What say you? — Bob Ross

Isn't this a metaphysical question? The Metaphysicians have been asking and investigating on the nature of Metaphysics and its legitimacy of the claims. One of the point of CPR by Kant was to find out, "How Metaphysics is possible as a Science."

‘HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE?’ Kant’s Great Question and His Great Answer by Nicholas F. Stang

https://philarchive.org/archive/STAHIM

Overall I think it's a mistake to dismiss metaphysics. — Wayfarer

:up:

Another question one could ask is whether metaphysics is necessary at all and if so why ? I would answer in the positive for the reasons that it’s the father of the scientific method not only in its rationality and application of reason to the real world but hypothetical scenarios which if it’s able to contemplate with rigour, robustness and clarity than it’s results could not be wrong from a hypothetical standpoint. The upshot of this is just like math can correspond to reality so can metaphysics without having to invoke experience.

If the results of experience or observation match the results of metaphysical speculation can we not say that metaphysics has succeeded in this regard? Despite correspondence to reality not being its aim as metaphysics stands alone in this regard in its pure speculative endeavour into the nature of reality and ontology.

In modern science especially quantum physics the lines between metaphysics and physics have become blurrier and blurrier so it’s fair to ask who will get us out of this muddle, physics proper with its application of empiricism which finds it is limited when explaining physical phenomena at the quantum level or metaphysics? Or perhaps a combination of both?

@Bob Ross

Hello 180 Proof

This is neither a charitable nor close reading of what I actually wrote, Bob

I apologize: I must have misunderstood what you wrote.

Translation: Physics (Aristotle et al), not metaphysics, "is a useful model of experience" (i.e. physical reality, or publicly intelligible aspect of the real, aka "nature"). Metaphysics consists in categorical criteria for making hypothetical, or "useful models..."

Maybe that's clearer?

This makes a bit more sense to me. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like you are saying ‘metaphysics’ is the over-arching means of determining ‘physics’ (since the former is ‘categorical criteria for useful models’ and the latter is ‘a useful model’): is that correct?

Hello Mww,

Metaphysics is a discipline; imagination is a faculty.

Even if one chooses to deny to imagination the denomination of faculty, metaphysics is still a discipline, and in which case, the distinction remains that imagination is not.

Couple things that I would like to note:

1. The imagination can be constrained by procedures which make it a discipline, in the sense that you are talking about.

2. Imagination, and pure reason devoid of empirical content, is indistinguishable from mere human conceivability—irregardless of whether it is done is a highly structured way (i.e., as a discipline).

Hello SimplyG,

Yes I agree with you, metaphysics in its nature is not always concerned with producing knowledge but it’s more of a method of thinking and reasoning . You can leave that to science which employs metaphysical methods and theories to yield knowledge such as testable theories that behave as expected in the real world so it’s a fore runner to the scientific method.

I get what you mean, and do agree that we often do this; but, taking the side of the pragmatists, I don’t see why we need metaphysics to do this. We can come up with models pertinent to the possibility of experience, and thusly use science, without making unwarranted assumptions about what may lie beyond that experience.

Take this tautology: All bachelors are unmarried men. Now you don’t need to go around and check if this is true as this is self evident and knowledge of its truth is produced in the sentence itself.

‘All bachelors are unmarries men’, just like ‘a = a’, is only valid within the possibility of experience; and it could be true that the world in-itself behaves in an irrational manner—such that sometimes a != a. Who knows?

Metaphysics is a purely speculative and knowledge is a by product of its enquiry rather than its ultimate aim as it makes no claims of knowledge therefore it remains purely theoretical and abstract.

Metaphysics absolutely claims knowledge about the world in-itself: ask any idealist, physicalist, or substance dualist.

I think it was Einstein who said “imagination is more important than knowledge” and it seems to me quantum theory is ripe for metaphysical speculations of how things at the subatomic scale don’t behave as expected according to ordinary experience.

I don’t see how Einstein’s quote ties back to your point, as I agree that the imagination is important to determining models pertaining to that which is within the bounds of the possibility of experience.

I made a thread specifically related to this question with posters positing that math precedes the physical empirical universe but that there are correlation between the two either by accident or design:

For this discussion, it just depends on if you are claiming this as a useful model of experience or whether it is actually true of the world in-itself.

