How can metaphysics be considered philosophy?

Zettel

Are metaphysical doctrines such as aesthetics and ethics really "branches" of philosophy, or are they just thinly disguised poetry? The propositions issuing from metaphysics and philosophy seem logically and epistemologically distinct.

Philosophy means "love of wisdom". Wisdom requires knowledge, not belief, opinion, sentiment or personal view, else how does (read: "can") one 'know' who or what is wise? Unsupported and unsupportable metaphysical doctrines have gone nowhere despite tedious frequentation for more than three millennia. We know no more now about Anaximander's notion of "Apeiron" than we did at first utterance; we know no more now about Plato's notions of "Forms" or "The Good" than we did at first utterance; we know no more now about Aristotle's notion of "Eudaimonia" than we did at first utterance; we know more now about Kant's notion of "Categorical Imperative" than we did at first utterance; and we know no more now about Leibniz's notion of "Monads" or Spinoza's notion of "Substance" than we did at first utterance. Three thousand years of metaphysics has yet to issue a single knowledge claim. Not one. So how is metaphysics "philosophy"?

We can glean immediately the epistemic difference between a philosopher's (Wittgenstein's) claim that "Aesthetic remarks are not hypotheses" and a metaphysician's (Plato's) claim RE: Forms that "There is an Ideal of each thing to which all instances of that thing partake and aspire". The former is ponderable, falsifiable, empirically verifiable; the latter is not. Such is the difference between knowledge and belief, between philosophy and metaphysics, between "what is" and "what is to you". Big difference.

T Clark

Are metaphysical doctrines such as aesthetics and ethics really "branches" of philosophy, or are they just thinly disguised poetry? The propositions issuing from metaphysics and philosophy seem logically and epistemologically distinct. — Zettel

Welcome to the forum.

When you've been here a while, you see the subject of metaphysics comes up often. The one thing I've learned is that the discussion almost always starts out with an argument about what the word really means. Often that's where it ends, with no substantive discussion able to fight its way out of the brawl about definitions. Here are two definitions from the web:

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality; the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity and possibility... Metaphysics is considered one of the four main branches of philosophy, along with epistemology, logic, and ethics. — Wikipedia - Metaphysics

a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology — Marriam-Webster

I have my own ideas about what metaphysics is and what it should be, but I won't burden your discussion with them. One thing I'm willing to say with certainty is that aesthetics and ethics are not included in the definition of metaphysics as it is generally understood. If your understanding is so idiosyncratic that it does include those subjects, then we probably don't have anything else to discuss.

jgill

. . . and we know no more now about Leibniz's notion of "Monads" — Zettel

Actually, we do regarding monads in mathematics.. Fascinating little critters.

Banno

Are metaphysical doctrines such as aesthetics and ethics really "branches" of philosophy — Zettel

Metaphysical as in not having a truth value?

↪T Clark

would miss that. I don't see why ethical and aesthetic statements need not have a truth value. After all, prima facie, they do.

"Aesthetic remarks are not hypotheses"... is ponderable, falsifiable, empirically verifiable; — Zettel

Is it true? IF metaphysical zettel have no truth value, then no.

Zettel

↪T Clark

Anything to the point? Anything at all?

My post has nothing to do with prior discussions here about what the word "metaphysics" really means; mine is an epistemological question, not an etymological one. Nor do your Wiki and dictionary appeals to "authority" remotely suffice the matter; they only ignore my point and highlight your inability and/or unwillingness to do first-order thinking on your own. Lastly, trafficking your ideas and unsupported personal views is not philosophy; it is cocktail party/coffee klatch schmoozing.

Zettel

↪jgill

Do tell.

Zettel

↪Banno

Again, begging the question and offering appeals to others do not constitute reasoned rejoinder; they merely evade the point and juxtapose an unsupported personal view, as if just say-so alone should somehow suffice the matter (Hint: It doesn't).

RE: "Aesthetic remarks are not hypotheses" is true, that such remarks are focusing utterances which people accept or not, irrespective of experiment of empirical proof of claim. Again, W was addressing an epistemological issue with aesthetic remarks, not engaging in aesthetics itself.

180 Proof

The propositions issuing from metaphysics and philosophy seem logically and epistemologically distinct. — Zettel

Due to their intrinsically meta-discursive uses, philosophical (i.e. reflective) statements are suppositional, not propositional (i.e. truth-apt). If there are 'philosophical propositions', however, then I've missed – misrecognized – them. Examples please.

Agent Smith

Well, I didn't know aesthetics is metaphysics, nor did I know ethics is metaphysics?! :chin:

Metaphysics is to philosophy what mathematics is to theoretical physics. It's kinda like the Big Bang - how it all started x million years ago in the brains of the first h. sapiens. The First Principles from which all that we think, all that we do, all that we say, follow as surely as night follows day. :smile:

180 Proof

Metaphysics is to philosophy what mathematics is to theoretical physics. — Agent Smith

I don't think the analogy works, Smith.

Agent Smith

"what is" and "what is to you" — Zettel

I thought we all agreed that the former is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Unfortunately, the other option is a pot of clay. Ready to fashion something out of the clay or are you still fixated on that pot of gold ... at the end of the rainbow? It isn't even raining for chrissakes!

Zettel

↪Agent Smith

Do you or anyone else here ever post anything other than unsupported sentiment? If all to philosophy were trafficking opinions and personal points of view, anyone capable of language would be a philosopher; any child can do as much, and as little.

By the way, your use of emojis is impressive. Harvard?

Bylaw

Metaphysics is to philosophy what mathematics is to theoretical physics. — Agent Smith

I think metaphysics is to philosophy what metaphysics is to physics, only more focused. What is the nature of reality, time, matter and all the ontological issues related to that, for example.

Agent Smith

Do you or anyone else here ever post anything other than unsupported sentiment? If all to philosophy were trafficking opinions and personal points of view, anyone capable of language would be a philosopher; any child can do as much, and as little.

By the way, your use of emojis is impressive. Harvard? — Zettel

First off, on emojis - they're supplements, not replacements. :cool: I've heard of Harvard! Isn't it where Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates studied? :wink:

Second, I agree, philosophy is a profession, needs to be learned and practised for quite a number of years. I respect that because it's true and I value truth. Does that not make me a (budding, authentic) philosopher? If no, why do you ask the question.

Agent Smith

I think metaphysics is to philosophy what metaphysics is to physics, only more focused. What is the nature of reality, time, matter and all the ontological issues related to that, for example. — Bylaw

I don't see any overarching theme to metaphysics except that it claims to study first principles. That's a tad bit too abstract for me brain mon ami.

Bylaw

I don't see any overarching theme to metaphysics except that it claims to study first principles. That's a tad bit too abstract for me brain mon ami. — Agent Smith

Well, I agree. But doesn't that make it different from math. Yes, math is abstract in that it doesn't refer to concrete examples, and in physics it might refer to categories of phenomena. But it's very specific in a way that metaphysics is not. We refer much more to qualities than quantities, for example, in math.

And, yes, I was being a bit coy. But there were some physicists who thought for a while that everything was information. Others matter. Others things like the universe is a kind of three D hologram but is actually two dimension (of all things). IOW these guys can sound like some newly discovered pre-socratics interpreted in modern jargon.

If one googles ontology and physics or metaphysics and physics, a whole lot of topics come up. There's a lot of speculation in metaphysics in physics in cosmology, say, or particle physics.

Bylaw

↪Zettel

Ontology is a branch of metaphysics and philosophical writings influence physicists for example. They give tools for thinking about and exploring fundamental topics related to reality. Much pre-experiment discussion and even papers in physics would fall under the category metaphysics. Ontology has also become central in anthropology, where there is a trend to use the ontological concepts in other cultures to look at the assumptions and categories in 'the West'. This has been productive, at least according to many anthropologists, in understanding other cultures, but also in catching assumptions within our own (cultures).

