It does seem, though, that cause is most easily seen, understood, appreciated as an observer's account, serving the needs of the observer, rather than something itself. — tim wood

I was going to say "But then all of what we call 'reality' is just an 'observer's account.' But then you wrote:

And I wonder if that distinction has been made, or even seen, because accounts themselves are just convenient fictions. — tim wood

Not quite, imo. Cause is simply a presupposition of a theory. That means at best it is never true - except as a cogwheel in the theory - but only efficacious. Apparently for parts of modern physics it's no longer adequate even as that. Perfectly good for billiards players though, still. — tim wood

I guess it's no surprise we agree n this.

The point is, I suppose, that if you wish to account for your world with stories, you can. But they'll break down at the borders of your world. And just see to what lengths some - many - will go to extend their story beyond its border, where it does not belong. — tim wood

I like this too.

It's difficult. — Manuel

And that's one of the reasons you have Sisyphus as your icon.

Why is that? Historically, elaborate metaphysical systems have often been used as a justification for an existing hierarchical political system. — _db

Interesting. Do you have an example you like?

I thought I had offered a serious response — Wayfarer

My response was perfectly serious. I admit it was playful, metaphorical, but I don't see how it was disrespectful of your response.

Yes! You don't know how good it feels to finally speak with someone who is willing to take the conversation to its conclusion. — Philosophim

Yeah, but it's not that simple. If you want to talk about quantum mechanics and creation from nothing, they'll tell you the quantum vacuum isn't nothing. Anything that can cause something is, by definition, something.

The question does arise as to why bother posting on a philosophy forum if you think it's a waste of time. — Wayfarer

I don't think posting on the forum is a waste of time and I don't remember ever saying it was.

There are few things in life that are exactly what we want them to be. So philosophers, unlike Scientists, tend to adapt the Self to the Situation (Ethics), instead of changing the world to better suit the human body (Physics). — Gnomon

I don't propose to change the world, just some words. And I don't need to change them for anyone other than myself.

It would be nice if we could all agree on a "set of rules" for discussing metaphysical questions. — Gnomon

For me, metaphysics is the set of rules.

That said, we are still faced with agreeing on a definition of whatever it is we are disagreeing about. Which is even more difficult, if we can't even agree on what divisive topics fall under the umbrella of Metaphysics. — Gnomon

I was never really interested in discussing "metaphysics" or metaphysics as such. I want to talk about, and use, Collingwood's metaphysical way of seeing things in my everyday and intellectual life. In order to do that, I've concluded that I need to call it something other than "metaphysics."

No no no. That won't do. Metaphysics is the stuff of the transcendent. Metaphysics is that which lies beyond the physics. Metaphysics is what Kant tried to ask how is it possible. Metaphysics is whatever Hegel said. And worldmaking, and interpreting physics, and seeing spirits and is gobbledygook and also profound. — Manuel

Yes, and this is why I need a new word.

After reading some of your comments here and elsewhere, I think Salmon's metaphysics about causal forks and statistical causation is perfectly fit for you. — Verdi

I feel very at home with Collingwood.

Most of it is rigorous daydreaming; a pseudo-scientific posturing about things that cannot be known, usually with a surreptitious (right-wing) political aim (i.e. propaganda). — _db

"Right-wing political aim" seems like a stretch.

There could have been many first causes. In theory, there could be first causes happening in the universe now that we're unaware of. But much like multiverse theory, its something we really can't test easily, if at all. — Philosophim

It is my understanding of quantum mechanics, that matter and energy are continually being created and destroyed from nothing and to nothing in the quantum vacuum state.

meta-metaphysics — Janus

There's already a term for meta-metaphysics. It's "metaphysics." As I noted in a recent post, it's metaphysics all the way down.

