious diseases.
7. In order to secure the influence of these principles, they

stand forward as an independent party, and accept the
cooperation of other parties only if the same can be obtained
with the uninjured maintenance of these principles.
SOUTH AFRICA: The Transvaal: A. D. 1884-1894.
The restored independence of the Boers and their
dissatisfaction with its terms.
Frustration of their desire for extended territory.
The London Convention of 1884.
After the British-Boer War of 1880-81

(see, in volume 4, SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881),
which had been caused by an arbitrary annexation of the
Transvaal State to the dominions of the British crown, the
sense of justice in Mr. Gladstone led him to restore to the
Transvaal Boers (by the Convention or Treaty of Pretoria,
1881) their right of internal self-government, with a
reservation of "the suzerainty of Her Majesty," supposably
relative to nothing but foreign affairs. The Boers were not
satisfied with that concession, and began at once to strive
for the complete independence they had previously possessed,
under a Convention agreed upon and signed at Sand River, 1852,
which guaranteed (quoting its precise terms) "in the fullest
manner, on the part of the British Government, to the emigrant
farmers (boers) beyond the Vaal River, the right to manage
their own affairs and to govern themselves, without any
interference on the part of Her Majesty the Queen's
Government." To regain that status of complete independence
became the first object of the Boers. They went far towards
success in this endeavor, as early as 1884, when the British
Colonial Secretary, Lord Derby, was induced to agree to a new
Convention with the South African Republic (as it was then
styled) which superseded the Convention of 1881. The terms of
the later instrument are given below. The second aim of the
Boers appears to have been the widening of their territory, by
advances, in the first instance, southward into Zululand and
westward into Bechuanaland. In the former movement they had
success; in the latter they were thwarted. English
missionaries complained of their treatment of the natives, and
stirred up the British government to take the Bechuana tribes
under its protection. Their eastern frontier they succeeded,
after long controversies with Great Britain, in stretching
beyond Swaziland, but they were not allowed to push it to the
sea. Northward, they would provably have gone far, had it not
been for the appearance, at this time, of Mr. Cecil Rhodes,
who came upon the scene of South African politics with
imperial ambitions, with great energies and capabilities, with
few apparent hesitations, and with a vast fortune acquired in the
Kimberley diamond mines. He organized the British South Africa
Company, under a royal charter, got some settlers into the
country north of the Limpopo and set up a government there, in
1890, just in time, it appears, to forestall the Boers
See, in volume 4,
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1885-1893.
{457}
Of the effect of the two conventions, of 1881 and 1884, on the

relations of the British government to the South African
Republic, the following is an English view, by a well-known
publicist: "In the Treaty of Pretoria, bearing date the 5th of
April, 1881, it is stated that Great Britain guarantees
'complete self-government, subject to the Suzerainty of Her
Majesty, to the inhabitants of the Transvaal.' … Article 15
declares that 'the Resident will report to the High
Commissioner, as representative of the Suzerain, as to the
working and observance of the provisions of this Convention.'
… On the 31st of March, 1881, Lord Kimberley, who was then
Secretary of State for the Colonies, used these words in the
House of Lords with reference to the terms of the Convention,
upon which the Treaty of Pretoria was afterwards based: 'I
believe the word Suzerainty expresses very correctly the
relation which we intend to exist between this country and the
Transvaal. Our intention is that the Transvaal shall have
independent power as regards its internal government; and we
shall only reserve certain powers to be exercised by the
Queen. … With respect to our control over the relations of the
Transvaal with foreign Powers, … it is quite clear there ought
to be, as regards foreign relations, only one Government in
South Africa; that there ought to be no communication with
foreign Powers upon any subject except through the
representatives of the Queen.'
"On the 25th of June, 1881, Mr. Gladstone, while defending in

