The Metaphysics of Materialism
There have been quite a few threads about metaphysics recently and everyone is tired of them… Oh… wait a second… I’m not. I have a specific focused topic in mind that might allow us to avoid the usual confusion.
First focus - the discussion will take place from a materialist/physicalist/realist point of view. These from Wikipedia:
Second focus - For the purposes of this discussion, we live before 1905, when the universe was still classical and quantum mechanics was unthinkable. I see the ideas we come up with in this discussion as a baseline we can use in a later discussion to figure out how things change when we consider quantum mechanics.
Third focus - We’ll stick as much as possible with issues related to a scientific understanding of reality. Physics in particular.
R.G. Collingwood wrote that metaphysics is the study of absolute presuppositions. Absolute presuppositions are the unspoken, perhaps unconscious, assumptions that underpin how we understand reality. Collingwood wrote that absolute presuppositions are neither true nor false, but we won’t get into that argument here. I would like to enumerate and discuss the absolute presuppositions, the underlying assumptions, of classical physics. I’ll start off.
I think some of these overlap. I’ve also put in at least one because I think it's pretty common, even though I think it might not belong. I would like to do two things in this discussion 1) Add to this list if it makes sense and 2) Discuss the various proposed assumptions and decide if they belong on the list.
First focus - the discussion will take place from a materialist/physicalist/realist point of view. These from Wikipedia:
- Philosophical Realism - Realism about a certain kind of thing (like numbers or morality) is the thesis that this kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.
- Physicalism - In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical.
- Materialism - Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions.
Second focus - For the purposes of this discussion, we live before 1905, when the universe was still classical and quantum mechanics was unthinkable. I see the ideas we come up with in this discussion as a baseline we can use in a later discussion to figure out how things change when we consider quantum mechanics.
Third focus - We’ll stick as much as possible with issues related to a scientific understanding of reality. Physics in particular.
R.G. Collingwood wrote that metaphysics is the study of absolute presuppositions. Absolute presuppositions are the unspoken, perhaps unconscious, assumptions that underpin how we understand reality. Collingwood wrote that absolute presuppositions are neither true nor false, but we won’t get into that argument here. I would like to enumerate and discuss the absolute presuppositions, the underlying assumptions, of classical physics. I’ll start off.
- [1] We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.[2] The universe consists entirely of physical substances - matter and energy.[3] These substances behave in accordance with scientific principles, laws. [4] Scientific laws are mathematical in nature. [5] The same scientific laws apply throughout the universe and at all times. [6] The behaviors of substances are caused. [7] Substances are indestructible, although they can change to something else. [8] The universe is continuous. Between any two points there is at least one other point.
I think some of these overlap. I’ve also put in at least one because I think it's pretty common, even though I think it might not belong. I would like to do two things in this discussion 1) Add to this list if it makes sense and 2) Discuss the various proposed assumptions and decide if they belong on the list.
Comments (191)
Not sure if this helps but generally the physicalists I know call themselves methodological naturalists as opposed to philosophical naturalists. From RationalWiki:
"... this assumption of naturalism need not extend beyond an assumption of methodology. This is what separates methodological naturalism from philosophical naturalism — the former is merely a tool and makes no truth claim, while the latter makes the philosophical — essentially atheistic — claim that only natural causes exist."
Does that mean we can’t critique materialism, or just that we have to wait till we’ve agreed on the metaphysical assumptions of classical physics?
You say you’re enumerating, meaning to list or itemize, absolute presuppositions, re: RGC, by listing propositions, but according to RGC.....
“...Prop. 5: absolute presuppositions are not propositions.
This is because they are never answers to question, whereas a proposition is that which is stated, and that which is stated is always in answer to a question...”
(Essay on Metphysics, 1,4, pg 41, 1940, in https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.187414/page/n40/mode/1up)
A proposition is that which is true or false, but “....absolute presuppositions are not verifiable...”, hence not true or false, hence are not propositions.
It is true or false that “We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.”, therefore “....” is not an AP.
Did you not mean to call the propositions in that list APs?
Item 5 on my list - "The same scientific laws apply throughout the universe and at all times"
If by "unsure" you mean you're not sure it's true, of course you're not. There's no way you could be. But if it's not true, and if we can't at least act as if it were, we can't do science.
Quoting Tom Storm
From Wikipedia:
It seems like either one of these would be consistent with the absolute presuppositions I listed. Or was that your point?
The purpose of this thread is not to discuss the validity of a materialist viewpoint.
(1) is of greater antiquity than (2). The idea of an ordered universe was one of the motivating beliefs of the Greek philosophers and indeed of science wherever it was found. But (2) was until recently one view among others, proposed by the ancient atomists and other materialist philosophies. However, post-Descartes, which effectively depicted spirit as a ghost in a machine, scientists and engineers tended to reject the ghost and keep the machine. It was one of the characteristics of Enlightenment materialism. But the provenance of many of the other points goes back to medieval and even ancient times. But one final point I think ought to be brought out:
Quoting Clarky
What do you think is the meaning of 'substance' in this context? I ask this, because I think there is considerable confusion about the philosophical, as distinct from everyday, sense of the word 'substance'. It is related to Cartesian dualism as mentioned above.
I am proposing the items in my list as the underlying assumptions, i.e. absolute presuppositions, of materialist/physicalist/realist physics. As I noted in the OP:
Quoting Clarky
Is that because you are an advocate of a materialist viewpoint?(Just curious)
Are you saying that the universe is homogeneous? I think that's probably true. It is my understanding that matter is well distributed within the observable universe and the cosmic microwave background radiation is uniform in all directions. I think that is a scientific finding, not an underlying assumption.
No, I'm not an advocate. I picked it because I thought it would be the easiest to discuss and also because I think it matches most people's, including scientist's, understandings of how science works.
The issue, for the purposes of this discussion, is whether or not these two presuppositions are absolute presuppositions of a materialist point of view.
Quoting Wayfarer
When I said "substance" I meant matter and energy. If the word is ambiguous in this context, that's my mistake.
Of course the absolute presupposition of materialism is that matter - nowadays, matter/energy - are the only real substances.
Quoting Clarky
It's not a mistake, so much as a very pervasive confusion in philosophy, in particular.
The everyday meaning of substance is 'a material with uniform properties'. Examples might be gases, plastics, metals, radioactive substances, etc. The difficulty is, 'substance' in philosophy has a different meaning, namely, 'the bearer of attributes'. That is why you read the, to us, confusing notion of Socrates being 'a substance' or 'a substantial being'. Where it originates is in the Aristotelian term 'ouisia' which is a form of the Greek verb 'to be'. So it is actually nearer in meaning, you could argue, to 'being' than to what we think of 'substance'. But that distinction dropped out of regular discourse over the centuries.
Imagine if Descartes' two categories were said to be 'thinking beings' and 'extended beings'. It's not quite accurate, but it hints at a distinction lost.
Agreed, but it's not the only absolute presupposition of a materialist approach to science.
Quoting Wayfarer
I thought I was being clear. I hope I didn't confuse things. Thanks.
That’s fine. It’s your thread, you can do with it as you please. But you referenced Collingwood, so it hardly seems fair to call something an AP that conflicts with the predicates of that reference.
Anyway....carry on.
[1] I don't think this is an absolute presupposition, insofar as we have found that the universe is fairly coherently and consistently understandable to us in scientific terms.
[2] There does not seem to be any other serious candidate for basic substance, unless God or Universal Mind is posited.
[3] Laws are formulated post hoc to codify the behavior of observed invariances. We know that the substances and parts of the universe that we have observed seem to behave invariantly.
[4] I think the fact that the so-called Laws of Nature can be expressed mathematically is something we have discovered, so not an absolute presupposition.
[5] This is an assumption based on us never having observed a counterexample. Of course we cannot observe anything but the most vanishingly tiny fraction of all places and times.
[6] Again this is based on the expectation that comes with habit and/or the fact that we are constituted such that we cannot comprehend events without thinking in terms of causation.
[7] I think this is more speculative, but it is bolstered by the apparent consistency and universality (within our science and regarding what we have actually observed) of the Laws of Thermodynamics.
[8]. This certainly seems to hold in an abstract, logical kind of sense. It is hard to know what it could even mean beyond that context.
Here are examples that Collingwood, in "An Essay on Metaphysics" identified as Kant's absolute presuppositions:
Or, thoughts in the mind of God. Another forum of idealism.
This is my interpretation - humans are made up of substances.
Quoting karl stone
As I noted in the OP, we are discussing the absolute presuppositions of a materialist approach to science. It is not the purpose of the thread to discuss whether materialism is valid.
I don't see how free will/determinism, Godels incompleteness theorem, or chaos theory are relevant to the issue raised in the OP.
I agree with some of this, others not. There is very good evidence to suggest that [1] is not true: the universe cannot be understood by human beings, at least not metaphysically (which is the purpose of this thread) - the ultimate grounds of reality are sealed out for us.
[2] Is more terminological than anything else. Yes, there is a universe out there - it can be called "physical", "neutral", "material", "immaterial", it does not have consequences for our inquires- for whatever the universe is made of, whatever word is used - this is what we study.
[3] Yes, sure. We could substitute "laws" for "habits", but it is fine.
[4] Yes. Or at least, we can best describe its behavior through applied mathematics.
[5] Given the time period, perhaps this was assumed to be true. There may be exceptions, but, fine.
[6] Yes.
[7] So far as was known, correct.
[8] And assumed to be infinite too.
[9] Space and time are considered absolute and not the same thing, as is now the case.
Pretty good OP Clark.
