Nature of the Philosophical Project
What is the philosophical project?
I read a lot of non-contemporary philosophy, and a lot of out outlier material, Mannheim, Scheler, Laszlo. I also frequently revisit seminal and great works, Whitehead, Bergson, Fichte, Aristotle, Marx. I try to cover as much ground as humanly possible, philosophy, science, anthropology, sociology, political theory. To what end?
My hypothesis is that the philosophical project as such is, at its heart, metaphysical. Fichte says that. "To proceed beyond the facts...to go beyond experience as a whole...this is philosophy, and nothing else."
I believe that the rise of the scientific worldview has been, at the same time, the curtailing of the of the metaphysical project. And while I am a respectful student of many sciences, I think we have elevated it too far; that in so doing, something has been lost. Modern physics and cosmology have already run into the wall of dark matter and energy. The paradox of science, that we can learn so much only to discover that we really know so little, suggests to me that the need for a return to the philosophical project is greater than ever.
The universe is full of mysteries, unknown energies hovering at the edges of the galaxies and the peripheries of our understanding. But none is more mysterious than the one that is immanent to us at all times, the mysterious phenomenon of thought.
Time again to let thought speak for itself.
I read a lot of non-contemporary philosophy, and a lot of out outlier material, Mannheim, Scheler, Laszlo. I also frequently revisit seminal and great works, Whitehead, Bergson, Fichte, Aristotle, Marx. I try to cover as much ground as humanly possible, philosophy, science, anthropology, sociology, political theory. To what end?
My hypothesis is that the philosophical project as such is, at its heart, metaphysical. Fichte says that. "To proceed beyond the facts...to go beyond experience as a whole...this is philosophy, and nothing else."
I believe that the rise of the scientific worldview has been, at the same time, the curtailing of the of the metaphysical project. And while I am a respectful student of many sciences, I think we have elevated it too far; that in so doing, something has been lost. Modern physics and cosmology have already run into the wall of dark matter and energy. The paradox of science, that we can learn so much only to discover that we really know so little, suggests to me that the need for a return to the philosophical project is greater than ever.
The universe is full of mysteries, unknown energies hovering at the edges of the galaxies and the peripheries of our understanding. But none is more mysterious than the one that is immanent to us at all times, the mysterious phenomenon of thought.
Time again to let thought speak for itself.
Comments (159)
Thinking/thought may not live up to the hype surrounding it or am I missing something? What if it turns out to be disappointingly simple, as simple as peeing for instance?
It always has, cant escape it. The early 20th century OLP knuckleheads were the first to seriously degrade the significance of it, finding it measurably easier to critique whats said, it being right there for all to witness, rather than the thought from which it came, which only one can.....while missing the irony in doing it.
But those guys, thankfully, are the current philosophical artifact, hopefully soon to be joined by those who werent happy with the obscurity of human though, deciding it worth being listed in peer-reviewed publications by writing on something even more obscure.....consciousness. Again, only by drowning in the same irony.
It took the better part of two millennia to get from the first great thinker to the second. For the third to come about anytime soon.....ehhhh, not holding my breath. Still, the advancements in science proper may well provide him the message in the next Critique, which....ironically enough.....may well be that science cannot tell us what we want to know regarding the absolute primacy of human thought.
Quoting Pantagruel
Yep. Just like that.
My thoughts, metaphysically speaking for themselves.
We return to that pesky word, "metaphysics", which is now more obscure than it was when it worked on by Aristotle, not that he used the term itself. The historical context may help explain why philosophy sometimes looks lost.
Aristotle has in mind the type of work that allows you to answer questions such as "what is a house?". It was assumed that this could be done: to pick out properties of the mind-independent world and say "that is a house".
But in the 17th century that all changed with the rise of modern science. What's a house is extremely complicated and subtle, so we dropped such high ambitions to ask questions more pertinent to the faculties we have that can actually solve some of the problems in the world, say the position of the planet or gravity.
I don't think we can go back and try to develop extremely complex mental constructions as a basis for philosophy as it often confuses the faculties of the mind with the world itself. Not trivial . This does not entail scientism at all, but it does entail trying to develop the thoughts of many of the classic figures, as they already lay the groundwork for many issues that could have a solution.
So Hume, Kant, Peirce, Russell and others all have plenty of stuff that needs correction and amplification, in my view. To start from zero is possible, but it ignores a large part of what's important in this Western tradition, which is a continued dialogue with its figures, even if it's only one of them.
:up:
Yes, I have in mind a rediscovery of the wonder that these thinkers experienced in their own time, realizing that, fundamentally, that the starry skies above and the moral law within are still that.
It struck me recently that the philosophical project, at least my philosophical project, is about awareness. Western philosophy focuses more on awareness of intellectual process and reason while eastern philosophies take on a broader range. As Socrates is supposed to have said, it's all about examining our lives.
I think that's an idiosyncratic view, but I don't really see it being in conflict with the one you've described.
:100:
To me, awareness is the reward, result, or payoff. And there are other paths to awareness than the philosophical project; which I think has the feature or benefit that it strives for clarity and communicability. Perhaps the significance is that it is a kind of "objectification."
Yes, I agree.
Quoting Pantagruel
I agree with this too. I tend to approach the world through my intellect and I think that is where I am most self-aware. I value clarity and communicability very highly. Objectification is the way we intellectuals examine our lives. Once we've done that, we can pick it up, turn it and twist it, and look at it from all sides. There are shortcomings to this way of doing things, but it has a lot of power.
I agree. Aristotle referred to what we now call "Metaphysics", as "First Philosophy". But, for some on this forum Metaphysics is a four-letter word. And it may be true that some people will justify their out-of-bounds speculations under the pretense of merely doing metaphysics. But that's the risk we take for allowing freedom of thought. In a free society, we have to tolerate Neo-Nazis, even if we don't like what they say. Without freedom of thought, there would be no creativity, no progress. However, the free exchange of ideas must be funneled through a skeptical filter to remove the BS & cons. Yes, that's censorship, so even the skeptics must be subject to skeptical filtering.
For good practical reasons, Modern Science has constructed a restrictive box to contain its own speculations. Physics is limited to the study of details of the material world of the senses. But philosophy has goals that are not limited to pragmatic real-world results. With logic & imagination, it goes beyond the specific things of the world to reason-out general & universal principles. Even Physics makes use of unprovable generalities, such as natural laws, in order to make accurate predictions of physical behaviors. But those "normative rules" themselves must be accepted as "self-evident". We don't discover natural laws by dissecting Nature, but by viewing it as an integrated (whole) system. This approach is not necessarily super-natural, but it is Holistic (another four letter word for those who fear thinking outside Pandora's box). :smile:
Metaphysics (Greek: ?? ???? ?? ??????, [i]"things after the ones about the natural world"; Latin: Metaphysica[1]) is one of the principal works of Aristotle, in which he develops the doctrine that is sometimes referred to as Wisdom, sometimes as First Philosophy, and sometimes as Theology, in English. It is one of the first major works of the branch of western philosophy known as metaphysics.