the House of Commons an assertion he had made during the
Midlothian Campaign about the blood-guiltiness of the war with
the Transvaal, referred to our Suzerainty in the following
words; 'I apprehend that the term which has been adopted, the
Suzerainty of the Queen, is intended to signify that certain
portions of Sovereignty are reserved. … What are these
portions of Sovereignty? The portions of Sovereignty we desire
to reserve are, first, the relations between the Transvaal
community and foreign governments, the whole care of the
foreign relations of the Boers. The whole of these relations
will remain in the hands of the Queen.'
"From these quotations it is obvious that when we agreed to

restore the independence of the Transvaal, the British public
were led to believe, both by the then Premier and the then
Colonial Minister, that this restoration left the control of
all relations between the Transvaal and foreign Powers
absolutely and entirely in the hands of Her Majesty's
Government. … It is possible, or even probable, that at the
time the Treaty of Pretoria was concluded, Mr. Gladstone, or
at any rate several of his colleagues, imagined that our
Suzerainty would really be made effective. But, when once the
treaty had been signed and sealed, and the South African
Republic had been granted absolute internal independence, it
became evident that our Suzerainty could only be rendered
efficacious, as against the sullen resistance of the Boers, by
the exercise of force—that is, by the threat of war in the
event of Boer non-compliance with the demands of the Suzerain
Power. …
"For the first two years which succeeded our surrender the
Boers were too much occupied in the reorganisation of the
Republic to trouble themselves greatly about their relations
to the Suzerain Power. … Disputes were mainly connected with
the treatment of the native chiefs, residing either within, or
on the borders of, the territory of the Republic, who
asserted, with or without reason, that they were the objects
of Boer hostility on account of the support they had given to
the British authorities during the period of British rule.
"In May 1883 Mr. Gladstone stated in Parliament, in answer to

certain protests about the proceedings of the Boers, that the
British Government had decided to send a Commissioner to the
Transvaal to investigate the working of the Convention
concluded at Pretoria in 1881. This intention, however, was
not carried out owing to the opposition of the South African
Republic. In lieu of the despatch of a British Commissioner to
the Transvaal, it was suggested at Pretoria that a Boer
deputation should be sent to London. The suggestion, as usual,
was accepted; and thereupon the Africander Bond in the Cape
Colony forwarded a petition to the Queen, praying Her Majesty
to entertain favourably the proposals of the Boer delegates
for the modification of the Treaty of Pretoria. The
deputation, consisting of President Kruger and Messieurs Du
Toit and Smit, arrived in London in October, and submitted to
the late Lord Derby, who had succeeded Lord Kimberley as
Minister for the Colonies, a statement of the modifications
they were instructed to demand. The memorandum in question
distinctly declared that the alleged impracticability of the
Treaty of Pretoria related, amongst other matters, 'to the
extent of the Suzerain rights reserved to Her Majesty by
Articles 2 and 18 of the Treaty of Pretoria, and to the vague
and indefinite terms in which the powers reserved to Her
Majesty's Government by the Convention are indicated.'
"To this memorandum Lord Derby replied, on the 20th of

November, 1883, admitting that 'expediency of substituting a
new agreement for that of 1881 might be matter for discussion,
but asking for information, in what sense it is wished that in
such new agreement some connection with England should be
maintained, and, if it is the desire of the Transvaal people
that their State should hereafter stand in any special
relation to this country, what is the form of connection which
is proposed?' In reply to this request the Boer delegates
answered as follows in the somewhat evasive fashion: 'In the
new agreement any connection by which we are now bound to
England should not be broken; but that the relation of a
dependency "publici juris" in which our country now stands to
the British Crown be replaced by that of two contractive
Powers.'
"The above documents were submitted to the Governor of Cape