Kind of but that also that philosophical naturalism is too extreme and a lot of folk think all scientists presuppose this too.
Quoting Clarky
Well it depends upon what you mean by all times, and what you mean by universe. I'm not a big science guy, but I guess my point would be if you mean 'in the known universe and since what we call the 'big bang'' then yes. I don't know what might be true outside of the known universe or outside of time as we know it. Sounds like this is a job for a physicist: Tom out...
Here's a line by line response in italics. I am mostly responding how I think Collingwood would respond:
[1] I don't think this is an absolute presupposition, insofar as we have found that the universe is fairly coherently and consistently understandable to us in scientific terms. You are making an assumption based on having observed a very limited part of the universe.
[2] There does not seem to be any other serious candidate for basic substance, unless God or Universal Mind is posited. Does that mean you agree it is a good example of an absolute presupposition?
[3] Laws are formulated post hoc to codify the behavior of observed invariances. We know that the substances and parts of the universe that we have observed seem to behave invariantly. Again, we have observed a very limited amount of the universe.
[4] I think the fact that the so-called Laws of Nature can be expressed mathematically is something we have discovered, so not an absolute presupposition.There is a long debate about whether the mathematical behavior of the universe is discovered or projected by observers. I come down on the side of projection.
[5] This is an assumption based on us never having observed a counterexample. Of course we cannot observe anything but the most vanishingly tiny fraction of all places and times. Agreed.
[6] Again this is based on the expectation that comes with habit and/or the fact that we are constituted such that we cannot comprehend events without thinking in terms of causation. Agreed
[7] I think this is more speculative, but it is bolstered by the apparent consistency and universality (within our science and regarding what we have actually observed) of the Laws of Thermodynamics. Are you saying it is an absolute presupposition or is not?
[8]. This certainly seems to hold in an abstract, logical kind of sense. It is hard to know what it could even mean beyond that context. I'm not sure if I have an answer. We can ask Kant. It was one of his.
As noted in the OP, this discussion is about a materialist view of reality.
And no one who disputes you is allowed? Okay.
Quoting Clarky
Given (3), why do we need (6)?
My line by line response. My response in italics:
[1] is not true: the universe cannot be understood by human beings, at least not metaphysically (which is the purpose of this thread) - the ultimate grounds of reality are sealed out for us. I disagree. If the universe can not be understood, science is pointless.
[2] Is more terminological than anything else. Yes, there is a universe out there - it can be called "physical", "neutral", "material", "immaterial", it does not have consequences for our inquires- for whatever the universe is made of, whatever word is used - this is what we study. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but many people do. I guess the question is whether or not most physicists have this as a presupposition.
[3] Yes, sure. We could substitute "laws" for "habits", but it is fine. Ok
[4] Yes. Or at least, we can best describe its behavior through applied mathematics. Ok
[5] Given the time period, perhaps this was assumed to be true. There may be exceptions, but, fine. Again, I think most physicists probably assume this.
[6] Yes.
[7] So far as was known, correct.
[8] And assumed to be infinite too. I'm not sure about that.
[9] Space and time are considered absolute and not the same thing, as is now the case. I think that's a good one. We can add it to the list.
Quoting Tom Storm
Seems to be Einstein's Principle of Relativity.
If a proposed scientific law is found to work in one situation and not in another, then it needs modification. A generalisation that accounts for both instances would suffice.
This is a methodological principle that specifies what counts as a scientific law. It's logic makes it a piece of metaphysics in Popper's sense.
How does philosophical naturalism differ substantially from materialism and physicalism?
Quoting Tom Storm
Yes, I thought of that but didn't address it. I think I'm saved by the fact I specified before 1905.
I am not a materialist, although I think most scientists are and were in 1905. As I noted in the OP, I want to keep this focused on absolute presuppositions and not on the validity of a materialist position.
No problem. I will just ignore you from now on.
As I noted in the OP, there may be some overlap, but I think 3 and 6 are different.
Quoting Banno
That's true.
Oh, @Jackson, you're just so cranky and cute. I want to give you a big hug.
I forgot to say thank you. Thank you.
We come up to the point raised in the title of the thread: the metaphysics of materialism. If you say that studying the universe as was done in 1905 is metaphysics - that's fine. Though I doubt scientists then thought they were doing metaphysics.
They were doing physics. They study what we still call "matter", but beyond that name, I don't see a metaphysics. They studied the universe, call it whatever you like. The results won't vary if you call matter, "immaterial" or "mental", as you seem to agree.
I should've emphasized that I have in mind intuitive understanding of the universe, which was the goal of the great scientists/philosophers of the 17th century onward. This has been dropped, even before 1905.
But if by understand you mean "theoretical understanding" - then we do not disagree, and happily, science has a point. Understanding is a complex topic in its own right.
See Causality, Determination and such stuff. I think Anscombe's differentiation between causation and determination would serve your purposes well, in that you might avoid the incessant arguments about first causes and such. So if one has a scientific law in mathematical form that provides a satisfactory description of some event, including being predictive, then notions of cause are inconsequential.
. As I acknowledge, we have only observed a very limited part of the universe, but I disagree in that we have (so far) found the universe to be comprehensible to us, so I don't see that as an assumption. Of course it doesn't follow that every part of the universe will be comprehensible to us, or that the universe will always be comprehensible to us, if we were to think those to be true then that would be an assumption, but, to repeat, we do know that the universe has been comprehensible to us, so I don't see that as an assumption.
Quoting Clarky
Maybe; I'm not sure. If we can't think of any other serious possibilities, maybe not, so I guess it comes down to whether we consider god and/or universal mind to be serious possibilities.
Quoting Clarky
I think this is the same question as the first, so already answered.
Quoting Clarky
Right, but the fact is we know we can express the laws mathematically and make very precise predictions which always seem to be observed, so whatever the explanation is, I think we can safely say that we know that we can express (at least some) of the laws (I would prefer to say invariances) of nature mathematically.
Quoting Clarky
I'd say it's universal applicability is an assumption based on what we have observed so far. I'm not sure if that would count as 'absolute'. Again, the caveat would be that we only know it applies to what we have observed, and any assertion beyond that would be an assumption, if not a presupposition.
Good OP!
For the benefit of the members here, this is the euclidean geometry.
Scientists don't do metaphysics. As Collingwood wrote, metaphysics describes the underlying assumptions that scientists follow while doing science. They are often not explicitly aware of those assumptions.
Quoting Manuel
I didn't say the universe is understood, I said it can be understood. It is understandable.
I have argued before that the idea of causation is not very useful. Didn't you and I discuss that previously? In 1912, Bertrand Russell wrote "On the Notion of Cause" which endorsed that view. On the other hand, I think scientists in 1905 in general assumed that all events are caused.
Isn't there supposed to be an infinite number of points between any two points? Why would you state it as "at least one"? It seems like the incoherency of this idea, demonstrates the falsity of the proposition "The universe is continuous". A number of your stated "absolute presuppositions" can be demonstrated to be false.
No I was speaking more of the difference between dreams and realty. Both can share any amount of detail or traits. But reality has the characteristic of consistency.
In my view, this sums it up:
[1] We live in a consistent universe that can be understood by humans.
Quoting Clarky
Those seem like rephrasings of the original point; an elaboration of how humans go about understanding, not new characteristics on their own.
Isn't science people trying to understand the universe? Why would we do that if we didn't think the universe is comprehendible? Even if it might not be, I think we have to act as if it is just to proceed. I think that's a lot of what an absolute presupposition is - acting as if something is true even though it isn't proven and can't be proven.
Quoting Janus
I'll fall back on my premise of a materialistic/physicalist point of view. That would exclude God or a universal mind.
Quoting Janus
Agreed.
Quoting Janus
For me, and I think for Collingwood, this all comes back to the fact that we have and can only observe a very limited portion of the universe.
I think the point of Russell's essay was that, even though there are scientific laws, the idea of causation is unnecessary. I guess great minds think alike, because I agree with that.
The way I said it was awkward and potentially misleading. Your formulation is probably better. Kant himself wrote "All phenomena, then, are continuous quantities" which is probably even better.
I agree, at least, that materialists in 1905 believed that.
Quoting Bird-Up
I don't think saying that the universe is comprehensible is the same as saying there are universal laws or that it behaves in a mathematical way.
Or is that the same as "Everything has a cause?"
I think science is an extension of ordinary everyday lived understanding. The world is intelligible, "makes sense", to us, and to animals; if it weren't we could not survive. I think science is the endeavor to extend that basic comprehensibility.
We understand the world of natural events in terms of causes, and the world of (some) animal and human behavior in terms of reasons. It seems natural to try to extend the inquiry in terms of reasons to the cosmos, and that leads to religious understandings. Since there can be no empirical evidence for these kinds of metaphysical "why" questions, any answers to them remain faith-based.
Quoting Clarky
I tend to agree; as soon as we try to make any positive assertions about God or universal mind, we descend into incoherency.
Quoting Clarky
I agree, but perhaps where I might disagree is that I think the metaphysical assumptions we make are based on our experience; for example the assumption of causation is based on our experience of ourselves as causal agents, and is further warranted by its success in making the world intelligible to us. We can only speak from our ( necessarily) limited experience.
I said "perhaps...,might disagree" because that may not disagree with the idea of absolute presuppositions; I guess it depends on where Collingwood (and you) think they find their genesis. I don't tend to think they have their genesis in some transcendental, Kantian, pre-given, rational a priori of the Intellect, but rather in the primordial logic of our embodiedness, and in the experience of "being-in-the-world"..
So there is an infinite number of points between any two points?
