Do we need metaphysics?
A long-standing assumption in philosophy is that there is a need for metaphysics. But is it true? Why do we need to sort out whether the universe is material, non-material, both, or neither?
What do you think? @Terrapin Station
What do you think? @Terrapin Station
Comments (128)
Because God. There is no excuse apart from origin, and our self-awareness compels us to attempt to explore it.
Why?
I think that both metaphysics and epistemology are impossible to avoid if one is doing philosophy. All that's required for each is to at all wonder about and address, in some manner, (1) what sort of stuff there is/what it's like/what its relation is to other stuff, and (2) what we can know/how we can know it . . . not necessarily in that order.
Challenging this very assumption was the modern school of positivism:
[quote=Wikipedia]The attitude of Vienna Circle towards metaphysics is well expressed by Carnap in the article 'The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language'. A language, says Carnap, consists of a vocabulary, i.e., a set of meaningful words, and a syntax, i.e., a set of rules governing the formation of sentences from the words of the vocabulary. Pseudo-statements, i.e., sequences of words that at first sight resemble statements but in reality have no meaning, are formed in two ways: either meaningless words occur in them, or they are formed in an invalid syntactical way. According to Carnap, pseudo-statements of both kinds occur in metaphysics.'
...
According to Carnap, although metaphysics has no theoretical content, it does have content: metaphysical pseudo-statements express the attitude of a person towards life, and this is the role of metaphysics. He compares it to an art like lyrical poetry; the metaphysician works with the medium of the theoretical; he confuses art with science, attitude towards life with knowledge, and thus produces an unsatisfactory and inadequate work. "Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability".[/quote]
Positivism was enthusiastically advocated by A J ('Freddie') Ayer:
Now, I can think of a whole set of questions which pose a challenge to positivism, without any reference to 'God'.
The first is: what is the ontological status of number? Is it an artefact of human thought, or are the real numbers real in any possible universe, independently of any particular mind? And if they are real, in what sense is that so? And what is the ontological status of natural laws? Are they too likely to be invariant in any possible world, or are there other worlds in which F does not equal MA? Are natural laws self-explanatory and foundational, or can they be resolved to underlying, deeper laws? And why is nature law-like in the first place?
These questions are not posed to elicit an answer, as they're unanswerable (i.e. you might think you have an answer, but there is no consensus on them amongst philosophers and scientists, so whatever answer you think you have will be contested). Both questions are fundamental to the doings of science, yet neither are directly reducible to either empirical or analytic propositions.
Hence, metaphysics lives. It simply changes clothes from time to time.
Expressing the matter as a need is metaphysical in so far as the question recognizes that there are agents and they want to understand what the hell is going on.
Why never has a reasonable answer.
I agree. Even if one turns against transcendental philosophy and becomes a hardcore anti-realist, the journey to that position requires some immersion in metaphysics.
But why even start that journey? Is it psychological?
Quoting Wayfarer
You're saying that ontological statements aren't truth-apt? Is that right?
Quoting Valentinus
So posing that there are agents is a metaphysical activity? Why so?
Quoting whollyrolling
I think it does sometimes.
No, I'm saying that they can't be answered - well, they can't be answered unequivocally. They're in some sense beyond adjudication, you can't appeal an ultimate authority to judge the different responses. So they really are metaphysical questions. (I believe there are more and less appropriate metaphysical views, but by their nature, they are not subject to ordinary validation.)
The problem is that I think the positivist attitude really doesn't take into account the possibility that knowledge, even that gained by way of science, is limited in some fundamental respect. It wants to declare that the world known to the sciences is the only real or at least meaningful world. In that sense, positivism is simply the most consistent expression of that aspect of the so-called Enlightenment, which sought to replace metaphysics with science.
I think this is a pretty good description of ontological anti-realism. How did you arrive at this view? Did you start out with devotion to some theory and then eventually give up due to lack of verifiability?
I don't think anyone who's genuinely looking for an answer ends where they thought they would.
Another important question is as to whether metaphysical attitudes or dispositions can be coherently argued for, or whether they are more suitably seen as being based on intuition and experience. The point is that my experience or intuition is only a good reason (if it is a good reason) for my own metaphysical attitude or disposition, and convincing others would be more a matter of rhetoric than of rigorous argument.
