How can metaphysics be considered philosophy?
Are metaphysical doctrines such as aesthetics and ethics really "branches" of philosophy, or are they just thinly disguised poetry? The propositions issuing from metaphysics and philosophy seem logically and epistemologically distinct.
Philosophy means "love of wisdom". Wisdom requires knowledge, not belief, opinion, sentiment or personal view, else how does (read: "can") one 'know' who or what is wise? Unsupported and unsupportable metaphysical doctrines have gone nowhere despite tedious frequentation for more than three millennia. We know no more now about Anaximander's notion of "Apeiron" than we did at first utterance; we know no more now about Plato's notions of "Forms" or "The Good" than we did at first utterance; we know no more now about Aristotle's notion of "Eudaimonia" than we did at first utterance; we know more now about Kant's notion of "Categorical Imperative" than we did at first utterance; and we know no more now about Leibniz's notion of "Monads" or Spinoza's notion of "Substance" than we did at first utterance. Three thousand years of metaphysics has yet to issue a single knowledge claim. Not one. So how is metaphysics "philosophy"?
We can glean immediately the epistemic difference between a philosopher's (Wittgenstein's) claim that "Aesthetic remarks are not hypotheses" and a metaphysician's (Plato's) claim RE: Forms that "There is an Ideal of each thing to which all instances of that thing partake and aspire". The former is ponderable, falsifiable, empirically verifiable; the latter is not. Such is the difference between knowledge and belief, between philosophy and metaphysics, between "what is" and "what is to you". Big difference.
Philosophy means "love of wisdom". Wisdom requires knowledge, not belief, opinion, sentiment or personal view, else how does (read: "can") one 'know' who or what is wise? Unsupported and unsupportable metaphysical doctrines have gone nowhere despite tedious frequentation for more than three millennia. We know no more now about Anaximander's notion of "Apeiron" than we did at first utterance; we know no more now about Plato's notions of "Forms" or "The Good" than we did at first utterance; we know no more now about Aristotle's notion of "Eudaimonia" than we did at first utterance; we know more now about Kant's notion of "Categorical Imperative" than we did at first utterance; and we know no more now about Leibniz's notion of "Monads" or Spinoza's notion of "Substance" than we did at first utterance. Three thousand years of metaphysics has yet to issue a single knowledge claim. Not one. So how is metaphysics "philosophy"?
We can glean immediately the epistemic difference between a philosopher's (Wittgenstein's) claim that "Aesthetic remarks are not hypotheses" and a metaphysician's (Plato's) claim RE: Forms that "There is an Ideal of each thing to which all instances of that thing partake and aspire". The former is ponderable, falsifiable, empirically verifiable; the latter is not. Such is the difference between knowledge and belief, between philosophy and metaphysics, between "what is" and "what is to you". Big difference.
Comments (180)
Welcome to the forum.
When you've been here a while, you see the subject of metaphysics comes up often. The one thing I've learned is that the discussion almost always starts out with an argument about what the word really means. Often that's where it ends, with no substantive discussion able to fight its way out of the brawl about definitions. Here are two definitions from the web:
Quoting Wikipedia - Metaphysics
Quoting Marriam-Webster
I have my own ideas about what metaphysics is and what it should be, but I won't burden your discussion with them. One thing I'm willing to say with certainty is that aesthetics and ethics are not included in the definition of metaphysics as it is generally understood. If your understanding is so idiosyncratic that it does include those subjects, then we probably don't have anything else to discuss.
Actually, we do regarding monads in mathematics.. Fascinating little critters.
Metaphysical as in not having a truth value? would miss that. I don't see why ethical and aesthetic statements need not have a truth value. After all, prima facie, they do.
Quoting Zettel
Is it true? IF metaphysical zettel have no truth value, then no.
Anything to the point? Anything at all?
My post has nothing to do with prior discussions here about what the word "metaphysics" really means; mine is an epistemological question, not an etymological one. Nor do your Wiki and dictionary appeals to "authority" remotely suffice the matter; they only ignore my point and highlight your inability and/or unwillingness to do first-order thinking on your own. Lastly, trafficking your ideas and unsupported personal views is not philosophy; it is cocktail party/coffee klatch schmoozing.
Do tell.
Again, begging the question and offering appeals to others do not constitute reasoned rejoinder; they merely evade the point and juxtapose an unsupported personal view, as if just say-so alone should somehow suffice the matter (Hint: It doesn't).
RE: "Aesthetic remarks are not hypotheses" is true, that such remarks are focusing utterances which people accept or not, irrespective of experiment of empirical proof of claim. Again, W was addressing an epistemological issue with aesthetic remarks, not engaging in aesthetics itself.
Due to their intrinsically meta-discursive uses, philosophical (i.e. reflective) statements are suppositional, not propositional (i.e. truth-apt). If there are 'philosophical propositions', however, then I've missed – misrecognized – them. Examples please.
Metaphysics is to philosophy what mathematics is to theoretical physics. It's kinda like the Big Bang - how it all started x million years ago in the brains of the first h. sapiens. The First Principles from which all that we think, all that we do, all that we say, follow as surely as night follows day. :smile:
I don't think the analogy works, Smith.
I thought we all agreed that the former is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Unfortunately, the other option is a pot of clay. Ready to fashion something out of the clay or are you still fixated on that pot of gold ... at the end of the rainbow? It isn't even raining for chrissakes!
Do you or anyone else here ever post anything other than unsupported sentiment? If all to philosophy were trafficking opinions and personal points of view, anyone capable of language would be a philosopher; any child can do as much, and as little.
By the way, your use of emojis is impressive. Harvard?
First off, on emojis - they're supplements, not replacements. :cool: I've heard of Harvard! Isn't it where Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates studied? :wink:
Second, I agree, philosophy is a profession, needs to be learned and practised for quite a number of years. I respect that because it's true and I value truth. Does that not make me a (budding, authentic) philosopher? If no, why do you ask the question.
I don't see any overarching theme to metaphysics except that it claims to study first principles. That's a tad bit too abstract for me brain mon ami.
And, yes, I was being a bit coy. But there were some physicists who thought for a while that everything was information. Others matter. Others things like the universe is a kind of three D hologram but is actually two dimension (of all things). IOW these guys can sound like some newly discovered pre-socratics interpreted in modern jargon.
If one googles ontology and physics or metaphysics and physics, a whole lot of topics come up. There's a lot of speculation in metaphysics in physics in cosmology, say, or particle physics.
Further we are all taking positions on metaphysics. Take physicalists or naturalists. Seemingly - given the way metaphysics is a word often used perjoratively - far from woo woo, those two categories of people are making assertions about metaphysics. They have taken stands about metaphysics. Other people in professional fields which explicitly or implicity include professionals who have those metaphysical positions, take other positions. And they argue and discuss why these differences are important or may be. And have used these different positions to generate experiments, hypotheses and more.
Gotta leave the house, but I'll come back and add some examples:
Quantum Zeo effect in Bird migration
Law of Ontology Conservation
Knowledge does not spring full-formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. Knowledge grows out of a sense of wonder at some unknown, and is cultivated through systematic labour. And all of our knowledge has its limits, beyond which there are still further unknowns. At the limits of our knowledge lie our metaphysical presuppositions, assumptions (conscious or unconscious) that attempt to fit what we know into the framework of what we don't. If physics is the least meta-physical of all the sciences, it is also the least complete, inasmuch as 97% of everything that exists (dark matter and energy) is still nothing but a place-holder in an equation.
Karl Popper has an excellent take on metaphysics acting as a guide and inspiration to further scientific inquiry, the metaphysical research program. This is the sense of metaphysics that I embrace: it is our attempt to structure our intuitions of the unknown, as we seek to transform that into knowledge.