Hello Joshs,

We wouldn’t be able to distinguish truth from error in the first place if we didn’t have a pre-existing system of criteria ( theory) on the basis of which to make such determinations. Theory is a manifestation of a metaphysical viewpoint

I think we are just using the term ‘metaphysics’ differently: I have no problem with coming up with models (i.e., theories), such as theories of truth, to help us determine other theories (such as scientific ones).

By ‘metaphysics’, I am targeting actual ontologies of the world in-itself. E.g., physicalism, idealism, substance dualism, etc.--basically anything that claims knowledge of the absolute: the world in-itself beyond the possibility of all experience.

The profoundly creative work of science consists not in exposing errors in reasoning but in changing the subject, turning the frame on its head, redefining the criteria of truth and error, not just checking our answers to old questions but asking different questions

Science isn’t metaphysics (in any sense of the term): it doesn’t determine what truth is. Theories of truth are philosophical, and I would imagine (going with your use of the term) metaphysical.

Hello Mww,

If the watershed for the traditional sense of metaphysics is Kant and Enlightenment philosophy in general, and metaphysics in such traditional sense has only to do with conceptions, it follows that to combine metaphysics with, juxtaposition it to, or ground it in, imagination, is very far from the traditional sense.

Kant claims metaphysics is the study of that which is beyond the possibility of experience; but I am not claiming he thought it was a product of the imagination. I think, for him, pure reason is quite different from imagination. For me, not so much.

See:

First, concerning the sources of metaphysical cognition, it already lies in the concept of metaphysics that they cannot be empirical. The principlesb of such cognition (which include not only its fundamental propositionsc or basic principles, but also its fundamental concepts) must therefore never be taken from experience; for the cognition is supposed to be not physical but metaphysical, i.e., lying beyond experience. Therefore it will be based upon neither outer experience, which constitutes the source of physics proper, nor inner, which provides the foundation of empirical psychology

– (Prolegomena, p. 60, Section 1).

Hello LuckyR,

I completely agree with you.

:up:

Hello T Clark,

I'll just provide a conventional definition:
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality. This includes the first principles of: being or existence, identity, change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity, actuality, and possibility. — Wikipedia - Metphysics

That is not at all the same as:
metaphysics is, in fact, indistinguishable from human imagination

True, but this is not a conventional definition in philosophy: it is an adequate colloquial rundown. That is why, if you re-read it, they are more examples as opposed to an actual definition. Again, I am working with the Kantian (and previous to him) philosophers usages of the term. Either way, I grant you it is different than the basic definitions from a google search.

Hello Manuel,

Either we hold onto some kind of metaphysics or we do not. If we deny that metaphysics is legitimate, then we are left with the view that all there is, is sense data, for us.

Not at all: it just means all of our knowledge is contrained by the possible forms of experience. Saying we have sense-data is a part of the contemporary model that is useful for navigating experience.

All the traditional topics of metaphysics, materialism, the self, dualism, free will, things-in-themselves, the nature of objects and so on, would be impossible to formulate absent imagination.

Science is also impossible without the imagination, and I was not intending to argue that it is illegitimate for that. Instead, I am arguing it is illegitimate because it is purely imaginative: there is not an ounce of empirical content tied to it.

We shouldn't have a metaphysics that says modern physics is wrong

I wouldn’t say that modern physics is wrong, I would say that the metaphysical claims, which is separate but usually conjoined with the science, should be interpreted as models for the possibility of experience and not actual claims about the world in-itself.

Hello elephant,

There is no other task that makes us think in a way that does not involve memorization of equation, procedure, or statistics than metaphysics. Philosophical discussions is natural to humans.

I am not saying that philosophy is an illegitimate practice.

Hello Wayfarer,

This sounds very Kantian.

It is very motivated by Kant.

Over all, I agree with your depiction of the origins of ‘metaphysics’.

'Philosophy', Etienne Gilson remarked 'generally buries its undertakers'. Also applies to metaphysics.

I don’t quite agree: I think we can refurbish our philosophical talk into pragmatic modellings of experience, and not actual claims about what may exists beyond that. I don’t see the self-undermining aspect of this argument (like in the case of arguing that philosophy is illegitimate).

I am negating the idea of actually thinking anyone is getting at anything justifiably true with:

In it the nature of 'the knowledge of what is' that is the major subject. The nature of what truly is, which is not subject to change and decay, the imperishable.

This is impossible to obtain.