It is a compilation of various texts treating abstract subjects, notably Being, different kinds of causation, form and matter, the existence of mathematical objects and the cosmos.[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics_(Aristotle)
:up:
Systems-centric is another way to characterize it: holism is one of the key characteristics of complex emergent systems. In this guise, it can form the focus of a legitimate paradigm shift, rather than just being a dirty word. :rofl:
As someone who is here mainly to see what he may have missed in not reading philosophy what do you think you have gained from all this reading? What were or are you looking for? If it's awareness... what does that mean in practice?
And have they opened up? Can you share an example?
If your main exposure to science has been through physics and chemistry , then I would suggest that that there are two generations of philosophical theory that have moved beyond the limits of these sciences. Put differently. these philosophers have peered into their crystal ball and produced sketches of what future sciences will look like. On the other hand, if your acquaintance with science extends beyond physics to include the new extended synthesis in biology, predictive processing and enactive , embodied approaches in cognitive science, the. Id say that youre not missing much by avoiding philosophy. Theres only a small handful of philosophers who have ventured into territory beyond these newer sciences, and most of them consider themselves to be scientists as well as philosophers.
It is about conceptualizing a goal-state, which is I think what we are talking about when we discuss the nature of the philosophical project. That is the current topic of the section I'm reading also. For me, that's a good example of re-integrating philosophical practice.
I consider personality theory and models of psychopathology to count as science. They had more impact on me than any other science.
I, like you, have not spent a lot of time reading philosophy. I even started a thread called "You don't need to read philosophy to be a philosopher." Even so, I have an experience that might be relevant.
As I've said many times, much of my interest in philosophy came from the same place that my attraction to engineering did. I don't know exactly what to call it - a temperamental curiosity. A desire to mess around with things and see how they fit together. During my engineering career, I became aware of a need to understand how I know the things I do, how certain I am. Engineers also need a strong instinct for practicality, pragmatism. Solving problems is what we do.
The forum and a couple of other similar ones are the first places I tried to do any formalish philosophy. That's not counting the two courses I took in college in the 1970s, which I didn't like at all. On the forum I found myself drawn to discussions of metaphysics and epistemology. About five years ago I started a thread called "An attempt to clarify my thoughts about metaphysics." The first responding post on that thread was from @tim wood. He recommended "An Essay on Metaphysics" by R.G. Collingwood.
I got the book. It's a bit dense and he uses some language different from what I was familiar with, but I was immediately struck. He was asking the same questions I was asking myself. His answers made sense and they gave me language to talk about those issues. I didn't agree with everything he wrote, but then I had to dig and figure out why I didn't. It also gave me a foundation on which I could build my understanding and my arguments. Now when I talk about metaphysics, I have confidence my way of seeing things is not alien to the kinds of philosophy everyone else is writing about, even if we disagree with each other. Whether or not it's a legitimate reason, I think having his name as a reference for some of my ideas adds legitimacy to my arguments in some people's eyes.
So you won't be confused - I deleted the text below from the post after I first posted it because I don't think it's relevant.
Quoting T Clark
When someone says something like philosophy is - Quoting Pantagruel
I am curious how that actually looks outside of abstractions.
For me, the intuitive feel is what it's all about.
The human mind that will perceive it once it's known is what will MAKE it magnificent. The difference the expectation; that is what separates trivial from magnificent. The same thing will sound trivial to some, and magnificent to others.
Some humans who hear or think of a certain thing, like names of "Aristotle" and "Socrates" become woozy, and they swoon because they are washed over with the feeling of being near to some magnificence. To some others, the same things will be understood easier, without prejudice, and mainly without the magnificence part.
The magnificence comes in as an expectation to something magnificent for those who expect magnificence. To the rest, this feeling of magnificence observed in others is viewed on one part as snobbery, on the other part as pretense, on the third part as bias.
This does not take away from the fact that those who see magnificence in what they want to see it in, are honest, and without pretense. They truly feel this magnificence.
It isn't an abstraction at all, is it? It's easy enough to talk about concrete goals, but the whole issue is to what extent are idealizations susceptible of concrete realization? Do we limit our objectives based upon the availability of material means? Or do we aim to synthesize something novel? Whatever the case, it is something that we constantly do, to whatever extent we are consciously aware of it.
I'm not trying to be a smart arse, it's a genuine question - can you provide an example of something in life that has been illuminated or enhanced by the type of philosophical thinking I think you are referring to?
Quoting Pantagruel
Not really. I don't see my life that way.
Quoting Pantagruel
Not sure it is that easy as you have been unable to do it so far. :wink: I'm not talking about concrete goals. Just goals. Concrete is to goals what absolute is to truth.
I'll give you an example.
A very helpful idea I encountered around 30 years ago was from Albert Ellis, a psychologist, influenced by the Stoics. He said - "You have considerable power to construct self-helping thoughts, feelings and actions as well as to construct self-defeating behaviors. You have the ability, if you use it, to choose healthy instead of unhealthy thinking, feeling and acting. That idea changed how I deal with others and how I deal with any information I come upon.
Similarly, I feel that my pursuit of abstract ideals resonates with my actual behaviours, and vice versa.
The notion of a philosophical "project" with some statable goal misses what's going on. The moment a goal is stated, someone will formulate a counter-instance, adding a new piece that undermines that very goal. That's what Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and company do.
As with poetry, setting out a definition is setting out a challenge.
But besides that, what's the point of metaphysics if it doesn't make a difference to what you do? Metaphysics is in the end only a tool for doing ethics.
Quoting Pantagruel
I'm pretty sure this is exactly what I just said.
I assume by illformed you meant not how you would say it. No need to be ill-mannered. ;)
Quoting Pantagruel
Quoting Banno
One can just as well say that ethics is a tool
for doing metaphysics. More accurately, each pre-supposes the other. Metaphysics is what puts the ought in ethics.
Good grief. Keeping up with the galloping advance of science is like trying to hang on to a rocket. You can say physics has run into a wall now that it has encountered the dark sector of "things that are there even if they don't interact". Or you can instead realise this is metaphysics made mathematical. The success of quantum field theory is so sweeping that we are able to generate predictions of particle types that don't even exist with concrete properties, and thus are pretty much unmeasurable except as the most ghostly echoes of those that do.
I would say metaphysics as an inquiry into fundamental being is in rude health. Especially to the degree that we have developed a mathematical holism which can see into what isn't even in principle "visible".
Beyond dark matter and dark energy which are both rather substantial physics and cosmology are engaging with the possibilities of a whole hidden sector of particles, or quantum excitations, that have to "exist" even if they could have no effect.
And to be able to think about reality in that fashion surely takes metaphysics to new places.
Not convinced. Tools are for doing, and ethics is about what is to be done. Metaphysics is more what is the case that what to do about it.
That is, the direction of fit is different, and ethics better fits the direction of fit of tools - making stuff the way it ought be.