:up:
Well, for my money, the reason why there doesn't seem to be a common thread uniting the various subject matters that are claimed as metaphysics is because there is none. As far as I can tell, Aristotle simply appended his physics with some of his random musings, stuff that he never got around to systematizing into a coherent philosophical corpus, one that would instantly be recognizable as (real) philosophy. That's what I suspect @Zettel is driving at - metaphysics is nothing but Aristotle's opinion and if we engage in it like Leibniz did (monads) and others did and will do, we'll simply be offering a subjective, personal account, what we think is going on, not what really is going on.
This is the essence of science. There are many, many expressions of theoretical physics (string theory, loop quantum gravity, m-theory) which are not mutually compatible. They can't all be right and none of them are complete. Science is as much about speculation as it is about evidence.
:up:
Speak for yourself Zettel. Employing a vague unqualified "we" like this, is rather pointless.
Quoting Zettel
It's one thing to state an unsupported sentiment as "I believe...", but quite another thing to state an unsupported sentiment as "we know...". The former may be a truth, the latter is a falsity.
:clap:
My pet peeve. Consolation, that proclamations of authority generally belie the opposite.
I'm not saying there is a common thread under metaphysics. I'm arguing that it's not just people making stuff up. I got into some detail here...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/775979
Quoting Agent SmithI'm not very familiar with Leibniz's work. That said I think that there may be a misunderstanding about what some of the work of metaphysics and philosophy is. Philosophy, amongst other things, is coming up with ideas that may be useful. And many metaphysical ideas have been useful, including helping scientists conceive of things that worked out to be the case, also in understanding research results that were strange. And pretty much every scientist - using them as an example since many seem to think is the complete opposite of metaphysics - has taken metaphysical stands and thought this was important - natural laws, physicalism, and examples from my other post.
But even looking at Leibnitz's ....
https://www.papersofbas.eu/images/Papers_2021-2/Ivancheva.pdf
see the conclusion.
or from...
https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/leibniz-physics-logic-metaphysics
Leibnitz thought that time and space, unlike his competitor Newton, were not absolute. This has turned out to be correct (so far, in science) and his ideas influenced philosophers and scientists and then the philosophers he influenced also influenced scientists.
I also added issues to my previous post while you responded.
Quoting Zettel
To sum up your view, the history of metaphysics is an exercise in going in circles , while the history of science is a progress toward the truth. This is because the methods of scientific inquiry give it a privileged access to knowledge of reality. Its methods target the subjective perspective on experience as a source of distortion to be minimized as much as possible in order to achieve consensually valid objective truths about the world. Metaphysics, on the other hand, concerns itself primarily with subjective perspective. Philosophy is only legitimate to the extent that it hitches its wagons to science’s methods of empirical falsifiability.
I’m wondering if your knowledge of philosophy is comprehensive enough to summarize some of the alternatives to this view of the respective roles of science vs metaphysics that have been available for at least 150 years. I could start with the claim that your notion of science as falsifiability , which you may have gotten from Popper, owes much to Kant’s metaphysical position. In other words, the very concept of empirical falsifiability , which only took root recently as the view of how science advanced, is a metaphysical proposition.
This coincides perfectly with my position. :)
I dont think of metaphysics so much as speculation reaching beyond what we know as fact, but as the plumbing underneath our verified knowledge, its foundation and condition of possibility. We cannot know empirical facts with any greater certainty than we can the metaphysical foundation grounding this knowledge. It is that which we cannot doubt even when all else is in question.
Yes, but 2023 Buick Enclave has third row video.
Your turn.
The title of your thread is "How can metaphysics be considered philosophy?" but what you went on to describe is not metaphysics by almost anyone's definition. I answered the question expressed in your title. Yes, metaphysics, i.e. the study of fundamental nature of reality, should be considered philosophy.
As I predicted, this discussion has melted into a definitional puddle.
Down to business.
Quoting Zettel
When it comes to metaphysics, I find R.G. Collingwood's definition in "An Essay on Metaphysics" most useful. As @Banno hinted, in Collingwood's view, metaphysical questions have no truth value. They are not true or false, they are useful or not useful. Metaphysics sets out the rules, what Collingwood calls "absolute presuppositions," of human understanding. To vastly oversimplify; in my view, probably not Collingwood's; science is applied materialism, mathematics is applied idealism.
As for ethics and aesthetics - do they belong as part of philosophy? Sure, why not. Issues of what is right and what is wrong are fundamental human questions. People have been obsessed about what is beautiful and what is not for a long time. Agreed - those answers have no truth value. They are not true or false, but we've established, at least to my satisfaction, that philosophy need not address issues of truth.
Thanks for making my point. The propositions issuing from metaphysics are imponderable, i.e., they cannot be rationally assessed, i.e., they cannot be rendered a truth value. If they cannot be rendered a truth value, then they cannot be claimed as knowledge. If they cannot be claimed as knowledge, then they cannot eventuate in wisdom. And if they cannot eventuate in wisdom, then there is nothing for philosophy to love. Thus, it is logically and epistemologically impossible for ethics and aesthetics to be philosophy.
Again, you give nothing beyond how you happen to "see" things. That is not philosophy; it is what neighborhood biddies exchange over the backyard fence while hanging laundry.
Again, to vastly oversimplify, philosophy isn't truth, knowledge, or wisdom; it shows us how to find truth, knowledge, and wisdom.
Quoting Zettel
You haven't addressed the content of my argument.
Again, more of the same from you. You have no argument; you have an unsupported point of view. Unfortunately, trafficking a Weltanschauung is not substitute for reasoned rejoinder. This is not to say you are not entitled to your feelings; it is to say that your feelings do not describe "what is", only "what is to you". Big difference.
Aesthetics and ethics and doctrines about aesthetics and ethics are not the same. A way of looking and seeing, and a way of being or living are experiential not discussive.
Quoting Zettel
By knowledge I take it you mean what is:
Quoting Zettel
This is an aspect of knowledge. It does not cover such things as self-knowledge. Knowledge and knowledge claims are not the same. There are aspects of knowledge that are experiential not discussive.
It does not follow from the claim that metaphysics is not knowledge that metaphysics is not philosophy. Love of wisdom and love of knowledge are not the same.
You still have not addressed the substance of my argument.
Sorry, pouting is not substitute for reasoned rejoinder, either.
Maybe not as big as one might think.
“The success of science cannot be anything but a puzzle as long as we view concepts and objects as radically independent; that is, as long as we think of "the world" as an entity that has a fixed nature, determined once and for all, independently of our framework of concepts." “So much about the identity relations between different categories of mathematical objects is conventional, that the picture of ourselves a describing a bunch of objects that are there "anyway" is in trouble from the start.”(Hilary Putnam)
You keep making snarky remarks about my comments, but you don't respond to their substance.
Again, more unsupported sentiment in lieu of reasoned counter. There seems to be a widespread belief here that just one's pale utterance alone can somehow suffice the matter, that supportive logic, reason, argument and/or evidence are not a necessary condition of philosophical discussion.
FYI, philosophy deals only with knowledge of the world, not with self-knowledge, That is because self-knowledge has no objective, corroborative means to prove the epistemic worth of its claims.
Please explain how metaphysics is philosophy when philosophy means "love of wisdom" and metaphysics does not (read: "cannot") provide the knowledge required for wisdom to obtain. Thanks.
They are not "snarky" remarks, Your comments have no substance. My counters to you just run off your back like water off a duck's. Your continued avoidance of the fact that your responses here are void of explanatory and/or supportive force serves only as testimony to your lack of intellectual integrity.
This is by your own lights:
Quoting Zettel
If Plato's writings count as philosophy then it is evident that philosophy deals with self-knowledge.
Quoting Zettel
What does love of wisdom mean? Can you provide an answer that is more than unsupported sentiment?
So we move on from vague innuendo to actual insults. And yet you've still not addressed my comments.
No, by knowledge I mean awareness of "what is". "What is" is that which is empirically verified.
