Three Categories and Seven Systems of Metaphysics
I could not resist responding to this comment, but it was not really germane to the topic of the thread in which it appeared (ontological argument), so I am starting a new one.
Quoting Pseudonym
This is true, as long as we do not draw the boundaries of "science" too narrowly. Physicalism is itself a prejudice, limiting reality to the dyadic action and reaction of matter in its brute existence--what Charles Sanders Peirce called Secondness (2ns)--and thus leaving out both monadic qualitative feeling (Firstness, 1ns) and triadic regulative habit (Thirdness, 3ns). His classification in a 1903 lecture of all systems of metaphysics into seven fundamental types, based on which of these three phenomenological Categories they recognize "as real constituents of nature," is instructive (from The Essential Peirce, Vol. 2, p. 180):
Not surprisingly, Peirce proceeded to situate himself in the last group: "I should call myself an Aristotelian of the scholastic wing, approaching Scotism, but going much further in the direction of scholastic realism." His broad conception of science thus encompassed mathematics and philosophy, and he urged its practitioners not to "block the way of inquiry" by treating any of the three Categories as illusory or inexplicable.
Quoting Pseudonym
Without prejudice, it remains a possibility that science is actually investigating all there is to be investigated.
This is true, as long as we do not draw the boundaries of "science" too narrowly. Physicalism is itself a prejudice, limiting reality to the dyadic action and reaction of matter in its brute existence--what Charles Sanders Peirce called Secondness (2ns)--and thus leaving out both monadic qualitative feeling (Firstness, 1ns) and triadic regulative habit (Thirdness, 3ns). His classification in a 1903 lecture of all systems of metaphysics into seven fundamental types, based on which of these three phenomenological Categories they recognize "as real constituents of nature," is instructive (from The Essential Peirce, Vol. 2, p. 180):
Not surprisingly, Peirce proceeded to situate himself in the last group: "I should call myself an Aristotelian of the scholastic wing, approaching Scotism, but going much further in the direction of scholastic realism." His broad conception of science thus encompassed mathematics and philosophy, and he urged its practitioners not to "block the way of inquiry" by treating any of the three Categories as illusory or inexplicable.
Comments (39)
"Conceptually incorrect and empirically wrong" lol
And that's a classic example of why people like you hate it so much, just in case it stops you from making ridiculously unfounded propositions like that one by asking that you actually come up with some empirical evidence to back them up before we all nod sagely in agreement.
I'm not sure what your line of argument is here. You seem to be just writing the opposite of what I suggested, but without providing an argument as to why you think that. Science only leaves out firstness and thirdness if and only if you've already committed to a belief that they are not features of existence which can be talked about scientifically. You can no more disprove a presumption of physicalism than you can prove one. That was the simple point I was making.
>:O >:O >:O >:O - yeah, ridiculous, unfounded propositions, for which there is no empirical evidence like scientism :> Here's an example:
Quoting Pseudonym
Are you laughing too? >:O
The proposition that âscience is investigating all there is to be investigatedâ is simply a re-statement of the positivist canard that âall that can be known, can be known by means of scienceâ (a quotation from Copplesonâs chapter on Positivism in his History of philosophy.) It is as succinct a statement of scientism as you will find.
Positivism, as a philosophical movement, spent decades trying to shore up this basic idea but it has been subject to many devastating criticisms, particularly from philosophers of science (Polanyi, Kuhn, Duhem, Van Fraasen and many others.) One of the fundamental criticism is that the notion that only statements that can be verified with respect to scientific evidence ought to be considered meaningful is not, itself, an empirical proposition. In other words, judged by its own criteria, it is meaningless. Actually that criticism bears more specifically on A J Ayerâs Language Truth and Logic although I think it is also cogent against positivism generally.
The same can be said of the concluding statement of Humeâs Enquiry, the ur-text of modern positivism:
All of which is also true of the very book in which this is stated! And indeed the endpoint of positivism is to abandon philosophy altogether, and just get to work on science or business or all of the many âpositive enterprisesâ that the modern world has to offer.
Re Krauss - see The Metaphysical Muddle of Lawrence Krauss
Krauss is not very bright.
Although all knowledge is thoroughly derived from experience; that's not the same thing as saying everything is empirical.
Empiricism derives data formally from observation. His idea that women 's and gay's social rights are as a direct result of empirical knowledge is utter bollocks. The information has always been present; the "IS", but in socially realities that does not imply an "OUGHT". Raw empirical data can be used to oppress women and gays as easily as it can be used to free them. And it is in the specific selection of data that either case can be made.
Like most scientists Krauss is naive in the extreme.
You have made an assumption to associate me with Krauss as we are both atheists. Yet, as I have told you before the label atheist says noting about a person's position, except in the negative sense of not accepting a god.
The American philosopher Michael Friedman has written an excellent refutation of the popular story of the collapse of positivism called "Reconsidering logical positivism". He charts the way in which the collapse has as much to do with rise of anti-semitism in Europe as it has to do with the actual philosophy, but that kind of data just means that you'd actually have to come up with a convincing argument against it rather than just trot out the same old Ayer quotes as if the matter were settled.
Regarding the single, clichéd argument you have put forward -
There are only four logical propositions regarding the meaningfulness of metaphysical statements;
1. All metaphysical statements are meaningless - In this case the positivists are right anyway.
2. All Metaphysical statements are meaningful - In this case the statement "only statements that can be verified with respect to scientific evidence ought to be considered meaningful" must itself be meaningful, being as you point out a metaphysical statement itself.
3. Some metaphysical statements are meaningful, others are not - In this case, it is perfectly reasonable to argue that the metaphysical statement "only statements that can be verified with respect to scientific evidence ought to be considered meaningful" is meaningful and all others are not.
4. The making of metaphysical statements about metaphysical statements is an illogical circularity - In this case the statement of the positivists is meaningless, not wrong, but so would the statement "metaphysical statements are meaningful/useful" be meaningless by the same logic.
If you can see a logical position where the statement itself is meaningless but the remainder of metaphysics remains untouched I'd dearly love to hear it.
These sound like your arguments about God ;)
This does not follow nor does it address the problem raised by Wayfarer.
"Only statements that can be verified with respect to scientific evidence ought to be considered meaningful" is self-contradictory. This statement itself cannot be considered meaningful since it cannot be verified with respect to scientific evidence. And that's true regardless of whether you accept position (2) or (3). The only way to escape this is to employ special pleading and say that "Only statements (except the present one) which can be verified with respect to scientific evidence ought to be considered meaningful", which is fallacious.
Only if you accept the premise within the statement, which you can't do without accepting the statement. Ergo, the statement is either a paradox, or an exception to its own conclusion.
Therefore it either says nothing at all about statements which cannot be verified by scientific evidence, or it has made a justifiable claim. In neither case had the statement itself disproven positivism. It is either meaningless paradox or true. There's no logical position where it is false, just by its own declaration.
Which is why I raised option (3). If we accept that metaphysical statements are neither universally meaningless nor universally meaningful, we must accept that there is some finite number only that are meaningful. So what logic prevents that number from being 1?
So if you accept the statement, it is contradictory. This is known as a performative contradiction in philosophy, and it is a valid ground for dismissing the statement as incoherent. It's not a paradox since it's not an argument or syllogism.
Quoting Pseudonym
This is the fallacy of special pleading, and again, is grounds for dismissing a statement.
Whichever way you take it, logical positivism is incoherent. There is no way to escape from this, which is why logical positivism was very short-lived. The ethical extension of logical positivism, known as emotivism, is still around though, unfortunately.
Yes, I read your post the first time, there's no need to repeat it. Naming the philosophical term for a thing doesn't affect its truth value in some way. I have nearly 20 years in professional philosophy. Long enough to have picked up a little of the terminology, thanks, and long enough to to be wiser than to think that because someone named a thing it must be true.
I take it you haven't actually read Habermans because if you had you would have noted that fairly early on in his definition of performative contradiction he describes it as a paradox.
You would also have understood point (4) much better, which you have conveniently ignored, that if metaphysical statements about metaphysics are to be analysed by their own conclusions then every such statement becomes meaningless. The statement "metaphysical statements are meaningful" is also meaningless by this standard because it begs the question (you have to already believe metaphysical statements are meaningful in order to believe the conclusion).
So we either allow a kind of suggestive metaphysical proposition, even though we might have to suspend some analytical principles temporarily in order to explore the implications, or we must dismiss entirely our ability to say anything about metaphysics as all such statements would themselves be metaphysical and cannot be assessed until we have judged the value of metaphysical statements. There is your performative contradiction - acting in such a way as if metaphysics could be analysed, but making statements implying that it can't.
Furthermore, none of this says the least thing about positivism, this is entirely about the analyticy of one statement. Positivism is a concept, not the degree to which that concept is successfully expressed.
No, this doesn't follow. If you take statement (1) "Some (or even all) metaphysical statements are meaningful", you will not find it begging the question UNLESS you use it as a premise in an argument looking to derive the same conclusion as (1). But if you use it as a premise for any other purpose, it is not begging the question.