Further we are all taking positions on metaphysics. Take physicalists or naturalists. Seemingly - given the way metaphysics is a word often used perjoratively - far from woo woo, those two categories of people are making assertions about metaphysics. They have taken stands about metaphysics. Other people in professional fields which explicitly or implicity include professionals who have those metaphysical positions, take other positions. And they argue and discuss why these differences are important or may be. And have used these different positions to generate experiments, hypotheses and more.

Gotta leave the house, but I'll come back and add some examples:
Quantum Zeo effect in Bird migration
Law of Ontology Conservation

Pantagruel

Philosophy means "love of wisdom". Wisdom requires knowledge, not belief, opinion, sentiment or personal view, else how does (read: "can") one 'know' who or what is wise? Unsupported and unsupportable metaphysical doctrines have gone nowhere — Zettel

Knowledge does not spring full-formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. Knowledge grows out of a sense of wonder at some unknown, and is cultivated through systematic labour. And all of our knowledge has its limits, beyond which there are still further unknowns. At the limits of our knowledge lie our metaphysical presuppositions, assumptions (conscious or unconscious) that attempt to fit what we know into the framework of what we don't. If physics is the least meta-physical of all the sciences, it is also the least complete, inasmuch as 97% of everything that exists (dark matter and energy) is still nothing but a place-holder in an equation.

Karl Popper has an excellent take on metaphysics acting as a guide and inspiration to further scientific inquiry, the metaphysical research program. This is the sense of metaphysics that I embrace: it is our attempt to structure our intuitions of the unknown, as we seek to transform that into knowledge.

Pantagruel

Further we are all taking positions on metaphysics. Take physicalists or naturalists. Seemingly - given the way metaphysics is a word often used perjoratively - far from woo woo, those two categories of people are making assertions about metaphysics. They have taken stands about metaphysics. — Bylaw

:up:

Agent Smith

↪Bylaw

Well, for my money, the reason why there doesn't seem to be a common thread uniting the various subject matters that are claimed as metaphysics is because there is none. As far as I can tell, Aristotle simply appended his physics with some of his random musings, stuff that he never got around to systematizing into a coherent philosophical corpus, one that would instantly be recognizable as (real) philosophy. That's what I suspect @Zettel is driving at - metaphysics is nothing but Aristotle's opinion and if we engage in it like Leibniz did (monads) and others did and will do, we'll simply be offering a subjective, personal account, what we think is going on, not what really is going on.

Pantagruel

we'll simply be offering a subjective, personal account, what we think is going on, not what really is going on. — Agent Smith

This is the essence of science. There are many, many expressions of theoretical physics (string theory, loop quantum gravity, m-theory) which are not mutually compatible. They can't all be right and none of them are complete. Science is as much about speculation as it is about evidence.

Agent Smith

This is the essence of science. There are many, many expressions of theoretical physics (string theory, loop quantum gravity, m-theory) which are not mutually compatible. They can't all be right and none of them are complete. Science is as much about speculation as it is about evidence. — Pantagruel

:up:

Metaphysician Undercover

We know no more now about Anaximander's notion of "Apeiron" than we did at first utterance; we know no more now about Plato's notions of "Forms" or "The Good" than we did at first utterance; we know no more now about Aristotle's notion of "Eudaimonia" than we did at first utterance; we know more now about Kant's notion of "Categorical Imperative" than we did at first utterance; and we know no more now about Leibniz's notion of "Monads" or Spinoza's notion of "Substance" than we did at first utterance. — Zettel

Speak for yourself Zettel. Employing a vague unqualified "we" like this, is rather pointless.

Do you or anyone else here ever post anything other than unsupported sentiment? — Zettel

It's one thing to state an unsupported sentiment as "I believe...", but quite another thing to state an unsupported sentiment as "we know...". The former may be a truth, the latter is a falsity.