Yes. That was the premise of physicist Fritjof Capra's 1982 book, The Turning Point. In which he introduced the concepts of Holism and Systems Theory. He applied those ideas to all phases of modern culture. The name of the book suggests a future "paradigm shift" from narrow Reductive methods to broader Holistic thinking. :smile:
PS__Holism does indeed require "going beyond the [reductive] facts" in order to see both sides of reality at once : material parts + metaphysical (mathematical) inter-relationships. Philosophy without imaginative Holism would be factual Physics. Yet. some posters seem to prefer it that way.
PPS__A crucial aspect of Philosophy is skepticism toward your own flights of fancy, to keep your feet on the ground.
Ancient Skepticism :
The Greek word skepsis means investigation. Literally, a skeptic is an inquirer. Not all ancient philosophers whom in retrospect we call skeptics refer to themselves as such. Nevertheless, they all embrace ways of life that are devoted to inquiry. Ancient skepticism is as much concerned with belief as with knowledge. As long as knowledge has not been attained, the skeptics aim not to affirm anything. This gives rise to their most controversial ambition: a life without belief.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-ancient/
If this holism is grounded in mathematics , then in order for one to be uncovering its metaphysical basis one would need to ground this mathematics in a more originary thinking which is no longer , or not yet, mathematical.
Metaphysics is both about what is and what ought to be. Form projects expectation. This anticipative aspect of the transcendental is the basis of the
ought. Empirical discovery as well as ethical prescription has their condition of possibility in the normative ought of an already opened up space of possibility.
The effect of this duality is that in the present, scientists are untrained in philosophy, and philosophers too are largely untrained in the sciences. This makes certain problems in both philosophy & science difficult to deal with, namely because in the past the sciences and philosophy were one and the same, and their practitioners had just the same training, so cross-assistance was very common. Avicenna reached metaphysical conclusions in virtue of his physical investigations, and Leibniz reached the correct conclusion that spacetime is relative through a priori metaphysical investigation, which was at the time "empirically false" (according to the Newtonians), but was later found to be the correct theory through the works of Mach and Einstein.
On the other hand, it seems that the lack of cross-training is a natural evolution of the fact that our fields of inquiry are getting increasingly complex and advanced, and no one can really be a true polymath anymore. But this doesn't mean philosophers shouldn't learn the basic sciences, or that scientists shouldn't learn basic philosophy. Certainly the basics can still be learned and be part of any inquirer's essential training, just as both philosophers and scientists learn algebra and calculus while not needing to know the most avant garde mathematics.
So yes. Im never one to police academic boundaries in a reductionist fashion. I see only their developmental continuity.
It must be the case - in my epistemology - that knowledge grows in a dialectical and developmental fashion. The pragmatic dichotomy is that of reason and observation. Or more abstractly, logic and counting.
Metaphysics began with this dialectical approach - the holism of the unity of opposites. Tao and Buddhism made the same start too.
The reaction to this overarching holism was then reductionism. We had the atomistic metaphysics that paved the way for the mechanical sciences.
The next logical step after that is the unity of these new opposites. Which is what we are finding across the sciences. Physics is being forced to take holism seriously through the maths of quantum fields, topological order, gauge theory, holography, and all the rest.
So if you go back to the roots of holistic thought to check if there is any mathematics to it, then you can find that in the dialectical reasoning that prefigures the physics of symmetry breaking, phase transitions, spontaneous order out of chaos, and all that.
Maths is the logic of relations tied to counting - a general theory about causal theories and a general theory about quantifying variables. It is the holism of the local and global, suitably broken down into a working method.
That looks to be pointing to the overlap between ethics and metaphysics. A rule of thumb: metaphysics is about what is the case, ethics, about what ought be the case.
But I ought be doing other things...
Quoting Banno
:chin:
Quoting Pantagruel
To paraphrase Leonard Cohen:
It has always seemed to me that philosophy is an attempt to make sense of human existence by reflective reasoning deliberately in contrast to non-rational practices (e.g. myth, superstition, intuition, magic, etc). In this Socratic light, my "philosophical project" is to unlearn self-immiserating (i.e. maladaptive) [i]habits of thinking and conduct by striving daily to understand[/i] to reduce "intuitive" (folk, common sense) misunderstandings of what we do not know about what we think we know (e.g. sciences, histories, technics, arts).
So far, in order to make sense of human existence as a whole, classical (cataphatic) metaphysics has down the millennia proposed various, speculative absolutes/categories ("X is real")-of-the-gaps which illuminate as well as occlude those gaps in our knowledge, however, without closing or eliminating them. Prodigious developments in modern natural sciences in the last few centuries have eclipsed the indispensible speculations of metaphysics to the point where several schools of "anti-metaphysical thought" became fashionable which are as vacuous as they are themselves also self-refuting forms of metaphysics (e.g. positivism, nihilism, existentialism, deconstructionism / radical relativism, scientism, etc). It seems to me, the more productive way forward (thanks again @Tobias!), rather than these "anti-metaphysics" cul de sacs is to seek, so to speak, a 'Non-Euclidean' formulation of classical metaphysics (i.e. "what is real?"). For me, as I've mentioned quite a few times elsewhere, this alternative approach begins with: What must reason exclude from conceiving reality as such what is necessarily not real?
Much of what is self-immiserating (à la dukkha), or maladaptive, consists in failing to align our expectations what we think we know with reality due to, I suspect, acquired habits of fixating on attachments to 'things which are not real and false beliefs about unreal things' aka "illusions of knowledge" (i.e. believing we know what and when, actually, we do not or cannot know). Perhaps speculating on what cannot possibly be real a Non-Euclidean (e.g. apophatic) metaphysics is the step forward after, so to speak, throwing away Witty's ladder. :smirk:
This is a reductionist manoeuvre aimed to put the self at the centre of the world. The mechanical view of nature arose by kicking final cause out of the picture. Teleology became the dirty word.
But science just hides finality from view. It is still there in the principle of least action and the second law of thermodynamics. Something has to give the Cosmos its definite direction.
In terms of an ontic ought, the purpose of the Universe is rather permissive. Within its optimising constraints, all kinds of local freedoms are dialectically defined as the differences that dont make a difference to the overarching cosmic intent.
But anyway, the is/ought thing is what humans find useful to hold true so as to make explicit the freedoms that are available because the Universe has no reason to care. But at the metaphysical level, or at least the natural philosophy branch of metaphysics, we engage with the finality that the Universe actually does embody.
How?
If anything, ethics is "centred" on the other; it is social, political.
Excellent post. :up:
[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting.[/quote]
What precisely is the problem with cataphatic metaphysics (x is real)?
[quote=Sherlock Holmes]Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.[/quote]
:up:
"Direction" =/= destination (i.e. "finality"). That this sentence ends, for instance, is not the purpose, goal, or meaning of this sentence. Likewise, "the cosmos", my friend, is not an intentional agent with an intrinsic telos (category mistake, no?) but a dissipative mega-structure with a sell-by date.
Not just any kind of logic , but a certain formal logic connected with certain assumptions about the nature of the object justifying such notions as the fundamental distinction between kind and degree , quantity and quality.
