Philosophy is a jigsaw puzzle.

metaphysics can't say anything, can't tell us anything we could actually make use of. — Banno

That's a circular argument. You start with completely reducing Aristotelian logical metaphysics to ontology of predicated things, then you claim that metaphysics is empty because it's missing. This is why post hoc metaphysics is nonsense. My argument is that Identity is not the only possible logic for philosophy, and that Identity based philosophy is way too limited to be of any use beyond metaphysics. Physics is a most obvious example, if you really think about it.

You start with completely reducing Aristotelian logical metaphysics to ontology of predicated things — magritte

Who, me?

Where? I don't recall mentioning Aristotle. Nor claiming that identity was all there is to logic.

And I have a feeling this will end badly.

I have a feeling this will end badly. — Banno

Sorry, I just dropped the other shoe in answer to the OP. If physicists understood the underlying metaphysics of modern philosophy they would raise exactly this argument. Theoretical mathematical physics is Pythagorean-Platonic, and experimental and observational physics are technology driven and serendipitous, closer to Feyerabend than to anyone else, IMHO.

Theoretical mathematical physics is Pythagorean-Platonic — magritte

You are lumping two things together here that may not be the same: There are theoretical physicists (hand waving) and mathematical physicists (mathematicians working in physics).

Theoretical mathematical physics is Pythagorean-Platonic, — magritte

Indeed it is. Little-commented fact is that Galileo was very much influenced by the Platonic revival that happened in Renaissance Italy, in which Marcello Ficino translated Plato's works into Latin. Galileo's 'the book of nature is written in mathematics' is essentially Platonic. Roger Penrose is very much in the same tradition (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujvS2K06dg4).

"Science is a wholly owned subsidiary of materialism", said someone. This is vindicated by Laplace's famous, "I had no need for that hypothesis" retort to Napoleon's sincere question, "where is god in your theory?"

The relationship between science and philosophy runs into two major problems.

One, as @magritte put it, science makes it a point to keep things simple and adopting that policy is the shortest path to materialism. It's worth noting that making simplicity a supreme, to-die-for virtue has its beginnings in philosophy (last I checked, it has something to do with nominalism, a philosophical matter) - aka Ockham's razor. Since I'm a paradox aficionado and one presents itself here, mirable dictu, Ockham's razor can be thought of as that philosophical principle that led to materialism and subsequently to science [no attitude can possibly be simpler than that of WYSIWYG] and it's Ockham's razor in the dexterous hands of scientists that effectively shaved off philosophy's relevance to the modern man - there's no point in getting, what is in a sense, sucked into parts of philosophy that reject materialism or tries to get a behind-the-curtains look at materialism itself. The story of philosophy and science is Frankensteinian in character - the good dr. Frankenstein (philosophy) meets his end at the hands of the monster (science) he creates.

Two, switching sides on the issue, science is, at its core, wholly based on inductive logic while philosophy tends to be a deductive-logic enterprise. I recall watching a debate between physicist Lawrence Krauss and Hamza Tzortzis on Islam and the latter sets the tone of the discussion by making this distinction in technique explicit from the get go. I suppose in doing so Hamza Tzortzis' point is that no knowledge derived from induction - just another name for science - could refute deduced knowledge, theology in general and Islam in particular insofar as that debate was concerned. By extension, the same logic should apply to other areas in philosophy that rely on deduction rather than induction as a tool of study.

You are engaging in a strange exercise. You have no idea what philosophy of physics is, and you are trying to figure it out from what you think the words mean. Why? Is there some reason why you can't just use the resources at your disposal - you know, Internet, books, journals - to get some idea of what actual practitioners do?

Philosophy is not so much about the how. If it were, it would be a science. What does that leave? It leaves the what and the why. A philosopher of physics is going to be interested in what physicists are thinking and why they're thinking it, and mainly in terms of the history of the thinking that has led to the moment. Probably they will document the axioms in use by the thinkers under consideration. Then perhaps to document their presuppositions, this latter much the more difficult because presuppositions, being presupposed, are usually not apparent. — tim wood

Yes, that is part of what philosophy of physics is (or more broadly, philosophy, history and sociology of science). And it isn't much different in its scope and methods than a lot of the philosophy that you are probably more familiar with, that has more to do with history, biography and philology than with logic and metaphysics as such. This is probably not what @magritte thinks of as philosophy, but it has long been part of the academic discipline.