Agent Smith

A driveby shooting. :chin:

Pantagruel

It's one thing to state an unsupported sentiment as "I believe...", but quite another thing to state an unsupported sentiment as "we know...". The former may be a truth, the latter is a falsity. — Metaphysician Undercover

:clap:
My pet peeve. Consolation, that proclamations of authority generally belie the opposite.

Bylaw

Well, for my money, the reason why there doesn't seem to be a common thread uniting the various subject matters that are claimed as metaphysics is because there is none. — Agent Smith

I'm not saying there is a common thread under metaphysics. I'm arguing that it's not just people making stuff up. I got into some detail here...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/775979

if we engage in it like Leibniz did (monads) and others did and will do, we'll simply be offering a subjective, personal account, what we think is going on, not what really is going on. — Agent Smith

I'm not very familiar with Leibniz's work. That said I think that there may be a misunderstanding about what some of the work of metaphysics and philosophy is. Philosophy, amongst other things, is coming up with ideas that may be useful. And many metaphysical ideas have been useful, including helping scientists conceive of things that worked out to be the case, also in understanding research results that were strange. And pretty much every scientist - using them as an example since many seem to think is the complete opposite of metaphysics - has taken metaphysical stands and thought this was important - natural laws, physicalism, and examples from my other post.

But even looking at Leibnitz's ....
https://www.papersofbas.eu/images/Papers_2021-2/Ivancheva.pdf
see the conclusion.
or from...
https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/leibniz-physics-logic-metaphysics
Leibnitz thought that time and space, unlike his competitor Newton, were not absolute. This has turned out to be correct (so far, in science) and his ideas influenced philosophers and scientists and then the philosophers he influenced also influenced scientists.

Agent Smith

↪Bylaw

I believe you're conflating epistemology with ontology.

Bylaw

↪Agent Smith

Can you be specific. I'm pretty sure I raised a whole bunch of ontological issues and examples.
I also added issues to my previous post while you responded.

Daniel

↪Zettel

We cannot know everything, so at some point in our quest for knowledge we will reach a point in which we will have to use that which we know to talk about that which we don't, and to talk about ways to explore that which we don't know. In my opinion, that's metaphysics; a tool formed from verified knowledge to probe the unknown. If metaphysical analysis departs from verified knowledge, then I think it should be considered philosophy or at least as a philosophical tool.

Joshs

↪Zettel

Unsupported and unsupportable metaphysical doctrines have gone nowhere despite tedious frequentation for more than three millennia…. Three thousand years of metaphysics has yet to issue a single knowledge claim. Not one. So how is metaphysics "philosophy"? — Zettel

To sum up your view, the history of metaphysics is an exercise in going in circles , while the history of science is a progress toward the truth. This is because the methods of scientific inquiry give it a privileged access to knowledge of reality. Its methods target the subjective perspective on experience as a source of distortion to be minimized as much as possible in order to achieve consensually valid objective truths about the world. Metaphysics, on the other hand, concerns itself primarily with subjective perspective. Philosophy is only legitimate to the extent that it hitches its wagons to science’s methods of empirical falsifiability.

I’m wondering if your knowledge of philosophy is comprehensive enough to summarize some of the alternatives to this view of the respective roles of science vs metaphysics that have been available for at least 150 years. I could start with the claim that your notion of science as falsifiability , which you may have gotten from Popper, owes much to Kant’s metaphysical position. In other words, the very concept of empirical falsifiability , which only took root recently as the view of how science advanced, is a metaphysical proposition.

Pantagruel

We cannot know everything, so at some point in our quest for knowledge we will reach a point in which we will have to use that which we know to talk about that which we don't, and to talk about ways to explore that which we don't know. In my opinion, that's metaphysics; a tool formed from verified knowledge to probe the unknown. — Daniel

This coincides perfectly with my position. :)

How can metaphysics be considered philosophy?

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