?????? - Basis for Modern Science?
Most of today's scientists will claim to assume "naturalism" in their endeavors. Someone famous once said that "I believe in God, I just spell it n-a-t-u-r-e." I've heard this a lot from the likes of Sagan, Dennett, Dawkins, Gould, and many others -- especially when contrasting their views with religious views or in reaction to claims that science is "just another religion."
It's worth remembering that science was simply "natural philosophy" in Descartes' day, Newton's day and Kant's day. This framework and its interpretation of the empirical world dominates every other understanding, in today's world, including the Christian account (or any other religious perspective, really). Therefore it's important to ask: what was (and is) this philosophy of nature? What is the basis of its interpretation of all that we can know through our senses and our reason?
A clue is given from the word itself: "natural." And so "nature." This word comes from the Latin natura and was a translation of the Greek phusis.
It turns out that ?????? (phusis) is the basis for "physical." So the idea of the physical world and the natural world are ultimately based on Greek and Latin concepts, respectively.
So the question "What is 'nature'?" ends up leading to a more fundamental question: "What is the 'physical'?" and that ultimately resides in the etymology of ?????? and, finally, in the origins of Western thought: Greek thought.
The analysis of this concept is very important indeed to understand our current scientific conception of the world, and therefore the predominant world ontology (at least non-religious, or perhaps simply the de facto ontology ).
Does anyone here have an analysis to share, original or otherwise? Full disclosure: I am particularly struck by Heidegger's take, especially in his Introduction to Metaphysics. But other analyses are certainly welcome.
It's worth remembering that science was simply "natural philosophy" in Descartes' day, Newton's day and Kant's day. This framework and its interpretation of the empirical world dominates every other understanding, in today's world, including the Christian account (or any other religious perspective, really). Therefore it's important to ask: what was (and is) this philosophy of nature? What is the basis of its interpretation of all that we can know through our senses and our reason?
A clue is given from the word itself: "natural." And so "nature." This word comes from the Latin natura and was a translation of the Greek phusis.
It turns out that ?????? (phusis) is the basis for "physical." So the idea of the physical world and the natural world are ultimately based on Greek and Latin concepts, respectively.
So the question "What is 'nature'?" ends up leading to a more fundamental question: "What is the 'physical'?" and that ultimately resides in the etymology of ?????? and, finally, in the origins of Western thought: Greek thought.
The analysis of this concept is very important indeed to understand our current scientific conception of the world, and therefore the predominant world ontology (at least non-religious, or perhaps simply the de facto ontology ).
Does anyone here have an analysis to share, original or otherwise? Full disclosure: I am particularly struck by Heidegger's take, especially in his Introduction to Metaphysics. But other analyses are certainly welcome.
Comments (233)
The analysis of a concept is a legitimate philological task, but little or nothing useful to determine a current scientific theory. Heidegger wrote well, but not for scientists.
"Useful to determine a current scientific theory" is incoherent. Philosophy plays no role in scientific theory? Of course it does. The basis for modern science has its roots in Greek ontology, which is the subject of this thread. It's not simply a matter of philology, it's a history of Western thought and, therefore, modern science.
"Heidegger wrote well"? Says who? I didn't think he wrote particularly well, myself. What have you read, exactly, to make a claim one way or another about him I wonder?
Yes. The central issue in modern naturalism arises directly from the underlying presuppositions of modern scientific method as articulated by its founders including Descartes and Galileo. The advent of the new conception of physics and science swept aside the Aristotelian concept of science - as it had to do, because this conception was based on a thoroughly outmoded method largely comprising armchair reflections on what things ought to do, without the rigorous observation that true science requires. It was Galileo and Newton who recognised the fundamental building blocks of modern scientific method - mass, velocity, acceleration, and so on - in place of the archaic teleological mechanisms of medieval physics.
But this has had numerous unintendend and unforseen consequences. First and foremost the 'doctrine of scientific materialism', which holds that the only real, or ultimately real, entities in the Universe are those describable in terms analogous to mathematical physics. Whilst this has enabled an astonishing series of scientific developments, the consequences of which we see around us every day, it also has more subtle existential consequences which are much harder to discern.
[quote=Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp 35-36]Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop.[/quote]
Which, in turn, has lead to a deep sense of 'otherness' from the natural world - a sense which was mostly absent from the ancient and medieval worldview, which presumed an affinity either between nous (intellect) and the natural order which it reflected, or between the divine intellect as reflected in the soul. There was an implicit conviction of a relationship between the cosmic, natural and human order, which is precisely what was undermined by the mechanist philosophy of Descartes, Galileo and Newton.
This gave rise, in turn, to the condition which philosopher Richard Bernstein named 'Cartesian Anxiety':
Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.
You said that before. Please elaborate?
I really don't agree with this. What "concept of science" did Aristotle have, exactly? To say there was an "outmoded method" is also anachronistic, if we're to agree that there is such a thing as the "scientific method" at all, which I don't believe there is -- nor has it ever been defined.
I'm not sure you understood my question. I was asking for an analysis of phusis, which is the root of our words "physical" and "natural."
Thus I don't see how Nagel's quote is relevant, nor do I agree with his analysis.
Insofar as "our senses and our reason" are "natural" (i.e. of nature as well as in nature, that is, do not transcend nature), how is it even possible for us to "know" more than, or anything else but, "nature" when our cognitive apparatus consists of only "natural senses and reason"?
The even more fundamental, or preliminary (thus, 'perennial'), question at the root (?????) of (Western and non-Western) "thought": "what is real?" - more precisely: what about 'any X' differentiates 'real X' from 'not-real X'?
It is an elemental conception of the 20th century. Please read:
Popper, K. R. (2002): Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography, London & N.Y.: Routledge [1978], 7, pp. 15 ss.
Haha, ok.
Excuse me, but saying that contemporary science has something to do with the Greek concept of nature, perhaps, probably indicates that one has vague ideas of one and the other. Even the conception of the physical during the Enlightenment is not related to contemporary physics. By the way, have you heard of Einstein?
Quoting Xtrix
For example, Heidegger, M (1976) Wegmarken, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, in Gesamtausgabe; V.9. I Abteilung : Veroffentlichte Schriften 1914-1970, pp. 105 ss.
It is a fascinating book. Karl wanted to leave something good in the world. Enjoy it.
That's fine -- once we know what "nature" is. Saying our senses and our reason are part of nature is sensible, but nothing new.
Quoting 180 Proof
I don't agree with that. This has been believed for centuries, of course, but I don't find it compelling. "What is real" is hardly more fundamental than, for example, "What is?" I think we'd agree on that. So my point in creating this thread was to question the origins of the concept "nature" -- not the "real," although this is related. Why is it related? Because most scientists (and philosophers) would claim, as you are, that what is "real" is what's natural.
Maybe you can present a better way of connecting the two.
Well "inborn" is an interesting translation. I've heard a more common one is "birth" or, in Heidegger, an "emerging, abiding sway" (kind of a strange wording). But apparently the contrast in Homer's day, and through to the pre-Socratics, was between phusis and nomos. So that definitely makes sense.
in regard to etymology, the Greek word is similar to saying something like: "Events keep Happening."
It is relentless and leaves us poor mortals trying to get a grip when we control very few things.
The idea that many things can be determined is closely combined with the idea that we control nothing.
Not because of some idea of nihilism but because of the original idea of not being able to do certain things being an acceptance of some inevitable process.
OK -- why? This isn't an argument. You're offering nothing here.
Quoting Borraz
Are you going to present any kind of analysis? Making vague statements and asking fatuous questions isn't interesting to me.
Quoting Borraz
This is an "example" of what? That Heidegger wrote well or what you've read? If the latter, why am I particularly interested in "pp. 105"?
It's not my opinion -- it has never been defined. Maybe it will be some day. I don't "believe" because I see no evidence for the claim that you and others are making. If you have evidence, present it please.
By the way, this is now the fourth time in this forum that someone has quoted the dictionary to settle an argument. It's almost unbelievable. Were you really thinking, in this case, that I believed there wasn't such a thing as a science dictionary -- or dictionaries in general? Or that someone couldn't simply make up a definition? Is this how we settle philosophical questions about meaning? By consulting the dictionary?
We have to do better than this. Within the context of philosophy -- in this case, the philosophy of science -- there have been many attempts to define the scientific method, as I assume you know. It is often believed that there is one, even among scientists. But there isn't. The concept of the "inductive method" goes back at least to Bacon, and we could talk about that and its variations in history, but there's a great deal in science that simply doesn't fall into this methodology.
Science is not separated from "philosophy," as I indicated in my original post. It's certainly not separated by a special "method" that accounts for its successes. If you have specific insights or evidence that demonstrates it, I'd be happy to hear it. But citing the dictionary? Come on.
Why is phusis something like "Events keep happening"? Could you offer more here please?
[b][u]So the question "What is 'nature'?" ends up leading to a more fundamental question: "What is the 'physical'?" and that ultimately resides in the etymology of ?????? and, finally, in the origins of Western thought: Greek thought.
The analysis of this concept is very important indeed to understand our current scientific conception of the world, and therefore the predominant world ontology (at least non-religious, or perhaps simply the de facto ontology ). Does anyone here have an analysis to share, original or otherwise? Full disclosure: I am particularly struck by Heidegger's take, especially in his Introduction to Metaphysics. But other analyses are certainly welcome.[/u][/b]
I'm interested in the analysis of the Greek word phusis. The claim that this word is the origin of our word "physics" and "nature" shouldn't be controversial, but perhaps it is more troubling than I assumed -- in which case, if anyone wants me to elaborate further on why I make that statement I'd be happy to.
Otherwise, if we take this as a given, we should move on to understanding the word itself and its historical variations in meaning. To do so, one should know something about ancient Greek history and both Homeric and Attic Greek language. These should be considered prerequisite for this discussion -- at least in terms of what I'm interested in hearing. This is what I meant by "analysis." I did not mean armchair speculations, feelings, evidence-free claims, vague statements, etc.
Friendly clarification.
In the entry to Liddell and Scotts' Lexicon, the definition of the word starts with this:
"The nature, natural qualities, powers, constitution, condition of a person or thing."
That suggests that events that occur outside of such conditions and qualities are rare if possible.
That's interesting indeed. I'm not familiar with Cunliffe but will check it out.
Perhaps I should have started a thread about this to make it more accurate.
"From Parmenides, Aristotle retains the conception of philosophy as addressing beings in their being, where being refers not to some privileged being or element, in the way of the physicists, but to their common origin or ground, or to the principle from which they unfold. This is a principle that lies beyond and is distinct from the realm of physical things; it is, quite literally, meta-physical. Yet, from Heraclitus, and from the Ionian physics echoed in his work, Aristotle retains a conception of the world in which we live as a world essentially in motion, as a world of becoming, yet a world that does not fall so much under the authority of the senses and of a type of approximate knowledge known as opinion, as it is incorporated within philosophical discourse, thus raising the highly complex philosophical question of the relation between being and becoming, between the metaphysical (which continues to speak in the name of a certain conception of ??????) and the physical. With the birth of philosophy as the science of beings as such and as a whole, or as a questioning of beings as to their being, philosophy asserts itself from the start as the twofold science of physics and meta-physics.
As far as Aristotle’s physics is concerned, I shall limit myself to a few remarks. The first and perhaps most decisive feature that needs to be stressed is that this is a physics, and thus a conception of natural phenomena, that is not mathematical but ontological and metaphysical through and through. This is what distinguishes it from modern physics. Aristotle’s physics remains entirely within the confines and under the jurisdiction of metaphysics. The Aristotelian cosmos, for example, is not compatible with Euclidean geometry, and his considerations regarding the structure of the universe, which he sees as metaphysically curved and circular, do not even attempt to reconcile it with Euclidean geometry. Strangely enough, it is perhaps closer to Riemann’s geometry (at least potentially), which Einstein used in his demonstration of the physical curvature of space-time.
For Aristotle, as for the physics up to Galileo and Descartes, geometry is not the fundamental science of the real world; it is not the science that expresses the essence and fundamental structure of that world. It is only an abstract science which, in the eyes of physics, itself the science of what is, can only ever serve as an adjunct. It is perception, and not mathematical speculation, experience, or a priori geometrical reasoning, that constitutes the bedrock for the true science of the real world. This is precisely the approach that will be overturned by Galileo. In short, Aristotle’s conception of nature cannot be abstracted from the ontological considerations within which it occurs.
...The second point concerns the most relevant aspects of the Aristotelian conception of nature. As an immediate effect of the first aspect of Aristotle’s conception of the universe, one disqualified by modern science, it should be noted that the Aristotelian cosmos is finite, differentiated, and hierarchical: it is composed of various spheres, vertically ordered, each sphere corresponding to a degree of ontological perfection higher than that of the sphere immediately below, all spheres being moved by their inner telos more fully expressed in the higher spheres. At the top of this pyramidal structure lies the divine principle, the motionless origin of all motion, or the Prime Mover.
Aristotle emphasizes that metaphysics (which he also calls “first philosophy”) is required only to the extent that there is indeed a motionless reality, without the existence of which physics would be the primordial and universal science. It is the very existence of a motionless reality that turns physics — the object of which is the kind of reality that has the principle of its own motion and rest within itself, in contrast to the technical object — into a merely secondary philosophy. For Aristotle, ?????? does not designate the whole of reality, but only “a specific kind of beings.” There is, therefore, a reality of being, which the world of becoming does not exhaust."
"OK -- why? This isn't an argument. You're offering nothing here, etc"
Because you ask about very elementary things. I leave the reference and read you:
- Kuhn, T. S. (1962): The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
"If the latter, why am I particularly interested in "pp. 105"?"
The same. It is the quote from the classic essay entitled Was ist Metaphysik? (1929).
Wonderful, pure art of writing ... although scientifically null. Read it.
Do you see this as a problem? I do. If there is no discipline in the way that things are described, i.e. no logical rules for how things ought to be described, then we allow for illogical descriptions. For an example of illogical descriptions consider quantum physics. Replacing "what things ought to do", based in sound principles of logic, as the foundation of science, with observational descriptions which have no solid rules as to how things ought to be described, leaves us with equivocal descriptions.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, I think this is the heart of the problem. Mathematical terms are not descriptive terms. We allow absolute freedom in mathematical axioms (infinity for example), in order that the mathematics may be applicable to anything which we may encounter. But the mathematics is not applied directly to the things themselves, it is applied to our perceptions and descriptions of things, noted observations. We use mathematics to measure the features which are apprehended and noticed by us.
If we allow that mathematics may be applied as descriptions, we attempt to remove that medium between the freedom of mathematical axioms, and the reality of physical things. The medium cannot actually be removed though because it is the way that we see things. That it can be removed, is an illusion, a sort of deception. Since the medium is the description, which ought to be disciplined by logic, this illusion, that it can be removed, veils the need for a logical description. Now we have an attempt to apply the undisciplined absolute freedom of mathematical axioms directly to physical things as descriptions of those things, resulting in the deception of illogical descriptions.
There was no metaphysics in Aristotle. "First philosophy" is his physics, and what's later called "metaphysics" is just as much physics.
What this writer is indicating is that there's a difference between the "becoming" world and the "motionless" world, and tries to say the former is "physics" (secondary) and the latter "metaphysics."
Parts are reminiscent of the old Parmenides vs Heraclitus "dichotomy" as well. Although the interpretation is fine, I don't find it all that profound. It's actually quite common.
I don't know anything about de Beistegui, but from what I Googled he's supposedly a Heidegger scholar. That's surprising, because none of this comes close to Heidegger's analysis. Heidegger in fact contradicts much of what's referenced here.
Perhaps you could argue why this is so.
It is not immediately apparent to me as a phenomenon.
Sure, although I'd rather just quote directly from Heidegger so there's no mystery:
[quote=]"Aristotle’ s Physics is the hidden, and therefore never adequately thought out, foundational book of Western philosophy.
Probably the eight books of the Physics were not projected as a unity and did not come into existence all at once. Such questions have no importance here. In general it makes little sense to say that the Physics precedes the Metaphysics, because metaphysics is just as much “physics” as physics is “metaphysics.” For reasons based on the work itself, as well as on historical grounds, we can take it that around 347 B.C. (Plato’s death) the second book was already composed. (Cf. also Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development, p. 296, originally published in 1923. For all its erudition, this book has the single fault of thinking through Aristotle’s philosophy in the modern Scholastic neo-Kantian manner that is entirely foreign to Greek thought. Much of Jaeger’s Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des Aristoteles, 1912, is more accurate because less concerned with “content.”)
But even so, this first thoughtful and unified conceptualization of n???? is already the last echo of the original (and thus supreme) thoughtful projection of the essence of n???? that we still have preserved for us in the fragments of Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Parmenides." (On The Essence and Concept of Phusis in Aristotle's Physics B, 1. p. 3, in German from the Gesamtausgabe: p. 241)[/quote]
Remember that "metaphysics" was coined after Aristotle. "After the physics lectures" is what it probably meant. It's evolved to mean essentially anything "outside" or "beyond" what is physical, but that's misleading. Heidegger often uses it as basically synonymous with "ontology" in terms of its subject matter for most of history after Aristotle.
But the point is the same: phusis is the concept we're trying to understand here, in light of the question of the meaning of being.
How about science as the theory of technology that works whether or not one believes in it? And this involves the physical as that which is indifferent to our beliefs and hopes. And yet our beliefs and hopes are centered on the physical. The physical is what we care about that doesn't care about us. It's food or poison. It's the roof that keeps out the storm. It's the pill that stops the infection from killing us. It's the car that will or will not start when we need to go to work, already worried about next month's bills.
I like Heidegger's focus on care. As humans we care. Pure theory satisfies only an exceptional state of mind. For the most part we need results. Superstition is often like bad science in the sense that it has the same goals, prediction and control. The card lady tells me my future like the meteorologist. The prayer handkerchief is a substitute for chemotherapy.
I suggest that we tend to use 'real' for what we have to take seriously. Or for what is worth acting on. It's all tied in with care. We are constantly forced to make decisions. Is an opportunity or a threat real or merely apparent?
I agree that nature-as-machine is a dominant metaphor, but this metaphor is as much shovel as lens. We haven't only changed our way of looking at the world but the world itself. So we've disenchanted the world but also modified it extensively.
?
"In the Physics Aristotle conceives of ?????? as the beingness (?????) of a particular (and in itself limited) region of beings, things that grow as distinct from things made. With regard to their way of Being, these beings stem precisely from ??????, of which Aristotle therefore says: ... ?????? is one branch of Being [among others] for (the many-branched tree of) beings." Aristotle says this in a treatise which later, in the definitive ordering of his writings by the Peripatetic school, was put with those treatises which have since borne the name ???? ?? ?????? [ 'metaphysics' -SX], writings which in fact belong to the ?????? although they are not counted with them. The sentence we just read comes from chapter three of the treatise that is now called Book ? (IV) of the Metaphysics, and the information it gives about ?????? is identical with the guiding principle put forth in Physics, Book B, chapter one, which we have just interpreted: ?????? is one kind of ?????.
But that same treatise of the Metaphysics says exactly the opposite in its first chapter: ????? (the Being of beings as such in totality) is ?????? ???, something like ??????. But Aristotle is far from meaning to say that Being as such is, properly speaking, that kind of ?????? which a bit later he explicitly characterizes as only one branch of Being among others. Rather, this barely expressed assertion that ????? is ?????? is an echo of the great origin of Greek philosophy, the first origin of Western philosophy. In this origin Being was thought as ?????? such that the ?????? which Aristotle conceptualized can only be a late derivative of the original ??????". (H, On the Being and Conception of ?????? in Aristotle's Physics)
And in the Introduction, Heidegger explicitly attributes the 'narrowing' of ?????? as 'already within Greek philosophy', so much so that Aristotle conserves (as above) but an 'echo' of the original meaning of ??????, and that the 'greatness' of Greek philosophy "came to an end in greatness with Aristotle": "What is, as such and as a whole, the Greeks call phusis. Let it be mentioned just in passing that already within Greek philosophy, a narrowing of the word set in right away, although its original meaning did not disappear from the experience, the knowledge, and the attitude of Greek philosophy. An echo of knowledge about the original meaning still survives in Aristotle, when he speaks of the grounds of beings as such".
The whole third chapter of the Introduction - tellingly titled 'The Restriction of Being' - is more or less an account of how Plato and Aristotle fucked up (or began the fucking-up-of, completed by Latin translators) the perfectly good notion of ?????? that the pre-Socratics, Heraclitus and Parmenides in particular, had - at least according to Heidi's as-usual idiosyncratic reading of philosophical history.
Naturalism, to me, is the philosophy that claims that all there is is the physical; in other words, what is real has to be sensible in some way or other. Since this implies that what isn't sensible iisn't real, naturalism excludes religion and the spiritual from the realm of reality for they deal in what can't be sensed. There is good reason to assume such a position because to admit the non-physical as part of reality is like a blind man admitting colors into his world; even if there are colors, the blind man will never perceive them and it will fail to make a difference to his world.
The religious, the spiritually inclined and supernaturalists may counter naturalism by saying that it is possible for existence to be true despite nothing being perceptible through the senses i.e. all is not physical. However, a moment's reflection reveals a serious problem, the problem of defining reality. Being perceptible through the senses and not being perceptible through the senses are contradictory statements and, as it appears to me, it's impossible to bring them together under the same banner, reality. If both the perceptible and the imperceptible are real then what is not real?
Quoting Xtrix
For Aristotle, the physical is the world of "becoming", change, and this is the subject of ancient Greek science, and Aristotle's "Physics". In a number of distinct places, he demonstrates that "being" and "becoming" are incompatible. Notice the difference between Aristotle's designation of an incompatibility between "being" and "becoming", and Hegel's allowing "being" to be subsumed within, as a feature of "becoming", in his dialectics of being.
So Aristotle introduced a temporal concept, "matter", in his "Physics" to account for this difference. The concept of "matter" is grounded in the temporality of potential. For Aristotle, matter, as potential, violates the law of excluded middle. Hegelian dialectical materialists, allow for violation of the law of non-contradiction.
Ibid, but further the word 'physical' no longer has any substance related meaning. IOW it looks like a claim about substance, but it now simply means real. Regardless of the qualities or lack of qualities of something if science decides something is real, it will fall under naturalism and be taken as physical, even if it shares nothing in common with chairs and rocks.Quoting TheMadFoolBut colors do make a difference in a blind person's world. A blind person could ask someone near him what color the light is and know (to the degree he trusts the sighted person) whether it is time to cross the street or not. Perhaps all sorts of things that are supposedly 'non-physical' are simply seen by some but not others.Quoting TheMadFoolFirst, many so called supernatural phenomena are perceived. Perhaps misinterpreted, perhaps hallucinated, but there is a very large empirical facet to religion and 'supernatural experiences.' This does not prove that the religious and those who believe in the supernatural (a truly badly labeled category) are correct, but it is as if there is no empirical facet to these things when there is. And we know that things have been said to be impossible, when sensed by a minority which have turned out to be real.
Often in discussions like this it is as if all religion and all 'supernatural' experiences have no empirical element. but this is simply not the case. Now we can move into, from this, to the discussion of whether the interpretations of the experiences are correct, but I find it very odd that the issues is framed as if there is no empirical facet to these things.
Firstly, as this "someone near him" reveals, there must be someone to whom color is perceivable.
Secondly, the fact that you say "seen by some but not others" implies what I've been saying all along - that whatever is deemed to exist must register on the senses of someone. The very requirement that "some" perceive indicates the essence of being real is to be perceived.
However, there's a "slight" difficulty with being perceivable only to some. The usual contexts in which such kinds of privileged perception, only some perceiving, appears are in deception and insanity. The latter can be subsumed into a broadened definition of reality (the insane may actually be perceiving stuff others can't) but what about the former? How will we know we're not being deceived? After all the only means we have, that what is real, and not a deception, must necessarily be perceived by all, is now useless.
Quoting TheMadFoolI disagree. I would say the usual contexts are where there is expertise: poker professionals, art authenticators, dermatologists, botanists, carpenters, detectives, psychologists will all perceive things where non-experts will not. This is a regular part of a vast range of fields, but is also happening in all sorts of leisure and private settings and activities.Quoting TheMadFoolWe can always remain agnostic. Sometimes merely trivially and formally, in other cases with more serious agnosticism. There is no need to make an immediate binary choice.
Quoting TheMadFoolThat is a fairly useless heuristic and we depend on the special perception of experts regularly and certain in crisis. And these can be mundane experts like spouses, friends, parents, not to speak of professional experts. We are constantly engaging others who are better at perceiving some things.
Hegel said that nothingness sublates being into the flow of the world (becoming). The Parmenidian One is "thrown", to use Heidegger's word, by nothingness towards all our deaths, all along we realizing that this place is our vacation
Nothing that can't be detected or measured i.e. perceived is real in science. Natural law, if meant here as the laws of nature, can be observed.
Quoting Coben
It is possible for anyone to become an expert.
Quoting Coben
Are you saying we can be agnostic about the unperceivable being real? What then would be not real?
Quoting Coben
As I said, anyone can be an expert.
The fourth chapter. But yes, in that he discusses the various "restrictions" made through history. I don't understand why you say that Plato and Aristotle "fucked up," though. Heidegger never implies anything like that. In fact he believes the beginning of Western philosophy (the "inception") reaches its end with Aristotle. By that point the "idea" and ousia had come to the fore, but hadn't completely lost the presocratic sense of phusis either.
Regardless, I'm not seeing your point with this response, which was supposedly a reaction to my statement that Heidegger contradicts de Beistegui in a number of ways. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I don't see anything in your response that shows how.
Sounds more like empirical to me, but I take your meaning.
Quoting TheMadFool
What about the forces of nature? Are those "physical"? Newton thought that notion was absurd. Quantum entanglement, curved spacetime. Einstein considered a lot of this "non-physical." Etc. Is language and mathematics physical?
Physical is an honorific term. What it appears to mean these days is anything we more or less understand. If we understand it, it's physical. Again, I'm not too interested in coming up with definitions, I'm interested in the etymology of phusis. At least in this thread.
Quoting TheMadFool
The word "real" is likewise honorific. If we define reality as anything "perceptible" or "physical" or "natural," etc., then we get an answer in one step: reality = the natural. But that only means we have to understand what physical and natural mean, and then to have some idea of what "material," "matter," and "body" mean (including the senses, which are part of the body), and so on. So we're back to the beginning and the topic of this thread.
Incidentally, there hasn't been a notion of "body" since the 17th century.
It's really not that simple. But if you have passages you want to share that you believe support this thesis I'd be happy to take a look.
I realize this is a common interpretation of Aristotle, by the way.
But this just isn't saying much. It seems to me you're defining science in a reaction to religious or supernatural claims. But religious believers will claim God is "detectable" as well. There's no sense debating them.
If science is simply anything we can reasonably understand, fine. That's philosophy, too. That's life, in fact. So what?
The basis for modern science is the concept of nature. This concept has gone through many mutations throughout history. It's very true that when trying to define "science" we may emphasize the empirical, the senses, the "physical," careful observation and experimentation, the use of mathematics, clear language (technical nomenclature), the role of theory (Kuhn and others), and so on, but even all these attempts take place against the backdrop of an understanding of being, an understanding with a history -- what Heidegger calls the "tradition." Its roots lie in Greek ontology, which is what I'm trying to explore here.
My question is about phusis. Ultimately this is the point. As a reminder.
It's characterized by knowing, as Parmenides' truth, whatever is cannot not be, and whatever is not cannot be.
Quoting tim wood
This is exactly what is impossible, being cannot become, so it does not admit of possibility. That's Parmenides' principle, what is, is, and cannot be otherwise.
That's why Aristotle demonstrated that "becoming" is incompatible with being. Here is one of the ways he demonstrated this. If something is X at one moment in time, then changes to be not-X at a later moment, then there is a time in between when the thing is changing, becoming not-X. If we posit Y, to account for the change, then we could say that between X and not-X, the thing is Y. But now we have a time when the thing is changing from X to Y, and we need to account for it becoming Y. So we could say that between X and Y, it is Z. As you can see, there would be an infinite regress if we account for change, "becoming", with statements of "being", what the thing is.
This infinite regress is impossible because it would mean that there is an infinity of states of being between any two moments of time when something is changing. So to avoid the infinite regress we must admit that "becoming" is incompatible with "being". This means that when we talk about the physical world of change, becoming, and this is physics in general, we cannot use statements about what is, and what is not, 'truth and being', because this way of speaking is incompatible with change and becoming.
Quoting Xtrix
If you realize that it is a common interpretation, then why ask me for passages? All you need to do is read his "Physics" to see that the theme of the book is change. He starts by saying that physicists take for granted that either some things, or all things are in motion, and he proceeds to the conditions of change (the causes), and then to talk about time and motion. Why would you interpret his "Physics" in any other way?
Well, let's notice right off that you moved the bar from perceived to detected and measure, which are not at all the same. But even this is not true.Quoting TheMadFoolWhat do they look like? What are they made of? Are they physical? Made of atoms, quarks? They can be deduced, sort of.
or the patterns that perhaps 'come from them' can be observed, but that's not the laws themselves. And also, it may not be true that there are laws. There is growing evidence that 'laws' are local and time-local. IOW it is a useful heuristic. But in any case the laws themselves are certainly not observed.
Quoting TheMadFoolThat's very hard to prove and further, are you willing to put in the time to become an expert in things you have decided are not real? And certainly some people both from experience and innate talent have a much easier time. And then last, again, my point was just how common it is that when one person can perceive something this is due to expertise/experience rather than your generalization that this is usually hallucinations, etc.
Quoting TheMadFoolAgain easy to say and further it does not refute what I wrote. Furhter there are tempermental and paradigmatic reasons certain people never try to be experts in many areas. Then they assume things, like you do, about those who are experts or may be. And then they talk as if they know that those experts are not basing their beliefs on empirical stuff.
I am sure you think you responded to me but I really don't think you did. You conceded nothing. Nor did you respond to the idea of being agnostic. It is not as if - which was implicit in your questions - one must either accept or reject as unreal what others posit. There is always a third option immediately and long term one could, in fact, try to be an expert oneself.
It's not an infinite regress. It's just a gray canvas. Almost every bit of Aristotle is circular and a waste of time
Quoting tim wood
Being is that which we can sense with our being. That's pretty broad, but it covers several philosophical standpoints. Nothing is that which no being can sense
It's not about interpreting his Physics, per se. It's about the concept of phusis.
Think of absolute space and time as understood in past centuries. Those are literal nothing.
Did you read what I wrote? It's very clearly an infinite regress. The change between X and not-X is described as the state of Y. This requires something to explain the change between X and Y, call that state Z. This requires something to account for the change between X and Z, onward ad infinitum.
Change, "becoming," is incompatible with states of being.
Zeno already proved nearly 3 thousands years ago that there is a continuum. But the end points or limits can be discrete. It's not regress, but progression through an infinity, which you do everytime you move, from one being to another
Actually Zeno's paradoxes prove that the "continuum" is a faulty idea.
It shows there is a paradox in that every object is both finite and infinite at the same time, almost in the same respect. This shouldn't prevent us from seeing motion and change as real. It just shows us it is weird. A tree can go from being a single organism to being toilet paper. The process is a continuum. The result is something discrete.
Trying to figure out why you think this. In any case if I knew you only wanted to read things that agreed with your preconceptions then I ought not to have posted anything. As you were.
Right, that's exactly the point of Aristotle's demonstrations, the process, (what you call continuous), is incompatible with the result, (what you call discrete).
Quoting Gregory
From the Aristotelian perspective, it's not that the object is both finite and infinite at the same time, but the object is both matter and form. The continuity is provided for by matter, while the form changes.
You can look them up on line.
It's quite simple. Zeno applies the principles of continuity toward simple observable motions, and shows that the observable motions are impossible, if understood using the principles of continuity. Therefore we can conclude that the principles of continuity are faulty for the purpose of understanding observable motions.
No. There is obviously a division among motion or it couldn't be motion at all
If something shrinks more and more slowly, it can continue to shrink without ever vanishing. This is an informal description of something that can be made mathematical.
Physical laws are as much physical as the objects they obey them for the simple reason that they're perceivable or observable.
Quoting Xtrix
Science is empirical.
Quoting Xtrix
I offered you a definition of physical as that which can be perceived through the senses (and instruments). The real for naturalism is just that, the physical. This was in response to your query about phusis.
I see no difference between our senses and detector instruments except perhaps in the sense that the former shares a direct connection to the brain. That's why I mentioned detectability through means other than just our five senses as a criterion for being physical.
This is an important point to bear in mind because, for instance, electromagnetic waves that lie beyond the visible spectrum wouldn't have been considered real before their discovery for they weren't perceivable to the senses. X-rays, gamma rays, and radio are now believed to be real because they're detectable with instruments which then are perceived by the senses. This clearly shows what the criteria for being real is: our senses must, either directly or indirectly, perceive; only then can anything be real.
I brought this up because it raises the possibility that there are real things out there that we may not be able to detect with either our senses or instruments. However, as was the case with radio waves and X-rays, and gamma rays, they will be considered unreal until and unless they can be detected in some manner. The bottomline is that realness is predicated on detectability/perceptibility.
Quoting Coben
How did Newton come up with the laws of motion or for that matter how do scientists formulate laws of nature? They gather observational data and then observe patterns in the data; these patterns observed are the laws, no?
Quoting Coben
Well, if one gives it some thought, the talented expert may perceive a pattern which others didn't; such a person is otherwise known as a genius. Nevertheless, any pattern perceived by a genius must be proven i.e. everyone must be able to comprehend it (given adequate knowledge). In other words, there can't be such a thing as privileged knowledge in the sense that it's impossible for all to know it.
Also, bringing up experts into this discussion doesn't help because sensory perception doesn't require expertise: it's not that we can train our senses to peform better and help us see things others can't, hear things others can't, feel things others can't, taste things others can't, or smell things others can't. Of course, there's such thing as a better sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste, etc. but whatever extra perception gained needs corroboration by some other means. I mean how does one know if one has a better sense of smell if we don't know what smell was picked up by your nose and not by others.
Quoting Coben
I believe we can remain agnostic about reality in the sense that there could be real things we haven't yet detected but not in the sense that some real things are impossible to detect. In the former case, the criterion for realness remains as perceptibility/detectability but in the latter, this criterion no longer applies and then everything becomes real and so, the question that follows is "what is [i]not[i] real?"
Quoting tim wood
Infinite divisibility is a principle of continuity.
Quoting tim wood
I see you haven't really read, or at least have not understood Zeno's paradoxes. Zeno did not say that Achilles "stops at every point". Achilles must simply run the distance between the points. Since it takes him a period of time to run the distance from where he is, to where the tortoise is at that time, the tortoise has proceeded to a further place during that period of time which it takes him to get there. Now Achilles must run to that place, and the tortoise moves along to a further place in that period of time, so Achilles must run to that place, ad infinitum.
The fault here is in the assumption that space and time are continuous and infinitely divisible. This produces the illusion that there is always a smaller space to be run, consequently a smaller amount of time required to run that space, allowing the tortoise to always stay ahead. It is basically a more complex version of the dichotomy paradox, which maybe we ought to address first because it's simpler, and therefore easier to get a clearer understanding of the problem. When space is considered to be continuous, and therefore infinitely divisible, one must move through an infinity of spaces before one can move through any space at all.
That's not what Galileo or Newton thought. But regardless, if those things are all "physical," then anything we can understand is physical. Not much of a definition.
Quoting TheMadFool
Partly, but not always. It's also theoretical. It involves logic, mathematics, etc.
Quoting TheMadFool
I never asked you for a definition of "physical" and, as I've stated before, I'm really not interested. All you've done is offer a fairly commonplace idea of what physical is -- you've not advanced the conversation, which is about phusis. Giving me your own personal opinion about what you think "physical" means is useless. Quite apart from that, this definition itself is problematic, and only pushes us to now ask "what is perception and the senses?" If the senses are part of the body, and we have no idea what "body" means, then the notion of "physical" as "anything we can perceive with our senses" is itself a definition built on sand.
This definition also tacitly assumes a subject/object dichotomy as well, which I've written about elsewhere.
This conversation isn't supposed to be simple. It's not a matter of me inquiring about "what physical means" and then everyone offering their own "take" on it, based on their favorite readings. It's also not an exercise in "let's try to come up with a definition." This problem has been around for centuries, thought about by far better minds than ours, and persists even today. To think we're going to settle it by throwing around a definition is pure hubris.
That being said, I'd like to return to the actual guiding question:
Quoting Xtrix
This perhaps was vague, as I didn't emphasis the notion of "phusis" enough. But since I've now clarified what I meant several times, I don't feel this is a reasonable excuse anymore. Others on this thread have understood me correctly.
So if you have insights or analysis about the Greek notion of "phusis," which has shaped every concept of "nature" or "physical" to this very day, including yours, then please do share. Like I said, I'm particularly struck by Heidegger on this one but am open to others I may not have been aware of.
As the apple that fell on Newton's head
All things, towards the center of gravity, head
Observable.Quoting Xtrix
Focus on the essential. Logic & math are also found elsewhere but the empirical is an exclusively scientific feature.
I only offered my personal views on the matter. I am simple; ergo my notion of the physical is also simple. I was hoping that if the notion of the physical is not as simple as my formulation of it, then some account of why that is would come up in the discussion between us.
Perhaps there is more to the idea of the physical than meets my eye but what could it be? What could possibly be added onto the definition of physical, that I provided, that would make it more accurate in re the way we use the word, "physical"?
You say you're not interested in definitions but I was under the impression that philosophizing began with definitions? Also, if you didn't care for the definition, why bring up etymology of "phusis"?
It's highly likely that I misunderstand you.
Of course the divisibility of space is relevant, it's stipulated by Zeno in his presentation. If there were no divisions there would be no presentation of the problem. The problem is presented as a problem of spatial divisions in relation to temporal divisions, the distance in space covered in a specified period of time. So the problem is a problem involved with dividing space and time into increments. It would be rather ridiculous to say that the divisibility of space is not relevant.
Quoting tim wood
This is what is irrelevant. If it takes Achilles a "very long time" to win the race, he still wins the race. The point of Zeno's presentation is that under the assumption that we can keep dividing space and time to shorter and shorter increments, infinitely, Achilles can never win the race.
Quoting tim wood
Again, this is irrelevant. The degree of "difficulty" is not a factor in Zeno's presentation. What is presented is that it is impossible for Achilles to catch up to the tortoise, not that it is difficult for him to do that.
Quoting tim wood
Exactly, that's why representing space and time as infinitely divisible is a faulty representation. As Zeno demonstrated, if space and time actually were infinitely divisible it would be impossible to do what is routinely done.
There is no pause in Achilles' running. That's not part of the scenario. You are just adding things in, making things up, which constitutes a bad interpretation, a faulty reading of the example.
Quoting tim wood
The length of the tortoise's head start is irrelevant. The result is the same. In the time it takes Achilles to reach the point where the tortoise started from, the tortoise has moved further ahead. So, the tortoise still has a head start, and so on, ad infinitum.
Quoting tim wood
I stated very clearly what my point is:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You could not understand the point and requested an explanation. Now I've provided that. If you still do not understand, study Zeno's examples more closely, eventually you ought to apprehend what the examples demonstrate.
Zeno was Greek, and a long time ago. I don't even understand modern Greek. If you want someone to explain it in Zeno's language you'll have to find someone else, sorry about that.
Where is this "elsewhere"? What are you implying? If the empirical is exclusively scientific, it doesn't mean science is exclusively empirical. It includes, therefore, logic, mathematics and theory. These are usually considered "cognitive" or "mental." Is this "elsewhere" not science? Is the study of linguistics not science, for example?
There is a theoretical component to the activity we call science. There's a "mental" component to all conscious experience, empirical or otherwise. I'll assume you're not denying this.
Therefore, with this taken as a truism, we're already within a traditional conception: that of the "mind" and the "body" (Descartes) or perhaps the "subject and object" (more in Kant). This is the philosophical basis for modern science, including contemporary science.
What was the notion of "nature" in the 16th and 17th centuries? Take Principles of Natural Philosophy, Descartes' rarely-read but arguably most important work (according to him), or Newton's Mathematical Principles for Natural Philosophy, as two important examples. Take even Galileo's Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences. In the latter, he starts off discussing, to no surprise, Aristotle's Physics. The very titles of the former examples indicate that "natural philosophy" is presupposed as a very definite domain of philosophy (here meaning"thinking" in the broadest sense, perhaps).
Ask yourself what these three men's conception of "nature" was. Whatever it was, it will give us a major clue into the intellectual foundations for modern philosophy and science. So the question isn't a trivial one. You agree that Galileo, Descartes, and Newton weren't imbeciles; it's therefore important to actually read what they said. We may have more knowledge now, based on new discoveries, and in this sense we have gone "farther" than these thinkers. But any progress has been won on the tracks they laid.
The ultimate goal here is to learn something about phusis and, more importantly, about Greek thought. If we agree with Heidegger that these first thinkers (Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus) were more concerned with "being" than most philosophers since (as the question has gone largely unasked in its own right), then our question is also about being -- our particular, "Western" understanding of being -- our "ontology."
We can't study "being" in the scientific sense perhaps -- if science is more narrowly defined -- but whatever "it" is that allows the very things science studies (physical, chemical, biological beings) to show up for us in the first place -- THAT can be considered "being." No matter the mode we're in when things appear to us. By "no matter the mode" I mean not only our theoretical mode (in our Western,present-favoring understanding of beings as "substance" [ousia]), what Heidegger called "presence-at-hand," but also our "practical" mode, seen in our everyday actions, interactions, routines, and habits -- most of which is not consciously chosen and of which we're not usually constantly aware of. He calls this the "ready-to-hand."
Heidegger says the latter (everyday activity and habit) tells us more about where our usual "theoretical" ontological interpretation comes from in the first place (and also our interpretations of human nature, the "world," time and space). He concludes that our current, unquestioned and tacitly assumed interpretation (when doing philosophy and science) has its origins in the Greeks, and is due to them favoring the present, which is only one aspect of our "lived time" of everyday life (he calls "temporality"), which is an experience of all-three-at-once.
Whatever allows any of this to show up, that's essentially being. Any understanding of it -- and we all have an understanding, theoretical or "pre-theoretical." Therefore, everything that shows up within this understanding (whether pre-theoretically, or theoretically as in "interpretation" or a "system of beliefs") -- behavior, science, customs, a shared worldview, morality, a class system, gender norms, etc., is going to make sense within this context. In the Greek world, for example, "saints and sinners" wouldn't have made any sense. In the Medieval world, they certainly did. So an understanding of being is arguably as fundamental to culture as religion or language is.
Heidegger wants to get "under" or perhaps "outside" of the traditional ontology by flushing out these "everyday" experiences and analyzing them philosophically -- but without the "baggage" of the tradition's (ultimately Greek) vocabulary and semantics. This is the topic of Part II of Being and Time, which never came but which he published in other volumes.
I've provided a little background here in order to move the conversation in a perhaps a more fruitful direction.
Imo, the ancient Greek understanding of nature – or of the physical – would be direly incomplete without an ancient Greek understanding of logos. I here principally have in mind philosophies such as that of Heraclitus’ and of the Stoics.
Tangentially, I strongly emphasize that one should not confuse the ancient Greek understanding(s) of logos with the Abrahamic, monotheistic understanding of logos, i.e., with the notion that logos is “the word” of an omnipotent psyche by whose will all becomes created. Rather, here, logos is the stuff from which notions such as that as the anima mundi (world soul) become established. It is not just discourse and, by extension, the thought (hence human reasoning) that produces it, but also cause and effect, natural law, and the like.
Still, what Ancient Greek logos is was something that was debated even back then, never mind now when it’s very usage gets derided as mystical babble. Seems as though discussing what logos signified to the Ancient Greek philosophers (and, as is the case with Stoicism, many religious adherents, as we would today call them) would be somewhat of a quagmire.
Still, while being and logos may not be the same, for the Ancient Greeks, being as we know and live it is intimately entwined with logos – which, in essence, then presents that which is natural, or else physical, i.e. that which is “in-born”.
Just remembered, matter – in Latin, materia – is directly derived from the Latin mater (“mother”); in ancient Greece this general mindset was intimately intertwined with notions such as that of Gaia and, again, for the Stoics, of an anima mundi … this being in many ways reminiscent of ancient understandings of the “virgin mother” (birthing sentience without being inseminated), and this long before the convergence of ideologies at the first Council of Nicaea which is Christianity as we now know it.
Well, I agree that all laws suffer from the same problem that all inductive generalizations do viz. they all lack logical necessity but this doesn't void the fact that they are essentially patterns in the behavior of matter-energy discerned from observed data.
Indeed, as you rightly pointed out, a given pattern in the way matter-energy interacts may be made to agree with more than one law but that doesn't imply that the pattern can't be observed, that the law can't be observed; it simply means the law that we consider to be true may not be the actual law that produces the pattern.