Having said that, if you are convinced to adopt my metaphysical attitudes or dispositions it will hopefully be on the strength of your own intuitions and experiences, and not because I am charismatic, or because you have a tendency to blindly follow others.
So what you're saying is that Kant was living in a fantasy? Oh, and that you are as well?
This.
Metaphysics tries to understand the physical by applying the idiotic to it. The final outcome of empiricism is some possible understanding of things, while metaphysics is as futile as anarchism.
"Pure reason" is an empty fist flaunted at unanswerable questions.
Actually, you are wrong. The final outcome of empiricism is absolute doubt or solipsism.
Actually, you are wrong, the final outcome of empiricism is some possible understanding of things, as I just said earlier.
Everything that has been determined about our surroundings has been through empiricism. Please feel free to explain what philosophy has done for humanity apart from its isolation of wealth as the epitome of knowledge.
I have no doubt you have plenty of other groundless pronouncements to make, too; but save your breath, I'm not buying.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Yes, a key point that is often ignored or glossed over by empiricists is that they are basing their positivism regarding the metaphysical provenance of science on nothing more than personal preference for a mechanistic worldview; and if they rightly try to eliminate the latter, they will indeed be left with, as you say, "absolute doubt or solipsism", since there is no way to get from an empirically eliminativist paradigm to the fullness of human experience.
To call something groundless, you have to first take the ground from beneath it, Do your worst. You haven't said anything yet.
When I said this I should have added the qualification that I was referring only to those of us who have sufficient imagination.
How about skyscrapers, bridges, medicine, space travel, psychotherapy, economics, popular music, transcendental meditation, professional sports, agriculture and evolution, just to start this somewhere. Tell me, what has metaphysics done to benefit humankind apart from handing its mistakes over for real intellects to resolve?
Nowhere did I say that metaphysics provides knowledge, and you can't pretend that any of the things I've listed did not come from empirical research and development. Now you're beating around the bush because you have no legs to stand on.
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
Maybe you can stand on your own two metaphysical legs and tell me specifically what you're not buying. Tell me I'm not standing on solid ground while you say nothing about anything.
Are you aware of them being self-aware?
How can you possibly equate experience of any indeterminate kind with an aptitude for science based on an awareness of self?
I haven't claimed you said that "metaphysics provides knowledge", but your statement thatQuoting whollyrolling seemed to imply that this "possible understanding of things" will be some "ultimate" understanding of things as metaphysics has for much of the history of philosophy purported to be.
If that is not what you want to say, then what is it that you think we are arguing about? Try closer reading; it will help you avoid wasting your own and others' time.
Quoting whollyrolling
Economics, psychotherapy, meditation, popular music? The issue here is science as a worldview, not technology. As far I know the Chinese were more technologically advanced in the 10th Century than Europe in the 16th, but they had nothing we would recognize as science in the modern sense.
I have never said that experience is any kind of magic ingredient, and I have never said that science is based on individual experience. I'm not sure where you're even coming from, are you okay?
If by saying that I need to read things more closely, you mean you're admitting that you didn't read my commentary prior to attacking it, and I've read and written in good form, then we agree.
What is wrong with this statement, what's unclear about it?
Let me make it more clear, let me spell it out: the final outcome of philosophy is its origin. The final outcome of empiricism is separate from its origin.
But what has been determined? Why are all the same questions still being asked?
Phenomenology is a direct response to the critical errors of empiricism. It identified the biggest error which is failing to introduce movement and transition into logic. It has no concept of mediation, so it is unable synthesize the terms of immediacy. As such it becomes fixed on the dialectic of immediacy and maroons itself in reflection and understanding.
And, philosophy has done nothing for humanity but get it lost in speculation. But philosophy promises nothing, in fact from the beginning, Plato posited the uselessness of philosophy.
Quoting Janus
Excellent point!
Why would my statement about your lack of close reading be meant to apply to me? You're doing it (or not doing it) again!
I read your commentary which was only a few lines, and I fairly criticized it for being a groundless assertion and asked you to provide grounds for it, which you have so far failed to do.