To start, the dialectics inherent in any thesis "X is real": not-X is real ad infinitum.
Apologies, I don't follow.
:grin:
Exactly. The most reduced notion of a global telos that we could arrive at which would produce an entropically closed system.
So it is teleological minimalism. Yet still, a tellic ontology. Best of both worlds!
What was I saying other than that dichotomous distinctions are fundamental? For vagueness, the possibility of dialectical logic already spells the beginning of its end.
:roll:
"BothAnd", no? :smirk:
Did you have some other story on how constraints can be causal?
I do not conceive of "global constraints" as "causal", perhaps because I'm not convinced that a systems science paradigm provides an adequate framework, or model, of the universe (i.e. whole of nature). Your thoughts on this topic are very insightful and deeply provocative I'm still processing the briefs on biosemiotics, etc you've shared, apo but "my ontology", simplistic though it may be, consists of this mereological constraint: local dynamics (e.g. biosemiotics) cannot, without performative self-contradiction, encompass the global structure (e.g. the cosmos) that also encompasses those local dynamics.
X and not-X, both can be real e.g. Putin is real and so is Zelensky (not-Putin).
A context limits what is possible. So it is an apophatic cause. It causes by suppressing what might otherwise be the case.
Global constraints embody both formal and final cause and combine to be the downwards acting regulation in a holistic or hierarchical metaphysics.
Finality in a physical system is not a purpose but a tendency. It is what tends to happen in the context of some constraint. Rough grains of rock tend to become smooth and graded into fine sand if they are swilled in the surf for long enough. A simple expression of the second law and the tendency towards averageness with random mixing.
So natural philosophers like Stan Sathe find it normal to include telos in their cosmology. But they make the obvious distinction between the physical realm and the biosemiotic one.
Salthe's hierarchy theory claims three grades of telos, ranging from the brutely physical to the complexly mindful.
So there is a subsumption hierarchy of the form - {teleomaty {teleonomy {teleology}}}.
Or in ordinary language, the three levels of {physical propensity {biological function {cognitive purpose}}}.
See for instance: http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/189/284
And if you are able to think about physics in that fashion then I surely agree.
The ideal as a goal is in a sense not-real though, isn't it? Fichte has an interesting approach, contrasting the "being" of the extant with the "becoming" which is characteristic of the self-positing I.
:up:
I find your descriptions apt, but your characterization of freedom as that about which the universe does not care confuses me. Couldn't these localized expressions of freedom be part of the universal telos? Also, contexts (of freedom and law) are themselves the products of other contexts, in a nested-hierarchical fashion. It seems that freedom is something that emerges and is defined (ie. law-constrained freedom or practical freedom) through this emergent-evolutionary process.
I too, read books by Albert Ellis, and was impressed with his Rational-Emotive self-therapy. You could think of it as self-directed Philosophy, or merely as self-discipline. In a marginal note I wrote : "most people seem to think that emotions and reasoning are separate, un-connected processes. Whereas, in reality they mutually influence each other : emotions color our thinking, and thinking modifies our emotions". Perhaps Hamlet foreshadowed Ellis : "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". And Hamlet may be paraphrasing the Stoic philosopher Seneca : Reason shows us there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. :smile:
What is the "philosophical project" you are talking about? I wonder esp. because you are not using title capitals, and therefore it doesn't look a known subject or a work (study, book, etc.) by someone. I have found, e.g., "The Philosophical Project of Carnap and Quine" (book), "Descartes and Husserl: The Philosophical Project of Radical Beginnings" (book) and a lot of other "The Philosophical Project of ..."
Quoting Pantagruel
If you think that there's no purpose in doings all this or you are not sure about it, why do you keep doing it? Would you run towards something if there's no reason for doing it? Would you start learning Mandarin if you have no use of it any reason for doing it?
So, I have to assume that you know the reason that you are doing this and that "To what end?" is only a rhetorical question. Right?
So, I would like to know why are you doing all that, which requires an enormous and never-ending work. A Sisyphian task!
In the wake of the dissolution of the fact-value and analytic-synthetic distinctions, Putnam argues that the is cannot be understood outside of epistemic values, which are related to ethical valuation.
The concern that is obviously connected with the values that guide us in choosing between hypotheses (coherence, simplicity, preservation of past doctrine, and the like) is the concern with "right description of the world.
if these episternic values do enable us to correctly describe the world (or to describe more correctly than any alternative set of epistemic values would lead us to do), that is something we see through the lenses of those very values. It does not mean that those values admit an "external" justification.( The Collapse of the Fact-Value Distinction)
I guess life itself is a Sisyphian task if you look at it like that....broadly speaking, the relationship between subjectivity, the evolution of understanding, and objectivity. And how that should be construed, as you point out, in the context of life.
Ultimately they have to be because they must be of the nature to reconstruct the world or context that is giving them their shape. So it is a cybernetic loop. The global constraints produce the local freedoms and those degrees of freedom construct the world that has these constraints.
An equilibrium condition is where the parts freely move and collide, but the overall pressure and temperature dont change, inject a particular hot or cold particle into this equilibrium and it is soon enough either slowed or speeded to join the collective average. It has freedom shaped to fit the system it has become part of. Even if, as the newcomer, it did make some slight difference to that collective by adding or subtracting to the average kinetic energy.
Quoting Pantagruel
Precisely. It is the hierarchy theory view. Stability emerges by the suppression of instability. Global constraints regulate local fluctuations. And one level of stability then becomes the source of the fluctuations that produce the next round of stabilising emergence.
Protons formed after the strong force confined quarks. Then atoms could form because protons still fluctuated enough to produce the pions that became the nuclear glue that allowed them to bind. An elemental table grew until radioactive instability became its limit. Chemistry exists as a collection of definite combinatorial freedoms because stability has been established over the course of many phase transitions and the new levels of particle order that resulted.
I concur with everything said, but the emergence of complex adaptive systems (and negentropy in general) is still something of a mystery. I wonder if instability is somehow being captured at the systemic level as a kind of 'power source'?
Yep. How do we explain the Big Bang? My one liner is that the universe can exist because it is falling into its own heat sink.
We can view the Big Bang as a phase transition in a quantum foam. The foam is as unstructured as can be imagined. It doesnt even have organised dimensionality. There is no spacetime container, and so no bounded quantum vacuum as its hot fluctuating content.
But this infinite dimensional state of foamy unboundedness could become constrained just by accident to have some dimensional order. Such localised fluctuations couldnt be prevented. And it would turn out that any near enough three dimensional quantum vacua would have some very special properties such that it would be the ideal seed to form the kind of dissipative structure that is our Big Bang cosmos.
Only in 3D are the number of spin degrees of freedom matched by the number of translational degrees of freedom. This results in the chiral structure that is the basis of particle physics. Knots that can stay knotted and so anchor a structure of relations which becomes an expanding and cooling spacetime void.
In such a space, the first level of emergent QFT structure is a scalar field - inflation. Then that quickly breaks into a confusion of vector particles - the reheating step which begins the Big Bang proper.
So in general, you start with an everythingness that is infinite in dimensionality so effectively lacks any dimensionality. It is as unstable as anything could be. And that state must then explore all its possible arrangements just by the accidents of its fluctuations. It is then inevitable that any possible states of more persistent order will be discovered. Striking on a 3D set of constraints will produce the dialectic of spin and translation - the local and global Noether conservation symmetries that give particles with Newtonian characteristics.
If you have stuff spinning on the spot, that defines a location. If that stuff also moves in trajectories, that defines the metric within which momentum translates.
The next step is to produce actual gauge particles which lock in CP violation and so have an internal quantum spin structure. The vector particles become symmetry broken to produce the Standard Models collection of elemental, chirally separated, scraps of matter now freely spreading and collectively cooling in a heat sink universe heading for its de Sitter heat death.
Instability is what gives meaning to stabilising order. And stabilising order is inevitable if it is possible. The physics of our Universe tells us it is very possible as there was a whole cascade of phase transitions even in the Big Bangs first trillionth of a second.
The critical step was limiting dimensionality to three dimensions, Or at least that seems the special number on a number of scores - especially as it brings the number of rotational and translational degrees of freedom into the exact balance (3+3) that could define the location of a particle within the space it can move.
Symmetry breaking ends when a new level of symmetry is found. A world fit for vector particles is what emerges from a dimensional arrangement where the local vs global degrees of freedom are balanced enough to form their own closed world of entropy transaction.
Quoting Banno
It seems we agree that metaphysics does not have the special place in philosophy ascribed to it by .
:up:
Again, it really all boils down to a definition of metaphysics. Apokrisis sees the metaphysical implications of physics and so do I. Popper advocates metaphysical research programs to guide future scientific research. It seems that some people are prone to interpret the term metaphysics in order to exclude rather than embrace it.
I'd disagree here. @Banno is taking the right approach by putting metaphysics in a lower position, IMO. You can define it how you like, but the history of metaphysics will still be there -- and this is what I'd say I'm talking about in talking metaphysics. It's not what we define it as, but rather what has been done thus far.
This talks past the issue at stake. Is metaphysics a method of inquiry aimed at some goal, or is it merely a history of intellectual accidents?
You can take the dismissive or deflationary option. But it would have to be properly argued against those who say it is the dialectical opposite of that.
And whoops, if you accept that challenge, youve already lost it. Dialectics being the historical method that defines metaphysical inquiry as the univocal seeking of a foundation in the unity of opposites. :cool:
There's a sense in which "the universe can exist because it is falling into its own heat sink" begs the question - meaning it's premise assumes its conclusion, not the more recent inviting another question. There being a heat sink assumes there is a universe. That's not to devalue specuLative physics, although there is a tendency to treat the speculation s if it were accepted.
So to my eye the recent progress in metaphysics isn't found in quantum mumbling so much as in working out the implications of quantification, modelling, modal logic, free logic, and so on. Not that the progress in physics is not impressive.
First I should say I'm no expert on Aristotle either, just an enthusiast who in another life would have dived deeper. Just to keep things honest.
I'd say that's a good interpretation, but I'm not confident enough to say that it's the purpose. It's very much my interpretation, if you get what I mean. The best way I can make sense of Aristotle's corpus is through understanding it politickly -- in the sense of the life of the human animal (the ethics), and the life of the human species (the politics).
I think it'd be better to say that from our perspective, first philosophy is most important, and hence why Levinas picks up on that in relation to Heidegger and posits ethics. (as a Marxist I'd say, yes, Aristotle's purpose of the metaphysics is politics, but I think that might be too many steps to just say yup, ya'know?)
Ill be damned, I think youre right.
@Pantagruel might agree with Rabelais, seeing philosophy as serious play.
I would.
Only if you believe predicate logic to be more foundational than dialectical logic. Only if you commit to a reductionist notion of linear cause and effect that has already been empirically trashed by the advent of quantum theory.
So nope. Dynamics can have their attractors. The ends can justify their means. Future goals can solidify the paths that reach them. The principle of least action and the second law of thermodynamics can become the conclusions that exclude all other premises.
There is a whole metaphysics that is having a wonderful party here. And you stand outside like the grumbling neighbour, disturbed from his slumbers, wondering why the council noise patrol won't show up as you've requested.
Translation: I can't argue against it, so therefore I will call it unimportant.
Always the same old, same old.
I think your posts makes my point. Not that I understood what you said. Indeed, it's not clear to me that you said anything.
A bit more:
Quoting apokrisis
Well, yes.
Quoting apokrisis
And here you go off on a tangent I don't follow. I've argued against reductionism, and against the centrality of causality, so that's not I.
Fair comment. Again, the notion that this or that part of philosophy is primary or fundamental is fraught, but that's the case with anything that might be considered fundamental. To be sure, physics and metaphysics are of interest for their own sake, and not just as a means to some ends.
Looking back, I've moved from seeing philosophy as serious play towards seeing it as plumbing. They're not mutually exclusive, though.
Rabelais has long been a favourite of mine.
So I had surmised...:wink:
Are you familiar with this podcast? Serious fun.
A better standard for the nature of the philosophical project, I think.
Montaigne makes an interesting contemporary counterpoint to Rabelais, also full of good things...
Nope. Irreverence as the correct response to pomposity.
You just about employ the Royal we in your posts. You certainly rely on the booming paternal voice of first person authority - the I that is at the centre of your world and can recognise the legitimacy of no other.
Funny how upset you get about being personally attacked when your approach is so rooted in your first person framing of any debate. You bring it on yourself.
Hay, always happy to be the main topic of conversation. Tell me more about me.
I suspect thinks I'm right, too.
Now we might move on to the limitations of pragmatism... :wink:
Is there a coherent account of pragmatism?
:rofl:
Yes, indeed.
I think, rather, a context limits what is probable.
What?
This makes about as much sense as saying the living room floor I'm standing on "causes" me not to be standing on the living floor in the apartment below.
Well put. But of course, that's right - in that you can't prove that the floor does not cause you not to be standing on the floor below. It's not unlike the haunted universe statements in the Watkins article mentioned the other day; it's not that it's wrong, so much as odd.
That is a key question for me. In this view I often query 'useful' to what end? I can choose a screwdriver to usefully repair something. But what if the thing I am repairing is a gas chamber at Treblinka?
As a Peircean, I would even want to talk in terms of propensities. But let's not scare folk too much.
Quoting 180 Proof
If you have shaved your head bald, then that excludes all sorts of fancy coiffures you might have entertained as being actual possibilities.
So maybe the problem here is that you believe in frequentist ensembles and other products of modal realism? This is the reductionist image fixed in your mind?
As I say, I prefer Peircean/Popperian propensity for a reason. Potentiality has to be given structure to generate some range of possible outcomes. Contextuality is built in to how the actualisation of probabilities can even work.
A finality?
Another fan of Peirce.
