Whats your description of Metaphysics?
After reading A.J. Ayres Language, Truth and Logic, which the central theme is to dispute the need of metaphysics, and then hearing the author, when he was much older, state that,most of it is false, I found myself looking for a clear description of metaphysics. I think I found it.
RG Collingwood wrote, I write these words sitting on the deck of a ship; his pen moves across the page. I lift my eyes and see a piece of string a line, I must call it at sea stretched more or less horizontally above me. I find myself thinking that is a clothes-line. But this single proposition, that is a clothes-line, cannot be verified by observation. A minute examination of the string, a scientific investigation of its parts, cannot reveal its truth, because that is a clothes-line means, in part: it was put there to hang washing on. And this at once situates the object against a vast, rationally structured background of human life and history a background that contains clothes and baths and soap, hygiene and standards of taste, ideas about cleanliness and smell and beauty, and reasons and motives and desires.
This transcendent background, the reality that surrounds us, is the subject matter of metaphysics, and without it Ayers favoured propositions are left, like the clothes-line, hanging in the air.
I like it, but what is your best description of Metaphysics?
RG Collingwood wrote, I write these words sitting on the deck of a ship; his pen moves across the page. I lift my eyes and see a piece of string a line, I must call it at sea stretched more or less horizontally above me. I find myself thinking that is a clothes-line. But this single proposition, that is a clothes-line, cannot be verified by observation. A minute examination of the string, a scientific investigation of its parts, cannot reveal its truth, because that is a clothes-line means, in part: it was put there to hang washing on. And this at once situates the object against a vast, rationally structured background of human life and history a background that contains clothes and baths and soap, hygiene and standards of taste, ideas about cleanliness and smell and beauty, and reasons and motives and desires.
This transcendent background, the reality that surrounds us, is the subject matter of metaphysics, and without it Ayers favoured propositions are left, like the clothes-line, hanging in the air.
I like it, but what is your best description of Metaphysics?
Comments (204)
The question of the ultimate conditions constraining what can be known or said about our lives is not a theory, as such. Different theories that propose a closure is possible to answer such a question can be interesting but do not make them less provisional in relation to how little we know.
On another note, I did not understand what Collingwood is trying to say. That sounds to me more like poetry than philosophy, evenmoreso than Nietzsche.
Evocative. So that will be counted as a vote of no.
I understand that view. I thought the OP was asking if there is something to consider beyond that perspective.
How are we to understand 'fiction', as you describe it, as the builder of experiences? If you are appealing to a principle of causality, that sounds more like an ontology.
Exactly. Not to mention that questions like "are virtual particles real?" or "are species real?" are ontological questions about "what truly exists."
My favorite philosophy book I've read recently is Robert Sokolowski's "The Phenomenology of the Human Person." It's a mashup of Husserl and Aristotle relying on a good deal of philosophy of language/linguistics work as well (making it a bit dry). It's interesting in that it starts grounding itself in Husserl and phenomenology, but ends up proceeding through Aristotle to a place very similar to Saint Aquinas.
Sokolowski's contention is that human beings are essentially (by nature) "agents of truth." The phenomenological experience of learning language and human communication entails the statement of truth and performance of veracity. Predication is built into the fabric of human intersubjectivity and is essential, hence man's being the "rational animal." So to, the ability to truly be "an agent," is also tied up in the pursuit of truth, as knowledge of the world is essential to effect change in it.
I would say then that metaphysics is the most general project in this attempt to become agents of truth. More specifically, we could say it's the type of work Aristotle does in the Metaphysics, but also the Categories and the Physics as well (at least re substance). It's an accounting of the most general intelligibilities within reality writ large.
And truth cannot be known through language? But from whence comes this sui generis language that floats completely free of the world?
It seems to me that language is grounded in human phenomenology. It is grounded in the intelligibility of the world. If human experience has "nothing to do" with truth that would be quite a problem indeed. We would be consigned to radical skepticism and solipsism, unable to know anything. And yet no one lives like this is true.
It seems similar to the problem dreamed up by Locke and Kant whereby we can only ever know ideas and not the mysterious "things in themselves." This seems to simply be looking at things the wrong way. An idea or sensation is something by which we know the world. Ideas are as the carpenter's saw is to a piece of wood. The same might be said of language, although it straddles the intersubjective sphere. The mistake is akin to saying "a carpenter cannot make a chest because only the saw ever cuts the wood."
Anyhow, given we accept the contents of your statement, isn't it then impossible for us to accept that anything you've said is true? It is, being language, rather irredeemably alienated from the truth.
As for your reference earlier to my suggestion about Language. Sorry, I don't doubt you were clear, I rather lack the confidence to be sure in my reading: are you suggesting Language and, I would presume, Reason, pre-exist their emergence in the human experience? In Kantian (and I think Platonic, see the slave and the triangle, anamnesis ) terms, are you suggesting Reason and Language are Real (even, have a higher place in the hierarchy of Reality than human perception, for e.g.) and that, even if you were to concede that all of our experiences are Fictional, Language and Reason were already there to build that, otherwise, how did we get to our seemingly pure ideas? If that's what you're suggesting, pardon my simplistic terms, this is what I think, to keep it simple. Before Language developed into the very structure of human Consciousness, it existed as images stored in memory and used by the organically aware human animal to organically trigger conditioned responses helpful to survival and prosperity. A roar means run, no need to "think" about it. Language and reason developed out of that X means Y (note X isnt really Y). And there's no room for any explanation of that process of evolution here. But that process is Real. However, the idea that Language, and especially sophisticated reason, pre-exist our Fictional Structure in which they were both incubated and reached their current form, I think is a falsehood we are compelled to believe in order to support that fictional structure. Anyway, that's me making assumptions about your point, and trying to express mine briefly. I hope I haven't frustrated you by missing yours entirely.
Metaphysics is the study of the metaphysical. The metaphysical encompasses entities (purported to be) beyond the physical.
I agree. Materialism/physicalism fall under metaphysics. Unity of nature, causality are a couple of others, I would say. All systems of belief have some generalized assumptions - or, for the cautious, working hypotheses about ontology - it seems to me, that cannot be demonstrated to be true.
I can't really see how physics can avoid ontology and that's part of metaphysics.
Of course metaphysics, the word, has been used a lot pejoratively and is associated by some with certain kinds of ontological claims and not others.
My jam is negative ontology (i.e. a deductive process of elimination of the impossibie, or ways the world necessarily could not have been or cannot be described), a rationalist near-analogue of negative theology. :smirk:
And empirical observation isnt grounded in any kind of presuppositions of the sort that Collinwood is getting at , a mesh of implicit, pragmatic relevance relations that make what we observe intelligible to us in connection with our larger goals and purposes?
Collinwood seems to be borrowing from Heidegger, who uses the example of a hammer to demonstrate how we come to know objects. The hammer as a persisting thing with attributes and properties is secondary to, because derived deom our actual use of the hammer in goal oriented activities. And this use is itself inextricably bound up with a larger totality of relevance relations between us and our world. As Thomas Kuhn showed with respect to scientific knowledge, these larger relevance relations define what is recognized as evidence of the real , and informs all our observations. Such superordinate schemes of interpretation, or paradigms, are what contemporary philosophers mean by metaphysics.
Is it? What then, of the natural sciences?
The subject matter of metaphysics, is the methodology by which the natural sciences regarding the reality surrounding us, is comprehensible.
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Quoting Rob J Kennedy
. this kind of a priori knowledge must unquestionably be looked upon as given; in other words, metaphysics must be considered as really existing, if not as a science, nevertheless as a natural disposition of the human mind. For human reason, without any instigations imputable to the mere vanity of great knowledge, unceasingly progresses, urged on by its own feeling of need, towards such questions as cannot be answered by any empirical application of reason, or principles derived therefrom; and so there has ever really existed in every man some system of metaphysics. It will always exist, so soon as reason awakes to the exercise of its power of speculation. And now the question arises: How is metaphysics, as a natural disposition, possible? In other words, how, from the nature of universal human reason, do those questions arise which pure reason proposes to itself, and which it is impelled by its own feeling of need to answer as well as it can?
But as in all the attempts hitherto made to answer the questions which reason is prompted by its very nature to propose to itself, for example, whether the world had a beginning, or has existed from eternity, it has always met with unavoidable contradictions, we must not rest satisfied with the mere natural disposition of the mind to metaphysics, that is, with the existence of the faculty of pure reason, whence, indeed, some sort of metaphysical system always arises; but it must be possible to arrive at certainty in regard to the question whether we know or do not know the things of which metaphysics treats. We must be able to arrive at a decision on the subjects of its questions, or on the ability or inability of reason to form any judgement respecting them; and therefore either to extend with confidence the bounds of our pure reason, or to set strictly defined and safe limits to its action ..
...and yet here you are, trying to argue for a view of what is true, or at least "what is the case." I don't think it can be otherwise. Even the thinkers most dedicated to negating the idea of truth, the unabashed solipsists, still feel the need to speak their conception of truth into the intersubjective space we all inhabit. To me, this bespeaks the essence of human person as an agent necessarily involved in veracity.
Further, living into veracity can clearly be done well (e.g. Socrates, Spinoza, etc.) or poorly (Plato's shameful Protagoras, or his nihilistic and unhappy Gorgias, although we must remember, for veracity's sake, that these are no more the real men than Euripides' Socrates in The Clouds). If we cannot live like our beliefs are true, it seems like we are in danger of living poorly.
Truth is slippery, but it also asserts itself in our lives. We can talk about scientific narratives as fictions all we want, and there might be a grain of truth in these critiques. However, at the end of the day techne, the ability to use a model of the world to enhance our casual powers (to cross continents in a day, create the internet, etc.) talks, bullshit walks. "The truth will set you free;" it allows you to do new things in ways falsity will not. Something is asserting itself when a flying machine based on the principles of lift and aerodynamics soars into the sky, while another based on different principles crashes to the ground. Techne is the proof of gnosis.
Language pre-exists any individual human's experience, yes. Language is itself a species of communication, and so elements of it pre-exist humanity, or even the hominid genus. Aside from children who are locked away from the world, who, if they live, end up with profound disabilities, all humans are emersed in language from the very outset of their lives. Language itself is determined by the nature of human experience. How could it be otherwise? Such experience is necessarily, by nature, communal and intersubjective, and it is through this that predication and judgement become essential to human experience.
Reason can be defined in many ways. Animals have some aptitude for what we might call reason, and so reason would seem to pre-exist humanity. More importantly, reason qua human reason preexists any individual human, and we are immersed in it from birth.
Does "reason" exist "out there," prior to life? This seems to come down to how one defines reason. If we define it as necessarily involving awareness, first person subjective experience, then it would not appear to pre-exist life. But scientists have no problem referring to "the logic of thermodynamics," and we have no difficulty in applying the "tools of [our] reason" to the world. So, regardless of how we define reason, it seems that, if any knowledge of the world is possible, at least parts of the world must be intelligible. Intelligibility suggests a certain sort of reason, although I prefer the old term logos here in that it is less bound up in the subjective elements of rationality.
If intelligibility didn't exist "out there," we should have no reason to think that the intelligibility in our minds should be anything like that of other minds. If our reason is sui generis, unrelated to how the world is, then we cannot appeal to things like natural selection for explaining why different minds should view the same world. But if this is the case, then even if we allow for the possibility of other minds, we should be forever isolated from them.
There is a strong pragmatic argument against this sort of radical skepticism. Moreover, I'd argue that it's actually quite impossible for a human being to live as if this was true. Empirically, it also seems to have problems. If our world of intelligibility floats free of the world, what should cause it to be intelligible? Why shouldn't we live the way stroke victims describe their experiences, with a random stream of sensation, one second recognizing intelligibilities, the next unable to decipher text? The uncaused has no reason for being one way and not another; yet it surely seems like the structure of human experience has causes.
Anyhow, at the risk of being long winded, I will include Sokolowski's summary of how Husserl grounds predication and syntax in the essentials of human experience.
Truth is necessarily something tied to the intersubjective sphere. Truth is contentless without the possibility of falsity, and falsity is only a possibility once subjectivity arrives on the scene. It's a mistake to think truth is impossible to grasp because it lies "out there" beyond the realm of subjectivity.
Would it be fair though to say that such a project requires positive metaphysical assertions that they might be either rejected or granted a stay of execution? It seems to me that metaphysics, like other disciplines, must be dialectical.
This gets to the above point. Many metaphysicians have focused on promoting non-dualism, the unity of all things (e.g. Parmenides, Plotinus, etc.). And yet, to uncover what is meant by unity, one has to deal with an analysis of multiplicity. The process being dialectical, it seems it has to deal with such oppositions.
That, or the claim is that such paradigms are the means by which metaphysics is understood. The claim that it's "paradigms all the way down," is itself a particular metaphysical claim that is often rejected.
