I think it still starts from essentially positivistic presuppositions, that presume that naturalism describes the world as it really is — Wayfarer
Morris Lazerowitz was interested in the nature of metaphysics, starting from the hunch that it was not what its practitioners claimed it was (an inquiry into the basic nature of things). That it is not what it claims to be seems obvious in retrospect – we cannot even figure out such simple things as what is behind a closed door by just talking about it. Why would we ever think we could figure out the basic nature of the elements of the universe by talking? It's in this puzzling feature of metaphysics – that somehow the deepest truths are known without any investigation whatsoever, and just by deciding to use words in a certain way, that is the start of his account. — Snakes Alive
It doesn't take into account that there might be a truly intellectual and experiential foundation to metaphysics which has been deliberately bracketed out of philosophy by modernist thinking, which then completely forgets what it originally referred to, and simply declares it all 'meaningless talk'. — Wayfarer
I don't think those that do metaphysics or have done it in the past have ever internally been able to get clear on what its supposed significance is. Hence the fact that it is 'empty talk' is an observation, not a prejudice – people cannot, as a matter of fact, make sense of it. — Snakes Alive
So, sure, for those with no understanding of the original significance of such discourses, — Wayfarer
The point is that those engaged in the discourse also seem to have no understanding of it. — Snakes Alive
magine a visitor from another planet which has developed without any conception of music. — Wayfarer
But this discussion interests me less than the discussion of the actual model of metaphysics by Lazerowitz I've posted, which you don't seem to be talking about. — Snakes Alive
According to Origen, there are two kinds of Biblical literature which are found in both the Old and New Testaments: historia ("history, or narrative") and nomothesia ("legislation or ethical prescription").[179] Origen expressly states that the Old and New Testaments should be read together and according to the same rules.[181] Origen further taught that there were three different ways in which passages of scripture could be interpreted.[181][43] The "flesh" was the literal, historical interpretation of the passage;[181][43] the "soul" was the moral message behind the passage;[181][43] and the "spirit" was the eternal, incorporeal reality that the passage conveyed.[181][43] In Origen's exegesis, the Book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs represent perfect examples of the bodily, soulful, and spiritual components of scripture respectively.[182] — Wikipedia
Let's go back to the 'first layer' and 'second layer' model. It makes a valid point - that metaphysical enunciations (or claims or whatever) appear to be meaningful, but on analysis, they're actually not. Whereas if we say 'the sun rises in the East' or any other purely factual statement, this can be validated by observation, metaphysical dicta cannot be, often by definition. (This leads to the positivist position of 'verificationism'.)
But I think this is well understood in metaphysical traditions themselves. — Wayfarer
it is literally meaningful because it is lived. But those outside that 'domain of discourse' will not be able to understand the references or meaning, and will be inclined to say that they don't refer to anything, or mean anything. But I think it's a very presumptuous attitude. — Wayfarer
If it were meaningful to the participants, then they should be able to articulate that meaning internally among their own practice, but they cannot do this either. For example, metaphysicians cannot agree on what their propositions mean, under what circumstances they would be true, what their scope is, or what the criteria for figuring out whether they are true look like. — Snakes Alive
The first set, it seems, has a puzzling status, where it is not just unclear whether they are true or false, due maybe to epistemic limitations, or vagueness in the language, or ambiguity, or what have you, but it is unclear whether they are meaningful, in the restricted sense that it is unclear whether they in principle determine any truth conditions at all. That is, as competent speakers of English, we typically do not know what would make the statements in the first class true or false, and so we cannot extract a 'descriptive' meaning from them. It is for this reason that metaphysicians are able to argue about the claims endlessly, even without any 'materials' for argumentation other than conversations they take part in – because if even the sense of the expressions are unclear, one can always deny or affirm a claim, by construing the words in a certain way or marshaling and endless array of supplementary hypotheses or hermeneutic and argumentative techniques, themselves undetermined or underdetermined for meaning. In other words, conversations about such metaphysical sentences are in principle endless, because they have in principle no way of being resolved, because their structure, despite being grammatically like a claim with coherent (if sometimes vague or ambiguous) truth conditions, do not have any such that the speakers can converge on. — Snakes Alive
What support do you have for that assertion? It simply sounds like an assumption to me, an 'everyone knows that...' statement. — Wayfarer
A counter point might be that if you take any popular unsolved mystery, there will be endless argumentation spanning many different theories. Take Fermi's Paradox and the question of whether technological alien life exists as a good example of this. There are even debates over what to search for. The problem is that we don't know the answer, not that it's meaningless. — Marchesk
What would it mean for there to be no physical objects? It would mean everything exists as an idea in someone's mind. What does that mean? Dreams are a good example. Everything would have the same fundamental status of dreams, except as different kinds of experiences. Experiences themselves would exhaust what a thing is. — Marchesk
But the problem is not just that intelligible, difficult questions were asked, like 'how many stars are in the sky?' — Snakes Alive
Rather, no inquiry was ever performed other than the conversations held, and even in this arena, where nothing was ever looked into and people apparently felt that nothing needed to be looked into, it was impossible to make any headway. — Snakes Alive
Lucretius used erosion as a justification for atomism. — Marchesk
Metaphysics isn't just a language game. It's also looking around at our experience of the world and asking how things are the way they are, and whether our concepts about those things make sense. — Marchesk
So yes, I would say indeed that things like global idealism, and the idea of the world as a dream, as typically intended, are not literally significant. All you are doing is taking the world as it is, and deciding to call it a 'dream' or not, but this does not change how you take the world to be. — Snakes Alive
You could find a way to make them significant, for example by saying 'no, I think we literally live in a Matrix world, and we could wake up tomorrow in a pod controlled by robots.' That is an intelligible claim, although one that might be hard to prove. I know what it would be to wake up in such a situation – and in fact, such a thing can even be coherently depicted, as it is in the Matrix. — Snakes Alive
But that's not quite right. The unreflective way we take the world to be is physical. — Marchesk
Idealism would say the perceiving is all there is to it. And things only persists when we're not around if there is someone like God or a universal mind to perceive. There is no mind-independent material stuff that may or may not be like what we perceive. — Marchesk
Metaphysical questions cannot be decided by empirical means. Do you have any examples to the contrary? — Snakes Alive
I don't know what you mean by this. I don't think unreflective experience of the world has metaphysical consequences, since metaphysical claims have no consequences. — Snakes Alive
What then is the difference between these things existing outside of perception or not? — Snakes Alive
If you do not have an example, I will not take the claim seriously. — Snakes Alive
I think it has naive realist claims. — Marchesk
Material things would be different since their properties and behaviors are not exhausted by our perception of them. — Marchesk
What is the minimum criterion for being meaningful? — creativesoul
OK, but what does that actually mean? — Snakes Alive
Try the test: can you write a novel in which idealism is true, — Snakes Alive
What is the minimum criterion for being meaningful?
— creativesoul
For something to have 'cognitive significance,' it should describe some state of affairs such that the one to whom it's meaningful can somehow tell the difference between that state of affairs obtaining or not obtaining. — Snakes Alive
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