Whereas in a lot of modern thinking, the idea of there even being 'an eternal order' is passé. Positivism says straight out that metaphysics is empty words, and a lot of people agree. I think you feel the pull of something beyond - hence your attraction to the Tao Te Ching - but find it very frustrating and difficult to pin down or articulate what it is, as you say in your post. — Wayfarer

I don't think I am searching for "something beyond." I'm looking for the most mundane, scotch tape, macaroni and cheese thing there is. Metaphysics is not something beyond, it's mayonnaise, salt and pepper, those chicken cutlets on the counter in the kitchen. As you can see, I'm late for dinner. Metaphysics isn't beyond, it's before.

I've started two threads prior to this one about defining specific philosophic terms. Those were for "mysticism" and "consciousness." The conclusions I came to for those two terms is the same one I've come to for this one - I don't need to understand them better, I need to find a new word, because the old one doesn't work any more, generally because they're hung with so many different and discordant meanings and connotations that they obscure more than they enlighten.

Next time I am confused about a term, I'll know how to handle it. Don't try to understand it. Don't start a new discussion. Just come up with a different word. That, by the way, is why there are so much dumb-ass jargon in philosophy. Too many people like me wanting to wipe the slate clean.

What do you think is shiba the next rockstar? — TheQuestion

As far as I can see, all the digital currencies are just pyramid schemes. The coins have no intrinsic value, so when the bottom drops out, and it will, you'll left with a hand full of turd. Do you think you are one of the few who will be able to jump in and jump back out at just the right time to make a fortune? If so, you're are probably wrong.

But what is the goal here? To arrive at a definitive meaning of "metaphysics"? How will we know when we arrive there? Seems to me on par with trying to find the world's longest sentence -- as soon as you get there, you can also add a word. — Xtrix

Metaphysics, in Collingwood's sense, is very important to me. It is central to my understanding of the nature of reality and our relationship to it. In order to talk about it effectively, I need a good word for the idea I'm trying to get across. I've spent years here on the forum trying to force the word "metaphysics" to fit that bill, but, as everyone acknowledges, it just means too many different things to too many different people. The epiphany I've just had is that I should just give up. Screw it. I'll make up a new word. Here's some ideas:

[1] Potrzebics
[2] Stuff n' things
[3] Collingwood's metaphysics (C-metaphysics)
[4] Craptastics
[5] Rigamarole

I think I'll use number 3.

Quite. Unfortunately, it's less precise while also being more effort. So as a model, it's objectively worse, and there is no situation in which it would be preferrable to use it. But I take your point. The standard is the one that modern physics applies to itself, primarily, and applying it outside of that domain can be a bit absurd. — onomatomanic

As I said, I understand the point you are trying to make.

Which if you feel that way, is fine. But why? — Philosophim

For the reason I described - I thought my point was not central to your argument and I didn't want to send your discussion off on a tangent. Here are a few thoughts. I haven't written about this much, so this is not well developed argument:

The idea that causation is not a good way of thinking about how the word works is not a new one. Bertrand Russell wrote about it more than 100 years ago.

Sometimes it seems like all of philosophy comes back to the infinite regress argument. I've been surprised at some places it has shown up. People act as if it makes a difference, but it seems more of an aesthetic affectation than anything substantive. It seems like more trouble than it's worth.

The pool table is a metaphor often used to clarify the idea of causality. It represents a very simple closed system with no energy input from outside except for a single specific force applied at a specific point at a specific time. Nothing in the real world is that simple or that isolated.

In reality, if events are effects at all, they are caused by multiple, independent, long chains of events. Practically speaking, in almost any realistic real-world situation, those chains are impossible to chase back more than a step or two, it that.

Most of our understanding of the world is based on statistical effects. It's not the action of two balls on a pool table, it's the mass action of trillions of molecules in a tank. Pressure and temperature are not caused by molecular motion, they are defined by it.

I've run out of steam, but there's more I'm sure.

Models approximate reality. Newton's model doesn't approximate it as well as Einstein's, so it's worse in that sense. But it's also considerably lower-effort, which is a point in its favour. Choosing a model to apply is like choosing a tool to use: The optimal choice depends on the job at hand. — onomatomanic

By that standard, Ptolemaic astronomy isn't wrong, it's just less precise than Kepler. Which is ok with me. I understand what you're trying to say.

Interestingly enough, Newton wasn't wrong. It was simply not precise enough for large bodies. You can take the theory of relativity and reduce it down to Newton's equation for regular sized bodies. It is evidence that certain equations are useful for particular scales, but breakdown in others. — Philosophim

A quibble.

Fair enough, I am presupposing some knowledge here. — Philosophim

I know what causation means. I am familiar with pool tables. I don't think that's a good model for how the world, or causation, works. No need to go any further into it or send your discussion off on a tangent. I just wanted it to be clear that your assumption is not self-evident.

Ask the person who you're debating with what they mean by metaphysics. Get them to define their particular terms. Phrases are digests of complex simple ideas. The act of doing philosophy should be to breaking down those phrases into complex simple terms with the person who you are discussing with. You're not debating the phrase, you're debating the underlying logical components. Those transcend any labels or ideologies. — Philosophim

I agree. The failure to do as you specify is the cause of many, most?, of the misunderstandings and disagreements here on the forum. Discussions often end up being derailed by what you call "debatingi the phrase."

In short precision is a very significant aspect of scientific theories. An example: Newton's gravity theory was imprecise when it came to predicting the planet Mercury's behavior. Enter Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and it solved the problem - Mercury's orbit could now be predicted precisely. — TheMadFool

No. The relevance of precision in this case is that precise measurement of Mercury's orbit showed that Newton's theory was not imprecise but wrong.

Either all things have a prior cause for their existence, or there is at least one first cause of existence from which a chain of events follows. — Philosophim

I don't follow the logic of your discussion, but that doesn't matter, since I don't see why this is true.

That's actually valid. Academics do it all the time. — Artemis

So, what you're saying is that I am a brilliant, towering genius. Thank you. Thank you very much.

It seems the problem with the term is here to stay. — Manuel

My only problem with the term was that I couldn't get people to use it the way I want them to.

It just seems to me that we could come up with all manner of rules and principles that are perhaps internally intelligible, but don't apply to the reality we actually deal with. Like solipsism. It makes a strange kind of sense, but it doesn't compute with the data available to us. — Artemis

That's the problem. We have many definitions, sometimes incompatible with each other, so we have to choose one. Or leave the topic ambiguous. — Manuel

As I noted in my previous post, I've solved the "metaphysics" problem once and for all, at least for myself. It's taken years, but I've finally figured out how to handle it. The only metaphysics I'm really interested in discussing is metaphysics as define by Collingwood:

Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or groups of persons, on this or that occasion or groups of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking.

From now on, I'm just going to use the term "C-metaphysics" to denote that usage. I'm serious. I mean it. You guys can all go fry ice. I don't care what you say....No.. No.. La, la, la, la, la, la, la...

I really am serious.

there's no technical notion of metaphysics. — Xtrix

I don't think that's true, unless I misunderstand what you mean by "technical." Collingwood's definition fits the bill:

Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or groups of persons, on this or that occasion or groups of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking.

That's what I want to talk about when I talk about "metaphysics." Maybe I'll just change the word so it won't get so confusing. I'm going to start calling it "Collingwood's metaphysics," "C-metaphysics" for short.

Seriously. That's what I'm going to do from now on.

Good poem - "Reason." Good poet - Carl Dennis.

I hope I never speak ill of you,
Dependable homely friend who prods me gently
To turn to the hour that’s now arriving,
Not to the hour I let slip by
Twenty years back. No way now, you say,
To welcome a friend I failed to welcome
When she returned to town in sorrow,
Fresh from her discovery that the man
Who seemed to outshine all the others
Could also cast the densest shade.

You’re right to label it magical thinking
When I say to a phantom what I never said
To flesh and blood, as if the words, repeated enough,
Could somehow work their way back to an old page
And nudge the silence aside and settle in, a delusion
Not appropriate for a man no longer young
At the end of a century where many nations
Have set many things in motion they can’t call back
Though the vote for reversal is unanimous.

I’m glad you ask, clear-sighted Reason,
Before what audience, if my speech can’t reach her ears,
I imagine myself performing. Who is it
I want to convince I’d do things differently
This time around if the chance were offered.
You’re right to say that half an hour a day is enough
For these gods or angels to get the point
If they’re ever going to get it, which is doubtful.
Right again that if part of myself
After all my efforts still needs convincing
I should leave that dullard behind
With the empty dream of wholeness and move on.

I should move along the road that is not the road
I’d be moving along had I said what I didn’t say
To someone who might have been ready to listen,
But a road as good, you assure me, Reason,
One that might lead to a life I can be proud of
So the man I might have been can’t pity me.
Thanks for contending I can solve the problems
He may have wanted to solve but hadn’t the time for,
Preoccupied as he was with another life,
The one I too might be caught up in
Had I heard the words you now speak clearly
Just as clearly long ago.

Would you agree that what I'll call a naive worldview - that of a child or a caveman, say, developed on the basis of unaided senses and common sense - will be more static than what I'll call a modern worldview - developed on the basis of modern equipment and insight? This appears obvious to me, as things that seem simple at the scale of the unaided senses invariably turn out to be complicated at other scales. — onomatomanic

A naive world view might be less complex, but not necessarily more static. I don't think static vs. dynamic is a good distinction to describe the situation.

I like all the quotes you provided. If you take them all, add all the ones I included in my post along with 1,000 more I could have provided if I wanted to take the time, you get an, at best, impressionistic picture of meaning that looks like one of those paintings done by elephants. Maybe that's the best we can do.

The problem is that I want to talk about a very specific sense of the word, the one I presented in the OP. I'd be happy to call it something else, but that would only make things worse.

there is a knowable external, objective reality; truth represents a correspondence between external reality and some representation of it
— T Clark

I reject both of these, because I think the "subject/object" distinction, though very old, is not very useful. So I guess that rules me out of discussion. — Xtrix

Those statements were presented as examples of metaphysical statements, not as metaphysical positions to be discussed. The point of this thread is to discuss the meaning of the word "metaphysics" not to discuss any particular metaphysical issue unless it is relevant to the meaning of the word.

You can't do much with this though. I have noticed you like to make divisions. A break-up can be made into physical stuff and metaphysical stuff. But together they form a whole bigger than their parts. — Verdi

You and I just had a similar discussion in another thread. As I noted, I've started this so the participants in that discussion can all work from the same meaning.

Are you suggesting that the change I'm talking about is less a binary contrast between un-scientific and scientific approaches, and more an ongoing process that takes place within science just as much? If so, the point is well taken. — onomatomanic

Sort of. The contrast between stasis and dynamism is one that gets argued about in many sciences. Catastrophism vs. gradualism. Cycles vs. progress. One will be up for a while, then the other will reassert itself. Everyone knows evolution just toot toot toodles along. Then in the 1970s they discover that the Cretaceous extinction 65 million years ago was likely caused by the most catastrophic of all catastrophes.

Which is right? Neither? Both?

To account for this, our models tend to become less and less static over time. — onomatomanic

I don't know if that's true or not.

I like philosophizing about knowledge, but I don't need to know anything about it. — Verdi

This conversation has been fun and interesting.

It's no battle we are fighting. — Verdi

Does this seem like a battle to you? I thought it was a discussion. I've been friendly and civil.

Here I disagree. — Verdi

What can you offer to back that up against my testimony of 30 years of daily, nose to the grindstone, data collection, management, and use when I had to face the consequences of being wrong in very concrete, professional, financial, and personal terms. I know what it feels like to be wrong. I don't like it.

Here you misunderstood what I read. I read you have to make divisions. But what's divided should be kept also. It's the mutual interaction between the divisions, science and philosophy, that gives the quality absent from each apart. The fire that can only be produced by a lighter with gas only (science) and a lighter with a firestone only (philosophy). — Verdi

I don't think I misunderstand, I disagree, at least in part.