Colony, the then Sir Hercules Robinson. Characteristically
enough, Sir Hercules recommended the surrender of our
Suzerainty on the ground that 'The Transvaal burghers
obviously do not intend to observe any condition in it (the
Convention of 1881) distasteful to themselves, which Her
Majesty's Government are not prepared to insist on, if
necessary, by the employment of force. Her Majesty's
Government, I understand, do not feel justified in proceeding
to this extremity; and no provision, therefore, of the
Convention which is not agreeable to the Transvaal will be
carried out.'
{458}
"A few days later the delegates submitted a draft treaty, in

which the following clause stands first: 'It is agreed that
Her Britannic Majesty recognises and guarantees by this treaty
the full independence of the South African Republic, with the
right to manage its own affairs according to its own laws,
without any interference on the part of the British
Government; it being understood that this system of
non-interference is binding on both parties.' To the letter
enclosing this draft treaty Lord Derby replied that the
proposed treaty was 'neither in form nor in substance such as
Her Majesty's Government could adopt.' Meanwhile the
discussion between the British Government and the Boer
delegates seems to have turned mainly upon the extension of
the territories of the Transvaal and the relations between the
Republic and the native chiefs, subjects which had only an
indirect bearing on the question of Suzerainty. It was only on
the 25th of January, 1884, that the Colonial Office wrote to
the delegates stating that if a certain compromise with regard
to the frontier line were accepted, the British Government
would be prepared 'to proceed at once with the consideration
of the other proposals for the modification of the Treaty of
Pretoria.' The delegates replied on the next day virtually
accepting the proposed frontier compromise, and requested the
British Government to proceed at once with the substitution of
a new Convention. … The draft treaty was signed on the 27th of
February, 1884. …
"The Convention of London did not repeat the preamble of the

original Convention in which the words 'subject to the
Suzerainty of Her Majesty' are to be found. Nor is the word
Suzerainty mentioned in the Convention of 1884, which declares
that the articles contained therein, if endorsed by the
Volksraad, 'shall be substituted for those of the Convention
of 1881.' No formal withdrawal, however, of the Queen's
Suzerainty is to be found in the Convention of 1884. On the
contrary, it is distinctly affirmed in Article 4 of the
modified Convention that 'the South African Republic will
conclude no treaty or engagement with any State or nation,
other than the Orange Free State, until the same has been
approved by Her Majesty the Queen.'"
Edward Dicey,
British Suzerainty in the Transvaal
(Nineteenth Century, October, 1897).
In its preamble, the Convention of 1884 recites that—"Whereas
the Government of the Transvaal State, through its Delegates,
consisting of [Kruger, Du Toit and Smit], have represented
that the Convention signed at Pretoria on the 3rd day of
August, 1881, and ratified by the Volksraad of the said State
on the 25th of October, 1881, contains certain provisions
which are inconvenient, and imposes burdens and obligations
from which the said State is desirous to be relieved, and that
the south-western boundaries fixed by the said Convention
should be amended with a view to promote the peace and good
order of the said State, … now, therefore, Her Majesty has
been pleased to direct," &c.—substituting the articles of a
new Convention for those signed and ratified in 1881.
Article I. of the new Convention describes the lines of

boundary as amended. Article II. binds the two governments,
respectively, to guard said boundaries against all
trespassing. Article III. provides for the reception and
protection, at Pretoria, of a resident British officer, "to
discharge functions analogous to those of a consular officer."
Article IV. reads as follows: "The South African Republic will

conclude no Treaty or engagement with any State or nation
other than the Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe to
the eastward or westward of the Republic, until the same has been
approved by Her Majesty the Queen. Such approval shall be
considered to have been granted if Her Majesty's Government
shall not, within six months after receiving a copy of such
Treaty (which shall be delivered to them immediately upon its
completion), have notified that the conclusion of such Treaty
is in conflict with the interests of Great Britain, or of any
of Her Majesty's possessions in South Africa."
Articles V. and VI. relate to public debts. Article VII.