The same questions aren't being asked within empiricism. Very different questions are being asked, and progress is evident. The same questions are being asked within philosophy because philosophy is a refusal of evidence. It's defiant and nurtures socially inhospitable and ill-compassioned tendencies.
But it isn't groundless, so everything you said was emptiness and a failure. You can't just arbitrarily pull a vacuous argument out of your ass and expect it to hold weight under scrutiny.
If you have no respect for philosophy, why are you participating here? You should let off the brake, and get whollyrolling away to some other more suitable location.
It isn't goundless he asserts, and yet apparently cannot say what the grounds are. That's not very helpful for the discussion; it's a shame you apparently cannot see that.
I respect some of what's called philosophy, and philosophy by definition fits what I'm practicing here. If you don't like what I'm saying, then argue against it.
As many times as it takes for you to present something other than a snapshot of your ignorance. You haven't presented a reasonable argument against empiricism, so let's start there.
I proposed that it's possible for empiricism to find some answers and that it's impossible for metaphysics to find any answers, and you chimed in with responses empty of meaning and off the mark. We could start there too.
Just remind us of the meaning of ‘empiricism’ again? The dictionary says ‘the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses’. So I’m pointing out, animals have senses but they’re obviously incapable of language and rational thought. So I claim that science relies on an innate ability unique to humans, which therefore can’t be described solely in terms of ‘empiricism’.
But then, of course, if you’re satisfied that the technological mastery we’ve gained through science is self-sufficient and provides all the answers then indeed philosophy is a waste of time.
Ok, then tell me how empiricism solved the problem of induction.
You aren't using a reliable dictionary, what is that, Oxford?
It isn't the definition in the dictionary I just looked at. What I found was use of the scientific method, not the perspective of the senses of the individual.
I just said there is a dictionary definition. This is not about my definition, it is about objectively defining a word, and one of the few places to do so is the Merriam Webster because some dictionaries seem to have reestablished the meanings of words in alignment with their political principles.
I already quoted it, you might be blind, and for that I don't envy you.
whollyrolling is rolling into a hole.
I don't think he'll be able to escape.
So where from that definition have you derived individual experience? Observation and experiment. "A former school". The natural sciences. Knowledge originates in experience, where does it say personal experience without external influence, individual perception, perspective?
You are humiliating yourself.
Demonstrate to me where anyone has shown reliable empirical data in the form of a subjective assertion based solely on their senses with no peer review.
We are not born a blank slate though, obviously. We have billions of years of genetic coding inside us. Your grammar is terrible. If you believe that I deem science as the be all and end all, then you clearly misunderstood my statement that with science "some understanding" might be possible. You're taking words and rearranging them, I suppose.
You're seeing in words what you want to see and pressing square pegs through round holes with a sledgehammer.
Try thinking objectively. You're throwing the whole conversation out of context to fit your desire to be correct about something you doubt.
I never skip a chance to humiliate myself, especially if it means ragdolling and flambaying a meaty sap like you.
You have so many empty words. What does that even mean, that you know you're wrong and you want to bring everyone down with you? I'm not sure what you're really saying. It seems like a contradiction.
Someone has no clue what empiricism is.
That someone isn't me because I've looked into the scientific, philosophical and social uses of the term in present day humanity. Imagine what I found.
Please share your brilliant thoughts on how genetics have no place in determining who we become.
It is evident you have no answer to how empiricism solved the problem of induction. I don't even think you know what that problem entails.
How can you experience genetics? It certainly can't be explained empirically.
Are you attempting to introduce some vague problem you read about somewhere and likely don't understand--in an attempt to throw down my position--in a conversation on a completely unrelated topic? Please feel free to explain your unrelated topic in relation to things you don't understand and to people who didn't mention it because it has no bearing.
So what you're saying, in summary, is that you're a troll.
See if you can interact without sneering.
You can experience genetics by observing their behaviour, and then you can have your findings peer reviewed by a number of critical experts who attempt to vilify your results in some way.
It therefore is a necessity for any worldview. It doesn't really matter if one is aware of the framework one uses or not. The key point is that a framework is needed.
Thinking about the framework is usefull since the framework is essential for the ascribing meaning to a given fact. Further it is clear that different frameworks create different meanings.