But that's not all there is to the philosophy of physics.

philosophy in its highest sense, which I take to mean knowledge of man, his peculiar character and the nature of his life, I would welcome it. — Todd Martin

That's more than a little arrogant, don't you think? Who are you to legislate what "philosophy in its highest sense" should be? Here's a thought: philosophy is what people do when they do "philosophy."

If physicists understood the underlying metaphysics of modern philosophy — magritte

The underlying metaphysics of modern philosophy? Really? There is such a thing?

At the moment, as often happens, we're off on a discussion without having any idea what the discussion is actually about. — tim wood

You gotta love this forum.

There are theoretical physicists (hand waving) and mathematical physicists (mathematicians working in physics). — jgill

To be fair, I don't think that these disciplines are very distinct. I don't know any mathematical physicists well, but some theoretical physicists that I've known have gone back and forth throughout their career between working on specific problems in physics and working on less specific mathematical problems, depending on their engagement.

Sorry, I just dropped the other shoe in answer to the OP. If physicists understood the underlying metaphysics of modern philosophy they would raise exactly this argument. — magritte

For me this has settled the debate. If someone brings up metaphysics in any rational argument, to me, AND I ONLY SPEAK FOR MYSELF, it signifies that they know absolutely nothing about the subject matter.

That is so because meatphysics is not a coherent, interrelated topic of thought. Its origins were strarted and it got its name from a chapter in one of Aristotle's book, the chapter named "Metaphysics" which literally means "After Physics", and it was named that due to the facs that 1. it came immediately after the chapter in the same book, which chapter was named "Physics" and 2. it contains disparate, to each other unrelated relationships between things.

So to speak of metaphysics as if it were a coherent phylosophical underlining in the Aristotlean sense is nonsense.

To speak of metaphysics in the modern, different sense, means that the author is drawing a connection between the observed, real supernatural and the naturally occurring. The problem with that is that a person is at liberty to believe in metaphysical reality, but he or she should not promote it as a fact or as an accepted consensus, because it is not.

If you drop an apple, nobody will argue you that it will fall down. That's physics.

If you swear up-and-down that your uncle saw ghosts, or that there is a common consciousness, a spirit, an all-encompassing qualia in the world, you are always going to encounter some resistence, as your claim will always be anecdotal and no relevant experiment has ever been performed to support the theories of modern metaphysics.

So as soon as someone says that word in a discussion of hard sciences, that person lost his or her credibility for me, AND I ONLY SPEAK FOR MYSELF. You, whoever you are, are welcome to believe the claims of metaphysical reality.

Just remember: you can have any opinion, but you can't have any fact. There is a saying that says that much better, but I haven't memorized it yet. You can bend opinions but you can't bend facts. Unless you are Pfizer or Bayerische Motor Werke.

Some thoughts,

There are theoretical physicists (hand waving) and mathematical physicists (mathematicians working in physics). — jgill

Even speculative physics of other possible physical worlds is intended to be fully mathematical as soon as the needed maths are invented. Without mathematics what physics is there?

Galileo was very much influenced by the Platonic revival — Wayfarer

Exactly. Unfortunately, Galileo had to be more occupied with the speculative science of motion and change than with philosophy. Proposing a heretical philosophical alternative was clearly not his intention.

no knowledge derived from induction - just another name for science - could refute deduced knowledge — TheMadFool

I imagine that Kant would have agreed with that. But isn't open, inductive scientific knowledge very different in kind from deductive knowledge deduced from closed, purely logical systems?