I agree. I just went back to look at what lead up to this comment. A few posts back I misunderstood something you wrote. I thought you said the universe was not comprehensible. What I think you really said was that it is comprehensible, we know that because of our experience, and because of that it's not an assumption. That's a good point, and it's something I've thought about.
Let's go through the listed candidates for absolute presuppositions. I've added a couple at the end.
[1] We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.
[2] The universe consists entirely of physical substances - matter and energy.
[3] These substances behave in accordance with scientific principles, laws.
[4] Scientific laws are mathematical in nature.
[5] The same scientific laws apply throughout the universe and at all times.
[6] The behaviors of substances are caused.
[7] Substances are indestructible, although they can change to something else.
[8] The universe is continuous. Between any two points there is at least one other point.
[9] Space and time are separate and absolute. This from @Manuel.
[10] Something can not be created from nothing. I added this, but I'm not sure it's different from 6.
I've bolded four items we might be able to say we know from experience. I guess, based on that, you could say they are not absolute presuppositions. I'm pretty sure Collingwood would disagree. I want to come down with Collingwood, but the argument seems nitpicky - "Well, you haven't seen all of the universe. You don't know what you'll find." That's in conflict with one of my favorite quotes from my favorite scientist, Stephen Jay Gould - In science, “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.
well, at least 4% of it, anyway.
1 - to some degree. As written it sounds like we know we can figure it all out.
2 - what is a physical substance and does this mean if we discover 'something' that is real but has qualities different from what we considered physical before we would drop physicalism? I ask because this has already happened. What is considered physical has opened up over time. IOW it sounds like physicalism is making a substance claim, but I don't think it is.
5 - I disagree with what you said elsewhere. I think we could do science without this assumption. If other galaxies have different laws, we can still use science to figure out this galaxies rules and then theirs. If the laws change over time, and there is some evidence this is the case, we can still try to keep up. And if the laws are changing slowly, well, then the research results are relevant for significant periods of time.
8 - I didn't think there was consensus on quantized vs continuous.
Back then I'm not sure if they even calculated how much of the universe was knowable.
But the point you bring up, is extremely important to stress.
Although it is absolutely breathtaking that we have managed, as rather special creatures (given unique properties not found in other animals) to understand a portion of the universe, the overwhelmingly majority, we do not know.
And it's not even clear that these remaining things should be considered "matter" and "energy".
And that's why Collingwood says it's an absolute presupposition. We can't prove it's true, but we have to act as if it were in order to do science.
Yes. I'm having a really good time. In particular these last few posts about which of the items on the list are presuppositions and which might be facts have brought some of my own doubts into focus.
A line by line response. My responses in italics.
1 - to some degree. As written it sounds like we know we can figure it all out. I guess it probably does, at least at some level, but it doesn't mean we ever will. It seems like a good presupposition to me - We can't show it's true, but we have to pretend it is.
2 - what is a physical substance and does this mean if we discover 'something' that is real but has qualities different from what we considered physical before we would drop physicalism? I ask because this has already happened. What is considered physical has opened up over time. IOW it sounds like physicalism is making a substance claim, but I don't think it is. I tried to keep this simple by putting limitations on us as described in the OP. One limitation is that we look at things from a materialist /physicalist point of view. Another is that we look only at classical physics.
5 - I disagree with what you said elsewhere. I think we could do science without this assumption. If other galaxies have different laws, we can still use science to figure out this galaxies rules and then theirs. If the laws change over time, and there is some evidence this is the case, we can still try to keep up. And if the laws are changing slowly, well, then the research results are relevant for significant periods of time. Yes, it is possible we will someday find things going on far away and long ago that are inconsistent with how we currently see things. But the only way we'll be able to figure that out is by assuming that the rest of the universe operates on the same rules we have here until we run into a contradiction.
8 - I didn't think there was consensus on quantized vs continuous. I think in a classical universe there would be. That's why I included that limitation in the OP.
It depends if you're talking about a line segment or a line that has both ends expanding. And I don't know why you asked this question.
Quoting ClarkyYes, classical and also with the metaphysical baggage, I would argue, from taking a stand against dualisms and transcendant 'things'. So we are left with an ism that seems to be taking a stand on ontology, when really science at least is taking a stand on methodology. I think slowly we will end up with something like scientific verificationism and drop the seeming ontological stand of physicalism/materialism. Neutrinos and even massless particles, fields particles in superposition or even whole entities in superposition, and even some physicists beliefs in mathematical realism run counter to substance type claims.Quoting ClarkyI'd say we'd be testing if it still holds or did hold. I can see the sequence in method, but I don't see any reason to assume it. In fact I think it would be good not to. Counterevidence will take more time to be noticed and accepted. I guess, I am thinking of specific scientific minds. Is a scientist hampered if the don't assume that the laws have held since the Big Bang (or before ?! that) and if they don't assume it must hold everywhere (deep in black holes, far away across the universe, wherever). I don't see where this stops him or her. It even seems positive to me. I can see the advantage of not deciding we have to begin at zero knowledge when they jump through a wormhole to another galaxy in the future. IOW they go with technology that works in our part of the universe and all that. But once the ship appears in the other galaxy, being open to rules being different seems like a positive idea. In fact I would suggest any jump say, to a new area, it would be wise to immediately check and see a lot of things right away. And then to be open over time to changes. And then when looking way back in time to keep open to the rules having changed.
Quoting ClarkyAh, sorry. But I would assume people were at least open to if not leaning towards irreducible levels pre-QM because it seemed like there were fundamental particles to some, even Democritus. I don't have a good way to google this issue however. I'd be interested to hear what science assumed about there being utter continuousness all the way down or not. I am not sure that depends on QM in the history of science.
The problem is, that ideas such as this, "there is an infinite number of points between any two points", are very useful principles, which are not true. Work done at the Planck level demonstrates the falsity of that principle. So useful principles, when not true, tend to have their limits, and when employed at those limits, are counter-productive, producing misleading and deceptive conclusions.
We can take the position, that these fundamental principles, absolute presuppositions, need not necessarily be true, (which they are not in actuality), and we can also hold that the laws of physics which follow from them need not be true as well, (they just require a predictive capacity), but we will suffer from the consequences of such a choice. At those limits, where the predictive capacity of those laws breaks down, where the fundamental presuppositions no longer apply, we will be forced to make all sorts of exceptions, excuses and rationalizations, to continue application of those principles, in acts of self-deception.
Therefore the more appropriate position to adopt is to be skeptical and doubtful of these absolute presuppositions, and the laws of physics which follow from them. We need to subject them to formalized principles of skepticism, reveal the falsities hiding within, and reject them accordingly. In short, we ought to look for truth in such principles rather than usefulness.
:clap: :yikes: (Not bad for an "immaterialist".)
Quoting Bylaw
:fire: Yes. And didn't classical atomists (dis)solve "Zeno's paradox" by disputing 'unbounded divisibility'? Thus, 16th-18th century "natural philosophers" had assumed corpuscularianism.
Quoting Clarky
Then the point of this thread is to preach to the choir?
When I was a Christian, I didn't seriously think about the view of being a Christian. I just was, and accepted the idea that God exists without seriously thinking about what that meant. Once I began to seriously take on the view and asking deeper questions about this viewpoint in an attempt to better understand and defend this viewpoint did I come to understand that what I believed simply didn't fit with more objective observations. So it was only in delving deeper into the view that I began to reject the view.
Quoting Clarky
Right. So for the purpose of this discussion, we accept the view that macro-sized "physical" objects are the interaction between smaller "physical" objects, and that those smaller "physical" objects are themselves composed of the interactions of even smaller "physical" objects. If "physical" objects are really the interactions of smaller objects, then it seems to me that it doesn't make any sense to say that it's "physical" all the way down. It appears that using a pre-relativity physicists viewpoint actually shows that the world is not "physical" but relational all the way down.
Speculative, non-fallacious inferences – philosophical or scientific – are not what I mean by "woo", Woofarer; such speculations are either valid/sound or they are not.
I don't agree. As we approach any problem, ask any question, we have to act as if it's solvable, answerable. If we reach an impasse, we just recalibrate and continue on.
Quoting Bylaw
We are talking about metaphysics, not science.
Quoting Bylaw
This is not a discussion of the merits of materialism or physicalism. It's an examination of what the underlying assumptions of materialism might be.
Quoting Bylaw
For the purposes of this discussion, we're talking about classical physics before quantum mechanics and relativity. Before knowledge of an expanding universe. Even if we weren't, I think scientists today still need use this same presupposition. We study things billions of years old and billions of light years away. When we find something that doesn't fit our expectations, we rewrite the laws, but we still expect the new laws to apply everywhere.
Quoting Bylaw
As I noted, we already study things further away than galaxies. I think it's reasonable to expect conditions to be different in different places and times, but not laws of science.
Quoting Bylaw
People certainly knew that some things came in small pieces rather than continuous substances. I always assumed this was talking at a more fundamental level. That space and time are continuous. This was one of the presuppositions that Kant identified. I wonder if it was a reaction to Newton's and Leibnitz's invention of calculus, which depend on things being infinitely divisible.
I've read about some scientists today who are speculating that space itself might be quantized. But that's a different discussion.
This is a discussion of metaphysics before the discoveries in physics of the 20th century were known. Any absolute presupposition has the potential to limit the kinds of things we look for and can see. That's why they change over time.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I disagree. It is both Collingwood's and Kant's understanding that you can't dispense with all underlying metaphysical assumptions. I agree with them. Science cannot proceed without them.
Absolute presuppositions can change with changing knowledge.
Quoting Harry Hindu
This is not a discussion on the merits of materialism.