This can be showcased by languages that can be understood as frameworks to a certain degree. A given sound or letter structure can be meaningfull in one language and meaningless in another.
To finalize this point I want to point out that it is incomprehensible to think of a human that has no interprative overhead attached to facts.
See if you can attempt intellect without falling blindly into sarcasm and insinuation. See if you can string a sentence together without deprecating yourself.
But, contrary to what you appear to assume, evolutionary biology doesn't amount to a total account of human nature. Humans, unique among creatures, are able to reason, to discover meaning, to consider the nature of things. None of these things are completely explainable in terms of genetics, and to claim they are is biological reductionism. When we become language-using, self-aware creatures, then we're no longer wholly understandable as 'a species' or in solely biological terms.
Quoting whollyrolling
Sure, a lot of understanding - look at everything around us, including the computers these are being written on. But you appear to be someone who believes that science makes metaphysics obsolete. Is that not so?
Quoting whollyrolling
I have not been the least sarcastic in this thread, and it seems to me the only person here who is trading insults is yourself.
Quoting CaZaNOx
Agree!
Doesn't sound very empirical.
I didn't assume that evolutionary biology "amounts to a total account of human nature".
That we're self-aware and use language makes us a bit easier to understand.
I believe several things for which the scientific community would chastise me. I'm not sure what you intend when you say "biological reductionism", but by the sound of it, it's likely the only way we're going to be able to understand ourselves.
I think you missed the part where your body belongs more to bacteria than to human cells.
Its highly likely that you are the best philosopher on TPF.
It does if you read the definition and evaluate it in context, in the way it's used by a vast majority of people to mean a specific thing.
Quoting whollyrolling
That seems very much in the spirit of positivism, doesn't it? I mean, both the quotes I provided - by positivists - say more or less the same as that, albeit in a rather less inflammatory style. So, yes, I was presuming that you were of a similar inclination. Is that not so?
That, also, doesn't sound very empirical.
FAIL!!!
What questions would you say that doesn't describe?
What a baffling thing to claim.
Yes, someone commented that transcendentalism starts with the assumption that we need metaphysics. We need a theory about what the universe is and some justification for that theory. Are you saying that that need is related to ethics?
If you like. Although my interest was really in the question I mentioned to Janus above. Why do we think we need a theory about the world and some justification for it?
I see needs as necessarily hinging on wants/desires. Some people have curiosity about the "furniture of the world" so to speak. So they're going to unavoidably do metaphysics in some manner.
So the idea that transcendentalism is founded on the assumption of a need for metaphysics is missing something. In a way it's also founded on a failure to complete the metaphysical journey.
I think it is extremely important to understand 'what is behind physics' and there indeed is a need for metaphysics.
As the term itself is defined, you simply cannot get answers to metaphysical questions in the same way as you can for ordinary physics, science, etc. Yet that doesn't meant that the metaphysical questions wouldn't have importance.
Perhaps the problem is that we simply use the meta- definition far too easily in things that don't have anything to do with the metaphysical, like with metascripting or metatext. When you look at the definitions for metatext, there is nothing metaphysical about the subject.
As the term is conventionally defined in philosophy, why aren't physics claims metaphysical claims?
Because the desire to understand is itself information of a kind. The theory of the intelligible as an integral component of what exists is an expression of that thought. Cognitive agents orient themselves by differentiating what can and cannot be understood.
This is made explicit in the writings of thinkers such as Plotinus but is also suggested in the logic of Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" or Bateson's Evolution of Mind.
Objectivity I say. That you can test them if the assumption is correct or false.
So you're saying that thought itself implies some metaphysics? Probably so, but not in the form of a full-blown justified theory. Just a working scenario will work. If you're satisfied with a working scenario, and reject the need to justify anything, you're an ontological anti-realist.
Saying "thought itself" is a metaphysical statement.
In so far as you framed the question as "do we need metaphysics", that cannot help but ask if it can be dispensed with. Before we can establish what the difference between a "justified" theory and a "working scenario" may be, your question has to be dealt with or it is accepted that anyway we proceed will leave the question unanswered at the beginning. Either of those paths is "metaphysical" in their desire to distinguish what is fundamental from what is not.
It's only on reflection that it seems that metaphysics was involved. Think about how cumbersome communication would be if you were actually wrestling with metaphysical issues while ordering pizza.