The underlying metaphysics of modern philosophy? Really? There is such a thing? — SophistiCat

Is it really possible to say anything whatsoever in any language that is not predicated on at least implied metaphysics?

metaphysical reality — god must be atheist

is an imagined but logically coherent
hypothesized philosophical world for the purpose of generating deductive consequences. The problem with the rejection of metaphysical worlds is that they create the idea and language of structure, objects, relations, facts, events, space, time, and many more, so that nothing can be conceived or communicated without them. BTW, this isn't just true for Aristotle's First Philosophy but for other philosophies as well. So, in saying anything, you have already committed yourself to some metaphysical world, or more likely a number of inconsistent worlds of your own.
I would guess that most of our discussions at TPF are disagreements about metaphysical beliefs.

is an imagined but logically coherent
hypothesized philosophical world for the purpose of generating deductive consequences. — magritte

thanks for clarifying your defintion of "metaphysical reality". I accept it as yours; but please do understand that this is not a definition by consensus; it is instead a definition of your own.

So, in saying anything, you have already committed yourself to some metaphysical world, — magritte

as per your definition. Some would define me as married, by their definition, and the government definition is that I am not married. In the understanding of your defintion, I am committed. But some others include mysticism in their defintion of metaphysical reality; in that sense I am not committed.

I would guess that most of our discussions at TPF are disagreements about metaphysical beliefs. — magritte

True, true. Each to his own. And then we duke it out.

So, in saying anything, you have already committed yourself to some metaphysical world, or more likely a number of inconsistent worlds of your own. — magritte

This is interesting. Could you please cite in normal language what inconsistent worlds i contain within that I am committed to? I may not even start an argument, but I do want to see real examples of it. Thanks.

Even speculative physics of other possible physical worlds is intended to be fully mathematical as soon as the needed maths are invented. — magritte

If you are thinking of such things as multiverses in cosmology or the many-worlds interpretation in quantum mechanics, then it's the other way around: mathematics is there from the start, evocative metaphors of "worlds" are interpretations.

Is it really possible to say anything whatsoever in any language that is not predicated on at least implied metaphysics? — magritte

Identifying metaphysics with just any conceptualization is selling it a little cheap, don't you think?

We see more and more that science, mainly physics, has strayed into the realm of philosophy and though experiments. ... Do you believe science has become no longer the study of the world as it is, but as it may be? or do you see science as simply the persuit of knowledge no matter the form? — CallMeDirac

To speculate what if comes naturally to people. Imagined scenarios just convincing enough to elicit reflection and to enable change of conception or belief by the listeners go back at least to the earliest myths of mankind. Thought experiments need not be rational, just being conceivable is enough. For example, think of Pegasus or Icarus flying in the sky. Or the Wright brothers. Philosophers adopted this and other techniques to convey difficult abstract notions and theoretical and scientists followed suit naturally.

Think experiments create a mental model of what could be, and when you think about it not all that different from seeing it in person if that were actually possible. What science studies is always the form, a scientific generality, and not just this individual. The individual is treated as a representative sample of the form under study.

cite in normal language what inconsistent worlds i contain within that I am committed to? — god must be atheist

I don't know if you play or watch sports or games. Each one of these has its own logic and language. I'm a prisoners of COVID but I'm allowed to watch movies on the internet, and yes, each movie is its own imagined world. I'm not the romantic hero making love nor the spy who is impervious to the perils of the world, but for a short time I live in their world, their world is somewhat real to me, I speak their language, and use their improbable logic. Does music have any meaning to you? If yes, what is it?

multiverses in cosmology or the many-worlds interpretation in quantum mechanics, then it's the other way around: mathematics is there from the start — SophistiCat

Sorry, those are mathematical inventions. But string theories are still incomplete, I believe, for lack of more advanced maths. Newton invented fluxions to formulate his mechanics.

Identifying metaphysics with just any conceptualization is selling it a little cheap, don't you think? — SophistiCat

Well yes. It is usually cranked up to higher standards. But I'm not the inventor. Nelson Goodman did some brilliant and highly rigorous work along these lines. His work is sadly neglected.