That's how I understand it, too. This reminded me of the quotes from the Dilthey/Yorck letters that Heidegger used in the intro of the first draft of Being and Time. I can't easily quote those, but this is close:
[quote=link]
Together with Dilthey, Yorck was the first philosopher to elaborate the specific concept of historicity [Geschichtlichkeit] as a defining characteristic in the ontology of human beings. In particular, Yorck emphasized the generic difference between the ontic and the historical, i.e., the difference between what is seen or conceptualized (and aesthetically contemplated) as permanent nature, or essence, or idea, and the felt historical rhythm of life, i.e., life's immersion in and belonging to the overarching and always changing waves of history. In contradistinction to Dilthey's epistemological endeavors to clarify the foundations of the historical sciences vis-à-vis the natural sciences, Yorck aimed exclusively at the ontology of historical life, particularly the historical band (syndesmos) and effective connection (virtuality) that unites generational life. Based on the primacy of historical life, Yorck adopted a decidedly anti-metaphysical stance, rejecting all claims of knowledge sub specie aeternitatis.
[/quote]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/yorck/
As Dreyfus emphasizes (and you mention), understandings of beings aren't necessarily explicit. And perhaps the most crucial understandings are completely tacit. We can find a little of this in Hegel.
[quote= Hegel]
But men do not at certain epochs, merely philosophize in general, for there is a definite Philosophy which arises among a people, and the definite character of the standpoint of thought is the same character which permeates all the other historical sides of the spirit of the people, which is most intimately related to them, and which constitutes their foundation. The particular form of a Philosophy is thus contemporaneous with a particular constitution of the people amongst whom it makes its appearance, with their institutions and forms of government, their morality, their social life and the capabilities, customs and enjoyments of the same; it is so with their attempts and achievements in art and science, with their religions, warfares and external relationships...
...
The Philosophy which is essential within Christianity could not be found in Rome, for all the various forms of the whole are only the expression of one and the same determinate character. Hence political history, forms of government, art and religion are not related to Philosophy as its causes, nor, on the other hand, is Philosophy the ground of their existence - one and all have the same common root, the spirit of the time. It is one determinate existence, one determinate character which permeates all sides and manifests itself in politics and in all else as in different elements; it is a condition which hangs together in all its parts, and the various parts of which contain nothing which is really inconsistent, however diverse and accidental they may appear to be, and however much they may seem to contradict one another.
[/quote]
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/hpintrob.htm#B1a
To me the 'spirit of [a] time' is something like its understanding of being.
[quote= Hegel]
But if Philosophy does not stand above its time in content, it does so in form, because, as the thought and knowledge of that which is the substantial spirit of its time, it makes that spirit its object.
[/quote]
To me this gels with phenomenology as a making explicit of what is tacitly already dominant.
On the issue of this thread, I continue to think that science is really about power ([s]knowledge is power[/s] power is knowledge). We are lords and masters of nature. We feel it and do it without necessarily ever thinking it or confessing it. We know to the degree that we can do. The rest is maybe politics (its own kind of manipulation.) Is this true? To me it's the spirit of the times, manifested in the relative status of different occupations.
:ok: I'll leave you to more fruitful discussions with others. Thanks.
I don't see how this is relevant. You insist that we speak in Zeno's terms, now you want to talk about how Zeno's terms relate to modern conceptions. It's you who is insisting we leave modern conceptions out of this, so be consistent, and leave it out.
Quoting tim wood
Huh? Clearly you haven't followed Zeno's example! Achilles can't beat the tortoise, according to the terms of the example. Since you keep saying things which aren't there, talking about stops, pauses, and now the assumption that Achilles beats the tortoise, it's obviously you who's reading into it, what's not there.
Quoting tim wood
What you are describing here is a stop. An "interval of time during which he is at that and only that point". We went through this already, there is no such stop, or pause, described in the example by Zeno.
It is stipulated that each runner runs at a constant speed. Achilles runs faster than the tortoise, but the tortoise has a head start. The tortoise is already ahead, and moving forward when Achilles is moving forward. Achilles has to get to the tortoise's starting point before passing the tortoise, and this takes some time. In that period of time, the tortoise moves ahead. Now Achilles has to get to that point where the tortoise has moved ahead to. But in the time that it takes him to get there, the tortoise has moved further ahead again. This will continue indefinitely (infinitely) and Achilles will never surpass the tortoise.
See, there is no stopping at any of the points, both the tortoise and Achilles are moving at a constant speed, Achilles faster than the tortoise. However, the period of time that it takes for Achilles to get to where the tortoise was, during which time the tortoise moves further ahead, becomes shorter and shorter and shorter. So long as there is that short period of time, the tortoise will always get further ahead. And, there will always be that short period of time, because there will always be a short space that the tortoise is ahead of Achilles and according to the stipulation of Achilles' constant speed, it will require a period of time for him to cover that space and get to where the tortoise was.
Quoting tim wood
I ignored the question of the tortoise because I couldn't see what the question was. Now I see that it's not relevant, and seems to be based in your misunderstanding of "stops". Both Achilles and the tortoise are moving at constant speeds, there is no stops, or pauses, and it is not the case that Achilles can't proceed. Achilles always proceeds (constant), just like the tortoise always proceeds, but Achilles cannot catch up to the tortoise, for the reason explained above, as presented by Zeno.
If you want to understand the ancient Greek meaning of "Being", read Parmenides, and the other Eleatics, among whom Zeno was one.
That's a very important point - you're absolutely correct.
The word logos as "discourse" is what's commonly assumed, and later becomes a matter of propositions and eventually logic. But initially it was much closer semantically to an idea of Phusis.
I'll respond more fully later about all of that, but your point is well taken.
About the word "being" itself in Greek I don't have much knowledge. I didn't think there was such a word, actually. Phusis (as that which emerges), and later ousia, seem to be the words used, but if you know more I'm certainly interested.
There's no sense taking this personally. I respect what you say about science - there's plenty of truth in it. But as much as I'm normally not a stickler for staying "on topic," I don't want to lose sight of my main question and be sent adrift on a discussion about empiricism. You can understand that I'm sure.
Nevertheless, if you're uninterested that's fair enough.
Very well said. Yes indeed, I couldn't agree more.
It's not only the emphasis on "practical" behavior which is novel, as overlooked as that has been in academic philosophy - but a way in which to analyze it without invoking the use of traditional concepts (I.e., "phenomenologically"). This is why people unjustly accuse Heidegger of being a charlatan, as he had to essentially invent words in order to discuss the topic.
An excellent place to start, no doubt. Now to study the morphing of this understanding in the time between Parmenides and Aristotle is especially fascinating.
"With the question of the meaning of being, our investigation comes up against the fundamental question of philosophy. This is one that must be treated phenomenologically. [...] This expression does not characterize the what of the objects of philosophical research as subject-matter, but rather the how of that research. (Being & Time, p. 50)
In Heidegger, phenomenon = the manifest. Regarding phenomenon and seeming (semblance), the latter already includes the former -- that is, no-thing can "merely look like so-and-so" without first manifesting (be a phenomenon in the first sense).
That's the phenomenon aspect of "phenomenology."
As for the ?????, which you mentioned:
[quote=] "????? as "discourse" means rather the same as ??????: to make manifest what one is 'talking about' in one's discourse. Aristotle has explicated this function of discourse more precisely as ????????????. The ????? lets something be seen (?????????), namely, what the discourse is about; and it does so either for the one who is doing the talking (the medium) or for persons who are talking with one another, as the case may be. Discourse 'lets something be seen' ??? ... : that is, it lets us see something from the very thing which the discourse is about. In discourse (?????????) so far as it is genuine, what is said is drawn from what the talk is about, so that discursive communication, in what it says, makes manifest what it is talking about, and thus makes this accessible to the other party. This is the structure of the ????? as ?????????." [/quote]
He'll eventually say that logos, as a "letting-something-be-seen" can be true or false, but truth in the Greek sense of ??????? (aletheia), "unconcealedness." And falseness as "covering up."
???????? -- perception, gets invoked here, etc.
In the end, phenomenology means:
[quote=] Thus "phenomenology" means [...] that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself. This is the formal meaning of that branch of research which calls itself "phenomenology". [/quote]
Logos, therefore, plays a prominent role and is important to understand in our search for the meaning of being. Later it becomes relevant in terms of how it's evolved as a term and eventually comes to mean "logic" as the science of thought. But that's a different matter.
The idea of "being" as presented by the Eleatics, is heavily influenced by Pythagorean idealism. I believe Pythagoras and Parmenides were both in the southern Italy area of Greece. This idea of "being" can be contrasted with the "becoming" of Heraclitus.
What would be interesting would be to see how both "becoming" and "being" get unified into the one Latin concept of "existence". I believe it its done through the Aristotelian matter and form, but this would be a complex research project.
Quoting tim wood
Right, that's the point I was making. In reality Achilles will pass the tortoise, therefore the notion of continuous, constant motion, infinitely divisible, as presented in the paradox is faulty.
Quoting tim wood
The discrete moments you described consist of stops. There is no such thing in Zeno's presentation, there is constant, continuous motion, with infinitely divisible time and distance. So your interpretation is very clearly wrong. I suggest you read up on that paradox and get a clear understanding of it before you make any further attempts to discuss it.
I agree. Heidegger had a good reasons for inventing his jargon. I especially like the young Heidegger, https://www.scribd.com/doc/93511246/Van-Buren-The-Young-Heidegger-1994 The first draft of Being and Time is a condensed eye-opening classic https://www.amazon.com/Concept-Time-Contemporary-European-Thinkers/dp/144110562X.
I link to these for anyone skeptical but curious about Heidegger. I couldn't make up my mind whether he was a charlatan till I read some of his pre- Being and Time work. The man could and did write quite clearly and directly, especially in lectures.
Have you checked out Groundless Grounds? It's a great synthesis of Heidegger and Wittgenstein. I suppose holism and know-how are two of the most liberating themes. The liberation is freedom from a bad philosophy of merely playing with words (metaphysical quagmire with not even a political-emotional payload, for instance).
[quote=link]
According to Yorck, in Ancient Greece consciousness displayed a particular configuration of the primacy of cognition. For the Greeks, the stance of consciousness towards the world is pure looking. It is through looking that reality is understood. Affectivity (feeling) and volition are not countenanced as functions that disclose the world as such.[18] Truth lies in the beholding eye alone; contemplation, theoria, and intuition take centre stage.
It is as if the clear-sighted eye is expressed in words. On the basis of this condition of consciousness, the function of looking [Anschauung], ocularity [Okularität], becomes the organ of all free work of the mind, particularly of philosophy. (ST, p. 30)
Yorck finds evidence for the prevalence of ocularity or the aesthetic attitude, which is centred on plasticity [Gestaltlichkeit], in Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, among others.
Form and content constitute the aesthetic dichotomy which governs Greek thought in its entirety, the result of the liberation of ocularity from all other sensuality, the aesthetic liberation, which strikes a chord in everyone who has entered the threshold of Greek life. Looking is the essential comportment; hence, Gestalt or Form [qualifies as] ousia or substance.[19] (ST, p. 31)
That Greek metaphysics seeks the unchangeable and impassable is the result of the relative suppression of feeling and willing that is latent in all cognition, which abstracts from feeling and temporality, as well as objects of human desire (ST, p. 42). Put differently, the structural timelessness of thought as such is intensified in metaphysical thought where it becomes “absolute” (ST, p. 42). Yorck emphasizes that “negation of temporality” marks “the decisive metaphysical step” (ST, p. 66). Metaphysics constitutes the counter-move against the feeling of temporality (that everything passes away), as well as the liberation from the dependence on objects desired by the will. According to Yorck, the escape from temporality and attachment determines the entire metaphysical tradition up to and including Hegel (because even Hegel “ontologizes” life) (ST, p. 83).
[/quote]
This is helpful too.
[quote=link]
Next, Yorck also claims that “time originates in feeling” (ST, p. 135). But as feeling is non-projective, it follows that, originally, “temporality” is not “objective”[13] (ST, 146). Yorck distinguishes between the feeling of transitoriness, i.e., that everything passes away [Vergänglichkeitsgefühl] (ST, p. 33), and the feeling or awareness of one's own mortality [Sterblichkeitsgefühl][14] (ST, p. 90). Acquiescence into one's own mortality constitutes the opposite pole to self-affirmation, “self-renunciation” [Selbsthingabe] (ST, p. 14), which is thus distinct from and even antithetical to the ethical impetus in philosophy and science. Yorck argues that the inversion of volitional and cognitive projection in feeling and its concentration in pure, passive interiority amounts to a “religious comportment” and the feeling of dependency (ST, 121). To the extent that the religious concentration of life in interiority is inversely related to projective representation, Yorck understands religious life in terms of its “freedom from the world” or Weltfreiheit (ST, p. 81 & 112). Psychologically, freedom from the world is the precondition for the consciousness of a world-transcendent God, or the consciousness of transcendence (ST, p. 105). Yorck only hints at the projection sui generis involved in transcendence. But it is a projection that has no cognitive or volitional content, such that God is intended without becoming “an object,” and willing becomes a “non-willing,” albeit without loss of energy (ST, 104).
Drawing on Dilthey and Schleiermacher, Yorck argues that immediate and indubitable reality of life is exclusively “guaranteed” through volition and affectivity alone. Yorck writes: “That which opposes me or that which I feel, I call real,” because I cannot doubt what resists my will or affects my personal life, whereas it is always possible to doubt objects neutrally represented in space outside me (ST, p. 89). What is thought and grasped as an unchanging, stable and self-same object in the space of thought does not affect me or solicit a desire. For Yorck, cognition, in abstraction from feeling and volition, is the realm of pure “phenomenality,” which is always open to doubt in virtue of its being merely represented or thought (ST, p. 88). Because “the category of reality is a predicate of feeling and willing” alone (ST, p. 128), Yorck concludes that it is an “utterly uncritical” and self-contradictory undertaking to attempt to prove “the reality of the world” by means of the understanding (ST, p. 129). What Yorck writes to Dilthey in a more general vein is also applicable to this particular problem:
[/quote]
Freedom from the world is something like a willingness to die. As Hobbes noted, we seek resources and power as a way to increase our security. Worldliness is a swelling assimilation of wealth, reputation, allies, etc. The denial of time is a denial of death. To participate in eternity is to become one with the undying and therefore undead. There is some overlap here with the metaphilosophy thread. Some philosophy is useless in its connection to transcendence, which makes it a kind of renunciation. Anti-metaphysical philosophy that accepts time is like this perhaps. But metaphysics is a different kind of renunciation too. And Heidegger had modes with fit with this, I think.
No. As Heidegger points out, and quite rightly, Heraclitus and Parmenides are saying the same thing. They're both discussing being. "Being and becoming" is the first "restriction" discussed in his Introduction to Metaphysics, in fact.
Again I return to the question of phusis. It's here that we find clues to the Greek conception of being. Parmenides and Heraclitus are interested in exactly this question.
To argue being is distinct from becoming and pit these two thinkers against one another may be something we learn from philosophy books and in most school rooms, but it's just a mistake- in my view. There are better analyses.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think your analysis is way off base and therefore your research project, although it would be doubtlessly complex, would be a blind alley.
This is vague, of course, but it would take a while to dismantle most of what you said, and I'd prefer to stay on the topic of phusis - the Greek conception of being at the beginning of Western thought.
Thank you, James. I'll check out the links and those citations soon.
OK boss. Zeno says that each runner runs with a constant speed, yet he means that one is stopping and starting. That's a great interpretation you're giving me. No wonder we disagree
Quoting tim wood
Yes, Zeno demonstrated that.
Quoting Xtrix
If this is really what Heidegger says, I think he is wrong. Hegel also tried to make them into the same thing, by saying that becoming consists of being and not being, in his dialectics of being. He employs a system of negation to characterize becoming. But I think this is wrong as well, and maybe Heidegger's principles are Hegelian.
Plato demonstrated the appearance of incompatibility between Heraclitus' becoming, and Parmenides' being, and Aristotle showed conclusively that this is the case with a number of arguments, one I presented already in this thread. Apprehension of these arguments leads one away from accepting any postulates which stipulate that being and becoming are one and the same thing.
Quoting Xtrix
It may be the case, that Parmenides describes "phusis" with "being", and Heraclitus describes "phusis" with "becoming", but this does not mean that being and becoming are one and the same thing. In this case, being and becoming are distinct concepts being employed to describe the same thing. If these two concepts are incompatible, then there is a problem.
So for example, if one person describes a substance as solid, and another person describes the same substance as liquid, this does not indicate that "solid" and "liquid" have the same meaning. It indicates a problem in 'the description' of the substance, because the two descriptions incompatible. Likewise, if one person describes the transmission of a certain quantity of energy as a wave, and another person describes it as a particle, these two are incompatible and there is clearly a problem with the description of the transmission of this energy.
Quoting Xtrix
I don't agree with this at all. When the same thing is described in incompatible ways, this means that 'the description' of this thing is contradictory. Neither the one, nor the other, is self-contradictory, but the two contradict each other. Maybe you do not see this as a problem, but I do, as I think it makes it impossible to understand the thing being described. Therefore, I believe that this problem of contradiction needs to be exposed, as Socrates and Plato did, and addressed in a rational manner, as Aristotle did, before we can proceed toward an understanding of the thing which is being described in contradictory ways.
That's right, such would not be a proper representation of how motion really exists.
And Zeno demonstrated this to me, regardless of whether Zeno demonstrated it to you, or to anyone else, for that matter, he still demonstrated it to me.
Yes, I'd say some form of "discontinuous". The physicists haven't figured that out yet, perhaps discrete intervals as QM suggests. Take a look at Achilles, the human runner, for example. Each time the forward foot hits the ground in the act of running, there is a slow down as the leg absorbs the impact, and an acceleration when that foot becomes the rear foot, and pushes off. You might not see this alternation when you're watching the runner, but you feel it when you're running. Running is not a constant continuous motion. The forward foot cannot be hitting the ground at the same time the rear foot is pushing off
Quoting tim wood
Acceleration is a very difficult problem which no one has come anywhere near to figuring out. If something is at rest, and then it is in motion, there must be a very short period of time when the acceleration is infinite. Do you see this? Going from 0 speed to any speed requires infinite acceleration.
You might think that it's not a real problem because rest is not a real concept in relativity based physics, but the problem is there nevertheless, any time a force is applied to an object. There is a very short period of time when the behaviour of the object cannot be known.
Quoting tim wood
It's not a problem for me, just a brute fact of reality, no motion is continuous. It just appears like some motions are continuous, and people like to represent motion as continuous because it's easier than trying to deal with the reality of various forces being applied to every object at every passing moment of time, especially when we have very little, if any, information about these forces. Instead, we take continuity for granted, as Newton's first law. But that's just a convenient falsity. And now that physicists have started dealing with extremely short periods of time, that falsity has manifested as quantum uncertainty. That's the "short period of time when the behaviour of the object cannot be known", referred to above. So it is a problem for physicists, but I'm not one of them.
Right, continuous motion is impossible, and Zeno demonstrated that to me.
Quoting tim wood
The only problems I see are the problems which physicists have because they fail to respect the reality demonstrated by Zeno, that continuous motion is impossible. I'm not a physicist, so these are not my problems. But I've told you how to resolve them, dismiss the notion that motion is continuous.
Quoting tim wood
Motion is change of place. Change of place involves a beginning place and an ending place. A continuous thing is unbroken by any beginning or endings. Therefore it is impossible that motion is continuous.
LOL. That coming from the person who incessantly insisted that Zeno's "Achilles and the Tortoise" paradox consisted of Achilles making stops, despite the fact that I explained numerous times that Zeno stipulated constant motion.
Quoting tim wood
Things are not always as they seem, but sometimes they are. I know that being shown one's own mistakes, when it's not done in a careful and considerate way (and even if it is sometimes), can be a very annoying thing. I'll take this as a learning experience and try to work harder on finding that careful and considerate way.
It's true that the distinction between "being and becoming" have their origins in Plato and Aristotle. But think about it for a minute -- what, exactly, "becomes"? Things change and move, they arise and pass -- but this presupposes a being and thus being itself. Plato associates Parmenides' being with some kind of permanence opposed to change.
It's not that any of this is "wrong" -- that would be presumptuous. They weren't idiots. Rather it's that by this point the original sense of being, as phusis, is pushed to the background. By the time Plato and Aristotle show up, being has transformed into "idea" and "ousia." But most of the trouble lies in our interpretation of what "becoming" means.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Don't take my word for it:
[quote=]Even today, in accounts of the inception of Western philosophy, it is customary to oppose Parmenides' teaching to that of Heraclitus. An opt-cited saying is supposed to derive from Heraclitus: panta rhei, all is in flux. Hence there is no being. All "is" becoming.
[...]
Of course, when someone asserts the opposite, that in the history of phlosophy all thinkers have at bottom said the same thing, then this is taken as yet another outlandish imposition on everyday understanding. What use, then, is the multifaceted and complex history of Western philosophy, if they all say the same thing anyway? Then one philosophy would be enough. Everything has always already been said. And yet this "same" possess, as its inner truth, the inexhaustible wealth of that which on every day is as if that day were its first.[/quote]
I think that's clear enough. I think you should check it out, too -- definitely worth the time. It's Introduction to Metaphysics p. 74.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, it just means we're in one phase of "restricting" being, which has an interesting history, and begins with this distinction and then, later, "being and seeming," "being and thinking," etc.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I agree. It does mean, however, that "substance" retains its meaning.
To extend this analogy to our case, it would be like describing a substance as a "substance and a liquid." We have to know something about what "substance" means before we can contrast the two. There's also the problem of what we mean by "liquid" (or in this case, "becoming").
"Heraclitus, to whom one ascribes the doctrine of becoming, in start contrast to Parmenides, in truth says the same as Parmenides. He would not be one of the greatest of the great Greeks if he said anything else. One simply must not interpret his doctrine of becoming according to the notions of a nineteenth-century Darwinist." (Introduction, p 75.) [My emphasis]
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't see this particular issue as a problem, no. There are many ways of interpreting things. The wave-particle business you mentioned is a good example. So's the proverbial glass being "half-empty" and "half-full." Is either a "problem"? Well maybe, but what's not an issue is that something is being interpreted.
Anticipating later analyses: it's worth remember that, at bottom, whenever we are engaged in these questions and problems (in philosophy or science), we're interpreting and analyzing -- which is a certain mode of our existence. That mode, reaching back at least to the Greeks, involves presence. This is a mode of our being -- Heidegger calls it the "present-at-hand" -- and includes (of course) an aspect of time (the present).