Hello Corvus,

Isn't this a metaphysical question? The Metaphysicians have been asking and investigating on the nature of Metaphysics and its legitimacy of the claims. One of the point of CPR by Kant was to find out, "How Metaphysics is possible as a Science."

Depending on how you define it, yes. In the sense I defined it in the OP, no.

Hello simplyG,

Another question one could ask is whether metaphysics is necessary at all and if so why ? I would answer in the positive for the reasons that it’s the father of the scientific method not only in its rationality and application of reason to the real world but hypothetical scenarios which if it’s able to contemplate with rigour, robustness and clarity than it’s results could not be wrong from a hypothetical standpoint. The upshot of this is just like math can correspond to reality so can metaphysics without having to invoke experience.

I agree with most of this, if I were to not be specifically meaning ‘the study of that which is beyond the possibility of experience’. I have no problem with creating theories and models ‘of reality’ in the sense of what to expect within the possibility of experience.

The only thing I didn’t agree with was the last sentence: math does not a priori necessarily pertain to the things-in-themselves, our representations of them, nor the absolute. Math, as a practice of predicting relations within experience is absolutely empirically grounded.

If the results of experience or observation match the results of metaphysical speculation can we not say that metaphysics has succeeded in this regard?

In this case, it has succeeded in predicting objects within experience; but take away the possible forms of your experience, and what is left of that observation that matches your metaphysical speculation? Absolutely nothing.

In modern science especially quantum physics the lines between metaphysics and physics have become blurrier and blurrier so it’s fair to ask who will get us out of this muddle, physics proper with its application of empiricism which finds it is limited when explaining physical phenomena at the quantum level or metaphysics? Or perhaps a combination of both?

I am perfectly fine with retaining most of metaphysics as not metaphysics; that is, as the pragmatic study of models for that which is within the possibility of experience—but to extend the claim beyond that is unwarranted to me (which is traditional metaphysics in a nutshell).

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like you are saying ‘metaphysics’ is the over-arching means of determining ‘physics’ ... — Bob Ross

No, definitely not. By analogy, for instance, the rules – generalizations abstracted from design (logical) space – for valid moves in chess (e.g. metaphysics) are not "over-arching means of determining" winning strategies for playing chess (e.g. physical theories).

Not at all: it just means all of our knowledge is contrained by the possible forms of experience. Saying we have sense-data is a part of the contemporary model that is useful for navigating experience. — Bob Ross

Constrained in relation to what? Also, experience of what?

Absolutely sense-data or sensations or however you want to call it, is fundamental to any metaphysics. Beyond that, and being mindful that "metaphysics" is extremely contentious, I think the minimum requirement of agreement should be, that metaphysics is about the world.

Then you can add or subtract as you see fit. If we don't agree on that little bit, we will have a hard time talking with each other.

I am arguing it is illegitimate because it is purely imaginative: there is not an ounce of empirical content tied to it. — Bob Ross

That's not clear at all. Someone who calls themselves a materialist or an idealist use evidence all the time, they'll say that, for example, the collapse of wave function counts as evidence for idealism, or they'll say that the progress of neuroscientific evidence proves materialism is correct.

And so on.

So, you'd have to specify a bit, what you mean by not having an ounce of empirical data. As I see it, experience must count as empirical content, otherwise we are using the word "empirical" to mean, "publicly observable", these are not the same thing.

I wouldn’t say that modern physics is wrong, I would say that the metaphysical claims, which is separate but usually conjoined with the science, should be interpreted as models for the possibility of experience and not actual claims about the world in-itself. — Bob Ross

Sounds as if some kind of model-centric version would count as part of metaphysics for you. Because saying "model of possible experience" without specifying what this relates to, doesn't amount to much, so far as I can see.

Depending on how you define it, yes. In the sense I defined it in the OP, no. — Bob Ross

I have nothing to define, but would you not agree that the OP's claim sounds like Metaphysical itself?

Claiming that the world is unknowable for whatever grounds has been a typical Metaphysical conclusion made by various philosophers in history. The world itself is a metaphysical concept too. :)

"X is unknowable." is also a Metaphysical comment. Because if it were Science, they will make up some hypothesis on the object they want to find out. But Metaphysics don't use hypotheses for their methodology. It just declares "X is unknowable." (with the supporting argument), and it would be a good enough Metaphysical knowledge.

I think, for him, pure reason is quite different from imagination. For me, not so much. — Bob Ross

So be it.