guarantees the non-molestation of persons in the South African
Republic who "remained loyal to Her Majesty during the late
hostilities." Article VIII. is a declaration against slavery
in the Republic. Article IX. is in language as follows: "There
will continue to be complete freedom of religion and
protection from molestation for all denominations, provided
the same be not inconsistent with morality and good order; and
no disability shall attach to any person in regard to rights
of property by reason of the religious opinions which he
holds." Article X. relates to graves of British soldiers; XI.
to former grants of land which the present arrangement of
boundary places outside of the Republic; XII. to the
independence of the Swazis; XIII. to non-discrimination in
import duties on both sides.
Articles XIV. and XV. read thus: Article XIV. "All persons,
other than natives, conforming themselves to the laws of the
South African Republic, (a) will have full liberty, with their
families, to enter, travel or reside in any part of the South
African Republic; (b) they will be entitled to hire or possess
houses, manufactories, warehouses, shops and premises; (c)
they may carry on their commerce either in person or by any
agents whom they may think fit to employ; (d) they will not be
subject, in respect of their persons or property, or in
respect of their commerce or industry, to any taxes, whether
general or local, other than those which are or may be imposed
upon citizens of the said Republic." Article XV. "All persons,
other than natives, who establish their domicile in the
Transvaal between the 12th day of April, 1877, and the 8th day
of August, 1881, and who within twelve months after such last
mentioned date have had their names registered by the British
resident, shall be exempt from all compulsory military service
whatever." Article XVI. provides for a future extradition
treaty; XVII. for the payment of debts in the same currency in
which they were contracted; XVIII. establishes the validity of
certain land grants; XIX. secures certain rights to the
natives; XX. nullifies the Convention if not ratified by the
Volksraad within six months from the date of its
signature—February 27, 1884.
{459}
With considerable reluctance, the Convention was ratified by

the Volksraad of the South African Republic in the following
terms: "The Volksraad having considered the new Convention
concluded between its deputation and the British Government at
London on 27th February 1884, as likewise the negotiations
between the contracting parties, which resulted in the said
Convention, approves of the standpoint taken by its deputation
that a settlement based upon the principle of the Sand River
Convention can alone fully satisfy the burghers of the
Republic. It also shares the objections set forth by the
deputation against the Convention of Pretoria, as likewise
their objections against the Convention of London on the
following points:
1st.
The settlement of the boundary, especially on the western
border of the Republic, in which the deputation eventually
acquiesced only under the express conditions with which the
Raad agree.
2nd.
The right of veto reserved to the British Crown upon treaties
to be concluded by the Republic with foreign powers; and
3rd.
The settlement of the debt.
Seeing, however, that in the said Convention of London

considerable advantages are secured to the Republic,
especially in the restoration of the country's independence,
Resolves, With acknowledgment of the generosity of Her
Britannic Majesty, to ratify, as it hereby does, the said
Convention of London."
Selected Official Documents of the South African
Republic and Great Britain
(Supplement to the Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, July, 1900).
Also in:
State Papers, British and Foreign, volume 75.
SOUTH AFRICA: The Transvaal: A. D. 1885-1890.

The gold discoveries on the Rand and the influx
of Uitlanders (Outlanders or Foreigners).
"It was not until 1884 that England heard of the presence of
gold in South Africa. A man named Fred Stuben, who had spent
several years in the country, spread such marvellous reports
of the underground wealth of the Transvaal that only a short
time elapsed before hundreds of prospectors and miners left
England for South Africa. When the first prospectors
discovered auriferous veins of wonderful quality on a farm
called Sterkfontein, the gold boom had its birth. It required
the lapse of only a short time for the news to reach Europe,
America, and Australia, and immediately thereafter that vast
and widely scattered army of men and women which constantly
awaits the announcement of new discoveries of gold was set in
motion toward the Randt [the Witwatersrand or
Whitewatersridge]. … In December, 1885, the first stamp mill
was erected for the purpose of crushing the gneiss rock in
which the gold lay hidden. This enterprise marks the real
beginning of the gold fields of the Randt, which now yield one
third of the world's total product of the precious metal. The
advent of thousands of foreigners was a boon to the Boers, who
owned the large farms on which the auriferous veins were
located. Options on farms that were of little value a short
time before were sold at incredible figures, and the prices
paid for small claims would have purchased farms of thousands
of acres two years before. In July, 1886, the Government
opened nine farms to the miners, and all have since become the
best properties on the Randt. … On the Randt the California
scenes of '49 were being re-enacted. Tents and houses of sheet
iron were erected with picturesque lack of beauty and
uniformity, and during the latter part of 1886 the community
had reached such proportions that the Government marked off a
township and called it Johannesburg. The Government, which
owned the greater part of the land, held three sales of
building lots, or 'stands,' as they are called in the
Transvaal, and realized more than $300,000 from the sales. …
Millions were secured in England and Europe for the
development of the mines, and the individual miner sold his
claims to companies with unlimited capital. The incredibly
large dividends that were realized by some of the investors
led to too heavy investments in the Stock Exchange in 1889,
and a panic resulted. Investors lost thousands of pounds, and
for several months the future of the gold fields appeared to
be most gloomy. The opening of the railway to Johannesburg and
the re-establishment of stock values caused a renewal of
confidence, and the growth and development of the Randt was
imbued with renewed vigour. Owing to the Boers' lack of
training and consequent inability to share in the development
of the gold fields, the new industry remained almost entirely
in the hands of the newcomers, the Uitlanders [so called in
the language of the Boers], and two totally different
communities were created in the republic. The Uitlanders, who,
in 1890, numbered about 100,000, lived almost exclusively in
Johannesburg and the suburbs along the Randt. The Boers,
having disposed of their farms and lands on the Randt, were
obliged to occupy the other parts of the republic, where they
could follow their pastoral and agricultural pursuits. The
natural contempt which the Englishmen, who composed the
majority of the Uitlander population, always have for persons
and races not their intellectual or social equals, soon
created a gulf between the Boers and the newcomers."
H. C. Hillegas,
Oom Paul's People,
chapter 3
(with permission of D. Appleton & Co., copyright, 1899).
As the influx of newcomers increased and advanced, "the Boers

realized that the world and civilisation were once more upon
them. In spite of all the opposition that patriarchal
prejudice could muster, railways usurped the place of the slow
moving ox-waggon, and in the heart of their solitude a city
had arisen; while to the north and to the east between them
and the sea were drawn the thin red lines of British boundary.
… A primitive pastoral people, they found themselves isolated,
surrounded—'shut in a kraal for ever,' as Kruger is reported
to have said,—while the stranger was growing in wealth and
numbers within their gates. Expansion of territory, once the
dream of the Transvaal Boers, as their incursions into
Bechuanaland, into Zululand, and the attempted trek into
Rhodesia, all testify, was becoming daily less practicable.
One thing remained,—to accept their isolation and strengthen
it. Wealth, population, a position among the new States of the
world had been brought to them, almost in spite of themselves,
by the newcomer, the stranger, the Uitlander. What was to be
the attitude towards him politically? Materially he had made
the State—he developed its resources, paid nine-tenths of its
revenue. Would he be a strength or a weakness as a citizen—as
a member of the body politic? Let us consider this new element
in a new State—how was it constituted, what were its component
parts? Was it the right material for a new State to
assimilate?
{460}
Cosmopolitan to a degree—recruited from all the corners of the
earth—there was in it a strong South African element,
consisting of young colonists from the Cape Colony and
Natal—members of families well known in South Africa—and many
of them old schoolfellows or in some other way known to each
other. Then the British contingent, self-reliant, full of
enterprise and energy—Americans, for the most part skilled
engineers, miners and mechanics—French, Germans, and
Hollanders. A band of emigrants, of adventurers, and
constituted, as I think all emigrants are, of two great
classes—the one who, lacking neither ability nor courage, are
filled with an ambition, characteristic particularly of the
British race, to raise their status in the world, who find the
conditions of their native environment too arduous, the
competition too keen, to offer them much prospect, and who
seek a new and more rapidly developing country elsewhere; and
another, a smaller class who sometimes through misfortune,
sometimes through their own fault, or perhaps through both,
have failed elsewhere.
"Adventurers all, one must admit; but it is the adventurers of