I agree that belief, and more specifically, belief in Truth, is functional, even functionally necessary within the context of our uniquely constructed Fictional world. What I'm saying, and particularly with respect to the original post regarding metaphysics and its pursuit, is can we recognize that, while functional (the foundation of arts, sciences, etc.), it cannot do what it tries to claim: it cannot uncover any iota of Real Truth. Real Truth is in Being, not knowing (knowing, being a thing we construct and believe, or settle upon, following a dialectical-like process which takes place only within the Fiction and applying only the tools of that Fiction). Or, in other words, "yes, everything I am saying is a lie, including this" is a trap we cannot exit. But the lies are nevertheless useful, since that's where we inescapably find our "selves"
Those that are "rejected" are ones referred to as impossible and thereby are self-negating; however, whichever "assertions" are not negated, whether they are stated explicitly or not, are "granted" ...
I think, Count, Spinoza's Ethics exemplifies an exception to such a rule (pace Hegel).
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Ate you suggesting that a metaphysical scheme is the kind of thing that can be proven true or false?
Maybe; I was thinking more of the back and forth between different metaphysicians over history.
I mean, this really depends on what you mean by "proven." Certainly, some metaphysical theories might be shown to be contradictory via actual proofs, but in general they get shot down in a more abductive manner. You can't prove that Ayn Rand's Objectivism isn't good metaphysics with an abacus, but you can certainly make very good arguments that it's fatally flawed.
Only within a taken-for-granted , unquestioned set of normative presuppositions concerning the nature of the real can empiricist notions like proof and validation be considered as definitive. A metaphysics is the basis of the intelligibility of truth and falsity, not the product of empirical ascertainment of truth and falsity.
For Husserl, the real objects whose constitution Sokolowski wrote about are themselves idealities
So the truth of what you just wrote only holds within the context of taken-for-granted, unquestioned presuppositions?
Why must all presuppositions be "taken-for-granted" and "unquestionable?" First principles seem eminently questionable. It also seems eminently possible to put forth first principles that can clash with reality. E.g., the claim that all things are essentially composed of fire, water, air, and earth doesn't seem to jive with these being decomposable into smaller constituent parts.
Edit: this also seems overly foundationalist. Truth is a prephilosophical concept. If Grug tells Ugg not to eat the last mammoth ribs, goes to get fire wood, comes back, finds the mammoth ribs gone and mammoth grease and bits of ribs hanging from Ugg's beard, and Ugg tells him "I did leave the ribs," Grugg's judgement that this is false doesn't rely on metaphysics. I would say rather than truth appears to be one of the things metaphysics and epistemology must explain. That statements might be true or false is a basic fact of the world to be explained.
Oh. You wrote "metaphysics" not "metaphysicians" and, in reference to my post on negative ontology, your response here to my reference to Spinoza Ethics makes even less sense especially since I'm engaged in a "back and forth" with the OP, you (so far) and other readers of this thread.
Ah, I think I see the confusion. I meant "metaphysics," as in the entire discipline, not a particular metaphysics. It's much easier to locate the set of impossibilities if people are kind enough to posit them.
As much as some philosophers try to be an exception to this (Hegel's logic for instance, tries to be "presuppositionless"), authors are invariably influenced by the ideas that have come before them. After all, what would be the point of doing metaphysics if you thought someone else had adequately explained the entire topic?
But we've also comes to realize that what we can know of the world, is substantially reduced from what we would like to know about it. So now, if we want to engage in metaphysics, it must be done through an epistemological lens.
So, the question shifts somewhat from what is the nature of the world to: "what is it that can we say, given the creatures we are, about the nature of the world."
What is it that makes a state of affairs true or false, that makes basic facts of the world what they are to us? Is it something separable from language , or is it only within the premises set up by language games that what is or is not the case can reveal its sense to us? What must already be understood between Ugg and Gregg, and in what way, in order for them to share the notion of violation of trust that applies here? And is not this understanding formed on the basis of contextual interactions between the two actors, rather than the facts pre-existing their co-determination of what is at issue and at stake?
:up:
The issue of betrayed trust is sort of besides the point. A person can utter an obvious falsehood without intending any deception, and our senses can also deceive us. The point is that notions of truth and falsity are prephilosophical. Obviously, such things are context dependent. One cannot be told false statements outside of some sort of social contact, but that broad context is also universal to the human experience.
But again, I'd ask:
It's just a comment on methodology in the field writ large. I was thinking this makes it, in certain respects, quite different from apophatic theology, since there will still be a focus on the definite and empirical sense data. Placing "a cloud of forgetting," and a "cloud of unknowing," between the soul and all things might be a strategy for contemplating the truly infinite and divine, but it won't seem to do for giving an accounting of metaphysics. The methodology of the apophatic theologians, such as Saint John of the Cross, tends to focus on separating from all sense data and concepts, whereas, in some respects, metaphysics seems to require these even if the goal is of the discipline would be defined in negative terms.
Metaphysics is the study of everything beyond what physics explains, that is a satisfying enough answer for many people, especially laymen. After all, when we talk about possibility, the modality of metaphysics encompasses the modality of physics.
So as a separate subject from physics, metaphysics would have to talk about whatever is inside the circle of metaphysics and outside the circle of physics.
That opens the questions: for physicalists, is there such a thing as metaphysics as a separate discipline?
Quoting Joshs
For sure, but so are the alternatives.
Quoting Joshs
That is funny, because some time (a few years) ago I briefly wrote exactly about "what is a hammer?". The conclusion was overall the same to put it in Aristotelian terms, the definition of 'hammer' is in nothing but its final cause, though the definition of 'steel' we would all agree is in its material cause (iron and carbon).
Modal metaphysics concerns the metaphysical underpinning of our modal statements. These are statements about what is possible or what is necessarily so.
Metaphysics underpins modal logic. Which, if you had to venn it, would make metaphysics the containing set. Which is logical.
It's pretty straightforward. Human beings exist and are not merely logical. Therefore logic does not subsume metaphysics. Logic does not in any way supersede, condition, or determine existence; rather the reverse. As an epistemological construct, maybe logic is fundamental; probably not. But this is about metaphysics.
Quoting Lionino
What do you think about the placement of logic outside the circle of metaphysics? What kind of logic are we talking about here ( Continentals use the term in a much broader way than Analytic philosophers) , and what aspect of logic could be considered superordinate to metaphysics? There has been much written in recent years on the dependence of formal logic on certain kinds of metaphysics presuppositions.
'Metaphysics', by my lights, is the study of that which is beyond the possibility of all experience, but is necessary to understand that experience.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes , if I were to claim what I wrote as a truth , rather than as an invitation to try on for size a particular way of thinking about matters.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
But the reality they clash with is already contaminated and interwoven with the schemes of understanding represented by the principles themselves. We will only ever know reality as constraints and affordances that are responsive to our schemes.
[quote="Count Timothy von Icarus;879511"]The issue of betrayed trust is sort of besides the point. A person can utter an obvious falsehood without intending any deception, and our senses can also deceive us. The point is that notions of truth and falsity are prephilosophical. Obviously, such things are context dependent. One cannot be told false statements outside of some sort of social contact, but that broad context is also universal to the human experience.[/quote
You seem to be thinking of truth in terms of correctness , a match between what seems to be the case and what is really the case. This assumes that what is the case maintains its sense over time such that we can compare the real with the seeming. Formal logic is based on putting into symbolic form this assumption concerning objects that they retain their original sense independent of the continually changing ways we are interacting with them and with each other. In the case of a lie, the breakdown of trust is not peripheral to the ascertainment of truth. What is perceived as a deliberate falsehood by one party may be the result of a difference of interpretation. And in the case of a deliberate lie, it is assumed by the lying party that that they will not be understood as they wish to be understood. In other words, the lie is an attempt to compensate for a breakdown in shared values, goals and understandings. You might counter that i. the case of Grug and Ugg, their breakdown in trust doesnt negate that there is a basic fact at stake, but I would argue that even the seemingly simplest and most straightforward example of a factual situation involves a change of the sense of meaning of what is at stake , and thus a change in the interpretation of what is the case. This is what the later Wittgenstein was trying to teach us about how language doesnt just act as a connector better subject and object, but always refreshes the sense of what an object is in the very act of using words.
You dont think the history of metaphysics has to do with the changing ways we think about the sense of meaning of what is real? In other words, isnt metaphysics more about sense than reality? For instance, if one can claim that the change in physics from Newton to Heisenberg is a change in metaphsical presuppositions, then this involves a subtle transformation in the sense of meaning of terms like mass and energy, rather than whether mass and energy are real.
Valid, no metaphysics can make a married man a bachelor.
I guess we are asking whether metaphysics is better characterized by the theory, or what the theory is about. Like we assume any viewpoint has metaphysical presuppositions, but then the validity of those presuppositions is ultimately borne out...in a metaphysical sense. In other words, a metaphysical theory is consequential. So if your metaphysical theory is the substantially dual, and metaphysics exists as a theory in your head, material metaphysics is completely completely disconnected from the noumenal metaphysics, then you are left with idealism.
Which doesn't seem to be the case. Rather (and intuitively) having a theory about the nature of reality (if it is accurate) ought to prove useful in some way, or lead in some direction. So I'd say metaphysics is about the relationship between our understanding of reality and reality. And if reality impinges on understanding, then understanding must in some sense impinge on reality. Either there is a connection and a contact - which has to then be mutual - or there is not. People ask metaphysical questions in order to effect fundamental reorientations, not so much of what specifically they do, but the way in which they do things. If I come to believe in the transcendence of the spirit, perhaps I change the way I perceive, think, and act.
Which would have no sense or meaning were there not extant men, both married and unmarried. So yes, logic is unconstrained by metaphysics, just so long as it is meaningless.
How about, it is an objectified version of subjective experience.
Quoting Tom Storm
I agree. Although I would change "presupposition" to simply "assertion." And would add that the notion that reality cannot be understood is also a metaphysical assertion.
Despite how impossible it seems (or is) to prove a metaphysical assertion is accurate, by being a subject, a metaphysic of that subjective being (whether it is ever discovered or accurately asserted) is also there. If I assert "I am" I am simultaneously asserting "The world is" and now the subjective is seen objectively or metaphysically.
I don't see how we can assert anything and not simultaneously assert a metaphysic of the world where the original assertion has been asserted. Doesn't mean the assertion had any true content or even identifiable content. Doesn't mean you know something accurate about the metaphysical, but it does mean there is some content, and with it, some metaphysics of a content-laden world.
Well, certainly the Pythagoreans went in that direction. Mathematics is definitely a very powerful thing, as things go.
Quoting Lionino
Metaphysics cant put into question the law of non-contradiction?
Quoting Pantagruel
Doesnt any viewpoint or theory implicitly lead us in certain directions and prove useful in the sense that it organizes our world in some fashion? What does it mean to ask if a metaphysics is accurate in its depiction of the real? Cant different metaphysical systems be accurate in very different ways?
I don't know if metaphysics is so much of a system as it is a question. Science makes metaphysical assumptions, within which it does its thing. The assertion that those particular assumptions constitute the answer to the totality of the metaphysical question is where the issue arises. Does scientific information do justice to the totality of of what it means to be a thinking, caring, acting human being in a universe that both yields to and supports and memorializes our thoughts and deeds? There are a variety of competing paradigms in civilization, religion, science, art, history, philosophy. Each of which can try to lay claim to being the ultimate metaphysical truth. It would seem to be a synthesis. Is any of these disposable?
The reason I asked the question, "what is your best description of Metaphysics?", was because I wanted to see how other saw metaphysics, and now, I've got that.
However, I'm still captured by the English philosopher and historian R. G. Collingwood's description. One, because as someone pointed out, it is poetic, and two, obviously for Collingwood, his description best expressed metaphysics for him, and it fits my description of metaphysics.
I feel we have expanded on the description and hopefully, for others, and myself, it has made the subject clearer.
Here's Collingwood's description again, just for the sake of clarity.
I write these words sitting on the deck of a ship; his pen moves across the page. I lift my eyes and see a piece of string a line, I must call it at sea stretched more or less horizontally above me. I find myself thinking that is a clothes-line. But this single proposition, that is a clothes-line, cannot be verified by observation. A minute examination of the string, a scientific investigation of its parts, cannot reveal its truth, because that is a clothes-line means, in part: it was put there to hang washing on. And this at once situates the object against a vast, rationally structured background of human life and history a background that contains clothes and baths and soap, hygiene and standards of taste, ideas about cleanliness and smell and beauty, and reasons and motives and desires.
This transcendent background, the reality that surrounds us, is the subject matter of metaphysics, and without it Ayers favoured propositions are left, like the clothes-line, hanging in the air.
It seems more accurate to say that science makes pragmatic, that is methodologically determined, assumptions.
Like Collingwood, are you an 'absolute idealist' (& historicist)?
It is a commonly held view that science makes metaphysical presuppositions. I personally believe that our metaphysical presuppositions underly our basic orientation with respect to reality, and that everyone has them, whether they are aware of what they are or not.
Metaphysical assumptions of science
You seem to be missing my point, which is that experiences of truth and falsity are (initially) prephilosophical. Every human has some conception of truth or falsity, even if they have never spent much time pondering metaphysics. There is a naive sense of true and false that is endemic to the human experience.
So, you might consider that this...
...is a particular theory of truth, grounded in metaphysical assumptions. It is an attempt to explain something we already know to exist in experience. But you could as well argue that the truth and falsity are best explained by the ways our language instantiates propositions (eternal, abstract objects). These propositions are "made true," iff a truth maker exists for them in the world, and a statement is true when it expresses a true proposition.
