What is real? How do we know what is real?
1. Solipsism – Only your own mind is sure to exist.
Why it's unfalsifiable: Any evidence you receive — from people, books, or even me — could just be a product of your own mind.
Implication: Radical doubt. You can't verify that anything outside your consciousness is real.
2. Idealism – Only minds (or mental states) exist; the material world is a construct.
Why it's unfalsifiable: All physical evidence could be interpreted as patterns of experience or ideas within consciousness.
Implication: Challenges the idea of objective reality; everything may be “mind-stuff.”
3. Simulation Theory – We’re living in an artificial simulation (e.g., a computer simulation).
Why it's unfalsifiable: Any feature of the simulation could be indistinguishable from “real” physical laws.
Implication: If advanced civilisations can run simulations, and they would, we might be one.
4. Philosophical Zombie Theory – Other beings look conscious but lack inner experience.
Why it's unfalsifiable: You can’t access others’ inner lives; their behaviour might be perfectly human but devoid of sentience.
Implication: Raises deep questions about empathy, moral consideration, and what we can ever know of others.
5. Panpsychism – Consciousness is a fundamental aspect of all matter.
Why it's unfalsifiable: You can’t measure the subjective experience of an atom or rock.
Implication: Consciousness is ubiquitous — a kind of mental “stuff” in everything, not just brains.
6. Pantheism – Everything is God.
Why it's unfalsifiable: It redefines “God” as synonymous with the totality of existence — making it a matter of interpretation, not evidence.
Implication: Spiritual or religious reverence directed toward the universe as a whole.
7. Panentheism – Everything is in God, but God is more than everything.
Why it's unfalsifiable: Like pantheism, it’s a metaphysical interpretation that isn’t testable. It adds transcendence beyond the universe.
Implication: Allows both immanence (God in all) and transcendence (God beyond all).
8. Dualism – Mind and matter are fundamentally distinct.
Famous proponent: René Descartes
Why it's untestable: No clear empirical way to prove the existence of an immaterial mind separate from the brain.
Implication: Suggests consciousness could exist after death.
9. Theism – A personal God created and oversees the universe.
Why it's untestable: Claims about God typically lie beyond the scope of scientific inquiry.
Implication: Provides a moral and existential framework for billions, but rests on faith or personal experience.
10. Deism – A non-interventionist creator started the universe but does not interfere.
Why it's untestable: The absence of divine interference is indistinguishable from naturalism.
Implication: God exists but doesn't respond to prayer or intervene in history.
11. Nihilism – There is no inherent meaning, value, or purpose in the universe.
Why it's untestable: Meaning and value are subjective constructs.
Implication: Can lead to despair or radical freedom, depending on interpretation.
12. Eternalism (Block Universe Theory) – Past, present, and future all exist equally.
Why it's untestable: You cannot directly observe future events as already existing.
Implication: Time is an illusion; "now" is just a perspective.
13. Multiverse Theory – There are countless parallel universes.
Why it's (currently) untestable: Other universes are, by definition, beyond our observable horizon.
Implication: Our universe may be just one of infinitely many, each with different laws or histories.
14. Reincarnation – Consciousness is reborn into new lives.
Why it's untestable: No conclusive way to track consciousness or memory between lives.
Implication: May promote ethical behaviour, depending on karmic beliefs.
15. Absolute Idealism – The universe is the expression of a single universal mind.
Why it's untestable: The "absolute" mind cannot be externally observed.
Implication: All existence is interconnected as part of a single consciousness.
16. Nondualism (Advaita Vedanta, Zen, etc.) – There is no fundamental separation between self and universe.
Why it's untestable: It’s a shift in consciousness rather than a theory with predictive power.
Implication: Suffering arises from the illusion of separation; enlightenment dissolves this illusion.
17. Cosmic Solipsism – The entire cosmos exists for one observer (e.g., you).
Why it's untestable: Similar to solipsism but extended to cosmic scale.
So, what is real? How do we know what is real?
That depends on your epistemological framework — how you define and justify knowledge.
Empiricism says reality is what can be observed and tested.
Rationalism says reality is what can be logically deduced.
Phenomenology says reality is what appears in conscious experience.
Pragmatism says reality is what works — what lets you survive and make decisions.
Why it's unfalsifiable: Any evidence you receive — from people, books, or even me — could just be a product of your own mind.
Implication: Radical doubt. You can't verify that anything outside your consciousness is real.
2. Idealism – Only minds (or mental states) exist; the material world is a construct.
Why it's unfalsifiable: All physical evidence could be interpreted as patterns of experience or ideas within consciousness.
Implication: Challenges the idea of objective reality; everything may be “mind-stuff.”
3. Simulation Theory – We’re living in an artificial simulation (e.g., a computer simulation).
Why it's unfalsifiable: Any feature of the simulation could be indistinguishable from “real” physical laws.
Implication: If advanced civilisations can run simulations, and they would, we might be one.
4. Philosophical Zombie Theory – Other beings look conscious but lack inner experience.
Why it's unfalsifiable: You can’t access others’ inner lives; their behaviour might be perfectly human but devoid of sentience.
Implication: Raises deep questions about empathy, moral consideration, and what we can ever know of others.
5. Panpsychism – Consciousness is a fundamental aspect of all matter.
Why it's unfalsifiable: You can’t measure the subjective experience of an atom or rock.
Implication: Consciousness is ubiquitous — a kind of mental “stuff” in everything, not just brains.
6. Pantheism – Everything is God.
Why it's unfalsifiable: It redefines “God” as synonymous with the totality of existence — making it a matter of interpretation, not evidence.
Implication: Spiritual or religious reverence directed toward the universe as a whole.
7. Panentheism – Everything is in God, but God is more than everything.
Why it's unfalsifiable: Like pantheism, it’s a metaphysical interpretation that isn’t testable. It adds transcendence beyond the universe.
Implication: Allows both immanence (God in all) and transcendence (God beyond all).
8. Dualism – Mind and matter are fundamentally distinct.
Famous proponent: René Descartes
Why it's untestable: No clear empirical way to prove the existence of an immaterial mind separate from the brain.
Implication: Suggests consciousness could exist after death.
9. Theism – A personal God created and oversees the universe.
Why it's untestable: Claims about God typically lie beyond the scope of scientific inquiry.
Implication: Provides a moral and existential framework for billions, but rests on faith or personal experience.
10. Deism – A non-interventionist creator started the universe but does not interfere.
Why it's untestable: The absence of divine interference is indistinguishable from naturalism.
Implication: God exists but doesn't respond to prayer or intervene in history.
11. Nihilism – There is no inherent meaning, value, or purpose in the universe.
Why it's untestable: Meaning and value are subjective constructs.
Implication: Can lead to despair or radical freedom, depending on interpretation.
12. Eternalism (Block Universe Theory) – Past, present, and future all exist equally.
Why it's untestable: You cannot directly observe future events as already existing.
Implication: Time is an illusion; "now" is just a perspective.
13. Multiverse Theory – There are countless parallel universes.
Why it's (currently) untestable: Other universes are, by definition, beyond our observable horizon.
Implication: Our universe may be just one of infinitely many, each with different laws or histories.
14. Reincarnation – Consciousness is reborn into new lives.
Why it's untestable: No conclusive way to track consciousness or memory between lives.
Implication: May promote ethical behaviour, depending on karmic beliefs.
15. Absolute Idealism – The universe is the expression of a single universal mind.
Why it's untestable: The "absolute" mind cannot be externally observed.
Implication: All existence is interconnected as part of a single consciousness.
16. Nondualism (Advaita Vedanta, Zen, etc.) – There is no fundamental separation between self and universe.
Why it's untestable: It’s a shift in consciousness rather than a theory with predictive power.
Implication: Suffering arises from the illusion of separation; enlightenment dissolves this illusion.
17. Cosmic Solipsism – The entire cosmos exists for one observer (e.g., you).
Why it's untestable: Similar to solipsism but extended to cosmic scale.
So, what is real? How do we know what is real?
That depends on your epistemological framework — how you define and justify knowledge.
Empiricism says reality is what can be observed and tested.
Rationalism says reality is what can be logically deduced.
Phenomenology says reality is what appears in conscious experience.
Pragmatism says reality is what works — what lets you survive and make decisions.
Comments (823)
Because our innate belief is POSSIBLY false, it might be reasonable to be agnosticism toward the question, but I'm but I'm skeptical that anyone can truly be agnostic toward this - are they going to stop eating because they are agnostic to what they are seemingly doing?
The only things that have a true claim to being real are those phenomena we humans experience in our own daily lives - gummi bears, 1975 Ford Mustangs, love, ball-point pens. The only sense in which all other phenomena are real is as reflections of that primary reality.
Besides that, this is not a particularly useful original post. It is a grab-bag of so-called philosophical positions or views, with a brief comment after each. You're not really presenting any contender for serious consideration or indicating any way to explore the question other than whether its 'falsifiable' which is not a suitable criterion for many of these ideas, as explained.
The problem is in the wording of the question.
Bearing in mind, 'table' in this case is a stand-in for 'the object' or any object whatever. And the origin of the question was, how we know that an object really is what it seems to be? You might excavate an object from an archeological dig, without really being able to tell what it is, but then find other evidence supporting the fact that it was used as a table, so, really was a table. So Austin here is just taking bad textbook examples ('take any object') as the basis for a caricature. That's why it's a badly-worded question.
Clarifying the contrast isn't a way of dodging the philosophical question, it’s a way of dissolving a pseudo-question. Austin isn’t denying that there are meaningful inquiries about what things are or how we know them—he’s just insisting those questions stop pretending to be about some singular metaphysical “realness.”
I disagree.
You forgot scientism.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Not all theisms seem to accept a personal god.
From my perspective, none of the above really matters. I'm happy to drift on experience, not abstractions. I doubt that humans can truly uncover what is "real," since the very word is a construct, an umbrella term covering a multitude of possibilities, as you've shown.
Perhaps my perspective is closer to pragmatism. Which is sidestepping the matter.
At any rate, chasing after "reality" has become a kind of surrogate for God: an ultimate reference point that people invoke to ground meaning, truth, or authority. But just like the divine, it's elusive, shaped more by our frameworks and desires than by any stable essence. You can devote your entire life to chasing what's "real" and get precisely nowhere, and even forget what's actually important.
You can call yourself an idealist, a nondualist, or a psychophysical parallelist, but the moment anyone walks out the door, they're generally a realist and behave pretty much the same as everyone else.
Quoting Wayfarer
I read Wayfarer as giving a context, as you suggest: In his formulation, "real" is stipulated to mean "as opposed to illusory or misleading". But I think he's doing a little more than that, as well. His stipulation is meant to appeal to an originating situation in which the question first came up. His stipulation for "real" isn't arbitrary -- in a way, it's ameliorative, in that he's suggesting we ought to adopt it as being philosophically clear and useful.
But even if I'm right -- and I hope Wayfarer will tell us -- the fact remains that "real" does need a context of use in order for it to have any meaning at all. It doesn't identify a metaphysical feature all by itself.
I wouldn't have put it like that, but it is close to what I mean. I find the Greek origins of metaphysics quite intelligible (although not entirely). I agree that in the subsequent centuries, it became ossified and dogmatised and often meaningless. But I don't agree with the predominant view amongst analytic philosophers and positivists that metaphysics is a subject empty of meaning. That itself becomes poor metaphysics.
So allusions to chairs or the proverbial 'apple' or 'tree' as possessed of an indubitable reality, such that only a 'metaphysician' (is there such an occupation?) would call their existence into question, is what I said - a bad textbook example, drawn from centuries of pedagogy, 'metaphysicians will cast doubt on things that all of us know are quite real'. It is true that metaphysics calls into question what we assume about the nature of the real but it does so in quite a disciplined and meaningful way, when in the hands of contemporary Aristotelian philosophy, for example.
What exactly is the phenomenon that metaphysics is addressing? If it’s something like the surprise that there is something rather than nothing, why should we treat that surprise as indicating a real problem? Isn't it just a psychological reaction, not an ontological puzzle? Why assume there’s a “why” here at all?
Perhaps the very urge to ask “why is there something rather than nothing?” is a kind of metaphysical craving that misunderstands the role of explanation. Explanations work within the world—given that things exist, why does this or that happen?—but they break down when we try to apply them to existence as such. The impulse isn't deep; it’s a confusion of category.
It seems to be a deeply imbedded psychological impulse in some. Metaphysicians, to quote Nietzsche: "They muddy the waters to make them seem deep".
Let's not deny that it’s natural to be struck by the fact that there is something rather than nothing—or to want an explanation. Instead we should distinguish between the desire for a reason and the legitimacy of any particular answer. Our concern is for when that desire underwrites metaphysical commitments without sufficient warrant—when “I can’t imagine it being otherwise” becomes “this must be how it is.”
And my suspicion is that this is an approach common to Aristotle, and many of our friends hereabouts, including @Wayfarer.
I'm attracted to narratives of enchantment, science being in my view the most potent narrative of enchantment there is. So, I don't see as science disenchants the world. I also like the old magical narratives of enchantment, but I no longer take them to be anything more than enjoyable fantasies.
I believe the real reason behind the claim that science disenchants the world is that it seems to foreclose on the idea of any kind of afterlife. People say science is dehumanizing and I can only think that the dispelling of the fantasy of an afterlife must be what they mean.
To be sure some technologies can be dehumanizing in real ways and the consumer culture our contemporary world so depends on can be too, but those are not inevitable outcomes of science.
Yes, the "I can't imagine it being otherwise, therefore that's the way it must be" is indeed a powerfully seductive thought for some.
But there are aspects of Aristotelianism, or Platonism construed more broadly, that I don't believe are superseded - mostly just rejected, neglected and forgotten. As a consequence, I don't think the meaning of the Platonic forms (or their interpretation by Aristotle) are at all likely to be understood in this milieu.
For instance, this abstract of one of the entries in the above:
Who says reason is 'mere'? :chin: But regardless, directly relevant to many of the debates I'm having hereabouts.
But why should we presume that there is such a thing as the form of the table—that what something really is must be explained in terms of its purpose or essence? Isn't that just importing a metaphysical picture shaped by our cognitive preferences, not by necessity?
As I said earlier, the theory of forms is an application of a mistaken theory of reference. That theory holds that names refer to things, and that therefore, if there is a name, then there must be a thing to which it refers; So there must be a thing to which universals and such refer - the forms. Alternatively, we might understand "triangularity" as a way of grouping some objects; as something we do, and without supposing the existence of a mystic form. Your reply was that "Words can only be general because they denote universals." This repeats the referential theory that is being critiqued, rather than responds to it.
The simplest way to understand universals is not as the names of etherial forms, but as a way we talk about the things around us.
And yes, that's an oversimplified version of the theory of forms, there are better ways to understand them; but all rely on reification and none are as clear as the treating them as word use.
There discussions amongst Aristotelians are irrelevant if Aristotelianism is misguided.
But our umwelt is also shaped by our cognitive faculties (which are not preferences, by the way. We don't get to choose them.)
Quoting Banno
Which you will always say, and I will always dispute, so let's leave it there.
That’s just taking a way of talking and mistaking it for a structure in things.
We shouldn’t take the distinctions we make—like form and matter—as marking structures in reality. That’s just grammar projected outward.
The supposed problem in the OP only arise when we mistake the workings of language for how the world is. We ask what makes a thing what it is, then imagine there must be something—a form—that answers the question. But the need for that answer was created by the way we framed the question.
Instead of asking what makes a table, a table, we might just recognise that treating things as tables is an activity in which we habitually engage. Use, not meaning.
We can leave it there, since it'a a point of aporia between us.
More interesting might be the scientistic answer, that what is real is atoms and molecules and so forth - at the least we can agree that this is in error.
We just engage in certain activities and make distinctions that help us navigate the world. The need for an answer to “What is real?” arises only when we confuse our linguistic habits with the nature of the world.
...badly... :wink:
I like this, but it raises the question of what “sufficient warrant” means. The answer I’ve always given is that usefulness is the measure of a metaphysical position. I think you probably mean something different.
It's a transcendental argument becasue it goes: things are thus-and-so; the only way (“I can’t imagine it being otherwise") they can be thus-and-so is if forms are real. Hence, forms are real. The minor premise is the problem - how you can be sure it's the only way?
But there is also a different criticism here, the the transcendental argument also presumes hylomorphism in the major premise - the "Things are thus and so" just is the presumption that hylomorphism is correct.
So the "lack of sufficient warrant" just is that presumption.
(That's probably not very clear - but it's not so much about pragmatism as logical structure...)
Quoting Banno
Honestly, that never occurred to me as a core problem in metaphysics. In any case, it doesn't surprise me at all. No, I think metaphysics wants to know about structure -- about how the world (including us) hangs together, what grounds what, and what can and can't be known about it. Something like that . . .
I wonder if the more-or-less-Wittgensteinian dismissal of metaphysical problems is trying to capture what we so often hear from non-philosophers: "You make problems, or try to, where there aren't any. What exactly is unclear or confusing about our conceptions of the world? How does any of this affect our daily lives? Philosophy should just leave the world, and life, alone!" And from this we would get "Philosophy leaves everything as it is."
Quoting Banno
This is interesting. What happens when we apply it, with some tinkering, to logical form? (in the noncontroversial, not Platonic, sense) "Modus ponens is 'how it is'; the only way this can be 'how it is' is if logical forms are necessarily valid. Hence, logical forms are necessarily valid." Is the minor premise still a problem? One wants to reply, "Yes, I am sure it's the only way. It's not simply that I can't imagine how modus ponens (given the usual stipulations) could be invalid, it's that such a thing would be like imagining a square circle." Notice that this can be said without invoking what's real and what isn't.
SUBTOPIC: Variation on a theme...
?? T Clark, et al,
(OPENING)
Again, the Metaphysical Baggage does not suppress any opinion on the matter. It is not a scientific entanglement with the usual associates and ramifications. The question is at the soft underbelly of what we think we "know," and the tangent knowledge yet to be gleaned in the future.
"but it raises the question of what “sufficient warrant” means.[/reply]
(COMMENT)
In this case, a “sufficient warrant” is a threshold. Some events warrant intervention ? and some events are not sufficient to warrant intervention (AKA: “warranted assertability”) from the externals involving unconditional components.
Reference
__________________________________
? DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY, 2nd ed by Robert Audi and contributors, © Cambridge University Press 1995, 1999. Published in the United States by The University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Most Respectfully,
R
The 'why something rather than nothing' perhaps sits with the sort of metaphysics that seeks to justify or explain god rather than the world.
Wouldn't we class questions "about structure -- about how the world hangs together", as physics, rather than as metaphysics?
But yes, this is a very Wittgensteinian approach. Although perhaps in contrast to the common view, it's not that we shouldn't indulge in metaphysical speculation, but that when we do so, we fail to understand what it is we are saying.
The general form of transcendental argument is something like:
Q
The only way that Q can be true is if P
therefore, P
I suggested that the issue is it's reliance minor premise; that there may be other ways, unimagined by ourselves, in which Q can be true that are not dependent on P being true. I skated over the problems here. There is. pretty clear run through in the SEP article on the topic, if folk are interested. It's not that they are invalid - the argument form given above is certainly valid - so much as that they set up the solidity of P on the basis of the solidity of Q, which is may be as unreliable. We can't reject all transcendental arguments off hand, but we do need to evaluate them in their context.
I don't see modus ponens (or other bits of logic) as reliant on such a transcendental argument. It's more that what we mean by P?Q just is that if P it true, then Q is true.
Right, if any role for intuition and understanding is ruled out and reason is 100% discursive, you have an infinite possibility space of possible "games" and no reason to choose one in favor of any other. The authority of reason itself rests on intuition and understanding.
"The study of being qua being," and so not as any particular sort of being (as opposed to say, biology for living beings, or physics for mobile being). "The most general of all sciences." That's often how it's framed, and it has inherited this view at least as far as its "subject matter" is concerned. Hence, metaphysics is generally taken to include part/whole relationships, act/potency, universals, modality, identify, etc. These come up in every science because they are wholly general.
Interesting - is this it?
Reality is the case
Reality could only be possibel if God were the case.
Therefore God must be the case.
In modus tollens
If not P, then not Q.
Q is the case.
Therefore P must be the case.
I guess a famous transcendental argument for god is this one (Plantinga, I recall)
If God does not exist (¬P), then rational thought, morality, or logic (Q) is not possible (¬Q).
But rational thought (or morality, logic, etc.) is possible (Q).
Therefore, God exists (P).
Your point about the first premise holds here too- it hasn't been demonstrated that premise one is correct, so the the argument isn't sound - but it is valid.
This cannot be true. The validity ("authority" makes no sense) of reasoning rests on consistency. In any case any authority is either imposed by force or else is normative. Intuition is subjective. There are common understandings but it is individuals that understand or fail to understand. Also many things may be understood, while remaining consonant with reason in various ways.
I'm not sure that you mean here. Following an inference rule consistently is what leads to consistency; [I]any[/I] rule followed consistently is consistent in application. However, you cannot even make an argument that "consistency" is a good, choice-worthy metric for selecting inference rules without some intuition or understanding to start with. Consistency is, in general, considered crucial because of LNC, which is axiomatic. But if you want to elevate consistency over LNC, you will still need to assume consistency as axiomatic (from intuition) in the same way LNC usually is.
By all means, please try to demonstrate, from absolutely no first principles at all, why consistency is better than inconsistency, or truth is to be preferred to falsity.
The reason consistency is better than inconsistency is that if you allow the latter you can say whatever you like and all sayings would become equal what you mean would become inscrutable. The reason truth is to be preferred over error is that basically it is a matter of survival; if you constantly believed what was false you would not survive for long.
That. Or being polite about an interlocutor's ignorance and unrefined level of understanding about a topic in a way that won't offend fragile sensibilities.
ie. "Is the Grand Canyon just a big hole?" ... "Well, actually no, it's an amazing example of nature's beauty, power, and mastery that makes us all realize just how vast this world is and as a result the knowledge yet to be known, thus empowering each day with a sense of eternal motivation and wonder" ... "So. It's a hole, though. Right?" ... "Well, yes..." ... "And it's big?" ... "Of course." ... "So it's a big hole?" ... "Right, but that's not the..." .... "Anyway, it's just a big hole". (see both people are right, but how shall we say, one is more right than the other :smile: )
You're attempting to ground logic itself in a notion of what is "logically compatible." This is circular without intuition. This is just an appeal to LNC as being intuitive. This seems like: "no intuition is required because the LNC is self-evident." I agree it is self-evident. However, this is the definition of an intuition, perhaps the prime example of it historically. There are logics that reject LNC at any rate.
This is not a demonstration without assumptions or axioms. It essentially says "consistency is better because it is better to be consistent," (circular) and "truth is better because it aids survival." I'm not even sure the latter is necessarily true (e.g. Hoffman's fitness versus truth theorem, or work on the reproductive fitness of false signals or memes versus true ones), but it is based on the intuition that survival is good.
You cannot have a logical system that is just "rule following" all the way down. If this was the case, there would be no reason to prefer any of the infinite possible logics over any others.
Only if "the world" is pre-limited (is that a word?) to the physical. Questions about structure ought to include questions about language, about thoughts, about abstracta. How do these phenomena connect with each other, and with the physical world? What grounds what? Moreover, it doesn't appear that the disciplines that study these phenomena -- math, for instance, in the case of abstracta -- can offer us what we want. We don't expect a mathematician to know how numbers relate to the physical world, or to have an opinion about whether this is a sensible question. Mathematicians do math, not philosophy.
Quoting Banno
I think the question is whether "just is" can be reformulated as a transcendental argument. "Just is" is, more or less, what I meant by "impossible to imagine otherwise," so I think we're talking about the same thing here. So, call P?Q 'w':
'w'
The only way that 'w' can be valid is if 'z'
Therefore, 'z'
But to what does 'z' refer? What makes 'w' valid? Could 'z' mean "the validity of logical form" or does this take us in a circle? The paraphrase would be, "The only way P?Q can be valid is if it's an instance of a valid logical form. Since it is valid, therefore it's an instance of a valid logical form."
Hmmm. There seems to be something both right and wrong about this. The part that's right is that there is no other way for any arrangement of logical symbols to be valid. If it doesn't instantiate a valid logical form, it has to be invalid (with the usual ceteris-paribus stipulations).
The part that seems wrong, though, is the circularity involved in using "valid" or "validity" this way. This can best be seen by contrasting it with the original example of "platonic form." In that example, the question was whether "the way things are" can only be explained by the premise that "forms are real." You pointed out, correctly, that we could imagine other explanations; the minor premise might not be correct. In this new case, however, we've seen that the minor premise appears to be solid: There doesn't seem to be any other way for 'w' to be valid. But is this because we have defined it thus? Aren't we importing a concept of validity that simply reduces it to "being an instance of a valid logical form"? This isn't very informative. But it may correspond to your thought that, in fact, none of this is about transcendental arguments at all. The "just is" here may not translate into an argument.
I'm uncertain about this, but maybe you have some insights.
EDIT -- I've realized that 'w' should really be 'modus ponens', not 'P?Q', but you probably knew what I meant.
I'm with you up to a point, but this leaves out the entire difficult conversation about what might make the LNC intuitive, or self-evident. "It just is" isn't the only possibility here, nor is a direct noetic perception. The big question is how the LNC, as a description of an ideal logical intuition, corresponds to how we describe the world. "Not (A & ~A)" vs. "My mouse can't be both blue and pink at once" -- are these intuitions of the same thing? Or if not, which grounds which?
Such as?
Probably "blue and not-blue" would work better as an example, and "without qualification or equivocation." I'm sure you know that, it's just that it's incredibly common to see facile "counterexamples" of LNC that straightforwardly involve qualification or equivocation and I figured I'd head those off. Something like the liar's paradox is at least a more robust example.
Yes, but you're right, we shouldn't assume that everyone can fill in the ceteris-paribus qualifications.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
This connects with the question about the grounding of the logical and real-world versions of the LNC. If it could be shown to be the case that "Not (A & ~A)" and "My mouse can't be both blue and not-blue at once" are what I'm calling "intuitions of the same thing", then it might follow that the only way to know this is by direct intuition or noetic perception. Indeed, it would go a long way toward answering some vexed questions about mind and the world. But that has to be determined first. Otherwise, the grounding of one or the other will provide information about why the LNC carries such apparent inviolability. For instance, if the "mouse" version depends on the "logical version", then the fact that a thing can't be both A and not-A would be a consequence of the logical premise, not an intuition or an inductive law about the world. And the reverse: if the logical version depends on the mouse version, then we have a law of thought based upon the operations of the physical world.
I'm guessing that you favor the "intuition of the same thing" approach, which I agree leads to the most plausible picture of self-evidence or direct intuition. How would you make the case for the two versions of the LNC being about the same thing? (This, as you probably remember, was a case that Irad Kimhi was also very concerned to make, in Thinking and Being.)
I don't think I followed this. This would seem to indicate that what is true is a facet of the logical premises one chooses to adopt. For example, that the Earth cannot be spherical and not-spherical would simply depend on whatever we choose to assert? Perhaps I am misunderstanding.
Were this the case, it would be impossible to explain the "choice" of these "logical premises" because whatever truth they were based on would itself vary with those same premises. Logic would be arbitrary. This is the problem of resolving logical nihilism with a bare appeal to "pragmatism." What is "useful" depends on what is true, but now we have it that what is true depends on what is useful.
Or what is true of being qua being, which includes the physical world (mobile being) and intelligible order of thought. Although, I agree that we might be able to say that the physical world is the proximate efficient cause of the logical intuition in man (a physical being).
LNC is part of the intelligibility by which anything is anything at all. It is a precondition for finite being's existence as "this" or "that." If the number one can also be the number three, and a circle also a square, then there is no this or that. So the physical order, to be a physical order at all, requires a higher metaphysical order. There can be no "physical order" without an intelligible order by which things are what they are and not anything else.
By contrast, a defining feature of materialism is the elevation of potency over act in priority. Here, the logical reality must come from the physical reality, which itself either exists "for no reason at all" or by a sheer, inscrutable act of divine will (not really that different in the end). Or, if one keeps going in this direction, there is no intelligibility in the world, and all intelligibility comes from a sheer act of human will (or a diffuse "world will"), a bare choice of logical axioms, etc. for "no reason at all"—i.e. everything is ultimately ordered to sheer potency/power. It's essentially the inversion of the priority of pure actuality, which isn't surprising, given the political history.
So how do you get out of the starting gate with any inquiry into anything, on any terms?
How do you avoid being one of the ones you criticize, and proceed to speak at all?
Should the most honest scientist admit there is no point to science? There is no real solution possible because there is no real problem possible.
I agree there is a gap between whatever must be and whatever I cannot imagine otherwise, but how do you even make this distinction and speak about it, without the formal, the essential, the hylomorphic identity of some thing distinguishable from the other thing?
If we throw all metaphysics out, seems to me, to be consistent, we have to throw out language. When we speak, forms and essences emerge, as do objectivity, universality, meaning, truth, in addition to all of the things we speak about. It is an unavoidable consequence of asking any question that we appeal to, or presuppose, or invoke, or construct, a metaphysic.
Why fight it, if we choose to speak and communicate our ideas at all?
This is not to say some sort of platonic form of “language” is eternally floating around waiting to be participated in when we speak “English”, but, however it works, language only seems to work, where meaning and truth and essential definition are invoked.
Not exactly. The question, remember, is about the intuitive truth of the LNC, not truth per se. I'm suggesting that, in the described case, we couldn't be said to intuit the truth of the LNC as regards the non-logical, physical world. We would claim to know (by intuition, if you like) that LNC holds for propositions, but its value as a way of understanding the world would require a further connection. Again, that's why the position that thinking and being must be somehow identical is so appealing. It provides the missing bridge.
And as to that . . .
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The most important phrase, perhaps, is the first, since it links intelligibility with "anything being anything" -- thinking with being, in other words. I believe this is probably true, as a description of consciousness in the world. And that may be good enough, since philosophy doesn't pretend to tell us what philosophy (thinking) would be like, if no one were doing it! It does, however, often try to talk about what the world is like, unmediated by the experience of human consciousness. From that perspective, can we say that "there can be no 'physical order' without an intelligible order by which things are what they are"? We simply don't know. Could the intelligibility part survive translation into some kind of "pure," unmediated physicality? I'm willing to call this a "metaphysical speculation" in the somewhat pejorative sense, since I don't know what the evidence for or against this would look like. For better or worse, we can't seem to frame good questions about "the world" without reference to the fact of framing them, which requires, among other things, the LNC.
But I'm still drawn to the much more accessible puzzle about the objects of the LNC and other logical principles. Kimhi and Rödl again: when we say "Not (P & ~P)", what can replace 'P'? Objects? Propositions? Both? Is it about both? In the same way?
Interesting how a transcendental argument can prevent folk from seeing alternatives.
Is that supposed to answer any of my questions?
Draw a starting line without anything transcendent referenced in it and then move forward. Give me an example. You don’t even have to define anything.
I don’t think you can. Because you have to use language.
An appeal to authority is of course invalid.
So yes, being consistent consists in not saying or doing things that are contradictory. It's normative in that it's choosing classical rather than paraconsistent logic. You can have a logical system that is just "rule following" all the way down. You can choose whatever logic you prefer of any of the infinite possible logics over any others. But it's of no use unless the folk you are talking to agree.
The problem here is with the "just". As you show, it's a big hole and then some. A neat metaphor about supposing that there is One True Description. It'a a hole and...
"...as physics, rather than as metaphysics?" - well, as science, rather than meta-science. Perhaps the reason it doesn't appear that the disciplines that study these phenomena can offer us what we want is that we want more than can be done.
But that's unclear. Indeed, I'm not sure I follow what it is you are after here. The idea of applying the criticism of transcendental arguments to modus ponens is interesting - is that what you are doing? But as I said, I do not think that we accept modus ponens as a result of a transcendental argument. It's rather than if we accept modus ponens, and a fee other rules, then this will be the consequence; we might well do otherwise, with different and usually less appetising consequences. In particular, we are not obligated to accept modus ponens by some overarching authority - what could that look like?
Why must we accept modus ponens? Well, p?q just means that if we accept p and p?q then we accept q; that's all. Not accepting modus ponens just amounts to not understanding how to use p, q and p?q; to not playing the game. And of course, you don't have to play the game, but there will be consequences.
We are not compelled to accept modus ponens by some external justification.
Edit: , for you, too.
But perhaps this is not the place.
Of course, some folk might talk illogical, but we needn't pay them attention, any more than we ought pay attention to the birds on a football field in order to make sense of the game.
There aren't two deals, one false the other true, it's a point of emphasis.
Perhaps you might get more mileage out of existence and perception. Some things are anchored to the external world; some things are not.
Why assume that? There may not be consequences. Or must there be consequences? Must there be effects? What causes that?
Quoting Banno
How do you mean that inside of modus ponens? Where are you standing to observe “if one is talking logically”?
Why would they agree or not agree? It's arbitrary after all right? Whoever has the most power (will to power?) enforces the truth by force?
You seems to be suggesting that if one is not following an explicit rule, one is acting arbitrarily. Do you really want to make such a claim?
Yes, but the first bit was a different reply to a different comment, sorry. The point about metaphysics as an investigation of structure was separate from my head-scratching about transcendental arguments.
Quoting Banno
I was all set to reply, and then saw the qualifications and objections you yourself posted. (Hat tip to your ability to see many sides here.)
Quoting Banno
This is the one with the most force, I think. We say, "There is meaningful discourse. What, therefore, must be the case in order for this to be true? Answer: logic." On this construal, the idea that we "might well do otherwise," might "not play the game," becomes, if not incoherent, then at least hard to make out. I think you're right that there is no physical or ethical compulsion here that could count as an "overarching authority" -- but is there any sphere of intellectual endeavor in which we encounter such an authority? Surely that's asking for too much, and I doubt that the proponents of a more objective or certain basis for modus ponens want that. The idea as I understand it is that, to think at all, you're going to need modus ponens.
The other interesting question is about whether "to understand p and p?q" is to accept q. This strikes me as a version of the question, provoked by Kant, about whether arithmetic is analytic or synthetic. Have we learned anything new when we learn that 'q' follows from the first two premises? In this simple case, it may seem obvious that 'q' is somehow contained in those premises, but more complex logical conclusions have the ring of revelation, of genuine discovery, which is what Kant claimed was the case even for simple additions. What we want to know here is whether it's coherent to say (and let's imagine a more complicated set of premises), "Yes, I understand these premises, but I don't acknowledge that the conclusion must follow." Is this person refusing to play the game? I'm frankly not sure how to describe such a situation, other than to say that "refusing" seems too strong.
No, I am suggesting that if one chooses something "for no reason at all," then one is acting arbitrarily. Now, you suggest that there is "no reason," no prior truth to point to, in selecting any one of the infinite possible logics. Such a selection is instead based on the fact that "others have already chosen to agree to some game rules," and so it is "useful to agree." (Note here though that the very truth of your argument for the utility of "agreement" would itself depend on a particular logic though. In a trivial logic, it is trivial to prove that it is actually better to pick a logic that no other human agrees with, because one can prove anything expressible in such a logic.)
Anyhow, were this true, it would mean that each individual "picks a logic" only because other people have already picked it. Yet there cannot be an infinite regress of people picking, say to affirm LNC, just because other people have already agreed to it. The choice has to bottom out in some arbitrary first mover. So, the dominant "custom" is just that, arbitrary custom. This also means that the pluralist, in bucking the dominant custom, is also being arbitrary. The utility of a logic rests in "how many other people agree to it."
I think this is obviously not the case. The fact that trivial logics, which are very common, lack utility, is because it is not the case that every statement one can formulate in language is both true and not true. That's absurd. It's false. And people eschew trivial logics because they allow for false conclusions; they are not actually truth preserving, only "truth preserving" vis-á-vis some deflated notion of truth.
But at any rate, simply choosing to affirm something as true solely because "other people are doing it," is not good reasoning. This is the old: "if everyone jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge would you do it too?"
This skepticism relies on a particular metaphysics of consciousness and appearances. In materialism, potency is king, thus contingency and accident reign over necessity and essence. Consciousness becomes an accidental, contingent [I]representation[/I] of being (i.e. representationalism). Appearances are, or at least can be, completely arbitrarily related to reality. It's a world where intelligibility must be projected onto things, or at least "constructed by the mind" (and this also involves a different conception of reason and knowledge). Obviously, if appearances can be arbitrarily related to reality, so can language (by contrast, we could consider someone like Hegel, who would argue that the historical evolution of language and logic cannot be arbitrary).
That's sort of the deep separation between modern and pre-modern metaphysics, their understanding of appearances/eidos. Plotinus and a number of his followers take up the criticisms of Sextus Empiricus on what are, in some ways, very modern questions of the sort you mention, but have a much easier time resolving the problems because of these differences. So to, Aquinas' consideration of the question of "if the minds knows its own phantasms instead of things."
I don't want to get into all that, except to say the priority of potency (sheer possibility) over actuality is a presupposition of the "raw material world the can be arbitrarily related to intelligibility." First there is potency, and then there is something that actualizes [I]something[/I] from it (presumably , potency itself). One of the counterarguments against this is that this doesn't make sense, sheer potency, being nothing in particular, cannot result in any specific actuality; act is always prior to act. But modern thought tends towards just denying this. Actuality comes either out of God's sheer, indeterminate power/potential (all act coming from the Divine Will), or in later atheist cosmology our actual world springs from the possibility space of possible worlds "for no reason at all" (and being a mathematized world, intentionality and meaning are either illusory or spring from man's will as power).
Which is just to say that, while there are other issues, I think this might boil down to the priority of act over potency or vice versa. That's very abstract, but one should expect such for the root of major metaphysical differences.
I wrote that, and then recalled I had a good quote on this re causes, and why causes used to bridge the sort of gap you're bringing up, but do not with with Humean causation:
It wasn't meant as skepticism, but as a literal statement: We don't know. Better to say, "I don't"? But I hadn't thought you were claiming to know such a thing either.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Well no, I didn't. That's your wording. What I sugested is the possibility that
Quoting Banno
Indeed, your post has several quotes that you are apparently attributing to me, that are things I did not say, or were said by you, not by me... "for no reason at all", "no reason", "others have already chosen to agree to some game rules," and "useful to agree." Odd.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus Such a trivial logic would, by the very fact that no one agrees with it, have the singular misfortune of being quite unless. Choose it if you like. It would be like dribbling a ball around the field while those around you play Football.
Logic exhibits some of the structure of our languages, and as such is a communal activity. It's not something granted by god, so much as a project undertaken by you and I.
When did humans first ask about what's real? It requires the idea of falseness, the ability to totalize, and some cultural conflict to insert as the choices.
I don't think it existed in Bronze Age cultures. It may have to do with early free markets where fraud was rampant. Trade was crippled by people who put the peanuts on the top of the caravan and gravel at the bottom. So could falseness be tied to valuelessness?
You seem to be trading on an equivocal idea of intuition. Self-evidence obtains when something is true by definition. We don't need intuition to see it, it is obvious by virtue of the meaning of the terms. If you make a statement that contradicts itself, it is clear that you haven't asserted anything because you have asserted two things which cancel each other out.
Intuition on the other hand refers to when you feel something is so, when its being so just "rings true' to you. Intuition and self-evidence are two very different things ? with intuitions you don't know whether they are true, with self-evidence there can be no doubt.
I have heard there are logics in which the LNC plays no part. I can't imagine how that would work, but then I haven't studied exotic logics. I can't imagine them being much use in everday life or science, but of course I could be mistaken. In any case the LNC is basic to our default logic.
Quoting Banno The implication seems to be that I deviated and went off-track somewhere. Perhaps we disagree about self-evidence as I explain it in my response to Tim above?
That's an interesting question. I have heard, but not really looked into, the idea that Egyptian Memphite Theology contains an early version of Plato's Theory of Forms. This wouldn't be totally out of left field because there has always been a story attached to Plato that he went to study with the Egyptian priests and learned their wisdom when he was young. Michael Sugrue, among others, also connect Parmenides and thus Plato to older traditions coming out of India and the Orphic tradition (hence the transmigration of souls according to one's karmic/virtuous actions in life).
This would place these ideas pretty far back, but not necessarily before the Bronze Age collapse. However, and I might be conflating later notions of Brahman with earlier ones here, those notions of Brahman as "fundamental reality" would seem to go all the way back to the second millennium. Likewise, ancient Sumerian and Egyptian myths (and Native American ones) seem to at least have the idea of illusion vis-á-vis magic (but this is perhaps not quite the same thing).
You might be on to something, but I would guess that there is also a more primordial grounding of a reality/appearance distinction in the phenomena of dreams, optical illusions, mistakes of judgement, the fallibility of memory, and deception in warfare and hunting (which has apparently always been around). Yet I could absolutely see how civilization, and the problem of standards, media of exchange, and commerce could inflate this notion into something with greater depth.
Why would any one agree or not agree to a logic? That's the question.
You might find this helpful: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/91492/whats-with-philosophers-and-their-use-of-quotation-marks/91501#91501
I agree this distinction is important, and your description of what counts as self-evident seems fine. But I think you've begged the question a bit against what "intuition" might refer to. Does it have to be a feeling? Can something "ring true" on other grounds? Part of the problem is that we lack a decent vocabulary for intuitions, and so we range from the cozy ("feelings", "ring true") to the theoretical ("noetic understanding", "direct intelligibility"). And naturally this makes us wonder whether there's really anything to it at all, if clear descriptions are so hard to come up with.
You also say:
Quoting Janus
but that's precisely the issue. The claim about intuitions is that we do know. And the debate is about whether such self-credentialing knowledge, absent either self-evidence or rational argument, is possible. I think what you meant was, "We can't know whether they are true, given the usual philosophical understanding of what 'knowing to be true' means." But this is exactly what the intuitionist wants to challenge. They may be entirely misguided, of course.
The word “real” serves us with a great function, it sets us up for a contrast that may help us navigate the world.
For example, “That egg is real and that one is not” This may mean that one can be eaten and that one is just used for decoration. But the very same egg used for decoration may be the “real thing” while the other is a mere replicate of the artist original.
So, the same object can be “real” and “unreal”. Wait that is a contradiction. Funny how language works, but feel free to adjust your ideas of language, logic all you want, but remember there could be practical consequences to such creativity.
This is a really good point; it focuses the issue nicely. I would say that intuitions are certainly feelings and the question would be as to whether they are anything more than that. We think an intuition is true if it "feels right". I wonder how else we could gauge its seeming truth. We can theorize further and posit noesis, direct knowledge, innate intelligibility and so on, but we have no way of testing those theories.
Quoting J
Again, I agree entirely. I put stock in my own intuitions, but I would never claim that anyone else ought to believe anything on account of what I believe in following my own intuitions. So, the point for me is that intuitive knowledge is not amenable to intersubjective corroboration. This is something some people find very hard to admit, so I get labelled by some a positivist, which I am most certainly not.
Yes that's very important.
Quoting Janus
Nice.
I believe that not all intuition is equal. For example, when I interview people for jobs, I often have a strong sense about whether they’re going to be the right fit or not. This isn’t just a vague feeling; it’s based on a kind of digested, accumulated experience that I’ve built up over time. But it can't be put into words.
But my intuitions about whether someone is guilty of a crime or whether gods are real are far more speculative - rooted not in experience or repeated exposure, but in emotion, upbringing, and the general atmosphere of ideas I've been exposed to. I tend to believe there's a distinction between intuition that’s grounded in accumulated, tacit knowledge and intuition that is more reflective of personal background and impressionistic feeling.
Quoting J
And what is it for discourse to be meaningful? Of course we can turn from this to consider what we are doing...
"we are playing a language game; what must be true in order to play this language game?"
Well, what constitutes the game?
Ideas such as being self-evident or intuitive or analytic have considerable baggage. Set them aside and just consider p?q. Taking on p?q and p counts as taking on q. To suppose otherwise one must misuse either p or p?q.
No authority here, no intuition or cumbersome structure of analytic and synthetic. It's just what we do when we use hook.
Of course folk can do other things with these symbols. They would not be participating in the same activity. If someone claims to have understood p and p?q, and to agree that p and p?q are true, but disagrees with q, then we have grounds to say that they are doing it wrong (or at lease differently), and have not understood p and p?q at all, or some such rejection of their view.
, can you see how this avoids the fraught notion of intuition?
Quoting Janus
Not that so much as that your position may have been misrepresented in the other replies.
Quoting Janus
... and thereby hang all the problems of private languages and so on. Intuitions will not hold up. Indeed, I am somewhat surprised to see them being used at all, given their poor track record.
So if you were to disagree with someone's intuition, not to share their intuition, they have no comeback. It's difficult to see how not having an intuition is something you can be wrong or mistaken about. i think we agree on this. It's a pretty poor grounding for the whole of rationality.
The alternative, that being rational is something we do, bypasses this by setting rationality in our shared accounts of how things are - our language.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
You're perhaps under no obligation to be logical. But we might not pay you much mind if you so choose.
Thanks for the link but it was not of much use. You did not appear to me to address, and perhaps did not understand, the issues I raised.
:up:
Not all language use is game playing. If it was, you wouldn't be able to express the idea of a language game.
And why not have a language game about language games?
“Real “only makes sense in contrast to unreal or not real.
Except when you’re doing metaphysics, apparently. Then you ask for license to talk about what’s real without telling us what is unreal.
infinite regress
To dissolve such a profound question, “how do we know what is real?” with such banality….but as Sraffa demonstrated, a common gesture can make one reconsider their position.
Quoting Janus
Yes, I was going to suggest that it would be good, at this point, to examine what we actually say about our own intuitions. You say you put stock in them. Am I right in thinking that this means you trust them to be accurate, all things equal, but wouldn't claim knowledge about their objects? You rightly contrast this with trying to convince someone else to accept what you intuit, but is there ever a case when you do know, for yourself, that something you've intuited is true? Can the object of intuition ever be as solidly known as our rational and perceptual objects? (please take "object" loosely, of course)
I think there are such cases, in my own experience, and that they carry some intersubjective weight. I'll try to get back to this soon. . . a long day away from the computer lies ahead.
Quoting Janus
A more coherent plan than putting stock in some else's... :wink:
Supose we wanted a logic that could take on a public, normative, and accountable role in our reasoning.
If we ground our logic in self-evidence or in intuition, we are isolating it to those who share that intuition. If those intuitions are not shared, then the resulting logic cannot be generalised across all individuals, we do not have a criteria for their correctness that is independent, or that can be generalised. Such a logic loses normative traction. Hence we can answer this:
Quoting Areeb Salim
Quite so. But the issue then becomes why you should accept my certainties. So we might ask, how do we tell "when enough people independently arrive at similar conclusions"? And here it will not do to simply stipulate that this occurs when we have agreement - that would be to say that we agree when we agree.
What we need is an doing, a cooperative action that demonstrates our acceptance. A showing, if you will.
And that is what hook, and the language games thereabouts, provide. To understand the operator "?", is to understand that if p and p?q, then q. Asserting p and p?q counts as asserting q.
See the account of status functions I gave previously. Logic is the setting up of a way of using language that we can do together, or not, as we prefer. Our personal intuitions become superfluous.
You can't get there from here.
Here's a sqip: i
If you take any squip, and put an "i" on it's left side, the result is also a squip.
So since i is a squip, so is ii. and since ii is a squip, so is iii.
You get the idea.
Here's a language game about that language game: Is there a largest squip?
Now, where is the problem?
That's an important distinction. Intuitions which are based on accumulated experiences and prior processes of reasoning are different than intuitions about gods or metaphysical ideas. Intuitions about people such as your example of intuitions about whether someone is guilty of a crime, can be based on sub-conscious attitudes about their appearance. Do they have a hard face or a kind face? Do they look like a criminal? Do they look shifty or trustworthy?
So, you have rightly drawn attention to the fact that intuition is not one simple kind of thing at all.
Quoting Banno
Yesd, it seems we can only be wrong about intuitions which predict something which fails to occur or judge something to be so which turns out to fail to be the case. If someone, for example, has an intuition that God or something divine exists and that its qualities are beyond human understanding they can never be shown to be wrong...or right.
They may feel that they understand something which others don't, that they have a special kind of sense that is generaly lacking, and so they are bound to be misunderstood. They may even feel that what they intutively know is an absolute or objective truth, but none of this can be anything more than faith-based, and as such not susceptible of rational justifiaction. This seems to be very hard to accept for those who think thius way.
I agree with you that intuition plays no justificatory part in logic. The LNC is just a necessary rule we must adhere to if we wish others to be able to make sense of what we say. That said, I think it also reflects our experience as @J alluded to before with the example that things are never all one colour and all another colour all over.
Quoting J
It's not so much that but that if I feel something is most likely the case in conditions where I have no way of knowing for sure, then I trust that feeling provisionally and act accordingly. I guess you could say I treat the intuition as though it is accurate, but I don't at all believe it must be accurate.
Quoting J
I'm trying to think of an example which fits this question. Do you mean are there any cases where I feel absolutely certain that something I intuit to be true, but which cannot in any way be tested, is really the case? If so, I think I'd have to say no.
Quoting J
I'd be interested to hear about such a case, and how you think they might carry some intersubjective weight.
That's not an infinite regress.
Witt didn't believe all meaning is in the context of language games (PI 43). That's your outlook.
Not so much. But whatever.
Added: PI 43 doesn't say anything about the scope of the term "language game".
That's not a language game. That's a scribble game.
What makes a scribble a word?
Good questions and thoughts here. Just to address one thing quickly:
Quoting Janus
No, I think "absolute certainty" as a synonym for "knowledge" is way too high a bar. I have in mind the same criteria for knowledge we'd use in the ordinary cases. "I know the sun is shining." "Are you absolutely certain?" "Not absolutely. Memory and perception can be false at times. But I'm happy to insist that I know this fact nonetheless."
Quoting Banno
I think we should preserve @Janus' distinction between self-evidence and intuition. The standard logical forms are arguably self-evident in the way you describe: "To understand the operator "?", is to understand that if p and p?q, then q. Asserting p and p?q counts as asserting q." Let's say that this is so, and that "self-evidence" is a good-enough way to describe this. Then we want "intuition" to mean something else, something that is not "contained in the premises" or "understanding a language game."
But this, I would say, is no longer a matter of grounding logic. I agree with everything you say about the necessity of grounding logic in shareable, normative principles. (And this also agrees with your claim that "[Intuitions are] a pretty poor grounding for the whole of rationality.") But this seems very different from saying, "I intuit that so-and-so is a good job candidate" or "I intuit that my interpretation of my dream is correct." "Intuition" may be an awkward stand-in for some other process, but at any rate it's not the same thing as pointing to logical self-evidence or unquestionable first principles of rationality.
Quoting Janus
Right, but how we want to discriminate them and evaluate them is not obvious. The suggestion here seems to draw the line between some ordinary accumulation of experience which is shareable, more or less, with others, versus an esoteric metaphysical/religious insight which isn't produced by any kind of accumulation of experience, but is strictly personal. In short:
Quoting Janus
Devotees of various religious traditions and practices would certainly find this odd. The whole point about such ways of life is that they are based on accumulated experiences, both personal and collective. But I won't try to argue for that here.
Quoting Janus
The key phrase here is "not susceptible of rational justification." That is so. But see above. What allows us to insist that rational justification, based on self-evident principles perhaps, is the only legitimate means to achieve intersubjective agreement? Two things about this: First, it's a preference that is deeply rooted in doing philosophy at all, and one that I share. I like things to be rational and intersubjectively justifiable! Most of what I philosophize about falls into this category. But it is not the entire compass of knowledge. Second, it is surely true that dogmatic folks get annoyed when others don't accept their intuitions, especially if they believe they can give a good rational account of them. So much the worse for dogmatism. But it's equally true that many folks (lo, even on TPF :wink: ) find it very hard to accept the idea that rational justification is not necessarily the only gate to wisdom.
This gets us to the problem of how an intuition, no matter how firmly held by the individual, might be justified intersubjectively. I'll pick a low-voltage example, one that doesn't raise hackles about religion or metaphysics. Last night, let's say, I dreamt about crashing my car, which in the dream was an Aston Martin. I've never owned such a car. Upon awakening, it isn't immediately clear what the dream signifies. I'm aware, though, that I frequently use cars, both waking and dreaming, as a symbol for "my life" or "my life direction." And now I experience a flash of insight, an "intuition." Many years ago, I was married to a British woman and looked forward to moving there with her, and restarting my life there. But the dream, and the marriage, failed, to my great sadness. So the crashing of the Aston Martin was a concise image for the death of this particular hope, which my psyche has yet to fully accept. (Please pardon the dash of autobiography.)
So . . . what is the status of the truth claims involved in this intuition? For my part, I know this interpretation is correct. (I'm not absolutely certain, though, as explained above.). The knowledge relies on the idea that a dream may indeed be interpreted correctly. I think that if someone wanted to challenge my intuition, they'd want to do it at that level, by questioning the idea of interpretation tout court. But if it's granted that dreams have meanings, then my intersubjective audience is likely to also grant me my knowledge of what the dream means to me. So let's call this an example of intuitive knowledge. There is no rational process, no empirical investigation, no analysis of self-evidence -- I simply know.
Now obviously I wouldn't try to convince you that, if you had this dream, it would mean the same thing to you. But I do want to convince you that you should trust my interpretation of my own dream. But wait -- it isn't intersubjectively verifiable, and my access to the dream itself is privileged. Why, then, am I unlikely to get an argument about this (except, as I said, at the level of interpretation per se)? Because, if I'm perceived as a trustworthy, sensible, and self-reflective person, you'll take my word for it. This is a meager result for a longish argument, but I really do think it gets to the heart of it. We accept the cogency and validity of intuitions to the extent that we trust the person who has them.
This is not the end of the argument, by a long shot, because the stakes involved in dreams versus faith in a god are enormously different. But that's enough out of me for now.
I'll agree that there are multiple notions of "intuition" and "understanding" that are unhelpfully related but distinct. I was referring to "what is self-evident," which is often attributed to "intuition" because it does not rely on discursive justification, but is rather the starting point for discursive justification (and in some philosophy, also its ending point).
I don't know if I would necessarily identify the self-evident with "what is true by definition." If one takes "definition" in the Aristotlian sense (i.e., things have a proper definition), then definitions are generally not self-evident, whereas if one takes more nominalist accounts, then the definition might be nothing more than stipulation (which must be empirically arrived at, and so is not self-evident either).
Maybe I should have said "intellectus," but I don't think many people are familiar with that term.
True, but this is equally the case for the opposite claim that reason is nothing but discursive ratio/computation. And it faces the problem of being wholly unable to explain the phenomenological aspects of understanding and knowledge (hence eliminitive materialism), nor how "something computes so hard it begins to have first person experiences and understanding." So too for the symbol grounding problem, the Chinese Room, etc.
More radical forms of empiricism start from the presupposition that the phenomenological side of cognition is "off limits," but when this has tended to bottom out in either the denial of consciousness (eliminativism) or the denial of truth and almost all forms of knowledge, one might question if empiricism has become self-refuting at this point (or at least proven to be a bad epistemology). At any rate, even empiricists tend to accept that empiricism is not justifiable in the terms of empiricism. But the difficulty here is the tendency for there to be equivocation between "empiricism" as any observation and experiment at all (in which case the Scholastics and even the Neoplatonists are "empiricists) and the more radical tradition coming out of Hume and continuing in logical positivism, etc., which is used to argue that rejecting "empiricism" is tantamount to rejecting "science and the scientific method," even though plenty of famous inventors and scientists have rejected the more radical philosophical school, but not "science."
Why does no one agree with it? You seem to be saying that trivial logics are useless just because no one accepts them, but then this leaves totally unexplained how the choice of logic is made in the first place. Presumably, the world did not begin populated by people, with certain logics already popular or not popular.
How would it be "useful" to affirm anything and everything that can be expressed just in case other people also agreed to do the same? There seems to be obvious problems with this.
Rather, I'd say that trivial logics are unpopular because they are useless. People's preferences for different logics have to do with how they represent being.
It might be argued that this still relies on an authority, and that may be so, but it is at least a more distributed authority.
I'll add that intuition is fine in other situations - when judging a personality, or picking a path, or what you will. Notice that it is idiosyncratic even there: if challenged, can you justify picking this individual or that path? And here we have to share criteria; or perhaps conveniently our intuitions coincide.
The piece of autobiography displays laudable self awareness. I might be inclined to call your interpretation an insight rather than an intuition.
Non of this should be taken to detract from the import of intuition, nor to the respect in which it ought be held.
There's an approach to logic - and rationality - that supposes there are foundational propositions from which it is built, that justify everything that follows. Logic is seen here as a hierarchy; the epitome being axiomatic constructions. This fell into disfavour in the eighties, replaced by natural deduction, sequent calculus and such. Gentzen-style. I was taught, and indeed have taught, both approaches. Justification in the newer approach is contextual, dialogical, and structurally horizontal, focusing on rules of inference rather than axioms. Logic became more dynamic — a tool for reasoning, not a blueprint for metaphysical truth.
This lead to a picture of logic not as a hierarchy so much as a network, and to a pictures of justification not in terms of foundations but in terms of coherence.
This directly parallels the differences being played out here. At the risk of taking us back to the topic of the tread, we have those who see a need to find some absolute immovable foundation for what is real, and those who see what is real as grounded in context and action, in what we are doing.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
A trivial logic might begin with p^~p, from which everything follows. Formally, it's complete and consistent, but utterly unable to help us in deciding what is the case and what isn't. Go ahead and agree with it, if you like. It won't get you far. In such a trivial logic, everything is the case. That's why we don't use them, and why (almost?) no one agrees with them. But it seems we agree that they are useless. pv~p is much more interesting.
This is an example of how the choice of logics might be made. Pick one that does the job you want done, or that will extend and enhance the conversation.
Consistent with recommendations I've made before, I'll say that I'm fine with either "insight" or "intuition" here -- and perhaps everywhere that "intuition" is used. The term is less important than what it's trying to capture. What I notice about the dream example is that it's about meaning -- a very special class of knowledge. Hermeneutics rather than factual truth. Might it be the case that this is how intuitions (or insights) gain their validity? We do want to say that we can know what something means. Is such knowledge intersubjectively valid?
Quoting Banno
This brings up what seems to me a deep question, raised recently by Kimhi and others: What is the overlap between logic and the world (including, if you don't mind, metaphysics)? If we commit to a certain understanding of normative logic, must we also commit to some parallel truth about the world, whether metaphysical or everyday? Can 'p' equally refer to both a sentence and an object? Must it? In short, can logic really be just a tool rather than a map?
I'm agnostic on this question. But we can see how different answers to it will give rise to important differences in how we view the connection of mind and the world. Oddly, the sea-battle debate taking place over on the "Demonstrating Intelligent Design . . . " thread exemplifies the same question: Should a commitment to semantics, or logic, dictate what we say about the future, understood ontologically?
Wittgenstein pointed out that we can't know the answer, but he admitted that he couldn't resist being pulled back into questions like that. What's driving us to speculate?
I'll try to put this in as stark a contrast as I can. We all accept modus ponens. Is it, on the one hand, that we accept that if the antecedent and the conditional hold, then we intuit that the consequent also holds? Or is it that the accepted use of antecedent, conditional and consequent is that if the antecedent and conditional hold, then the consequent holds? Is logic to be grounded on private intuition or public practice?
And he argument I gave earlier seem to show that a private intuition cannot serve to ground logic in the way we may want.
Or perhaps you think that your intuitions correspond to the public practice?
If, as I suspect, we hold to modus ponens not becasue it is self-evident or intuitive - although it may be both - but instead becasue it is what we do, then the overlap between logic and the world is that logic is a grammar for our talk about how things are.
So we might have instead chosen a grammar in which both a p and ~p are true, but then while our language would have been coherent, anything could be both true and false. Such a language would not be of much use.
So instead we choose languages in which p is true, or ~p is true, and not both. This gives our conversations quite a bit more traction.
And to this we can add some complexity. That's when we start to study logic.
Now we might be tempted to ask why p v ~p is so much more useful than p ^ ~p. But isn't one answer here just that we can do more with it? That it is more useful becasue it is more useful? That is, if instead we accepted p ^ ~p, we would not be able to have this conversation?
Asking why p v ~p and not p ^ ~p is like asking why the bishop stays on it's own colour, or why putting the ball in the net counts as scoring a goal. It's what we do.
Did he? I'm not so sure. Where did he say this?
I've a lot of sympathy for the stickiness of philosophical problems. Seems I keep allowing myself to be drawn into the same issues. But what exactly was it to which he said we cannot know the answer? Was it really "can logic really be just a tool rather than a map?"
Becasue I think I've given a roughly Wittgensteinian answer here, after the spirit of PI §201, and with a bit of Austin, Searle and Davidson thrown in.
No. Maintaining the distinction between self-evidence and intuition, I think that e.g. modus ponens is self-evident but not intuitive. No further act of interpretation, such as described in the dream example, is needed to arrive at 'q'.
The problem remains about how this connects logic with the world. What is modus ponens self-evident about? Thought, or the world? I think this is still a problem even if you replace self-evidence with "it's what we do." Are we "doing it" with propositions or with objects?
Quoting Banno
Indeed it is.
Quoting Banno
I'm not sure that qualifies as an answer, even generously. Unless usefulness is an unanalyzable bedrock?
Quoting Banno
This separates the Witts from the NitWitts. :wink: A NitWitt like me (on this particular topic) will deny that bishops and goals are good analogies for what p v ~p is. But as you know that's a long and intermittently fascinating discussion -- probably not for here.
It's not so much an answer as an attempt to show how the question misfires.
You seem to be in the position of someone who asks how it is that their key just happens to fit their front door and no one else's.
I'll pick this up again tomorrow (USA).
I've asked this question to @Banno many times and never received anything but deflection. His notion of use seems to bottom out in a sheer voluntarist will. The need to speak to any causes of this "usefulness" is some sort of pseudoproblem, for vague reasons. Apparently, any logic or notion of truth is "useful" just because others are "playing the same game." Yet this doesn't seem true. If everyone told you that commonly accepted logic proved that jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge would make you immortal, and you saw them jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, you'd still be stupid for following them.
For instance :
"We decide" if a frog can be both living and not living at the same time based on how useful this is to us? How this position would not result in an all encompassing relativism is beyond me. Nothing grounds logic or truth except the bare assertion of "usefulness" and a sort of appeal to democratization. How the bishop moves is somewhat arbitrary. You can make a chess variant where it moves differently. Can you make a frog be alive and not alive by having a language community agree to speak of it in certain ways? No doubt it would be useful to have one's cake, to not eat it, and to eat it to. It's just that this is impossible regardless of how useful it would be.
Nor does it make much sense that a frog could be both alive and not alive just in case we find it useful for the frog to be such. Seems to me it'll either be dead or alive without much regard for our uses.
I answered the question quite directly. appears to see this. You insist on misrepresenting that answer. "We decide if a frog can be both living and not living at the same time based on how useful this is to us" has nothing in common with what was suggested.
If I'm misrepresenting you, surely you can lay out what determines usefulness then.
This:
Leaves "use" as an unanalyzable primitive. And a trivial logic absolutely can be "used" to do all sorts of things. It can be used, for instance, to prove that if a frog is alive it is also not-alive. That's a use. Some people don't want to "enhance conversation." They find domination and power most useful. Does logic and truth conform to this use as well?
What I'd maintain a trivial logic cannot do, is conform to what is actually true, which is the point of logic, not some amorphous "usefulness." If usefulness instead of truth grounds logic, what you have is relativism based on whatever is felt to be useful (more Nietzschean then where Wittgenstein was going if you ask me).
Usefulness isn't determined by some rule. That's kinda the point.
If we do not accept that the frog can be both alive and dead, then a logic that allows this is not suitable.
I've always liked to draw a distinction between being able to be absolutely certain and feeling absolutely certain. I think it's possible that people can feel absolutely certain about something they cannot be justified in being absolutely certain about. So, I was referring to feeling absolutely certain in the bit you responded to above. Given the possibility of radical (if not global) skepticism, it can be said that we cannot be 100% justified in being absolutely certain about anything at all.
Quoting J
The problem is that my "ordinary accumulations of experience cannot be obvious to anyone else, so I think my intuitions about something like choosing intuitively who to hire as @Tom Storm gave as an example does not seem to offer any cogent justification for my believing his choice was correct unless I had my own accumulated experience that showed a substantial history of his good judgement of character.
I don't understand metaphysical ideas and religious beliefs to themselves be accumulated experiences, even though they may be believed to be supported by experiences, and also to give rise to experiences. So, in other words the belief in the existence of God or that some metaphysical thesis is the true one are not experiences, but may be held on account of experiences, and in turn give rise to experiences.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
What is logically self-evident is that, for example, if you say something that contradicts itself, that is made contradictory assertions, then you have not really made an assertion. As I said earlier, it's like saying 'yes' and 'no' at the same time. If you say to me, do you want to go for a coffee, and I say " yes I want to go for a coffee, no I don't want to go for a coffee" how will you know whether I want to go for a coffee? We don't need intuition to see that.
We don't need intuition to know that something cannot be all white and all black all over; nothing we have ever perceived has been like that, and what something like that would look like is unimaginable; it obviously could not look all white or all black or both.
That 2+2=4 is self-evident on account of the meaning of the words and the fact that we can hold up two fingers, and then two more fingers, and see four fingers.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
'Intellectus' is a more equivocal term that 'intuition' so I don't think that well help.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Reason is simply consistent thinking. You start with premises, and then work out what they entail. Intuitions are not generally based on this kind of reasoning, but are more "gut feelings". I think attempts to explain things like the quality of personal experience are misguided; seeking to do that involves a category error. Our explanations are given in terms of causes and conditions, or personal reasons, and it seems impossible to explain qualities in either of those ways. Think, for example, about trying to explain beauty in terms of causality or personal reasons.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
It's not surprising that empirical reasoning cannot be explained in terms of empirical reasoning, because empirical reasoning is about predicting from observed patterns and regularities as to what will be observed and/ or inferring what must be the case. It relies on the whole accumulated body of practical knowledge and wisdom and science. Why would we need to explain it if it works? Why should we seek to explain it if the desire for an explanation is misguided?
But couldn't we say that intuition and self-evidence are signs of, or of a piece with, our practices? It just doesn't seem all that far from saying "they would not be participating in the same activity" to saying they would not have the intuitions—the experience of the agreement of logic with what we do—that people have when they successfully do x and y.
Granted that to say intuition is the ground is too strong, but isn't it also too strong to say that intuition as ground is entirely off the mark?
Or apparently by anything more distinct than "what I currently desire." But logic involves what is true, so this makes truth simply a consequence of whatever one desires.
Conversely, if we do accept it, then such a logic would be suitable? So logic has to do with our current beliefs, and whatever we feel. But then discursive reason isn't about truth; it comes down to desire, feeling, and thus ultimately to power.
Everyone agrees about the often contradictory truths announced by the state in 1984. They all play the same language game. To not play is made not useful; it's double-plus ungood. But that doesn't make the game's truth claims true.
This is just a restatement of "reason is nothing but discursive ratio" without addressing any of the problems it entails (mentioned in the post you are responding to).
For one, you note that we must "start with premises" to have reason at all. So, are our initial premises about entailment itself irrational because we must begin with them? Are they outside reason? Is all of reason based on unjustified (and unjustifiable) starting points then?
Again, give me a discursive argument while assuming absolutely no inference rules. You can't, by definition. Without assuming that some things follow from other things there is nothing to link one assertion with another, and all you have is a bare posit. If reason is just discursive rule following, then such starting points aren't rationally justifiable and you get something like the appeal to bare "usefulness" above.
"Logics" without LNC exist. Trivial logics that allow us to both affirm and deny anything expressible exist. Explosion exists. If reason is just rule-following, then there is nothing unique about LNC, it's just another rule that can be asserted or not asserted, with consequences for the structure of whatever "game" we are playing.
I'd allow that LNC is self-evident. But for something to be self-evident requires that there be a non-discursive grasp on truth. Your justification for denials of LNC not making sense above are straightforwardly circular for instance. They have to assume what they set out to prove.
Either not all justification is discursive (some things are self-evident, and known non-discursively, e.g. what has often been meant by intellectus in this context), or all justification ultimately rests on unjustifiable and unknowable assertions.
I meant to suggest something similar, when I wrote about the trustworthiness of people's intuitions. Your intuition about the job candidate is private and, in an extreme case, unjustifiable to anyone but yourself. But my choice to trust your intuition can be justified fairly easily -- again, not with any absolute certainty.
Quoting Janus
Yes. This takes us to the question of meaning, of interpretation. My sense is that those who are firmly opposed to the idea of religious or mystical experiences believe that no conceivable interpretation of experience that include references to godlike entities could be correct. That, I'm sure we both agree, needs independent argumentation.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think you two are trying to formulate an answer to the question I keep posing: What is the LNC about? What is it a law of? What domain does it govern? What can fill in 'p'?
I don't want to interrupt your conversation, which perhaps you find fruitful, but you might take a stab at answering -- or dissolving -- that question, tentatively. I'll expand this in a subsequent reply to @Banno about the suspicious key that fits my lock.
I'd suggest it is a law about use of language which is truth preserving.
I'd also suggest that there are patterns to language which preserves truth; the neural networks in our brains recognize such patterns, resulting in our intuitive recognition of the LNC as truth preserving.
PNC can be formulated as a metaphysical, epistemic, or semantic principle. Ultimately, the latter will tie back to the former if the former is affirmed because being (existence) is prior to being experienced and being spoken about.
As a purely logical principle, it might be considered normative, in that it would not be rational to affirm what is necessarily impossible, though no doubt people can affirm all sorts of things (whether they can actually believe them is another matter).
As a metaphysical principle, it might boil down to the idea that being and not-being, existence and non-existence (in any determinant form we might signify or think about anything) are exclusive. They are exclusive because if being and non-being could be the same, things could both have and not have determinant existence, be both something and nothing, collapsing the most basic of all distinctions that allow anything to be any particular thing at all.
The metaphysical principle is not primarily about truth then, nor affirmation and negation. Truth has to do with the relationship between the intellect and being. We do not say of a rock or tree that it is "true." Rather, things said or thought about rocks or trees are true. The metaphysical principle is about being (which obviously has a close relationship to truth since anything that is truly is).
If nothing truly is and is-not, then this is necessarily so. One cannot preserve truth while affirming something that is never true. But it is never true that something is also nothing, that existence is non-existence, that being is non-being, etc.
The difficulty here is that it is absolutely true that we might think we have identified contradictions where there are none. There might be qualifications and distinctions that dissolve apparent contradiction. But no qualification or distinction can dissolve "something is also nothing" and "existence is also non-existence." This is basic.
Quoting Banno
Quoting J
OK. Deep breath. No, I don't think your response is a deflection, as @Count Timothy von Icarus is suggesting. When a philosopher believes that a question is a not a good one -- that there is no answer that can be meaningfully given, because it doesn't discriminate between two genuine alternatives -- it's often hard to show this. Telling a little analogical story can help. Witt of course was the master of this.
So, faced with a question that you think is defective, you ask me to imagine myself puzzled about why my housekey fits my door, and only my door. Very well. Imagining this, what might puzzle me? It could be two things: I might ask, "Why does this key uniquely fit my door?" or I might ask "Why do I happen to have this key?"
Now I think what I'm supposed to imagine next is that both questions get an explanation or a deconstructive answer that can resolve my puzzlement. To the first question, the reply is, "Because that's what 'your housekey' means. You can't have 'your housekey' without it having both those attributes: it fits your lock, and only your lock. So if you understand 'your housekey', there is no further question to be asked about it." To the second question, the reply is, "Because that's how an object comes to be yours: you possess it, it's been made for you and given to you. Also, since it's an important object in your life, you'll have it to hand, and shouldn't be surprised that this is the case. Are you still puzzled about why you live in a world in which all people fortunate enough to be housed have keys? You just do; that is your world; there's nothing special about you."
Being a philosopher, I can make trouble for both these replies, but I don't really want to. On the whole, they're reasonable, as an account of the keys-and-locks "game." But I challenge whether the story is analogical to my questions about logical primitives.
(p v ~p) appears to fit -- to "be the key" -- to two types of phenomena. It appears to be a law of thought, perhaps normative, perhaps transcendentally descriptive, perhaps psychological, depending on how we rate Frege. It also appears to describe necessary facts about objects in the world, all things being equal. My puzzle is: How is it that these are two phenomena, which resemble each other so closely yet have such different objects? Or am I wrong about that? Must I simply accept that the "key" of logic fits the "lock" of the world? Is it the case that, just as you can't have "my housekey" without understanding "my uniquely fitting key", you can't have (p v ~p) without understanding "our description of the world" or perhaps "what we do, talking about the world"?
It's interesting that both the time-honored view of mind as reflecting the structure of reality -- a "unique fit" if there ever was one -- and the contemporary Witt-based view that questions about the relation of mind and reality are defective, aim at resolving the same question, the question I'm posing. I don't find either view persuasive on the merits. Both attempt to dismiss the question at a bedrock level. Each finds its "spade turned" at the idea that this just is how it is, though I think most earlier versions would postulate God as the reason.
I don't think what I've just written is a satisfactory rebuttal to the analogy of the locks and keys. I would need to say more about what makes logical items like (p v ~p) hold up under the deconstructive dismissal I've described. But for now, I just want to give a picture of how I see the question. If you want to correct my versions of how the question might be said to misfire, please do; I don't want to waste anyone's time with straw-persons.
But that isn't what "your house key" means. If someone changes the locks on my door while I'm out, my key doesn't cease to be mine. And if I bend the key, it won't turn the lock, even though it is still the same key and the same lock. Nor do we possess keys "because we just do." The fact that you have a key in your pocket and whether or not it fits your door has intelligible causes. If we allow "why does my key turn my lock?" to become an aporia, then what won't be?
This is, IMO, simply a bad analogy. Chess is not a good analogy for logic and truth. House keys aren't either. Not all analogies are appropriate. This is all I mean by "deflecting," the move into seemingly only tangentially related and wholly unjustified analogies.
What would it mean for them to have different objects? It would mean that thought is arbitrarily related to reality as far as I can tell. How could anyone, ever, justify such a claim? A reality versus appearance distinction can only have content if there is something more than appearances. If there are only appearances (thought), then appearances are reality. Whereas, if reality is arbitrarily, randomly related to appearances then you don't really have one sort of being that encompasses both sides of the reality/appearance distinction, but two sui generis, unrelated "types of being." Appearances would be their own, discrete sort of being.
Now let me ask, why should we posit any sort of unique, sui generis being that is unrelated to any thought or experience anyone has ever had, or could ever have?
If reality, the actuality of things, does not determinantly affect thought, it isn't worthy of the name. It's just some irrelevant, arguably incoherent bare posit.
OK. So you're saying that, as it happens, it applies to three areas or types of phenomena. Or would "types of activity" be better? I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
"Tie back" raises the problem once again. Why does it do so? In what way? The priority of existence to human experience wouldn't guarantee the fidelity of our descriptions of that existence. Why does the key fit?
I think what you're saying is that PNC is a principle both of thinking and of being, full stop. It (and its cousins in the P family :smile: ) is what we mean by "truth", mean by "exist". But if that is all that can be said, then shouldn't you agree with @Banno and Witt? Further questions about how or why this is the case would be ill-formed.
In other words, your classification of the ways we perceive and use PNC may be quite accurate, but it leaves untouched my question about why, about what grounds what. See my reply to @Banno above: How is it the case that the world, and our experience of it, is so structured? Does the PNC and its cousins represent spade-turning principles about both thinking and being, in the same way, and for the same reasons?
Hmm, I dunno. In the first case, it's no longer my house key, though it is still mine. And in the second, calling it "the same key" is equivocal; it isn't really isn't a key any more at all.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Oh, I agree. I don't want it to be aporetic at all. It's just a hard question to answer, when the analogy is extended to logical primitives.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I don't see why. Why must the difference be arbitrary? If anything, my puzzlement postulates the opposite: that it isn't arbitrary, that there ought to be some explanation. But you can't deny that a rock and a proposition are extremely different items.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Again, you're reading way more into my position than I intended. Arbitrariness and randomness are not the only alternatives.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
And again. Why puff it up in this way? No one, least of all me, is saying anything like this.
There are hierarchies of distinctions. Distinctions like act/potency or part/whole are more general than any particular science (e.g. physics, logic, mathematics, etc.). It seems to me that nothing could be more general than being/existence.
What is true for the higher level must be true for the lower. What is true of parts and wholes in mathematics cannot be distinct from physics, or physics from biology. If it were, we wouldn't have "science" but a great multitude of unrelated sciences, and no rational way to demarcate different sciences.
See the post above. Just think through what it means to say that thought is not determined by being in any determinant way. You would be posting a distinction between thought and "objective reality," but then be saying "but maybe objective reality has no determinant effect on thought." This undercuts the distinction itself, rendering it contentless.
A realm of thought alone with random causes would be identical to a realm of thought influenced randomly and indeterminately by some extrinsic "realm of reality." Nothing would connect the two.
I don't think there is any spade turning at all. All that is required is to affirm the priority of actuality over potency. Something actual (determinant) must move the mind from potency to actuality—must move it so that thought is one way and not any other. To deny this would be to say that thought occurs "for no determinant reason at all." This severes any real connection to a "being prior to thought," while also rendering the world unintelligible and philosophy ultimately pointless.
But the world doesn't seem unintelligible. At any rate, at the end of the day being is either intelligible, and things do happen for reasons (act is prior to potency) or it isn't. If it isn't, all philosophy is wrong. Things can be any way at all.
.
A bent key is no longer a key? And if you can bend it back it becomes a key again I suppose? Come on, the analogy doesn't make any sense.
It's hard because it isn't a good analogy.
Why does my key turn my lock? Because it fits in, lifts the pins, and gives me leverage to turn the deadbolt.
Because this is what the denial of the primacy of actuality (the priority of determinant being) to potency entails. It means that potency moves itself to actuality "for no reason at all," due to no prior actuality. This means things do not have causes or reasons.
Either the mind is moved to actuality by prior actuality (by determinant properties of being) or it isn't. If it isn't, then it is moved by "nothing at all" (by nothing actual). Epistemic PNC follows from metaphysical PNC.
Oh, about the bent key: Surely it's just terminology? Sometimes we think of a key as something that opens X. Other times we think of it as a thing that used to open X, or ought to open X. If we favor the "working model," so to speak, then it's perfectly sensible to say of a bent key that it used to be the key to my house, but now isn't a key to anything, and that when it's bent back, it is so again. I didn't mean any of this to be controversial, sorry.
"Act follows on being." What a thing does, how it interacts with other things or parts of itself depends upon what it is. Otherwise, anything could be essentially be (and act as) anything else.
For something to have no determinant cause would mean that it is caused by "nothing in particular" as opposed to some determinant being that acts in a determinant way. But nothing in particular doesn't act in any determinant way for any reason. Being nothing, it cannot act according to its being, but must act for "no reason at all."
This doesn't rule out stochastic action (e.g. some interpretations of quantum mechanics), but it does rule out action that is not determined by prior actuality. Defaulting on this would be defaulting on things having causes and the world being intelligible. If potency can move to act for no reason at all, then there is no limit on how much this can occur, since it is completely undetermined. This gets at the whole: "what if we and our memories just popped into existence randomly 5 seconds ago and will vanish the same way in another five seconds," concern of the radical skeptic. If potency moves itself, the skeptic has reason to be concerned.
It's also the case that things are only knowable through their interactions. If interactions are not determinant, then neither is knowledge. The being itself being unintelligible implies epistemic nihilism.
I can just about imagine this, in the physical world, though the determinism is breathtakingly thorough. But does this principle also mean that everything you and I think and do is similarly poised between "determined by prior actuality" and "having no reasons at all"? Apart from the metaphysical difficulties around causes versus reasons, it also raises the unpleasant specter of there being only one reasonable way to think and do.
Sure. Thinking is an act, a change. It either occurs for some reason or it doesn't. Thinking is a move from potentially thinking something to actually thinking it. If something is thought (or perceived) for no reason, there is no reason why it should be any one thought instead of any other.
Here is a potential confusion. We might say we think or do something "for no reason at all," when what we really mean is "we acted without any rational deliberation." These aren't the same thing. While we might affirm something because we are angry, hungry, or to curry favor, etc., and call this irrational, yet it would not be acting for no reason at all. Acting according to one's appetites is still acting for a reason. Just because there is a reason that someone does something (e.g. stealing because one is a kleptomaniac due to one's personal history, chemical imbalances, etc.) doesn't make it "reasonable."
Causes and reasons are fairly synonymous is some senses. If by "reasons" you have "rational justifications" in mind, these two wouldn't occur spontaneously either.
As Kenneth Gallagher puts it for mobile, changing being:
"For no being insofar as it is changing is its own ground of being. Every state of a changing being is contingent: it was not a moment ago and will not be a moment from now. Therefore the grasping of a being as changing is the grasping of it as not intelligible in itself-as essentially referred to something other than itself."
I am not sure how it directly relates to this. A metaphysics of act wouldn't, in general, tend to suggest this in any rigid sense. What it would suggest is that there are unreasonable ways to think.
All reasonable ways of thinking either share something in common or they don't. If they share nothing in common, in virtue of what would they all be called reasonable? More to the point, what would these multiple, sui generis "types of rationality" look like? How do they relate differentially to truth?
On the other hand, if all ways of thinking and acting are reasonable, then being unreasonable (or incorrect) is impossible, and being "reasonable" doesn't seem to mean much of anything. To think of act is to be reasonable.
Quoting Jamal
Interesting, and methodologically sound, to have a think about such counter instances.
It's uncomfortable to do what is counterintuitive, of course, so we gravitate to what is intuitive. But also, we begin to intuit by learning an activity. Consider how intuitive driving is, compared to when you were learning.
And the same is the case with logic. You might recall long conversations in introductory logic classes in which folk puzzle over simple syllogisms. Consider:
A student says "That seems right—roses are flowers, and some flowers fade quickly, so it makes sense that some roses might be among those that fade quickly." But the intuition that the argument is valid, is misplaced.
Or alternately,
were the student replies “But unicorns don’t exist! How can Charlie have a horn?” - examples such as this can be found on these forums. The argument is valid, but for some, counterintuitive.
Point being, what is intuitive is not fixed. Our practices change our intuitions.
So it remains quite problematic to attempt to ground logic on an intuition. Much clearer to ground it on practice.
Also important here, and perhaps this cannot be emphasised enough: while intuition is private, practice is public. We share our practices more easily than out intuitions.
So we might grant your point and still find intuition wanting as a grounding for rationality.
I think you need to try to figure out what you are referring to with the term, "different objects," or the term, "two phenomena."
Is a law of thought a phenomenon? Is a description of necessary facts about objects in the world a phenomenon?
What is the object of a law of thought? What is the object of a description of necessary facts about objects in the world?
The characteristically modern error is to posit two substances, such as the mind and the body, and then wonder how two "simples" could ever interact. In order to throw that approach into relief one must begin to query their categorizations, such as their "phenomena" and their "objects." One needs to abandon the mechanistic paradigm at its root, and to stop presuming that everything is of a level.
Quoting J
I'm not convinced that you are posing a question of sufficient clarity.
Are you asking about the relation between logic and world? But what do you mean by "logic"? It will help if you get more specific. Is "logic" something different than, "the human capacity to understand the world"? If so, what is it?
Here are a few points I've taken form what you said:
1. that p v ~p is a logical law. There's of course a large literature on the nature of laws or rules, but perhaps there is some consensus that Wittgenstein was correct in pointing out the vicious circularity of claiming that our actions are determined by a rule. Now I'll go along with the tradition that says that the answer here is that ultimately a rule is grounded in a practice, in what we do. I think this is both found in the PI and an adequate answer to Kripke's scepticism.
So better, perhaps, to say that agreeing with either p or ~p is what we do, rather than a rule.
2. There's this, about (p v ~p): "My puzzle is: How is it that these are two phenomena, which resemble each other so closely yet have such different objects?" The trite response is that p and ~p are not phenomena. What they are has been answered at length and in different ways. But further, what is salient, and what we discussed in our previous conversations concerning Frege, is that we read (p v ~p) as about one thing, not two. That's part of the function of "?" in Frege.
Now there are puzzles here - perhaps most recently presented in 's recent thread. But I'll stand by this interpretation.
Our difference may be that I think there is a point at which our spade is turned, a point at which the only answer is "It's what we do", but that you would try to dig further. I take the "counts as..." function to be sufficient, so that putting the ball in the net counts as a goal, no further explanation being possible. You seem to me to want to ask why it counts as a goal, to which the answer is it just does.
Does this seem a fair characterisation?
So I'll throw the ball back - can you convince me that there is a further issue here that remains unanswered?
That would be very interesting.
Yes. :up:
Quoting J
What do you mean by "self-evident" and what do you mean by "intuition," and how do they differ?
:smile:
Whereas I don't much mind. Better to not reach a conclusion than to jump to the wrong one.
Oh, and the obvious reason that LNC is taken as a metaphysical or epistemic principle is that it is a grammatical principle, and our language is common to both. Language underpins both.
The leap from "no determinate causes" to "no reason at all" in particular still eludes me, too, and in particular becasue it "raises the unpleasant spectre of there being only one reasonable way to think and do". The idea that the world would be unintelligible without strict casual explanations ignores the great difficulty of setting out exactly what a casual explanation is. It seems arse about; the way the world is, is not intelligible thanks to causation, so much as that causation is intelligible thanks to the way the world is. Perhaps it's not that the world becomes intelligible because we uncover its causes; rather, we see things as caused because the world is already intelligible to us. Causation is not the ground of intelligibility, but an expression of it.
Good chat.
I am not sure if any philosopher has ever tried to ground logic in "intuition" in the sense you are using the term. This would make logic simply a matter of habit or sentiment.
When people want to "ground logic in intuition" I would presume they are referring to "intuition" as an imperfect translation of noesis/intellectus, or "intellectual consideration." That was, at least, how I was introducing the term.
Without intellectus, reason seems to become mere contentless rule following, with no intelligible content. There are perhaps two distinct issues here. The first is the absence of intelligible content re discursive knowledge if it is all ratio (rule following) no understanding. This shows up in examples like Mary's Room, the Chinese Room, the symbol grounding problem, etc.
The second issue involves first principles. Without first principles, or some form of apprehension/intellectual consideration, the rules of discursive reasoning (as rule following) become arbitrary, based on what is not known. Hence, the elevation of "use," which is really just the old elevation of the will as prior to the intellect that the denial of first principles has always caused, since days of yore. This also leads to a self-refuting relativism.
Intellectus is the faculty of intuitive understanding; it is contemplative, receptive, and rooted in insight. The idea is that reasoning must begin with this sort of understanding, otherwise it would simply be a sort of rule following divorced from intelligible content. Ratio is
the means by which we move from truth to truth and come to “encircle” new truths. The acquisition of human
knowledge begins and ends in intellectus, but proceeds by discursive ratio. The difference between ratio and
intellectus is thus the difference between motion towards some end and rest in that end between acquisition and possession (as St. Thomas and Ibn Rushd put it), or as “time is to eternity” and “circumference is to center" (as Boethius puts it in the Consolation, or as Dionysius the Areopagite puts it in De Divinis Nominibus). It is not equivalent with habit.
Anyhow, that might be the discrepancy.
I think this kind of intuition?your intuition about the job candidate and my intuition about the soundness of your intuition are both based on our accumulations of our prior experience and our expectations based on that. This is kind of like inductive reasoning?or it even is inductive reasoning. As Hume pointed out we have no deductive certainty in those cases, as we don't when it comes to the regularities of nature (although the latter may be far more reliable than humans).
Quoting J
Well I don't want to say that interpretations of mystical or religious experience cannot be correct, but I would say that there is no way of determining whether or not they are correct. It seems we have three sources of grounding for our beliefs, or if you prefer, the premises upon which we base our (hopefully) consistent reasoning?logic, perceptual observation and reflection on and generalization from experience. The latter is what I would say phenomenology at its best consists in. I see analytic philosophy, philosophy of language as phenomenology in this sense?it consists in reflection on, analysis of and generalization about our uses of language.
Likewise we have no way of determining whether our beliefs about the reliability of others' judgements, or our scientific theories are correct, even though it seems reasonable to think we have a better idea about the veracity of those based on whether the predictions they yield are observed.
The only certainties would seem to be the logical, including mathematics, and the directly observable.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Those "problems" are, in my opinion, merely imagined on account of looking for something which cannot be found. Reason just is consistent thinking. If we don't think consistently then we will hold beliefs which have no relation to their premises or we will contradict ourselves, thus cancelling out any cogent beliefs at all.
See my response to @J above?I think it answers all your questions. I don't want to waste time repeating myself, but if you think some questions remain then let me know what they are and why you think they remain unanswered.
It seems clear to me that of all our kinds of beliefs those based on religious and mystical experiences are the least grounded, are in fact groundless, and are thus purely matters of faith. I understand that it may be hard for some to admit this?however I don't see this as a bug, but rather a feature. If people generally understood this, there would be no evangelism, no religious indoctrination and no fundamentalism, and I think we would then have a better world.
I have the utmost respect for others' faiths. provided they don't seek to indoctrinate others. I have my own beliefs which are based on pure faith, but I don't want to argue for them because I see that it is pointless given that no intersubjectively determinate corroboration is possible in respect of them.
This is usually where I get (falsely) accused of being a positivist. Dismissal by labelling is so much easier than refutation by argument.
The question surely remains as to what the posited "intellectual consideration" in an intuition might be. And the argument I gave previously convinces me that neither intuition nor self-evidence will provide a suitable "Intellectual consideration". In their place I'm offering those specifiable speech acts that inaugurate our language games - those involving "counts as...".
I gather this is all quite foreign to your way of putting things.
If your first point is that rule-following alone does not equate to content, then we might agree. I'd answer this problem by again pointing out that one's understanding of any rule is to be found in the actions seen in following it or going against it. And here we might add that the action is what you call "content".
And this is much the same as my answer to your second point. Whatever "first principles" you might cite will be secondary to what one does with them. The vital difference between action and the "elevation of the will" is that action is public, whereas what one wills is private. What one does can be seen by others, and so can be a suitable basis for the common action of providing explanations and accounts.
Human knowledge is shared. Which is why private intellectus on its own is inadequate.
Are there parts of this with which you might agree?
Yes, but I think you were on the right track when you pointed out to Janus that he is taking the LNC as read. The same thing happens whenever one tries to exclude intellectus/understanding. There is no rule following without understanding; there is no modus ponens without understanding; there is no
If ratio pertains to "movement" then intellectus pertains to "location." There simply is no such thing as movement without location. Terms, inferences, and rules must all be understood before they can be used or manipulated.
To illustrate, we could train a dog to lick the consequent whenever he sees a modus ponens syllogism. He is arguably following a rule, but he is certainly not doing logic or carrying out a modus ponens. This is "contentless rule following." His rule is a quasi or pseudo instance of ratio, but without intellectus it can never rise to the true level of ratio at all. Rearranging symbols is not yet reasoning. Ratio without intellectus is not ratio.
[Quote=Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism] For empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses. The fact which obliges a correct theory of knowledge to recognize this essential difference is simply disregarded. What fact? The fact that the human intellect grasps, first in a most indeterminate manner, then more and more distinctly, certain sets of intelligible features -- that is, natures, say, the human nature -- which exist in the real as identical with individuals, with Peter or John for instance, but which are universal in the mind and presented to it as universal objects, positively one (within the mind) and common to an infinity of singular things (in the real).
Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. He plays, he lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And his field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in man -- the potential infinity of knowledge.
Such are the basic facts which Empiricism ignores, and in the disregard of which it undertakes to philosophize.[/quote]
This applies again:
Quoting J
The basic starting point here is that human knowledge is both public/shared and private. The idea that because some human knowledge is shared therefore there is no private aspect or part of human knowledge is simply non sequitur. You're not even entertaining the problem that is being discussed.
Yes, very good. That was an impressive connection. :up:
And the sensory analogue is salutary. What @Janus wrestles with with intuition is more clearly seen and understood in the case of sense data or sense knowledge (i.e. sense knowledge is truth-apt without being publicly shared or discursive).
I should read more Maritain. He would be a good interlocutor for TPF.
He doesn't use the words, perhaps; but his reactions show something....
So why are 'sugar' and 'intruder' in quotes?
Harsh? Is that supposed to be an argument? Try reading again:
[quote=From Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophical Analysis of the Nature of Man, by Robert E. Brennan, O.P.] Everything in the universe is composed of matter and form. Everything is concrete and individual. Hence the forms of cosmic entities must also be concrete and individual. Now, the process of knowledge is immediately concerned with the separation of form from matter, since a thing is known precisely because its form is received in the knower. But, whatever is received is in the recipient according to the mode of being that the recipient possesses. If, then, the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the forms of objects in an immaterial manner. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.
Moreover, if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality.[/quote]
For Aristotle, nous is the faculty that enables rational thought. It is distinct from sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals possess. Nous is the faculty that enables definitions so be set in a consistent and communicable way, and explains why humans are born with the innate ability to understand the same universal categories in the same ways (which enables language, that other animals lack.)
Yes, good stuff. :up:
When claims that Wittgenstein and the "time-honored view" both dismiss the question at a bedrock level, it seems that he is plainly mistaken. Or else he has a very strange notion of the "time-honored view," one which begs to be revealed. The Aristotelian tradition is the elephant standing quietly in the room when it is pronounced that no spade has broken beneath the surface. Your quotes from primary sources are helpful in revealing gardeners who do more with their spades.
Yep.
But practice changes too. I wonder if one of the criticisms of psychologism works against this Wittgensteinian view as much as it does against psychologism: if logic is relative to our practices then it's contingent.
EDIT: Also: is it quite right to say that logic is grounded in our practices, as if it is based on them, when in fact it is immanent to them?
The reason I'm thinking about this is that a couple of days ago I noticed that Adorno had written more about formal logic than I thought he had. In his critique of Husserl's critique of psychologism (Against Epistemology: A Metacritique), he agrees that psychologism is wrong but disagrees that it follows that logic is a priori, transcendental, quasi-Platonic. This is where Wittgenstein agrees and says it's about our practices (language games and our form of life), but Adorno says it's sociohistorical, though not reducible to sociohistorical facts.
EDIT: I was going to say something about intuition, which is different from psychologism and more in line with Husserl's transcendental answer---but I'll leave it.
Isn’t a lot of this just a tacit prohibition on anything that could be considered outside the scope of natural sciences, evolutionary biology, and so on? Don’t mention anything remotely platonic. Has to be something comfortably domesticated.
You almost remind me of Adorno himself, in that you see everything as ideological :wink:
But the answer is: not quite. There is room for social sciences like sociology and anthropology, which are empirical sciences which are not reducible to biology and physics. There is also room for philosophy. This is where W and A differ: for the former it's therapy, for the latter it's because emancipating human beings hasn't happened yet.
Pretty much, but there's a sense---and this is probably a gross caricature---in which he retained the Marxian view that philosophy will be solved in a world free of domination. Also, he's definitely against praxis at the expense of theory.
So when Marx says the philosophers have only interpreted the world and the point, however, is to change it, Adorno interprets this as meaning that the point of philosophy is to change it, not that we should stop philosophizing, man the barricades, and roll our sleeves up. I think this is a correct interpretation.
Would you say that Adorno holds that theory itself can be a form of resistance?
It's a weird thing to me still, because I used to always separate the two in my mind, and it's amazing to see how Adorno, for example, connects the most abstract theories about epistemology and metaphysics with practical concerns. This is challenging but in the end I think the right way to go, the way I see it.
Well it would seem to me that if philosophy is to be useful it must be able to do this. Not that this is something I spend any time on, but those with the right dispositions and expertise probably should.
Yes indeed, and I've just read a lecture of his in which he makes this point: theory and practice are not mutually exclusive, and thought is practical, even when it is not about the practical or directed towards it.
EDIT: It even extends into his writing style, in which he enacts the resistance to what he sees as the neat packaging of "clarity".
I now see you might have a contrast in mind between political and spiritual. I think Adorno would say the latter follows.
I always try, when the person I'm responding to shows the same traits.
Quoting Banno
Hmm, this may wind up mattering quite a bit, but let's not worry about it for the moment.
Quoting Banno
Some confusion here, likely my fault. By "two phenomena" I didn't mean p and its negation, but rather 1. the phenomenon of (p v ~p) as what I called a logical law, and 2. the phenomenon of (p v ~p) as a description of what must be the case concerning objects in the world. (Again, by using words like "phenomena" or "objects" I'm only seeking neutral nouns; no metaphysical baggage implied.) So I think your response involving Frege, while true, doesn't address my puzzle. My puzzle wants to know how it is the case -- if it is the case -- that we can understand 'p' as referring either to a logical proposition or, say, a rock.
Quoting Banno
Yes.
Quoting Banno
In reflecting on this, I notice that the difficulty is similar to the one I pointed out concerning allegedly pseudo- or misfiring questions. How can one demonstrate that a question is legitimate? The temptation is simply to reply, "Well, if you've never been troubled by this question, what can I say?" but I think that is a bad response. Getting people to be troubled by questions they haven't heretofore been troubled by is a primary goal of philosophy! So let me try.
How about if, for starters, we both agree to eschew "game" analogies. I've often wondered if Witt understood the connotations of "game" in English. Certainly the implication that "It's all a game!" drives many people batty -- but I doubt he meant it that way, as a trivial pastime we could just as easily not engage in, or exchange for a different one. The point, surely, is about rules, and about how knowing the rules is a spade-turning experience.
Before I go further, does this seem OK so far?
This is interesting. But it's open to the objection: How do we know that it's the language that underpins the metaphysics and the epistemology, rather than the reverse -- that the language has developed to reflect the metaphysics and epistemology? This, by the way, wouldn't involve positing a pre-linguistic metaphysical practice of some sort. We could have been building the grammar as we went along.
Quoting Banno
The OP I started a while back, "Epistemic Stances and Rational Obligation," discusses this in some detail. Can't recall whether you and @Count Timothy von Icarus followed it. The debate there, between scientific realist Pincock and "voluntary epistemic stance" advocate Chakravartty, is a sharp one, and highlights the stakes. Essentially, what we want to know is whether "a reason" must cash out to "an obligatory cause" of holding a particular belief. This is troubling, as discussed on the thread.
Yes, this is a good distinction. I stand by my hunch that those who firmly oppose such interpretations go further than you, and claim that they could not be correct. This moots the question about how we could determine whether they are.
Quoting Janus
That third category is the problematic one. Is this where we'd put hermeneutics? Do you allow that hermeneutics can produce genuine knowledge? In its original sense of textual interpretation, we want to say that there can be better or worse readings, and that some readings can be known to be incorrect, and that some (perhaps quite small) group of readings can be known to be correct. Let's say this is so. Do we arrive at knowledge here by generalization from experience? I think so, but what kinds of experience? The experiences themselves are neither perceptual (that is, physical) nor logical.
Quoting Janus
Yes, but I thought we agreed that this level of certainty is not what we require for something to count as knowledge. I know the special theory of relativity is correct, though I am not absolutely certain, because I can't do the math. On the JTB model, I think my belief is justified because of how I rate the scientific community which asserts it. I could be wrong. Just about all knowledge claims can be defeated. But I think it does violence to what we mean by "knowing something" to take this as a formal skepticism about non-analytic knowledge statements.
The "rule following argument," like the many other empiricist arguments from underdetermination, relies on presupposing empiricism's epistemic presuppositions and its impoverished anthropology (which denies intellectus from the outset). Since these arguments lead to all sorts of radical conclusions: that words do not have meanings in anything like the classical realist sense, that they cannot refer to things, that induction—and thus natural science—is not rationally justifiable, that we cannot know if the sun will rise tomorrow, that we don't know when we are performing addition instead of an infinite number of other operations, that nothing like knowledge as classically understood can exist, etc., one might suppose that the original premises should be challenged. Indeed, epistemic presuppositions that lead to this sort of skepticism would seem to be self-refuting; they cannot secure even the most basic, bedrock knowledge we possess.
That is, the rule following argument is itself a consequence of the reduction of reason to ratio.
Likewise, Kripke's queerness argument just assumes nominalism, and then points out that one cannot have access to universals because nominalism is true. I don't think these are instances of intentional questions begging, but they are nonetheless question begging.
Action is not the content of thought; that's behaviorism.
Protagoras was consistent. Whatever anyone thinks is true is true for that person. Arguments from underdetermination against the possibility of virtually all knowledge are consistent. Arguably, if one starts from empiricist epistemic presuppositions, one is more consistent than most philosophers if one just commits to epistemic nihilism. That's fine though. Radical skepticism is also consistent. Whether it is wise or reasonable is another question.
Here, it might be helpful turn to G.K. Chesterton’s discussion of the “madman." As Chesterton points out, the madman, can always make any observation consistent with his delusions “If [the] man says… that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny [it]; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours.” Expressing the man’s error is not easy; his thoughts are consistent. They run in a “perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle… though… it is not so large.” The man’s account “explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way.”
For Chesterton, the mark of madness is this combination of “logical completeness and a spiritual contraction.” In the same way, a view of truth that is limited to the confines of individual language games explains truth in a “small way.” Reason is no longer ecstatic, taking us beyond what we already are. Rather it runs in tight, isolated circles. On such a view, reason represents not a bridge, the ground of the mind’s nuptial union with being, but is instead the walls of a perfect but hermetically sealed cell.
Do you think witness testimony should be admissable in trials? Or, because it might be based on one person's perceptual experiences, should witness reports and unrecorded confessions be thrown out as lacking in epistemic warrant?
Assuming the events of Exodus happened as recorded, would the Hebrews, who saw the sea split for them, the sky raining blood, a pillar of fire following them every night, water come from a stone, etc. still lack any epistemic warrant for believing God exists?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
“There is a reason that X . . .” is different than “I have a reason for X,” when X is some belief or action. In the first case, it’s closer to saying “Something caused X”; in the second case, it’s saying, “Here is why I chose X.” So, while I agree that the equivocal overlap in usage can create the sense of synonymy, it’s usually more perspicuous to keep them distinct.
This can also be brought out with another example. You give me a string of numbers and ask me to add them up. I do so, and say, “Fifty.” Have I been caused to say “Fifty”? Or would we say that I can give my reasons for saying “Fifty”? And if I’ve added incorrectly? My reasons, as we’d ordinarily understand the word, for saying “Fifty” can’t be the same as what caused me to say “Fifty.”
Yes, that's a useful distinction, although I don't think the two are unrelated. The numbers you are adding up play a role in the second sense of "reasons." They are the reason you add those numbers and not any other. The signs on the paper are the content determining cause of some of your thoughts. That's the causality unique to signs, to make us think one thing instead of any other.
The priority of metaphysics over language is the priority of being (more general) over signs (specifying). Not all signs are stipulated (e.g., smoke as a sign of fire). This is metaphysical priority, but there is also a causal historical priority here to.
Consider the question above about what is prior, language or metaphysics? Even if we say that the stipulation, "this counts as an ant" is prior to there being any ants (although we can say that there is evidence that "what counts as an ant" has been around for millions of years) we will still have the problem of determining why there is a stipulation of this (the ant) instead of any other thing. Why are all ants grouped together? Why this instead of any other of the infinite combinations of sense ensembles we could stipulate things of? This gets to the problem of ordinary objects. Why did all cultures create names for organisms in their environment but absolutely none created names for the bizarre objects of 20th century philosophers (e.g. 'flouts' as discontinuous fox and trout halves)?
If we say it comes down to use, this just leads to the question, "why was "any" useful everywhere but never "flout?" The most obvious answer though is that "ant" is useful because ants, wolves, etc. are organic wholes prior to stipulation, and appear phenomenologicaly as such (which also explains why teaching children the name of a new animal is easy, while the "flout" is likely to be met with blank states).
Historically then, being is prior to phenomenal experience, which is prior to stipulation. Phenomenal experience must come first, or else there is nothing to stipulate about.
Now, in modern thought, we have the wrinkle you suggested in the form of a dualism between subject and object, mental and physical. Of this CSP writes:
"The question, therefore, is whether man, horse, and other names of natural classes, correspond with anything which all men, or all horses, really have in common, independently of our thought, or whether these classes are constituted simply by a likeness in the way in which our minds are affected by individual objects which have in themselves no resemblance or relationship whatsoever."
Peirce thought this was a false dichotomy. Act follows on being. The way things interact with us reveal something determinant about their being. They cause us to think "this" and not anything else. That's enough to ground realism. Realism, afterall, doesn't declare thought about being infallible. It doesn't say the mind has access to everything knowable. Indeed, in a Pentecost homily, St. Thomas says all the efforts of human thought will never exhaust the essence of a single fly. It just says that things' actions upon the mind cannot be arbitrary, cannot emerge from sheer potency, but must correspond to prior actuality.
Quoting J
More candidly: If there is no way of determining whether something is correct then how could it be said to be correct?
P's truth aptness isn't determined by whether we know a way to verify P.
Why not? And is "truth-apt" the same as "correct"? @Janus said it could be correct, not that it could be truth-apt.
Quoting Janus
I know Janus isn't a big fan of formal logic, but he seems committed to saying that the following claim is possible:
The contrary claim is as follows:
But a conjunction is a double-assertion, and therefore the first conjunct, i.e. C(r), is being asserted or said. Ergo: Anyone who says
This means that (1) and (2) cannot both be true:
1.
2.
(2) seems sure whereas (1) seems dubious. That is the problem with @Janus's approach to these issues. It flies in the face of the psychological PSR. Specifically, one is not rationally permitted to claim that something is correct if they have no grounds for claiming that something is correct.
Janus sees himself as doing a kindness to religion when he says things like that, and maybe there is a sense in which there is a subjective or short-term kindness, but it looks as if this "kindness" involves straightforward irrationality.
(The only available response seems to be doubling down on (1), "There are some things which are correct and yet can never, even in principle, be determined to be correct." That's a wild claim.)
Truth aptness is just about whether P can be true or false.
The rain is colorblind.
The above statement is not truth apt because it doesn't make any sense.
The rain is drizzling.
The above statement is truth apt, because it can be true or false. Once we verify it, we'll know which it is. Let's say that for whatever reason, verification of this P is beyond our abilities. We would say it may be correct, but we can't verify.
There are those who deny that unverifiable P's are truth apt. This is related to their conception of truth as a social utensil.
I'm glad the distinction makes sense to you as well. I may not quite be following what you say next, though. The numbers -- that is, the specific marks on paper -- are the reason, in the sense that I would give as "my reason," for why I perform that particular addition and no other. You're saying, as well, that these signs (presumably uninterpreted?) cause some of my thoughts, that they "make me think one thing instead of any other." Does this process stop with the identification of one number? Or does it also compel the first sum, then the next, then the next . . .? It's that kind of physical-ish causality that I'm leery of, if you really do mean that I had no choice other than to "think one thing." But before I go on about that, tell me whether I've grasped your point.
Yes, I know. My questions remain.
Quoting frank
So things which do not make sense are not truth apt. Is that the only time you would ever claim that something is not truth apt?
:up:
Forming a coherent question is half the battle.
Quoting J
I don't see that the issue is 'cause' vs. 'reason'. In many traditions they are used synonymously. I wouldn't agree with @Count Timothy von Icarus's claim that all action is "determined by prior actuality." That looks like a tidy definition of determinism, which I don't think he accepts. See my post <here> on the PSR in Thomism. The idea is that even contingent events have proper explanations.
:meh:
I wouldn't frame it in terms of some sort of dialectical of caused action versus free action. I think libertarian free will is incoherent, but that's neither here nor there. The point is not that the symbols on the paper somehow force you to add them, merely that when you add sums on a paper those signs determine which numbers you add. If you didn't want to add them and didn't need to, presumably you wouldn't. The intellect is informed by the senses, which carry the signs. The will is informed by the intellect (but informed by ? determined by).
It's just like how a stop light is casually involved in bringing your car to a halt. If the light (a physical thing) wasn't red, you wouldn't have stopped. But people intentionally run red lights all the time. The mechanism here is that the red light informs the habituated driver in a specific way, making them think one thing (applying the brakes in order to avoid an accident or ticket) versus simply driving through. Obviously, such informing can be subconscious as well.
There has to be some sort of "physical-ish causality," right? Else how could ink in a paper book (a physical object) lead you to have the very specific thoughts of War and Peace, or a light reliably make people apply their brakes?
Granted, this is a very hard thing for old school mechanistic, dualistic corpuscular materialism to handle, but information theory and semiotics offer ways to explain the transmission of intelligible content in ways that need not reduce to "little balls of stuff forcing other little balls to move by bumping into them."
you have to consider this in terms of the earlier, moral global assertion of skepticism:
The question then for me for @Janus would be, regarding this:
Shouldn't this apply as well to scientific or historical claims, for instance, claims of the superior intelligence of the "Aryan race," the natural perfidy of woman, whether or not the Holocaust or Holodomor occured, etc? Or all sorts of moral claims, e.g. about consent and sex, about abortion, theft, etc., or even claims about the value of tolerance and "avoiding indoctrination" themselves? That is, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and no one should try to indoctrinate anyone else re what is unknowable?
For, if being reasonable is just being consistent, then surely the Nazi can be reasonable.
Now if the response is that those things do fit the criteria for "intersubjectively determinate corroboration," then why don't religious claims? After all, if justifications for religious claims are not intersubjectively available, how do we explain the massive phenomenon of millions upon millions of conversions, the capacity of religions like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism to convince disparate peoples and cultures of their truth, or that most people, for most of history, lived in communities that largely agreed on religious matters?
It looks like the crux of this thread is the issue of first principles of knowledge. This is a live issue for anyone who believes that knowledge exists and that it requires reasons or grounds. It is also something that tends to be neglected on TPF, which is strongly influenced by Analytic philosophy.
So anyone who believes that knowledge exists and that it requires reasons or grounds will have an interest in wrestling with these issues. That includes most everyone, although @Janus and @J are interesting cases. Janus seems to think that some knowledge does not require reasons or grounds, and therefore he has a premade category into which to shoehorn difficult cases, such as first principles or "intuitions" (a terribly vague term). Still, he must reckon with the idea that his "public knowledge" is derived from "private" "intuitions." Then for @J, who regularly flirts with different forms of skepticism, it is not clear that he believes knowledge really exists. Thus for these two people there is less at stake, and there is less interest in wrestling with these issues. It's not as clear that their worldview has skin in the game when it comes to first principles of knowledge.
The foil here would be someone like Bob Ross, who both clearly believes that knowledge exists and that it requires reasons or grounds. When Bob Ross criticizes an account of first principles, he is left with a vacuum. He is moved to provide an alternative account. When J criticizes an account of first principles, he is confirming his a priori skeptical stance. He is not left with a vacuum and is not moved to provide an alternative account. Thus the motivations at play are significantly different in different cases.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Good, I understand you better now. What I want to understand better for myself is whether this conception of causality must entail necessity and obligation. The numbers don't force me to add them (an action in the physical world), granted, but the question is, if I do add them (and only them, not some others), do they force me to have the reasons I have for my correct answer? It's the relationship between causes and reasons that I'm concerned with here, how we bridge the gap between physical-ish causes and thought-ish reasons.
Similarly, with War and Peace, the cause/reason question emerges at the connection between these abstract marks on paper and what they mean. Arguably, the introduction of meaning moves us from causes to reasons.
But let me think more on it, thanks for clarifying.
I think those are good questions too. I have asked some of them myself. Most recently we saw Janus effectively claim that the racist is not illogical, even if he lacks evidence for his claims.
That is an issue related to my thread ("Beyond the Pale"), namely that the skeptical philosophies people espouse on TPF are entirely inconsistent with their behavior in real life. At bottom this has to do with cases of expedience. Skepticism is useful for supporting liberalism and especially libertarianism ("Do not impose your obligations on me!"), whereas social justice moral positions are useful for supporting social cohesion and one's passions. But if you are consistent you can't pay obeisance to skepticism and then get all worked up about racism.
Well, there's a lot to unpack here.
Yes, practice changes, but there is the Davidsonian limitation that if it were to change to much it would cease to be recognisable as a practice. One supposes that in order to count as a practice it must be recognisable as such.
Then there's the difference between psychology and sociology. Treating logic as the result of psychological preference fails in much the same way as does grounding it in intuition - it doesn't take shared action into account. And then there's the further step of accounting for the normatively of logic, which might be doable if it is treated as a community activity. Logic is a shared, not a private, practice. seems to miss this point.
That's the classic Wittgensteinian response to accusations of psychologism or even behaviourism.
Then there's the problem that the conclusion - that logic is contingent - doesn't follow directly form the premise - that logic is relative. So taking the extreme, it doesn't follow, from logic being associated with practice, that logic is random.
So from Wittgenstein we might see logic as a practice, and from Davidson we might see it as a constitutive restraint. But you have drawn my attention to is that these views may not be mutually exclusive.
But you also have given me Adorno to think about. Damn your eyes.
This is difficult. And hence interesting.
I'm stuck on a bit of pedantry, which I will have to set out before I move on. There are limits on what we can substitute for p in (p v ~p). It has to be truth-apt. So you can't treat 'p' as the name for a rock, becasue Fred the Rock is not truth apt.
And notice that these are limits on what we can do with (p v ~p). If you do substitute "Fred the Rock" for "p", then you have stoped playing the game that I had thought we were playing, and we ned to drop back a step and reconsider what the rules of the game are.
So if your puzzle is that you want to know how it is the case that we can understand 'p' as referring to a proposition and not a rock, then my answer will be the same... that's the game we are playing.
Quoting J
...but, but...
No, Witti didn't mean it that way, and I agree that the term is overused, but it is so difficult to put up an alternative.
While I'm happy to talk about rules, you can guess where I will go: following a rule is ultimately a practice; it can't be rules all the way down.
But, ok, let's continue.
(trouble is that I get up as you go to bed, so the conversation here is always going to be interspersed with a whole lot of other stuff. Feel free to PM as needed - I do)
I, for one, am happy to draw you back into Adorno. :D
It seems the problem with hermeneutics lies in specifying what criteria there could be for a reading to count as a correct reading. Would it be getting the intentions of the author right? Or something else? If it is the author's intentions, how could we find out? By asking the author? What if the author doesn't know what his intentions were, or what if the author were dead?
Quoting J
What could it mean to say I know the theory of relativity is correct beyond saying that there is reliable evidence that it works?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm not clear on the purpose of this. It seems clear that some premises are more plausible than others, and the premise that all others are conspiring against one would count as one of the least plausible imaginable. I've already said that reason consists in conclusions being consistent with premises, and also that premises should be consistent with human experience taken as whole, since that is the condition into which we are inducted in growing up.
Science with its peer review is a microcosm of the human community as a whole. That doesn't mean that there are not people who cling to whacky theories, but it seems reasonable to think that, in general, such people are not being reasonable, if they don't have cogent evidence for their beliefs. It is also doesn't mean that some superstitious hangovers from pre-scientific traditions don't hold sway on the minds of many.
Well, I suppose that's a worthwhile point. Language takes it as granted that there is stuff to talk about, and true and false things to say, so maybe the conclusion is that we can't seperate these out.
Quoting J
Like the dog chasing the rat up a tree? Here's a minefield. Fine, but I'll insist that there can be no "pre-linguistic metaphysical practice" that we cannot put into words post-hoc; otherwise how could we be said to recognise it as a practice? I think this a swamp not worth approaching.
I followed your thread for a while, but couldn't get traction in the ideas involved.
I don't recognise what I understand of the discussion of rules that came from PI and Kripke's Wittgenstein in this paragraph. It's as if you are talking about something quite other. To my eye it misrepresents that argument.
No progress here, then.
Edit: I just went back over the last few posts in this discussion. We are indeed talking past each other. Care to look for common ground?
I only kinda get it cuz of my background interests and reading. I liked this bit that I don't remember where it was at cuz it made lots of sense to me -- philosophy often delves into the obvious and sometimes looks pedantic, while there is a point we miss.
True, Kripkenstein doesn't say language isn't meaningful. They're just saying meaning can't come down to rule following.
"Reasons" seem entirely divorced from causes because "causes" in mechanistic philosophy of nature are reduced to bare, inscrutable brute facts. When causes are intelligible, there is no unbridgeable gap between the two.
David Bentley Hart has a good section on this from "Everything is Full of Gods:"
Just pointing out that consistency is not enough for rationality. Also, the madman's premises are consistent with his experience of human life. But you seem to be appealing to some sort of democratization here. I am not sure if that works either.
For instance, in the Beyond the Pale thread, you said racism was beyond the pale because it was irrational. Yet you hold science up as a paradigm here. But modern science, peer review and all, affirmed racism in many respects into the middle of the 20th century. This position passed the test of consistency and popularity.
The vagueness here just seems like it might make it easy to paint positions one doesn't like as either "irrational" or as just "faith-based" matters of taste (thus privatizing them and rendering them irrelevant if they can be barred from public life, education, or political influence on these grounds), no?
I would just as soon not have to argue that the racist is being irrational (although in some cases they might be), but simply that they are wrong. Indeed, if they were always irrational, it wouldn't do much good to try to argue the point.
It doesn't even represent them lol, aside from pointing out that they are arguments from underdetermination, which they are. Such arguments are very old. Plotinus levels one that might fit in with modern Anglo-empiricist thought against Sextus Empiricus (although as a reductio). Such arguments have been known for ages, but they were never considered serious threats to knowledge, whereas they play a dominant role in 20th century Anglo-American thought.
Why is this? Because of very different starting points about what what can constitute evidence. But the bull in a china shop destructiveness of arguments from underdetermination seem like they should be enough to disqualify epistemic standards that let them run rampant.
Are they? Or is this about having a hammer and seeing only nails? It's easier to only see the arguments they have encountered previously.
As previously, I don't recognise what I understand of the discussion of rules that came from PI and Kripke's Wittgenstein in what you have said.
Yes, that's the idea behind equipollence. Phyrronean skepticism relies on a sort of underdetermination and Hume is specifically riffing off this, although he takes it in the direction of hedonism instead of seeking ataraxia. They aren't just similar, they're directly historically related.
The empirical tradition begins in ancient skepticism (where it gets its name). That the modern reformulation tends towards skepticism is not surprising.
None of this has anything to do with Wittgenstein or Kripke.
Have there been no advances in philosophy or logic in the last few hundred years?
We live in a very different world. They didn't even have the number zero.
:gasp:
Then there might be some benefit accruing to those who pay attention to more recent thought? There might be something new in Kripke or Wittgenstein?
Or is it that now, we have nothing? :wink:
I agree, although it seems to me that a critic would say that relativism does straightforwardly entail contingency. But I suppose there are shades of contingency; logic as relative to practice is certainly not arbitrary or random.
Anyway, it parallels my own criticism of Grayling's critique of On Certainty, though it's about knowledge rather than the ground of logic. Grayling thinks the relativism in OC implies that "What is true for me might not be true for you," and thus has no power against scepticism, but this is to miss the point that the activities in which we know things are shared and non-arbitrary. Grayling is looking for absolute certainty, where certainty should be enough. Similarly, Husserl wanted logic to be pure, absolute, and timeless.
As for Adorno, I won't torture you with him any more, not right now anyway.
Yeah - Graylingstein: Wittgenstein on Scepticism and Certainty
Perhaps your point parallels my "what counts as a hinge proposition is not dependent on the structure of the proposition but is a role it takes on in the task at hand". Its not that "What is true for me might not be true for you" but that "if we are going to do this together, we need to act in this way..."
I will go back to Adorno sometime, to see if he can be made a bit more analytic...
Racism was not held on account of the science but on account of sedimented centuries old prejudices, some of them religious. For example when the Christian first settlers came to Australia they justified treating the indigenous folk as less than human on the basis that they were Godless heathen savages.
Has there been any actual scientific evidence that some races are superior to others? I don't think so. What could such evidence even look like? Science is not in the business of providing evidence for qualitative judgements.
You are basically presuming to impugn science for the fact that some people, and probably even some scientists, held unscientific attitudes. They did not hold such attitudes on account of the science but in spite of it.
:up:
And what it gets us, to use Moyal-Sharrock's words, is "objectivity without absolutism." (But maybe you prefer not to bring in objective/subjective)
The position of phenomenology is interesting because it seems to overlap on all sides. Husserl said logic was grounded in the completely non-arbitrary and non-contingent intuition of the transcendental (the transcendental ego and all that) but later went towards intersubjective validation (like constitutive restraint) but never dropped the former. Later phenomenology did drop the former and went with the latter, along with sociality and embodiment.
Well, these are just rambling thoughts.
Philosophy is footnotes to Aristotle?
:D
I get that feeling at times -- tho I disagree with it of course.
Quoting Jamal
So later phenomenology decided to be right rather than wrong, got it. :naughty:
Transcendental idealism seemed like a good idea at the time. :grin:
I poke fun at Husserl cuz I get irritated with him, but I ought not cuz any of us who take modern phenomenology seriously owe a debt to him.
I sort of get the feeling sometimes people don't take him as seriously as they should because he couldn't make up his mind, but of course, that willingness to rethink is commendable. Adorno said that whatever concepts Husserl came up with, from start to finish it was all so much idealist and reified paraphernalia (he took him seriously though, so I don't want to suggest a dismissive attitude on Adorno's part).
:D
I'll cap it there for tonight. I can't say either way, but the idea makes me smile cuz it makes sense -- tho I suspect I could find a point of disagreement along the way.
That's what we're here for! But yeah, I'm going to stop taking this thread any further off-topic. :up:
The rule following argument is an argument from underdetermination. These arguments have been made for millennia. That's the relation. If you or at @Banno want to explain how it doesn't rely on underdetermination, be my guest. It does. Try at least offering more that: "that's not right!" with absolutely zero elaboration and defense of the objection.
My other point was that Wittgenstein and Kripke both come from a tradition deeply shaped by Hume. Hume read, and specifically followed up on the ancient tradition. That's a well-documented historical fact. The idea that: "nope, the two traditions are not related because the number zero didn't exist back then," is supposed to be ... what exactly? Something like: "Actually, that specific historical fact and intellectual connection doesn't matter because:
A. "Logic has changed since ancient times (no, I won't lay out the slightest argument on how this applies to anything you've written, even though I am replying to a statement that has nothing to do with logic)" (a complete non sequitur)
B. "Ha, they didn't even have the number zero!" (another complete non sequitur)?
I'll help you and Banno actually try to respond to content instead of just making unrelated, contentless snipes (and bizarrely challenging factual historical claims about intellectual history). Here is a summary of Wittgenstein's rule following argument:
"Wittgenstein's rule-following paradox challenges the idea that we can understand and consistently apply rules because any action can be made to seem to conform to multiple, even contradictory, rules. It raises questions about whether there's an objective fact of the matter about what rule someone is following, and how we can be certain we're following the rule we think we are."
"This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because any course of action can be made out to accord with the rule"."
Explain how the summary is wildly inaccurate or not an argument from underdetermination. Particularly, explain how Kripke's interpretation vis-á-vis the quaddition example isn't about underdetermination.
It is though. That's the whole point, that an infinite number of rules are always consistent with any previous set of observations/actions. Kripke calls this something like "one of the most original paradoxes in the history of skepticism." It isn't. This shows an almost all encompassing ignorance of the history of skepticism. It has been made in various forms for thousands of years. The application to rule following in particular is original (although Hume's argument covers rule-like descriptions of nature in the same way), but earlier blanket attacks on induction would cover rule following on almost identical grounds.
These arguments were not previously taken as particularly serious. That has to do with different starting assumptions by which they are vetted, and assumptions about what counts as evidence. That's my point. Analytic philosophy is not uniquely presuppositionless. It's presuppositions are what make arguments for underdetermination undefeatable, whereas they were considered straightforwardly defeatable in previous epochs.
You seemed to think the conclusion of his argument is skepticism. In fact, it's just a question: if meaning doesn't come from rule following, where does it come from? He has his own answer. If you noticed in his essay, he encourages professors to offer this question to their students as a vehicle for contemplating the private language argument and how it impacts all historic rule following.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
True, in large part their philosophical world developed out of a reaction against British empiricism.
Yes. And this encompasses the equally difficult question of whether there is only one correct reading. This becomes especially important when we extend hermeneutics from the interpretation of texts to the interpretation of experience, a la Gadamer and Ricoeur. What is valuable and freeing about hermeneutics, I think, is that it challenges the "one correct version" of things, all down the line. Gadamer and Ricoeur (and others) strive to find the middle ground between rejecting a kind of quasi-scientific, deductive method of interpreting experience, but also not falling into an anything-goes relativism about what counts as "correct."
But let's say we found a middle ground we could justify. Would "the meaning of X," using such a hermeneutic, be said to be knowledge? I think so. Our ordinary discourse speaks uncontroversially about "knowing what X means." And anyone is entitled to say, "That's not what I meant!" and be understood. To leap several steps ahead, I'm exploring whether the meaning of an allegedly mystical experience can be the subject of correct interpretation.
Quoting Janus
Quite so, but for me, the non-physicist, the reliable evidence is not Einstein's equations but my evaluation of the competence and sincerity of those who understand those equations. A very different kind of evidence, and yet I insist that I'm justified in saying that I know the theory is correct.
I was saying much the same thing. I don't think we even need the "post-hoc" qualification. Language can start with non-metaphysical uses, and build its boat on the ocean, as it goes along, concerning more philosophical uses. The idea is that the practice develops with the language, and vice versa. This is meant to counter the hypothesis that the relevant linguistic structures were there first, causing the metaphysical thinking to be what it is. And of course, as you say, the mirror hypothesis of "metaphysical thinking" starting before language seems unlikely as well.
No, Kripke is driven to a "skeptical solution" (his term) which learns to live with the paradox, as opposed to a "straight solution" which dissolves the paradox. Quine is similarly led to several skeptical solutions by arguments from underdetermination. My point is that people used to think perfectly good straight solutions to these arguments existed. This is because they had a different anthropology and understanding of rationality, different epistemic presuppositions about what could be used as evidence in philosophical argument, and different metaphysical presuppositions.
Which starting points are more correct is a complex question. My point is merely that the need for skeptical solutions doesn't come from some space of presuppositionless thought. It becomes acute in the 20th century in the analytic tradition because of certain presuppositions. Continentals often reject these, although it seems they are also often quite happy to give Anglo-Americans "the rope they use to hang themselves with" on these points.
Wittgenstein's theory of hinge propositions in On Certainty might also be considered a skeptical solution. Wittgenstein is unknowingly retreading the ground of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics re "justification must end somewhere," and Aristotle himself suggests this is an old problem by the time he is writing about it.
Aristotle considers Wittgenstein's solution (very broadly), and arguably considers switching to a coherence definition of truth (the circle of syllogisms), but is able to reject both for a straight solution. But this is because he has different starting points, not because he is better or worse at logical argumentation.
How would you describe that solution?
We discussed Aristotle's argument from PA on the "Epistemic Stances" thread. I argued that the reasoning was faulty, and concluded by saying:
"So this would not be a powerful enough conclusion to show that discursive knowledge is possible (one of the original premises of the argument as you gave it). In this version there is no longer a piece of discursive knowledge to point to. So perhaps this doesn’t get you (or Aristotle) where you’d like to go."
You never replied, but it did leave me wondering whether you agreed. I'd invite both you and @frank to have a look at the last page of that thread, beginning from where you introduce the PA, and tell me if you still believe Aristotle's reasoning holds up.
I'm gonna give my views on each of these.
Quoting Truth Seeker
While true that our perception is a product of our mind rather than objective (in the sense of true representation of reality), I'd argue that when someone face a complexity they cannot comprehend and over time learn to comprehend, Solipsism suggests that the mind created a complexity it didn't itself understand yet and later did. A progression of understanding that doesn't merge well with reality being a product of our own mind as that would suggest it would know all things but arbitrarily limit that knowledge in ways that are illogical to the concept.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Similar to solipsism, but more about the metaphysics. Deterministic events that can be witnessed by many suggests that there's an objective reality outside of the mind. This hypothesis is only true for the self and becomes an ego-arrogant observation of reality. In a broader context it suggests that all minds must share the same reality construct and that all measurable data about ourselves and reality must stem from some overarching "thing" that produce the same mental states for all.
It's an hypothesis that doesn't follow burden of proof and has no evidence for its claims.
Quoting Truth Seeker
If we are in a simulation, it is so advanced it is essentially reality for us, meaning, what's the difference between reality and a "simulation"? Comparing it to the holographic theory in physics, in which we are projections in 3D from a 2D surface outside of reality, it basically functions the same; without the fundamentals of the holographic nature of our reality, our reality wouldn't function as our reality.
So it doesn't matter if it's a simulation or not, the fundamentals of our reality is what it is and changing them would mean we aren't what we are.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Problem of qualia. But at the same time follows the ego-arrogant perspective of the self being more important than other beings. The question becomes "why you?" Why would others not have qualia and inner experience? The logic of the concept relies on the arrogance of the idea; that somehow you are the center of reality and everyone else is "fake". I'd say it's a form of fallacy out of paranoia, in lack of better description. While the concept is somewhat sound, it faces a logical gap too large to function in actually reasonable terms. In the end it becomes more of a science fiction concept in which the premise comes before the problem, in which there's a reason for others to be p-zombies and then the issue of knowing this or not becomes a reality. The question still remains, why are you at the center of this question? And why did someone else feed this theory to you if they don't have any inner life?
In essence, how can the question be asked by someone who does not have the knowledge of an inner life? How would the p-zombie who proposed this concept be able to conceptualize the difference between something with and without inner-life without an understanding of it?
Quoting Truth Seeker
This is not really just an untestable hypothesis. It depends on how we measure consciousness. If it turns out that consciousness is able to be measured in different states of gradual evolution based on the complexity of the thing being measured, then it can actually be tested. It is also a proponent in some theories in neuroscience.
What is being said here isn't measurable consciousness, but qualia. We can measure mental states and conscious activity in animals and even bugs. But we do not yet know if the physical processes of all matter have measurable consciousness, or if it's simply a matter of it being so minuscule that it becomes unable to be measured. Though, scientific research in this area is ongoing, so there's no conclusion yet.
And what is the difference between "everything" and "brain"? It's an arbitrary distinction as the brain is fundamentally just a composition of matter. From an outside perspective, what's the difference? Other than a certain and very specific composition that may give rise to an increased effect of being precisely an emergent consciousness?
Quoting Truth Seeker
Burden of proof and circular reasoning. "God" is a conclusion that doesn't follow the premises. Everything could be high energy ice cream of higher dimensions with the same argument.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Again, burden of proof and circular reasoning. "God" is a conclusion that doesn't follow the premises. Everything could be high energy ice cream of higher dimensions with the same argument.
Quoting Truth Seeker
The problem isn't that it's impossible to empirically test consciousness outside of matter (brain), but rather that there's no evidence for them being distinct in the first place. It's circular reasoning basically and there's enough scientific evidence that points in the other direction, underlying that there is not consciousness without matter (brainbody or computer for that matter).
Quoting Truth Seeker
Again, burden of proof and circular reasoning. "God" is a conclusion that doesn't follow the premises. Everything could be high energy ice cream of higher dimensions with the same argument.
Faith is no ground for sound philosophy. It's why most religious philosophers struggled so much. A tremendously biased itch in their brain they had to shoehorn into their philosophies, fundamentally limiting their inquiries.
Quoting Truth Seeker
If there's any hypothesis of a God that has some reasonable ground it's this. Since it can be fused together with the simulation theory; essentially, we are a petri dish universe, something kickstarted as a chemical reaction in their perspective. But as such, it doesn't matter, because it just becomes a question about interdimensional aliens rather than "God" in the sense humans view the concept.
Another way to interpret is similar to movies like Prometheus and 2001: A Space Odyssey. That some entity kick started life/consciousness, but they're not God, but another form of life/consciousness creating us, as we would create AI.
Still, it becomes a hypothesis that demands observation to even come close to validity. So far nothing in science supports this other than maybe panspermia, but even that doesn't have as much support as abiogenesis.
Quoting Truth Seeker
The more we learn about our reality, the more support this gets. There might still be a purpose beyond human understanding, but that also means beyond us and indifferent to us.
Despair comes before the realization that we are forced to produce our own meaning. When God dies, it's our responsibility to create meaning for ourselves and our existence. Nihilism is only the depression out of the realization there's no meaning, it isn't a constant for our existence. The ones who propose such lack imagination and curiosity to look further. They are no pioneers of humanity.
Quoting Truth Seeker
There are many concepts of the Block Universe Theory, not all propose the future being in that block. It can also be that the future is composed of fundamental randomness of probability and that this probability collapse when interacting with the presence composed of known states of matter, which solidifies in a solid state past. That our perception of reality is fundamentally the experience of these quantum states collapsing.
There's a lot of support in physics for this and time as an illusion is kind of accepted already.
Quoting Truth Seeker
There are two version of this. One is a multiverse with formed bubble universes, almost like bubbles in carbonated water. Each bubble has its own progression that doesn't split (as in quantum physics concept of parallel universes), so our universe is based on specific laws of physics that produce the properties of our reality. We wouldn't even be able to enter other bubbles as reality works fundamentally different there and we wouldn't recognize or could even comprehend the perception of reality in that place. This means, we only have our own universe and reality, while there are infinite bubbles in higher dimensional realities.
The other version is the quantum physics interpretation (Everett). In which there are no quantum collapses and that everything exists in parallel universes. But what is missed is that the differences between them are basically the difference in one single collapse happening, and essentially produces such a large quantity of universes that it effectively needs to be counted as infinity. And most of them look identical as a quantum collapse in any part of the universe and reality would constitute a split. The idea of other universe "where we did other choices in life" is mostly fiction. While possible, the location is not a single thing, but closer to a gradient of infinites.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Again, similar to arguments about God. Burden of proof and circular reasoning. The conclusion comes before any evidence or reasonable premises. Pure faith.
The only concept that comes close is that our matter returns to nature. In a sense we are formed and we consume matter that becomes us and then we are consumed back into nature. Like a bright point existing and then fading away. But nothing of this suggests consciousness does the same as it would need to first prove the Dualist concept and then needs to prove this state of consciousness moves deliberately.
That said, we don't yet know if we could copy our consciousness into something like a computer system. We wouldn't be able to "move" into it, but copying the brain composition and simulating everything in such detail that the mind functions in the exact same way would essentially be something like it. But then it becomes something else and isn't a fundamental part of what constitutes reincarnation.
And since most actual evidence speaks against dualism, there's little in support of consciousness being able to operate within the matter construct of another form of brain. The brain composition and the specific consciousness it produce seems fundamentally inseparable.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Similar to arguments for God and simulation theory. Conclusion before the premise as well as why would it matter? The effect on our reality would be the same regardless and the purpose of this single mind would be indistinguishable from questions about what existed before the big bang.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Removing the religious components, nonduality holds ground in the sense that humans have an arrogance in how we view our existence in the universe and reality. Similar to the geocentrism, we place ourselves at the center of the universe and then think of existence as us in relation to it, when both logic and science says that we are part of the same universe as everything else and it's fundamental for the purpose of fully understanding reality and the universe.
The problem with Adaita, Vedanta, Zen is that the religious bits are invented out of the concept and generally becomes something other than the pure scientific perspective.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Fundamentally the arrogance of humans, the geocentrism fallacy, a concept out of the ego rather than rational reasoning. Faith not in God, but in the self as being the most important thing in the universe... yet we see examples of this arrogance a lot in society :sweat:
Quoting Truth Seeker
Why not all combined? Each hold some merit in some form or another, they're not mutually exclusive.
I think most problems in philosophy around the subject of reality, perception and consciousness stem from the biases people have towards a certain school of thought they learned, rather than finding a holistic perspective that finds the merit in different thoughts.
For instance, reality can be logically deduced, then observed and tested and yet still be within the limited perception of experience we have.
People are too influenced by their biases, getting stuck in the mud of emotional attachment to some faith they have of a specific concept, losing the ability to reach into higher forms of understanding.
Essentially, most people just argue for their side like all of this was about their favourite sports team. It's why I think most people fail at philosophy. They argue for a belief, not what follows the rational, the logic, the evidence and so on.
I don't know a lot about Aristotle, but I've gathered that talking to him would be more like talking to a scientist than a philosopher in the contemporary sense. He lived in what some call the "age of essence." So he would just assume that the essences of things are available to us and we talk about them. I think he was foundationless about that? Is that true?
None, in the sense you mean, but it would probably make a difference to us if we knew we were in a simulation. It's the same question as asking, "Are we in a world created by a God?" The answer seems to make a big difference . . . but maybe it shouldn't?
What is that difference? The similarity is here with the concept of God would be Deism, and in that case also, the consequences for us are irrelevant as we are probably an unknown entity of the simulation to those running it.
If we weren't, there is no reason to hold the complexity of the simulation at the level it is, with us unable to probe the rims of this simulation. The simulation has to simulate the entire universe, with laws of physics unknown to us in a way with an expectation that we would find out about them as we have constantly done. This exponential complexity of the simulation makes no sense computationally, other than the simulation being that of the universe itself, meaning, our existence is not the goal, but simulating the entire universe, and our existence is merely the byproduct of the simulation's parameters.
So in the end our perception of reality, our experience of reality, becomes exactly the same as if the universe appeared without any creator. We are limited by the reality we exist in and knowledge about anything else outside it is unknowable to us due to these limitations. And if there was someone running an simulation specifically to simulate us, then we're not talking about a God, but a being or someone with a clear intention; an intention and purpose that we should be able to discern logically. So why would a simulation of this complexity be run? What's the purpose of this level of complex simulation?
Such a complexity suggests that the purpose is of a larger context and the inhabitants of it are irrelevant to that context. We then still end up with an existence of the same level of nihilism as if it wasn't a simulation.
I think the question of "why" is an important and forgotten one. The allure of the concept of reality being a simulation is the allure of the fiction that grows from it. It's a fascinating idea that spawns movies and stories like The Matrix. But even that movie ran into the problem of purpose as it's the weakest part of that story's lore. The purpose of a simulation is the most central and important aspect of it and it gets overlooked as a premise in any argument about it.
The simulation theory is often just an extrapolation of mathematical probability; the Niklas Boström argument is based on that probability. But without the proponent of purpose, it becomes a contextless probability that has no internal logic. There are tons of weird mathematics that looks wild on paper, but that doesn't mean you can extrapolate purpose that forms a concept outside of that math.
I'd think any concept of God would be parallel -- after all, the simulators are beings with personalities and desires, so perhaps more like the God of theism. Who knows what they know about us?
But I don't think that's the question. Your point -- that none of this should matter, since (without an interventionist God/simulator) it changes nothing in our possible daily experiences -- is perhaps correct, if humans were different sorts of creatures, more like Mr. Spock. But we care very much about meaning, about values, about who we are in the world, and for better or worse, the question of what created our world has almost universally been taken as mattering a great deal, on these questions. It's certainly my own experience. Again, you may be right that it shouldn't matter, logically, but that would involve some enormous changes in human culture.
Scientism is the belief that science is the most authoritative or even the only valid way to gain knowledge about reality. It often involves the idea that methods of the natural sciences should be applied to all areas of inquiry, including the humanities, ethics, and religion.
There are two main types:
Epistemological scientism – the claim that science is the only reliable source of knowledge.
Methodological scientism – the view that scientific methods are superior to other methods in answering all meaningful questions.
Critics argue that scientism is self-refuting (because the belief that science is the only path to truth cannot itself be proven scientifically), and that it dismisses valuable insights from philosophy, literature, art, and spiritual or moral reflection.
I've also found that scientism is usually used as a criticism of arguments made with evidence found in science. I agree that there can exist an extreme reliance on science for everything, but at the same time it's the empirical power of evidence in science that is underlying most of what constitutes knowledge in the world.
The key is to use scientific evidence and the scientific method where it applies. Moral and abstract concepts that has to do with the experience of being a human being, is often not quantifiable by science.
I think there has to be a balance and most of the world already operates on such. I do however think that science should weight stronger than anything else; it's a component of rational reasoning and logic and is able to produce actual evidence compared to arbitrary ones and biased thinking.
Most of the time, the strongest critics of science usually have little insight into what science actually means. They argue about it as some form of singular entity of belief, which it's not. It's a method of thinking and practice aimed to remove human bias and emotion in search of evidence that explains an observation better than our emotional reactions to it.
In that regard, it's not much about seeing science as some solution, and more that science is the method and means, the tools to find answers. And in that way, science doesn't operate like some singular belief, but rather as a tool.
When we refer to "science" and "scientific evidence", we are referring to the result and answers produced by those who looked much closer than us at the thing we want to examine. To dismiss that process and those results in favor of that which better adhere to our emotional comfort, is to fail the logic of rational reasoning.
What we discussed in that thread isn't Aristotle's answer to the question Wittgenstein took up, just an ancillary point that the positive skeptic's position is self-undermining.
Pretty much backwards. Essence is more familiar to us than it was to Aristotle's age, because we are children of Aristotle. Aristotle was forging something which was in competition with the theories of other ancient philosophers.
Nutty TPFers like to inveigh against essences, but they are all essentialists. They log off and immediately start talking about dogs, trees, cars, water, etc.
That's in conflict with the little I've read about Aristotle, but ok.
Aristotelian substance is about independence. Essence is about what makes a thing that thing.
:D
Sounds to me like a transcendental error -- if they speak in this way, with nouns and such and believe it's true, then they must believe in essences even while proclaiming that they do not.
Quoting Leontiskos
He was, true. His philosophy is a deep and original contribution to the practice, even with our ability to read him only through his lecture notes.
Quoting Moliere
It's no coincidence that none of them can accurately characterize what is meant by an essence.
For both of you: I dropped references to freely accessible works related to this in a different thread. <Here> is the search. Use Ctrl-f on "Klima" and you will find most of the sources. Note that the SEP article on Universals is also Klima's, and that Spade's piece is also on point.
Now you have sources if you want to learn. :wink:
Thanks, but I'm ignoring both you and @Count Timothy von Icarus from now on.
I think I can characterize what is meant by an essence, which is why I'm anti-essentialist -- I'm against this particular rendition and various other possible renditions that basically fit. I'd say "essence" is what makes an entity what it is: water can be wet or solid, but it will always be H2O, for instance.
Glad you're open to reading substantial sources. :up:
Quoting Moliere
With Klima and most Aristotelians, we move on after finding contemporary philosophy subpar and realizing that there is something better.
Quoting Moliere
So if the essentialist says that water will always be H2O, and you're against essentialism, then what do you say water is? Specifically, if you disagree, then when will water not be H2O?
When we don't have that level of description -- namely, before chemistry became popular. In Aristotle "water" does not mean H2O, for example -- it's just one of the five elements.
I've started to think that Plato's ironic stance on philosophy is more correct than Aristotle's scientific stance, tho. In scientific terms I'd only be able to say that water will not be H2O if we manage to find another way to cut nature up that's more useful than the periodic table.
So water was not H2O before chemistry became popular?
From the set of sources I already gave you, see Gyula Klima's, "Contemporary 'Essentialism' vs. Aristotelian Essentialism." He discusses water and your (very common) objection on the last three pages, especially on the last page.
I'm still sensing the same transcendental error though: interpreting others such that they have to mean "x" (in this case x = essence) because else they'd fall into incoherence, and here are the reasons why they really mean "x".
I can certainly see the Aristotle in our modern science, especially if I'm giving the with-the-grain interpretations of Aristotle.
But...
Quoting Leontiskos
Yes, that's what I think. "water" nor "H2O" -- to use a phrase from your paper that I've only glanced at -- "pick out" what water or H2O is.
But you must be able to see the strawman here? You say, ' "Water" does not "pick out" what water is.' But who in the world is saying that "water" "picks out" what water is? As if anyone with the five-letter token w-a-t-e-r would automatically understand what water is?
Again, Klima:
Quoting Gyula Klima, Contemporary 'Essentialism' vs. Aristotelian Essentialism, 18
Given my commitments I'm not doing it anytime soon, but I'll stop responding as if I know something since I haven't done the reading.
Quoting Moliere
Saying “water is H2O” is a bit misleading and may cause confusion. There is the everyday common understanding of “water” that we use, “please go fetch me a bottle of water, I am thirsty”, or “that body of water over-there is Lake Michigan”. What science does is use atomic theory and applied technology to say “this liquid you gave me, you call “water”, well it is 95% H2O, 4% NaCl, and 1% other stuff.” In nature, when we identify a liquid that appears like a liquid we typically call “water” may not contain H2O at all. Also, since liquid that contains “H2O” is consider a universal solvent, it will be present in nature as a mixture, not as a 100% H2O.
This whole idea “Water is H2O” is a sorry attempt by particular philosophers to gain some credibility from science to demonstrate how their theories have some sort of application to reality.
the last bit I disagree with. Where you say:
Quoting Richard B
I don't think that's true, because philosophers have no need of gaining credibility from the sciences -- except where the sciences are valorized and we must make proposals to say why our work will cure cancer, or whatever.
Where I agree -- "Water is H2O" is false in the strict sense, as you've noted -- it has various other chemicals in it and yet is still water.
Quoting Moliere
If someone thought that water was not H2O before the 19th century then my assumption about them would be wrong. You claim that you think water was not H2O before the 19th century, but to be honest I don't really believe you. My guess is that you think water was not known to be H2O before the 19th century, which is a very different claim. You have switched to talking about signification, which is tangential to the crux of essentialism.
This is a lot of nonsense. <Here's> a primer for you on the scientists involved in 18th and 19th century chemistry who discovered the molecular composition of water. The claim that "water is H2O" is not some philosophical conspiracy theory.
To be fair to -- I didn't think he was claiming a conspiracy theory as much as thinking that philosophers make this claim because scientists have made this claim for a long time and they do it to bolster themselves with science.
I don't think this is a good way to do philosophy, or what most people do in philosophy -- but he wasn't claiming a conspiracy theory as much as speaking a false assumption.
My example would be Kripke’s attempt to show “water is H2O” is a posteriori necessary truth. This is not a demonstration of something true of realty but a construction of his imagination that he hopes applies to something in reality.
It's a subtle point, but he wasn't talking about reality as much as how we talk about reality -- logic.
Even if that is true, the mountain of quibbles does not actually succeed in showing that water is not H2O. When chemists or philosophers say that water is H2O they are not claiming that every natural body of liquid that anyone labels 'water' is pure, undiluted H2O. :worry:
Quoting Richard B
The point that Kripke is making is untouched by such quibbles. Kripke is not making any claim about the percentage of NaCl in natural bodies of water.
I get what you saying, but he should stick with symbols, a = a. But as soon as you step into this messy world and use words like “water” and “H2O”, the gloves come off.
Er, it is crucial to understand that Kripke's claim is not merely logical. If it were merely logical then it would not be a posteriori at all. That it is not merely logical is much of the point.
Quoting Leontiskos
Certainly, signs used in expression like "a = a" will express their meaning through their use. Where I find Kripke lacking is the usefulness of applying such an idea to the real world. He believes that once science, our knowledge, sets up this identity up, it is an a posteriori truth. But as I explained examining our common usage of the word "water", and how science in practice uses the concept "H20". This identity is not set up. On one side, "water" need not refer to any single thing, and on the other side refers to a scientific construct that currently has some predictive value when particular technology is applied to determine what a observable liquid may contain.
When you are reading Kripke on this issue, if you don't begin with an interest in developing the notion of rigid designation, then his whole project will be opaque to you. In general you first have to understand what a philosopher is really doing if you are to understand their reasoning. And if you provide a critique of a philosopher which has no relation to what he is really doing then the critique will fall away without anyone taking notice.
(What a philosopher is really doing = that philosopher's proximate telos. It is "What they are really up to." The percentage of NaCl in natural bodies of water has nothing to do with Kripke's telos.)
From Naming and Necessity Kripke says, "Let's consider how this applies to the types of identity statements expressing scientific discoveries that I talked about before-say, that water is H2O. It certainly represents a discovery that water is H2O. We identified water originally by its characteristic feel, appearance and perhaps taste, (though the taste may usually be due to the impurities). If there were a substance, even actually, which had a completely different atomic structure from the water, but resembled water in these respects, would we say some water wasn't H2O? I think not. We would say instead that just as there is fool's gold there could be fool's water; a substance which, though having properties by which we originally identified water, would not in fact be water."
He says "It certainly represents a discovery that water is H2O." This is incorrect. Science did not discover that "water is H20". By applying scientific theory, we discovered that liquids we typically call "water" we can detect molecules we call "H2O". "Water is H2O" is more of a philosophical construction, striped of its meaning from ordinary and scientific use. Consequently, we are just left bare with a the logical expression, "a = a".
He says, "We identified water originally by its characteristic feel, appearance and perhaps taste, (though the taste may usually be due to the impurities). If there were a substance, even actually, which had a completely different atomic structure from the water, but resembled water in these respects, would we say some water wasn't H2O? I think not." I think so, this is called D2O.
He says "We would say instead that just as there is fool's gold there could be fool's water; a substance which, though having properties by which we originally identified water, would not in fact be water." Well in fact, D2O is called heavy water, so some water is H2O and some water is D2O."
I will end by quoting Norman Malcom in his article "Kripke and The Standard Meter",
"Kripke presents acute criticisms of theories about names, references, designations, and so, that have been put forward by other philosophers. Judging, however, by two of the principal illustrations of his own theory, namely, heat and the standard meter, that theory too won't hold much water. One may be reminded here of Kripke's nice observation that being wrong "is probably common to all philosophical theories."
Quoting J
Good, good. So we might have some agreement that there is no paradox in talking about the "pre-linguistic" world.
So back to
Quoting J
So, not so sure about the "obligatory".
Which, of course, was Wittgenstein's response. So I remain puzzled as to what it is you are actually proposing. However, it's a big topic and as you say, peripheral to this thread, so we might leave it there.
unless you have more to add?
Hence, heavy water is water.
It seems odd to say that science did not discover that water is H?O. We used the terms "water", "Hydrogen" and "Oxygen" prior to the discovery. There's two ways to think about it. In the first, "water" refers to a particular substance, and science uncovered its deeper essence. On this view, water = H?O is a necessary truth, discovered empirically. Profound metaphysical stuff. The other way to think about it, the meaning of "water" is based on its place in our dealings with it — that it is clear, potable, etc. On this view, saying water is H?O is just a shift in how we describe it.
Different ways of talking about the same stuff. Are we obligated to say one is right, the other wrong? I don't see why.
Another interesting aside.
:up: :up:
To keep whittling away, or should I say quibbling away, at this idea that "water is H20", I like to provide a quote from Sketches of Landscapes by Avrum Stroll,
"The discussion brings us to the category mistake argument. To simplify the discussion, I shall speak only about the collection of H2O molecules. The most important point to be made in this connection is that not all collections of such molecules are water. It depends on the nature of the collection, and this to a considerable degree is determined by such factors as air temperature and atmospheric pressure. Some collections are rigid, hard, and cold to the touch (ice I through ice VII). Some are liquid, tepid, and not solid. Ordinary persons call the latter aggregations "water" and the former "ice". It is a category mistake to infer from the fact that a particular collection of H2O molecules is water that every such collection is water. This seems to be the mistake that Putnam and Kripke have made throughout their discussion of water.
It leads to another. "Water' does not mean H2O, as they assert. For if it did and because water and ice are both composed of H2O, it would then follow that the meaning of "water" would be ice. But this is clearly false. Since ice and water have different properties, the former being rigid and the latter nonrigid, the two are not identical. Therefore, if "water" meant "ice, "water" could not mean water. Once again, we see that Kripke and Putnam are misled by their identity thesis into an incorrect linguistic theory."
I think Kripke and Putnam seem to be saying that each and every water molecule is H2O. But expression like this seems tautologous and insignificant, not profound metaphysically. I am reminded of what Wittgenstein said in the Tractatus,
"5.5303 Roughly speaking, to say of two things that are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing at all."
I'm happy to join in. Is ice still water? Good question.
I don't find Stroll convincing. Ordinary people do say things such as "Take care, the water froze to ice overnight". And here they might be puzzled if you suggested that the water and the ice are different things. Freezing is the sort of thing that water does in the cold, after all. It's not utterly improper to say that ice is frozen water, and thereby mean that ice is one type of water amongst others.
We might, of course, simply choose to use "water" to refer only to the liquid, and "ice" to refer only to the solid. We might equally choose or stipulate that "water" is the genus of which "ice" is a species.
And there is the alternate mentioned above - to accept that either view is valid, and the choice discretionary. That there is no fact of the matter, but just two slightly different ways of using the words "water" and "ice".
It's this anti-essentialist last that I take as the better account.
But I am also happy to go along with Kripke and say ice is one of the various states in which we can find water, and that necessarily, all water is H?O, as might suit the circumstances. This seems to me the better way to think about essentialism, if one must. Perhaps by keeping what's useful in essentialism, and let go of what’s dogmatic.
It’s a form of special pleading, in that it reintroduces Aristotelian essence as necessary without sufficiently justifying that move in neutral or broadly acceptable terms. To sympathetic readers (especially Christian metaphysicians), it will seem like a vital recovery of lost depth. To others, it looks like a philosophical backdoor for preserving theological-metaphysical commitments that the Kripkean revolution had already made optional.
But that's the sort of thing I would say, isn't it, being a godless heathen.
I think I'd push against the notion that D2O is water, after all, because it's not potable. Basically the "D" is a lot more different from "H" even though the only difference is the addition of a neutron.
This is how I read Kripke as well. The truth, if it is true, that water is H2O comes first, before invoking necessity.
Quoting Moliere
Well, here the "is" is open to interpretation. D2O isn't called water; it's called heavy water, which is meant to remind us of the family connection with what we do call water. We can, and do, also call it deuterium, with no reference to "water" at all. The Kripkean approach is, I think, intended to help us distinguish between which "is" questions are about essences, or properties like "potability," and which are about uses of words. Another way of saying this:
Quoting Banno
As noted in the other thread, PA just lays out the challenge to scientific knowledge and demonstration. The full justification of the solution spans a good deal of the corpus because it involves the way man comes to know, and a sort of "metaphysics of knowledge."
The problem with this sort of "argument from psychoanalysis" is that they are very easy to develop. One could create the same sort of argument re attacks on teleology. Moderns come to define freedom in terms of potency. Determinant telos is a threat to man's unlimited freedom. Hence, they set out to develop a philosophy where everything is ultimately grounded in the human will, in "pragmatism," etc. (and so appetite and choice—will). Pace arguments to the effect that people "cling to teleology because it makes them feel good," Nietzsche is by far and away the best selling philosopher of our era it would seem. He dominates bookstore shelves and popular discussions of philosophy. Far from being "terrified" of such views, the masses have been inclined towards them (Nietzsche no doubt is spinning in his grave). Likewise, far from facing despair from his "universe devoid of meaning and purpose," Bertrand Russell, despite his sorted personal life, sometimes seems to elevate himself above famous saints in moral standing by having the courage to accept this.
Afterall, if there is psychological comfort in teleology, there is no doubt also psychological comfort in: "nothing one does is ever truly good or bad," or "we decide," etc.
Such arguments might be plausible, or even true to varying degrees, but they don't actually address the real issue at hand.
It's a big topic, probably not for this thread. One interesting way of phrasing the issue: If realism depends upon epistemic positions that must be taken on pain of self-contradiction, would that mean that even the most apparently entrenched philosophical disagreements not only are in principle resolvable, but must be so? In short, if you start from premises you believe you can show to be foundational, does that commit you to also saying that everything that follows is rationally obligatory? That you are caused to so reason?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I understand, and I don't expect you to do my Aristotle homework for me! Would it be possible, though, to point me toward the particular passages you describe thus?:
"'justification must end somewhere,' and Aristotle himself suggests this is an old problem by the time he is writing about it."
I'm very curious to see how Aristotle framed this problem.
[/quote]
It seems obvious that people can contradict themselves, no? So there is a sort of arbitrary freedom here. But this seems to make reason extrinsic to the rational nature, a source of constraint rather than the very means by which finite natures can transcend their finitude by questioning current belief and desire. So, I might simply disagree with the anthropology that makes this "causing" problematic. Such a causation isn't even determinant though, since people can simply act inconsistently if they chose to .
Huh, that's interesting.
I'd be inclined to say "potability" is, in large parts, what people mean by "water", though not always. In a way this is just a choice on how to use "water", from my perspective. We can include D2O or exclude D2O insofar that we understand one another.
Which might put a spanner into Kripke. Point 1 about how "if water is H2O" -- it's not, if we include D2O, for instance. Unless we say that D2O is just a name for a variant of water, and it has 2 hydrogen molecules after all, with a little extra.
No, that would be ruled out, so the opposite would indeed be irrational. That's why indisputably foundational premises might be abandoned in favor of something closer to epistemic stance voluntarism. This may not be a worry for you, but many philosophers, myself included, are concerned about the consequences of rational obligation which do seem to follow, as you correctly show, from allegedly indisputable premises. The idea that there is only one right way to see the world, and only one view to take about disagreements, seems counter to how philosophy actually proceeds, in practice, and also morally questionable.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm getting confused by "rational nature" and "finite nature" and "transcend their finitude". Could you rephrase in more ordinary terms? Are you talking about objectivity and subjectivity?
The cause/reason issue is complicated. Maybe the right backdrop for it is the picture we commonly have of ourselves as thinkers. We give reasons, not causes, for what we think. Why is this? What difference does this way of talking point to? And would a strong epistemology of rational obligation mean that we were wrong in doing this?
Yes, maybe not a spanner exactly, but we can see that Kripke is working with some (unquestioned?) assumptions about who determines what something is -- scientists, in this case. He's willing to go along with the decision that H2O is water and D2O is not. That's reasonable, but it needs to be noticed as part of K's method.
If it's not relying upon the science then apparently Kripke would have made the exact same argument in 1700, before the science had occurred. Is that your claim?
Quoting Moliere
A necessary truth is true. If it is necessarily true—a posteriori—that water is H2O, then it is true that water is H2O.
I want to revisit our short but illuminating discussion, since it is such a clear model for what tends to happen on TPF with discussions of essentialism. You made three basic claims, and the second and third were meant to contest essentialism:
1. The essentialist would be likely to say that water is H2O (or that water is always H2O).
2. Water was not H2O before 19th century chemistry.
3. "Water" nor "H2O" "pick out" what water or H2O is.
Now let’s look at three equivocal senses of essentialism:
1. The essentialist would be likely to say that water is H2O (or that water is always H2O).
1a. The essentialist would say that the term “water” signified H2O before 19th century chemistry.
1b. The essentialist would say that the description “water” “picks out” what water is.
Now you began the discussion with (1), which was a great start. (1) is certainly true. But then you immeditely began to equivocate between (1), (1a), and (1b). (2) does not contest (1); instead it contests (1a). And (3) does not contest (1); instead it contests (1b). But (1a) and (1b) are pretty clearly strawmen, and so there are no arguments being leveraged against the actual thesis that you yourself set out, namely (1).
That’s a good snapshot of what seems to always happen in these discussions. It's also why my so-called "transcendental error" is apparently not an error at all. Those who call it an error are relying on straightforward equivocations in their arguments.
Seems a bit outlandish, so I certainly couldn't claim that.
But I'd put it in historicist terms -- we can imagine Kripke being transplanted to another time with different concepts being taken seriously, but really we couldn't claim what he'd claim at that time at all. He was in his time, and made the claims he did in his time.
Hrmm... if so then I've done so without meaning to.
I'm still committed to essentialism being 1.
Quoting Leontiskos
And I'd attribute a misunderstanding on my part of what you're looking for -- I thought I was cogently arguing for my point rather than it having three different meanings.
The framing of the infinite regress of justifications is in Posterior Analytics I.2, although I think it might show up elsewhere. Aristotle answers that justification does stop, but it stops in a different form of knowing (of which he actually has many in his anthropology). This is covered in Posterior Analytics II but I hesitate to say that this is "the argument" because its plausibility is greatly enhanced by the work done in De Anima, the Physics, and the Metaphysics.
The beauty of this solution is that it is very broad, and can largely be argued as flowing from the primacy of actuality over potency (without which, arguably, being would be incoherent and wisdom a lost cause anyhow). But, I think a difficulty here, when one reads a work like De Anima is the desire to see it as some sort of contemporary empirical theory, which it sort of is, but this isn't really where its value lies. The basic notion of potential in the mind being actualized by the form (act) by which anything interacts with it in this way and not that way is perhaps more important that the exact typology/psychology of the senses (the faculties) that Aristotle develops. I think that one can accept that things like "the common sense" and the "cogitative faculty" get "something right" without having to be overly committed to them (similar to Plato's parts of the soul, which are useful as a psychology, but less so if they become as sort of ridged description). In terms of connecting this broad framework to the contemporary sciences of physics, perception, and information, you'd need to look to contemporary Aristotlians and Thomists.
On a side note, a while back I came across this interesting dissertation on the more Platonic/Plotinian/Augustinian conception of noesis: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/2741/
And in virtue of what is a stance adopted? Reason? Sentiment? Aesthetic taste? Sheer impulse?
If stances are adopted according to reason, then you have the same problem. If they are adopted according to some standard that is irrational, you seem to have an irrational relativism.
If they are disputable they will certainly be disputed, hence "how philosophy actually proceeds." That someone claims that a premise is indisputable does not make it so.
I don't get this one. How so?
A rational nature, as in "possessing a rational soul," or a will and intellect. But we need not accept those exact distinctions, just that man has an intellectual appetite for truth (including knowing the truth about what is truly best). For Plato, and a great deal of thinkers following him, it is the desire to know what is "really true" and "truly good" that moves us beyond the given of what we already are, taking us out beyond current beliefs and desires (what we already are).
If we did not have a desire for truth itself (the "love of wisdom"), if "all men do [not] by nature desire to know," then we would only ever learn things accidentally as we uncritically and unquestioningly followed our sensible appetites (a sort of slavish unfreedom). In this psychology, rationality is a prerequisite for freedom. Freedom is not constrained by "being 'forced' to do what is rational," but rather, because reason always relates to the whole (it is "catholic") it draws us out beyond ourselves (there is an ecstasis in knowing, "everything is received in the manner of the receiver," but the knower is also changed by knowledge). Because knowledge changes the knower (knowing by becoming), the freedom to become is deeply bound up in rationality, whilst ignorance is a limit on freedom.
Wrong in doing what exactly, not affirming truth? That truth is preferable to falsity seems like a prerequisite assumption for even concerning oneself with epistemology. One ought to seek truth because truth is more desirable.
Yet we might suppose that people have a right to make mistakes, or to be wrong. This is often part of the learning process. Wisdom, knowledge, these involve understanding, so it would not make sense to "force people to affirm what they do not understand." Yet neither would it make sense to deny that they can be wrong.
One of the problems with relativism as a nice solution to disagreements is that it doesn't actually allow "everyone to be right" anyhow. It says that everyone who isn't a relativist (most thinkers) is wrong. If you tell the non-relativist, "no, you can be right too, it's just that it's simply 'true for you'" they shall just reply: "but I maintain that it is true for everyone, not that it is 'true for me.'"
I think you have been asking some good questions of late. This is one of them. :up:
I would phrase it this way:
The problem I see with your phrasing is that "realism" is not enough for your "pain of self-contradiction," since realists need not claim that every truth is epistemically transparent.
Quoting J
How about, "If you start from premises you believe to be true, does that commit you to also accepting everything that validly follows?" Yes, that's actually called logical soundness.
Whether or not we are "caused" to be rational is a mystery and a paradox.
Quoting J
Would it be ruled out on pains of "obligation"? That is the question you are asking yourself. If you think it is "morally objectionable" to say that a conclusion logically follows from a set of premises, then it is in no way clear how, "That would be ruled out."
Quoting J
Is it, though? If philosophy didn't hold that there is only one right way to see the world, then philosophy would not be a unified discipline. Philosophy actually presupposes that every philosopher can fruitfully talk with every other philosopher. There are no incommensurable philosophers. So I think philosophy proceeds according to the belief that there is only one right way to see the world. If you didn't think there was a right way then you wouldn't argue at all.
Well here are two claims. Do you agree or disagree with them?
Quoting Leontiskos
When they are not.
Quoting Leontiskos
I don't think that's what the essentialist would claim -- but I would claim that water was not H2O before Lavoisier. But this is a claim about meanings and how we understand things rather than the world. The essentialist would agree with me there, and the disagreement would be about true reference -- that when Aristotle described water without use of H2O he said true things about water which are no longer true today.
So, for example: "Fire is the release of phlogiston."
I think the essentialist would tend to say the concept of fire (the understanding in the mind actualized by fire being experienced through the senses) stays the same, but our intentions towards it are clarified. Fire hasn't changed, but our intellects have become more adequate to it, and towards its relationship with other things. The identity of water as H2O clarifies a whole host of relations between water and other things (the way water acts in the world), and it is through those interactions that things are epistemically accessible at all.
I suppose one challenge to the essentialist lies in pursuing the primacy of interaction into something like a process metaphysics, dissolving the thing-ness (substance) of water into processes. Yet this has its own difficulties.
Er, but how are you disagreeing?
Again:
Quoting Leontiskos
So:
P1. (2) does not contradict (1)
P2. (2) contradicts (1a)
P3. (3) does not contradict (1)
P4. (3) contradicts (1b)
If you disagree, then assign truth values to P1-P4. Be clear about what you are saying. If you say you disagree then apparently at least one of the truth values must be false.
Quoting Moliere
Why? Klima's whole point is that what Lavoisier & co. discovered does not falsify what came before. That Lavoisier understood water better than Aristotle does not mean Aristotle had no understanding of water, or that Aristotle's understanding of water was false.
Because Aristotle believed water to have a teleology which put it above Earth, and air above water, and fire above air. The reason water goes where it goes is because it's supposed to be -- it wants -- to sit atop earth.
At the time I think that's pretty much true -- how else to distinguish why the ocean sits on top of the land and we breath what's above the water and see the fire in the sky?
I agree that Lavoisier did not falsify Aristotle. I just don't think there's a better or worse understanding of water with respect to historical thinkers.
Today we'd say that Lavoisier had a "better" understanding than Aristotle, but tomorrow we may say the opposite if we find out teleology was right after all.
Fair.
Tho this gets a bit into some of my disagreements -- an essentialist has to have an idea of mind? Intentions, actualized understanding, experience through the senses?
A Jedi craves not these things. ;)
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yeh, I'm not so keen on process metaphysics, though I ought to be given my stances.
What can I say? I just live in a world of confusion and questions. :D
I think you've presented a canard of "teleology," but let's accept it for the sake of argument. Does "water is H2O" contradict "Water wants to sit atop Earth"? It looks like Lavoisier did not contradict Aristotle even on that reading.
But you ignored this:
Quoting Leontiskos
I actually think you've ignored that sort of question over and over throughout this conversation. You are ignoring requests for clarity.
M'kay.
I'll focus on those, though not today. I've been responding with my first thoughts rather than digging in. Sorry if that's distracting.
Thank you for the citation. I always try to read philosophers sympathetically, in context, and fortunately with Aristotle there's an enormous interpretive literature I can consult.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I'd refer you back to the "Epistemic Stances . . . " thread. I can't say it any better than Chakravartty does, or lay out the arguments any more clearly than I did in the OP. The short answer to your list, as you will see, is "none of the above." An epistemic stance will largely depend on "a collection of attitudes, values, aims, and other commitments relevant to thinking about scientific ontology, including policies or guidelines for the production of putatively factual beliefs," to quote Chakravartty. So I guess closer to "reasons," plural, than anything else on your list.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
But isn't the goal of the kind of philosophy you espouse to resolve those disputes? More, to claim that in principle they must be resolvable? This would make the history of philosophy, taken in toto, a story of failure, since the disputes live on. That's the part that I have trouble recognizing as my own experience of doing philosophy with others.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The worry here is that the foundationalist philosopher who believes that everything of importance can be demonstrated apodictically, thus resolving all disagreements in favor of a position they hold, will treat those who disagree as if they must be doing something wrong, whether due to ignorance, stupidity, stubbornness, or malice. And we can't limit the "wrong" to "intellectual wrong," because the whole foundationalist picture is supposed to hang together, such that ethics follows from metaphysics, or at least depends upon it. Thus it is not merely possible but necessary that to be mistaken in one area is to be mistaken through and through, at least on the big-picture significant questions.
I certainly don't say that everyone who values a firm foundation for their philosophy has to think this way. But, as I said, it's a worry, especially when disagreements provoke ire, contempt, and unkindness toward those who disagree. In such cases, quite apart from the merits of the arguments, it's the attitude that disagreement must be ended, and would be ended if the world operated aright and everyone could reason properly, that gives me shivers. In everyday language, it's the attitude that says, "What's wrong with you! How can you still be disagreeing with me?!" Thomas knew about what can happen next . . . the old argumentum ad baculum. (He thought it was a fallacy. :smile: )
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
No, I meant wrong in claiming that we had reasons for affirming what we think true, as opposed to being caused to do so. I can tell that the reason/cause thing doesn't really speak to you, and that's fine, there's no need to pursue if it's not philosophically fruitful for you.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I don't actually think that's true. Can you cite a relativist philosopher who says this, or who's been unable to respond to this criticism? If it were that simple to refute relativism, surely the position would be in the graveyard by now!
Quoting J
Phhhh.
Big issues. Let's leave it aside for now.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Perhaps it is worth noting that while before Cavendish announced the composition to the Royal Society in 1784, we didn't know that water was H?O, water was nevertheless H?O before his announcement.
Seems to me the core distinction here is between those who would say that a property is essential to an individual iff it is what makes that individual what it is (or something like that...) and those who say that a property is essential to an individual iff it belongs to that individual in every possible world. That, and 1-3 are not obviously mutually exclusive.
Quoting Moliere
That seem quite mistaken. And on either account of essence.
I mean the author could have been experiencing all sorts of feelings and associations during the process of writing, but it is questionable whether even the author, let alone anyone else, could identify and describe them after the fact.
Quoting J
If we ask what the explanation of a mystical (or any other kind of) experience are we not asking what caused it, or what were the necessary conditions for its occurrence?
Is the meaning of a mystical experience the same thing as the explanation of it? We could also talk about what are the implications (for ontology perhaps?) of mystical (or any other kinds of) experiences.
Would the latter kind of question not be related to the former. For example if we thought that mystical experiences only occur because God exists would that not be asserted because we also thought that God caused or provided the necessary conditions for mystical experience?
Or we could say that mystical experiences occur on account of DMT or Seratonin in the brain, and the preferred implication there could still include God (with DMT or seratonin as neurophysical "gateways") or it could leave God out and just stick with the psychoactive chemicals as providing both necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of such experiences.
Quoting J
I haven't attempted to understand the equations, but is not the real test whether what the theory predicts is actually observed? Apparently GPS relies on calculations based on relativity theory for its accuracy
(don't ask me to explain that). But yea, I accept the theory on the basis that it is generally accepted within the physics community as the best understanding we currently have and also that it has real technological applications. Perhaps the Theory of Evolution is a more pertinent case. Apparently Popper at one time claimed it was not falsifiable and hence did not count as a scientific theory. If memory serves he later withdrew the claim.
I'm really glad that you are beginning to perceive the moral foundations of your philosophical project. Your whole project seems to be motivated by this moral fear. In the past I have dubbed it "pluralism as first philosophy."
Note your thesis:
Logical consistency would require you to avoid all truth claims, and the curious thing is that, in some ways, this is precisely what you do. Some of the time you follow your own advice in this. Of course, much of the time you don't, namely when you say things are true and argue against those who disagree with you.
One of the great boons in understanding that intellectual habits can be immoral is understanding that we are not beyond reproach merely because we are engaged in some argument or another. The boon is understanding that bad faith argument exists, and that we are capable of it. Once that occurs the possibility for a great deal of growth opens up, in that one can begin to rectify their vicious (in Aristotle's sense) intellectual habits.
(Note how closely this relates to the thread, "Beyond the Pale," where the central question asks what forms of falsehood or irrationality are beyond the pale and which are not.)
I don't see how this is a problem. The fact that people still break the law is not an argument against good jurisprudence. The fact that people still sin is not an argument against theology. The fact that some students don't learn is not an argument against teaching. Even if one was committed to a very rigid, foundationalist philosophy (or theology, or theory of law, etc.) it would not follow that one's own doctrine is undermined by the fact that some people are not perfected by these. It's like how of the strictest ascetics, with a very strong position on the need to "uproot the passions" nonetheless maintain that most people will remain slaves to the passions.
Anyhow, as Gibbon says: "History…is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind." :grin: Or, if there is some sort of progress in history, a telos, a dialectical unfolding, a transcendence of finitude...it ain't easy. Socrates has to die to make his point.
Wouldn't this just be true in general? If we think we know something, and people do not accept it, or affirm something contrary, we think they are ignorant in that matter (or I suppose acting in bad faith). The only way to avoid this is a sort of pluralism re truth or simply lacking conviction (the deflation of truth to a matter of taste).
Second, this suggests that philosophy based on first principles and rationalism will be particularly inflexible and prone to dogmatism, while pluralism or relativism will tend not to be. I've discussed philosophy a lot of places online and in person over the years. Do I think this is so?
No, not really. If anything, it might go in the other direction. I have seen a great many people be quite aggressive in asserting pluralism and relativism. Particularly, over the years, I have encountered a lot of Nietzsche fans who assert their particular flavor of pluralistic moral anti-realism with a great deal of vitriol.
Anywhere philosophy is discussed, there is a tendency for people to defend thinkers by claiming that anyone who disagrees with them simply lacks the ability to understand them. This happens with all sorts of philosophy. It's more common with difficult or abstruse thinkers, who are indeed easy to misunderstand (e.g. Kant), so the criticism is sometimes valid. But it seems to me that this happens less with say, analytic philosophy, with its heavy focus on argument, and the most with post-modern thinkers (and particularly with Nietzsche). But this is a sort of dogmatism rearing it's head precisely where relativism is strongest. Likewise, these are the areas where the "cult of personality" seems to become most dominant (we have had threads on this, so I know I'm not alone in this appraisal).
Is this just incidental? I don't think so. I had a thread before about the relationship between relativism, misology, emotivism, and dogmatism. In a philosophy that claims that knowledge claims come down to power relations, one that claims that moral claims are just expressions of emotion, or one where beliefs are just the result of being inculcated in a certain sort of social game, etc. the role of rational argument is necessarily limited. There is only so much it can do; we have stepped outside logocentrism, for better or worse. Whereas, while belief in accessible first principles [I]might[/I] lead to dogmatism, I do not see why it might not also lead to greater faith in argument and the capacity to demonstrate one's position in good faith in the long run.
Third, while telling people they are wrong about closely held metaphysical or moral beliefs can produce friction, I don't see how other methods, i.e. explaining broad fields as pseudoproblems or declaring all sides of the debate "meaningless," claiming they involve merely relative truths, or that they deal in "fictions," etc. is necessarily any less so. Again, this is a case where sometimes it seems like the opposite is sometimes true.
This wasn't meant as a refutation of relativism, it's just pointing out that it doesn't make people play nice or avoid disagreement. Indeed, relativists and pluralists can be plenty aggressive in arguing for their position (whether the relativist is contradicts themselves in this depends on the sort of relativism). They don't fall victim to this criticism because they don't use relativism as a way to avoid friction, but assert it explicitly at the expense of non-relativists (often as an "obvious truth").
That said, I have had this exact conversation with Joshs before (I think more than once), on truth being situated within metaphysical systems which are embraced based on a sort of "usefulness," and I definitely do think that such a position still has to call other positions wrong. I used Saint Augustine has an example in that discussion. If the relativistic view on truth is correct, then it has to say Augustine is wrong because Augustine doesn't think truth is relative in this way. To say he is "also correct" is to not take what he says seriously.
More broadly, I think this is somewhat related to an abuse of the principle of charity one sometimes sees, where pluralists translate monists into holding just "one position among many," to make their arguments more acceptable (more acceptable to the pluralists anyhow). Some (but not all) perennialists tend to do this with religious claims too.
Quoting from, "Beyond the Pale":
Quoting Leontiskos
1. I hold X to be true
2. Therefore, I am committed to saying that Joe, who holds ~X, is holding to a falsehood
The question is, "What is Joe, according to me?" Certainly he is wrong. Is he ignorant? Possibly, depending on one's definition. Is he acting in bad faith? No, not necessarily.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think this is right, and I think it is because realists like Aquinas care about the answering the question of culpability accurately. If you are a consistent realist then you won't want to ascribe culpability where none exists. If you are a relativist then everything is much looser. Relativists don't tend to work out theories of culpability, or innocence, or guilt, or correct reasoning, or incorrect reasoning, etc. Therefore they tend to err in both directions: they can treat the innocent as if they are guilty but they can also treat the guilty as if they are innocent. They lack rigor when it comes to assessing culpability, because if there were a proper way to assess culpability then relativism would be false.
As a quasi-relativist @J tends to clump all of the negative predications together: wrong/ignorant/culpable/irrational/neglectful/malicious/obstinate/harmful. He says, "If we [believe in truth] then we will end up making accusations of that stuff!" The answer is, "Yes, and people do commit those acts, but not every act which supports a falsehood is guilty of the same crimes. For example, not everyone who speaks a falsehood is doing so in bad faith."
Edit: I also think that this is just bad reasoning in general:
At the end of the day, we trust our senses and reasoning not because they’re perfect, but because they’re the best tools we’ve got, until they aren’t
I guess it needn't be. As I say, it just doesn't fit my own experience of doing philosophy. I'm aware that, for some, philosophy is seen as a history of disputes that ought to have been resolved. You put it well:
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The idea that "some people are not perfected" by one's own presumably correct doctrine makes me smile, but I suppose it expresses the attitude you'd have to take if you saw philosophy as an attempt to make a single correct view triumph, and the failure to do so is down to the other guy, not the issue itself.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
But when it comes to philosophical views? I would have said that one of the key differences between thinking philosophically and our ordinary ways of thinking about the world is the recognition that we don't propose ignorance or bad faith as a plausible explanation for someone's disagreeing with us. And I have to admit how difficult it is for me even to imagine carrying on as you suggest.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
What would you think of the method that says, "Hmm, tell me more. Help me understand why you say this. Here's how I see it. Let's see what we can learn"? The difficulty that many people have with such a method, unlike all the ones you enumerate, including telling people they are wrong, is that it requires sincere curiosity and philosophical humility on the part of the inquirer. But if one is already sure enough about one's beliefs to declare someone else wrong, then curiosity and humility probably don't apply. BTW, I am far from a perfect exemplar of any of this. I too fall prey to arrogance and impatience.
I'll have to leave the relativism question for later. It's Sunday morning and -- I hope this doesn't shock or disappoint anyone :wink: -- I'm off to church.
The only thing that comes to mind is that I'm anti-essence. But I'm glad to see that I've said false things cuz that's what leads to new thoughts.
I'm certain that your perspective is perfect for a counter-balance to mine, though.
I was going to PM that, but perhaps it is better said publicly.
Quoting Leontiskos
There's also the possibility that Joe is right and I am wrong. There might be some point in trying to understand Joe's position, to see how the arguments he uses function, to try to find some common ground.
There's an alternative to thinking that an argument is either right or wrong. Rather than framing disagreements as binary conflicts we might seek the underlying structure of the disagreement, which could lead to deeper agreement or at least mutual intelligibility.
This would involve some good will on the part of the participants, and the acceptance of what we might call "liberal" guidelines for discussion.
This seems to be what this forum is about. But we can check with @Jamal on that.
It might involve not dismissing someone as "beyond the pale"; however given the limited time and resources available to us all, there may be some folk with whom the law of diminishing returns suggests there is not much value in continuing a discussion.
Just a thought. Let's see what response this post elicits.
I'll put my reply here instead of to your PM.
I understand that it was Cavendish, not Lavoisier, who first identified water as a compound (through experiments around 1781), though Lavoisier's chemical revolution helped fix the conceptual framework.
It occurred to me on looking again that there are two readings of what you wrote - the de re and the de dicto. The sentence ‘Water is H?O’ was not something people could assert or know before Cavendish; the term "water" did not yet rigidly refer to H?O. So if you were saying that the word "water" could not be used to refer to H?O before Cavendish announced his work, I agree. However, if the assertion is that prior to Cavensih's announcement, the chemical structure of water was not H?O, it is I think in error.
There's all sorts of complexities here. The foremost is that Kripke's "Water=H?O" is intended only for extensional contexts. While Aristotle presumably believed fish live water, he doubtless did not believe that they live in H?O.
We should head back to the topic at hand, which is "what is real". The idea seems to be that there is an essence, a "what makes a thing what it is", and that this is of use in deciding what is real and what isn't. Along with this goes the view that there really is a difference between what is real and what is not real, such that for any x, the question "is x real" has a firm "yes" or no"no" answer.
I think that view is mistaken, for reasons I gave earlier. And I think that view is quite common amongst philosophers - at least those who are alive.
Now there is a clear and well-formulated use of "essence" that relies on modal logic, and says that an essence of some item is a property had by that item in every possible world. This appears to me, and I suspect to most folk*, as a better definition than either that the essence of a thing is determined by its participation in a Form... or that the essence of a thing is "what it is to be that thing".
Now Kripke really did throw the cat amongst the pigeons. Unit Possible World Semantics, the orthodoxy, form Russell and Quine and friends, was that essences were passé, not amenable to a decent logical analysis and best thrown out. Kripke gave essences A New Hope, redefining them in a rigid and formal way. However in so doing he moved the emphasis away from metaphysics to logic and epistemology.
And also, in doing this, Kripke (and others - "Kripke" here is shorthand for those who adopted and adapted his ideas) detached essence from natural kinds and teleology and other such notions.
So Kripke's revolution dispatched much of the previous work on modality, necessity and essences.
The result is that essences no longer are of much help in setting out what is real and what isn't.
But here are those amongst us who, bathing in the light of Plato and Aristotle, seek to reinvigorate metaphysics by bringing back the "what makes a thing what it is" version of essence. And that's pretty much were the argument here stands.
I'll leave this now, although I might come back to it and talk about water again.
Cheers.
* it's not in the philpapers survey, and perhaps it should be
Yes, it's a headache, but I don't think we can just throw out the idea of a correct interpretation, if we limit "interpretation" to some version of "conscious intention." Again, I'd appeal to ordinary experience: When you say something and I say, "Oh, you mean Y," getting it completely wrong, you're going to stand on your right to reply, "No, that's not it, I meant X." And so you should. This is a version of "author's authority," and you're right that it certainly leaves out many cases in which we'd like to say we have a correct interpretation but can't appeal to any "author." It also leaves out the "feelings and associations" problem, where it's not clear that even the author is fully in charge of what they meant. Psychoanalytic interpretation would be the locus classicus here.
Quoting Janus
I think not, but it's far from clear. The traditional distinction is that we're supposed to understand things in the human sciences and explain things in the physical sciences. Where does this kind of experience fall?
Quoting Janus
Yes, I think he was persuaded that there are falsifiable predictions associated with evolutionary theory, namely that if X aspect of the theory is true, we would expect to find Y types of fossils at location Z, dating to time T. And this has been borne out many times, and never to my knowledge falsified. Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True is good on this. ("True," but perhaps not complete . . . see Nagel.)
Evolution is not strictly falsifiable - only universal statements are strictly falsifiable. That was what Popper was drawing attention to in his 1974 article, "Scientific Reduction and the Essential Tension". But the many misunderstandings of that comment brought out a later retraction.
He didn't change his mind, he clarified his point.
Of course. "Argument" as a zero-sum game with winners and losers. . . . I had a professor who used to talk about "the gladiatorial theory of philosophy," in which two arguments battle it out, giving no quarter, and the result is supposed to settle some issue. He didn't think it worked, usually, and that's been my experience. More deeply, I've come to see that the reasons why it doesn't work can tell us a lot about what philosophy is -- how it is distinct from other human pursuits, and what can be gained by engaging in it.
"Are you not entertained?"
Entertainment is also a large part of the discussion here in the forum. It's cold outside and I can write this post between chess games and Stelaris.
I would say that instead of engaging in ad hominem you should give philosophy a try.
Here is the question:
Quoting J
Here is your answer, as usual:
Quoting Banno
Just because you don't want to answer @J's questions doesn't mean no one else can.
The question of whether one is obliged to be rational goes hand in hand with the question of whether one is obliged to believe that those who hold contradictory propositions to one's own are holding falsehoods. Pretty basic stuff. Here is @J's phrasing:
Quoting J
And the first question is, I have proposed, much more simple. It is, "If we believe that some proposition is true, then must we believe that those who contradict that proposition hold to a falsehood?" This would be a good starting point for J, and one which is less polemical and charged than one fashioned with the various pejoratives he is leveraging in this paragraph (e.g. "apodictic," "ignorant," "stupid," "stubborn," "malicious").
Here is the moral fear I referenced:
Quoting J
And again: if we hold that some proposition is true, then apparently we have claimed that all contradictory propositions are false (and that this is the "right way to see the world"). So what do we do with that? Is the moral fear justified? Or when we affirm that a proposition is true are we not saying that that is the right way to see the world?
Quoting Banno
My whole thread presupposes the idea that not everyone should be dismissed and yet everyone agrees that some people should (indeed early posters mistakenly read the OP as claiming that no one should be dismissed!). So it raises the question of what criteria are legitimate for such dismissal. Your insinuation that I haven't considered the possibility that someone should not be dismissed as "beyond the pale" is simply a bad faith reading of the thread and my posts here. (Note that the whole point of my post was to point out that not every falsehood is held in bad faith. The point was that Count was jumping too fast when he jumped to "bad faith.")
What you are yet again doing is making an interesting discussion personal with ad hominem attacks, which is why I tend to ignore you.
(Since you have a tendency to notify @Jamal about everything you find questionable, and because you tagged him in that "call-out" of me, I will add him to this post as well.)
Quoting Banno
Mmmm.
The forum topics are available to all members, are they not? As I said, if you don't want to answer J's questions, don't. But don't get mad when other people do. Some of us do want to discuss those questions of J's.
I'll try again. J and I are talking on a PM, not a forum page, about issues hereabouts, in order to avoid irrelevant shite posts such as these.
And he will have understood the suggestion that we keep the discussion of that question until we get through our discussion in PM.
Have you more to say on a topic that does not concern you? Please feel free to keep it to yourself.
If you have something of substance to add to the thread, by all means do that. If not, please cut it out with the harassment.
I have nothing further to add in response to the rest of your post, but I'm wondering when you say that we understand things in the human sciences you mean that we understand human behavior in terms of reasons not causes. If so I agree. But can this also apply to experiences?
Reasons for behavior seem to be understood to be intentional and it's not clear to me that we could understand someone having a mystical experience in terms of them intending to do so unless we think in terms of practices designed to elicit such experiences such as taking certain drugs or practicing meditation.
What the implications and explanations are of the fact that taking drugs and other practices may elicit mystical or religious kinds of experiences is not clear, and I wonder whether it ever can be made definitively clear.
If I may, there's good arguments that reasons just are causes, from both Davidson and Anscombe, of all people. This might give pause to reconsider what sort of thing a "cause" is. It's a fraught topic.
Quoting Janus
Exactly. I think so, but I'm not sure. Let's go back to the dream, rather than a mystical experience. When I interpret my dream, have I explained it or have I understood it? This is fuzzy, of course, but wouldn't we want to say that the interpretation can take place with or without an explanation? Put it in terms of the question, "Why did you dream X?" If I answer this by giving my interpretation, that doesn't quite suffice. The "why" question seems to require a bigger background story, something more theoretical about how dreams occur in the first place, and why I might have dreamed X at the particular moment in my life that I did. Certainly this isn't separate from interpretation, but I do think it's different.
This is all to show that the original question of what it is to mean something is a very difficult one, especially when extended beyond sayings and into experiences.
Yes, I stand corrected.
Quoting Banno
Yes! Bingo! de dicto is what I mean --
Quoting Banno
There's a sense in which we can entertain the idea that matter itself changed, but I think it's an erroneous inference -- even if it were true there'd be no way for us to make that inference because we don't live in that time. We live in now. And what seems most consistent is that nature hasn't changed all that very much from then to now, in the sense that there are fewer hoops to jump through mentally to make an inference.
Note, though, that none of this is scientific. It'd be impossible to determine, scientifically, if the meaning of "water" in Aristotle's time excluded H2O as a possibility, which is where I think the sympathetic readings of Aristotle get headway: broadly accepting an Aristotelian framework while changing the details to match what we know now in a scientific spirit.
For myself I'd say that Aristotle is not a scientist in the modern sense -- this isn't to speak against his work as a scholar, only to note that first guesses will often be inadequate, even if they hold a certain spell to them. What's atractive in Aristotle is how it all seems to fit together into a harmonious whole -- but this is a siren's song more than a mark of wisdom, if you ask me.
It's entrancing, but doesn't really look like the world I see now. And I'm not sure how the methods of metaphysics in Aristotle are somehow better than latter methods of metaphysics -- it seems to me that this is very much in the realm of philosophy and philosophy alone, where the science is a grab-bag for examples of reflection, but not philosophy itself.
This to go back to my point with @Richard B -- that philosophy is not using science to give itself credibility, and it has no need to do so.
Quoting Banno
We're in agreement here, for the most part and for what's worthwhile in the thread as points of contention.
there's a grab-bag of entities which don't have as firm an answer as we'd like -- dreams, halucinations, mistaken worldviews, historical counter-factuals, hypothetical examples...
We could certainly stipulate answers, though I tend to think "X is real" sounds like "X exists", and I'm still fairly well persuaded by Kant on that -- that there is no difference between the imagined unicorn and the real unicorn in terms of its predicates. The old "existence is not a predicate" thing, which isn't strictly true but it gets at something important about making inferences about existence -- in a lot of ways we treat reality like it's given. If whatever we conceptually designate as "the given" matches our conceptions of "the given" then we are inclined to say such and such exists.
Or to go along with Quine -- to be is to be the value of a variable. So it's not a predicate, but a quantifier over predicates. (EDIT: Or individuals? "Over" loosely meant)
Both seem to handle inferences about existence better than positing an essence, to my mind. Which part of water are we to call its essential part, after all? As you note, in Aristotle, the essential part was not that it is H2O. So why the switch? What makes this description a better example of essence, or is it at all?
Quoting Banno
Funnily enough I kind of welcome the resurgence, as long as we take the historical approach. They really do have valuable things to offer a thinking mind, and points of comparison between ancient and modern science are deeply illuminating on the practice of producing knowledge.
It's their difference that I value, above all. I don't care of its true! :D
Cheers!
Quoting Leontiskos
P1 is False. 2 counters the claim that water was always H2O -- in Aristotle's time, water was not H2O. Aristotle in particular stood against Democritus, so we even have reason to believe Aristotle would oppose the belief that water is always H2O. That's an atomistic belief.
De dicto, note. Not De re.
It's just an admittedly old-fashioned way of putting it. People have a potential for knowledge/understanding/good behavior, etc. The goal of education, law, etc. is to actualize this potential more fully ("bringing it to perfection.") One needn't think one's law is perfect or infallible to think that people are improved by doing the minimum to follow it (e.g. littering), and so to for philosophy.
How are you defining philosophy here? If philosophy encompasses the sciences, ethics, politics, aesthetics, and our most bedrock metaphysical assumptions—if it is the broadest study of human knowledge—I hardly see how it's the sort of thing than can be rendered a manner of taste without trivializing essentially everything
Note though that it would be a sort of strawman to tie an acknowledgment of first principles to a "one true description of being," or a "one true methodology." There might be many methodologies, useful for different things. A broad "realism" is not committed to, and in general does not proclaim, "a one true description of being or ethics." Rather, it claims that there are descriptions that are more or less correct and that all correct descriptions share morphisms and do not contradict one another. That's all that's needed.
I share your concerns, but like I said, I think there is a good philosophical argument for the idea that relativism will actually tend to make philosophy into more of a power struggle/matter of politics. I think one can even observe this happening in some cases. Scientific debate can always get heated, but things get particularly fraught when the unitary truth is abandoned in exchange for "different approaches" that are allowed to contradict one another. This is where you get "Aryan versus Jewish physics," "capitalist versus Marxist genetics," and claims to a sui generis but equally valid "feminist epistemology." How can one bridge the gap in the "culture wars" if different identity groups have different epistemologies?
Whereas I don't share the concern over being "rational" as a sort of limitation or source of unfreedom. This seems to me to only be a problem under more deflated notions of reason as something more akin to a mere calculator.
Is this not open to people who deny a sort of pluralism or relativism? I don't think so. Again, when I think of which areas of philosophy seem most siloed, it seems that the exact opposite might be the case. The committed Nietzschean is, in my experience at least, the person [I] least [/I] interested in understanding other ethical theories, instead waving them away with (normally unflattering) arguments from psychoanalysis. But this isn't incidental, it flows from their relativism.
When parts of philosophy become matters of taste or art, one is then able to dismiss broad areas on merely aesthetic grounds, to simply not take them seriously. Whereas more evangelical philosophies, while they [I]might[/I] tend to be more dogmatic, also seem to have much more of an incentive to understand other positions, both out of fear that their own position might be wrong, or to convince others. One cannot fear error if it is not possible to be wrong.
Not sure how I am to "butt out" of a PM I am not a part of.
Note that I have known @J longer than anyone here. I was the one who him to the forum. I was having private dialogues with J before you had even been acquainted. When you were being invited to engage J’s threads and , I was actually reading the sources J presented and engaging them—something you have been .
What I concluded is that the reason @J has such a penchant for playing devil’s advocate is because his ultimate concern is to oppose strong knowledge claims. Thus if someone makes a strong knowledge claim, J will oppose it even if he agrees with it. This reflects a problematic telos for philosophical inquiry, and I have been pointing that out.
Now, at last, J is beginning to consciously probe his own premises in that area. He is beginning to identify the moral fear that underlies his reservations about strong knowledge claims. I think that’s great, which is why I encouraged him by telling him that he is asking and that I am his recognition of the moral motivation. Only once that moral motivation is discerned does it become susceptible to critique, and I think J would become a better philosopher if he moved beyond that strong fear of knowledge claims. I worry that he seeks the truth until he finds it, and then abandons it because he thinks knowledge claims are "morally questionable."
Okay thanks Moliere. Let's think through this:
Quoting Leontiskos
Quoting Leontiskos
You say, "In Aristotle's time, water was not H2O." You say, "We even have reason to believe Aristotle would oppose the belief that water is always H2O."
It still looks like you're fixated on 1a rather than 1. You are focused on what someone before 19th century chemistry (Aristotle) would say the term "water" signifies. Note that whether water was H2O before 19th century chemistry has nothing to do with what Aristotle or anyone else thought. Only the question of signification has to do with what people like Aristotle thought, i.e. only the question that pertains to 1a.
So if we follow your reasoning and say, "Aristotle did not think water signified H2O (or was H2O), therefore in Aristotle's time water was not H2O," then the claim contradicts 1a, not 1. I can explain further if you require it.
From earlier:
Quoting Leontiskos
If what Aristotle believed doesn't pertain to essentialism, then what's the difference between yourself and Aristotle's "essence"?
So is this your argument?
I don't see how Aristotle's essentialism makes it true that
I don't believe in essences, so I have to pick up someone else's beliefs in essences just to make sense of the notion. If his essentialism isn't the one being advocated for then by all means the example is off topic.
But then are we talking in terms of Kripke's essentialism? In which case what I've said ought to make sense -- if water is H2O then water is necessarily H2O a posteriori. I can go that far.
But that a posteriori bit is important, after all. It means that we discovered a necessary relationship between terms after the fact -- so before the fact (or perhaps later when we use a new way of talking about matter the necessity de-emphasizes) there was nothing to say there was an essence in the first place.
In a rather direct sense this relates to the external thread I mentioned <here>, "The Philosophical Virtue of Certitude Shifting." *
@J's concerns materialize when there is no certitude shifting and all certitude is maximal/certain. @Count Timothy von Icarus's concerns materialize when relativism precludes all certitude along with any possibility of certitude shifting (precisely because where there is no certitude there are no certitude differentials).
This is central to Aristotle's whole understanding of argument, explicated in PA. It is the idea that a true argument moves from what is more certain (premises) to what is less certain (conclusion). What this means is that for Aristotle @J's fear is impossible, because to hold a conclusion with the same certitude that one holds the premises is irrational.
* That thread was more appropriate to that forum than to this one. This forum struggles more with skepticism than certainty.
Right, or, to continue with the broadly Aristotlian view, we also have stuff like "humanity considered absolutely," "the notion of humanity in my mind," and "humanity as instantiated in Socrates." And we have stuff like "animal" and "animality." One might see animals everywhere, but one never sees just "an animal," but always "an animal of a particular species." And even if one accepts that species and genus are real distinctions, they are certainly not "real" in the way a horse or man is. You can touch and interact with both the horse or man, or point to them. But where in nature can one interact with a 'genus?' The universe is full of quantities, but one never stumbles across "just one" or "just two." This last part seems particularly relevant to the extent that chemistry and physics (and so H2O) are mathematized relationships.
The medievals turned this into a whole series of distinctions. There is ens reale, real existence, and ens rationis, things existing only in the mind. Then we also first intentions (our concepts about things like trees and dogs) and second intentions (our concepts about concepts, such as genus and species).
This becomes relevant when we want to speak of essences. A horse has an essence. What about a centaur though? Is it also an essence, because it seems it could possibly exist, or does it lack an essence because it is really just the mind concatenating two real essences? We might make a distinction here that the centaur represents a known essence, but not an actual essence (because it has no real act of existence). But this isn't quite the "real / unreal" distinction. I think the "real / unreal" distinction might actually reveal itself to be better thought of as many different sorts of distinction.
Water, having a real essence, doesn't change its essence when people learn about it. It has its own unique act of existence (actuality) that is prior to (and informs) cognition.
Hegel has the idea of essences unfolding in time. This is in earlier thinkers like Saint Maximus the Confessor and Eriugena too, although in a different way, since the particulars are just the realization of the universal (its becoming what it is as respects immanence), while things always already what they are in the fullness of the Logos. But then, some readers of Hegel take a similar approach to identify at "the end of history," (Wallace) and it's not clear that water would be the type of thing that is changing in Hegel.
My take, argued below from a past post, would be that it is in the relationship of being known by a rational agent that things most fully "are what they are." Hence, the evolution of human knowledge represents a sort of unfolding of essences in history. However, this unfolding is not arbitrary, although it is subject to contingencies (e.g., it did not need to be Cavendish who discovered that water is H2O for instance). This unfolding occurs according to prior actualities, and the prior actuality by which water is water (which determines its relationship with material knowers) is its form, which is unchanging.
I am reminded here that in Genesis God first speaks being into existence, but then presents being to Man to know and name himself. There is the being of things within infinite being, and then their unfolding in immanence, the two approaching each other (e.g. in the, admittedly suspect, idea of the "Omega Point").
Just to tie up this loose end . . .
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
OK, I see that. I guess I wasn't imagining relativism as trying to avoid disagreements. And I'm sure you're right that a "crude relativist" could leave a discussion worse off than they found it, by accusing people who aren't relativists of being wrong. I hope we agree that this doesn't characterize a position that anyone could take seriously.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I may never understand your rhetorical habit of contrasting Position A with a Position B that no one has ever espoused! :smile: In this case . . . do you honestly think that the single alternative to foundational philosophy is to make philosophy a "manner/matter of taste"? Do you find any philosophers saying this? When thinkers like Habermas and Gadamer and RJ Bernstein devote their careers to trying to articulate a way of thinking about these issues that does them justice, do you really believe their arguments come down to "it's all a matter of taste"? I call this a rhetorical habit of yours because I don't think, at bottom, you actually believe it. You're too intelligent and sensible. Why the rhetoric, then?
Lots of people take that sort of view seriously. I see it all the time. We were [I]just[/I] in a thread were total anti-realism and relativism re values was being argued, and where "good argument" was framed entirely in terms of persuasion, not truth (i.e. a "good argument" is one that gets people to agree with you—gets you what you want—i.e. a power relation). Virtually every ethics thread on this site had at least one user popping in to add that value is subjective and "objective value" a sort of delusion. You yourself seem to think the septic, if not the relativist, has extremely strong arguments here. It's also the view I was brought up with. Relativism is very popular. It's certainly less popular re theoretical reason, but it is hardly a fringe position there either.
Let me ask, did A.C. Grayling make the "cognitive relativism" thesis discussed here up? Is he objecting to a view no one has advocated for? I posted the thread here because his description of cognitive relativism reminded me of a thesis I had seen presented here before.
Sam Harris likewise opens up the Moral Landscape by running through a number of troubling encounters he had with extreme relativists at academic conferences, and quoting a number of similar positions. If relativism is a hallucination, it's apparently a group one.
Fictionalism, etc. are popular opinions. Open up a mainstream introductory text on metaphysics, something like the Routledge Contemporary Introduction, and you will find it introduced there as a major position.
No one has ever espoused these positions? [I]I[/I] have personally espoused them :rofl:! That was the default I was brought up with. And I have had plenty of conversations on this site with people exposing extreme forms of nominalism. We get someone (normally a new user) popping in to assert epistemic nihilism every few weeks. I assume they rarely stick around because epistemic nihilism makes philosophy fairly boring.
Go check out the sort of questions that get asked to credentialed philosophers on AskPhilosophy. Some people are genuinely confused about how anyone could [I]not[/I] be a relativist.
So, I may have misunderstood what [I]you[/I] were getting at, but I hardly think I have hallucinated the existence of relativist positions.
But in terms of your particular framing, you said the problem was:
To which I said:
To which you replied:
But what you're saying isn't a problem just for "foundational premises," it literally is a problem for affirming any proposition at all. To say:
P
P ? Q
Is to say that you believe that the person affirming ~Q is mistaken (or that some further distinction is needed, etc.). Assuming the principle of non-contradiction, it is to say that there is a right way to describe the world and that the right way includes P and Q, not ~P and ~Q. An appeal to "voluntarism" as resolving the issue of disagreement just seems to me like relativism. How is it not?
If you don't want P to imply that the person affirming ~P is mistaken, you need all judgements to be hypothetical. Perhaps that is your solution? I recall you saying that we can reason about values, but only ever generate a "hypothetical ought." All I can say is that this would seem to imply a far-reaching skepticism. Doesn't this imply that we could never say "P is wrong," but only "if you adopted these premises, with these inference rules, P would be wrong?"
And again, I am not sure how holding to premises non-hypothetically necessarily precludes considering that it might be we ourselves who are in error, or attempting to resolve seeming contradictions through distinctions.
Maybe I should have expanded what I meant by “crude relativism.” It would be something like this:
“Everything is relative. There’s no true or false. There’s no right and wrong.”
“But I don’t agree with that.”
“Then you’re wrong!”
This is what I meant by a position no one could take seriously.
Reading over your responses here, though, I realize that I have a rhetorical habit of saying “anyone” or “no one” when what I really mean is “ . . . within the universe of competent philosophers.” You remind me that there are people willing to accept most any position, if it has some emotional appeal. I rarely encounter them, because I live my intellectual life largely in the company of the philosophers I’m reading (and TPF, of course). But you’re undoubtedly right – what I call “crude relativism” may present no problems whatsoever for some people. So I should amend what I just wrote, above, to read, “ . . . a position no one familiar with philosophical inquiry could take seriously.”
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
By foundational premises, I meant to include not just the logical forms, but the bedrock propositions to which the reasoning applies. Foundational philosophy doesn't merely specify modus ponens, for instance, but also declares content for P and Q that is claimed as foundational. Or, if "content" is suspect, it stipulates the connection between logical form and the world.
On the contrary, I'd say the forum is not skeptical enough. ;)
I don't agree, but saying why would be extending the topic...
Do we want to do that, or start another PM conversation including @Janus, or a new thread, or leave it?
I'll leave it unless something else happens.
Quoting Moliere:up:
Quoting Moliere:up:
Quoting Moliere:up:
Quoting Moliere Yep. Philosophy is not science without the maths.
Quoting Moliere Yep. And there is the additional problem of their never quite explaining what an essence is, at least not in a way that is anywhere near as clear as "A property had by a thing in every possible world in which it exists".
Quoting Moliere I also welcome exegesis, but when Aristotelian ideas are toted as better than more recent stuff, together with an apparent misunderstanding of that more recent stuff, then it's worthy of comment.
Nice. That's a very clear rendition.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
...which for my money says very little.
I think that I can make sense of the notion @Count Timothy von Icarus says -- I'm still chewing on it.
My immediate guess is it sounds like hylomorphism, which seems relevant to "Water is H2O" to me -- but I've encountered resistance here now: there's an updated essentialism that isn't Aristotle, but Aristotle-inspired.
I'm interested, though I suspect I know which way my thoughts will go.
Does "are-ness" or "being" admit of degrees?
I'm close to agreeing with you where you say
I don't think that the relationship is "less real" -- hence the grab-bag of ambiguous examples -- I just don't believe there are degrees of reality.
Though it being realized in history is something I'm sympathetic to, at least from a materialist perspective.
Quoting Banno
The motivation seems to be at least in part a desire to make use of essences in ontological arguments for god.
That sentence isn't meant to be a definition of essential properties. It's a response to representationalism.
We had a thread on a while back. I think my answer might be a very qualified "yes," as presented through the notions of virtual quantity in Aquinas and similar notions in Platonism and Hegel. Perhaps "more intelligible in itself" would be better.
Ok. Good.
So, what is an essence, if not a property had by a thing in every possible world in which it exists?
I think I've asked you that before.
Quoting Moliere
If an answer is given, be on the look out for a crossing of the floor here, from ontology to morality. "are-ness" and "being" (?) are ontological terms. Degree usually involves some form of evaluation. Now we probably can't say outright that such a move is a mistake, but it will be worth keeping an eye on how the evaluation is done.
Yes! :up:
Quoting J
The point is that your objection will exist whether or not the topic is so-called "foundational philosophy." If X is true then people who hold X to be false will be wrong. And if modus ponens is true, then people who reject modus ponens will be wrong. There is nothing special here about a foundational claim (in fact it's just the opposite, but I will keep it simple).
So if we don't want anyone to be wrong then we have to do much more than avoid so-called "foundational philosophy." We have to avoid all claims of truth and validity. Indeed, we must avoid all normative claims whatsoever.
Do you not see the irony in having the write off fairly popular opinions in philosophy as "unserious" here? Grayling is responding to other professional philosophers. Harris's stories come from professional conferences as well, e.g. a speaker at an ethics conference who claimed that we could not say whether or not another culture was wrong if they tore out the eyes of every third born infant out mere custom because "it's their culture." Nietzsche is, I would imagine, the long-running title holder for "most popular thinker in the West."
But in virtue of what are positions to be dismissed as "unserious?" Again, it seems to me that you have to start with some (more or less foundational) premises here to avoid the problems mentioned in the "Dogmatism and Relativism" thread. And like I said before, the problem you mention seems to apply to affirming all sorts of premises, not just "foundational" ones. People will either affirm what follows from more or less obvious or well-supported premises or they won't. In Harris's example, "tearing infant's eyes out is not good for them," would be the obvious premise in question.
The person denying this premise seems factually wrong. Are they wrong in a moral sense? With that particular premise, I'd say yes. In particular, if they allow children to be blinded when they could have otherwise prevented it, or blind a child because "when in Rome do as the Romans," that seems particularly bad. Whereas, while "act is prior to potency" might be more "foundational," it's hardly blameworthy to have failed to consider it. Those terms need some serious unpacking. "What is known best in itself" is not generally "what is known best to us." What is known best to us is particulars, stuff like "blinding children isn't good for them." If people have any rational responsibility at all (through action or negligence)—and I would tend to say they do—it will tend to lie most heavily here, in these sorts of concrete judgements.
Quoting Moliere
Well then how in the heck are you getting to your conclusion that, "water was not H2O [at some point in the past]"? Do you have an argument for that claim? You seem to think that because Aristotle wasn't aware of H2O, or that because Aristotle was an essentialist, therefore your proposition is somehow made true. I don't see that you have offered any valid argument for your claim that water was not H2O (at some point in the past).
Paul Vincent Spade's The Warp and Woof of Metaphysics might frame things in terms you are more familiar with.
Or Klima's comparison, but I would say the first is more direct and accessible.
As Spade (along with many others) remarks, there is confusion because: "In analytic philosophy, there is a view called “Aristotelian essentialism”— by both its supporters and its opponents — that in fact has nothing to do with Aristotle."
Note that subject can be said in two ways, in terms of logic or in terms of metaphysics. In logic, the subject is what any predicate is "attached" to. In metaphysics, subject can be said properly or improperly, as of a thing or as of a things underlying substrate. Substance is said of particular things primarily. It is secondary substance where we see essence, the "type of thing" something is.
The logic interacts with the metaphysics but I am not really sure what to recommend for that aside from just reading the Categories (and Porphyry's Isogogue), the Physics, and Metaphysics. I have no found a really good summary the way I have for some parts of Plato.
Was Water H2O before Cavendish and Lavoisier?
De Dicto, no. There was no such language, so there was no such claim -- the thing, water, may have been H2O, but this isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how we talk about essences, or more generally, how to get down to what's real, and whether or not science has much to say on that subject after all, and what is this water thing all about with reference to our philosophical meanderings.
Basically I see the work of scholars as generative -- before the work, nothing there, after the work, something there. This is generative of knowledge, though, not being. I am a realist for all this.
For Kripke this isn't a problem because we can come to find out necessities after the fact, so there's still a basis for laying out what an essence is -- an essence is what an individual has in all possible worlds.
But prior to the work of chemistry there wasn't really an individual "water" which we had some set of predicates for that held in all possible worlds, especially since "all possible worlds" wasn't used at the time.
Where Aristotle comes in as what appeared to be your account of essence, but your emphasis on his time and place seems to mean that what Aristotle means isn't as important to your account of essence. More or less since the account is vague we end up with arbitrarity where we can just sort of choose what counts as an essence and insist upon it -- the name could change to accommodate that particular thing as essence, or what-have-you. All it really amounts to is "This is what I've designated as the part that defines this individual" -- in this case let's just say "Water is necessarily H2O" is the sort of thing this essentialist believes.
So far I can grant a posteriori necessity,
But the essentialist you have in mind seems to believe that water is necessarily H2O, and it was necessarily H2O, and it will necessarily be H2O. For me I don't see the confidence in such a belief for the simple fact that we have changed our mind about water's essence before, so there's nothing stopping us from doing it again.
That the necessity holds a posteriori seems to allow updates to knowledge as we find out how wrong we were.
Yes, this akin to the problem of circularity in Locke where the nominal essence by which different things are defined ends up determining the real essence by which they are identified as a certain nominal essence. Nothing seems particularly essential in this formulation, as it's all subject to revision.
But this certainly goes against the intuition that water was water millions of years ago, one which is supported by plenty of empirical evidence.
This is to my mind a general weakness of formulating a theory of essences by begining with language and naming. It puts the effect before the cause, and one needs a sort of circularity to resolve things.
I think the underdetermination argument is what undermines this notion -- it's what I'd guess now, but it could be that we're reading patterns into the past that we accept now which are predictive and make sense, but so did the epicycles. Before Copernicus there was overwhelming evidence of the spheres having and will always being in existence.
That Quine's criticism of essentialism was misdirected doesn't much impact Kripke.
If you are going to reject the notion that essentialism is just about necessary truths in possible worlds, then you would best present an account of essence that is at least as useful.
Again, what is an essence, if not a property had by a thing in every possible world in which it exists? Pointing us to an article that doesn’t offer a decisive argument for why Kripke’s modal metaphysics is insufficient just doesn't answer that question. Without showing that Kripke’s system fails or that the Aristotelian alternative can do the same explanatory work, it amounts to special pleading. Unless Spade can do the work Kripke does, the conversation will always favour the more robust, explanatory, and precise framework.
Water is necessarily H?O. However, prior to Cavendish, folk did not use the expression "water is H?O", and did not know that water was H?O.
That seems pretty clear. Is there a problem?
While I think the notion that nature changes a bit outlandish, I'm uncertain that our discoveries about the terms we've been using tell us what will and has been real.
I find the notion that nature changes outlandish, but I don't find the notion that our understandings of nature change outlandish -- so prior to Cavendish water was not H?O, but after the next theorist of matter....
Well, then we would say that water is not necessarily H?O. That, prior to Cavendish, folk did not use the expression "water is H?O", quite rightly, and then there was a period were people believed that water was necessarily H?O, and said things like "Water is necessarily H?O". But now we know better.
This could all be set out unambiguously using a formal notion. it's be a bit convolute, so I'll leave it.
The salient bit might be the difference between "Water is necessarily H?O" and "We know that Water is necessarily H?O". The first is extensionally transparent, the second, extensionally opaque, becasue the sentence "Water is necessarily H?O" is within the scope of "We know that..."
Talk of real and nominal essences is a bit of a furphy. It's about scope.
Are you saying H2O is necessarily H2O, or Water is necessarily H2O? If the former, sure; but the later, well I guess it depends on how you use the term “water”. And is this not where all the confusion and debate occur?
Of course it depends on how you use the term "water". It's a side issue. Here we are in effect supposing that the extension of "water" and the extension of H?O are identical. If you think they are not, then for the purposes of this discussion, pretend that they are. Becasue "Water = H?O" is being used as an example, and it is the resulting logic that is being discussed.
That is, we could use Kripke's lectern instead, and have the same discussion.
Ok, let’s explore extension.
Can we say water is necessarily H2O, D2O, HDO and T2O? (Because all of these naturally occurring in nature when analyzing water)
Or would we say no because I can imagine a possible world where water is just H2O?
Or is the rebuttal, no you can’t imagine water without the others.
Sure. Yep. Fixed to "water is necessarily H?O, D?O, HDO or T?O". As discussed, I'd simplify all this by just stipulating that the "H" in H?O incudes all the various isotopes.
Quoting Richard B
Only if we reject "Water is H?O". Taking ?(water =H?O) as true limits our access to only those worlds in which water=H?O.
The issue is simply that of consistency. If water=H?O then ?(water=H?O). If water is not always H?O, then ~?(water=H?O).
SO yes, we can imagine a possible world in which ~?(water=H?O), but nevertheless, if (water=H?O), then ?(water=H?O).
Again, a side issue.
Yeh, all this talk is a bit furphy, to be honest.
So by what you say -- the sentence believed is extensionally transparent, but the sentence about our belief is not?
One is about the extension of the sentence, the other has a wider scope.
Yes, of course you are. That's what I've been saying over and over. You are talking about 1a, not 1:
Quoting Leontiskos
When you ask "was water H2O" and then immediately say, "the thing, water, may have been H2O, but this isn't what I'm talking about," you are contradicting yourself within three sentences. If we want to talk about "how we talk" then we are talking about signification and term-usage, which is precisely what 1a does.
Quoting Moliere
I think invalidity is plaguing your reasoning at multiple levels. Just because I think Aristotle was correct about essences does not mean that I think water was not H2O in Aristotle's time. That simply doesn't follow at all. Aristotle himself would not think that follows.
Yep
John had a drink of water=John had a drink of H?O
Substitution works, so it's transparent.
John knew he had a drink of water ? John knew he had a drink of H?O
If John does not know water=H?O, substitution fails.
What's important is to see that putting the issue within the scope of what we know changes how the bits fit together.
I'll accept that I'm contradicting myself in three sentences, and not in an intentional manner. At the end of the conversation I prefer to figure out what is different between our perspectives -- as I said before it's the differences I value.
I get the idea that you must know what water is, necessarily, if your expressions are true.
Though perhaps I'm only frustrating you and we're talking past one another.
Never thought we'd get this far in understanding one another.
Quoting Moliere
I think one could take your argument and claim that Aristotle and Lavoisier were not pointing to the same thing at all with the term "water." There was complete equivocation. Aristotle was pointing to the stuff found in rivers and lakes, whereas Lavoisier was pointing to H2O, and as @Richard B argues, there is effectively nothing in common between the two and therefore "water is not H2O". So either they were talking about entirely different things, or else they were talking about the same thing and contradicting one another.
But the more plausible view is that Aristotle and Lavoisier were talking about the same thing, and that Lavoisier learned something about that thing that Aristotle did not know. I don't see why that view is so hard to entertain. Is there some reason that this view must be opposed? That Lavoisier could learn true things from prior scientists and nevertheless make contributions to the field?
There's a bunch of ambiguities in Leon's formalism that muck it up. "Water" rigidly designates H?O, and does so even when we talk about what happened before Cavendish. But it wasn't used in that way then, for obvious reasons. There's no contradiction or circularity here that I can see.
I think he is adamantly agreeing with you.
O goodness no. Just up front -- I think they both contributed to the field. I think they likely were talking about the same thing, as you said -- in rivers, lakes, oceans, and so forth.
And I think I agree here too -- so maybe I've said something that's in error or wrong there, but I can at least put it in writing I agree here :D
This means that Lavoisier can learn something about water, in the sense that he learns something that was true, is true, and will be true about the substance water. His contribution does not need to entail that previous scientists were talking about something that was not H2O, and the previous scientists generally understood that they did not understand everything about water.
Whom?
Quoting Leontiskos
I agree, sir. :)
He's attractive for a reason. His ideas are amazing in their explicitness for the time he expressed them in. He attempts to move philosophy into the scientific realm by being an empiricist who prefers biology first and foremost, and observes the world around him in making generalizations according to his categories and causes. These are the things I'd like to emulate again in some sense, but maybe with less slavery.
Aristotle's a move which respects Plato, because the ideas are still important, but diverges from him -- at least in the sense of the schools -- because matter is part of the essence of a thing, rather [s]thing[/s]than the forms defining the essence of things.
***
My thoughts come from a place of loving reading Aristotle while thinking about what it all means today.
I'm not certain how to distinguish how I think yet, but one thing I've noticed is how Aristotle's move from the more certain to the less certain might not be the way I generate knowledge.
Cf:
Quoting Leontiskos
Quoting Leontiskos
From what I remember, Spade gets at the deeper issues (which bear on the discussion between @Banno and @Arcane Sandwich in the linked thread), but he doesn't engage Kripke and therefore requires more patience. If someone were open-minded about Aristotelian essentialism I would also point to the Spade piece, but for the brawlers of TPF I think Klima is better.
Thank you for the kind words, I appreciate that. :smile:
Quoting Moliere
Yes, well that would be an interesting topic. Aristotle thinks that any piece of new knowledge that someone arrives at must be generated from things that they then knew better and still know better. That they then knew them better is vacuous, so the more interesting claim is that they still know them better (at the moment the new piece of knowledge is acquired).
I'm beginning to think this is a dialectical point.
In a lot of ways I think of knowledge as the things I know are false -- don't do this, don't do that, this is false because, this is wrong cuz that...
Might be off topic to the original question, though.
Good to find some camaraderie though.
Okay, interesting. Such negatives are pretty slippery. I won't speak to practical prohibitions, but, "This is false," is an incredibly difficult thing to understand. Usually we require, "This is true" + PNC in order to arrive at a judgment of falsehood. I am not at all convinced that a falsehood can be demonstrated directly.
This is a difficulty for truth as primarily a property of (linguistic) propositions instead of "the adequacy of an intellect to being." Epicycles get superceded as a theory, and so all propositions about them (outside of the purely observational) take on the binary value of false. Phlogiston and caloric theory is superceded, and so likewise we are left with a bunch of false sentences, despite these theories representing real advances in knowledge. But one might suppose these are more or less adequate understandings of reality, truth being a case of contrary, as opposed to contradictory, opposition (like light and darkness).
But this is, at most, an epistemic issue. The step further, that claims that essences themselves change, has to say that the water that carved out the Grand Canyon isn't the same water we see causing erosion today. I think there are a host of problems with that though, not least of which is "why should our ideas about things evolve in one way instead of any other if there is no actuality that is prior to our speech about things?"
Just think about applying this same sort of relationship to: "who killed JFK?" Would the killer be Oswald today and then become someone else if we discover decisive evidence that someone else killed JFK? But how could we "discover evidence" of a fact that doesn't exist until we acknowledge said fact? And would it be ok to have punished Oswald while he was "still the killer?" Obviously, this is absurd, but if it is absurd we need a reason for why this sort of change only applies to identies like "water" and not to "JFK's killer."
Second, if water was not H2O in 1600, then by today's definition, water was not water then. But then in virtue of [I]what[/I] do we speak of some enduring thing, "water," that changes over time as theories change. It seems to me that, on this view, it might be better to say that nothing is changing so much as one thing is replacing another. If things just [I]are[/I] whatever dominant opinion says they are, then things are popping into and out of being as theories change.
The other question is, how could we be wrong in these sorts of cases if what a thing is depends on what we currently think of it? How can we discover that "fire is not phlogiston" if there is no such thing as fire outside of ideas like phlogiston theory?
IDK, perhaps some of these can be ironed out but it certainly seems more intuitive to me that fire and water are, and remain, what they are.
The term “water” can refer to many things, while “H2O” seems to be referring to something very precise. It seems to me Kripke wants to say “water” precisely refers to one thing as H2O.
I find the quote from Chomsky’s Cartesian Linguistics useful:
“This is because, as Chomsky suggests, in the domains of mathematics and the natural sciences, one finds strong ‘normative’ constraints on same-use, constraints not found in the use of natural language, where people employ and enjoy linguistic creativity. Everyday speakers are not engaged on a unified project. And as Chomsky also points out, it is no surprise that Fregean semantic theories – those that suppose a community with shared thoughts and shared uniform symbols for expressing these thoughts, and an assumed constraint to be talking about the same thing whenever they use a specific symbol – work quite well with mathematics and the natural sciences. But they do not work with natural languages, a hard lesson for the many philosophers and semanticians who try to adapt Fregean semantics to natural languages.”
I agree that's intuitive.
It's what I assume in my thinking about matter from the past to now.
I also agree that if we had a fully worked out philosophy we could make the analogy between historical events and matter, but I'll admit I think [s]the former[/s] claims on matter are a little more secure than claims about particular events.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Because some scientist or researcher became obstinate about their theory and did what they could through the social structure to persuade others they were right after all.
Thinking through this question now -- Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions is what I have in mind, but with a more materialist mindset which doesn't give into the notion that nature itself changes with the sciences.
I think if phlogiston had won the day then we'd be talking about how the caloric theory was wrong -- once we collectively accept a theory we can begin to discard thoughts that seem irrelevant and get to the work "at hand"
If all the scientists then had decided phlogiston is better they could have worked out the various difficulties with accepting that theory, in my mind. But this is a historical counter-factual.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think it's in virtue of the things our species relies upon water for -- drinking, cooking, bathing, etc.
"Water" is not a scientific term exactly.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Well, yes.
I tend to favor the epistemic side over the ontology side -- I understand it's basically a "player's choice", but it's my preference. On the reverse of "How do you know unless you start with what is?" is "How do you know what is unless you start with what you know?"
Another thing I'm tempted to say is a dialectical of some kind...
Quoting Banno
It might be better to use the lectern example than water example just to show what "necessity" and "essence" mean.
Where is that thread we talked about this in.... @Banno
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
"at most"? As if that were the lesser question? :D
I admit I'm more on the epistemic than metaphysical side of thinking.
I don't think matter changes with our ideas, at least not so far with what I know.
"The step further" is the one I wouldn't take -- it's possible, but not something we really know or can claim to know.
As the epicycles were once thought universal, so can our theory of water be thought universal, but mistaken in terms of meaning.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I agree there.
IIRC, Spade actually gets to some of the well known problems with "bundle metaphysics," fairly early on.
At any rate, it seems fairly unobjectionable that "in every possible world all cats have the property of being cats." Something cannot be cat without being a cat, and it cannot be cat if it is not-a-cat. As far as a metaphysical theory though, this doesn't say much.
For one thing, we might ask, "can a thing have both the property of being a cat and the property of being a dog?" If not, why? If so, doesn't it seem that, were we in the presence of such a being, we would be in the presence of some sort of third entity, a chimera, instead of being in the presence of both "a cat and a dog." Can we be in the presence of one thing and two essences, two distinct types of thing? The metaphysical notion of [I]measure[/I] is unresolved here.
We might also ask: "what sorts of things have essences?" Our definition is unhelpful here. Is warm water essentially different from cold water? Well, warm water is necessarily warm, so we could say that it is warm in every possible world. If it wasn't warm, it wouldn't be "warm water," but would instead be something else, like "cold water," "hot water," etc. Does this mean there is no possible world where my cup of "hot tea" cools, because hot tea is necessarily hot? Rather, there would only be possible worlds where my hot tea is spontaneously replaced with an essentially different "lukewarm tea," and then that is replaced by a "cold tea."
We could ask the same question re ice and steam or black cats and white cats. A black cat is necessarily black in any world where it is a "black cat." Yet if Fluffy the cat falls into a vat of paint will we be faced with a sort of sorcerery whereby one being has been spontaneously replaced with an essentially different sort of being?
Does a chair or table have an essence? But then there are all sorts of chairs and tables with different properties, and all sorts of things might be used as improvised chairs or tables.
What makes something have an essence? Or what makes a property essential? If the answer cannot go further then: "a property is essential just in case some thing has it in every possible world," then that doesn't actually seem to tell us anything about positively distinguishing between essential and accidental properties at all. If someone denies that water is essentially H2O, arguing instead that water is only essentially clear, potable, and wet, what decides between these?
Without more, it seems that the answer would have to be either: "we just know essences when we see them," or "we decide based on what it is useful to consider essential." The former isn't much of a theory, whereas the latter says that "essential" is itself always predicated per accidens, which is actually a denial of essences and essential properties, and so not much of a theory of essences.
That's what Pryzwarra says. You will always have a sort of "passing back and forth" between questions of the "metaontic" and "metaepistemic" in first philosophy, although he does give a slight nod to the ontic here in that even framing an "act of knowing" presupposes something about "act." He ties this back very interestingly to the instability of "creaturely being," where essence does not explain existence.
This was a problem for Plotinus as well. Even if being and being known are two sides of the same coin, they seem to imply some sort of composite action, an essential difference. There is the being and the knowing of being, or "being the knowing of being." Yet if the One is absolutely simple, this distinction causes a problem (hence "real" versus "conceptual" distinctions). It's the same deal with the "life of the Trinity."
Yes, but we might argue that water is only good for these things because of what it is in the first place. There is a (prior) reason (cause ?actuality ? form) determining why people want to drink water but not molten rock. Usefulness and human behavior flow from some sort of determinant being, both in terms of man himself and what he interacts with.
At least, that seems quite reasonable for me.
Not sure what you are referring to but I will take a wild swing.
One of my favorite passages from Naming and Necessity, “Don’t ask: how can I identify this table in another possible world, except by its properties? I have the table in my hands, I can point to it, and when I ask whether it might have been in another room, I am talking, by definition, about it. I don’t have to identify it after seeing it through a telescope.”
Obviously, in the case “Water”, you may be pointing to one thing or a multitude of things. Sometimes you might be referring to nothing in particular at all. As for H2O, it is not about pointing at all but theorizing and testing (Also, not quite like viewing something thru a telescope).
But what I find revealing in Kripke’s passage is his interaction with the conceptual/abstract and the actual/concrete. Once there is certain stage setting with the world, he shows that we should feel confident in moving between talk of ideas and talk of actual things.
That's an interesting point, although I am not sure if it would challenge notions of essences or substantial form directly. Essences and substantial form do not in any way rule out equivocal predication, what they are supposed to do is explain the possibility of univocal predication.
C.S. Lewis published a book made from his lectures on the "model of nature" underlying medieval and renaissance literature (The Discarded Image) just two years before Kuhn and it has this interesting, although not very developed, quite similar insight about the role of paradigms, but obviously coming from a very different background. I always thought that Kuhn (and particularly later interpreters) was perhaps overreaching a bit. Models, language, theories, etc., my argument would be that these are not what we know, but rather means of knowing. Hence, when a model, or paradigm, or in Lewis's terminology a "backcloth" changes, we are not transported to a new world or dealing with new things, so much as making use of refined tools. But, I will allow that if one has already accepted:
A. That truth is primarily a property of sentences;
B. Representationalism; and
C. The empiricist epistemic starting positions that tend to make arguments from underdetermination nigh impossible to defeat;
The theories that turn natural science into more of a question of sociology start to make a lot of sense. I guess part of what initially made me skeptical here though is just the wide plurality of "skeptical solutions" (as opposed to "straight solutions" à la Kripke) leading in radically different directions in 20th century thought.
Leon.
Kripke: Identity and Necessity?
or
Naming and Necessity, reading group? and Naming and necessity Lecture Three?
Been a few others, too.
Here's the main paragraph concerning the issue from Identity and Necessity:
Here it's not only water being considered. Nothing much of this argument hangs on the truth or falsity of water being H?O, or any of the other identities listed. Rather he's concerned with the modal consequences of any such equivalence: that If a and b are rigid designators and a=b then ?(a=b).
Who does this?
Lots of thinkers. If it's "there are something like essences, but they change," we can consider Hegel, a number of Hegelians, Whitehead, maybe Heidegger (unfolding), a lot of contemporary process philosophers, etc.
If it's "there is nothing like an essence (in the classical sense) but what classical metaphysicians called essences changes" then Deleuze, Kuhn, Butler, Merleau-Ponty, constructivists generally, etc.
Ok. Anyone in this thread?
I've long thought that possible world semantics is simply an exploration of what we can coherently imagine. That said, I haven't looked into it much. In light of my perhaps limited understanding of it I would reframe your formulation?" A property had by a thing that we cannot imagine it existing without".
That's pretty close. And "A property had by a thing that we cannot imagine it existing without" works for many purposes. The formal definition is somewhat different. The trouble is not just that we can imagine alls sorts of odd things, but that what one person can imagine might be quite different to what another person can imagine.
An alternative might be to understanding "what if this blue table had been red instead of blue" as asking what would be the case, what would be true, if this table were red instead of blue. It's convenient, if perhaps for some folk not intuitive, to call the things that would to be true were this table blue, a "world".
There's the additional problem that some folk imagine impossible worlds. A whole other story.
There's considerable overlap between "A property had by a thing in every possible world in which it exists" and "A property had by a thing that we cannot imagine it existing without", but they are not quite the same.
I guess I’ll have to respond to each item.
Now what?
IS there some conclusion that you would like to draw from all this?
Edit: No response, so I've edited the block of text to hopefully make it more readable.
It's the thing we were discussing. If water was not H2O in Aristotle's day would this mean that being H2O is neither essential nor necessary for water or that water itself changes? Or [I]could[/I] heat be caloric? might be a similar sort of question (or was it?)
I'm not sure how possible worlds semantics is supposed to be clear. Hardly anyone knows what a possible world is supposed to be. Or else, if "possible world" is supposed be derived from colloquial meaning and usage, then "essence" is much clearer, having a much greater basis in colloquial meaning and usage.
Water presumably was H?o in Aristotle's day.
But I'm pretty sure Aristotle never called it "water".
And if water were not H?O in ancient Greece, then water would not be the very same thing as H?O. So Water would not be H?O in every possible world - Ancient Greece being an example of a possible world in which this is not so. So then, being H?O would not be a necessary characteristic of water.
Note the couching of these in hypothetical sentences... "If... then...". That's the bit where we are looking at the logic of the situation, leaving aside the science, which philosophers do so poorly.
So this
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
raises a question for me:
Is there a possible world in which water is not H2O? if there is, what would make it count as water in such a world? Presumably since water was not understood to be H2O in Aristotle's time, people of that time could have coherently imagined a possible world where water was a black opaque liquid (because the god's could have made it so, say), but can we coherently imagine such a world if water must be H2O and H2O cannot possibly be a black opaque liquid?
If we said we could imagine it what would make it count as imagining water? Mere stipulation?
What about imagining a world in which there are round squares? We can say 'there is a possible world in which there are round squares", but would that count as imagining such a world? Would it count as coherently imagining such a world?
Might be worth a new thread. Recently, in another thread, @Hanover drew attention to a SEP article on the topic. But as many folk - present company excepted - are having trouble with possible worlds, impossible worlds might be too much.
Quoting Janus
Yep. But we are going to have to introduce more terms. There's a hierarchy of possibilities:
So physical possibilities are metaphysically and logically possible. Metaphysical possibilities include all physical possibilities and a few other possibilities, and are all logically possible. The space outside the logical possible is that of the logically impossible.
Quoting Janus
There's a logically possible world in which water ? H?O. But there is not a metaphysically or physically possible world in which water ? H?O. That water=H?O is a metaphysical fact, not a logical fact. It should be apparent that once we agree that water=H?O, we rule out the possibility that water ? H?O.
In order to consider worlds in which water is not H?O, you have to reject ?(water=H?O), or reject the rigidity of those terms. That is, you are working outside the circle of metaphysically possible words.
Formally, this sort of thing is dealt with by access relations. So you from logically possible worlds we can get to metaphysically possible worlds, and from there to physically possible worlds, But not so in the other direction.
When you imagine a world with round squares, you are imaging something outside the circle of hat is logically possible. Sure, you can't bring to mind an image of such a thing, but we might be able to world out some of the consequences that would follow from there bing a round square, if we had at hand a suitable counterpossible logic; if there is such a thing.
The Stanford article from which I stole the image has more on this sort of thing. It takes tome to grasp these ideas, however the result is a consistent picture of nested possibilities and impossibilities.
The fact that it is logically possible that those ratios and standards might be different only goes to show the emptiness of pure logic.
Why?
The appropriate response is that we lack sufficient information.
There were posts from many folk: , , , , the usual suspects.
I found this:
Quoting Banno
and then this:
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Two examples amongst many, but they maybe give an indication of the tension that has kept this thread going . So I'll restate my line of thinking here. The question is "What is real?"; and the answer suggested is that "real" is a term that depends on it's contrary in order to achieve meaning - it's not real, it's counterfeit; it's not real, it's an illusion; and so on. The response is something like "No, I don't mean that, I mean what is really real, in an absolute sense". And the reply is that it is not clear that "what is really real" makes any sense at all, and if it does, then it's sense needs explaining.
We do have an "infinite possibility space of possible games", and we can choose whichever suits our purposes.
Note the "we". Not "I". It's about a conversation, not about what you do in private.
Asking "What is really real" supposes that there is One True Answer, rather than a whole bunch of different answers, dependent on circumstance and intent and other things. There doesn't seem to be a good reason to hold such a monolithic view.
Quoting Banno
Cheers, I will take a look at the article. The question I have right now (which may be resolved after reading the article) is this: if we want to say there is a logically possible world in which water is not H2O, on what other basis could it be said that it would count as being water?
A nice summation. In the context of metaphysics the answer to "what is real?" would seem to be 'what is actual, as opposed to what is imaginary or merely an idea'. But now the question will be 'what is meant by 'actual'?'. Is it what exists, what acts or something else? @Wayfarer is constantly saying that 'what is real' is not equivalent to 'what exists'. The paradigm example is numbers?they are said to be real but not to exist. So the question becomes 'in what sense are they real then?'.
Numbers may be merely ideas, I think of number as real and existent. We don't see actual numbers, but we see number or plurality everywhere. It is not an individual entity or thing, but it exists just as space and time do. For me that solves the supposed conundrum.
The same goes for universals?they are not real or existent in some platonic sense. I prefer the less loaded word 'generalities'?I see generalities in observed regularities, patterns and similarities that also exist, but obviously not as individual entities.
That is a helpful frame for "what is real?'
Personally, I don’t find the question to be a useful one. I have no choice but to accept the apparent physical world I inhabit, even if physicalism is ultimately illusory. I have no confidence that meditation, drugs or other so-called higher consciousness practices can lead to anything substantively meaningful and lasting. Those who believe otherwise, I simply take to have a different disposition than my own.
This is the question of reference? How is it that "water" refers to water, and nothing else?
The big change in thinking that was consequent on Possible World Semantics was the rejection of the previously ubiquitous description theories of reference. These held that a name refers to an individual in virtue of some description that serves to pick out that individual and no other. This approach was found to be indefensible in the face of modal interpretations, because whatever description was offered, it had to work even in those possible worlds in which the description failed to pick out the relevant individual.
And example might help here. Supose that all we know of Thales is that he was from Miletus and claimed that every thing was water. Then on the description theory, "Thales" refers to whomever is the philosopher from Miletus who believed all was water.
But supose that in some possible world, Thales went into coopering, making barrels of all sorts, and never gave a thought to ontology. But some other bloke, also from Miletus, happened to think that everything was made of water.
Then, by the description theory, "Thales" would not refer to Thales, but this other bloke.
There are numerous other examples. The upshot is that most philosophers who care now reject description theories.
So there is no basis for such reference, and instead there is talk of a chain from our use of "Thales" to refer to Thales, back through time to when Thales said such odd things, but not dependent on what he said or any specific facts about him. You and I refer to Thales becasue the people we learned about him referred to Thales; and they in turn referred to Thales because the people they learned from did so; and so on back to when Thales was a lad. "Because", hence this is called the "casual" theory of reference.
Now there are subtleties involving reference to kinds, such as water, compared with the individual in the example given, but the principle is much the same. We can talk about water because we learned what water is from our teachers, and they in turn from theirs. And so the reference to "water" is independent of any description, including finding out that water is H?O.
On this account, the basis is a casual chain stretching back through time rather than any particular attribute of water.
Something like that.
We can just get on with it.
Or, a philosophical perspective that you can't fathom.
Anyway, carry on.
Thanks.
So we have a group of distinct, though not unrelated items: actual, real, existing, being...
Possible worlds give us a neat way to talk about what is actual. In the space of possible worlds there is one that is of particular interest, because it is the one in which we happen to find ourselves. But of course, actual is an indexical term, like "here" or "now". It picks out the world of the speaker in a given context. For someone in another possible world, actual refers to their world.
Propositional calculus gives us a neat way to deal with "exists" using quantification. " to be is to be the value of a bound variable" and so on. "Unicorns have horns" vs. "There exists an x such that x is a unicorn and x has a horn." There are not actual Unicorns, yet unicorns have horns. The question "Do unicorns exist?" drops by the wayside.
An account of what is "real" was given earlier in this thread. It's not real, it's counterfeit; it's not real, it's an illusion; and so on. Unicorns are not real, they are mythical.
Numbers exist, since we can quantify over them. U(x)(x+0=x).
Are they actual? well, there are numbers of things in each possible world, even if that number is zero. They do not seem to be within possible worlds so much as a way of talking about the stuff in possible worlds. Like the law of noncontradiction, they are part of the framework in which possible and actual are set out.
Are they real? Some of them. Others are imaginary.
The condescending elitist cop out.
If we can't fathom it, then we have no basis on which to think it a philosophical perspective... :wink:
vs truculent atheism ;-)
In some possible world, water has none of the characteristics it has in our world.
But we know that water is H?O, so that characteristic could not be removed and water still be water. But this is a metaphysical impossibility, not a logical impossibility. Logically,, assuming rigid designation, we can posit a possible world in which water has none of the characteristics it has in the actual world.
But that would be doing something a bit different. It is logically possible to describe a world in which a substance that is not H?O is called ‘water’ and has none of the characteristics of actual water. But in doing so, we are no longer talking about water, strictly speaking, under rigid designation.
That is, if we call a substance that has nothing in common with water, "water", perhaps all we are doing is misusing the word.
No. But I did.
The result? You can happily indulge in the idiosyncratic use of "philosophical perspective" that you envision, but others need not agree.
Of course. A large part of philosophy about managed disagreement. I've learned a ton from disagreeing with contributors here.
On the proviso that their disagreement is coherent and well defended, and that they talk to the criticisms presented. As indeed, you do.
Others are not so obliging.
Acknowledging disagreement is not the same as claiming that others who disagree must not understand. So, I said "elitist cop-out", and in the case of our disagreement, all the more so since you know I once agreed with what you still argue.
Didi I understand it then when I agreed with it and now somehow lost that understanding, or did I apply critical evaluation and realize that what I thought I understood was based on invalid reasoning?
Quoting Banno
I'm sorry but I find it hard to believe you really think that, at least in the context of my discussions with @Wayfarer.
Quoting Banno
Okay, but if that is so I have no idea why we would say it is water and not anything else.
Interestingly, John Searle takes a sort of descriptivist internal approach in his book “Intentionality”. He says, “The external causal chain plays no explanatory role whatever in either Kripke’s or Donnellan’s account, as I will explain shortly. The only chain that matters is a transfer of Intentional content from one use of an expression to the next, in every case reference is secured in virtue of descriptivist Intentional content in the mind of the speaker who uses the expression.”
I'd take a different path, more in line with looking at use, but taking on some of Searle's other work on status functions and collective intent.
So if "One Truth" (I guess I will start capitalizing it too) is "unhelpful," does that mean we affirm mutually contradictory truths based on what is "useful" at the time?
Or, if not, if truth does not contradict truth, then it seems to me that we still have "one" truth and not a plurality of sui generis "truths" (plural).
As I mentioned earlier, a difficulty with social "usefulness" being the ground of truth is that usefulness is itself shaped by current power relations. It is not "useful" to contradict the Party in 1984 (the same being true in Stalin's Soviet Union or North Korea). Does this mean "Big Brother is always right,' because everyone in society has been engineered towards agreeing? Because this has become useful to affirm?
Yes, that the one sentence explanation of essences you've offered is metaphysically insubstantial (which was @Wayfarer's point in the other thread). Now, there are attempts to use this basic conceptual machinery to develop a more robust notion of essence. The point made in the articles referenced earlier is that the machinery itself is perhaps inadequate for this task (or perhaps requires modification). It's hard to start with a system designed with nominalist presuppositions and work one's way back to essences, perhaps impossible.
In particular, if it leaves open the possibility that "essential" is only predicated of things accidentally, it is not even really a theory of essences in anything like the classical sense, more a method of stipulation that [i]could[/I] be developed into a workable theory of essences.
What I got from @Banno seems to be that pluralistic or context-based truths don’t mean that every contradiction is true. Instead, truths depend on the situation, purpose, or point of view. When contradictions happen, it usually means they come from different ways of looking at things -not that truth doesn’t exist.
Beyond this, I don’t have a significant interest in the true nature of reality. I imagine you’re unlikely to be a Rorty fan, but didn’t he say that truth is not about getting closer to some metaphysical reality; it’s about what vocabularies and beliefs serve us best at a given time? I'm sympathetic to this, but my interest is superficial.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Well it may well be useful for one's survival to accept that Big Brother is right, so at one level (that of ruthless pragmatism) sure. But being compelled to believe something out of fear of jail or death is a different matter altogether, isn't it?
Why not just: "there are different ways of describing the same thing that might be equally correct. Some might be more useful in some situations. And some might appear to contradict each other if one is not careful with one's distinctions, simplifying assumptions, definitions, clarifications, etc." as opposed to the idea that something can be both true and not-true depending on what is useful?
Yes, is what Rorty says true? I know Rorty says it is "more useful." Is it truly more useful? I would deny it. But there are either facts about what is "truly more useful" or there aren't. If there aren't, and we are both just asserting sentiment, then won't this just becomes a power struggle? (I like my chances against Rorty since I still have a heart beat).
Yes, but if you're the one doing the "compelling" it can be plenty "useful" right? Truth becoming a power relation doesn't ensure that you always win the power game.
I'd say: exactly like that. This is pure Kripke, and explains why he says things like "we don't need a telescope to identify the table" etc. This is a theory about what words identify, not about what things are. Kripke presumes a difference. As it happens, water is H?O. The word "water" knows nothing of this. We would surely use the same word, just as our ancestors did, if water were something else. An account of what water actually is -- some sort of essence? -- is quite a different matter.
Quoting Banno
I think @Janus' question remains. "None of the characteristics" is quite a leap, even in terms of logical possibility. I can do without the characteristic of having two hydrogen atoms, but being clear and wet? Just how much "waterness" do we need in order to say, Ahah, this is what the causal chain is identifying?
Quoting Banno
I'd say so, leaving aside terminological ambiguities like whether ice should count as water.
Quoting Tom Storm
I'd say further: In the context of "What is really real?" (the context in which @Banno said what he said), there is no truth, because the terms are hopelessly vague. Maybe the right way to say it is, There is no Truly True answer to the question of what is Really Real! Different philosophers and traditions will use "real" to occupy different positions in their metaphysics. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this; we often need some sort of bedrock or stipulated term to hold down a conceptual place, and "real" is a time-honored one. The mistake comes when we think we've consulted the Philosophical Dictionary in the Sky and discovered what is Really Real.
Subject to certain purposes, you might say. But there aren’t facts about usefulness in the transcendent or metaphysical sense. What we can point to is broad agreement, shared standards, and better or worse outcomes within a community or set of practices. Context and intersubjectivity.
Quoting J
Nicely put.
And these are true measures of usefulness, or only "useful" measures for usefulness? The problem is that this seems to head towards an infinite regress. Something is "useful" according to some "pragmatic metric," which is itself only a "good metric" for determining "usefulness" according to some other pragmatically selected metric. It has to stop somewhere, generally in power, popularity contests, tradition, or sheer "IDK, I just prefer it."
So:
So popularity makes something true? Truth is like democracy?
Tradition makes something true?
Better or worse according to who? Truly better or worse?
I hope you can see why I don't think this gets us past "everything is politics and power relations." I think Nietzsche was spot on as a diagnostician for where this sort of thing heads.
Well, either there is a truth about which truths are "pluralistic, context-dependent truths" or there isn't, right? Is "which truths are pluralistic, context-dependent truths?" a question for which the answers are themselves "pluralistic, context-dependent truths?"
To be sure, if one starts throwing around all sorts of capitalized concepts without explaining them, they will be confusing. I would generally assume that when someone asks a pluralist re truth about what is "really true," though, they are asking about the existence of truths that are not ultimately dependent on what some individual or community currently considers to be useful or true.
A "mistake." Are you saying it would be [I]wrong[/I] to affirm this? Curious. Would this be another of those "non-serious" philosophies that we can dismiss? But let me ask, are they "truly non-serious,' or would truths about which philosophies are "wrong," "mistakes," or "unserious" be "pluralistic, context-dependent truths?"
Second, what separates a pluralism that sees assertions of non-pluralism as mistakes from the "crude pluralism" discussed earlier? The problems of the "unity of dogmatism and relativism," the way their reinforce one another, do not seem resolved here.
Hey Richard,
Isn’t the above similar to just saying: “if we define our terms we can say whatever we want.”
“from one use” distinct from “to the next” is the defining of terms notion.
“Intentional content in the mind of the speaker” is the whatever we want notion.
Effortlessly brilliant.
This is why I wish you and I could get along.
The only part I think I don’t follow is “real” and “imaginary” as applied to numbers.
It seems the sense of “real” when talking about unicorns, counterfeits, and illusions is one thing, but imaginary numbers (or not-real numbers) is more of a technical term and not the same sense of “real” as with the others.
I guess I’m asking, do imaginary numbers serve a similar function when used in an equation as say a unicorn functions in a proposition? Such that we can call one number “real” and another number “imaginary” in the same way as we might call a horse “real” and a unicorn “imaginary”?
(And you would be helping me by answering, which, I appreciate could be asking too much. I hope not.)
Distinctions between our intuitions about the real, actual, existing, etc. are the bread and butter of metaphysics. Indeed, words like actual, virtual, essential, substance, form, information, idea, being, potency, existence, etc. come from this tradition, which influenced the development of English.
Of course, it's unhelpful to make vague distinctions. But that's not generally what metaphysics does (at least, there is some attempt at clarification). When people refer to the "common sense" meanings of such terms, they are sort of appealing to the residue of millennia of metaphysical and theological speculation. It is also unhelpful to use the same terms in different ways, and metaphysics often does this. It does this precisely because it is always striving to make these terms more definite. I would say that historically, the terms are vague precisely because so many people have tried to clarify them in different ways.
Formalism is one way to try to clarify terms. But a difficulty here is that not all explanations and understandings are equally easy to formalize. Hegel's dialectic couldn't be formalized until the 1980s with major advances in mathematics, particularly category theory. Analogical predication, the a core feature of classical metaphysics, has yet to be convincingly formalized. Indeed, arguably logic is rightly the domain of univocal predication alone.
Certainly, discussions of logic and the form of arguments and discourse can inform metaphysics. But I think the influence tends to go more in the other direction. Metaphysics informs logic (material and formal) and informs the development of formalisms. This can make pointing to formalisms circular if they are used to justify a metaphysical position.
Yes, generally.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
You seem to have me confused with someone else. :smile: I am not a relativist about truth or, in most contexts, values. I do, however, believe that relativism can't be dismissed by pointing to the standard problems of self-reference. Nor do I think that acknowledging "pluralistic, context-dependent truths" makes someone a relativist. Anyway, being doubtful about "real" isn't at all the same as being doubtful about "true," at least not for me.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Of course, so much so that I'd hesitate to talk about "truths" here at all. Or maybe I don't understand what a non-context-dependent truth about a philosophy would be.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Not sure I understand this. Are you referring back to a characterization I gave of "crude relativism"?
No? And yet to the question of where relativism applies you say that this itself is subject to relativism.
Presuming that philosophy includes epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, logic, and natural philosophy/the philosophy of the special sciences, this would mean that there are no non-relativized, pluralized truths vis-á-vis most of human knowledge though, no?
But the very claim that the truths of philosophy are relative is a (presumably non-context-dependent and potentially contradictory?) claim about metaphysics and knowledge.
At any rate, I'm curious, if one is not a relativist, but assumes that there aren't truths about epistemology, metaphysics, logic, or ethics, how does one go about demonstrating the relativism is not correct? What would be your counterargument to the relativist?
I'm assuming there is some misunderstanding here because it seems to me obviously impossible to accept that there are no non-pluralized truths about philosophy generally and to move from this to an anti-relativist stance, particularly if we have also affirmed that the question of whether or not any topic is relativistic or not is itself relativistic.
What is the argument against relativism given these starting premises?
I agree here. The truth of: "it is raining," is context dependent for example. However, if one expands pluralism to the whole of logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and the philosophy of nature, or if the justification of logic and predication rests on "we decide" I cannot see how a fairly all-encompassing relativism wouldn't be the result.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
So I appreciate this.
I just thought that, given how Banno’s post was so clear and succinct, I’d ask about the one point that I didn’t follow, namely how the use of “real” as in “real numbers” was somehow similar to “real” as in “are unicorns real”.
I’m not a math guy, and the use of “real” and “irrational” numbers always seemed like poetry about math to me. But I think mathematicians see these as distinctions that add philosophic/metaphysical weight to the different types of numbers.
The terms used to distinguish numbers from natural to real to irrational to imaginary, both fascinate me (as a philosopher who needs to use these same terms all of time), and perplex me (as they seem like technical mathematical distinctions, and don’t actually mean anything like “natural” or “real” or “imaginary” as a philosopher otherwise means them. Or do they? Which is my question here about “real” numbers.
I think that's exactly right. I think the reason Analytic philosophy likes "possible worlds" is because its reified formalism is logically manipulable in a very straightforward way. On that single criterion it is better than Aristotelian essentialism. But in no other way is the notion of "possible worlds" more helpful or intuitive or functional then the notion of "essence." The common person will use the latter and hardly ever use the former. The claim that "possible world" means something substantive relies on circular reasoning. The notion of possibility is entirely impotent without some undergirding metaphysics.
There is a possibility that I think isn't taken seriously enough that marks a difference between how I'm thinking on "What is real?" and how it seems Leon is.
And I think this would include our conversation too @Count Timothy von Icarus
There's the sense in which, if pressed, I'll say that I think the water which we drink today is H2O, and that the water which Aristotle refers to has at least a similar enough reference for comparison, if not the same meaning.
But this is a best guess, and not a philosophical demonstration.
Something that's operating in the background of my thoughts that hasn't been clear is the reason and use for historical examples, such as using Aristotle to talk about essentialism when a modern essentialist would not make the claims Aristotle did about water in marking out its essence. The reason I use Aristotle is because he is likely talking about the same thing, and yet he gets a different meaning. Further, his view was taken as the truth for a long time, and then it wasn't (and now it is, by some! :D) -- so there's a tangible conversation through history that we can reference in thinking through how the terms were developed. There's a tradition in which the terms meanings can come to make sense and we can make comparisons between the meanings of the terms. Further, when we accept meaning we get rid of the need for being as a kind of "ground" or "explanation" for why we're saying the things in the first place -- the historical method is what keeps the arguments from devolving into circularity and arbitrary stipulation.
Enough on meta-philosophical method -- I just wanted to make it clear why I've been using Aristotle and the rest rather than laying out propositions and definitions within logical form. And the reflection on the changing of meanings over time leads into the point I wanted to make in noting how the best guess is not a philosophical demonstration: when I look at how meaning has changed over time, and I presume that the thing referred to has not changed, and the meanings contradict, then it seems that either the thing has both meanings, contradictory though they be, or we invent meanings to make sense of the thing. Supposing the LNC holds in a metaphysically possible way, to use 's nesting of possibilities, and we change meanings then which meaning should be the one which is "true", and when will it be true? If we were wrong before then it's possible for us to be wrong again. And science cannot get us out of this conundrum because it is finite -- it deals with the "real' world, we'll say, so as to avoid poisoning the well in favor of physicalism, and the patterns we assign today can be seen as superseded tomorrow because of that. All scientific theories, no matter how certain we can come to see them as, are subject to change and subsumption by future discoveries, future subsumptions and corrections. Then, perhaps, water isn't really H2O, though the locals saw it that way, but from way up here we see....
This all by way of pointing out why I'm going over various meanings of "Water" through thinking on the question about "What is real?" -- let's say we have three contenders for what is real about water. @Banno's is that, in a particular example, we find out that the water was an oasis and not a mirage. In Kripke we find that if water is H2O, then water is necessarily H2O: there is no possible world in which water could be something else, without going into the metaphysics of what water is -- perhaps, to use the diagram again, "What is water?" is a question that can only be sensibly answered in the "Real Possible World" rather than the "Metaphysically possible world" (And, for what it's worth, even if it happens to be wrong, I couldn't make sense of Kripke without thinking of possible worlds as plausible worlds; i.e. what would I assent to as a genuine possibility in such-and-such a circumstance, and what objections might hold?)
For myself it seems that if we accept a realist metaphysics, and our meanings change, then we have to accept the very real possibility that most of what we know is false -- that it's "good enough" to begin with setting out a problem or understanding something, but the particular circumstance is where we'll find the thing rather than in the definition of what makes the thing what the thing is. This supposing the world does not change -- if the world changes, we could still accept a realist metaphysic, and this would make a great deal of sense out of why what seems simple is what smart people disagree about.
But then that just seems to stretch credibility too.
In both cases I'm sort of just setting out what makes reality what it is in relation to meaning -- the question to me is very much on the epistemic side, as I said. In a way what I'd pose is "What does this change in the meaning of water, something which actually seems quite mundane to us without much further ado, indicate about how we decide what is real?"
Sure. I wonder whether you'd be willing to look back over my post and notice the different uses of "relativism" and "pluralism," and the ways in which I tried not to make blanket assertions about things like "the whole of logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and the philosophy of nature."
Just as a for-instance:
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think you'd see, rereading, that this isn't accurate. Here's the exchange:
Quoting J
I would say that things don't have inherent meanings (at least for philosophy). I think you are still conflating metaphysics with linguistics. Throughout this post you talk a lot about "meanings," but essentialism is not about what words mean, it is about what things are.
Quoting Leontiskos
In (1) the essentialist is talking about a thing, water. In (1a) the essentialist is talking about a sign, "water." You are still talking about the meaning of signs, such as "water," at different times throughout history.
Neither Aristotle nor Kripke are merely talking about what a word-sign means.
Quoting Moliere
I've already pointed out that Lavoisier's discovery did not necessarily falsify what came before:
Quoting Leontiskos
When Lavoisier talks about water he is talking about a thing, not a word-sign. He is interested in the reality of water itself.
In order to talk about what is real we need to know what it is we mean by "What is real?" -- this would be before any question on essentialism. In order to talk about what water is we have to be able to talk about "What does it mean when we say "Water is real", or "Water has an essence"? or "The essence of water is that it is H2O"?"
We can't really deal with any dead philosopher without dealing with meanings -- the words have to mean something, rather than be the thing they are about.
Quoting Leontiskos
Whether they falsify one another or not is different from whether they mean the same thing. I don't think they do, but are probably talking about the same thing in nature. I do, however, think you have to pick one or the other if we presume that Lavoisier and Aristotle are talking about the same thing because the meanings are not the same. The lack of falsification is because the meanings are disparate and they aren't in conversation with one another, and they aren't even doing the same thing.
It's the difference in meaning that raises the question -- if the thing is the same why does the meaning differ? If stating "What the thing is" in a metaphysical way can be done without knowing what it is we mean by claims on reality then maybe you'd have a point. But I don't think we can just begin with the things as they are in the abstract -- we begin with things as they are around us.
Yes, in a way, but I think reality comes first. I think we have to have some familiarity with water before we have any sensible familiarity with "water." Familiarity with water is a precondition for familiarity with the English sign "water."
Quoting Moliere
I think the key here is that when Lavoisier says, "Water is H2O," he could be saying two different things:
M: "Water is H2O, and if anyone, past or future, says anything else about water, they are wrong."
N: "Water is H2O, and there are all sorts of other true things that can be said about water."
You seem to take Aristotle to have said something like (M), but that's not generally what a scientist means when they say, "Water is such-and-such." If all scientists are saying things like (M) then there can be no growth in knowledge and therefore Aristotle's approach is wrong. But given that scientists are usually saying things like ( N) there is no true barrier to growth in knowledge - either individually or communally.
Quoting Moliere
Much of this is right, but again, the crucial point you are failing to recognize is that neither Aristotle nor Lavoisier mean that anyone who does not mean what they mean must therefore be wrong. That is a very strange reading. No one is claiming to have a complete and exclusive understanding of water.
Quoting Moliere
Because learning occurred and knowledge grew. Lavoisier knows more about water than Aristotle did. Aristotle would expect this to be the case for later scientists.
Well, this is a familiar criticism, and the usual response is that infinite regress is probably unavoidable since we don’t have any ultimate grounding. There is no non-circular grounding for us to cling to, try as we might. We settle, at least for a while, on what works, and over time this changes. In that sense, our version of reality or truth functions similarly to how language works; it doesn’t have a grounding outside of our shared conventions and practices.
Bear in mind that I am sympathetic to these views, but I hold them tentatively.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Not quite. The position isn’t that truth is mere popularity, but that truth is built through ongoing conversation and agreement. What counts as true is what survives criticism, investigation, and revision within a community over time. So instead of certainty, we have a fallible and evolving consensus. Tradition, in such a context, is something that should be investigated and revised if necessary.
Humans work to create better ways to live together, but these are contingent matters. It’s still meaningful, it just isn’t definitive, permanent, or grounded in some ultimate truth. This doesn’t inevitably reduce everything to power and politics; as Rorty might argue, it can also lead us toward solidarity. The lack of a foundation doesn’t prevent us from having conversations about improvement, you might even say it invites them.
It also seems to me that even if you believe in foundationalism or some transcendent notion of the Good, there is still no universal agreement about what it actually is. So, in practice, we’re all engaged in an act of creative invention and ongoing conversation. I think everyone is in the same boat.
How so? I'm genuinely confused here? What exactly would be your explanation of why relativism and pluralism re truth is wrong?
A thorny issue. I suppose one's understanding of signs is important here, as well as the proper ordering of the sciences/philosophy (if one is supposed at all).
If metaphysics has priority, we can say that water has to be before it is known. The being, its actuality, is called in to explain the sign and evolutions in what the sign evokes
But the role of the object is collapsed with that of the interpretant in the Sausserean model that has so much influence on post-structuralism, and that paints a different picture.
And the difference between these two models lies in the question: in the second model, what is signified: the object, or an interpretation called forth by the sign (the meaning)? That seems to be the essence of the question here to me.
It would be question begging to simply assume the prior model of course, but I think one can argue to it on a number of grounds.
First, a system of signs that only ever refers to other signs would seem to be, in information theoretic terms, [I]about[/I] nothing but those signs. This would be the idea, rarely explicitly endorsed, but sometimes implied, that books about botany aren't about plants, but are rather about words, pictures, and models, or that one primarily learns about models, mathematics, and words when one studies physics. There is also the question of the phenomenological content associated with signs. Where would that come from?
Second is the old question: "why these signs (with their content)?" This is the old question of quiddity that Aristotle is primarily interested in. Then also, "since these appear to be contingent, why do these signs exist at all?" (the expanded question of Avicenna and Aquinas). Which is, to my mind, a question of how potential is made actual.
I agree as a rule, although the tricky thing is that one might indeed become familiar with something first through signs that refer to some other thing. We can learn about things through references to what is similar, including through abstract references. Likewise, we can compose, divide, and concatenate from past experience and share this with others so that what we are talking about refers to no prior extra-mental actuality (at least not in any direct sense).
But this cannot be the case for [I]everything[/I], else it would seem that our words would have no content. Our speech would be a sort of empty rule following, akin to the Chinese Room.
Mary the Color Scientist can know so much about color because she has been exposed to the rest of the world, just sans color. But if she had no experiences at all, it's hard to see how she could "know" much of anything.
Now I suppose this doesn't require some prior actuality behind sense experience and signs. They could move themselves. It's just that if they did move themselves there wouldn't be any explanation for why they do so one way and not any other.
I guess I probably wouldn't agree with the ideas behind this, so that might be a difference.
Right, I have no problems with fallibilism and a circular epistemology. A certain sort of fallibilism seems necessary to defuse the idea that one most know everything to know anything.
But I also don't think it's helpful to conflate a rejection of relativism with a positive assertion of foundationalism and infallibilism, which I seem to recall Rorty doing at times. Precisely because one need not know everything to know anything, it does not seem necessary to have an "ultimate" or "One True" in sight to make judgements. Rorty sounds sensible to me sometimes, but then there is stuff like the idea that a skrewdriver itself, its properties, recommends nothing to us about its use, that strike me as obviously wrong.
Anyhow, those all seem to me like points related to fallibilism and foundationalism. But with
In a relativism based on anti-realism (which I'm aware no one in this thread has suggested) there is simply no fact of the matter about these criteria you've mentioned. Nothing "works better" than anything else. So, we can debate in terms of "what works," or "is good," but, per the old emotivist maxim, "this is good" just means "hoorah for this!" That seems to me to still reduce to power relations.
In a relativism where truth about "what works" and "better" changes with social context (where there is no human telos), where "we decide" (as individuals or as a community), none of those claims about "what works" or "what constitutes improvement" is grounded in any sort of underlying "goodness" or "working" that is separate from current belief and desire. That is, there is nothing outside the "playing field" of power politics. Rather, if something "truly works" or is "truly good," depends on what people are driven towards at the moment.
This certainly still seems to me to be very open to a reduction towards power. Truth as "justification within a society," for instance, seems obviously open to becoming a power struggle. One can just look at real life examples from totalitarian societies or a limit case in fiction like 1984 and "A Brave New World." "A Brave New World" is probably the more difficult case because it's obviously a case with a tremendous amount of manipulation, yet one where people are positively inclined towards the system, and even their own manipulation.
Now, I am all for the idea that the human good is always [I]filtered through[/I] some particular culture or historical moment, and that this will change its general "shape." It's the denial of any prior form to this good that I think sets up the devolution into power politics. Likewise, human knowledge is always filtered through a particular culture and historical moment. Yet there are things that are prior to any culture or historical moment, and which thus determine the shape of human knowledge in all cultures and historical moments. The being of an ant or tiger for instance, is prior to culture, as its own organic whole, and so there is a truth to it that is filtered through culture, but not dependent upon it.
Edit: the other thing with him (and a lot of other relativistic arguments) is the heavy reliance on debunking. But debunking only works if we have a true dichotomy such that showing ~A is equivalent with showing B. I guess to the early topic of skeptical and straight solutions, it seems to me like a lot of skeptical solutions likewise rely on debunking heavily.
Let's emphasis what is being argued. It's is not that there cannot be one monolithic Explanation of Everything, one explanation that encompass in a consistent binary logic everything we know from physics and biology through to love and relationships.
We might be able to produce such a system. But we do not have such a system now. Nothing like it. And there are reasons to think it pretty unlikely that knowledge could be presented in this way without loosing quite a bit.
What is being argued is the lesser point, that we might do well not to assume that there is such an Explanation of Everything, even if we don't know what it is.
This seemed to go missing in our earlier discussion, Tim, about Logical Nihilism.
FIrst, some comments on a few specific points.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Here the principle of noncontradiction is being used as a wedge. But making use of non-contradiction is already presuming one logical system over others. Non-contradiction does not apply, or is used quite differently, in paraconsistent logic, relevance logic, intuitionistic logic and quantum logic, for starters. Perhps your argument holds, and if we presume PNC then there must be One True Explanation Of Everything (the caps are indicative of a proper name - that this is an individual). But to presume only classical logic is to beg the question. It is to presume what is being doubted. As is the shallow response seen before - I thin form Leon rather than you - that these are not real logics; it presumes what is at questions - that there is only one real logic.
The very existence of these non-classical systems shows that rational discourse can persist without universal adherence to PNC.
A better point is your "Orwellian Nightmare":
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Quite so. And this is an excellent reason to keep a close eye on those power relations, and to foster the sort of society in which "might makes right" is counterbalanced by other voices, by compassion, humility, and fallibilism. You know, those basic liberal virtues. How much worse would a world be in which only the One True Explanation Of Everything was acceptable, uncriticised?
Pluralists can accept many truths within different practices - physics, literature, religion, without affirming logical contradictions. But this doesn’t mean that "2+2=5" and "2+2=4" are both true. Pluralism has limits, governed by coherence, utility, and discursive standards.
I think this a much more wholesome response than supposing that some amongst us have access to the One True Explanation and the One True Logic.
seems to be thinking along similar lines. Thanks, Tom. I wonder who else agrees?
Sometimes it is better to go with a clear stipulation than to muddle around in ambiguity.
If what you mean by "one sentence explanation of essences you've offered is metaphysically insubstantial" is that it doesn't lead to the confusion of forms or triviality of what makes it what it is, then I will take that as an advantage to the stipulation.
And it doesn't presume nominalism.
You're not keen on taking up any of the seven counterpoints I made? Good, that'll save time.
Not likely.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I rather think his influence will outweigh your heart beat.
Weighing in on "But there are either facts about what is "truly more useful" or there aren't" is a good move. I was going to point out that this again presumes a merely binary logic, but your response covers that.
I come to this largely from outside philosophy, with unsystematic reading and a lot of quiet festering, so naturally I would assume my ideas are probably not fully coherent.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Indeed. And that's what this site is all about, civil disagreement. Hey, and I might be 'wrong'. Or you.
I think if one believes that the buck stops somewhere definative - god, the transcendental - then my view would seem messy and unsatisfying.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm not convinced this the right take, but I agree for many it's unsatisifying.
When someone says “this is good,” it doesn’t merely mean “hoorah for this” as a purely subjective exhortation, but rather that the community endorses this judgment because it coheres with shared experiences and serves as a reliable guide in practice. When you think about it, history is full of such social practices that have eventually been accepted then superseded, often abandoned, and sometimes even regretted. My view would be that we fumble in the darkness, trying to find ways of coping together, and since most humans seek to avoid suffering, certain patterns emerge in our practices.
Are power relations involved in this? Yes, and even power relations are contingent and unfixed. They are woven into most discussions about what is real and how we should live. I think Banno is right:
Quoting Banno
Maybe this is inadequate, let me know. Sometimes I think that all of this resembles the functioning of road rules. They are somewhat arbitrary, but they work if applied consistently and are understood by the community of road users. They change over time, as situations change. They are an ongoing conversation. We seek to avoid accidents and death and aim to get to places efficiently and the road rules facilitate this, but none of this means the road rules have a transcendent origin. Nor can they be explained away as subjective and therefore lacking in a comprehensive utility.
Yeah. But perhaps what we can agree on is that there are ambiguities in asking "what if water had none of the characteristics it actually has?" that need ironing out in order to understand what is being asked.
Quoting J
Yep. That's what I'm after.
Think I'll steal that analogy.
It's not a stone tablet, it's a conversation.
I assume the unstated premises here are that the "One True Explanation of Everything" isn't really true and is only not criticized out of force, otherwise, it sounds like a world that would be immeasurably better—a world free from error and ignorance and in harmony.
I mean, what's the assumption here otherwise, that there would be a One True Explanation that was demonstrably true, and yet it would be bad if people didn't criticize it and demand error over truth and the worse over the better? (The old elevation of potency as "freedom" I suppose).
Yes, it's the bolded that seems to lead to the problems described here. You keep setting infallibilism and "absolute knowledge" up in a dichotomy with a pluralism based on utility, but this is a false dichotomy. Most fallibilists are not relativists. All that is required is a faith in reason (i.e. not misology) not "knowing everything."
From the thread:
Trouble with this is that the folk you and Tim are are fond of citing are making use of formal modal logic and possible world semantics. Please understand that possible world semantics is wha shows that the formalisations are consistent. If your academic friends did not make use of the formal systems, their work would have very little standing in the community of philosophers.
You and Tim objecting to formal modal logic robs you both of the opportunity to present your arguments clearly.
The suggestion that formal logic is restricted to analytic philosophy is demonstrably ridiculous. Moreover, the people you cite make use of analytic techniques.
Here's the thing. Supose I come across the One True Explanation of Everything, and I convince everyone else that I'm right - after all, if it is the One True Explanation of Everything, I am right.
But supose also that you think we are wrong.
What should I do? Is it OK for us to just shoot you, in order to eliminate dissent? Should we do what the One True Explanation of Everything demands, even if that leads to abomination?
Or should we adopt a bit of humility, and perhaps entertain the possibility that we might be mistaken?
Authoritarianism or Liberalism?
Funny, how here we are now moving over to the ideas entertained in the thread on Faith. I wonder why.
I objected to the weak modal formulation of essences, that's hardly the same thing. But yes, there are also other ways to conceive of modality as well. For someone who argues that formalisms are merely tools selected for based on usefulness, you sure do like to appeal to them a lot as sources of authority and arbiters of metaphysics a lot though.
What was "Banno 's Principle? "It is easier to disagree with something if you start out by misunderstanding it." A bit rich coming from someone who frequently wants to post about "Aristotelian essence" and "Aristotelian logic," but seems to be unwilling to read about the basics of either.
:roll:
:roll:
Slow down, you're going to run out of straw over there. I suppose if you think that "the truly best way to do things" involves shooting dissenters that says more about you.
Hey, we made it 15 pages before the "Banno starts bringing up the religion of everyone who disagrees with him" bigotry phase of the thread. I'd say that's pretty good.
Well, they are very good tools. And used not so much for authority as clarity and coherence.
I stand by that, and the rest, even if you pull funny faces at me.
Please, fell free to address my arguments, when you have time.
Not sure what you are getting at, but I think a summary of what John Searle is doing in Intentionality may help to develop some understanding.
In the Introduction, Searle states, "One of the objectives is to provide a foundation for my two earlier books, Speech Acts, and Expression and Meaning, as well as for future investigations of these topics. A basic assumption behind my approach to problems of language is that the philosophy of language is a branch of the philosophy of mind. The capacity of speech acts to represent objects and states of affairs in the world is an extensions of the more biologically fundamental capacities of the mind (or brain) to relate the organism to the world by way such mental states as belief and desire, and especially through action and perception. Since speech acts are a type of human action, and since the capacity of speech to represent objects and states of affairs is part of a more general capacity of the mind to relate the organism to the world, any complete account of speech and language requires an account of how the mind/brain relates the organism to reality."
Quoting Fire Ologist
Not quite, but in Speech Acts John Searle says, “I take it to be an analytic truth about language that whatever can be meant can be said.”
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm not so sure. What would an example be? That we become familiar with transparency, and because water is transparent our familiarity with transparency is therefore familiarity with water?
I would say that familiarity with transparency is not itself familiarity with water. Nevertheless, someone could say, "You don't know what water is, but you know what transparency is, and you should trust me when I tell you that water is transparent." We can learn something about water through this sort of trust (and philosophy is always built on faith of this kind), but on my view this counts as "familiarity with water" (via someone who has knowledge). Once even that sort of second-hand familiarity is in place the English sign "water" is available to us, at least in a limited sense. Still, this won't work if our source has no familiarity with water.
(I suppose I am also presuming that the one who takes on faith the claim that water is transparent is also differentiating between water and 'water', and is thus aware that their source is making use of a sign.)
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
This is good. I would only add that Walker Percy's simplified triadic model may be helpful in a place like TPF, given that even skeptics are generally able to admit that not every sign-user has an identical understanding of every sign:
---
- :up:
I would simply want to ask @J what his telos is. What is his aim? Truth? Pluralism? The moral avoidance of strong knowledge claims (which might create conflict)? And if he is aiming at multiple different things, then the question is whether those various aims are mutually consistent.
For example, his claim that he is not a relativist (and that he believes in truth) is somewhat at odds with his conviction that strong truth-claims are morally problematic. Perhaps he solves the riddle by defining truth as intersubjective agreement, but the difficulty there is that we all know that there is a difference between intersubjective agreement and truth, and that we are even at times morally obliged to disregard or even oppose the falsehood represented by the intersubjective agreement.
At the end of the day I would simply say that although we must avoid injustice, nevertheless it is not unjust to affirm what one believes to be true (at a general level). Even with something like racism, it is not unjust when it is in earnest, as some of the cases that Daryl Davis engaged demonstrate. One must be mindful of the ways in which they engage others, but to earnestly believe that something is true is never unjust. One might even avoid pronouncing a truth for the sake of some communal good, but it does not follow that one should not hold the thing as being true. The reason the left frets over this sort of thing is because they conflate per se and per accidens causality and implication.
He visited us here, long ago. I asked him about that aphorism, and if I recall correctly he expressed some regret towards it, not becasue it was wrong but becasue it caused considerable misunderstanding. I understood him to be saying that many folk had misunderstood him as claiming that for instance children could not use meanings becasue they had not developed the ability to use language. That is, folk missed the implicit conditional - if it can be meant then it can be said - to be claiming that only speech had meaning.
Must have been in the previous incarnation of this forum.
added: the stuff just said appeared while I was writing this post - another coincidence. It may be an example of the sort of thing Searle was complaining about.
Or leave the vague ad hominem hanging, in your increasingly tedious passive aggressive fashion.
Ok, that is a mouthful of speech activity. Let me try to break it down.
“mind (or brain) to relate the organism to the world”
You have at least two physical pivot points here. Brain in an organism, and the world.
And the two relate “by way such mental states as belief and desire, and especially through action and perception.”
I don’t follow.
Quoting Richard B
“a more general capacity of the mind to relate the organism to the world”
Isn’t whatever that means sort of the whole question? How can this be asserted as a premise to lead to some other conclusion, when what/how/whether “a more general capacity of the mind to relate the organism to the world” is the question?
Quoting Richard B
I can see ways to make this be true and ways to make this be false, meaning, it is an interesting statement, and I think worth pondering, but it feels treacherous.
John Searle is a unique and interesting philosopher. He is a scientific realist who tip toes ever so close to being an idealist/indirect realist, while simultaneously and rebelliously rejecting later Wittgenstein's creed that philosophy should only describe and not theorize. You could say he is an internalist when it comes to meaning, aka "Meanings are just in the head".
There are other examples we can use. Hesperus=Phosphorus is common; concluding that the star seen in the evening is the same object as that seen later in the morning required some astute observation and plotting of the position of the star. Now we think that ?(Hesperus=Phosphorus).
Or that Gold has atomic number 79. Not known until the notion of atomic numbers was developed and found useful. But thereafter a necessary fact.
What's salient is that being gold, or Hesperus, or water, is not determined in the same way as having atomic number 79, or being Phosphorus, or being H?O. It's discovered, by looking about the world. Previously modal theorists had supposed that no necessities were to be discovered in this way, supposing instead that they were all artefacts of language, and so found just by thinking.
Does that help?
But is that right? That "Water before word" or "Word before water" exhausts all the possibilities?
Couldn't we learning to use the word be learning what water is? So being given a glass of water and told "this is water", or being asked to "go and draw some water at the creek" or someone saying "I have warmed the water in the bath for you" - these are both learning what water is and learning how "water" is used.
I'd suggest, and have done previously, that learning to use a name and learning what it is it stands for are pretty much the same thing.
And I'll stretch this to concepts in general.
If I'm right, we might be dubious about triadic models that want to have a third thing between the name and the named. But this is a whole 'nuther thing.
(added: This is basically Wittgensteinian, but good constructivist pedagogy, too. )
To put my cards on the table I don't think that's right. I wouldn't put such a hard distinction between meaning and the thing talked about, though perhaps that's fuel for another thread?
Quoting Banno
It may eventually. Still dully mulling. I'm thankful for the reply either way.
This says something about necessity.
It says nothing about water. Or H2O.
It says every time though, “if x is y, then x is necessarily y.”
[i]What is essential to water?
Being H2O?
Well if water is H2O, water is necessarily H2O.
That doesn’t do any new work for either question.[/i]
Logic (x, if, y, then necessarily”) structures language about the content and the world (water, H, 2 Os).
Heh -- well as long as it's the reality I understand then I'm OK with that ;)
Quoting Leontiskos
I'm starting to think this is just something of a misunderstanding that I haven't figured out yet. I'm not saying either believed they had the complete or exclusive reading, even in what they meant.
I am referencing what they meant and relating it to what we know about reality, though, to make a point about "How do we know what is real?"
Quoting Leontiskos
I'm taking the "M" translation to demonstrate a point -- these are both very intelligent persons who have done scholarly work on water, one philosophical and the other scientific -- though with the added qualification that Aristotle's scholarly work has a kind of proto-scientific thing going on in his philosophy.
The "N" translation I take for granted, in a sense. Yes, we can figure out ways to reconcile them.
Quoting Leontiskos
I agree that Aristotle would accept and expect this -- but I don't think he'd predict what's different. Namely that the atomic theory is correct, that water does not act in accord with any teleology, and it's not a fundamental element.
But then, in comparing the meanings between the two, it doesn't seem they mean the same thing after all... even if they refer to the same thing, roughly.
Quoting Moliere
It is odd to say that it is false. If it is "good enough" to begin understanding, then it simply cannot be wholly false. If it is wholly false then it is not good enough to begin understanding.
If I know something about water, and then I study and learn more about water, then what I first knew was true and yet incomplete. It need not have been false (although it could have been). Note, though, that if everything I originally believed about water was false, then my new knowledge of water is not building on anything at all, and a strong equivocation occurs between what I originally conceived as 'water' and what I now understand to be 'water'.
For Aristotle learning must build on previous knowledge. To learn something is to use what we already know (and also possibly new inputs alongside).
Quoting Moliere
Right. He knows that there is more to be learned about water even though he does not know that part of that is H2O.
Quoting Moliere
Right, good. Let's just employ set theory with a set of predications about water:
[*] Lavoisier: Water: {wet, heavy unlike fire, H2O}
[/list]
On this construal Lavoisier's understanding of water agrees with Aristotle in saying that water is wet and heavy unlike fire, but it adds a third predication that Aristotle does not include, namely that water is composed of H2O.
What is the relation between AW and LW? In a material sense there is overlap but inequality. Do Aristotle and Lavoisier mean the same thing by "water"? Yes and no. They are pointing to the same substance, but their understanding of that substance is not identical. At the same time, neither one takes their understanding to be exhaustive (and therefore AW and LW do not, and are not intended to, contradict one another).
Now the univocity of the analytic will tend to say that either water is AW or else water is LW (or else it is neither), and therefore Aristotle and Lavoisier must be contradicting one another. One of them understands water and one does not. There is no middle ground. There is no way in which Aristotle could understand water and yet Lavoisier could understand it better.
If one wants to escape the problematic univocity of analytical philosophy they must posit the human ability to talk about the same thing without having a perfectly identical understanding of that thing. That is part of what the Aristotelian notion of essence provides. It provides leeway such that two people can hit the same target even without firing the exact same shot, and then compare notes with one another to reach a fuller understanding.
The OP asked “what is real? how do we know it?”
I’d say “what is real” asks about “the thing talked about” and “how do we know it” asks, at least in part, about “meaning”.
My gut says we have to be perceiving (how we know) at least simultaneously as we perceive things to question (what we know).
Perceiving is like a “how” and a “what” at the same time.
Quoting Banno
Like the thing/object takes shape as the word/name gets a meaning/use.
Interesting.
Quoting Banno
I see the need for simultaneous learning as grappling with the problem of identity.
We can watch a river flow into the ocean and carve out “water” from the land. And learn more about rivers and oceans and uses of “water” and see the ocean has salt, while the river does not. And then modify the meaning of “water” by pointing only to the river and excluding the salty ocean which you now name “saltwater”
So I think the iterative process of learning what water is, is aligned with the iterative process of what “water” means, but this is only because names like “water” are affixed to uses and meanings, but the things they designate are changing things, requiring revisions to the words and their meanings/uses.
So I think I see why you said that, but I think I disagree with why you said it.
The word “water” takes shape simultaneously as the thing water takes shape, but not because “learning what water is and how ‘water’ is used are the same”; it is because what water is is a moving target and trying to affix a name “water” to a moving target requires a simultaneous learning of water and “water”.
So the moving target of the world still comes first before we think/say “world” and then start to learn about what we said, and learn about saying it.
But this is a strawman. No one has said that there must be a temporal precedence between encountering water and encountering the word 'water'. The point is that one does not use a word like 'water' correctly if they have no familiarity with water, and yet one can certainly have familiarity with water without having familiarity with the word 'water'. There is a causal precedence between water and 'water', not a temporal one (although in most cases one will encounter water before encountering 'water').
So on one hand we have a triadic {water – concept-of-water – use of water}; on the other just water being used.
It's an obviously Wittgensteinian approach, focusing on the use rather than invoking a perhaps mythical "concept of water". It's also much closer to how we learn - by doing.
I was just thinking of more straightforward examples, like if we had never seen an animal, nor any picture or drawing, it could still be described to us. Or, had we never seen a volcano erupt, it could still be explained in terms of comparisons to fire, etc. I just wanted to head off the counter that we don't [I]always[/I] need sense experience to competently speak of things. No one has ever seen a phoenix, but we can learn to speak of them too.
This works because you can use comparisons, analogy, composition and division, etc. But [I]some[/I] prior exposure to things is necessary. It can't just be linguistic signs and their meanings (it could be just signs, if you take light interacting with the eye, etc. as a sign).
The causal priority of things is needed to explain why speech and stipulated signs are one way and not any other. If one wants to say that act of knowing water and knowing 'water' are co-constituting, one still needs the prior being of water to explain why knowing water and 'water' is not the same thing as knowing fire and 'fire' or why, if 'water' was used for fire, that would involve knowing a different thing with the same stipulated sign.
Actually, I see this later point has come up here ( ; ).
No doubt, how we act vis-á-vis fire would be different from how we act vis-á-vis water, even if we called fire 'water,' but this action, and the "usefulness" driving it, doesn't spring from the aether uncaused, but has to do with differences between fire and water.
I am a big fan of some thinkers who put a heavy focus on language here, such as Sokolowski or parts of Gadamer, but I also think it's precisely philosophers of language who are apt to make claims like: "that which can be understood is language." Would a mechanic tend to make the same claim? Is understanding how to fix a blown head gasket primarily a manner of language? Or throwing a good knuckleball? What are the limits of knowing for people with aphasia who can no longer produce or understand language (or both)? I think that's a difficulty with co-constitution narratives as well. They tend to make language completely sui generis, and then it must become all encompassing because it is disconnected from the rest of being. I think it makes more sense to situate the linguistic sign relationship within the larger categories of signs.
This just might be an misunderstanding. Some pre-linguistic understanding of water might well exist (indeed, this seems clear in babies), but that's not really the issue. The point is that water exists, has determinant being/actuality, prior to being interacted with by man. Otherwise, we wouldn't interact with water any differently than we would fire, except through the accidents of co-constitution. But co-constitution that is one way, instead of any other (e.g. water for washing, fire for cooking) presupposes that there are prior, determinant properties of both. There would be no reason for us to interact with any one thing differently from any other if this weren't the case. "Act follows on being."
This is misunderstanding the triadic sign relation. The sign vehicle [I]could[/I] be the "concept of water" in some relation, but in general it will be the interpretant.
A basic relation in sight would be:
Object: water
Sign vehicle: light waves bouncing off water and to the eye
Interpretant: person
But light only reflects of water differently than a tree because the two are already determinantly different. The difference doesn't come after the fact. Co-constitution theories have difficulty with this because they often lack a notion of essences/essential properties (or a strong one) and so they are left with the problem that whenever something is known differently it has seemingly changed and become a new thing.
Ah, I think I see the misunderstanding. You're using "pluralism" and "relativism" interchangeably and synonymously, where I'm drawing a distinction. Do you think I shouldn't do so? Pluralism, as I understand it, allows different epistemological perspectives, with different conceptions of what is true within those perspectives. It also encourages discussion between perspectives, including how conceptions of truth may or may not converge. Relativism (about truth) would deny even this perspectival account as incoherent. (A very broad-brush picture of a hugely complicated subject, of course.)
Like, "Water is transparent"? It seems like my example is an instance of this, but I am certainly open to other concrete examples.
It may be confusing that I used the word "sensible" . I was using it metaphorically. The point was not that we cannot have an indirect understanding of water, say, through a proposition about transparency.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes, I agree.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think someone might say the chicken came before the egg, and another person might say that they know of a chicken that came from an egg. As you say, the priority is causal. The claim is not that no chickens come from eggs.
Co-constitution, especially in the context of my discussion with Moliere, looks to be a quibble. Even in the case of language acquisition it usually isn't true. For example, a child's first words are never co-constituted with the reality they signify.
But the point I was making with Moliere is
Quoting Banno
The problem here is that it commits you to the idea that dogs and ducks understand water, when in fact they don't. Walker Percy's study of Helen Keller vis-a-vis his own deaf daughter bears out the fact that Helen's understanding of water was not present until she was seven years old—long after she had been interacting with water. Interaction is not understanding; language does aid understanding; but one will not be able to successfully use the sign 'water' if they have no familiarity with water (either directly or indirectly). It can be said that the sign and the sign-user emerge simultaneously, but it remains true that the signified is causally prior to the sign, in much the same way that the non-sign-user (e.g. Helen before she was 7) is prior to the sign-user (e.g. Helen after she reached age 7). Much of this goes back to the quote.
Classically, if X is true then everything which contradicts X is false. Since both pluralism and relativism reject this notion, the person who wants to avoid truth claims is aligned with pluralism and relativism (at least so far as this consideration goes).
Similarly, if one wants to oppose pluralism or relativism, the most straightforward way is to say, "There are truths and the principle of non-contradiction holds." We could adapt @Count Timothy von Icarus' challenge to you as follows: If this standard way of opposing pluralism and/or relativism is unavailable to you, then on what grounds do you disagree with pluralism and/or relativism?
(We could ask whether pluralism entails relativism, but the simpler approach is to focus on relativism itself and leave pluralism on the back burner.)
As Spinoza said, "Omnis determinatio est negatio."
This just seems like relativism though, as in "what is true is relative to systems that theoretical reason (truth) cannot decide between." Here is why I think this:
Either different epistemic positions contradict each other or they don't.
If they don't, then they all agree even if they approach things differently.
Whereas, if there can be different epistemological perspectives that contradict one another and they are equally true (or not-true, depending on which perspective we take up?) then what determines which perspective we take up then? Surely not truth, theoretical reason, since now the truth sought by theoretical reason is itself dependent on the perspectives themselves (which can contradict each other).
If we appeal to "usefulness" here, it seems we are appealing to practical reason. But there is generally a convertability between the practical and theoretical, such that practical reason tells us what is "truly good." Yet this cannot be the case here, since the truth about goodness varies by system. Hence, "usefulness" faces the same difficulty.
Dialtheist logics normally justify themselves in very particular ways, e.g. through paradoxes of self-reference. So their scope is limited to rare instances with something like a "truth-glut." We might find these cases interesting, and still think they can be resolved, perhaps through a consideration of material logic and concrete reasons for why some alternative system is appropriate for these specific outliers. But this isn't the same thing as allowing for different epistemologies and so different truths.
The straightforward denial of truth, e.g. moral anti-realism, actually seems less pernicious to me here. Reason simply doesn't apply to some wide domain (e.g. ethics), as opposed to applying sometimes, but unclearly and vaguely.
And a denial of contradiction doesn't? Why? Does denying contradiction or having faith in the unity of reason require declaring oneself infallible?
You could frame it the opposite way just as easily. Because in relativism one need not worry about apparent contradiction, one need not keep at apparent paradoxes looking for solutions. Nor does one need to fear that opposing positions might prove one wrong. One can be right even if one is shown to be wrong, and so we can rest content in our beliefs. As reason becomes a matter of something akin to "taste" it arguably becomes easier to dismiss opposing positions out of hand.
This at least comports with common experiences in the fields where relativism has become dominant, where students and professors report frequent self-censorship and "struggle session" events within the context of an ideology that nonetheless promotes a plurality of equality valid epistemologies and "ways of knowing." Marxism is in decline, but this is also still an area where "history" (power) is often appealed to as the final authority ("being on the right side of history").
IDK, this seems like how most relativism re truth is framed (as opposed to from anti-realism, which is the common framing for ethics).
I'm trying to decide if I have anything helpful to add here. I quite understand that if you think in terms of "theoretical reason (truth)," it's going to make a pluralist perspective hard to engage with. Do you see that the very question under consideration is whether theoretical reason is truth?
This may have no appeal for you, but I was quite pleased with the papers cited (by Chakravartty and Pincock) in the "Epistemic Stances . . . " thread. I thought those two philosophers did an excellent job making big issues clear within a smaller, manageable discussion. Would you be willing to read them, perhaps guided by some of the comments in the thread? At the very least, you'd see that the "either it's foundationally true or it's merely useful" binary is not the only stance available.
I apologize, but I just don't know how to make the larger case that these perspectives are worth understanding. As you know, I don't think the argumentative back-and-forth on such large questions does much good, since the problem is rarely one of bad argument. My preference has always been to adduce the pros and cons of a position by seeing how it works with an actual philosophical question -- such as whether there can be voluntary epistemic stances if you're a scientific realist.
This may be no consolation, but our difficulty finding common ground is helping me quite a bit in something I'm trying to write, concerning the persistence of fundamental disagreement as a characteristic of philosophy! I suspect we would each describe the reasons in this case quite differently, and that is part of (I shall argue) why it's so hard to overcome. Finding agreement about how to describe a disagreement is itself often elusive.
What I've suggested is that learning what water is and learning to wash, cook drink and talk about water are the same.
That suggestion does not rely on water not being around until we learn to wash, drink and talk about it.
I hope that's clear.
We'll have to disagree here.
Quoting Leontiskos
That's a somewhat ableist misinterpretation.
“As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness...and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.”
Notice "my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers", not "my whole attention fixed upon the cool stream gushed over one hand". Keller understood the difference between having water on her hand and not having water on her hand prior to understanding the sign for water. Percy emphasises that though Keller had felt water before, she lacked the symbolic framework—the naming of water via language—until that pivotal moment.
Ableist, becasue it minimises the intelligence and perceptiveness of pre-linguistic or non-verbal individuals, and misses the real problem, which is isolation from language, not failure to understand the world.
Yes, hence my whole point that the water goes before the 'water'.* Without some contact with water the sign 'water' has nothing to signify.
Quoting Banno
If you want to say that dogs "understand" water and you want to take issue with the Aristotelian approach, then the first thing to do is to get clear on the difference between canine "understanding" and human understanding.
* At the very least, causally
Quoting Banno
Quoting Leontiskos
Me? Never! :lol:
If dogs don't understand water, why do they go to the bowl? How is it that ducks manage to land on the pond so much more often than do Cockatoos? Random movement? You don't have a dog, I hope.
Yes, I agree. The straightforward denial of truth is certainly more transparent and coherent than the equivocal re-definition of truth.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Right. This happened right in this thread, when @Moliere claimed that because Aristotle views water "teleologically" and Lavoisier views it as H2O, therefore Lavoisier has falsified Aristotle. Moliere—who it seems to me does not have a great grasp of the PNC—imputed contradiction where none exists. Often it is the case that if people had a better understanding of the PNC they would see that there is less disagreement than they suppose. The PNC is a remarkably mild principle. It allows an enormous amount of space for reason to play.
Certainly not I.
@J?
@Moliere?
As I have indicated, and seem to harp on; these identity statements that Kripke likes to use to support his views on a posteriori necessary truths seem to have issues.
Norman Malcolm, in his paper "Kripke on Heat and Sensations of Heat", nicely articulates some of these issues with calling "Heat is the motion of molecules", an identity statement. He says,
A remark repeated by Kripke again and again is that heat is identical with rapid molecular motion. I find this a puzzling assertion. It looks like a metaphysical proposition than a scientific one. I don't doubt that as the water in a pan becomes hotter the motion of the water molecules increases in rapidity, and as the water cools the rapidity of molecular motion decreases. Although science could establish this correlation, how could it establish that heat is identical with rapid molecular motion? Actually, I don't even understand the assertion either that heat is, or that it is not, "identical" with rapid molecular motion. Or rather, I think I do understand it if "identity" here just means the same as "correlation'. But if "identity" is supposed to mean something that is in addition to correlation, then I am completely puzzled as to what sort of scientific observation could determine either that heat is, or that it is not, identical with rapid molecular motion. Therefore, I doubt whether it is meaningful to say either that this supposed identity holds or that is doesn't hold; and, a fortiori, I doubt that it is meaningful to say that it holds necessarily."
In a foot note, Malcolm provides a reference from Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science" where he explains Boyle-Charles law from the kinetic theory of gases. Malcolm nowhere finds any indication that this law is establishing an identity statement based on Nagel's exposition.
I think we can both agree that the observations to establish "heat" on one side of the identity statement is very different when compared the observations to establish "motion of molecules" on the other side of the identity statement. So, it is difficult to imagine how observations will determine identity.
What about "correlation"? Correlation is typically defined by a relationship between two or more variables, where changes in one variable are associated with changes in another. It indicates that variables tend to move together, either in the same or different directions, but it doesn't necessarily imply one variable causes the other. One might say that science looks for natural correlations.
There is another type of correlation, one might call conventional. For example, the relationship between English language and the language of Morse code is one of isomorphism, based on one-on-one correlations, settled by arbitrary stipulation. I don't believe Kripke thinks he is nor scientists are stipulating that "heat is motion of molecules."
So, if the scientist is not discovering the identity statement, and Kripke is not stipulating the identity statement, how is this identity statement being established. Does common sense establish it? Does our intuition establish it? How does one go from "a = a" to "Heat is motion of molecules"? Just assume "Heat" and "Motion of molecules" refer to the same thing and all will make sense. O.K., but what was that "a posteriori" suppose to be establishing again in that "a posteriori necessary truth"
And I think much of his criticism is spot on. I think he shows us that Kripke's ideas about necessity have been misapplied when he comes to use them to talk about minds and sensations.
I would first like to ask you a question. The aim here is to make sure that we are addressing the same problem. So if you will, consider this.
Malcolm, I think quite rightly, takes Kripke to task for equating a sensation and a physical characteristic. So consider this: What if Kripke had argued instead that the temperature of a sample was the mean kinetic energy of its molecules? Now the problems of sensation have been removed, and we have an equivalence between two physical expressions. We then also, as you mentioned, have the maths linking mean kinetic energy directly to temperature:
[math]\langle E_k \rangle = \frac{3}{2} k_B T[/math]
My question is, if we make this change, does the objection you have in mind dissipate? Or are the problems that Malcolm suggests still there?
Again, this is by way of checking for agreement. I hope this removes Kripke's error of equating a sensation and a physical characteristic. Is there still an objection, after this? I think that much of the metaphysical stuff Kripke suggests still stands.
Thanks. It's fun to move past just explaining Kripke to some real critique.
Yes, there are true sentences. They are true because we have a context in which they appear. I think what bothers some people is that "true in a context" is seen as some inferior species of being Truly True. It's hard, perhaps, to take on board the idea that context is what allows a sentence to be true at all. If a Truly True sentence is supposed to be one that is uttered without a context, I don't know what that would be.
When Kripke talks about "the statement 'Heat is the motion of molecules'" and says, "First, science is supposed to have discovered this," I wonder how strictly he means this. Stipulating an identity is, I agree, not something science can do. My suggestion is that, in this case, philosophers shouldn't do it either, but instead opt for something like the more common-sensical "supervenience."
I don't believe that Aristotle was falsified by Lavoisier.
Falsification is a much more complicated maneuver than disagreement on fundamentals. Disagreement on fundamentals -- such as whether water is an element or not, or whether water is composed of atoms or not -- don't so much falsify each other as much as they both make claims that cannot both be true at the same time. This is because they mean different things, but are referring to the same object.
I would say with respect to reasoning about reality -- deciding "What is real?" -- the PNC is not violated, of course, but they can't both be true either. Water is either a fundamental element which does not divide further into more fundamental atoms, or it is a composition of other more fundamental elements and so does divide further, or something else entirely (in which case both thinkers are false when making the universal claim -- there's an implicit universal claim in both, namely that All water is such and such. This is how I read them anyways, which is where the conflict arises. They can't both be true such that All water is such and such ((and not the other thing)))
The thinkers are very far apart from one another in terms of time, who they are talking to, the problems they're trying to address, and so forth, and yet are talking about the same thing -- at least I think so. So the variance between the two can only be accounted for by looking to the meanings of the terms, which in turn is how we can come to understand how people have made inferences about fundamental matter in the past, and thereby can serve as a kind of model for our own inferences.
For my part I don't believe in essences or even that water must be H2O. The lectern example of Kripke's makes more sense to me, but even then I'm hesitant to make necessary claims with respect to the object -- hence why I'm speaking about meanings, inferences, and all the rest.
What water is seems to me more of scientific than philosophical question, but then I know that barrier is another bit where we're likely not in agreement, since for Aristotle the question of science and philosophy isn't as separate. His whole philosophy has large parts dedicated to ancient science and he's making use of philosophical arguments.
My guess is that the various empirical "methods" -- which really just amount to norms of collective argument -- probably handle claims about reality better than universal claims about what something is or is not. But then the picture of nature that arises isn't exactly one of a harmonious whole.
EDIT: Also, to head off something I see-- just because science is good at one thing doesn't mean philosophy is overturned or useless or anything like that. I think it stands on its own without the need for the sciences, but that its methods are good for the reflective practice of science, which is where we begin to clarify what it is we mean.
I, for one, am in favor of there being true sentences.
:up:
Rather than the object or referrent serving as a ground for meaning I rather think it's the linguistic community that's more important in determining "What is real?" specifically because that's the "home" of meaning. It's how terms come to refer in the first place, to be able to name and predicate in the first place depends upon how those around us name and predicate.
And do people who contradict those sentences hold to falsehoods? Do false assertions exist? Or have we managed a world where there are truths but no falsehoods? You seem to dance around these simple questions continually.
And if you are to say, "No, they probably just have a different context, and are not really contradicting anything at all," then do you have an actual method for determining when someone has contradicted a sentence and when they "hold to a different context/stance"? Because if you don't have such a method then I'm not sure how it is substantive to claim that they probably have a different context.
Quoting J
Psychologizing ad hominem is pretty easy. "It's hard, perhaps, to take on board the idea that some people are right and some people are wrong. If a Truly True sentence is supposed to be one that is immune to contradiction, I don't know what that would be. Given that people purport to disagree all the time, it would be pretty amazing if no one were actually disagreeing."
If you believe that Lavoisier said something true, and that it contradicts Aristotle, then you are committed to the idea that Lavoisier has falsified Aristotle. You can't claim that and then simultaneously say that Lavoisier has not falsified Aristotle. So your reasoning throughout the thread to the effect that Lavoisier caused Aristotle's assertions to be false is sensible, given those conditions.
Quoting Moliere
Okay, sure. Water cannot be divisible and indivisible. This is a true contradiction. Yet this is the first time I've seen you presenting Aristotle as a proponent of indivisibility. Earlier you were talking about teleology.
Again, if Lavoisier proved that water is divisible and Aristotle held that it is indivisible, then Lavoisier has falsified Aristotle. But this is different from what we were discussing earlier:
Quoting Leontiskos
-
Quoting Moliere
Good, I agree. :up:
Quoting Moliere
There is no strict division between philosophy and science. Aristotle is generally referred to as a scientist, perhaps the first, and yet this does not disqualify him as a philosopher. Srap just deleted a great post on this in J's new thread, focusing on psychology and phenomenology ...lol.
is my most recent post to you, by the way.
The view from nowhere. The god's-eye view. What's being asked is, might there be some alternative? There's. lot to unravel there, but we can't start from assuming monism.
Quoting J
No, although he might be considered as anticipating such things.
Kripke was too lax with his use of "heat". Hence the suggestion of moving to temperature, which is less ambiguous.
I don't see that we can say that, to follow through, heat supervenes on the mean energy of the item's molecules. The temperature, and so the mean energy of the molecules, of a wooden and a metal spoon may be the same, but the spoon will feel colder. The sensation of heat does not supervene on temperature, not vice versa.
Added: the article is at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9205.1980.tb00409.x
Good. Should we say that temperature is (brute identity) molecular energy? Or better to say that temperature measures that energy? I don't know how a chemist would respond. As a philosopher, I'm slightly inclined to say that this is not a type of supervenience. But that raises a larger question -- what does the concept of "measure" involve? Is the measurement of a distance simply that distance, full stop? Something both right and wrong about that. After all, we can speak about a distance we haven't measured -- just not very precisely. And if this is a supervenience relationship, we'd need to specify what grounds what. I guess the (unmeasured) distance grounds the measurement of that distance, in that you can't have the latter without the former, but beyond that I'm not sure what to say. A measurement just doesn't seem like a feature or a property that can supervene . . . too "added-on" somehow.
Pretty clear that [math]\langle E_k \rangle = \frac{3}{2} k_B T[/math] is an equivalence. The "=" bit.
Taking a measurement is a whole language game. There's quite a bit to say about such a simple task. Malcolm added to this with the other article mentioned, Kripke and the Standard Metre. At the heart of that article is whether a stipulation is necessary or contingent. Lots of material here. Do we go into all that?
Where to begin? Let me take a stab at some Philosophy of Science and see where this goes.
Let us considered three "scientific equations":
1. E=Mc²
2. X = vt + Xi where v is average velocity and Xi is initial position.
3. Kinetic molecular theory is expressed as P = 1/3nMv^2/V and ideal gas law as P = nRT/V, we get the relationship between the two expressed as 1/2Mv^2 = 3/2RT
All three utilize the symbol "=", but should we assume all function as identity statements like the logician's "a = a"?
1. Examining E=Mc², does this express the idea that E is identical to Mc². Often physicists describe such a relationship as different forms of the same fundamental quantity that can be converted into each other. Strange to call this "identical" would you not agree? Yet there is an equal sign between the E and Mc². Seems to me that this symbol "=" means some fundamental quantity can be converted from one form to another and that is it. Can something be the same if they have different forms? I would say no. This is similar to the discussion with H2O and its different forms, steam, water, and ice. I would not say the water is identical with ice, or steam.
2. Is the final position of an object identical with the average velocity multiplied by time plus the initial position of the object? In the case, we are talking about differences in position, based on the initial position and the resulting final position, yet we use an "=" symbol to express such a relationship that an object has with space.
3. The Kinetic molecular theory equation is a theoretical mathmatical expression of the motion of molecules while the ideal gas law equation is more of expression of the actual experimental behavior of gas as measure by pressure, volume, and temperture. In this case, the "=" symbol is showing the proportionality of the average molecular kinetic energy to the absolute temperature is a conclusion drawn by comparing a theoretical expression with an empirical equation which summarizes macroscopic gas facts. As Malcolm says, a correlation is set up showing a relationship between getting hotter and rapid molecule motion.
My conclusion is that all three uses of the symbol "=" have different meanings in the aforementioned scientific equations. Additionally, these uses do not seem to reflect the logician's use in an expression such as "a = a". While I can see the application in Kripkes' examples of "table = table" or "Nixon = Nixon", its application to these so called "identity statements" discovered by scientist, well that is a bridge too far.
That makes sense. I think the problems brought up there are more serious than they might seem. Just for one example, an anti-realism that makes science a matter of sociology seems to be able to keep the door open on any attempt to specify "natural" good or a human telos. Indeed, a sort of anti-realism often underpins calls for major social engineering projects. If man has no nature, he can be molded to fit any ideal system (the Baconian mastery/engineering of nature). The popularity of transhumanism with today's oligarchs suggests this sort of thinking might make a comeback.
In particular, I think appeals to reasonableness outside the confines of reason per se tend to actually be relying on a sort of shared tradition and backcloth, a shared moral paradigm. But I think we are seeing such a shared paradigm collapse in real time these days. It's only held up so well because it was around for two millennia and had time to work its way into every aspect of culture and even into our very vocabulary, but other paradigms exist, and there is no reason to think the one undergirding the West will overcome the forces of decay through sheer inertia.
Well, the idea that 'truth' is primarily a property of sentences appears to be a core step in the path that leads towards deflationism and relativism. I would imagine rejecting this premise itself is more common. Utterances are signs of truth in the intellect, but truth is primarily in the intellect.
We might ask, what is the "context" you refer to? A "game?" A formal system? I would argue that the primary context of truth is the intellect (granted we can speak of secondary contexts). My take would be that analytic philosophy has gravitated towards "truth is a property of sentences," and "justified true belief" precisely because they are analytically tractable and open to more formal solutions. But to my mind, this is a bit like looking for the keys under the streetlight because "that's where the light is." When these assumptions lead to paradox, we get "skeptical solutions" that learn to live with paradox, but I'd be more inclined to challenge the premises that lead to paradox.
I think Borges story the Library of Babel is an excellent vehicle for thinking through the implications of the idea that truth is primarily "in" strings of symbols, although the idea of a truly random text generator that outputs every finite string of text over a long enough time works well too. The fact is that these outputs are never "about" anything from the frame of communications.
A funny thing happens here. The totally random process is always informative. Nothing about past outputs every tells you anything about future ones. It is informative as to outcomes, and wholly uninformative as to prediction. Nothing that comes before dictates what comes after. Whereas the string that simply repeats itself forever is also uninformative, although one always knows what future measurements will be (it is perfectly informative vis-a-vis the future). There is a very Hegelian collapse into oppositional contradiction here, a sort of self-negating. Spencer Brown's Laws of Form have a lot of neat stuff like this too. Big Heg has a funny relationship to electrical engineering :rofl: .
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Great. I'll watch for any comments you may post to that thread.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I don't really understand that. It's a metaphor, yes? So, truth is "in" the intellect, in the same way that ___ is in ____? Could you fill it out? Also, sorry, but what is "the intellect"? Faculty of reason, perhaps?
"If a Truly True sentence is supposed to be one that is uttered without a context, I don't know what that would be." - J
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think "game" is overused, and can be misleading, but interpreting it charitably, then yes, a game could be a context, and so could a formal system. Really, though, I mean "context" in the good old-fashioned way. Sentences are spoken or written. This has to occur somewhere, done by somebody, in some sort of intersubjective discourse, etc. That's the context. Can you write a sentence for me that is free of context?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Glad to know you're a Borges fan! His story, "Funes the Memorious" would be very pertinent to the ongoing thread about memory. And "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" may be the best philosophical short story ever written.
Pardon my math deficiencies, but I assume this means we can isolate T on the right side of the equation, giving a description of temperature in terms of kinetic energy?
The implication for Kripke is a weakening of the apparatus he uses to argue for a posteriori necessity and doubt cast on his argument against the identity of mind and brain.
One possible reply is that there is something in common to equations, since in each case they use the "=" to state that the value on the left will be the same as the value on the right; that it is this value that is rigidly designated, not the items in the equation. So in E=mc2, what is rigidly designated is that the value of E is the very same as the value of mc², and so on for each example. This would be to agree with you that in physics "=" does not always assert an ontological identity, but that if the use of "=" is to make any sense, it must assert the identity of the two values it equates.
On this account, the identity here is not between ontological entities but between their values within the structure put together by doing science. This would considerably weaken the applicability of Kripke's system.
A second possibility is that the historical use of "=" back to Russell's attempt to ground arithmetic in logic, does show that the "=" in physics is the same as the "=" in logic. They are both uses of the identity relation set out in Begriffsschrift, and that all arithmetic equations are grounded in that logical interpretation. It's just what "=" means. So the mean kinetic energy [math]\langle E_k \rangle[/math] just is [math] \frac{3}{2} k_B T[/math].
This is a pretty dogmatic response, stating that the reason we can write such equations at all is that their effectiveness is dependent on or justified by the logic of identity, that accepting your argument would be tantamount to claiming that identity signs in physics are ambiguous and equivocal. Pretty harsh. My response to suffered from something like this, and perhaps Tim might say something similar. Are physical equations really that precise?
A third approach might be to take on board what has been said, and go back to the basics to reassess how our modal logics work.
In propositional logic, one can substitute any proposition for any other provided that they have the same truth value. In predicate logic, one can substitute any individual variable for another provided that they designate the same individual. In modal logic, this fails: while two propositions may both be true in a given world, it does not follow that they are true in every possible world. Truth is evaluated not only by what individual is designated, but also by which world the evaluation takes place in.
However, at the level of possible worlds semantics, modal logic is extensional: formulas are assigned sets of possible worlds as their extensions, and modal operators like necessity (?) are interpreted as quantifying over those sets. That is, ?A is true at a world w if A is true in every world accessible from w. Because substitution of formulas with identical extensions preserves truth across all worlds in the model, the possible worlds interpretation is extensional.
?p is true in w iff p is true in every world that is accessible from w.
We also have that in S5 and elsewhere that it is valid that a=b??(a=b). It is the consequences of this simple theorem that Kripke is teasing out. The salient bit is that we may find out only a posteriori that a is indeed equal to b. This is what leads to the conclusion that so many find objectionable, that there are necessities that are discovered by looking around at how things are rather than understood a priori.
In the simplest case, that a=b means that a and b are the very same individual. And becasue of the extensionality involved, with some standard considerations we have it that if some expression is true for a, it will also be true for b. There is no obvious reason that this analysis can't be somewhat extended, including to kinds. So if we find, as seems to be the case, that every animal that has a heart also has kidneys, then extensionally, the set of animals with hearts and the set of animals with kidneys are the very same set, and we can substitute "animals with hearts" for "animals with kidneys" while preserving truth.
So if, whenever we pick out an animal that has a heart, we also thereby pick out an animal that has a kidney, then necessarily, if an animal has a heart then it has kidneys. If they are extensionally equivalent in every possible world, then necessarily, if an animal has a heart is has kidneys.
We might do this if, for instance, we were to insist that if we were to come across some animal that appeared to have a kidney but no heart, what appears to be a kidney is not a kidney, but has been misidentified.
The third response, then is to note that Kripke's move treats identity statements as extensional, and not in the intensional fashion seen in Malcolm. These rigid designators refer to the same entity or set in all possible worlds. Substitution of such identical entities is permitted at a modal semantic level, so when we find that a=b a posteriori, we might stipulate this as a metaphysical necessity, and reject counter instances as errors of identification.
What we have here is an at least apparent conflict between two quite different approaches. Folk might be tempted to suppose, somewhat simplistically, that either one or the other must be true, and the other must be false. Is it the case that we must either adopt the extensional approach and Kripke, or the intensional approach of Malcolm? Or are they talking past each other.
It might be interesting to look at Malcolm's approach through the lens of one of the formal intuitionist logics. Perhaps relevance logic would be informative.
This post has taken a few hours to put together, so thanks for the challenge. I hope you find it as interesting as I do.
I agree here -- which is why I began to think that the [s]lecturn[/s] lectern example might be better because it gets us out of thinking about how the science relates to the metaphysics, which is a whole ball of wax, and starts to focus on an object which we take as real, and then Kripke demonstrates how we might still be able to have necessary relationships after the fact and so a kind of "essence" might still hold good.
Good laying out of positions and replies -- I just finished it so nothing to substantive to say, but wanted to give kudos for a well thought out response on the topic.
Quoting Leontiskos
The purpose of using names isn't to demonstrate what I've read and understood, but to refer to a shared body of knowledge between speakers. So when I say "Aristotle", I presume you understand Aristotle well enough and modern science well enough to be able to put together the dots that teleology and modern science, especially of the enlightenment era, are in conflict.
I switched to divisibility because the example is as good as the teleological one -- namely, I don't know if Lavosier, on a personal level, might have believed there was some kind of teleology behind water, but the whole enlightenment project basically rejects teleology in favor of efficient causation for its mode of explanation -- this is one of the primary reasons people reject Enlightenment era materialism and go in various ways.
Quoting Leontiskos
I agree. My inclination to using examples is to overcome this -- we don't have to define things in terms of their necessary and sufficient conditions, but can instead use paradigmatic examples to show what we mean: definition by ostension.
So there are three names that we've been using, and with those names I'll draw some differences:
Aristotle is an ancient scientist and philosopher
Lavoisier is a modern scientist
Kripke is a modern philosopher.
Because I'd draw a distinction between ancient and modern science -- they don't operate the same. And Kripke counting as modern because of the scope of the question which utilizes Aristotle.
Quoting Leontiskos
I think all it takes to grow in knowledge is to plant seeds and see what happens. And what had been can die, and what is will stop being.
But noting here: even our notions of "falsification" are at odds. So perhaps we cannot appeal to falsification in our back-and-forth, because even this is being equivocated in our dialogue.
I assure you that by my understanding of falsification that Lavasioer does not falsify Aristotle, and that this is pretty much just another rabbit whole to jump down before getting to the topic "What is real?"
To say what's at stake: I don't think science delineates what is real. I also think that the project towards finding essences using the sciences is doomed to fail -- the big difference between Aristotle's and our day is the sheer amount of knowledge that there is. In Aristotle's day it probably seemed like a reasonable project to begin with the sciences and slowly climb up to a great metaphysical picture of the whole.
But any one scientist today simply can't have that perspective. Looking at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ their tagline on the front page states "PubMed® comprises more than 38 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books."
Aristotle could review all the literature that was in his day and respond to all his critics and lay out a potential whole. But he didn't have so many millions of papers or forebears to deal with. And I'd be more apt to look to the Gutenberg Press to explain this difference.
But this is only if we treat metaphysics as exactly the same as science, too. That was Aristotle's goal, but it need not be metaphysics goal. I'm more inclined to think that these metaphysical ways of thinking are ways of dealing with the sheer amount, the multiplicity, that one must consider to make a universal generalization. The generalizations, rather than capturing a higher truth, is a way of organizing the chaos for ourselves.
So what's at stake -- the usual stuff. The relationship between science, philosophy, and whether science can or ought to have or how much they ought to have a say in "What is real?"
Quoting Leontiskos
Another terminological difference. I tend to think attributions of "not wholly false" or "not wholly true" can be reduced to a set of sentences in which the name is sometimes the predicate and sometimes not the predicate, and so we need only refer to the conditions for each. "False" doesn't admit of degrees in a strict sense, I don't think, though it's a common way of parsing the world in our everyday reasonings.
So what I see is that skepticism, rather than security, is the basis of knowledge. Jumping out into the unknown and making guesses and trying to make sense of what we do not know is how new knowledge gets generated -- if we happen to find some connections to what we thought we knew down the line that's a happy accident.
The emphasis on security, I think, leads one to complacency. Rather than testing where we are wrong we defend when we are right.
Quoting Leontiskos
I think your construal of AW and LW is such that they look like they agree more than they do not agree. Maybe, but note this is why the historical method is more interesting than stipulated definitions.
I'd go back to the distinction in this post I made between Aristotle, Lavoisier, and Kripke.
Aristotle's concern is philosophical and scientific, and he lives in an era where his project is feasibly both philosophical and scientific. He has a much wider theory of water that conflicts with the enlightenment, mechanistic picture of H2O which Lavoisier is credited with determining. I think of [s]his[/s]Lavoisier's work primarily as a scientist because his work as a scientist was in improving analytic methods, and it was due to his care towards precision that he was able to demonstrate to the wider scientific community the ratio of Hydrogen to Oxygen you get with electrolysis. So maybe there's some philosophical work of his I do not know, but I'd say this work fits squarely within the scientific column, even if we don't have strict definitions to delineate when is what.
And, likewise, Kripke is making a point about whether essences can be made viable in the 20th century after they had been largely abandoned by contemporary philosophy (even if there are other traditions which keep them). So he's a philosopher, but if science turns out to be wrong about the whole H2O thing his points will still stand(EDIT:or fall) regardless. So he's not a scientist, in this particular instance.
Yeah, that was the direction of my wondering, but I'm definitely out of my depth when it comes to how chemists and mathematicians regard questions of identity, so I'll continue to follow your discussion with @Richard B.
Quoting Moliere
Excellent phrase.
I gather, or at least supose, that mathematicians and physicist see a continuity between their use of "=" in 1+1=2 and in [math]\langle E_k \rangle = \frac{3}{2} k_B T[/math]. Philosophers are the sort of people who question such things. Let's look at the three examples provided.
makes the point that E=mc² can be considered as showing how we convert matter into energy, and that's a valid way to understand it. But others will say that it shows an equivalence such that matter and energy are different forms of the same thing. Need we insist that one of these views must be the correct on? I don't see why.
X = vt + Xi is a pretty direct bit of maths. If you start at 5m and travel at 1m/s for three seconds, you will be at 8m. Is that final position identical to "1m/s x 3s +5m"? That's just 3m + 5m, so yes, it is.
[math]\langle E_k \rangle = \frac{3}{2} k_B T[/math] was derived form first principles rather than from the results of experiment. Interestingly the 3/2 comes from [math]E = \frac{1}{2}m(v_x^2 + v_y^2 + v_z^2) = \frac{1}{2}mv^2[/math], the energy in each dimension added together. in kinetic theory, temperature is a measure of average kinetic energy. In this model, the concepts are interdefinable—we can understand temperature through motion and vice versa.
We are indeed doing quite different things with each equation. However there is a pretty strong case for claiming that despite this, the "=" fulfils much the same role in each.
That word - interdefinable - may well be seen as about a metaphysical stipulation.
All very good, thoughtful posts :up:
Much as I dislike the present infection of Aristotelian thinking, I have to agree with this:
Does this roughly correspond to your point, Moli?
I love that paper so much.
There are a lot of questions there, the relation of the equations of the current discipline of physics to physical reality, the indeterminacy of measurement, etc. Yet even on the mathematical side we might allow that:
6+7 = 13 = 13 - 3, and yet these are not the same computations, and this becomes obvious when one considers something like a large input Hamiltonian path problem where it might take until every star in the sky has burned out for the fastest super computer to finish processing the computation, and yet the input is said to "be the same thing" as its output.
Barry Mazur has an interesting paper on "When One Thing is Equal to Some Other Thing". However, one has to also consider what mathematics is and its application to the "material world" it has been abstracted from. The Scandal of Deduction, for instance, comes because no distinction is made between the virtual, potential, and actual, and the way in which physical computation always involves communications (which occurs over some interval).
Making a deduction is a process, something we do, rather than something sitting passively waiting to be noticed. This goes for rationality in general, as can be seen by the presence of irrationality. If we had no choice but to be rational, there wouldn't be so much fuss about being irrational. Adding six and seven and realising that doing so gives the same value as adding nothing to 13 is not quiescence.
This leads to another point relating to mathematics. Making a calculation requires effort. Performing a deduction makes explicit what was previously hidden. And physically, doing this require work - energy over time.
There's also the interesting fact that not all Hamiltonian path problems have an answer. That is, some of them are not equal to any value. It’s not accurate to say that “the input is the same thing as its output” in a Hamiltonian path problem when there is no path. The input does not implicitly contain a path if there isn’t a path. The input is not the same thing as the output.
*added: Is that your opinion? There is no explicit conclusion in your post.
Interesting and stimulating, it has put my mind in such a state of agitation.
Response nonetheless:
"116 When philosophers use a word - "knowledge", "being", "object", "I", "proposition", "name" - and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?- What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to the everyday use." Wittgenstein, PI
In this spirit, along with my reaction to your's and others feedback, I believe I need to take a little more creative approach. I like to borrow, roughly, an approach Quine performed in Word and Object around his treatment of time. In previous post I presented three scientific equations:
1. E = Mc²
2. X = vt + Xi
3. 1/2Mv^2 = 3/2RT
Special attention was given to the symbol "=" that I believe gave way to talk of "identity" and "equivalence". After much thought, I started thinking this symbol was creating some problems. One, it was leading one to think there must be some similarity to logicians use of "a = a". Two, this symbol was distracting the actual meaning of these scientific expressions. Lastly, and obviously, its persistent use in mathematics may lead one to think this may be the ultimate meaning of these equations, "numeric value" is equal "numeric value".
Given these concerns, I think it best to leave behind the symbol "=" and use another, "?"
1. E ? Mc²
2. X ? vt + Xi
3. 1/2Mv^2 ? 3/2RT
This different symbol is to emphasize what the relationship between both side of the equation. Let's take the simpler of the three equations, #2.
What is this scientific equation trying to express: For experimentally determine values of variables v, t, and Xi, where v is average velocity, t is duration of time, and Xi is the initial object's position, the object's final position is determined by v multiplied by t plus Xi. So, if you determine v, t, and Xi, you can predict X. Consider, equation #3, if you determine the temperature, you can predict the kinetic energy of the gas, or vice versa if you determine the kinetic energy of the gas, you can predict the temperature of the gas. Notice, there is no need to call these expressions as some kind of identity statement. This is just to introduce some metaphysical baggage that is not needed for these equations to function.
Historically, scientists established these equations well before the creation of S5 modal logic. What exactly is Kripke's value in calling them identity statements? That when we of talking about object's initial position and final position, we, by metaphysical necessity, must be talking about the same object. But this seems to be a troublesome expectation. What if the final position is not as we predicted, should we, as you say, "reject counter instances as errors of identification." No, we should proceed as scientists would do in these cases, see if we made some error in measuring, or maybe the instrumentation malfunctioned. But could you not say that you made an error by measuring the incorrect object? Sure, but I also could have measure the wrong object and found the position to be what was expected, and this just demonstrates that this has nothing to do with metaphysical necessity.
"124 Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it in the end only describe it." PI 124
I'm sorry for the agitation. I hope I can show you that there is no need for such disquiet, and at the same time take us back to the theme of this thread. I want to assure you that I agree with you that Malcolm has the better handle on language as a whole, and that Kripke has taken steps too far in applying his logic. I think we can be fairly precise as to where and how, and bring this back to the discussion of what is real and what is not real.
We started to talk about essences because some folk here suppose that in some way it is the essence of a thing that decides if it is real or not; or perhaps the other way around. It has been difficult to obtain a clear explanation of how we are to fill this all out.
Now the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus may well have had a view along these lines, since we can read amongst the changes between that work and the Investigations a change in Wittgenstein's approach to both logic and to essence. For the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus - and here I must ride rough-shod over the detail - the essence of a thing is implicit in the logical form that sets out the nature of that thing. This reflects a kind of logical essentialism: the structure of reality (and language) is essential and necessary, and it defines the limits of meaningful discourse.
But by the Investigations, much of this had become unacceptable. The assumptions that had held this view firm were rejected. Where in the Tractatus each meaningful term had a strict definition, in the Investigations we were admonished to look instead at what we are doing with words and see that this vast variety of uses can and must not be understood in such a simple and fixed fashion. Doing so greatly misunderstands and misrepresents the variety of language. The notion of a family resemblance is important here, but is not alone.
At around the same time, Quine was proffering another influential critique of essences, one more within the constraints of formal logic. Quine's argument shows that when someone uses a name - "gavagai" there may be no fact of the matter as to what that might be referring to. There are two aspects of this, the first that it need not be necessary to fix the referent perfectly in order to get your rabbit stew. The second, that no statement is true or false only as it stands, but that they are true or false as a part of the whole web of belief. Extensionally, to supose "gavagai" refers to the same thing as "rabbit" is to suppose that each element of the set "rabbit" is an element of the set "gavagai" - that's setting out what it would be for "gavaga" to mean "rabbit" in a way that does not rely on the intentionality of speaker meaning or web of belief. But that some individual is a member of the set "gavagai" or "rabbit" is of course open to referential opacity. If reference wasn't fixed, so much the worse for essence.
Historically, these and other considerations led to a pretty widespread consensus in around the 1950's that essences were a bit useless, an anachronistic hangover form Medieval logic with which we could safely do without.
The spurning of modality had much to do with the great success of predicate calculus and other advances in formal logic after Russell that seemed to have left the formalisation of modality behind. This changed dramatically when a kid from Nebraska showed how to construct a semantics and demonstrate completeness for S5.
At the centre of this formalisation is a simple idea, restored from Leibniz. Modal language is pretty every-day. It comes about when we consider how things might have ben different - what if that table had been in the other room, or had been red instead of blue. In using such language we are asking about how the world would be if things had been a bit different - perhaps if the table were in the other room, the young people could play their board game on the table in there while we old folk dance in here... or whatever - we have interesting parties. The suggested way to understand such utterances is wondering what would be different in a world in which the table were in the other room. That's all a possible world is - a way of giving a firmness to such utterances by stipulating a difference and inferring the consequences.
The formal version gets a bit complex, of course, but that's the basic idea. The formal stuff is what gave the idea respectability - here we had a way of using modal talk that we could be assured was coherent and complete, and that for many was intuitively familiar.
And along with this comes a way of thinking about essences that shares in this coherence and completeness. Essence could be considered as being those properties that belong to a thing in every possible world in which that thing exists. Or, if you prefer, the properties without which we'd be talking about something else.
It's worth paying some attention to how this works. A typical example is that Nixon was necessarily Human, and so that in every possible world in which Nixon exists, Nixon is human. Now it remains that perhaps the Nixon who was impeached might have been an alien. In that case, we are not talking about Nixon, but some alien who has replaced Nixon. Our Nixon is necessarily human.
The point Id like you to see here is that the specification that Nixon is necessarily human is not a restriction on Nixon so much as a restriction on how we can make use of the word "Nixon". We might use the word "Nixon" to refer to something other than Nixon - to the alien. But doing so does not make Nixon an alien.
Notice here the shifting of the burden from ontology to language. That's really quite important. Kripke can be understood as sneaking metaphysics in in the guise of logic. And at time he does appear to be guilty of this sin. But there is also a way of treating possible worlds as setting out for us a way to talk coherently about modal problems, without, or at least with minimal, metaphysical implications.
Following this path, we treat possible worlds not as metaphysical entities but as stipulated language games within which we can evaluate the truth of particular propositions, of how things might otherwise have been. And essential properties are not discovered, nor the attributes of Platonic Forms, but are decided by virtue of keeping our language consistent. They are a thing we do together with words.
There's a lot more that can be said here, but I have to go do other things, an there is enough here for now. The Law of Diminishing Returns applies, too. Is any one reading this?
I am sir.
I'm glad to see your explicit rendition of possible worlds, because that was my fuzzy notion but you've made it explicit.
I will let you have the last word for now. I am sure our paths shall cross again about this topic.
If philosophy becomes merely a matter of keeping our language games internally consistent, then it risks becoming a kind of syntax-policing—about saying what can or can't be said, not about what is or must be. That’s a long way from asking what is real and how it might be known.
I would have thought that the existence of necessary truth, and questions as to what that implies, or why they are necessary, are fundamental philosophical questions, about more than simply 'what we can say'.
Good to know.
Quoting Richard B
Sure. I still haven't responded to the points you made in your previous. Will do so later.
Perhaps. But at the very least philosophical theories ought be internally consistent, so there is a point to the process of working out what that looks like. If it doesn't matter what can be said then anything goes.
What can be said is a start. What can be shown might be more important. That's part of what is problematic about mysticism. If it is showing stuff rather than saying stuff, it's not actually false. But when it says stuff, it is almost invariably false.
Quoting Janus
I still prefer "How do we use the word real?"
When it says stuff is it false or merely inapt?
Quoting Banno
The word is used in many ways obviously. Usage presumably cannot determine whether something is real, but rather whether it should be counted as real. A theist might say "God is real", does it follow that God might be counted as real, as opposed to, say, imaginary?
Charles Pierce claimed that the term “real” was invented by scholastic philosophers to signify “that which is not a figment”, in order to close the debate around the problem of universals. I’m not sure if that is true or not, but I thought it was neat. Before then the word “real” already had its use in “real property”, something like “immovable property”, which we know today as real estate.
Yes. I'm getting a lot from what you and @Richard B and your interlocutors are discussing.
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm plucking this phrase out of its context because of what I think it implies. One version of what a "fundamental philosophical question" is would claim that such a question is about something that might be inexpressible in words. Another version would limit the idea of a "fundamental philosophical question" to what can be said in a language, on the grounds that philosophy must not be misunderstood as the gatekeeper of all truths, all things "fundamental." Philosophy is limited to discourse, and so must be the subjects of its questions. Yet a third version would insist on a distinction between "answer" and "subject": thus, we can answer a philosophical question within the realm of philosophical discourse, but that doesn't mean that the subject of such discourse is also necessarily linguistic.
I think you mean to stake out the first territory, yes? That there are truths -- answers to fundamental philosophical questions -- that cannot be uttered? Or is it closer to the third version, with all truths utterable but not all subjects being linguistic?
Quoting Richard B
It's not just Kripke, and it's about substitution.
In set theory, the Axiom of Extensionality is
[math]\forall A \, \forall B \, \left( \forall x \, (x \in A \leftrightarrow x \in B) \rightarrow A = B \right)[/math]
Given two sets A and B, if they have the same elements then they are the same set. Now one way to treat this is as a definition of "=". It's also the definition of extensionality.
If we are instead talking about functions,
[math]\forall x \, (f(x) = g(x)) \Rightarrow f = g[/math]
and for predicates
[math]\forall x \, (P(x) \leftrightarrow Q(x)) \Rightarrow P = Q[/math]
and in arithmetic
[math]x = y \rightarrow f(x) = f(y)[/math]
That is, x=y if they denote the same number.
Or generally,
[math]a = b \quad \iff \quad \forall \varphi \big( \varphi(a) \leftrightarrow \varphi(b) \big)[/math]
In an extensional context, a=b iff for any string, substituting a for b does not change the value of that string.
Now in physics, extensional equivalence might best be thought of as when two sides of an equation are measured in different ways but always yield the same values in every case where the law holds, and the equation is not a definition, but an empirical or theoretical identification.
[math] F=ma [/math] and [math]v = \frac{d x}{d t}[/math] are definitions, so the extensionality is built in. But in Ohm’s Law, [math]V = IR[/math], the two sides of the "=" are measured in quite different ways, and yet their value is the same. Much the same for [math]\langle E_k \rangle = \frac{3}{2} k_B T[/math]. What's suggested is that [math]F[/math] can be substituted for [math]ma[/math], [math]V[/math] for [math]IR[/math], and [math]\langle E_k \rangle [/math] for [math]\frac{3}{2} k_B T[/math].
There's a catch here, since the circumstances in which the substitution occurs must be carefully controlled. And indeed there is a benign circularity in that extensionality is defined in terms of substitution, and yet substitution is not permitted in cases that are extensional opaque.
If your "?" is understood as, in the appropriate circumstances, permitting the stuff on the left to be substituted for the stuff on the right, then it is extensional and does much the same job as "=".
The identity here isn't metaphysical; it's just substitution.
And that's pretty much Kripke's point. If a=b, then you can substitute a for b and get the very same result, provided that you are working in areas where extensionality works.
So if we discover that this lectern is made of wood, then in every possible world in which this lectern exists, it is made of wood. And if in some possible world the lectern before us is made of plastic, then it is a different lectern.
And if we discover that water is H?O, then ?(water=H?O). And so on through the many different examples. Notice how each of these is a hypothetical – an "if... then...", in which the antecedent is found a posteriori - by looking around. But all that is being done here is ensuring that we keep our language consistent. Once we fix reference by accepting the antecedent, we are obligated to respect the modal consequences of that act of naming as expressed by the consequent.
Going back to the "heat is average energy of the molecules" example, Kripke fell over because heat is a sensation, and fails the test of being extensional. But temperature is extensional. That's why changing from heat to temperature works. And that also why his examples of pain and c-fibres are problematic - pain is not extensional.
So much of Malcom's - and your - criticism is valid. But Kripke wasn't entirely wrong, either.
The most direct way of responding would be that truth can be distinguished from delusion or falsehood. That truth is what remains when delusion is overcome.
I don't know how many persons of Indian descent you know, but a common name in India is 'Satya' (I worked for one as a tech writer for a few years. I suppose Latin equivalents for such a name might be 'Felicity' and 'Verity'.) Of course many individuals thus named do not therefore exemplify or embody 'truth' but what the name denotes or conveys is the lived quality of truth, 'one in whom delusion no longer holds sway'. It conveys something of the virtuous quality of truth, which is hard to discern, not because it is a difficult concept, but because of the all-pervading and taken-for-granted existence of delusion. According to ancient philosophy, delusion is kind of the default for the human condition, and philosophy the pursuit of the antidote.
Those were the days.
A key distinction was between "ens rationis" (beings of reason/mind) and "ens reale" (real being). "Ens = being" ("esse" is the verb form of "being") and reale comes from "res," which is often translated as "thing." Although "realis" can mean "true" as well (the unity of truth and being in the Doctrine of Transcendentals on display).
Funny enough, "ens" can sometimes be translated as "thing" too, so we could be distinguishing between "things of reason" and "thing things." :rofl: But "things of reason" and "true things" might be misleading, since the ens rationis are not illusions.
The best example I can think of are second intentions, which include things like genus. Animals truly exist, but one never will find just "an animal" out in the world. It is always a particular species of the genus. There is also a medieval distinction between the virtual and real. The virtual is contained in things as power (hence sharing a root with virtue/strength), but in the form of a potency that has not yet been actualized.
In "cogito ergo sum," "sum"—I am—is a form of "ens."
:up:
Yes, and also what stays the same through mutability, since it does no good to speak only of what has since passed out of being.
From the same paper, Kripke on Heat and Sensations of Heat, Malcolm says something interesting in his introductory paragraph,
"One thesis of Kripke's is that natural kinds are 'originally identified' by human beings in terms of certain external marks and properties, but that scientific investigations may reveal that none of the properties by which we 'originally identified' a natural kind are essential properties of things of that kind. For example, tigers were originally identified by the properties of being large, feline, carnivorous animals, tawny yellow in color, with black stripes and white belly. But a scientific investigation of the 'internal structure' of tigers might have proved that something could have the all of the 'external appearances' of a tiger and yet not be a tiger because it doesn't have the right 'internal structure'. According to Kripke we might even find out, or have found out, 'tiger had none of the properties by which we original identified them'. This contention seems to me to be exceeding strange."
I as well find this exceedingly strange. Kripke often refers, in Naming and Necessity, to this mysterious "internal structure" that science can discover about tigers, but never mentions what this is specifically. But for me, what is equally mysterious is how does Kripke characterize an activity as a "scientific investigation". I am not sure why he so confidently declares "scientific investigations" as having the final say in what is or is not a natural kind, while human senses are somewhat problematic Take for example "water = H2O". Over millions of years, humans have evolved an exceptional detector of fresh water, called our taste buds and a brain. Our ability to distinguish between fresh water and sea water was essential for survival, the better we can make subtle distinctions of salt level in water, the less damage to our organs, and the less likelihood of dehydration. Without any "scientific investigation", or for that matter any linguistic tools, humans are able to identified fresh water from salt water. Could humans have problems using their fresh water detectors? Of course, injury or illness certainly could play a role in how well we can make this distinction. But, is what we do in a "scientific investigation" significant different? Well, technologically speaking, we need the aid of science to develop some artificial detector made of metal and silicon, combine it with some programming and we can get the instrument to detect H2O in whatever liquid we may inject into the system. Could the instrument malfunction and tells us something in error, of course. But the main difference I see here is one detector is a product of millions of years, and the other is the product of human engineering, but both are fallible.
We establish "natural kinds" because we as humans can agree on definition and judgment as it is applied to our natural surroundings, not because we identified some essence that exists in all possible worlds.
A man (not a man)
Throws a stone (not a stone)
At a bird (not a bird)
On a tree (not a tree)
And the answer to the ride is that a eunuch throws a piece of pumice at a bat hanging on to a reed - everything in it is not as it appears.
That was given in Russell’s HWP as example of Socratic essentialism and not being taken in by appearances.
You may be familiar with the theory that a name refers in virtue of an associated description, and the various arguments mounted against it after the advent of Kripke's semantics. It was found to be inadequate in certain regards, and few still adherence to it.
What Kripke is doing is pointing out that this applies to types as well as to individuals. It's a hypothetical, in line with the familiar Thales example and others. If we did find out that everything we knew about tigers were mistaken or in error, that would nevertheless be a discovery about tigers. It follows that "tiger" does not refer to tigers in virtue of some description that sets out their characteristics.
In the hypothetical, we had "established" what a tiger was on the basis of an "agree on definition and judgment as it is applied to our natural surroundings" that was, in the hypothetical, wrong. And yet we nevertheless still manage to pick out what is a tiger and what isn't. It follows that we do not pick out what is a tiger and what isn't, on the basis of supposed essential characteristics of tigers.
The upshot is agreement - we indeed do not identify tigers on the basis of some essence that exists in all possible worlds.
The argument is on p.120 of N&N, for those reading along.
There are simply characteristics that occur together a vast majority of the time. The characteristics of tigers occur together 99.9% of the time. Female and male tigers make tiger babies, not a mixed lot of various baby species.
Just Google, "characteristics of tigers" and you will see the AI response of all the physical and behavioral characteristics of tigers. How can so many characteristics occur together 99% of the time if there isn't something real going on that is not dependent upon some agreement?
Good points there. I am not particularly sure if it makes sense to have more faith in recent scientific theories, as opposed to our bedrock understanding of the human experience, for these very reasons. Given the history of caloric, phlogiston, N rays, absolute space and time, vital substance, and the corpuscular view of the atom and molecule, it seems that more recent theories are more likely to be proven wrong.
Yet what would it take to convince us that our ancestors, in crossing streams or standing out in the rain, experienced an essentially different water from us? Or how would we be convinced that people did not *really* experience our modern tigers or trees?
I would maintain that if one had reason to doubt that the "water" and "rain" of Homer, the Aeneid, Chaucer, or Genesis is essentially what we still mean by "water," or that their "horse" is not what we mean by "horse," etc., this would be vastly more surprising then finding out that, though the periodic table was useful, it is superceded by some other formulation. Indeed, if Homer and Charles Dickens (and so Charles Darwin as well) could be speaking of essentially different forms of "water" and "horse" and "tiger," this would cast doubt on any grasp of human history, which in turn should cast doubt on any faith in scientific institutions.
As John Ioannidis points out in his paper "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False," a lot of scientific findings turn out to be the result of bias and statistical noise. We should have far less faith in recent peer reviewed papers, even those based on experiments, then on many non-experimentally verifiable claims such as "the Boston Celtics won the last NBA championship," or "the US Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776." If the former can be false, we have no reason to have faith in science. Yet our understanding of the former relies on things not essentially changing from age to age or moment to moment.
On a view where knowledge is entirely propositional (or even linguistic), "justified true belief," it makes sense to ascribe a sort of priority to the propositions of science. Personally, I find such a view problematic for a variety of reasons. Yet this cannot lead to the supposition that our ancestors "didn't know water" absolutely, without courting absurdity.
And how do we do that? Why do we do that? What's the causal explanation? If natural kinds such as "ants" do not exist until man comes along and says "this counts as an ant," how does he decide on "ant" as a particular type of thing, instead of infinitely many other combinations he could have specified?
Further, why did disparate linguistic groups developing in relative isolation all come up with words to denote "ant" and other different animals? Why did all peoples develop words to denote different members of the same animal species if kinds did not exist until they were positively "established?" (Or did they already exist?)
To my mind, the most plausible explanation as to "why did disparate peoples develop names for the ant and identify different types of ants as ants," is "because ants already existed before man named them." Biology agrees on this point. But then there was something that made ants ants that existed prior to man calling them such. Organisms existed as organic wholes (the fern , the dinosaur, etc.) prior to language. Yet this is all the "essence" is originally called in to do in the first place, to explain how different sorts of things are (as opposed to merely being called) different sorts of things.
Also good points.
"Essence" and "substance" have been subject to profound mutations and many formulations, but this doesn't mean that there aren't well developed definitions for each individual different traditions. We actually have multiple well developed definitions that contradict one another.
The same applies to all sorts of important terms such as "true," "real," "physical," "matter," "virtual," "reason," "intellect," "form," "idea," etc.
So, such terms need to be understood in their context.
Although "99.9%" probably undersells things. Do ants, or trees, or ducks, or men every give birth to tigers? Has anything but a tiger ever given birth to a tiger?
Even in hybrids, the hybrid's traits are an admixture. Horses and donkeys give birth to mules, not cats and frogs, etc.
Note that this also defines what humans find "useful." If one tries to breed one's male pigs to one's female sheep, the family will starve.
When someone is faced to take the initial plunge into any institution, whether religious, scientific, or philosophical, one can have faith to compel themselves into action to learn what this institution is all about. With time, one begins to learn the history, language, values, and ability to judge in that institution. Along the way. we also can learn its limitations and deficiencies. The next step, I believe, should be pragmatic. This is when faith is left behind and one uses what experiences they have gathered and apply them on how they see fit. There is a challenge in reacting in such a manner. All of these institutions will sometimes instill behaviors that can lead to rigid thinking and intolerance. I could find a religious practice that can calm my anxiety, and a medical technique that is useless. Or, find a philosophical idea inspirational, while a religious doctrine oppressive. Obviously, my tradition has shape me in such a way that I view myself as a free agent who can do this risk/benefit analysis. But even in such a tradition, there are challenges to having this position as well.
Forgive my ignorance. That suggests that you have an independent definition of "extensional context". But I thought that intersubstitutability was the definition of an extensional context. ?
Quoting Banno
Are you possibly confusing "All the propositions that we think we know about tigers are false" with "Each of the propositions that we think we know about tigers may be false"? Consider the discovery of black swans. How did they know that those black birds were swans? Similarly, a big cat with no stripes might not be a tiger.
Quoting Banno
So now I'm wondering how reference is achieved.
I seem to remember that Kripke thinks it is achieved by an unbroken causal chain between the original christening and my use of the term. That might work for the purposes of logic, but it doesn't seem a likely candidate for explaining how we achieve reference. Any history we have of the term might also turn out to be false. So how is it achieved?
A bajillion theories of reference (or supposition) have developed over the years; apparently it's a tough question.
Some of the "problems" that crop up seem to be tied to particular metaphysical assumptions though, e.g.:
The "problem of the many" strikes me as only particularly problematic for a certain sort of supervenience metaphysics for instance.
An older question was: "what do our words signify, our own concepts, or things?" I suppose that if one goes with the first, some problems of reference (including the above) disappear, but you get new ones.
It seems obvious that people have things in mind that they intend to refer to in most cases. However, what about a stop light? It signifies "apply your breaks" to drivers, but not to pedestrians, and then reverses who it signifies "go" to with nary a thought.
"Today, as usual, I came into the room and there was the bowl of flowers on the table. I went up to them, caressed them, and smelled over them. I thank God for flowers! There's nothing so real to me as flowers. Here the genuine essence of the world's substance, as its gayest and most hilarious speaks to me. It seems unworthy even to think as erect, and waving on pillars of sap. Sap! Sap!"
O.K. Bouwsma, "Decartes' Evit Genius"
"Save the surface, and you save all." Sherwin-Williams
From, Pursuit of Truth, W.V. Quine
We have three or four differing views of the nature of essences here.
There's the older view in which to understand what something is just is to understand it's essence. That's perhaps what Tim is thinking here. On that account, being real and having an essence are pretty much the same thing.
There's the more recent analytic natural language view, from the later Wittgenstein through Malcolm and maybe @Richard B, and close to that taken more formally by Quine and friends, that there's not much more to essences than confusion.
Then there's Kripke's suggestion, that if we must think of essences we can think of them as the properties had by something in every possible world in which that thing exists. This has the benefit of being formalisable and reasonably clear while keeping to a minimum any metaphysical consequences.
Then you may be suggesting that we can be rid of essences by doing some sort of Bayesian analysis that allows us to conclude that tigers are real. Maybe.
But you and I might agree that essences have little to do with what is and isn't real.
Quoting Ludwig V
No, that's right, this is the circularity I mentioned. It's an extensional context if substitution works. Being extensional and allowing substitution that preserves truth are the same thing. We are either in an extensional context, or not.
Quoting Ludwig V
I don't believe so. The idea is that we learn what some thing is, name it, and then discover that everything we knew about it was false.
I couldn't locate the original Thales example - I think it was Kaplan - so I had ChatGPT reconstructed something similar:
What this shows is that we don't manage to pick out Thales in virtue of what we know about Thales, a somewhat counterintuitive result. There's a bunch of such examples, from Kripke, Donnellan, Kaplan and others, that have pretty much undermined the so-called "descriptivist" account. The suggested replacement - the "causal" account - has about twice as many adherents on the PhilPapers survey, despite not being all that well articulated.
What this doesn't rule out is the sort of view that might be seen in a Wittgensteinian account, in which reference is an aspect of the more general language games in which we participate, or even a sub-game within those games. On such a view a reference may be counted as successful if we get on with what we are doing, regardless of how it managed to denote it's target. I think Malcolm's concerns were misplaced (@Richard B)
Quoting Ludwig V
Good question. To my eye, it's clear that we sometimes do work out a reference from a description associated with it; it's just that we can show that this is not what happens in every case. Indeed, it should hardly be a surprise to learn that there is more than one way for a reference to succeed.
And even less reason to suppose that references are dependent on some sort of essence.
I've my own ideas about how to explain reference and such, (@J), but we might move on without a general theory of reference, if we agree that somehow it manages to work despite our not understanding quite how.
Are you suggesting that you think it is not a tough question? If so, I would love to know more.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Well, the cloud issue is just a sorites paradox. You're right, it makes very specific assumptions, which, IMO, are, let us say, unhelpful.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
It is indeed. But explaining what that means is less clear.
OK. It's just that I'm not sure that it does work. But perhaps that's beyond our scope here.
Quoting Banno
There's something very odd about saying that we learn what some thing is, and then discover that what we have learnt about it is false. What is the "it" here?
Quoting Banno
Yes. But that means that we do know how to pick out Thales.
Try a different example. Homer. I'm sure you know about him, and that there are good grounds for thinking that he never existed. But those stories exist; someone must have written them - or perhaps they are folk tales with no author in the sense that we apply the term. So our expectations when we learn the Homer wrote those epics are disappointed. But not everything that we learnt when we learnt the name is false.
Quoting Banno
I agree with that. One alternative way is by means of an ostensive definition - which, of course, isn't a definition at all by the usual standards. Nonetheless, it works.
Quoting Banno
I agree with that. I'm still a bit puzzled about why I think that "how it managed to denote it's target" is not a answerable question, but "how do you know that Thales is not Homer" is.
Sure, usefulness is dependent on what is real or true. For something to be useful means that there is some sense of truth attached to it.
I used 99.9% to represent the fact that species evolve and species cannot evolve unless the present species mutates in some way.
I think that when we speak of "essences" and "substances" we are referring to those distinct clusters of shared characteristics that occur together 99.9% of the time. Species that share some characteristics of others, or where characteristics overlap are typically the descendants of the other species, or share a common ancestor with another species.
Scribbles are just scribbles unless they refer to something. What makes a scribble a word and not just a scribble?
You can draw any scribbles on this page but what makes some scribble meaningful? You might say it depends on how it is used. And I will ask, "used for what? - to accomplish what?" To use anything means you have a goal in mind. What is your goal in using some scribbles?
For me, things are real if they possess causal power. Rocks and ideas are real because they possess causal power. You can use your ideas to change things in the world and rocks can make you feel pain when you drop one on your foot. Essences would be akin to how different things interact with each other. For instance light is either reflected or passes right through objects depending on what the atomic structure of those objects, and which wavelengths of light are reflected or absorbed is dependent upon the same atomic structure.
When we go to the Moon and Mars we find rocks and mountains. So rocks and mountains seem to be supported by what Kripke is proposing. We also have something called convergent evolution where similar traits arise in similar environments. On Earth, having eyes is very useful as the atmosphere allows visible light to pass right through it. On similar Earth-like planets with a transparent atmosphere we would expect organisms to have eyes.
Mutual agreement about how to use scribbles, or what the scribbles refer to? If the former, then what exactly are we agreeing on using the scribbles for - to accomplish what? If the latter then we use scribbles to refer to things.
Could we manage if we didn't agree on both?
I think you edited just before I posted.
The accomplishment is that we can communicate without audible speech. We often want or need to be able to do this. Sometimes so others in earshot don't know what we are communicating. Sometimes because we are not able to hear each other, such as when we are too far from each other, or when it's too noisy to hear each other. Sometimes because we want to preserve information so that people in the future will receive it.
Yes, scribbles refer to things. They refer to the sounds of spoken language. [I]Sand[/I], [I]sorry[/I], and [I]song[/I] all start with the same scribble because the spoken words they represent all start with the same sound. Obviously, there is not a perfect matchup. Things change. [I]Laugh[/I], [I]Ralph[/I], and [I]sniff[/I] all end with the same sound, but different scribbles represent that sound for each. There are multiple reasons for such differences. But we all still agree on things.
The scribbles do not refer to the sounds of a spoken language. It is the sounds and the scribbles that refer to the same thing that is not another sound or scribble, just as the different sounds and scribbles of different languages refer to the same thing and is what makes it possible to translate languages in the first place. Because we often learn the sound before the scribble, we are actually translating the sound to the scribble when writing, but the sound refers to something else that is neither a sound or a scribble.
"Leia is my seven year old pet cat." is a string of scribbles that refers to something that is not another string of scribbles, but a living entity that both the sounds and scribbles refer to. Choosing to say it vs write it is dependent upon your intended audience, as you have explained, which is no different than choosing which language to say it in, which is dependent upon your audience.
The scribbles and sounds we use to refer to things that are not sounds and scribbles are arbitrary so we need rules for which string of scribbles/sounds refers to which things and events in the world. That is what we are agreeing on - the rules of reference.
[Url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/alphabet-writing]Britannica says[/url]: [I]alphabet, set of graphs, or characters, used to represent the phonemic structure of a language.[/I]
[Url=https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/alphabet#:~:text=An%20alphabet%20is%20a%20set,are%20singing%20the%20English%20alphabet.]Vocabulary.com says[/url]:[I]An alphabet is a set of all the letters in a written language. The letters in an alphabet represent the different sounds in that language.[/I]
Google's AI Overview says:. [I]An alphabet is a system of letters that represents the sounds of a language.[/I]
I would be surprised if any source said the scribbles [I]don't[/I] represent the sounds of the spoken language.
Sure, the strings of scribbles refer to things. But they do so by representing the spoken sounds that refer to the things. It's not a coincidence that [I]sand[/I], [I]sorry[/I], and [I]song[/I] all start with the same scribble. It was intentional. Spoken language came first. Then people came up with this particular way to represent the sounds they were speaking. If that was not the case, there would be no reason [I]sand[/I], [I]sorry[/I], and [I]song[/I] all start with s, or [I]plod[/I], [I]goad[/I], and [I]mind[/I] all end with d. And we wouldn't tell people just learning to read to "sound it out."
Nice summary of Kripke's view. Let me see if I can make sense of it.
Going back to my example of human beings able to distinguish between fresh water and sea water, you could also say humans have the ability to "pick out" a liquid that is fresh water and "pick out" a liquid that is sea water. As I indicated, this is with their biological machinery. From this perspective, humans do not need "names" or "descriptions" to perform this very act, it is a matter of survival. Again, there may be error along the way, due to sickness or injury (but to understand this notion of error, we need a notion of success). Additionally, we could use "names" and "descriptions" to describe this human act of picking out fresh water which in turn can be used to teach other humans. Nevertheless, if a human successfully "picks out" the fresh water, hydrates themselves, and survives to see another day, don't we want to say he knows how to "pick out" fresh water? If the answer is "yes", in this scenario, what sense can we make that this human could later discover "that everything we knew about it was false"? Seems we are flirting with radical skepticism.
I am reminded what Wittgenstein said in "On Certainty",
"If I now say "I know that the water in the kettle on the gas-flame will not freeze but boil", I seem to be justified in this "I know" as I am in any. 'If I know anything I know this',- Or do I know with still greater certainty that the person opposite me is my old friend so-and-so? And how does that compare with the proposition that I am seeing with two eyes and shall see them if I look in the glass? - I don't know confidently what I am to answer here.-But still there is a difference between the cases. If the water over the gas freezes, of course I shall be astonished as can be, but I shall assume some factor I don't know of, and perhaps leave the matter to physicists to judge. But what could make me doubt whether this person here is N.N. whom I have known for years? Here a doubt would seem to drag everything with it and plunge it into chaos."
Quoting Banno
Quoting Ludwig V
Quoting Richard B
Depends what counts as part of "everything we know" about X. Does it include "how to fix the reference of X"? If it does, then no, we can't discover that this was false. In such a case, we'd discover we were talking about something different. But if "everything we know" is limited to properties of X, then yes, we could even discover, of a tiger, that it was translucent and incorporeal, and only gave the appearance of being the sort of thing we've come to reference as "tiger". This startling result would be described as being about the tiger.
The fresh water example seems trickier, because we're using a property,"freshness," to name the item in question, which gives the illusion of an essence. To make matters worse, we're associating that property with what we believe is an inductively necessary effect on humans. But I think the principle is the same: Change the name to "lala." If we then discover that lala sometimes makes us sick, what would we say? We'd say we were wrong about lala always producing a certain effect on us. The question of freshness would be handled separately, and differently: Now we also need to say that being fresh doesn't necessarily prevent us from getting sick. It's the little cause-effect story that's been proved false, not anything about lala.
Or to put it another way, by giving a different answer to Richard's question: No, we mustn't say that humans know how to pick out fresh water. We know how to pick out lala on the basis of whether it harms us -- or we did, until the hypothetical counterexample arrived. Now we're not sure how to do it.
And notice that the "biological machinery" can remain intact. That's because we can say that the hypothetical counterexample happens(ed) so rarely that it didn't affect evolution.
PS -- I let all this age for a while, and upon rereading, I have some doubts about the fresh water example. But rather than launch into the counter-arguments, I'll just wait and see how others respond.
Well, I guess your argument would work, provided we can fix the reference of X without appealing to any of the properties of X. But most people would say that "tiger" refers to large striped cats that live in parts of Asia. How would you fix the reference without relying on any of the known properties of tigers?
I don't know the actual history of the discovery of black swans, but I find that case easier to think about. It is possible that the discoverers found these birds floating around on a lake somewhere and said "Oh, there's some black swans - who'd have thought it?" But they might well have asked themselves whether these black, swan-like birds were really swans at all. They would have made more detailed comparisons and come to their conclusion.
I am not arguing that there are some sacred descriptions that cannot be overturned. I am arguing that it would not be possible to overturn all the known descriptions at the same time. That is like trying to saw off the branch you are sitting on - success would be catastrophic.
No, that's clear. The relevant question is:
Quoting Ludwig V
We can do it by talking about how tigers seem, and how we use that seeming to fix the reference. It's a kind of austerity or agnosticism about whether what appears to us is also in fact the case about the object. So yes, "large striped cats that live in parts of Asia" is exactly how tigers seem, and if they didn't seem that way, we wouldn't have been able to fix the reference. But, in the unlikely event that some part of this description turned out to be only a seeming -- that is, factually inaccurate -- we would say we had learned something about tigers. We wouldn't say, "Oh, that wasn't a tiger after all." This is Kripke's basic argument.
The question Kripke and others were asking is, to what do these letters match in a natural language? And what are the consequences of that matching?
And the answer, speaking roughly, is that "a" and "b" are proper names for a and b and so on.
And the conclusion seems to be that there need be no properties that are had by a thing names, in every possible world in which it exists. Naming and Necessity is at it's core an attempt to fill out the consequences of this idea in a way that is consistent.
I think of it this way. We know that the formal system is consistent. We can look at a natural language such as English and match the bits of that language to the formal description, and perhaps in doing so learn how to treat modality in a natural language in a consistent fashion.
So we say that "a" and "b" are like proper names, and since "a" and "b" are rigid designators, we say that proper names are also rigid designators. And so it seems that since no property need be true of "a" in every possible world, no property need be true of a proper name in every possible world
But then we run into the problem that the then most popular theory of how proper names work is that the name matches a description. And a description is just a bunch of properties. So we have the problem that if proper names are rigid designators, then they are not descriptions.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yep, that's the issue.
Here's a rough solution. We might well learn how to use the name - what it designates - by using a description. But thereafter, we are not reliant on that description for the name to work. We learn who "Charles Mountbatten-Windsor" is by watching his coronation on TV, perhaps. But if it turned out that they had put an actor in to take his place, perhaps for security reasons, that would be something we learned about Charles Mountbatten-Windsor, despite his not being the chap on the TV.
It gets more complicated, of course, wich is why Naming and Necessity is a book, and not an essay.
Quoting Ludwig V
There's a few different ways this could pan out. We might supose that there was a bloke names Homer, and indeed he wrote the Odyssey. But possibly, it was Kostas, his acquaintance, who did the writing, and Homer stole the text and took the credit. Now if what we mean by "Homer" is just the person answering the description "the bloke who wrote the Odyssey", when we say "Homer", we'd be referring to Kostas.
Indeed, if the referent of "Homer" is fixed only by "the bloke who wrote the Odyssey", we could not coherently claim that homer did not write the Odyssey, becasue that would amount to saying that the bloke who wrote the Odyssey did not write the odyssey.
And what we can conclude is that, contrary to both Russell and Quine, proper names are not just shorthand for descriptions, but work even in the absence of a description. They do function s rigid designators.
Good posts on your part, by the away. Fine analytic stuff.
We've been over this previously, and it's a bit of a side issue, but I don't agree with your theory that words are all proper names, that all they do is refer.
Another time.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I don't find this very useful, since "causal power" is not as clear a concept as "real". Indeed, I doubt that the idea of causation can be made all that clear. But there is a clear use of "real", which I've explained previously - it is used in opposition to some other term, that carries the explanatory weight - it's real, and not a counterfeit, not an illusion, and so on.
It doesn't help us if we explain one unclear idea by using another idea that is even less clear.
Thank you.
It's curious that I don't think Kripke would disagree with what you have to say - and if he did, I'd be disagreeing with him!
He's not - at least here - proposing a radical skepticism. He does that elsewhere, and in a very different context.
Adding to that, I don't think he anywhere suggests that we might discover that everything we know about water might be wrong. That would be a long bow to pull, as you point out. Am I mistaken?
Quoting Banno
In my reply to , I gave an account of the strategy and argument I think he is adopting in setting out these arguments. His target is not knowledge generally, and he is not advocating radical skepticism. He's arguing against a once-common view of reference, and extending that from proper names and individuals to kinds.
So that's why the odd examples, tigers and such. Let's look at a bit where he sums up what he is doing wioht tigers:
Note well "...and there fore was not the species of tigers". The conclusion isn't that there could be a tiger with different internal structure, but that if it had a different internal structure, it would not be a tiger.
And the conclusion with regard to discovering that some stuff we thought was water had a radically different structure to our water would similarly be, it's not water.
He's not in the end all that far from your own view.
His account is dependent on the idea of a chain from name to referent, a chain he says is "causal", but I think that's a stretch, since "causal' covers a multitude of other sins. I've my own thoughts.
,
q,v.
Yep. And yet, from the examples given, it seems that even when we saw off the branch, the reference succeeds. And the quest becomes, how can this be?
Yep.
The fact that you can co-opt something for a different purpose is trivial and does not mean that the original and primary use no longer exists or is useful. When communicating you are using scribbles and sounds to refer to things that are not scribbles and sounds.
Quoting Banno
But is it a real counterfeit bill or a real dollar bill? Is it a real illusion or a real observation? The fact is that a counterfeit bill and illusions can make you behave as if they are "real" until you have more information as to the causes that preceded their existence. If you don't understand causation then I don't see how you can claim a difference between a counterfeit bill or a dollar bill as different processes went into creating them (causation).
Going by what you have said, counterfeit bills appear randomly without counterfeiters creating them and there would be no crime in creating counterfeit bills.
What is the relationship between some scribble, "sand" and the sounds you make when saying the word, if not what they refer to, which is neither a sound or a scribble. "Sand" is a scribble and a sound. Sand is not.
How do you translate the scribble in one language to another if not by learning what that scribble refers to so that you can know which scribble in another language it translates to?
Think about being in the same vicinity as me and being able to see, hear, smell, and touch everything in the same vicinity as me. If I were to describe the area we are in, wouldn't it be redundant because you are already here with me experiencing the same things? Why would it be redundant if scribbles and sounds don't refer to the things in the vicinity that you can experience for yourself? If you can see I have a pet black and white cat, why would I say, "I have a pet black and white cat"? Language is used to relay information to others when their senses cannot access what it is we want them to know.
Yes, but let's not forget indexicals. These are rigid designators as well. This seems a little puzzling. Do we want to consider "the fact that I am 'I'" -- or, if you prefer, "the fact that 'I' designates me" -- to be a property of me? I can't remember if Kripke goes into this. If it is a property, then it would appear to be a property that must be true in every possible world -- I am always the person in question. But if it is not a property, then it must be strictly a "seeming" or "pointing" by which we fix reference. I suppose we could take this latter course and, when switching perspectives, just go ahead and switch pronouns too, but then don't we have the same problem? "The fact that you are 'you' . . ." etc.?
I think this is pointing to the question we've tossed around already -- whether "how a reference is fixed for X" is part of the list of X's potential properties; or whether we're mixing discourses by thinking of it that way. Can I know everything (or nothing) about X without including the reference-fixing story in my knowledge (or lack thereof)?
Weird similarities with the "existence [is/is not] a predicate" problem too.
That "I" designates me is not a property belonging to me. It's a grammatical function of the use of "I". It's a bit of semantics, not a bit of metaphysics.
It's a bit like the novices who come to the forum with what they take as a profound question - how is it that I am me and not you? They haven't noticed that even if they were me, they could ask the same question.
I would say that with @J the problem is much deeper than that. Note that when he spoke of “true sentences” J was just borrowing a word out of Banno’s mouth. Banno would probably be willing to argue for the thesis that truth is the property of sentences, but J would not.
Pared down, J’s philosophical vice is that he won’t argue for any thesis at all. He will only stand on the sidelines and watch others philosophize as he comments from afar. For example, the closest he will get to arguing for “Stance Voluntarism” is to cite a paper by Chakravartty and a paper by Pincock and then critique Pincock (who argues against stance voluntarism). The idea that J himself believes in stance voluntarism and therefore should offer arguments in its favor would not occur to him.
The skepticism about truth and falsity is part of it, and that has been duly noted, but perhaps deeper is the methodological approach where one is unwilling to take upon themselves the burden of an argument for some real and substantial conclusion. Strange as it may seem, you will not find anything in any of J’s threads or posts akin to, “I believe X is true and here are my arguments for it.” And it is extremely odd to constantly cast doubt and contradict others without ever offering a stance of your own.
There are many facets to this. One is that people who believe only in intersubjective agreement don’t know how real arguments work, given that “truth” is in that case only about persuasion and then a majority vote. Thus rhetoric and the casting of doubt become the highest intellectual feats. But for most people these various facets and symptoms can be remedied by a desire to offer arguments for their beliefs and to be transparent about those arguments.
If one has the desire to provide arguments for their beliefs then they will in time move beyond mere doubt-casting and rhetoric, and begin to learn the art of reason. They will try to give arguments for their beliefs, they will stumble, they will revise their approach and/or their beliefs, and they will improve. But the person who is not even trying to give arguments for their beliefs is in quite the pickle, in that they deprive themselves of not only success, but also failure and improvement. Perhaps they even come to convince themselves that they have no beliefs at all, and neither should anyone else. Misology is the danger here, and in a surprisingly developed form. The remedy is to look at the discussion, recognize the beliefs one holds which are at stake in that discussion, and then to be willing to offer reasons and arguments in favor of those beliefs. To engage in discussions without possessing that willingness is deeply problematic.
Yes, that's true - provided we have established that the animal in question is a tiger. But perhaps it only seems to be a tiger and the seeming we discover might amount to the discovery of that fact. For example, if we think we have discovered gold and then discover that it's specific gravity is far too low, we would say "that's not gold".
Quoting J
You don't need to include the reference-fixing story. But you do need to know how to refer to X. If you get that wrong, the rest collapses.
Quoting Banno
This is all playing games between the context of what we know and the context of God's view. If the only description of Homer is that he wrote the Odyssey, then this story just establishes that Homer is Kostas. But you have presupposed that there are facts about Homer and Kostas that establish them as different people. You couldn't discover that Homer stole the text and the credit unless you had already discovered that Homer and Kostas were different people.
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
Does this work the other way round? I mean if "a" designates an object in all possible worlds in which that object exists, is it also true that that object is designated by "a" in all possible worlds in which "a" exists. Then is there a possible world in which that object exists, but the Roman alphabet was not invented?
Similarly, if "a" necessarily designates a, can we conclude that a necessarily has the property of being designated by "a"?
Doesn't Wittgenstein's account of family resemblances dispose of this supposed problem?
Quoting Banno
I'm flattered. Thank you.
This is one of those questions that can’t be answered in the way most people expect. It’s not that there’s no answer, but rather that the question itself rests on a misunderstanding; it assumes we need a justification or proof for what we already take for granted in our actions.
We don’t know reality in the same way we know facts; instead, we act with a certain conviction that things are real. This acting isn’t based on reasoning or evidence; it’s the foundation upon which reasoning and evidence even make sense. Doubt and knowledge only function because we already move through the world with an unquestioned trust in its reality. In this sense, the question "How do we know what is real?" is like asking, "How do we know that the ground holds us up?"—it’s not something we know in the usual sense; it’s the condition that allows knowing to exist at all.
So, the question isn’t meaningful, it’s misguided. It treats certainty as something that needs to be justified, when in truth, certainty is what makes justification possible in the first place.
I disagree that it's misguided. It's true that one tends to live with unquestioning certainty, but doubt about foundations also arises spontaneously at times, although perhaps not for everyone.
What you can say is the question has no point for you personally.
I've only made a few posts, always saying the letters represent the sounds of words, and the written words represent spoken words. Not sure how I've moved the goalposts. Certainly not my intention. I suspect we are talking about different things. Let me try putting it this way...
Suppose there was no written language. And let's say the idea occurred to me. Why can't we represent the things we talk about visually, instead of audibly? No alphabets exist. How would I go about it? It's possible I would make symbols that represent the things I want to communicate to the reader (not that the word "reader" would exist yet). Simple drawings when possible. Likely also many symbols whose resemblance to what they are supposed to represent is not always terribly obvious.
These drawings would not have anything to do with the spoken words that mean the same things. They are an entirely unrelated representation of the same thing being communicated. Just as the English and Japanese words for "sand" are unrelated to each other, but mean the same thing. Looking at my hypothetical symbol for sand would not give any information about the spoken word. There would be no way of knowing what language the inventor of the symbol speaks, or even that the writer, or writer's culture, speaks any language at all.
Our writing is very different from that scenario. It was intended to represent the spoken words. Sure, so we could communicate visually the things we were communicating audibly. But the approach was entirely different. I took a year of German in college. I remember very few words. But the written language is very phonetic, and I remember the rules of how to pronounce what I see, despite not knowing the meaning. And that was the goal. Of course, there would be no point in written language if it didn't let us communicate the things it and its spoken language are not. But it does so by representing the spoken language. It is useless without knowledge of three spoken languages. At least in my hypothetical scenario you might get an idea of what I'm trying to communicate, because, to the best of my ability, I've made as the symbols resemble what represent.
The question is especially relevant if we claim that the same object can have different properties in different possible worlds. Does it make sense to say that there's a possible world where I'm a black man named "Barack Obama" and who served as the 44th President of the United States? What does it mean for this person to be a possible version of me rather than a possible version of you or a possible version of the actual Barack Obama?
Right, this is the same question I'm raising about whether something about reference needs to be included in a list of X's properties. (I'm going to stick with X rather than a because the lower-case "a" can be confusing.). I asked:
Quoting J
and you replied:
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm inclined to agree, but it opens a messy subject: What is the difference between fixing the reference of an individual versus a generic? In the gold example, we can indeed be wrong about whether sample G is gold, but what about "gold" as a substance? Don't we have two items whose references have been fixed -- sample G and "gold"? How these are fixed is quite distinct. If we both can recognize sample G out of a dozen other samples, that's because of a reference-fixing story that is local and specific. It really has nothing to do with understanding what "gold" refers to, if you see what I mean.
Rigid designation is just about capturing the way that we think, especially about alternate histories. Imagine I tell you that if Hitler had been accepted to art school, he wouldn't have become a dictator. If you insist that anyone who didn't become a dictator couldn't be Hitler, then you're going to be missing the point of my assertion. If you agree that there are all kinds of things Hitler could have become, then you're using rigid designation, which means you're using the name Hitler as a sort of nexus of possibility. The name picks out a certain person, but does not specify a complete set of properties.
You can, on the other hand, pick out a thing and identify it by a certain property or history. I'll discern your intention by the context, or if I'm uncertain, I'll ask you.
Quoting Michael
All of that is sorted out by a specific statement. For instance, if you say, "If I were Barack Obama, I would have told the Syrian rebels to calm down."
Why would you feel the need to represent things that you already observe and if some reader/listener doesn't exist yet? The whole point of representing things in the world is to communicate with others. If there are no others, then why would you feel the need to represent things - for who, or for what purpose?
When we doubt, we don’t doubt everything; we doubt within a system of beliefs that remain fixed. For example, suppose I wonder whether I’m dreaming. In such a case, I’m still assuming that dreams are a real phenomenon, that "I" exist to have experiences, and that there’s a difference between illusion and reality. Even radical doubt presupposes some hinges. So, while the question may feel urgent, I say it dissolves when we see that the very act of questioning relies on unstated certainties.
You’re right that the question might have "no point for me personally"—but I’d go further: it’s not just a personal stance, but a grammatical observation about how language and thought work. The question isn’t wrong, but it’s like trying to lift yourself by your own bootstraps. The search for a justification of reality is a category mistake because justification itself depends on reality being the unquestioned background.
That's a very good way of putting it.
Quoting frank
Not so sure about this. First of all, I don't take "If I were Barack Obama . . . " as a genuine reference to a possible world. For me, this is loose talk for "Barack Obama should have. . . " If we insist on pressing this hypothetical, we run up against Kripke: "You can't be Obama; he was born of different parents." And I think this is right. "If I were Obama . . . " etc. reads like a meaningful sentence but that's an illusion.
But there's another issue as well. Let's compare to "If I were a rock, I would have been happy in 2015." I suppose the "different parents" argument could be said to apply, but the problem seems deeper than that. We've crossed over from loose talk into nonsense. Why, and how? Can we say that being a rock is even less possible? Someone can be Obama -- namely, Obama himself -- but no one can be a rock. That sounds a little ad hoc, but I don't know.
Could be.
Quoting J
I think I could define myself Cartesian style, so I'm just conscious of various things. Combine that with a very fluid sense of identity and strong sense of empathy, and I can honestly imagine being in your shoes to some extent. If you reject that line of thought, then yes, such talk couldn't reflect the way you actually think.
Quoting J
Again, I think this probably comes down to temperament. I can't tolerate being pigeon-holed. I need to see through other people's eyes, so I can imagine possible worlds where I'm somebody else, or a rock. I'd love being a rock.
I guess it depends on what one means by "world". If it's not a known world (or universe or dimension if that is what they mean by "world"), then it must be imaginary. All the other worlds we know of in our Solar System possess many of the same characteristics as our world. They have mountains, rocks, atmospheres, moons, etc. - these things exist on our world and other worlds in the same way. A mountain is a mountain on both Earth and Mars. Both worlds have things that match the description of a mountain.
That doesn't really address my point.
Perhaps it's better explained if we consider the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Some might say that if the many-worlds interpretation is correct then there is a parallel universe in which I measured a different spin. And I would counter by saying that none of the people who exist in these parallel universes are me. I just am the person who exists in this universe, and any person who exists in a parallel universe and who superficially resembles me – in appearance and name and background – only resembles me and shouldn't be thought of as being me.
So does this same reasoning apply when we talk about possible worlds in modal logic? Does it make sense to say that a single object exists in multiple possible worlds?
This is the issue Kripke was addressing, yes.
I don't reject it, in fact such empathy is very important. I just believe it doesn't count as a genuine possible world for philosophical purposes.
Quoting frank
Looooooosely, yes. :smile: Do you know this song?
So again, Aristotle's teleology does not contradict Lavoisier's chemical claim, whereas the idea that water is indivisible does contradict that chemical claim. So one argument is valid and the other is not. It is helpful that you switched over to a valid argument and left the invalid argument behind.
There is nothing about Lavoisier's claim that commits him to an anti-teleological view. The idea that Lavoisier lived in an age that often rejected teleology is not a real argument in favor of the idea that Lavoisier's chemical formula contradicts Aristotle's teleology, much less that the current state of affairs accepts the idea that one entails the other.
Quoting Moliere
I think that is so vague as to be saying nothing at all, and in this it causes many problems. I don't think you are even presenting a theory of knowledge growth here. It's as if Aristotle gives a theory of seed germination and growth, and in response you say, "I think you just have to throw seeds and see what happens."
Quoting Moliere
Well I know exactly what I mean by falsification. Do you know what you mean? Or is it a vague term that allows one to affirm all sorts of things, depending on what they prefer?
Quoting Moliere
Well, is there an argument here? And is it valid? The basis of any such argument is something like
Quoting Leontiskos
Quoting Moliere
That's fine. My point still holds.
Quoting Moliere
As above, I don't think this is a theory. Note too that if one thinks "guess and try to make sense" is a viable approach, then they already hold to the idea that reality is intelligible and sensible. They are not starting from skepticism.
Quoting Moliere
Sure, and we could add in your new thesis about indivisibility to complicate the picture, but my general point will still hold.
Quoting Moliere
I'm not sure why Lavoisier's claim that water is composed of H2O should not be considered philosophical. In this Lavoisier is involved in a truth claim of metaphysical realism. Similarly, the modern rejection of teleology is a metaphysical truth claim. It's not like there is some clear separation between philosophy and science.
Quoting Moliere
I don't think your last sentence is true, namely the inference. Kripke's work depends on scientific claims. He could adapt his claims to something like, "If water is H2O then water is necessarily H2O," but he apparently wants to say more than "if". More, he is presupposing that some such "scientific" relations are demonstrable and existent, even if the relation between water and H2O turns out to be false. If all such "scientific" relations turn out to be false then Kripke's points will not stand.
I'd say it's on par with "From the more certain to the less certain"
For one, I intend the biological metaphor to apply to knowledge: and what was once a good bit of knowledge depended upon the intents of the organism using it, the whole ecology within which it fits and is responding to. Further, life is something of a cycle and the final cycle of life, just like ideas, is death -- eventually the ideas die out because the environment has changed far too much.
Further, we don't begin with a solid foundation and build outwards. Rather I'd use the plant metaphor that we begin with a seed which, when nurtured in the proper environment, slowly takes roots to the soil and becomes something solid.
So rather than beginning with the certain I'd say we make random guesses and hope to be able to make it cohere in the long run.
Quoting Leontiskos
I don't think that follows at all. I think that what this says is that @Leontiskos can't understand how someone could think that sensibility and intelligibility are important unless they are not skeptics, rather than that one doesn't begin with skepticism.
The intelligible and the sensible are what we deal with -- but whose to say that what is sensible is what is real? That's the question after all. How do we hop from "the intelligible and the sensible" to "and it is real"?
Quoting Leontiskos
Well, it's persuasive to you, but not to I.
Quoting Leontiskos
Aristotle's method of metaphysics which utilizes science is what justifies his inference from the sciences to support metaphysical truths. At the time one could reasonably, though falsely, believe they had reviewed "all the sciences" such that they could reasonably make inferences about "all of reality at its most fundamental". Today, however, no one person can reasonably, though also falsly, make the statement such that "And now that I've finished reviewed all existent sciences and shown how my views are better I will now move onto the most general truths about being as such"
Aristotle, though he did not have access to all science, could feel confident that he'd responded to all the worthwhile arguments so that he could link science to metaphysics.
The sheer volume of knowledge today makes it so that Aristotle's procedure can't be carried out. So one's metaphysical realism can't be on the basis of science insofar that we are taking on a neo-Aristotelian framework -- it's simply impossible to do what Aristotle did today with how much there is to know.
So the whole "From the more certain to the less..." thing will work for some particular case, but it won't reach metaphysical universality.
I'd start with Popper, at least, so falsification follows the form of a modus ponens.
But then I'd say that in order to falsify something you have to demonstrate that it is false to such a degree that someone else will agree with you. Which states clearly how there's so much more to falsification than mere disagreement, or believing in two different things that cannot both be true at the same time of the same object. That's just believing two different things, so all you need is a notion of belief and what beliefs are about.
For falsification there's not just beliefs at play, there's an interplay between measurement, theory, and practioners.
Loosely speaking I'd say that for falsification to take place the two have to be talking to one another in the same dialogue. So Aristotle and Lavoisier serve as a good example specifically because they mean very different things about water while referring to the same. There's no falsification taking place as much as the dialogues are doing different things entirely. Furthermore I don't think that for falsification to take place that the next theory which takes its place will be true or even needs to be demonstrated as true. Rather, it's "good so far, and here are the ways we can test its limits" -- falsification has a whole practice of testing built into it. It's a collective activity, and not just a status between competing theories of reality.
Quoting Moliere
But how is a seed not a solid foundation? That seems to be precisely what a seed is. From an edit:
Quoting Leontiskos
Quoting Moliere
Aristotle is well aware that most people have no method, and just throw seeds randomly, hoping to stumble upon something or another. He just doesn't think such a person will produce reliable fruit.
Quoting Moliere
It's just a part of Aristotle's account in the Posterior Analytics. I use it because it is so uncontroversial.
Quoting Moliere
It follows as long as you understand what skepticism is. If one holds and presupposes that reality is intelligible, then they are not skeptical of that proposition. If they say, "Oh, well I am skeptical of X even though I believe and presuppose it entirely," then they are equivocating on the word 'skepticism'. This is but one example of moving from the more certain to the less certain. The "more certain" is that reality is intelligible. You are again captive to Aristotle's knowledge even without realizing it.
Quoting Moliere
Not sure why you think someone has to review every scientific paper, for example. Seems an odd idea.
Quoting Moliere
Okay, so this is the new argument,
Quoting Moliere
I'm not sure what it means to say that falsification follows the form of a modus ponens. Does Popper say this somewhere?
Quoting Moliere
Anyone at all?
Quoting Moliere
So X can falsify Y even when X is not true?
I would say that there is truth and falsity, and then there are also beliefs about propositions, namely that they are true or false. Falsification can be viewed from either angle, but both are interconnected.
I think TPF probably needs a thread addressing the deep problems with an intersubjective approach to truth, given how many people here are captive to it. We can falsify an individual's belief, but only if the content of that belief itself has a truth value (apart from any particular individual).
I think we can say a little more than that.
One issue is that we can't just abandon our fundamental, taken-for-granted beliefs. Descartes, for example, sets out to doubt everything, but continues to sit comfortably by his stove, writing down his thoughts with pen on paper, believing that someone else will read them sooner or later. (Hume sums up this point by saying that the conclusions of the radical sceptic make no difference - life goes on as usual. The sceptic's argument is irrefutable, but pointless.)
When we ask ordinary questions about what is real, we ask in the question in a context that tells us what the difference is between what is real and what isn't. Asking about reality in general doesn't set a context that would enable us to answer the question.
There's a big ambiguity about the question. Macbeth famously had a hallucination of a dagger after he killed the previous king of Scotland. That dagger wasn't real, didn't exist. But when you see the bent stick in water, it exists all right, but isn't what it seems. When you see through the illusion, you see reality. Many arguments of this kind don't distinguish between the two claims.
Some philosophical theories seem to fit in between these two alternatives. Plato, Berkeley, Dennett, and modern physics don't deny the existence of common sense reality, but do assert that it is very different from what common sense thinks it is. But this seems paradoxical, because if common sense reality is so misleading, what basis can it provide for the alternative account of reality? (Berkeley, I think, was acutely aware of this paradox. Hence his protestations that he is not denying the existence of anything even though he appears to be doing exactly that.)
There's a great deal in these posts that is helpful and to the point.
But I don't think they can get round the fundamental problem, which is nicely exemplified by Husserl. Somebody earlier posted a quotation from him about his intent to start his project from scratch, in poverty, etc. It's a classic idea. Such a project might have a special status, above the fray of all the competing schools. But it's not possible, as the history of phenomenology demonstrates.
Quoting J
Yes. I should have acknowledged that. Sorry.
The thing is, however, that, although the argument is, IMO, sound, it is unhelpful, because it doesn't dismisses the theory, without enabling us to dissect out the truth in what he says.
Okay, so what is the fundamental problem that you see, in your own words?
It seems to me that the problem with the Wittgenstenian approach is that it casts one half as certain and another half as justifiable, and never the twain shall meet. Except that's not really how certainty and knowledge work. The "reality" and the "facts" influence one another. There is no strict separation.
Quoting Sam26
Continuing, there are not "conditions" in one part of reality and "knowing" in another part of reality. It would be more accurate to see "conditions" and "knowing" as the trough and crest of a wave, where everything is in continual motion, and "trough" and "crest" do not point to determinations that are primary (since the trough/crest is a secondary form of continuously moving matter).
(This presumably has also to do with @Moliere's misunderstandings of Aristotle. For Aristotle the movement from the more certain to the less certain is primarily individual, not "objective.")
Because it's small and could die and remains uncertain from its inception. It only grows in certitude with growth, or gets thrown out -- but its beginning is not its end, unlike a building -- an architectonic -- which builds from a solid beginning.
Quoting Leontiskos
They don't have to unless they're following in the footsteps of Aristotle.
Also, a note -- realism isn't the thing I contest. I think we decide how things are real, but most of the time we believe false things -- hence, skepticism.
Quoting Leontiskos
Possibly, though there's a difference in kind here where "X" is some measurement and "Y" is some theory.
So the theory that follows is just another guess that sounds good, but doesn't have any observable measurements which falsify it.
Quoting Leontiskos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Scientific_Discovery
Quoting Leontiskos
Yes, I think a lot of the questions we're running across are somewhat siderails -- but I don't think it's some fundamental error as much as a difference in approach to philosophy.
I'm not proposing an intersubjective approach to truth, but to justification, though. At least with respect to beliefs about what is real.
Okay.
Quoting Moliere
Where does Aristotle say that one needs to consider every scientific claim?
Do you have an argument that connects your premise to your conclusion, or am I right that your inference was invalid?
Quoting Moliere
Again, I don't see any substantial claims being made here. "Possibly" is not saying anything. "Another guess that sounds good" doesn't tell us much of anything.
Quoting Moliere
Your article says nothing at all about modus ponens, and so fails to answer my question.
Quoting Moliere
In order to do philosophy I would say that one has to make claims and support those claims with arguments.
People often write for posterity, though. Sometimes to pass on knowledge to later generations, even if the living can also use it. Novels are not usually written for a specific person, even if dedicated to someone specific. These days, the living can read a novel, and authors can make a lot of money because of it. But that's not why people wrote them centuries ago.
Sometimes people write with no intention of anyone reading it.
But I would think most writing is too communicate with other living people.
You say the skeptic’s argument is irrefutable, but pointless. We definitely agree it is pointless. However, I am not sure I want to agree it is irrefutable, which I take to mean impossible to disprove. If I present to you a work of fiction, and you assert that this work of fiction is irrefutable or impossible to disprove, what could you mean by such an assertion? I make no claim that it is supposed to be true, nor that it should be entirely coherent. Or was it just to mean, we typically don’t talk about proving or disproving a work of fiction?
From my perspective, the skeptic’s argument is like a work of fiction. The main difference seems to be the intention of what is being present, one being “possibly real” and the other “make believe”. We are not trying to prove or disprove the intentions of the author, but what is being said by the author. And what is being said in both case makes no sense to even talk about proving or disproving.
As Wittgenstein says in the Tractatus,
“6.51 Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked. For doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said.”
I infer that because of his method of induction -- in order for him to be able to consider being, as such, he would have to start with the lower categories and move his way up. As I read the move from the physics to the metaphysics that's pretty much how we gets to his claims to have philosophical, metaphysical knowledge.
Blah, that's cuz I said it wrong. Modus Tollens.
Quoting Moliere
So your argument is that
Aristotle's use of induction to reach metaphysical truths would require him to survey the prior categories before he could move upwards towards being, as I understand it. That's why he does that prior to the metaphysics, at least as I read it -- I know it could just be a nomenclature thing and not something separate from physics. It definitely fits with his general process for generating knowledge -- start with the senses and move by induction through the categories, and he usually only moves after he thinks he's considered all the options.
Not that the future couldn't be different, but now there are just that many options that this method is not feasible to do metaphysics with.
So, yeah, you'd have to figure out some other way to be an Aristotelian, at least, if you wanted to progress to metaphysical truth in the manner of induction as Aristotle practiced it.
Basically I think philosophy and science are separate activities. That's the claim at stake from when I originally jumped with in this particular interlude.
Well, there are a number of issues.
Every problem in philosophy seems to have its own foundation. Which of them is fundamental? That depends on the context.
The meaning of "fundamental" is ill-defined. All too often, it is a metaphor that is never cashed out.
There seems to be an idea that, every philosophical problem can be resolved simply by identifying its foundation.
It is hard to believe that all of philosophy starts with just one foundation.
In philosophy, if you identify a foundation, you will certainly start a search for some foundation of your foundation, so foundations will never provide what you are looking for.
BTW, why did you add "... in your own words"? If a quotation answered the question, why should I not post it?
Quoting Richard B
Well, technically, I was reporting what Hume said, though I admit I wasn't clear about that.
When I learnt philosophy, there was a widespread belief that scepticism had been refuted by Ryle, Wittgenstein etc. But scepticism is still ubiquitous. So my puzzle is that so many people have set out to resolve, for example, Cartesian scepticism (starting with Descartes himself) and yet it keeps coming back, like a noxious weed or the Hydra. So clearly those refutations have not sufficient purchase to put the issue to bed. Like Cavell, I am pretty sure there is something else going on here, though I don't have a defensible theory of what it is. It may be simply due to the fact that scepticism is an an initiation that very many, if not all, philosophy students are expected to go through. It's also possible that it is a phenomenon of the kind that the Harman-Vogel paradox high-lights. (That paradox turns on the fact that you can create a doubt where none exists simply by asking "Are you sure about that?".)
Quoting Richard B
That's a very interesting take on scepticism. I get the point - a fiction needs to be "possibly real" even if it is also "make believe". Come to think of it, that's exactly how Descartes presents his method of doubt. But I don't quite see why you say both that you don't agree that the sceptic's argument is irrefutable and that it is impossible to prove or disprove. Since the sceptic is presenting the argument as a proof, doesn't that impossibility contradict or refute the assertion?
Quoting Richard B
I like the quotation. But doesn't it also show some of the complexity about irrefutable. In normal argumentation, demonstrating that a thesis is nonsensical is regarded as a classic refutation - reduction ad absurdum. (Note, however, that he says it is obviously nonsensical. It isn't obvious to most people.)
Sort of. We might say Homer is the guy we think wrote the Odyssey. But turns out it was Kostas who wrote it. Now at stake is the difference between thinking of "Homer" as denoting exactly and only "the bloke who the Odyssey", and thinking of it as denoting Homer, that person. That's what this group of thought experiments target. And that in turn is the difference between the descriptive theory of reference and the idea of a rigid designator. If "Homer" and "Kostas" are rigid designators, then we can say that it was Kostas that wrote the Odyssey, and do so without fear of our system of reference collapsing. If we think in terms of the descriptive theory, and so "Homer" refers to "The guy who wrote the Odyssey", then "Homer" refers to Kostas.
There's the interim possibility, implicit in "the guy we think wrote the Odyssey", that reference is dependent on intent, that "Homer" denotes whomever I intend it to. There are all sorts of troubles with that, not the least being that it begs the question. How is it that what you intend to denote and what I intend to denote by using "Homer" happen to be the very same individual? Which is the very question we were seeking to answer.
There's the point, too, that we might well see that the descriptivist theory is inadequate and yet not have at hand another theory to replace it. We sometimes have to be comfortable to say "I don't know", and to see that doing so is better than trying to repair a defunct theory.
Quoting Ludwig V
Sure. It's possible that you were named "Ebenezer" instead of "Ludwig". That would be a fact about you. That we in this world use "Ludwig" does not meant that folk in some other possible world could not refer to you using "Ebenezer". Or ?????, which the AI assures me means "stone of help", which is the meaning of "Ebenezer".
Quoting Ludwig V
Being designated by "a" is not a property of a. So it can't be a necessary property of a.
It's not a property because that "a" designates a is not a formula within the system, but part of the interpretation, of the model.
Much of the apparent bumpiness here might be worked out by your looking at the formal system and how it functions. You seem to have. good intuitive grasp of the ideas involved.
Good post. Yep.
I know of two viable responses. The first is from Austin, and looks at how we use the word "real", noting that we contrast it with something that is not real. It's a real dollar bill, not a counterfeit, or it's real vanilla, not artificial, and so on. This works fine.
The other comes from David Chalmers, who agrees more or less with the Wittgensteinian argument that we usually don't use "real" in this way, but goes on to ask why we couldn't. He proposes a room in to which we can go, within which we can ask such questions, and discuss the consequences. Now that strikes me as quite a good response - and we could go down that path. I don't think it quite works, but I won't rule it out forthright. It's part of the thinking behind the renewal of metaphysics that spread out from Australia a few decades back.
A worthy topic. I don't now of any one here who could explicitly defend such a view.
Good reply to
So in a way, the question for those of us with a Wittgenstienian bent is, can folk make up a game of metaphysics that can be played in a coherent fashion?
From our point of view, the ball is in the metaphysician's court, to show that there is a way to play the game that makes sense.
Good stuff. If I've understood, there is an answer to your puzzle.
In a formal system, there is a difference between the syntax - S4, S5 and so on - and the semantics, the interpretation given to the system. In the syntax the letters don't stand for anything, and the formulae are neither true nor false. To show completeness and coherence we need to give the system an interpretation, also called a model. For modal logic there is an interpretation that works, using possible world semantics.
Now the predicates "f","g", "h"... are understood as properties of "a","b","c"..., and so we can write f(a), g(a), g(b) int he usual fashion, but this is just stringing letters together until the "a", "b", "c" and so on are given an interpretation.
Giving an interpretation is assigning "a" to a, "b" to b, and so on, and also assigning f={a,b}, and so on. So we have the name and the predicate in the uninterpreted system, and the corresponding individual and property in the interpreted system.
Notice the difference between saying that a is f, f(a), which happens within the interpretation, and saying that "a" stand for a, which is giving (stipulating) the interpretation?
That's why it's not quite right to say that a has the property of "being a". Being a is a part of the interpretation, not of the system of properties.
It’s like saying: “Is the fact that we call the Eiffel Tower ‘La Tour Eiffel’ a property of the Eiffel Tower itself?” Obviously not — that’s a fact about us, our language, not about the tower as such.
Naming a thing and using a name are very different speech acts.
So we might say that using a name involves a rigid designation, while setting aside the way in which that rigid designation came about for seperate investigation. Th utility of possible world semantics does not depend on our having an accepted theory of how things are named.
Pretty much. I use that idea.
Others might picture a logical space in which all possible worlds are listed, and think instead of selecting those worlds that match some criteria from that set.
It amounts to much the same thing.
Importantly, logically possible worlds have no relation to the possible worlds of quantum mechanics. They are very different activities. Trying to join them will lead to confusion.
Yep.
Okay, but do you have an argument for your conclusion? Are we no longer capable of induction in the 21st century? Was Aristotle wrong that we should have wide experience before drawing conclusions?
Quoting Moliere
Let's suppose that Aristotle thinks one should have wide experience before drawing a conclusion, and one should consult popular theories (or even all theories) to the best of their ability. Okay. I think that's right. Do you have some objection to it?
Because the idea that such a process is defeated if we do not consider every single scientific claim that exists or is available in our linguistic context looks like a strawman. Even if we don't look at every single scientific claim, the process is still perfectly sound. And the person who looks at more evidence will be more suited to draw conclusions. There is no magic number or percentage of evidence that one must consult, nor does moving from 99% to 100% make the induction somehow qualitatively different. It's not like Aristotle made sure his pupils never made any "inductive" or "metaphysical" claims before considering "all" evidence. :grin: Have you ever engaged in teaching or tutoring?
Quoting Moliere
Are you able to say what each is?
Quoting karl stone
:wink:
Aspirin makes the world disappear.
No. But consider Descartes sat before the fire with his ball of wax; fourth meditation, expounding upon how intellect, rather than the senses or imagination, is the primary way in which we understand physical objects. Had he stuck his hand in the fire, he would have discovered something prior to cogito. Pain!
Aristotle was not wrong in his time.
But neither he nor we can make induction a valid move that secures knowledge.
I say he wasn't wrong because I can see how his inferences are good given his circumstances, influences, and concerns not just from the rest of his writing but also from others' writings at the time, as well as writings about those writings.
But I don't think we can travel by induction up to knowledge of God, for instance. I'd say there is a limit of some kind on our ability to judge on some questions we might want to answer or try to answer, but don't seem like we can reliably answer.
Quoting Leontiskos
I'm not sure that the process is sound. If we don't check every member of a set it's always possible to find a black swan. If it's always possible to find a black swan then we can't make the inference to climb our tower upwards towards being and the mind of God -- and ultimately reality, all as a unity.
But if someone had something in mind other than Aristotle -- some modification which dealt with the notion that a single mind dealing with eternal categories does not bring one closer to being, but rather collective effort and distributing tasks and building trust such that we can work together, which tends to function better in an atmosphere where doubt is encouraged does.
Also, the reason I like using historical examples is because it's meant to get around the notion that stipulation of a difference between philosophy and science is uninteresting -- we can say it and put up our terms and use the terms thereon in that way, but that misses the point.
The historical examples provide a wider context other than standalone crisp definitions with syllogisms (though there's a time and place for that, too, I'm just explaining my method)
Quoting Leontiskos
Not exactly, but by way of example I've hoped to show a difference -- Aristotle is the philosopher-scientist, Lavoisier is the scientist, and Kripke is the philosopher.
Not that I've been explicit or clear on this, really, but this is what the examples are meant to furnish -- as good examples of how to use the terms differently. The interpretation of each I'm meaning to use as why I might want to distinguish between the terms: look at what they mean and how they make inferences in these details and you'll hopefully catch onto the difference.
There won't be necessary and sufficient conditions -- I don't think we can solve the problem of the criterion, though I think falsification is still an important subject unto itself -- but there will be stark differences between two family resemblances when we compare them.
Thoughts? Are you happy to claim to know things that are unjustifiable?
What it excludes, is the trap of solipsism - resulting from doubting away the existence of the physical.
Pain, being prior to thought, cannot be doubted.
When you talk about "Aristotle's view of induction," what texts are you referring to? Or are you just thinking of Hume and conflating him with Aristotle?
Quoting Moliere
Well either he was not wrong or he was wrong. You seem to switch back and forth at least four times in these few sentences. Do you think Aristotle thought "induction" could secure knowledge? If so, and if it cannot, then you should hold that he was wrong.
Quoting Moliere
The process I outlined or some other one you are substituting? Here it is again:
Quoting Leontiskos
Because your argument looks to be invalid again. "There might be a black swan, therefore one should not have wide experience before drawing a conclusion, and one should not consult popular theories to the best of their ability." Non sequitur.
Quoting Moliere
I am fairly certain that your familiarity with Aristotle is slim to none, but what you say here does not help your Humean notion of induction. Collective effort does not overcome the problems of Humean induction.
Quoting Leontiskos
Quoting Moliere
This looks like another non-answer. If you want to say that science and philosophy are different, then you must be able to say what each is, and why the two are different. If you can't say what the two are and why they are different, then I have no idea why you would assert that the two are different.
Aristotle, Lavoisier, and Kripke? How many pages have you read of any of them? If they are to serve as exemplars of the putative categories you attach to them, then apparently both of us must have strong exposure to all three. That seems doubtful. I have read lots of Aristotle, a small bit of Kripke (less than 70 pages), and nothing from Lavoisier. Have you read enough of each to take them as exemplars of categories such as "philosopher-scientist"? If not, they are not going to function as exemplars of anything substantial. In that case they will just end up being empty vessels for post hoc rationalization.
This is why learning to make real arguments is important. "Philosophy and science are different, I can't say why, but I can point to Aristotle, Lavoisier, and Kripke as prime examples of the relevant differences, despite the fact that I have read very little Aristotle or Lavoisier." That's not a good argument, and what this means is that you have not provided any good reason for your conclusion. A good argument provides a good reason to believe the conclusion.
Ok. Can it be known?
Have a look at Sam's answer. it's not just pain that cannot be doubted. Can you coherently doubt that you are reading this, and that it is a reply to your own post? Not if you are going to answer me.
You're not wrong, but there is more here...
But the question I'm addressing is 'How do we know what is real?' And, I'm not trying to make subjectivism work. I'm an objectivist - to deal in crude dichotomies. I'm also an evolutionary biologist locating knowledge of reality in the pain/pleasure instinct common to living organisms.
Pain signals potential harm or injury, prompting animals to avoid dangerous situations or seek protection. Pleasure reinforces behaviors that are beneficial for survival, such as eating, mating, and maintaining homeostasis.
I'm thinking about the physics, the metaphysics, on the weather, the prior analytics, the posterior analytics, parts of animals, and de anima.
The prior and post analytics serve as his epistemology -- how he goes about making inferences. One by deduction and the other by induction. His treatises on weather, the soul, and the parts of animals too serve as examples of Aristotle applying his epistemology to the world at hand. The physics serves as a precursor to the metaphysics in that it is both a particular and general science since it deals with the topic of change, itself an entry into the study of the most general categories.
I know you've read him and know him -- that's why I thought him a good example for us, and didn't think there'd be anything controversial in comparing his method to modern scientific methods and noting that they are different in what they are doing and arguing.
Quoting Leontiskos
Yes. Aristotle I'd say I'm most familiar with, and the bit of Kripke we've been referencing in this conversation is something I've read here on the forums. Lavoisier's contribution to science is his meticulous work on making precise instrumentation, which I gather is a clear difference between what both Aristotle and Kripke are doing.
Now, readings get rusty and I make mistakes. But I'm not just using these just because -- Kripke got added to the mix, but Aristotle/Lavoisier is one I've just often thought through as a good comparison for finding a difference.
Also, what I've noticed is that between us is they are not good examples because it's only leading to accusations of ignorance and showmanship.
Quoting Leontiskos
When you say this it seems like I must not know how to make a real argument, to your mind.
I'd rather say that arguments don't reveal truth as much as serve as a check to ourselves -- ah, yes, there I messed up, that inference can't be quite right.
Are you comfortable saying you know things that cannot be justified? Saying you know you are in pain looks to be unjustifiable, so is it the sort of thing we can use as the epitome of "know"? Or is it more a fringe use?
As a Galilean, I find it deeply unsatisfactory.
I think knowledge obtained via the senses can be justified as providing an accurate picture of reality because we evolved, and could not have survived were we misled by our senses.
Pain is prior to intellect both in terms of phylogeny and ontogeny - (roughly, the evolved organism and the developmental individual.)
Furthermore, the universe is entropic - everywhere good is uphill! We must spend effort and energy just to stand still; more if we wish to progress. It hurts! And that's how we know it's real.
I'm not overly thrilled with Descartes. Been a while, other ideas came along. So arguing against him is superfluous. Unnecessary.
Knowing that you have a pain in your foot is not exactly like knowing there is a screen in front of you becasue you can see it.
Seem to be a few things being treated as one here.
Has this been proven to you, "The sceptic's argument is irrefutable".? If so, please let me know what this demonstration looks like.
Quoting Ludwig V
Let's see if I can make this a little clearer. I am not saying, I can prove or disprove the radical sceptic's argument. What I am saying is one can't talk about proving or disproving the radical skeptic's argument. Why? Radical Skepticism acts like a work of fiction. A work of fiction does not make assertions to prove or disprove, the very nature of a work of fiction is an absence of any assertion about the world. There is nothing to confirm or falsify in a work of fiction. So, like a work of fiction, there is nothing to confirm or falsify in the skeptic's argument as well.
I agree, Descartes is superfluous, and somewhat blameworthy for developing subjectivism to protect himself from the ire of the Church visited on his contemporary, Galileo.
You see screen in front of you - you know it is real because you can see it, and you trust the evidence of your senses because you're are an evolved organism; that has survived evolution in relation to painful realities you wouldn't survive if your senses were not accurate to reality. You can be more sure of the conclusions you draw from the evidence of your senses if your observations are confirmed by an independent party, and that's empirical method.
Makes sense to me, painful feet notwithstanding!
You'll get a pushback against "you know it is real because you can see it" from the idealists and solipsists, who will claim that it might be an hallucination or other phantasm.
My response is that I don't much know what it means to say that it's a real screen until you tell me what the alternative is - a cardboard screen or a result of the acid drops or whatever. But I'll point out that you and I can agree that it's a screen and get on with the conversation on that basis. That is, we can agree not to subject the screen to doubt. Hence the independent party bit.
The point that we find ourselves embedded in the world is a good one - even if you put it in terms of being an "evolved creature".
So, unfortunately, I'm not seeing a substantive point of disagreement between us. Except the foot pain... I can't feel the pain in your foot.
I wonder how we make sense of such claims as "if I were you then ...." (or to use proper nouns, "if Michael were Banno then...")
Strictly speaking if "I" and "you" are being used here as rigid designators then the antecedent of this conditional is a contradiction and so necessarily false and so the conditional always true. If I were you then I’d be a billionaire!
But this analytic interpretation of the phrase seems misplaced. It's not how we ordinarily understand it. Perhaps we're not using rigid designators, or perhaps rigid designators are not always that rigid.
Quoting Banno
Sure, but 'seeing' is the ideal minimum sensory experience, employed for the sake of philosophical simplicity. If still in doubt, touch it, lick it, throw something at it - the screen can be shown to be real by the evidence of the senses.
Subjectivists drive me nuts, because it's not the screen they don't believe is real, but the very concept of 'real' they're throwing into question for no adequately justified reason; in a way that Sam disputes in his post with regard to the normative value of experience.
Quoting Sam26
Absolutely. This is why Descartes adoption of a method of radical doubt, to establish subjective certainty is so methodologically incoherent, why it results in solipsism, and requires rescuing from the corner into which he paints himself by resort to faith. 'God cannot be a deceiver."
Descartes was just saving his skin. Galileo was right; and scientific objectivism should have informed the past 400 years of Western philosophy. Be a very different world.
Clearly that’s insufficient as those suffering from
psychosis can see and hear and feel things that aren’t really there.
How do I know that I am not a schizophrenic hallucinating a world?
We (believe we) have rational grounds to trust our sensations.
It's weirder than that. Stroke victims can have serious perceptual disorders; if rendered unable to process sensory information properly it results in the most extraordinary subjective hallucinations. However, this is related to physiological abnormalities in the brain. These are discussed in the book: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales - by neurologist Oliver Sacks.
How do we know we're not hallucinating reality? We are, to some degree. The internal representation of reality is not reality itself - and that's why things can get weird when the brain is damaged. Yet all this is missing the point that human beings survived, and evolved in relation to a physical reality - of which, we must be able to establish valid knowledge, or would have become extinct.
Well this just begs the question. The skeptic questions the existence of the world-as-we-understand-it. Perhaps idealism is correct. Perhaps we’re artificial brains in a vat. Perhaps we’re being deceived by an evil demon.
So to put simply; perhaps we didn’t evolve via natural selection in a physical world in which “accurately” sensing our environment is a requirement for survival.
Of course I’m not suggesting that such doubt is warranted, only that your reasoning against it presupposes its own conclusion.
Cockroaches have survived a lot longer than h. sapiens. Does that mean they have valid knowledge?
Sure, a cockroach will flee when a light comes on suddenly; so clearly it has a degree of apperception, but is this knowledge? I don't think so.
My answer to the radical skeptic is pain, because it implies an objective reality in terms prior to cogito, that cannot be doubted. i.e. Descartes should have put his hand in the fire - and he couldn't possibly doubt away all that could be doubted while his fingers melt, instead of a ball of wax.
And one can consider sensory perception as derived by evolution from the pain/pleasure instinct.
Why? Perhaps pains are an hallucination. Or, rather, perhaps they are not caused by a real fire in an external physical world but by a mad scientist prodding my envatted brain or by an evil demon?
I see that. But then, it seems to me to be a matter of how one thinks about it, or perhaps what question one asks. "Homer" designates just that person every time it is used. Whether we know or how we can establish just which person that is, is not a relevant question. What bothers me is that it reminds me of the power of "+1" to define an infinite numbers of steps in advance - an astonishing fact. But, of course, it isn't astonishing at all. We apply the rule and discover or generate (I don't care which) the answer. It seems to be specified in advance because we are so sure how the rule will be applied in every case. In the same way, it seems to me, "Homer" identifies the same person in every possible world (in which Homer exists) not because it can somehow reach out across all possible worlds, but because we will decide, in all possible worlds, which person is Homer - and we will decide on the basis of the facts of the case. There's no list of facts that will determine every outcome in advance, but some facts or other will determine it.
So, are"Pegasus" or "dragon" rigid designators?
Quoting Banno
Oh, I agree with that. I count myself among the don't knows. On the other hand, I'm not committed to a binary option for theories, though intention doesn't have anything to recommend it that I can see.
Quoting Banno
OK. Interpretation sits outside both syntax and semantics, but links the two. Since it isn't a formal system, it looks to me as if it may be conducted in natural language?
Quoting Banno
H'm. I'm an old dog. But if all this is something that logicians need, I have no problem - any more than I do about what mathematicians get up to. It's when ideas get out into the rough country beyond logic (or mathematics) that I sit up and take notice.
Quoting Banno
That's a very interesting idea. It has occurred to me that some philosophers present their anti-realist arguments together with some account of what reality actually is. Which might get round Austin's objection. I'm thinking of Plato, Berkeley, Dennett and perhaps Descartes. You wouldn't know where I could find some discussion of this, would you?
Quoting karl stone
On the face of it, there is something wrong here. We are frequently misled by our senses, and yet we have survived - or at least enough of us have survived.
Quoting Richard B
But doesn't a work of fiction have to present something that is possibly true? The anti-sceptical arguments that I've seen aim to prove that the sceptic's conclusions are not even possibly true.
I'm definitely not a fan of Descartes, so I agree.
Descartes begins by doubting everything, until he arrives at the cogito ("I think, therefore I am") as something indubitable. However, Wittgenstein would challenge the very possibility of such a universal doubt.
In OC, Wittgenstein would argue that doubt is not an autonomous or foundational act but rather depends on an unquestioned background. For example, he points out, "Doubt itself rests only on what is beyond doubt (OC 115)"
For Descartes to doubt everything, he must already be operating within a framework of language, thought, and experience. Doubt is a language game that requires a stable context, it's not a solitary exercise.
Wittgenstein demonstrates that certain beliefs (e.g., "The Earth has existed for a long time," "I have a body") are not the result of inference but are intrinsic to the form of life that makes reasoning possible. To doubt these very basic beliefs would be to undermine the very conditions for meaningful doubt.
Descartes is using doubt as a methodological tool to arrive at objective certainty, but this is a misunderstanding of how doubt functions in everyday life. "Doubt is not a state of mind, but a way of acting (OC 370)."
Descartes’ radical skepticism is not a genuine doubt but a philosophical fiction. The attempt to justify everything leads to an infinite regress or to nonsense.
I want to be clear - Wittgenstein uses certainty in OC in two distinct ways. Subjective certainty (like a conviction), and objective certainty, which can be used as a synonym for knowledge. These are different language games, and both are important.
Quoting Banno
I'm an idealist, but I would argue very differently from most idealists. I try to keep these language games separate unless there is a reason to bring in metaphysics.
So are you saying this evil demon brain jar keeper can induce you to put your hand in the fire? If so, can he induce you keep it there? Or is it by your own will that you would put your hand in the fire to test reality? Is it by your own will you engage in radical skepticism such that the very concept of reality is undermined? Or do you have no choice but to do so because the evil brain jar demon is prodding the synapses?
Which was my point. Adaptive ability is not an argument for the veracity of judgement.
I’m saying that there is no fire and no hand. We are brains in a vat and a mad scientist is using diodes to stimulate the appropriate areas of our brain to cause us to see/hallucinate a fire, see/hallucinate our hand in the fire, and feel/hallucinate our hand burning. And when he detects that we intend to remove our hand from the fire he stimulates the appropriate areas of our brain to cause us to see/hallucinate our hand being removed from the fire and stops stimulating the areas of the brain that cause us to feel/hallucinate our hand burning.
Quoting karl stone
Could be either. Perhaps the mad scientist is also stimulating the areas of the brain responsible for decision-making. Or perhaps he finds it more entertaining to leave those areas alone.
No, it's an argument for the basic veracity of sensory perception, to reality. Apperception is something else again, and knowledge is more than mere apperception. Now you're adding the concept of judgement. I can't keep up!
Wow, it must suck being an evil brain jar demon! Question is, what evidence is there for the existence of such a being? None at all. And it's perverse to multiply entities beyond necessity, according to ye olde Bill of Occam. The method of sceptical doubt taken to such extremes that it undermines the very concept; reality - supposedly being investigated, is the rankest sophistry.
If you insist on engaging in such arguments, at least accept their true logical implications, which is solipsism; and inability to know anything beyond the mere fact of your own existence. I think therefore I am, and that's your lot.
I'm not saying that the proposed scenario is true, or even justified. I am simply explaining that your attempt at a refutation begs the question.
Quoting karl stone
That is indeed what many skeptics claim. We don't/can't know anything (other than that which is logically necessary).
I appreciate you don't claim the proposed scenario is true, but you are saying it's justified to some degree - if you claim that the occurrence of pain, and instinctive removal of the hand from the fire can all be dismissed as possibly the work of an evil demon, without offering a scrap of proof for the existence of such a thing.
I say that the instinctive removal of the hand from the fire implies an objective reality, not subject to intellectual doubt because it's prior to cognition.
This is why I asked the questions about will - and whether this supposed demon is forcing you to put your hand in the fire? Because, if now, even your thoughts are the work of an evil demon, you cannot claim I think therefore, I am.
Not even Descartes went that far; he considered the fact he was thinking a fundamentum inconcussum; an unshakable truth, even though his body, the evidence of his senses and the world might be doubted, the very fact that he was thinking was the basis to assert with certainty, his subjective existence. I think therefore I am. But this results in solipsism. He cannot assert anything else, having doubted it all away.
Subjectivism offers no proof of the real. And you might say, objectivism is based in ultimately unjustifiable assertions that the world we experience, actually exists, but I say we cannot doubt our hand is on fire, because it hurts!
Perhaps it is the brevity of my remarks on a very complex topic!
I'd have learned more reading about Wittgenstein, but I didn't do that either. It makes it quite difficult to respond to the bulk of your post; the failing being on my part, not yours, nor Wittgenstein's - as far as I know.
I'm not an idealist either. Certainly not of the Plato's cave variety: ideal forms of which the real world is but a shadow. Weird! But maybe that's not what you mean by idealist.
I think of myself as a Galilean objectivist; a follower of an untold philosophical tradition - misrepresented by Rand. Galilean objectivism that ought to have resulted from the Church welcoming Galileo's proof of heliocentrism - and his epistemic method as the means to establish valid knowledge of Creation. Scientific truth should have been afforded moral worth, developed and integrated into society, politics and economics over the past 400 years. But wasn't!
Descartes is the father of philosophy, Galileo is nobody, and science is a mere tool put to subjectively conceived ends. And that's why we're doomed!
If you're at the Overlook Hotel and you see people who shouldn't be there, you should question whether you're hallucinating.
Quoting Michael
Yes. See the exchange above about "If I were Barack Obama . . . " Taken literally, it can only mean "If I were not I . . . " which can't get off the ground. When we say things like "If I were you . . . " we mean either "Here's what I think you should do/think etc." or "If I (still being me!) were in your situation, here's what I would do; perhaps you should do the same."
I’m not saying that it’s justified. I’m saying that your attempt at a refutation begs the question.
The skeptic claims that that even though it seems that the pain you feel is caused by a fire it’s possible that the fire doesn’t exist and that the pain (and the visual image) is caused by something else (something hidden from us) – or by nothing at all.
And your response is to say that the pain you feel is caused by the fire and so the fire is real?
Evidence for an objective reality can be given prior to any doubtable influences of cognition, via the irrefutable experience of pain.
I don't think I'm begging the question at all. I think this is a 'net down for your serves' argument - where you get to engage in the most ridiculous, unfounded, unproven, unjustifiable sceptical arguments while demanding of me shy high standards of absolute proof.
Sophistry and humbug!
I'm not asking you to prove that skeptical claims are false; I'm explaining that you haven't proved that skeptical claims are false.
To perhaps better illustrate the difference: I'm not asking you to cook me dinner; I'm explaining that you haven't cooked me dinner.
You're more than welcome to dismiss skeptical claims as being unworthy of consideration (and to refuse to cook me dinner).
I think you're insisting that a person who didn't have your history, parents, DNA, can't be you. That's a choice regarding essential properties. It's not a necessary stance, I don't think, by way of the Cogito.
EDIT: and it raises the interesting question of whether the cogito generates a personal identity. I'm inclined to say no, but it's certainly arguable.
Skeptical claims? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? I don't think I'm trying to prove anything about skeptical claims per se. I'm addressing the question: 'How do we know what is real?' And also saying that scepticism is a no standards method of demanding impossible standards of objectivism, empiricism and science - when answering the question: How do we know what is real?
In short, sophistry, humbug and balderdash. It's like on the news, when they get a climate scientist with a stack of papers as high as an elephant's eye, to debate a climate denier employed by the fossil fuel lobby, and treat those two as equally valid opinions. Subjectivists have a lot to answer for!
I don't think I'm contradicting Kripke. He would agree that essential properties are chosen in context, right? One could refer to an Obama who has certain parents.
And at several other places he's clear that what makes a person that person is being born of certain parents. Whether this equates to an essence is a fraught subject, of course.
Can you say more about the context question? I read Kripke as saying, not that one could refer to an Obama who has certain parents, but that we must -- that's where the "baptism" starts.
I take him to be assessing the way a person normally comes up in conversation. He's analyzing the way we think and speak, not revealing necessity in the realm of selfhood.
Quoting J
I was referring to the way Kripke uses the concept of essence in N&N. Is that use fraught in your view?
Quoting J
Yes. I'll get some cool quotes together. Maybe we could go over the lectern example.
The informal style of N&N does leave this somewhat open, I agree. Kripke certainly talks as if he means not just how we think, but what is in fact the case. He says, for instance:
But you're wondering whether he means, more precisely, to be asking: "Would we refer to this woman as the Queen if she came from different parents?" Possibly. "Necessity in the realm of selfhood" would be something about this woman that must pick her out from all others, in all possible worlds. So we're asking, Can such a property exist, or inhere, within the woman herself, as opposed to within the process of picking-out? One is tempted to reply, "Yes indeed. The genes, the DNA. They are there regardless of whether we use them for any reference-fixing."
Quoting frank
Well, yes, in the sense that he's availing himself of terminology that has a long fraught history. And I'm not sure he's always consistent about invoking essences. For instance, he says, about gold:
All well and good, but is "properties that form the basis of what the substance is" the same thing as "essence" or "essential properties"? How does an essence, if that's what we're talking about, form the basis? Again, the conversational character of the book makes me want a bit more precision. A brilliant book nonetheless.
Quoting frank
Excellent.
I guess the wildcard is how you pick yourself out in (or at) possible worlds. If you identify yourself as the person with particular parents, then you can't be Obama. If you get existentialist about it and you're 'that quality of being that comes to rest in the sanctuary of the form' as Kierkegaard put it, then the door would be open to a plot like Being John Malkovich. I think the point I'm making is pretty obscure and wouldn't come up very often.
Quoting J
Sometimes you need a little fraught in your life. Do you want to examine the lectern example in this thread? Or a different one?
My question was:
". . . whether "how a reference is fixed for X" is part of the list of X's potential properties; or whether we're mixing discourses by thinking of it that way." - J
I'll switch back to "a" rather than "X", to fit your usage.
So reference-fixing is giving an interpretation, yes? We're agreeing what "a" will stand for. Now a will also have a number of properties. Let's say a is the Eiffel Tower. We can list some of them: tall, made of metal, speaks French :wink: etc. And you're pointing out that, if I additionally ask about how "a" comes to stand for the Eiffel Tower, we can't answer that in terms of the interpretation of "a" -- that is, the various properties that can now be predicated of a based upon our interpretation. We have to move to a different level and talk about how or why "a" has the reference it has, which is not a feature or property of a, any more than my name is a property of me.
If I've got this right, then my only question is: Is "syntax" the right name for this second level? Doesn't all the syntax get specified before any a or b or c can be referred to? A question about reference-fixing doesn't seem syntactical so much as stipulative. As you say:
Quoting Banno
I guess my question is why giving the interpretation qualifies as syntactic. I would have said that both kinds of statements are semantic, it's just that one happens within the interpretation and the other does not. Does that make it syntactic by default? So that the best way to think about "'a' stand for a" is as a syntactical premise?
Not surprisingly for a thread called "What is real?" this one has taken a lot of detours. How about a new thread?
This is core analytic philosophy - looking closely at how the terms involved are being used, comparing them with formal systems we know are consistent, seeing what works and what does not. Bread and butter stuff. It's hard conceptual work.
@J gave a pretty clear account of this, don't you think? Together with @frank's account of how we identify an individual with their origin, which is the approach Kripke is arguing for in Naming and Necesity.
Seems to me you are correct that @karl stone hasn't succeeded in casting aside the sceptic.
There's something deeply problematic about using evolution to explain away ontological problems. Evolution assumes a degree of realism in assuming that there is a deep past in which there are things that could evolve, so of course it is consistent with realism. But it would be a mistake to think that evolution demonstrates realism.
None of which is to say that evolution didn't occur. It's just not methodologically a good way to try to dispose of solipsism or idealism.
Now it seems to me that despite his protestations against Cartesianism, @karl stone is buying in to many of the assumptions that Descartes made. He wants to find firm foundations and build a system from those foundations, a very Cartesian method. Sure, instead of the cogito he wants to use perception as that foundation, but it isn't going all that well.
Of course I agree with @Sam26 that a response is found in a treatment of what it is to doubt, along the lines of Wittgenstein's discussion of hinge propositions, but unlike Sam I reject idealism, along with certain sorts of realism, as a false juxtaposition.
But the devil is in the detail, and the way forward is to keep struggling with the analysis.
While looking for an online copy of N&N I can copy from, I came across this paragraph from lecture 3. It touches on the question of whether Kripke was doing analysis or building a metaphysical picture:
Quoting Naming and Necessity, Lecture 3
Notice that Kripke isn't here worried about whether Descartes was right or wrong. He's exploring what happens from various starting points. If we start with accepting that the mind could be distinct from the body, we can't subsequently assert that there's a necessary connection between the two. We can gather evidence of that in some way, but that's it.
It's fine from my end. I don't think I've bought into Cartesian assumptions; indeed, wasn't Descartes purpose to establish certainty, to avoid assumptions? I don't think he was particularly successful. Indeed, I don't believe he believed what he claimed to believe. I think he saw what happened to Galileo, and wrote an alternate epistemology more consistent with doctrine to cover his own backside.
Here we are addressing a question that's not central to my philosophy. How do we know what is real? - is a subjectivist question.
As a Galilean objectivist it's not a question I would ask; and requires drawing from various areas to answer. I do not base Galilean objectivism in the pain/pleasure principle of evolving life; I might resort to empiricism - which is to say, reconciling observations in terms of an hypothesis, and having independent confirmation of my observations.
I'm not wondering if what I observed even exists, or if I hallucinated the existence of an objective reality. That's a subjectivist concern.
Same.
Quoting karl stone
He didn't establish certainty to avoid assumptions. He did not believe what he claimed to believe with respect to radical skepticism -- he explicitly says it's a methodical doubt rather than a doubt about the world.
I think he withheld his publication of The World after seeing how Galileo was treated, but his philosophy differs from that.
No. Descartes withdrew the work on physics first, and wrote Meditations afterward. While Galileo was on trial. I don't think Descartes believed subjectivism was a valid epistemology. He was scared of doing science, and covering himself against the threat of being declared a heretic.
Cheers.
The difference between syntax and semantics is very clear in formal logic. Less so in natural languages. The following is probably familiar.
Let's look briefly at propositional logic. It includes just letters, p,q, and so on, as many as you want, and a couple of symbols, usually v and ~. To this we add formation rules that tell us what we are allowed to write. First, we can write any letter by itself. So we can write "p", or we can write "q". Then, we are allowed to put a "~" in front of anything else we are allowed to write; so we can write "~p" and "~q" and so on. Then, for two things we can write, we can join them with a "v". So we can now write "~pvq". From this, we can set out a system that shows how some strings of letters are well-formed - they follow the formation rules - while others are not... if we follow those rules we can never write down "pvvq~", for example. (I've left out brackets just to keep things simple. Also, ^ and ? can both be defined in terms of v and ~, so they are not needed here)
All we have here is a system of syntax. It is purely a set of rules for stringing letters together in a specific way. In particular, it tells us nothing of what "p" and "q" stand for, and so nothing of which of our strings of letters might be true or false.
We add an interpretation to this syntactic system by ascribing "T" or "F" to each of the letters, together with a rule for the truth functionality of "v" and "~". A string beginning with "~" will be T if and only if the stuff after the "~" is F, and a string joined by a "v" will be T if and only if the stuff on either side of the "v" is also T.
A useful way to understand this is that p,q, and so on denote either T or F. We've moved from syntax to semantics.
We can expand our syntactic system by allowing ourselves to write not just p's and q's, but also "f(a)" and 'g(b)" and so on, in the place of those p's and q's. We can add rules for using ?(x), but still at the syntactic level - just setting out what is well-formed and what isn't. This gives us a bigger system.
And to that we add more interpretation, were the letters "a","b" and so on stand for a and b, respectively, and "f" stands for some group of such letters, perhaps "f" stands for {a,c,e} while "g" stands for {b,c} or whatever. We then get that f(a) is true - "a" is in the set {a,c,e}, while f(b) is false - "b" is not in the set {a,c,e}. Similar rules apply for interpreting the quantifiers. And this gives us predicate calculus.
We can then expand the system once more, adding the operator "?" outside of all of the stuff in the syntax for predicate logic, together with a few rules for how we can write these. This gives us the systems S1 through S5. These are just ways of writing down strings of letters, with ever more complicated permutations.
In order to give a coherent interpretation to these systems, Kripke taught us to use possible world semantics. In a way all this amounts to is a process to group the predicates used previously. So we said earlier that "f" stands for {a,c,e}, and to this we now add that in different worlds, f can stand for different sets of individuals. So in w? "f" stands for {a,c,e}, while in w? f stands for {a,b}, and so on in whatever way we stipulate - w? being world zero, w? being world one, and so on. Now we have added a semantics to the syntax of S4 and S5.
Quoting J
Exactly.
We have two levels, if you like, for each system. At one level we just set out how the letters can be written out, what sequence is acceptable. That's the syntax. At the next level, we add an interpretation, what the letters stand for. That's the semantics. So for propositional logic, the letters stand for T or F, and for predicate logic, we add individuals a,b,c... and for modal logic we add worlds, w?, w? and so on, in order to get out interpretation, our semantics.
And to this we might add a third level, where we seek to understand what we are doing in a natural language by applying these formal systems. So for propositional logic, we understand the p's and q's as standing for the sentences of our natural language, and T and F as True and False. For predicate logic, we understand a,b,c as standing for Fred Bloggs, the Eiffel tower and consumerism, or whatever. And in modal logic, we get Naming and Necessity, where we try to understand our talk of modal contexts in natural languages in terms of the formal system we have developed.
I left out brackets, truth tables, domains, and accessibility, amongst other things, and only scratched the surface of extensionality. But I hope I've made clear how clean the distinction is between syntax and semantics in formal systems.
But I know Descartes was not scared of doing science; covering himself from the ignorant, sure. And I agree he didn't think "subjectivism" is a valid epistemology -- that's not his thing. It's methodical, and not metaphysical, doubt.
He wrote the meditations afterwards -- but it's still a methodical doubt, but like you noted: People often like the question but reject the answer.
I'll try to explain the assumption again. It's ubiquitous, and so can be difficult to see.
Descartes supposes that we have on the one hand, mind, and on the other, the stuff of the world; roughly the presumption is that of dualism, of a divide between what is subjective and what is objective. Immediately on making this supposition he, and we, are faced with the problem of how the stuff of the mind interacts with the stuff of the world. Descartes solution was god, your solution is observation.
But what if that supposition, that schism between thought and thing, were a mistake?
I'll leave that hanging. Thoughts?
Kripke: Identity and Necessity
Quoting Banno
All his scientific works - on Dioptrics, Meteorology, and Geometry, were written prior to Mediations, and he did no notable scientific works after.
He wrote Principles of Philosophy (1644): and Passions of the Soul (1649), and died in 1650. Given that he withdrew 'O Mundo' from publication; (it was published in 1664 after his death) it's fairly clear he was self censoring. And thus, it's fairly clear what the nature of Meditations is - he didn't write Meditations because that's what he really thought. He wrote it in case the Inquisition came knocking.
I'm not sure I agree he wrote the Meditations to stop the inquisition, though. I think he liked both science and philosophy, and that his published philosophy could be read as his response to his circumstances -- I can't work scientifically because of these ideas in place, and so I'll set about doing the philosophical work that needs to be done in order that science might flourish.
Science without philosophical implication; science as a tool with no claim to be a rule for the conduct of human affairs? You might call that flourishing; I call it abuse!
I agree Descartes was self-censoring. However, I don't think he was doing so in his philosophy, while he was doing so in his science.
With respect to his science he was self-censoring, but I don't believe he was in his philosophy.
And I'd hesitate to call Descartes' philosophy subjectivist, at least. Seems wrong to me given he wanted certain foundations for scientific knowledge in his philosophy.
Yes, the quoted passage shows him doing the former. He's trying to lay out the requirements for a consistent picture, not choosing among pictures -- that would be one way of putting it.
Maybe as we look more deeply into Kripke, we'll see whether this is always his strategy.
Not sure what formal intuitionist logics or relevance logic exactly means but saw some general descriptions and I wonder if the following two examples from Malcolm's body of work is something you have in mind.
From "Kripke and the Standard Meter",
"I have argued that in relation to actual operation of institution or "language game" of measurement with a meter stick, the sentence 'One meter is the length of S' is not a contingent statement. Do I hold then that this sentence expresses a 'necessary truth'? I would not say this either, especially if a 'necessary truth' is supposed to be something that is 'true in all possible worlds'. Certainly there is no requirement to hold that if the sentence is not a contingent statement then it must be a necessary statement. To think that this sentence should be characterized as either contingent or as a necessary statement seems to me to be looking at it in a wrong way. The sentence, 'One meter is the length of S', is correctly characterized as being, in relation to the institution of metric measurement, the definition of 'one meter' and also as a rule for the use of the term 'one meter'. One can also rightly say that this sentence was used to make a fiat or a decree."
From "“Anselm's Ontological Arguments",
"I do not know how to demonstrate that the concept of God-that is, of a being a greater than which cannot be conceived-is not self-contradictory. But I do not think that it is legitimate to demand such a demonstration. I also do not know how to demonstrate that either the concept of a material thing or the concept of seeing a material thing is not self-contradictory, and philosophers have argued that both of them are. With respect to any particular reasoning that is offered for holding that the concept of seeing a material thing, for example, is self-contradictory, one may try to show the invalidity of the reasoning and thus free the concept from the charge of being self-contradictory on that ground. But I do not understand what it would mean to demonstrate in general, and not in respect to any particular reasoning, that the concept is not self-contradictory. So, it is with the concept of God. I should think there is no more of presumption that it is self-contradictory than the concept of seeing a material thing. Both concepts have a place in the thinking and the lives of human beings."
No, you're not being clear, you're being intellectually dishonest - admitting Descartes was self censoring, but refusing to draw the conclusion that he wrote Meditations; a subjectivist epistemology in diametric opposition to Galileo's objectivist epistemology, as a defence against potential accusations of heresy.
Quoting Moliere
You're attempting to rescue subjectivism as a philosophy by suggesting that Descartes withdrawing a work on physics, and giving up on doing science - are entirely separate from his creation of an alternate epistemology to that described by Galileo i.e. empirical scientific method.
Quoting Moliere
What would you say after you had hesitated? Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy is the foundational work of subjectivism; cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am, establishes the individual's own thought as the foundation of existence and knowledge.
Subjectivism does not offer certain foundations for scientific knowledge. It cuts across the authority of science as objective knowledge; achieved by testing hypotheses with regard to unbiased and replicable observation - by emphasizing the role of the individual in shaping their understanding of the world.
The individual doing science is not doing something with universal implications and application; they're idiosyncratically doing science, and any scientific conclusions they reach may be accepted or rejected as any other idiosyncratic individual sees fit.
Descartes neutered science; and that's why we have nuclear weapons and climate change denial, but we don't have limitless clean energy from high temperature geothermal.
You have indeed. And it makes it clear that my question arises around what you call a possible third level "where we seek to understand what we are doing in a natural language by applying these formal systems." Using the Eiffel Tower example, we agree that the fixing of the reference "Eiffel Tower" is a semantic step. We have a rough-and-ready language system that shows us how to pick out objects and name them. On the analogy with formal systems, what part of that rough-and-ready system do we call syntactic? It precedes any talk of naming or interpretation, doesn't it? So I still want a way to characterize the difference between saying "The Eiffel Tower is tall" and "That object [pointing] is called 'the Eiffel Tower'". Yes, the first is a property and the second is not, but where do these statements fall on the syntactic/semantic spectrum?
Couldn't it be the case that Descartes both censored himself and expressed himself? Or must we say, because he censored himself once all of what he did in his life is an act of self-censorship, including what he said?
The answers to the questions of this thread aren't dependent on metaphysics. I'm not juxtaposing anything, i.e., the argument is meant to stand on its own. If, on the other hand, someone were to bring in idealism as a way to answer the question, it might add an important layer, but it's not needed. In this respect, I would agree with Banno, but at some point, this agreement would fail, because my ultimate view of reality does involve metaphysical answers. I have no problem keeping these language-games distinct. Moreover, as much as I enjoy Wittgenstein, I depart from him when it comes to the limit of language. Wittgenstein didn't reject the metaphysical, he just thought that what can be said about the metaphysical is senseless (not nonsense, but senseless) because it goes beyond the world, and language is limited to the world.
@banno If I may chime in with a related question. I seem to be missing an understanding about what a property is. I can see that whatever name that object (i.e. the eiffel tower) has is distinct from any of the properties that it has qua physical object. But if "a" refers to a, then it seems to me to follow that a is referred to by "a". So if the former is a property of "a" then the latter must be a property of a? You and @J seem to agree that "a" does have a property of referring to a, but that although a is referred to by "a", that does not constitute a property. I don't see why not. I do see that one could not use it to identity the reference of "a", because it would be circular, but that's a different matter, isn't it?
That's the idea.
It's not that we can't, or even shouldn't, choose amongst the metaphysical theories. It's that if some metaphysics is not in harmony with the best thinking on modal logic or logic more generally, we ought treat it with scepticism; it has issues to be addressed.
He did at one stage describe himself as an anti-realist, but that seemed to be a result of his toying with truth, a seperate issue to possible worlds.
Science does, indeed, rock.
I like it anyways.
I guess there fact that there are billions of people in the world who were born of different parents and none of them are the Queen doesn't [I]prove[/I] it can't happen. But I'm leaning that way anyway. :grin:
Relevant logic uses a variation of the accessibility relation from possible world semantics to model relevance relations between worlds. Together with Kripke's strict conditional this is used to group conditionals together in a way that seeks to overcome the so-called paradoxes of implication.
I'd have to do a bit more work before claiming to see how it works in the examples you give. My thought at the time I made the suggestion was that perhaps the relevance relation might be used to clarify the difference between, say, "heat is molecular motion" and "temperature is molecular motion"; that temperature might be relevant to molecular motion in a way that heat is not. it'd be something like that from a world in which we have temperature, we might only be able to access worlds in which we have molecular motion, but from a world in which we have heat, it might be that we can access a world without molecular motion. It might follow that temperature, and not heat, relates necessarily to molecular motion. I do not have sufficient grasp of the machinery of relevance logic to follow through on this.
What this shows is that we've been ignoring a bit of the theory of possible worlds that is becoming increasingly relevant here. We've been saying that ?A is understood as "A is true in every possible world". This needs some qualification. These statements are indexed to possible worlds and to the accessibility relation. So a more accurate account is that ?A in world one is understood as "A is true in every world that is accessible from world one".
We get away with the cut down version by assuming that we are working with the syntax of S5, in which every world is accessible from every other world.
And there's another qualification that is needed, as to the difference change in the use of "contingent" in Kripke's semantics. Previously, "contingent" had a sense of "dependent", so something was contingent if it's being true was dependent on some other fact. That is not so much the case in possible world semantics. A statement will be necessarily true in w?, as explained, if it is true in every world accessible form w?. A statement will be possible in w? if there is at least one world, accessible from w?, in which the statement is true. It follows that if a statement is necessary then it is possible. A statement will be impossible in w? if there is no world accessible from w? in which it is true.
And a statement will be conditional in w? if there is at least one accessible world in which it is true, and at least one accessible world were it is false.
The dependence on "dependence" drops out, along with a whole lot of metaphysical baggage and a few proofs that god exists. That's part of the reason there is some resistance against this logic from those of a naive theological bent.
So to the metre rule, and area that is fraught with misunderstanding. Consider this, from your Malcolm quote: "Certainly there is no requirement to hold that if the sentence is not a contingent statement then it must be a necessary statement."
This might be so if we think of contingency as dependence. The length S is dependent on the length of the rod, in the base example.
But in a possible world semantics, if a statement is true, and not contingent, it follows immediately that it is necessarily true. Malcolm, from Kripke's perspective, is mistaken: there is a requirement to hold that if the sentence is not a contingent statement then it must be a necessary statement.
And to god. So for Malcolm, the concept of God, like seeing a material thing, is not inherently self-contradictory. While specific reasoning may be invalid, a general demonstration of non-contradiction is not possible. Both concepts are integral to human thought and life.
See my comments in for a bit more on Anselm. While we might not agree that the idea of a something a greater than which cannot be conceived is self-contradictory, it's not clear that it can be made coherent, either. There is the problem of how to deal with a necessary being without the consequence of modal collapse.
But that's enough for now. Thanks again for your posts.
I mean, that's impressive if you've read all of that. I sure haven't.
Quoting Moliere
Different in what ways? And what is his method? I asked for your source for your ideas about "Aristotle's view of induction," and you literally pointed to seven different works without giving any specific references. That doesn't help me understand where your ideas about "induction" are coming from.
Quoting Moliere
Okay, fair enough. I am not familiar with Lavoisier so that reference isn't informative to me. So you are saying that Lavoisier worked with precise instruments and Aristotle did not? That is the difference I see you pointing to.
Quoting Moliere
Yeah, given the number of invalid or altogether absent arguments, I don't think you are very strong on argumentation.
Quoting Moliere
So arguments don't reveal truth and we just go around throwing seeds "and see what happens"?
My advice would be to try to understand argumentation better. An argument has a starting point (premises), an ending point (conclusion), and a path from one to the other (inferences). If you aren't providing those to your interlocutor, then there's simply no way for them to engage your philosophical beliefs. For example:
Quoting Moliere
That's an assertion. It contains no premises, no inferences, and no conclusion. It is opaque. It is probably just a reference to Hume, but if you want it to be more than an opaque assertion, then you have to explain why you think it is true, or where it is supposed to come from.
:lol:
I don't think that's quite what he meant, but it's funny anyway!
Only in english, and years ago. Something like 15 years. I don't doubt that my reading is rusty.
But, yes. I wouldn't bother to say something here unless I had at least some reading, experience, or knowledge that relates.
Quoting Leontiskos
Fair questions.
The posterior analytics deals with induction, by my memory. And I want to add that I think Aristotle's notion of induction is not the same as induction today. But I grant you that I didn't give the specificity you asked for: My reading is certainly rusty.
I feel we're getting closer here now, though, in terms of not talking past one another.
The ways that Lavoisier and Aristotle are different, by my head-cannon at least, is that Lavoisier didn't question the enlightenment premises as much as pursued them and did them well.
***
I think Aristotle's method -- Lavoisier I think didn't invent a method as much as adopted one -- is to review what has been said, demonstrate its strengths and weaknesses, then show his conclusion.
And, on top of that, Aristotle had empirical verification for his conclusions.
For his "view of induction" -- I listed the sources I did because I thought thems would explain it... but maybe not. I can tell you in my own words, though, since that's more relevant to our conversation: Aristotle views induction about objects in the same way we view induction about math. Since there are no other categories he is able to say "this is what that thing is. this is its being" -- but over time we've found that his methods are, while a good guess, not quite right either.
He thinks that the world is harmonious. As I read the metaphysics, at least, all of being is within the mind of God thinking himself. Being is God thinking himself into being by thinking, and the categories apply because we can, through empirical research that climbs up, discover the essence of things.
Now, I could be very wrong in my interpretation, but since you asked for how I understand Aristotle's notion of induction I'm giving an attempt at answering that more clearly.
Okay, well I'm glad to hear that.
Quoting Moliere
Yes, well in general when you use a term like, "Aristotle's induction," I need to know what you mean by that if I am going to respond in an intelligent way. That information could be supplied by a reference to a primary source, a secondary source, or by your own explanation of what you mean.
Quoting Moliere
Okay, fair enough.
Quoting Moliere
Eh, well how do we view induction about math? When you say that I think of inductive mathematical proofs, which do not remind me of anything in Aristotle. So I'm at a loss again.
Quoting Moliere
What is wrong about them? If you aren't specific about what is wrong about his method, then I don't see what use it is to claim that his method is wrong, especially when talking to an Aristotelian.
Quoting Moliere
This sort of stuff is too vague for me, Moliere. That last sentence is a doozy.
Quoting Moliere
Okay, and that's a good starting point. Thanks for that.
When one critiques a thesis it is crucial that they give a clear exposition of the thesis they are opposing. Here is an example from Aquinas:
Quoting ST II-II.27.2.ad2 - Whether to love considered as an act of charity is the same as goodwill?
Rewritten:
Do you see how the objection that Aquinas presents has its own clarity and logic? That it can be followed and understood? That it possesses a coherence that allows room for a proper reply in turn? That's exactly what needs to happen when someone critiques a position, such as Aristotle's. They need to set out a clear and reasonable account of Aristotle's position, and then critique that position in turn.
Good point. I think Aristotle sees his categories as mathematical inductions because he empirically witnessed them.
I see them as mathematical inductions because I read Aristotle as feeling justified in writing his metaphysics because he had covered all the theories prior, showed their weaknesses and strengths, and expressed the truth given their inputs -- in light of his prior analytics I think he thought it possible to find true categories, such as the four causes, which would resemble the necessary conclusions of his prior analytics.
The categories looked real, as they do today -- but he decided, in good taste, to philosophize them. (or write down his notes so he could teach tomorrow, flip a coin)
Seems fair to say that in natural languages the distinction between semantic and syntactic is fluid, far more so than in a formal language.
As I understand it, Kaplan's approach is to explain the character and the content of an indexical separately. The character is a function that in a given context yields the object being pointed to. So the character of "I" yields me; the character of "that" yields what is being pointed to, and so on for different indexicals. The content is the individual involved.
So “that object [pointing]” has an indexical with character ?c. demonstratum(c), and content (in c) = Eiffel Tower. There's plenty more formalism that can be dropped in here, but the idea is basically that each different indexical has a character that returns an individual as the content. "I" returns the speaker, "that" returns the thing being pointed to, "you" returns the person being addressed, and so on,
The content of "that" is a rigid designator, and so in predicate and modal logic can be an individual variable.
This is all semantics. It's about the things, not about the strings.
So "That is tall", indicating the Eiffel tower, and "The Eiffel tower is tall", are about the same thing, referring to it using a rigid designator.
But "That object [pointing] is called 'the Eiffel Tower'" has an indexical that returns a rigid designation that is then equated to a name -- hence 'the Eiffel Tower' is in quotes. Being in quotes indicates that it is part of the metalanguage, that it's about the interpretation of the language and not a sentence int he language.
Is there something here that this misses?
It is everywhere confirmed that there's an internal world, and an external world - mediated by the senses. Senses that are evolved to enable us to survive; and thus, demonstrably accurate to external reality.
Not comprehensive, that thin gruel I'll gladly grant subjectivists - while denying that the external world is created by the subject.
Observation in science, is thus a valid basis for knowledge of the external world, particularly when observations are confirmed by an independent observer.
Empirical method.
What if? Could you not leave hanging what you're alluding to? The double slit experiment perhaps? Telekinesis? Or something even more mystical and weird, like subjectivism!?
Do you mean that our experience confirms it? If not our experience, then what?
I think you will find it more helpful to think of that idea as a model, or an interpretation. The most helpful comparison is with the puzzle pictures, and the idea of a Gestalt is a more general version. There's a classic discussion of this in Wittgenstein. See Wikipedia - Rabbit-duck illusion
Quoting karl stone
Yes, but given the way that physics conflicts with common sense, it is important to point out that observations themselves tell us that some observations are wrong, mistaken, misleading and that observations themselves enable us to correct those mistakes - usually.
Traffic lights. Their very existence presupposes a commonality of perception. And they're everywhere! As is art, colour coded electrical wires, signs saying Keep Off the Grass! etc. This very sentence assumes your ability to see, and psychologically translate perception into meaning similar - if not identical to, that which it is intended to convey.
In most instances, particularly traffic lights, the meaning of the external object is intentionally clear. Certainly, images can be intentionally obscure - like the duck/rabbit illusion, and that does demonstrate the operation of psychological models through which perception is interpreted.
However, the subjectivist takes the implications of the existence of interpretational models far too far - and does so with the intent of casting the validity of perception into doubt, to undermine the empirical basis for scientific knowledge.
Quoting Ludwig V
Does physics conflict with common sense? I don't think it does. Certainly not Newtonian physics; it's very intuitive. Relativity gets a bit weird, but at velocities approaching the speed of light. And quantum physics gets weird, but again, by virtue of being as small and lightspeed is quick! It's hardly surprising that conditions far removed from our experience, to the absolute extremes of velocity and scale, are difficult to understand in common sense terms.
.. and you interpret all that in dualistic terms. But that's an interpretation, not a fact.
Quoting karl stone
I'm not a subjectivist and I don't doubt the validity of perception as such, though I do doubt the validity of some of my perception - often rightly.
Quoting karl stone
In one sense, it is not possible that they conflict. But people think they do, so an explanation is in order. It is true that Newtonian physics is intuitive now. But it wasn't before he came up with it and many people found it seriusly counter-intuitive. Ditto Relativity.
Quoting Ludwig V
Not dualistic in the sense a subjectivist infers or employs dualism. I accept there's an object world, and subjective experience of it. I'll answer the subjectivist argument, but for me - subjective experience can be shown to be aligned to an objective reality.
Indeed, how could it be otherwise - given that our senses are evolved to negotiate a world that could kill us, and consequently remove us from the evolutionary development of our senses?
Observation of objective phenomena (i.e. an apple falling from a tree) allows us to derive knowledge of how things work, (planetary motion) and re-apply that knowledge in different circumstances, (rocket science) to create technologies that function. If you introduce ideas of the subjective variability of perception then rocket science wouldn't work.
Quoting Ludwig V
What do you mean by perceptions here, exactly? Are you referring to raw sense data? Or the entire process of observation and interpretation of observations? Because sure, we might misunderstand what we see. But that's different from questioning the validity of raw sense perception - to reality.
Quoting Ludwig V
At one time, people believed the Earth was stationary. It actually feels as if the Earth is stationary to someone stood on the surface. Thing is, the relative motions of planetary bodies in space is a subtly different question to why the Earth seems stationary to someone stood on the surface.
In short, it is not what we are observing that's mistaken, but our understanding of observations.
The sun appears to rise and set; that's how we think about it. But in fact the Earth is rotating.
Similarly, you can drop a ball from a tower and it will appear to fall straight down. But in absolute space, the trajectory is curved. It actually falls a good distance from... where the base of the tower was when the ball was dropped from the top. Only the base of the tower has also moved in absolute space.
If you were travelling at the speed of light, relativity would make perfect sense, he said, ducking out of even attempting to explain relativity!
All this is supplemental to the point, that there's really no alternative to accept the dualistic nature of subjective experience of an objective reality. It's what we make of that fact that matters. And what I'm saying is that subjectivists since Descartes have had an anti-science agenda.
Genji Kawakita1,2,7 ? Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston3,4,7 ? Ken Takeda1,7 ? Naotsugu Tsuchiya3,4,5,6,8 [email protected] ? Masafumi Oizumi1,8,9 [email protected]
Whether one person’s subjective experience of the “redness” of red is equivalent to another’s is a fundamental question in consciousness studies. Intersubjective comparison of the relational structures of sensory experiences, termed “qualia structures”, can constrain the question. We propose an unsupervised alignment method, based on optimal transport, to find the optimal mapping between the similarity structures of sensory experiences without presupposing correspondences (such as “red-to-red”). After collecting subjective similarity judgments for 93 colors, we showed that the similarity structures derived from color-neurotypical participants can be “correctly” aligned at the group level. In contrast, those of color-blind participants could not be aligned with color-neurotypical participants. Our results provide quantitative evidence for interindividual structural equivalence or difference of color qualia, implying that color-neurotypical people’s “red” is relationally equivalent to other color-neurotypical’s “red”, but not to color-blind people’s “red”. This method is applicable across modalities, enabling general structural exploration of subjective experiences.
But with Aristotle I think of his categories more like trees in set theory where the trees are increasingly wider sets that encompass the lower sets as their species -- so there are individuals, but then sets become individuals, and we can make inferences about the world because these sets aren't just a means for us to organize our thoughts, but rather are depictions of the world as it is -- so that the induction which takes place from an individual, like a human, can hold for the more general category when we utilize that individuals essence that fits within a wider category.
Does this make any sense at all?
EDIT: Though if we were to build a tree of Aristotle's concepts it would look "inverse" because there'd be one node at the top -- being -- under which all the other genera are species, and at the bottom you'd have all the individuals which the sets "contain"
The hylomorphism that he espouses makes sense of why one could do this with respect to reality.
Well, it's not that a number holds for the iterative set, but rather that a relation or function holds for the iterative set. But yeah, that's close.
Quoting Moliere
I think that's right but it seems different from mathematical proofs from induction.
Quoting Moliere
Right, though a species is not a set if we wish to speak more carefully.
Quoting Moliere
Here is the crux of what I question. "Aristotle places an individual into a species via induction, therefore he is involved in a mathematical proof from induction."
Why do you see what you describe of Aristotle's method as "mathematical induction"? Because I could give a very simple argument, using your own premises, to show that it is not:
Quoting Moliere
It's an argument, which is exactly what I've been asking for. :up:
So yes, it makes sense, although I am not convinced that it is correct.
Fair.
Quoting Leontiskos
How would we differentiate it? It looks a lot like set theory to me.
Quoting Leontiskos
Because, for him, the genera are real. When he moves up the chain there's no such thing as a black swan, for instance. It's different from mathematical induction in that it's about concretes, but it's like mathematical induction because the sets are real and the induction is thought to apply to all cases, which is what secures the claim to validity. Also, since I'm thinking about these as sets, where a genera is only a more general set than some given species, [s]so[/s] I think he quite literally thinks the world is structured like his categories. There's still a basic material, but it requires some form -- like a cause -- in order for something to be real. This makes sense for him because ultimately where we end up is in a finite universe which is produced by the mind of God thinking himself into being. So the categories are a part of our world, and not just our experience, and certainly not just a way of ordering our thoughts. That's why there wouldn't be any invalidity in moving up, inductively -- the categories have an essence which makes it to where there's no problem making an inference from the particular to the general.
For myself I think of these as ways of ordering our thinking rather than as an ontology. The world isn't constrained by our logic, and frequently demonstrates this. But it's easier to see that when we have so much knowledge that no one person will ever be able to dwell on it. In Aristotle's day it makes sense to continue the research programme he set up in the manner that he did.
Basically because we can always be wrong when we follow a procedure of induction it's never valid -- there is at least one case where the inference could be false, where we are mistaken about the object we are talking about, so it fails to the basic definition of validity. But since it doesn't structure reality itself that's not as big of a deal for me.
Aristotle worked with what he had -- but I'm not sure he had instruments at all, to be honest. His instrument was logic, description, empiricism, and interpretation of prior works on the subjects he was interested in.
I'm saying Lavoisier's contribution to our intellectual heritage is scientific because he was building instruments to test theories and discover what the empirical formula for water was in a way that convinced the rest of the scientific community.
Building instruments in accord with a theory does not look like philosophy, to me -- at all. So he serves as a contrast case to Aristotle who was a philosopher-scientist -- Aristotle is an empiricist, but he was born before a time when measurement was theorized at all. So it makes sense that he'd think there's a continuity between science and philosophy.
So what is a property? Fair question. Logicians use "property" in a slightly different way to Aristotle.
What is "'a' refers to a" about? At a naive level we might suppose that since the sentence predicates "'a' refers to..." to a, then a is an individual with the property of being referred to as 'a'. It's not much of a property. Aristotle and others added various ad hoc ideas here in an attempt to make it work. Formal logic does something quite different.
A property in extensional formal logic is just a set of things. So the property of being red is just the grouping of individuals that are red, the property of being in Australia is just the things that are in Australia, and that's all. The property of being red = the set of all red things. This captures only which objects fall under a predicate, not why or how.
The predicate “is referred to by ‘a’” defines a singleton set: {a}, so in this stripped-down view, it could be called a property — because a is in the set. However, singleton sets carry no information or weight. It's trivial, it's not discoverable by empirical means, it's neither intrinsic or necessary that "a" refer to a.
Do we count it as a property, then?
The point made earlier, in amongst a bunch of other stuff, is that in predicate calculus, properties are thought of as represented by the letters f,g,h... and so on. So f(a) says that a has the property f. Such systems are given an interpretation by assigning individuals to the individual variables.
We have the list of predicate variables, "f","g","h"; and the list of individual variables, "a","b","c"...
We assign a property, say f, to some individual, say a, by writing f(a).
We assign an interpretation to this syntax by assigning an individual to each of the individual variables, a to "a", b to "b", and so on.
So, assigning a property to an individual happens in a different part of the logic to assigning a name to an individual.
For these two reasons, having a name is not usually considered as having the property of having that name. Being referred to by a name is not part of the logical property structure — it belongs to the semantic interpretation.
A description. So you are saying that it's an empirical observation? What is it we are observing here...
I understand what it means to observe the sky, or the horizon, or the sound of the sea. I'm not sure of what it could mean to observe internal and external worlds. I see the sky with my eyes, hear the sea with my ears - what sense do I use to observe my own mind? And who is it that is doing the observing of that mind, if not my mind...?
That all seems very odd. A long stretch.
The second argument:Quoting karl stone
I'm not at all keen on Donald Hoffman, a chap with whom you have some points in common, but one point he makes is that there need be no relation between what the evolved mind presents to us and what is "out there". Indeed, his conclusion is quite the opposite. Evolution selects not for veridical perceptions, but for fitness-enhancing ones — and these two are not only distinct but often incompatible. We cannot assume that perceptual accuracy correlates with survival success.
When one decides on one's enemy - subjectivism, perhaps, whatever that is - one tends to see them everywhere. One might find oneself criticising an argument that hasn't been presented.
Isn't it rather that in order to make an observation at all, you become an observer seperate from what you are observing?
We observe a state of affairs. The state of being conscious of a world existing externally to ourselves. Is it an empirical observation? Yes and no. You cannot confirm my observations of this state of affairs. You can only report a similar experience of an 'I' - looking out through your eyeholes. Is that sufficient for empiricism?
Quoting Banno
Apparently not. If you don't know what it is to observe internal and external worlds - then you cannot even confirm similar experience of a subject/object distinction. I can only assume you must be some sort of robot.
Quoting Banno
Beep boop, beep beep beep boop!
Quoting Banno
His 2015 TED Talk, "Do we see reality as it is?" argues that our perceptions have evolved to hide reality from us.
I'm not familiar with his work, but he's not the only university professor arguing for a subjectivist understanding of perception. There's an entire industry dedicated to - telling us there's no such thing as colour, for example. That colour is subjectively constructed. Something I cannot reconcile with the physical reality of the different wave-lengths of different colours of light.
I don't think the question is very well framed. Obviously we don't see reality as it is. Our sight is confined to a tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. We hear a small auditory range. Better put, the question would be - Is what we see real?
And the answer is yes. How could it be otherwise? We could not have survived as a species if our senses were inaccurate to reality. Limited certainly, but not false.
Quoting Banno
A Lamarckian, is he? He cannot be a Darwinian. He imagines that evolution knows the blacksmith son will need big muscles? It's just not how evolution works. The surviving adult organism passes on traits that allowed for their survival to their offspring; while those traits that didn't allow for survival are extinguished from the genetic line. Consequently the senses are sufficiently veridical to enable survival; based on prior selection. They're not predictive of what will, in future constitute fitness.
Quoting Banno
One might find oneself scratching one's head, wondering what you're talking about? I'm not looking for enemies. I'm looking for truth. I find enemies of truth; but that's incidental to what I'm doing.
Quoting Banno
I find myself observing unbidden, such that I am not making an observation or becoming an observer - but an observant being, prior to, during and after any particular observation. I have not become an observer, because I already was one. The subject/object dualism is the prevailing state of affairs; a description of that state - of being inwardly conscious of an external reality. I make very little of it in an empirical worldview - subjectivism is a near irrelance compared to the significance of objectivism. That is, an external world with definite physical characteristics, to which the organism must be physiologically, behaviourally and intellectually correct to survive.
I was expecting an even longer response, and dreading my even longer response to your even longer response. I respect your initiative in breaking the cycle.
It's easy to provide an answer when you haven't understood the issue.
Hang around for a bit, see if you notice anything odd or problematic in what you've decided. Then we might have an interesting chat.
Shameless plug for my original post The Mind Created World which is all about this topic.
I mean the latter. Raw perceptions are a myth - a construction from our recognition that there are interpretive processes at work. The moment that the light or sound or whatever arrives at our sense organs, the process of selection, editing and interpreting begins. A perception that was raw could not be perceived by us, and a perception that can be perceived by us is not raw.
Quoting karl stone
Can we just concentrate on this? It doesn't help me much, because I don't understand what you are tryinng to say. It is true that experience of an objective reality requires two poles. That's because it is a relationship. The perceiver (subject) experiences the reality (object). I don't see that any metaphysical consequences follow.
To see what I mean, look at Descartes' argument. He points out that we can distinguish between mind and body and so concludes that they are two distinct things and thence that they are different substances. He interprets "distinct" in a specific way and the metaphysics grows from that. But there is no need to interpret "distinct" in that way.
I'm sure I've explained how Galileo was right; while Descartes wrote Meditations as a preemptive defence against impeachment by the Inquisition. I'm not a scientist setting philosophers to rights. I'm a philosopher of science; a Galilean objectivist seeking to reimagine the philosophy that would have resulted had the Church welcomed Galileo as discovering the means to establish valid knowledge of Creation.
Quoting Banno
My inadequacy to the task is something I struggle with; the impossibility of rewriting 400 years of European philosophical history in the course of Galilean objectivism. It is however, the terms in which I arrived at a Magma Energy solution to the climate and ecological crisis - while left winged subjectivist accounts run aground upon Marxist Limits to Growth.
Quoting Banno
How very Cartesian of you!
Whereas an evil demon who maybe keeps our brain in a jar is a justifiable methodological device? Net down for your serve again!
There are sound waves that strike our eardrums causing them to vibrate; light that strikes our eye, to which the organism is responsive. So far we are talking about pure physics.
From there we transition to evolutionary biology, to describe the physiological response of an organism evolved in relation to reality, that must be sufficiently correct to reality to facilitate survival.
Thereafter, we are into psychological interpretation, across the brain/mind distinction. I'd suggest subjectivism lies mostly within the realm of the latter - the mind as opposed to the brain, and less yet organs of sensory perception.
Take your average perceptual illusion; like the duck/rabbit - it is an ambiguous image. The mask illusion is quite compelling - we see an inside out mask facing outward, but put a mark on the face and the illusion disappears!
The point being, interpretational models are not subjective. Consider the conservation of quantity in developmental psychology; something infants 2-3 are unable to understand, but then suddenly grasp at the age of 4. They're not subjectively constructed interpretational models, but largely in the realm of the brain function of an organism able to survive within a physical environment.
The subjectivist takes the implications of a distinction between sense data and interpretation too far.
Quoting Ludwig V
You don't help me much; arguing the subjectivist perspective while denying you're a subjectivist. Could you pick a lane? When you say, "I don't see any metaphysical consequences follow" who are you saying that as? A Cartesian, or not a Cartesian?
What I'm trying to say is that sure, the subject exists, but it is of almost no consequence. Valid observation of an external reality is demonstrably possible. Were it otherwise, we'd be extinct. We are clearly able to negotiate the physical world, and only in the most deliberately ambiguous circumstances are our perceptions, and/or perceptual models unable to process what we see. I'm saying that your assertion:
Quoting Ludwig V
...is overstated. Assuming you are of adequate health, it's extremely rare that your perception is not accurate to reality.
Thanks for this. It does make sense. I'll have to take it for granted that there are no other successful interpretations. I know that logicians accepted this as the only viable possibility.
Quoting Banno
Many thanks for this. I can see the sense in it.
Quoting J
But part of my puzzlement was because of an apparent asymmetry between referring to something and being referred to by something. You don't explicitly say much about "a". But fixing the reference must involve both "a" and a. So I would have thought that "a"'s referring to a is also not a property of "a". Is that right?
Quoting Banno
OK. So now the question whether the concept of a rigid designator is part of the formal system and must be assessed in that context, or part of natural language and assessed in that context. (There's something odd about classifying philosophical logic as "natural language", so perhaps we need a third alternative - not quite natural, not quite formal, but bridging.)
If I'm understanding @Banno correctly, he's agreed with, and explicated, my talk about a "different level." To say, "The fact that 'a' has the reference it has is not a feature or property of a" is basically the same as saying, "Being referred to by a name is not part of the logical property structure -- it belongs to the semantic interpretation." Or so I believe, and if that's wrong, it's on me, since Banno has been perfectly clear.
Quoting Ludwig V
The thing is, "a" has no properties at all. It's a name. So there is actually a symmetry of sorts! "'a' refers to a" is not a property of a, and "a is the reference of 'a'" isn't a property of "a", not because it isn't included in the list of "a"'s properties, but because there is no such list.
I can see that it is not part of the first level. "Semantic interpretation" looks like the second level.
Quoting Banno
For what it's worth, I think reference is on the third level, because that's where we encounter the Eiffel Tower etc. I expect Banno will put us right.
Quoting J
I suspected as much.
A good point. If there were alternate explanation, what might they look like?
There's a generalisation of possible world semantics that turns out to be predicate calculus. That is, what can be expressed in modal logic can be expressed just in predicate calculus, after Montague and van Benthem. Strictly, modal logic is not an extension of predicate logic, but a fragment of it.
So if there are other ways of formalising modal logic, if they are as strong as possible world semantics, they will still be a subset of predicate calculus.
Roughly, any other alternative interpretation would be equivalent to possible world semantics.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yep. There's a difference between using a name to refer and inaugurating a name. Two different speech acts. Referring to something is a different sort of activity to making it that some word is used to refer.
The inauguration of a name involves a status function, one way or another. The word comes to "count as" the thing.
Quoting Ludwig V
My inclination is to think about the interpretation as something we do with the syntax, as an activity. If that's on track, then we use a name as a rigid designator. The name is a string of letters until used as a rigid designator. The string of letters is a part of the syntax of the system, the use as a rigid designator, to name something, is a part of the semantics of the system.
I somewhat regret suggesting a third level, since the gap between a formal modal and a natural language is no where near at the level of the gap between a syntax and a semantics.
More accurately, being a name is not part of the syntax, but part of the semantics, of the model being used. The model may be formal, or it may be part of a natural language. Modelling is a part of logic.
In set theoretic terms, one thing we could say is that every species is a subset and every genus is a superset. Another difference is that the species/genus schema is not predicated on the bare particulars of modern logic. That is a nominalist innovation. See for example the last quote provided <here>.
Quoting Moliere
I'm wondering if you can make sense of that bolded portion? "Aristotle's induction would be valid given his presupposition of X, but since X is false it is invalid." It actually seems that if your account is correct, then what is at stake is not induction at all, but rather a disjunctive syllogism. In that case it is only a matter of determining which "category" the phenomena in question belongs to, which is much different even from mathematical induction.
But I think I understand your general thrust. "Aristotle looks at one swan and sees that it is white. Then he looks at a second and sees that it is white. After doing this 100 times, he infers that every subsequent swan will be white, and that's like mathematical induction."
That's intelligible, but I just don't think it's what Aristotle is doing. It's what Hume understands by induction, not Aristotle, which is why I pointed to Hume at the beginning of this chapter of our conversation. Aristotle's view is represented by the essays I linked <here>.
Simplified, Aristotle is basically saying that familiarity breeds understanding. If we become familiar with swans then we will begin to understand swans. There is no guarantee for Aristotle that there are no black swans. There is no Humean induction.
Quoting Moliere
I think recently said something that parallels your basic error in this. With Hume you think analysis is possible and legitimate but synthesis is impossible and illegitimate. Aristotle's epag?g? ("induction") is a matter of synthesis; of moving from the particular to the universal. Sime helpfully identifies the false assumptions underlying anti-synthesis thinking, but it is also worth noting that no one actually believes Hume, not even himself. No one actually believes that familiarity does not breed understanding, and no one believes that there are no truths about species. If Hume were right then we could not even say that swans can fly, or that swans can honk. For the Humean there is no possibility of saying, "We can't know that swans are white, but we can know that swans can fly and honk."
OK. But when I hear "There's a possible world in which P", I understand this to be equivalent to "It is possible that P". So far, I haven't identified any difference that matters in my world. Am I right?
Quoting Banno
Well, from my point of view, the question where natural language sits in relation to the formal system is important. I don't think the difference between the two gaps is a problem at all.
Yep. Not seeing the relevance.
Modal logic can be translated into FOL thus:
?A ? ?w? (R(w, w?) ? A(w?))
?A ? ?w? (R(w, w?) ? A(w?))
Where:
w and w? are world variables,
R is the accessibility relation.
That is, necessarily A means that A is true in every accessible world, and possible A means that there is an accessible world in which A is true.
Quoting Ludwig V
It's an important question. Note that there need be - indeed, there cannot be - a systematic relation between the two in the way there is between a system of syntax and a stipulated model for that syntax.
That's why the enterprise of the Tractatus couldn't work.
What we can do with formal logic is to show the coherence of some fragments of natural language.
I can see that. I can also see room for a good deal more philosophy. But I think that going there would be a bit off topic for this thread. Thank you for all your help.
Judging by your quote I'd say that this is really just where I disagree with Aristotle -- there's no such thing as essences.
So while I understand that within his system of philosophy he believes that induction is valid, and this is due to things having an essence -- i.e. there is some needed common traits or relationships which are shared by each member of the genera.
But, OK -- yes, that's a difference in terms of the philosophy. I don't think Aristotle is a Quinean or anything of the sort when considering his whole system -- but conceptually the various species and their genera look a lot like sets.
For Aristotle I would just add that there are ontological conditions to the sets, whereas today we'd prefer to abstract to the logic alone and leave the ontology undefined so that we could then speak clearly about what exists.
Make sense?
Quoting Leontiskos
I'm only using that as a familiar example.
You would agree that there is an essence which a swan possess which makes the swan a swan according to Aristotle?
Whatever the essence is for Aristotle there is an essence that can be discovered, and I think that's what secures his knowledge via the empirical method. He can know about every member of the set because of these necessary and sufficient conditions which make a tiger what a tiger is.
Whereas I would say that it's in the very logic itself that makes the move from species to genera invalid. There is no essence that holds all tigers together, a what-it-isness which makes the tiger a tiger.
So I'm not talking about being wrong in the sense of error as much as I'm saying there is no valid construction of induction because there is nothing to universalize. This is a big difference between my understanding of Aristotle, vs. Darwinian, biology. The species aren't as distinct as what Aristotle's method indicates -- they slowly morph over time and we update our taxonomies the more we learn, but this isn't a logically valid move.
Familiarity with swans will help us to understand swans, and if we happen to notice that all birds have wings then we might say that the essence of birds is "has wings", and since all swans are birds all swans have wings since that is what holds for all birds.
In such a world, if you could correctly identify an essence -- what holds for all the tigers, or whatever species/genera is under discussion -- then moving up to a more encompassing category would appear entirely valid.
So, in my understanding of Aristotle at least, I can understand why he believes it's valid. It's not like he didn't know what validity was. However, I think he is wrong about essence, and what you end up with for any process of induction is never a logically valid move. It's a guess. Hopefully an educated guess, but a guess all the same -- and the taxonomies we write about animals are our way of understanding life rather than the essence of life.
I don't think I've said anything Humean here -- if I were I'd be talking about relationships between events or the wash of perception or the emotional grounding of inference or something. But I'm just saying that Aristotle is wrong about essences, and that's what masks the invalidity of going from a particular to a general. The allusion to mathematical induction is to say that it appears to me that Aristotle treats inductive knowledge of particulars in the same manner that we treat inductive knowledge of math -- i.e. there is some conditions which hold for all tigers, and once we know that from some tigers we will have knowledge of all tigers in their essence, if not in their particulars/accidents.
Or I could be wrong about the role of essence in Aristotle. But at least this is how I'm understanding it. Does it make sense to you?
I would say that some philosophers follow Quine today. Not sure how many. I think there are less than you suppose.
Quoting Moliere
So do you think tigers exist or not?
The problem here is that you keep opposing even a Kripkean essentialism (for example, by saying that water is not H2O). If you think that water or tigers have no necessary properties, then you oppose not only Aristotle but also Kripke, and your critique really has nothing to do with Aristotle per se. And I am really not convinced that your critique has anything to do with Aristotle per se.
Quoting Moliere
What isn't logically valid? Again:
Quoting Leontiskos
Do you think swans exist? Do you think swans can fly? Do you think swans can honk?
Quoting Moliere
The problem with your construal is that it isn't induction at all. It is not an inference at all, but a tautology. "I have seen three swans and they all have wings; therefore three swans have wings." Or, "I have seen every swan that currently exists, and they all have wings; therefore every currently-existing swan has wings." No induction is occurring here, much less any inference at all. If you go from "all tigers" to "all tigers" then you haven't made a move at all, and you have certainly not moved to a "more encompassing category."
(Note too that the deeper problem with your Humean approach is that it can't even recognize a single swan or tiger in the first place. It hasn't conceived the problem of how the word 'tiger' is upbuilt in the first place.)
Quoting Moliere
I don't think you understand Aristotle. Again:
Quoting Leontiskos
You seem to be a Humean who thinks that Kripke could never have warrant to claim that water is H2O. And of course this means that you also oppose Aristotle and Darwin, who are also involved in similar claims. Darwin makes universal claims about species as well, after all. It makes no difference that species evolve. All such species-claims, whether Kripke's, Darwin's, or Aristotle's must be opposed by a Humean like yourself. So the topic here is really Hume, not Aristotle.
Quoting Moliere
The argument that it is impossible to move from particulars to universals is a Humean argument.
Quoting Moliere
It makes sense to me that you are falsely attributing the thing that Hume critiques to Aristotle. It also makes sense to me that, as a Humean, you would oppose all knowledge of species, whether Kripkean, Darwinian, or Aristotelian. I just don't think you walk the walk and absent yourself from believing species-propositions.
Induction. At least my interpretation of Aristotle's induction, which relies upon a premise that there are predicates which hold for all members of a species: so it looks like we can infer up from swans to birds when noting how we compare swans with eagles and so forth.
But when it comes to applications of logic to reality then I'm afraid reality dissapoints all such attempts. There are no such things as properties which are shared by every member of a species. The concept of species is one of change and adaptation, and differentiating species is often a difficult thing to do. There are frequently examples that fall between the cracks which show how our taxonomies are just conveniences for us -- the things we can notice and track reality by -- and the very nature of nature is change, differentiation, and adaptation.
Note that I haven't said anything about how many times I've seen the swan, but rather that there is no essence of the swan for Aristotle to move from the species to the genera. This isn't framed in Humean terms.
Quoting Leontiskos
Yeah, there are some tigers out there today.
Quoting Leontiskos
I'm gonna do the same thing here that I did with Lavoisier: putting things in terms of particulars and individuals, or species and genera, isn't exactly Hume's project. They're not even talking about the same things.
If I were to relate Hume's A Treatise on Human Understanding to one of Aristotle's texts, I'd say it's a version of De Anima, or at least this would be the interesting thing to compare. That's because I don't interpret Hume as a phenomenologist but a naturalist interested in understanding how human beings work.
I'm afraid this is just one of the parts of Aristotle that I found myself in disagreement with. Now I'm more than happy to say "it's just my opinion man", but surely you find the above clear? If no essence then moving from a particular to a general is not justified because there simply isn't something which always holds for all real things.
I don't believe concepts shape the world the way Aristotle did, and I don't think his categories eternal -- and if anything I'd say that these instincts come from reading Kant rather than Hume, because Kant claims heritage to Aristotle in the notion of eternal categories which organize nature.
I disagree with Kant like I disagree with Aristotle: Concepts don't confine reality. They are made up by us and adopted for too many reasons to list. They grow and move like a garden does, or a forest, and that is always changing: now mayhaps I have it all wrong, but can you see how that conflicts with Aristotle's philosophy in a way that isn't Humean?
Because I've only invoked Hume on these forums with respect to causation and moral anti-realism -- not metaphysics like general/particular.
How do you know that? How do you know what a tiger even is? In fact, what is a tiger, and how do you know?
How I know it is certainly different from whether I think it. Why I think it is because I've seen them before and talked about them with others to make sure I know what I'm talking about.
I'd assert it because I have no reason not to -- unless they went extinct or some other circumstance that I'm unaware of they were alive last time I went to the zoo.
I'd say I know what a tiger is because I grew up in a community which differentiates a particular species.
But what that knowledge consists of isn't something which holds true for all tigers in the sense that there will be a time when a species is a not-tiger and a time when a species is a tiger for all species of the genera "tiger". Speciation is kind of like a slow sorites paradox -- at the level of our daily perception of the world, day-in-day-out, there seem to be stable species. This isn't something I perceived about tigers or all species, but rather a theory which guides our understanding of natural life. We notice similarities but rather than there being distinctions between a tiger and a not-tiger, which I understand essence to require given there is nothing in-between "A is a tiger or a not-tiger", we can usually point to some particular which breaks the mold, if not today then tomorrow.
Basically I'd say that tigers are the sorts of things biology studies, I've seen them before, and I know how to refer to them and generally these are things I believe exist. But there is very likely something in-between my concepts of tigers and not-tigers "out in the wild". Sometimes we just make choices about taxonomies out of conveinience "Yeah, maybe not a different thing in that way, but in this way sure" -- but that there are frequently small variations within the same group of species, and even -- if Darwinian evolution is true -- speciation events where a whole new organism comes into being then the very species we are talking about are always changing so we should expect there to be differences.
But these are not differences of accident -- the differences are part of the nature of animals given that evolution never stops.
Did you see two or three things with stripes and then decide that there must be a whole species of tigers, that are all the same? You have a universal species in your hand that you call 'tiger', and I'm wondering how you know about that sort of thing. As a Humean, surely you couldn't have come to know about panthera tigris from observing particular things!
Or if you want something more characteristically Humean, think about it this way. You see two "tigers" (whatever that is!) mating. What will their offspring be? Will it be a tiger? How do you know?
I've answered before but like I said: we talk to one another.
That's a cop-out, to be sure.
If you follow your Humean logic consistently, then you have no idea what you mean by "tiger," you have no grounds for believing that a species of tigers exists, and you have no grounds for believing that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger. Brilliant stuff.
This has nothing to do with Aristotle. If you accept that sort of nuclear skepticism-sophistry of Hume, then Kripke, Darwin, and Aristotle are all destroyed. It makes no difference that Darwin believed in temporary species and Aristotle believed in more permanent species. Both are undermined by Hume's "induction argument" that you try to use against Aristotle. You're dropping a nuclear bomb and hoping it only affects Aristotle's neighborhood. You need to start thinking through these ideas, rather than just wielding them in the direction of those whom it is fashionable to wield them towards.
He brings up the problem of induction, but he does it through events. Are events the same as objects, to your mind?
But just because he brings it up that doesn't mean the problem of induction is wedded to most of what I'd associate with Hume.
What I'm denying are essences, and noting how -- if that be the case -- then Aristotle's move from particulars to generals is invalid in the sense that just because the premises are true that does not guarantee that the conclusion is true since there are some cases where the conclusion will be false.
I think you're attributing more to me than I've said.
But all you see is that if we don't accept Aristotle's solution to the problem of induction all ideas are toast and I'm a bumbling idiot. I will weld as I see fit, though -- unless I'm on someone's payroll, then I'll do whatever the boss wants.
One is the problem of induction.
The other is the post-modern meta-induction: That we have been wrong before so many times justifies us in believing we're generally wrong.
One way out of the antinomy is to weaken our certainty with respect to knowledge, and flesh that out somehow. More or less that it justifies us in believing that we probably have false beliefs, but not that all of our beliefs are false -- i.e. the problem of induction still holds true.
We can justify that however -- pragmatically, because of human nature, whatever.
But if we believe that then surely we must accept that induction isn't valid -- we do it for whatever reason, but since our premises can be true and our conclusion wrong it's simply not valid.
Insofar that we're talking about billiard ball causation then it seems to hold -- in which case the sun may not rise tomorrow even though it has risen so many days before. One day it will collapse -- unless, of course, we're in some way wrong about the sun and stars and such.
But if we think of history we have a good example of a looser notion of causation that seems to produce positive knowledge through synthesis and isn't predicting anything. So what to make of the historian's use of "cause" if we deny it alltogether as something predicts events?
I'd say that I'm uncertain to what degree causation is real because of considerations such as this -- rather it seems the physicist, the biologist, and the historian all organize their ideas in a manner that differs. Including fundamental ones like causation, which we'd think probably seems important.
The surprising result is that we have knowledge even though we can note these things. This might be referred to as a "knowledge-first" approach -- seems like we know things. Sort of undeniable to my daily life, though it's fun to speculate sometimes just to see where our ideas go. But then how do we know things and what does that indicate for our world and reality?
But in science that's a very small part of what scientists do -- a lot of the conceptual work is in the application of ideas that have already been refined, agreed upon, and so forth. Philosophy tends to work in areas that are obscure, rather than clear, because it's good at spelling out concepts more precisely or generating new ideas for old problems or maintaining dialectical reflections between ideas.
But you don't exactly generate data in philosophy, though I wouldn't be opposed to attempts it would still seem different to me since I don't think concepts are real or universally binding, but still meaningful for all that. And you argue about who is right, but not about the theory being used. The activities feed well on one another, in particular if we pay attention to science from a historical perspective, but they are quite different.
This all to say Hume's notion of causation is obviously a limiting case that doesn't cover enough, but that doesn't mean Aristotle is suddenly correct about causation. I'd say causation is a fraught topic -- but talk of it is philosophy, not science.
The fact that you wrote six posts in response makes me think that you know your approach is deeply problematic.
Quoting Leontiskos
If you think that you are not wielding a nuclear bomb, then explain what grounds you have for, say, believing that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger. Aristotle, Darwin, Lavoisier, Kripke, and science and rationality generally, all believe they have firm rational grounds for their belief that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger. Hume thinks they are all wrong, and followers of Hume such as yourself must oppose not only Aristotle, but also Darwin, Lavoisier, Kripke, and science and rationality generally.
So you have three options at this point. You can say one of the following:
I think we need to figure out what to do with the nuclear bombs before we have even the smallest chance for a fruitful conversation.
My goodness, Leon. Are you applying to the philosophical school of inquisition?
I wrote that much to give you more to latch onto, to show where I'm coming from, and to counter your notions of me in the hopes of communicating. But all you can see is Hume.
If I'm a Humean in your mind then even if my view is deeply problematic you aren't addressing it.
Quoting Leontiskos
The problem of induction is just one of those classic philosophical problems that comes up -- we can ignore it and claim a tradition, like Aristotelianism, which furnishes a solution of some kind.
Another solution, similar to what I've been saying, is Popper's that scientific theories aren't exactly true, or we don't really know that they are true. Rather we know when we falsify them and we know that the next guess is just a guess which contains conditions of falsifiability.
For me I'm fine with simply asserting that we know things. I don't think that the problem of induction jeopardizes knowledge. I think that the philosophical theories, whether they be true or false, will not do anything so drastic as make all knowledge impossible.
It sounds like you have chosen option 2:
Quoting Leontiskos
That's fine, but you need to work through the cognitive dissonance inherent in objecting to other's positions on the basis of Hume's arguments, but then exempting yourself from those same objections. You'll need to work out that double standard that is so ubiquitously present in your philosophical approach. You can't just magically jump back and forth between pro-Humean and anti-Humean positions whenever it is desirable to do so.
Quoting Moliere
I'm tired of the constant evasions and circular argumentation. If you think that Aristotle cannot argue from particulars to universals, then you can't pretend to be able to do the same thing yourself (when you claim that tigers exist as a species, or that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger). If you have a real argument against Aristotle or any other philosopher, it will have to be more than the double-standard of a Humean nuclear bomb. Until that happens, the tu quoque is a sufficient response to your nuclear option. If you don't possess an objection that does not destroy all of philosophy and all of science, then you don't possess an objection at all. :meh:
I can and I will!
Quoting Leontiskos
But it doesn't do that.
We learn about what exists by listening to others. It's marvelously simple, but it brings down the grandeur of philosophy and science a few notches. Names are learned prior to any philosophizing about the nature of tigers -- we can use names without theories as to how it is a name refers.
Quoting Moliere
Not if you want to be a rational human being, you can't.
Quoting Moliere
So your mom told you that tigers are an existing species and that the offspring of two tigers is a tiger? The problem is that at some point we need to grow up and say, "Mom, how do you know that?" If Hume is right then your mom passed on to you "knowledge" that she can't have. This is a good example of the way that you selectively deploy Hume, against Aristotle but not against your mom. "Humean objections for thee, but not for me!"
Yes, indeed. Most of what I believe is from my mother. She was herself a Humean so I tell myself that I'm not, but you've seen my true essence. I haven't grown up, I know so little, and the toys of philosophy are never thought through or even worried about after having said my bit.
Is it concerning that it is hard to tell?
You have to either embrace Hume or reject him. You can't keep playing both sides and having it both ways. It's a waste for me to spend so much time talking to someone who will not abide by the canons of logical consistency.
That's a false dilemma. We can accept the parts we agree with and not accept the parts we disagree with.
Quoting Leontiskos
Heh, I was only playing into your preconceptions according to what you said -- it's not concerning at all, but expected.
We are talking specifically about Hume's argument from induction in a broad sense, namely the idea that we cannot reason from particulars to universals. That's the thing that you keep vacillating about, using it as a weapon to attack others while ignoring the fact that it would destroy your own beliefs if it were deployed consistently.
Quoting Moliere
It's not concerning that we cannot tell whether you are jesting? The reason it's hard to tell is because your position is so bizarre that it's hard to know the difference between something you would say in jest and something you would say in earnest.
I mean once I get called a bumbler, an idiot, and a manbaby for a philosophical position I hold I'm afraid I can't resist the urge to crack a dry joke for myself. It is a bit funny you have to see.
Quoting Leontiskos
I don't think that knowledge depends upon that inference being valid. The proof is in the evidence -- we generate knowledge from checking wild guesses all the time. Theories aren't generated in a methodological fashion. We don't need to know how we know in order to know that we know -- we can, from knowing that we know, look for patterns for how we know. Much in line with the Aristotelian way.
But upon doing so in our world today it doesn't really look the same as it did back then. And post-Kant we have good reason to separate metaphysics from science -- my thought is that Aristotle's notion of science is perfectly fine in his day even with the invalidity. Basically that the logical structure doesn't allow for the inference demonstrates that knowledge doesn't require necessary and sufficient conditions, or essences, in order for us to generate knowledge.
My view is a bit more pedestrian about knowledge -- it's wonderful, but very much a finite and human affair. This is much in the spirit of Kant (as was Popper, for what it's worth)
Though, also, my metaphilosophical position is one which does two readings: With the grain, and against the grain. So for every philosopher you start with the grain else you won't be addressing the arguments they are making. But then it is necessary to return and look for why people might object, or where there might be an error in the argumentation, or where some uncertainty is and what we might say in response. I call this against the grain. This is a metaphor I'm pulling from carpentry for how one is "supposed" to cut the wood, but noting in philosophy we are supposed to cut the wood the wrong way in order to see the full meaning of a philosophy.
In doing so we can lay out a particular philosophers position, but then note how we might diverge, or even just wholesale steal ideas out of the text. In order to understand the concept we reference back to the text, but philosophy is a generative activity. It is creative. We can do what they did and write our own little thoughts, inferences, suppositions, and what-have-you.
Hume's argument is a kind of exclusion of induction by exhaustive dichotomy. What is your response here supposed to be? Do you think that Hume would say, "Oh, someone told you that the offspring of two tigers is a tiger! Oh, well in that case my argument doesn't apply!" Or would he say, "Oh, you are 'simply asserting that you know things,' well in that case my argument really seems to break down. I wish I had thought of that myself!"
These strange responses you are giving me are wholly inadequate to answer Hume's argument, so I don't see how you think they are relevant.
Quoting Moliere
All I'm asking you to do is be logically consistent. If you think Aristotle falls prey to Hume, but then you can't countenance the fact that everyone falls prey to Hume, including yourself, then you are not being consistent. Your argument is literally as silly as this:
You don't get to exempt yourself from the criticisms you level at others. That's not how it works.
I imagine it'd be easy to get him to see that knowledge is generated by human being, and that the conclusions of his argument are at least consistent with that. Rather than making appeals to the logical structure between events, which he demonstrates is invalid, we make appeals to people's emotions and habits of thought. In this case those habits are at least academic of some kind, though there is surely more knowledge in the world than the academy -- the electrician knows a good deal about the world, for instance.
Rather than undermining knowledge and philosophy it demonstrates why it's necessary to pursue -- we will never have a grasp whereby we can derive necessary conclusions about things. The question then becomes how does that work, in spite of induction being invalid?
But what essences do is give us something we know of the thing that must be the case. In which case we'd say that with a new essence we have a new species.
It's not so much "falling prey" as saying -- there's more than one philosophy that answers this question. We don't have to accept Aristotle's solution. And, indeed, we could just say we don't know, like good and curious skeptics, though I indulge in philosophy and try to answer the questions anyways because they're enjoyable to think about and connect with others over.
Quoting Leontiskos
I don't think that when I make a guess about something that I'm making a valid inference, so I'm being self-consistent.
When Red Sky asked: "Is there an objective quality?"
and you answered: "Yes. Now what?"
...who were you appealing to then?
Hume? Aristotle? Kripke?
Yourself perhaps. Maybe you were...
Quoting Moliere
But also I don't feel a deep attachment to the dichotomy between the objective and the subjective, which is why I noted Kant's theory of aesthetics which could be read as both/and or neither/nor -- it's a troublesome theory to categorize as strictly objective or subjective.
Yours was the first reply in the thread. And it was a very definite answer, you didn't elaborate on, but I think would have some bearing on the broader question being discussed here: How do we know what is real? You must surely have a basis for knowing what's real if you are certain there are objective qualities.
I don't see how Kant's theory of aesthetics helps you very much, given that Kant maintains aesthetic judgements arise from a "free play of the imagination and understanding."
It's widely regarded as a solidly subjectivist theory. I would ask, how could it be otherwise where it not for your assertion that objective qualities exist? So my question is, how do you know there are objective qualities?
Ultimately I'd say the same of aesthetics as I do of ethics though -- that the statements aren't interested in matters of fact, exactly. But they are still valuable for all that.
Which is kind of a theme of my thinking generally. With respect to objective/subjective, though, I really don't think it's an important distinction at all. We get the drift, but there's plenty of interesting questions which can't be addressed by such a simplification of the authority of a speaker -- either it's TRUE or it's just your opinion doesn't exactly allow for nuance.
An appeal to emotion or habits of thought will not justify the claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger, for Hume. But yes, part of the problem here is that Hume himself is not a serious thinker. He himself vacillates on whether his argument is sound.
Quoting Moliere
"I just make guesses," is not a serious answer. You can't just say, "Oh, Aristotle's approach was flawed, but I just make guesses, and that's a much better approach."
Either we have rational grounds to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger, or else we don't. This is what most people would do:
1. If Hume's argument is sound, then we do not have rational grounds to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger.
2. But we do have rational grounds to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger.
3. Therefore, Hume's argument is unsound.
4. Therefore, I can't go around wielding Hume's argument as if it were sound.
This is what you do:
1. If Hume's argument is sound, then we do not have rational grounds to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger.
2. But we do have rational grounds to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger.
3. Therefore, Hume's argument is unsound.
5. Nevertheless, I will still go around wielding Hume's argument as if it were sound.
The problem with (5) is that it transgresses the first principle of dialogue: speak only what you really believe to be true.
(And of course you can keep running with the idea that we have non-rational grounds—whether emotional or habitual—to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger. I don't think that goes anywhere. To predict a future event is a rational and normative act, and there is no such thing as non-rational normativity. The idea of "non-rational grounds for claiming X," conflates description with normativity. A psychological explanation for why someone proffers a prediction is different from a reason for why the prediction is reliable.)
Upon thinking that we can see that though there's a problem in Aristotle, and though there's the philosophical puzzle of the problem of induction we still know stuff. This is an inversion of the question. Instead of asking after the method in order to know our conclusions are good we are seeking out possible patterns in what we already know in order to answer the question "How do we know?"
It's a philosophical question with more than Aristotle's and Hume's answer, though: And I've even supplied a name so I feel like we've hit the merry-go-round of disagreement and will just go back and forth asserting what we're asserting thinking it somehow addresses whatever it is we're trying to address.
I wonder. Consider Newtonian mechanics, as employed in space flight. It's good enough to get the job done. But it's no special relativity! Isn't sometimes a rule of thumb - or a lower resolution argument sufficient to get us from a to b? And if not, how DO we know what is real? And I mean KNOW!
You can say that, but then you have to accept 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Quoting Moliere
You can't do that without accepting 3. Your error is 5. You think the "problem of induction" is a problem for Aristotle, but not for your lackadaisical positions (like, "I've been told, therefore I know"). That's nuts. If Hume's argument doesn't count against you, then obviously it doesn't count against Aristotle or anyone else. Let's be done with these double standards.
If someone understands Newtonian mechanics as accurate within a (comparatively large) margin of error, and they wield the theory according to that understanding, then they have done nothing wrong. It only becomes a problem when they erect a double standard by wielding the theory against others in a different way than they understand it themselves. So for example, if they wield it against others as if it has a small margin of error, and they wield it against their own thought as it if has a large margin of error, then they are involved in the rational error I am highlighting.
Why would I think such a thing?
I have noted that we could just not know. I don't particularly care to overthrow Aristotle -- I think he's anachronistic to our practices of science and philosophy today, but I don't particularly mind others who want to adopt his methods. I don't really see philosophy as this tournament of positions which must be laid out in order to demonstrate who the victor is.
Regardless knowledge does indeed begin with listening to others. Without the ability to hear a teacher, say in an academy or some other setting that's not controversial, one doesn't obtain knowledge. But, really, we learn about what exists in this world more or less daily by this method. We don't go to the degree of questioning whether the induction is a logically valid construct for our inference -- in our everyday life the way we determine what is real is through that interactive process with one another. Think of hallucinations here -- we classify someone who sees things no one else sees as undergoing a hallucination: it's real in some sense but not real in another. The way a person would realize they have a hallucination is by communicating with others about their perceptions. Since we have no way of verifying someone else's perceptions -- to perceive their perceptions as my own perception -- we pretty much just have to trust one another on what it is we see.
Over time we learn to discriminate that trust further, but the last thing in the world I think it comes from are logical constructions of knowledge. I don't think the process of knowledge generation is constrained by logical validity, except where research in logic and other disciplines might be concerned as a meta-requirement. We really can make guesses and then go and see if they are correct. Usually someone who is a better guesser knows a lot or has some familiarity with the world and what is considered knowledge, but that doesn't make their guess anything more than that.
But that's not what you've done in this thread. You haven't claimed that we don't know whether the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger.
Quoting Moliere
It does, but not to just anyone, but to those who know.
Quoting Moliere
I would suggest re-reading this post more seriously. "I know it because someone told me," is not a response to Hume. And if you think there is some schizophrenic divide between philosophy and life, then I think you need a new philosophy.
Quoting Moliere
Then why the hell have you been arguing for page after page that Aristotle lacks knowledge because he lacks validity? Hint: it's because you've been saying things that you know are not true. For instance, you've been saying that your theoretical objections refute knowledge of species or else knowledge via induction, and yet now it seems that you don't actually believe that theoretical objections are sufficient for such refutations.
In any case, your whole idea that induction is an inference that is supposed to be valid is a strawman. Valid inferences are deductive. Induction is not formal in that way, and has never been said to be. This is related to the incoherence of your whole notion of induction:
Quoting Leontiskos
Now I've already agreed to say that my understanding is terrible in order to jump into the ideas and arguments. Let's just say Aristotle is right about everything.
If what I say is false, then you can set me straight.
The point here is that if Hume's argument is sound, then it counts against Aristotle (and everyone else, too). So do you think it is sound or not?
Aristotle is at the very least saying that someone who achieves familiarity with tigers will be able to identify tigers, and they will have at least a partial understanding of tigers. They will likely know, for example, that the offspring of two tigers is a tiger. There is nothing in Aristotle about "mathematical induction," as if it were some kind of formal inductive proof. The article I pointed you to is all about Aristotle's notion of experience and what is contained therein.
But again, this is the central question: Do you hold that Hume's argument is sound, or not? If you don't then you can't appeal to it. If you do then all of my unanswered questions loom. You can't maintain your praxis in which it is simultaneously sound and unsound.
Yes, but I don't think it does the work you're thinking it does.
The first time I read Hume I thought the same, which is what ultimately drove me to Kant.
But then I realized there's this other reading of his skepticism which treats it a bit more in accord with the Kantian notions than a first reading might suggest. The skepticism doesn't undermine knowledge as much as note how human beings' rationality is embedded with their emotions. The bits Kant adds notes how the mind has a rational structure, like I believe you're insisting upon, but he also puts a limit to knowledge. For Hume it's that the way we infer things about causation does not match his philosophical construct of causation, and so he must conclude that though his description of the human mind leads to conclusions we would not otherwise consider he can't help but draw the consequences when thinking philosophically.
In some ways we can read them as the emotivist and the rationalist both contending with this classical philosophical duality between emotion and reason, but each putting their own spin on it. Whereas for Hume it's to note that human beings don't produce knowledge by engaging in philosophy, for Kant our experiences are rationally conditioned. (But also, importantly, we don't produce scientific knowledge of philosophy, except for his one tome, of course, because he got it right)
Skip to Popper. His attempt to deal with the problem of induction is to note how our scientific theories aren't exactly positive cognitions or syntheses of reality exactly as it is, but instead what differentiates science from philosophy is the criterion of falsifiability. He takes up the notion that induction skepticism is true, and science proceeds, logically, by the modus tollens (which I flipped in my head earlier and misspoke)
The idea of a guess isn't that far off, to my mind, of how science works though Popper and others try to dress it up a bit more than that. But for me I'm trying to look at it as simply as possible in order to explain it to someone, rather than grasp its essence, and also to hear what others say on the matter of course.
Okay, but would Hume himself say that this makes the drawing of the consequence justified? I don't think he would.
So suppose we ask, "Are we justified in claiming that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger" (which is asking whether we have true grounds for such a claim)? I think the Humean answer is, "No." And I don't think emotions or habit or anything else like that is going to come to our aid, even if Hume might have thought so.
If this were not so then one could answer Hume's challenge to induction by simply saying, "Oh, but our emotions and our habits provide legitimate grounds for the inductive claim."
Quoting Moliere
...So I don't think this goes anywhere. If Hume indeed held it, then it is merely another problem with his thought. For instance, if our inductive propensities are not grounded in our rationality, but instead in our emotions, then in order to say that the inductive propensities are reliable we would have to say that our emotions are "reliable" in some sense. I don't see that going anywhere within Humean thought.
Else, what is the idea here? Is it that Hume would say, "Oh we don't know that the offspring of two tigers is a tiger via our reason, but we do know it via our emotions"?
Right, I agree!
So enter Kant -- he puts the rationalist spin on his philosophy but then I think he has a more romantic undertone which relies upon emotion than stated. Much in the same way we can look at Hume as a rationalist we can look at Kant as an emotivist and not because this is some defect in their thought or some such. What Kant adds to his moral theory is that there are proper kinds of emotions in order to claim one is acting morally or elsewise. That emotion is respect for the law itself. And then his aesthetics open up a door to a rationality of the aesthetic. Ya'know, a new one other than Aristotle's ;)
What I see is that the way we generate knowledge requires a priori assumptions, rather than knowledge -- or we might be tempted to call it knowledge after relying upon it or proving it or some such, but if we do there's be some other a priori assumption by which we are doing it. There's a certain arbitrarity to a starting point, to the question that one wants to ask, or to what sounds plausible to a person.
But then we hold to these because we desire to have a kind of shared knowledge with our fellows -- in a way these a priori assumptions are the basis of a philosophical research group or scientific group or what-have-you. And it's a unity of mind and reason that we see in our goings abouts and doings.
So in the soft neo-Aristotelian way this isn't even that far from Aristotle, but I do have certain objections and I take other answers more plausibly than his, and have already noted where I find it hard to believe and the consequences of those beliefs.
And I really do think it's important to see outside of the Aristotelian framework, sometimes. Since I don't see metaphysics as a knowledge I see it as ways people perceive the world when they ask philosophical questions, and when we listen to one another we find that it's different.
The part of Kripke that makes sense to me is page 18 of the PDF on the OP Kripke: Identity and Necessity.
My quick summary is that if the wooden lectern in fact exists, then in any world in which it in fact exists it necessarily is not made from frozen water from the beginning of time that's been sitting at the bottom of the Thames until five minutes ago. We can infer necessary negative predicates of individuals when we successfully use a proper name. The upshot of this is that there are a posteriori necessities -- so if any world in which water is H2O is in fact the case then for any possible world that water exists in [s]then[/s]that water is necessarily H2O.
Proper names makes sense to me, but I'm uncertain about natural kinds for various reasons stated about how philosophy and science are not the same.
Plato begins with the a priori, empiricists like Aristotle move away from it, and then after Hume objects to empirical induction there is a natural move back to the a priori (with Kant). So sure, if you do that then you circumvent Hume to a certain extent. I wasn't expecting you to go the a priori Platonist/rationalist route.
Quoting Moliere
I think Kant does do the a priori thing in response to Hume, but I don't agree with any of this about Kant being an emotivist.
Similarly, Kant and lots of philosophers think emotions are reliable when formed and ruled by the reason. Like, you know, Aristotle.
I like both. As you note:
Quoting Leontiskos
Part of the joke I've been enjoying is that all I've been doing to Aristotle is Aristotle's method to Aristotle -- noting how he does things, his strengths, his limitations, where we might have problems with him and where we might not.
Almost like a peripatetic. ;) (not quite, I'll admit -- but this has been part of my humor)
Quoting Leontiskos
Eh, it's a big-category assessment after having read and thinking "Are they as strict as people think?"
In a straight reading I wouldn't say what I've said about Kant, though I do think Hume is a bit more rationalist than given credit even on a straight reading. Else, if it destroys all knowledge and philosophy, why did he continue to do philosophy, and even write a history of England?
Perhaps the missing shade of blue is a bit of rationalistic thinking? I mean, he admits, re: E.C.H.U., 2, 16, an exception to the general rule of constant conjunction, insofar as he grants a subject may indeed apprehend that of which he has no experience.
Except I don't think that's anywhere close to true. Aristotle accurately and charitably characterizes his opponents before answering them. You've not done that. Here is an example:
Quoting Moliere
Of course, because he couldn't see it. Lots of folks engage in performative self-contradiction. But it doesn't destroy non-empiricist philosophy, that's true. I would have singled that out if I knew you were positing a priori categories or conditions of knowledge.
I have sympathies, but just like I do with any other philosopher -- there's a with the grain and against the grain, and I think Kant's categories fall to the absurd.
So even here, the story moves on... even with Popper, the story moves on. Eventually I end this story with Feyerabend wherein "anything goes", but if you pay attention that's more a slogan than his whole critique.
But, knowledge-first: We know things. How do we know things? I take it that Feyerabend demonstrated the impossibility of building a science of science from axioms or what-have-you in the vein that Popper was doing. So if we know things, and some of those bits of knowledge are scientific, and we have to learn how to learn scientific knowledge (which I think we do), then there must be some other kind of knowledge other than science. For me I turn to current practice, and history (or, really, just "history" properly understood) to answer that question: So there are at least two kinds of knowledge, science and history.
What I notice there is that there isn't some set number of a priori categories -- there are conditions of knowledge, but they change with time and practice and even practitioner. And I don't think that they construct experience, ala Kant, but I take the underdetermination of theory/overdetermination of evidence as a true description of science -- it's a "real" philosophical problem, but as per rule 1 solving it won't destroy all knowledge.
So the quest for an all-encompassing philosophy which tabulates all the categories of knowledge I take to be impossible to fulfill, given that the a priori categories are more assumptions that block out problems so that research may continue (not get overwhelmed by multiplicity). Rather, we have many philosophies, several categories, and even different ways of organizing thought that's not so obsessed with categorical methodology, or with proving oneself right. Hence the notion that philosophy is like a garden or a forest -- with a garden you've cultivated it, but there's some structure there and we know how it grows, and with the forest it's more "in the wild", waiting to be discovered, cut down, replanted, re-invented and so forth. Of course we're not separate from this forest or garden -- and really I'm still talking about ideas here, I just think they move and have a life of their own -- so we can effect how it looks over time as it effects our thoughts too.
Quoting Leontiskos
Eh, fair.
Related, the discussion between Srap and I beginning <here>.
Quoting Moliere
If someone were to show that empiricism is the only option and induction is impossible, then they would destroy all knowledge. What troubles me is that you don't seem to recognize this. You would apparently just pivot and claim that there is some fundamental divide between philosophy and life, and that knowledge pertains to life (cf. my post <here> about the crucial move of 3).
Quoting Moliere
Strawmen, I think. If you found another category Aristotle would say, "Great."
Quoting Moliere
At the end of the day, whether garden or forest, I think we need something more robust than a gesturing towards "guesswork." Foresters have their tools just as gardeners do. No one is just running, day after day, with random guesses. To run away from Aristotle so vehemently that we oppose method itself strikes me as irrational.
So in that vein we'd have to build rationality out of the emotions, in some sense. The passion for truth (or being right) would somehow have to break down into the passions, however we theorize that. He has a schema for the passions but for myself I'm as unconvinced by schemas of the emotions as I am of schemas of the mind: Probably pretty close and reveal something but not a literal representation.
I don't recognize that at all. I would rather make the inference that if empiricism is the only option and induction is impossible then knowledge must not be derived from induction -- there must be some other way of rendering empiricism, since we know that we know some things.
I don't think there's a fundamental divide between philosophy and life -- I think there's a difference between scientific knowledge and philosophy.
Quoting Leontiskos
But what if I called something that was not categorical knowledge? :D
I had been following that discussion up to https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/992579
Quoting Leontiskos
Sorry, missed this.
I think we'd like such a thing, but it's not always appropriate. Also I think that such a thing takes a great deal of work, and sometimes I see the play in philosophy as undervalued. Further I think that philosophy is generally undervalued by people because they don't understand that it can be fun -- we need good tools and arguments are great, but there really is this erotic side to philosophy that I think would benefit people because if they like philosophy then they'll employ it more widely.
Less of an architectonic and more of a walk through the forest.
Again, Hume gives a proof via exhaustive disjunction. The retort, "There is a disjunct you missed," is sort of tangential to the whole spirit of the thing. In this case you seem to be saying that we could have direct empirical knowledge of rational relations, which seems unlikely.
Quoting Moliere
Then, as with everything else, he would point you to the place where he already did that. :wink:
Quoting Moliere
I'd say that folks who are making random guesses are not having as much fun as those who know how to achieve their end, and that anyone who thinks they are merely guessing, but has consistent success, already has a method that they just don't understand. But I'm sure you disagree on that.
It is quite beautiful, though, when one moves beyond random guesses and begins to understand rationality proper. It is as if they step into a new world. This is why I recommend tutoring.
That would solve it, you're right.
But I'd rather just say I don't know when I don't know: the retort is "What if there is some third thing we missed?" -- supposing empiricism (whatever that is) must be true and induction must not be true then it seems that knowledge must (somehow) be produced by empiricism without induction. I'd say that's an interesting philosophical question.
One way we might retort back is that reality is wider than exhaustive disjunction, yeah?
I'm OK with people taking a non-position when they realize an issue is confusing and say "I don't know, though I know what others would say" -- mostly because that's where I'd say I'm at with most issues. I have thoughts, I indulge, but honestly . . .
Quoting Leontiskos
See, this is the bit I think we clash on the most. Soft neo-Aristotelianism makes enough sense to me, but if we start talking about Aristotle Aristotle then I have to say that I don't think he already did that. I think Aristotle made errors like all scholars do.
The tradition after that deals with counter-examples, as traditions do, and builds from them. But in that case it's easy to point to another tradition to say how they "already" took care of that.
Quoting Leontiskos
Yeah :)
I'm not opposed to tutorship at any time -- I'll never learn it all. Someone else will always know more than I. And likewise I know more than others on certain things and in the right circumstances I'll tutor them.
I'm a bit bemused again, though, because in terms of philosophy I think that reason, rationality, all that, are the sine qua non of philosophy. I know that the world looks beautiful under rationality. I just started noticing how sometimes truth superseded beauty.
Sort of, but my point all along has been that if we say that then we must also say that Hume is wrong. If we believe something that contradicts Hume's argument—such as that his disjunction is not exhaustive—then we must hold that Hume's argument is unsound, i.e. (3). It seems to me that you do not understand this. You do not understand that when you contradict Hume's conclusion you must also hold that his argument is unsound.
Quoting Moliere
But why do you claim that Aristotle did not do something when you have such a lack of familiarity with Aristotle? That's the problem I have with anti-Aristotelians: they ignorantly dismiss Aristotle on all manner of topic. Myles Burnyeat identifies the precise place where Aristotle does what you think he did not do in his article, "Enthymeme: Aristotle on the logic of persuasion." (See also his, "The origins of non-deductive inference.")
Quoting Moliere
Well when I said I recommend tutoring, I meant that I recommend that people tutor. But learning or being tutored is also good. Were you to tutor children I think you would soon realize how false is your idea that knowledge is about guess-making.
I was thinking of know-how mainly, but yes I know he's fine with inference that's informal.
The part where I think what I've said about essence matters is more about what I'd call his induction from the physics to the metaphysics. At that point, due to my Kantian influence, I feel like you need more than familiarity. It seems to me the reason that Aristotle can climb to the mind of God is because of what I said about essence -- we may be wrong about it, but there is some kind of essence to be right about, and if we assume Aristotle is right about the essence of metaphysics then he's right about his inference up to the mind of God.
Given Kant's insistence on a sort of empirical justification, and noting how such things are beyond experience, demonstrates that such inferences cannot take place. Even if there is an essence of things -- which I believe he probably believed, given his ties to Aristotle -- the Ideas can never be justified, and therefore can never be known.
Kant's cognitivism is empiricist, like Aristotle's, but he cuts off metaphysics as scientific knowledge, unlike Aristotle.
Now I'll gladly admit that I could be putting this wrong in terms of Aristotle. I can be read contra-Aristotle in many circumstances, but it's the sort of love a person who likes philosophy gives to another philosopher.
Quoting Leontiskos
Ooooh. Heh. I thought you were saying I ought go get some tutoring.
Maybe not.
I think Hume is right with respect to the causal relation -- we think that there's a necessary relationship between events but there's not -- and I think he's right with respect to the is/ought divide -- we must have some minor premise which connects an is to an ought, like "if x is true, then i ought y" in order to make an inference, and that minor premise is rightly described as a passion.
But I'd go further there and say there are rational passions -- just not eternally rational passions. They're developed within a particular community that cares about rationality.
Well you said, "But what if I called something that was not categorical knowledge?"
Quoting Moliere
Right: like "water is H2O." Again, Darwin, Lavoisier, and Kripke all believe that there is something to be right about.
Quoting Moliere
Yes, but people will argue until the cows come home whether Kant is an empiricist. Whatever he is, Kant is a strange hybrid.
Quoting Moliere
Okay, I can see how you would run that.
I think this is now becoming very diffuse. Thanks for the discussion, Moliere.
Same to you, as always. :heart:
I agree that solipsism and cosmic solipsism look ego-centric, and that pantheism/panentheism often rely on redefining words. I also agree with your point that simulation theory, whether true or not, makes little practical difference - if this is the only reality we can access, it is our reality.
Where I’d like to push back a little is on panpsychism and nihilism. On panpsychism, you treat it as mostly untestable, but I wonder if you’re open to the possibility that even if we could measure gradients of consciousness, the deeper question of what it feels like to be matter will still elude science. And on nihilism, you suggest that it’s just “depression before we create our own meaning.” But what if the human capacity to invent meaning is itself fragile and contingent - isn’t that a reason to take nihilism seriously as a persistent condition, not just a passing phase?
I also like your suggestion that empiricism, rationalism, phenomenology and pragmatism are not mutually exclusive. Maybe the question isn’t ‘which is right?’ but ‘how can they work together?’ to give us the most complete account of reality.
For me, the open problem is: if all our approaches (empirical, rational, phenomenological, pragmatic) remain within the limits of human cognition, how do we ever know we are not simply locked inside those limits rather than perceiving reality as it is? Do we need to accept that reality-in-itself will always remain partly unknowable?
Quoting Truth Seeker
That's a very interesting idea, but, as you say, it isn't quite clear how all of them might be fitted together. One might start by observing that empiricism and rationalism do seem to fit together in the sense that they deal with different things - experience vs concepts. But fitting in the other two is more difficult.
Quoting Truth Seeker
A lot depends on how you think about it. In some sense or other, we can describe limits to our cognition. But how do we know about them? It can't be because we can get beyond them, so it must be that our knowledge within its limits points to, or, possibly, even creates, the idea of something more to be known. The other observation I would make is that one can consider what we can know and bemoan our fate in being confined within them, ignoring the fields of knowledge that those limits create. There are two sides to a limit; on one side there's all that is open to us, on the other side, there is all that is closed to us.
If we can have so much as the idea that there is something beyond out limits, we open up the possibility of transgressing the limits and exploring beyond the frontier. If we then look at our history, it seems pretty clear that we then work out how to extend out knowledge beyond them. The limit is a moving frontier, not so much a limit as a border between what we have learnt and what we will discover.
Quoting Truth Seeker
"Partly" is interesting. You seem to be accepting that we do in fact know some things about reality-in-self. Which suggest that we can know more. No doubt, there will always be more to be learnt - every answer is the foundation for the next question. Perhaps this is just an infinite process and the idea that our knowledge will ever be complete is no more than the impossibility of completing such a process.
But I'm not sure what you mean by "reality-in-itself". How does it differ from "Being-in-itself"?
Akin to immersion in video games. We expect special effects to be 'realistic'(properly blended, proper looking; looking as if they have logical grounding).
First, when you suggest that “partly” knowing reality-in-itself implies that we do in fact know something of it, what safeguards do we have against simply projecting structures of our cognition outward and mistaking them for reality? Kant, for example, would say phenomena always bear the stamp of our categories, so even our best science may be telling us more about how our minds structure experience than about things-in-themselves. How do we tell the difference?
Second, you asked how “reality-in-itself” differs from “Being-in-itself.” For me, “reality-in-itself” gestures toward what exists independently of any observer, while “Being-in-itself” (to use Sartre’s term) connotes the sheer presence of things apart from consciousness. They might overlap, but one emphasizes ontology, the other epistemology. I’m curious: do you see them as distinct, or just two ways of naming the same riddle?
That makes me wonder, though: does “logical grounding” mean internal consistency within a system, or correspondence with the structures of our actual world? A toon world might be internally consistent but still disconnected from what we ordinarily call reality. Similarly, “magic” in a fantasy novel can follow strict rules (e.g. conservation of energy in a different form), but is that “real,” or just “fiction with rules”?
Maybe the crux is whether logical grounding alone is enough for reality, or whether we also need some bridge to empirical verification. Otherwise, couldn’t we end up calling any consistent fiction “real” in its own frame, even if it has no existence beyond the story?
I'm afraid I'm somewhat handicapped here, in that I don't really understand what reality-in-itself is. I mostly understand Reality as everything and anything that is real. I difficulty understanding that because most things are real when we describe them in one way, but not real when we describe them in other ways. There's not one group of real objects and a distinct group of unreal objects.
But then I don't understand what "reality-in-itself" is. Your concern about simply projecting the structures of cognition outward is not unreasonable. But there's no single answer. We have to consider case by case. If we do that, we find ways of distinguishing between projections and reality. We see a particular spectrum of light, and we have discovered that the spectrum is much wider than just the colours. But we have discovered that by means of our vision as it is and we have developed ways of grasping the invisible parts of the spectrum. We know that some birds (migratory ones) can perceive the magnetic field of the earth and use that to navigate from A to B even though we don't (directly) perceive it ourselves. So there may be distortions in our perception of the world, but we can deal with them when we discover them.
Quoting Truth Seeker
But don't both those definitions create a puzzle about what does exist independently of any observer, or what the presence of things apart from consciousness is. What are the criteria that tell us these differences? Or are you asking what we know independently of all the ways we have of knowing anything? It's like asking how we can walk without legs. Of pay for things without money.
At the moment, I'm trying to work out whether they are distinct issues or different varieties of the same issue. I suspect they are quite closely related, but not identical. It's possible that they may be the same issue formulated as epistemology and then as ontology, but the fact that Reality does not equal Existence tells against that.
Your examples show how science extends perception beyond its native limits, which suggests that even if we begin with projection, careful cross-checking can reveal where we’ve mistaken appearance for reality. Still, I wonder: do those successes give us reason to think we are asymptotically approaching reality-in-itself, or only that we are continually refining the human image of the world?
On the second issue, I like your thought that “reality does not equal existence.” That helps explain why “reality-in-itself” and “being-in-itself” might not be identical. The first emphasizes the independence of what is (an epistemic concern: what exists beyond our categories?), while the second stresses sheer givenness without relation (an ontological concern: what is apart from consciousness?). Perhaps they are two faces of the same riddle, but one seen through the lens of knowing, the other through the lens of being.
Do you think it’s coherent to maintain that these distinctions are useful heuristics even if, in practice, we can never step outside cognition to test them? Or do you lean toward collapsing them into a single problem about how language points beyond itself?
Actually, my understanding (admittedly based on encyclopedias) that there is a distinction iin Kant between the noumenon and Being-in-itself. But I'm not at all clear what that amounts to. Then there are all the various ways that philosophers have articulated Being-in-itselr. But I think we have to accept that there is a very respectable philosophical tradition that is sure that there is something beyond appearances.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Refining and/or extending, I would say. I can't see beyond the frontier - that's how it is defined. So there's no way of telling which it is. On the other hand, we can't know if we are approaching, asymptotically or not, any kind of terminus.
Quoting Truth Seeker
In a word, yes. There's an argument I encountered in learning about the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that one cannot explain how a picture pictures - or at least, not by drawing a picture. (If you can understand my picture of picturing, you can already understand a picture. If you can't understand a picture, drawing a picture is just more of what you don't understand. That's one way of understanding Wittgenstein's showing, not saying. So I think that that how language points beyond itself is something one can show, but not say. Very frustrating for philosophers. Yet every human baby gets it. Most animals are very bad at it, though I'm told that pigs can do it.
Quoting Truth Seeker
How could that not be so? Anything we could come up with would immediately become a human conceptual framework. The only way out of the puzzle is to turn it round and look at it the other way. Human conceptual frameworks enable understanding the world, including letting us understand what we cannot grasp.
Quoting Truth Seeker
My inclination is to say that the whole thing is a mistake, resulting from the regrettable tendency of philosophers to test everything to destruction. Yet it is a well-established way of thinking and the moving frontier is the best I can do by way of extracting some sense from what people say about it.
But I would insist that Reality-in-itself is not a thing, nor is there a special class of things that we can separate off as being real, leaving whatever is unreal on one side. We know something about everything and there is much that we don't know about everything. Mostly, it's a question of aspects, not of distinct objects - though there are also unknown objects, I've no doubt. The story of the discovery of pulsars is a nice example. A mysterious phenomenon resists every attempt at explanation. Finally, after studying it more carefully, we develop a concept which "saves" the phenomena and a new kind of object enters our collective ontology.
Quoting Truth Seeker
We can always push at the boundaries and find places and methods where there are new forms of cognition to be had.
Quoting Truth Seeker
Language is always important, but I'm not sure that it is ever the whole story. I do think philosophers should be much more careful about generalizations and pay more attention to differences. So it's quite tempting to sweep reality-in-itself and being-in-itself together and I'm sure they are related. But I'm also sure that they are different, and both need to be recognized.
Thank you, that’s a really thoughtful response. I like your idea that “reality-in-itself is not a thing” but rather a way of speaking about aspects, limits, and frontiers. The pulsar example is helpful, because it shows how what seems mysterious and “beyond us” can eventually be integrated into our conceptual framework without invoking any separate ontological realm.
Still, I wonder: if we treat “reality-in-itself” as simply “what resists explanation until new concepts arrive,” doesn’t that risk reducing it to nothing more than the horizon of human cognition? In that case, the notion stops doing the metaphysical work Kant meant for it, and becomes more of a pragmatic placeholder. Do you think that’s an adequate way to interpret the tradition, or is something lost when we set aside the stronger claim that something exists independently of our ways of knowing?
On your last point, I agree that philosophers often overgeneralize. But if “reality-in-itself” and “being-in-itself” are different, as you suggest, how would you articulate the difference without collapsing one into epistemology and the other into ontology? What criteria let us say: “this is about reality” vs. “this is about being”? Or is the best we can do to recognize that the distinction is heuristic rather than hard and fast?
There's no criteria for testing which of your experiences are of something real and which are false, for instance, drug induced, right?
As an analogy, let’s assume that I’m trapped in a windowless room. Something enters the room. I can see that it exists and what it looks like and how it behaves now that it’s in the room, but I don’t know that it existed or what it looked liked or how it behaved before it entered the room (or after it leaves); perhaps it’s very different (or doesn’t exist) when not in the room.
In this case “being in the room” is an analogy for “being seen”.
You may be right that there’s no absolute criterion. Every experience, whether sober perception or drug-induced vision, arrives through the same subjective channel. The difference is usually practical rather than metaphysical: some experiences cohere with others in stable, intersubjective ways, while others clash and collapse under scrutiny. But that coherence doesn’t prove we’ve accessed “reality itself,” only that we’ve settled on a framework that works for human purposes.
In that sense, the line between “real” and “false” experiences may be fuzzier than we like to admit. What we call “real” might just mean “reliably integrated into our form of life,” while “false” means “fails to integrate.” That’s not proof that reality-in-itself is off-limits, but it does suggest that our ordinary tests are pragmatic rather than metaphysical.
:up: So this may be a collective dream. We don't know.
I'm not sure that I'm interpreting the tradition, because that suggests that it makes sense. That's what I question. If I'm right, there is no metaphysical work for the concept to do.
I don't reject the claim that some things exist independently of our ways of knowing. I don't think that conceptualizing those things as unknowable is coherent - it gives with one hand and takes back with the other. I'm not always sure how we draw the line between what is independent of our ways of knowing and things that only exist because we think they do. Mathematical objects, for example, are hard to classify. There are much more interesting - and answerable - questions inherent in that approach.
Quoting Truth Seeker
The difference is hard to articulate. But I'm clear that most things that are not real do nonetheless exist, for the most part. But things that do not exist are not even usually even unreal. It is easy enough to draw the distinction when you consider specific cases, but very hard to generalize over all real things or all things that exist. I doubt whether such generalizations are even coherent.
Quoting Michael
I don't think this analogy is helpful. What things can enter a windowless (and doorless) room? Sounds, maybe? Not much else. How did I get into the room? It seems that you do know what kind of thing the something is while it is in the room. That will give you a basis for working out what existence it has outside the room. I can see that you are trying to articulate the kind of vision that Berkeley has, but if it does anything, it makes Berkeley even more implausible.
Quoting frank
I don't think it is a question of whether it is or is not a collective dream, but of how one chooses to think about it or how one decides to approach and cope with the reality we experience.
Still, it could be a collective dream. It really could be. We don't know. :grin:
All I can do is assume. But perhaps it looks and behaves very different when outside the room. It’s impossible for me to know.
I agree.
What's the evidence that it is?
Quoting Michael
No, you can work it out. If it is, say, a fly in the room, it is unlikely to change much outside the room. If it is a chrysalis or a caterpillar, it will likely be very different outside the room.
I didn't say that it is, just that it could be. We don't know.
OK. But if you say we don't know, you are suggesting that if certain things happened, you would know. What might those be?
I don't think we have any criteria for determining what's real and what isn't in the philosophical sense. It's interesting to consider that this might be a dream or some kind of collective construct.
On what grounds can you justify the likeliness of something changing outside the room if you've never been outside the room?
Each to their own.
I.ve been around long enough to know the difference and to know what a fly is.
Okay, but it’s not about the real you. It’s about a version of you who’s only ever lived inside a windowless room and so has never seen what happens outside. Something enters the room. Are you able to determine whether or not that thing existed before it entered? Are you able to determine whether or not that thing will continue to exist after it leaves? Are you able to determine what it was or will be doing outside?
Okay. Presumably someone has to bring me food and drink and take away my waste. Do they come in to the room or push it in through a hatch. Do we talk - can I talk? Has this gone on since I was born, or how old was I when I was imprisoned here? Do I have access to books and videos and music? Do I know why I am imprisoned here? Is it for ever, or indefinitely or for a fixed term. All that makes a difference, doesn't it?
I agree that surprise of the existence of something rather than nothing doesn't indicate a problem. In my view, the root phenomenon that metaphysics is addressing is the unknown answer to a physics question. In the early days of the universe, after the Big Bang, and cosmic inflation, there was a plasma phase that evolved into the creation of atoms, during which matter and antimatter came into existence. They weren't equally balanced and matter eventually overcame antimatter. Since they were created at the same time from the same source, they should have been equal, which would have meant the universe would be empty of all matter. (matter + antimatter = no matter + energy) Metaphysics, along with physics, is trying to interpret the initial imbalance since it allowed the creation of what we have now. Physics is looking in one direction, metaphysics is looking in a different direction.
What does metaphysics present us with? In which direction does it look?
That's one of those vacuous merely logical possibilities that are best ignored, because even in the unlikely event that it were true (which we could never know) it would be a difference that makes no difference.
Ah, the sound of intellectual impotence. It's uninteresting. It's unimportant. It's irrelevant. Why in the name of John Locke should I be concerned about what you find to be uninteresting?
I expect it to be success-related— if we don't behave in a way where the reality of the matter is true, we might veer onto the wrong path, and not have a successful mentality. However, it's perfectly fine to believe that this is not valid, and still behave as if it were; we can still succeed with outstanding questions.
We must act as if others, when they leave our view, still continue existing— this is because if we don't, we won't be accurately making changes.
There is no evidence that the Status Quo hasn't ever been what is recorded about it in history.
There is at least something about reality that we can hold onto. Whether it is fake or not— it, at least, acts true. If we want to immerse ourselves in its validity, we can; we lack evidence of something being invalid.
Perhaps the wild card is that it is a simulation, acting valid but is truthfully something compact and efficient.
I propose that the validity of reality, whether fake or not, supports those who behave as if it were with one hundred percent return for what they give.
To conclude, reality doesn't mean valid, it means that which encompasses the experience, or order, of all or a particular group, or person. You may question reality, but if you don't hold onto it, you may be taken by surprise when the reality of the matter interdicts you.
You don't have to find the same things I do uninteresting. In fact I didn't say those merely logic possibilities are uninteresting anyway, so you are putting words in my mouth. I said they are vacuous, meaning they possess no content which could inform us, so for the purposes of metaphysical speculation, they are best ignored (unless it can be shown that they yield any material that should be taken into consideration.
In fact it is you attempting to impose your values on me, with the slur "intellectual impotence" just because you think I don't find the same things interesting that you do. Why should I be concerned about what you find interesting, especially if you cannot demonstrate that it contains anything worth taking seriously because it is something the truth of which might actually be determined?