What is Metaphysics & Why Is It A Valid Means Of Describing Reality?

[Leela]

…But I will say this much - when I said that only God has to exist - that is something I know is absolutely true…

Otherwise, the only response you can expect is an “Amen” from the choir and eye-rolling from everyone else. It was my impression that your comments were directed at everyone else. All I’m saying is that what you are saying here doesn’t mean much by itself. If you want to convince anyone else you will need to make an argument and refer to evidence.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Otherwise, the only response you can expect is an “Amen” from the choir and eye-rolling from everyone else. It was my impression that your comments were directed at everyone else. All I’m saying is that what you are saying here doesn’t mean much by itself. If you want to convince anyone else you will need to make an argument and refer to evidence.

Do you believe that something can come out of nothing by itself? If you do, then there is no arguing with you since you have given up on logic.
Reasonable people are at the very least agnostic pending deism.

 

[jkiernan56]

Otherwise, the only response you can expect is an “Amen” from the choir and eye-rolling from everyone else. It was my impression that your comments were directed at everyone else. All I’m saying is that what you are saying here doesn’t mean much by itself. If you want to convince anyone else you will need to make an argument and refer to evidence.

My comments were directed at you Leela. You’re denial of reality doesn’t change reality. The emperor has no clothes.

 

[Leela]

Do you believe that something can come out of nothing by itself? If you do, then there is no arguing with you since you have given up on logic.
Reasonable people are at the very least agnostic pending deism.

Since I am an agnostic atheist maybe you’ll think I am some what reasonable.

Seeing as though there is something now, then either at some point something came from nothing or something always existed. I don’t know how to decide between the two possibilities because I don’t have any experiences that would lead me to believe either. The third possibility is that there is some third possibility that I haven’t thought of. The fourth possibility is that the question isn’t one that will lead us anywhere interesting.

 

[Leela]

My comments were directed at you Leela. You’re denial of reality doesn’t change reality. The emperor has no clothes.

We agree that whether or not one believes something is a wheel that spins independently of the truth of that something. Did I say anything to make you think otherwise?

We also agree that the emperor has no clothes, though we are probably talking about a different king.

 

[Just_Lurking]

I haven’t figured out how this metaphysics stuff works yet, but in actual, scientific physics, something can come out of nothing. It’s called a quantum fluctuation. In fact, there isn’t any way to stop something from coming out of nothing.

 

[Leela]

I haven’t figured out how this metaphysics stuff works yet, but in actual, scientific physics, something can come out of nothing. It’s called a quantum fluctuation. In fact, there isn’t any way to stop something from coming out of nothing.

At least MindOverMatter won’t argue with you since you’ve given up on logic.

 

[jkiernan56]

We agree that whether or not one believes something is a wheel that spins independently of the truth of that something. Did I say anything to make you think otherwise?

We also agree that the emperor has no clothes, though we are probably talking about a different king.

It isn’t what you have said - it is also what you haven’t said. When you continue to make comments that “my saying it doesn’t make it true” … I have yet to hear you acknowledge the possibility that what others acknowledge is true on this website - maybe really IS true. I am encouraged to hear you acknowledge that truth and reality are not subjective.

 

[MindOverMatter]

At least MindOverMatter won’t argue with you since you’ve given up on logic.

Nope. Hes given up on real science and logical interpretation, since one cannot observe that which is not real. A vacuum is not nothing. It doesn’t matter how one wants to twist it.

 

[JDaniel]

Nope. Hes given up on real science and logical interpretation, since one cannot observe that which is not real. A vacuum is not nothing. It doesn’t matter how one wants to twist it.