Here's a good book on the subject.
Q.E.D.
And more of the same.
zzz-zzz-zzz
Plato's writings are metaphysics, not philosophy. That is the whole point of my OP.
Etymologically, "love" at time and context of ancient Greek philosophy meant "regard" or "appreciation".
What does that have to do with the fact that you have not addressed my argument, only restated the same incorrect complaint over and over.
That’ll teach you to tangle with a superior mind, lowly varmint.
And more of the same.
zzz-zzz-zzz
What do you mean "lowly?" All I want @Zettel to do is respond to my comments before he gets banned.
What "argument"?
Quoting T Clark
That shouldn’t take long. Just keep disagreeing with him. I’ll grab some popcorn.
Can you give an example of an imponderable metaphysical proposition?
Can you type without sticking out your tongue?
What you mean by knowledge is not the same as what the term has meant throughout its history. The same goes for the terms philosophy and wisdom.
Quoting Zettel
According to Liddell-Scott ?????(philos) means loved, beloved, dear.
It is odd that you reject the way the term philosophy was actually used at time and context of ancient Greek philosophy while appealing to a questionable alleged etymology of ?????. It is also odd that you neglect the other half of the term, that is, ????? (sophos).
Already given (Plato's remark on "Forms").
You obviously have a gift for non sequitur.
Your etymological shift says nothing as regards my OP or any point made. More, you falsify my definition of "knowledge" by presenting argument or examples counter to that definition, not by saying that "knowledge" throughout history has had different meaning. If "knowledge" is anything other or more than "awareness of what is", you need only say so and why.
Of course. And again for reasons given.
No, it doesn't. Or rather "can't", and this precisely because it is imponderable (not conveniently "currently unknowable"). The epistemological issue is not whether the statement "other minds exist" is true or false; the epistemological issue is that the statement "other minds exist" cannot be adjudicated or otherwise rationally assessed to be one or the other, and is therefore epistemically meaningless.
What do you make of the following interpretation of your above statement: math is the infrastructure of theoretical physics(?)
Here's the definition of infrastructure I'm using:
infrastructure -- noun -- the basic [s]physical and[/s] organizational structures and facilities [s](e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies)[/s] needed for the operation of [s]a[/s] [s]society or[/s] [the] enterprise:
I can see that, but isn't that going to lead to radical skepticism? For example, let's take a non-metaphysical claim: "The cat is on the mat". Isn't that going to turn into metaphysics if we unpack it? Isn't "the cat is on the mat" really saying "there is this mind-independent material stuff, and it combines into things like 'cats' and 'mats' and there's a particular arrangement of matter called 'the cat' and another arrangement called 'the mat'" and so on...
The etymological shift was yours:
Quoting Zettel
Quoting Zettel
To determine the meaning of a term we should attend to its use. Put differently , in order to gain knowledge of what knowledge is, we must have an awareness of the use of the term. But you have ignored what knowledge is except in so far as it supports your claims. Contrary to the concerns and interests of philosophers for over two thousand years, you claim that:
Quoting Zettel
Perhaps some traction might be gained by you telling us who you do recognize as philosophers.
Not at all. The utterance "The cat is on the mat" is ponderable, empirically verifiable; "other minds exist" is not. Not sure what necessity "unpacking" serves in this instance.
"mind-independent stuff exists"
It's clear from this thread that @Zettel disagrees with this because s/he's incorrigibly dogmatic. Another Dunning-Kruger troll; thus, s/he cannot respond to you or anyone here without fatuous trivialities and snark.
If s/he walks like Bartricks, talks like Bartricks, then s/he'll be banned (again) like ...
Pathetic projection – no post on this thread yet has been gassing "unsupported sentiments" more than the OP.
First off, you need to learn the difference between language meaning and language use. Second, if you disagree with my given definition of "knowledge", you need only take issue and offer opposing reasoned argument or evidence. But claiming what you say is my purpose with such definition is not to falsify or otherwise invalidate that definition in the slightest.
Again, you have not engaged a single point presented in the OP. Instead, you dance, making tangential remarks, voicing unsupported disagreement, invoking extraneous historical/etymological considerations.
I have already stated who I recognize as a philosopher. Popper is another. Hume another.
Quoting Zettel
An argument: the proposition that axiology (i.e. the philosophical study of value)—which can thereby include the study of ethical and aesthetic values—ought not be properly considered a subset of philosophy on grounds that axiology does not address “what is” (which is empirically verifiable) but “what is to you” (which is not empirically verifiable) is, in short, self-refuting; this because the very affirmation’s truth value (if any) is contingent on standards of value (such as in relation to what is good, right, correct, or proper and their converse in respect to philosophy) that cannot be empirically verifiable via observations and, thereby, which hold no truth value in relation to “what is”.
Intending to simplify the just expressed: you’re using your own empirically unverifiable system of values to make the philosophical assertion that the study of values and has no philosophically worth on grounds of not being empirically verifiable—thereby entailing your own assertion to have no philosophical worth.
As others have mentioned, metaphysics tends to concern itself with first principles, which I’ll contend include first principles in relation to value. These, then, address issues such as why it is that you yourself value empirically verifiable philosophy and disvalue empirically unverifiable philosophy in the first place.
Wincing refutation.
Brutal polemic,
Devastating rejoinder.
Compelling counter.
Always amusing when trolls like you, who lack the intellect and intellectual integrity to address specific points and offer intelligent rejoinder, instead turn to non sequitur, ad hominem and pout.
Are you having a bad day? And can you stop having a bad day now, please?
You misread (I can't even say "misinterpreted") my OP and comments subsequent. Perhaps in lieu of putting words in my mouth and inserting your foot in yours, you can ask for clarification and/or additional support for claims made.
As for "first principles", nothing like begging the question.
You obviously are no stranger to psychological projection.
And non sequitur.
You do give good pout, however.
I'm wondering if solipsism is a choice or an inevitability for some people....
Where do you imagine the meaning of words comes from if not the use of words?
Quoting Zettel
Are you really unaware that this is what I have been doing?
Quoting Zettel
You recognize Wittgenstein as a philosopher and yet you seem unaware of what he says about meaning and use. In addition you seem unaware that both the early and later Wittgenstein rejected the idea that philosophy is about:
Quoting Zettel
Contrary to what is empirically verified he says:
His concern is not with knowledge of the world but with oneself, on seeing, most importantly with seeing aspects and aspect blindness. It is not about an awareness of what is but rather on how one sees what is. Aesthetics remains a central concern. It is not theoretical but experiential.
As he says:
OK then, maybe I've read too much into what you're saying. I'll give it another go. From the OP:
Quoting Zettel
So, "philosophy means 'love of wisdom'" and "wisdom requires knowledge". OK, though this does not then imply that philosophy is "love of knowledge" per se.
If I understand the OP well enough, it contends that "love of wisdom" which aspires to gain knowledge of what values are (such as ethical and aesthetic values) and why they are as they are should not be properly considered philosophy.
So far you've specified that this is so because ethics and aesthetics (both of which consist of values, or worths) are not empirically verifiable and so cannot consist of knowledge (regarding "what is" rather than "what is to you")
But this again seems self-refuting to me: "love", emotive though it is, holds a value, a worth, otherwise it becomes a meaningless term; so your very affirmation of what proper philosophy (i.e., "love of wisdom") is will be grounded on that which you claim to be the "thinly disguised poetry" of metaphysics, rather than on empirically verifiable knowns. Thereby (given the dichotomy you're presented) by your own standards making the enterprise of demarcating proper philosophy - i.e., proper love of wisdom - itself metaphysical, i.e. thinly disguised poetry.
On the other hand, if you can somehow demonstrate love to be an empirically verifiable known regarding "what is", then you'd likewise demonstrate a value/worth to be an empirically verifiable known - thereby making axiology (which again encompasses the study of ethical and aesthetic value) a worthwhile philosophical study by the OP's standards.