There are theoretical physicists (hand waving) and mathematical physicists (mathematicians working in physics). — jgill


To be fair, I don't think that these disciplines are very distinct — SophistiCat

There are theoretical physicists (hand waving) and mathematical physicists (mathematicians working in physics). — jgill

Even speculative physics of other possible physical worlds is intended to be fully mathematical as soon as the needed maths are invented. Without mathematics what physics is there? — magritte

You guys . . . :roll:

Wikipedia:

Mathematical vs. theoretical physics

The term "mathematical physics" is sometimes used to denote research aimed at studying and solving problems in physics or thought experiments within a mathematically rigorous framework. In this sense, mathematical physics covers a very broad academic realm distinguished only by the blending of some mathematical aspect and physics theoretical aspect. Although related to theoretical physics,[3] mathematical physics in this sense emphasizes the mathematical rigour of the similar type as found in mathematics.

On the other hand, theoretical physics emphasizes the links to observations and experimental physics, which often requires theoretical physicists (and mathematical physicists in the more general sense) to use heuristic, intuitive, and approximate arguments.[4] Such arguments are not considered rigorous by mathematicians, but that is changing over time[citation needed] .

Such mathematical physicists primarily expand and elucidate physical theories. Because of the required level of mathematical rigour, these researchers often deal with questions that theoretical physicists have considered to be already solved. However, they can sometimes show that the previous solution was incomplete, incorrect, or simply too naïve. Issues about attempts to infer the second law of thermodynamics from statistical mechanics are examples. Other examples concern the subtleties involved with synchronisation procedures in special and general relativity (Sagnac effect and Einstein synchronisation).

The effort to put physical theories on a mathematically rigorous footing not only developed physics but also has influenced developments of some mathematical areas. For example, the development of quantum mechanics and some aspects of functional analysis parallel each other in many ways. The mathematical study of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and quantum statistical mechanics has motivated results in operator algebras. The attempt to construct a rigorous mathematical formulation of quantum field theory has also brought about some progress in fields such as representation theory.

You overlooked my "may not be the same"

There's no shortage of confidence on TPF. Amusing at time. :smile:

theoretical physics emphasizes the links to observations and experimental physics — jgill

Do you mean experimental physicists or perhaps engineers?

I don't know if you play or watch sports or games. Each one of these has its own logic and language. I'm a prisoners of COVID but I'm allowed to watch movies on the internet, and yes, each movie is its own imagined world. I'm not the romantic hero making love nor the spy who is impervious to the perils of the world, but for a short time I live in their world, their world is somewhat real to me, I speak their language, and use their improbable logic. Does music have any meaning to you? If yes, what is it? — magritte

We already established that your defintiion of metaphysics is individual, and its name stands for anything imaginary, conceptual, or fictional.

Those imitry which you describe and call worlds are not worlds. There is an insinuation in our minds that they are different worlds, but they are not. And they are definitely not incompatible with each other.

Next you will define what a world is (a real thing or a phantasm), and pretty soon, if we keep pushing you, you'll declare that every word in the English langauge will mean each other and every other as well as their own meanings.

So this is it. You wash out the boundaries between distinct concepts, and you are convinced that that's an accepted, and acceptable practice.

Should you be right, we'd still be sitting in trees, wondering if rocks are edible.

I just came out of a conversation with Metaphysical Undercover. I think it was him, but I mix up usernames in my head, so if it wasn't him, many apologies to him. But the idea is more important than who it was. He defined metaphysics in his own individual way, too.

I think the two of you will get together and duke it out.

It is surprising, and a huge coincidence, that two users on this site have come up at the same time, well, on the same day, with ideas that are dissimilar, but their root is the same, and the logic in both instances involves 1. changing the language and 2. taking possession of the word "metaphysics."

Do you mean experimental physicists or perhaps engineers? — magritte

I don't mean anything. This is a Wikipedia article. Argue with them. :cool:

Since I piddle around with dynamics in the complex plane - force (vector) fields that predict the movements of particles, I suppose I am somewhat a "mathematical physicist". Like you, magritte, I will await my Nobel Prize in the mail! :victory:

Reading back over this discussion, I am led to remark on what I see as the hierarchical nature of the scientific disciplines; for, mr. Banno, for example, assumes that no knowledge of man can be had unless it be reductionist, by which I assume he means, unless it be explained by knowledge gained from studying the orders of nature beneath it.