True, but this is not a conventional definition in philosophy: it is an adequate colloquial rundown. — Bob Ross

For me, metaphysics it's the most important part of philosophy. My objection to your OP is that you attempt to discredit metaphysics using a definition that I, and most philosophers, don't believe is correct.

No need to take this any farther.

Absolutely sense-data or sensations or however you want to call it, is fundamental to any metaphysics. — Manuel

There's a nagging thought that I've always had about this. Going back to my undergraduate studies, it was said at the outset that there was a clear distinction between empirical facts (a posteriori, discovered by experience) and truths of reason (true as a matter of definition, the textbook example being that bachelors are unmarried.) This was presented in the context of the tension between empiricism and rationalism in Phil 101.

I always found this definition rather peremptory and dismissive. It seems to reduce the scope of what could be considered 'innate ideas' simply to mathematical statements and logical postulates. It seems to me that even in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, that this is assumed to be exhaustive of the possibilities of knowledge.There are things we know by experience, and facts we can deduce by reason.

But it's always seemed to me that metaphysics proper is concerned with a much greater issue. Thomas Nagel says of Plato's metaphysics, in his essay Secular Philosophy and the Religous Temperament, that:

Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly. He even seems to have suffered from a version of the more characteristically Judaeo-Christian conviction that we are all miserable sinners, and to have hoped for some form of redemption from philosophy. — Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament

I think (@Mww might confirm) that such concerns were more part of what Kant dealt with under the heading of 'practical reason' - that it was a pragmatic moral necessity to assume a transcendent moral order, even if it could not be proven by reason alone.

In any case, I see the origin of metaphysics with being in some sense also 'meta-cognitive' - a deep questioning of how it is that we know what we know, or even whether we really do know what we think we know. I think that Parmenides and the other Eleactic philosophers attained a kind of 'unitive vision' or cosmic awareness, of which we now only have fragmentary pieces. This entails also some pretty deep questions about the nature of being, which I think have tended to drop out of modern philosophy. (This is what the maverick classics scholar Peter Kingsley is on about.)

I think you’re right insofar as metaphysics is an exercise in imagination and intuition. But I also think metaphysical inquiry can help other forms of inquiry by eliminating the inpossible from our questioning, serving to constrain the scope of empirical studies to a reasonable domain of inquiry, and tempering the mind for such a task.

I think you’re right insofar as metaphysics is an exercise in imagination and intuition. But I also think metaphysical inquiry can help other forms of inquiry by eliminating the inpossible from our questioning, serving to constrain the scope of empirical studies to a reasonable domain of inquiry, and tempering the mind for such a task. — NOS4A2

I think that just highlights the point I made earlier - that everyone has their own understanding of the meaning of "metaphysics." I don't consider this a criticism of what you've written.

I think you’re right insofar as metaphysics is an exercise in imagination and intuition. But I also think metaphysical inquiry can help other forms of inquiry by eliminating the inpossible from our questioning, serving to constrain the scope of empirical studies to a reasonable domain of inquiry, and tempering the mind for such a task. — NOS4A2

Thinking some more - I've come to the understanding that talking about metaphysics at all is a fools errand. When I do, I try to be clear about what I mean when I'm talking about it and focus on that while avoiding a more general discussion. Those always degrade into confusion and conflict. Again, not criticism.

It can be taken as being that view. I think it is worth remembering that, ever since the shift in philosophy, from metaphysics to epistemology - Descartes philosophy - the original meaning of the word has shifted.

Look at say, Locke or Leibniz or Hume and others, they use "metaphysics" to refer to problems that are, more accurately described as belonging to epistemology. Hume's talk of the self, or Locke's talk about personhood, or Leibniz discussing innate ideas, these things pertain more to the way we think about the world, than the world itself.

Sometimes they do speak about the world, say, when Hume discusses problems about the continued existence of external objects: that pertains more properly to metaphysics, although there is always an epistemic dimension to all of this.

Cudworth, the most elaborate and fierce innatist of the 17th century, even more than Descartes and Leibniz is correct on the role of the senses:

They provide the occasion of experience within which innate ideas are able to arise. If we don't get experience, ideas won't develop.

"For these ideas of heat, light and colours, and other sensible things, being not qualities really existing in the body without us… and therefore not passively stamped or imprinted upon the soul from without in the same manner that a signature is upon a piece of wax, must needs arise partly from some inward vital energy of the soul itself… so that the soul cannot choose but have such sensations, cogitations and affections in it, when such external objects are presented to the outward senses.”

So even if what you say about Plato is true, and I don't doubt that, without sensation (which you said are treated dismissively, and I agree) we wouldn't be able to articulate anything. So whatever metaphysics is for you, senses must play a role, as must the intellect.

Hume's talk of the self, or Locke's talk about personhood, or Leibniz discussing innate ideas, these things pertain more to the way we think about the world, than the world itself. — Manuel

Notice that these are the early modern philosophers and that, for them, the relation of self and world has become a vexed issue. I’m considering the idea that this is associated with the advent of the modern conception of individuality, and that in pre-modern culture this sense of ‘otherness’ was not so accentuated. Evidence for that is the presence in Aristotelian-Thomism of the principle of ‘the union of knower and known’. There was less of a sense of the divide between self and world in that phase of philosophy.

Cudworth, the most elaborate and fierce innatist of the 17th century, even more than Descartes and Leibniz is correct on the role of the senses:

They provide the occasion of experience within which innate ideas are able to arise. If we don't get experience, ideas won't develop. — Manuel

:ok: That is very similar to the theme that I’m developing in my work. I might post some of it later.

I think (@Mww might confirm)…..that it was a pragmatic moral necessity to assume a transcendent moral order, even if it could not be proven by reason alone. — Wayfarer

Not sure how moral necessity can be pragmatic. Moral necessity by itself, says enough, with respect to assuming a higher order.

As for such higher moral order, true enough; what Leibniz called the Kingdom of Grace Kant calls the summum bonum.

“…. Happiness, therefore, in exact proportion with the morality of rational beings (whereby they are made worthy of happiness), constitutes alone the supreme good of a world into which we absolutely must transport ourselves according to the commands of pure but practical reason. This world is, it is true, only an intelligible world; for of such a systematic unity of ends as it requires, the world of sense gives us no hint. Its reality can be based on nothing else but the hypothesis of a supreme original good. In it independent reason, equipped with all the sufficiency of a supreme cause, founds, maintains, and fulfils the universal order of things, with the most perfect teleological harmony, however much this order may be hidden from us in the world of sense….”

Hello Bob. I've noted before I generally do not use philosophical terms such as 'metaphysics' in discussions, because as you can see from the many replies, no one can agree what they actually mean. Instead, a direct statement of the intent and argument suffice for thought, and you have written a good one.

Metaphysics is indistinguishable from the human imagination because it claims knowledge of that which is beyond the possible forms of experience (namely, space and time) which can never be empirically grounded. However, it is perfectly possible to limit traditional metaphysical claims to the possibility of experience, such that we only attempt to provide a map of what to experience--but this is no longer metaphysics: instead, it is pragmatic modelling of possible experience. — Bob Ross

Perfect. Regardless if someone else has a different view of metaphysics, this notion is correct.

If one takes away the possible forms of their experience and we do not accept claims indistinguishable from the imagination (no matter how plausible), then there is nothing intelligible left: there is nothing to be said about the world in-itself. — Bob Ross

Again, correct. We can only know of the world in-itself through logical limitations and consequences. Namely, some "thing" must be there. But beyond that, everything is a model we create that attempts to represent what is there. Knowledge is the the logical application of our representations for our best chance at matching to the consequences of its existence. But such an existence can only be known as the representations we hold, as we only know how the thing in-itself impacts the world, not what it truly is to exist as itself unobserved.

If you recall the idea of "discrete experience", we part and parcel reality as we wish within our own minds. I can view a field of grass, a blade of grass, or a piece of grass. I do not even need to call it "grass". It is the applications of these identities in practice which determine their usefulness in representing how a thing in-itself impacts the world in a way that is not-contradicted by its existence.

Just wanted to chime in at how I thought this was a really great post!

If one takes away the possible forms of their experience and we do not accept claims indistinguishable from the imagination (no matter how plausible), then there is nothing intelligible left: there is nothing to be said about the world in-itself.
— Bob Ross

Again, correct. We can only know of the world in-itself through logical limitations and consequences. Namely, some "thing" must be there. But beyond that, everything is a model we create that attempts to represent what is there... — Philosophim

Why only, "through logical limitations and consequences"? Could you elaborate?

I'd be more inclined to say, that we can only know the world through our nature, and the nature of other people, including the imaginitive thinking of our intellectual ancestors who managed to point the way towards having a more accurate view of nature, and... and... and...

Is that contradictory?