Minimalism and Metaphysical Residue

ABSTRACT

The problem of creeping minimalism is the problem of drawing a principled line between expressivism and its rivals. The dominant strategy for solving the problem is explanationism, which tries to distinguish the two camps by looking at their constitutive explanations of claims in which the relevant terms appear in intensional contexts: claims like “Bob believes that murder‐for‐hire is wrong”. The present paper considers two recent and independent attempts to pursue a very distinct strategy, which focuses on claims in which the relevant terms appear in non‐intensional contexts: claims like “Obligation figures in some fundamental laws”. The hope is that expressivists and non‐expressivists will—necessarily—differ in their assessments of at least some such claims. That is, expressivism will leave a characteristic metaphysical residue. While explanationist proposals have received a great deal of critical attention, appeals to metaphysical residue have received virtually none. This paper argues that such appeals fail and that the reasons behind their failure suggest that the problem of creeping minimalism does not have a solution.