Quoting Clarky
You missed the point. In discussing materialism you inevitably get to the point of realizing it has no merit.
As I've written many times in this thread, this is not a discussion of the validity of a materialist viewpoint.
The "Is there an external physical world" thread is in the middle of a discussion of the validity of materialism right now. I suggest you take your issues there.
Every problem we encounter, from our perspective might be solvable. That's enough of a window, even in not correct in some cases (and we wouldn't recognize them) to try. It's not like we encounter some new kind of object in space and go, oh, that thing we'll never understand. We'd go ahead and give it a shot, and again. We have a metaposition that perhaps not everything can be understood and we have the day to day trying to learn about stuff. I see no reason the metaposition inhibits the species, though some individuals might do better without the metaposition. It's very likely to some scientists that there is a good chance they won't figure something out in their lifetimes and even that their research might be a wrong turning.But on they go. Quoting Clarky
I think I was addressing that. I don't think that in practice most physicalists or materials will demand that something discovered to be real must have certain qualities (that it is physical). We've already expanded what stuff we now call physical can be like and what qualities it need no longer have. So, if we are talking about assumptions in m and p isms, I don't think it includes assumtions about substance. Another way to put that is the words are expanding categories, they are placeholder terms.Quoting ClarkyI think some assume they must and others do not. The latter group may expect them to, but do not assume they must. I would guess this is more common related to changes over time. I don't see why this would stop or hinder anyone. And it seems rational not to assume, regard less of the period in history.Quoting ClarkyYes, my position is that one need not assume. Expecting X and not assuming it must be X are not mutually exclusive. I haven't heard a reason yet why this would stop people from researching or it must be assumed to move on. You've asserted it, but I don't know why it must be so. These things would not stop me and in fact, since there are a number of contingent problems I keep trying to solve and am aware i may never solve yet keep trying anyway and i see this quality in others (laypeople in their lives and researchers in their work) I don't see why it should be the case in general that humans would give up, avoid research or presume that any particular research could not be effective and an particular phenomenon could not be understood, despite the metaposition.
Anyway, we seem to disagree. I've had my say and if I hop in again I focus on something else..
I feel guilty not responding in detail to your post, but, consistent with what you've written, I'll leave it at that.
Again, remove (6) and there is no need for a first cause. (2) says that there is stuff, so the issue is resolved.
A petty point. All Clarky need is that at least some of the universe is understandable. We don't need to understand everything in order to understand something.
That we understand 4% of the universe implies (1).
You think the discovery that current cosmology accounts for only 4% of the projected totality of the Universe is petty?
As we have discussed, you and I share an understanding that the idea of causality may not be a useful one. But still, causality has been an important metaphysical principle and I think most people believed it is valid in 1905 and probably still today. I'm reluctant to take it off the list. As for my new item on the list - Something can not come from nothing - it may be that, if I keep causality, I don't need it. But I still want to, even if only so I can have an even 10 items on my list.
Of course you aren't. That there are things we do not understand does not count agains (1)
Quoting Clarky
Nice one!
I'm not proposing you don't know how many cups there are in your cupboard, but pointing to the fact that current cosmological and physical theory is in a state of extreme flux and fragmentation. But of course we can overlook that, if it makes everyone here feel comfortable and satisfied to do so, which appears to be the aim.
I wasn't familiar with RGC, but his notion of "absolute presumptions" is interesting. In metaphysical discussions on this forum certain "presumptions" & prejudices quickly become apparent as posters line-up on opposite sides : crudely described as Physics versus Metaphysics. However, RGC seems to be returning to Socratic, versus Analytic, methods; apparently in response to Two-value Logical Positivism. Analytical Positivism seems to presume that knowledge is either True or False. Yet, Socrates demonstrated that most human knowledge is debatable.
I don't have the technical training to make any "absolute" observations on your list. But it's apparent that [1] is not very controversial in this day & age, but [2] is at the root of most of our interminable debates. Disagreements on the other items may depend on degree of commitment to Materialistic or Spiritualistic worldviews, which could also be labeled as "Realism vs Idealism". Absolute Presuppositions seem to assume a Black & While, Either/Or world. But Einstein's Relativism has implied that the world is BothAnd. :cool:
Socrates would challenge initial hypotheses and examine them for presumptions and assumptions.
https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ppecorino/intro_text/Chapter%202%20GREEKS/Socrates_Legacy.htm
The Socratic method is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions. ___Wikipedia
"[i]Collingwood had nothing to contribute to the debate between realists and idealists; he would have regarded it as belonging to metaphysics as the study of pure being, not as metaphysics understood as a form of presuppositional analysis. . . . "
The task of philosophy, Collingwood claims in An Essay on Metaphysics, is not to assert propositions in answers to questions but to uncover presuppositions. [/i]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collingwood/
[1] We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.
Note --- a minority of *educated* people today may still presume that the frustrations & rational challenges of the world are due to Trickster gods, or dueling deities, such as Jehovah & Satan.
** I caught a presupposition of my own.
[2] The universe consists entirely of physical substances - matter and energy.
Note ---Since the advent of Quantum & Information theories in Science, the physical foundation of the world was been undermined. What was classically presumed to be absolute, now seems to be indeterminate & uncertain.
As I said in my original post, the validity of materialism is not the subject of this discussion. It's purpose is to try to identify the absolute presuppositions of a materialist view point, i.e. materialism is assumed for the purposes of this discussion.
Quoting Gnomon
As the OP indicates, this discussion is based on classical physics, in particular what was known in 1905, before quantum mechanics had been discovered.
Yes. But a materialist might disagree with the label of "presupposition", and insist that it is just an "absolute truth" or "known fact". Assuming you do find some "absolute presuppositions" in Materialism, will that reflect on its Validity? Likewise with Spiritualism or Idealism or any kind of -ism. One man's presupposition may be another man's fundamental Truth.
The label for each belief system is intended to identify its core value, its ultimate truth, and its essential reality. Metaphysical debates on this forum tend to focus on finding false assumptions in the opposition worldview, while presenting obvious truths in the correct worldview. Then around & around we go. :joke:
PS__Why do you limit this discussion to Classical Physics? Do you have an agenda? Just asking.
No, it isn't.
Of course it is.
Ludicrous to say it's not.
Seems so as the OP stipulates a pre-1905 purview.
... Or are you playing the pre-1905 game here. Only way your comment makes anything approaching sense.
Dispensing with all underlying metaphysical assumptions is not the issue though. The issue is the consequences of science proceeding from false metaphysical assumptions. So it is not a matter of removing all such assumptions, and proceeding with none, it is a matter of subjecting them all to a rigorous form of skepticism, and proceeding only from those which pass.
Any claim that physics provides an inadequate understanding of the way things work, made via the internet, is a laughable performative contradiction.
No need: you are quite adept at fooling yourself. :wink:
This all depends on you criteria for "adequate". Some of us seem to have far have higher standards than others.
Learning how to frame a debate in just the way that the responses don't upset your own 'fundamental presuppositions' is an art form in its own right. :wink:
Have you read the OP? Have you read the rest of the posts on this thread? If you don't want to play by the terms of discussion I set down, you should go to another thread or start your own.
Seems I misunderstood what you were trying to say.
Fooling myself that you pivoted from Wayfarer's "extreme flux" and "fragmented" to your own "adequate for facilitating the transfer of digital data via the internet"?
Do tell.
The contentions part of this is not physicalism but reductionism, the issue of what can be explained using physics - that everything might eventually be reduced to physics. That is not presently the case - there is no adequate physical explanation as to why Putin invaded Ukraine, for example. A more salient point is that even if there were such an explanation, it is hard to see how it would be of any use in deciding what we ought do about the invasion. Issues of ethics and aesthetics would remain incorrigible in the face of physicalism.
The great discontinuities in pre-relativistic physics were the propagation of electromagnetic waves and explaining how hydrogen atoms could remain stable. We know how these problems were resolved. GIven the context, @Wayfarer might be better served by drawing attention to this rather than to dark matter or dark energy. But again, since the contention of (1) is that we can explain some things, and not that we can explain everything, it is pretty irrelevant.
Physicalism is fine within it's sphere, but inadequate to most of human endeavour.
This thread is not for discussion of the validity of materialism. You guys all know that but you’re doing it anyway.
Yeah, it is.
In any case the OP is ambiguous as to whether the topic. is, what were Collingwood's assumptions? And, what ought one assume in order to defend a pre-relativistic physics. So:
Quoting Clarky
I've already sugested, and you agreed, that given (4) we don't need (6). (1) implies (4) since maths is just a way of setting out patterns. (1) implies (2) since given that there are patterns, there must be something that is in a pattern. Similarly, (3) is superfluous, since the scientific principles are just generalisations of the patterns we see. The choice between a discreet or continuous description seems to depend on the pattern being described.
So we end up with that there are patterns in the world, and a conservation principle.
:razz:
But it should be Physicalism: There a patterns in the world.
Quoting Tom Storm
But that's only an issue because of the error of dividing the world into the external and the internal. Drop that, recognise that the regularities are just in the world, internal and external be damned.
But I will go back to this:Quoting Banno
and point out that more interesting than the observation of patterns is the question of what we might do about them. Physics doesn't answer ethical questions.
Does this mean that a physicalist metaphysics can't easily entertain morality but a supernatural/religious metaphysics in theory can?
The issue is that knowing what is the case does not tell us what to do about it. It's that one cannot get an "ought" from an "is", the naturalistic fallacy.
But all this is a side issue, and @Clarky is complaining to the management about this thread going off topic, so might leave it there.
Materialism is boring.
Ergo,
Materialism is false.
Let's keep things interesting!
Maybe 'billiard-ball materialism' was "rejected" in England by Newtonians but not by e.g. French scientists and the philosophes or German scientists and Young Hegelians. What you call physicalism, Banno, I think of as 'model-dependent materialism' (à la Hawking & Mlodinow).
:100:
Hey, Banno, could you elucidate? Some of us po’ younguns are still gettin our learnin.
First you say
An appeal to some form of monism? Not physicalism, I presume.
But then we see
Is that not dualism? You are conceding that both “ought” and “is” exist, but that a gulf lies between them that can never be bridged. Two modes of being in the same universe?
I often agree with your viewpoints. Saw this though, and scratched my head. Just to let you know, I’ve always been a physicalist. But then I never went to school for philosophy, so I never learned that was bad.
For me, the question comes down to this : If all human minds ceased to exist (nuclear war, runaway global warming, pandemic, etc.), would rain still fall, rocks still erode, the Earth still orbit the Sun?
One’s answer says a lot about how we see ourselves in the world. Are we a bunch of little gods, with all of existence dependent on our continued attention? Or are we products of a greater (indifferent?) universe?
I don't see where you get this idea. (1) states very explicitly "We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.". It does not say 'some of which can be understood'.
Quoting Banno
The conservation principle is clearly inadequate. It dismisses losses (entropy), which are clearly significant, as irrelevant.
Quoting Clarky
Quoting Clarky
Quoting Clarky
Only content that shows respect for these specifications/is reasonably necessary to make an argument relevant to them should be posted.
I am entering late as I wanted to read the philosophical heavyweight contributors first. Not read every post in this thread yet but I am enjoying the exchanges so far.
What about:
9. The universe is expanding in 3D but it is not expanding into anything.
What about ‘spacial extent?’ Is space itself made of a substance? I have always envisaged the Big Bang singularity to be an ‘incredibly small concentration of energy,’ mass or matter came later.
@Clarky, @Wayfarer
So is the fundamental substance in the physicalist universe not ‘energy?’ And is there not also a ‘container?’ An extent, we call ‘space?.’
I just read this one. Ok, so my number 9 suggestion (which I think should have been 11, (I am at p3 in reading through the thread)) is moot. I am about 15 years out based on your 1905 in the OP. I made a ‘Hubble slip.’
I seem to be too impatient to not post a response until I had read all 5 pages of responses! :roll: :halo: Aw well, back to p3!
How about:
11. Time exists and is linear.
From:scholarpedia.org
The term entropy was coined in 1865 [Cl] by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius from Greek en- = in + trope = a turning (point). The word reveals an analogy to energy and etymologists believe that it was designed to denote the form of energy that any energy eventually and inevitably turns into -- a useless heat. The idea was inspired by an earlier formulation by Sadi Carnot [Ca] of what is now known as the second law of thermodynamics.
How about:
12. On the largest scale, the universe moves from a low to a high entropy.
Sorry! I didn't mean to offend you. Although long threads tend to inevitably stray off-topic, that was not my intention. The OP didn't explain why the discussion was supposed to be limited to Classical Physics. Yet it seemed to me that you had an implicit goal for this thread --- beyond simply juxtaposing Materialism and Metaphysics, which are usually deemed to be exclusive (either/or) topics. Collingswood's list is the explicit agenda, but all the presuppositions are expressed in terms of Classical Absolutes, as contrasted with a 20th century world of Arbitrary Relativity. Perhaps my gaffe was to point at the invisible elephant in the room.
Now, after skimming the posts, I found the quote below that seems to point to a future expansion of the OP into a more contentious arena of Science & Philosophy. With a few exceptions (e.g. gravity as spooky action at a distance), Newton's Classical Physics was mostly amenable to human intuition about the logical & predictable way-of-the-world. But Quantum Physics threw a monkey wrench into the gears of classical mechanics. Quantum Logic seems to be Fuzzy and Indeterminate.
So, I just inferred that the "terms of discussion" were perhaps deliberately incomplete. Now, I see that you may be implying that reconciling Quantum Quirkiness with Classical Normality may require an updated 21st century worldview. And that is exactly what I have concluded myself : the world is not simply Either/Or (1/0), but complexly BothAnd (yin/yang). All parts of this world are inter-related (entangled) into a Whole System that we sometimes refer to holistically as "Nature". :smile:
Quoting Clarky
Agenda : 1. a list of items to be discussed at a formal meeting.
Absolute : Pure & perfect ; a value or principle which is regarded as universally valid or which may be viewed without relation to other things.
Arbitrary : based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
Relativity : relationships viewed through special Frames of Reference
I don't have an opinion about such things.
Because proposition no. 8 and its implications don't seem to be in line with a materialist/physicalist/realist point of view.
It used to be thought of as matter, but then e=mc[sup]2[/sup] was discovered, along with electromagnetic fields (not to mention "the observer problem"). But that all happened after 1905 so it's out-of-bounds for this thread.
It's not my problem. I wasn't answering that issue. I was naming no. 8 for easy reference as to its relevance to the OP -- also given that the period is before 1905.
Not I. I’m still waiting on some rendition of the metaphysics of it.
I don’t think “underlying basic assumptions”, being merely suppositions, count as metaphysics.
I’ll wait for something to actually qualify as an absolute pre-supposition, which a metaphysics of anything, would surely demand.
Quoting Wayfarer
Not necessarily.
“In Einstein's first 1905 paper on E = mc2, he treated m as what would now be called the rest mass,[5] and it has been noted that in his later years he did not like the idea of "relativistic mass".”(wiki )
The only thing that would be required given the constraints of the thread would be the pre-supposition that everything that is, is made of matter.
In other words, given the limitations of the thread, there cannot be something which is not matter, in any possible experience (dammit, I wonder were I got that phrase from?).
Nevertheless, this as an absolute pre-supposition, does not say a lot. Because even back then, they still did not know what does not count as "matter", aside from stipulations (mind is not matter, etc.).
Hey, Banno, could you elucidate? [/quote]
Well, if @Baden doesn't mind. Seems the thread has moved on anyway.
Quoting Real Gone Cat
Quoting Real Gone Cat
It's the difference between looking around to see what is there and reaching out and changing what is there. That's a change in direction of fit, not a change in the nature of substance.
(I'm using "substance" here just for the stuff that makes up the world, energy, fields, and what have you, a catch-all phrase with no implications apart from brevity...)
Quoting Real Gone Cat
Thanks.
Physicalism is true, in that physics sets out how things are in the world. What would be problematic would be supposing that physics is therefore the only way, or even the best way, to talk about anything. That is, reductionism isn't helpful. But further, it does not tell us the most important part - what we ought to do. Hence:
Quoting Banno
Hope that makes my comment clearer.
Fair point but what I was trying to illustrate that the discovery of the apparent convertability between matter and energy sort of undercuts classical materialism, in that in the classical materialist view, it was still feasible to envisage the atom as the kind of fundamental unit of matter. Once it became 'matter-energy' then it's much more difficult to conceive of it in those terms.
Quoting Banno
However as a matter of definition it never includes the observer, which is the hallmark realisation that occured within physics after 1905.
Prima facie, that looks contradictory. "It never includes the observer", when post-1905, both relativistic physics and QM explicitly make use of the observer.
Agreed. Still, the thread title stipulates the metaphysics of materialism, and as you say, given the constraints, I think your space and time are the only permissible absolute presuppositions. The possibility of matter absolutely presupposes space and time, and perhaps more importantly, is consistent with both the scientific pre-1905 constraints in the OP, and RGC’s doctrine used to qualify the metaphysical conditions in the title.
———-
Quoting Manuel
Yeah, I’ve occassioned on the phrase a time or two myself. Loaded with subtleties, I must say.
Matter is what maintains its spatial presence as time passes. That's why its principal properties are inertia and mass. Density is another can of worms altogether.
I anticipate a lot of interesting exchanges, though this may be my imagination going rampant. I agree, pre 1905, space and time were absolute presuppositions. But then I wonder, in manifest experience, would we be able to isolate space and time absent stuff (matter, substance, etc.)?
We need space and time to access matter, but without matter, I don't see how space and time, innate as they are, could be exhibited. Perhaps matter, alongside being presupposed by space and time, allows us to discover that space and time are a priori.
For if we had no empirical world to use these faculties, I don't see how anything could become manifest as a priori or as being formed by our experience.
Quoting Mww
Indeed. I wonder if modern physics and also astronomy, might play an important role in reconceptualizing what possible experiences could be conceived as.
Very soon, I could start a thread on these things. Or, we can keep it private.
I'll leave the option open to you.
Right. That was the big change between classical and quantum physics. That's why a lot of people - not just myself - say that quantum physics and the discovery of the uncertainty principle torpedoed physicalism.
Doubtless that's why @Clarky expelled it from this thread, by definition.
Anyone seen @Clarky?
In manifest experience? Not a chance, metaphysically speaking, considering that experience is of stuff, and considering that for humans at least, space and time are the necessary conditions for stuff. Experience presupposes stuff, and stuff presupposes space and time, so I would venture we cannot isolate either from the other. Space and time can be isolated absent stuff, but not with respect to manifest experience.
Quoting Manuel
Pre-1905, or certainly pre-quantum cosmology, space without matter could be easily proved: just hold out your hand, palm up, with nothing in it. Actually, I suppose you’d have to go with pre-Faraday/Maxwell/Ampère science for exhibition of empty space, but still, space empty of matter is not the same as space empty of fields.
Quoting Manuel
Exactly what that guy did, ol’ whatzizname......you know, the guy who never met a hairbrush he couldn’t do without.....somewhere around 1907, wondering what it would be like, long before the possibility of experiencing it, to descend in measurably extended free fall, contained in a closed box, such that you couldn’t tell if you were falling down or accelerating up. Now known as the “local position invariance”, which of course, he never thought of calling it at the time, insofar as he never had the actual experience of it, but recognized the non-contradictory logic in the conception of its possibility nonetheless. I like to think he quietly thanked Sir Issac for the ground of the idea, taken from the latter’s mathematical expressions of exactly what he was reconceptualizing.
I think you need to separate "matter" from "stuff". Experientially, stuff is prior, as what we experience. Then we understand that the concepts space and time are the necessary conditions for the behaviour of stuff, activity (or that the intuitions of space and time are the necessary conditions for even sensing activity). Then "matter" is posited to account for the substance of the stuff, which is active. So matter is purely conceptual.
The issue which Berkeley pointed out, and process philosophy continued with, is that the concept of "matter" is not logically necessary for the existence of stuff, as activity. If all is change, flux (Heraclitus), then there is no matter, because "matter" is the concept used to explain how something remains the same over an extended duration of time. If there really is nothing which stays the same over a duration of time (as with relativity theory), then there really is no matter.
I think to reduce further: the principle property of matter, is simple extension, the one thing impossible to abstract from matter, and still have matter identifiable as such. In the case of inertia or mass, to maintain a state in the first, or to obtain a state in the second, presupposes that to which they both belong, those properties being impossible to even conceive, without first conceiving the occupation of a self-determined limit.
I suppose it remains whether or not extension is technically a property, per se, but if it can be so thought, inertia and mass become secondary, and if extension is subsequently defined by a certain shape, they become tertiary. Inertia implies change and mass implies mere quantity, both of which are consequential, not antecedent to extension, so....there is that.
I used those terms in that post broadly, attempting to point out that without something in the world to contrast with out experience, it would not be evident that we could tell that space and time were a-priori.
Strictly speaking yes, "stuff" and "matter" are different things. But to signify something that is independent of us, these terms can be used loosely to point out this general idea.
Do you see....or is it just me seeing.... a problem with logical efficacy in saying matter is presupposed by space and time, in juxtaposition to matter presupposes space and time?
It appears to me that “presupposed by” implicates space and time as ontological causalities, insofar as if there is space and time then there is necessarily matter, which is not logically justifiable.
Or is it? You tell me.....you’re the one with letters after his name, which I thoroughly respect.
Yes, that was not the correct phrasing. I'm talking about actual real life, everyday affairs. How could we tell that space and time are a priori without something else that allows us to put them to use?
A rough analogy would be, we have eyes, which allow us to see colours. Nevertheless, if we are in a locked room (since birth) so dark we cannot even make out anything at all, we can't well say that we see colours until we get out of the room.
The potential for colours is there, but not triggered unless there is appropriate stimulus.
Perhaps something akin to this would happen in the case of space and time being a priori, absent an environment that allows us to put these into use.
I don’t think we could say anything at all about space and time, a priori or otherwise, without the relation of which they are part. It has been said that these conceptions are meaningless unless they can be the condition of something; if not for being the condition of something there isn’t any reason for their conception.
Thing to bear in mind, as you probably already know, is that the conception and the employment of them, is quite different. You would be correct, with respect to your analogy, if taken as intuitions, for then they are, as you say, put to use. As conceptions, on the other hand, they are not put to use, which actually corresponds to the notion of absolute presuppositions rather well, insofar, as according to Collingwood, they are not for the use of answering questions, which is precisely what they do as intuitions, re: in human cognitive system, are there that present in it, such that its non-presence makes the experience of objects impossible. Just as, physiologically, does the absence of light make the perception of color impossible.
So....yes, the potential of objects (colors) is there, but not for us without a means to represent them as phenomena (appropriate stimulus).
That's fair enough.
I think that by now, intentionality in general should also be such a presupposition as well.
Hmmmm. Brentano 1874 is certainly pre-1905. Sartre, 1943...oops...too late. Husserl 1900....cuttin’ it close there.
To be honest, I haven’t spent a lot of time on intentionality. Not enough to judge the idea as an absolute presupposition.
What about it makes it attractive as a presupposition, do you think?
Husserl , Rorty and Heidegger wrote a fair bit on absolute presuppositions underlying the sciences prior to the 20th century, including res extensia as the notion of a self-identical object with intrinsic content ,
attributes and properties persisting in time. The natural is thus thought of as restricted to such objects and their measurable movements in a mathematizable space
I am blurring the lines here between conceptions and absolute presuppositions, I'm aware of this.
Nevertheless, along with space and time, I cannot imagine consciousness (experience as I prefer to call it) without intentionality. If we lacked this capacity of our experience being directed at objects, there would be no way for individuation of objects in our conception of them.
It's not clear to me that say, Kant's comments about intuitions are the same or different from intentionality. They appear similar to me, but am not sure yet.
Nevertheless, I think such a component must be a factor in the possibility of objects, otherwise we would be stuck with entire "landscapes" (so to speak), instead of objects.
Put in another way, if you remove it, you can't even state presuppositions being about anything.
Intentionality seems to me to be an active component of cognition, which cannot be done away with. But this may be my own peculiarity.
I can dig Rene’s res extensa and res cogitans as absolute presuppositions. Opposing ends of a methodological duality, natural on one, intellectual on the other.
Not sure why we would need to individuate objects when they individuate themselves and we merely recognize the differences.
I mean....it’s logically possible all objects are exactly the same in themselves, but if they are we can’t explain why we don’t perceive them all as possessing the exact same uniform identity. Probably why Mother gave us multiple sensory devices, to prove to ourselves objects are individuated already.
Quoting Manuel
In Kant, the generation of phenomena arising from intuition is sub-conscious, so doesn’t seem conducive to intentionality, which I agree with you as being a conscious inclination. Again.....I don’t know enough about the history of it, so I speak uninformed.
Would intentionality have an anterior name I might be more familiar with?
I don't think this is the case. That's something we do to objects. There is no reason to think that absent us, there is any difference between a mountain and a plain, yet we clearly distinguish these.
I'm aware that speaking of mountains and plains absent people is speaking of "things in themselves", nevertheless, I think the thought experiment can be done as an illustration, while not denying the very real, insurmountable problems, associated with things in themselves.
Quoting Mww
That's what Schopenhauer thought, that it made no sense to speak of thingS in themselves, but the thing-in-itself. Doesn't mean he's right, of course, but it sounds persuasive to me.
Quoting Mww
Sensations do not give us reasons to invoke individuation, that's what the intellect does.
Ah, well, could it be that intentionality is the continuation of intuition, say, it's conscious aspect? The point of intentionality as I see it, is that it can't be eliminated from thought.
Neither can intuition be eliminated from our cognitive constitution, without us losing the ability to make sense of the world we have.
I think we experience space and time, extension and duration, and we also experience materiality, simply in being embodied, So, they all presuppose one another; they are codependently arising, as the Buddhists say.
Quoting Manuel
If that were so, how would we explain the fact that, when in front of one or the other no one will disagree as to which they are looking at?
Yes, that's what I'm trying to get as. Having read the CPR, it seems to me that the "the a-priori sensible intuitions", include more than space and time. Schopenhauer adds causality, I think something along the lines of what you mention is more on the mark.
For even if we assume these to be true (which I think they are), if we lacked say, embodiment or continuity in consciousness, space and time would be moot.
Granted, Kant likely says that these other things mentioned are explained by some other faculty we have, but, I'm not convinced that space and time exhaust these intuitions.
Quoting Janus
Because people make that judgment as to what a mountain or a plain is, and we share the same cognition (as dogs do with other dogs and birds with other birds, etc.), so there is no reason why they should disagree.
In the world absent us, there is no differentiation, nature doesn't care. Or so it looks so to me.
But it would seem there must be something in nature which reliably leads to the perceptions of humans and animals being of the same things. My dog sees the walls, doors and the steps in the house at the same locations I do, judging by the fact that I don't see him trying to walk through, or climb, the walls. When I throw the ball for him he obviously sees it going in the same direction as I do, since I don't see him running in other directions. So, It seems clear to me that our differentiation of objects cannot be arbitrary or entirely dependent on us.
Ahhhh, mon amie....I submit we don’t do anything to objects, but only to their representations. Objects do things to us, by the affect they have on our sensibility, which gives us those representations. This is how they individuate themselves, by affecting us differently. If we did things to objects, there wouldn’t be any ding an sich.
Quoting Manuel
What if it isn’t a mere illustration, but a given necessity pursuant to the kind of intelligence in play? In fact, why couldn’t the ding an sich be a Collingwood-esque absolute presupposition?
But all that aside....what would a list of these problems entail?
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Quoting Manuel
If it can’t be eliminated from thought, and thought is a part of a system, and all parts of systems have a dedicated function....what would the function of intentionality be, such that the absence of it makes the system untenable at best, and thought impossible at worst?
Quoting Manuel
OK, that would seem to be a function of some kind. What is the result, or, what is its contribution to the system?
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Quoting Manuel
Agreed, sensation does not invoke reason or reasons.
How do you feel about equating individuation with conceptualization?
Strictly speaking, your dog sees phenomena which he can't pass through, we call it a "WALL" or a "STEP". If the object can be moved by a certain motion and then pushed or pulled, we call that a DOOR.
The best I can guess, is that a dog puts together an association of ideas: something like PRESS, PULL and the the idea of an OPEN AREA: the garden or the street, etc.