Yep. Pragmatism tends to avoid ethics, or attempt to subsume it into other areas - metaphysics and so on.
Rawls is considered a pragmatist by some, so there's that.
Really? :chin:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatic_ethics
Quoting apokrisis
Maybe the problem is I'm not a possibilist (i.e. actualism as well as an probabilist (ergo fallibilism)) and do not "believe" "possibilities" (abstraction entities) are "caused".
You would have to unpack that. Any sources that do that for you?
Well, I referred to your saying "I try to cover as much ground as humanly possible, philosophy, science, anthropology, sociology, political theory. To what end?" Why do you try do do all that? Esp. in so many different fields? You cannot get specialized in all of them, can you?
Look what happens to this place (TPF): it accepts all of the above and more. It's a garden cake. It lacks "personality". That's why there's chaos in here. This site should treat only philosophical subjects.
Besides, you mentioned that yourself: you included "philosophy" as a separate field in your list of your fields of interest. This is what TPF should do too.
Yes, but philosophy, likewise, is an overarching field. Every field has its "philosophy" - philosophical anthropology, philosophy of science, etc. Similarly, I personally feel that the subdisciplines of philosophy ultimately accrue to metaphysical questions at the limits of knowledge. That is really the defining characteristic of metaphysics, it verges on the unknown.
This is true. There are all kinds of "philosophies": a "philosophy" of reading and a "philosophy" of cooking. There are also personal "philosophies": e.g. a programmer's "philosophy" of programming. In fact, you can add anything you can think of to "'philosophy of".
Then, after being confused of all that you can read in Wikipedia and other encyclopedias, what they have to say about the subject of philosophy: e.g. the kinds, categories, etc. of philosophy. You can also take as an exempley what all known philosophers from the past to this day --well, maybe with some exceptions-- what subjects are treating under the umbrella of philosophy. Science was connected to it until the 19th centure, when it has separated from it.
Quoting Pantagruel
BTW, I just checked "subdisciplines of philosophy" --not a very popular subject in itself-- and I read: "the core subdisciplines of philosophy: epistemology (the theory of knowledge), metaphysics (the theory of being), logic (the theory of reason and inference), value theory (including ethics, politics and aesthetics) and the history of philosophy." (https://philosophy.ubc.ca/undergraduate/ba-philosophy/major/)
Metaphysics, which you mentioned, is only one of the subdisciplines, so they cannot all "accrue to metaphysical questions". Besides, I can't see how does all this apply to our subject. Which, we must not forget, talks about the "Philosophical Project", and which is something that remains still unexplained ...
With all due respect, you are a little bit hung up on finding citations for terminology. I don't mean to be unkind, maybe it is because English is not your first language, or because you are new to the field. Yes, some terms have broadly accepted definitions (although their actual scope of application may vary widely) such as "epistemology," and especially "metaphysics". But "the philosophical project" isn't something you can neatly pin down. I use it in the context of this inquiry (and in the context of a well-rounded knowledge philosophy in general) to designate the place of philosophy in my own life, which is committed to the pursuit of knowledge, at least to a significant degree.
I realize the field of philosophy can seem vast (indeed it is), and you have to start somewhere. But I really don't feel you can read a five page online precis of a five-hundred page book and claim to have a real understanding. Anymore than you can read a one page (or one paragraph) precis about the field of metaphysics, which consists of thousands of works, and believe you have authoritative knowledge.
English is my second language and I am a professional translator. I have also graduated from an American college.
But you miss the point here. It's not so the language itself the issue here --and in most cases in these discussions-- but the way one talks, arguments, describes a subject, uses terms, presents a point and so on. In short, it's more about how one thinks.
As for "new to the field", I don't know what "field" do you mean, but if it is philosophy in general, well, I started getting involved in it most probably before you were even born.
So, don't rush into conclusions so easily.
***
And, as for terminology, I advise you to also "get hung" on dictionaries because only then you will know what you --and also the others with whom you communicate-- are really talking about.
As for citations, they are sometimes necessary when one needs to explain terms, expressions and notions, esp. when one is asked for, without having to make long descriptions and also show that it is not something one has just got out of one's own head. For instance, about your "Philosophy Project". A description of which, BTW, never came, although I asked for it 3 times. So I have to conclude --and I'm sorry for that-- that you don't know yourself.
In fact I did answer it honestly and specifically. Maybe you should check your own expectations and presuppositions as they seem to be affecting your eyesight.
"But "the philosophical project" isn't something you can neatly pin down. I use it in the context of this inquiry (and in the context of a well-rounded knowledge philosophy in general) to designate the place of philosophy in my own life, which is committed to the pursuit of knowledge, at least to a significant degree."
Peace and bye.
What would a philosophy of reading or cooking look like? I would suggest that it would take something everyday and seek to place it within a more abstracted view of being.
In general, it would be the meta-view.
So that for me is the meaning of metaphysics. The move from the particular to the universal. From the concrete to the abstract. From that which is true of some things to that which is true of all things.
It would be by being able to cover all possible subjects using the same univocal approach that you would indeed demonstrate you have got somewhere with this goal of completely generalising discourse.
If you could turn even cooking and reading into a philosophy under your metaphysics, then that would be a feature and not a bug. By its own claims, metaphysics lacks subject limits as it is meant to be the universalising highest level view of any subject.
It is the umbrella discipline under which everything else more specific shelters. Metaphysics just speaks to the universalising tendency in rationally structured thought.
:100:
Precisely. It is really just a matter of perspective.
My feeling is that some people object to this because they are already locked into a specific metaphysical position which they hold "dogmatically" - as Fichte puts it.
Well, this has happened in mathematics as specifics have given way to greater and greater generalities, an approach that has brought together various ideas under broad umbrellas, and is certainly a popular trend (with virtually every grad student knowledgeable of category theory), but it leaves lower level intricacies inaccessible - particularly in real and complex analysis, the latter being very important in QT.
I wish I knew more about QT so I could assess how beneficial this has become (beyond Hilbert spaces, etc.) :chin:
In what sense inaccessible? Do you mean that generalisation actually ends up cutting its connection to the particular?
That shouldnt happen if it is being done right. This would be a reason why I say that the systems view - which is based on the living relation between the general and the particular - is the proper logic of metaphysical inquiry.
Vagueness, dichotomies and hierarchies. They are the triad on which metaphysics was originally founded. Anaximanders Apeiron was already there with that.
But then of course the value of atomism as an opposing metaphysics took over. Maths, logic and science shifted to an ontology of bottom up construction and othered the metaphysics of holism with its talk of downward acting formal and final constraints.
Nature became understood to be a machine. An engineered cosmic device.
No wonder the atomistic view of metaphysics felt so broke that its adherents felt the need to reject metaphysics in its entirety. Metaphysics of the original holistic kind was made the unspeakable.
A scientist or mathematician would seem to need no training in holistic reasoning. What would be the point if it made them uncomfortable about their mechanistic worldview that paid the bills?
