What materialism is [Archive]

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 03:49 AM

Originally posted by pmurray
A poster elsewhere ststed that no on would tell him what a materialist is. Ok, I'll have a go:

The world is not made up of two kinds of substance (material and spiritual), but only one. This substance is not primarily "like" an idea, not like a mental object: happy, sad, right, wrong, friend, enemy. The substance of which the world is made can be described mathematically. (Maths exists independent of minds to know it - the truths of mathematics are discoveries, not inventions.)

Whooooah!

That's not materialism. That is mathematical realism. Plenty of idealists and other non-materialists believe that mathematical truths are somehow independent of reality or mind. If you take pure subjective Berkeleyanism as an example of idealism then "the substance of the world" can still be described mathematically. The fact that it happens to be a mathematical object in "the mind of an eternal spirit" makes no difference whatsoever.

Whatever you are describing, it certainly isn't materialism. "Materialism" is the belief that the physical world is a self-existing "material substrate".

I suppose that we might equivalently state that the universe is not primarily made up of verbal concepts. People who are verbal like to think that it is - Gods, relationships, purposes - but it ain't.

And no, idealists don't believe that the world is made of "verbal concepts" either.

So:
* the world is the physical reality we see

True regardless of whether you are an idealist or a materialist because of the way you used "we see". The idealist simply states that "everything we see" is in our minds anyway. Reality remains reality.

* it exists independent of our conciousness

Again, for an idealist this is also true (apart from lifegazer). Since the "physical world" exists in the mind of God, it is independent of our conciousness.

* it is material, not ideal

Correct

* equivalently: it is mathematical, not verbal

Not correct, and don't know where you got this idea from. "Idealism" in the western tradition starts with Plato. Plato's "world of ideas" are primarily mathematical, not verbal.

And:
* conciousness exists in the world, not apart from it.

Yeah, well we could argue about that one for a long time. I think you are a bit confused about what idealism is. Idealists don't think that "consciousness exists apart from the world". They think that "the world exists within consciousness".

* being a person is something that our bodies do [/B]

The definition of what makes a person a person is much trickier than this. Personally, I rather like Heidegger's definition of "person" as something which must face the consequences of death and mortality from "the inside".

davidsmith73

28th June 2005, 04:42 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Whooooah!

That's not materialism. That is mathematical realism.

Geoff,

Do you agree that mathematical realism is necessary for materialism?

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 06:31 AM

Originally posted by davidsmith73
Geoff,

Do you agree that mathematical realism is necessary for materialism?

No. Although I am open to being persuaded. What's the reasoning behind the claim?

From my POV the physical world is a mathematical object. It's not made of material - it's made of information.

Why should a materialist need mathematical realism?

davidsmith73

28th June 2005, 07:05 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
No. Although I am open to being persuaded. What's the reasoning behind the claim?

From my POV the physical world is a mathematical object. It's not made of material - it's made of information.

Why should a materialist need mathematical realism?

My resoning is that materialists posit a reality that is independent of experience (I presume that is what you mean by self existing). This means that such existence cannot have qualitativeness. If it had qualitativeness then such existence would be experiential and thus not be independent of experience. So if a materialist is to posit a "substance" that this reality is made of then I see no option but for quantitativeness to be its fundamental nature. If quantitativeness is not its fundamental nature then I see no way for a materialist to say anthing about this reality other than "it is indepednent of experience". Which brings me onto epistemology. I have heard some here say that its possible for epistemological philosophy to make no ontological statements about reality. I don't agree for the above reason. Epistemology must make the ontological statement that objective reality is mathematical in nature. Otherwise I see no way for epistemology to work.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

28th June 2005, 07:28 AM

Here's a pile of definitions of materialism. Note how they are all circular.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&biw=1094&q=define%3A+materialism&btnG=Search

Here are a crop of definition of idealism. Note how they are all circular.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=define%3A+idealism

~~ Paul

28th June 2005, 08:32 AM

Generally, in my own special little world (where 'special' is all too often meant in the 'short bus' sense), materialism is a catch-term that is used instead of the clunkier and less aesthetic 'ultimately describable through logical relationships and symbolic languages, ultimately-knowable by science, and non-dependent upon subjective experience'. As such, what we currently refer to as 'material' - matter and, more recently of course, energy - is just a sub-class of the 'material' in a broader sense. Certainly, as we analyze deeper into the structure of 'stuff', we are learning that matter is less solid than we've ever believed, and indeed may be little more than waves of probability, at their very core.

Nevertheless, ultimately all things are comprised of these same 'whatevers' - ripples in spacetime, probably - and ultimately are all knowable, describably by logical relationships and symbolic languages, etc. etc.

Immaterial things are epiphenominal; non-observable; non-interactive; indeed, non-existent. Those who wax poetic about the 'immaterial soul' are spouting gibberish. Either souls exist, and are comprised of (for example) ripples in spacetime; or they don't exist at all. The same goes for all things we can imagine: either it exists, and is just like everything else, or it doesn't exist at all.

One difference that seems prevalent between idealism as such and materialism, is that idealists tend to believe that science can never and will never fully understand the core nature of 'stuff'... but somehow, their own reasoning can?

Dualism, on the other hand, is almost completely senseless, and I can rarely understand the common dualist point of view. My own form of dualism is really no better, at its core: that the All-That-Is is comprised of the real (material) world and the unreal (spiritual/immaterial/imaginative) world.

*sigh*

Anyway, these arguments don't really get anywhere, do they? Science, based in a relatively materialist foundation, manages to progress and develop, so it must at least be useful if not completely accurate. Why argue against it so vehemently?

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 08:33 AM

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Here's a pile of definitions of materialism. Note how they are all circular.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&biw=1094&q=define%3A+materialism&btnG=Search

Here are a crop of definition of idealism. Note how they are all circular.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=define%3A+idealism

~~ Paul

Paul,

I may be wasting my time here, but since you appear to have reached the point of rejecting both materialism and idealism, have you considered simply coming to the conclusion that they are both wrong?

Do you consider neutral monism (http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=2o9otitv487as?tname=neutral-monism&curtab=2222_1&hl=dialectical&hl=monism&sbid=lc01a) to be circular too?

In it's more elaborate form it becomes Dialectical Monism (http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Dialectical+monism&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1)

In layman's terms, the basic idea is to outline a point of view which recognizes that all is one, but this oneness can only be experienced in terms of duality and creative opposition. Adherents maintain that by understanding this viewpoint and its implications, one learns that "ultimate reality" and "everyday reality" are one and the same....

Boom boom! ;)

Geoff

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 08:44 AM

Originally posted by davidsmith73

My resoning is that materialists posit a reality that is independent of experience (I presume that is what you mean by self existing). This means that such existence cannot have qualitativeness. If it had qualitativeness then such existence would be experiential and thus not be independent of experience. So if a materialist is to posit a "substance" that this reality is made of then I see no option but for quantitativeness to be its fundamental nature.

OK, I see where you are going. I kind of agree with this, since it's not too distant from my own position.

If quantitativeness is not its fundamental nature then I see no way for a materialist to say anthing about this reality other than "it is indepednent of experience".

OK, yes. But even to get a materialist to this point is to get that materialist quite close to rejecting materialism. "Material" has already become "information".

Which brings me onto epistemology. I have heard some here say that its possible for epistemological philosophy to make no ontological statements about reality. I don't agree for the above reason. Epistemology must make the ontological statement that objective reality is mathematical in nature. Otherwise I see no way for epistemology to work.

I don't agree with this. I think if it is done carefully that epistemolgy can avoid ontology alltogether. I don't see it happening very often around here though. What I usually see here is implied materialism dressed up as epistemology. I see epistemology being used as a fig leaf for a metaphysical position which is impossible to defend but believed in anyway. People should probably use the term "naturalist" instead of "materialist", since what they are really concerned about are the claims about non-physical/non-natural causality.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

28th June 2005, 09:05 AM

Geoff said:
I may be wasting my time here, but since you appear to have reached the point of rejecting both materialism and idealism, have you considered simply coming to the conclusion that they are both wrong?
If we are talking about ontology, then I think they are both incoherent. However, if forced, I would say they were equivalent. Since both material and mental are undefined, they might as well be two names for the same thing.

"Neutral monism is the philosophical view that mental events and physical events can both be reduced to aspects of some neutral substance, which considered by itself is neither physical nor mental."

This seems content-free. How is it different from "mental and physical events are both things"?

"Dialectical monism is an ontological position which holds that reality is ultimately a unified whole, distinguishing itself from plain monism by asserting that this whole necessarily expresses itself in dualistic terms. For the dialectical monist, the essential unity is that of complementary polarities which, while opposed in the realm of experience and perception, are co-substantial in a transcendent sense."

Oh Lordy. For starters, why dualistic? Why not 13-istic? Sounds like "We can't decide whether stuff is material or mental, so we'll call them aspects of the same uber-stuff."

You can't decide because there is no way to decide! And what is the point of trying so hard to decide?

~~ Paul

Dr Adequate

28th June 2005, 09:23 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
What I usually see here is implied materialism dressed up as epistemology. I see epistemology being used as a fig leaf for a metaphysical position which is impossible to defend but believed in anyway. What is see here is implied belief that pigs fly. I see philosophy being used as a fig leaf for a position on flying pigs which is impossible to defend but believed in anyway.

Isn't it lucky that you have me here to explain what JG's words imply, and what they're a "fig leaf" for. Otherwise, you'd never have guessed that he was such a moron as to cling to his dogmatic belief in flying pigs.[/shameful, worthless debating technique beloved of liars and fools]

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 09:33 AM

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
If we are talking about ontology, then I think they are both incoherent. However, if forced, I would say they were equivalent. Since both material and mental are undefined, they might as well be two names for the same thing.

Why can't you take the step from "incoherent" to "wrong"? Can something be "incoherent" and "right"? I don't see how. So why do you resist concluding that they aren't right?

"Neutral monism is the philosophical view that mental events and physical events can both be reduced to aspects of some neutral substance, which considered by itself is neither physical nor mental."

This seems content-free. How is it different from "mental and physical events are both things"?

Because at a fundamental level they are both the same thing, but it remains false to claim that either one of them "is the other one" - which is the mistake that both materialism and idealism make, IMO.

If you're interested, this was the subject of the first thread I ever started at philosophyforums, and it was this thread which seriously made me reconsider whether I was an idealist.

http://forums.philosophyforums.com/comments.php?id=2826

This reply came from Paul, who runs that site:

Idealism is just the other side of physicalism. Physicalism is correct in pointing out how hopelessly wrong idealism is to deny the reality of non-mind things. Idealism is correct in pointing out how hopelessly wrong physicalism is to deny the reality of minds. And dualism, well, it makes the mistakes of both the physicalists and idealists by denying that minds and non-minds have anything to do with each other.

If you're still considering idealism, I'd have to say physicalism isn't quite dead for you. Physicalism and idealism are both dualistic metaphysics, which simply block out one of the halves of dualism.

This is the critical point. Ultimately, physicalism and idealism aren't proper monisms. They are just dualism with one half of the dualism crudely chopped off.

"Dialectical monism is an ontological position which holds that reality is ultimately a unified whole, distinguishing itself from plain monism by asserting that this whole necessarily expresses itself in dualistic terms. For the dialectical monist, the essential unity is that of complementary polarities which, while opposed in the realm of experience and perception, are co-substantial in a transcendent sense."

Oh Lordy. For starters, why dualistic? Why not 13-istic?

I am genuinely surprised you have to ask. I may have to start quoting the 2nd verse of the Tao Te Ching again. Mind-Body is not the only dualism we experience. It's everywhere - I don't really understand how this can be denied - even by the hardest-headed scientistic nerd on the planet.

Sounds like "We can't decide whether stuff is material or mental, so we'll call them aspects of the same uber-stuff."

And that sounds like you belittling an idea you don't know very much about by trying to present the adherents to that idea as simplistic fools.

You can't decide because there is no way to decide! And what is the point of trying so hard to decide?

Sometimes I wonder if you actually read anything I post, Paul. :(

So I will repeat some of it:

I may be wasting my time here, but since you appear to have reached the point of rejecting both materialism and idealism, have you considered simply coming to the conclusion that they are both wrong?

How did you manage to turn that into:

You can't decide because there is no way to decide! And what is the point of trying so hard to decide?

You're right! There is no way to decide. But the neutral monism is not just pointlessly flapping around failing to decide between materialism and idealism. It is saying something completely and utterly different. It is offering an alternative way of resolving the problem instead of doing what you do, which is to give up, claim the problem is insoluble, and go back to being a de facto materialist.

As for "And what is the point of trying so hard to decide?" - there may be none, but that does not mean that there is no point in trying to find a solution to the mind-body problem. Unless, of course, you'd rather not find one, for some reason.......

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

28th June 2005, 09:41 AM

Geoff said:
I don't agree with this. I think if it is done carefully that epistemolgy can avoid ontology alltogether. I don't see it happening very often around here though. What I usually see here is implied materialism dressed up as epistemology. I see epistemology being used as a fig leaf for a metaphysical position which is impossible to defend but believed in anyway. People should probably use the term "naturalist" instead of "materialist", since what they are really concerned about are the claims about non-physical/non-natural causality.
I disagree. My concern may be claims about supernatural causality, but it is not a metaphysical concern. My concerns are (a) what is the definition of supernatural; and (b) is the evidence for some sort of supernatural causility (whatever that is) really solid?

You have no reason to take these concerns of mine as metaphysical.

~~ Paul

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 09:41 AM

Originally posted by Dr Adequate

What is see here is implied belief that pigs fly.

Hello Dr Adequate. Since this is not the first time you have responded to one of my posts in such a way as I cannot tell whether you are being serious or not, and since on the previous occasion you eventually claimed you were being both (and justified this by explaining you were English), I shall assume that this comment is of a similar nature.

What do you actually mean?

I see philosophy being used as a fig leaf for a position on flying pigs which is impossible to defend but believed in anyway.

And I see sarcastic wit, but in the end a comment which cannot be responded to, because I have no idea what you are actually trying to say.

Isn't it lucky that you have me here to explain what JG's words imply, and what they're a "fig leaf" for. Otherwise, you'd never have guessed that he was such a moron as to cling to his dogmatic belief in flying pigs.[/shameful, worthless debating technique beloved of liars and fools]

And straight to an explicit ad hominem (three, actually: liar, fool, moron). I'll give you one chance to respond with an apology, or put you on ignore.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

28th June 2005, 09:51 AM

Geoff said:
Why can't you take the step from "incoherent" to "wrong"? Can something be "incoherent" and "right"? I don't see how. So why do you resist concluding that they aren't right?
Incoherent ideas are neither right nor wrong, but simply incoherent. If someone could define materialism and idealism in a noncircular fashion, I might be able to say they are wrong.

Because at a fundamental level they are both the same thing, but it remains false to claim that either one of them "is the other one" - which is the mistake that both materialism and idealism make, IMO.
I am not saying that one is the other, but that they might as well be taken as names for the same (undefined) thing.

This is the critical point. Ultimately, physicalism and idealism aren't proper monisms. They are just dualism with one half of the dualism crudely chopped off.
That does seem to be the case when some people speak about them, yes.

I am genuinely surprised you have to ask. I may have to start quoting the 2nd verse of the Tao Te Ching again. Mind-Body is not the only dualism we experience. It's everywhere - I don't really understand how this can be denied - even by the hardest-headed scientistic nerd on the planet.
What I asked was why 2-ism and not 3-ism or 13-ism. How about material, mind, and information?

And that sounds like you belittling an idea you don't know very much about by trying to present the adherents to that idea as simplistic fools.
I just stated what it sounds like to me.

I may be wasting my time here, but since you appear to have reached the point of rejecting both materialism and idealism, have you considered simply coming to the conclusion that they are both wrong?

How did you manage to turn that into:

You can't decide because there is no way to decide! And what is the point of trying so hard to decide?
By you I did not mean you personally. I meant that there is fundamentally no way to decide.

You're right! There is no way to decide. But the neutral monism is not just pointlessly flapping around failing to decide between materialism and idealism. It is saying something completely and utterly different. It is offering an alternative way of resolving the problem instead of doing what you do, which is to give up, claim the problem is insoluble, and go back to being a de facto materialist.
I don't have a problem. But anyhoo, how does neutral monism resolve this problem, other than by not deciding?

As for "And what is the point of trying so hard to decide?" - there may be none, but that does not mean that there is no point in trying to find a solution to the mind-body problem. Unless, of course, you'd rather not find one, for some reason.......
I don't think the solution is going to be found through metaphysics.

~~ Paul

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 09:56 AM

Hello Paul,

I disagree. My concern may be claims about supernatural causality, but it is not a metaphysical concern. My concerns are (a) what is the definition of supernatural; and (b) is the evidence for some sort of supernatural causility (whatever that is) really solid?

I think it was established quite some time ago that if there is any evidence of supernatural causality, it isn't "solid" and it is hard to see how it ever could be. It is the realm of mysticism, and the realm of "solid evidence" is physical science. So your question amounts to "could there ever be a mystical science"? I think the answer is a resounding NO. If you are seeking evidence of supernatural causality then you are going to either have to expand your concept of "evidence" to include things which are neccesarily subjective or you are going to have to accept that you aren't going to find any evidence which meets your standards.

As for "what supernatural causality is"? I think, from your perspective at least, it can only be defined in terms of what it isn't. It isn't randomness and it isn't physical causality, but it since it is still a form of causality it must involve some sort of metaphysical connection between event A and event B. It is impossible for me to define it any better than that because of the way you use the rest of your definitions and arguments. You don't allow me to define any of the language I need to explain it any better, and even if you [i]did[i/], you would challenge me to provide empirical evidence that my definitions are "correct" - which I cannot do.

You have no reason to take these concerns of mine as metaphysical.

They sound pretty metaphysical to me.

Dr Adequate

28th June 2005, 10:11 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Hello Dr Adequate. Since this is not the first time you have responded to one of my posts in such a way as I cannot tell whether you are being serious or not, and since on the previous occasion you eventually claimed you were being both (and justified this by explaining you were English), I shall assume that this comment is of a similar nature.

What do you actually mean?

And I see sarcastic wit, but in the end a comment which cannot be responded to, because I have no idea what you are actually trying to say. I mean that your substitute for real argument which you have chosen to employ is a shameful, worthless debating technique beloved of liars and fools. If you're unable to understand sarcasm, that was plain enough, was it not?And straight to an explicit ad hominem (three, actually: liar, fool, moron). Learn what the phrase "ad hominem argument" means, stop using the phrase, or look pretentious and semieducated. The choice is yours. I'll give you one chance to respond with an apology, or put you on ignore. It's so much easier to fight straw men (with the label "empiricist" tied round their neck with string) than to argue with the real opinions of a real empiricist, isn't it? Well, you have fun playing with your straw dolls.

Of course, putting me on ignore will not prevent me from pointing out your fatuous errors and egregious distortions. But hey, you can pretend it will. You're good at pretending.

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 10:24 AM

Paul

Incoherent ideas are neither right nor wrong, but simply incoherent. If someone could define materialism and idealism in a noncircular fashion, I might be able to say they are wrong.

Yeah, but isn't the whole problem the fact that nobody can define them and defend them in "non-circular" ways (as you put it)? This sounds like a cop-out to me. You see that all the current formulations are incoherent, but you leave to the door open to the claim that somehow somebody is going to be able to come along in the future and fix them? Do you really believe that? :eek:

Most people, IMO, who get to the sort of point that you have got to in this debate, also accept that the problems with materialism and idealism are unfixable - ever, by anyone.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because at a fundamental level they are both the same thing, but it remains false to claim that either one of them "is the other one" - which is the mistake that both materialism and idealism make, IMO.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am not saying that one is the other, but that they might as well be taken as names for the same (undefined) thing.

I disagree emphatically. There are loads of metaphysical implications that come along with physicalism and idealism, and the implications in each case are very different to each other. So whether you state you are a materialist or state you are an idealist has an enormous effect on what else you are likely to believe is possible. This is true to the extent that an idealist is capable of believing in creation by fiat - that the world could simply come into being fully-formed as an act of will, yet to the materialist such things are unthinkable absurdities.

Neutral monism and dual aspect theory are more sophisticated than simply claiming that "mind" and "matter" are just different names for the same thing. I think that is a complete misunderstanding of what neutral monism actually claims, and also fails to take account of the widely differing metaphysical implications of materialism and idealism.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am genuinely surprised you have to ask. I may have to start quoting the 2nd verse of the Tao Te Ching again. Mind-Body is not the only dualism we experience. It's everywhere - I don't really understand how this can be denied - even by the hardest-headed scientistic nerd on the planet.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I asked was why 2-ism and not 3-ism or 13-ism. How about material, mind, and information?

We don't experience any "information" - not in the sense we experience mind and matter. I think the best way of answering your question here is to point to mathematics and zero again. Your question translates to: "Why to we have positive numbers and negative numbers but not xxxxxxative numberx?" Why is our number scale dualistically symmetrical around 0 instead of triplicateley symmetrical? Seems like an absurd question to me. 0 = 1 + -1. That is a dualism. Why not "0 = 1 + -1 + %1"? I don't know how to answer you question except to say that most people don't ask it. What would the %1 represent? :con2:

By you I did not mean you personally. I meant that there is fundamentally no way to decide.

If there is fundamentally no way to decide then this seems to close the door you left open at the start of this post. If this is true, then nobody can ever "fix" materialism and idealism. And it then follows that you can safely reject them both, yes?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You're right! There is no way to decide. But the neutral monism is not just pointlessly flapping around failing to decide between materialism and idealism. It is saying something completely and utterly different. It is offering an alternative way of resolving the problem instead of doing what you do, which is to give up, claim the problem is insoluble, and go back to being a de facto materialist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't have a problem. But anyhoo, how does neutral monism resolve this problem, other than by not deciding?

It doesn't "not decide" because it offers an entirely different explanation. It "decides" that they are both wrong, which you also ought to do if you were being consistent.

Neutral monism:

Materialism is wrong. The world is not "made from matter". Idealism is wrong. The world is not "made from mind". "The material world" and "the mental world" are human constructions/conceptions with different associated language games. There are information structures refered to in "the language of the material world" which map directly onto information structures which are refered to in "the language of the mental world". Hence brain processes and subjective experiences can said to be dual aspects of the same set of information. They are "both the same thing", but only if you accept that they are neither mind nor matter. Some people naively respond at this point by asking "well, what is it then?". This is a rather stupid question since it is obvious that there is no word currently in existence for this thing, and it doesn't actually make any difference what anybody chooses to call it.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for "And what is the point of trying so hard to decide?" - there may be none, but that does not mean that there is no point in trying to find a solution to the mind-body problem. Unless, of course, you'd rather not find one, for some reason.......
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't think the solution is going to be found through metaphysics.

For what reason is that then?

Are you implying that the solution is going to be found through physics. If you are, then my suggestion that you are a de facto materialist is supported, regardless of what a certain troll scrawled in an earlier post.

Dr Adequate

28th June 2005, 10:33 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
And straight to an explicit ad hominem (three, actually: liar, fool, moron). I'll give you one chance to respond with an apology, or put you on ignore. Let's have a look at who can dish it out but can't take it, shall we?What I usually see here is implied materialism dressed up as epistemology. I see epistemology being used as a fig leaf for a metaphysical position which is impossible to defend but believed in anyway. Well, well. JG's whole critique of empiricists is that we don't believe what we're saying, but are using it as a "fig leaf" for other opinions which we explicitly say we do not hold --- that is, we must be liars. And these opinions which we (secretly, in JG's imagination) hold are "impossible to defend but believed anyway" --- that is, we are fools.

But of course this is mere raving on his part. It should be quite obvious that we believe exactly what we say --- which has, it seems, no faults in it that JG can identify --- rather than believing a doctrine which we say is stupid and worthless. Therefore, JG is either a fool, and believes his own fatuous conspiracy theory, or he is a liar who comes out with this drivel in order to give offense.

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 10:40 AM

Originally posted by Dr Adequate

I mean that your substitute for real argument which you have chosen to employ is a shameful, worthless debating technique beloved of liars and fools.

If you think I have not provided a real argument then you haven't actually been reading my posts, Dr Adequate. I have supplied plenty. I also mentioned the fact that some of the people around here seem to be accepting that materialism can't be defended, but continuing to find some way to be materialists anyway. I will stand by that claim.

What I did NOT do was pile in with a load of sarcastic cr*p and ad hominems.

If you're unable to understand sarcasm, that was plain enough, was it not? Learn what the phrase "ad hominem argument" means, stop using the phrase, or look pretentious and semieducated.

You called me a moron. With little or no justification.

The choice is yours. It's so much easier to fight straw men (with the label "empiricist" tied round their neck with string) than to argue with the real opinions of a real empiricist, isn't it? Well, you have fun playing with your straw dolls.

Whose the "real empiricist"? YOU, Dr Adequate?

Then why don't you try supplying some actual arguments instead of trying to derail the thread with sarcasm and insults?

Of course, putting me on ignore will not prevent me from pointing out your fatuous errors and egregious distortions. But hey, you can pretend it will. You're good at pretending.

You haven't pointed out an "fatuous errors". In fact, you have contributed nothing to this thread apart from sarcasm and insults. Kind of like the Lee Bowyer of randi.org.

I gave you one chance to apologise. You didn't take it. Neither did you supply any empiricist arguments. Although I rather suspect you don't actually know what empiricism is or where it ended up, or you wouldn't claim you were an empiricist.

Bye bye.

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 10:51 AM

Dr Adequate fumed:

Let's have a look at who can dish it out but can't take it, shall we?
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I usually see here is implied materialism dressed up as epistemology. I see epistemology being used as a fig leaf for a metaphysical position which is impossible to defend but believed in anyway.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right.....so that justifies you responding to me by going in with all three jackboots and calling me a moron, a liar and a fool, does it?

I did not "dish out" something I could not take. The only person on this forum I "dish out" to is lifegazer, and I only do to him what he himself does to others. I think you saw yourself as one of the people I was talking about, even though I wasn't actually talking about you, Dr Adequate. Hit a raw nerve, did I? Certainly looks like it.

Well, well. JG's whole critique of empiricists is that we don't believe what we're saying, but are using it as a "fig leaf" for other opinions.....

Oh really? I don't remember mentioning empiricism even once. And since empiricism ended up with Berkeley, I don't know what makes you think I am bothered about empiricism anyway. The logical conclusion of empricism is absolute subjective idealism, not materialism. I wasn't even referring to empiricists when I made the above comment, so your knee-jerk jack-boot reaction was to the wrong thing. I was referring to people who know, for one reason or another, that materialism can't actually be defended and who use epistemology as a means of avoiding any further consideration of the subject whilst retaining all the trappings of belief in materialism. What's that got to do with empiricism? What are you talking about? :con2:

....which we explicitly say we do not hold --- that is, we must be liars. And these opinions which we (secretly, in JG's imagination) hold are "impossible to defend but believed anyway" --- that is, we are fools.

You put those words into my mouth. I didn't say them. I didn't mean them either.

But of course this is mere raving on his part. It should be quite obvious that we believe exactly what we say --- which has, it seems, no faults in it that JG can identify --- rather than believing a doctrine which we say is stupid and worthless. Therefore, JG is either a fool, and believes his own fatuous conspiracy theory, or he is a liar who comes out with this drivel in order to give offense.

Having a bad day in the office, Dr Adequate? Or do you just have a more general problem keeping your temper tantrums under control?

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

28th June 2005, 10:52 AM

Geoff said:
Yeah, but isn't the whole problem the fact that nobody can define them and defend them in "non-circular" ways (as you put it)? This sounds like a cop-out to me. You see that all the current formulations are incoherent, but you leave to the door open to the claim that somehow somebody is going to be able to come along in the future and fix them? Do you really believe that?
Not really, no, because I don't think it makes sense to talk about what "stuff really is."

Most people, IMO, who get to the sort of point that you have got to in this debate, also accept that the problems with materialism and idealism are unfixable - ever, by anyone.
Oh, I think they are probably unfixable, but that is different from saying they are wrong.

I disagree emphatically. There are loads of metaphysical implications that come along with physicalism and idealism, and the implications in each case are very different to each other. So whether you state you are a materialist or state you are an idealist has an enormous effect on what else you are likely to believe is possible. This is true to the extent that an idealist is capable of believing in creation by fiat - that the world could simply come into being fully-formed as an act of will, yet to the materialist such things are unthinkable absurdities.
It might have an affect on what I believe, but that does not make my beliefs rational one way or the other. I don't need to have a belief about how the world came into being, except insofar as it can be based on evidence.

We don't experience any "information" - not in the sense we experience mind and matter. I think the best way of answering your question here is to point to mathematics and zero again. Your question translates to: "Why to we have positive numbers and negative numbers but not xxxxxxative numberx?" Why is our number scale dualistically symmetrical around 0 instead of triplicateley symmetrical? Seems like an absurd question to me. 0 = 1 + -1. That is a dualism. Why not "0 = 1 + -1 + %1"? I don't know how to answer you question except to say that most people don't ask it. What would the %1 represent?
Ah, so we're trying to solve a problem related to what we experience. What am I experiencing when I do math: mind or matter?

If there is fundamentally no way to decide then this seems to close the door you left open at the start of this post. If this is true, then nobody can ever "fix" materialism and idealism. And it then follows that you can safely reject them both, yes?
Who cares? I don't see anything better in monism, either. Or at least you haven't explained it to me.

Neutral monism:

Materialism is wrong. The world is not "made from matter". Idealism is wrong. The world is not "made from mind". "The material world" and "the mental world" are human constructions/conceptions with different associated language games. There are information structures refered to in "the language of the material world" which map directly onto information structures which are refered to in "the language of the mental world". Hence brain processes and subjective experiences can said to be dual aspects of the same set of information. They are "both the same thing", but only if you accept that they are neither mind nor matter. Some people naively respond at this point by asking "well, what is it then?". This is a rather stupid question since it is obvious that there is no word currently in existence for this thing, and it doesn't actually make any difference what anybody chooses to call it.
I like it! It's a close to not being metaphysical as a metaphysic can get. In fact, it says virtually nothing. Well, except to claim without substantiation that materialism and idealism is wrong. If this is what metaphysics is going to buy me, I'll just stick with scientific epistemology.

For what reason is that then?

Are you implying that the solution is going to be found through physics. If you are, then my suggestion that you are a de facto materialist is supported, regardless of what a certain troll scrawled in an earlier post.
I see. If I think that the mind/body problem doesn't have an answer except insofar as any evidence we can uncover, that forces me to be a materialist (which I think you've agreed is an incoherent term). What does it force you to be when you make that claim?

In the world of philosophy, everyone shall subscribe to a metaphysic.

~~ Paul

toddjh

28th June 2005, 11:00 AM

Personally, I've never understood the appeal of concepts such as materialism or idealism. As others have pointed out, they're not capable of being rigorously defined and, to the extent that we have an intuitive understanding of what they mean, they offer no testable hypotheses.

Philosophically, I guess I qualify as a pragmatist. Certainly the notion that reality can be described by mathematics has been demonstrated empirically very thoroughly over the centuries, so I have no problem relying on math and logic as very good tools for studying the universe. But to say that reality is informational in nature at some fundamental level...what good does that kind of statement do anyone? It's merely an unnecessary axiom, and axioms have no predictive power.

Jeremy

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 11:56 AM

Not really, no, because I don't think it makes sense to talk about what "stuff really is."

OK...so nobody is going to fix it. But I'm not sure what your reasons are for rejecting neutral monism. I don't think it can be rejected in the same way that idealism and materialism are rejected.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most people, IMO, who get to the sort of point that you have got to in this debate, also accept that the problems with materialism and idealism are unfixable - ever, by anyone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, I think they are probably unfixable, but that is different from saying they are wrong.

If they weren't wrong, then they wouldn't need to fixed!

"Unfixable" implies "broken, with no hope of repair". If you happen to be talking about a metaphysical theory then as far as I can see this means "wrong". "wrong" means incorrect.

I don't understand your position on this.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I disagree emphatically. There are loads of metaphysical implications that come along with physicalism and idealism, and the implications in each case are very different to each other. So whether you state you are a materialist or state you are an idealist has an enormous effect on what else you are likely to believe is possible. This is true to the extent that an idealist is capable of believing in creation by fiat - that the world could simply come into being fully-formed as an act of will, yet to the materialist such things are unthinkable absurdities.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It might have an affect on what I believe, but that does not make my beliefs rational one way or the other. I don't need to have a belief about how the world came into being, except insofar as it can be based on evidence.

I think you missed my point. There has been a lot of that happening recently. I was responding to a claim by you that materialism and idealism were "just the same", except that they give different names to the same "stuff". My point was that they aren't the same at all, because they imply different things to each other. You seem to have accepted that they imply different things to each other. Does that mean you also accept that there are more differences between materialism and idealism than just that they have a different name for the stuff of reality?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We don't experience any "information" - not in the sense we experience mind and matter. I think the best way of answering your question here is to point to mathematics and zero again. Your question translates to: "Why to we have positive numbers and negative numbers but not xxxxxxative numberx?" Why is our number scale dualistically symmetrical around 0 instead of triplicateley symmetrical? Seems like an absurd question to me. 0 = 1 + -1. That is a dualism. Why not "0 = 1 + -1 + %1"? I don't know how to answer you question except to say that most people don't ask it. What would the %1 represent?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah, so we're trying to solve a problem related to what we experience. What am I experiencing when I do math: mind or matter?

No. I am trying to give you an example of why neutral monists talk about reality being experienced as dualistic rather than 13-istic or 3-istic. I am giving you the most obvious example I can think of of this dualism, which is all-pervading. It is dualistic for the same reason that "0 = 1 + -1" makes sense and "0 = 1 + -1 + %1" doesn't.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there is fundamentally no way to decide then this seems to close the door you left open at the start of this post. If this is true, then nobody can ever "fix" materialism and idealism. And it then follows that you can safely reject them both, yes?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Who cares?

Anyone who is serious about finding answers rather than trying to avoid them. Don't you think that a process of elimination is a reasonable, rational and justified means of coming to a conclusion about something? Because I do.

I don't see anything better in monism, either. Or at least you haven't explained it to me.

What is missing from the explanation?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neutral monism:

Materialism is wrong. The world is not "made from matter". Idealism is wrong. The world is not "made from mind". "The material world" and "the mental world" are human constructions/conceptions with different associated language games. There are information structures refered to in "the language of the material world" which map directly onto information structures which are refered to in "the language of the mental world". Hence brain processes and subjective experiences can said to be dual aspects of the same set of information. They are "both the same thing", but only if you accept that they are neither mind nor matter. Some people naively respond at this point by asking "well, what is it then?". This is a rather stupid question since it is obvious that there is no word currently in existence for this thing, and it doesn't actually make any difference what anybody chooses to call it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I like it! It's a close to not being metaphysical as a metaphysic can get.

Wow! :)

I'm not sure I'd entirely agree with your statement, but it's certainly as close to being neutral as a metaphysic can get, which may well amount to much the same thing.

In fact, it says virtually nothing.

That's not entirely true either. I think it does say things, it's just that what it says is less easy to poke holes in. It is also a position that was arrived at by a really quite small but diverse collection of people, including Baruch Spinoza, Bertrand Russell, David Bohm and the founders of Taoism.

Well, except to claim without substantiation that materialism and idealism is wrong. If this is what metaphysics is going to buy me, I'll just stick with scientific epistemology.

It's more complex than that:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism

The point of dwelling on the content and the role that these philosophical background assumptions have played in the development of the extant versions of neutral monism is twofold. First, a clear understanding of these assumptions makes it possible to evaluate them as well as the complex neutral monistic doctrines they helped shape. Second, a clear understanding of these assumptions makes it possible to reveal the minimal core of neutral monism by subtracting them from the complex doctrines available in the literature.

Given the present philosophical climate, it seems unlikely that a fuller, philosophically and historically more adequate, understanding of the extant versions of mainstream neutral monism will result in their revival. But for those who remain disinclined toward dualism while having no sympathy for the currently fashionable monisms, neutral monism, stripped of all its extraneous accretions, may afford an interesting framework to explore. Reduced to its minimal core (see the opening paragraph and the â€œIntroductionâ€), neutral monism carries few commitments and offers great flexibility of development.

Sayre's strictly informational version of the doctrine as well as the ideas recently explored by Chalmers (protophenomenal properties) and Stoljar (o-physical properties) hint at the existence of a great variety of possible hypotheses about the nature of ultimate reality awaiting further exploration. The fixation on the hypothesis of the experiential, given-based, nature of ultimate reality, so characteristic of the mainstream versions of neutral monism, is thereby overcome. The discussion of the notion of neutrality (begun in the section â€œThe Neutral Entitiesâ€) provides additional evidence for the belief in the plasticity of the neutral monist framework. As additional notions of neutrality become available the number of candidates for inclusion in the domain of neutral entities may grow. And the exploration of the notions of construction and reduction may prove to be of even greater importance in turning neutral monism into a viable alternative.

In other words - there is actually scope for a way forward here - for those who are willing and interested to explore it.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For what reason is that then?

Are you implying that the solution is going to be found through physics. If you are, then my suggestion that you are a de facto materialist is supported, regardless of what a certain troll scrawled in an earlier post.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I see. If I think that the mind/body problem doesn't have an answer except insofar as any evidence we can uncover, that forces me to be a materialist (which I think you've agreed is an incoherent term). What does it force you to be when you make that claim?

You seem to be stating that you are "forced to be a materialist" by the fact that you think the only way it is possible to solve the mind-body problem is via physical science. So you are saying that your epistemological viewpoint has forced you into an ontological viewpoint, even though you think that that ontological viewpoint is incoherent. It suggests to me that there is something wrong with your epistemological viewpoint - since it requires you to accept an ontological position you have agreed is incoherent and unfixable. The problem stems from trying to apply scientific standards to philosophy, which simply doesn't work.

This leads to an extenstion of the debate I tried to have with Stimpson J Cat, but eventually gave up as a waste of time. The real implications of your viewpoint is that anything which can't be reduced to physical science is meaningless. He kept wobbling over whether ethics, aesthetics, economics and psychology were meaningless, unwilling to say that they were and unable to explain why there were not. Metaphysics comes into the same category that Stimpson couldn't really define. It's not reducable to physics, but it's not meaningless either. It simply depends for its meaning on things which aren't reducable to physics. I think your problem is the same as Stimpsons. You want to hold to an epistemological scientism. Yet you also already know that materialism and idealism are incoherent! How do you know this? It's not because science told you, that's for sure. It's because you thought hard about all the concepts involved and realised the theory didn't/couldn't make sense. So why is it impossible to take that process further?

In the world of philosophy, everyone shall subscribe to a metaphysic.

Not quite everyone. I have repeatedly mentioned the name of Richard Rorty. If you want a position which is truly consistent, but aims at where you are aiming, then I think your only option is Rortian pragmatism - a philosphical position which rejects BOTH ontology AND epistemology. It's really quite frustrating for me. I keep posting this link in the vain hope that people like yourself will actually go and read it, but they never do. :(

http://www.stanford.edu/~rrorty/pragmatistview.htm

Interesting Ian

28th June 2005, 12:08 PM

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
[B]Here's a pile of definitions of materialism. Note how they are all circular.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&biw=1094&q=define%3A+materialism&btnG=Search

My definition of materialism isn't circular.

Traditionally materialism was the thesis that everything that exists is matter. In present times, however, the notion of matter is considered to be a bit restrictive. We might tend to think of matter as stuff we can touch and see. But if matter is all that exists, then it follows that energy, gravity, and various exotic subatomic particles and so on, should also be considered to be matter. Consequently there is now a tendency to say that materialism simply means that everything that exists is physical. Furthermore that all change in the world can be wholly explained with reference to physical laws. Indeed, in acknowledgement of this, the word physicalism is sometimes used in place of the word materialism.

If materialism is the thesis that everything that exists is physical, then what does â€œphysicalâ€ mean? Traditionally it has been maintained that it is the fundamental â€˜stuffâ€™ of the world. So for example, it is everything we perceive through our five senses, such as tables, chairs and trees. But it is also those things we can only see by virtue of the use of instruments such as microscopes and so on which simply extend the range of things we are able to sense. Finally it also includes those things whose existence we cannot directly see at all, with or without the use of instruments, but whose existence we nevertheless feel we can confidently infer. An obvious example here are electrons. Nobody can directly see electrons, and arguably we could never see them in principle, but we can set up experiments and obtain results that are explicable if we imagine the existence of very small entities with certain properties. These entities we label electrons.

Materialists have also traditionally regarded physical things and processes as having a mind-independent existence. Thus objects exist whether or not we are looking at them, and even if the Universe had never given birth to any sentient creatures, that Universe and all it contains would still enjoy a â€˜full-bloodedâ€™ existence. This might appear to be belabouring the extremely obvious, but as we shall see in the Perception and Reality section (forthcoming), this commonsensical notion of reality can certainly be challenged.

So if everything is physical, this also entails that our minds are also entirely physical. In other words, that we are no different, at least in kind if not in complexity, from any other physical processes or things in the world.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

28th June 2005, 12:41 PM

Geoff said:
You seem to be stating that you are "forced to be a materialist" by the fact that you think the only way it is possible to solve the mind-body problem is via physical science.
I didn't state it, you did:
Are you implying that the solution is going to be found through physics. If you are, then my suggestion that you are a de facto materialist is supported, regardless of what a certain troll scrawled in an earlier post.

So you are saying that your epistemological viewpoint has forced you into an ontological viewpoint, even though you think that that ontological viewpoint is incoherent. It suggests to me that there is something wrong with your epistemological viewpoint - since it requires you to accept an ontological position you have agreed is incoherent and unfixable. The problem stems from trying to apply scientific standards to philosophy, which simply doesn't work.
I don't think my epistemological viewpoint forces an ontological position. That is what you implied up above.

Metaphysics comes into the same category that Stimpson couldn't really define. It's not reducable to physics, but it's not meaningless either. It simply depends for its meaning on things which aren't reducable to physics.
The metaphysical descriptions I read are meaningless to me. Your description of neutral monism isn't too bad because it doesn't say anything much. It seems rather like the null hypothesis of metaphysics.

You want to hold to an epistemological scientism. Yet you also already know that materialism and idealism are incoherent! How do you know this? It's not because science told you, that's for sure. It's because you thought hard about all the concepts involved and realised the theory didn't/couldn't make sense. So why is it impossible to take that process further?
I do. I say all metaphysics is incoherent. :D

Not quite everyone. I have repeatedly mentioned the name of Richard Rorty. If you want a position which is truly consistent, but aims at where you are aiming, then I think your only option is Rortian pragmatism - a philosphical position which rejects BOTH ontology AND epistemology. It's really quite frustrating for me. I keep posting this link in the vain hope that people like yourself will actually go and read it, but they never do.
I found a readable version of the paper and printed it.

"In this new world, we shall no longer think of either thought or language as containing representations of reality.
...
This description of the history of philosophy should, I think, be replaced by an account on which philosophers, like other intellectuals, make imaginative suggestions for redescription of the human situation; they offer new ways of talking about our hopes and fears, our ambitions and our prospects. Philosophical progress is thus not a matter of problems being solved, but of descriptions being improved."

Weird.

~~ Paul

Dr Adequate

28th June 2005, 12:56 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Right.....so that justifies you responding to me by going in with all three jackboots and calling me a moron, a liar and a fool, does it? Here, again, you are either a liar or a fool. You are either deliberately lying about what I wrote, or you were too stupid to understand it. Which? I think you saw yourself as one of the people I was talking about, even though I wasn't actually talking about you, Dr Adequate. Hit a raw nerve, did I? Certainly looks like it. By which, of course, this fatuous liar/clown means to say that I am one of the people he's talking about, despite the fact that my posts have made it quite clear I am not, and, indeed, that I don't believe that such people exist. How pathetic can you get?Oh really? I don't remember mentioning empiricism even once. Spin aside, what epistemological views do you ever see defended around here except empiricism?You put those words into my mouth. I didn't say them. I didn't mean them either. My quotations were accurate. If you didn't mean what you said, then you shouldn't have said it.Having a bad day in the office, Dr Adequate? Or do you just have a more general problem keeping your temper tantrums under control? Or could there be a third reason why I disagree with you, involving the stupidity festering in your posts? Well, no, of course not. Not in the happy land of JG's imagination. It is just as easy to invent emotions for the people who point out your errors as it is to invent opinions for them.
_____________________________

All this garbage aside, do you have one scrap of a shred of evidence that the rubbish in the post I originally criticised has any relationship to reality? Some tiny bit of factual content? I notice that in your half-baked innuendo, you did indeed name no names, and quote no quotations. And, challenged on this, you have still, for some reason, preferred not to do so.

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 01:11 PM

Paul

Weird.

Weird? Yeah, I suppose lots of people think Rorty is weird. Personally I think he is just very honest, very clever and very consistent. As a result, lots of people don't like him.

I honestly believe Rorty is defending the only position defendable by a would-be materialist who wants to dispose of metaphysics in a consistent way. He quotes Fine:

In support of realism there seem to be only those â€˜reasons of the heartâ€™ which, as Pascal says, reason does not know. Indeed, I have long felt that belief in realism involves a profound leap of faith, not at all dissimilar from the faith that animates deep religious convictionsâ€¦.. The dialogue will proceed more fruitfully, I think, when the realists finally stop pretending to a rational support for their faith, which they do not have. Then we can all enjoy their intricate and sometimes beautiful philosophical constructions (of, e.g., knowledge, or reference, etc.) even though to us, the nonbelievers, they may seem only wonder-full castles in the air

A similar viewpoint is expressed by Jonathan ReÃ©:

http://www.philosophers.co.uk/portal_article.php?id=6

'Listen,' RÃ©e goes on, 'everything that the 'friends of science' want to say about the extraordinary achievements and progress of the natural sciences, both in terms of knowledge and in terms of technique, all of these things can be said by someone who describes themselves as a "relativist" and there is no intelligible sense of relativism that would lead you to deny the reality of scientific progress.'

So what then about the absolute structure of the external-world? Does the contextual nature of all truth-claims mean that this structure is always beyond our reach?

'Well,' says RÃ©e, 'I don't think there is anything more satisfactory than invoking the Rorty move that I have already mentioned, which is to say that there is no real difference between talking in an upbeat way about getting to know more about the absolute structure of the world than talking in a more depressed kind of way about the possibilities of including more people in a conversation. It seems to me that they really come to the same thing. So the question becomes: how do the particular discourses of specialised sciences relate to other scientific discourses and to discourses outside science.

'If you're in a conversation with someone who is worried about having the absolute structure of the world taken away from them, then you need to make them see that what they're asking for refers to something that is more than any possible agreement in the future about how to look at the world can deliver. They keep saying that they want objectivity, but they don't actually need it, so the point is to close the gap and to say "You're worried about being deprived of something that actually you haven't got, and you wouldn't know if you had." It's a chimera, this thing that they're worried about having taken away from them.

'Imagine that we're talking with a scientist,' RÃ©e continues, 'worried about his work not being taken seriously - I think that we're paying all the respect that a scientist could dream that we'd pay to the scientific enterprise if we say that relative to human discourses, science improves the knowledge and control we have over things that matter to us. Of course, you can say "Well, it does that because it tells us the truth about the objective structure of the world" - and that's fine, you can say that.'

But if that is what RÃ©e thinks is going on in scientific discourses, that they are telling us truths about the objective structure of the world, then surely that is a realist position, it is not some kind of half-way house position?

'Yes,' admits RÃ©e, 'that is what I'm saying. So rather than "Neither a realist nor an anti-realist be", perhaps I should say, "Neither an anti-realist nor an anti anti-realist be!"'

You cannot escape from the realist/anti-realist debate or the materialist/idealist debate whilst still trying to hold on to one side of the dualism at the expense of the other.

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 01:26 PM

Here, again, you are either a liar or a fool......

And you aren't worth responding to. You are the sort of person who actually provides support for lifegazer's claims about the attitudes of people on this site. It's a sort of sneering superiority, laced with an unhealthy dose of anger and resentment but a complete abscence of any actual arguments.

Fortunately for me I can simply put you on ignore, since there is not much risk that anything you post will actually represent a substantial challenge to anything I post.

See ya. ;)

Dr Adequate

28th June 2005, 01:35 PM

Originally posted by Dr Adequate
All this garbage aside, do you have one scrap of a shred of evidence that the rubbish in the post I originally criticised has any relationship to reality? Some tiny bit of factual content? I notice that in your half-baked innuendo, you did indeed name no names, and quote no quotations. And, challenged on this, you have still, for some reason, preferred not to do so. Well, if I'm going to ask for evidence to support his lies, what can JG do but declare that I am suffering from an "abscence" of arguments, and lie his little guts out by saying that there is "not much risk that anything you post will actually represent a substantial challenge to anything I post", while running whimpering away from the substantial challenge I've posed to his witless post.

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 01:51 PM

Dr Adequate

This person is on your Ignore List. To view this post click [here]

Just a clarification: You went on ignore because of your attitude towards me. I have no intention of reading any more of your posts, because it is almost impossible to do so without being dragged down to your level, and I have no intention of going there. I will allow you a few days to calm down, and then I will take you back off ignore and see whether next time you are capable of challenging me without trying turn it into a pub brawl.

In future, if you actually want to challenge me on a substantive point, and you actually want me to respond to that challenge then leave out the snarling attitude, the jackboots and the personal insults. Otherwise you'll just go straight back on ignore, regardless of whether or not anything you have posted actually deserves a response. I am simply not interested in talking to someone who goes off the deep-end, with little or no provocation, like you did in this thread (BillHoyt syndrome). There is simply no point in doing so.

Dr Adequate

28th June 2005, 01:54 PM

hammegk

28th June 2005, 03:15 PM

Originally posted by Dr Adequate
....Can you say what observable properties an thing would have to exhibit for us not to consider it to be made of the fundamental stuff of the world ...
Of course not. Hi, monist. :p

--- whatever that is?

Unfortunately, that remains the subject being discussed.
:)

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

28th June 2005, 05:00 PM

Geoff said:
Weird? Yeah, I suppose lots of people think Rorty is weird. Personally I think he is just very honest, very clever and very consistent. As a result, lots of people don't like him.
Consistent? First he says that we should not suppose that thought or language represents reality. Then he suggests that philosophers can offer new ways of thinking about the human condition. I suppose, as long as you don't mind that the new ways of thinking have nothing to do with reality. Seems he's suggesting that philosophers are just intellectual fiction writers.

You cannot escape from the realist/anti-realist debate or the materialist/idealist debate whilst still trying to hold on to one side of the dualism at the expense of the other.
This is the sort of statement I don't understand. How am I holding on to one side at the expense of the other?

~~ Paul

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

28th June 2005, 05:04 PM

Dr. A. said:
What you need is some sort of a priori definition of "physical", or "material".
And another of "mental" or "ideal." Then maybe we could understand the difference. Right now it seems like an arbitrary subsetting operation.

~~ Paul

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 05:07 PM

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

My definition of materialism isn't circular.

Traditionally materialism was the thesis that everything that exists is matter. In present times, however, the notion of matter is considered to be a bit restrictive. We might tend to think of matter as stuff we can touch and see. But if matter is all that exists, then it follows that energy, gravity, and various exotic subatomic particles and so on, should also be considered to be matter. Consequently there is now a tendency to say that materialism simply means that everything that exists is physical. Furthermore that all change in the world can be wholly explained with reference to physical laws. Indeed, in acknowledgement of this, the word physicalism is sometimes used in place of the word materialism.

If materialism is the thesis that everything that exists is physical, then what does â€œphysicalâ€ mean? Traditionally it has been maintained that it is the fundamental â€˜stuffâ€™ of the world. So for example, it is everything we perceive through our five senses, such as tables, chairs and trees. But it is also those things we can only see by virtue of the use of instruments such as microscopes and so on which simply extend the range of things we are able to sense. Finally it also includes those things whose existence we cannot directly see at all, with or without the use of instruments, but whose existence we nevertheless feel we can confidently infer. An obvious example here are electrons. Nobody can directly see electrons, and arguably we could never see them in principle, but we can set up experiments and obtain results that are explicable if we imagine the existence of very small entities with certain properties. These entities we label electrons.

Materialists have also traditionally regarded physical things and processes as having a mind-independent existence. Thus objects exist whether or not we are looking at them, and even if the Universe had never given birth to any sentient creatures, that Universe and all it contains would still enjoy a â€˜full-bloodedâ€™ existence. This might appear to be belabouring the extremely obvious, but as we shall see in the Perception and Reality section (forthcoming), this commonsensical notion of reality can certainly be challenged.

So if everything is physical, this also entails that our minds are also entirely physical. In other words, that we are no different, at least in kind if not in complexity, from any other physical processes or things in the world. [/B]

This does indeed seem to be a description of materialism, and I don't see why it is circular. It just contains a screwy definition of what a mind is, from my POV. I'm not sure that definitions of materialism and idealism are "circular" as Paul says they are. I prefer to describe them as dualistic metaphysics which crudely chop off one half of the dualism. But I probably sympathise more with the sort of idealist position consistently defended by hammegk, which relies on the simple observation that if you have to choose one of these things, you might as well choose the one you are directly aware of, since to me this seems the hardest of the two to deny from an existential point of view, and for me the existential point of view I am actually confined within takes precedence over anything implied by science - which I see as only a subset of a wider set of experiences and sources of information.

UndercoverElephant

28th June 2005, 05:22 PM

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Consistent? First he says that we should not suppose that thought or language represents reality.

Yes, he is an anti-representationalist. Whatever thoughts and language do, they are incapable of providing a perfect "mirror or reality". His most important book is called "philosophy and the mirror of nature", and it's point is to claim that no philosophical position can ever provide a perfect model of "real reality". He wants to move to a new era of philosophy which is characterised as "philosophy without mirrors". It's a concept which loaded with multiple meanings.

Then he suggests that philosophers can offer new ways of thinking about the human condition.

That is because the human condition depends on the condition of humanity, and not the ultimate nature of reality. Rorty is a pragmatist. Having spent quite a long time talking to you over the past few years, I think you are naturally also a pragmatist, and I think if you read his book you would like it.

I suppose, as long as you don't mind that the new ways of thinking have nothing to do with reality. Seems he's suggesting that philosophers are just intellectual fiction writers.

No....unless you think that everything which isn't reducable to physics is "fictional".

This is the sort of statement I don't understand. How am I holding on to one side at the expense of the other?

Maybe you aren't. But then you rejected my claim that you should really call yourself a naturalist, which makes me think you are.

Dr Adequate

28th June 2005, 05:23 PM

Originally posted by hammegk
Of course not. Hi, monist. :p You're missing the point. As usual. The problem is that Ian's defintion of "material" by way of "physical" does indeed seem to be monist --- at the cost of defining "material" more or less as "stuff which exists", at which point (a) materialism is right by definition (b) materialism has no content.Unfortunately, that remains the subject being discussed.
:) Since this is philosophy, the question of whether the question is meaningful must also be discussed.

Dr Adequate

28th June 2005, 05:26 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
But then you rejected my claim that you should really call yourself a naturalist, which makes me think you are. Why bother having opinions of your own when JG can invent them for you?

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

28th June 2005, 05:55 PM

Geoff said:
No....unless you think that everything which isn't reducable to physics is "fictional".
I don't think that, but he just got through saying that we shouldn't think of our thoughts or language as representing reality. Perhaps by "reality" he means "the ultimate ontological reality." If that's what he means, I'm certainly in agreement.

I've read the first few pages of Rorty's paper. He's a good writer and I've enjoyed it so far. It's a tad Postmodern "all ways of knowing are equally valid" for my taste, but interesting nonetheless.

"A fully humanist culture ... will emerge only when the we discard the question "Do I know the real object, or only one of its appearances?" and replace it with the question "Am I using the best possible description of the situation in which I find myself, or can I cobble together a better one?"

This seems the crux of the matter. To me, he's suggesting we discard ontology (real object) and replace it with epistemology (best possible description). However, finding the best possible description is a search for knowledge. This will lead to certain ways of knowing being preferred over others because they result in more universally satisfying descriptions. I don't see how he can avoid either preferred ways of knowing or the utter chaos of every individual having different descriptions (which certainly wouldn't lead to a pleasant humanist culture).

I get the feeling he likes science just fine, but he doesn't want it to have a special status. Trouble is, the reason science works at all is because if its unique way of knowing.

~~ Paul

69dodge

28th June 2005, 07:00 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
We don't experience any "information" - not in the sense we experience mind and matter. I think the best way of answering your question here is to point to mathematics and zero again. Your question translates to: "Why to we have positive numbers and negative numbers but not xxxxxxative numberx?" Why is our number scale dualistically symmetrical around 0 instead of triplicateley symmetrical? Seems like an absurd question to me. 0 = 1 + -1. That is a dualism. Why not "0 = 1 + -1 + %1"? I don't know how to answer you question except to say that most people don't ask it. What would the %1 represent? :con2:I don't see how matter vs. mind has anything to do with positive vs. negative numbers.

The three complex cube roots of unity add up to zero, just as 1 and -1 do.

Zero is neither positive nor negative, and it's a number too.

You can find lots of dualisms if you look around, but that's just because it's such a general concept. All those dualisms aren't necessarily related to each other in any fundamental way.

c4ts

28th June 2005, 10:18 PM

Whoever said mathematics had anything to do with materialism?

Perhaps Ian, but he's usually way off.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

29th June 2005, 05:58 AM

Geoff, I read the paper last evening. Quite interesting. It seems to me that Rorty is saying:

Metaphysics has been unable to come up with a description of "the way things are" that is satisfactory to a large number of philosophers.

Therefore, ontology is a hopeless enterprise and we should abandon it. I'm with him so far. :D

However, from there he goes on to assume:

There is also no way to come up with a reasonable description of "the way things appear to be."

And so suggests we also abandon epistemology and declare all ways of knowing equal. I believe the history of "ways of knowing" show this assumption not to be valid.

"To stop dividing culture into the hard and the soft areas would be to cease to draw up two lists: the longer containing nominalizations of every term used as the subject of a sentence and the shorter containing all the things there are on heaven and earth."

There is a longing in this sentence that I think may be borne of an aching fatigue.

~~ Paul

Dr Adequate

29th June 2005, 06:00 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Dr Adequate

Just a clarification: You went on ignore because of your attitude towards me. I have no intention of reading any more of your posts, because it is almost impossible to do so without being dragged down to your level, and I have no intention of going there. I will allow you a few days to calm down, and then I will take you back off ignore and see whether next time you are capable of challenging me without trying turn it into a pub brawl.

In future, if you actually want to challenge me on a substantive point, and you actually want me to respond to that challenge then leave out the snarling attitude, the jackboots and the personal insults. Otherwise you'll just go straight back on ignore, regardless of whether or not anything you have posted actually deserves a response. I am simply not interested in talking to someone who goes off the deep-end, with little or no provocation, like you did in this thread (BillHoyt syndrome). There is simply no point in doing so. What a delightful blend of self-importance and self-pity.

UndercoverElephant

29th June 2005, 06:08 AM

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

"A fully humanist culture ... will emerge only when the we discard the question "Do I know the real object, or only one of its appearances?" and replace it with the question "Am I using the best possible description of the situation in which I find myself, or can I cobble together a better one?"

This seems the crux of the matter. To me, he's suggesting we discard ontology (real object) and replace it with epistemology (best possible description).

No no no! :)

It is essential for Rorty that he abandons epistemology at the same time he abandons ontology - otherwise he risks ending up in the sort of position you find yourself in (where your epistemological view "forces" an ontological view).

However, finding the best possible description is a search for knowledge. This will lead to certain ways of knowing being preferred over others because they result in more universally satisfying descriptions.....

Rorty has a coherentist theory of truth. He absolutely wishes to avoid the sort of reasoning you are talking about here, because of the problems it leads to.

I don't see how he can avoid either preferred ways of knowing or the utter chaos of every individual having different descriptions (which certainly wouldn't lead to a pleasant humanist culture).

The chaos is avoided by coherentism. This is directly relevant to what you have been saying in this post:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-coherence/

Coherentist Theories of Justification

Coherentism is a view about the structure of justification or knowledge. The coherentist's thesis is normally formulated in terms of a denial of its contrary foundationalism. Coherentism thus claims, minimally, that not all knowledge and justified belief rest ultimately on a foundation of noninferential knowledge or justified belief.

This negative construal of coherentism occurs because of the prominence of the regress problem in the history of epistemology, and the long-held assumption that only foundationalism provides an adequate, non-skeptical solution to that problem. After responding to the regress problem by denying foundationalism, coherentists normally characterize their view positively by replacing the foundationalism metaphor of a building as a model for the structure of knowledge with different metaphors, such as the metaphor which models our knowledge on a ship at sea whose seaworthiness must be ensured by repairs to any part in need of it. Coherentists typically hold that justification is solely a function of some relationship between beliefs, none of which are privileged beliefs in the way maintained by foundationlists, with different varieties of coherentism individuated by the specific relationship among beliefs appealed to by that version.

Basically, you are trying to defend some sort of foundationalism, which basically amounts to a scientific/materialistic sort of foundationalism. And you are suggesting that without such a foundation, chaos would ensue. Rorty doesn't just reject scientific foundationalism - he rejects all foundationalism. He has no single foundation to his knowledge.

This is also relevant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherentism

The main criticism facing coherentism is probably simplest to state from the point of view of someone who holds to the correspondence theory of truth. It is that there is no obvious way in which a coherent system relates to anything that might exist outside of it. So, it may be possible to construct a coherent theory of the world, which does not correspond to what actually occurs in the world. In other words, it appears to be entirely possible to develop a system that is entirely coherent and yet entirely untrue.

It is surprisingly difficult to even state the problem from the point of view of a coherentist, because the phrase "correspond to reality" has a different meaning in a Coherentist system. For a Coherentist, reality is exactly the entire coherent system. It is simply not possible for a coherent theory not to correspond to reality, if reality is the very same thing as the entire coherent system.

Put another way, coherentists might reply to the critic that any substantial system that was not true would by definition contain some contradictions, and so be incoherent.

Paul posted:

I get the feeling he likes science just fine, but he doesn't want it to have a special status. Trouble is, the reason science works at all is because if its unique way of knowing.

It's not that he "doesn't want it" to have a special status. The problem is that he knows all too well the problems associated with trying to defend the claim that it deserves a special status. He would view your claim as a claim that science gives us some sort of "absolute truth", and his response would be that there is no such thing.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/

2. Against Epistemology

2.3 Rationality, Science, and Truth
Attacking the idea that we must acknowledge the world's normative constraint on our belief-systems if we are to be rational subjects, Rorty has drawn a great deal of criticism that takes science, particularly natural science, as its chief reference point. Two general kinds of criticisms are often raised. The first insists that science consists precisely in the effort to learn the truth about how things are by methodically allowing us to be constrained in our beliefs by the world. On this view, Rorty is simply denying the very idea of science. The other kind of criticism seeks to be internal: if Rorty's view of science were to prevail, scientists would no longer be motivated to carry on as they are; science would cease to be the useful sort of thing that Rorty also thinks it is (see, eg., Bernard Williams, "Auto da Fe" in Malachowski). However, Rorty's view of science is more complicated than he himself sometimes implies. He says: "I tend to view natural science as in the business of controlling and predicting things, and as largely useless for philosophical purposes." ("Reply to Hartshorne," Saatkamp 32) Yet he spends a good deal of time drawing an alternative picture of the intellectual virtues that good science embodies (ORT Part I). This is a picture which eschews the notion that science succeeds, when it does, in virtue of being in touch with reality in a special way, the sort of way that epistemologists, when successful, can clarify. It is in this sense specifically that Rorty disavows science as philosophically significant. Good science may nevertheless be a model of rationality, in Rorty's view, exactly in so far as scientific practice has succeeded in establishing institutions conducive to democratic exchange of view.

[continues....]

Rorty is a person who clearly has what might be called "naturalistic" or "atheistic" tendencies, but he is also somebody who is acutely aware of the pitfalls that continually haunt people trying to coherently defend that sort of viewpoint. Specifically, he is acutely aware of the problems caused by people making subjectivist arguments. There is almost a continual repetition of those subjectivist arguments on this board. I spent two years making them myself, Ian makes them, lifegazer tries to make them... And I think that there are a lot of exasperated people trying to resist and deny the guts of those arguments, usually by resorting to epistemological arguments which, IMO, simply don't work. What is different about Rorty is that he has accepted that you can't ignore or defuse those subjectivist arguments so instead of committing himself to fighting a battle he knows he can't win he uses an entirely different strategy which takes on board the subjectivist arguments, and neutralises them. In doing so, he has to reject both foundationalism and representationalism and replace them with coherentism and anti-representationalism. The down-side to this, which has clearly not escaped you, is that Rorty ends up being a postmodernist. This is the price he pays for wanting a truly coherent belief system, instead of one which is built on a priviledged foundation which eventually ends up being impossible to coherently defend. The problem with foundationalism is that you end up being forced to defend the foundation, and there's usually no way to do it which actually works. The only way to avoid this problem is to not have a foundation at all.

UndercoverElephant

29th June 2005, 06:24 AM

Originally posted by 69dodge

I don't see how matter vs. mind has anything to do with positive vs. negative numbers.

They are both dualisms.

The three complex cube roots of unity add up to zero, just as 1 and -1 do.

OK, I am afraid I am not a mathematician, so I can't comment on this.

Zero is neither positive nor negative, and it's a number too.

Well, that is highly debatable. I know quite a few people, one of them a maths teacher, who would say that zero is not a normal number at all, but some kind of infinity.

You can find lots of dualisms if you look around, but that's just because it's such a general concept. All those dualisms aren't necessarily related to each other in any fundamental way.

Well, perhaps that comes down to a matter of opinion. Personally, I think they are indeed related to each other. I think it is a fundamental feature of existence. It exists everywhere from mathematics and ontology to Hegel's dialectical metaphysics and Newtonian mechanics. I can't prove this deductively - I have to rely on inductivism - what I see is a repeating pattern.

UndercoverElephant

29th June 2005, 06:35 AM

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
[B]Geoff, I read the paper last evening. Quite interesting. It seems to me that Rorty is saying:

Metaphysics has been unable to come up with a description of "the way things are" that is satisfactory to a large number of philosophers.

Therefore, ontology is a hopeless enterprise and we should abandon it. I'm with him so far. :D

Yes, this is certainly part of his position. Although if you read his book I think you'd be surprised how close he comes to arguing for a sort of eliminative materialism without actually doing it.

However, from there he goes on to assume:

There is also no way to come up with a reasonable description of "the way things appear to be."

And so suggests we also abandon epistemology and declare all ways of knowing equal. I believe the history of "ways of knowing" show this assumption not to be valid.

"To stop dividing culture into the hard and the soft areas would be to cease to draw up two lists: the longer containing nominalizations of every term used as the subject of a sentence and the shorter containing all the things there are on heaven and earth."

There is a longing in this sentence that I think may be borne of an aching fatigue.

Yes, Rorty is a man who has carried a heavy intellectual burden. He is a deeply controversial figure in 20th century philosophy. Not least because his claim amounts to the death of analytical philosophy - but it is only dead for people who properly understand what killed it. He is deeply unpopular amongst the faculty at my Uni. When I mentioned his name at my interview last year there was a doubletake and a sharp intake of breath from both of the people interviewing me. Their response was "Rorty's position is not very popular in the staff room." Not surprising, really. :)

By trying to defend an epistemologically-priviledged status for science, he would view your position as a misguided attempt to wake the dead.

But thankyou for reading the paper, and I'm glad you liked at least some of it.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

29th June 2005, 08:21 AM

Geoff said:
It is essential for Rorty that he abandons epistemology at the same time he abandons ontology - otherwise he risks ending up in the sort of position you find yourself in (where your epistemological view "forces" an ontological view).
I understand that he wants to abandon epistemology, but I don't see how he can if he wants to "use the best possible description of the situation."

Rorty has a coherentist theory of truth. He absolutely wishes to avoid the sort of reasoning you are talking about here, because of the problems it leads to.

The Wikipedia entry for coherentism begins:

"Coherentism is belief in the coherence theory of justification --- an epistemological theory opposing foundationalism and offering a solution to the regress argument. In this epistemological capacity, it is a theory about how belief can be justified. Coherentism also refers to the coherence theory of truth."

How is Rorty escaping epistemology?

"It is surprisingly difficult to even state the problem from the point of view of a coherentist, because the phrase "correspond to reality" has a different meaning in a Coherentist system. For a Coherentist, reality is exactly the entire coherent system. It is simply not possible for a coherent theory not to correspond to reality, if reality is the very same thing as the entire coherent system."

There is still an epistemological basis here, namely that we know things by building a coherent system describing those things. Perhaps it is not truly an epistemology because it makes no claim to correspond to any objective reality?

It's not that he "doesn't want it" to have a special status. The problem is that he knows all too well the problems associated with trying to defend the claim that it deserves a special status. He would view your claim as a claim that science gives us some sort of "absolute truth", and his response would be that there is no such thing.
But science makes no claim to absolute truth. It only claims to be a certain replicable method of constructing a model of what we experience. In fact, it seems to me that science tries to construct a coherent system just along the lines that Rorty suggests.

The down-side to this, which has clearly not escaped you, is that Rorty ends up being a postmodernist. This is the price he pays for wanting a truly coherent belief system, instead of one which is built on a priviledged foundation which eventually ends up being impossible to coherently defend. The problem with foundationalism is that you end up being forced to defend the foundation, and there's usually no way to do it which actually works. The only way to avoid this problem is to not have a foundation at all.

I do not understand how Rorty thinks we can construct any coherent system without starting with some foundational assumptions. How would we start? Is it a project to create an elaborate fiction movie with lots of people acting as continuity checkers?

~~ Paul

UndercoverElephant

29th June 2005, 11:46 AM

Hi Paul

How is Rorty escaping epistemology?

By having more than one way of looking at the world, none of which takes precedence over the other, but all of which must fit together coherently.

"It is surprisingly difficult to even state the problem from the point of view of a coherentist, because the phrase "correspond to reality" has a different meaning in a Coherentist system. For a Coherentist, reality is exactly the entire coherent system. It is simply not possible for a coherent theory not to correspond to reality, if reality is the very same thing as the entire coherent system."

There is still an epistemological basis here, namely that we know things by building a coherent system describing those things. Perhaps it is not truly an epistemology because it makes no claim to correspond to any objective reality?

Correct. In fact Rorty refuses to acknowledge that the word "objective" really means anything at all. There is only "inter-subjective agreement". He also refuses to use the word "relativism".

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's not that he "doesn't want it" to have a special status. The problem is that he knows all too well the problems associated with trying to defend the claim that it deserves a special status. He would view your claim as a claim that science gives us some sort of "absolute truth", and his response would be that there is no such thing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But science makes no claim to absolute truth. It only claims to be a certain replicable method of constructing a model of what we experience. In fact, it seems to me that science tries to construct a coherent system just along the lines that Rorty suggests.

In a way, this is true. But the problem is that it doesn't make any effort to be coherent with things outside the domain of science - to the point where many people around here end up having great difficulty explaining how scientific knowledge can be related to non-scientific knowledge. For Rorty, science doesn't just have to be coherent with itself. It has to be coherent with everything else as well - and if science becomes inextricably entangled with materialism then it cannot do this, for reasons which all the participants in these debates must be very well aware of by now.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The down-side to this, which has clearly not escaped you, is that Rorty ends up being a postmodernist. This is the price he pays for wanting a truly coherent belief system, instead of one which is built on a priviledged foundation which eventually ends up being impossible to coherently defend. The problem with foundationalism is that you end up being forced to defend the foundation, and there's usually no way to do it which actually works. The only way to avoid this problem is to not have a foundation at all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not understand how Rorty thinks we can construct any coherent system without starting with some foundational assumptions. How would we start? Is it a project to create an elaborate fiction movie with lots of people acting as continuity checkers?

You could use the following analogy:

Foundationalism is like building one large tower, climbing to the top and surveying all that is around you. Coherentism is like building many towers, climbing to the top of all of them, and combining all the different views from the many towers. So, yes, you do need to start with some foundational assumptions in order to build the "many towers", but you do not have to rely on any single set of foundational assumptions. Once you have your coherentist view of the land, the combined view from the many towers, it no longer matters if the foundations of one particular tower need to be reviewed or replaced or accepted as faulty or limited. In fact, ones worldview can even survive the complete destruction of individual towers. The foundationalist, by contrast, has all of his eggs in one basket. His one tower might afford a great view of some parts of the land, but other parts are too far a way for him to see. Worse, the foundations of his one tower are the foundations of his entire system of knowledge and any threat to those foundations is a threat to bring down his entire system of knowledge and leave him with nothing at all. As a result, when those foundations are challenged (for whatever reason) the foundationalist will usually lose all interest in anything other than the defence of those foundations. He will defend them at all costs, and one of those costs is an inability to properly see or understand things which can only be understood if you have an unobscured view from one of the other towers.

Iacchus

29th June 2005, 12:24 PM

Sounds much more like holism.

hammegk

29th June 2005, 12:48 PM

JustGeoff, could you comment on what Rorty's 'towers' might have as bases -- that do not collapse to one of the two Cartesian viewpoints?

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

29th June 2005, 12:51 PM

Geoff said:
By having more than one way of looking at the world, none of which takes precedence over the other, but all of which must fit together coherently.
I don't see how that does anything but make his (meta)epistemology more complex.

Correct. In fact Rorty refuses to acknowledge that the word "objective" really means anything at all. There is only "inter-subjective agreement". He also refuses to use the word "relativism".
Then I have a suggestion. Given that we have dumped ontology, epistemology no longer refers to anything absolute. So we can use it to refer to all the ways of knowing that Rorty wants to utilize. Without ontology, epistemology really is only inter-subjective agreement. (But I still think some of those ways of knowing will produce a lot more agreement than others.)

In a way, this is true. But the problem is that it doesn't make any effort to be coherent with things outside the domain of science - to the point where many people around here end up having great difficulty explaining how scientific knowledge can be related to non-scientific knowledge. For Rorty, science doesn't just have to be coherent with itself. It has to be coherent with everything else as well - and if science becomes inextricably entangled with materialism then it cannot do this, for reasons which all the participants in these debates must be very well aware of by now.
I'm not sure how we're going to make "the earth orbits the sun" coherent with "the sun orbits the earth" unless we say something completely silly like "they are coherent in that they are two opposing viewpoints that pople hold."

In his angst over this issue, I think Rorty might throw out the baby with the metaphysical water.

~~ Paul

UndercoverElephant

29th June 2005, 01:11 PM

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I'm not sure how we're going to make "the earth orbits the sun" coherent with "the sun orbits the earth" unless we say something completely silly like "they are coherent in that they are two opposing viewpoints that pople hold."

Yeah, but you've chosen a silly example. Not many people are going to be able to incorporate "the sun orbits the earth" into a coherent system of knowledge. The relevant examples aren't nonsense-science but things like the human sciences and the arts - especially things like philosophy and psychology.

The difference is that the foundationalist (be he a materialist or be he an insane idealist like lifegazer) is limited to interpreting everything he encounters within the boundaries of the framework of his foundation. Everything else is rejected, resisted, ignored or attacked. So large swathes of philosophy and the human sciences end up being meaningless - or at the very least completely disconnected from any "secure knowledge". A coherentist doesn't have any such problem.

Perhaps Rorty's position looks unneccesary to you - but you are thinking like a scientist and Rorty is a philosopher (even if he's a bit of an odd philosopher). I mean...isn't it clear that a foundationalist is forced to think inside a box, whereas a coherentist is not? The foundationalist will always try to argue that it's a very good box to think inside - perhaps the only box worth thinking inside.....but he remains stuck in his box.

UndercoverElephant

29th June 2005, 01:20 PM

Paul

I have to go out now, so this is my last post.....

The odd thing about talking to you about this is that you seem to be half way between rejecting foundationalism and accepting coherentism. The classic characterisation of the debate between the two is as follows:

The foundationalist accuses the coherentist of having a knowledge-system which has no foundation.

The coherentist accuses the foundationalist of having a knowledge-system which is incoherent.

Yet you have already acknowledged that the two most commonly accepted foundations (materialism and idealism) are incoherent! From this POV, you sound like you ought to be a coherentist. Yet, when push comes to shove, you turn to epistemology and end up with a knowledge-system that looks almost exactly like materialism and end up being a foundationalist-by-proxy.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

29th June 2005, 03:47 PM

Geoff said:
Yeah, but you've chosen a silly example. Not many people are going to be able to incorporate "the sun orbits the earth" into a coherent system of knowledge. The relevant examples aren't nonsense-science but things like the human sciences and the arts - especially things like philosophy and psychology.
But even to decide if it's coherent requires some epistemological framework! Without one, I could reject logic itself and claim that both statements can be true at once.

I must not understand what philosophers mean by epistemology.

The difference is that the foundationalist (be he a materialist or be he an insane idealist like lifegazer) is limited to interpreting everything he encounters within the boundaries of the framework of his foundation. Everything else is rejected, resisted, ignored or attacked. So large swathes of philosophy and the human sciences end up being meaningless - or at the very least completely disconnected from any "secure knowledge". A coherentist doesn't have any such problem.
I don't understand what you're saying. The foundational framework can be quite general, as it is with scientific epistemology and no underlying metaphysic. Or does the foundational framework necessarily entail ontology? If so, then I am a coherentist since I reject ontology.

Perhaps Rorty's position looks unneccesary to you - but you are thinking like a scientist and Rorty is a philosopher (even if he's a bit of an odd philosopher). I mean...isn't it clear that a foundationalist is forced to think inside a box, whereas a coherentist is not? The foundationalist will always try to argue that it's a very good box to think inside - perhaps the only box worth thinking inside.....but he remains stuck in his box.
But a coherent system of knowledge will require a box, too. If I truly want no box at all, then I have to say that anything goes, which is just silly.

Yet you have already acknowledged that the two most commonly accepted foundations (materialism and idealism) are incoherent! From this POV, you sound like you ought to be a coherentist. Yet, when push comes to shove, you turn to epistemology and end up with a knowledge-system that looks almost exactly like materialism and end up being a foundationalist-by-proxy.
If this is so, then non-materialists are rejecting more than simply the idea that everything is made up from some "physical material." All I'm suggesting for an epistemology is something like "everything real can be described according to consistent rules that can be determined through observation of effects." I'm not sure what we can ease up in those axioms without also dooming Rorty's coherent system project.

Perhaps Rorty sees science as having a much more complicated ontologyical/epistemological basis, and so sees science as being in a tight box. I don't think science is as boxed in as he does.

This is interesting because it brings home the constant debate about whether skeptics reject claim X because it clashes with their metaphysic, or simply because the evidence is not convincing. I think it is most often the latter.

~~ Paul

UndercoverElephant

29th June 2005, 05:47 PM

Hi Paul

But even to decide if it's coherent requires some epistemological framework! Without one, I could reject logic itself and claim that both statements can be true at once.

I must not understand what philosophers mean by epistemology.

I don't think that the law of non-contradiction counts as epistemology, no. Rorty certainly doesn't include it as such.

At it's core, I think that the law of non-contradiction falls under the category of ontology of logic. It certainly feeds into other areas of philosophy: logic, metaphysics and epistemology being the obvious cases. And you might be surprised at the number of philosophers who even reject the law of non-contradiction. If pushed, I might even have to count myself as one of them.....

But Rorty can certainly get away with adhering to the law of non-contradiction without being accused of "indulging in epistemology".

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The difference is that the foundationalist (be he a materialist or be he an insane idealist like lifegazer) is limited to interpreting everything he encounters within the boundaries of the framework of his foundation. Everything else is rejected, resisted, ignored or attacked. So large swathes of philosophy and the human sciences end up being meaningless - or at the very least completely disconnected from any "secure knowledge". A coherentist doesn't have any such problem.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't understand what you're saying. The foundational framework can be quite general, as it is with scientific epistemology and no underlying metaphysic. Or does the foundational framework necessarily entail ontology?

Is "scientific epistemology" really general? Seems quite specific to me.

Foundationalism doesn't neccesarily entail ontology. It just usually does entail ontology. The basic definition of foundationalism is any system of epistemic justification which relies on a certain set of "basic beliefs" which serve as a foundation for other beliefs. Materialism and Idealism are just the most obvious and most commonly held "basic beliefs" and, somewhat paradoxically, believers of both systems hold their "basic beliefs" to self-evident.

Having said all that...

http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/articles/miedema.html

Postmodern View, Pedagogy, and the Future

What needs to be done in order to overcome the postmodern predicament? From a pedagogical point of view we should, in line with Rorty, avoid every foundationalism related to ontology and epistemology and plead for a renewed attention for value orientation and ethics.

So its possible to be a foundationalist whose foundational beliefs are neither ontological nor epistemological. You clearly aren't an ontological foundationalist, but you probably are some sort of epistemological foundationalist and because of the epistemological viewpoint you have adopted it is effectively the same as materialistic foundationalism. Any scientific foundationalism is practicaly indistinguishable from materialistic foundationalism, from my POV. At least, science would need to evolve quite considerably before a scientific foundationalist could manage to avoid being a materialist foundationalist in everything but name.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps Rorty's position looks unneccesary to you - but you are thinking like a scientist and Rorty is a philosopher (even if he's a bit of an odd philosopher). I mean...isn't it clear that a foundationalist is forced to think inside a box, whereas a coherentist is not? The foundationalist will always try to argue that it's a very good box to think inside - perhaps the only box worth thinking inside.....but he remains stuck in his box.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But a coherent system of knowledge will require a box, too. If I truly want no box at all, then I have to say that anything goes, which is just silly.

That's not true. "Anything goes" was Feyerabends light-hearted quip about what constitutes an historically-accurate description of what makes science science. It certainly isn't true of coherentist theories of justification, because "anything goes" includes things which aren't coherent. It's not a box. The limitations on the coherentist are simply that all the knowledge he has accumulated, from all the different "towers", fits together as a coherent whole with no contradictions. This is in fact not an easy trick to pull off. It's actually quite restrictive. Personally, I have considerable difficulty pulling it off, which is why I hinted that if pushed I might even reject the law of non-contradiction. But the coherentist doesn't have a "box" in the way that a foundationalist does, because the coherentist has no "basic beliefs" which aren't justified by other beliefs. For the coherentist, every belief must be justified by it's coherency with all the others. For the foundationalist, the "basic beliefs" aren't justified at all - because they are supposedly "self-evident".

So if the question is "Is Paul a foundationalist?" then I have to ask you "Do you have some basic beliefs upon which all the other are built, or do you belief that everything you believe has to be supported by everything else you believe? If the answer is yes (to the former), then what are those basic beliefs?"

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet you have already acknowledged that the two most commonly accepted foundations (materialism and idealism) are incoherent! From this POV, you sound like you ought to be a coherentist. Yet, when push comes to shove, you turn to epistemology and end up with a knowledge-system that looks almost exactly like materialism and end up being a foundationalist-by-proxy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If this is so, then non-materialists are rejecting more than simply the idea that everything is made up from some "physical material." All I'm suggesting for an epistemology is something like "everything real can be described according to consistent rules that can be determined through observation of effects."

I think this just leads to questions about what you mean by "observation of effects". I suspect you would define "observation" differently to me. This is where my debates with SJC tend to break down - every time he claims it is possible to "observe somebody-else's mind". He has defined subjective experiences as brain processes and then claims he can observe a mind by observing the brain processes. If you would agree with that sort of claim then I think your epistemology ends up being ontology - because of the way you define "observe" and other words. For me, the only thing I observe is the contents of my own mind. Everything else is inferred, intuited or deduced.

I'm not sure what we can ease up in those axioms without also dooming Rorty's coherent system project.

Perhaps Rorty sees science as having a much more complicated ontologyical/epistemological basis, and so sees science as being in a tight box. I don't think science is as boxed in as he does.

This is interesting because it brings home the constant debate about whether skeptics reject claim X because it clashes with their metaphysic, or simply because the evidence is not convincing. I think it is most often the latter.

Well I think the problem there is what you find "convincing" and why you find it so. I've already said that the prime reason most skeptics find those claims of paranormalism which don't actually contradict science to be "unconvincing" has more to do with their underlying ontological beliefs than anything else. When I was a materialist I would have found it very difficult indeed to be convinced by any evidence at all that such things existed, simply because I had no way of incorporating them into my worldview. And I am not trying to downplay the power of the reasoning which holds those people in it's grip. Given Big Bang theory and Darwinism, materialism really does seem like the only game in town. It's only when you really stare the mind-body problem in the face that you are forced to seriously question it, and even then you are likely to be left with more questions than answers.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

29th June 2005, 06:42 PM

Geoff said:
Is "scientific epistemology" really general? Seems quite specific to me.
Seems entirely general to me.

Foundationalism doesn't neccesarily entail ontology. It just usually does entail ontology. The basic definition of foundationalism is any system of epistemic justification which relies on a certain set of "basic beliefs" which serve as a foundation for other beliefs. Materialism and Idealism are just the most obvious and most commonly held "basic beliefs" and, somewhat paradoxically, believers of both systems hold their "basic beliefs" to self-evident.
I simply do not understand how Rorty intends to filter his system so that it is coherent, without some foundational assumptions about what makes things coherent. If his only foundation is logic, with no empirical foundation, then he's going to end up with a mess.

"Postmodern View, Pedagogy, and the Future

What needs to be done in order to overcome the postmodern predicament? From a pedagogical point of view we should, in line with Rorty, avoid every foundationalism related to ontology and epistemology and plead for a renewed attention for value orientation and ethics."

So we're going to pursue values and ethics without any foundation in the source of knowledge? What the hell would that even mean?

So its possible to be a foundationalist whose foundational beliefs are neither ontological nor epistemological. You clearly aren't an ontological foundationalist, but you probably are some sort of epistemological foundationalist and because of the epistemological viewpoint you have adopted it is effectively the same as materialistic foundationalism. Any scientific foundationalism is practicaly indistinguishable from materialistic foundationalism, from my POV. At least, science would need to evolve quite considerably before a scientific foundationalist could manage to avoid being a materialist foundationalist in everything but name.
I think you have in your mind a charicature of science.

So if the question is "Is Paul a foundationalist?" then I have to ask you "Do you have some basic beliefs upon which all the other are built, or do you belief that everything you believe has to be supported by everything else you believe? If the answer is yes (to the former), then what are those basic beliefs?"
I don't believe it's possible to believe in a finite number of things, none of which are taken to be axiomatic. At the very least, I need a method of filtering all possible beliefs down to a managable number, otherwise the task of cross-checking all beliefs for consistency is intractable. The filter is an epistemological framework that I have to take on faith. If Rorty's project is intractable, then it is no project at all.

Now, Rorty could say that we don't need to enumerate all possible beliefs to cross-check them, but merely cross-check every belief that anyone brings forth. So let's say I claim that I can make this mug of beer rise off the table just by thinking about it. Do we accept this "belief" at face value and begin the process of cross-checking it? If so, then this is some sort of marvelous new philosophy of naivete. If not, then what? How do we verify my claim without any foundation?

I think this just leads to questions about what you mean by "observation of effects". I suspect you would define "observation" differently to me. This is where my debates with SJC tend to break down - every time he claims it is possible to "observe somebody-else's mind". He has defined subjective experiences as brain processes and then claims he can observe a mind by observing the brain processes. If you would agree with that sort of claim then I think your epistemology ends up being ontology - because of the way you define "observe" and other words. For me, the only thing I observe is the contents of my own mind. Everything else is inferred, intuited or deduced.
Isn't this just playing with words? I don't need to say that I observe your mind. I can say that I infer things about your mind by observation and interaction with you. I certainly do not claim that I can experience your mind, at least not yet. Furthermore, it's clear that even you cannot observe all of your mind, nor even much of it at all when in certain states.

~~ Paul

UndercoverElephant

30th June 2005, 07:08 AM

Hi Paul

I simply do not understand how Rorty intends to filter his system so that it is coherent, without some foundational assumptions about what makes things coherent. If his only foundation is logic, with no empirical foundation, then he's going to end up with a mess.

Why?

You seem to be asking "how does a coherentist justify his beliefs?"

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-coherence/

....coherentists normally characterize their view positively by replacing the foundationalism metaphor of a building as a model for the structure of knowledge with different metaphors, such as the metaphor which models our knowledge on a ship at sea whose seaworthiness must be ensured by repairs to any part in need of it. Coherentists typically hold that justification is solely a function of some relationship between beliefs, none of which are privileged beliefs in the way maintained by foundationlists, with different varieties of coherentism individuated by the specific relationship among beliefs appealed to by that version.

So it's a sort of ongoing process, whereby all inconsistencies are sought out and eliminated as they are discovered, just as the person maintaining the ship replaces defective parts of the ship as they are discovered. Beyond that this gets complicated and all I can really do is recommend you read the link supplied above if you're interested enough to do so.

I don't believe it's possible to believe in a finite number of things, none of which are taken to be axiomatic. At the very least, I need a method of filtering all possible beliefs down to a managable number, otherwise the task of cross-checking all beliefs for consistency is intractable. The filter is an epistemological framework that I have to take on faith. If Rorty's project is intractable, then it is no project at all.

Now, Rorty could say that we don't need to enumerate all possible beliefs to cross-check them, but merely cross-check every belief that anyone brings forth. So let's say I claim that I can make this mug of beer rise off the table just by thinking about it. Do we accept this "belief" at face value and begin the process of cross-checking it?

No - you absolutely don't take that belief at face value. In fact, this one is quite easy to eliminate since it is incoherent with the basic laws of physics.

If so, then this is some sort of marvelous new philosophy of naivete. If not, then what? How do we verify my claim without any foundation?

It doesn't even need verifying, because it's impossible that it's true.

I guess we've probably taken this discussion about as far as it is likely to go.

Geoff.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

30th June 2005, 08:35 AM

"....coherentists normally characterize their view positively by replacing the foundationalism metaphor of a building as a model for the structure of knowledge with different metaphors, such as the metaphor which models our knowledge on a ship at sea whose seaworthiness must be ensured by repairs to any part in need of it. Coherentists typically hold that justification is solely a function of some relationship between beliefs, none of which are privileged beliefs in the way maintained by foundationlists, with different varieties of coherentism individuated by the specific relationship among beliefs appealed to by that version."

This is just gook. You can model it any way you want, but if you are going to "repair" it then there has to be some assumptions about when it is working and when it is broken. Even if you could eliminate foundational beliefs, you'd have foundational relationships.

So it's a sort of ongoing process, whereby all inconsistencies are sought out and eliminated as they are discovered, just as the person maintaining the ship replaces defective parts of the ship as they are discovered. Beyond that this gets complicated and all I can really do is recommend you read the link supplied above if you're interested enough to do so.
It's quite tedious, but I'll give it a try. I detect an awful lot of machinations to avoid some simple epistemological assumptions.

No - you absolutely don't take that belief at face value. In fact, this one is quite easy to eliminate since it is incoherent with the basic laws of physics.
But there is nothing special about the basic laws of physics anymore. And it's only impossible if we assume the laws of phyiscs are accurate and complete, which no one assumes.

It doesn't even need verifying, because it's impossible that it's true.
It's not logically impossible, so it must be "impossible" based on some foundational assumptions.

~~ Paul

UndercoverElephant

30th June 2005, 11:19 AM

Hi Paul

This is just gook. You can model it any way you want, but if you are going to "repair" it then there has to be some assumptions about when it is working and when it is broken. Even if you could eliminate foundational beliefs, you'd have foundational relationships.

I'm not sure I understand this. "Repairs" are neccesary only when inconsistencies are found. So there is no "assumption" required about when it is working and when it isn't. It is working when it is consistent and coherent, and it is broken when it isn't. Where are the "assumptions" in such a model? I'm not sure what you mean by "foundational relationships" either. For the coherentist, all there is is relationships, and none of them are any more foundational than any of the others. The whole point is that there is no foundation. Any part of the system can potentially be the subject of a modification.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So it's a sort of ongoing process, whereby all inconsistencies are sought out and eliminated as they are discovered, just as the person maintaining the ship replaces defective parts of the ship as they are discovered. Beyond that this gets complicated and all I can really do is recommend you read the link supplied above if you're interested enough to do so.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's quite tedious, but I'll give it a try. I detect an awful lot of machinations to avoid some simple epistemological assumptions.

Yes, there are a lot of machinations - and don't bother if you aren't interested. I only brought Rorty and coherentism up because you made a comment that "in philosophy, everyone has to have a metaphysical position." IMO, Rorty doesn't. But he does have to go to a great deal of effort to avoid making those ontological and epistemological foundational assumptions.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No - you absolutely don't take that belief at face value. In fact, this one is quite easy to eliminate since it is incoherent with the basic laws of physics.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But there is nothing special about the basic laws of physics anymore.

Just because they aren't intimately connected with a foundational assumption of materialism, it doesn't mean they are no longer the laws of physics. There is no reason why all of the established laws of physics cannot be incorporated into the coherentist system. They don't disappear simply because they are no longer foundational. They are still one of the things which needs to be incorporated into the system.

And it's only impossible if we assume the laws of phyiscs are accurate and complete, which no one assumes.

You don't need to make that assumption either. All you need to do is accept the laws of physics as we know them and understand them at the present time. If they change at a future time, and these changes create new inconsistencies, then the coherentist's system has to change with them.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It doesn't even need verifying, because it's impossible that it's true.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's not logically impossible, so it must be "impossible" based on some foundational assumptions.

It's impossible because in order for it to be possible the basic laws of physics would have to be wrong. You can take a Humean stance on this and claim that even though we have always observed the laws of the conservation of energy to be obeyed in the past we cannot safely conclude they will always be obeyed in the future - but even with this caveat there is never going to be any reason to believe somebody's claim that they have invented a perpetual motion machine unless they can demonstrate to you that they have indeed invented such a machine. Until and unless they demonstrate it, any claim that they have done so can be rejected on the grounds that it incoherent with the coherentist's current system of knowledge.

So no - not logically impossible - but nevertheless it is just as easy for a coherentist to reject such claims as it is for a foundationalist.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

30th June 2005, 11:39 AM

Geoff said:
I'm not sure I understand this. "Repairs" are neccesary only when inconsistencies are found. So there is no "assumption" required about when it is working and when it isn't. It is working when it is consistent and coherent, and it is broken when it isn't. Where are the "assumptions" in such a model? I'm not sure what you mean by "foundational relationships" either. For the coherentist, all there is is relationships, and none of them are any more foundational than any of the others. The whole point is that there is no foundation. Any part of the system can potentially be the subject of a modification.
I think we need an example. What determines whether two beliefs are consistent? If it is just logic, then I repeat my assertion that you'll end up with some kind of bizarre anything-goes hodge-podge that will be of no practical value. If it is more than just logic, then those extra things are foundational, are they not?

Just because they aren't intimately connected with a foundational assumption of materialism, it doesn't mean they are no longer the laws of physics. There is no reason why all of the established laws of physics cannot be incorporated into the coherentist system. They don't disappear simply because they are no longer foundational. They are still one of the things which needs to be incorporated into the system.
I guess I don't know what foundational means. The laws of physics are predicated on some foundational assumptions of science. The laws themselves are not foundational, but the assumptions are. So if we're tossing out foundations, well, I'm not sure what happens to physics, nor am I sure how to check whether it's consistent with everything else.

I'll read that paper.

~~ Paul

Robin

30th June 2005, 04:01 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I've already said that the prime reason most skeptics find those claims of paranormalism which don't actually contradict science to be "unconvincing" has more to do with their underlying ontological beliefs than anything else.
There would have to be some paranormal claim that could stand up to rigorous examination before this could be true. Can you give an example of a claim of paranormalism that fits this category? From my experience all such claims start to crumble the closer you look at them.

UndercoverElephant

1st July 2005, 11:39 AM

Hi Paul

I think we need an example. What determines whether two beliefs are consistent? If it is just logic, then I repeat my assertion that you'll end up with some kind of bizarre anything-goes hodge-podge that will be of no practical value.

In the end, the only arbiter of what is acceptable or not acceptable to a coherentist is indeed logic. I don't understand how this leads to a "bizarre anything-goes hodge-podge that will be of no practical value." What it should lead to is a knowledge-system which is as free from contradictions and inconsistencies as possible, whilst at the same time is much more flexible and inclusive than most forms of foundationalism.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just because they aren't intimately connected with a foundational assumption of materialism, it doesn't mean they are no longer the laws of physics. There is no reason why all of the established laws of physics cannot be incorporated into the coherentist system. They don't disappear simply because they are no longer foundational. They are still one of the things which needs to be incorporated into the system.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I guess I don't know what foundational means. The laws of physics are predicated on some foundational assumptions of science. The laws themselves are not foundational, but the assumptions are. So if we're tossing out foundations, well, I'm not sure what happens to physics, nor am I sure how to check whether it's consistent with everything else.

It's not easy to give a quick answer to these questions. Rorty is writing in an intellectual environment not really shared by yourself or by most of the people at this site. Specifically, he is keenly aware of a whole series of post-modern attacks on foundations you are currently worrying about losing. Those attacks come from a whole series of different directions, but the most important are

1) Paul Feyerabend's "Against Method" attack on the claim that there is anything such as an ahistorical continuous description of what makes science science.

2) Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions", which effectively destroyed the idea that science is a gradual, rational progression or that what is accepted scientific knowledge at any one time can be seperated from the psychology, beliefs and social factors affecting science.

3) More important than either of the above is what is known as "The Duhem-Quine thesis", or "epistemological holism":

http://diary.carolyn.org/truth.html

Hmmm... The Duhem-Quine thesis (philosophers of science both) goes something like: when an anomolous 'fact' enters our collection of facts, and acts to falsify some one or more of our theories and beliefs, all are at stake. We will work to discard the smaller or easier theories, int he hopes that not all of our scientific collection of 'knowledge' will tumble.

How could it all tumble - let's say that the theory that turns out to be the one we must discard is the theory of how to make observations, or the theory that mathematics can be used to model physical phenomena.

So the Duhem-Quine thesis (around 1920 -1940) scares people.

Here's its schemata (you'll recognize it if you took any logic):

premise Theory of Observations (use of instruments)
premise Mathematics
premise General Reletivity
premise Optics
. etc
.

.
-------- -------------------
conclusion recent observation, call it Fact A

Assume all premises are true. If Fact A is true, everything is cool. If it is false, then it is not deducible from the premises. So what does this mean?? At least one premise is false. But which one?!!! You can to guess. Or run many more experiments (crucial experiments) and try to isolate one of the theories -or one par tof a theory) to alter. Or you could decide to drop one of the big ones. This latter is the most exciting hting you could be forced to do, and yet much of our knowledge would be effected.

Scientists are always sitting beside this guillotine of doubt.

We might yet have to discard the claim that the earth circles the sun... in order to protect some other claim that becomes more crucial! Scary but true!

In other words, from Rorty's POV there isn't much left to defend. He isn't worried about damaging/"throwing out" the foundations that you see as supporting science, because as far as he is concerned those foundations have been so seriously undermined already that they aren't worth defending.

I should stress that the discussion we are having now is very much a live issue in contemporary philosophy of science. If you go searching on Google for things like "epistemological holism" and "the duhem-quine thesis" you will see what I mean.

UndercoverElephant

1st July 2005, 11:59 AM

Originally posted by Robin
There would have to be some paranormal claim that could stand up to rigorous examination before this could be true. Can you give an example of a claim of paranormalism that fits this category? From my experience all such claims start to crumble the closer you look at them.

Yes, Paul and I already had a long discussion about this:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58350&perpage=40&highlight=wiseman%20schlitz&pagenumber=5

The experiment in question is the Wiseman/Schlitz series on remote staring. If you do a search on those two names you will find all sorts of different opinions on the relevance of these experiments. In the end, how you interpret the result depends on what sort of statistical result you need to achieve. Most skeptics consider that parapsychological phenomena are so unlikely to be real that they would require an extra-ordinarily clear statistical result before they would believe it. In other words, because of their metaphysical bent they "raise the bar" far higher in these cases than they would in less controversial cases like drug testing. Another symptom of this is the following:

If there is only a small statistical positive in a PSI experiment the skeptic will dismiss it as a statistical blip. But as the statistical evidence improves, the skeptic doesn't interpret this as an improved evidence of PSI phenomena, but as an indication that there must have been a mistake or a fraud, even if, as in this case, the skeptic cannot actually identify the mistake or the fraud. It is simply assumed that "something must have gone wrong." In other words, no evidence will ever be good enough, and the reason for this is that most skeptics are metaphysical materialists and materialism tends to make most PSI phenomena look completely inexplicable. Therefore, the skeptic reasons, something must be wrong with the experiment.

Piscivore

1st July 2005, 12:05 PM

JG, do you realise in your defense of this Rorty person you've used several concepts in common with our Mr. Lifegazer?

In the end, the only arbiter of what is acceptable or not acceptable to a coherentist is indeed logic.

Rorty is writing in an intellectual environment not really shared by yourself or by most of the people at this site. Specifically, he is keenly aware of a whole series of post-modern attacks on foundations you are currently worrying about losing.

In other words, from Rorty's POV there isn't much left to defend. He isn't worried about damaging/"throwing out" the foundations that you see as supporting science, because as far as he is concerned those foundations have been so seriously undermined already that they aren't worth defending.

Thanks Paul. This discussion has pointed out a few things to me I hadn't considered before.

UndercoverElephant

1st July 2005, 02:01 PM

Hello Piscivore

JG, do you realise in your defense of this Rorty person you've used several concepts in common with our Mr. Lifegazer?

I am acutely aware of this, yes. However, whilst LG has indeed correctly understood some of these issues (IMO) he has also made a set of fundamental mistakes in his wider "theories". I have tried explaining Rorty to LG in the past - the predictable result was that LG pronounced that Rorty was a fool - not because of the things that Rorty has in common with LG, oh no - but because of the other things that Rorty says that diametrically contradict what LG says. Rorty's whole project is intended to derail people like LG before they open their mouths. Rorty is the antidote to ludicrous subjectivist metaphysical constructions. He allows in the subjectivism and relativism, but at the same time he makes sure that projects like LG's "philosophy" are already dead before they leave the drawing board.

UndercoverElephant

1st July 2005, 02:20 PM

Piscivore,

I should also point out that I am not really "defending" Rorty. I am just doing my best to explain his position and why he arrived at it. In actual fact I am not a Rortian pragmatist (although I am an anti-foundationalist). Rorty urges us to resist the temptation to practice metaphysics, but I don't always resist that temptation. He'd probably be as appalled by me as I am appalled by LG.

Geoff

Piscivore

1st July 2005, 02:34 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Piscivore,

I should also point out that I am not really "defending" Rorty. I am just doing my best to explain his position and why he arrived at it. In actual fact I am not a Rortian pragmatist (although I am an anti-foundationalist). Rorty urges us to resist the temptation to practice metaphysics, but I don't always resist that temptation. He'd probably be as appalled by me as I am appalled by LG.

Geoff

Okay. I'm still trying to digest the postmoderist edifice that Mr. Rorty has written, so I'll reserve comment further on the merits. I was just struck by how those comments stood out.

I'll have more once I read the entirety of the thread.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

1st July 2005, 02:34 PM

Geoff said:
If there is only a small statistical positive in a PSI experiment the skeptic will dismiss it as a statistical blip. But as the statistical evidence improves, the skeptic doesn't interpret this as an improved evidence of PSI phenomena, but as an indication that there must have been a mistake or a fraud, even if, as in this case, the skeptic cannot actually identify the mistake or the fraud. It is simply assumed that "something must have gone wrong." In other words, no evidence will ever be good enough, and the reason for this is that most skeptics are metaphysical materialists and materialism tends to make most PSI phenomena look completely inexplicable. Therefore, the skeptic reasons, something must be wrong with the experiment.
You repeat this sort of statement quite often, yet we're still waiting for the psi experiment where "the statistical evidence improves." Beyond that, we're waiting for the experiment where the hypothesis is based on a theory of psi instead of just the statistical results. Not to mention practical applications of psi.

I agree that is is difficult to come up with a mechanism that would allows events like the ones that psi experiments purport to show. But it's not because I'm a materialist, because all the suggestions from immaterialists about how psi might work are no better than anything else. The "just imagine everything as mind" doesn't do it for me.

Perhaps once Schlitz and Wiseman replicate their experiments a few more times, they will be in a position to suggest a theory of staring and start trying to figure out how it actually works. In the meantime they are trying to figure out why Wiseman doesn't replicate Schlitz, which is certainly a fascinating question.

~~ Paul

hammegk

1st July 2005, 02:50 PM

Originally posted by Piscivore
JG, do you realise in your defense of this Rorty person you've used several concepts in common with our Mr. Lifegazer?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the end, the only arbiter of what is acceptable or not acceptable to a coherentist is indeed logic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you, personally, "believe" that is illogical? ;)

Piscivore

1st July 2005, 03:02 PM

Originally posted by hammegk
What do you, personally, "believe" that is illogical? ;)

That the universe is understandable.

That logic itself is a useful tool to aid in that understanding.

That logic without empiricism is empty wool-gathering.

That my cat loves me.

That fish are tasty.

That's just off the top of my head.

UndercoverElephant

1st July 2005, 03:31 PM

Originally posted by Iacchus
Sounds much more like holism.

It is related to epistemological holism, yes.

UndercoverElephant

1st July 2005, 03:42 PM

Originally posted by hammegk
JustGeoff, could you comment on what Rorty's 'towers' might have as bases -- that do not collapse to one of the two Cartesian viewpoints?

I'm not sure I can. I think maybe the "ship" metaphor was better than the "many towers" metaphor. The whole point of coherentism is to avoid relying on bases in the way that towers rely on their foundations. The two Cartesian viewpoints are the two most obvious foundations that foundationalists choose. I suppose that within my own way of looking at things I do kind-of have two towers corresponding to the two Cartesian viewpoints, but I don't think the same applies to Rorty. I think he'd claim he has abandoned both of them and that all of his beliefs support each other. I'm not explaining this very well. :(

UndercoverElephant

1st July 2005, 05:00 PM

To all:

Since I'm making such a hash of explaining this I just re-read the section on Rorty in Blackwell's "The World's Greatest Philosophers". There are 40 philosophers in this book and the other 39 are all dead - which is quite interesting considering that Rorty's contribution to philosophy is to declare that it is also effectively dead.

What follows is largely taken from the entry on Rorty:

I probably understressed the importance of Rorty's anti-representationalism, which is where Rorty is really on a collision course with lifegazer. Rorty describes his anti-representationalism as "not viewing knowledge as a matter of getting reality right, but rather as a matter of acquiring habits of action for coping with reality". He is frequently accused of being an anti-realist, but this is because people have confused anti-realism with anti-representationalism. Both realists and anti-realists are representationalists. Realist here means "believing that most of the kinds of things that exist, and what they are like, are independent of us and the way we find out about them." Anti-realists (like lifegazer) deny this. But anti-representationalism reject the very idea that beliefs can represent realist at all - so they are neither realists nor anti-realists. Instead, they deny that truth is an explanatory property. The sentence "S" is true if and only if "S" makes no claim that "S" corresponds to anything. So they deny the whole "realist/anti-realist" problematic on the grounds that the notion of representation has no useful role in philosophy. With it also goes epistemology and metaphysics and Kant's grand appearance/reality dichotomy.

Some allegedly privelidged types of vocabulary (e.g. physics) are thought by representationalists to accurately represent reality, while other discourses are mired in appearance. But with the demise of representationalism goes the very idea that there is some sort of determinate way that the world is - or any hope of finding a "first philosophy" which acts as a foundation for the rest. There isn't even any sense in which one discourse is "closer to the truth" than another. There are just different forms of discourse answering to different interests.

With the abandonment of foundationalism and with it a Kantian understanding of the key task of epistemology, we also abandon a classical self-image of a philosopher as someone who stands in some privileged perspective and can tell us in all domains, or indeed in any substantive domain, what counts as genuine knowledge. We give up the deceptive self-conceit that the philosopher can know things that no-one else can know so well. There is no possible transcendental perspective where we can say what knowledge is, correct the ways of science or common sense or common life by appealing to some conception of superior philosophical knowledge which enables us to judge commonsense beliefs and science and give the "real foundations of knowledge."

In other words, Philosophy (427 B.C.E - 1981 A.D) R.I.P. What started with Plato ended with Nietschze.

It's no real surprise that lots of people don't like him. :D

NB: Rorty has actually admitted that his work is "parasitic" on other forms of philosophy.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/

These characterizations of pragmatism in terms of anti-foundationalism (PMN), of anti-representationalism (ORT), of anti-essentialism (TP) are explicitly parasitic on constructive efforts in epistemology and metaphysics, and are intended to high-light the various ways that these efforts remain under the spell of a Platonic faith in ideal concepts and mandatory forms of descriptions.