Darn. Saw the banning only after my last post. Seems like play time might be over for me. Oh well.
Let me indulge in gross simplification by characterizing materialism as quantitative and idealism as qualitative.
Are you saying science is hands-on measurement in practice (quantitative) whereas math is cerebral language in practice (qualitative)?
My party line is that a particular metaphysics describes the underlying assumptions, what RG Collingwood calls "absolute presuppositions," of a particular way of seeing the world. When I say science is applied materialism I mean that science will only work in a physicalist, materialist world. You have to believe or act as if you believe there is an objective reality that behaves in accordance with universal laws. When I say mathematics is applied idealism I mean that mathematics will only work in an idealist world. You have to believe or act as if you believe that mathematical entities have an independent existence.
I read somewhere, I can't remember where, that scientists tend to be materialists and mathematicians tend to be idealists. That makes sense to me.
Good enough for me. Very Platonic in character though - as if numbers were people living in a city, maybe they are!
We're off-topic. I agree metaphysics is speculative, but you aren't saying anything new if that's your point.
There are metaphysical truths (ontology) - do quarks exist? However, we can't know if quarks really exist (epistemology). The particle zoo is a model that fits observation.
Maybe it was a chat.gpt stunt:
"AI, what combination of identity and opinion would piss off the most people at the same time given their previous statements?"
I burden T Clark with another question because he wrote this informative quote.
I hope others here will weigh in with responses to my following question: If metaphysics sets out the rules, and if rules can be construed as signposts pointing the way to specific truth claims, then does it follow that a signpost, like its referent, must in its role embody the same attribute it points the way towards?
Clarifying Example -- a signpost points the way towards a city wherein truth claims in arithmetic are taught to members of the public who wish to learn them. The signpost, in giving its direction to the traveler, makes no arithmetic truth claims. It does, however, embody -- or not -- the truth claim that its direction is true, thus aiding the traveler's quest to arrive at the chosen destination. In this situation, the truth claim of the signpost is an epiphenomenon of the truth claims of the arithmetic instruction it points the way toward.
What's basis for the second conditional?
Consider the epistemological approach known as radical constructivism, which is a kind of anti-realist attitude - 'radical constructivism is an approach to epistemology that situates knowledge in terms of knowers' experience. It looks to break with the conception of knowledge as a correspondence between a knower's understanding of their experience and the world beyond that experience. Adopting a sceptical position towards correspondence as in principle impossible to verify because one cannot access the world beyond one's experience in order to test the relation, radical constructivists look to redefine epistemology in terms of the viability of knowledge within knowers' experience'. The metaphysical claim shows up in the inevitable debates with realists. 'What?' realists will demand. 'You think the whole world is only in your mind?' I've been a party in this debate many times, generally as the former, and it proves difficult or impossible to bridge the gap between worldviews, because there's a kind of foundational or temperamental disposition that I think is associated with those respective views, that is very hard to articulate.
First, let me be clear, the understanding I've described is not held by many, perhaps most, perhaps almost all philosophers. The source I usually reference is "An Essay on Metaphysics" by R.G. Collingwood. Collingwood is a respected British philosopher who died in 1943. To make it more complicated, this way of seeing things is itself a metaphysical position.
Signpost isn't the analogy I'd use. I guess I'd say metaphysics is the road you take to reach the truth or whatever philosophical goal you are searching for. There's not just one road, but some are better than others. One road isn't right and another wrong, but some roads are easier to travel than others.
:smile:
:up: :up:
For me, the bridge is the position I've described. You don't have to commit to just one metaphysical or epistemological viewpoint. Different metaphysics can be used in different situations. Of course, all I've really done is move the gap upriver a bit.
Yes.
I'll offer a slightly different approach.
Metaphysics sets out the rules, as discussed, but what counts as true or false is part of those rules. That is, truth and falsity are assigned to sentences as a part of the game of metaphysics.
Metaphysical rules are not really "unproven", either.
Consider this analogy: aces in poker. Suppose you were playing a hand, you had a pair of aces and your opponent had a pair of two's. You claim victory, but your opponent instead of conceding, demands that you prove that aces beat two's - after all, 2 is greater than one! You perhaps bring out the book of rules, and show the page were it says that aces beat everything; but your opponent just maintains that that's ridiculous, that since two is greater than one, a pair of twos beats a pair of aces...
What is to count as proof here? In the end, you might just have to maintain that this is how we play the game...
I think the same can be said for at least some of the supposed principles of metaphysics - things such as the identity of indiscernibles, the principle of non-contradiction, the principle of causality and so on - just ways of playing the game. The rules are not unproven.
I find the relationship between metaphysics and religion frustrating. On the one hand, as you note, religion is intended to "account for the foundational basis of being itself," which is exactly what metaphysics does. On the other hand, the existence of any particular god understood as a literal being rather than metaphorically is a matter of fact. Having claimed that metaphysical statements have no truth value, are not either true or false, I find myself in a contradiction. My solution is to put my fingers in my ears and go "la, la, la, la, la" until everyone goes away.
Yes.
In your example of quarks, scientists find the quark idea, which does relate to be useful in their models. In your epistemology we can't know if quarks exist. Fine. I would probably agree with you on that issue. We might be pragmatists in relation to models or certain models. That hte model is useful but may or may not show us what is really out there. IOW our epistemologies and to some extent ontologies overlap. Other people may very well think that quarks exist (some scientists as well). But our stance in relation to quarks includes our positions on ontology and epistemology. What a model is. What is required for knowledge. Other people with different ontologies and epistemologies woud disagree.
And...
Quoting Zettel is not correct. The quark model is not merely a belief or sentiment or personal view. It is not unsupportable.
There's a reason that scientists are often physicalists and think this matters. They think it is true, period, those that hold that opinion. Scientists who think there are natural laws, think that is both important and true. That's ontology.
It's true that in some way someone might think that we never know anything about ontology. But that position includes their own ontology. They would need to use ontological propositions to support their position.Quoting ZettelThat's simply not the case.
One can come up with a philosophical position that says that any ontological claim, the claim that anything exists (not just quarks but things we consider less exotic and can be experienced at least seemingly more directly) is false. That we can never know what exists. But if you read the argument why the person thinks this is the case, they will have to make ontological claims about the nature of reality. They'll need some model of perception and subjects and things. Yes, their hypothesis will include empistemolgy, but it will also, necessarily include ontology and the nature of things.
He can argue that model of reality is correct and important, but that will put him in precisely the camp he is arguing against.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Proceeding from the conclusion of the above quotes, it seems reasonable to understand the five terms listed as guidelines-by-example that suggest how one might make his/her way through the world with a grasp of actionable truth that has has been modeled conceptually. After reflection upon these models, the enlightened person embarks upon principled empirical journeys through the everyday world of society.
For these reasons I say that a first principle is a signpost. Moreover, in its action of pointing towards a truth claim, signpost must embody a truth-claim-as-directive pointing towards a truth claim.
I think the first-principle truth claim is an epiphenomenon of the empirical truth claim because the former has no causal influence upon the latter.
Quoting T Clark
I think I'm starting to get some perspective here. I've been following a very good, scholarly writer who publishes on Medium Castalian Stream, specialising in stoic philosophers through the perspective of Pierre and Isletraut Hadot. Pierre Hadot is famous for his revival of the values of ancient philosophy, through his books such as Philosophy as a Way of Life, and What is Ancient Philosophy, among others. (More details below if required.)
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The point is, ancient stoicism and other philosophies were indeed ways of life, on the basis that to make the 'philosophical ascent' required to attain insight into the 'first principles' required certain characteristics and attributes which the ordinary man (the hoi polloi) lacks. (This is very much the topic of many of the Castalian Stream entries.) It was presumed that those who had such insight were aspiring to be, or actually were, sages (although it was always felt that the true sage was exceptionally rare.) Even stodgy old Aristotle had that side to him.
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The point is, us hoi polloi don't see these things, because we're not sufficiently trained. But don't worry! saith Martin Luther. All you need is faith! Who needs all this 'wisdom of the Greeks?' (which is likely to be luciferean, anyway). 'Faith in the Word' is sufficient!
I will grant that is something of a caricature, but I think it's near the point. Interestingly, the one mainstream Western cultural tradition in which Aristotelian metaphysics is still a living culture is the Catholic, and there are Catholic intellectuals who are adept in it (I'm thinking of Jacques Maritain, Edward Feser, Stephen M. Barr, and others of that ilk) because of Aquinas' synthesis of Aristotelian and Neoplatonist philosophy with theology.
In any case, the upshot of a lot of this is that large elements of the consensual metaphysical framework which used to underpin Western culture and society have been forgotten or abandoned, and not really replaced (although there are always nascent forms of a new metaphysic emerging.) But I think this is the deep cultural reason for the uneasiness (not to mention the outright hostility) directed towards metaphysics - too close to religion for comfort!
Oh, yeah. The axiomatic, the limit of reasoned argument.
Whaddya mean you don't follow? In making my explanation, I hewed to a close replication of your definition of metaphysics. I took in your definition and repeated it back to you in my own voice. This is meant to show I'm learning from what you communicated to me.
The reason I know a person uses a first-principle model (paradigm) to infer a truth claim about how the world works is because you taught the lesson to me.
Yes. I did add my two cents at the end. What's the mystery -- or incoherence -- about it? In order for a sign to point the way to wisdom, it must in itself be wise WRT to what it points toward. If you tell me you don't understand that small point, I can only say, once again, "Whaddya mean you don't follow?
Parsing precisely finely shaded distinctions of meanings between complex terms is your forté, not mine.
For me, that's physics, not metaphysics.
It's quite clear that @Zettel has absconded ... after setting the cat among the pigeons. :lol:
Quoting Zettel
IOW I also tend to separate the how from the what (how more central to physics, what more central to metaphysics) but then even this is an ontological position. That we have things and processes, say...that's a metaphysical position.
https://www.plu.edu/languages/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2017/06/johnson_-final-paper.pdf
https://academic.oup.com/book/27932/chapter-abstract/206482572?redirectedFrom=fulltext
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312595450_FROM_THE_INFINITY_APEIRON_OF_ANAXIMANDER_IN_ANCIENT_GREECE_TO_THE_THEORY_OF_INFINITE_UNIVERSES_IN_MODERN_COSMOLOGY
As an aside, I think we can eliminate as likely the ontologies in the presocratics saying that everything came from water or fire. So, it's not just tossing out stuff that can never be evaluated.
Further once Anaximander came up with this idea - which we know mainly through other philosophers, I believe, it entered the realm of ideas and arguements. There was direct influence, then indirect influence, so his idea not be mentioned specifically in its Greek name or he or it referred to, but the idea, given the way the Renaissance and other periods went back, amongst others, the Presocratics and then others read or listened to thos who did this, his influence - this option and set of postulates - became a part of the options and possibilities for use in knowledge generation, challenging assumptions, possible models and so on. Yes, I could find a few who actually named that concept, but others who don't are likely the recipients of the gift of the option via less direct routes.
I am not summing up philosophy as....
but that a part of it. And it entials not simply, hey, let me make up something, but in the process using deduction, observation, etc. to come up with something that seems more likely to be the case or more useful (perhaps in the long long run) than other ideas.
The problem is not with the mathematical physics of quarks but with the licentious use of exist and know which should not be allowed to seep into physics.
That's fine. I am not sure how physicists would manage to communicate without forms of 'to be' but I can see them managing to avoid 'exist.' In formal papers they need not use know, but I see no problem with them using knowledge or even know in other contexts. I don't think it would be heretical to say that we now know that time is relative, for example, in a lecture. Yes, science according to it's priniciples is open to revision, but we generally consider certain ideas to be part of knowledge and things we know, and so do scientists. This does not mean it has to be taken as 100%.
Further I am not sure how scientists are them supposed to communicate. Sure, they can avoid 'exist' but if we take a random title from Nature Journal...
This is asserting that there exist both defects and excitations. In fact it is doing that even more strongly that if the article asserted that they exist. The author is not even postulating these things exist. That is assumed and need not be highlight at all. What is the nature of those (obviously existing) things. If you want to convince people that something exists, don't raise it directly as an assertion. Homelessness exists. Much better to just act as if this has been demonstrated. The main causes of homelessness are X, Y and Z. Then the existence of homelessness isn't even on the table. I am not even bothering to assert it. That's so obvious I am moving on to details related to that existing phenomenon.
Later the scientists in that random do use the verb 'exist'...
but that they are asserting conditions, causes, things exist is asserted throughout generally without qualitification. And every article will be doing that with or without the use of 'exist'. Know seems less necessary and awkward in scientific articles, but it is implicit in the same way above mentioned. It is assumed. Not as absolute, but as a part of our knowledge around, in this case related to structural glasses existing, and also defects and excitations in them. Those are considered knowledge now. That those phenomena/things are real.
As long as the culture knows that knowing is revisable I don't see a problem.
But actually this is a tangential issue to my posts.
Quoting 180 Proof
Can you write a flow chart showing the continuity extending from the five products of metaphysics (you listed: {categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations}) to the everyday world?
:up: :up:
"Flow chart"? No, this is philosophy, not project managenent. Instead of taking snippets out of context, man, read the post they come from in its entirety for my meaning. Anyway, as Spinoza might say: metaphysics consists in polishing conceptual lenses.
Quoting ucarr
No, not the axiom! Being axiomatic is considered being self-evident; but it is clearly not self-evident that aces beat two's! Nor is it something that cannot be questioned - it might have been otherwise, it is not a necessary truth!
It's just that if you would play poker, you have to accept that aces beat two's.
I will, however, quibble as an exercise in futility in the following manner:
Quoting Banno
This tells us the deuce-holding opponent in your example is playing Devil's Advocate for kicks, or doesn't know the game of Poker, which probably means the game couldn't've have gotten underway in the first place, which means your example, beyond the abstract, is dubious.
Alternatively, when the deuce-holder yells,"two is greater than one, a pair of twos beats a pair of aces," I yell "aces high!" Deuce-holder then yells, "numbers don't lie!" I then yell, "legal stipulations trump common sense!"
Furthermore, when a stipulation is common law by consensus and thus by a socially mandated definition, poker players, being savvy to "aces high!" by presupposition, must equate the stipulation with self-evident truth via the cognitive imperative of poker-as-defined.
I await your response to this word-salad.
P.S. I know it's pettifogging trench-fighting on my part. I think I could, in a courtroom, force a stalemate. What do you think?
The point, as small one, is that there is a distinction between stipulating a rule and taking it as self-evident.
Yes. What you say is true.
My word game here -- not generally valid -- contextualizes stipulating a rule under the super-ordination of an arbitrary governing rule -- aces are the highest card -- that analytically equates by decree stipulation a = self-evident truth. A parallel is when a judge decrees that the jury disregard evidence they've already heard. Under this analytical artifice, hearing evidence = not hearing evidence. The equation is false, but the governing rule compels human subjects to act as if it were true.
The above sophistry, I expect, would be upheld in any court wherein the deuce-holder might try to claim a winning hand.
This tells us that {stipulated rule ? self-evident rule} is not a simple inequality, but rather a negotiable inequality under the hierarchy of super-ordination-by-consensus, an actionable edict therefore legal in court.
