Lazerowitz's three-tiered structure of metaphysics

I think it still starts from essentially positivistic presuppositions, that presume that naturalism describes the world as it really is

Morris Lazerowitz was interested in the nature of metaphysics, starting from the hunch that it was not what its practitioners claimed it was (an inquiry into the basic nature of things). That it is not what it claims to be seems obvious in retrospect – we cannot even figure out such simple things as what is behind a closed door by just talking about it. Why would we ever think we could figure out the basic nature of the elements of the universe by talking? It's in this puzzling feature of metaphysics – that somehow the deepest truths are known without any investigation whatsoever, and just by deciding to use words in a certain way, that is the start of his account.

It doesn't take into account that there might be a truly intellectual and experiential foundation to metaphysics which has been deliberately bracketed out of philosophy by modernist thinking, which then completely forgets what it originally referred to, and simply declares it all 'meaningless talk'.

I don't think those that do metaphysics or have done it in the past have ever internally been able to get clear on what its supposed significance is. Hence the fact that it is 'empty talk' is an observation, not a prejudice – people cannot, as a matter of fact, make sense of it.

So, sure, for those with no understanding of the original significance of such discourses,

The point is that those engaged in the discourse also seem to have no understanding of it.

magine a visitor from another planet which has developed without any conception of music.

But this discussion interests me less than the discussion of the actual model of metaphysics by Lazerowitz I've posted, which you don't seem to be talking about.

Let's go back to the 'first layer' and 'second layer' model. It makes a valid point - that metaphysical enunciations (or claims or whatever) appear to be meaningful, but on analysis, they're actually not. Whereas if we say 'the sun rises in the East' or any other purely factual statement, this can be validated by observation, metaphysical dicta cannot be, often by definition. (This leads to the positivist position of 'verificationism'.)

But I think this is well understood in metaphysical traditions themselves.

it is literally meaningful because it is lived. But those outside that 'domain of discourse' will not be able to understand the references or meaning, and will be inclined to say that they don't refer to anything, or mean anything. But I think it's a very presumptuous attitude.

If it were meaningful to the participants, then they should be able to articulate that meaning internally among their own practice, but they cannot do this either. For example, metaphysicians cannot agree on what their propositions mean, under what circumstances they would be true, what their scope is, or what the criteria for figuring out whether they are true look like.

The first set, it seems, has a puzzling status, where it is not just unclear whether they are true or false, due maybe to epistemic limitations, or vagueness in the language, or ambiguity, or what have you, but it is unclear whether they are meaningful, in the restricted sense that it is unclear whether they in principle determine any truth conditions at all. That is, as competent speakers of English, we typically do not know what would make the statements in the first class true or false, and so we cannot extract a 'descriptive' meaning from them. It is for this reason that metaphysicians are able to argue about the claims endlessly, even without any 'materials' for argumentation other than conversations they take part in – because if even the sense of the expressions are unclear, one can always deny or affirm a claim, by construing the words in a certain way or marshaling and endless array of supplementary hypotheses or hermeneutic and argumentative techniques, themselves undetermined or underdetermined for meaning. In other words, conversations about such metaphysical sentences are in principle endless, because they have in principle no way of being resolved, because their structure, despite being grammatically like a claim with coherent (if sometimes vague or ambiguous) truth conditions, do not have any such that the speakers can converge on.

What support do you have for that assertion? It simply sounds like an assumption to me, an 'everyone knows that...' statement.

A counter point might be that if you take any popular unsolved mystery, there will be endless argumentation spanning many different theories. Take Fermi's Paradox and the question of whether technological alien life exists as a good example of this. There are even debates over what to search for. The problem is that we don't know the answer, not that it's meaningless.

What would it mean for there to be no physical objects? It would mean everything exists as an idea in someone's mind. What does that mean? Dreams are a good example. Everything would have the same fundamental status of dreams, except as different kinds of experiences. Experiences themselves would exhaust what a thing is.

But the problem is not just that intelligible, difficult questions were asked, like 'how many stars are in the sky?'

Rather, no inquiry was ever performed other than the conversations held, and even in this arena, where nothing was ever looked into and people apparently felt that nothing needed to be looked into, it was impossible to make any headway.

Lucretius used erosion as a justification for atomism.

Metaphysics isn't just a language game. It's also looking around at our experience of the world and asking how things are the way they are, and whether our concepts about those things make sense.

So yes, I would say indeed that things like global idealism, and the idea of the world as a dream, as typically intended, are not literally significant. All you are doing is taking the world as it is, and deciding to call it a 'dream' or not, but this does not change how you take the world to be.

You could find a way to make them significant, for example by saying 'no, I think we literally live in a Matrix world, and we could wake up tomorrow in a pod controlled by robots.' That is an intelligible claim, although one that might be hard to prove. I know what it would be to wake up in such a situation – and in fact, such a thing can even be coherently depicted, as it is in the Matrix.

But that's not quite right. The unreflective way we take the world to be is physical.

Idealism would say the perceiving is all there is to it. And things only persists when we're not around if there is someone like God or a universal mind to perceive. There is no mind-independent material stuff that may or may not be like what we perceive.

Metaphysical questions cannot be decided by empirical means. Do you have any examples to the contrary?

I don't know what you mean by this. I don't think unreflective experience of the world has metaphysical consequences, since metaphysical claims have no consequences.

What then is the difference between these things existing outside of perception or not?

If you do not have an example, I will not take the claim seriously.

I think it has naive realist claims.

Material things would be different since their properties and behaviors are not exhausted by our perception of them.

What is the minimum criterion for being meaningful?

OK, but what does that actually mean?

Try the test: can you write a novel in which idealism is true,

What is the minimum criterion for being meaningful?
— creativesoul

For something to have 'cognitive significance,' it should describe some state of affairs such that the one to whom it's meaningful can somehow tell the difference between that state of affairs obtaining or not obtaining.

Are you saying that all meaningful things are descriptions?

It means other animals can perceive things we can't. It means X-Rays can pass through solid objects. It means a beam of photons can produce either a wave or particle pattern depending on whether you detect which slit they go through. And so on.

Is that not verificationism?

Are you saying that all meaningful things are descriptions?
— creativesoul

Meaningful statements describe the world in some way – that is the purported aim of metaphysical statements. They distinguish, if you like, between ways the world might be. If no such distinction is made, then the statement cannot 'pick out' any way the world might be, and so its being true or false could not possibly hinge on the world being some way. Hence it cannot describe anything.

In other words, there is a recognition that since one can speak however one pleases, that one can in some sense 'make true' whatever one pleases, just by talking about it. But as we saw in the second layer, this has no descriptive effect, and cannot really change the world or even what one thinks about it. Yet making a sentence like 'time is unreal' true according to one's logic, which follows from the employment of words in a certain way, one can sort of blur the eyes and almost believe he has stopped time.

An idealist can simply accept all that is so, and say those things' truth is to be cashed out in terms of their experiential effects. Indeed, you cannot possibly find a difference, since an idealist can always in principle make this move.

And idealist can make this move for experience, but that differs significantly from the move the materialist is making. Let's take the double slit experiment. What does the idealist say? We have two different kinds of experiences depending on how the experiment is setup. What does the materialist say? Well, they come up with things like pilot waves and multiverses.

It doesn't necessarily have to do with the means of verification – it does mean that one has to be able to know what it is, in some way, for the statement to be true as opposed to false. If you don't know that, then you can't tell what makes the sentence true or false, so the statement can't be cognitively meaningful to you. No verification is actually required, even in principle – you could simply describe or imagine something, or read them in a novel, showing the difference, so you could, say, tell in a trial at better than chance level which of the affairs holds in that description.

But the point is that those additional posits can also be cast in either framework. You will never find a substantive difference between the two.

What is the difference between there being universals and there not being universals?

Anyway, this is turning into a tired defense of basic positivism, rather than focusing on the Lazerowitz model, which I'm interested in. These discussions have all been had a million times before.

Cognitively meaningful ones, yes – ones that attempt to tell us 'how the world is.' Of course 'meaningful' can mean lots of other things, too, but we're interested here in figuring out 'how things are.' And that is what metaphysics purports to do.

Fair enough. But that's a fundamental problem, isn't it? We can't even agree on what makes a statement meaningful. I don't know what that means for philosophy and whether we have to nail down a theory of meaning first before having these debates.

I think philosophy should be studied externally, by anthropologists, and that meaning should be studied by linguistic semanticists.

Why would we ever think we could figure out the basic nature of the elements of the universe by talking? It's in this puzzling feature of metaphysics – that somehow the deepest truths are known without any investigation whatsoever, and just by deciding to use words in a certain way, that is the start of his account.

I don't know what that means for philosophy and whether we have to nail down a theory of meaning first before having these debates.

Assuming they can stay free of philosophical assumptions.

So basically your criticism is, metaphysics is empty because it’s not physics.

Because I don't know what it means.

Whether a claim is meaningful to someone depends on whether they can understand it, yes. I can't speak to your mind, but I doubt you understand it either.

Whether a claim is meaningful to someone depends on whether they can understand it, yes.

Are you actually doubting that I understand my own claim?

Demonstrate you understand them using the novel-writing test.

Are you actually doubting that I understand my own claim?
— creativesoul

Yes.

Why isn't demonstrating that one understands an argument for or against enough?

The history of metaphysics is one of argumentation without any particular decisions made or consensus reached over any of the core issues. This is at least definitive in showing that metaphysics as a purported science was unsuccessful in its aims (since even if someone along the way got something right, the discipline itself is a failure insofar as it is impotent to communicate and establish that conclusion).

But the problem is not just that intelligible, difficult questions were asked, like 'how many stars are in the sky?' and people came up with differing answers to it before giving up. Rather, no inquiry was ever performed other than the conversations held, and even in this arena, where nothing was ever looked into and people apparently felt that nothing needed to be looked into, it was impossible to make any headway. This shows that there must be some defect in the discourse itself.

Somewhere in all the possible worlds you’re skipping about in a luxury yacht, while I’m chained, terrified, to the bow, gasping through mouthfuls of seawater. Somewhere your band of riders burned my village to the ground, and you’re drinking a toast to the gods from my jewel-encrusted skull. You can want all of this, and there’s no need to feel guilty: it could happen, so it happened; that’s all.

Because an argument is just an exchange of words, and one can use words in whatever way one pleases. It's evident that metaphysicians go back and forth forever without understanding anything, because they do nothing but shuffle words around. Shuffling words around is precisely not an index of understanding, as the history of the discipline shows.

But as I tried to point out before, you will find this sort of thing with any popular unsolved question.

Or just a paragraph, or short story, or anything. For example, can you write or imagine two scenarios, one in which there are universals, and one in which there aren't? Conversely, if someone else wrote two such scenarios, could you tell the difference between them at better than chance?

I'm trying to be nice when I say this, but I sincerely have no idea what you're talking about or what it has to do with my posts. I would suggest you read what I've actually said, and not respond based on what you think I've said. Whoever you're objecting to, it's not me.

The point is, again, not jus that the question is difficult, but that one does not know what it would be to answer it, in principle.

Your sample question: how many stars...?. This is not a metaphysical question.

Fans will debate endlessly who's the best in a sport. It's meaningful, but is there a right answer?

Did you read what I wrote about the Matrix above? I do think the claim that we live in the Matrix is intelligible, but that's just an empirical claim about robots and vats and so on. Idealists do not mean things in this concrete way.

Your sample question: how many stars...?. This is not a metaphysical question.
— Wayfarer

I know. That was the point! You clearly didn't read very carefully!

It's only empirical if you can unplug. Otherwise, your senses are going to tell what the Matrix shows them. The universe being a simulation would be one where we can't unplug, since we're part of the simulation. Idealists would mean it that way, except there's no bottom-level physical world running the simulation.

What would it take for you(or me for that matter) to understand my claim?

So, I'll ask again: what is the difference between universals existing, and not existing? Can you describe two scenarios, one in which they do, and one in which they do not? If you cannot do this, why should I believe you understand the claim or its denial?

But I don't know how you would actually "show" a universe with or without universals other than just stating it

Exactly! You're so close to getting it!

But the problem is not just that intelligible, difficult questions were asked, like 'how many stars are in the sky?' and people came up with differing answers to it before giving up. Rather, no inquiry was ever performed other than the conversations held, and even in this arena, where nothing was ever looked into and people apparently felt that nothing needed to be looked into, it was impossible to make any headway. This shows that there must be some defect in the discourse itself.

As to what that defect is, we can take specific metaphysical examples and use diagnostics to test whether they have any descriptive criteria. Here's one: take metaphysical hypotheses A and B. Can you write a story in which A is true, but not B, and have it be distinguishable from the plot itself, from a story in which B is true, and not A? If not, then it is likely you do not have the ability to intelligibly describe what it is for A or B to be true, and hence you are not debating matters with coherent criteria of application that you can comprehend.

Imagine there was no one to challenge you, imagine everyone agreed, there was no proponents of scientism to counter with quotes from Bohr. I would imagine this would free up time to spend practicing. That would be a boon, right?

Is there something in metaphysics, and its defense against the proponents of scientism , that is serving some other function for you? And, if so, how does that fit in this conversation?

Why would we ever think we could figure out the basic nature of the elements of the universe by talking?

What should we say about these kids? What should we say about their disagreement?

Right, but that's not how metaphysical arguments go.

What is there to argue about?

Is that a problem? Shouldn't the explanation be a linguistic and psychological one?

Note that it needs to avoid using universals to do so.

Rather, it needs to show how universal concepts are constructed from particulars without positing any universals in the world.

How can we even posit universals if we don't know what it would be like for there to be universals or not?

Because they exist in our language when we talk about the world. We conceptualize the world as if it had universal categories of some kind.

What does it mean to conceptualize the world 'as if' it had something, when we can't even tell what it would be for it to have that something? What are we 'conceptualizing?' Apparently nothing.

It should be noted this is similar to Hume's issue with causality. We talk as if all sorts of things cause or cause other things. That's the way the world works according to our language. However, the cause itself is never in experience.

Now what does it mean to say Hume's skepticism and the debates it sparked are meaningless? That our everyday notion of causality is all there is to the matter?

that here the philosopher has a desire for the world to be some way, and expresses this desire, typically secretly and unconsciously, by holding metaphysical views. The philosopher knows in some sense that his attempting to change the way he or other people speak cannot change the world in this way, but there is a kind of sleight of mind where one entertains the illusion that perhaps, just perhaps, if I adduce enough arguments to show that time is unreal, time might stop.

We don't tend to believe in an ability to manipulate reality in that way as adults.

It seems to be almost entirely some kind of cultural tradition that came about at some point in our history and was practiced almost entirely by one sub-class of one culture.

I think a way was devised by which knowledge could be claimed in way immune to this new risk of being shown to be demonstrably wrong. It's this immunity which draws people into obscure metaphysical discussion, I think.

People criticizing metaphysics tend to forget what motivates metaphysical questions in the first place.

The third (deep) layer is the layer at which the drive for making the claim in the first place exists. Though Lazerowitz does not focus on this so much, I think the drive often happens for simple confusion – we are not metasemantically transparent creatures, and often in doing metaphysics we literally don't understand what's going on (and we are, in a Wittgensteinian sense, idling the engine while thinking we're driving, or like roadrunners on a treadmill wondering why we're not moving).

But Lazerowitz's explanation is a bit more interesting – he holds that here the philosopher has a desire for the world to be some way, and expresses this desire, typically secretly and unconsciously, by holding metaphysical views. The philosopher knows in some sense that his attempting to change the way he or other people speak cannot change the world in this way, but there is a kind of sleight of mind where one entertains the illusion that perhaps, just perhaps, if I adduce enough arguments to show that time is unreal, time might stop. In other words, there is a recognition that since one can speak however one pleases, that one can in some sense 'make true' whatever one pleases, just by talking about it. But as we saw in the second layer, this has no descriptive effect, and cannot really change the world or even what one thinks about it. Yet making a sentence like 'time is unreal' true according to one's logic, which follows from the employment of words in a certain way, one can sort of blur the eyes and almost believe he has stopped time.

The third layer, therefore, exists on the border of the unconscious, where the philosopher harbors fantasies about the omnipotence of the intelligence, and tries to transfigure the world by means of a kind of 'verbal magic.' He can, like the sophists, 'talk about anything,' and indeed 'argue for anything' – so perhaps he can 'make anything true.' This does not work of course, and the philosopher consciously may know this. But the process itself is so intoxicating that it pulls us in pre-rationally. And it may even service deeper desires – for instance, if I fear change, the mantra that 'time is unreal' may comfort me, because that means change is unreal, and so change cannot hurt me.

What I mean by chitta chatta is all dialogue with other people, or with one's self and all conscious thinking. Also all unconscious thinking which emerges into the consciousness. Indeed all mental activity which is involved in and with the sense of self. Alternatively, If you practice meditation for a few hundred hours until you are able to still the mind, what you have stilled is the chitta chatta. The mental activity involved in communion with the higher self does involve some of this*, but is largely that which supports a growing together as an organism. Rather like the grafting of a plant, or a joining together of two plants at the graft. So that after the graft, the two plants merge and become, after some time, indistinguishable.

But Lazerowitz's explanation is a bit more interesting – he holds that here the philosopher has a desire for the world to be some way, and expresses this desire, typically secretly and unconsciously, by holding metaphysical views.

because if even the sense of the expressions are unclear, one can always deny or affirm a claim, by construing the words in a certain way or marshaling and endless array of supplementary hypotheses or hermeneutic and argumentative techniques, themselves undetermined or underdetermined for meaning. In other words, conversations about such metaphysical sentences are in principle endless, because they have in principle no way of being resolved, because their structure, despite being grammatically like a claim with coherent (if sometimes vague or ambiguous) truth conditions, do not have any such that the speakers can converge on.

He can, like the sophists, 'talk about anything,' and indeed 'argue for anything' – so perhaps he can 'make anything true.' This does not work of course, and the philosopher consciously may know this. But the process itself is so intoxicating that it pulls us in pre-rationally. And it may even service deeper desires – for instance, if I fear change, the mantra that 'time is unreal' may comfort me, because that means change is unreal, and so change cannot hurt me.

what is the difference between universals existing, and not existing? Can you describe two scenarios, one in which they do, and one in which they do not? If you cannot do this, why should I believe you understand the claim or its denial?

people don't seem to have the ability to recognize that something might happen independent of their desires or ideology, and can 'deduce' what has actually happened in the world from whichever ideology they prefer.

I'm troubled by apparent independent parallels across the world, especially in India and Tibet, which developed parallel stylized forms of philosophical argumentation.

On the one hand, my conclusions must be substantive – or else there is no point in drawing them – but on the other, they must be devoid of content, or that content could potentially be shown to be mistaken.

But it leaves open the questions around why and how we do it.

As to how a term can have 'universal applicability,' I'm not sure what this means. Is the question, for example, how we can use the same word for multiple things? How it is that 'apple' can refer to multiple fruits, for example?

there genuinely are high-level categories, like species and genera.

So the question is, in what sense is the idea of apple real? And that is a metaphysical question.

I’m also arguing that reason and language must make use of such ideas all the time, otherwise we couldn’t make any sense of things in a global sense. So the general ideas, which are universal, also correspond with real categories. That’s what I take scholastic realism to mean.

It's a linguistic question.

you might say that they only exist as signifiers of meaning, but as our ability to reason and navigate is grounded in our ability to discern meaning, this mode of existence is still fundamental to rational creatures such as ourselves. I like to think of them as the ligatures of reason.

our ability to reason and navigate is grounded in our ability to discern meaning, this mode of existence is still fundamental to rational creatures such as ourselves.

Is our ability to reason and navigate grounded in our ability to discern meaning? If it isn't, what would be different about the world, how would we notice?

Before embarking on this study of substance, however, Aristotle goes on in Book ? to argue that first philosophy, the most general of the sciences, must also address the most fundamental principles—the common axioms—that are used in all reasoning. Thus, first philosophy must also concern itself with the principle of non-contradiction (PNC): the principle that “the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect” (1005b19). This, Aristotle says, is the most certain of all principles, and it is not just a hypothesis. It cannot, however, be proved, since it is employed, implicitly, in all proofs, no matter what the subject matter. It is a first principle, and hence is not derived from anything more basic.

You may not notice, but you would not be able to ask such questions. You’d be chasing a stick, or something.

For empiricism to get out of bed, it has to start from some assumptions, as to what to study, what to consider as ‘evidence’, what ideas to pursue. And those kinds of elements aren’t themselves empirical - they’re prior to it

Is the question, for example, how we can use the same word for multiple things? How it is that 'apple' can refer to multiple fruits, for example?
— Snakes Alive

That’s close!

foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc

So you're saying that if "our ability to reason and navigate is not grounded in our ability to discern meaning" we'd all be chasing sticks or something?

Yep. You’d be an animal.

Animals don’t reason, no. It’s amazing what they do - salmon returning to their home streams from across the Pacific, birds flying halfway around the planet, but none of it involves if I do this, then that will happen.

So the question is, in what sense is the idea of apple real? And that is a metaphysical question.

Animals don’t reason, no.

What is that? It appears to be a metaphysical component to conscious existence, correct?

I really don't understand what the question is supposed to be.

Are the objects of mathematics real, and if so how?

I am not impressed by the various experiments purporting to show that crows and other animals can exercise reason.

This claim is either meaningless or amenable to empirical evidence. Is our ability to reason and navigate grounded in our ability to discern meaning? If it isn't, what would be different about the world, how would we notice?

magical thinking [...] "animals don't think rationally like us because.... I really, really don't want them to"

What I deny is that philosophy has done anything interesting to address these healthy impulses. Is there a 'metaphysical component?' Again, I'm not sure what that would mean, but if it means anything like, 'would the sort of thing that Aristotle, Descartes, and Kripke have done shed any light on consciousness?' then my answer would have to be 'no.'


Reply

It's an interesting line of investigation for sure,

particularly the actions AI would have to demonstrate before we're prepared to label them 'rational'.

But that's a very different topic

and I don't want to derail the thread talking about it.

What is also interesting about this, and more related to the thread,

, is the way in which the criteria for the term 'rational' are being created post hoc to reflect the way we'd like things to be.

We've all been using the word 'rational' (or it's equivalent) for 2000 years. What on earth is a discussion about what it means doing 2000 years later!

This article you linked is a great example of metaphysics (or philosophy in general) done right.

There is abundant empirical evidence presented since Darwin’s time that shows he had the right view

universal terms are real, but that their reality is of a different order, to the reality of individual particulars.

Animals don’t reason, no.

our ability to reason and navigate is grounded in our ability to discern meaning

Neither side could demonstrate the difference between a world where "species exist" and "species don't exist" through Snakes' "novel test", for example.

it is a concept that gives rise to unnecessary confusion and unanswerable questions, so that concept and the framework that surrounds it are best abandoned and replaced with alternative ways of thinking about things that serve the same purpose without leading into those same problems.

It's not only about the empirical facts of speciation in this case, it's about the empirical facts about how confusing/efficient different ways of thinking about them are for the humans doing the thinking.

My point is that one can no more work out the latter from one's armchair than one can the former.

there isn't a disagreement about the observed phenomena (the facts of speciation), but a disagreement about the observers (the humans doing the thinking about speciation).

You realize that by this account all of the other supposedly meaningless philosophical questions discussed in this thread also become meaningful empirical questions in light of the confusion or clarity they produce in people? E.g. the difference between a world where "universals exist" and a world where "universals don't exist" is that in one world (whichever of them represents the correct answer to that question), people are not needlessly confused by intractable philosophical problems, while in the other world, people are thus confused.

Universals is not such a thing because one could not even in principle describe what a person 'confused' by a model including them would look like.

That it references nothing in the world is self-evident. You can't identify the thing it references.

You can't identify the thing it references.

"We do it because..." sounds like a sociological issue

"We do it this way..." sounds like a linguistic issue.

It's worth pointing out that the point here is that both the claims that universals do and don't exist are equally confused – that is, 'nominalism' is as much a metaphysical thesis in this sense as 'realism.'

Does it become a scientific question as to why we have universal concepts?

Presumably yes, but even putting it that way is probably something I wouldn't do, since it just presupposes a bunch of useless baggage.

Do you deny the existence of universal concepts in our language?

I really have no idea how to answer that question.

Is the question, for example, how we can use the same word for multiple things? How it is that 'apple' can refer to multiple fruits, for example?

It's worth pointing out that the point here is that both the claims that universals do and don't exist are equally confused – that is, 'nominalism' is as much a metaphysical thesis in this sense as 'realism.'

Are the objects of mathematics real, and if so how?
— Wayfarer

But what does this actually mean, is the question? I don't know what it would be for mathematical objects to be 'real' or not.

Mathematical platonism has considerable philosophical significance. If the view is true, it will put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical. For platonism entails that reality extends far beyond the physical world and includes objects which aren’t part of the causal and spatiotemporal order studied by the physical sciences. Mathematical platonism, if true, will also put great pressure on many naturalistic theories of knowledge. For there is little doubt that we possess mathematical knowledge. The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate.

In his seminal 1973 paper, “Mathematical Truth,” Paul Benacerraf presented a problem facing all accounts of mathematical truth and knowledge. Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.

Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.

Scholastic realist. Scotus? Peirce? St. Thomas? Other than medieval?

"animals don't think rationally like us because.... I really, really don't want them to"

In the conventional story, it is explained to Gilbert that the University is the way the buildings are organized.

In the conventional story, it is explained to Gilbert that the University is the way the buildings are organized.
— Andrew M

Except that a university is also a social organization, and organizations are more difficult to be relegate to a name for a group of individuals, land and buildings, since the social structure has an important effect on society.

So we instinctively feel that 'what exists' must exist in some location, that it must be 'out there somewhere'.

They demonstrably do not possess language, the ability to abstract, the ability to create technology, and so on and so on. If that's 'magical thinking', then guilty as charged.

In short, the middle layer is the layer at which the language takes action – and since at the first layer it has no coherent set of truth conditions, the middle layer acts as a proposal, conscious or not, to change the way one speaks, so that the same null truth conditions, involving the world as one always took it to be, are scrambled to be described in different vocabulary. Since we can create infinite vocabularies to describe the same state of affairs, this arena of changing the way people talk is endless. It's important to realize that this second stage can be more or less conscious, since we are typically not finely aware of how the claims we make do or don't have descriptive application, and we just stick to the words themselves, sort of like magic talismans, which we hold onto and say 'this is true!' Note that this also explains why metaphysicians have no subject matter, and do not investigate anything, but only converse – it is because the practice in principle only offers new ways of speaking, these proposals to speak in new ways are always available by talking.

we neglect the fact he hasn’t figured out that sometimes a curved stick would work a whole lot better.

Crows and chimps actually can demonstrably create crude technologies,

With universals, I claim, we have nothing at all, not just 'nothing localized to a particular location.'

So, does this creature have a 'soul?'

But there must be some such way that we can orient ourselves towards and get a grip on, or we do not understand what it would mean for such things to exist.

Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy:Now everything that can be apprehended by the senses or by introspection exists at some particular time. Hence the relation 'north of' is radically different from such things. It is neither in space nor in time, neither material nor mental; yet it is something.

If it was self-evident, there wouldn't be long-standing philosophical debates over universals.

Not if it's motivated by a philosophical puzzle.

All thought and belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between different things.

Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal definition, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by cognising it. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgement on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object.

All thought and belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between different things.
— creativesoul

Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal definition, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by cognising it. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgement on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object.

...does research into the Higgs Boson now become philosophy?

They are on another level or domain of reality, that being the 'formal realm' or 'the domain of pure form'. But that also doesn't 'exist' in the sense that objects exist; I don't think current English has a term for the sense in which that domain is real.

It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also causes confusion here.

In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental.

But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts.

Heaven?

Eriugena's five modes.

Kant was wrong here in the same way that every single philosophical traditional/conventional school of thought has been wrong throughout human history.

up to the German idealists (after which philosophy proper ceased

None of them have a coherent meaningful notion of thought and belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms and/or progression.

Rather, it is both.

That simply presumes that arguments cannot be constructed around things which are self-evident.

That's the question here so it's begging it do assume at the outset that the mere existence of debate automatically legitimises the terms of that debate.

But it's not a philosophical puzzle. That's what I'm saying, it's a sociological one.

None of them have a coherent meaningful notion of thought and belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms and/or progression.
— creativesoul

There’s a blatantly obvious reason for that.

Besides, the point I'm labouring here is not to convince you that universals are real, but to point out that I think it's a real argument, not simply a matter of verbiage.

I really have no idea what your discussion of 'the relation of being north' adds to what I just said. It seems to me deeply confused.

When what you believe is inconsistent with every traditional or conventional school of thought, don't you think it's time to reconsider?

So, does this creature have a 'soul?' Can it access the Platonic realm of 'abstractions?' These are stupid questions – instead, look at what it can, and can't, do!

...some locations will be north of other locations, and this fact exists independent of humans...

Independent of those who use cardinal directions... there is no such thing as "north of".

...the spatial relation of being closer to one pole versus the other exists, though.

Is it, do electrons exist?

Okay, sure. Is it, do electrons have similar properties? Okay, sure.

What else is there to say?

The idea that there are individual things classified as "electron" is the issue. How do we make this classification of individuals?

How is that there is such a thing as "kind"?

That there is a discussion to be had here as to how a world of individual things can be categorized. I'm not saying universals is the right answer to that. Only that it's a possibility to be debated.

Indeed it does. It's what we call "north of", as compared/contrasted to being north of.

Are you talking about the general ability to use nouns? What?

Are you asking how it is possible that different things share properties?

It does not become a possibility to be debated until you can clarify in some sense what you are talking about.

Yes, I'm asking a question about the human ability to put individual things into categories and hierarchies. It's either an epistemological question or a metaphysical one about the world of individual things, events, relations.

if I adduce enough arguments to show that time is unreal, time might stop. In other words, there is a recognition that since one can speak however one pleases, that one can in some sense 'make true' whatever one pleases, just by talking about it.

No, the formal realm is not heaven. It's the domain of laws, numbers, and so on - only by way of analogy, because it's only 'a domain' in the sense that 'the set of all real numbers is a domain'.

I'm really just not seeing that from anything you've written.

Aristotle's are more grounded. Let's just take one example from physics. All electrons have the same properties of mass and charge, along with others like spin which can vary. And they play a fundamental role in chemistry and electromagnetism. So we classify all such subatomic particles as a fundamental particle called an electron, which is universal across space and time.

None of them have a coherent meaningful notion of thought and belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms and/or progression.
— creativesoul

There’s a blatantly obvious reason for that.
— Mww

Which is?

What would it mean if the last proponent of scientism was pushed over with a quote?

What are we doing when we cite Bohr against Churchland?

So you're saying it's self-evident that universals refer to nothing, and yet people have debated whether they refer to something.

If one can understand the terms of the debate and participate in the debate, then yes, it's meaningful.

Is the argument over universals a topic in sociology?

the questions around why and how we do it.

I understand the critique of positivism or empiricism, or verificationism. Condensed: The empiricist's methods cannot be empirically verified, and so they have to ground what they're doing in something nonempirical. You can't verify verificationism, no.

I point out, that, despite your rejection of verification, you compulsively reference verified sources qua verified. Though you reject pure experience as authoritative, and refer to the non-empirical essence of a priori methodology, you always approach that methodology via empirically-derived understandings of which texts are authoritative.

what's more interesting is what we're doing when we do this, and why.

I've noticed I tend to talk compulsively about the things I most need, that I'm most scared of evaporating if I don't talk about them, which means I never really had them to begin with, and could only convince myself of their reality by arguing for them against an enemy.

So you're saying it's self-evident that universals refer to nothing, and yet people have debated whether they refer to something.

The whole point of Bohr is that he's verified, that's why the quotes feel like they have a pique, or victory-oomph, when quoted, no?

But what's more interesting is what we're doing when we do this, and why. I've noticed I tend to talk compulsively about the things I most need, that I'm most scared of evaporating if I don't talk about them, which means I never really had them to begin with, and could only convince myself of their reality by arguing for them against an enemy.

maybe if I squint hard enough...

Show me someone, anyone, who draws and maintains the distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief...

My interest is in asking why we do all this.

This was actually known as Moore's Paradox in the earliest analytic philosophy (not the Moore's Paradox for which Moore eventually became famous) – why do philosophers say things they know to be false, or argue about things with which there is obviously no issue?

Yes, we're all pretending, and we know if we think for even a moment – even our friend Wayfarer knows why he really does this, and he gives his reasons here:

Yes, basically.

Simply using terms cannot in of itself be held as demonstration that they are meaningful, otherwise the Jabberwocky is meaningful.

The argument over universals is meaningless.

You brought up the fact that what we might really be arguing about is...

It's testament to the very matter under discussion, It think, that what we've had instead is a half-dozen sentences of hand-waiving and then paragraphs of engagement in the exact practices the thread is supposed to be examining from the outside of.

The hand waving is happening on the side claiming there is no meaning.

I don't believe that.

So Wittgenstein was wrong?

Which is something odd between the world and our conceptualizing.

I think we come to rely on predictable patterns in life to take the edge of the scary unpredictable chaos of it. Metaphysics perhaps, offers a verbal trick whereby we can cement these patterns even when we're not living them, just by talking. Is that something like what you're saying?

I think this is really interesting with regard to the topic. . Earlier I brought up the possibility that advancing empirical techniques created a fear in those not making the advances that power would be drawn away from them, and that this might explain the co-evolution of metaphysics with empirical investigation. In deferring to 'the text' we see the metaphysician borrowing from the empiricists handbook - appeal to the external.

It's facile (and usually their only "comeback") for such enunciators to claim that those who claim that their claims are meaningless simply "do not understand".

Could adopting, or disposing of, a metaphysical belief, change our treatments of or action towards the world in any way, other than the way we talk, and any other attitudes and behaviors derivative from this? That is, do we do anything else, in accepting a metaphysical claim, other than deciding to assent to the truth of certain bits of language, and the actions derivable from that?

What if we take as example belief in a supreme, infinite, eternal and yet personal intelligence; what does it entail to hold such a belief? I think what is involved conceptually could only be understood for the most part by more or less loose analogical negation. A supreme entity is imagined as being greater than, and fundamentally different than, every other entity.

I'm not sure what you mean by "truth of certain bits of language"

Yes, but the claimants seem to believe that there is some "special" way of understanding which can justify their claims and yet not be discursively explicable. I believe that what they are saying really amounts to something like "you don't feel it"; they are conflating discursive understanding with feeling. It's just the same with poetry and the arts in general; there is nothing determinately discursive to understand; it is all a matter of feeling.

I think all that is good, as with any set of customs, so long as you don’t wall off what’s outside it out of fear.

When 'science' is pilfered for a deck of 'science-against-science' cards (quotes),it calls to mind someone in fear of a conquering civilization who believes what they hold dear can only be saved so long as members of that civilization reveal their angelic aspect and swoop down (condescend) to save. Tales of such salvific miracles (ala the 'good samaritan') are sought out, and then held dearly, as one collects stories of the saints, or centurions with a heart of gold. But the backdrop is always the conquering nation one has to stand firm against, relying on the strength of defectors from its ranks (strength derived from the conquering nation.)

Here is the problem, then: for a claim to be cognitively meaningful, and to meaningfully present the world in some way, is for accepting or denying that claim to have some effect on 'how we take the world to be.' But what exactly is it to take the world to be the way it is? A good first stab is, it's something like having one's own treatment of the world track the features of the world systematically, so that one's behaviors and attitudes change as the world changes, and for that reason.

When 'science' is pilfered for a deck of 'science-against-science' cards (quotes),it calls to mind someone in fear of a conquering civilization who believes what they hold dear can only be saved so long as members of that civilization reveal their angelic aspect and swoop down (condescend) to save. Tales of such salvific miracles (ala the 'good samaritan') are sought out, and then held dearly, as one collects stories of the saints, or centurions with a heart of gold.

So I brought up a discussion of the ontology of universals, from Russell's Problems of Philosophy, and other sources on the ontology of math, referencing a couple of articles from SEP and IEP. I note very little reaction to or comment on those issues, which are actually the kinds of things that academic metaphysics discusses.

Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy (1912):But a difficulty emerges as soon as we ask ourselves how we know that a thing is white or a triangle.

Is it, do electrons exist? Okay, sure. Is it, do electrons have similar properties? Okay, sure.

What else is there to say?

Are you talking about the general ability to use nouns?

Do things share properties and if so, what does that entail?

Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy (1912):If we wish to avoid the universals whiteness and triangularity, we shall choose some particular patch of white or some particular triangle, and say that anything is white or a triangle if it has the right sort of resemblance to our chosen particular. But then the resemblance required will have to be a universal.

But I don't understand why nominalism should be tarred with the same brush, if all it says is, let's assume we are talking about physical particulars and also about the talking of organisms such as ourselves, about those particulars, and let's be especially careful not to get confused when the two targets of our talk overlap, which they probably often must.

You might find this article which talks about his Critical Realism and General Empirical Method interesting.

Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy (1912):... that anything is white or a triangle if it has the right sort of resemblance to our chosen particular.

I’m therefore sorry that my sketch of an answer prompted such an outpouring of metaphysics.

But you can't say he doesn't do metaphysics, that article mentions metaphysics 14 times, and phenomenology only once, in a footnote.

seems to be saying that nobody understands what they believe themselves to be claiming metaphysically. If they could understand it they ought to be able to explain it.

Janus:It's facile (and usually their only "comeback") for such enunciators to claim that those who claim that their claims are meaningless simply "do not understand".

I believe that what they are saying really amounts to something like "you don't feel it"; they are conflating discursive understanding with feeling. It's just the same with poetry and the arts in general; there is nothing determinately discursive to understand; it is all a matter of feeling.

The point is that if I state that any empirical object is real, we all know what that means; that we can all ( given that we are not blind, or lacking in tactile sensitivity , etc.) see it, touch it and so on.

Or those who think metaphysical arguments are meaningless dismiss logical arguments because they don't feel like those arguments are discursive.

On the other hand we all know that if something is physically real, it or its effects can be observed or detected in some way.

It;s not that the arguments are not thought to be discursive; they may be valid as fuck; but that their premises are groundless and even incoherent.

Reason, positivists think, can be a guide to life only in a very limited sense. Its role is restricted to discharging three tasks: (1) it can criticize a set of beliefs and ends for failing to satisfy certain minimal principles of logical consistency; (2) it can criticize a given choice of means towards a given end on a variety of possible empirical grounds, such as that the means in question will not actually lead to the envisaged end or will have undesirable side effects, and it can propose more appropriate means; (3) it can unmask inherently non-cognitive beliefs, for instance value judgments, that are presenting themselves as if they had cognitive content. The role of reason in discharging the third of these tasks is especially important in the view of the positivists because any statements that do not belong to the descriptive and explanatory apparatus of science, and in particular any statement about what ought to be the case, stand wholly outside the domain of rational argumentation and can be nothing but the expression of arbitrary choice or personal preference.

Or, 'how you feel about it'.

Assuming we know what "physically real" means. As for effects, we can say the existence of categories of particulars in the world is an "effect" of universals, if one wishes to argue for realism.

So who's right? Depends on which set of arguments you find more persuasive. So what now? Do we just agree it's all sophistry?

Or, 'how you feel about it'.

In terms theologian Bernard Lonergan develops in his major work Insight, Krauss is caught in a notion of reality as "already-out-there-now," a reality conditioned by space and time. (This is the point I made up-thread about the naturalist conception of 'what exists' as being conceived solely in terms of 'what is out there' or what exists in space and time.) Lonergan refers to this conception of reality as based on an "animal" knowing, on extroverted biologically-dominated consciousness. He distinguishes it from a fully human knowing based on intelligence and reason, arguing that many philosophical difficulties arise because of a failure to distinguish between these two forms of knowing.

This distinction can help us identify why Krauss is confused about the ontological status of space. Our "animal" knowing identifies "reality" as an "already-out-there-now" of things, particles, fields and so on, "in" space and time. Our genuine fully human knowing, on the other hand, knows that space exists because it is intelligent and reasonable to affirm its reality.

As a scientist, Krauss is obviously fully committed to the use of intelligence and reason. Indeed, the whole of scientific method is predicated on the use of intelligence and reason. Intelligence is the creative ecstatic origin of all scientific hypotheses. In the moment of insight - when the "light goes on," or "the penny drops," when we move from struggling to grasp anything at all to that moment of illumination when everything becomes clear - that moment is the beginning of every scientific and mathematical discovery.

Nonetheless, it is only a first step. While we well remember the scientific and mathematical successes, the insights which were genuine breakthroughs, we tend to forget the less successful ones, the failures. Something more is needed: in science it is verification and in mathematics it is rigorous proof. Both of these involve a movement from insight to judgment; from hypothesis to checking that the hypothesis works or is correct.

This process of reasoning leading to judgment is very different from the process of insight, less exciting, more imperious, demanding and exacting. Alternate explanations need to be eliminated; hidden assumptions need to be uncovered and verified if needed; more data may need to be found; possible predictions or consequences need to be investigated and so on.

This is a process of reasoning; it is more than just logic and much more than just a mechanical process, because it involves an element of personal responsibility. Our insights are spontaneous and serendipitous, they cannot be forced or produced at will; judgments involve us as persons, for we may judge too hastily and appear foolish, or too slowly and appear pedestrian.

So Krauss is very familiar with the operations of intelligence and reason. However, he has a notion of reality, not as uncovered by the operations of intelligence and reason, but by mere looking - the already-out-there-now "real" of animal extroversion (i.e. what is 'out there', what can be discovered by telescopes or microscopes). To break out of this metaphysical muddle, Krauss needs to shift his criteria of reality from "taking a look" to "intelligently grasped and reasonably affirmed."

This is the underlying criteria which grounds the scientific method, with hypothesis intelligently grasped and reasonably affirmed in empirical verification. It is not an alien intrusion to the scientific project, but it is nonetheless a startling and unsettling shift to accomplish. Indeed, it is so startling that if you do not think it is startling, you haven't made it. This shift is the beginning of what Lonergan calls "intellectual conversion."

Welcome to a fuller reality

It goes without saying that you cannot prove the existence of God to a materialist without first converting the materialist away from materialism. In the present context, if we think of the real as an "already-out-there-now" real of extroverted consciousness, then God is not real. God becomes just a figment of the imagination, a fairy at the bottom of the garden, an invisible friend (and the frequent subject of debate on forums). However, if the real is constituted by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation, then reality suddenly becomes much richer, and the God-question takes on a different hue.

But it is not just the God-question that we can now begin to address more coherently. There are a whole range of other realities whose reality we can now affirm: interest rates, mortgages, contracts, vows, national constitutions, penal codes and so on. Where do interest rates "exist"? Not in banks, or financial institutions. Are they real when we cannot touch them or see them? We all spend so much time worrying about them - are we worrying about nothing? In fact, I'm sure we all worry much more about interest rates than about the existence or non-existence of the Higgs boson! Similarly, a contract is not just the piece of paper, but the meaning the paper embodies; likewise a national constitution or a penal code.

Once we break the stranglehold on our thinking by our animal extroversion, we can affirm the reality of our whole world of human meanings and values, of institutions, nations, finance and law, of human relationships and so on, without the necessity of seeing them as "just" something else lower down the chain of being yet to be determined.

My initial impetus towards what I now understand as philosophy was actually counter-cultural. I came of age in the 1960’s, and in that period there was a strong sense that ‘straight culture’ (means something different now!) was basically hostile towards anything creative, spiritual or good. Remember it was the Vietnam era, there was a strong sense of antagonism between the counter-culture and mainstream culture.

In the decades since, some counter-cultural memes have really begun to affect mainstream society. I think of ‘biosemiotics’ and ‘systems theory’ as some aspects of that, along with environmentalism generally. But overall, science in the sense it was and is deployed by the military-industrial complex, by consumer capitalism, is often dehumanising and alienating and we see the consequences of that writ large in many facets of modern culture.

The reason I ‘cherry pick’ quotations from the likes of Bohr and Heisenberg and others, is because they’re used to illustrate salient points in the context of this whole debate. Many of their aphorisms, in particular, are pregnant with meaning, and in fact Capra’s Tao of Physics is still a counter-cultural classic for good reason. But I know that many of those born in the decades since have no feel for any of those issues - as if a window was opened into another dimension for a brief period of time, then it slammed shut again, and pretty soon at was as if nothing had happened.

And yet.....

In short, the middle layer is the layer at which the language takes action – and since at the first layer it has no coherent set of truth conditions, the middle layer acts as a proposal, conscious or not, to change the way one speaks, so that the same null truth conditions, involving the world as one always took it to be, are scrambled to be described in different vocabulary. Since we can create infinite vocabularies to describe the same state of affairs, this arena of changing the way people talk is endless. It's important to realize that this second stage can be more or less conscious, since we are typically not finely aware of how the claims we make do or don't have descriptive application, and we just stick to the words themselves, sort of like magic talismans, which we hold onto and say 'this is true!' Note that this also explains why metaphysicians have no subject matter, and do not investigate anything, but only converse – it is because the practice in principle only offers new ways of speaking, these proposals to speak in new ways are always available by talking.

This does not work of course, and the philosopher consciously may know this. But the process itself is so intoxicating that it pulls us in pre-rationally. And it may even service deeper desires – for instance, if I fear change, the mantra that 'time is unreal' may comfort me, because that means change is unreal, and so change cannot hurt me.

Morris Lazerowitz was interested in the nature of metaphysics, starting from the hunch that it was not what its practitioners claimed it was (an inquiry into the basic nature of things).

The Existence of Universals (1946)

It is convenient, however, to regard such general terms [ 'wise', 'city' ] as names on the same footing as 'Socrates' and 'Paris': names each of a single specific entity, though a less tangible entity than the man Socrates or the town Boston.

the question ought to be asked, where do we acquire the ability to recognise general forms in the first place

where do we acquire the ability to recognise general forms in the first place;

You can't say 'we don't recognise general forms'. it is one of those comments that blows itself up, like 'all generalisations are false'.

Because if you can't recognise general forms, then you can't make general statements, which your statement 'we don't recognise general forms' is an example of. You have to know what a 'general statement' is, even to deny that you can make them; but if you know what it is, then you have to admit that such statements exist.

Understood metaphysically,

where possible, and in a spirit of charity, read Platonists as positing universals as a shorthand for shared naming

You jest? (Forgive my irony failure if so.)

Wasn't Quine briefly gesturing to a nominalist translation of sets-talk in terms of shared naming before admitting sets as entities for the sake of exposition of the standard Platonism? And then wasn't Lazerowitz seeing the gesture as support for his proposal: where possible, and in a spirit of charity, read Platonists as positing universals as a shorthand for shared naming?

The broader point is that it is easy to be misled by language and there are plenty of examples of this in the history of philosophy.

The Nominalist, in their attempt to exorcise the Platonist spirits, can end up being a mirror-image or dual of the Platonist because of a deeper framing of the problem that neither side has recognized.

The Nominalist applies their razor to the immaterial side of that duality (because ghosts, extravagence, etc.), but finds they are left with an impoverished material world that provides no resources for solving the problem.

foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc

The Nominalist, in their attempt to exorcise the Platonist spirits, can end up being a mirror-image or dual of the Platonist because of a deeper framing of the problem that neither side has recognized.
— Andrew M

In the fond imaginings of a third kind of philosopher, yes of course... or, do you have examples of such a mirror symmetry?

Lazerowitz does begin with the same too-easy claim, but then proceeds with a perfectly useful analysis that might as well call itself nominalist, like the Quine piece cited. (I'm still not sure you grasped the point of the quoted extract nor Lazerowitz's point about it.) So, examples of the alleged symmetry are lacking.

Which problem? The "problem" of universals? The modern nominalist exchanges that for a more interesting investigation into all of the implications of shared naming...

foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc
— bongo fury

Is the material world supposed lacking in resources for these investigations?

L. Wittgenstein, PI §383:We are not analyzing a phenomenon (e.g. thought) but a concept (e.g. that of thinking), and therefore the use of a word. So it may look as if what we were doing were Nominalism. Nominalists make the mistake of interpreting all words as names, and so of not really describing their use, but only, so to speak, giving a paper draft on such a description.

or, do you have examples of such a mirror symmetry?
— bongo fury

Yes. The Platonist embellishes similarities as (capital-N, entity) Names, the Nominalist reduces similarities to (small-n, paper draft [*]) names. Neither side challenges that reclassification nor sheds any light on similarity.

You can call it nominalist, but are you telling us any more than how you're classifying it? ;-)

That's fine but it doesn't tell us anything about the ontology of the world, only about his preference.

What we do know is that in the course of our investigations of the world, we can identify similarities and differences in things.

That's the natural home that those terms arise in and by which we then classify things (according to our various purposes).

So classification itself depends on a prior notion of similarity and difference.

Lazerowitz's analysis is interesting and informative because he's investigating and forming a hypothesis about what philosophers are doing,

, not discussing how to classify similarity (per the Problem of Universals).

More broadly, an investigation and analysis of how language is used in various contexts is also interesting and informative. But, as Wittgenstein notes (quote below), that is not Nominalism.

let's assume we are talking about physical particulars and also about the talking of organisms such as ourselves, about those particulars, and let's be especially careful not to get confused when the two targets of our talk overlap, which they probably often must.

Per "material", yes, which is one side of a Platonic dualist framing that reiterates the reductionism implicit in Nominalism.

Similarity, for Nominalists, reduces to just names. Which precludes even the possibility of investigation.

L. Wittgenstein, PI §383:Nominalists make the mistake of interpreting all words as names, and so of not really describing their use, but only, so to speak, giving a paper draft on such a description.

L. Wittgenstein, PI §383:We are not analyzing a phenomenon (e.g. thought) but a concept (e.g. that of thinking), and therefore the use of a word.

Yes. The Platonist embellishes similarities as (capital-N, entity) Names, the Nominalist reduces similarities to (small-n, paper draft [*]) names. Neither side challenges that reclassification nor sheds any light on similarity.
— Andrew M

Yes, I know you think that outcome is inevitable, but I was wondering where, or if, you were finding any examples.

Goodman is associated with an extreme nominalism, or mistrust of any appeal to a notion of the similarity between two things, when this is thought of as independent of our linguistic propensities to apply the same term to them.

Now it seems to me that if two things are [[s]not similar[/s] non-similar in a sense of similarity] independent of language, then applying the same term to them doesn't make them similar.

Now it seems to me that if two things are [[s]not[/s] never] similar independent of language, then applying the same term to them doesn't make them similar.

On the other hand, if two things are similar [s]independent of language[/s], that doesn't imply the existence of a third entity for a language term to denote.

The issue in both cases is that similarity doesn't imply a name at all, whether in a Platonic or Nominal sense.

Do you mean,

Now it seems to me that if two things are [[s]not similar[/s] non-similar in a sense of similarity] independent of language, then applying the same term to them doesn't make them similar.
— Andrew M

?

To the nominalist ("extreme" :lol: or not) this sounds metaphysical, although possibly redeemable in terms of object- and meta-language. Are you in the habit of saying "F=ma, independent of language"? Would you then mean independent of any language (the talk just got metaphysical but through no fault of nominalism), or just higher-level ones?

If you mean,

Now it seems to me that if two things are [[s]not[/s] never] similar independent of language, then applying the same term to them doesn't make them similar.
— Andrew M

then of course the nominalist disagrees, and is interested in how language creates a similarity between the things.

On the other hand, if two things are similar [s]independent of language[/s], that doesn't imply the existence of a third entity for a language term to denote.
— Andrew M

But it does often coincide with use of a general term applying to both: a shared name (or adjective or verb). Then we are presented (sooner or later) with the opportunity to reinterpret the general term as singular, and with questions about how such a choice affects just what entities (e.g. a third one) are thereby implied. Platonist and nominalist might come down on either side of the choice as expected, but the modern nominalist is often prepared to be agnostic on the matter, since there is no fact about it, and because a singular reading (referring to a collective or whole or essence or quality) might be a shorthand for the general reading (referring distributively to all the individual instances).

The main argument for fictionalism proceeds essentially by trying to eliminate all of the alternatives to fictionalism. The argument can be put like this:

1. Mathematical sentences like ‘4 is even’ should be read at face value; that is, they should be read as being of the form ‘Fa’ and, hence, as making straightforward claims about the nature of certain objects; e.g., ‘4 is even’ should be read as making a straightforward claim about the nature of the number 4. But

2. If sentences like ‘4 is even’ should be read at face value, and if moreover they are true, then there must actually exist objects of the kinds that they’re about; for instance, if ‘4 is even’ makes a straightforward claim about the nature of the number 4, and if this sentence is literally true, then there must actually exist such a thing as the number 4. Therefore, from (1) and (2), it follows that

3. If sentences like ‘4 is even’ are true, then there are such things as mathematical objects. But
If there are such things as mathematical objects, then they are abstract objects, i.e., nonspatiotemporal objects; for instance, if there is such a thing as the number 4, then it is an abstract object, not a physical or mental object. But

4. There are no such things as abstract objects.

abstract objects, platonists tell us, are wholly nonphysical, non-mental, nonspatial, nontemporal, and noncausal. Thus, on this view, the number 3 exists independently of us and our thinking, but it does not exist in space or time, it is not a physical or mental object, and it does not enter into causal relations with other objects.

That is, that language presupposes a world for language to be about.

(the talk just got metaphysical but through no fault of nominalism)

For example, would you agree that two brontosaurus dinosaurs were similar in the sense of both having four legs before the emergence of human beings and human language?

So I'm unclear on how you would make sense of that project. It seems to require rejecting the convention I stated above,

, but for what purpose?

foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc? [...] plenty of philosophy [...] cheerfully non-metaphysical

I assume there is no empirical fact about it, in the sense of an observable difference. However there may be logical (or absurdity) arguments against one or the other of those choices. For example, the Third Man argument which is an infinite regress argument against Plato's Theory of Forms.

This feeds a suspicion that metaphysics is not being easily given up by some of its supposed critics, who need to disparage nominalism because they would rather not be shown a way out.

The point is that theses the the effect that they don't exist, or are fictional, etc. have the same status as the theses that they do.

The way out is to see that we are social animals who think and talk with symbols, whose wholly fictional connection to things is a matter we have to (and learn successfully to) constantly convince each other we are agreed about.

But clearly something has gone wrong, as the things that a language (or other symbol system) likens to one another clearly don't have to be contemporaneous with it. So of course we can agree on that. But it doesn't get us any nearer to the chimerical "world without language".

Too right. There won't be any fact of the matter of implicit conventions, of course, but one that seems to me to be just as widely asserted is that language presupposes a world already formed/carved/sorted in the terms of the language. (Don't blame me.)

The way out is to see that we are social animals who think and talk with symbols, whose wholly fictional connection to things is a matter we have to (and learn successfully to) constantly convince each other we are agreed about. Often we can agree that a word points at an abstraction, and often that is because doing so serves as a shorthand for reference to all of the more concrete instances abstracted from.

You're missing the point on a basic level. Were this the case, there would be no need for arguments such as 'mathematical fictionalism'. The whole rationale for that argument, which is the subject of many learned papers, is the fact that numbers appear to be real, which undermines materialist views of what exists.

What are you talking about?

That is, people can agree on one fiction or another (per their preference), but not on how the world is independent of their agreement.

Much of Lazerwitz' paper is about the non-reality of universals, so I presume he would have to hold to something very like mathematical fictionalism on the same grounds.

Wasn't the world prior to the emergence of life a world without language?

There won't be any fact of the matter of implicit conventions, of course, but one that seems to me to be just as widely asserted is that language presupposes a world already formed/carved/sorted in the terms of the language. (Don't blame me.)
— bongo fury

Not "in the terms of the language". For example, scientific language changed as Newtonian mechanics was superseded by relativity and quantum mechanics, and will presumably continue to change in the future. But the world itself didn't change on account of humans using different language to talk about it.

Then it seems your position precludes any rational basis for agreement. That is, people can agree on one fiction or another (per their preference), but not on how the world is independent of their agreement.

The point is not a denial of realism about universals or whatever. The point is that any hypothesis as to their reality, pro or con, is equally metaphysical in the relevant sense, and is a matter of proposing to use words in a certain way.

Wasn't the world prior to the emergence of life a world without language?
— Andrew M

Depends... Is my garden a world without language? And calling a part of it a tree is correct because it is, independent of language?

So implicit conventions are a matter of fact? Or do you mean that no one reasonably could, considering your argument, persist in the opinion that a theory was speaking "the language of the universe"?

Not that I'm one of those; my point was that both positions are metaphysical (although possibly redeemable in terms of object- and meta-language), and usually dispensible.

But "how the world is, independent of our agreement", though a laudable consideration in some contexts, is metaphysical claptrap in most. Science is on Neurath's boat, remaking it from earlier versions of itself, not from something meta.

The answer doesn't depend on those questions.

On conventional use, there was no language prior to the emergence of life.

Any theory that describes the universe is going to depend on human language. There's no implication that the universe itself would depend on human language.

Some important-seeming questions of the 'globalising' variety will always arise. The trick is to be prepared to recognise when one's efforts have developed the symptoms described in the OP, and to then have the humility (or strategic sense) to retreat to more solid ground.

Neurath's boat works fine as a metaphor for how we investigate the world from within it,

I have a rockery, with no language inside it.

I'm happy to say that any similarity between any two parts of it is relative to the language used (from outside) to label the parts. I recognise the notion (of similarity) as meta to any physical or mechanical concepts. Maybe that is a sticking point, I don't know. Perhaps if we clarify the example we may find out.

Perhaps you could unpack what the phrases "from outside" and "as meta" are contributing in your above explanation.

• You keep saying it's nonsense (and metaphysics) to say that "how the world is" is dependent on how we describe it. I keep saying it's nonsense (and metaphysics) to deny it. You ask me to use language to represent a state of the whole world without language. I have to remind you that is impossible, and the best we can do in that direction is represent a state of a part of the world and assume that it is represented from outside of it.

• On that basis, we might say plenty of things in an object language; but saying things is just hot air, and we will inevitably desire to say things about how the hot air relates to things in the specified part of the world. "F = ma" won't be enough, and we will want to say how the symbols map onto things. I mentioned that I was excluding "similar" from the likely vocabulary of an object language.

Let's also consider one more example.

The planets Mars and Venus both orbit the Sun.

They are similar in that respect.

They were also similar in that respect billions of years ago

Now it seems that you think that is false.

"from outside":

You keep saying it's nonsense (and metaphysics) to say that "how the world is" is dependent on how we describe it. I keep saying it's nonsense (and metaphysics) to deny it.

You ask me to use language to represent a state of the whole world without language. I have to remind you that is impossible, and the best we can do in that direction is represent a state of a part of the world and assume that it is represented from outside of it.

"as meta":

On that basis, we might say plenty of things in an object language; but saying things is just hot air, and we will inevitably desire to say things about how the hot air relates to things in the specified part of the world. "F = ma" won't be enough, and we will want to say how the symbols map onto things. I mentioned that I was excluding "similar" from the likely vocabulary of an object language.

The planets Mars and Venus both orbit the Sun.
— Andrew M

Sounds like science. Plausible as talk in an object language.

They are similar in that respect.
— Andrew M

Quite a contrast: we're chatting about perspectives and descriptions.

They were also similar in that respect billions of years ago
— Andrew M

Mixing the two: sneaky! But realistic. I'm not suggesting object- and meta-language are ever perfectly separated, outside of semantic theory.

Now it seems that you think that is false.
— Andrew M

Only in the same way that the similarity is false of the planets now: i.e. in any sense supposed independent of language.

I'm not making claims about meta- and object-languages,

nor of being "outside" the world

And while a re-presentation always depends on a prior presentation (i.e., the world precedes language),

There's no contrast.

I'm just making a further natural language claim which, in this case, makes explicit what is implicit in the earlier claim.

Again this is just a natural language convention.

And while a re-presentation always depends on a prior presentation (i.e., the world precedes language),
— Andrew M

Do you mean, when we point symbols at things, it depends on the things being there (not necessarily there and then) to be pointed at? Or something more elaborate, like the choice of symbols depending on the choice of things?

Oh, ok. I thought the contrast quite noticeable. But of course as a nominalist I'm used to interpreting similarity talk in that way. I don't know about the typical reader.

So, its following by (some kind of) implication from the earlier claim about the orbits is incidental, and you would perhaps rather have claimed the similarity as a bald fact? Like a physical property, perhaps? And not as being in a particular respect?

Like a physical property, perhaps?

And not as being in a particular respect?

And while a re-presentation always depends on a prior presentation (i.e., the world precedes language),
— Andrew M

Do you mean, when we point symbols at things, it depends on the things being there (not necessarily there and then) to be pointed at? Or something more elaborate, like the choice of symbols depending on the choice of things?
— bongo fury

The first. There needs to be something that we are talking about beyond the talk itself. At least, there does if we want our talk to be useful or meaningful.

As I read you, it seems that it is the talk itself that constitutes the world.

foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc? [...] plenty of philosophy [...] cheerfully non-metaphysical

You keep going cosmic.

When we point symbols at things we sort them, and present them a certain way. The way they are is how they are sorted. We use experiment and such like to decide the best choices of pointing.

Platonism says (after a process of cosmic reasoning) that our pointing must also reflect the way the things really are, and introduces more things (properties, similarities etc.) to create a new level of sorting. To correspond with the first.

In ordinary use, there is an isomorphism between statements and the world, as captured by formulations such as "p" is true iff p. On that schema, we are mistaken when our statements don't reflect the way the world is.

So I'm curious what it means, on your view, for a statement to be true.

We use experiment and such like to decide the best choices of pointing.

Does it simply mean that you classify the statement as true (according to some specifiable criteria),

and thus it is something that you can't be mistaken about

In ordinary use, there is an isomorphism between statements and the world, as captured by formulations such as "p" is true iff p. On that schema, we are mistaken when our statements don't reflect the way the world is.
— Andrew M

Do you mean you think that the T-schema actually exhibits or requires an isomorphism between the sentence p (or its quotation or both) and the situation affirmed? Or was this only, like "reflect", a figure of speech?

If the former, we can get down to brass tacks.

So I'm curious what it means, on your view, for a statement to be true.
— Andrew M

Unless you just mean, how do I generally get or assess my information (science, ideally), I don't see how you are expecting that not to sound metaphysical.

Do you mean you think that the T-schema actually exhibits or requires an isomorphism between the sentence p (or its quotation or both) and the situation affirmed? Or was this only, like "reflect", a figure of speech?
— bongo fury

The isomorphism (i.e., equal form) is between the state of affairs and the statement, as abstracted from their concrete instances.

For example, it is raining outside (the state of affairs) and Alice says that it is raining outside (the statement).

I'm asking how you use the term "true".

For example, I assume you believe there were dinosaurs roaming the Earth millions of years ago based on evidence such as the fossil record. Is your belief true because you have formed it based on that evidence? ...

So, it is their actually sharing a pattern? As with the case of a written melody and the sound represented?

But apparently not, and you shrink from analysing situation and statement both into component parts, and abstracting out a common form:

For example, it is raining outside (the state of affairs) and Alice says that it is raining outside (the statement).
— Andrew M

I'm asking how you use the term "true".
— Andrew M

I point it at the sentences I assert.

For example, I assume you believe there were dinosaurs roaming the Earth millions of years ago based on evidence such as the fossil record. Is your belief true because you have formed it based on that evidence? ...
— Andrew M

Meh. Attitudes... obviously I can assert the wrong sentences, or (equivalently) call those wrongly chosen sentences true. So?

That they are abstracted from concrete situations is what prevents them from being Platonic Forms (which would "exist" prior to any concrete situations).

A state of affairs is an abstraction - something that obtains or not.

A statement is also an abstraction - something that can be true or false.

But they are both abstracted from concrete situations.

For example, that it is raining outside (a [s]state of affairs[/s] concrete situation), or that Alice says that it is raining outside (a [s]state of affairs[/s] concrete situation where Alice makes a statement).

They are sharing a pattern, which just is the abstracted common form.

To transform a state of affairs to a statement, quote it. To transform a statement back to a state of affairs, unquote it.

This feeds a suspicion that metaphysics is not being easily given up by some of its supposed critics, who need to disparage nominalism because they would rather not be shown a way out.

By "wrong" or "wrongly chosen" sentences, do you mean false sentences?

If so, then I take it you hold either a deflationary or correspondence-style theory of truth, not a coherence theory of truth (which is what I was assuming). Would that be right?

Oh well that's a relief... thank goodness that these intangibles are really quite grounded, and far from being any kind of metaphysical fantasy! :gasp: :rofl:

But they are both abstracted from concrete situations.
— Andrew M

Oh fine, so: not me guvnor, not really hardcore phantasmagoric abstractions but only made from solid "concrete situations"; then ok, I'll have a look. Can "that it is raining outside" please be the actual raining? Can Alice's statement please be her actual utterance?

I guess you needed to go bold with your belief in abstractions to have confidence in this:

They are sharing a pattern, which just is the abstracted common form.
— Andrew M

... in the absence of any semblance of isomorphism between the utterance and the raining. No no no, you will be able to say to that complaint, poor philistine, doesn't understand about abstractions...

Can "that it is raining outside" please be the actual raining? Can Alice's statement please be her actual utterance?
— bongo fury

Yes, of course. All of these abstractions are grounded in the actual raining and Alice's actual utterance.

The pattern, then, is that the logical form of a state of affairs is the same as the logical form of a statement (i.e., they both contain a subject and a predicate).

this feeds the suspicion that metaphysics is not being easily given up by some of its supposed critics, who need to disparage nominalism because they would rather not be shown a way out.

If, for example, you were to explain a "state of affairs" (like a raining) as a type (or set or common property) of concrete situations (which ground or constitute it in a reasonable sense), I might be challenged to show how nominalism can improve on that analysis, or is any less committed to abstractions itself.

So the concrete situation is that it is raining outside and Alice says, "It is raining outside".

Now suppose I want to model that situation. In my model, I can represent the weather formally as a state of affairs. This, it seems to me, is at least comparable to a physicist representing a physical system formally as a state.

The benefit of so doing is that it is now possible to apply logical operations or transformations on those formal structures.

Is that still metaphysics, on your view?

Whether it's comparable will depend on whether you proceed to analyse the weather as a collection of physical particulars related in physical ways,

or as some bizarre kind of weather sentence... with a fifty percent chance of predication, perhaps... something like that? :wink:

Such as? (You may need to decide if you are talking about the weather, or about the talking, or both.)

or as some bizarre kind of weather sentence... with a fifty percent chance of predication, perhaps... something like that? :wink:
— bongo fury

Your comment would apply equally to Alice's statement.

But both her statement and the state of affairs refer to rain, not predication.

Platonism says (after a process of cosmic reasoning) that our pointing must also reflect the way the things really are, and introduces more things (properties, similarities etc. [and now states of affairs]) to create a new level of sorting. To correspond with the first.

The benefit of so doing is that it is now possible to apply logical operations or transformations on those formal structures.
— Andrew M

Such as? (You may need to decide if you are talking about the weather, or about the talking, or both.)
— bongo fury

Yes, but note that that information is implied by the structures.

I can represent the original concrete situation in a model with the following obtaining states of affairs:

(SA1) It is raining
(SA2) Alice says that it is raining
(SA3) Bob says that it is not cloudy

Finally, a conditional can be added that relates statements to states of affairs

this feeds the suspicion that metaphysics is not being easily given up by some of its supposed critics, who need to disparage nominalism because they would rather not be shown a way out.

But both her statement and the state of affairs refer to rain, not predication.
— Andrew M

If so, perhaps one of them would suffice?

I can represent the original concrete situation in a model with the following obtaining states of affairs:

(SA1) It is raining
(SA2) Alice says that it is raining
(SA3) Bob says that it is not cloudy
— Andrew M

So, SA1 (or asserting it) is talking about the weather, while SA2 and SA3 are talking about the talking?

But SA1 isn't the weather (e.g. it isn't wet), but rather represents or talks about it. (Likewise, SA2 and SA3 aren't the weather-talk by Alice and Bob but merely talk about that weather-talk.)

So SAR doesn't, as implied here...

Finally, a conditional can be added that relates statements to states of affairs
— Andrew M

... relate talk about the weather to the weather, but only to more talk.

If so, perhaps one of them would suffice?
— bongo fury

No, because I make a distinction between what the weather is and what a person says the weather is.

It seems that you don't make that distinction.

And thus lack a model for what it means for a statement to be true.

Statements S1 and S2 are the weather-talk by Alice and Bob

(which are derived from states of affairs SA2 and SA3 respectively).

So, SA1 (or asserting it) is talking about the weather, while SA2 and SA3 are talking about the talking?

But SA1 isn't the weather (e.g. it isn't wet), but rather represents or talks about it.

No, because I make a distinction between what the weather is and what a person says the weather is.

It seems that you don't make that distinction.
— Andrew M

I make it when it makes sense: as when a weather report for any reason offers comparison of its own findings with those of Alice and Bob.

... or which, in other words, SA2 and SA3 were talking about, as I said.

So, SA1 (or asserting it) is talking about the weather, while SA2 and SA3 are talking about the talking?

But SA1 isn't the weather (e.g. it isn't wet), but rather represents or talks about it.
— bongo fury

Or not?

If so, then "obtaining" is plainly interchangeable with "true", and the SA layer gratuitous.

If not, and the SA is the concrete situation, and is literally wet, then an SA isn't composed of subject and predicate, and you need to rethink the "isomorphism" supposedly grounding your truth "function". If you still think that some such mapping is required.

On your view, is it raining or not independently of any report or statement?

The states of affairs represent the weather and the talking. But states of affairs are not themselves talk.

The SA is a representation of the concrete situation so, no, not literally wet.

On your view, is it raining or not independently of any representation?

No, it's not raining or not independently of the state of affairs representation. But it is raining or not independently of any report or statement.

And on your view?

The pointing of symbols at things by social animals.

is it raining or not independently of any report or statement?

Where or what is this entity, "the state of affairs representation", if it isn't the wet stuff it represents, and it isn't a part of the report? I suppose you will say that it's an abstraction.

Ok, but please stop implicating modern nominalism in any such business?

And on your view?
— Andrew M

The pointing of symbols at things by social animals.
— bongo fury

Animals who, if they have any sense, regard

is it raining or not independently of any report or statement?
— Andrew M

as an invitation to confused logic, with cycles in it. And usually do, and get on with the weather report, instead.