Quoting Pseudonym
I don't see how this is the right approach at all. You do not accept self-contradictory axioms, and instead you pick reasonable axioms that have a prior probability of being true (that aren't self-contradictory in other words) and don't commit other logical fallacies, and go from there.
Exactly, but by the same token you can use statements containing special pleading as premises, because the justification does not have to be contained within the statement if it is a premise to further analysis.
You're repeatedly judging the single metaphysical statement of positivists by different standards to its exact opposite statement.
I agree that the statement would better have read "all metaphysical statements except this one...", but that is a point of refinement, not a resounding argument in its own right.
Sure, except that special pleading points to a double standard. Why does the statement of the positivists make an exception to the general rule? And if you answer with the statement itself, then you'll beg the question in your larger argument.
Quoting Pseudonym
No I'm not - you're trying to do that by saying that it is an exception to itself, which is meant to be the general rule. I'm trying to judge it by what it purports is the general rule.
Finally, the actual philosophical question.
Firstly, let's clear up Wayfarer's prejudiced summary. The actual Ayer quote we're talking about is
"The criteria which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability".
So why should this statement be allowed to stand when it itself cannot be verified? There are several lines of argument of which I am most familiar with two.
1. Michael Friedman's primarily utilitarian approach which essentially argues that as a performative statement it can be at least falsified, as can its opposite. Consider that no statements of metaphysics can be verified. In that case, all statements in performative truth become statements of oughts. One "ought" to act as if X were the case (where X is the metaphysical statement in question). Having done this transformation, however, metaphysical statements become verifiable by their utility. The statement then becomes "there is no utility in...". This can be falsified easily by demonstrating some utility to non-verifiable metaphysical statements other than this one. If this one is the only statement that has any verifiable utility, then it justifies its own exception, by its own rule.
You may of course disagree with the assessment of utility, but that is not a metaphysical argument, but an empirical one. Utility can be demonstrated.
2. There is also an ordinary language argument, that the statement becomes insightful if we treat metaphysical propositions as questions of language use. Metaphysical propositions all then become propositions about how a term is used and so verifiable by reference to some assessment of language. This is more an argument in defence of using positivism on metaphysical statements than it is a defence of the statement itself, but it highlights the utility of allowing cases of special pleading as premises.
Since you're returning to a question of utility, (2) ultimately reduces to (1).
Quoting Pseudonym
It seems to me that at first you start out by telling me that metaphysical statements are not matters of fact, but rather much like "guides" for action and behaviour, similar to ethics. So then you're telling me that one ought to act according to whatever metaphysical (or non-factual) statements.
Then you claim that metaphysical (or non-factual) statements are verifiable by their utility. This is problematic and quite possibly also involves a contradictory element because you cannot reduce this process of verification to just an empirical process. Any process of verification presupposes choosing a standard, or criterion of verification, and this cannot be done merely through an empirical process. I need to decide, for example, what shall count as utility, in the empirical world, and which I will use to compute the utility of statements. So whatsoever I do, I cannot avoid having non-verifiable metaphysical statements - they are absolutely presupposed.
For example, I need to quantify what counts as "curing" a particular illness to decide if, empirically, it has been cured. I will look for whatever markers I specified, and if they are absent, I will declare it cured. But this specification cannot itself be empirical, nor can it be empirically justified.
Saying that "utility" cannot be verified itself is the reason why I introduced argument 2. You are taking a Wittgensteinian ambiguity over terms and using it to suggest that metaphysical statements are required for their resolution. We may not be certain what "utility" exactly refers to, but we seem nonetheless to be able to use the word in normal conversation and still understand each other. How has this miraculous confluence occurred? Have we both coincidentally come to very similar (if not exactly the same) answers to the (unverifiable) metaphysical question you claim is at the heart of this definition? With suitable translation, I could use the word "utility" with virtually every human on the planet and we would agree with each other about the definition at least sufficiently to use the word. Are you suggesting that the meaning of the word "utility" is an open metaphysical question, whose answer cannot in any way be verified, but to which nonetheless, the entire human population that has ever lived has reached a remarkably similar answer?
It has occurred because we share the same underlying metaphysical presuppositions with regards to these matters. How come we do? That's largely a matter of practice and habit, that we have learned and been taught, and also because the metaphysical statements describe actual structures of reality and of our experience. So there's the practical level (we learn by having to live in communities, that words are used as such and such), there's the theoretical level (that this reflects the actual structure of reality), and then there's the pragmatic level (namely that because this reflects underlying reality, remarkably similar metaphysical positions are taught across cultures and communities that are otherwise remarkably different).
Quoting Pseudonym
Yes. Not all aspects of existence can be verified, and that doesn't mean they don't exist. All that it means is that they are first-principles, and almost by definition, first-principles cannot be deduced from something more general than themselves.
There you go. You've just made a series of verifiable claims of fact to justify the shared meaning of the word "utility" which we have then used to justify an otherwise metaphysical statement. Exactly what the positivists were going on about.
Is it a matter of practice and habit? We can test that with twin studies, feral child studies, isolated cultures, anthropology etc.. The answer's definitely not there yet, but it's a verifiable statement.
Do metaphysical statements describe underlying realities? If they do we'd expect them to be remarkably similar. If we had a theory that they did, one way to verify that theory would be to see if they were indeed similar across cultures. Again, a verifiable statement of fact.
We have gone directly from requiring a verifiable definition of utility to making verifiable statements about why its meaning should be so universal. At no point so far have we had to rely on a non verifiable statements of fact to derive our meaningful propositions.
Quoting Agustino
We do not need to deduce them. That's not a requirement of positivism, only that they can be verified. "all people seem to act as if they believe in the confluence of logic and truth" is a verifiable statement. From that we can theorise in a pragmatic sense, that there [I]is[/I] a confluence of logic and truth. We cannot know this of course, but it is a verifiable theory.
Yes, but you have to be careful here. It is possible to offer verification within a given system, but that verification is bound to be circular. For example, the standard for determining whether it's a matter of habit or practice is to look at twin studies, feral children studies, isolated cultures, etc. and see what happens in cases where people don't get the practice or habit required for learning. How have we arrived at this standard? It is through habit and practice, which has shown us that to verify this, we must resort to looking at such particular cases as we have established.
And this circularity isn't a problem - it is part of the system. We cannot have a non-circular and complete description of the world, since the world must be, by the very we way conceive of it, a complete, closed whole. So when we're trying to verify A, we can resort to B. When we're trying to verify B, we may resort to A. And this is not a fallacy - but what could we appeal to if our system describes the entirety of reality, but other relations within reality?
What we are, in-truth, doing is that we're establishing relationships between things in the world - how things hang together. That reversibility of direction we encounter with verification - that you can verify A by B, and B by A is just a reflection of the underlying two-way relationship between A and B. You can start with A and end with B, or start with B and end with A, because the two are interconnected.
By this point, we're already way beyond positivism.
Quoting Pseudonym
We would expect the underlying conceptual structure to be similar, not necessarily the words used.
Quoting Pseudonym
Things are locally verifiable, with reference to other things. Much like Wittgenstein's hinge propositions. You may be able to derive one first principle with reference to other first principles. But the enterprise is circular, because you can equally travel in the other direction.
Quoting Pseudonym
We can know it in a deeper sense than the merely pragmatic, but we need to tie it in to the theoretical (ie, why a confluence of logic and truth would lead to people believing in the confluence of logic and truth).
I have no interest in flogging a dead horse. Positivism is one aspect of the whole tendency towards materialism, reductionism, and 'scientism'. It adopts philosophical terminology, and on that basis appears as philosophy, but actually it is completely antagonistic to philosophy, as it regards humans as animals or automatons and philosophy as meaningless words. There can be no wisdom, as such, in a positivist philosophy - only utilitarian effectiveness or the organisation of means towards some material end.
Someone here said:
Well no, because science only studies, investigates and describes (as well as possible) this physical universe and the interactions of its parts. There's more to be "investigated", discussed. That's why there's a topic called "metaphysics".
...an "investigation" or discussion regarding what there is. One metaphysical theory, Materialism, is that the physical world comprises all of Reality. It's just one theory. It certainly isn't the end of the discussion It certainly doesn't preclude additional metaphysical discussion, unless you have proof that Materialism is true.
I've told why, even if there really is Materialism's objectively, fundamentally existent concrete physical world, it would be a superfluous, unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact.
It's generally agreed that a theory like that isn't very convincing, especially when there's an alternative proposal that doesn't have any of those faults..
The sentiment expressed in the above-quoted passage sounds like Science-Worship, a popular faith-based position.
Academic philosophy seems to favor a belief in complete indeterminacy in regards to metaphysics. Conveniently, that allows for unlimited and interminable debate on all metaphysical positions, with the endless publication that that implies. Well, that's understandably-motivated, given the academic saying, "Publish or Perish".
But, at the same time, while still keeping their options always open for endless publication, academic philosophers seem to be emphasizing and favoring Materialism, or at least implying something that sounds like it, maybe usually under a variety of more fashionable names. That's because science has been so successful in its area of applicability, that there's a natural tendency to believe in it as a metaphysics--hence Science-Worship. The success of science in its legitimate area of applicability confers a perceived greater "respectability" for Science as a metaphysics.