This tells us that 2 is greater than 1 along the cardinal_ordinal axis; along the existential axis, however, all points on the number line are equal. (It's the same argument in our US Constitution: all humans are existentially equal: the most physically_mentally incapacitated habituè of intensive care exists no less than the most thoroughly endowed polymath at the prestigious university.
Now we know that the claim {2>1} is conditional and, moreover, the condition of its superiority -- in the context of our example -- is precluded by one of the rules defining the game of poker.
Quoting Banno
By my argument above, I can claim existential equality of one point on the number line with respect to any other point on the number line. That {2>1}, or that {1>2} are equally logically debatable claims by force of existential equality.
By my argument above, I can claim existential equality of one point on the number line with respect to any other point on the number line ? {1>2} and {2>1} are moot.
From here I can proceed to the claim that it is self-evidently true that existentially equal numbers have cardinal_ordinal inter-relations that are moot with respect to size.
This makes a lot of sense to me and it's interesting. It made me think more about the place philosophy fills in my life. I don't have a spiritual practice. I certainly am not in any formal search for a spiritual path. As I see it, a path is something you push yourself on. It takes effort to keep going. For me, whatever it is I feel is more of a pull. Something is drawing me towards it. Even though the route is crooked, I never feel as if there is a chance I'll get lost. I'll think about this some more.
That being said, I don't think the conditions you describe are what is causing my frustration. That's simpler, very simple. As I wrote previously, the fact that aspects of religion are matters of fact gives me agita about where to fit it in my conceptual scheme. I do have a tendency to oversimplify things.
Metaphysics, on the other hand, subscribes to the coherence theory of truth which is about finding a model that fits the facts (as usually determined by observation). Mirabile dictu, metaphysics is one of two components in science viz. hypotheses generation, post-observation.
In conclusion, it depends on which theory of truth one is employing.
Your objection to the conventional definition of "Metaphysics" touches on one reason why I prefer to define my own interpretation in posts of philosophical opinions, instead of scientific facts. The label itself was applied by Christian theologians centuries after Aristotle wrote his encyclopedia on "phusis" (Nature). In the first volume he described the contemporary understanding of the natural world, as observed via the senses. But in the second volume, he discussed various ideas & opinions that observers had postulated in order to make (rational) sense of the world as presented to the physical senses. So, volume 1 is what we would call "Science" today, yet volume 2 goes beyond (meta) the sensory observations of the external world, into internal ideas, opinions, concepts that observers have imagined in order to explain what they saw.
Therefore, I define "Meta-Physics" as being about the mental subjects instead of the physical objects. Hence, "metaphysics" is about Subjective Science instead of Objective Science. Unfortunately, while two people can agree on what both see with their eyes, they often disagree about the meaning & significance of those facts. Hence, Meta-Physics is the general subject/object of Philosophy. Even among scientists, there are few disputes about specific facts, but many divisive doctrines about general implications of those facts.
Unfortunately, whenever I use the term "Meta-Physics" --- referring to non-physical mental aspects of the world --- some TPF posters interpret that special spelling as a theological term, referring to imaginary gods & ghosts. And they don't seem to care what Aristotle intended, when he divided his treatise between physical observations and non-physical opinions. For me, Philosophy is all about Meta-physics, consisting of reasoned opinions instead of observed facts. Unlike pragmatic Science, theoretical Philosophy is endlessly debatable. :smile:
Subjective Meta-Physics vs Objective Science :
Generally speaking, subjective is used to describe something that exists in the mind of a person or that pertains to viewpoints of an individual person. . . . Subjective observation is centered on a person’s own mind and perspectives, as opposed to being general, universal, or scientific. In this way, describing an observation as subjective often implies that it comes with (or is based on) personal biases.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/subjective-vs-objective/
Neither proven nor unproven.
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
Self-evident does not strictly equate to proven. The three principles you mentioned above certainly seem self-evident, axiomatic, in ways that the rules of poker do not.
Thanks. Since I have no training in formal Philosophy, and most of my relevant reading is written by scientists, I am quite ignorant of the "doctrines" of modern philosophers (since 17th century). That may be why some of my ad hoc 21st century arguments fall flat for those more accustomed to conventional formal expositions. I have learned from feedback on this forum that, for many posters, "Metaphysics" is an offensive four-letter word. :smile:
Contra the OP (yeah, I know s/he was booted), I've found metaphysics indispensible to my understanding of philosophy (thanks again, @Tobias), however, in a mode that breaks from tradition (e.g. ideality, onto-theology, transcendentals, etc) without eliminating speculative reasoning (e.g. Spinoza, Peirce, Rosset, Meillassoux, et al).
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/627625
Quoting Gnomon
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/628146 :smirk:
For a while. However after some time, people began to realise that the underlying argument of positivism was circular, because positivism itself was no more amenable to their verificationist criteria than their ostensible targets. As David Stove pointed out, if you read the concluding sentence of Hume's 'Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding':
"If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."
then ask yourself of the volume you have just finished, 'Does it contain....'
And the answer is in the negative. (Hume has been called the 'godfather of positivism'.) As Stove always then delighted in pointing out, positivism is like the uroboros, the mythical snake that consumes it's own tail. 'The hardest part', he would say with a wry grin 'is the last bite'.
I too learned a lot from Tobias posts on the previous forum.
The SEP article on Wittgenstein’s Aesthetics bears a read, putting an end to any such misunderstanding.
Quoting Banno
In philosophy axioms are supposed to be self-evident truths. But this is not the case in mathematics. In mathematics axioms are simply stipulated. This is what provides for the field of "pure mathematics", there are no such restrictions concerning the production of axioms. In philosophy we want to have basic rules which restrict the creation of rules (must derive from what is self-evident), but the mathematician wants to create rules in a way which is complete freedom from all rules. In general though, the mathematical axioms produced are reflections of practise already in process. This ensures that they will turn out to be useful. So practise usually precedes rules, and the rules are formulated to confine the practise to activity which has already proven successful.
Quoting ucarr
The poker analogy is completely out of place. Aces are not ones, just like jacks are not elevens, queens are not twelves, and kings are not thirteens. Poker is a pattern based game, not a math based game.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In most Western card games, the numeral 1 is designated ace and marked A accordingly. In games based on the superiority of one rank over another, such as most trick-taking games, the ace counts highest, outranking even the king. In games based on numerical value, the ace normally counts 1, as in cribbage, or 11, as an option in blackjack. In games based on arranging cards into ordered series, such as rummy, it may count either high or low or even both (as in a “round-the-corner” sequence such as Q-K-A-2-3). -- Britannica.Com
In Poker, the Ace is the highest card and the 2 card (Deuce) is the lowest. However, the Ace can also be used as a low card, with the value of 1. -- wsop.com
In Poker, the value of the ace is on a switch between highest card/lowest card. Which side of the switch is chosen by agreement prior to beginning of play.
An extension of the switch can be argued when numbers on the number line are viewed as being existential. Since this perspective on numbers destabilizes value as based on position, every number on the number line is on a highest card/lowest card switch by agreement, thus making the value of a given number arbitrary and axiomatic.
I can say axiomatic because through the lens of existential numbers, it's self-evident that an infinite line of positions unranked can be ranked axiomatically by agreement.
Something akin to this is demonstrated by the motion of a material object through surrounding space. Many -- perhaps infinite -- positions are open to the positioning-by-motion of the material object because those positions are unranked by any kind of physical difference that makes one position more-or-less attainable than another.
Okay. The ace is a high card that can also be used as a low card with value of 1.
Which interestingly are equal in mathematics - there are proofs for that equivalency.
"Equal" is an arbitrary designation.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/777555
We have long since lowered our standards of intelligibility in this field. We cannot say what a house is - in a mind independent manner. We can speak of what conditions do we take to be necessary to call something a house or a river or a statue, etc.
But that brings in forth important epistemological consequence, which turns metaphysics into a kind of hybrid field consisting of our knowledge and how the world is revealed to us.
So it becomes murky. Usually these discussions turn to matters of what kind of stuff the world is made of: physical, mental, neutral, etc. stuff. Most of these discussions are terminological and not substantive. With some minor - and interesting -exceptions.
[i]There are genuine conceptual difficulties implicit in this question. The transition from the rational numbers to the real numbers is a difficult one, and it took a long time and a lot of thought to make it truly rigorous. It has been pointed out in other answers that the notation 0.999999…
is just a shorthand notation for the infinite geometric series ?n=1?9(110)n, which has sum 1. This is factually correct, but still sweeps some of the conceptual questions under the carpet. There are questions to be addressed about what we mean when we write down (or pretend to) an infinite decimal, or an infinite series. Either of those devices is just a shorthand notation which mathematicians agree will represent some numbers, given a set of ground rules. Let me try to present an argument to suggest that if the notation 0.99999… is to meaningfully represent any real number, then that number could be nothing other than the real number 1, if we can agree that some truths are "self-evident".
Surely we can agree that the real number it represents can't be strictly greater than 1
, if it does indeed represent a real number. Let's now convince ourselves that it can't be a real number strictly less than 1, if it makes any sense at all. Well, if it was a real number r<1, that real number would be greater than or equal to ?n=1k9(110)n for any finite integer k. This last number is the decimal 0.99…9 which terminates after k occurrences of 9, and differs from 1 by 110k. Since 0<r<1, there is a value of k such that 110k<1?r, so 1?110k>r. Hence ?n=1k9(110)n>r. But this can't be, because we agreed that r should be greater than or equal to each of those truncated sums.
Have I proved that the recurring decimal is equal to 1? Not really- what I have proved is that if we allow that recurring decimal to meaningfully represent any real number, that real number has to be 1, since it can't be strictly less than 1 and can't be strictly greater than 1. At this point, it becomes a matter of convention to agree that the real number 1 can be represented in that form, and that convention will be consistent with our usual operations with real numbers and ordering of the real numbers, and equating the expression with any other real number would not maintain that consistency.[/i]
From here
What Aristotle proposed as the fundamental question of metaphysics, is the question of why a thing is the thing which it is, rather than something else. He dismissed the question of why there is something rather than nothing as somewhat incoherent, unintelligible, and replaced it with the question of why there is what there is instead of something else, as the fundamental question of being. This puts causation into its proper context by recognizing that the idea of something coming from nothing is fundamentally flawed.
As @apokrisis once said, nothing is not nothing, but actually everything. Something can come from everything which to those who don't know of this equivalence is nothing. Creatio ex omnia (syn. nihilio).
Also no thing is everything...there is othing that is everything, so...nothing is everything...QED
Wordplay!
It's another way of saying
Quoting 180 Proof
Yes it is wordplay, but it's based in denial that there is such a thing as "the universe". Under conventional definition, the universe is a collection of all things. Hence if the universe is a thing, then everything is a thing, the universe. So only by denying that the universe is a coherent whole, as a thing, can the wordplay even begin.
To be an actual (as opposed to conceptual) thing is to be an object of the senses which means to exist in relation to other things at some place and for some time. Where and when and in relation to what does the universe exist?
The universe is an object of the senses. I see it anytime my eyes are open. That I don't see all of it doesn't mean that I don't see it.
You don't really mean to say this. The universe is not an object of the senses. You don't actually see the totality of everything. The universe is not a place.
That is a weak rejoinder. With any object of the senses the boundaries are determinable, and an object of the senses has a location. Where is the universe located?
:up: It seems that you're not wrong but without being right.
I don't see your point. To see something does not require seeing the totality of it. I look at my car, and I see it. Having a motor, transmission and drive shaft are essential parts of the car, but I do not see them. Likewise, "the totality of everything" is essential to the universe, but I can still see the universe without seeing the totality of everything. We could say "a multitude of H2O molecules" is essential to being a body of water. But I see a body of water without seeing any molecules of H2O. Your argument clearly fails.
Quoting Janus
It's your argument which is weak Janus. The true boundaries of a sense object are always indeterminable. What is the boundary of a smell? A smell consists of molecules which are sensed. How many molecules of the specific gas are required before it is smelled? Of course that depends on many factors. There is no determinable boundary to a smell. Nor is there a determinable boundary between blue and green, nor red and orange. The true boundaries of colours are indeterminable.
Your claim that any object of the senses has a determinable boundary is simply unjustifiable. How is it that I feel the heat of the sun on my skin? Am I touching the sun? If so, where is its boundary? If not, then where is the boundary which marks the edge of the sun? And how is it that the moon affects the tides in the oceans on earth? If we place a boundary at the edge of the visible part of the moon, between the moon and the earth, then is the moon's gravity not a part of the moon? If the moon's gravity is not a part of the moon, then what is it? And if it is a part of the moon how can it have an effect on earth if the boundary of the moon is between the earth and moon? That a sense object has determinable boundaries is just an assumption of convenience, which is not at all a truth.
These boundaries we refer to are not "determinable", but arbitrarily stipulated. Therefore the object's "location" is also arbitrarily stipulated according to the stipulated boundary. Then we position the object in relation to a number of other things to assign a location. Where is the sun? The centre of the solar system (consisting of a number of things). Where is the solar system? In the Milky Way (consisting of a multitude of things). Where is the Milky Way? Etc.. So when it comes to the question "where is the universe located?", we can make an equally arbitrary answer which positions it relative to a number of things. We can locate it as "everywhere". This is simply to say that its location is relative to the location of everything (consisting of a multitude of things). So we locate the universe relative to a number of things, just like we locate the sun relative to a number of things, and there is no fundamental difference.
You see, your argument has no strength. It is extremely weak due to unsound premises.
We can look at distant galaxies and stars and see the whole of them, although of course only from our perspective here on Earth. Those objects have assignable locations relative to Earth and to each other. The same cannot be said for the Universe. You are clutching at straws.
As I explained, those are not true boundaries, they are just what appears to be a boundary through that particular sense. And, since sounds and smells are sensed, but you say they are not objects, your whole general category, "objects of the senses"' breaks down. What is sensed is stimuli, as you now admit, not objects.
Then with our minds we decide which parts of our environment which we are sensing qualify as "objects". You, for no good reason want to disqualify "the universe" from being an object. Why? Do you have any reason for this desire, even if it's a bad reason?
You are just digging yourself a deeper hole with each post Janus.
Quoting Janus
That's nonsense. I look at a distant hill and I can't even see the whole of it. I don't see each rock, each tree, each molecule, or each atom, and I don't see the whole back side of it. Your premises are terribly wrong. If you want to make a respectable argument, I suggest that you put a little more thought into your premises. And if you did that, you would see that you haven't an argument to make, because there are no true premises which would support what you are arguing.
What is a "true boundary"? Just as there are no perfect circles. rectangles, triangles or perfectly straight lines in nature, there are no perfect boundaries. However that doesn't matter. because we perceive edges and surfaces, and our notion of a boundary is based on those perceptions. The notion of a perfect boundary is abstracted from those perceptions, just as the notions of perfect geometrical shapes are abstracted from perceptions of allotments, paths, buildings and wheels and so on.
Sounds and smells. like the visual images and tactile sensations of objects are stimuli. but the former are conceived, and hence perceived, as being effects of the actions or processes associated with the objects we can feel and see. The idea of objects of the senses does not require that all sensory stimuli be conceived and perceived as objects; to claim that would be a lame argument indeed.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You don't need to see every detail in order to a whole object from some perspective. You can move around many objects so as to see them from all sides, and in principle you could do this with a star or even a galaxy. If you got close enough to see the individual stars of a galaxy you would no longer be able to see the whole galaxy. that is you would not be able to see the shape of the galaxy from a particular perspective if too close.
Your objections are remarkably pointless I have to say! I think you need to try harder and stop shifting the goalposts or distorting what is being said to you..
You're forgetting one thing -- you can't step outside the universe to observe it. You are always inside the solar system, inside the galaxy, among the billions of solar systems and galaxies in a collection called the universe. You would need to get outside our solar system, then outside our galaxy, then outside the billions other galaxies, then outside the universe to do what you say you could do similar with your car.
From George Gamow's 1, 2, 3 Infinity...
I can't agree with what you are saying. You are classing hearing and smelling as distinct from seeing and touching. But it seems to me that hearing and seeing are much more similar to each other as the reception of waves. So why would you separate them in categorizing types of sensations?
I think the traditional categorization is to place touch, taste, and smell together as tactile senses. The tactile senses are understood to operate through an action of molecules. Then hearing and sight are somewhat different because they operate through the reception of waves.
I think that if you want to talk about objects of sense, we'd be talking about molecules, because these seem to be the only objects which are actually sensed, and they are sensed by the tactile senses. That there are any objects other than these must be a conception of the mind.
Quoting Janus
I can't agree with your definition of "whole" either. You imply that sensing some random parts constitutes sensing the "whole". So whatever parts constitutes "the whole" is just an arbitrary judgement you make for the purpose of supporting your argument. In reality, the whole is the complete, all there is, the entirety of something.
Quoting Janus
And this is, is just a demonstration of sloppy thinking on your part. To imply that something which could be done "in principle" is what is actually done in practise is just a false premise.
You are completely ignoring what I said a number of posts ago. We cannot, even in principle, sense the boundaries of the things which we call objects. That is what I demonstrated with my examples of the sun and moon. We do not sense the gravity which is a part of the moon. Yet this part of the moon is right here on the earth, as we know by the tidal effects. Therefore the boundary of the moon must be beyond the earth, and not at all sensed by us. We do sense the light of the sun so this part of the sun is right here touching us. But we do not see how far that part of the sun extends, we don't see its boundary.
Quoting L'éléphant
I don't see how that's relevant. You cannot observe anything from outside of it. To observe it requires that it has an effect on you, and this means that part of it is touching you. If part of it is touching you, you are not outside it. That was the point of my example of the sun. I feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, therefore part of the sun is touching me. We know this as the sun's electromagnetic field. So, just like I am not outside of the moon because I am within this part of it which we call its gravity, I am also not outside of the sun because I am inside this part of it which we call its electromagnetic field.
Here in lies the problem with Metaphysician Undercover's understanding of what is the "object of perception".
Inferring is not the same knowing as seeing the "object of perception", as MU said earlier in his post. Knowing through the object of perception means you actually use your 5 senses to get to know an object. You see a walking, talking person, you are perceiving that person as other person.
Yes, we know something about the universe. i.e. the totality of everything, but this did not come about because we saw the "whole universe" in front of us, but we inferred thousands of things about it, using our own sun, moon, stars.
Edit:
Quoting Bylaw
En fait, we can. No one here is saying this. If you're introducing a new twist in this discussion, write that bit in a way that you don't attribute it to me.
I wasn't attributing it to you. I was pointing out that your objection to universe would hold for atmosphere. I also am extending this to smaller, everyday objects in this post and the other. I specifically chose atmosphere because you said that being inside something was a problem. We are inside the atmosphere.
I also don't see how inside vs. outside is relevant. Hence the Gamow image and idea.
We don't/can't perceive whole objects. Not even a spoon in our kitchen. We'll see one angle but not others. We don't see the inside. We see it in this particular light. And we build up a kind of cliche image in our heads and we generally see that and perhaps notice significant deviations from that when seeing a new style spoon. Once you are dealing with something more complicated than a spoon - like a squirrel or a human - the interpretations, series of snapshots, all that is missing from any direct view (or hearing, smelling, tasting, touching) is only more significant.
IOW I see your objections to sensing the universe as present in all our sensing. We never look at whole things. We are always inferring and interpreting and working with mental models, ready in advance. Just as we fill in our blind spots but globally instead of locally.
I give a kind of retake of this post in response to Janus 4 posts down from here.
To use all five senses to know an object requires that your mind unifies the information from each of the five. This would be a form of synthesis. The senses don't know anything, the mind does.
In one sense this is true and in another not. Most familiar objects we can move around to see the object from all sides. From any perspective view we can see the edges of objects; where they visually begin and end, so to speak.
Of course unless we dissect something we see only the surface. We don't see the microphysical constitution of objects, but we can tell what material they are made of by sight and by feel and sometimes by sound, smell or taste.
If we take an ice cube as our example. It is more or less one substance, barring pockets of air and whatever impurities there are in the h20. We see the surfaces, and we luckily in this case get to see the inside. We make enough observations to get a sense of the whole and this seems miles away from what we do with a universe.
But as a next example we take a human or even a humble bee. Suddenly we have something made up of thousands of substances, most on the inside. I think the bee likely has some consciousness - in the sense that it experiences. This is also 'inside'. They are actually fairly complex cognitively - they can understand the concept of Zero for example.
Here we are building up a very incomplete model in our minds for the object we see. Some melittologist
may well have a much more complete model in his or her mind, but this has been built up via observations and mulling and reading over a long period of time. Must of the bee is opaque to the direct senses and to be sensed requires taking the bee apart, autopsy version or chemical. And probably also all sorts of indirect observations. Taking tests what show what is there or going on inside. or like the tests that showed the bees could understand or work with the idea of zero. There was no direct perception of this.
And even the humble ice cube is known by many to be made up of atoms and perhaps the patterns of those atoms in ice. Then the make up of the atoms, then that in a way the little solar system model of the atom is, at least in qm, a reification of, well strange stuff and patterns and more like energy, though not energy, etc.........Most people manage without this, but then their models are more incomplete, even if the best experts' models are also incomplete. And then there are individual differences between ice cubes, some visible, some not.
And as I said earlier this isn't really going into the nitty gritty of our perception. Which is not like a direct seeing, but rather interpretations and translations and filtering to make a kind of internal images of each snapshot taken of the ice cube. So, we are building even in what seems like a mere direct looking at the object. And past viewings and expectations are added in also.
So, when we talk about the universe, yes, it's not direct. It's a built up model each of us have, some more informed than others with idiosyncratic foci. Well, the universe is the most complicated thing we know of. Of course any building up of a model for this is going to be very complicated. And sure, we may get this model via more inferral or more steps, since we use the observations of others, generally, to build up this model. It's at the far end of a spectrum, but I am not sure that it is qualitatively different.
I'm being a bit of a devil's advocate here, but I am not sure it's so different when someone says TV or Russia or atmosphere or school or squirrel to me or my father's desk or......
I think they have focused their senses on a fraction of these things, in some cases (the squirrel, Russia, even the TV and my father's desk for most people, certainly the atmosphere, just a tiny fraction, and have some model in their heads.
I don't see universe as the exception. Not because it is outside us (as is the atmosphere). And not because we have direct perception of other things, but not it.
If I may try another attempt to dissuade you, let us use the example of a mound of millet. Assume you are a grain piled up with other thousand grains. You wouldn't be able to see the mound, but of course you can infer that a mound has been formed out of the thousands of you and other grains. You could, for example, use fractals to calculate that, one, a mound has formed, how big, and how high the mound is. Using logarithmic curve, maybe some volume, you could extrapolate that there is, indeed, a mound that exists out of the millions of grains.
But you never, ever, have come to the point that you are outside the mound perceiving it. Never.
You ought to read Kant and Berkeley. That there are objects of perception is intuitive, what an object of perception is, is not.
Quoting L'éléphant
Why do you think that perceiving is done from the outside? Isn't it the case that the person perceiving is in the centre of the field of perception, perceiving one's surroundings, one's environment? So if perceiving is to be described in terms of inside/outside, the perceiver is inside, and what is perceived is outside the perceiver.