This in turn is related to ideas of "truth" and all of its transformations, which in the early Greeks was called "aletheia." This term, like phusis, has to do with a "disclosure," an "openness," an "emergence" -- all of which shows up in the context of "presence" and is closely related to "phusis." And so we're back at the OP question.
OK. And not reciprocally? What part of the universe isn't nature? If everything that happens "in the universe" is nature, then why not say the universe and nature are the same thing?
This isn't much of an answer, I'm afraid. But regardless, like I've state elsewhere, I'm not interested in just "defining" what the word means. There's too much of that that in philosophy already. We're trying to explore the basis for the word itself -- which was a Latin translation of the Greek word "phusis."
Every "part" of the universe is nature.
Quoting Xtrix
I don't see what you'll be getting out of your foray into etymology intellectually besides context, but carry on as you wish.
If I could interject here.
Zeno's paradoxes are precisely that. Paradoxes. There are many of them.
Or take the ship of Theseus -- is it the same ship or not? Should we be arguing about it?
There can't be any answer to these riddles. They're interesting to think about, but the both of you taking a position and trying to defend that position is fruitless.
Then why bother distinguishing the two and say nature happens "in" the universe?
Quoting BraydenS
We'll be getting out of it a better understanding of the philosophical foundations of modern science (and not only that). Understanding science, such a huge feature of our present historical time, is important if we're to understand where we're going as a species. That's my belief.
But ultimately, asking what one "gets out" of philosophy is implying it has to have some use, which is reminiscent of those among us who can't see the value of anything that can't be monetized. Kind of sad.
Because we cannot talk about or sense the universe in any way, only parts of it.
Quoting Xtrix
But you just exclaimed that your use of understanding the etymology of the word was for "understanding science", which is a philosophical system of thought built on it's ability to be applied practically and pragmatically.
We can't talk about the universe in any way, yet you are talking about it.
We can't sense the universe in any way, except its parts -- and what are its parts? Everything in nature.
This is all pretty silly. No offense.
Quoting BraydenS
No, I said this is my belief. But regardless of whether it has any "use" at all, it's interesting for its own sake.
Also, to casually throw around a definition like "a philosophical system of thought [redundant] built on its ability to be applied practically and pragmatically [redundant]" is kind of ridiculous. There is such a thing as "philosophy of science," if you're not aware. That means many minds, much greater than yours, have struggled with the question of what science is. It's not so simple. You could be right or wrong, but simply declaring it accomplishes nothing.
I'm always struck by people who want to quickly and confidently proclaim a definitive answer, or some solid definition, for something or other -- without any context. I'm further struck to watch as they're satisfied by this, as if by doing so they've settled anything.
We have to do better than this. Try reading this thread for starters. Spouting empty nonsense won't be tolerated -- it'll be, properly, ignored.
I don't see where this comes from, nor what you mean by it. Can you explain? What do you mean by restricting being?
Quoting Xtrix
As I said, I think Plato demonstrated the difference between them. And, I think that to claim that they both said the same thing is to misunderstand what they said.
Quoting Xtrix
Having contradictory interpretations is not the same as "half-empty"/ "half-full", as these two are not contradictory. Do you see the difference, between interpretations which are different, yet consistent with each other, and interpretations which contradict each other? It is the latter which I see as a problem, the former is not a problem.
Quoting Xtrix
What about your thesis that all philosophy is saying the same thing? How can any philosophers disagree?
I am talking about the idea of everything, not everything.
An idea of everything is not equivalent with everything. An idea of everything is itself natural, that is, within the universe, that is, limited. That is why you cannot talk about the universe/everything.
Your response is similar to proving that there is such a thing as "nothing" because we have an idea of nothing. But our idea of nothing is not nothing. Our idea of nothing is not equivalent with nothing. Our idea of nothing is something. That is why you cannot talk about nothing.
Quoting Xtrix
But a definition isn't something you find. It's something you create.
Quoting Xtrix
I believe exactly the opposite. Not declaring a definition accomplishes nothing. Declaring a definition accomplishes something.
Quoting Xtrix
I have settled something, I have settled some defintion, my definition, of a word.
Quoting Xtrix
I have no doubt it appears like nonsense to those who look for definitions endlessly outside of themselves, believe the idea of everything is the same as everything, believe declaring definitions accomplishes less than not declaring definitions, who belittles on impact from anger (which always springs from some weakness), who thinks things are "interesting for their own sake" (and not for some power), who gets on his high horse while talking about the "philosophy of science", who though calling science pragmatic and practal was redundant (even though they just looked down upon "use"), etc. etc. etc.
And of course, I'm not mad in any way. In fact, I even have the virility left to properly define science as a philosophical system of thought (since the previous wasn't a definition, it was me showing you that your hatred of "use" was naive).
Science is applied epistemology. This is the gift I give you for this fun conversation. Hope to see you around!
This assumes there's a difference, which is not obvious. But let's say there is. In that case, nature is everything as well. Everything within nature is substance. There, I just defined it into existence. I guess that settles it?
Quoting BraydenS
If we can't talk about "it," and only the "idea" of "it," then you're essentially equating the "universe" with Kant's thing-in-itself, which isn't compelling at all. We can argue the same way about "God," too.
This is exactly why armchair philosophy and throwing around definitions without context is a waste of time. It proves nothing, it's not interesting, it doesn't further the conversation along -- we can't disprove it, we can't study it -- who cares?
Quite apart from the fact that this has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.
Quoting BraydenS
Yes, you create a definition in the context of a wider explanatory theory, which you don't have. What you don't do is walk into a physics department and declare what "energy" means to you based on your extensive armchair contemplations. Likewise with philosophy. If you care to give evidence or reasons, or demonstrate any knowledge of the questions and controversies within the philosophy of science, you're welcome to. In the meantime, we can "define" things out in space all we want -- so what?
Quoting BraydenS
No, it doesn't. Simply defining something for yourself may be fun, but it "accomplishes" exactly as much as saying nothing at all. Defining something with reason and evidence within a wider theory, sure. That's in fact what they do in science. But all of that extra work hasn't been done in this case, thus accomplishing nothing.
If you view making up a definition for yourself as an accomplishment, you're welcome.
Quoting BraydenS
Fine -- which is completely useless to a conversation with other human beings. Better to go talk to yourself in that case, because otherwise it's settled exactly nothing.
Quoting BraydenS
"Outside of themselves" is meaningless. Definitions don't float around in space somewhere to be found, nor is anyone saying this.
And it is nonsense. As I've noted before, spin doesn't work here -- you either know Greek or not, for example. Stopped being a sciolist.
Quoting BraydenS
And yet you've still not shown the difference. Something completely unknown, which cannot be sensed or talked about in any way, which you claim the universe to be (but not the "idea" of it), is a useless concept. I suppose the "idea" of a cup can be talked about, yet the cup "outside our idea" is completely unknowable? That's Kant. That's nothing new. Why you invoke this for differentiating "universe" and "nature" is strange indeed.
Quoting BraydenS
Who's belittling? And who's angry?
Besides, anger does not always spring from weakness. But your welcome to keep declaring broad, vague, unsupported statements.
Quoting BraydenS
Got me there, I suppose. I do find things interesting for their own sake, yes. There's obviously a degree of pleasure and perhaps "power" involved -- but it need not be "useful." Playing music, thinking, etc.
Quoting BraydenS
I pointed out that there is such a thing as the philosophy of science. This puts me on a "high horse"? I'm precisely saying the opposite: a little humility is appropriate. Walking into a discussion and simply conjuring personal definitions, without any explanation or demonstrating knowledge of the topic or its history, perhaps would count more as being on a "high horse."
Quoting BraydenS
Again, declared without an explanation. Yes, I happen to agree that science is philosophy -- I said that from the beginning. It was called, in Descartes and Newton, "natural philosophy." That's not the point. Perhaps if you deign to read before feeling entitled to make sweeping declarations, you could contribute something.
So far you've contributed nothing.
Quoting BraydenS
This doesn't make sense even as a personal definition. Espistemology is a branch of philosophy, that studies knowledge. That's where the word comes from -- the Greek for "knowledge." Science is not epistemology, "applied" or otherwise. Science is, as I repeat, natural philosophy. It's concerned with nature, in theory and in practice. Again, this isn't MY definition. I didn't simply "come up" with it.
As I said elsewhere -- a prerequisite for this discussion is knowledge of Greek history and language. I'm not interested in personal, context-free definitions. If that's all you have to contribute, than I thank you and I wish you well. If you have something of real worth to contribute, I'm all ears.
Yes, I see the difference. The analogy was flawed, of course. The point remains: something is being interpreted. We all agree. I'm not denying that there are conflicting interpretations -- in fact the history of how these interpretations evolved is the point of this discussion, in part.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You're right, it does need explanation. The "restriction of being" I was referring to was Heidegger's chapter of the same name in Introduction to Metaphysics, in which he discusses the four ways Being as been contrasted with an "Other." Becoming, seeming, thinking, and the ought -- these are the four.
Being and becoming, along with "being and seeming," are the most ancient. He discusses how they became disjoined, and how the disjunction sprung from an essential unity. That unity is phusis.
Things that manifest, that emerge, that "grow," come to take two on different aspects -- that which persists in stability and that which is unstable, which arises and perishes. This relates also with that which "appears" as a "seeming" -- a semblance, which eventually hardens into a "mere seeming" in the sense of Plato, who then contrasts this with the Idea.
I'm simplifying greatly, of course. There's a lot of evidence supporting this which we can discuss further, but in general this is what I meant by restriction of being. You may find it compelling or not, but it's worth exploring.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
They can disagree in all kinds of ways. I'm not denying that. True thinkers think being. There are many ways of interpreting and talking about it.
) Kant was a doubting Platonist who had a love for nature Plato did not
2) to feel is as noble as to think. If thinking nothing makes you feel best, you must ask what purpose of life is
3) Science doesn't need purpose however. All it needs is trial and risk taking.
Skimmed over your post, and you got this right! Only, the universe is not a thing.
Lol. Ok bud, whatever you say. :) Enjoy talking about something that doesn't exist with someone else. It's too riveting for me.
Yes, this is what I was saying, something is being interpreted, and this is what you have named "phusis". As I explained there are two distinct descriptions of this thing, one under the terms of "being", the other under the terms of "becoming". If these two distinct descriptions were consistent with each other, like "half empty" and "half full" are consistent with each other, there would be no problem. But Plato and Aristotle demonstrated that these two descriptions are not consistent with each other. Whatever it is which is described as "being" cannot be the same thing which is described as "becoming". So, Aristotle proposed that this one thing, "phusis", has two distinct aspects which he called matter and form, to account for these two distinct descriptions.
Quoting Xtrix
Right, these are the two distinct aspects. Stability relates to being, and instability relates to becoming. Under the Aristotelian divisions, the matter persists, as what is stable, unchanging, in spite of the changes involved with generation and corruption. The form of the thing is what actually changes. So regardless of what type of object it is that we are looking at, we can identify these two aspects of the object, the aspect which is described in terms of being, stability, which is the matter, and the aspect which is described in terms of becoming, instability, which is the form.
There are also many spiritualities. Look at the Car's Jr. star and try to imagine it NOT having a smiling face. This is what Kant did for the world, and he enjoyed it. He went back to the world with his new found faculty of Judgment and experienced a bittersweet world
I agree -- if we're ascribing to the word "being" as something "changeless," for example. In that case, yes of course that's radically different from something that perpetually changes. That's one way to define "being."
But when you view being in a different sense -- not as the "changeless" but as that which emerges, as in phusis, then you see the original unity. Granted, they do become disjoined -- just as later they do as "being and thinking" -- but we come to understand from what they became disjoined: the Greek sense of being in phusis.
"Becoming" has as much "being" as form or Idea, in this sense.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, they both relate to being in the sense of phusis mentioned above. They're both aspects of this. Phusis -- the Greek understanding of being -- is not only "stability" or "changeless Form." If that were the case, the only entities that "are," or that "have" being, are those that don't change. But that's absurd: a river "is" just as much as a triangle, matter, or universal concept "is."
Phenomena seem to change and some seem to stay the same way. This relation between the permanent and impermanent is an ancient distinction. But to ascribe "being" only to the former is a mistake, and quite different from the Greek concept of being in phusis. This is Heidegger's point and the point I'm attempting to make here.
Who exactly are you responding to? If no one, what are you talking about?
Quoting Gregory
And he "enjoyed" it? What does that mean? And what, exactly, are you claiming he "did for the world?" And, further, how does ANY of this relate to phusis or anything anyone on here is talking about?
You are just bringing up a cryptic word and thinking it's going to get somewhere in a conversation. Concepts are what count. We have no sure knowledge of what ancient texts mean.
You're not answering the question.
I'm not interested in your opinion about this thread's topic, of which you've contributed nothing. There's nothing "cryptic" about the word phusis, by the way. And if there is, you wouldn't even know it because you understand absolutely nothing about it.
Quoting Gregory
Phusis is a concept, a very concrete one. It's also the topic of this thread. If you know nothing of ancient Greek thought or the Greek language, or don't find it compelling, feel free to utter off-topic, incoherent nonsense like "concepts are what count" and "Kant enjoyed doing it" somewhere else. In fact, I urge you to.
Quoting Gregory
Another silly statement. We have no sure knowledge about any historical event, either. Is history therefore not worth pursuing?
It's very easy to utter complete nonsense and posture as a "philosopher." But there are people out there doing real work and making real progress while you engage in your mental masturbation. Please leave the real work to them.
I have no interest in your ramblings.
I don't know what relates to this thread. God can render all human reasoning open to doubt. You sound like Cicero. Is you're way better than epoche and ataraxia? Kant divided his mind into practical reason, judgment, reason general, understanding, intuitions. The combinations he used with them were fascinating. There are many writers on this forum that have very interesting angles. But you think this thread has made much work, so In a paragraph, what have you discovered?
Reread the following: here. You're boring me.
Protagoras is my favorite Greek. One of his works was read by Porphyry in the third century CE, but none survive to this day. People wanted Christian faith instead and so destroyed his legacy.
"He seems to have held that a tangent touches a circle not only at one point, but at more than one, clearly arguing from visual experience of drawn lines."
Ok buddy. I like Protagoras too. Appreciate the input.
Right, this is "being" in the Parmenidean sense. Being is associated with truth, what is, is, and it is impossible for it not to be, and what is not, is not, and it is impossible for it to be. What is, i.e. "being" can be understood as eternal changeless truth.
Quoting Xtrix
I don't see any "original unity". Being in the sense of what emerges is more like Hegel's "being". Are you sure that Heidegger doesn't get his sense of "being" from Hegel?
Quoting Xtrix
This seems a little confused to me. It appears like you are saying that there is a sense of being which means phusis. There is no "being in the sense of phusis". That is a misrepresentation. However, there may have been a "phusis in the sense of being".
Being relates to phusis, and becoming relates to phusis, as two distinct ways of describing what is referred to by phusis. Being represents stability, and becoming represents instability. So you cannot say that being in the sense of phusis is unstable. Being always refers to the stable aspect of phusis, as described by Parmenides, what is and cannot be otherwise, while becoming refers to the unstable aspect, what is changing.
Well remember what's getting translated as "truth" -- ???????, aletheia. The concept of "truth" has gone through many semantic changes. In fact it says basically the same thing as phusis, as the simple perception of things, as that which shows itself, discloses itself, or in Heidegger "un-conceals" itself. All of this to the Greeks is "true."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well it's not really a "sense," it's simply interpreting the texts. Heidegger himself makes very few positive claims about being. Hegel was one of the first to discuss the presocratic thinkers, so perhaps there's some influence in that sense.
But I'm not understanding why you don't see the unity. That which emerges, that which shows itself, which "appears," is the being of entities in the Greek sense. Entities (beings) may be seen as changing or not changing, moving or not moving -- but they all exist, they all "are." To say entities that move or change or "become" do not possess "being" is simply a mistake.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, the Greek understanding of being is phusis. When I say "being in the sense of phusis" this means the same: phusis is the word that describes the being of beings. Heidegger says the same, and it's worth going over the reasons for this-- I can't transcribe his entire lecture.
"Phusis in the sense of being" seems to me an attempt to fit things into what you're already expecting, to make "being" something more fundamental as "changeless." But that's just misunderstanding what the word means. Beings show up, emerge, appear, unconceal themselves -- this is phusis, the "emerging, abiding sway." This is how the Greeks apprehend beings:
[quote=] "Phusis is the emergence can be experienced everywhere: for example, in celestial processes (the rising of the sun), in the surging of the sea, in the growth of plants, in the coming forth of animals and human beings from the womb. But phusis, the emerging sway, is not synonymous with these processes, which we still today count as part of "nature." This emerging and standing-out-in-itself-from-iself may not be taken as just one process among others that we observe in beings. Phusis is Being itself, by virtue of which beings first become and remain observable." (Intro, p. 15) [/quote]
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No: phusis is being itself. You continually come back to separating "being" and becoming" and then want to make phusis 'related' to both -- but rather "being" in the sense you mean (as changeless) and becoming are both aspects of being in the Greek understanding (phusis).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I know that's how you're interpreting it -- and you could be completely right, of course. But unfortunately in this case we'll have to get "into the weeds" about it by analyzing Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, and Aristotle.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Where in his poem are you interpreting this from exactly? He never says being "always refers to the stable aspect of phusis." He does speak especially of the Goddess "truth," however.
I think I see the problem right here. You start out by referring to "the being of entities", and that is consistent with the ancient Greek usage of being, which is a verb. The you switch to equate "being" with an entity ("Entities (beings) may be seen as changing or not changing..."), and that is to use "being" as a noun. This usage, to refer to "beings" as things, rather than "being" as the activity of a thing, I do not think is consistent with ancient Greek usage. That usage I believe developed later from Latin, the human being, etc..
So I see a bit of equivocation in your paragraph here. You are switching from "being" as a property of a thing, to a being as a thing itself, and the latter is not consistent with ancient Greek usage.
Quoting Xtrix
So we can talk about the being of things, and the becoming of things, but this is not to talk about the same aspect of the things. There is no unity of being and becoming because they are distinct ideas, but it is supposed that the thing itself provides some unity, by having both being, and becoming.
Quoting Xtrix
Now you're switching "being" to a noun, talking about "beings", and this is not consistent with the ancient Greek. So this is not how the Greeks apprehended beings, they did not actually apprehend "beings". There was this type of thing, and that type of thing, "species", and fundamental elements which all types of things were composed of, but they didn't have an overall concept of "being" which could be used to refer to any different thing as "a being".
Quoting Xtrix
He says that what is, is, and cannot not be. This means impossible to change, therefore stable. If he said that what is, is possible to not be, then it would refer to instability.
No, you don't need to find the basis for modern science in order to do science.
'cause we didn't, yet we're doing it.
As Tolkien put it, the tale grew in the telling.
True, no more than you need to find the basis of "sports" to play basketball. What's your point?
No, the being of entities is phusis, the emerging sway.
That "entities may be seen as changing or not changing" is indeed discussing beings. There is a distinction (which Heidegger calls the "ontological distinction") between Being and beings (I capitalized the former in this case for clarity). Being is the basis on which any particular entity (a being) shows up, but "it" is not an entity. Being is not a property, either.
I can't find where in my statement you think I meant anything like this, but if it came off that way that was not my intention. Being is not an entity or a property. But do all beings "emerge"? Of course, or they wouldn't be beings for us at all. This "emergence" is phusis -- the Greek term for Being.
Hopefully that was clearer.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Translate your sentence this way: "the being of beings and the becoming of beings." You see where the problem is, I think. The equating of "being" as something changeless, as something opposite of "becoming," of all change and motion and flux -- this is the mistake. Better to say "the permanence of beings and the becoming of beings." In that case, I totally agree they're very different aspects.
Substituting "being" for "permanence" and than contrasting it with "becoming" is just a mistake, or at the very least confusing. Why? Because as you say here:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The "thing" (the being) itself exists, of course -- whether changing or otherwise. It has being. "Becoming" in general has "being."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Beings are nouns, yes. Being, on the other hand, isn't a noun, or a "thing." The being of beings is what we're discussing, in fact. If no-thing emerged or showed up in any way for us, there'd be no question of being at all.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
They did: phusis. That's the entire point.
Heidegger says it better than I:
[Quote=] "What we have said helps us to understand the Greek interpretation of Being that we mentioned at the beginning, in our explication of the term "metaphysics" -- that is, the apprehension of Being as phusis. The later concepts of "nature," we said, must be held at a distance from this: phusis means the emergent self-upraising, the self-unfolding that abides in itself. In this sway, rest and movement are closed and opened up from an originally unity. This sway is the overwhelming coming-to-presence that has not yet been surmounted in thinking, and within which that which comes to presence essentially unfolds as beings. But this sway first steps forth from concealment -- that is, in Greek, aletheia (unconcealment) happens -- insofar as the sway struggles itself forth as a world. Through world, beings first come to being." [/Quote]
That is from page 64.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
He's discussing Being. One may interpret this as opposing being to not-being in the sense of "nothing," and thus arguing that "nothing" is impossible. The argument that any change is impossible is another interpretation, and one I never found very compelling from reading the fragments.
This is your point?
In that case I don't see the evidence for it. Neither I nor others have made any such claim, so far as I can tell. Speaking only for myself, "first we must define our terms" completely misses my aim in creating this thread.
Yes, very much so. I wholeheartedly agree! And well said, if I might say so myself. :)
I still don't see how this equates to "First we must define our terms before we do science." I'm discussing the ontology of science in the sense of "nature" -- the study of nature, the "naturalistic stance" that pervades it, etc. That's a very concrete framework, a view about the universe.
To trace the concept of naturalism and thus "nature" historically can tell us something about the philosophical (ontological) basis of our modern science. This is the point of this thread. It's not that science has to suspend while we explore its theoretical evolution, however, and it's not simply a matter of definition. In that case I would simply ask: "What is the definition of science?"
Not at all. I wanted to know in what sense you were talking about "being". Are you discussing what things have in common, "being", existence, like when we say that a thing "is", instead of a fictional thing which is not? In this case "being" is a verb, what a thing is doing, existing, and I think that this is the sense which the ancient Greek's used. Or, are you talking about "being" in the sense of a thing, a being? In this case "being" is a noun. I think that this is a more modern sense, developed through Latin. You seemed to be switching back and forth between the two.
Instead of giving me a clear answer, you've introduced a third sense of being, a capitalized "Being", which appears specific to Heidegger, but you want to assign it to ancient Greece. It is not the verb I described above, because you say it is not a property of things, the activity which is proper to things as "being". Instead, you assign to it the mystical description of "emergence", or "emerging sway". The problem though, as I explained to you already, is that these concepts are better associated with the ancient Greek "becoming", rather than "being", and these two are distinct in ancient Greek conceptualization.
Quoting Xtrix
OK, so you want to remove "being" in the sense of the verb, "the 'being' of beings" and replace it with "the 'permanence' of being". That's fine, if it makes more sense to you this way, but the problem is that we are discussing how the ancient Greeks talked about it, and they used what is translated as "being", and Parmenides described this in terms of permanence. So you cannot remove the fact that the Greeks spoke of this as the "being" of things, just because it makes more sense to you to call it the permanence of things. Furthermore, as I explained, the Greeks weren't really calling things beings, so it would be more like "the being of a man", "the being of an animal", "the being of a plant". And, since they all seemed to have this property in common, "being", Aristotle asked what is this thing "being", as being itself, which they all have in common.
Quoting Xtrix
This makes absolutely no sense to me. Plants and animals have being, as described above. What could it possibly mean to say "becoming has being"?
Quoting Xtrix
This I don't understand either. What do you mean by "showed up"? You say here that you want to talk about the verb "the being of beings". But then you proceed to define "being" with the terms of "emerged" and "showed up", and these are the defining terms of becoming, not being. So you appear totally confused. "Being" refers to the existence of the thing, not what the thing shows through emergence. Are you familiar with the Latin distinction of existence and essence? Existence is associated with the being of the thing, and essence (what the things is), can be associated with what the things shows up as.
I agree that if there were no showing up of the thing (essence), there would be no existence of the thing. That is a fundamental ontological principle, an existing thing must have a form, essence. But we ought not confuse the existence of a thing (its being), with the essence of the thing (how it shows itself to us). Therefore it is a mistake to say that the being of a thing is what it shows up as.
Quoting Xtrix
"Phusis" does not mean the same as "being". You're wrong to equate these two. They are completely distinct. So if that is your "entire point", it's wrong. Your quoted passage says that "Being" (it's capitalized, so this is the third sense, the Heideggerian sense) is equivalent to the ancient Greek "phusis". But this sense is not "being" in the ancient Greek sense of "being", it's a new sense created by Heidegger, signified by the capitalization.
Quoting Xtrix
No, "Being" refers to a concept created by Heidegger. How could Parmenides have been discussing it?
Saying it's a "verb" isn't quite accurate either, but yes I mean it in the former sense of "is-ness" you mentioned.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not really, although being can only really be discussed through beings. If you take away all beings, it's not that there is left over "being" as a void of some kind.
Regardless, using your terms of verb vs noun, I've been clear about the distinction between being and beings. Again, this is the ontological distinction.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There is no third term. I mentioned that i capitalized it for clarity only, so you wouldn't take it to mean "permanence" and so not to confuse you. I may have failed but that was the only reason - no third term.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You're the one defining being as a verb. I never said that. Being is that on the basis of which beings "are" at all. It's not an easy concept to define. Maybe "existence" is better, but even that doesn't quite capture it because of historical connotations.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But you see that you're begging the question. You're simply starting with the dichotomy of being vs. becoming and trying to fit the data in with this dichotomy. But emerging is phusis, and not simply change and motion. It's the "is-ness" of anything at all, and the fact that it is - whether it changes or moves or is at rest. It's not an action, it's not a property, it's not an entity. When we ask about becoming, we say "becoming 'is' xyz" - we're presupposing being. In this sense "change" has a kind of being as well. Just because it's a verb or an activity doesn't matter. Ditto for whether something is abstract or "not real" like unicorns or imaginary numbers. They all "are."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No. This distinction has its origin in ancient Greek thinking, it's true, but it grows out of an originary unity, the Greek notion of being is phusis. Once we get to Plato and Aristotle, the split between being and becoming and "being and seeming" take off. But we're attempting to go back even further, to the milieu in which they grew.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, he didn't. That's how you are using it. Permanence and impermenance applies to beings. Parmenides is talking about being. Heraclitus is, likewise, talking about being. Our predominant interpretations and translations of these men are simply wrong. Now this is a big claim to make, and needs to he supported. I'm prepared to do that through the fragments themselves, but it could take a while. For the time being, just briefly suspend incredulity and assume it, at least to fully understand my position.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
They are present before us, they appear to us, they "are."
Phusis was the Greek term for being, yes. This is exactly what Heidegger says, and he's correct. You're hung up on the capitilization, but that's irrelevant. It doesn't signify anything. I only used it, mistakingly, for clarity. It's not a special "Heideggerian" sense at all. Being is often capitalized in translations, yes...but EVERY noun in German is capitalized. There's no reason to capitalize it, and in many translations they don't. So you're simply wrong about that.
As for whether Heidegger is correct in claiming phusis is the Greek understanding of being - well, that's the topic- one may find convincing or not. It convinces me.
No, phusis was not the Greek term for being. So if Heidegger introduced a concept of Being which is supposed to be equivalent with the Greek concept of phusis, then this Heideggerian concept of Being is not the same as the Greek concept of being.
Yes, it is. Ousia as well, later on. The evidence doesn't support you on this. I'll stick with Heidegger's extensive scholarship over yours, unless you have something more to contribute other than a simple declaration.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Heidegger didn't introduce anything of the kind, as I've already made clear. What he does do, knowing Greek, is analyze the texts thoroughly, giving convincing evidence.
All you've done, on the other hand, is repeat a dichotomy which he repeatedly says is a mistake and due to poor translation over many centuries. I've given you the sources, quoted extensively, and offered to go into the weeds if necessary; you don't seem particularly interested in that. That's fine. I take partial blame for not being clearer, and appreciate your time.
__________
For the rest of us, let's get back on track:
Phusis is the Greek understanding of being as emerging, abiding sway. Being and becoming, and "being and seeming" come out of this originary sense. Later, "being and thinking."
The basic feature throughout Western thought which has dominated all thinking since the inception has been presence. From this soil we get the changeless Forms, substances, matter, existentia and essence, subjects and objects, God and creation, "nature," physics, metaphysics, etc. All presuppose presence.
Our modern age is a secular and scientific age. We go to scientists for the "truth" now, using their stories rather than myths and legends. But this understanding of being as "nature" or as "subjects and objects," has led both to a peculiar view of what it is to be human and, ultimately, to nihilism.
I'll fill this out more in a future post, with references.
It appears like you haven't read any of my posts, because that is just about all I've been doing here, is justifying this claim.
Not in that instance. But yes, you're right -- that wasn't entirely fair. On the other hand, you've quoted very little -- if anything -- from the texts themselves and thus offered little philologically. Heidegger, on the other hand, provides a great deal -- a sampling of which I have already given.
To make it concrete: you declare "phusis is not the Greek term for being," but offer no real alternative outside of the "being and becoming" dichotomy. You keep saying that "being" is essentially something "changeless," which is a very common interpretation and which constitutes one side of the being/becoming dichotomy -- and this is precisely what I reject.
I've pointed out repeatedly that this is not what phusis means, and you seemed to agree -- but that you equate it more with "becoming." But becoming -- change itself, let's say -- has being. It "exists." This is hard to comprehend ONLY if you equate "being" with "the un-changing, the permanent" -- but then we're at step one, since this is what you do. I've asked multiple times that you try suspending that interpretation so as to better understand where Heidegger and myself are coming from.
You've invoked Parmenides but never quoted him. Heidegger has an entire book on the man, which is enlightening. To give only a cartoon sketch: the goddess truth, aletheia, turns out to be directly related to phusis.
What we know is that nothing is concrete. Everything is in flux, in motion, changing from one moment to the next. And to me this has more in common with a dream than a concrete physical reality.
Zeno’s paradoxes only prove that calculus hadn’t been invented yet.
If nothing is concrete, is that statement concrete?
Quoting neonspectraltoast
So no, that statement isn't "concrete," but yet it's "true." But then because it's true, it's untrue.
To wave your hand and say this is simply a "paradox" is a cop out. I could use the same justification for the opposite claim -- namely, that everything is NOT "in flux" and changing, but is rather always the same, and that this is the only concrete. Why? "It's a paradox."
Normally I'd ignore comments like yours -- as most others do, I find. When it's a thread I've created, I don't take that attitude. I don't like when people jump into these discussions by blurting out whatever comes to their head. This isn't Twitter.
--
"Being" has been Heidegger's main concern right from the beginning. From this one could ask, that is Heidegger interested merely in something static? Is he not interested in change or becoming at all? Is he reducing becoming to being? Already in Being and Time being was interpreted to mean something temporal. Is not temporality or time becoming? If being is temporality it seems that being is becoming. But I think the question is about the relation between constant change and something that sustains itself through the change. That there is some relatively enduring whole through the accidental continuous change.
---
I think for H. it is a question about some enduring whole amidst the change. That is, if there shall be Dasein and its truth. Dasein is historical change which is becoming but this change is not just accidental or random. There is enduring wholes involved in change. There is being in the becoming. Or the becoming can be meaningful which means that it i s something. If it would be merely becoming it couldn't be understood at all. Is the becoming something (relatively) teleological or just random change? I think that the word "become" means something teleological. Something that already is, is becoming itself.
---
I think it is for Heidegger self evident that we always "have" something or that there i s something. This is his phenomenological-"ontological" starting point. There is no any comprehension to start with if there is only change or becoming. Pure becoming is nothing. There is always being and the change of being. But the change of being can't be pure becoming (change) or nothingness for us. Actually, nothingness is important concept for Heidegger. Somehow he recognizes this pure becoming as a "potential moment" in the whole. There is this purely accidental moment involved here. It refers to meaninglessness or that there is no "world" involved at that moment?
This is the issue I tried to address earlier. It appears like Heidegger may be reducing being to becoming, in the Hegelian way.
Quoting waarala
This is the classical way of looking at the issue, the Aristotelian way, it separates the aspect of the thing which is changing (the form) from the aspect of the thing which remains constant (the matter). Aristotle assumes himself to have satisfactorily demonstrated that the two are incompatible.
Quoting waarala
This is the Hegelian reversal of Aristotelian principles which the Marxists and dialectical materialists take hold of. Prime matter, pure potential, in the Aristotelian sense, cannot itself be classified as "becoming", because it is necessarily unchanging. Matter is defined as what persists through change. The concept of "matter" is introduced by Aristotle to account for the continuity (being) which exists within change (becoming), what stays the same. Hegel appears to have reversed that principle of continuity, allowing being to be subsumed within becoming, such that there is nothing to provide the necessity for continuity, hence allowing for the accidental moment of no world.
Heidegger's relation to Aristotle's form/matter -distinction and Hegelian dialectics are obviously very difficult subjects. But these themes as contrasts are involved here too. For Heidegger they are part of the traditional, conventional understanding of being. That is, they remain "naive" metaphysics, they don't reflect themselves or their concept of being.
What a funny demonstration of hypocrisy. It's funnier that you don't see it, I guess.
Not interested in my reply, yet everyone in this forum is a "know it all prick" who "would rather listen to themselves talk." Hmm...takes one to know one? Apparently.
Next time, try Twitter if you want to utter nonsense.
No.
Quoting waarala
He is, yes.
Quoting waarala
No more than we'd reduce "becoming" to a word or a concept -- or any-thing at all. Does becoming have being? Sure. Is that "reduction"?
Quoting waarala
Not really. If you have a passage you're thinking specifically about, please direct me to it.
Heidegger often says that time, "temporality," is the horizon for any understanding of being. That's a difficult sentence to get your mind around, but since we're essentially caring, temporal beings (human beings), and we have an understanding of being, it is only through temporality that something like "being" can be understood.
Being is not an entity, an object, a process, or a property, remember. Yet every time we use "is," we're operating in a pre-theoretical understanding of being. This is what he analyzes in Being & Time, although he never finished the rest -- as you know.
So it's not that being = temporality, but any understanding we have about being occurs in the context of, or on the basis of ("horizon"), time. Ultimately he will show that in the Western tradition, from the Greeks onward, our understanding of being has taken place by privileging presence -- and so a definite aspect of time: the present.
Quoting waarala
I don't quite understand what you're getting at here. How does the second sentence relate to the first? And what does the second mean?
Quoting waarala
What does "change of being" mean? How can being change? It's not a property or a being (entity).
No. Feel free to go away and use Twitter.
I've reported your posts -- which should, rightfully, be removed soon. Take care.
This is a good point. I should have been more careful. According to B&T we a r e care or concern. That is, we a r e our significative relations (primarily our practical life). Certain kind of "objects" emerge from here. And this kind of being has as its sense (Sinn) the temporality. Our care-being means temporal being. Heidegger didn't explore in B&T what is being as such. It seems that our understanding of being as presence stems from a certain kind of care.
Quoting Xtrix
I am just trying to understand what H. means (in B&T) with the "authentic existence" and how it relates to History (Geschichte, not historie as science) as H. understands it. What kind of "authentic" mode of presence there could be? And how this relates to truth as unconcealedness (as opposed to correspondence)? How the Husserlian "stretched" presence (now is not a point) relates to this? There something relatively enduring is "mixed" with something already gone (past) and something not yet present. How Heidegger conceives "identity in difference"? Or continuity? Problems of ideality, substance etc??
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And how Husserlian (and Heideggerian?) point of view differs from Aristotle's is that being and becoming is conceived as something belonging to appearance, to intentional experience. They are not purely ontological concepts (without any kind of subjectivity). For Husserl (and for Heidegger?) ontology has always phenomenology as a "correlative" counterpart. And which entails transcendental subject (Husserl) or Dasein/Existence (Heidegger). Aristotelian ontology is more like "realistic ontology" (which the rational soul has constructed?)
This has likewise been reported, and will (like your other posts) undoubtedly be deleted by the moderators.
But keep going until you're kicked off the forum, by all means.
Right, in this case a "falling," I suppose, which later gets interpreted over as an aspect (or "ecstasy" of) temporality.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting waarala
It's difficult to know what Heidegger means by "authenticity," but from my reading it means something like not only owning your "self" as a unique individual (as opposed to the herd mentality and conformity of the collective "they" of which we are necessarily a part of), but owning and taking responsibility for your own being, in a way -- to see that there's no grounding and that you can decide any way you like what you are, you can define yourself in any way you'd like. You see this all over when people try defining a human being, "human nature," as a "creature of God," as "rational animal," and even further as a "mind" (thinking thing,res cogitans), as a "subject," as a "self" or even "I".
Authenticity is recognizing your being, your very existence, your ontological nature, not simply your ontical nature as present-at-hand "fact," "material," "substance," "energy," or even "spirit" (since the soul is a kind of "substance" -- an entity, a being). To see that first and foremost, you're a being -- you exist (This is a reversal of Descartes, since we're saying here essentially "Sum, ergo cogito" -- and that there's no "right" way to think about, interpret, categorize, or speak about it. Being (including our being) is a kind of "nullity."
In other words, you can interpret and describe "being" (your own and the "outside world" as well -- being in general apart from your particular being) in essentially any way you want, and this groundlessness is anxiety-provoking, but if you "flee" it, "flee into the crowd," into conformity (so to speak), never face up or allow yourself to feel this "existential anxiety," you're inauthentic.
All this implies a value-judgment, but I don't mean it to. There's nothing "bad" about one and "good" about the other -- they're simply different ways of living.
Science is entirely based on the empirical validity of induction. That is to say, experimental consistency with respect to prediction is the actual driver of scientific knowledge. The cart itself being hauled can be thought of as a static heuristic or set of useful models, and the horse that's actually doing the pulling can be thought of as the act of scientific exploration (conducting research, testing hypothesis, etc...).
Its all built around induction. If we keep getting the same accurate results when we actually test the predictions that scientific models imply, we increase our surety that the model is accurate. Another way of saying this is that we increase our confidence that applying the theory/model correctly will yield the expected results.
What do you mean by "speculating about nature"?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Says who?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
You present this as if you've stumbled on the true definition of science. But in reality, it's not at all clear what drives scientific knowledge -- especially if we don't know what science really is.
You seem to be responding to my initial post -- but the rest of what you've written has almost nothing to do with it. I'm interested in the ontology of what's called "science," which seems to me to be bound up with a conception of nature. Thus I track the idea through history, to the Greeks and the word phusis (translated into Latin as natura and the root of "physics") -- which is in my title: ?????. The point is to explore this ancient Greek sense of phusis, as this was their word for being, and to see how it differs from our modern conception of being in science ("nature," the "cosmos," etc).
Talking about the inductive method isn't relevant here.
Imagining the way the world could be, could work, has been, or will be, without conducting a single experiment to validate those imaginations.
Quoting Xtrix
It's not an absolute rule, but things which have no consistent empirical validation tend to get systematically expelled from the body of scientific knowledge.
Quoting Xtrix
But we *do* know what science is (it's a body of concepts and models with sufficient experimental predictive power). We even know what it really is (induction via empiricism). You're free to suppose science as continuous and emergent thing, tracing roots through ancient times (and ancient fallacies), but its evolution is much more discretized than that. Before the notion experimental validation is how we should test scientific models really took hold, "science" had a hard time advancing. Shaking off the dead weight of superstitiously derived ontic assumptions has often made the difference.
Quoting Xtrix
I have given you a compressed definition of what "nature" means in terms of modern science. Nature is the way things are as revealed by controlled and repeated experimentation and testing (consistent observations and predictions); nature is the destination and/or the cargo the cart is seeking, not the force driving its advancement. "Nature is my god" is not a serious or guiding attitude, other than to say the success of science relies on the universe actually containing consistent behavior that can be modeled, and all claims must be confirmed or disconfirmed with physical evidence/repeatable experimentation. If you want to contrast this with ancient opinion, rather than supposing gods may have whimsical or changing designs that need fancy and snow-flaked interpretations, we suppose that god doesn't roll dice.
Importantly, nature is the thing science is attempting to model; it cannot reason from nature or appeal to nature (the naturalistic fallacy). Speculating about the nature of things (meaning to say, making untested or unstable assumptions) is one of the cardinal differences between a primitive and error prone ontology like Aristotelian teleology (haphazardly assigning qualities, functions, purposes, etc...) and the modern scientific method. Aside from that, modern science eschews "meaning" and "why" in-favor for "observable cause", so on some level the comparison between ancient (and rather superstitious) ontologies and the ontology of modern science is apples to oranges. Ancient systems tend to include meaning or ethical components which are completely invisible to the lens of modern science.
The move from philosophical speculation to more strict empiricism is why modern science actually got somewhere.
Re-responding to the final paragraph of your post with this in mind
Quoting Xtrix
It's not necessary to understand Aristotle's teleology or Descartes doubt to understand modern science; science is necessary to understand science. I don't say this facetiously, it's the very crux of science itself: make no starting assumptions about what something is or the way things are, and instead use observation, experience,and systematic modeling/experimentation to gain predictive and therefore descriptive power. It's less about having a world-view colored by historical conceptions so much as it is testing presumptive worldviews.
Predictive power is ultimately the only signal of truth that we have. Comparing this to the sciences of old, much of it is comforting self-delusion and window-dressing derived to fit metaphysical prior assumptions.
Galileo didn't conduct any experiments besides thought experiments. Aristarchus figured out the approximate circumference of the Earth with basic mathematical reasoning. Many of Einstein's ideas were also based in thought experiments.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
No, we don't. It's just not so simple, otherwise there wouldn't be work in the philosophy of science. The notion of "science," and the notion of a scientific "method," has a very long and interesting history, and sometimes it fits what goes on -- but often times it doesn't. To say that it's just a matter of empirical observation and experimentation does little good -- that's natural philosophy, too. The Greeks were doing that as well. Is archeology not a science because it doesn't have "sufficient experimental predictive power"? What about genetics or evolutionary biology?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Not really -- because we don't know what "it" really is. What's evolving, exactly? If you believe something, some discrete "enterprise" or "activity" has evolved which we label "science," then that's one way to look at it -- but again we're left with "What is science?" Well, if we take a look at the beginning of modern "science," in Copernicus and Galileo, and even in Newton, you'll find lessons that don't fit your current conceptions very well at all. Take Liebniz, even -- was he not a scientist? Was he a philosopher?
Remember, these categories didn't exist to Liebniz, Newton, or even Kant. They certainly didn't matter to Democritus, Archimedes, Aristarchus, or Euclid.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
And when was that, exactly? When did this notion take hold? The 17th century? 18th? 19th? Are you really so certain it was this notion that drove progress? So what was happening in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance? Or the Islamic Golden Age? Or Ancient Greece? Or even in Mayan astronomy, Babylonian mathematics, and Egyptian engineering? Was all this activity non-science?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
The "way things are"? So only the things that "science" tells us are "real" truly "are"?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
That's fine, but what is it? What is nature? Just "whatever it is science studies"? That's not saying that much, although that seems to be the case. Natural philosophers did that very thing.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
That's not the naturalistic fallacy. The naturalistic fallacy, as Moore formulated it, has to do with justifying moral claims on the basis of what's natural.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
No, this is completely wrong.
"Speculation" about things -- thinking about them, trying to understand them, formulating hypotheses, making guesses, conducting creative thought experiments, etc. -- are simply what human beings have been doing for millennia. They go down many blind alleys, they're often wrong, theories get overturned and adapted, etc. This is true today as well -- we're no doubt wrong about many, many things. The Standard Model, quantum mechanics, mathematics, atomic theory, the Big Bang, not to mention neurology, psychology, and sociology, will go through many changes in the centuries to come. To look back on the Greeks and dismiss them as primitive, along with their "error-prone ontology" (whatever this means), is simply a common mistake. It's one you can make only if you truly believe there's a discernible and clearly-defined boundary between OUR "science" and superstitious speculations of the past.
Again, it's simply not that easy -- and completely unsupported by historical evidence.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Eh, this is nonsense I'm afraid, and you know it. Just think about it for a minute. Take an example I gave: Aristarchus. Was he wrong? Was that not science? Was that superstition? Or maybe just "luck"? Was that not "getting anywhere"? What about Democritus's theory of atoms? Was Euclid a superstitious man? Did the Phoenician sailors, using the stars as navigation, get lucky in their calculations? Ditto the Egyptians, with their elaborate constructions of the pyramids, or the Sumerians and their ziggurats?
All these primitive, superstitious people -- without our modern sensibilities and "method" of science -- seemed to "get somewhere," I'd say. In fact they laid the foundations for much of what we currently know.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Science has no starting assumptions? That's just nonsense. See below.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
What "science of old" are you referring to, exactly? I imagine for every example of views later proven false, like Ptolemy's, you can also produce many from the 19th century that were completely false (miasma theory), or the 18th (corpuscularianism), and on into the contemporary era. There's plenty of self-delusion going on right now, undoubtedly.
But to say science is "assumption"-free is just utter nonsense. Scientists are at least assuming there's nature to be studied (or the cosmos, or the "universe,") and that it follows comprehensible causal patterns. So there are assumptions of intelligibility, predictability, causality, and spatio-temporal relations as well -- before we even set about researching or attempting to understand some aspect or another.
Furthermore, what matters when trying to understand something is questioning, interrogating, and interpreting. You don't start from "nothing" and simply read off reality from nature. There's a contribution of our thinking minds, in how we perceive, categorize, and interpret the world.
We should really start to break down these false and rather simplistic notions like "the scientific method" that distinguishes "science" from "non-science." Better to say that there is, and always have been, human beings who are curious and interested in understanding the world. We do it with creativity, with our language and logic and mathematics, with observing and experimenting, with theorizing, with speculation, with collaboration with others, and with simple trial and error. We make "progress" (which is value and goal-dependent), we create new technologies, we document new findings and build off of them, and on and on.
We can go back and forth between "philosophy" and "science" if we want to define things in a certain way. As Bertrand Russell said once:
[quote=] "Roughly you'd say, that science is what we know and philosophy is what we don't know. Questions are perpetually crossing over from philosophy into science as knowledge advances. All sorts of questions that used to be labeled philosophy are no longer so labeled." [/quote]
That's fine, provided we want to define things this way.
This is a ludicrous assertion. He conducted many thought experiments, yes, and he even got stuff wrong, but he was also a champion of observation and the application of maths to those observations. From wiki:
Quoting Xtrix
There's no work in the philosophy of science. It's already a matured school, and scientists at large hardly even use it. There's need for the application of philosophical thought within many of the theoretical fields, especially where exploring new ideas to test is needed, but ultimately those hypotheses must be fed through the bull-shit chipping bottle-neck of experimentation and reliable prediction.
Quoting Xtrix
Why didn't the Greeks get anywhere interesting beyond apriori mathematics and some masonry skills? They had some bright people, but the limited information they had - the limited observations they could make - resulted in a worldview that was perforated with bull shit.
Archeology is an interesting field, and archeologists readily accept that the inductions they make are more precariously hinged on available evidence (like the ancient Greeks they have much more limitations, but unlike the Greeks they understand this fact and refrain from bullshitting before the evidence arrives. If you're interested to know how archeology can yield predictive power, one facet is the ability to anticipate the presence and content of human artifacts. By having a model of human movement and evolution overtime, we may become able to make inferences about where ancient human groups are likely to have localized. We can also anticipate how one group may have changed over time by understanding how another group migrated into or through their lands. Projecting backwards is more difficult in terms of confirmation (because when we project forward, the future itself becomes confirmation).
Quoting Xtrix
Some of it may have been downright scientific, but if we're talking about the modern body of scientific knowledge, then it all needs to be checked by modern standards.
I don't have the answer to exactly when modern science was developed; it's still under development, and those developments come in the form of discoveries which open up new models, tools, and methods of observation and prediction.
Quoting Xtrix
It's like you're objecting to the existence of a discrete contemporary organism by pointing to an evolutionary lineage of predecessors.Yes, science evolved, no, modern science is not constrained by its prototypical origins.
Quoting Xtrix
When a good empiricist speculates, they do it for practical reasons, and they do not go on to accept the speculation without adequate experimental validation. This practice is what helps to ensure that scientifically accepted "facts" are very robust and consistent. This makes them fundamentally usable as building blocks for more complex models (and so on). Yes we get things wrong, but you're fundamentally misunderstanding (or just not perceiving) that the modern science is an observation/experiment/prediction demanding crucible compared to the science of old.
Quoting Xtrix
Democritus didn't lay the foundation for atomic science so much as he happened to guess more aptly than his peers. Until we actually get to modernity, atom's might as well have been Horton's Who's.
What are your intentions in trying to compare modern scientific standards to ancient ones? They're vastly different.
Quoting Xtrix
Yes, the problem of induction is a thing. "How do we know that just because something has given us predictive power in the past that it will give us predictive power in the future"?... This is not a question that concerns me...
Quoting Xtrix
Specifically, pertaining to the method itself, where rigid testability and reproducibility standards do not exist (i.e: where speculation reigns)...
How could it be otherwise? Of course he was a champion for observation, calculation, and precise reasoning. This has nothing to do with the myths of dropping balls from Pisa or experimenting with a frictionless plane, for example. I find it odd that you declare it a "ludicrous assertion" yet don't provide one example of a Galileo experiment, even in your citing Wikipedia. If he performed one, that's fine -- maybe he did. But the major breakthroughs he made were mainly thought experiments. This is not meant as a criticism of Galileo.
But more importantly, this statement of mine was in response to your claim about experimentation, and so I think you're very much missing the point.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
There's plenty of work in the philosophy of science, even today, as you know. There's things published all the time. Whether "scientists at large" (not sure what this means) "use it" (use what, exactly?) is irrelevant: I'm talking about the philosophy of science. That would indicate it's a job for philosophers, not scientists. I realize most scientists regard philosophy with a great deal of contempt, in fact, so it wouldn't surprise me if they don't bother with the philosophy of science at all.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
? Masonry skills? "Apriori mathematics"? What are you talking about? Your history is very confused.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
So they were just like us, in other words. Plenty of bullshit everywhere -- as many scientists admit freely -- that we're simply not yet aware of.
But we have "some bright people," too.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Oh, is that what the Greeks did? Good to know! In fact I know a lot of archaeologists who do a lot of speculations -- historians too. Why? Because the data isn't there yet. It doesn't stop them from speculation and making educated guesses. Take the "invasion of the Sea Peoples," for example. We don't know what happened between 1200 and 800 BCE, but there is plenty of speculation (and most, we will find, is probably completely wrong) that people in the future will call "bullshit."
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Modern standards like what?
To argue we are "special" somehow is a very common stance. Every culture does it. So you're in good company. Unfortunately, the historical evidence just doesn't support it.
You're seemingly ignorant of history, I'm afraid. No offense meant. It's just worth digging a little deeper, otherwise we get a kind of tunnel vision where we believe we've reached a pinnacle of human progress.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Well ask yourself why. The answer may be interesting.
Science historians often begin the era of modern science with Copernicus or Galileo, which is why I use them as examples, along with Newton -- often acknowledged as one of the greatest scientists. These guys did lots of purely thought experiments, used mathematics (or invented some of their own), were completely wrong about a lot of things, were Christians (in Newton's case, fairly devout), etc. They also didn't identify as "scientists," but as "natural philosophers." So were they not scientists? Were they not doing science? If they were, then so were many of the Greeks, like Aristarchus. If they weren't, then when does "science" really begin? The 19th and 20th century? With Galton, Maxwell, Einstein, Bohr perhaps?
I think you see the issue.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
No, there's no "objecting" to it -- I'm trying to understand it, just as I would a "discrete organism" by both understanding its current iteration and its historical evolution. Who said anything about being "constrained"? Are birds "constrained" by the fact that they've evolved from dinosaurs?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
In response specifically to the "experimental" part: What about astronomers? Most could not (and still cannot) conduct any direct experiments whatsoever. In fact a great deal has been learned without any experiments at all -- just careful observation and reasoning.
Regardless, yes of course they don't just "accept the speculation." The Greeks didn't do that, the Muslims didn't do it, the Babylonians didn't do it. You keep trivializing these people as "primitive" and "superstitious," but I think that's a big mistake. You've studied history, yes? How can you not be impressed by the astronomy of the Maya or Babylonian astronomy and mathematics? Of course looking back over a distance of millennia makes us view some of the beliefs and practices of these cultures to be barbaric -- but that's quite apart from the obvious achievements.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
And Archimedes and Aristarchus didn't demand these things? Of course they did. In many cases they even carried out experiments, too. Now it's true that prior to telescopes and microscopes and other technologies, only educated "guesses" and speculations and theorizing were possible -- but we're often in the same position today with many things, like linguistics: we can't conduct the types of experiments on humans that would be necessary for understanding how language develops. Or when it comes to abiogenesis or the reasons for the Bronze Age collapse, or a host of other things. So what? That doesn't make us primitive -- it means we're struggling to understand the world and working on more creative ways to attack a problem or question.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
You keep saying that, and keep failing to show what exactly those standards are and how they differ. When you do -- for example, observation and experimentation and prediction -- it's shown that the ancients were often (not always) doing the same thing. And not just the ancients, but the people of the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, and in the modern era.
Things certainly change -- theories change, technology changes, etc., but what we've ended up with in our modern concept as an "enterprise" or a "community" of people in labcoats carefully conducting experiments in a laboratory (or some portrayal like that) is a limited and rather narrow view indeed. I'm sure you would agree. So if it isn't that exactly, then why bother pretending that it's a clear-cut, separate "department" from natural philosophy?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I never once mentioned the problem of induction. Nor does it interest me.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
And we're back to the "method" again. It's true that modern science grew up with inductive logic and the "inductive method," especially in the writings of Bacon. But it's been shown over and over again to be a myth. And that's not my view -- that's coming from many creative scientists and philosophers of science. I think they're on to something.
The bottom line is this: "science" as a human activity is a kind of inquiry and questioning of the world, asking basic questions about it in an attempt to understand it somehow. This rational inquiry used to be called "natural philosophy" before even the word "science" (mid-14th century) appeared. This is not to say what we presently mean by "science" is the same as what was meant in the 19th century, or that there's no differences at all between "philosophy" and "science," or that there aren't clear examples of the "scientific method." I think the analogy of an organism is exactly right, say a dog: we know it's different than it was a 100K years ago (a wolf), we know it's evolved, and yet here it is. Like anything in the world, there are aspects that stay the same and aspects that are changed.
The point of this thread is to analyze, in particular, the ontology of science in the sense of studying "nature" or the "physical world," which is what is very often claimed. The question then is "What is nature/what is the physical?" Even if we accept that science is a completely distinct human enterprise, characterized by a special method, which is where we've digressed, we are still in the position of having to explain its ontological basis. Why? Why is this important? Because unexamined conceptions, especially fundamental ones, can lead us down blind alleys for decades without us realizing it. To think of "nature" as matter in motion, or the "physical" as anything "material" (like atoms), etc., has real world consequences for inquiry and research. If we really don't know what these terms mean, can't define them precisely, or define them in such a way as to be absurd, then we're potentially treading water in many pursuits. It doesn't mean we stop everything until we "at last" have discovered the "true" foundations of science, but it also doesn't mean we simply gloss over examining them because it's "highfalutin philosophical mumbo-jumbo."
The origin of both "nature" and "physical" is the Greek term phusis. All of Western thought has been shaped by the Greeks, from the Romans to the Christians, to the Scholastics and Descartes, to Galileo and Newton, to Einstein, Heisenberg and Schrodinger, up to Sagan and Hawking and Dawkins and Greene and Chomsky.
All of them, whether "philosophers" or "mathematicians" or "scientists" or whatever, continue to operate in an ontology that had its inception in Greece -- in the thought of Anaximander, Parmenides, Heraclitus and, later, Plato and Aristotle. These latter two men's influence, especially, is impossible to ignore. To dismiss it all as historical rambling, or to wave off the Greeks as "primitive, superstitious speculators," is pure insanity. In my view.
Experimentation (reliable prediction) is still the bottle-neck through which Galileo's assertions must pass to enter the modern body of scientific knowledge. Yes he conducted many real experiments, notably with pendulums if you must have an anecdote.
I'm not saying that thought experiments have no place in doing science, I'm saying that the crux of modern science (again, why it has been successful) is the demand for actual observable experiments to confirm the prior speculations.
Quoting Xtrix
What is philosophy of science in your view?
Quoting Xtrix
So the Greeks never constructed any lasting stone monuments? They didn't innovate any fundamental mathematical theorems? Care to offer a correction?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_architecture#Masonry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras
Quoting Xtrix
If modern science was full of shit, then satellites would fall out of the sky, smart phones would stop working, vaccines would not work, the new Tesla autopilot would crash more often than humans, etc...
The whole point is to reduce the bull-shit; that's the scientific shtick. Making a relativistic comparison to ancient bull-shit and saying "oh sure, everything we know now is probably bull shit" is fine, but the evidence is stacked against you. We know more than we did, what we know now is more reliable, and less likely to turn out inaccurate (the benefits of reproducible experimentation...). Unless the universe itself changes, Newton's laws of motion are not going to suddenly become useless for predicting the movement of masses through space. Einsteins general relativity isn't going to suddenly stop providing accuracy increasing tweaks and depth to the Newtonian system, etc...
That's fine -- but why only "modern"? That's my point. It's not that we're not very successful, or that observation, experimentation, and predictiveness doesn't exist or isn't important. Of course all of that is very important indeed, and a key feature in the success or failure of achieving our goals. The point is that there is no clear separation between this and anything going on over the last 4,000 years. There are plenty of examples, at any period, of blind alleys and mistakes -- in every field; there's also examples of huge breakthroughs and significant progress. So in ancient Greece, for every Aristarchus there is a Ptolemy. In the 19th century, for every Darwin there is a Lamarck. Then there are many grey areas -- the rethinking of Newtonian physics through Einstein's relativity, as you mentioned.
As long as humans are attempting to understand the world rationally, there will always be mistakes and successes. When we're completely irrational, that's not only no longer "science" but no longer "philosophy" either -- it's just nonsense. But even here, in the case of folk science, myth, superstition, and religion, there's a lot of overlap. Remember that chemistry emerged from alchemy, that astronomy evolved from astrology, etc.
So yes, logic, reasoning, rationality -- attention to details, thought experiments, speculations, theory-creation, testing hypotheses, careful observation, and repeatable experiment are all very important pieces of our attempts to understand the world of nature. No question. Whether we call this activity "natural philosophy" as Newton, Galileo, Descartes, and Kant did, or we call it "science" in the 21st century doesn't rally matter much. The goal is the same: understand the world. This has been true for a long, long time, and there are plenty of historical examples.
The problem your having is in believing that science owes its success to a special method, which we can understand and define, and which scientists can use consciously and deliberately, and that this is a relatively recent invention which sets "science" apart from other endeavors, all of which now become "non-science" or perhaps "quasi-science." But when one starts reading history or even the contemporary era, one finds that this distinction really starts to break down, that it's harder than you think to define, that while there are many examples where it fits there are many others where it doesn't fit, etc.
But my point of this thread wasn't to digress into the definition of science or the scientific method, per se, but rather to assume that people (like yourself) do indeed believe there is a useful and relatively clear demarcation and try to figure out what the historical basis for its ontology is. By "ontology" I mean its perspective on what the world 'is,' about what exists -- about being. When you ask that question, you often find that the answer given is "The universe, or nature as a whole, is all that is." Then when you ask what the "universe" is, you're given answers about matter, motion, and forces -- concepts from physics and chemistry.
Those fields tell us about atoms and molecules, about energy and mass, about causes and effects, and about space and time using (mainly) specialized, technical language, logic, and mathematics -- backed up with empirical evidence from observation and experiments.
And that's where we stand currently. If science interprets "all there is" (being as a whole) as, essentially, "physical nature," then that's a very definite worldview -- a very important ontology. It's opposed, say, by Christian ontology where all that is, all of being, is "creation" and "God."
So my point is: let's look at the words and see if their history through the ages gives us an clues or illuminates our current, powerful (and dominant, at least among educated people) understanding of being. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I personally think it does, and helps us become a little less dogmatic and guards against the pitfalls of "scientism" and, more importantly, a kind of nihilism that Nietzsche analyzed and warned us about. Why is this, in turn, important? I've already written enough, so I won't bore you further, but it turns out this has definite real-world consequences which we all are currently living in.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I don't think we're full of shit. I don't think the Greeks were full of shit either, though. My point was that there are examples of people getting things very right and getting things very wrong. Perhaps it's true we get less wrong now, but that's not what scientists tend to think -- they acknowledge that there is still much we don't know, we're probably on the wrong track, that hundreds of years from now what we know currently will be outdated, etc. A little humility is required (which is easy when studying history and then projecting, say, 2000 years into the future). I would hate to think people 2000 years from now would look back and only see our flaws and mis-steps and thus label us "primitive" people who were "full of shit." I don't think that's entirely fair.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I agree. I would just take issue with the sweeping claim of "ancient bull-shit," however. Does that include all of Aristotle's work? Does it include Aristarchus and Archimedes and Euclid? Apparently not. So at least we can admit it wasn't all bullshit, just as it isn't all bullshit now (which was the point I was trying to make by giving examples of how we currently have plenty of bullshit too; it wasn't to suggest we're completely full of shit).
You're not describing a modern scientific attitude or position though (science accepts that the jury is still out on "all there is"). Asking for some kind of grand definition for everything is not a scientifically coherent question.
It's not a very definite worldview....
Quoting Xtrix
You keep suggesting that modern scientists "conception of being" hinges on the developmental history of science, but what if someone creates a brand new theory of matter? In order to understand the cutting edge, do we actually need to examine the hilt or the pommel? In the case that modern models deviate entirely from models of old, we don't actually need the models of old to comprehend the new, but we absolutely need to examine the new in and of itself.
When it comes to scientific over-confidence, there's no broad heuristic which you can derive to safely make a rule of thumb. Some scientific models are wrong, and they will be changed, and many individuals and scientists are vastly over-confident in their models. This isn't an inherent feature of science though; some scientists aren't over-confident, and some models may never be changed. To determine where the over-confidence lies, it is 100% required to address the contemporary models and evidence themselves, otherwise you're reasoning about the way things are without actually looking at the way things are.
Quoting Xtrix
Of course it's what scientists tend to think. If scientists did not believe they could get less wrong in the future, they would not believe in that science could progress.
All scientists believe that we get less wrong now than in the past (or at least, what we got wrong in the past, we get less wrong today).
Think about this for a second... If science has no progressed since Aristotle, how pathetic does that make modern science and scientists?
Quoting Xtrix
What do you mean "probably on the wrong track"?
Are you aware of the empirical tracks that science at large is presently mapping?
You're making an almost purely relativistic comparison. "Science today is not perfect, science yesterday was not perfect, therefore science does not progress, it will always be the same, and what we know now is just as wrong as when we read the portents from sheep guts".
No one is asking for a "grand definition of everything." Nor have I said that -- not once.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
It most certainly is, as I have repeatedly explained.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I'm not suggesting this. Nor have I stated it -- not once.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I never mentioned anything about old or new models.
Different explanatory theories arise and pass; sometimes they're based on older theories, sometimes a synthesis, sometimes completely novel.
But to answer: No, one doesn't need to understand the history of something in order to practice it. Nor do they even, for that matter, have to understand or explain the theoretical basis for it. You don't have to be a baseball historian or understand the physics of swinging bats to play baseball. I suspect many researchers don't have much of an idea about the philosophical, historical, and theoretical underpinnings of their specific, technical activities either.
That's not a problem really, but it's also no surprise that those who tend to make the biggest contributions are the ones who do bother with philosophy -- Einstein is a prime example, although there are many others.
But all this is, again, a digression that really misses the point.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
But your notion that science "progresses" is itself a picture that isn't really justified. In some ways it does, in others it doesn't. But in any case, the best scientists are well aware that theories today will morph and adapt in the future -- that's just basic. It's pure hubris to assume otherwise.
That being said, to say we get "less wrong now" than in the past is impossible to measure, so there's no sense talking about it. Were Humphry Davy, Faraday, and their contemporaries "less wrong than right" compared to our contemporaries today? Who knows. In fact it's almost certain there are far more hypotheses that aren't confirmed by the data in today's world simply by the sheer amount of what's being undertaken. But who cares? That's not how science is judged. The activity of trying to understand the world rationally continues, regardless.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
No, they don't. In fact the statement is borderline incoherent. See above.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Yes, if one thinks of the "progress" of science as akin to climbing a mountain or filling out a crossword puzzle -- as "accumulation" of some kind. True, that's how the history of science looked for nearly 300 years until Einstein, and I'm sure you'll find many who still think that way. But that doesn't mean we have to take it seriously.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Just what I said. To take one example, quantum mechanics and relativity will doubtlessly in the future be either brought together or re-interpreted somehow, or subsumed under a newer theory. And so on forever, really. Much of all of this has to do with the questions we ask, the problems we face as human beings -- and that in turn is dependent on our values, our goals, our interests, etc.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Depends on what "empirical tracks" are, and what field you're talking about.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Well needless to say I don't believe any of that, as you know. If you made even a slight effort to understand by taking a few moments to think, instead of reacting, you'd see that fairly easily. In fact your apparent emotional reaction and frustration with all of this is in itself interesting.
Here is where I get turned around. First you aver that scientists admit a god of nature as some kind of serious and relevant sentiment that can help us understand modern science (as if it is an operant world-view; as if it contextualizes the entirety of it)....
To then contrast this directly with the sentiments of old (namely, that nature itself was the expression of some intelligent creator that imbued everything with order and purpose), makes the above interpretation harder to avoid. In so far as we have abandoned superstitious and ungrounded appeals and hypotheses such as those, then yes, we can understand modern science as differing from the kind of thing that Aristotle was engaged in. It's a kind of "actually check and let nature be the judge" attitude.
But you actually are trying to say that modern science must be the same thing that the ancients were engaged in, because there is inquiry involved in both, and because there are some etymological relationships....
I think I understand what you're trying to do: you are trying shed light on the inherent epistemological limitations (the doubts) of modern science by showing how it is similar to previous and falliable phases of human inquiry. Philosophically you're right, but scientifically you're wrong; the scientific method is literally built around the inductive method, and has made the relationship between certitude and existing theories a core feature of what allows science to adapt.
Aristotle really did want to explain everything; to put everything into a neat and discrete category; ordered and comprehensible. Modern science reserves this attitude for secretive wet dream. It's hubris. Instead it admits that it is woefully incomplete, and instead of judging itself by all or nothing standards, it uses experimental reliability (predictive power) as a guide. This is something that ancients really had a hard time keeping faith with (they tended to accept whatever sounded the most persuasive, fallacy or no). Not having such strongly grounded fundamentals (see:modern physics vs ancient stories about existence and stuff, or see ancient astrology vs modern astronomy, etc...), it was simply not possible to resist whatever best and explanation they happened to have at the time. Science in its modern incarnation started with an admission of said uncertainty.
Quoting Xtrix
I can basically defeat this sentiment merely by saying "computers". By what standard has modern science not progressed?
In any case, the progression of science along the lines of utility, reliability, and predictive power cannot be denied. The entire thread seems to sniff in this direction though... That science isn't so great; that's it's "just the same old _____".
Quoting Xtrix
I want to highlight the last sentence in this:
"The activity of trying to understand the world rationally continues, regardless."...
Remember, modern science is cardinally focused on understanding the world through empirical evidence and predictive power, not mere "rationality"; that's what Descartes did.
Quoting Xtrix
The statement is coherent, you're just rejecting or not comprehending it. Allow me to paraphrase and split it up
All scientists believe that we get less wrong now than in the past (or at least, what we got wrong in the past, we get less wrong today).
Scientists believe that modern theories are generally more accurate and complete (less error prone) than the theories of their predecessors. At the very least, our ancient predecessors got many specific things wildly wrong for which we actually have reliable and accurate models (i.e: less wrong)).
In a nut shell, we have more accurate and precise predictive power.
Quoting Xtrix
Einstein did not overturn Newton... Can't stress this enough... It's not like Einstein's theories and proofs suddenly changed the reproducible results of centuries of repeated physical experiments.
These deeper realities in theoretical physics do have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of how the world works at the quantum level (and how things like spacetime and matter emerge), but it wont actually "overturn" previously established scientific models unless they give us greater predictive power, nor do they affect the utility of existing models should they be improved upon.
Even if we can model how matter emerges from quantum particle waves, it's going to be useless with respect to anticipating the motion of large scale masses through space, and we will still, and perhaps forever, default to the Newtonian approach plus the tweaks offered by GR, which yield ridiculously and stupendously accurate and reliable results.
Quoting Xtrix
You're looking at it backward actually. QM and GR are "in our face" phenomenon that we cannot deny. The next breakthrough will not overturn them, it will encompass them. It will explain how GR and QM can both be true from some other observed (probably speculative at first) reality.
Quoting Xtrix
The tracks are myriad. If you want a quick way to look at the epistemological strength of a scientific field, look at the reproducibility of its experimental evidence, and the scope and accuracy of its predictions.
Quoting Xtrix
I've been sensing a bit of an attitude from you as well... Curious...
Normally my posts start out pretty dryly, and I end up reciprocating... Curiouser...
Postpositivism, which prioritizes predictive power, is a typically physicalist approach marrying the formal and physical sciences. Constructivism-interpretivism is a more lenient approach suiting the cognitive and social sciences. To a postpositivist, most hypothetical links from ????? to modern science would be implausible because we can’t conduct a survey collecting testimonials of dead people, and that’s just too bad. (Lol.) To a constructivist-interprivist, however, it’s possible to sufficiently ground a hypothesis by extracting common themes and standpoints in the literature. For ?????, this may invoke the "natural elements" of Indo-European mythology as an effort to properly bookend an account and thereby make it robust enough to be considered scientific. But even if it’s given that mythology is early evidence of proto-science as I contend, the notion is still, clearly, highly tentative. I mention this because, judging from post histories, paradigms haven't been given much mention, though I personally think they bring a lot of clarifying power to any discussion. Hopefully that can be appreciated here to at least some degree.
As for the question of ????? being some kind of weird non-divine driving force of science, it may actually be a question of what one thinks science is supposed to do. If science tells us how, then ????? is probably an antiquated and superstitious container of convenience which is probably no longer relevant. If science tells us why, though, then I’m afraid the spectre of ????? is transformed into what are mysteriously now known as the "Laws of Nature" (not "Natural Laws"), which appear to serve as a kind of “known-unknown” foundation for coherent scientific explanation despite being.. somewhat ad hoc.
I never stated anything about a "god of nature."
Quoting VagabondSpectre
No, because neither you nor I know what "modern science" is. We can't pinpoint when it begins. We can only speculate as to what makes it 'distinct' from any other rational inquiry. So far, its successes in technological advances and some kind of "method" has been offered. I don't find that very convincing.
Yes, the Greeks were doing "science" in any meaningful sense of the term. They conducted experiments, they took careful observations, they theorized about how things worked, etc. Did they have laboratories, microscopes, telescopes, and particle accelerators? No. So obviously things have changed, and in that sense sure, it's very different. But is that what modern science is?
It's just not so simple -- and who really cares, anyway? If Aristarchus wasn't doing "science," then all you've done is defined "science" as "something that happens now." That's fine. I just - again - don't find it convincing.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I don't see why one would have to shed light on this -- it's a truism. Of course science is fallible. The human mind is fallible-- it has its scope and its limits. I'm not trying to shed light on that -- on the contrary I, along with everyone else, takes it for granted. Not very interesting.
I've been quite clear, I believe, in what I'm trying to accomplish here. If it isn't clear to you, then just ask me -- so you don't have to guess. Not a problem. Because so far your track record is well below 50% accuracy.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
When? With Descartes? Was Copernicus not a scientist then? Or, again, what of Aristarchus?
I'm really not interested in trying to define science. Your attempts to do so have been all over the place, but have now apparently settled on "predictions" as the key feature. OK, in that case I'll repeat: the Greeks made predictions too. The most famous, as you know, was that Thales was able to predict an eclipse. Even if that's completely wrong, there's plenty of examples of predictions, of experiments, of observation, of theory formation and theory-testing, etc., among the ancients. Plenty of wrong views, too, and plenty of mistakes -- no doubt.
I have no trouble with saying modern science is different in many respects with whatever the Greeks were doing. As I said before, it's undeniable that many things have changed. But when you look at what's going on, at its core, it seems like what we call "doing science" is actually something that's been with us (as human beings) for a long time indeed.
What does this mean? Take mathematics, for example. The capacity for arithmetic is universal -- any child in any culture can learn it, if taught. But how many thousands of years did it simply lay dormant in the human mind? Or music, for that matter. Music is another universal, and yet it wasn't until very recently that it was standardized in any meaningful way around the time of Guido of Arezzo. Should we say music didn't exist prior to him? Or that "history" didn't exist prior to Herodotus? You could make that argument -- and many do -- but I don't see the motivation or point of doing so. It makes much more sense to say that these are human capacities, as is --- let's call it the "science-forming capacity." Much like language, its been there since humans evolved in their modern form 200K years ago or so.
Again, that's not denying that things have radically changed or even that we haven't progressed (if one accepts the standards of progress).
Quoting VagabondSpectre
By the same standard that it's "progressed," I suppose. Which is to say: no agreed upon standard. Are computers a progression? Are atomic bombs (especially if they wipe us out -- "progress"?) Maybe, maybe not. In the latter examples, if a goal is stay alive -- then that's a very definite REGRESSION.
To be less ambiguous: "progress" is a value judgment, and a vague one at that. Have things changed a great deal? Absolutely. They continue to change. Someone in Gutenberg's time may have given "moveable type" as an example of progress instead of "computers." Who knows. But this view of "upward" movement is similar to the view of science as "accumulation," as if we're "getting somewhere." I'm not denying that possibility, in fact I think in many respects we have, but this determination depends on our goals, purposes, and human interests.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I can't help if you take it this way. I've never given the slightest indication that science "isn't so great."
Quoting VagabondSpectre
You say this, and yet a moment earlier talked about "induction." Is logic and reason involved in "science" or not?
I'm not using "rational" the way you're thinking -- apparently as something pertaining to "rationalism" (which is what textbooks of course say Descartes was).
Of course science involves rational inquiry. That's a truism. Nothing complicated about that. The claim that "modern science is cardinally focused..." is so far totally unsupported. Says who? Thought experiments don't count? What about Brahe? Was his careful data collection not science? If it wasn't, then who needs "science" anyway?
Stop trying to demarcate science. It's been tried over centuries by brighter minds than yours, and it's failed. Ignoring the literature on this and grasping for this or that "definition" is simply a waste of time. For every "key component" you mention, I can offer counterexamples. It's not because I'm a genius, it's because defining science by a "method" and thus trying to separate rational inquiry into "science" and "non-science" is a fruitless.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
There's no need to "stress it" because I neither said it nor believe it. You simply missed the point -- again.
To repeat: the very fact that Newtonian physics turned out to be "wrong" not in terms of calculation but in the bigger picture led to a remarkable re-evaluation of the history of science. See David Hilbert, et al.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
That's a completely meaningless statement.
Both are scientific theories. They're not "read off" from nature without any contribution of the thinking mind; there's nothing "backwards" about this.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Maybe. That's one possibility, as I mentioned above. They could also be completely overturned.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Fair enough. If there's any frustration from me, it's only over the fact that this whole conversation is a digression that misses the point of this thread, but I'm (obviously) perfectly willing to have it, since I do mention "science" in the title.
To be quite clear: I don't view "science" as completely separate from philosophy, and as I point out in the first post, it was initially called "natural philosophy." Newton and Galileo didn't consider themselves "scientists." Scientists, then and now, are trying to understand this "nature" (or universe), and so it's worth asking what "nature" means. That's the point here-- and I haven't really gotten started with that question yet. Tracing the history of the concept "nature" in the sense of "universe," or what's considered all that exists, sheds light on both how we see the world and how we define ourselves as human beings. Needless to say, this matters a great deal and has real consequences in the world around us -- and thus the fate of humanity, ultimately.
That may sound grandiose, but think about it for a minute: does it matter what, say, political leaders of the world believe? Well if it influences their decision-making, then it certainly does. And those decisions matter; in fact you and I are living with them.
As far as the philosophy of science: our observation and experimentation with nature -- i.e., dealing with it empirically -- is very important. I'm not disagreeing. Making predictions is very important. Falsifiability is important (as Poppers pointed out). Advances in technology is important. Formulating sensible explanatory theories is important. Etc., etc. All are relevant aspects of a general endeavor to understand the world.
It's true I reject any sense of a "method" that clearly divides "science" from "non-science." People have tried to prove that such a method exists, and many still believe some algorithm or set of rules accounts for science's success -- the inductive method, ability to be falsified, predictiveness, etc. But I remain underwhelmed by these attempts, as there are always examples that simply don't fit --- and feel it's a pretty irrelevant question anyway. What good does it do?
Regardless, people who identify as scientists, who go to school and study physics, chemistry, biology, geology, psychology, or medicine, do important work and operate, in their interchange with the world, within a certain set of beliefs and assumptions -- otherwise there would be no field and no science whatsoever. That set of beliefs, assumptions, and axioms is what interests me here, especially when it comes to ontology: what it means to "be," what it means to be "human," etc. This is all defined in a certain way: for example as matter, as energy, as natural law, as the "physical," as nature, as substance, as "objects," etc. etc. It's there I want to focus:
Quoting Xtrix
That's a good point.
Quoting Zophie
Your point is a good one but I'm missing how that pertains to what we're discussing, which is at this point whether or not "science" is a distinct activity, defined by and owing its success to a special "inductive method." I maintain there is no such method, Vagabond is arguing in favor of one. There being vastly different fields in science with their own set of background premises, while true, doesn't shed much light on our disagreement.
Quoting Zophie
I'm failing to see the relevance. What "hypothetical links" do you mean? I'm mainly talking etymology, with the question of the meaning of being as a guide (a la Heidegger).
I agree that paradigms are an important concept; I like Kuhn a lot too. But I'm not seeing the connection to this thread and the analysis of the meaning of "nature" and phusis.
Quoting Zophie
Who said anything about a "driving force"? Not I. Also, why the characterization of phusis and "weird non-divine force"? There's nothing weird about it. Nor is it weirder than a "void" or "force field" or "substance" or "God" (in Spinoza's sense) for that matter.
Quoting Zophie
There's nothing superstitious about it.
As for being antiquated, yes it is -- since it was the word for the sense of being in Greek, it's from antiquity and thus antiquated. But as with most things Greek, this has dominated Western thought ever since.
I don't mean a god over nature, I mean god from nature; the god of nature... It's what you said in your opening post so I'm not sure why you're not interpreting this correctly.
The first paragraph of your OP paints the picture:
You stated this and then launched headlong into a historical analysis, under the allusion that your findings with respect to ancient naturalism can usefully color our understanding of modern science:
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
I'm having a hard time comprehending which of the above positions you actually occupy.
Do we not know what modern science is, and therefore cannot say how it differs from what ancient Greeks were doing? Or are there obvious differences between what ancient Greeks were doing and modern science? If so, what are those obvious differences? (hint: predictive power and a focus on experimental methodology).
If you want to try and get at *the very core of human inquiry and knowledge*, then you have no reason to refer to the problem of induction as irrelevant. The thing we and the ancients share is that we both lived or live in worlds that appear to have causal consistency. We observe things, use those observations to formulate an idea or an action, and then we observe the effects of those ideas and actions. In general, we want our actions to create more desirable observations. The only real signal we have to refine our ideas and actions is the observable results of those actions. The ancients kinda knew this, but they did not seem to realize that instead of focusing on how elegant an idea sounds in and of itself (or how persuasive it may be to the rational mind), we should be forced to reject it if experimental evidence controverts it, and beyond this, that we can never actually test the validity of such speculative ideas unless they can actually generate predictions that can be tested.
With these last two sentences, we have a robust definition of the scope of science (being concerned with observable phenomenon and falsifiable models) that does depart from the more full blown realm of philosophical inquiry that the ancients were engaged it. It's a drastic departure from the focus of those ontic schools that instead presupposed some anthropically biased/pleasing framework. Modern science doesn't even require the assumption that nature is consistent; inductively it appears to have consistency, and if one day causal consistency fails, so be it). We hope, though, that fundamental laws will remain consistent if only so that our scientific models remain useful (and so that our world doesn't fall apart).
Quoting Xtrix
I thought you wanted to comment on modern science via commenting on ancient science. Am I wrong?
You're equivocating between the epistemological foundations of modern science (it's the inductive method), and other schools which are less strict.
Quoting Xtrix
Gaining knowledge using predictive power as a confidence signal IS induction. Inductive arguments are inherently statistical (they are either strong or weak); we gather evidence, and likelihoods and reliabilities (patterns in observations) give us insight about how to make reliable predictions. Fundamentally, all knowledge is gathered this way, but that's another discussion entirely.
So when I say "science relies on the inductive method, not mere rationality", I'm actually pointing to the specific form of "logic" (induction) that scientific proofs require as their literal standard for truth and knowledge.
What was the picture being described by the laws of motion?
There is not one (they're generalized formulas)... Only speculations we derive from it at our own epistemological risk...
The kind of materialistic assumptions that newton's laws ostensibly implies were a whole different brand of claim. Newton said: I can predict the movement of this thing through space over time; and he could, with wonderful accuracy (the fact that the laws of motion do so well and are themselves so elegant is an interesting subject for discussion because it generates claims of intelligent design, but they aren't scientific claims (that is to say, they cannot be falsified)).
Einstein came along and said "if we view this space thing and this time thing as this other thing, then we can increase the accuracy of our predictions about our future observations of "things" (I'm using scare quotes because these fundamental discoveries were and are still valid only up to their testability and accuracy; they do not inherently contain claims about necessarily deeply hidden truths or ontological assumptions.
Quantum mechanics makes this point clear; we inductively gather that GR and the Newtonian scale models are actually emergent phenomenon from a very complex, vast, and fast moving multiverse of strange tiny particle-waves. Given this stunning evident truth, we might react and say "well i guess all the other stuff is just bull-shit", and you would be right only in so far as people have drawn inappropriate assumptions from scientific models and knowledge in the first place.
Scientific models are inherently a heuristic or stochastic approach to knowledge; they are not guaranteed to be optimal in terms of absolute truthiness in description (far from it in fact), instead they only promise predictive power. In this sense (and considering QM) models describing phenomenon above the atomic scale are necessarily simplifications. They're not actual truth, they're only reliable models.
So when Newtonian physics turned out to be "wrong", what you should actually be saying is that we found a more accurate/reliable/robust model which encompasses the Newtonian model. The scientific truthiness of Newtonian laws of motion actually don't change with subsequent discoveries, they're still just as reliable as they were before (and often still used due to the special circumstances that demand GR level precision).
Once we realize that the truth metric of science is not the elegance or validity of "why" like explanations, but instead high precision and accuracy in experimental predictive power, it re-contextualizes the whole shebang.
Interesting question, but appealing to authority is not scientifically sound.
We would have to do a random sampling of active or historical scientific inquiries, and then do quantitative and statistical analysis to determine whether or not they were heavier on evidence gathering and predictive modeling, or heavier on making unfalsifiable hypotheses.
Once we have gathered and preprocessed the data, we could make a null hypothesis like "we expect to see an even distribution of the predictive model approach vs the untested hypothesis generating approach". Then when we actually crunch the numbers, assuming our sample is sufficiently large, if we see large deviation in one direction or the other, we then have a potentially significant signal that tells which direction to lean regarding the claim "modern science is cardinally focused on understanding the world through empirical evidence and predictive power, not mere "rationality"; (what Descartes did)".
You might want to say "correlation is not causation" and that would indeed be very astute. We could take our analysis to completion by gathering additional data of factors which we think might impact cardinal focus of individual scientific inquiries. Using something like muti-variate regression analysis, we could potentially generate a model between the relationships of circumstantial factors and the cardinal focus of scientific inquiry in general. We could then use these relationships to create a statistical model that tells us what the most likely cardinal focus of a given scientific inquiry is if we are given the specific factors that we checked in our analysis. If our model generates predictions with very high or useful precision and accuracy then we call it robust.
Even though we're obviously not addressing the critical and deeply hidden truths that all philosophers yearn to masticate, nor are we necessarily offering sensical explanations of why scientific inquiry varies from case to case: we're successfully and humbly generating a model that can reliably give us predictions of sufficient accuracy. Nothing more, nothing less.
Stop trying to couple it with non-science.
The experimental evidence is in our face phenomenon... The experimental evidence is what forced people to reluctantly accept GR, and so too the story goes with QM. Our thinking minds tend to want to reject these things as spooky and unintuitive nonsense, and it is only the experimental evidence that manages to persuade us in the end.
From nature, "of nature"? I'm not being deliberately contrarian here, I just really don't know what you mean. My only point in mentioning the quote about "I spell God 'nature'" was to emphasize the point that many scientists assume (reasonably) a kind of naturalism when dealing with the world. That wasn't meant to imply a kind of "God of nature." But I take your point, perhaps it was ambiguous.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I don't see any conflict.
1) What is now called science was once called "natural philosophy." Nothing controversial about that.
2) When "science" (modern science) really emerges is quite fuzzy, and distinguishing it from other rational inquiries by appeals to a special "method" isn't convincing to me.
3) However we define "modern science" -- perhaps whatever academic research, experiments, published articles, etc. is happening -- it seems that this activity is in many ways different from Greek "science" in terms not of its core (inquiry) but of technology (e.g., microscopes) and sheer scale (many more people engaged in this activity consciously and cooperatively).
So I occupy one position really.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Yes.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
At the periphery there are differences, sure (microscopes, telescopes, computers, a division of labor in research, and so on). See above.
But as trying to understand the world using reason, experiment, observation (empirical data), etc. -- no, there's no difference in my view between humans doing this now and humans doing it then. All it takes to understand this is to see that these people weren't sub-human barbarians or "primitive" at all, and to know a little history. (I keep bringing up Aristarchus, for example, for a reason: because you continue to avoid that point; was he "doing" science or not?)
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Not all inquiry is predictive, and sometimes there's little actual experimentation. So while this is a fine rule of thumb, perhaps, it's hardly exhaustive or definitive. It's also way too simple, as I've pointed out before, and kind of reeks of hubris.
But even if we accept your definition, I've given examples of the Greeks (and Muslims, and Persians, and Babylonians, and Christians, etc) meeting these criteria. Yet you reject that as science because they're "primitive, superstitious" people. Can't have it both ways.
Either the Greeks were doing science, or they weren't doing science and then neither are we (in which case we need another definition in order to exclude the Greeks).
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Yes, causality is important.
Your characterization of the "ancients" is simply sophomoric, I'm afraid. And you've repeatedly avoided clear examples that outright refute this caricature.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Again, it's not so robust. But leaving that aside, what "ontic schools" are you talking about? And please don't give me a superficial analysis like "Thales believed the world was made of water" or something like that. I'm hoping you're more familiar with the presocratics than that.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Yes.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
So you're in the camp of still believing in some special "inductive method." That's fine. I'm very familiar with those in your camp -- there have been plenty since Bacon. But there's no reason to take it so seriously, especially as there is plenty that goes on outside of such a "method" thus making it fairly meaningless (in my view).
I've given plenty of examples at this point, which you continue to ignore, so I'll take that to mean you have some attachment to belief in such a dogma about a special "method" and will gladly let you go on holding it. Again, this wasn't the purpose of this thread anyway.
I suggest Newton's Apple and Other Myths about Science for a longer, more thorough disquisition about this from a historian of science.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
That's not inductive reasoning. Inductive logic has little to do with "predictive power." You're just confused here, I'm afraid.
But regardless, I'm glad you admit that reason and logic is used in science.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
No, you contrasted "rationality" by conflating it with "rationalism" (hence why you mentioned Descartes) which is completely wrong. Inductive reasoning already assumes reason (it's right there in the word), and hence rationality - ratio is Latin, which translates as "reason."
So yes, dealing with the world "rationally" is a human activity, part of an attempt to understand things using reason. That's philosophy, that's science, that's everything in between when we're not completely under the direction of emotion, whim, instinct, superstition, etc. If you want to go on believing that only the parts of this activity that check off a DSM-like list should be considered "science," all evidence to the contrary, you're welcome to.
Not one of a 4-dimensional spacetime or of non-Euclidean geometry. Doesn't really make it "wrong," I suppose, but less explanatory than relativity.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Correct. See above.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Sure. But I'm not appealing to an authority -- I'm asking you to, so that he or she will provide evidence. If you can, I'm all ears. But so far you haven't.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Let me know when you conduct this experiment. I wish you the best of luck, but I won't hold my breath. Personally I think it's a waste of time. But in any case, the point stands: there's no evidence for your claim. So why say it? That's not scientifically sound either.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I haven't once said anything remotely like that, because before we can "couple" non-science with "science," we have to know what "science" is. No one can offer a definition that shows Aristarchus wasn't doing science but Galileo was, for example, so who cares?
You, on the other hand, have repeatedly tried to demarcate science, ignoring evidence that doesn't fit. Also not scientifically sound. I can make guesses as to why this is, psychologically, but otherwise it's not very interesting to me.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
That's not what you said. You said:
Quoting VagabondSpectre
So quantum mechanics and general relativity are "experimental evidence" now? That's completely meaningless as well.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
"Us" being human beings...also with thinking minds.
phusis means growth. So, so nature is a process of growth--as well as decay.
You're exactly right: phusis is much more a matter of "growth" -- as "blooming" for example -- in ancient Greece.
I don't agree with the second part of your statement, however.
Everything living decays and eventually dies. What do you disagree with?
Yes, that's true, but that's not quite the sense that phusis means. It doesn't necessarily mean a literal "development" of a plant, say. It's more the blooming, the emergence, of a thing.
I don't think we are disagreeing. But, again, for Aristotle it does literally mean the growth of a plant.
Surely. But I'm emphasizing (vis a vis Heidegger) phusis as "emerging, abiding sway," the presence of an entity disclosed to us in aletheia (truth, unconealedness). This was the Greek sense of "being."
ontos just means "thing"
Yeah, or "entity" or "being." What's the relevance?
You brought it up. Was it irrelevant to you?
I never brought up ontos.
You did. But...clearly you want no discussion. Have a good evening.
Where? Here's what I said, to which you responded about ontos:
Quoting Xtrix
Not one mention of "ontos." Yes, the word "being" (as in A being, an entity or a "thing") is "ontos," but that's not phusis, which is the Greek sense of the being of entities (beings).
It's not about not wanting a discussion, it's about not drifting into irrelevance. If you care to explain what you meant, by all means. Otherwise, yes: good evening indeed. I have no time for nonsense.
Which I explained. Take one example: the supposed opposition of Parmenides and Heraclitus. Heidegger rejects this.
There was also no metaphysics in Aristotle.
Quoting StreetlightX
Then go pout somewhere else about it, by all means.
What I’m interested in is not lengthy quotations which have nothing to do with the OP, but insights into the Greek meaning of being as phusis.
No you're not. You're interested in elaborations on the Heideggarian party line.
No, as I've demonstrated over and over again -- from the OP onwards -- that the issue for analysis and discussion is phusis.
"Elaborations on the Heideggarian party line" is gibberish. You're not fooling me or anyone else into believing you have read Heidegger. (And no, scrolling over PDFs you've found on the Internet to find something you think supports one of your pretentious, superficial "opinions" is not the reading I mean.)
Easily demonstrated by the following question: What "party line" are you talking about, exactly?
I won't hold my breath for an answer.
Feel free to try Twitter next time.
Quoting StreetlightX
Exactly. Like I said: try Twitter.
It seems to me that scientific practice rarely requires meditation upon the fundamental nature of nature; it's contextualised and regionalised. So in that regard, any conception of nature as its own thing (in toto or in itself) does not seem to be a requirement of doing science.
I guess that leaves questions of transcendental priority; can someone conceive of any particular predictive understanding of nature without using something like phusis? If it's a ground for science, it's not going to be a ground of scientific practice, it'll be a ground in terms of conceptual/logical priority.
I would also guess that it's commonplace to treat metaphysics regarding nature as descriptive rather than explanatory; given (bunch of science stuff), how should we think about it? EG: what constitutes a function of a component of an organism?
So it seems to me if the analysis of phusis takes a central place in science, it only does so as a transcendental ground, and needs only behave that way given the stipulations of interpreting it that way. Maybe Deleuzians would put difference at the center, maybe Schopenhaurians would put will there.
I agree -- but no one is arguing that.
Quoting fdrake
Maybe. But perhaps not even that. It's not that scientists have to even understanding their sense of "being" (as nature) or even question it, it's that it permeates everything they do as a background premise. How do we know it's a background premise? Because whenever they speak of the "universe," or the "physical," of laws of nature, forces of nature, "matter" (atoms and molecules), etc., there is embedded a very definite understanding of being in general (nature), of human being (the rational animal, or in current formulation the "primate with language"), of subjects and objects, of "bodies" and "objects" (beings), of "mind and matter," and so on. Whether they're Christian or Muslim or Hindu or atheist or part of "scientism," scientists are human beings who have to operate with some kind of picture of the world. No person is without philosophy or religion, in this sense. So it doesn't matter if they can articulate it, question it, or even know it -- just as many "Christians" walk around never questioning their specific meaning of "God." But it does seem that one they do articulate it, or are questioned about it, "nature" or the "physical" is usually what vocalized at some point.
Thus it's worth asking about this word and its origin (in phusis).
Quoting fdrake
I don't know what the last examples have to do with. Put "difference" and "will" at the center of what? Phusis?
Regardless, I wasn't advocating putting phusis as the "central place in science," I'm saying it is a basis for science if and only if it bears some connection to the current ontology of science (which I contend is a naturalism or physicalism). Just the uncontroversial etymology of the words "nature" and "physics" will immediately show you there is.
So then we ask, "What was phusis to the Greeks?" Turns out, something very different than what we mean. In Heidegger, the emphasis has become more and more about "substance," about presence. Science turns out to be one iteration of the metaphysics of presence since the Greek inception of philosophy.
As a, or the, central explanatory category for the unfolding of nature considered as its own thing.
Quoting Xtrix
So the connection goes: phusis -> naturalism, naturalism -> scientific practice? In what regard is phusis a basis for scientific practice if it bears some connection to the current ontology of science?
Being a "basis" is quite a lot different from "bearing some connection", right? So I interpreted that you were doing the Heideggerian move of putting "phusis" as the general concept that "allows nature to reveal itself to scientists in the way they reveal it", despite being "more primordial" than that style of disclosure.
Why ask me for an appeal to authority when you can just dismiss it as an appeal to authority?
You're asking for me to show you the ultimate scientific authority, but the rub is that science eschews ultimate authority. When pressed, scientists say things like "nature", by which they mean experimental evidence (observations of nature).
Quoting Xtrix
Huh? You opened the post by bringing up an ill-defined anecdote about how scientists say their god is nature (do you need me to quote everything line by line?), and then you stated that Descartes framework of natural philosophy "dominates every other understanding in today's world".
This is just bad reasoning. What do you think scientists meant by "nature" and "god", and why is that relevant to why natural philosophy dominates every other understanding in today's world?
Isn't it possible that modern science is not dominated by Cartesian or natural philosophy?
Quoting Xtrix
Why do you get to get to ask me to prove an unending series of negatives? First you'll goad me into showing Aristarchus wasn't doing science, then you can just keep pulling random names out of a hat until I get too tired to carry on... If some ancient philosopher based their epistemological framework around the predictive power of their mathematical or explanatory models, then maybe they employing the modern scientific method to some extent. But really, who cares?
Quoting Xtrix
You're just making veiled ad hominems and appeals to character with this. Accusing me of ignoring evidence that doesn't fit is just an allusion that you have relevant evidence that I have not addressed (just state the evidence concisely and clearly so that at the very least other readers can see how poor a job I am doing), and mentioning my psychological state is a fallacious appeal to character bordering on ad hominem.
Quoting Xtrix
I'm having a hard time comprehending what you're trying to say here. "In our face phenomenon" refers to the experimental observations that force us to accept GR and QM as strong models. If you think you have a "gotch'ya" here, you don't. You're just be semantically obtuse or else misunderstanding. Calling things "meaningless statements" in a vacuum is non-persuasive.
Quoting Xtrix
Have you ever heard of the "etymological fallacy"? It's sort of similar to equivocation; definitely an excellent source of wanton misinterpretation...
To be fair to Descartes, the first two meditations are pretty interesting. He lays out groundwork for the utility of falsification, and also that our ideas are shaped by our available senses, but if I recall correctly he went on to just assume a bunch of random nonsense. Merely doubting senses and applying skepticism is not the more fully fledged conception of science that is based around experimental predictive power.
You're trying to win the argument by somehow showing that I am technically incorrect, when you have not seem to understood or addressed the statement I have made. Even if my critique of Descartes has been unfair (not giving him enough credit as a scientist, I guess), you're still not actually addressing my position; you're just rejecting it out of hand.
Once again, just to be clear, modern science employs an inherently inductive method to actually confirm and usefully deploy its models in the real world; that's what has let it advance so much compared to less strictly focused schools
.
We have reliable computers because the models and understanding that were used to create the underlying hardware focused on precision and accuracy in their anticipation of how systems unfold. (even in computer "science", predictive power ("robustness" in terms of an application or program) is still the major standard that drives development. We want programs that can do more, and can do it quicker, and to do that we require more reliable (or more efficient with no reliability loss) low level algorithms).
So what is the point of this thread again? I know you feel you have been amply clear, but just indulge me. Did you just want to wax about the hidden nature of the physical universe without needing to actually entertain scientific models?
Why didn't you call the thread "basis for ancient science"?
To present warmed over Heidegger and ask if anyone has an oven to warm it up a little more.
Ontological basis. You're right, that may not have been clear initially, but that's what I'm talking about. Not scientific practice.
That's why I said an authority that provides evidence which I could check.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
As I've shown repeatedly, that's not what I said. I mentioned someone once saying "I believe in God, I just call it nature" to demonstrate the place "nature" plays in modern science. It wasn't to be taken literally as scientists believing in a "God of nature."
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Natural philosophy is what science used to be called. The point is that nature is what science studies. So the question is a good one: "What is nature" (or what is meant by "nature)? That's exactly what I'm exploring here.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Cartesianism, sure. But science is natural philosophy, so I don't see how it could or couldn't be "dominated" by it.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
"Unending"? I keep bringing it up because you continually fail to address it, and it's important. As far as "random names":I've mentioned Aristarchus over and over again. That's not random name-dropping. It's a simple question: Was he doing "science" or not?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Exactly: who cares? Thus, who really cares about a fuzzy "modern method" in the first place? If it's modern, yet Aristarchus was doing it, is it still modern?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
So experimental observations, not GR and QM themselves -- which is meaningless. That's fine. But take a look at what you said: you said "QM and GR are 'in our face phenomenon.'" If that's just a poorly worded sentence, not a big deal. But why continue to argue it?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
It's not semantics or a misunderstanding, it's a simple fact of what you said, which is completely meaningless. To repeat, again: "QM and GR are 'in our face phenomenon.'" That's MEANINGLESS. To say the data, the evidence, the observations and experiments are "in our face phenomena" is one thing -- to say the theories themselves are is meaningless.
There's no "gotchya" here. I get what you mean now, but before it wasn't at all clear. All that's required in that case is to simply say "I typed that wrong" and move on. Yet since you continue to argue it, I'll continue to as well: the statement was meaningless. Quantum mechanics is not "in your face phenomenon," it's an explanatory theory.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
There's no misinterpretation. You're simply conflating the two terms.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
What argument?
Science uses reason, rationality, logic, etc. That's not a controversial or "technical" point and it's not trying to "win" anything. I doubt anyone is reading any of this, and I don't care about "winning" anyway -- it's a silly way to look at conversations.
Your argument has been that science is special, especially modern science, and is distinct from other activities by use of the "inductive method." I've heard this argument many times before -- it's not unreasonable. It has a long history. But you're hardly making a strong case, I'm afraid. This isn't ad hominem.
It's especially difficult to explore that position when I get bogged down in corrections which I shouldn't have to correct -- whether about rationality or about data/theory or about Aristarchus's science.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
So this is how you present an argument, by simply repeating yourself over and over without evidence? Fine. I've already shown, multiple times, why the above statement is completely wrong. Obviously you don't agree, and that's fine. Like I said before, I don't care if there really turns out to be a special method or not. Maybe someone will show me one day that there is.
If I were you though, in the future I'd watch words like "advance" and "progress." That's value-laden. We've advanced as a species quite a lot, in many ways. So if it's a matter of rate, how do we measure this? You've proposed some experiments to find out, and I welcome you to it. In the meantime, it's just empty, unconvincing statements.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I don't feel that way, no. You prove me wrong over and over again in that respect.
The point of this thread is to explore the Greek understanding of being ('phusis') and to trace the evolution from this soil to the modern world (and the ontology of modern science).
"Nature" and "physics" have their etymological roots in the word "phusis." Science in Galileo's time was called "natural philosophy" (the philosophy of nature). Modern scientists often claim (though it's true this is only from what I've heard and read, not based on a survey of any kind) that they study nature (which I didn't think was a controversial point) and so it's worth asking what that means now as well.
_______________
Phusis is the basis of modern science. Why? Because modern science's ontology is one of naturalism, a kind of physicalism, and these ideas have their roots in Greek ontology.
We take naturalism for granted in the sciences, and oppose it to the "metaphysical" (and thus philosophy and religion). These are well-worn ideas.
But "science" and its naturalism sprang from the philosophy of nature (the "Natural Philosophy" of Newton and Galileo). This naturalism (or physicalism) is a picture of the world, which rests on a set of axioms -- the first and "obvious" is that the universe (nature) is "made" of matter (atoms) in space, follow laws like causality, and abide by the forces of nature (gravitation, electromagnetism, strong and weak forces).
What is "behind" this ontology? What does (and did) "nature" mean? It meant the disclosure of beings, the clearing of beings, the opening up and emergence of beings. This phusis is the word for this emergence, and is the Greek understanding of being. This word was translated into Latin as "natura," and also as "physics." It has gone through many iterations, but despite the apparent differences it has remained through and through Greek. Why?
Because the Greek sense of phusis already had in it a privileging of an aspect of time: the present. When things appear to us in perception, when they emerge from unconcealment (as truth, as aletheia), when they are "disclosed" -- they are understood on the basis of time, and particularly the present. Beings come to being in the present -- this is the history of Western thought, which has dominated it ever since: presence.
Being, phusis, means constant presence. As does ousia (or parousia) in Aristotle (often translated as "substance").
This "metaphysics of presence" is the basis for not only modern science, but Christian ontology and dogma, for the philosophies of Descartes and Kant, for the scientific research of Copernicus and Galileo and Newton, and to the contemporary manifestations in Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Neil Degrasse Tyson, John Wheeler, and even Noam Chomsky.
Why is this interpretation important? In the modern world, that means: How is this useful? How can it be monetized? But the answer to that can't be given. Philosophy is quite useless in this respect.
Given our current age, where we have the capacities to destroy ourselves with our technology (nuclear weapons, fossil fuel consumption, biological weapons), where our understanding of being -- a technological-nihilistic understanding -- is coming to dominate all other understandings of being all around the globe, it may be well to ask these questions to shake some of the our certainties in our current "scientific" worldview. Perhaps scientism isn't such a good thing. Perhaps the "death of God" has led to a nihilism in the form of this "scientism," leading to a world where the merchants and manufacturers -- and thus the merchant class worldview -- have come to power.
It is the business class, the merchants, who have gained rule. It is not governments and not the majority of people. Where does their power lie? In trade; in money. What is their philosophy? Capitalism. Maybe some believe in God, maybe some are atheists who believe in science. But none of these things -- not capitalism, not scientism, not atheism, not even Christianity any longer, offers us any real direction or hope for the future. If we continue on this path, we're finished.
That being said, the connection becomes clear: modern science is one of the dominant forces in the world today, not just in its successes but in replacing what most people once believed (Christianity) with the "results of science," which has therefore become in many ways a kind of "religion." But it offers almost no guidance to live, no direction, no goal -- other than the endless quest for "truth" and "knowledge."
This all therefore shades over in power, politics, economics, and morality. The most important people to read here are Marx (economics and politics), Nietzsche (morality), Chomsky (politics). All these men study power in its various domains.
So where's the hope? Not in philosophers and scientists and priests, but in artists and poets -- as the vanguard of humanity and the hope for some new understanding of being.
* On "metaphysics of presence." Being seems to be hidden and concealed in Heidegger, it's mainly absence. Our Western history has stressed presence. Thus to acknowledge the majority of what a human being does in average everydayness shows that more of our present-at-hand analysis, philosophy, science, etc., are all based on a highly minority activity -- a small part of the human being, which usually only occurs in school or when something breaks done. The majority of our lives are spent in skill, in habit, in "coping," in "engagement," in unconscious activity which is called "ready to hand", where traditional ideas of a theoretical, rational, logical subject which follows rules while dealing with "objects" which are "out there" and in which we deal with as present-at-hand facts (with extension, weight, mass, shape, etc).
This isn't entirely directed at you, but it's directed at years of realising the limitations of Heidegger after finding reading him one of the most profound, worldview changing, experiences of my life.
(1) Let's say, with Heidegger, that analysing what people do with an unbiased eye for metaphysics or ontology allows you to ask profound metaphysical or ontological questions that unfold naturally from what people are doing. [hide=*](You might reject me calling Heidegger's work metaphysics, seeing as he sees himself as not doing it, rather doing ontology, but it fits in the broader sense of the term)[/hide]
(2) Let's further say, with Heidegger, that if you don't try and root things in what the practice does, and if you're not attentive to its nature, you will end up asking the wrong questions about it [hide=*]Like readiness to hand ontology "undermining" present at hand metaphysics on the level of appropriateness of perspective/question formation.[/hide]
(3) Now, imagine that you've developed a very general concept that you think applies to all domains of human practice; everything people do. Imagine that it's even deeper than this, in that you think it constraints the potentials of things; what people can do, how people must think if they are to know the true nature of the world. It's a transcendental structure. [hide]Dasein's field of temporal ekstasis opening up a clearing in which entities are revealed/worlded[/hide].
(4) In your later work, you make this transcendental structure historically and culturally dependent [hide]("enframing" in The Question Concerning Technology and world-picture in "The Age of the World Picture")[/hide]. That is even the transcendental seems to vary over the specifics of human behaviour.
(5) For years and years after, there is academic work seeing science through the lens of (3) and (4), in practice echoing the maxim "Science does not think".
Given (1), do you think it's appropriate to read off the "ontological basis" of science without considering how it's done on its own terms? I don't. That's using (3) irrespective of the way it was derived (a big Heidegger phenomenology methodological no-no).
Given (2), do you think that applying (3) without checking its adequacy from a phenomenology of the domain in question (science) first is fruitful at all for understanding it? I don't, that's using (3) and going against the explicit advice in (1) and (2).
Given (4), do you think it's sensible in general to transport transcendental structure from one practice to another? I don't, even within the assumptions of Heidegger's work, transcendental structure is culturally malleable.
I've had similar conversations on the forum before, usually a rejoinder is something like "while surface level transcendental structure is historically contingent, the deep structure of Dasein is not"; my thoughts on the matter are: why would the deepest structure of human being have much to say about a type of practice so alien to mankind it allegedly took, of all our history, until Descartes' work for it to be codified? And until much after for it to be commonplace?
I get frustrated with reasoning, or exploratory questions, that take the anti-reductive thought of Heidegger and reduce things to instances of it.
Appreciate the post, but I really don't know what you're asking me here. Perhaps you could be more straightforward. I think I've been fairly clear about my purposes.
Ah, sorry about that.
Science uses concepts. A biologist will use concepts like organism, gene, structure and function. These concepts link up with predictions and experiments. Do you see any use of the concept of phusis by scientists in their theories or experiments? I don't, I've worked in universities, the only other person I've met in a scientific field that has any familiarity with Heidegger was a nurse studying prison populations and used phenomenology as a method from a subtle realist perspective. Scientists in general do not seem to think in those terms.
Here's a quote from Being and Time's first introduction, where Heidegger's talking about the importance of paying attention to exactly what you're asking questions about when you're asking questions about it:
That goes for something like analysing hammering, it should also go for understanding the scientific practice of connecting theory, prediction and experiment, no? In that regard, it is extremely strange that people see things about the existential analytic of Dasein in the practice of science, when scientists make no regular practical use of those concepts. Nevertheless, granting the above paragraph, they are asking questions, they know the meaning of the beingS they are investigating in some preparatory manner. So why take recourse to the existential analytic of Dasein over phenomenologising about what scientists actually do?
I think you get a much different metaphysical picture of nature if you take your imaginative background from scientific practice than if you take your cues from the existential analytic of Dasein. Why should Dasein in its average everydayness be the appropriate site for the question of the being of nature (physis) than the more restrictive and demarcated practice of scientists which have thematised nature in their questions already, rather than Dasein?
No I don't. I don't think most scientists think about or really care about the underlying philosophical assumptions or systems of beliefs that they hold, any more than computer programmers know or care about logic gates and transistors or engineers about Euclidean axioms.
Phusis is the Greek concept of being. ""Nature" and "physics" are therefore cognate.
I'm only again pointing out this etymology because it connects with our modern meaning of being [hide="Reveal"](although it's a veiled one which almost never gets questioned, whether by adherents of science or followers of some religion -- and not only neglected by these followers but by the religious and scientific thought leaders as well!)[/hide], so knowing something about this root word's meaning (phusis) is potentially enlightening. I've pointed out some ways why it is in fact enlightening to think about and question this concept.
What Heidegger says is that both the Greek conception and our conception of "being" (and beings) has a temporal basis: the present.
This "emerging" that the Greeks thought of as being is also tied to their conception of truth (aletheia - unconcealedness), phenomena (beings; ??????????, from ??????? (phainein) "to shine, show, manifest"), substance (ousia), logos (gathering), and physics (phusike). Heidegger sees dasein (human being, the "there") as a "disclosure," a "clearing," or a "lighting" -- so we're unconceal-ers, truth-openers, where being is an "issue" for us. Our understanding of anything at all (being) is connected with our being, which is a temporal one. [hide="Reveal"](This begins to sound like Kant a little, I know. But Heidegger mentions that although Kant emphasizes "time," he neglects both being and a phenomenological analysis of time with "being" as a guiding theme.)[/hide]
One particular mode of time gets privileged in the Greek understanding of beings: the present. And it's THIS that has persisted to the present day in philosophy and science (and our religion/spirituality!). Whenever we question the world reflectively, or try to understand anything at all "objectively" or "abstractly" we operate in the same mode of being we're in when things break down: the present-to-hand, which is a detached way of being, a "founded" mode which is the exception rather than the rule (the rule being ready-to-hand activity).
We therefore do this philosophical and scientiifc analysis while "presencing," which is a mode of time (the present) and which thus transforms beings into "present-at-hand" entities (e.g., "objects," "substances," res extensa) -- as opposed to the ordinary, everyday mode of being we're in, which is a caring, concernful coping, reading-to-hand activity (which is also interpreted as temporality: past/present/future unity). [hide] [Being and Time, p 47 (German 24): "Entities are grasped in their being as 'presence'; this means that they are understood with regard to a definite mode of time-- the 'Present'."] [/hide]
This is why the Scholastics, Descartes, Galileo, Newton, Kant, Hegel, and up to the present day has lead to the "dead end" of nihilism: everything is interpreted as an "object" or resource, nature becomes a matter of calculation and thus, most importantly, human beings get interpreted as "subjects," "creatures of God," "talking apes," "ghosts in a machine," etc., with all of the epistemological problems generated from these variations, and leading to untold political and economic blind alleys and even outright harm.