Wikipedia 08/09/09, 9:48 PM -
"There is not a definite line differentiating virtual particles from real particles — the equations of physics just describe particles (which includes both equally). The amplitude that a virtual particle exists interferes with the amplitude for its non-existence; whereas for a real particle the cases of existence and non-existence cease to be coherent with each other and do not interfere any more. In the quantum field theory view, “real particles” are viewed as being detectable excitations of underlying quantum fields. As such, virtual particles are also excitations of the underlying fields, but are detectable only as forces but not particles. They are “temporary” in the sense that they appear in calculations, but are not detected as single particles. Thus, in mathematical terms, they never appear as indices to the scattering matrix, which is to say, they never appear as the observable (name removed by moderator)uts and outputs of the physical process being modeled. In this sense, virtual particles are an artifact of perturbation theory, and do not appear in a non-perturbative treatment. As such, their objective existence as “particles” is questionable;[citation needed] however, the term is useful in informal, casual conversation, or in rendering concepts into layman’s terms.[citation needed]

There are two principal ways in which the notion of virtual particles appears in modern physics. They appear as intermediate terms in Feynman diagrams; that is, as terms in a perturbative calculation. They also appear as an infinite set of states to be summed or integrated over in the calculation of a semi-non-perturbative effect. In the latter case, it is sometimes said that virtual particles cause the effect, or that the effect occurs because of the existence of virtual particles.[citation needed]"

Yes, yes, yes. I know what most of you think about Wikipedia. But, if it’s wrong, why haven’t you fixed it? Here is the shattering of the “something from nothing” proponents theory - from a website decidedly on their side, in all other matters except this one?

Basically, what are called “VP’s” are really no more than a name given to measured effects, which are no where near as decidedly “real” as those of real particles. And, the effects may well be effects due to the uncertainty principle. In other words, the measuring devices may get in the way of really determining whether or not the particles exist even for their so-called life-span. That something like a VP seems to exist in mathematical calculations does not impart reality to that which may only be an energy transfer and not a “particle” at all.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

Indeed, I am not playing. I’m still waiting for someone to tell me what the rules are. Somewhat impatiently, I’ll admit, and perhaps that negatively colors my posts.

Thanks very much for your reply; it was extremely helpful.

I’m searching the net trying to find out more about metaphysics. I’m sure that somewhere out there is a basic explanation for people in my situation.

What you are asking for is like asking for a summary of Physics within the scope of CAF. It is simply not, well, dare I say, pragmatic.

However, if you are in fact really, really interested, go to amazon.com and buy the book called, Being and God, by Klubertanz and Holloway (I believe that’s the spellings).

jd

 

[Just_Lurking]

Virtual particles are like transitional deacons, whereas real particles are like permanent deacons. Ontologically, they are the same; the difference is where they end up. Or put another way, virtual particles are the sound that a tree makes when it falls in the forest and no one hears, and real particles are the sound that a tree makes when it falls and someone hears it.

But there’s no need to resort to advanced topics in quantum field theory. Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation ΔtΔE >= h/4pi precludes ΔE being 0, which is necessary for nothing to stay nothing.

 

[Just_Lurking]

However, if you are in fact really, really interested, go to amazon.com and buy the book called, Being and God, by Klubertanz and Holloway (I believe that’s the spellings).

Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll add Klubertantz and Holloway to my list. I’m currently reading “Analysis and Metaphysics - An Introduction to Philosophy” by Strawson (see here). So far, Strawson is making a strong case for a weaker form of metaphysics than advocated here.

 

[Brendan]

What is Metaphysics & Why Is It A Valid Means Of Describing Reality?

I have never seen a thread devoted entirely to Metaphysics. I am going to take a back seat on this, as i want to see a debate rather then get involved at the moment. But i realize that there are allot of people who seem to think that Metaphysics is hocus pocus; and thats people who are both theist and atheist.

Is there anybody who cares to defend Metaphysics?

You yourself started thread title with a Metaphysical question “What is…”

As was mentioned so clearly, metaphysics deals with “What is”, what does it meant to exist, what does it mean to not exist, and why.

It also deals with questions such as " Am I a person?, or nothing more than a specific collection of atoms"

 

[Leela]

Hi Betterave,

You’ve asked some good questions.

In railing against “the idea that [representing reality] is the sole purpose of language,” who do take yourself to be railing against?? …
And what about this business of metaphysics assuming such and such… despite “language [not] having taken us out of touch with reality to begin with”? It seems as though you are claiming that the basic assumption underlying metaphysics is that language has taken us out of touch with reality?? If that’s your claim, I’d love to hear you defend/explain it.

When I argue that the basic assumption of metaphysics is that language has taken us out of touch with reality, I am talking about the (name removed by moderator)enetrable Kantian veil of appearances–the belief that we can never know “The Thing In Itself.” Philosophers since Descartes have hypothesized that there is a barrier between the observing subject and the object because of the make up of our sense organs and the structure of our minds. We can only sense a certain range of audible fequencies and visible wavelengths, and our minds are constituted in such a way that they can only think certain thoughts. Later, in the nineteenth century, philosphers began to suggest that language itself may also form such a barrier between a subject’s “mental eye” and its object since it may impose certain categories on objects that are not essential to them, or a language may lack the right words to be able to speak correctly about the essence of an object.

If this brief take on the history of modern philosophy sounds at all familiar, then perhaps you’ll now understand that the “who” that I take myself (as well as pramatism and existentialism and others) to be railing against is that part of the Western philosophical tradition that continues to wrestle with what Dewey called Plato’s “nest and brood of dualisms” where we are suppose to find it unavoidable to ask,“is it subjective or objective?” “is it absolute or relative?” “is it real or apparent?” “it it essential or accidental?”, etc.

Pragmatists have pointed out that if we drop the occular metaphor for knowledge as a mental eye trying to perceive an object, we also drop the idea that our sense organs or our thoughts intervene between the mind and true knowledge of the object as it really is beyond appearances. Instead pragmatists would like to substitute the metaphor of the sense organs and language as ways of using the object. Knoweldge is not thought of as being in the right relationship to the essence of the object but as being able to use the object. Language is then never seen as distorting the true picture an object but instead as scratches and noises that are done to achieve specific purposes. Some sentences are more useful than others. Knowledge is power, as Bacon said. And language is then just one way to have power. Knowledge is not thought of as representational but rather as a tool that is useful for certain purposes, so it can’t fail to truly represent “The Thing in Itself” because it never represents at all. It just puts things in relation to other things, and there is no “Thing In Itself” or essence of a thing to talk about that stands appart from an object’s relations to other things. (As an example, try to think of what the essence of “twelveness” is outside of the relationship between twelve and other numbers. Pragmatists who are anti-essentialists would like us to try to think of things as we think of numbers where it is extremely difficult to be an essentialist.)

Returning to Plato’s dualisms, note that pragmatists replace the appearance-reality distinction with the difference between more or less useful descriptions. They redescribe the subjective-objective metaphysical distinction with the difference between things that are easy to get agreement about and things that are hard to get agreement about. All this can be done while avoiding metaphysics–avoiding making any fundamental assumptions about the way reality is beyond appearances. Not because we decide to just take appearances at face value, but because we don’t see any end to the possibility of accumulating more and more descriptions of reality, and we don’t privilege any particular description as the one true essence. All descriptions can be used for whatever they are useful for and discarded when they are not useful.

I also thought this was a little funny:
[Quoting Leela:]
“If we think of language as evolving as a tool for coping with the world, then there is no reason to think that we need to represent reality with language in order to use language to help us cope with reality. A sentence then doesn’t need to be thought of as a representation of anything any more than a hammer does.”

Did you perhaps forget a scope quantifier in the last sentence - i.e., shouldn’t you have written, “Certain sentences (and that is not to say all sentences)…don’t need to be thought of as…”?

I didn’t forget any qualifier. can you think of a sentence that needs to be thought of as a representation of reality?

And, I just have to ask: when you say, ““Coping with reality” is supposed to be a broad term for helping us achieve whatever purposes we have,” who does “we” refer to? Does it exclude anyone (e.g., Hitler), and if so, on what basis? That little “whatever purposes we have” phrase is kinda scary to most people who have some of the usual basic information about the world. Have you ever considered the objection that your view might be Pollyannaish?

Can you explain what you mean by Pollyannaish? I don’t think any philosophy is going to help defeat a Hitler or the neighborhood bully.

I don’t think you answered my question earlier: do you think anyone could be an ‘ironist’? An obvious worry about pragmatism is that pragmatism, it seems, to be pragmatism, must evaluate itself according to its ‘usefulness.’ The question then is whether pragmatism is capable of a self-critique, whether it is possible (and under what conditions) for pragmatism to become self-alienating (i.e., self-refuting, i.e., to recognize itself as constituting a kind of performative self-contradiction). It seems possible that the only pragmatist that pragmatism will actually turn out to be useful for must be a solipsist or a narcissist or, maybe, a Pollyanna (someone who doesn’t like to be tied down by what would otherwise be recognized as evident ‘facts’).

I’m still not sure what you are after, but a possible issue could be a misconception about pragmatism. Pragmatism is not an attempt to be pragmatic as in practical but rather the attempt to clear up some philosphical bugbears by asking what difference belief or disbelief in an idea means in practice.

Best,
Leela

 

[Betterave]

I’m still not sure what you are after, but a possible issue could be a misconception about pragmatism. Pragmatism is not an attempt to be pragmatic as in practical but rather the attempt to clear up some philosphical bugbears by asking what difference belief or disbelief in an idea means in practice.

Hi Leela,
Could you try to explain the distinction you’re making here more clearly?

Thanks,
Betterave (or Dave - since you’re addressing me personally, you might as well have the option to use my real name)

 

[Leela]

Hi Leela,
Could you try to explain the distinction you’re making here more clearly?

Thanks,
Betterave (or Dave - since you’re addressing me personally, you might as well have the option to use my real name)

Hi Dave,

I was just trying to clear up what I thought might be a misunderstanding. You suggested that pragmatism may be self-refuting when you ask something like “is pragmatism practical?” But this is not the question that pragmatism suggests that we ask about ideas. William James wrote, “Pragmatism asks its usual question. ‘Grant an idea or belief to be true,’ it says, ‘what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone’s actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth’s cash-value in experiential terms?’” These are questions that can help clarify our philosophical thinking, and they are questions that a pragmatist can ask about pragmatism itself without refuting pragmatism since pragmatism amounts to the practice of asking such questions. If effect, to ask these questions about pragmatism itself means to ask what it would be like if we did not ask such questions. The answer is that we would still be stuck with Plato’s dualism which have vexed Western philosophers for millenia without progress. They are the dualisms that make philosophy look like pointless wheel spinning to most people.

Best,
Leela

 

[Betterave]

Hi Leela,

I’m a William James fan too - ‘pure experience’ - it’s pretty out there! Before commenting on him though, another question: if, by chance, you’ve read Plato’s Theaetetus (which I recommend to all as an absolutely seminal source for broaching the question ‘what is philosophy/metaphysics’) and have any clear recollection of the first section, the argument about ‘knowledge is perception,’ would you agree that Protagoras’ position (which Socrates argues against) is a substantially pragmatist position? (You’ll recall James’ subtitle to the Pragmatism essay: “a new name for some old ways of thinking.”)

Best,
Dave

 

[Betterave]

Hi Dave,

I was just trying to clear up what I thought might be a misunderstanding. You suggested that pragmatism may be self-refuting when you ask something like “is pragmatism practical?” But this is not the question that pragmatism suggests that we ask about ideas. William James wrote, “Pragmatism asks its usual question. ‘Grant an idea or belief to be true,’ it says, ‘what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone’s actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth’s cash-value in experiential terms?’” These are questions that can help clarify our philosophical thinking, and they are questions that a pragmatist can ask about pragmatism itself without refuting pragmatism since pragmatism amounts to the practice of asking such questions. If effect, to ask these questions about pragmatism itself means to ask what it would be like if we did not ask such questions. The answer is that we would still be stuck with Plato’s dualism which have vexed Western philosophers for millenia without progress. They are the dualisms that make philosophy look like pointless wheel spinning to most people.

Best,
Leela

Okay, I think you’ve put it very clearly and I’m pretty sure my comments weren’t based on a misconception. How about this question: is pragmatism capable of assessing its own cash value?

You assert, regarding the cash value of pragmatism’s approach:
The answer is that we would still be stuck with Plato’s dualism which have vexed Western philosophers for millenia without progress. They are the dualisms that make philosophy look like pointless wheel spinning to most people. Now such a conclusion is subject to any number of objections/clarifications, e.g., is vexation always bad? can avoidance of vexation be taken as positive cash-value without specifying the context of this avoidance? are ‘most people’ good judges of what philosophy is? am I a good judge? are pragmatists really rid of Plato? if so, do they understand correctly what this loss means? etc.

Or, why not direct contradiction? Take Theodorus in the Theaetetus: “Socrates, if your words convinced everyone as they do me, there would be more peace and less evil on earth.” (176a) Pretty nice cash-value for Plato’s little nest, right? (It appears that you must believe that Plato never asked ‘pragmatic’ questions; is this right? I should think a much more careful reading of Plato would be in order if this were the case.)

The question then is obviously: who’s right? Which answer is true.

So let’s come at the problem again like this: We have a philosophical dispute (a bugbear, if you will) about pragmatism and metaphysics before us. You suggest that, “a possible issue could be a misconception about pragmatism.” Now supposing that this might be correct, shouldn’t we want to know what it is that would constitute the “mis-ness” of said misconception? How should we decide whether the issue is a misconception about pragmatism, or the pragmatist’s misconception about metaphysics? Could we do this by waving a hand towards Dewey’s claim about “Plato’s nest and brood of dualisms”? Obviously not, I should think.

Should we, then, ask what difference belief or disbelief in one idea or the other will make? Sure, why not. (Of course, there’s nothing ‘unmetaphysical’ about that.) But what will be the effect of asking this new question? Do you have a ready answer, now that the question has ‘changed’? If we ‘rid’ ourselves of the old bugbear questions (have we really done this?), only to replace them with new ones, which are bugbears no less, what difference has belief in pragmatism made?

So here’s a thesis: Pragmatism avoids bugbears only insofar as it encourages superficial treatment of questions. Insofar as it remains committed to exoteric doctrines that are subject to public examination (this is key in the Theaetetus), it’s substance/essence has not changed, it is metaphysics by another name. And as Shakespeare might have put it: What’s in a name? that which we call metaphysics, by any other name would be as bugbearish.

[Cf. JULIET:

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself.]

[Sorry this is so long, but I have more!]

 

[Betterave]

When I argue that the basic assumption of metaphysics is that language has taken us out of touch with reality, I am talking about the (name removed by moderator)enetrable Kantian veil of appearances–the belief that we can never know “The Thing In Itself.” Philosophers since Descartes have hypothesized that there is a barrier between the observing subject and the object because of the make up of our sense organs and the structure of our minds. We can only sense a certain range of audible fequencies and visible wavelengths, and our minds are constituted in such a way that they can only think certain thoughts. Later, in the nineteenth century, philosphers began to suggest that language itself may also form such a barrier between a subject’s “mental eye” and its object since it may impose certain categories on objects that are not essential to them, or a language may lack the right words to be able to speak correctly about the essence of an object.

If this brief take on the history of modern philosophy sounds at all familiar, then perhaps you’ll now understand that the “who” that I take myself (as well as pramatism and existentialism and others) to be railing against is that part of the Western philosophical tradition that continues to wrestle with what Dewey called Plato’s “nest and brood of dualisms” where we are suppose to find it unavoidable to ask,“is it subjective or objective?” “is it absolute or relative?” “is it real or apparent?” “it it essential or accidental?”, etc.
Best,
Leela

Just quickly on this: I’m quite confident that you’re misrepresenting Kant and I’m afraid your brief take on the history of philosophy doesn’t sound too familiar to me. Maybe some more names might help?

Anyway, just to be clear: “Metaphysics assumes X” and “certain late 19th century philosophers assumed X” are quite different claims! I was under the distinct impression that you were arguing for the first claim, rather than the latter.

In this vein, perhaps the following (woefully out of context!) C.S. Peirce quote would be worth thinking about:
“In calling himself a Scotist, the writer does not mean that he is going back to the general views of 600 years back; he merely means that the point of metaphysics upon which Scotus chiefly insisted and which has passed out of mind, is a very important point, inseparably bound up with the most important point to be insisted upon today.” (In case it’s unclear to anyone, “the writer” to whom Peirce refers is himself and Peirce is a pragmatist.)

I guess that’ll be all for now. Take care!