They lack linguistic concepts, so I have to assume that whatever goes in inside the skull, is an extremely watered down version of what we do.
Yes, I think most animals have an idea of orientation, which is why many newborn animals don't jump off a nest or off a table as soon as they're born, or why sea turtles known exactly where to go as soon as they are born.
Quoting Janus
I agree that it is not arbitrary: far from it. The "entirely dependent" part is very tough. It depends on what we assume the object must have, absent us.
What I would stress is, regardless of the world, what matters is how the creature reacts to the stimulation, more so than the actual world: moths flying to lamps (instead of the moon), dogs mistaking toys for food, tigers mistaking mirrors for other tigers, etc.
Granted, I am giving examples of deviation from the norm, but what I think this shows is animals react to stimulations, regardless of if the trigger is the one the animals thinks it is.
You can reply that the tiger is reacting to a property of the mirror and the moth to a property of the lamp. And in a sense it is true, yet we would not want to say that a mirror is another tiger, nor a lamp the literal moon. So we may say certain properties of light, are mind-independent.
That' the difficult area for me.
I don't think I'd agree with this, because I don't think that "extension" is a well defined term. In a sense, it means to be extended in a specific way, but that way is left unspecified. So, what does it mean to be extended in a specific unspecified way?
If we say that temporal extension, to be extended in time, is the defining property of matter, then this would be reducible to inertia, as inertia can be conceived of, as the cause of being extended in time. But if we stipulate that matter is defined by having spatial extension, then this may not be supported by empirical evidence. It appears like fundamental particles may not have any spatial extension at all.
So, I think that if we define matter with "extension", it must be temporal extension, and this is consistent with "inertia". "Mass" is a more difficult concept, because it relates the temporal inertia to spatial presence, through a value, a quantity which is equivalent to its inertia, which is assigned to a place, or thing with a spatial position. So mass is, generally speaking, a quantity of inertia. The problem is that there is no requirement for any specific shape, or size (in the sense of spatial extension). So mass is a quantity which can be assigned to a dimensionless point in space. This is evident in the practise of marking the centre of mass.
Quoting Manuel
The issue I see is the question of whether "matter" actually is something independent of us. When I start to analyze the concept, I find that it is only that, a concept. And there really doesn't seem to be anything real, independent from us, which corresponds with this concept. We could say that it is a useful principle, but nothing in the world corresponds with it, it's just a principle which helps us to do things in the world, and better understand the world.
I agree that obviously the dog does not conceptualize walls or doors in just the ways we do due to our linguistic capacities, but the dog sees the door as an "affordance" and the wall as an obstruction. What we can conclude, though, from the dogs basic experience of walls and doors and balls as being pretty much the same as ours is that there are mind-independent attributes of the environment which are perceived or cognized in various similar ways by other animals as well as humans.
Quoting Manuel
I think what that shows, though, is that there are things there which resemble, in ways that we can understand because we also see resemblances, what the animals "think" they are responding to. I think the most plausible explanation is that there are real mind-independent "structures" that constrain the ways we perceive things. We can't say what they are completely "absent us", because anything we can say is not absent us.
Quoting Mww
Yes. Thanks for the correction.
Quoting Mww
Here it becomes tricky. Yes, objects-as(the grounds of)-representations do things to us - provide stimulation. I would stress that the effects given by the representation is extremely slight given the richness of the reply we offer said stimulation.
Well, I mean, we do add colours, sounds and textures to the representations (which are anchored to objects as things in themselves). So we do do something to them, or we attribute said properties to the effects objects have on us as representations. But the thing in itself remains postulated.
Quoting Mww
I mean, it could be a Collingwood-esque presupposition, things in themselves that is. Not everybody buys it as you know. I do, in a modified form.
Well, it's not anything too revelatory at all, but this entails that we add much more to the world than what we otherwise would normally assume. If one can appreciate the scale of this, then the very scheme which Collingwood elaborates as being "metaphysics", seems to weaken.
Because I take metaphysics to be about the world, but it turns out we can say very little about it.
Quoting Mww
I'm not clear on the function. We know too little about the nature of mental processes. A guess would be, it gives further stability to world, and helps anchor thoughts to representations, which would otherwise not be differentiated properly.
Quoting Mww
Again, my guess is stability and facilitating the process of thinking.
Quoting Mww
I would say that individuation is part of the conceptualization we use to navigate the world. Individuation, much like the continuity of representations, and the stability representations seems to have, are facts of our cognitive make up.
In some respects yes. One property that seemingly most minds do, is attribute a permanent existence to objects in experience. In reality, we know that these objects change all the time, but we don't perceive them in this manner.
We must accept solidity as a fact of our experience of the external world, which seems to have such a property. The rest is more difficult to pin out, because I see them as forms or organizing stimulus, rather than the world per se. Although the world is the one providing the stimulus. It's a kind of receding object.
Sorry, my thinking goes way down at this time of day... :)
Quoting Janus
Yes, there are structures. I think so too. The nature of these structures are hard to decipher, I think. Even though we manage to navigate the world somehow, it's not trivial.
I do think there are things absent us, we cannot merely think the world to completion, because we don't have enough relevant data. Hence the need for further experience, and science and experimentation.
No, it isn’t, nor does it need to be. It is a general, albeit necessary, condition of objects met with unaided human perception.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
To be extended does not make necessary extension in a certain way. To be extended in a certain way, or, to possess a specific bounded extension, is shape. All shapes are reducible to extension in space, which is all that is necessary for the matter of objects, as far as our sensibility, and thereby our representational faculty, is concerned.
We add conceptions to the representations in the naming of them, sure...red, loud, rough, etc., a veritable plethora, but I’m not sure we add color, sound, or texture to general intuitions. I rather think these are given to us merely by the mode of receptivity having the capacity for it. Why have ears if not to hear sound?
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Quoting Manuel
You’re too kind; hardly anybody buys it.
Quoting Manuel
I take metaphysics to be about me, which I can say everything about, and all me’s of like kind, which I can infer some things about. The world? Ehhhh.....it’s there, always was, always will be, or not, not my concern. Or, I suppose, only of relative concern.
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Quoting Manuel
You mean, like, we build stuff? Redirect Nature from her own course? Yeah, we do that alright.
Quoting Manuel
How does the fact we add to the world weaken Collingwood’s metaphysical scheme? I thought his metaphysics was predicated on “thinking scientifically”, same as Kant. You must have meant something else by adding to the world.
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Quoting Manuel
Ok, I can see that. Me......I just leave that anchor to understanding, and proper differentiation to judgement. I know intentionality implies teleology, purposesiveness, so to speak, but I think that a bridge too far. I’m an admitted metaphysical reductionist, so from where I sit, the only intentionality in humans, is knowledge. Game’s end, donchaknow.
I believe the gist of the issue is that of "receptivity". Although it is, in a sense, true that we are receptive to these properties of the phenomena, it is nonetheless misleading, in as much as hearing, seeing, touching are active capacities, they just don't feel active, because they are unconscious or sub-conscious.
If they're not active, then we lose them: people go blind, deaf and so on.
Quoting Mww
I had in mind his claim that metaphysics is about "absolute presuppositions". I think it is more than this. It goes beyond statements about what we presuppose to actual experience. Then again, I may be misreading his project.
Plenty of figures claim "scientific" metaphysics, like Peirce or Russell. Those are good. But once we get to Quine and beyond, no, thanks.
Quoting Mww
Not sure what this means.
:up:
My OED says of "extend", "lengthen or make larger in space or time". The problem is, as I explained, that "matter" does not require any spatial extension. This leaves only temporal extension, and temporal extension is explained by the concept of inertia. But we still have the issue of "mass". "Mass" cannot be explained by "extension". It is directly related to inertia, as a sort of quantity of inertia, but it is not the same thing as inertia, So "extension" fails as a proposal for the principal property of matter, because the principal measurement of matter, mass, is not a measurement of an extension.
Quoting Mww
But the issue is matter which has no spatial extension. This is what denies spatial extension from being the defining feature of matter.
Any examples of that you could show us?
Your position presupposes matter, mine presupposes the possibility of matter. You’re talking about matter as if its already given, I’m talking about how it possible that it is given.
For that matter which affects my senses, I don’t care about matter that is merely “extended in time”, but absolutely require matter that is extended in space, otherwise there is no affect on my senses at all, and for me in which case, I would have no means to know matter exists, a most profound absurdity.
Not to say there’s anything wrong about your physics, only that it is misplaced. Which makes this.....
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
.....entirely irrelevant.
In a way, it is confusing, insofar as it is empirically undeterminable, in that sensing is an active capacity of which we are quite conscious, but of the generation of phenomena which represents those sensations, we are not. Hence, speculative, albeit logically consistent, metaphysical theory.
Nevertheless, the human physiology, and the empirical science behind it, sustains the fact that we are not internally conscious of what happens between the sensation of a thing, and the registration of it in the brain. It can be measured, displayed on test equipment, and so on, but not be present in a first-hand, subjective consciousness.
I think the best example is "virtual particles". The issue I believe arises from the the practise of positioning mass as a "centre of mass". Interactions between massive objects are modeled on the basis of a centre point of mass, very similar to what we commonly call the centre of gravity. This places the mass at a non-dimensional purely hypothetical "point". Since it is not a real, or true representation of how the mass of an object actually exists, when we model two centres of mass interacting, there is a need to employ "virtual particles" as a medium between the two points which represent the two centres of mass of the two objects, in order to model the two cetnres of mass as interacting with each other. In other words, instead of modeling how the two massive objects actually interact with each other, two hypothetical centres of mass are modeled as interacting, via the medium of hypothetical virtual particles.
