What is Metaphysics?

I agree with Ayer with regard to his rejection of transcendent worlds (e.g., noumena, afterlifes, etc., as I've said before). There is another consideration, however, that may be taken more seriously: the possibility of levels of more realistic interpretations of existence. But this does not exclude Fresco's very important principle--and to me a very central, perhaps, "metaphysical" principle:REALITY IS INTERACTION; one of its most essential characteristics consists of relationships between ever changing forces or expressions of "Reality". This is SO much more intuititvely acceptable to me than is a static picture of a fixed world "out there" surrounding us thinking static entities. Don't ask me how I "know" this unless you are willing to tell me how you know your contrasting perspective to be true.

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JLN,

I believe Ayer was criticised for his concept of "sense data" by Austin, but I don't know the details. However I assume a central issue in this is that "data" is never neutral but "observer" or "observer-context" specific. To assume otherwise would be to resurrect the "Ghost in the Machine"....a homunculus which sits in front of its viewscreen linked to a passive receptor bank. and then makes a few decisions as to "subsequent action". Protagonists of this have not spotted the infinite regress which we seek to avoid by a seamless "interactional reality" in which "thought-action-observation-data" operates as a single indivisible process.

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fresco wrote:

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Ayer (and I) would respond to that claim by asking: "how do you know that?"

Both Piaget in psychology and Chomsky in linguistics have demonstrated the applicability of mathematical "state transition theory".

To understand how this relates to the concept of "active perception" we might consider the significance of the event of "rolling a six" in a game of monopoly. Obviously the significance (reality) of this event depends on both the state of the board and the dice value. This will cause a transition of that state to a new one such that the significance of subsequent "six" has a different "reality". and so on. If we consider the rules of the game as the wired in (biological)"generative developmental programme" and allow the possibility of an unbounded game length we have a viable model for "cognitive progression". At the macro level Kuhn's paradigmatic progression for science mirrors "cognitive progression" for the individual.

And lastly irrespective of arguments over Piagetian or Chomskyan "observational methodology" there is independent evidence for the selective activity of "perception" from experimental manipulation of the "payoff matrix" regarding human signal detection according to the rewards and penalties given for "true" and "false" positive detections.

That doesn't tell me how one knows something, it just tells me how one processes information. It's rather like someone, asked what route he takes to work, answers by explaining how to drive a car.

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Shapeless wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:
Note that Ayer's "criterion of verifiability" is very close to Popper's test of falsifiability for scientific hypotheses, although Ayer specifically rejected Popper's formulation.

I'd be interested to hear more about what Ayer didn't like about Popper's formulation, if you don't mind elaborating, Joe.

Here's what Ayer says:

Nor can we accept the suggestion that a sentence should be allowed to be factually significant if, and only if, it expresses something which is definitely confutable by experience [here Ayer cites Popper's [i]Logik der Forschung[/i]]. Those who adopt this course assume that, although no finite series of observations is ever sufficient to establish the truth of a hypothesis beyond all possibility of doubt, there are crucial cases in which a single observation, or series of observations, can definitely confute it. But ... this assumption is false. A hypothesis cannot be conclusively confuted any more than it can be conclusively verified. For when we take the occurrence of certain observations as proof that a given hypothesis is false, we presuppose the existence of certain conditions. And though, in any given case, it may be extremely improbable that this assumption is false, it is not logically impossible.Ayer's point is that, when an observation seems to refute a hypothesis, it's often because we have misinterpreted the observation, or that we have not replicated the relevant conditions. In other words, an observation that seemingly refutes a hypothesis can still be reconciled with that hypothesis, given more information or a better understanding of the problem.

Frankly, I think Ayer misses Popper's point. Popper would argue that, controlling for all of those factors, if an observation does not fit with a hypothesis, then the hypothesis is invalidated. That's because scientific hypotheses attempt to predict all similar events in the future, so one aberrant event will invalidate such a prediction. Ayer, however, is being a strict Humean here: an empirical finding can never give us anything more than a probability of future events -- even for empirical findings that seem to refute scientific hypotheses.

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JLNobody wrote:

I agree with Ayer with regard to his rejection of transcendent worlds (e.g., noumena, afterlifes, etc., as I've said before). There is another consideration, however, that may be taken more seriously: the possibility of levels of more realistic interpretations of existence. But this does not exclude Fresco's very important principle--and to me a very central, perhaps, "metaphysical" principle:REALITY IS INTERACTION; one of its most essential characteristics consists of relationships between ever changing forces or expressions of "Reality". This is SO much more intuititvely acceptable to me than is a static picture of a fixed world "out there" surrounding us thinking static entities.

"Reality is interaction" is about as vague and impenetrable as F.H. Bradley's statement that "the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of evolution and progress," which Ayer uses as an example of a metaphysical pseudo-proposition.

Of course, it all depends on how one defines one's terms. If "reality" is defined as "interaction," then it is an empty tautology. On the other hand, if "reality" is defined as "a collection of sense perceptions," then that would contradict the notion that "reality is interaction."

JLNobody wrote:

Don't ask me how I "know" this unless you are willing to tell me how you know your contrasting perspective to be true.

I know exactly how my perspective is true, or at least that it has a high probability of being true (which is the most that anyone can say of an empirical proposition).

Suppose I observe a table. I can see that it has four legs, that it is solid, smooth, and odorless, that it appears to be made of wood, and so on. Furthermore, someone else confirms that my observations of the table are similar to his own observations of that table. What, then, can I conclude about the "reality" of that table? Based on my own observations, coupled with my past observations of objects and the statements of a fellow observer, I can conclude that the table really does have the attributes that I observed. Now, does that mean that I am absolutely correct? No, because no empirical observation can be absolutely correct, but it's correct enough for me, and no doubt correct enough for the vast majority of people.

On the other hand, what can I conclude if "reality is interaction?" Well, if by "interaction" we simply mean the process of collecting sense data (i.e. when I see, touch, smell, hear, or taste the table, I am "interacting" with it), then that doesn't tell us anything that we didn't already know. Under that definition, I would agree: reality is interaction. But if by "interaction" we mean that there is some sort of iterative process going on, by which the object acts on the observer in some mysterious, indefinable way, then there is no way in which to verify, with the only methods that we can use to verify observations, that the resultant "reality" is valid. And that, Ayer would say, would make the statement "reality is interaction" a metaphysical pseudo-proposition. Or, in layman's terms, nonsense.

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fresco wrote:

JLN,

I believe Ayer was criticised for his concept of "sense data" by Austin, but I don't know the details. However I assume a central issue in this is that "data" is never neutral but "observer" or "observer-context" specific. To assume otherwise would be to resurrect the "Ghost in the Machine"....a homunculus which sits in front of its viewscreen linked to a passive receptor bank. and then makes a few decisions as to "subsequent action". Protagonists of this have not spotted the infinite regress which we seek to avoid by a seamless "interactional reality" in which "thought-action-observation-data" operates as a single indivisible process.

Why would you worry about falling into an infinite regress when you don't accept the law of non-contradiction?

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What worries me about Ayer's criteria is that statements made by Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein would also be considered meaningless.

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Joe wrote,

Quote:

Suppose I observe a table. I can see that it has four legs, that it is solid, smooth, and odorless, that it appears to be made of wood, and so on. Furthermore, someone else confirms that my observations of the table are similar to his own observations of that table. What, then, can I conclude about the "reality" of that table? Based on my own observations, coupled with my past observations of objects and the statements of a fellow observer, I can conclude that the table really does have the attributes that I observed. Now, does that mean that I am absolutely correct? No, because no empirical observation can be absolutely correct, but it's correct enough for me, and no doubt correct enough for the vast majority of people.