My take would be that of course knowledge is limited, because the medium it is made of is, like everything in all of observable nature, limited. Thought is an electro-chemical information medium, a part of nature, it has properties and characteristics which define it's limitations just like everything else.
Reflection is where we try to understand our desire to understand. You see, you are meeting Plotinus half way.
Hmmmn, pizza sounds good right now.
And what implication do you see that having for metaphysics?
I take your point regarding the importance of presuppositions to any developed argument but isn't the OP more open ended than that?
Now perhaps you are saying that one cannot ask that kind of question without answering some of it first.
Those that I gave in my initial response, among others: the nature of number (real or invented?); the status of 'natural laws'; whether the universe we can detect is one of many. And then many of the other questions traditionally associated with metaphysics, such as the ultimate nature of things, and so on.
What I'm arguing is that you can't appeal to empirical science to either validate or falsify such arguments; there's no definite resolution on the empirical level, as there is with purely empirical claims.
Quoting tim wood
The relationship of metaphysics to other subjects has been compared to the relationship between the computer OS and applications software. I think it's quite a good analogy.
Not quite. I'd compare it to a fish asking what does the water feel like. A fish would never know the answer.
I think you may have nailed that sucker. But what's up with a fish who asks what water feels like? Why is it doing that? Why does the drive to work it out lead it to accept Fish-Kant?
Probably an adjustment disorder. Hah!
Quoting frank
You'd have to ask the fish that.
Quoting frank
Kant, hmm, not my first pick in answering the question. I'd have to refer you to Wittgenstein if you do not mind me saying so.
Didn't Wittgenstein turn those questions into other questions? He never dismissed them as presented.
The Vienna Circle thought otherwise in regards to his Tractatus. Although it is as if they overlooked the seventh proposition entirely.
Saying: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" is pretty enigmatic. I would not presume to follow such a remark with an exegesis of what is meant.
On the other hand, it is direct and claims something by it being said.
In any case, it is fair for me to ask in what way the Wittgenstein work relates to the question about metaphysics as is asked about here in this here thread.
Represent.
Well, it's sort of those Banno'esk questions about whether we have expressed (adequately?) the meaning behind such a sentence as "I love you more than words can say."
Intentionality or something else?
Saying vs showing?
Some definitions of metaphysics are a bit too broad for this distinction to stick, but that's my view.
When do we need these interim truths? When we ponder death? That sort of thing?
I uploaded this image a while ago. You might find it helpful:
That's a popular analogy, which I will now appropriate by comparing it to yet another. We customarily look at the world through a weltanschauung, a world-view. I compare that to a set of spectacles, or something we use to frame and focus. And thinking about metaphysics, is directly comparable to 'looking at your spectacles' - rather than through them.
And in which philosopher is that most obvious? I say it would be Kant. It was Kant who really tried to come to terms with the way in which the very elements that are the foundations of our worldview condition what we see - 'things conforming to thoughts'. That discovery (if you can call it that) is, as he said it was, a 'prolegomena to any future metaphysics'. Which I'm sure is true.
More or less, yes.
It's useful for gap-filling, but to me it's an aesthetic affair.
It is all about knowing what the creature is, not making sense of it.
You mean like a matter of taste?
At the risk of sounding nonsensical, why not?
Quoting Wayfarer
Well, Wittgenstein was pretty adamant about what can and cannot be said. His philosophy echoes Kant's dream of outlining the sensible to senseless, all the way down to the nonsensical.
Yup.
Under my view of metaphysics, because metaphysics is founded on nothing tangible, we can't really compare it against any tangible standard of truth. It can have internal consistency, but the utility it has is ultimately down to taste. It if has utility in the physical world, then it's a physics.
I'm probably a bit biased and crotchety in this position (some use a broader definition of metaphysics, which would include things like numbers)...
In a nut shell, metaphysics comes from nothing, can be proven by nothing, and can be dismissed with nothing.
If you think back to Aristotle's metaphysics, it was really a methodical attempt to discover the meaning of foundational terms. But over the centuries, as it became handed down and elaborated, I think it's actual meaning was obscured. (That's why (for instance) Heidegger went back and revisited the key term of 'ouisia' in Aristotle (per this post.)
Quoting VagabondSpectre
So, you see, this is illustrative of maybe the majority attitude in this day and age (outside the academy or specialised domains of discourse): that metaphysics is essentially meaningless talk, the only real world is described by:
Quoting VagabondSpectre
however the difficulty with that argument is that many profound conundrums have emerged from modern physics, and quite a few them turn out to be - drum roll! - metaphysical. There are in fact many books, and a great deal of controversy and debate, about what (if any) metaphysics is suggested by the oddities of physics. But none of those questions are resolvable by physics itself - meaning that they must be 'meta-physical' (over and above, or beyond, physics.)
Always the poet. :cool:
Not really. Apart from the logical positivists, which philosopher hasn't dealt with the metaphysical? Even modern day philosophers have to gripe with questions raised by antecedent philosophers in regards to the metaphysical. I mean, you can take the path of least resistance, and claim that there really is no such thing as the wavefunction in physics, which is as close as you can get from within the field of stating something metaphysical.
For some reason, this sticks out, and my answer would be to look at others (like Tarski or even Godel) for any kind of elucidation at such attempts.
I do understand the need for abstract frameworks, and in so far as metaphysics fills that need, I take my hat off to it, but generally such fields are well situated in the physical. It's a semantic dogma of mine...
Quoting Wayfarer
They aren't resolvable in physics but they do come from physics. How do we tell the difference between an as yet unverified physical model and a hypothetical metaphysical model? Once we support one of the competing hypotheses with predictive power/experimentation, I view it as no longer being a purely metaphysical hypothesis. I would prefer not to think of such conundrums as meta-physical to begin with.
The point about Heidegger, in particular, is that he really was 'a philosopher of the human condition'. I think of the other two as far more academic specialists in their orientation.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
There's a massive debate raging in contemporary physics about exactly this problem. It's about whether string theory and the 'multiverse' concept are, in fact, scientific at all[sup] 1[/sup]. There are a lot of heavy hitters on both sides, and the average lay person (includes me) can't even understand a lot of it. Whereas, traditional metaphysics (as preserved in, for example, neo-Thomism) is at least intelligible. But the issue is, it is exactly that kind of traditional metaphysics that is generally rejected by secular-scientific culture.
Well, yes; but, they attempted at answering the unsolvable in their own way (through logic). But, if logic fails to produce a valid "methodology" at such attempts, then I don't see how you're going to solve the problem in any other adequately sophisticated formal system. Hence, the seventh proposition of the TLP?
And, I'll just point out that this is gibberish. Q.E.D?
I'm afraid you'll have to expand on why you think that is. I don't think I'll ever get around to reading Heidegger as there's so much ambiguity around his treatment of philosophic terms and stipulations. Am I missing out on something big here?
The physical - the material - is only so because that's what our senses make of it. Where the limits of our senses end is not the limit of the external world. And many things which are beyond our traditional senses are not beyond the limits of scientific apparatus. We may call those things metaphysical (e.g: the position of an electron), but we may be making a very slippery distinction in doing so.
In the end we follow the evidence (un-intuitive, abstract, and "metaphysical" though some of it may seem). Presumably, reality is reality; physics, metaphysics, and all. It's all the same system.
I would be more inclined to say that the notion of transcendentalism comes from an intrinsic human need to wonder about, to search for, the ultimate nature of things; which is where metaphysical thinking springs forth. That this need has been ubiquitous, or all but ubiquitous, in humans of all cultures seems undeniable.
Likewise ethical concerns are socially and culturally ubiquitous, and it seems inevitable that an inquiring mind will, sooner or later, come to ask for justifications of dominant cultural mores instead of just accepting them without question.
If some set of metaphysical beliefs becomes predominant in a culture, then it will come to constitute a worldview or paradigm, and it seems inevitable that any cultural mores must be consistent with such metaphysical paradigms or become transformed or lost altogether, depending on the degree of inconsistency. If a new paradigm evolves then it would seem to be reasonable to expect that cultural mores would change or adapt to become consonant with the new paradigm.
So anti-realism is neutral territory. Its residents don't feel the need to fight about it. Where the separation between Church and State is firm, that neutrality is defended by law.