With category theory, you do have that effort to return mathematics to some kind of holistic metaphysical foundation. Hegel and Peirce get dragged in as systems exponents.
But I just dont find category theory a success. I think it lacks the third essential ingredient of a logic of vagueness.
The same applies to quantum theory - at least in the discomfort folk have with its interpretation. The maths itself is all about the inability to have literally a nothingness. There is always an indeterminate potential. Or in other words, there is an everythingness that is a nothingness and so the deeper thing of a foundational vagueness. An Apeiron.
So every conversation must circle back to this schism in metaphysics. Holism produced its antithesis of Atomism. And instead of that then demonstrating the triadic or systematic integrity of the full holistic model, it became the argument for simply rejecting downwards causation, and building a world as understood in terms of upwards construction - a world of nothing but material and efficient cause.
That is how we ended up as Homo technologicalus - living mechanised lives in a mechanised world bemoaning the loss of something that was forever hard to put our finger on. Something organic, authentic, spiritual, in the way it spoke to the ontological reality of formal and final cause.
Holism is a theory of how top down constraints shape bottom up degrees of freedom as a virtuous - or at least self-creating and self-maintaining - closed cycle of activity. A cybernetic system. A dynamical balancing act.
In sharpening our epistemic models of the bottom-up construction part, that should have led to a sharper view of the top-down constraints. But the new mechanical view simply shoved all that metaphysics out of sight. Global constraints became laws that floated off to some place transcendent like mathematical Platonia or sciences mind of God.
Hence the metaphysical conversation stalled. One room got renovated and vastly enlarged. The other became some kind of attic full of forgotten relics. The basement - the grounding notion of vagueness or pure potentiality - was forgotten even to exist and became unvisited.
This sounds pretty pessimistic. But the realm of human discourse is also vast. The systems view does exist in every field. There is always plenty being said if your ears are attuned to it. It isnt the mainstream, but it quietly flourishes.
Mathematical Schemes is an example of current levels of abstraction. If I were an algebraist or topologist I would probably see the values therein. This entity aided in solving Fermat's Last Theorem. But its value in real or complex analysis is debatable. Here's an example that, for me, is vague - which you value. For others that vagueness is merely the ectoplasm of math.
You speak often of systems theory, and in math that begins with dz/dt=f(z,t) in the complex plane. Here the levels of vagueness are low, and chaos may grow out of these scenarios. What scheme theory has to say about this is a question for experts in these areas. But it appears schema theory means something else in biology.
Chaos can grow if divergence aint constrained. The real world problem is the maths may have formal exactness, but measurement is informal and thus inherently vague. Change a decimal place and you are on some different computed trajectory. And in practice, all actual computers introduce round up error at every iterative step - Lorenzs famous realisation.
So maths is infected by vagueness. But further constraints get tacked on - like the shadowing lemma - to limit its impact..
Your mention of scheme theory was useful. It triggered memory of the connection between Mobius transformations and complex number magic. The Mobius ring seems a great way to visualise complex quantum spin as a trapped internal degree of freedom in fermions. :up:
On GMP vs DST, the fact that motor control theory is hung up on this dialectic - is movement variety to be considered error in top down intentionality or plasticity in bottom up motor plan development - surely goes to my systems metaphysics? The answer is that the hierarchy of control relies on both in interaction. Intention is meant to constrain dynamical instability. But without that instability, there would be nothing to constrain.
Youve stumbled on to another example of science dividing a field into two warring camps because the thesis and antithesis both seem equally true. And also, a balanced stand off between two camps is what allows many papers to be written. It is a good career move that suits both sides.
I last studied motor control in the 1990s. This kind of split already felt anachronistic then.
You must have noticed that I used "philosophy" within quotation marks. This indicates "philosophy-like" or "pseudo-philosophy" or even "actually, not a philosophy". And this because the word "philosophy" (quotation marks have a different meaning here) is quite abused. You just have to think how often you hear or read "My philosophy of/on/for this and that is ..." referring not to life, but to trivial things in life. And I just gave some examples of such trivial things.
So, you don't have to dig philosophical views out of them. Instead, you can just replace the word "philosophy" in these cases with "view", "system", "method", "attitude", etc. whatever fits the case better.
:smile:
I think I'd say neither.
In relation to Aristotle it's hard to say, in my opinion. Was it as literal as an uncreative and tired copy-editor smugly naming it "After physics, cuz it's after the physics"? Is Aristotle's work actually literary, or given his demonstrated understanding of artistic writing, would it not be better to think of these as lecture notes which are as direct as possible so as not to confuse the poor students? Or does it really mean the summation of all things, as we've come to understand it? And did that really drive Aristotle, or is that more what we have come to see value in Aristotle, being obsessed with metaphysics ourselves? Wasn't it Heidegger that began this obsession with metaphysical foundations?
I'm not entirely sure that's all that's there... but for me, anymore, I have fewer opinions on metaphysics now than I have questions. At the most basic metaphysics is just that philosophy which addresses the question "What exists?" -- but even that says too much, because metaphysics is also considered the most general kind of philosophy at times, so that more than what exists is at stake, but rather, the whole kit-and-caboodle: ethics, ontology, aesthetics. . . a sort of Totality that encompasses everything. (and, indeed, I'd say that metaphysics -- especially post-Aristotle -- is more about justifying ethics than it is about truth, though of course truth is still important to both ethical stances so they argue about what is true too. Mostly taking Nussbaum's reading of late antiquity as read here)
And I think that sort of metaphysics is what I'd say Kant does a good number on: speak away, but I don't think it'll become scientific knowledge. So, at that point, what else could metaphysics be other than ethics?
Metaphysics seeks the structure of being in its most general sense. Ethics seeks the structure of human well-being.
One is cosmic in scope. A totalising inquiry into nature. The other is about dispositions within human social relations.
It is clear enough which is genus and which is species.
But metaphysics certainly changed for many folk after Aristotle laid down his hierarchical systems model of how to account for being in general. It went dualistic and reductionist. It became a broken and confused business - bent out of shape by the conflicting ontologies of Christianity and Newtonian mechanics.
OK. I thought you were replying to my point that metaphysics speaks to a particular logic of being rather than being some kind of unmoored, pluralistic, history of free speculation.
The phase you are calling metaphysics as ethics is just the application of this style of transcending inquiry to the practical job of forging a new technology of self. Ideas about justice, virtue, balance, etc, were the new universals by which society could start to organise itself and so scale a rational view of being.
Heh. I'd say that I'm not being that bad :D -- but I'm also not explaining myself well. I am directly answering your question, though, because I thought that'd be the most fruitful way to develop a discussion.
So in response to whether metaphysics is a method of inquiry, or a series of historical accidents, I think neither still fits the bill -- it's so much that it's honestly hard to define, in general. What metaphysics is depends upon the philosopher. And that's why I was focusing on Aristotle (which, in turn, invokes Kant, and that in turn invokes Heidegger, at least in developing these ideas and engaging with them)
On the whole I take the Aristotelian meta-philosophy, as I understand you to be pursuing, to be indicative of modern institutional philosophy: the quest for the ultimate answers about existence is a question for those informed of the sciences, trained by the institutions of knowledge -- themselves politically aligned to the elite of the world, training the future leaders of tomorrow. It very much fits along the lines of the Ivy League model of philosophy. And, internationally, a state college provides opportunities (hence why people travel internationally to attend them).