First - Making distinctions can be misleading - agreed.

Second - Some distinctions, such as the one between philosophy and science, are important and useful.

I suppose the most straightforward example of the former is the Newtonian take on motion - that, without dissipative effects like friction, a body, once in motion, will stay in motion - replacing the Classical take - that the natural state of a body is to be at rest. — onomatomanic

This seems like an artificial distinction to me. Here's the first law - "A body continues in its state of rest, or in uniform motion in a straight line, unless acted upon by a force." "Continues in its state" seems pretty static to me.

It is my understanding that Einstein believed so strongly that the universe had to be static and eternal that he invented a fudge factor, the cosmological constant, to explain why it didn't collapse. Then, in the late 1920s, Edwin Hubble observed cosmological red shifts and concluded that the universe is expanding after all. Apparently Einstein was relieved he didn't need the cosmological constant any more.

Something similar happened in geology in the 1950s and 60s. The idea that continents might move had been proposed a number of times in the past, but there was no mechanism for that movement that was considered plausible. Then the theory of plate tectonics was developed. After that, the idea that the continents can move is part of our fundamental understand of the world.

True. In ancient Greece they were torn apart and we're left with the mess. So, they are separable, and in that sense no unseparable whole. What I mean though is that the whole is a wholistic whole, to which qualities can be assigned not present in one of both. If I have two lighters of which one contains gas only but no brimstone, and the other vice-versa, I can't light my cigarette with either of them. But combined, I can light it up. — Verdi

By this logic, we should go through the world not making distinctions. Not separating the whole into parts. But we do, and we can't not. I assume it's wired into the circuits at a very early stage of evolution. Might that lead to confusion and misdirection? It does all the time. It's a fundamental human intellectual foible. If you look too closely at the plants, you miss the ecology. If you look too closely at your face in the mirror, you don't notice your zipper is down.

It's the hand played on this forum. It's even called the philosophy forum. Why shouldn't there be a place for me? You don't say this directly, but I sense this from your wording, and that's all I can cling to. — Verdi

Of course there's a place for you on the forum. And there's a place for you in this discussion. I have bad news for you - Denial of the value of philosophy is a philosophical position. A claim that metaphysics is not needed is a metaphysical statement. You're trapped.

Beyond that, I think the philosophy/science distinction is a useful and important one. I've seen many discussions go haywire because participants fail to know which is which.

I don't deny philosophy or attack it, not at all. It's a pity though that no attempt is made to regain the connection with the stuff it talks about. Regaining the assembled whole doesn't destroy philosophy nor science. It merely brings to bear unimagined new qualities. — Verdi

I doubt that "no attempt is made to regain the connection with the stuff it talks about." When making distinctions, it's important to recognize the importance of putting the cuts in appropriate places and also to recognize when making distinctions does not clarify the situation. I think some of us here do that. You can make distinctions without loosing sight of the whole kit and caboodle.

It can be a usefull one. But for making the distinction what is metaphysics or physics, one needs to know both first, because the division can't be made if there is nothing to divide. — Verdi

Agreed.

In order to trust knowledge, you don't need epistemology. You need to know that that knowledge works out fine for you. Knowing about the knowledge involved, or the methodology one must use for approaching a problem will only paralyze you. You may claim that epistemology or methodology are exactly what philosophy is about, and that that's the stuff discussed here, but philosophy is not invented to restrict knowledge and its gathering. Philosophy is meant to set free from restrictions. Or at least to further scientific knowledge. — Verdi

I spent 30 years as an engineer understanding and using information, knowledge, in order to make decisions about actions in the real, expensive world. I have a strong understanding of how knowledge works at a very concrete level and how to use it to choose the right thing to do next. In engineering, data collection is sometimes separate from data validation, data processing, and data usage. Different people often do each of these separate tasks. It is the engineer's job to know how everything fits together and to see that it does.

So... Yes... Epistemology is real and important and the distinction between knowledge and epistemology is real and important.

Also, welcome to the forum.