Objective Knowledge

Varzi says that metaphysics is subject to logical analysis

The moral is that it is impossible to draw a line between vague and precise concepts just as it is impossible to draw a line between bald and hairy people. If we actually try to stipulate it away, our stipulations will themselves be made in less than perfectly precise terms and the regimented language will inherit some of that vagueness. So if vagueness is incompatible with classical logic, classical logic is ultimately inapplicable to ordinary thought and language. So much for the normativity of classical logic.

Quote:

Varzi says that metaphysics is subject to logical analysis

No he doesn't !

After all, insofar as logically valid reasoning must be truth preserving,logic must tell us something about truth. It mustn't tell us whichsentences are true; but it must tell us what it takes for a sentence to be true. It mustn't tell us what are the truth-makers of a sentence; but it must tell us what the truth-makers of a sentence must be like. And as such logic has a lot to do with metaphysics.

In other papers...

... he even goes on to discuss the merits of alternatives to classical logic such as "fuzzy sets" and arrives at

Quote:

The moral is that it is impossible to draw a line between vague and precise concepts just as it is impossible to draw a line between bald and hairy people. If we actually try to stipulate it away, our stipulations will themselves be made in less than perfectly precise terms and the regimented language will inherit some of that vagueness. So if vagueness is incompatible with classical logic, classical logic is ultimately inapplicable to ordinary thought and language. So much for the normativity of classical logic.

The metaphysical assumptions behind our actual use of logic are connected with naive realism of statements about the precise assignment of "objects" to sets according to "properties"i.e. "objectivity" but in essence such assignment depends on agreement as to common purpose or paradigm. Just as normative mathematics such as "3+3=6" cannot always be applied to "reality" (boiling times for eggs for example) nor can normative logic.

It is precisely because of its metaphysical commitments that Aristotelian syllogistics, for example, was eventually deemed inadequate as a canon of pure logical reasoning

Joe
Oh no it doesn't !

Read above in the quote

Quote:

It is precisely because of its metaphysical commitments that Aristotelian syllogistics, for example, was eventually deemed inadequate as a canon of pure logical reasoning

Because all metaphysical theorizing takes place in language (or about language), and because logic is to a great extent a theory of language, metaphysics can hardly get off the ground without the help of logic.... What counts as metaphysically possible, or as metaphysically necessary, should still be defined within the constraints of logic, so the notions of logical possibility and necessity should be as wide as possible and should not rule out any prima facie metaphysical options. In this sense, it is logic that comes first, and logicians should beware of any metaphysical biases that may surreptitiously enter into the picture. Our coin has two sides: To be a tool for metaphysics, logic must be metaphysically neutral. But when it comes to metaphysical theorizing the tools of logic cannot be neutral on pain of falling into the hermeneutic trap. The final slogan, then, is this: Metaphysics comes first, as long as logic is already there.

Is this why you appeared to have conflated epistemology (an aspect of which is logic) with metaphysics (statements about what is)?

Joe,

For you indolence="disinterest". You need to read the whole article. You have cherry-picked one side of Varzi's coin !

As for JLN's "question" ( which you appear to raise merely to do a bit of infantile "stirring")...

... I have already explained that my placement of "logic" in "metaphysical tool-box " complies with the simplistic definition I cited for "metaphysics being about why we know". In other words we might be able to "know" a conclusion by arguing logically from "premises". The epistemological "problem" arises when inferences from "classical logic" are shown to be empirically fallacious . (For example the distributive law of classical logic has been shown to be inappropriate in quantum mechanics). So whereas the "problem" is epistemological (what we do or don't know) its "solution" may be metaphysical ( what e.g "we" and "know" and "apprioate tools" mean). There is obviously an incestuous relationship between the three areas of epistemology, metaphysics and ontology, and nit-picking about labels tends to be counter-productive.

The epistemology I favor is the "systems approach" of Capra which owes much to the genetic epistemology of Piaget. Such a position encompasses the the interdependence of observer and observed whose separation can be accommodated but at lower levels of nested systems.

And herein lies relevance of Varzi to this thread with his particular misgivings about "logic" which Joe has failed to comprehend.

Quote:

(within cited article)