Michael Ossipoff
Of course an unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact can't be disproved. That doesn't make it of interest or value.
Michael Ossipoff
Except it is the default position of the mind that has rid itself of superstitious reifications. That's why people are naturally naive realists.
I like the old Zen saying " Before I practiced Zen mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers, when I began practicing mountains were no longer mountains and rivers no longer rivers, and when I gained enlightenment mountains were again mountains and rivers again rivers". (Paraphrased)
The philosophically reflective person just takes physical objects to be physical objects made of 'stuff'. When she begins to study philosophy she thinks they are illusions of, or constituted by, the mind in one of the countless elaborate ways that have been devised by philosophers. When she returns to realism and materialism it will not be a naive realism and materialism, though. It will be a realism and materialism that incorporates, and makes corporeal, both mind and spirit. Nothing will be left behind.
Iâd said:
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Janus replied:
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âMy belief is the default position, so there!â
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Alright, get out the dictionariesâwhatâs he saying?
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Merriam-Webster:
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Superstitious:
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Of, relating to or swayed by superstition.
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Superstition:
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1a) A belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation.
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[Sounds like empty namecalling, unless Janus can justify it]
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b)Any of several âattitudes of mindâ specified by Merriam-Webster resulting from superstition as defined above.
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2.) A notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary.
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[Whatâs Janusâs evidence for Materialism?]
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Reification:
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The process or result of reifying.
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Reify:
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To regard (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing.
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[Speaking for myself, I donât claim that the abstract facts, or inter-referring systems of them, that I speak of are âconcreteâ or âmaterialâ (except in the sense of being the basis of whatâs called âmaterialâ). Iâve been emphasizing that those systems neither need nor have objective or âconcreteâ ârealityâ or âexistenceâ, or ârealityâ or âexistenceâ other than in their own local inter-referring context.]
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Houghton-Mifflin:
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Superstition
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A belief, practice or rite held in spite of evidence to the contraryâŠ
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[Again, whatâs Janusâ evidence for Materialism?]
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âŠresulting from ignorance of the laws of nature [physical laws]âŠ
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[The âlaws of natureâ describe the workings of the physical world, but they in general donât support Materialism over other metaphysicses, and in particular donât contradict the metaphysics that I propose.]
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Reification:
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Same as Merriam-Webster. See above.
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I now avoid the words âRealismâ and âAnti-Realismâ, because âRealismâ is used with different definitions.
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By my metaphyisics, thereâs the individualâs life-experience possibility-story. That individual and hir surroundings are two mutually-complementary halves, and so your surroundings are as ârealâ as you are. That story is about the individualâs experience.
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In any case, ârealâ isnât metaphysically-defined.
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Maybe people could be called naĂŻve Materialists because, as a practical matter, our material surrounds are what we must deal with. So then, why donât you get off the Philosophy Forum, and take up the study of Engineering.
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But some people are interested in the matter of what is, even if it isnât a physically-practical topic.
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When we were kids, and believed as we were taught, we believed in the brute-fact of the objectively and fundamentally existent physical world, with its objectively-existent physical things.
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Some of us still do. Theyâre called Materialists or Science-Worshippers.
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But, as Iâve been saying, among the infinity of complex systems of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals, there inevitably is one whose events and relations are those of your experience.
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Thereâs no reason to believe that your experience is other than that.
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So I suggest that what metaphysically is, is all abstract if-then facts. How real is that? Arguably the only element of metaphysics, the only metaphysical thing, thatâs really ârealâ is the Nothing that is the quiescent background of those abstract facts.
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So, first there was a mountain, then there is no mountain!
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But, because this world and its things are the context of my life, I call it real. (As I said, ârealâ isnât metaphysically-defined anyway, so we can call ârealâ whatever we choose to.)
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If itâs as real as me, if itâs my experience and my life, thatâs real enough.
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Lo, there is no mountain, then there is!
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I didnât say it was âconstituted by the mindâ.
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So now sheâs a Dualist or Spiritualist? Speak for yourself.
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And if you advocate or subscribe to something other than Materialism, then no you arenât a Materialist, and you havenât returned to Materialism.
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For example, as I said above, I only call this world ârealâ in the sense that itâs the context of my life, and as real as me, and thatâs real enough.
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Michael Ossipoff
He was good on Seinfeld. Should have stuck to comedy, IMO.
Excellent idea, lets just ignore people we disagree with. I don't know why philosophy didn't think of that earlier, it really would have saved a lot of work.