the world who have founded States and Kingdoms. Such a class
as this has been assimilated by the United States and absorbed
into their huge fabric, of which to-day they form a huge and
substantial portion. What should the Transvaal Boers have done
with this new element so full of enterprise and vigour? This
had been for the last ten years the great question for them to
solve. … Enfranchisement, participation in the political life
of the State by the Uitlander,—this means, they said, a
transference of all political power from our hands to those of
men whom we do not trust. 'I have taken a man into my coach,'
said President Kruger, 'and as a passenger he is welcome; but
now he says, Give me the reins; and that I cannot do, for I
know not where he will drive me.' To the Boer it is all or
nothing; he knows no mean, no compromise. Yet in that very
mean lies the vital spirit of republicanism. What is the
position of the Boers in the Cape Colony? Are they without
their share, their influence, their Africander bond in the
political affairs of the country? And so it is throughout the
world today,—in the United States, in England, in France, in
the British Colonies, wherever the individual thrives and the
State is prosperous—the compromise of divided political power
among all classes, all factions, is the great guarantee of
their well being. … That the enfranchisement of the Uitlander
would mean a complete transference of political power into his
hands involves two assumptions: the first is that the
Uitlanders would form a united body in politics; the second is
that their representatives would dominate the Volksraad. The
most superficial acquaintance with the action of the
inhabitants of the Witwatersrand district on any public matter
will serve to refute the first of these. … The second of these
assumptions—though it is continually put forward—almost
answers itself. The number of representatives from the
Uitlander districts under any scheme of redistribution of
seats which the Boer could reasonably be expected to make
would fall considerably short of those returned from the Boer
constituencies. Such was the attitude of the Boers on this
vital question which led to the Reform Movement of 1895; and I
have stated what I believe to be the injustice of it as
regards the Uitlanders and the unwisdom of it in the true
interests of the Boers."
A. P. Hillier,
Raid and Reform,
pages 24-29 (London: Macmillan & Co.).
SOUTH AFRICA:
Portuguese Possessions: A. D. 1891.
Delagoa Bay Railway question.

DELAGOA BAY ARBITRATION.
SOUTH AFRICA:
The Transvaal: A. D. 1894.
Estimated population.
In October, 1894, the British agent at Pretoria, J. A. de Wet,

estimated the population of the Transvaal (on the basis of a
census taken in 1890) as follows:
"Transvaalers and Orange Free Staters, 70,861:
British subjects, 62,509:

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Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress

Nancy Cartwright is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Durham

Philip Kitcher is one of the most influential philosophers in the contempo-

[2] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

[4] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

[6] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

[8] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

[ 10 ] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

[ 12 ] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

1. A bibliography of Kitcher’s works can be found in the useful volume by Wenceslao

Kitcher against the Platonists

THE CASE FOR PLATONISM

(1) There are at least three prime numbers greater than 15

These results furnish the basis for what appears to be a straightforward

And it sounds almost as bad to say:

There are numbers, but there are no abstract objects.

The anti-​platonist who takes this route is therefore in a tight corner—​a

KITCHER’S ANTI-​P LATONISM

Philip Kitcher’s views in the philosophy of mathematics have evolved,

[ 16 ] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

This is neither a configuration of chess pieces nor an English sentence,

[ 18 ] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

6. In the recent history of the philosophy of mathematics, hardcore platonism is

We have, I claim, a satisfactory historical explanation of what occurred, even

[ 20 ] The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

SLAVERY: SLAVERY: A. D. 1897.

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

SMOKELESS POWDERS, Invention of.

See (in this volume)

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY, Encyclical Letter of Pope Leo XIII. on.

See (in this volume)

See (in this volume)

FRANCE: A. D. 1896 (APRIL-MAY), and 1900 (JANUARY);

GERMANY: A. D. 1894-1895, and 1897 (JULY);

ITALY: A. D. 1898 (APRIL-MAY);

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1896 (JUNE-NOVEMBER),

See (in this volume)

SOLOMON ISLANDS, The:

See (in this volume)

SOMALIS, Rising of, in Jubaland.

See (in this volume)

The anti-platonist who takes this route is therefore in a tight corner—a

KITCHER’S ANTI-P LATONISM