But this never happens in real "interactional life" ! This is another example of "philosophy seminaritis". Nobody but a philosopher goes round checking up on "tables". We learn the word "table" as part of our linguistic and physical "action scenarios"....put it on the table.....sit at the table.....lay the table...etc...such that If we go into a strange house we can extrapolate the meaning of..."you'll find your book on the table in the bedroom". We don't go round counting legs or testing hardness etc.
We might remark on retrieving the book that this particular "table" had an "unexpected" glass top...from which we learn a little more about what to "expect" from the word "table....that is of course until we start school and learn that "table" can also refer to a mathematical list......so much for "tables" divorced from social context ! Knowledge is expectancy.
So its not "the word" which stands for "a thing with properties"....rather its "word acts in social contexts"....which reflect mutual expectations and interactions. [

"Put that down on your table boy !"
"Its not a table sir, its a desk."
"Don't try to be funny with me boy !

....from which we might learn a lot more than at the philosophy seminar.

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wandeljw wrote:

What worries me about Ayer's criteria is that statements made by Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein would also be considered meaningless.

How so?

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fresco wrote:

But this never happens in real "interactional life" !

What exactly is "real interactional life?"

fresco wrote:

This is another example of "philosophy seminaritis". Nobody but a philosopher goes round checking up on "tables".

Well, nobody but a philosopher goes round saying "perception is active, not passive" either, but that doesn't stop some people from thinking that that's something worth doing.

fresco wrote:

We learn the word "table" as part of our linguistic and physical "action scenarios"....put it on the table.....sit at the table.....lay the table...etc...such that If we go into a strange house we can extrapolate the meaning of..."you'll find your book on the table in the bedroom". We don't go round counting legs or testing hardness etc.
We might remark on retrieving the book that this particular "table" had an "unexpected" glass top...from which we learn a little more about what to "expect" from the word "table....that is of course until we start school and learn that "table" can also refer to a mathematical list......so much for "tables" divorced from social context ! Knowledge is expectancy.

I never divorced "table" from its social context, although I perhaps put less weight on it than you would. After all, a table on a desert island is still a table. It may be put to different uses in different contexts, but it remains a table despite it all.

fresco wrote:

So its not "the word" which stands for "a thing with properties"....rather its "word acts in social contexts"....which reflect mutual expectations and interactions. [

"Put that down on your table boy !"
"Its not a table sir, its a desk."
"Don't try to be funny with me boy !

....from which we might learn a lot more than at the philosophy seminar.

"Word acts in social contexts" doesn't say a whole lot more than "words" alone. All language is social, and words are verbal acts, so "word acts in social contexts" means the same thing as "words." Once we eliminate the unnecessary verbiage, you are, like Hamlet, left with nothing but "words, words, words." If that is what "real interactional life" is for you, fresco, then you're welcome to it.

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Quote:

Well, nobody but a philosopher goes round saying "perception is active, not passive"

Wrong !...Psychologists and cognitive scientists assert that on the basis of empirical evidence (as in the case of Signal Detection Theory).

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After all, a table on a desert island is still a table

Wrong ! You are looking at that "table" right now so its not really a "desert island" is it ? :wink:

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Word acts in social contexts" doesn't say a whole lot more than "words" alone.

Wrong ! "Word acts" are synonymous with "languaging"....a segmentation of "the world" for context sensitive purposes. A sawn off off tree-trunk could be languaged as a "table" or a "seat" or a "nuisance" depending on context.

Fortunately the philosophical world has moved on somewhat from the days of Ayer and his support for logical positivism. I note with interest, for example, that Searle's "Speech Acts" followed Austen's critique of Ayer, though on first reading Searle goes a lot further than "languaging".

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fresco wrote:

Wrong !...Psychologists and cognitive scientists assert that on the basis of empirical evidence (as in the case of Signal Detection Theory).

I'm sure that expands the subject population tremendously.

fresco wrote:

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After all, a table on a desert island is still a table

Wrong ! You are looking at that "table" right now so its not really a "desert island" is it ? :wink:

Well, that certainly was one of the more incomprehensible things you've ever written.

fresco wrote:

Quote:
Word acts in social contexts" doesn't say a whole lot more than "words" alone.

Wrong ! "Word acts" are synonymous with "languaging"....a segmentation of "the world" for context sensitive purposes. A sawn off off tree-trunk could be languaged as a "table" or a "seat" or a "nuisance" depending on context.

I suppose you could call a hawk a handsaw and call it "languaging," if you so desire. Of course, calling a hawk a handsaw doesn't make it a handsaw.

Or maybe you think it does. I can't quite figure that out. As far as I can tell, you claim that social context creates reality. I may see a table and regard it as a precious antique, whereas someone else may see the same table and regard it as a worthless piece of junk. According to you (and please, tell me if I'm wrong), we are not seeing the same table, but rather creating our own versions of a table, based upon our "active perception" of that object.

If that's the case, then you've hit upon an epistemology that, at its best, is insipid and trivial. Actually, it doesn't even reach the level of triviality. At most, it aspires to be trivial.

If you're saying that two people look at an object in different ways, then you're not saying anything either new or particularly interesting. Maybe Piaget thought he had hit upon a major revelation, but then maybe he was easily impressed.

Of course, the far more interesting question is how two people, looking at what is ostensibly the same object, can ever agree on their perceptions of that object. After all, it is far more common for two people to look at an object and concur than it is for them to differ as to their observations. If, however, they are not looking at the same object, then their concurrence is something approaching a miracle, since the probability of two people agreeing on anything but the most basic of any two random observations would, I imagine, be astronomical.

On the other hand, if the two people are looking at the same object, then their differing reactions to that object, formed by their "active perceptions," is hardly interesting at all. Indeed, whatever might be interesting about their divergent perspectives isn't even a matter for philosophy, since it's not an epistemological question. It's something for psychologists or sociologists to ponder, but it ain't philosophy.

fresco wrote:

Fortunately the philosophical world has moved on somewhat from the days of Ayer and his support for logical positivism. I note with interest, for example, that Searle's "Speech Acts" followed Austen's critique of Ayer, though on first reading Searle goes a lot further than "languaging".

Fortunately, the notion of "languaging" is of even less importance than Ayer's brand of positivism.

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Quote:

Or maybe you think it does. I can't quite figure that out. As far as I can tell, you claim that social context creates reality. I may see a table and regard it as a precious antique, whereas someone else may see the same table and regard it as a worthless piece of junk. According to you (and please, tell me if I'm wrong), we are not seeing the same table, but rather creating our own versions of a table, based upon our "active perception" of that object.

Correct ! "Similarity" and "difference" are entirely functional. Simultaneously, any two items are necessarily "similar" (trivially, because they are both objects of comparison) and "different" (trivially because there are two). By saying "two observers" are looking at the "same object" we are are also simultaneously giving them "similarity" by virtue of shared language, "similar" physiology, and shared spatio-temporal location. Thats the side of the coin that you keep denying. "Reality" as "interaction" involves all descriptive domains from the physical to the social. No domain is sufficient in itself or a priori(...therein lies the road to naive realism)

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If that's the case, then you've hit upon an epistemology that, at its best, is insipid and trivial. Actually, it doesn't even reach the level of triviality. At most, it aspires to be trivial.

Why do you think "complementarity" in physics has caused such epistemological consternation then ?

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If you're saying that two people look at an object in different ways, then you're not saying anything either new or particularly interesting. Maybe Piaget thought he had hit upon a major revelation, but then maybe he was easily impressed.

No. Piaget pointed out that "physical objects" don't "exist" at (a child's)earlier "states" of cognition. He also pointed out that that "cognitive state transitions" which successively and differentially "shaped the world" (and active engagement therein which in turn triggered further transitions) could model aspects of " historical scientific progression" thereby laying the groundwork for his "genetic epistemology".

Quote:

Of course, the far more interesting question is how two people, looking at what is ostensibly the same object, can ever agree on their perceptions of that object. After all, it is far more common for two people to look at an object and concur than it is for them to differ as to their observations. If, however, they are not looking at the same object, then their concurrence is something approaching a miracle, since the probability of two people agreeing on anything but the most basic of any two random observations would, I imagine, be astronomical.

On the other hand, if the two people are looking at the same object, then their differing reactions to that object, formed by their "active perceptions," is hardly interesting at all. Indeed, whatever might be interesting about their divergent perspectives isn't even a matter for philosophy, since it's not an epistemological question. It's something for psychologists or sociologists to ponder, but it ain't philosophy.

If you replace the phrase "look at the same object" with "use the same word in a communicative situation", you have the basis of how Wittgenstein shook Philosophy to its foundations. Try reading him.

NB "desert island" means deserted (in your head)....but you are there (in your head) giving "observational existence to your table" ! (No "thinger"/no "thing".....no "oberver"/no "table") "Il y a une table" is ontologically equivalent to "Voila une table".
On the other hand, all you might be saying (at the philosophy seminar) is that you can communicate the location of an island on which you expect the word "table" would be used to describe one of its features assuming it were to become inhabited. Knowledge is expectancy. ("Scientific knowledge" is distinguished by its high level of consensual expectancy due in part to its reliance on the relatively "culture free" metalanguage of mathematics).

On the issue of "knowledge as expectancy" Long John Silver would be unlikely to be able to raise collateral on the basis of "his buried treasure" ! As far his interaction with the bank is concerned the "buried treasure" has no functional existence. "Get real ,Long John", says the surprisingly philosophical bank manager!

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fresco wrote:

Correct ! "Similarity" and "difference" are entirely functional. Simultaneously, any two items are necessarily "similar" (trivially, because they are both objects of comparison) and "different" (trivially because there are two). By saying "two observers" are looking at the "same object" we are are also simultaneously giving them "similarity" by virtue of shared language, "similar" physiology, and shared spatio-temporal location. Thats the side of the coin that you keep denying. "Reality" as "interaction" involves all descriptive domains from the physical to the social. No domain is sufficient in itself or a priori(...therein lies the road to naive realism)

I don't think I've ever denied that people can be similar -- I can't imagine why I would. I just don't think it's terribly important to note that insignificant fact.

On the other hand, it's not insignificant for you. That's because you still can't explain how two people might view the "same" object and make the same observations about it. People may be similar, and their language, physiology, and spatio-temporal relations may be similar, but they aren't identical. Yet we routinely find that different people make identical observations about what are, in your view, different objects. As I noted before, to expect that on a random basis (as you certainly must) is to expect the miraculous.

fresco wrote:

Quote:
If that's the case, then you've hit upon an epistemology that, at its best, is insipid and trivial. Actually, it doesn't even reach the level of triviality. At most, it aspires to be trivial.

Why do you think "complementarity" in physics has caused such epistemological consternation then ?

Given that your position is purely psychological, any epistemological consternation caused by complementarity in quantum physics would be entirely unrelated to your position.

fresco wrote:

No. Piaget pointed out that "physical objects" don't "exist" at (a child's)earlier "states" of cognition. He also pointed out that that "cognitive state transitions" which successively and differentially "shaped the world" (and active engagement therein which in turn triggered further transitions) could model aspects of " historical scientific progression" thereby laying the groundwork for his "genetic epistemology".

That children may not see "objects" at an early stage of development is a psychological matter, not an epistemological one.

fresco wrote:

If you replace the phrase "look at the same object" with "use the same word in a communicative situation", you have the basis of how Wittgenstein shook Philosophy to its foundations. Try reading him.

I have. I'm no more convinced by Wittgenstein than I am by you. But at least he was a better writer.

fresco wrote:

NB "desert island" means deserted (in your head)....but you are there (in your head) giving "observational existence to your table" ! (No "thinger"/no "thing".....no "oberver"/no "table") "Il y a une table" is ontologically equivalent to "Voila une table".

I'm in my head? How do you know that?

fresco wrote:

On the other hand, all you might be saying (at the philosophy seminar) is that you can communicate the location of an island on which you expect the word "table" would be used to describe one of its features assuming it were to become inhabited. Knowledge is expectancy. ("Scientific knowledge" is distinguished by its high level of consensual expectancy due in part to its reliance on the relatively "culture free" metalanguage of mathematics).

On the issue of "knowledge as expectancy" Long John Silver would be unlikely to be able to raise collateral on the basis of "his buried treasure" ! As far his interaction with the bank is concerned the "buried treasure" has no functional existence. "Get real ,Long John", says the surprisingly philosophical bank manager!

That, as I pointed out before, is trivial. Or, to put it more accurately, it's a pseudo-profundity aspiring to triviality.

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Joe,

The fact that you have now consigned Wittgenstein (and Piaget) to the same level that Colin Leslie Dean does, says it all !

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fresco wrote:

Joe,

The fact that you have now consigned Wittgenstein (and Piaget) to the same level that Colin Leslie Dean does, says it all !

The fact that you would engage in an ad hominem attack rather than address my argument says a great deal more.

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What argument ! Laughing

The "naive realism rules O.K" argument ?

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To get back to wandeljw's citation of E. J. Lowe 2002

Quote:

Metaphysics is an enterprise whose central concern is the fundamental structure of reality as a whole, and whose investigations are constrained only by the shape of reality as a whole and not by the shape of any particular part of reality.

I think this well captures the "ecological zeitgeist" in which Capra and others seek a nonanthropocentric view of "reality". Consequently this is done at the expense of the importance of "thinking" and "language" i.e. those areas we would associate with specifically human endeavour. This is why I have used the term "meta-metaphysics" some time back to suggest that these "investigations" have now gone beyond concerns about "semantics" or "science" (Ayer/Popper) towards a more embracing "holism".

The question wandeljw put originally was whether metaphysics could be a subject for "academic study" or whether it was similar to a "new age religion" to which the answer is both if the above "shift" makes sense. On the one hand "the structure of reality" appears to to yield to a "nested systems" analysis which falls within the range of (academic) mathematical modelling.(We might note here a feeling for the "transcendence of mathematics" relative to "semantics" or "science"). On the other hand "fundamental structure of reality" implies holistic "closure" of such "nesting" to which religionists might assign theistic significance. (See for example Bernard Scott on "Second Order Cybernetics).

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It's obvious to me that what we are observing here is a conflict of cognitive (and ultimately "spiritual") styles*. Fresco, I and some other A2Kers take a relativist, non-dualist, and processual approach to philosophical problems (this includes both the questions and their answers: i.e., we would not even take seriously some of the problems raised by Joe and vice versa). Joe's ilk takes a more absolutist, dualist and logico-structural approach to the identitification and analysis of philosophical problems. Logic seems to have a rather "Vulcan" value for them, whereas intuition is of approximately equal value for me and my ilk. Nondualistic "mysticism" is a legitimate path of inquiry for us whereas it is no better than the speculations of historical religions and New Age fashions for Joe's ilk.
I suspect the differences may even have roots in our neurology. That reflects my pessimism regarding our possibilities for mutual understanding.
* this is seen in our very strong tendencies not to hear each other, and to consistently talk past each other. This is not because of ill will; it reflects our fundamentally different philosophical values or presuppositions.

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JLN,

...and vested interests have a lot to do with it. My friend (another lawyer) delights in demolishing organized religion from a "logical point of view" but cannot shift to a position where "logic" might fall under scrutiny even though he is fascinated by the "weird" nature of modern physics. To this he adopts a Richard Feynman stance...."It works...I don't think about what it means...I'll leave that for philosophers to argue about".

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