These are competing narratives of truth, attempts to explain what is already before us. But how are we to compare between these if they are essentially based on unquestioned (and thus unquestionable/arbitrary?) presuppositions? That you advance one theory of truth over another seems to presuppose that they are not all equally arbitrary, equally grounded in nothing.
This is, likewise, a particular claim about metaphysics, anthropology, and epistemology. Is this true? It seems to me you could as well claim that this is simply a flawed paradigm. It seems to make it so that we can only know things about our cognitive schemes, and yet no human being actually lives like their assertions of veracity only refer to their individual cognitive schemes. At the very least, they think their claims apply to other's cognitive schemes, else there would be no point in communicating.
The flaw in the paradigm would be to see cognitive schemes as a barrier between man and the world, as opposed to "the means by which the world is grasped." That is, it would be akin to arguing that man cannot see because he needs eyes to do so, or cannot write because he needs something to write with.
But again, these are attempts to explain basic facets of the human experience. And the question returns: [b] by what metric are these explanations judged? Why assert one over the other? [/B]
If such explanations aren't said to be true, but are rather "invitations to try on for size a particular way of thinking about matters," why should anyone accept such invitations? If such explanations are always grounded in what is unquestionable, then it seems like any way of "thinking about things," is arbitrary, in which case, why care about how others think about things? Appeals to creativity, avoiding fascism, pragmatism, etc. all presuppose that, in point of fact, there is some external metric by which these explanations can truly be said to be more or less (insert criteria here).
This seems in a similar vein to your assertion that every scholar "reads different Nietzsches." If, when we read a text, everyone reads a different text, and no one's version of the text is subject to correction, then it seems like communication will become impossible. If my version of Nietzsche is totally divorced from others' interpretation of Nietzsche, if there is no grounds for judging between them re veracity, then we are left with each text having an infinite number of valid meanings, and no message is truly communicated.
This seems mistaken to me. We can allow that there is no "one objective reading" of a text, and yet still allow that interpretations can be inaccurate. If someone were to claim that their reading of Plato reveals that he is a nominalist philosopher who thinks that the apparently shared traits of different objects are just names we have come up with for similar phenomena in sense perception, they would simply be reading Plato backwards. A sign that says "closed," on a store cannot be rightly interpreted as the merchant inviting people to come in.
To my mind, the mistake here is to think that, because ideas of truth are bound up in conceptual schemes, that it reduces to nothing else. Further, it's a mistake to think conceptual schemes are arbitrary. If this were the case, knowledge would be impossible. We would live in entirely different worlds if there was not something external to us to make our conceptual schemes synch up (and thus something to judge such schemes by). More importantly, our reasons for thinking we are correct about this even being the case would be equally arbitrary.
Edit: you might also consider that people can voice propositions about other people's mental states. But it seems impossible to deny some sort of non-arbitrary, prephilosophical reality that obtains as respects statements like "you aren't in pain," or "you think this tastes wonderful." To say that these are completely malleable statements, that "we can both be right depending on our starting principles," as to whether something causes you to experience pain, is essentially to erase the truth of other minds.
Scientists "make" working or methodological assumptions which themselves presuppose "metaphysical" commitments; changing such assumptions can also change what those assumptions presuppose (e.g. Newtonian absolute space & absolute time vs Einsteinian relativistic spacetime vs (background-dependent) string theory vs (background-independent) loop quantum gravity ...)
The degree to which any given scientist may believe in the provisionality or scope of said metaphysical commitments of course can vary. Which is why science can find itself in its metaphysically exaggerated form as scientism. The danger of course being people who lean in this direction without acknowledging that they are so doing. Which is why I hold that our metaphysical beliefs underpin the way we actually live our lives.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I would agree that humans have a conception of validation and invalidation, but I would distinguish this from truth and falsity in the following way: as anticipatory sense-makers, we are able to determine the extent to which new events are are referentially consistent or inconsistent with our expectations. Included in this claim is the assumption that experience never repeats itself; it is always in motion with respect to itself from moment to moment. This does not mean that there are not robust regularities and patterns to be construed within the flux of time. It is these regularities that make science, and human communication in general , possible. We always find ourselves ensconced within these normative regularities, and even when there is revolutionary change , this takes place not as a completely arbitrary event , but against the backdrop of an already structured, if always changing, understanding of the world which , while differing from one person to the next and one moment to the next, avails itself of relative social consensus for given periods of time.
If the notions of truth and falsity presume we can experience events that sit still, that persist self-identically over time in their content such that we can refer back to them in order to compare them with other events, then I would say that conception of truth is something that emerged at some point in human history as a contingent assumption , but that such a notion of truth as correctness cannot be said to be pre-metaphysical , universal , a priori or anything of the kind.
Do I claim that my theory of validation is true? I can only say that it is the way that my experience of events makes sense to me in this moment. A moment from now i will have to retest my construal of events to see if how I interpret things to be is inferentially compatible with my current anticipations, based on my current schemes of thought. All I can say is that thus far my way of construing matters in a metaphysical sense has continued to be relatively consistent from moment to moment, day to day and year to year. I cant make any claims beyond this. I will say that this structured , regulated and patterned self-transformation is the case for all people at all times , but in making this claim I have to put it to the test every moment. It can never be a settled fact for me but only a construal that must re-validate itself against new events. At least this is how I construe it to be right now. You can see how self-reflexive change is built into my very notion of knowing.
What I have offered concerning the difference between validation and truth doesnt invalidate for me the claims you have made about how language works, how scientific truth is grounded, the nature of subjective experiences like pain. Instead , when I hear you talk about objects , be they linguistic, subjectively felt , intersubjectively agreed on or independent of all human experience, I burrow beneath the alleged intrinsicality, fixity and self-sameness of these objects as truths to locate a rich , hidden realm of subtle changes in my construing of such things, and I imagine such changes taking place within your awareness of them, but at a level that is deeply implicit. What you explicitly identify are static , temporarily unchanged objects that can be manipulated via logic and mathematics, without recognizing either their flux or the dependence of their sense on your anticipatory construing. In deconstructing your concepts, I leave intact everything you are trying to preserve about truth , but enrich these concepts.
The reward I get from my endless testing out of my anticipations is not truth, but the validation that the fresh new event in front of me bears a reasonable resemblance to the previous, that it makes sense, that it makes my world familiar, recognizable , intimate, relevant and meaningful.
I am aware of the existence of para-consistent logic. I would not call that metaphysics, I would not even say that it hinges on metaphysics. It is simply a different syntax.
Maybe you can enlighten me, is there metaphysics that uses or validates para-consistent logics? I looked it up online and clicked the first thing that showed up: On the Possibility of Metaphysical Dialetheism, from 2021. It says there:
Someone from the 16th century talking about dialetheism would be deemed as insane or a moron (I imagine). So I am open to new horizons, but it seems that these horizons have not been sailed yet in 2024, as only three years ago they are still deemed "controversial" and hardly an "open possibility".
Quoting Lionino
The critical analyses of the principle of non-contraction I have in mind were conducted by Witntgenstein, phenomenologists like Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, and poststructuralists like Heidegger, Deleuze and Derrida.
For instance,
Well, the circularity of your "metaphysical belief", sir, begs the question. Besides, Christians mostly do not "actually live" Christ-like or miraculous "lives" even though 'Christ & miracles' are explicit "metaphysical beliefs" (e.g. Thomism, Calvinism) just as atheist materialists mostly do not "actually live" purposeless "lives" even though 'the purposelessness of material existence' is an explicit "metaphysical belief (e.g. nihilism, absurdism). Under existential-pragmatic scrutiny, sir, your espousal of Collingwood's absolute idealism does not hold up.
:up: :up:
:100: That most people probably just pay lip service in the actual living of their lives to their basic assumptions about the nature of reality is a telling point. And this goes for scientists' practice too: as far as I know there is quite a range of different metaphysical worldviews among scientists, as you mention, Christians and atheists, and no doubt Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims and other more personal worldviews. I don't believe these worldviews generally interfere with, or significantly impact the quality of, the practice of science at all.
I don't see any evidence anywhere that this is the case. I accept your avowal that this is true of yourself, but what evidence do you have that people betray their own fundamental understandings as a matter of course?
Fundamental understandings are just what is taken for granted given the empirical nature of our lives and the necessity of the notion of causation in order to make any sense at all of our experiences (even animals show this basic disposition), so I am not referring to those, but to religious and metaphysical worldviews.
I don't see many Christians living up to Christ's ethical teachings. We can only generalize from what we have personally experienced, and my personal experience is that I don't often see people living up to their professed views.
I acknowledge that your experience may be different in that regard and that any of us can only personally experience the tiniest fraction of humanity, but nonetheless I would remain skeptical if you were to claim that your experience has differed in that regard.
Just because people claim to believe something doesn't mean that reflects their true beliefs about the nature of reality. When people commit to action they do so based on whatever that deep personal commitment is. That isn't circularity. Action is an index of belief. Many people might have problems in enunciating those beliefs, that's true. Which is itself good evidence that there is more to belief than propositionality.
I don't believe that many people actually have "deep personal commitments", but even if they do, they are just that, personal, subjective, and they are beliefs, and hence don't count as knowledge in the intersubjective sense.
Again, I don't see where you are qualified to make that judgement for anyone but yourself. You claim to be capable of acting in the absence of a deep commitment, fine, I accept that. I think that most people care, and that care about what they do is indicative of values, in other words, beliefs. Propositional knowledge is just "facts." The most important decisions in life are value-laden. Some of the most stirring events in human history involve people acting in a counter-factual way, symbolically, based on belief. Bottom line, you can't turn ethics into propositional knowledge. You can express it propositionally, but you can't found or reduce it on propositions.
Id go as far as to say, beyond merely taken for granted, fundamental understandings are not even within Everydaymans conscious considerations; that is to say, he hasnt slowed himself down enough to figure out that he has them, and to know what they are.
And while it may be true you make that case for yourself alone, given that all humans are intellectually and morally equipped in exactly the same manner, it follows any other of congruent rationality may come to the same conclusion. I mean look .you convinced me, so that ya go.
I don't see evidence of "deep commitments" commonly at large in the human society I inhabit. I don't deny that most people care about thingsnotably mostly themselves, their families, close friends and their property and possessions.
In any case I haven't been arguing against values and beliefs, but against the idea that those constitute propositional, decidable knowledge, so I agree with you that ethics cannot be turned into propositional knowledge.
That said, I see ethics and morals as pragmatic mattersif people wish to live harmoniously with others, then they are best served to have a sense of honesty, justice and fairness. On the other hand, many people, according to my experience, will do unethical things if they believe they can get away with it undetected; I see evidence of that all the time.
That is something that I would agree with, but I would not readily grant that those facts that suggest logical rules are contigent, it could be that they are necessary. But that is another debate and it could be that Husserl has something more specific in mind that is indeed contigent, so I will just grant it.
Agreed.
Quoting Joshs
Overall, I do get behind that, and of course if the facts of reality were different we may have come up with completely different logical laws. I think the matter here is that, in your argument, "metaphysics" and "ultimate nature of reality" are one and the same. Hence, if metaphysics (ultimate nature of reality) changes, so does logic, right? That much I can agree with, but for me those two are not one and the same, but I guess that is the point of this thread, "What is your definition of metaphysics?"
I dislike this cliche, but I think that equating metaphysics and ultimate nature of reality is confusing the map for the territory.
But with this statement I have an issue. If that line was a Wittgenstein quote, he says "purpose" and nothing else. It is not necessary that sense always follow from use.
Quoting Pantagruel
Is it? A mathematician surely believes in the laws of probability more than he believes in physics (being fallible and all) or most other things, and yet, it may be that in a Quiz show for one million euros, nervousness may take over and he may answer to the Monty Hall problem that he does not want to switch based on common sense and instinct, but probabilistic analysis will give us that you should switch each time:
I don't consider making a selection in a game to be reflective of acting in meaningful sense, more like playing a game. Life, by and large, isn't about "game-show moments." However it is often about committing to a course of action that may be inherently uncertain or risky.
Right, and this is validation of what? Validation that something is or is not the case. Or in more fallibilist terms, that something appears or does not appear to be the case. But what is broadly meant by "appears true or false" is precisely that something appears to be the case. This difference just seems like semantics.
But is such "making sense" necessarily based on unquestionable presuppositions that must be taken for granted? Fallibilism, allowing for uncertainty, is not self-refuting, but the statement that all claims are ultimately arbitrary appears to be. I couldn't really tell which you were advancing here. Is "all [you] can say is that [your] way of construing matters has continued to be relatively consistent," because the only thing that can be known is the contents of your own past experiences (in which case, why even trust your own memory?) Or is this simply a claim about how we can always be surprised by the future?
In fully agreement with this quote, and considering the metaphysical issue of truth's occurrence:
Let truth be here tersely understood as: awarenesss conformity to that which is ontically certainhence, that which is ontically, rather than psychologically, fixed or unvarying (such that this fixedness of being can be fully relative to a set of changes within a temporal and spatial fame; e.g., a ball having moved from A to B is ontically certain, i.e. ontically fixed and unvarying).
Argument/assertion: There is no such thing as ontic certainty; therefore, there is no conformity to ontic certainty to be had by any awareness.
Rebuttal: Were there to in fact be no such thing as ontic certainty, then this in and of itself would be ontically (rather than psychologically) certain; resulting in the following logical contradiction: at the same time and in the same respect there both a) is no ontic certainty (entailed by there occurring no ontic certainty whatsoever) and b) is ontic certainty (entailed by there occurring the ontic certainty stipulated in (a)).
Conclusion: either 1) dialethism is valid or else 2) there needs to be some ontic certainty/certainties to which awareness can either conform to or deviate from. Moreover, if (1) is stipulated to in fact be the case, then one would likewise stipulate (1) to of itself be an ontic certaintythereby either again falsifying the argument/assertion provided contra the occurrence of truth(s) or else resulting in a total disarray of thought.
Fallibilism does not affirm wrongness but the ever-present potential of being wrong (such as on account of not being omniscient). As such, although one in principle could be wrong in upholding the occurrence of truths, because there is no valid reason to doubt either that ontic certainty/certainties occur or the occurrence of awareness (which can of itself be one ontic certainty), an epistemological system of fallibilism can then only uphold there in fact being such as thing as truth(s).
And this conclusion, of itself, in no way contradicts constructivism in many, if not all, of its forms.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
When a new event validates my anticipation, what this means is that I construe it along dimensions of similarity and difference with respect to that anticipation, and it appears more similar than different to the expected result. It can, however, never duplicate what is anticipated, and the remembered expectation never duplicates its sense from moment to moment. It seems to me that declaring an event to be the case implies comparing two cases, what one holds in memory and the new event, and finding them to be the same with respect to some criterion.
So validation is referential consistency on a relevant
(anticipated) dimension, where neither the anticipated, remembered meaning and the actual event duplicates their sense from moment to moment , whereas being the case is a match, replication or identity between comparators. When we believe we can determine something to be the case, we ignore the fact that the sense of meaning of the subject and predicate subtly transform themselves at every stage in the comparison. The naive understanding of predicative truth depends on not delving into the basis of the idealizations ( such as the persisting self-identity of a sense of meaning) that such logical constructions are built on.
(Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I must stress that the way that experience transforms itself
moment to moment is never arbitrary , but motivated. It produces neither arbitrariness nor identical self-persistence. Can I trust my memory? I dont trust it to be an archive of veridical, unchanging facts. I trust it to be, because I continually experience it as being, a reconstruction of a past shaped by my present interests and goals. It is a continually morphing guide to the future. To say that experience is never arbitrary is to argue that we are always surprised in some fashion by the future even when it appears most predictable and familiar to us, and by the same token, even the most unusual and unprecedented series of events is recognizable at some level. The moment the world ceases to appear to us as at least minimally interpretable and meaningful is the moment experience vanishes completely. This is why most of the time our experience of our world has the character of a relative ongoing consistency
Predicative logic and truth statements produce arbitrariness in the form of contradictions, because they fail to understand the grounding of their terms in a background mesh of contextual relevance that gives sense even to the irrational. Causal empirical models produce arbitrariness and skepticism for the same reason.
Stating that I find myself born anew ( thrown into) a world that is at the same time built from my presuppositions and a subtle displacement of those presuppositions, is this itself an unquestioned presupposition, or am I continually questioning and reforming this supposition? If I say I continue to be the same differently , is this an unquestioned presupposition that I take for granted? If so, what aspect of the presupposition remains unchanged over time? Certainly not the content of my experience, since it is a requirement for the continued survival of my presupposition that the world will always appear to be changing for me. I would argue only the empty categories of past and present remain unchanged, since no matter how much my view of myself or the world changes, this will always presuppose a relation between memory and the now.
Perhaps my stance appears to be an unquestioning taking for granted because it appears so alien to your way of thinking. But I continually question everything about my philosophy. Its just that events as I construe them bring me back into its fold rather than pulling me in the direction of an empirical realism.
I'm not disagreeing with what you wrote in the previous post. But I want to point out that there is a subtle difference between what one believes (consciously, unconsciously, or both) to be true and what in fact is true. This, for example, as per my definition of truth here. One can then, at least in theory, honestly affirm a truth while the truth affirmed is at best a partial truth and at worst an untruth altogether.
I'll uphold that truths always cohere to other truths when in close enough relation. It is only deceptions or else falsities, be these whole or partial, be they directed toward others or else unknown self-deception, which can result in contradictions.
But this does in part presuppose there being such a thing as ontic (rather than psychological) certainties as previously described by me. And I'm not yet clear of your metaphysical stance regarding these actualities/realities.
Quoting Bob Ross
Those are good practical definitions of a term that is too often dismissed as religious superstitions.
Metaphysical prowling is a uniquely human endeavor. Presumably, few animals would waste their time thinking about thinking. But something in the nature of the human mind evokes not just feelings & experiences, but recursive reflections about those experiences. And it is that inward-aimed "eye" of Reason that allows us to "see" logical possibilities that are not yet actual & real --- "beyond what physics explains".
As a worldview, Metaphysics is the opposite of Materialism, which arbitrarily defines ideas, and ideas-about-ideas, as-if mere objects, whose value is only in feeding physical needs & motives. Metaphysics is not impersonal & objective, but selfish & subjective. Hence, the top tier of Maslow's hierarchy, self-actualization of personal potential, is inherently a meta-physical "fiction" that we tell ourselves to provide non-physical motivation. That "need" is self-understanding ; including the relationship of the Self to the non-self world. Not just to experience the world, but to "understand the experience".
Why do PF posters spend their valuable time fictionalizing reality, if not to feed those abstract high-level needs? Do we get a dopamine boost from writing a few bon mots that sometimes make us sound like grinning idiots? Or is there a higher motive --- more than the thrill of a greyhound chasing a fake rabbit --- that prompts us to stalk the unseen possibilities and unknown probabilities of mysteries, such as the physical or metaphysical underpinnings of Self-Awareness (Consciousness)? And to share that interpretation of universal principles with others who presumably have similar needs. :smile:
Metaphysical Prowling : careful intentional searching for intellectual sustenance
MASLOW'S PYRAMID OF HUMAN NECESSITIES
not just to maintain the body, but to feed the need for intellectual growth
Metaphysics can be fun speculation and because its an arena where there are no right or wrong answers simply because those answers are unable to be probed by science means that only good critical thinking need be applied to various metaphysical postulations insuring against logical inconsistencies.
Yes, I think that's true of "Everydayman". I also agree that all humans are intellectually and morally equipped in the same manner, but I find myself unsure of the degree. Degreesagrees, disagreesshould I be aggrieved?
And the multiplication of entities?
Quoting Gnomon
Or is it merely a shift in consciousness, in feeling, away from the neurotic need to understand, that leads to the deluded belief in the possibility of understanding, the relationship of the self to the non-self world in any way beyond, or more perfect than, the ordinary everyday?
Sure, if you want to add math to the equation, after all what is metaphysics but mental gymnastics.
Gymnastics, like math, is constrained, disciplined, and logical inconsistencies may have poetic value, and that's the way I see metaphysics: as poetry which introduces only novel thoughts in the way of flights of the imagination and multiplies no entities, since the latter belong only to the empirical.
To put this as colloquially as I can, metaphysical enquiry is the attempt to figure out what reality is really all about.
Then theres those who look upon it thus: If theres nothing broken with the status quo metaphysics of today, why try to fix it?
Because, for one example, theres nothing wrong with a bunch of lemmings actively swimming their way toward a climate change catastrophe in todays status quo metaphysics of a meaningless universe.
Yes, Metaphysical speculation is "fun" for those who have time & inclination to explore the big questions that have haunted humanity for eons. It's like a game or puzzle or hobby or lifting weights that won't put food on the table, but will add muscle to the Mind. Science has appropriated the "easy" questions --- that have right or wrong answers --- and left the "hard" questions --- such as the evolutionary role of Consciousness --- to feckless philosophers.
Many modern scientists, and ironically TPF posters, dismiss such open-ended speculation as a fruitless waste of time. But that's because they are prejudiced by their pragmatic - reductive - particular - solemn Belief System*1, typically labeled Materialism, Physicalism, Immanentism, etc., which arbitrarily define tangible Matter as prior to intangible Mind*2. For those of us who take a more imaginative - inclusive - playful perspective, we may try to imagine the world as a complete integrated system of parts, which add-up to a whole that is more than the sum.
It's knowledge of that elusive "more" --- which Aristotle labeled "wisdom"*3 --- that distinguishes idealistic humans from pragmatic animals. Most animals are experts at the necessities of life for their species. But humans are generalists, whose concerns go beyond Self & Tribe & Species & Now to encompass the whole universe, and other times & places. Universal causes & principles can be applied to any problem, including both practical & theoretical issues. For humans, once our practical necessities are taken care of, we have the leisure to turn our attention to a quixotic pursuit of Principles, that govern all of reality, both Mind & Matter : Metaphysics. :smile:
*1. Metaphysical materialism is a philosophical approach that argues that all philosophical, emotional, mental, and conscious states are a result from the material/physical world. Therefore, everything can be explained by looking at matter or ''the real world.
https://homework.study.com/explanation/what-is-metaphysical-materialism.html
Note --- It's a faith, not a fact, that matter explains everything.
Philosophers seem to assume that "everything can be explained" by Universal Principles instead of Particular Objects.
*2. Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of unprovable starting-points concepts and truth and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them. Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of unprovable starting-points concepts and truth and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them.
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Aristotle-Philosopher.htm
*3. Aristotle Metaphysics :
"Since we are investigating this kind of knowledge, we must consider what these causes and principles are whose knowledge is Wisdom." http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0086,025:1
PHYSICS vs METAPHYSICS = PART vs WHOLE
It doesn't seem unquestioning at all. I was referring back to your statement that: "only within a taken-for-granted , unquestioned set of normative presuppositions concerning the nature of the real can empiricist notions like proof and validation be considered as definitive."
I am having trouble understanding how validation, proof, evidence, demonstration, etc. can rest only on what is taken-for-granted. If this was true, I don't get how radical relativism and skepticism wouldn't follow. Epistemology can be circular and falliblist, but it cannot be arbitrary without epistemic pessimism seeming to take hold.
There are many theories of truth, and our situation would be hopeless if we could only decide between them based on arbitrary criteria, or if we had to adopt one to vet the others. Yet it seems reasonable that might agree that all such theories to date are unsatisfactory in some ways, and yet still allow that particularly poor theories of truth don't hold water. For example, determining that it is not credible that truth is "whatever Sally proclaims to be true," does not require that one endorse any particular theory of truth, particularly if Sally has made the utterance "everything I say is false."
Perhaps I am misreading the use of the term "definitive" here? Is it supposed to refer to some sort of formalized, absolute definition of what constitutes validation, as opposed to simply being decisive vis-á-vis determining beliefs?
I am personally not a fan of deflationary theories of truth that attempt to reduce the concept to the domain of formal systems alone. Human beings cannot help but have beliefs about what is or is not the case, and "truth," is simply the most common word used to refer to this essential element of human experience. We could not act if it were otherwise. So it seems like some primitive conception of veracity is something that needs to be explained, and deflationary theories sequester truth rather than explain it (or sequester it in order that they might explain it).
Plus it leads to the regrettable tendency in 20th century philosophy to suppose that if we cannot yet adequately explain something it simply [I]must[/I] be a pseudo problem or else something to be eliminated, a tendency that reaches comic heights in the move to solve the problem of explaining conciousness by denying that it exists.
[Quote]
A metaphysics is the basis of the intelligibility of truth and falsity, not the product of empirical ascertainment of truth and falsity. [/Quote]
But at any rate, I would still disagree with this. One might find metaphysics to be a confusing mess and accept no metaphysical theory, and yet still find statements about truth and falsehood intelligible and use them effectively in their daily lives.
Are you suggesting that metaphysical speculation is a mental illness similar to the hallucinations of psychosis? If so, how could we tell the difference between our hazy delusions and undiluted reality? Why not just accept the world as it is presented to our filtered awareness, without asking questions about True Reality? What difference does it make to psychotics, if their apparitions don't match those of the psychologist? Why not let the inmates run the asylum?
Perhaps posting on a forum can allow us to share & compare our personal delusions (speculations) with those of other loonies. Besides, how else can we gauge the progress of our "neurotic" need to actualize our personal potential? Do our pet animals feel a compulsion to climb above their subservient status, perhaps to reverse the master/pet relationship? Would it be an advantage to them to go beyond just experiencing whatever comes their way, in order to "understand the experience"? What's so important about broader understanding? Does it make the world any more predictable & controllable? Why not just go with the flow? :joke:
In other words:
... to which can also be added, "ignorance is bliss".
All this epitomizing philosophies which argue against an examined life
Quoting Gnomon
:rofl: And yet "materialism" is a form of "metaphysics."
Quoting Gnomon
:lol: So a 'whole atom' exceeds the grasp of physics?
:up:
For example, we appear to be mortal...but...what if we are really immortal? We appear to be finite intelligences...but... what if there is an infinite intelligence...and further what if that is our real nature? We appear to encounter only the physical...but...what if what appears physical is really mental? And so on.
The problem is we have no idea what the physical really being mental could mean. We have no idea what a disembodied, immortal life could be. We have no idea what an infinite intelligence could be. All these ideas only gain the illusion of having any sense at all insofar as they are dialectical opposites of what does make sense to us. So, it really is all just a case of "pouring from the empty into the void". It may have some poetical value, but philosophical value, not so much.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Ah, now I understand. Well, lets compare Poppers falsificationism with Kuhns Paradigm shifts. The former is a favorite among scientists because his approach seems to explain how empirical results can be both self-reflexively questionable and yet allow for progress in the ascertainment of truth. It is circular and falliblist, and it would appear to avoid arbitrariness and skepticism by assuming that what allows us to identify any theory as having been falsified is a method of verification that transcends the contingency of the theory itself.
But Kuhn argues that falsificationisms assumption that the methods of verification are independent of the content of the theory amounts to a taken-for-granted , unquestioned normative presupposition. Kuhns alternative does not amount to arbitrariness , but neither does it treat scientific understanding as epistemological belief in what is the case. Our attempt to make our way around a constantly changing world is not fundamentally a matter of belief, but of engaged coping. Engaged coping has nothing to do with conceptual representation. It is more like intuiting the next move in a dance as it contextually unfolds. As Even Thompson writes:
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
There is a difference between being able to articulate ones metaphysical presuppositions and the very existence of those presuppositions. Metaphysics is not simply a game academic philosophers play, not a theory to be falsified. It is a precondition for any kind of experience of the world. It is precisely what makes statements of truth and falsity intelligible. We no more falsify a metaphysics than an organism falsifies its environmental niche.
Quoting Janus
A metaphysical position is closely related to a scientific paradigm. To empirically confirm a paradigm is just to tighten up the definitions and boundaries that were formed prior to confirmation . Such validating procedures allow us to identity what it is we are overthrowing when we eventually dump that paradigm in favor of another. But the movement from one paradigm to another is not driven by confirmation. It is driven by a wholesale qualitative reconceptualization of premises, the fabricating of a new world. This does not have to do with what is true but with how the world can be organized to make sense in a qualitatively different way. Truth is then a secondary procedure within the newly created frame.
Quoting Janus
You seem to be attempting to shove all metaphysics into the particular slot of a dialectical metaphysics. The change from one metaphysical scheme to another is not a matter of dialectical opposition. For instance, it is not the opposition between mortal and immortal , finite and infinite, the physical and the mental, since moving from one pole to the other of this binary is merely a matter of slot rattling within an already given frame of meaning. To move from one metaphysical worldview to another is arriving at a different world, a new frame. Rather than simply choosing one term over the other, both what it means to be mortal and what it means to be immortal take on an entirely new sense within a new metaphysics. This is what makes paradigm shifts revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
Can you elaborate on this evaluation? Why could a paradigm shift not be both?
The statement that reality does not exist simpliciter, or that there can be no canonical representation of reality as it exists simpliciter, advances both metaphysical and epistemic claims. Given that Thompson claims that this defines what is truly the "task of the philosopher," it would seem to me that these claims are not intended to be taken as being "equally valid/accurate/true/demonstrable, etc." as contradictory claims to the effect of: "The task of the philosopher is to discover the nature of uncorrupted reality and figure out how to accurately represent it."
Or, at the very least, if we are to embrace a position like Thompson's we must have some way of determining between it and Saint Augustine's formulation that "truth is equivalent with being; what is true is, and what is false is not." To say that Thompson is right is to say that Augustine is wrong. To say that they are both right, is still to say that Augustine is wrong.
Further, if we're to have any faith that one understanding should be held in higher regard than the other, then we must have some non-arbitrary means for judging between them. The invocation of pragmatism itself implies some sort of yardstick by which the plurality of positions to be considered are vetted. To be pragmatic is to judge things based on practical concerns. Pragmatism requires that there be a non-arbitrary way to decide if a theory under consideration actually furthers practical interests. If there is no basis for such judgements, or if all metrics by which theories might be judged are equally valid, then pragmatism is not possible. Every position can be said to equally advance or fail to advance practical interests.
Likewise:
These statements appear to make/be based on particular assertions about the nature of human experience, anthropology, and metaphysics. I might agree that they are accurate assertions, but in virtue of what would they be considered accurate? If they can only be considered accurate in terms of arbitrary presuppositions, then their contraries are equally valid.
Claims about the falsifiability of metaphysical claims seem to themselves make metaphysical, or at least epistemic claims. We could consider 180 Proof's earlier comment here:
All validation cannot depend on metaphysics, and metaphysics in turn necessarily be based on unquestionable presuppositions we take for granted. If this were the case, then all judgements re validation/truth/accuracy etc. would be equally valid, merely a matter of which presuppositions we have embraced.
Quoting Pantagruel
Actually, Kuhn would say yes. Paradigms shifts are revolutionary in the sense that the content of new schemes and standards of measurement and validation are not logically commensurate with those they replace. But they are evolutionary in that new paradigms solve more puzzles than older ones.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
One could say that Thompsons position subsumes and enriches Augustines without invalidating it. Each offers a valid, workable guide to navigating the world by anticipating events. To say that Thompsons approach enriches Augustines is to say that Thompson understands from his vantage , and can effectively summarize and live within, Augustine's approach. But he can also place the dimensions of Augustines model within a more intricate structure of understanding that accomplishes what Augustines does, but exceeds it in of anticipatory power.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
They are equally valid, but not at the same time and in the same context. We only inhabit one social milieu at a time, and each dictates its own unique ways of making our way around. We may take these ways of sense making for granted. That is , their presuppositions may be hidden from us, but they are nevertheless always being put into question in subtle ways in the way our language continually shifts the sense of its meanings within a given culture. This is what Wittgensteins language games point to. Every time we use a word, its conceptual meaning subtly shifts its sense in response to the novelty of the context of interaction. Word use is thus a kind of questioning concerning what is at stake and what is at issue whenever we use a word concept. Wittgenstein said that these subtle shifts in sense of words via their use can be seen to share a family resemblance. But this resemblance is not a general category of meaning supervening on the particular senses. There is no common element among all the senses.
We take for granted that words just mean what they mean, that they are merely tools that hook onto a reality independent of the words. But this taking for granted doesnt prevent actual word use from continually shifting. We simply dont notice this in the way we tend to talk about the relation between concepts and reality. As we alter our milieu with our arts , sciences and technologies, the way these changes feed back to us requires us to alter our metaphysical assumptions and along with it the basis of our scientific truths. Again, we may take for granted that the truths about the world we describe with our word concepts remains constant as we adjust those concepts, because we simply dont notice the subtle way that our paradigm shifts alter the very foundations of those truths.
I agree that much of modern linguistic discussion is like a "what if" word-game played with abstruse terminology that wouldn't mean much to us mere mortals. But I prefer to think of Metaphysics, as Aristotle did : the study of Nature in general, and of ourselves as imaginative beings. This is the essence of Philosophy, as the search for useful Wisdom --- attempting to gain an omniscient worldview.
Since modern Science took over most of the objective pragmatic study of physical Nature though, Philosophy was left with mostly navel-gazing subjective subject-matter : turning its focus inward to learn about the mysterious Self doing the looking. Unfortunately, that self-directed introspection opens us to the slippery-slope of spiraling like a moth around an imaginary Truth. But forums like this can reveal non-self perspectives on the inner world, that may help to pull us out of our spin.
What-if counter-factual games may reveal more about the player, than about the wider world. :smile:
PS___ My response above was tongue-in-cheek, because I suspected that your post was a tease. Hence the :joke: smilie.
Metaphysics, for Aristotle, was the study of nature and ourselves. In this sense he brings metaphysics to this world of sense experiencewhere we live, learn, know, think, and speak. Metaphysics is the study of being qua being, which is, first, the study of the different ways the word be can be used
https://open.library.okstate.edu/introphilosophy/chapter/__unknown__/
:up: :up: Thus, in the main 'kataphatic metaphysics' the Classical / Aristotlean tradition is ad hoc (e.g. "this is the Really Real"-of-the-gaps), mostly derived from invalid arguments, which usually amounts to dogma like "only Euclidean geometry is Really Real because non-Euclidean geometries are mere appearances" or as you suggest "what if this / my set of axioms is Absolute ..."
A typically incorrigible example:
Quoting Gnomon
:mask:
Is the "elimination of the impossible," or discovery of "ways the world necessarily could not have been or cannot be described," not, broadly speaking, a form of falsification?
I was bringing up your post as an example of why the Joshs' claim that "we no more falsify a metaphysics than an organism falsifies its environmental niche," itself would seem to invalidate some views re metaphysics.
One could say it, but whether or not they would nonetheless be contradicting Augustine's standpoint is another matter. If I claim that "truth is absolute," and you in turn claim that "yes, truth can be absolute, but only ever relatively," this seems more like negating my claim than "subsuming" it. Further, the claim that "truth can be absolute, but it is only ever absolute in relative terms, based on presuppositions that are taken-for-granted, and people can always accept multiple equally valid, but different presuppositions," itself appears to be an absolute statement about truth to the effect that "there can be no absolute statements re truth." So aside from contradicting the position it claims to still affirm, it also refutes itself.
This does not work vis-a-vis absolute statements. If one claim is that something is absolute and inviolable, then a contrary claim that this "absoluteness" is actually relative is not affirming the original claim. The second claim is saying that the "absolute" in the first claim is, in fact, merely contextual. If the claim is that the first claim is both "absolute" and "relative," or that both claims are equally valid (the first claim, and its contradiction) then it seems that we are left in a state where both claims are both true and false, valid and invalid, or neither. But if claims are equally valid in this way, then there is no reason to advance one over the other.
Perhaps some claims are like this, neither true nor false. But were it the case that all claims are like this, there would be no reason for believing it.
No. It's a logical expression, not a scientific claim.
And only scientific claims can be falsified? The claim "the Goldbach Conjecture is false," wouldn't be falsified by a successful mathematical proof demonstrating the Goldbach Conjecture?
I don't see how eliminating a metaphysical claim "because it is impossible," wouldn't amount to falsification of that claim under the broad definition of falsification as "to disprove" or "remove justification for."
Yes, I am aware of how ways in which Popper specifies the term "falsification" vis-a-vis scientific theories (although in The Logic of Scientific Discovery he is still talking about/grounding the concept in logical contradiction). Hence, "broadly speaking," i.e. the dictionary definition of falsify: "to disprove or remove justification for," since the point I was making has nothing to do with Popper's particular definitions re the logical versus the methodological sides of falsifiability.
The methodological side of Popper's project is based on the fact that "all swans are white," (universal claim) is contradicted by "there is at least one black swan." The second premise would contradict the first (falsify it, remove justification for it, etc.). The rest is a methodological bridge to take advantage of this in the empirical sciences
Earlier, I commented that an absolute statement about truth to the effect that "there can be no absolute statements re truth isnt really how I see what I do when I find constant change in my experience moment to moment. An absolute statement is absolute only because the person who makes it has already decided that it will always be the case and doesnt have to be re-affirmed. When one believes a meaning is absolute , they dont believe it has to be checked against the contextual changes that time brings. When I declare that the world continually reinvents itself moment to moment, this truth is only applicable this moment. Youll have ask me again next moment , and the moment after that , if I still find this to be the case. I am letting time, history and actual events dictate for me whether this truth continues to be valid, and in what form, rather then deciding in advance what is absolutely the case.
Since l dont believe there is any aspect of the world that sits still, that persists as itself, that isn't changed by a change in any other aspect of the world, truth and refutation mean something different for me that for you. Contradiction, in the sense of fundamental difference that precedes any notion of identity or the same, is thus the basic fact of being. Can one understand something that contradicts itself every moment , yet continues to be the same differently , through and as a result of this endless self-contradiction, as a style, pattern, theme? If we say that something is validated in the sense that it belongs to such a continually self-contradicting, temporally unfolding theme, pattern or style, then what do people mean when they say that something is refuted or is self-refuting?
Thompson would look at his approach as continually self-contradicting, but in a way that maintains a relative ongoing thematic unity. He would also consider Augustines model of truth as a continually self-contradicting thematic that maintains its own validity.
Augustines assertions already deconstruct themselves internally. When he depicts truth as presence, it is presence relative to a context of use and relevance, and this context of relevance re-affirms itself by altering itself. It may sound like Im adding things that are foreign to and contradict Augustines assertions, but all Im
doing is drawing out explicitly what is already implicit in his own thinking.
So what would Thompson consider to be the difference between his valid thematic and Augustines valid approach? It cant simply be that they contradict each other, since everything exists in a state of contradiction with respect to everything else. He might say that Augustines self-contradicting thematic approach unfolds more slowly and ploddingly than his own, and he prefers approaches that transgress into new territory more aggressively since they bring him pleasure and a richer sense of meaning. We could say Thompson swaps out the ethical notions of refutation , truth and falsity for fast vs slow speeds of transformation.
The definition is sort of besides the point, I was just trying to express what I intended to you. Although for future reference you might consider reviewing how Popper himself grounds his theory and consider if it is inapplicable to formal expressions and logic, or if rather the entire edifice relies on precisely the fact that it [I]is[/I] applicable to logical statements. Because when I was reading it, it seemed like the application to logic was what all the methodological considerations were based around, i.e. an empirical theory is falsified when observations [I]contradict[/I] it.
But the real question is: Does your negative ontology "eliminate the impossible," or does it simply eliminate "what is impossible given certain unquestioned and taken-for-granted presuppositions?" Can it only ever say what is impossible from within a given framework and are all frameworks equally valid? Is it a problem for "impossible" or contradictory claims to be considered equally valid?
Because the issue I see with Joshs' arguments, which do have parts of them with plenty of merit, is not the fallibalism or circularity, but rather the total relativism. And the problems related to relativism seem particularly acute when claims about "how the world is," "how experience is," etc. are brought in to bolster the arguments, since, even if I agree with these claims, it doesn't seem I can allow that they are "as valid as any others," and then use them to justify my beliefs. If every position is valid, then we appear to have lost something very important.
Again, he might say it, but he'd have no justification for it. For it would be equally valid to say that it is Augustine's approach that unfolds more quickly and with more agility than Thompson's, traversing greater depths of creative space. But presumably, in choosing to advance his interpretation, and in choosing to label it "pragmatism," Thompson does not think his speculations are simply equally pragmatic and unpragmatic, worthwhile and not worthwhile, when compared to all other possibilities.
I think you are confusing yourself by thinking in terms of paradigms...that's not how science works. In any case I think that way of thinking about it is wrong-headed so there is little point presenting arguments to me in those kinds of terms.
You do realize I was kidding? :joke:
:up: Yes, that was my best hunch. :grin: All the same, not being then fully certain, I stated what I stated as a general fact (it should be noted, without any explicitly given value judgment concerning this affirmed fact).
The statement was aimed at those - including some hereabouts on a philosophy forum - which are antagonistic toward metaphysical enquiries period, to include investigations into the nature of causation, time, space, and identity, among others issues of metaphysical concern. And to me it goes hand in hand with what I've said here.
To be blunt, upholding ignorance as a virtue to be pursued and safeguarded - or maybe worse, that the status quo perspectives of today accurately appraise in full all that there is to know about the nature of reality (e.g., regarding causation, time, space, etc.) - is not my cup of tea. But, to each their own.
I think of it this way: Any world that contains, or is constituted by, either contradictions or objects with inconsistent properties is, in terms of modal logic, impossible; therefore, such constituent entities (i.e. versions of the world) are necessary fictions.
Yes and no. I use terms of modal logic (e.g. actual, contingent, possible, necessary, impossible) since it is the clearest, most precise "framework" I've found. Specifically, actualism rather than possibilism.
No. They are equally fictional.
I agree. "Total relativism" (like global skepticism; existential/semantic/epistemological/ontological nihilism) is self-refuting. I think (aspect, property & valence) pluralism is a more reasonable principle and very strongly correlated with actualism (as well as N. Goodman's irrealism) for which variations, or counterparts, are neither equivalent (i.e. "equally valid" in every circumstance) nor always, or even mostly, commensurable. Yes, like the heights and depths of a landscape, most(?) valid paths / positions are patently better or worse more adequate or less adequate than others.
As a minor contention, while contradiction necessitates that something is fictional or else false in any non-dialetheistic system of logic, contradiction does not necessitate the fictionality or else falsity of all givens which contradict. For ease of expression, I'll here use the adjective "false" rather than that of "fictional".
If A contradicts with B, the three following possibilities then strictly unfold: a) A is false and B is true, b) A is true and B is false, or else c) both A and B are (equally) false.
As an example, that the Earth is flat contradicts with the Earth being roughly spherical. This, however, does not entail that Earth is thereby neither flat nor roughly spherical (needless to add, Earth in fact being roughly spherical).
in (non-dialetheistic) logic = necessary falsity;
in modal logic = necessary impossibility; and
in modal metaphysics = necessary ontic-impossibility (e.g. sosein)*.
*fiction
As modal metaphysics, my proposal of 'negative ontology' basically expressed in actualist terms (as suggested in my previous post) distinguishes versions of the world** which could not be (fictions) from those versions of the world** which could be (facts).
**actuality
@Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes, I fully agree with that. I was only addressing the issue that contradictory claims are not necessarily equally fictional ... as per my example of "the Earth is flat" and "the Earth is roughly spherical" being contradictory claims that are however not both fictional.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I dont think he wants to justify it, not as a trans-historical absolute. All preferences , for the large over the small, the faster over the slower, the more pragmatic over the less pragmatic, the more worthwhile over the less worthwhile, produce differentiations made intelligible with reference to a specified content , a sense of meaning. Thompson isnt assuming that content is absolute. On the contrary, such preferences only maintain their stable sense within a given cultural context. So within Augustines cultural context it would make sense to say that his approach unfolds more quickly and with more agility than Thompson's, traversing greater depths of creative space.
This what Thompson means when he says
He doesnt mean that we navigate among these domains from some neutral vantage beyond them all, but by being shaped and changed in the interactions within and among them.
Quoting javra
I agree that Aristotle was concerned with Reality in general, and included Mental phenomena under the heading of Phusis (nature). But, since modern empirical Science split-off from traditional Philosophy, to go its own way, for some the term "metaphysics" came to mean "unscientific", with implications of "irrational". For my own purposes, I equate Metaphysics with Modern Philosophy, which has abandoned Empirical research to focus solely on Theoretical speculation. I even spell it with a hyphen, Meta-Physics, to emphasize that it's primarily the study of non-physical phenomena, such as Consciousness, and causation-in-general (vs specific causes).
Unfortunately, some TPF posters still seem to think that Metaphysics should be empirical. Hence, they insist that dissecting brains is the only way to understand the quality of Self-Awareness --- which seems to be unique to only a small selection of organic matter. For example, asserted above that "metaphysics is not theoretical". So, it seems that he is "antagonistic" only to Theoretical inquiries, that go beyond physical evidence, to conjecture about, not what is physically Real, but what is logically Possible. Hence, he might reject the Multiverse theories, not as Meta-Physical (literally beyond our space-time world), but as merely un-scientific, because empirical evidence is impossible. But the parallel notion of a First Cause, prior to the Big Bang, would be characterized as mystical "woo-woo", presumably because it's pure speculation, un-grounded in hard facts.
According to that reasoning, "investigations into the nature of Causation" would have to be limited to looking at its material effects, not its original source : Aristotle's imaginary First Cause. For those "antagonistic" toward theoretical Metaphysics, any universal or general concepts would be taboo. That's because empirical Science can only study particulars, and to generalize (via induction) would be presumptive of omniscience. Ironically, polymath scientists do that all the time, crossing the line between Empirical Science and Theoretical Philosophy ; between what's Real, and what's Ideal ; twixt what's Actual and what's Potential . :smile:
For my part, in the world I live, most people need there being an unquestionable authority in their life. Most of those that then in one or another do away with the Abrahamic notion of an omni-this-and-that deitywhich I find quite understandable on multiple groundswill then turn to this nebulous term science as being just such an unquestionable authority. As a common enough example, for such people proclaiming science says so is to proclaim the unquestionable truth of that which is stipulated.
This is a gross misrepresentation of what the empirical sciences are. The vast majority of today's, for example, sciences regarding physics are, if fact, thoroughly entwined with a large sum of theoretical speculationboth inductive and abductive. There is zilch empirical about any interpretation of QM, regardless of what it might be. And when one takes a look at the nitty gritty of how weve arrived at today's QM, one will find a plethora of such inductive and abductive theoretical speculations regarding what in fact is. The proof that there is something objectively and fundamentally wrong with today's physics is that QM cannot be integrated into the theory of relativity in as is form so as to provide a theory of everything physical.
Science's only merit is that it can falsify those theoretical suppositions regarding that which can be empirically observedthis via empirical observationsand, by not falsifying, it can then to varying extents validate, but never prove, the theoretical suppositions in question.
This gross misunderstanding of science typically held by most peoplethese very same yet upholding science (hence, scientific inferences taken to be scientific knowledge) to be the de facto unquestionable authority regarding what is realis, for example, readily witness in the popularized claim that science has not proven human-caused global warming. This being an utterly nonsensical claim, least of all because absolutely nothing of science is infallible and thereby beyond any and all doubt.
All that for now being placed aside, other than validating that it has a brain, science has nothing to say about whether or not a dog, for example, is conscious of anything, thereby holds a consciousness, thereby is a conscious being. It has no possible solution to the Sorites paradox. Nor does it have anything to say regarding the ontological standing of that which we all empirically perceive to be and label the physical world. In keeping with a long list of pertinent issues that science can only remain silent on is that of whether or not the universe is foundationally meaningless. Any position held on all of these many issues then being entirely metaphysical claims.
Which in a way brings me full circle to this:
Quoting javra
To deny the importance of any and all metaphysics is to be (bluntly expressed) ignorant of one's very own suppositions (be they culturally inherited or else arrived at by oneself) regarding what reality in fact is and consists of. Which, however, is not to then claim that all such suppositions are of equal value; some such being valueless, e.g., being the brain in a vat constructed by another brain in a vat constructed by another, this ad infinitum, though plausibly conceivable as a metaphysical possibility, is devoid of any value regarding, for example, what I should best do with my life or else how I should best understand value theory and, hence, the values by which I and others live our lives.
Yes, but when I accuse them of holding a belief in authoritative Scientism, they don't seem to see what's wrong with that. Instead, they appear to think that Philosophy should be subservient to the final authority of infallible Empirical Science. But, when I ask for book, chapter & verse from their "unquestionable" Science Bible, I get no answer.
As I noted above, has a different definition of "metaphysics" from mine. And that discrepancy may be the reason for the topical question of this OP. In the 20th century, European physicists were still being trained in philosophy, and made metaphysical conjectures routinely, especially to explain the paradoxes of Quantum Theory. Are these aggressive anti-philosophy beliefs being promulgated in universities these days? I assume it's not just ignorance of philosophical concepts, of which 180 seems to be an expert. :smile:
DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN SCIENCE AND SCIENTISM :
Scientism assumes that rational knowledge is scientific, and that everything else that claims to be knowledge is just superstitious, irrational, emotional, or nonsensical. Although Science and Scientism do share the same topics and content, their worldviews are entirely different.
https://journal.unpar.ac.id
Theres this saying: one can (try to) lead a horse to water, but
We all consciously or unconsciously cling to some form of what Mircea Eliade termed an axis mundi when more abstractly appraisedsome core conviction regarding the nature of the world via which we assimilate all novel information, without which we would loose our bearings, around which all of what we interpret to be the world pivots, and which, because of all this, we either implicitly or explicitly consider to be sacred (at the very least in relation to ourselves). To some this is the Abrahamic deity, to others it is scientism, to yet others it is the conviction that there are no correct facts, or otherwise some notion akin to the Platonic or Neo-Platonic notion of the Good, and so on and so forth. And we all hold confirmation biases in terms of this personal, typically implicitly maintained, axis mundi.
There is no convincing another that their own axis mundi is incorrect without the other being able to replace it with what they find to be a better axis mundione which accounts for the entire body of knowledge and values they already possess in addition to all new information they might be exposed to.
Or at least so I so far find. And so disagreement among humans on many but the most concrete of interpersonally experienced facts can be found.
But then this too is in itself a metaphysical perspective of sorts.
Quoting Gnomon
While it is likely that in some yes and in others no, I have no idea as to the overall reality of the matter. Opinionated as they might be, I doubt that others would know either in the absence of any impartial research regarding this topic.
I think this is an egregious generalizationall I can think of to say in response is "speak for yourself".
As you've expressed in a post elsewhere last time we chatted, you don't care what I think. All the same:
1) I am speaking for myself: it's my established worldview. (Right up there with you not being a p-zombie.)
2) On what rational or empirical grounds do you affirm that what I previous expressed is "an egregious generalization"? (Hint: that "I don't like it" is not such a justification.)
I suppose my own "axis mundi" consists of the 'principle of non-contradiction (PNC) sans principle of sufficient reason (~PSR) > universal contingency (UC)'.
:grin: :up: Yup, it forms part of my axis mundi as well. :smile:
I don't care what anyone thinks meaning that what I think is most important to me. If you say all people have metaphysical worldviews and cling to them in the grip of confirmation bias I say you are not speaking for yourself but for all people and what you are according to your own argument clinging to is not a metaphysical worldview but a general psychological assessment of human nature.
I think that assessment is an egregious generalization based on my own experience of people. Maybe we simply move and mix in different circles. No empirical or logical grounds can be adduced to support or deny the contention. It comes down to how you see people and whether in this particular connection you see uniformity or diversity.
OK. So your contentions that it is an egregious - by which I understand outstandingly bad - generalization comes down to an opinion that you can provide no meaningful justification for, outside of it doesnt sit well with my own intuitions.
Moreover, I take any and all ontological understanding - be it consciously upheld or else unconscious - to in itself be metaphysical in nature. Whereas from what Ive so far perused of your expressed perspective you take it mean something akin to anything out of the ordinary in relation to ontology. This, of itself, would make a large difference in what I myself stated.
For just one example, were one to witness billiard balls randomly fall through solid table tops or else hover in midair, one would hold a confirmation bias in line with ones core ontological understanding as to what is in fact possible. Most would assume it to either be stage magic or tricks of the eye precisely due to this confirmation bias. Whether or not miracles can occur is again determined by ones core ontologys confirmation bias.
But there are innumerable examples - many very different due to very different core ontological beliefs that can be held in theory if not also in practice.
And again, in the absence of evidence that people go about life in the complete absence of core ontological beliefs - if not consciously maintained than unconscious - around which they assimilate new information such that they hold a confirmation bias to these very core beliefs, your decrying my perspective egregious is, basically, completely unwarranted.
Read more carefully what I actually wrote and you might find I never once mentioned that we cling to metaphysical worldviews but to some core conviction regarding the nature of the world via which we assimilate all novel information [...]" - which in my lexicon are quite distinct propositions.
Can you provide for your contention that people cling to some core conviction regarding the nature of the world via which we assimilate all novel information"some "meaningful justification" for "outside of it doesnt sit well with my own intuitions"?
Quoting javra
Can you explain the difference?
Are the examples I just provided to this very effect rationally or empirically in any way contradictory to - or else do they in any way not cohere to - reality as we all know it?
But if you're in search of infallible proof I've none to give.
Quoting Janus
For one thing, a metaphysical worldview is a strictly conscious construct which is itself pivoted upon - and hence not equivalent to - some core conviction (or core set of convictions to be more precise) regarding the causal, spatial, temporal, etc. nature of the world, the latter often enough not being consciously analyzable in fully explicit manners the way that the metaphysical worldview is.
I don't know, I don't know what examples you are referring to or what "reality as we all know it" refers to.
Quoting javra
I don't deny that people may have unconscious or implicit metaphysical worldviews, whereas you seem to be doing so. What we variously might think "the causal, spatial, temporal, etc. nature of the world" (if we all have such a view, which is what I disagreed with and thought to be an egregious generalization) is
in my book nothing other than a metaphysical view. It seems we have different ideas about what constitutes a metaphysical view, so it looks like we are bound to disagree. I don't disagree that people generally have some basic orientation or other to the world, but I don't see those orientations as "core commitments" for those who haven't thought about it much.
This is mouth dropping to me. I'll highlight them for you:
Quoting javra
Having done that, have a nice day.
It seems to me that the terms 'worldview' and metaphysics' are too often used interchangeably and this is confusing. I think, by reflective reasoning, the latter attempts to globally make sense of (i.e. translate into conceptual categories) the local 'presuppositions and implications' (i.e. parochial biases ~ e.g. mythological, theological and/or ideological blindspots) of the former; in other words, 'worldview' is to (native) grammar plus (naive) vocabulary/idioms as 'metaphysics' is to theoretical linguistics or object-discursive & meta-discursive, respectively such that 'metaphysics' problematizes the limitations-constraints (i.e. the nature) of 'having a worldview' as such. Thus, given this distinction, one's (implicit, lived) 'worldview' can be either commensurate or incommensurate with one's (explicit, contemplated) 'metaphysics' without inconsistency (e.g. religious atomist or agrarian immaterialist or patriarchal nominalist).
All that, plus, Id submit, that people in general are more conscious of their respective worldviews than they are of the metaphysics from which they are given.
Cart before the horse, if there ever was such a thing.
Quoting 180 Proof
Wow, it sounds like a person would need a PhD in order to be qualified to form metaphysical presuppositions. I may be wrong, but Im going to go out on a limb here and connect your take on what metaphysics is with an Analytic approach. This makes sense give that, historically, the Analyric community has been much more interested in Hume, Leibnitz and Kant than Hegel. I am thinking that it is only in the philosophies that came after Hegel and were strongly influenced by him that we get an articulation of metaphysics as comparable to worldview. That is, as an overarching framework of intelligibility that orients us to the world and ties all its aspects together in a global unity, but that in most cases is held naively, unconsciously.
It requires that we conceive of the world as having more than one kind of reality, which is a grave error if misunderstood. It can also be seen as mere overgeneralization, but this is not quite correct. Humans are capable of abstraction, and abstraction is and certainly can be performed in ever higher orders. That doesn't mean the world exists in ever higher orders, but only that abstraction does.
It's clearly possible to abstract until all meaning vanishes. Metaphysics occurs when no meaningful context remains for a statement.
Metaphysics is difficult to define if it's treated as a 'thing". It's an activity.
In many a way I agree, but how would you account for discrepancies such as these:
Ive met self-proclaimed non-spiritual atheists that uphold this metaphysical worldview but are in practice superstitious and affirm things like your car was broken into today because you werent cordial to person A last week or, as an example of the flipside, self-proclaimed Christians that adhere to all ritual aspects of their faith and uphold this metaphysical worldview while at the same time in practice being in many a way atheistic (e.g., they fear - and hence innately believe - death to be a cessation of being; or else dont believe in the occurrence of spiritual realities in the here and now, as contrasted to occurring for biblical figures (e.g., burning bushes are OK biblically but not in reality that is lived); etc.) - this to not address the grave hypocrisies in ethical principles relative to Jesus Christs teaching that often enough occur (the ontology of values being in many a way metaphysical).
Here, there seems to me to be a professed and defended metaphysical worldview that is explicitly maintained which is in at least some ways in direct contradiction to the metaphysical beliefs/principles implicitly maintained.
Because of examples such as these, I dont then necessarily equate a beings often unconsciously occurring Umwelt (for lack of a better word) to - in the case of humans - the self-professed worldview which is consciously upheld and maintained.
Quoting javra
The two dont have to be in conflict. There are communities of scholars devoted to a particular metaphysics or philosopher, and yet no two people interpret that same metaphysics or philosophy in exactly the same way. The publicly agreed-upon understanding is a shorthand, an abstractive generalization which conceals within itself the variety of ways it is implicitly used by different people. You may be surprised by the fact that self-proclaimed Christians that adhere to all ritual aspects of their faith and uphold this metaphysical worldview at the same time in practice are in many a way atheistic, but they may see no contradiction here.
This can be in full accord to "not necessarily equating". To be clearer, do you find that hypocrisy in what is maintained in praxis and what is professed via propositions cannot occur and, if so, due to what reason(s)?
One can certainly lie to others about ones views for various reasons, but I dont think that apparent hypocrisy between opinion and action generally involves self-deception so much as failure to take into account the practical implications of ones views. Theory is rarely able to account for the unpredictability and indeterminateness of real life situations.
As an example, though I do not uphold the claim of "no atheists in foxholes", I do have evidence that some atheists no longer act according to their atheistic principles in dire situations. Although of course disagreements can abound regarding this, to me this does illustrate that sometimes one's professed worldview - while in no way being a lie - can in some ways be self-deceptive when put the test, so to speak. But this is one example among potentially many.
Thanks again for your views, though.
I don't find any of this surprising and I don't think professed worldviews tell us much. I've met many atheists who believe in clairvoyance, astrology and magic. Atheism is just a position on one idea. God or not. People often assume it means Richard Dawkins acolytes.
Materialistic Christians are pretty common too. I grew up in the Baptist tradition in the 1970's We were taught that most of the stories in the Bible were allegories. Most Christians I knew did not believe in ghosts, demons, miracles or anything supernatural. Religion seemed more about community than anything else.
Having worked with people dying in palliative/end of life care, I have noticed how often Christians no longer have faith or any interest in God. Deathbed deconversations seem to be more common than non religious people finding god/s in their pending mortality.
Yea, my point being about the same.
Metaphysics might be viewed as being in part comprised of discerning just how many philosophers it takes to change a light-bulb - tricky issue because many, if not all, will sit about endlessly debating the topic.
Else, it might be viewed as those aspects of ontology universal to all beings which facilitate both the possibility of the light-bulb being changed and the possibility of debating the issue without end - aspects that objectively are irrespective of ones beliefs on the matter, if any.
I so far like this generalized appraisal; though, of course, other perspectives - some of which will disagree - are possible.
:up: :up:
If youve never seen a billiard ball float in the air or fall through tabletops, then you might hold a view as to what is physically possible, and that might form a part of your general worldview as to what seems to be the case. What would you think if I told you I'd seen such things?
I don't think any of this has much to do with metaphysics. What you term "core commitments" I would simply characterize as 'habitual expectations based on what has been encountered and observed in the course of one's life'.
Since you asked: I'd think it a hallucination, or at the very least as not having anything to do with what can take place in the objective world, this due to my core metaphysical commitments. I'm certain I'd think this even if I myself were to "see" such things. Other's might not so interpret, but that would be due to their disparate core commitments.
Quoting Janus
OK, thanks for sharing. But then we do disagree on what metaphysics is. My view being in general accord with this:
Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics
... which to me fits in well enough with the answer I just provided to your question above regarding core metaphysical commitments (that, again, can be unconsciously held and thereby not be consciously analyzable worldviews but, instead, in part being - as you say - "habitual expectations based on what has been encountered and observed in the course of one's life"). I get it, you hold a different semantics and views and thereby find it important to assert that you disagree. But that, of itself, again doesn't warrant my view being egregious.
Got a few lightbulbs to change (metaphorically speaking) such that philosophizing right now will be a bit too distracting - so I'll be signing off for the time being.
Quoting javra
When it comes to tendencies, attitudes, dispositions and so on, I have only encountered human diversity, so for me any view which characterizes people as all having the same tendency, attitude or disposition I find egregious.
OK, thanks for explaining.
Quoting Janus.
Its not necessary that a metaphysical outlook be identically shared among members of a community. Each of those diverse humans you have encountered has an interpretive system for construing events which is partially unique to themselves.
Indeed. And there are limits both to the extent that it is actually "shared" (different degrees of understanding of the same thing (ability and specialization) and different aspects of the same thing (complexity) being some limitations. And there are similar limits constraining the extent that an individual can diverge, social pressures and norms, as well as the inherent need for one's core metaphysic to meet whatever constitutes its conditions of "adequacy" to be one's core metaphysic.
Yes, I agree and this in part is what I had in mind when I talked about "human diversity".
There is a very old resolution for this problem going back to the definition of metaphysics given by Aristotle. Seriously one person quoted the definition of Aristotle in this thread and drew no conclusions. Sciences study things under a certain aspect, qua some aspect. Physics studies the objects as moving, qua moving. Metaphysics studies things as existing, it`s a study of being qua being. What it means for an object to exist. What are the necessary conditions of its existence. So it has a very specific subject matter, it does not encompass the equations of motion, moreover it can even not encompass ontology.
If ontology gives as the list of natural kinds, then certainly it`s not a matter of metaphysics to settle this. In this way physical theories have ontologies (according to scientific realists). Ontology is not necessarily derived from the very notion of being. In Parmenidean monism it is.
Ontology if it gives as the list of basic categories is not a result of metaphysics too. In Aristotle there`s a possible world where there is no place. But place is one of the categories. It`s not a matter of the notion of being to derive categories. Ontology is distinct from metaphysics. The list of categories may be derived from the notion of being in the Kantian aprioristic conception of metaphysics or in what Heidegger calls ontotheology. But for Aristotle all knowledge is a posteriori. So there are reasons to distinguish physics and metaphysics not even presupposing the existence of a separate objects of metaphysics. Just a separate subject matter or aspect suffices. Unless, for example, a thing`s being is identical with its motion.
Ontology is the heart of metaphysics. And this is its traditional accepted definition, the nature of being, contrary to your assertion.
[quote=H. McDonald"]It was claimed that ontology has being as its object; but upon examination, we see that its object is really the concept of being or possible being rather than being as such. [/quote]
Wolffian ontology is the proper target of Kants Critique of Pure Reason. He even calls it ontotheology. Because It assumes that we know the perfect notion of being a priori. Kant even called it ontotheology for this reason.
If ontology is a proper part of metaphysics then we can know the notion of being which somehow includes the information about all kinds of possible existents. In Aristotles metaphysics the notion of being is equivocal, you cant know all information about other beings just by knowing ones object way of being. Ontology was only recognized as a proper part of metaphysics under early-modern conception of rationalistic metaphysics. Not without reason it has immediately come under fire. Deriving a list of all possible kinds of beings is an ambitious project and earlier conception of metaphysics was a little subtler.
Quoting Johnnie
Physics doesnt just make use of mathematics. Even if all of the equations were removed from physics, its starting point in objective relations makes its goal calculative exactitude, the essence of the mathematical, even if it can only vaguely approximate this goal.
Quoting Johnnie
You are right that we can pick and choose from mutually exclusive definitions of metaphysics. What Im about is
your view toward a holistic model of scientific understanding. There are many examples of such holistic models, but I dont think youll find them in Aristotle. They emerge after Kant , and particularly in the wake of Hegels historical dialectics. Hegel paved the way for Heideggers ontic/ontological difference, which directs us to become attuned to the conditions of possibility (metaphysics) of the ontological manner of being of ontical beings. For Heidegger, a list of natural kinds pertains to ontical beings. But any category of existing entities derives its sense and intelligibility from a wider context of relevance. This wider context of relevance comes first, and the meaning of the list of beings is derived from it.
Quoting Joshs
Is it correct to characterize your statement thus: abstract rules of organization have conceptual influence (the conferring of sense and intelligibility) upon concrete things?
Is it correct to infer from the above that in a reverse direction, concrete things make it possible to discern abstract rules emergent from concrete things?
Is it correct to induce a bi-conditional operator linking concrete things and abstract rules within a causal identity: concrete things imply abstract rules if and only if abstract rules imply concrete things?
Is it possible QM exemplifies a networked reality: wave functions and particle functions are interwoven within a universe that supports superposition regulated by probability measurements?
Quoting ucarr
I would prefer to say that concrete things are articulations and modifications of an internally interconnected web or Gestalt of referential meanings. This structure is not a logically causal whole, but a a reciprocally interaffecting totality in which changes to any subordinate aspect modifies the whole in some fashion.
Quoting ucarr
Quantum physicist Karen Barad has produced a model
of interaffecting matter that was inspired by the double
slit experiments.
Does Barad claim a scientific justification for the claim?
Quoting Joshs
Maybe you'll help me unpack the Barad definition:
Conclusions: a) subject_object is an intra-active phase-shifting dynamical process; b) intra-action nuances abstractly conceptualizable grammar of relations as [i]emergent-property-of-material-things-
cum-foregrounded-interiority[/i].
But why is language any less a "thing" than whatever "thing" it represents? Can we even talk about language if we do not consider language to be the "thing" about which we talk? Are you suggesting that thing-ness itself is the fiction?
I'm submitting that everything going on in the human Mind is Fiction. So yes, Language, too, and thing, and thing-ness. There is Real but that can only be accessed in being; once knowing is engaged, it is ultimately knowing Fiction. Yes, of course, this too. Then what's the point? 1. Exactly, but 2. Remember, there is Reality; it's accessed by being, not knowing. My Body is Real, and to access its reality, there is nothing I need to do but be (it's reality) 3. With respect to Mind, which for we humans, displaces that reality, and, with respect to the topic at hand--metaphysics, and "knowing,"--just because it is ultimately fabricated out of empty images, Signifiers stored in memory, and "made" "real" by processes of dialectic, fabricating meaning, never discovering, but, rather, always only settling upon true (belief), doesn't mean it is not functional. To wit: the wheel, rocket, democracy, and economy, the theories of evolution and relativity, plus the billions of other things, so-called good and so-called bad, constructed out of these images stored in memory and settled upon for their function.
Interesting. Though I agree that knowledge is derivative of being, what is the basis upon which you imply "reality" is any less derivative of being than is knowledge?
And even Plato did not go so far as to claim the shadows upon the wall were "fictions."
Well, yes, I should've clarified. "Reality" too is a fiction. Whatever Reality is, we can only know it as a fiction. Within human Mind alone is reality even spoken of, and so, I speak of it. I cannot cross thr gap between Fiction and Reality while remaining in Fiction. When I speak of Reality I am already beyond/alienated from being (Reality. Although, I have no business saying so). I apologize for how frustrating it may seem. But it is what it is.
As for Plato. Yes. And had he remained true to Socrates, he might have concluded that the shadow paintings are Fictions, and that upon ascension from the cave the philosopher sees no forms, no Signifiers, no thing, no ideal of a thing (no thingness). Instead, the philosopher just is, is just see-ing.
Sorry, the philosopher does not even see things as they are nor thing in itself. These too are constructed out of Reason and dialectic and perhaps because we intuit the Fiction and are forced to construct meaning leading us to such concepts. But really, even there, we are in the cave, using Fictional tools to excavating fiction.
Perhaps.
Have you read Being and Time?
As best I could. I like to think that my (albeit corrupted and elementary) understanding of that, helped shape my thinking. I'm not attempting false modesty. I think that all positions, metaphysical or otherwise, are arrived at by a collective writing, and that sometimes, particularly for the metaphysical, even if the reading is impure, it may still elucidate (even if varied from the so called author's intent). So much more to say...
I'd be interested if your understanding of Heidegger might shed more light on our discussion. If so, I'd be happy to hear, and will respond tomorrow. If not, it's been a pleasure.
Beyond that, philosophy as industry is the primary driving force behind the notion that it matters whether the subject matter is technically ontology, metaphysics, or epistemology.
Also there are trained philosophers like Tim Maudlin who say that physics is metaphysics because physical theories have ontologies. Thats the kind of confusion we dont want. There are physicalists among metaphysicians but even they recognize that theyre not doing physics just because they make use of physical ontology. Thats why I like Aristotles distinction, the sciences may not differ in object, a difference in aspect suffices. And certainly existence as such is not the aspect under which physics study the world.
Quoting wonderer1
I would say yes. She cites studies of the neurobiology of the brittlestar as an example of the use of her approach in predicting the behavior of phenomena.
I do not understand what you mean by pure ontology. I have never referred to pure ontology. I am not familiar with the term.
And you may rest assured that my understanding of the nature of being (my ontological disposition) provides me with useful knowledge each and every day.
If your understanding of the nature of being fails to provide you with useful knowledge each and every day, then your understanding of the nature of being is insufficient. And that is on you.
I took the liberty of adding pure to ontology. Why? Because I view H as engaging in metaphysics, notwithstanding his (extremely impressive, far superior to anything I could do) effort to focus on ontology. So I'm relying upon what I presume to be, your better understanding of H and submitting that, if there is such a thing as an inquiry into the nature of Being divorced from other metaphysical, epistemological, and (I think even) psychological (in the Freudian/Lacanian sense) considerations, it ought to be differentiated, and I (lazily) selected to preface it with pure.
In any case, I found H not to be pursuing "pure" ontology.
BUT, and here was the point I guess I failed to make. If one is to pursue purely ontology: what is being; it is futile to do so with thought, or anything else which tries to gather (construct) knowledge. Because knowledge is constructed out of empty Signifiers, and while admittedly useful, will not shed an iota of Truth about the Nature of Being which can (in my estimation) only be accessed by Being.
I do not know what that means. Ontology is not "extracted" from the rest of metaphysics. Metaphysics is an emphasis upon what is, epistemology is an emphasis upon how do what know what is, while ontology is an emphasis upon the nature of what is. There is no necessary hierarchical relationships upon the separate areas of emphasis.
Indeed, the areas of emphasis are to a large degree artificial and serve the purpose of making philosophy in general more accessible by dividing it up in a somewhat artificial manner. When I say my primary area of interest is ontology, I am not saying to the exclusion of all other areas.
You want to talk metaphysics, then we can talk metaphysics and you may run circles around me. If you want to talk epistemology, then we can talk epistemology and you may run circles around me. If you want to talk ontology, then we can talk ontology.
And if you do not want to talk ontology, then that is fine too. But only a metaphysician would attempt to persuade that metaphysics is some sort of umbrella term that includes ontology and epistemology. It is not.
Quoting Arne
To add my two-cents worth, Heideggers fundamental ontology, what he calls also the ontic-ontological difference, is not at all the same thing as the traditional philosophical meaning of ontology as the meaning of extant beingness. Heidegger considers this classical understanding of being to belong to metaphysics, whereas his fundamental ontology overcomes metaphysics.
Ok, I think I understand, including how what seems like my recklessness is frustrating. I did not intend that. I respect what you're saying, and am trying to understand how it might be impact my own thinking. So, is your point about isolating ontology, to say that Fiction or not, for ontology that's not relevant? And if so, why (sincerely, not argymentively)? And if not, then why--in the context of expressing that (to keep it simple) all our experiences are Fictional if we accept that human Consciousness is limited by its own "structure," made up signifiers--does it matter to "isolate" an ontological approach? Is there something about ontology that necessarily transcends human Consciousness (given we might acknowledge that the same can't necessarily be said of metaphysics or epistemology)? Is there a reason one cannot say of ontology that any truth regarding same cannot be accessed by Language but only by being (that) Being?
Excellent point.
I don't see how Heideggers ontology, if we are talking about Being and Time, overcomes metaphysics. To me, it expands it, and, with the help of hindsight, not even in any radical way, but rather, in a way which might be expected following those before him like Kant, Hegel, Husserl etc. If you are willing, explain to me how his ontology transcends the conventional approaches preceding him, which ultimately amounts to constructing new expressions out of the bricolage in our minds. Like what I'm doing too. I'm not demeaning the activity, it's what we do. It's just that I'm getting the impression H's ontology enjoys some kind of privileged status when it comes to Truth, and I'd like to know: is that because H, though similarly just constructing so called truths out of Mind, has somehow transcended Mind, all of It, and a accessed Real Truth about Being? And that matters to me because I'm of the opinion that no matter how artful, the only access to (the) Truth (about) Being, is in Being.
Heideggers thinking may be a bit weirder than youre prepared to accept. I noticed you make traditional philosophical distinctions like that between mind and world, fiction and reality, subjective and objective. Heidegger eliminates those distinctions. Dasein is neither mind nor world , inside nor outside, subject nor object. Heideggers Being is not an entity, an object, a subject. Being is a happening, a transit, an in-between.
The distinction you mention is either a phenomenological or a metaphysical distinction, and as I said Heidegger, I believe, equates phenomenology with his conception of metaphysics, which is not the same as the classical conception of course.
Contemporary metaphysics represents the systematizing of philosophy.
That makes it sound like a deliberate effort is required. Is metaphysics for skilled specialists, something you should never try at home, or is it a way in which we are thrown into the world?
It has more to do with the dynamics of conformity. Metaphysics is what One does.
Quoting Arne
ok, but I recommend adult supervision. You could poke an eye out.
The systematization (schematization?) is nothing new. Plato schematized as have many philosophers throughout history. Some wish to explain everything while others wish everything to be explained.
And in contemporary philosophy, those wishes are evidenced in responses (including some of mine) to questions such as "What's your description of metaphysics?"
I suspect one could Google and find a chart with "Metaphysics" at the top.
What Heidegger does in Being and Time is consistent with Heidegger's intentions as set forth in the Introduction to Being and Time. Please see Being and Time at page 64.
Not all ontologies are the same. Heidegger would say yes. Please see Being and Time.
Perhaps. Dasein is constitutively pre-ontological. Please see Being and Time.
Also, consciousness is derivative of being-in-the-world. Ibid.
The nature of being (ontology) is inaccessible in the absence of being.
A deeper understanding of the nature of being (ontology) can be facilitated with the use of language.
I suspect the above is "truth regarding" all intellectual pursuits.
You are welcome. And I appreciate all your comments and efforts. As resistant as I sometimes seem to being pushed, pushing me is the most effective way to force me to examine and/or reexamine my positions and to clarify them. And that is priceless.
So thank you.
and as somewhat of an aside, I greatly appreciate your initial comment to the original question. I would like to discuss it with you. So at some point in the not to distant future, I will contact you via your inbox.
Having looked more closely at Heidegger, I get why you say,
Quoting Joshs
But I think he shirks metaphysics, rather than overcoming it. He pretends to be doing a Classical, pre-Socratic even, ontology, an inquiry into the Being of beings, but ends up constructing his beautiful piece of architecture on par with Kant and Hegel, about Dasein, the Being of the everyday human being. And I admire it and find it useful, even liberating from some of the fixations of previous phenomenology, but I still have my concern that far from overcoming, he fell short.
Had he said, this is an "Ontology" of Human Mind, how (this mechanism of) being is constructed by it; how it constructs Time, and Handiness (and, he could have added, Logic and Reason); for their function how it is passed on in the form of History, input into every offspring, so that we are born already thrown into its world; how each particular, each individual instance of it partakes simply by being there; had he said that (which I submit, though over simplified here, except for the opening, he did, and a lot more like that) but just added, but don't ever think I am doing an Ontology of Real Being. That's not possible; any effort I make is already coming from that magical make-believe place of being thrown into a world of ready- made(s). That best I could do is give you back that world, rearranged and reconstructed so that you understand that; that afterall is all we really care about; we don't care about Truth (still my hypothetical H speaking); had that qualifier, which I believe he was conscious of, been included... Why does it matter besides the joy of the puzzle? Because if we think H or anyone has done anything other than reconstruct out of what is already there, we are at risk in believing Mind can, contra Socrates, actually know, and the many manifest problems with that....
Any so called Ontology of "Real" Being (which term and concept is itself, admittedly already a ready-made, so don't even start, Socrates), any inquiry and answer to an inquiry into Truth, can only be in be-ing.
I dived into this thread a bit late, and I respect the posts of the mates.
I was thinking about this, and I searched on the forum to see if someone had already started a thread about this. For me, metaphysics is quixotic. I searched for the definition of the latter concept and the dictionary says: having or showing ideas that are different and unusual but not practical or likely to succeed...
I personally think that I couldn't have defined it better. When we debate on metaphysics, the exchanges are not likely to succeed. We just discuss on a hypothetical basis. We like the idea of what metaphysics holds, but we dislike what should be the solution. We are in an infinite loop here. The metaphysics provides us a basic starting point on philosophy, but it doesn't go beyond that.
On the other hand, I agree with some users and thinkers who see metaphysics as the 'beginning' or the discussion of the beginning itself. Yet this is all ideas, and the theory is passed by phenomenalism.