And I think that such a story could likely be assembled again. While it's hard to see how it fits together when we poke it, I think we get a sense that Aristotle's way of looking at the world did fit together, and so philosophy is just that practice by which we continue to refine the categories, the ways of knowing, the logics, and all the speculative questions while paying the bills by teaching tomorrow's leaders to be smarter than [s]the[/s] the average bear.
Quoting apokrisis
Is it a phase? Or is it just another way to do philosophy?
So the question as to whether metaphysics subsumes ethics or ethics subsumes metaphysics is just another example of the interchangeability of those dualist "above and below" perspectives, and the tension of the hierarchical problem of the aspirational "higher" that so bedevils and illuminates human life.
Id like to see a list of all the global elite who trained in metaphysics rather than law, accountancy, engineering, etc.
If metaphysics is the tech of the elite as you claim, then the evidence will be easy to find.
Well either humans are shaped by living within the constraints of nature, of they are becoming gods who switch places to be the global constraints on that the expression of natural potential.
So yes. Semiosis does enable life and mind to switch places. And with maths and technology, humans really get to fantasise about a complete switch. We can dream about simulating reality, uploading minds to a metaverse, creating new Big Bangs in colliders. All kinds of horseshit.
Formal and final cause can be shifted from nature in general to sit in the minds of humans in particular. It can seem that roles are reversed.
But then the second law of thermodynamics. Pull back the curtain and once more we see who is boss. :smile:
Without humans the second law of thermodynamics may be said to be non-existent. Rovelli says as much IIRC. But again this comes down to how "existence" is defined. Of course I am not in any way wanting to claim that we are not constrained by nature. :grin:
As you will be aware, there was once two branches of metaphysics: ontology and cosmology. Ontology studied "the nature of being", cosmology, the nature of the physical universe.
The term "cosmology" was absorbed into physics, leaving ontology for philosophers to play with.
The SEP article on Different conceptions of ontology within Logic and Ontology gives a neat potted overview of the sorts of questions with which ontology, is concerned. It's not the sort of speculative physics that remains so popular in this forum.
When a contemporary metaphysician asks what there is, they are more likely to be asking about things like the nature of numbers, or relations, or individuals, than of quarks or energy or information.
All this by way of supporting the notion that metaphysics is not just speculative physics. I suppose this may have been something like 's "To proceed beyond the facts..." quote.
Nice go at boundary policing. But ontic structural realism?
Maybe you're not pursuing this line of thinking, though. It seemed right to me, but you're acting like it's wrong -- so it must be wrong in some way. But I feel like I'm not being given a fair shake, either.
Aristotle was the metaphysician, and Alexander was the politician. In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle makes it pretty clear that abstract pictures of himself as a character and Alexander as a character are the pinnacle of human achievement, and thereby, goodness. (though he sneaks in a quick one to say that the life of the philosopher is actually the best one, which always makes me laugh). Further, the whole idea of the university can be traced back to Plato's academy and Aristotle's Lyceum -- there are definite differences as we live in wholly different economies, have different values, and all that. But that power structure, and the material reason for philosophers, is still there: the institutions of knowledge-production and preservation are given leeway to pursue their studies as a valid economic activity on the basis that they at least teach and train people to think.
So I think you're asking after the wrong evidence -- it's not like Alexander the Great used the four causes to create his empire. But it's not a stretch to think he was tutored in them, too. So it goes for the modern university, though the various principles and foci have changed. (considering we've produced more knowledge since then, I'd hope so!) -- and they'll change again. As they change I'm sure that philosophers will be able to put together a coherent picture of knowledge, at that moment. They've managed to do so many times throughout history, why not again? But it'll be a snapshot of reality at a moment in time -- and sometime down the line it'll seem quaint. And so the project will begin again, to re-assemble another snapshot of reality.
Note how this doesn't even make this kind of speculative physics false. I'm merely noting that there's more to metaphysics than it, that philosophy can be done other ways. Does that seem wrong to you?
I think I'm in that position I get to where I feel like anything I say on the matter looks wrong a moment after saying it -- at least in terms of looking at philosophy. Serious play, plumbing -- yes! and.... :D
For me I think the whole "way of life" rendition of philosophy will always have appeal, even though I recognize that the institutional philosophy isn't really pursuing that. I think my interest in this subject comes from trying to understanding philosophy in these two terms -- because in spite of my relationship to philosophy being different from that, I clearly still benefit from, or at least owe a debt to, institutional philosophy.
That ellipsis is the important stuff. It is what can only be shown, and also what cannot be shared at all.
Quoting apokrisis
Boundary policing?
and all, for better or worse, philosophy includes the philosopher improving. That's the part of the nature of philosophy that is lost if philosophy is just speculative physics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_republicanism
The bug still bites, at times, and I try. Tempted to call the philosophy bug a beetle...
That's not helping my confusion as much as adding to it.
Start over with this question?
Quoting apokrisis
Is that the issue at stake? Am I not answering the question in saying it is neither of these things, but something else? Couldn't that be civics?
So metaphysics is civics? Is that what you want to argue? Be my guest.
What? Not even one of the things at stake under the umbrella definition of metaphysics? Is this now your claim?
And what do you mean by speculative physics exactly? Examples?
The examples would be from around here abouts. I've indluged too, and even still do so.
Do you mean philosophy or metaphysics?
I consider myself a natural meliorist - make of that what you will. ;)
It seems to me personally that ingesting scientific and philosophical writings is like self-programming for an open-ended task. So I'm abstractly conceptualizing this as something like the self-programming of an emergent AI, i.e. consciousness programming itself as it self-instantiates objectively (materializes). Probably not coincidentally, this aligns conceptually with the Fichte I'm reading now.
Or something along those lines....
If you really want to boil it down, I would say that it ingrains the habit of counterfactual thinking. It forces us to arrive at truth by way of discounting all other possible alternatives.
Greek rhetoric and forensic speech pioneered this as social habit. You had the four steps of the prologue to set out a claim, the narration to provide the atomic facts, the proof which weighed the claim against all other alternative interpretation of these facts, then the epilogue to show the claim now stood substantiated.
So this was how you argued in a democratic and legalistic civic setting. Opinion was replaced by forensic argument. The facts of the matter were broken down into the simplest atomic certainties. The theory that made holistic sense of a set of named facts was then shown to beat out rival interpretations.
The same structure of thought was applied to mathematical proof, scientific method, logical argument. It boiled down to the certainty of being able to say "this, because not that".
This is similar to the modern concept of deliberative democracy which looks at the origins and types of legitimation, public reason, the duty of civility, principles of justice, etc. I do think the role of philosophy in the social or public good is essential.
:cool: