The problem with Brute Facts
A brute fact is something that exists without explanation. That could be God, the universe, logic, etc.
I was listening to Colin McGinn discuss the question of why anything exists at all. His analysis is that there has to be some things for which there is no explanation that explain the things that do have explanations. Something must be brute.
The problem is that almost anything can be brute, depending on one's philosophy. An anti-realist can say that experience is brute. A materialist might say it's matter. A theist would invoke God. At which point there is no further discussion to be had. If experience is brute, then it doesn't need an explanation, and there are no more questions to be asked. To the person who doesn't think experience is brute, this sounds like cheating. It's a way to short circuit the debate by fiat. One resolves the problem of consciousness by making it brute.
Another problem is why would some things be brute when most things are not? What makes God, or Quantum Mechanics, or Daisen brute? What distinguishes the brutally existing things from the non-brutal ones? Is it just being brute? Is there a brute property? How does brute existence result in contingent existences?
Bruteness seems profound, but then you realize you can arbitrarily make anything lacking agreed upon explanation brute. Why is it that anything exists? Because something (some things) just happen(s) to exist. And why is that something and not something else? Just because?
I was listening to Colin McGinn discuss the question of why anything exists at all. His analysis is that there has to be some things for which there is no explanation that explain the things that do have explanations. Something must be brute.
The problem is that almost anything can be brute, depending on one's philosophy. An anti-realist can say that experience is brute. A materialist might say it's matter. A theist would invoke God. At which point there is no further discussion to be had. If experience is brute, then it doesn't need an explanation, and there are no more questions to be asked. To the person who doesn't think experience is brute, this sounds like cheating. It's a way to short circuit the debate by fiat. One resolves the problem of consciousness by making it brute.
Another problem is why would some things be brute when most things are not? What makes God, or Quantum Mechanics, or Daisen brute? What distinguishes the brutally existing things from the non-brutal ones? Is it just being brute? Is there a brute property? How does brute existence result in contingent existences?
Bruteness seems profound, but then you realize you can arbitrarily make anything lacking agreed upon explanation brute. Why is it that anything exists? Because something (some things) just happen(s) to exist. And why is that something and not something else? Just because?
Comments (153)
Aren't you being circular though? Brute facts don't have explanations. But you want there to be an explanation for what makes a brute fact.
I don't think bruteness seems profound. To a rational fellow like Spinoza, say, it is on the contrary intellectually annoying, so he finds various cunning ways of saying there is no such thing. Surely bruteness says, even to the rationalist: Sorry, mate, this is as far as your fancy-shmancy reason will go. From hereon in it's metaphysics or blind bloody prejudice.
I suppose. So the only difference between a contingent fact and a brute one is bruteness. It's just odd that some things are contingent and others are brute, but there is no reason for that difference. Maybe it's because one can keep on asking "but why?", which leaves one a bit annoyed and dissatisfied when someone else says, "just because".
I can empathize with your concerns there, but I don't think it's any better to say that everything must have a reason, either. And "everything must have a reason" is going to wind up either being or resting on something that one accepts as a brute fact, anyway.
It really just comes down to psychological facts, often influenced by social facts. There are some things that some folks are fine accepting without requiring an explanation for them, and some things that they're not fine accepting. We usually don't have to dig very deep until we get to the stuff that people are fine accepting brutely--it's almost never more than a step back or two in a casual conversation. And everyone gets annoyed at someone asking "why" a bunch of times in a row--it quickly starts to seem like you're talking to a toddler or a troll. Everyone quickly gets to some "just because" equivalent. And really we have to in order to get anywhere, because otherwise we'd be giving supporting reasons/explanations until the end of time.
Or hand waving, which Landru loved to do with experience, self and language, which is odd, since Moore did it to defend realism. I mention Landru, because he was the foremost defender of anti-realism on the old forum (and was a very eloquent debater).
I wonder if the hand waving away an argument originated in response to Moore's talk.
Necessary beings aren't brute facts. I think of necessary existence as an infinite chain of explanations, there's the reason, then there's a deeper reason, and yet a deeper reason, and so on to infinity with each explanation being just a greater depth of that same reason. Only an infinite omniscience could really, truly, fully fathom that sort of metaphysically necessary existence.
I dont buy that it's not the same thing under another name. "Self-evident" too.
First, I want to own up to the fact that I've rephrased your question here. I'd prefer to talk about brute beliefs to brute facts. Hopefully that doesn't skew your focus too far astray, but let me know if it does and I'll try to reformulate my initial thoughts..
I guess I'd wonder how it is one builds explanations without there being some belief which is brute. There may be a problem of adjudicating which beliefs are better as brute beliefs, but I fail to see how reason gets off the ground without brute beliefs.
Brute beliefs can be arbitrarily selected because of their function within a set of rules for deliberating whether some statement is true. If you question the brute belief then it is no longer a brute belief. But just because a brute belief can be selected arbitrarily doesn't mean that all brute beliefs are selected arbitrarily. First, there can be more compulsions to accept a belief than reason alone -- so while a brute belief may not have a reason, i.e. it is not the product of rationality, it may still be grounded by extra-rational means.
Agreement is sort of an extra-rational means, at least with respect to deliberating on truth. Agreement clearly doesn't yield truth, yet it is a rule by which we can select brute beliefs which operate within a particular discussion. Faith is another -- by faith we accept such and such statements as true, even without demonstration. Certain kinds of emotional attachment or compulsion come to mind as well -- meaning, the sorts of emotions which aren't part of our rational process.
Also, it's worth noting that a belief can be brute in one conversation, but since questioning a belief turns it non-brute, that no belief is permanently brute. We'd just have to be compelled -- by other, extra-rational means -- to question said belief, and it would no longer function as a brute belief.
Also, I'd note that "creationist" can be construed pretty broadly. So depending on said creationist I'd be more or less willing to say that we're on par. So, for example, if someone is a Christian and takes the bible to be a literal document about the way the world was formed, for instance, I'd say that this isn't on par with some sort of deist conception of God, which isn't something I believe in but is also something which seems more akin (and thereby more difficult to decide between) to my beliefs.
I find this sort of comment strange. Bruteness to me seems synonymous with fundamentality. When materialists say that matter is "brute", some physicists say that QM is "brute", and some dualists say that consciousness is "brute", they seem to me to mean that it is fundamental. They aren't reducible to anything deeper (as far as we are concerned), but rather everything that exists reduces to them, so of course it should come as no surprise if the non-fundamental things in the world vastly outnumber the fundamental ones.
So if you're asking why some there are even fundamental (or brute) entities at all, then you seem to be suggesting that it can be otherwise. But unless we are willing to argue for turtles all the way down in all cases, then it seems like it's necessary that there be a fundamental level of some kind and that there exist fundamental entities that make up the universe.
I agree. Analytic philosophy tends to argue that one can somehow choose one's brute beliefs, or they're random. But they are historically-situated, and if we talk about beliefs in any time but our own, we tend to place them in a socio-historical context. Brute beliefs somehow rub off on you in your formative times without you realising until it's too late and, darn it, here they are, in your very sinews.
The only brute that I can think of is the contingency of everything, the fact that what is, could possibly be otherwise. if you bring God into the discussion as a brute fact then, I think we are no longer having a rational conversation, and while God may work for many as the brute fact of existence, I am not one of them.
The only "brute facts" beyond contingency itself are those we propose as self-evident, which may be epistemological necessary, but they are not ontologically guaranteed, they are only probable. McGinn suggests that some things must exist necessary in order to explain why other things exist, which I think maybe a reformulation of the necessity of first causes or the cosmological argument all over again.
Swinburne takes God as a brute fact, so it's not irrational, but the claim that necessary existence logically reduces to brute fact is just facile thinking.
What makes Swineburn's conversation about God a rational conversation? Does he rationally prove the existence of God or?
But then it's natural to ask if there is anything that, relative to some largish class of theories, will always be in the "unexplained" bucket. Or even if there is something that will be unexplained for all conceivable theories. I would think it's around here we start talking about "brute facts."
So the way you see it something must exist but anything will do? Could have been a pickle, could have been a particle, anything from a mite to a unisivre would do?
There seem to be two kinds of brute facts: totalities and their attributes. Being is a totality. It is the brutest of all brute facts. Then we have questions about the nature of being: it is necessary, is it intentional, is it spirit, is it mind, is it matter, is it necessary or contingent, created or everlasting, is it something or is it nothing, and so on, or is it all and none of these things?
Within being there are beings or existents, and none of their existences are brute because they are always explainable in terms of prior existents.
No quite, I can't think of any reason why anything must/should or ought to exist, versus nothing. Any such reason fails, it suggests faith not reason. The world is the way it is, but we don't have, and I think in principle we cannot have an ontological stance in regard to why it is the way it is. This is the problem of a viewpoint from nowhere, we are infinitesimally minute part of the set of existent objects and we cannot get outside of this domain to define it.
Quoting Cavacava
It is worth recalling what problem the 'god of the philosophers' solved in the first place. The role it played was as the 'uncaused cause' (in Aristotle's terminology) to solve the problem of how, if everything is a contingent fact, that anything could come to exist at all. The proposal that everything simply happens as a consequence of contingency would not have been entertained by Aristotle, because it would amount to the abdication of reason or the abandonment of the search for an explanation. The thrust of traditional philosophy was to find the reasons for why things are the way they are, based on the assumption that there is indeed a reason for things being the way they are, and that this is something that philosophy is able to discern.
Of course over the course of history, that general sense of 'the reason for everything' became incorporated into theology, but to begin with it was quite distinct. The ancient idea of 'logos' (from which all the subjects ending in '-logy', i.e., forms of knowledge, are derived) was precisely that the Cosmos was 'animated by reason' and that the aim of philosophy (before it became empirical science) was to discover and elaborate it. This eventually assumed the form, almost the cliche, of 'God' handiwork', which were the terms the early moderns (Newton and others ) depicted it in.
What happened with the advent of modern thinking and the Enlightenment was the increasing rejection of such explanations and the attempt to find what is understood as purely naturalistic explanations. In the terms of the older tradition, this amounted to the rejection of the idea of formal and final causes, and the declaration that a complete explanation could be sought in the terms of a chain of material or efficient causes.
I think that is one of the unfortunate consequences of the absorption of traditional philosophy by theology. Whereas traditional philosophy had its religious aspects - compared to today, everyone was religious - it really was a separate and distinct discipline, neither scientific in today's sense, nor religious in the sense of founded on revelation. One indication of that is the change of the idea of Logos, which had been a magnificently fecund philosophical term in the ancient world, but which nowadays usually signifies the religious fundamentalism into which it has largely ossified.
Anyway, where I think the original distinction between formal and final causes, and efficient and material causes, can be discerned, is in the observation that, whilst science can discern the regularities which are generally referred to as scientific or natural laws, it can't as a matter of principle explain why those laws exist. In other words, the question of the nature of laws, is a different type of question to the question of what can be predicted on the basis of those laws. 'Why there are laws', is a metaphysical question. I think the fact of there being an order that manifests as such regularities or laws is what many people would (inelegantly) refer to as 'brute facts'.
I agree with most of what you outlined and additionally I think that while reason and logic are important to our experience of life, so are friendship, morality, aesthetics, religion, baseball and many aspects of life which have far more brute force than any rational argument. As long as nature is as it is, then regardless of how it got that way, it is coherent, lawful, predictable to a certain extent. The scientific image serves the manifest image.
The issue is where do we go from here? Wherever we go, we ought to be sure of the basics, since even small inaccuracies/bias/prejudice in foundations, such as those built on historical prejudices (like God), or 'brute facts', may cause larger problems, until they are sorted out into their own domain. Given the amount of knowledge available to a huge population in the world, I suspect/hope we will be seeing some amazing new advances in all parts of the human endeavor.
One can state that constant conjunction of events is brute. It just so happens to be the case then when A & B then C. But nothing makes that be the case tomorrow. Then again, nothing keeps it from being the case a billion years from now. Humean causation it is.
But then someone else can't accept that events are conjoined for no reason, and that conjunction might not hold at any time in the future. So they propose that there are laws of nature necessitating the conjunction. And those are brute.
So how do we decide between the two? Is it a matter of aesthetics? I'm repelled by radical contingency while you're appalled at some mysterious, non-empirical laws making things happen?
Must we postulate brute facts? Can we not more modestly admit that reasoning commences with foundational axioms?
:-}
But you can also argue that something is a brute fact by going through the usual types of explanations offered for it and disposing of them. You might be able to do even better by providing a taxonomy of possible explanations and showing how nothing we might come up with anywhere in that taxonomy will work. That doesn't prove something cannot be explained, but it might be enough to make it likely, or plausible, or any of those substitutes for certainty that philosophers use.
That sounds about right to me. I will say that it's possible to change these sorts of beliefs, too, but yes -- to do so is like pulling yourself apart.
I think philosophy *can* help in this endeavor, but it doesn't necessarily lead to self-criticism of this sort. One has to have the right sorts of inclinations to be able to suspend and entertain other brute beliefs.
There's a journal I read from time to time called 'anamnesis', which is of course a Platonist term, for 'unforgetting' or recalling things forgotten. I think, regrettably, a great deal of the real wisdom of the Western tradition has been forgotten, and until we 'remember what we have forgotten' we will continue to plunge headlong into unwisdom, aided and abetted by powerful technologies but without any sense of purpose. But that is completely unrelated to this particular thread, so I'll leave it there.
More to the point, Ed Feser has some cogent discussions of the topic of 'brute fact' on his blog.
The content of what you say here appears to be agreeing with what I said, but your tone suggests disagreement, so I'm not sure what to make of it.
That would be challenge. You doubt that? You deny it? I'd argue that's challenging the very idea.
Face it, either you agree or disagree, with challenge you get the same result, it's a fact, a brute one!
Yes, that. My metaphysics is Lovecraftian. Laws of nature are monstrous beings.
Would that be like the Son & Holy Spirit parts of the Christian Trinity that eternally depend on the Father or Son/Father relationship for existence?
I don't know what "arising from nothing" actually means, but it's an interesting thought.
It is the problem of induction, an ontological problem which creates epistemological issues. We propose self evident 'truths', universals/absolutes upon which we base our systems of belief, our knowledge, on what we have proposed, which seems to be working for the most part, we tweak it, change it, reinterpret it as necessary. While we have no guarantees, we do have probabilities and possibilities.
What is needed is a different conception of reality, an expanded view of reality, deflationary or thick, one in which possibilities become categorized to encompass what is; such as deductive possibilities, historic possibilities, nomological possibilities, logical possibilities and so on.
Realism fails because what is given is only given to us though thought and idealism fails because we all die, and therefore thought itself must admit its own horizon, which means that idealism can't encompass factual reality either.
Sufficient reason is not coherently understood in terms of something being "its own reason", but in terms of its being caused by something else.
Something cannot be its own sufficient reason simply because in that there is no possibility of any relationship whereby one thing is the cause of, or reason for, the other. For example, to say that heat is caused by the agitation of molecules is to offer an explanation for the occurrence of heat by way of sufficient reason; it is sufficient for heat to manifest if the molecules of any substance are agitated. To say that I went to the shop to buy tomatoes is to offer an explanation for why I went to the shop, again by way of sufficient reason, To say that the universe exists because of the Big Bang, or that species evolve by the interplay of random mutation and natural selection, are again explanations in terms of sufficient reason.
To say a being exists because it exists is no explanation at all; it is to say that the existence of that being is a brute fact, and it doesn't matter per se whether we think the existence of the being is necessary or contingent. It is like saying that heat occurs because heat occurs or I went to the shop because I went to the shop.
That doesn't tell you why the thing exists, but rather how anything exists.
You're confusing reason and cause, they're not the same.
You are confusing efficient causation, which has no inherent connections with reasons for actions, with other conceptions such as formal or final causation, which do necessarily involve reasons for actions.
Also, if I say that heat is produced because of the agitation of molecules, then it is perfectly coherent to say that the agitation of the molecules is the reason for the manifestation of heat, even though there is no imputation of intentionality; which would certainly be involved if action of agitating the molecules had been done for some specific reason/s. In other words molecular agitation can be the reason for heat, even though the heat is not necessarily produced with any purpose in mind, and certainly the agitation itself cannot be coherently thought to have any reasons for wanting to produce heat.
Now you're just playing semantics and muddying the waters with irrelevant concepts. In this context reason simply means explanation. That could include causation but it is not limited to it. A broadly logically necessary being is a being that contains the reason for its existence within itself and exists in all possible worlds if its existence is possible. Brute facts are not self-explanatory and could have been otherwise.
You seem to be operating under the erroneous opinion that I have said that all brute facts are necessary beings. I haven't said that, so you are arguing against a paper tiger.
I'm not really sure what you're arguing? I'm just pointing out that metaphysically necessary existence and brute existence are mutually exclusive, that broadly logically necessary beings by definition cannot be brute facts.
Why not? If 'brute fact' is defined as 'existing without explanation' then it seems that necessary beings are brute facts.
I think it also tells me why the thing exists: the thing exists because it is identical to itself and different from other things.
Tractatus 6.44
Heidegger.
Quotes from Meillassoux's After Finitude.
Doesn't that make a brute fact just a true statement that is not subject to doubt?
Stop playing with yourself man; it'll make you go blind...or...perhaps it... already has.
Was it really necessary, or is it a brute fact?
>:O
I would point out "laws of nature" are functioning no differently to the "god of gaps." Like when anyone takes an observation of the world then says: "Ahhh, but that doesn't make sense of itself. It must really be God behind the curtain, a miracle of their will."
We accept Humean causation or we fall into retroactive accounts of "what must be" that doesn't take into account evidence and observation-- instead of understanding states interact to cause, we reject them in favour of the miracle working God that is the laws of nature.
You're also mistaken about Humean causation too. There is not "no reason" any given event occur. The presence of particular states which case other is present defines Humean causation. Why did the sun rise? Because states, causes and effects, were such that a rising sun came to be. That's "why" some alternative outcome hasn't occurred.
The only way out that I see is some form of infinite regress out of necessity (but what is necessity if not a brute fact?) We could say that the "brute fact" is ABCD, and if we try to analyze what "brute fact" amounts to, we'll end up with ABCD as well. A circular but infinite explanation. Sort of like saying everything can be divisible an infinite amount of times.
The best attempt I've seen is trying to argue for God or the universe necessarily existing. That there is some reason why God, the universe, mind, etc cannot not exist. That a final theory of everything would be self-explanatory, and if we could understand it, then we would be like, oh so that's why there is something instead of nothing!
And then the issue is resolved without having to propose something existing for no reason at all. I prefer to think that is the case, because brute facts to me seem like should shrugging and rather arbitrary.
And if something can exist for no reason, why can't other things?
Have to think about that. Take Humean causation. It's a brute fact that the sun has always "risen" each morning. But that leaves me doubting whether the sun might rise tomorrow. In fact, it leaves me doubting everything about the future.
I'm not comfortable with that.
But then Hume uses the turkey/thanksgiving metaphor to explain how our belief in the future being like the past is merely a habit of thought and not something guaranteed in the world. Humean causation has no necessity to it. It's just simply constant conjunction, to date. But that could all change tomorrow or a million years from now, for no reason at all.
Maybe so, but what was Witty trying to get at here? That there is a reason why the world exists, but it's beyond our ability to know?
But why does this reason exist? And why does the reason that this reason exist also exist? If something is necessarily existent - why is it necessarily existent? "Brute" facts seem more like cowardice and obscuration than genuine, honest belief.
For sure, but notice the question you are leaving out: if there is a particular state in the future, how does it occur?
Can the sun rise tomorrow without a sun that rises? Hume's point is a causal relationships cannot be defined merely in an idea of what will happen. In causality, nothing can be guaranteed because states must do there respective work. A respective state is required, not just an idea in our mind. "Necessity" is just our fantasy our ideas cannot possibility be wrong.
You know why? You've not been looking at the future in the first place. Deep down, you are actually entirely sceptical of it, to a point where you think it depends on your idea about it. Instead of taking the future and the world on it's own terms, you are looking to outside, to your ideas, ideas to define it.
What difference does it make if you doubt everything in the future? Does it somehow mean the future does happen? Has the sun stopped raising because you encountered Humean causation and are now doubting whether you can trust some idea about the future?
Not at all. The world has continued to do, the sun rising many times (and the many predications about it rising being right) many times since Hume gave his account to causality. Absence of necessity simply doesn't pose any problem to future events or our ability to predict or describe them. We do that perfectly world in which we might be wrong.
Your doubt is merely you boxing shadows of your own mine, cast by your misunderstanding that knowledge of the world is defined by getting beyond the possibly of being mistaken.
Because its non-existence would result in logical inconsistency, like a triangle being a circle.
The ultimate reason for why anything exists is logical consistency. What is existence anyway, if not logical consistency?
I'm going to guess that asking why something self-explanatory necessarily exists is a meaningless question.
Finding the explanation should dissolve the question. Of course you can always create a why question for any topic. "Why can't God create a stone that God can't move?" Doesn't mean it's any more meaningful than pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
It seems there could not be a reason why there must be something rather than nothing, because if there is nothing there can be no reasons. In other words there must be something for there to be reasons in the first place. So being is necessarily prior to reason, it seems.
Yeah, that makes sense. It's tempting to suppose the world just is how it is, while logic, math, language, and scientific models are created by minds attempting to make sense of the world. They are maps, not the territory. But we often confuse the two, and this has led metaphysics, along with plenty of scientists and mathematicians in addition to philosophers, astray for millennia.
But I'm just speculating.
Are you trying to prove god?
Perhaps you doubt too much.
Let's follow Austin. If we have brute facts, then there must be facts that are not brute.
Searle, when he used the term, placed it in opposition to social facts.
What does McGinn list as not brute?
I hadn't thought of it that way. If God is thought as infinite being then the situation would be as I said, but if God is thought as transcendent to being, then a reason for being might be thought to be prior to being, after all.
Nah, I tend to be more dogmatic than skeptical, but philosophy encourages doubt.
Quoting Banno
I don't know. Haha @ video.
But how do you explain the fact that we can think about impossibilities? Do these acts of thinking not really exist?
An act of thinking exists as a collection of qualia in one's consciousness. But if they refer to impossibilities such as a triangular circle they refer to nothing because impossible things do not exist.
So you can think the statement "The triangle is a circle", or you can speak it or write it down. The collection of qualia, sounds, or ink marks on paper is consistent and exists, but it does not refer to anything.
Are you sure that they don't refer to anything? How can we coherently talk about something without having a representation of it in our minds? How can something be absent in our minds and yet still we talk about "it"?
We are able to put arbitrary thoughts, words or sounds together but that doesn't mean that these collections refer to something in reality.
Is it that McGinn hasn't worked this out?
Oh, that we're cognitively closed to such things? Maybe so.
It would be good for a brute-fact to be something undeniable, or at least something whose denial has the burden of proof. Maybe it wouldn't be called a "brute fact" then, because maybe only arbitrary brute-facts are brute-facts.
What would be a brute fact that is undeniable, or whose denial has the burden of proof?
How about the fact that there are, and couldn't have not been, abstract facts, or abstract statements about hypothetical conclusions from hypothetical statements about hypothetical relations among hypothetical quantities?
I suggest that the burden of proof would be on anyone denying that.
We've been discussing that matter at the discussion-thread called "A Uniquely Parsimonious and Skeptical Metaphysics", at the Metaphysics and Epistemology forum at this website. In that discussion, several arguments have been posted, to the effect that the fact in the paragraph before last is either undeniable, or that at least its denial has the burden of proof.
When I say that the metaphysics that I propose in that discussion-thread doesn't posit any brute-facts, I'm going by the meaning of "brute-fact" that says that a fact isn't brute if it's really undeniable, or at least if its denial has the burden of proof.
Michael Ossipoff
In fact, I further suggest that it's undeniable.
What would it mean to say that there "aren't" those statements about hypotheticals? Would such a claim it mean anything?
That system of abstract hypothetical statements about hypothetical conclusions from hypothetical statements about hypothetical relations among hypothetical quantities--That system of hypotheticals have meaning and application only in relation to eachother.
They have that meaning in relation to eachother regardless of whether they "are" in any larger context. Evaluating them in some other context would be meaningless.
So, some global fact that there "aren't" such a system of interrelated hypotheticals would be meaningless.
You can call that a brute fact, but it's an undeniable one, or at least its denial has the burden of proof.
If every metaphysics depends on a brute fact, the metaphysics that I propose only depends on an undeniable one, or one whose denial has the burden of proof (and that proof hasn't been supplied).
Michael Ossipoff
This putative world in which there are no hypotheticals is, itself, a hypothetical alleged possibility.
A hypothetical that there could have not been any hypotheticals (including the hypothetical possibility that it, itself, is?)
Michael Ossipoff
Furthermore, logical positivists take a similar stance and call brute facts 'logical hinges' or 'simples'. Russell is the only recent philosopher that comes to my mind as someone who believed in brute facts (think; to deduce all axioms of arithmetic from first order logic). We all know that he failed in reducing arithmetic to logic.
Furthermore, it seems that things like the Principle of Sufficient Reason are necessary presuppositions to claim the existence of brute facts. However, I disagree with this due to quantum mechanics possibly not being causal in nature.
However, I think that if the simulated universe theory is correct, as well as the Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle, then I see no reason why certain brute facts can't exist. What are these 'brute facts'? I have no idea.
That's heavily dependant on the modality of the situation. Isn't it?
Suppose 'brute fact' had to do with how we value experience, about our ability to discriminate one thing from another. This discriminatory ability points to a temporal claim. A claim that all facts implicitly require, the claim of giveness that precedes every distinguishable fact. A claim which we are rarely conscious of making, yet for which I have read some neurological evidence.
Would it be wrong to call a brute fact just a 'state of affairs'?
A brute fact is the assigned value of a property and the property itself.
Further, what is the assigned value of a property, as distinct from the property?
Or are you saying that a brute fact is a property and an individual of which that property is true?
But if that is the case, how does a brute fact differ from a fact per se?
How did he use the term?
Quoting Banno
The assigned value of a property is everything that can be said about it, this is distinct from the object itself, e.g a black hole or a star.
Quoting Banno
Whatever can be said about the object and compared with itself.
Quoting Banno
The truth value of brute facts are not subject to modalities and are not contingent unlike facts per se.
Interesting. Could there be different brute facts in other worlds?
That is, I can't make much sense of what you said.
Quoting Question
Distinct from what object? The assigned value is what can be said about red that is distinct from the red sports car? Or is it what can be said about red that is distinct from every red item?
Quoting Question
That's not a sentence. Did you leave something out?
Quoting Question
Not subject to modalities, and yet not contingent? That looks like a contradiction.
We seem not to be going anywhere.
But how can a fact not be subject to modality; neither necessary nor contingent?
If there's no reason why something is brute, then there's no reason for it to be brute in another world, perhaps?
I suppose so. But then again, did we just make that up?
Or what I'm trying to point out is that maybe brute facts are like infinity in counting. Infinity doesn't follow the same rules as the finite numbers.
Or maybe brute facts are like 1 divided by zero, which is not a number, but it is something that comes up when you have zero in the number system.
Yes, the second. I believe that what can be said about red is dependant on the red observed, it's intuitively obvious once you imagine the multitude of factors presenting 'red' to you, However, proper names are distinct in that the one's I have in mind entail direct referents and one's with family resemblance a.la Wittgenstein.
Ridged designators aren't a-modal?
And that is my point. What is it we are talking about?
Brute facts. Are there facts that do not have explanations? For example, why do the physical constants have the values they have? Does this question have an answer (e.g. "God did it")?
And if not – if them having the values they have is a brute fact – then are they contingent? Is there a possible world where the physical constants have different values?
Of course.
"His analysis is that there has to be some things for which there is no explanation that explain the things that do have explanations. Something must be brute."
But is that sound? I'm not sure. Suppose there exist no things that lack an explanation, at least in principle. Then there would be an infinite regress of both things to be explained and of explanations. Suppose we accept that possibility. In that scenario, whenever we find an explanation we also find a new thing to be explained. Well, that's exactly the way it's been for us so far. It might be that way just as long as we choose to go on and are able to find new explanations. It's an infinite regress. But it is not a vicious regress as far as I can see.
I think we are tempted by the notion of brute facts because it opens up the possibility that in the future anything that can be explained will have been explained; and that anything that has not been explained is beyond explanation. It's a comforting thought, perhaps. But there's no reason to suppose that we will ever reach that happy state. And even if we did reach it, we would never know that we had reached it, because we could never be quite certain that the things we presume to be 'brute facts' are not, after all, explicable by something else.
So perhaps the whole 'brute fact' idea is an illusion.
I think it's a different notion from the idea of underlying assumptions that held to be true beyond doubt. They are in a different case, I think. The argument there is that unless we hold some things to be true and beyond doubt we cannot even begin to make sense of any questions or uncertainties. I think there's a good case to be made for that view. But that's not about 'brute facts'.
Certainly not. There's no reason to believe in a metaphysical brute-fact.
There's a metaphysics that doesn't posit a brute-fact. (I posted a discussion-thread about it).
Earlier I'd said that whether there's a brute fact depends on whether a fact can be called "brute" even if that fact is undeniable. Of course it can't: If a fact is undeniable, then it isn't unexplained, and, not needing and lacking an explanation, it isn't Brute.
I don't agree it's true to say that everything, to avoid bruteness, has to be explained in terms of something more fundamental.
For example, how about a system of abstract logical statements and facts, mathematical theorems, and the if-then relation among these and a system of if/then statements, including hypothetical statements stating hypothetical relations among hypothetical quantities.
"If certain quantities are related by the following formula, and if some of them have the following values, then, as a consequence of that, and of certain mathematical theorems and abstract logical facts, then..."
Those things don't claim any existence or reality other than in reference to eachother. Call them "real", or not; it doesn't matter. But they nevertheless can be true, in reference to eachother.
That system doesn't need any explanation in terms of anything else. But it's the basis of our physical world, a hypothetical possibility-world. There's no reason to believe that our physical world is other than that.
Infinitely-many other such systems describe other hypothetical possibility worlds too.
None of this requires a brute-fact.
It's probably true that physics will remain an open-ended discovery-process. But, in metaphysics, the hypothetical relational system I described doesn't need an explanation.
The hypothetical relational system that I described doesn't need explanation in terms of anything else. It doesn't need existence or reality in terms of anything else, or in any context other than its own, the context of its elements' referential relations to eachother.
It can be expected that that's how it will remain in physics.
But not in metaphysics, as I described above.
It probably won't and can't happen in physics.
Good point.
Yes, in metaphysics, and almost surely in physics too.
Michael Ossipoff
What sort of thing is an explanation?
If it is another statement, then does it have to be true? If not then "God did it" will suffice as an explanation for any fact, and all facts have an explanation.
IF an explanation must be true, then isn't an explanation just another fact? Then how must one fact be related to another in order to be an explanation?
Material implication? But then since any given fact is true, any given fact can serve as an explanation for any other fact.
Cause? Then explanations are just causes, and you can go off and play in the quagmire of causation without using explanations.
Justifications? Then using explanations is just seeking justification for true beliefs.
And under any of these variations, modality would seem to be irrelevant.
So it appears to me that seeking explanations does not help us progress.
Where did I go wrong?
Metaphysics doesn't need a brute-fact.
Physics might or might not lead to a brute-fact being found.
It seems to me that there are 3 possibilities for physics:
1. An infinite sequence of explanations, each of which has an explanation at a deeper, more fundamental level of physics laws and things.
From the experience reported by physicists, that seems the most likely state of affairs.
2. A physics brute-fact could be found at some point. An explanation (of the rest of physics), that doesn't, itself, have any explanation.
3. Maybe physics will find a set of physical laws and things that explain the rest of physics, but doesn't need an explanation because it's inevitable. Its inevitability would be its explanation, and so it wouldn't be a brute-fact..
Possibility #3 is the one that seems that it would be the most pleasing and neat.
Is #3 a possibillty?
Michael Ossipoff
It's just the old epistemic concern with foundations, regressions and coherence.
That cycle of explanations would be #4 in my list.
It's like #1, except cyclical instead of infinite.
But wouldn't it be brute? Such a system cyclically implies itself, but why should any part of it be true.
So #4 would seem to have more in common with #2, a brute-fact, than with #1, an infinite sequence of explanations.
You said something about this matter being a question that philosophers have considered.
That would be interesting, if philosophers have ruled out some of those physics possibilities, #1 through #4.
Have they?
Michael Ossipoff
Each item in the cycle has an explanation. So no item in the cycle is brute, by the assumed definition of "brute".
Further, what sense could we make of asking if the cycle itself has an explanation? We could say that the cycle has no explanation, and hence that it is brute; or that since each element is explained, the cycle explains itself, and hence is not brute.
I'd said:
You replied:
[quote]
Each item in the cycle has an explanation. So no item in the cycle is brute, by the assumed definition of "brute".
[.quote]
Two bank-robbers are arrested coming out of a bank with the loot. They both deny their guilt. Each one points to the other and says, "I vouch for him. He's telling the truth."
How much does that count for?
The fact that each item in the cycle is explained in terms of the cycle just before it in the cycle means nothing if none of the items in the cycle have any support outside the cycle.
Maybe "brute" needs a more careful definition.
Yes, as you said, the whole cycle is brute, and therefore so is each of its elements, by any meaningful definition of "brute".
Michael Ossipoff
IF the cycle explains enough, then I don't see a problem. Suppose that every fact were explained by some other fact. Then there would be nothing that is not explained.
You can explain A in terms of B, but that isn't a complete explanation of A unless you can explain B.
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Each element of the cycle has the next element as is explanation and reason. Each is explained in terms of the next thing in the cycle, which is a complete explanation only if the next thing in the cycle is explained in terms of something. ...in this case,..by the next thing in the cycle. ...and so on.
So, eventually this sequential explanation comes back to the first thing that you wanted to explain: The things that it needs for explanation need for it to be already independently explained, in order for them to be any good for explaining anything.
So,any particular element is explained only because it is explained in terms ot things whose explanations need it to be explained.
-----------------------------------
Try it in the other direction:] . "Obviously this first thing, #1, is explained--we already know the explanation-- and so that next thing, which is explained in terms of
#1, is completely explained. Likewise for the next thing, that needs the previous thing as an explanation....and so on."
Don't you see that the first thing in this chain doesn't have really any explanation? The first explanation-statement in this paragraph can't be made, because the first thing doesn't already have an explanation, to qualify it to explain something else.
The fact that your explanation-cycle doesn't work in the opposite direction should make you suspicious.
When you do it in the opposite direction, you're running a pyramid scheme. The elements are borrowing based on credit that depends on expecting someone else to borrow in order to lend to them. In that way, you can miss the fact that the money isn't there.
To make my bank-robbers example more realistic, make it 3 bank-robbers instead of 2, cyclically vouching for eachother's truthfulness. Meaningless without some outside voucher for at least one of them.
Michael Ossipoff
Ask yourself: Which thing in the ring of explanation is not explained?
Each one is explained...partially. But a complete explanation depends on having an explanation of the facts that are your explanation. Otherwise your explanation is only partial, not complete.
Pyramid schemes work, because it's easy to be deceived by them. . That's why I suggested trying the explanations in the opposite direction. If that doesn't work, that should make you question the matter.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Why? If A explains B, it does not follow that B explains A.
Which brings us back to the question of the nature of explanation -Quoting Banno
What is the relation between an explanation and the thing explained? You seem above to imply that it is material equivalence - that if A explains B then B explains A.
And again, each and every fact in a cycle of explanation can be explained, including those that form the explanations for other facts.
So, if you hear an explanation which you have not heard before, then you will come to understand some topic better.
Clearly understanding does not rely upon facts alone, though. We are not encyclopedias, but knowers. And knowing is much more than the facts. (though, clearly, knowing is not absent facts either)
A brute fact is something that exists without explanation. That is, there is nothing more to understand. Once you know the fact, there is nothing left to know. To ask, "But why?" is a fruitless endeavor.
***
Something in the exchange that helps me to say why I prefer talking in terms of brute beliefs to brute facts: it seems to me that it's less speculative, at least. There's a lot more positing about how the world must be in order for this or that conclusion to be acceptable when talking in terms of brute facts. But brute beliefs are plausible in that clearly we actually do other things and believe certain ways. That is, there is a terminus in our chain of reasoning (if a chain it could be called), regardless of how the world might be (infinite regress, or no)
While I am enjoying playing around with the ideas here, my response is that the notion that brute facts are those that need no explanation is not far from those facts of which we are certain. Introducing the notion of brute facts might help some to come to terms with certainty.
One can be certain of whatever one chooses.
One can accept any statement as an explanation of any other.
Certainties, of course, are beliefs. Brute beliefs, if you like. That strikes me as close to the mark.
Certainly not. Two things can't provide complete explanations for eachother. I gave that example with two things because I thought it was obvious that two things can't provide complete explanations of eachother.
In fact, of course neither can three things:
B gets its explanation from A, C gets its explanation from B, and A gets its explanation from C.
If a fact has an explanation, then another way of saying that would be to say that it's true without our accepting it as a brute-fact. So, if we talk about verification of truth, instead of explanation, will that make it more obvious?
Then it's like those 3 bank-robbers. Cyclically, they all verify eachother's truthfulness and honesty.
...and it means nothing.
Here it is with alleged facts instead of bank-robbers:
A says that B is true.B says that C is true. C says that A is true.
Does that mean that all of them are true?
Not unless something brute-true says that at least one of {A,B,C} is true, or an infinite sequence of verifications says so.
(...or my possibility #3, where the sequence of verifications leads to a set of facts that are inevitable)
Michael Ossipoff
...and that cycle of explanation, when followed far enough, leads back to the conclusion that the first thing explained, which needs everything else to back up its explanation, it supposed to be the basis for those explanations Making it the basis of its own explanation..
It's called "circular reasoning".
Yes, everything in your cycle has an explanation. But not a complete explanation. An explanation is complete only if it, itself, has explanation, or doesn't need it.
A is explained by B is explained by C is explained by A.
Classic circular reasoning.
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Again, suppose each and every item in a cycle of explanation has a complete explanation within the cycle.
If we called it a coherence theory of explanation, would that help?
Nothing in this sequence is unexplained.
Banno--
No. Circular reasoning can, and often does, lead to false conclusions.
Recursion gives valid conclusions. Circularity is different from recursion. Circularity can lead to false conclusions.
Then that would be different. But you've been claiming something else, You've been claiming that each item in the cycle is completely explained if merely each item in the cycle has an explanation in terms of the next item in the cycle.
Your original claim didn't pre-suppose that all the items in the cycle are completely explained. That they're all completely explained is the conclusion that you reached from the statement that each item of the cycle has an explanation in terms of the next item in the cycle.
...and I'm saying that that conclusion (that all the items are completely explained) doesn'tt follow from your premise (that each item in the cycle has an explanation in terms of the next item in the cycle).
I know that I can convince you of this.
.
1. Say A is explained by B, and B is explained by C, and C is explained by A.
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2. Therefore A, B, and C are explained.
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3. A is completely explained by B if A is explained by B and B is completely explained.
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4.Otherwise A is merely partly explained.
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5. A, B, and C are either completely or partly explained.
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6. From #1 and #3, we can say that A is completely explained by B if B is completely explained. B is completely explained by C if C is completely explained. C is completely explained by A if A is completely explained.
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7. A, B, and C being only partly, not completely, explained is entirely consistent with statements #1 through #6.
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7a. Suppose that none of {A,B,C} is completely explained. Statements #1 through #6 could still all be true, and the lack of complete explanation of A, B, and C would be consistent with that.
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Or look at it particularly in terms of A:
.
Statement #6 says that A is completely explained if A is completely explained. It doesn’t say that A is completely explained.
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8. Item A could be only partially explained, and that would be consistent with statements #1 through #6.
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Statements #7 and #8 mean that, even if statements #1 through #6 are true, it’s possible for A, B, and C to be not completely explained, only partially explained.
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Given statements #1 throught #6, items A, B, and C could be not completely explained, in spite of statements #1 through #6 being true.
.
I've shown why, given that statements #1 through #6 are true, items A, B, and C could be completely explained, or could be only partly explained (explained in terms of something that doesn't have a complete explanation).
.
Michael Ossipoff
Indeed; they could be completely explained by a cycle.
...with a little bit of help from something else, such as one of the cycle-elements being inevitable or self-evident. ...or one of the cycle-elements being explained by something outside the cycle.
The mere fact of a cycle of explanations doesn't mean a cycle of complete explanation.
If some element of that cycle is self-evident, inevitable, or else completely explained from outside the cycle, then yes, everything in the cycle could be completely explained, and the cycle of explanations could be part of why that is.
I must have been tired last night, because I said only that something is completely explained if it's explained in terms of something that's completely explained. That isn't enough to say. It's also necessary to name a few other ways something can be completely explained:
1. Something is completely explained if it's explained in terms of something that's completely explained.
2. ...or if it's self-evident or inevitable
3. ...or if it's explained in terms of something brute.
4. ...or if it's explained by an infinite sequence of explanations.
But, without any of these source of complete explanation, a cycle of explanation isn't enough, because element A's explanation in that cycle ultimately comes back to depending on A being qualified to completely explain the next element of the cycle. How can it be, if it needs that cycle in order to have a complete explanation from something that wouldn't have an explanation if A weren't explained?
Without any of the helps that I mentioned, the cycle, as far as item A is concerned, is just a statement that A is explained if A is already explained.
Of course, if it's an infinite chain of explanations, then physicists, as they probe the physical world more and more deeply, will keep finding things that are consistent with our being here, and with their previous observations.
Michael Ossipoff
That bit is no more than an expression of your own aesthetic. But let's leave that as moot.
More central is the issue of what an explanation consists in. I'm not convinced it can be much beyond a belief that leads to one holding another belief.
Anyone?
Incorrect. lt isn't an aesthetic question.
I slightly mis-spoke when I said that your {A,B,C} cycle of explanations amounts to saying that A is explained because A is explained.
Actually (as I've already admitted), every element of your explanation-cycle is explained...partially.
If you explain A in terms of B, but you can't explain B, then I call that a partial, not complete,. explanation of jA.
So let me re-word my statement:
Your claim for A being completely-explained depends on B being completely explained, by B is explained by C, which is completely explained by C being explained by A, which is completely-explained.
Therefore, given your {A,B,C} cycle of explanations: Saying that A, B, & C are completely explained amounts to slaying that A is completely explained because A is completely explained.
Do you see why that's circular reasoning? And why it isn't a useful conclusion?
What if A isn't completely-explained? Then A isn't completely explained.
Do you see that that's possible?
Now, if A is brute, self-evident, inevitable, or explained by something outside the cycle that is brute, inevitable, self-evident or completely-explained, then yes, A is completely-explained, and that makes B and C completely-explained too.
If not, if no member of the cycle is completely-explained as described in the above paragraph, then the above way of saying that A, B, and C are completely explained aren't true.
That's my best effort to explain it to you. If I still haven't reached you, then I accept that it isn't possible..
As discussed in another recent discussion-thread, people don't readily change their beliefs, and it's often or usually futile to get people to reconsider their beliefs.
Michael Ossipoff
I should have said: "...then yes, A is completely explained or brute, and that makes B and C completely explained too."
Michael Ossipoff
Of course it is circular. But that does not make it useless.
It's coherentism; and it is a serious epistemic theory.
As I said at the outset:
Quoting Banno
I explicitly recognised the two possibilities.
It is a moot point, so far as I am concerned. More interesting is the so far unanswered question of the nature of explanation.
Again, I posit that "A explains B" means that belief in B is implied by belief in A. I conclude that discussion of explanation reduces to discussion of belief, and repeat my main point, that it is clearer to talking about certainty than brute facts.
I'd said:
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
...but I'm going to contradict myself now, on that matter, because maybe you are reachable, with the clearer, undeniable, demonstration which follows, after this paragraph (after which I'll answer the comments in your most recent post on this topic):
As before, I'll number the statements:
1. Suppose A, B, and C are in a cycle of explanations. Each one is explained and verified in terms of the one before it in that list.
2. An item can be explained and verified in either one of the following two ways:
2a) The item is self-evident or inevitable.
2b) The item is explained and verified in terms of something else which is, itself, completely explained (by either 2a or 2b).
3. Suppose that neither A, nor B, nor C is self evident, inevitable, or explained or verified by anything outside the cycle.
4. Therefore, A has no complete explanation or verification other than that which it might get from C (because, by statements #1 and #2, A is completely explained and verified if C is completely explained and verified, and because, by statement #3, A has no other source of complete explanation or verification.
So A is completely explained if and only if C is completely explained and verified. And of course, likewise, C is explained and verified only if B is explained and verified. And B is completely explained and verified only if A is completely explained and verified.
From the above, then, A is completely explained if and only if A is completely explained and verified.
Saying that A is completely explained and verified only if A is completely explained and verified doesn't constitute a meaningful or reliable explanation and verification of A.
Even if you say that A could (somehow) be explained and verified in that manner (A is completely explained and verified if A is completely explained and verified, you wouldn't have anything like a reliable explanation and verification.
How do I know you're not a liar? Because i say I'm not.
What's the explanation for how or why that machine works? It works because it does.
That example brings out the fact that, even if you could say that A might be, completely explained and verified, from the statement that A is completely explained and verified if it is--the fact is, that A still might not be true. Or if we're talking about explanations, A might not be explained.
And that's if we generously let you say that A even might be true, when none of A, B, or C have any explanation or verification other than cyclically from eachother.
So even if we allow you the most generous latitude and benefit of the doubt, item A might not be true or explained.
I don't call that a useful or meaningful verification or explanation. It isn't any explanation or verification at all. A maybe complete explanation or verification isn't a complete explanation or verification at all.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quoting Banno
A moot explanation or verification isn't any explanation or verification.
Michael Ossipoff
For now I'm staying focused on the topic of explanation. I think that'll suss out differences better than on the topic of certainty, mostly because I couldn't think of a reply (i.e. it didn't seem to me we were disagreeing much):
If a belief that leads to one holding another belief is all an explanation is, then that's a pretty permissive standard for an explanation.
I believe the medicine will cure me. This, in turn, makes me believe the doctor can be trusted. Is the former belief really an explanation of the latter belief? Psychologically, perhaps, it makes sense of the latter belief. But it's not like any sort of thing I'd call an explanation extemporaneously. And surely you can see how there's a difference between what an explanation consists in, and how people, psychologically, can be drawn to a belief from another belief they hold without it being an explanation of the content of the belief, even if it happens to (given such and such an understanding of human psychology) count as an explanation for the belief itself.
This description also doesn't really tell us what explanations consist of, either. It leaves out the process, which is an important element in understanding what explanation consists of. An explanation brings one to a deeper place of knowing about some topic. Explanation is about knowledge, and in particular how it changes a person's ability (understanding) and relationship to the topic at hand, not just about changing beliefs.
Yep, it is. The Doctor gave me a sensible prescription, hence I conclude that she can be trusted. Can I explain why I trust the doctor? She gave me the right medicine.
Quoting Moliere
Is it? What counts as evidence here? Or can we make up any old shit?
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Explanation&rawformassumption=%7B%22C%22,+%22Explanation%22%7D+-%3E+%7B%22Word%22%7D
http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/explanation?s=t
I submit that a good explanation is one that is not vulnerable to any of the reasons why we reject explanations. That is, we should first look at what makes an explanation a bad one. For example: flowers exist and nymphs don't. Doctors are trustworthy and do not deliberately try to harm us. (The exceptions don't entirely vitiate the explanations, but they do mean that there is never a complete knock-down explanation of anything at all.)
...and I merely pointed out that a moot explanation isn't an explanation.
That's true, but of course there's really nothing moot about it:
Yesterday, I told why Banno's cycle of explanations amounts to saying:
"A, because A."
Forgive me, but that sounds brute. :)
In fact, it's pretty much what "brute" means.
Michael Ossipoff
Just because I believe the medicine will cure me, and that in turn leads me to trust the doctor, that does not then mean that the prescription she gave me was sensible or the medicine was right. This is what I mean when I say that your standard is permissive. If knowledge were somehow included then I could see notions of sensibility or rightness possibly entering into view, but as it is one can believe Y out of desire, and believe said desire will be satisfied by believing X, therefore they will believe X in order to get Y.
Quoting Banno
Well, we certainly can make up any old shit, though that's no reason to do so. ;) And it's certainly less of a reason to listen to it.
I'd hazard that your evidence supports my view more than it does yours, though.
"A statement that makes something comprehensible by describing the relevant structure or operation or circumstances" sounds a lot closer to knowledge than the operation of one belief leading to another.
"thought" sounds like belief. But "thought that makes something comprehensible" is closer to knowledge than mere belief.
"the act of explaining; making something plain or intelligible" isn't quite knowledge, but it does relate to depth. The deeper we know some topic or question the more plain and intelligible it becomes.
And the synonyms seem to indicate, to me at least, that what's at hand, at least, is not merely one belief leading to another, but rather we have accounts, stories, answers, causes, commentary, definition, descriptions, evidence... a variety of possible ways of looking at explanation. These aren't things I would deny. I'd just say that in order to capture them you'd need to expand your notion of explanation a bit.
Though I can understand not wanting to step into having an account of knowledge, since it seems a bit astray, if related. So maybe there's some way of capturing all that without reference to knowledge. But I think there needs to be more, at least. Hopefully this goes some way as to show why I think that.
With regard to the question "What is an explanation", let me briefly re-cap how this discussion started, and then suggest an answer to that question, in keeping with the initial purpose of the discussion:
When we began discussing explanations, we were talking about physical explanations. Will physicists continue with open-ended discovery, where each explanation that they find needs more explanation, which, when found, will raise more questions with things to be explained?
Or will they find a brute-fact?
I'd suggested a 3rd possibility. They; might find a state of affairs that is self-explanatory or inevitable.
That would avoid the need for an infinite chain of explanation, without a brute-fact. It wouldn't be a brute-fact, because its inevitability or self-evident-ness would be its complete explanation.
So, what is an explanation, in the context of physics?
Well, wouldn't it be that set B (of observations and theories consistent with those observations) explains set A (of observations, successful theories and accepted evident facts), if B implies A, or if A is a subset of B?
That sounds like what would count as an explanation in physics.
Michael Ossipoff