Quoting Mww
But "matter" is purely possibility in the first place. As defined by Aristotle, it is potential, the potential for change. So in talking about "the possibility of matter" you are proposing the possibility of a possibility. This would either be redundancy, and we would take possibility (as matter) for granted, like I do, or else the two possibilities might negate each other to form some sort of actuality. The latter is incoherent, so we are left with the former, we take matter, as possibility, for granted, as a given.
Quoting Mww
The problem is that it is not matter which affects your senses. If we adhere to the formal understanding of "matter" as expounded in Aristotle's hylomorphism (which our current understanding of matter is based in), it is forms which affect your senses, not matter. What affects your senses is activity, actuality, and it is the forms of things which are active, and changing. Matter is posited as the principle of potentiality, to allow for the possibility of such active forms, but it is purely cognitive, a logical principle required for our minds to make sense of the reality that forms are active.
That the “matter” of the thing that just broke my finger is a “hammer” is indeed mere possibility, but it remains that a material thing broke my finger. To say otherwise, is only to exhibit “....recourse to pitiful sophisms....”.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You know the drill as well as I, that theories expand as a consequence of general experience. Or maybe just speculative imagination. Aristotle, though a great and honorable thinker and still serves as reference to some modern metaphysics, has himself been at least partially superseded, with or without justification being moot. So saying, while I agree hylomorphism is still the current paradigm in human cognitive systems metaphysically, the occasions or placements of them have been separated, insofar as matter is external, but form has been moved to the internal and deemed.....
“....that the content of the matter can be arranged under certain relations. But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation. It is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us à posteriori;; the form must lie ready à priori for them in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from all sensation.....”.
(Remember...I dislike the term “mind”, but that’s what the guy said, so, far be it from me to be so presumptuous as to change it)
That being the case, it is not form that affects sensibility, but matter alone. Perfect example of the meaning of all that, can be found in, e.g., circa1909/1919 Picasso paintings, which exemplify how representations of matter can be disarranged purely from the thought of it.
I wouldn't deny that it was a material thing. The matter in it is what gives it the capacity to break your finger, which is also material.
Quoting Mww
I don't agree that form has been moved to the internal. All material objects have a form, the "shape" of a material object, which you were already talking about, is a formal aspect. This use of "form", to refer to the shape, is so common, you may have forgotten about it when you say "form has been moved to the internal and deemed".
Quoting Mww
This reverses the classic Aristotelian description, which is derived from Plato. The matter, being passive, is a receptacle which receives the form that is active. This is described in Plato's Timaeus. It doesn't make sense to say that the form lies ready to receive, because forms are active. What lies ready is the passive matter, and it receives the active form, which informs.
Quoting Mww
I don't think so, matter is purely passive, and therefore cannot affect the senses. Forms are active, and each particular thing has an individual form which is unique to itself, by the law of identity. This is how we can validate the existence of separate, independent objects, by recognizing that each thing has a particular form. This makes individual, independent objects real, the fact that each has its own particular, unique form. So we uphold the law of identity because we believe in this. Each form is active, but it is separate, independent from other forms, making individual material objects real distinct things. It is not the matter which separates one object from another, so it is not matter which validates the idea of separate, individual objects.
.
....to affect my senses.
‘Nuff said.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The law of identity, being a human construct, has Nature as its justification, so is upheld merely from lack of contradiction.
Not really, because the capacity to, or possibility of affecting your senses is not the same as actually affecting your senses. And, we need to acknowledge that difference. Once we acknowledge that difference, and that it is a real, logically respectable difference, it becomes extremely difficult to explain why, or how, there could be such a difference.
We can imagine the existence of something completely passive (matter), which is totally inactive in an absolute sense. Being totally inactive it does not affect your senses. However, we can assign to it the capacity to move, or be moved, and it is the movement of it which affects the senses. Then we see the difference between the capacity to affect the senses and actually affecting the senses.
So if we understand sensation as a receptance of activity, then anything which is not active cannot be sensed. And we have no reason to deny the possibility of the non-active, just because we cannot sense it. And, we cannot deny from a non-active thing, the capacity to be moved and therefore be sensible.
However, the principles of modern physics (relativity specifically) have removed the reality of the non-active (absolute rest). So now it appears like we don't have the capacity to talk scientifically (or even intelligently, if that requires science) about the difference between the capacity to affect the senses, and actually affecting the senses. The difference is rendered as unintelligible by denying the reality of the principle of absolute rest.
Quoting Mww
I would say that the law of identity is upheld to support the law of non-contradiction. If there is no such thing as identity then "contradiction" is meaningless. So we give "contradiction" meaning, and this requires a law of identity, making identity logically prior to contradiction.
I’m perceiving something, or, I’m not perceiving something. Something is present to my senses, or it isn’t. The negations, I perceive what isn’t there, or, I don’t perceive what is there, are absurd. How much less difficult can it be?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So if I don’t think the tree capable of moving, it can’t, and because of that, I won’t see it?
Cum hoc ergo proper hoc, and you should know better.
It isn't absurd to think that there might be something there which you do not perceive. The senses are very specific, and only sense the specific type of activity which they are designed (evolved) to sense; each sense picking up a different form of activity. It's not absurd at all to think that there could be something passive there which is not sensed at all, or even a type of activity, for which a sense has not been developed to sense.
Quoting Mww
I can't figure out what you are trying to say here. We see trees, and trees are actively moving. Their electrons are continuously interacting with the light, that's how you can see them. To think of the tree as potentially not moving would be a falsity, an impossibility. However, we can conceive of the possibility of something (matter) which is not moving, and is therefore not sensed. And, we can assign to that thing, the capacity to move, or be moved, and at this time it could be sensed.
“....Matter is essentially dynamic, essentially temporal, essentially changeful. Objects (or matter) can’t be conceptualized as things whose existence can be grasped separately from their temporality. What is matter, on this mistaken view? A dust-covered china doll in a frozen pirouette on a chimney piece, a rock, an old boot, something just there, supremely motionless before our eyes, something that proposes itself as—in some fundamental sense—comprehensively given to us in this confrontation alone, wholly given to us in its basic essential quality as matter. And all this is wholly wrong....”
(Strawson, “Nietzsche on Mind and Nature”, in https://www.academia.edu/3051045/Nietzsches_Metaphysics_2015)
I never said you had no support for your thesis on the physics of materialism. Nevertheless, the topic is the metaphysics of it, which grants the physics but still asks why it should be so.
Matter, is essentially temporal, but it does not change. It is the aspect of physical existence which does not change as time passes, hence 'inertia', and "conservation of mass'. That's the way matter was defined by Aristotle, and the meaning has been maintained. Form is the aspect which is dynamic and changing.
Quoting Mww
Notice, matter as dynamic, and changeful is described by Nietzsche as a mistaken view. That's what I am saying too.
So the issue is what is a true representation of "matter"? And the answer is that it is that aspect of things which does not change as time passes, while the form of the thing changes. Here's what Aristotle says in Bk 2 of his Physics about "material cause", under 'The Conditions of Change': "that out of which a thing comes to be and which persists". In his Metaphysics he explains how the matter is the potential for an actual thing. So if we talk about bronze for example, as a material, or wood, we are not talking about any particular bronze thing, or wooden thing, but a material which is potentially many different things.
The "mistaken view" conflates matter with form. It is common in monism because monists do not accept the principles of separation required to understand this.
Footnote 18:
“....Some philosophers enjoy arguing about how best to characterize the relation between a statue and the lump of bronze of which it is made. This can be as good as playing chess. It’s absorbing, and provides great scope for ingenuity. But it has nothing to do with real metaphysics, for in real metaphysics the initial description of the case (we have a statue and the lump of bronze of which it is made) already gives us all the relevant facts. It does not itself give rise to any metaphysical issue. All that remains is juggling play, play with our existing concepts and categories and ways of talking, questions about how best to couch things given those concepts and categories and ways of talking...”
I bring this up because it reminds me of.....
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
....in that the assignment of capacity to move or be moved is all the relevant facts we need to prove the reality of material objects, the actually movement of them claimed to be that which affects the senses being the juggling play with our existing concepts.
Well, I think the actual movement of material objects is something more than the juggling play of our concepts. But, we all see things differently, and that's why there's so many different metaphysics.
Quoting Mww
The question is, how is it the case that the statue is something different from the lump of bronze. Intuitively, we'd be inclined to say they are both the same, the statue is the lump of bronze. But the lump of bronze may be many different things, while the statue can only be the statue, or else it is not the statue. So clearly there is a very real difference between the statue and the lump of bronze. Call this the 'juggling play with out existing concepts' if you like, but isn't that what metaphysics is?
If a form isn't material then what is it made of?
A basketball is spherical. The material is leather. The form is a sphere.
How would I know? Do you know what matter's made of?
There might be issues with point 4. There have been attempts to redefine physics fully in terms of relationships so as to avoid the necessity of numbers being "real." Apparently they have been somewhat successful, at least for Newton's laws, although far more convoluted than the mathematical versions.
There is a lecture of this in the Great Courses' course on philosophy of physics.
As noted in the OP, the purpose of this discussion was to discuss the absolute presuppositions of a materialist view before 1905, before much of modern physics.
Sorry, I took that to mean "as of the observations of 1905," not as "only things published before 1905." The attempt to do physics without math was driven by the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument, which came after 1905, but has nothing to do with quantum mechanics or changes to physics after 1905.
My bad.
I was just trying to get a handle on how most materialist scientists and philosophers saw things before quantum mechanics and other advances were made.