My knowledge of mathematics and physics is rather outdated: I studied them 40 yrs or so ago in high school and university, and much more progress may have been achieved in these fields since then; but I have never heard that we have, starting with only the postulates of these two sciences either separately or combined, been able to predict, as Maxwell did electro-magnetic waves, the periodic table, which, to my mind, suggests that there is a distinction to be made b/w the disciplines of mathematics, physics and chemistry, and that the phenomena of the “higher” science, that of chemistry, cannot be understood simply or solely by the postulates of it’s two lower sisters.

Similarly, I have never heard (correct me if I’m wrong!) that chemists, working from the postulates of their peculiar science, have ever been able to predict that that new thing in nature, based on the carbon atom, called “life”, must emerge, much less that it would take on the infinite variety of form that it has, nor substitute for the science we call biology, with its own postulates that describe its own peculiar phenomena...

Finally, I see that this new object of science, man, emerges as something distinct and superior to the the things that merely live, the objects of biology, with his own peculiar characteristics irreducible to those of that inferior science, and I am convinced that nature is arranged in a hierarchy, from things lower to higher, each governed by its own peculiar laws...

...and, having studied, in a rudimentary fashion, the systems of gov he has established and how each sort influences general thought, have concluded that those who condemn me for being “arrogant” in thinking this way are simply blinded by democratic ideology, which asserts that, to put it bluntly, “nothing is better than anything else”.

I once had a discussion with a man who I finally forced to confess that he believed a human being was not, essentially, any better than a rock; so I asked him, “so you don’t mind if I kick you around in the argument a little?”,...and he was offended!

Many of the pioneers of quantum mechanics were Europeans and deeply philosophical in outlook — Wayfarer

Yes. The Europeans may have been less committed to the doctrine of Materialism, and more familiar with philosophical Metaphysics. Around the beginning of the 20th century, the United States was changing the focus of higher education, from Philosophy (wisdom) -- as in Phd -- to Pragmatism (practical applications). Apparently, some of the pioneers of Quantum Theory retained some of their philosophical training, even as they discovered that the foundations of the material world are not composed of Physical Matter, in the traditional sense, but something more like Metaphysical Mathematics. Hence, fair game for philosophers. :smile:

Is quantum mechanics materialist?
Consequently, Einstein's relativity was considered a denial of materialism and objective reality by philosophers and some prominent scientists at the time.
http://socialismtoday.org/archive/127/quantum.html

Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the great debate about the nature of reality :
In 1958, Heisenberg wrote that the Copenhagen interpretation had "led physicists far away from the simplistic materialist views that prevailed in the natural sciences of the 19th century". Einstein, he said, wished to return to "the idea of an objective, real world", where subatomic particles "exist objectively in the same sense as stones or trees exist, independently of whether or not we observe them". (Physics and Philosophy, pp82-83)

Nominal Mass : in physics, Mass is the metaphysical "essence" of Matter. Mass has no physical properties, it is itself a property -- a Quality. It's the name (L. nomen) for a measure of Matter. (L. mensura ; mens -- mind)
Note : you won't find this definition in Physics textbooks.

your definition of metaphysics is individual, and its name stands for anything imaginary, conceptual, or fictional — god must be atheist

Nope, that would be fun but the metaphysics isn't all mine.
I'm talking about a much more generalized version of Aristotle's systematic metaphysics which I did not invent. It's been around since antiquity but you really have to look to find it.

Aristotle starts with a strict logical principle, non-contradiction (think of as Socratic elenchus). This is also the logical equivalent of the principle of identity, just meaning closed, bounded objects. Then, he axiomatically specifies the same for both objects and propositions. Thus he creates a logical, metaphysical world, or imaginary formal reality, if that sounds any better. From that he develops a simple and powerful and very general philosophy from which his standard (not mine) ontology, epistemology, and ethics roughly follow. That's the 5-second guide to philosophy in a nutshell.

The historical development is straight-forward. Parmenides comes up first with this logic for his One object, Aristotle extends that to many objects. According to my probably wrong reading, Nelson Goodman and others extend this to a plurality of metaphysical worlds, a foam of Aristotelian philosophical worlds, which Goodman applies to the reality of all actual phenomena, especially in the arts.

Naturally, since I am here, I will extend this just one more simple step to non-Aristotelian worlds as well. In this case, the logic is not specified up front by Parmenides, rather each application sets its own axiomatic logic.

Where this comes into this thread is the philosophy of science where each sub-discipline has its own logic. Not just physics, but each science and its specialties.

dynamics in the complex plane - force (vector) fields that predict the movements of particles — jgill

:up: You're talking to a woke fan. I check the flow of high and low global winds and pollution each morning.

We see more and more that science, mainly physics, has strayed into the realm of philosophy and though experiments. Seeing this what is your opinion on the subject? Do you believe science has become no longer the study of the world as it is, but as it may be? or do you see science as simply the persuit of knowledge no matter the form? — CallMeDirac

Well, I’m under the impression that science, mainly physics, has always been in the realm of philosophy, at least as a way to test hypotheses and thereby attempt to find a more agreeable or universally verifiable answer to the questions posed. Any claim about the world as it is draws from a study of the world as it may be, and this is more apparent as physics provides probabilistic answers that are open to interpretation, more often than objective certainty. This is not a failure on the part of physicists, rather an understanding of the relativity of ‘the world as it is’, and even of the world as it may be, for that matter.

There are those who are satisfied with the pursuit of data or logical information, with no regard for the relational structure or form in which it may describe the world. Others are happy to construct logical forms without any intention of broadly testing hypotheses against the world as it is - content that it formulates a logical structure of the world as it should be. To the extent that the world as it is diverges from this logical form, they are condemned to suffer fools, to ignore, isolate and exclude information about the world as it is, or to reformulate their conception of the world as it may be.

In my opinion science, mainly physics, can no longer pretend to isolate itself from the realm of philosophy and the questions it poses or answers it offers, just as philosophy cannot afford to be ignorant of scientific research in relation to answering the questions posed.

Not far enough; and vice versa. That there isn't more of a generalized traffic between both philosophy and science - in both directions - is a sad indictment on both.

I imagine that Kant would have agreed with that. But isn't open, inductive scientific knowledge very different in kind from deductive knowledge deduced from closed, purely logical systems? — magritte

As far as I can tell, Hamza Tzortzis in his debate with Lawrence Krauss brings to the fore science's most embarrassing character flaw in a manner of speaking viz. that it's inductive logic through and through, extrapolating from particulars to generalizations if I recall correctly.

It's not the case that scientists aren't aware of this fact though; they constantly remind themselves and the public that scientific theories are not written in stone - fixed, unchangeable - but, au contraire, can be, should be, modified/thrown out the window, as new evidence comes to light.

Science, the bottom line is, deals with tentative truths - truths that can be false.

Philosophy, although employing the odd inductive argument here and there, is a field whose mainstay is deductive logic and deductive logic is all about absolute truths - truths that can't be false.

What all this means is that if science and philosophy should ever find themselves in opposing camps on an issue, it would be a clash of tentative truths vs absolute truths and by the very meanings of these two kinds of truths we can get an idea of how things will pan out.

While I am on board with analytic philosophy in general, I am skeptical of totalizing positivist worldmaking.

You want a scientific understanding of fear and shame, but one that is not reductionist...? — Banno

This open question reminds me of Quantum Theory. It began as a reductive search for the philosophical Atom. But, at this moment, it ends with ellipsis . . . . . . .

That omission of knowledge opens the door for Philosophy to help explain the relation of Human Nature -- Life & Mind & fear & shame -- to physical Nature. Philosophy (and scientific hypotheses) fills-in the blanks (gaps in understanding) with logical speculation. That may be why science has -- inadvertently, but necessarily -- "strayed" into the the purview of Philosophy. :smile:

Quantum paradox points to shaky foundations of reality : https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/quantum-paradox-points-shaky-foundations-reality

Philosophical Atomism : is a reductive argument, proposing not only that everything is composed of atoms and void, but that nothing they compose really exists: the only things that really exist are atoms ricocheting off each other mechanistically in an otherwise empty void.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomism