Austin's Philosophical Papers.


Also,
How not to be a chucklehead

Sure there is a point in saying that a large portion of metaphysics can be cleared up by clarifying what we mean when we use certain words. For example "real" is an honorific word in English, as in this is the deal and this is the real deal. There aren't two types of deals the deal and the real deal. We are just using real for emphasis in this instance.

What-it's-like arguments seem to me to be peculiar to English. They can't be articulated nearly as well in other languages, thus there is reason to be suspicious that we are being held captive by language, as Wittgenstein said.

At the same time, the classical debates in metaphysics of idealism vs realism or free will vs determinism and so on down the long list, aren't only about the use of words. If it were only that, I suspect that many of these debates would have died out. Nobody, or very few at most, speak about phlogiston anymore or of elan vital and the like.

The reason these questions remain, is because the issues are hard. Is the world fundamentally non-mental or is the entire world a product of our representations? Are we the product of one long causal chain in which the big bang set in motion all our choices and decisions or do we have the capacity to act in a manner that is not dictated entirely from previous act?

If there is no self - which is different from considering the self as distinct from the body - then why do we treat other people as if they had a self of some kind? We can perhaps clear up some confusion by clearing up what we mean when we say "mind" or "will", but that seems to me to leave the main point in these disputes entirely unresolved. And they may remain in this domain, as they have for thousands of years...

Rather he would track down exactly what is going on when one indulges in philosophical speculation. If it is found wanting, then so much the worse for philosophy. — Banno

If it's an indulgence, then it is to be avoided, but the problem is, Austin is treating philosophy as an indulgence, to be dissipated by a bit of plain old common sense.

There is an argument, rarely actually articulated, but often implied, that while the table might appear solid, it really mostly consists of space, and hence it is really not solid at all. When set out explicitly the argument is obviously false. — Banno

That is exactly the point I was talking about, but plainly you didn't get it.

notice that it is not obvious that the 'sensory domain' and the 'physical world' are somehow names for the very same thing; but more, it is not at all clear what the 'sensory domain' is, nor what the 'physical world' is. Indeed, if we are to take the claims of scientists as they stand, it is clear that what we sense is very different from what is described by physics. So if these are to be our guide as to what is the 'real' world', we had best put some effort into rendering the two consistent. So in this I think we are in agreement that there is a problem, but differ as to the way we ought proceed. — Banno

What I'm trying to describe is an attitude that might be known as naive ('naive' is often taken as perjorative in this context, when really it's a technical term) or scientific realism, and/or empiricism. It is an attitude towards the nature of experience, and going on the basis of our many exchanges, I would have thought you had no objection to being described as empiricist. At risk of repeating myself, science itself has thrown our common-sense notion of reality into question, and considering the implications of that is not 'an indulgence'.

Notice that this was done by removing the word "really"? And that this word was removed because it was seen that what it means depends on the context in which it is used? — Banno

As I said:

Such a question can only be understood by framing it in terms of 'domains of discourse'. In different domains, it has different meanings, and I don't think there is an ultimate meaning independent of all domains. — Wayfarer

Austin occupies a place in philosophy of language alongside the Cantabrigian Wittgenstein and Austin's fellow Oxonian, Gilbert Ryle, in staunchly advocating the examination of the way words are ordinarily used in order to elucidate meaning and by this means avoid philosophical confusions. — Wiki

In the Twentieth Century, philosophy was like a confused and clumsy person who repeatedly tries to commit suicide, but keeps failing, though with the addition of debilitating damage at each attempt. The public face of philosophy was often, for many years, people like Bertrand Russell or Jean Paul Sartre, whose personal, moral, political, and philosophical follies were the kinds of things that will be no less than an embarrassment for posterity. In the classic sophistry of a dilemma of false alternatives, respected academic philosophy often seemed to have offered only two choices:

First, the sterility and agnosticism of positivistic, scientistic, and merely analytic schools, characteristically, if not always originally, Anglo-American, which have frequently denied the possibility of knowledge in metaphysical or ethical matters, and sometimes the possibility of constructive philosophical knowledge at all, with, according to Karl Popper, a "concentration upon minutiae (upon 'puzzles') and especially upon the meanings of words; in brief .... scholasticism." As Allan Bloom said, "Professors of these schools [i.e. positivism and ordinary language analysis] simply would not and could not talk about anything important, and they themselves do not represent a philosophic life for the students." Students and the intellectually curious looking for some concern, any concern, about the truths of being and value, the content of wisdom, or some humane purpose, found instead what has aptly been called a "valley of bones." — Kelly Ross

(The second alternative is Continental post-modernism, it can be read here.)

You may be right. There may be genuine metaphysical issues that do not dissipate on analysis.

If so, then you ought be able to provide one for our erudition.

So start a thread and invite me. But choose with care, because I don't think the ones you list in your post here will suffice.

Fair enough. I don't know how to @ people yet in my post. But needless to say, you're invited. :wink:

That is exactly the point I was talking about, but plainly you didn't get it. — Wayfarer

Actually, I agreed with you...

As usual, we agree, but you give the wrong explanation.

...science itself has thrown our common-sense notion of reality into question... — Wayfarer

Has it? I rather think that the table will remain solid, regardless of what physicists say. Do you disagree?

Supposing that Wittgenstein and Austin did not address "anything important" is, it seems to me, based on a misreading of what they were doing.

A visiting philosopher is said to have wondered aloud: ‘But Professor Austin, what great problems of philosophy are illuminated by these inquiries?’ Austin considered a moment, then replied: ‘Roughly, all of them.’

You asked me whether I feel that I am information or energy. I would probably go for energy, because I am organic. I wonder if others wonder whether others feel that way or differently, but it may be a starting point for phenomenological approaches. — Jack Cummins

Yes , I would go for energy also. I think the energy is related to the spirit / soul we feel ourselves to be. Over a lifetime the information changes, but a spirit ( energy ) always remains. And yes again, this relates to phenomenology. The state of energy is disturbed upon cognition ( Capra ), which is felt as emotion. This is still pretty fuzzy in my mind, and perhaps some day I will lay it out in a more coherent manner.

Reality however is a concept that describes the underlying understanding that creates it. It is derived from DNA data, experience, and perspective ( relativity ). So is something slightly different at every point of consciousness. Responses to this thread are a great example of this. What is interesting is that the different points of consciousness exchange information and energy ( communicate ), which forces a modulation on every point such that a self organization starts to form - in the style of a neural network. From this perspective our interaction starts to self organize, so acts like consciousness itself.
( this can not happen abruptly, but over time the collective consciousness forms and evolves, and through this interaction so does the individual consciousness ).

In short, communication is an orientation in each others reality, whilst reality is a function of consciousness, where consciousness is an integration of ones DNA data, experience and perspective
( in relativity we each have our own time and space, so our own individual perspective).

In a sense we are a node, interacting with other nodes within a larger nodular collective, and it would seem it is all made of information and energy. This is how I understand panpsychism - in that "self organizing information and energy" is really all there is.

That's how I see it anyway. :smile:

FYI: Physics is my weakness also. Ive found Sabine Hossenfelder to be of great help.

:up:

I rather think that the table will remain solid, regardless of what physicists say. Do you disagree? — Banno

What is the point of the question? Why is its solidity an issue? I think that it will remain solid - hope so, I’m eating lunch on it whilst typing this reply, be darned inconvenient if it didn’t.

Supposing that Wittgenstein and Austin did not address "anything important" is, it seems to me, based on a misreading of what they were doing. — Banno

I don’t think they’re necessarily in the same boat; I think Wittgenstein had some genuine depth. There’s rather a good essay here on how Collingwood’s early death provided the opportunity for Ryle to dominate English philosophy for more than a generation. His period of English philosophy was strongly positivist. I can see how the reaction against idealism, particularly Hegel, Fichte, Schelling and their ilk, was a necessary corrective in philosophy, but those plain-language Brits went too far the other way.

I think the energy is related to the spirit / soul we feel ourselves to be — Pop

What about intelligence? Or mind? Where does that fit into the picture? Is it ‘a product of’ energy? I think not. I tend towards the view that things are configurations of consciousness - not in an objective sense, they’re not ‘made of’ consciousness in the way that they are from atoms. Mind is not an objective constituent of matter - hence I’m not a pan-psychist. What I’m considering is the way the mind - your mind, my mind, Jack’s mind - synthesises and interprets experience to give rise to what is interpreted as reality.

The brain is the most complex system known to science. And this is what it does with all that power. It's a reality generator.

Most people have the picture that humans are accidental by-products of unconscious forces. 'That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms...all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand', said Russell, in 1901. We're spat out by a physical and chemical process that developed over billions of years purely as a consequence of material necessity. And the faculty of reason, which has provided us the ability to weigh and measure the Universe, is an adaptation to the exigencies of survival.

I think the laws of thought - specifically, the faculty of reason - is logically prior to those natural sciences which are now supposed to provide an account of how they were developed. In other words, there’s something deeply backwards about the popular understanding of the nature of things.

I tend towards the view that things are configurations of consciousness — Wayfarer

I agree. In my model the pattern is the information. The energy is the fundamental substance being entangled. It is best revealed in the metaphysics of a wavicle. I'll try to articulate it better at some stage. I don't have anything ready, and I have stuff to do.

...science itself has thrown our common-sense notion of reality into question... — Wayfarer

I rather think that the table will remain solid, regardless of what physicists say. Do you disagree?
— Banno

What is the point of the question? — Wayfarer

Then I haven't understood you. What is the "Common-sense notion of reality" to which you referred? I had assumed you were following the conversation about the table...

So what is the "common-sense notion of reality" that science has thrown into question?

I think the energy is related to the spirit / soul we feel ourselves to be
— Pop

What about intelligence? Or mind? Where does that fit into the picture? Is it ‘a product of’ energy? I think not. — Wayfarer

A shame that @Pop missed this. I'd like to hear an explanation of the relation between spirit and energy, too.

Energy is ‘the capacity to do work’. The idea that ‘everything is energy’ is a modernised version of ‘everything is matter’ (since Einstein’s discovery of the equivalence of matter and energy.) Now ‘information’ has been seized on, I think due to statements like Norbert Weiner’s ‘information is information, not matter or energy’. But the problem is, while both matter and energy can be objectified and quantised quite successfully, ‘information’ is not so simple. Information is a polysemic word, it has different meanings in different contexts. So I think that trying to make ‘information’ a metaphysical primitive or basic building block is problematical.

But where mind or intelligence comes into the picture is also difficult. This is where I’ve learned something fundamental from Eastern philosophy. This is the principle that the knower, the subject of experience, can’t be made the object of knowledge.

Yājñavalkya says: "You tell me that I have to point out the Self as if it is a cow or a horse. Not possible! It is not an object like a horse or a cow. I cannot say, 'here is the ātman; here is the Self'. It is not possible because you cannot see the seer of seeing. The seer can see that which is other than the Seer, or the act of seeing. An object outside the seer can be beheld by the seer. How can the seer see himself? How is it possible? You cannot see the seer of seeing. You cannot hear the hearer of hearing. You cannot think the Thinker of thinking. You cannot understand the Understander of understanding. Eṣa ta ātmā sarvāntaraḥ: That is the ātman."

Nobody can know the ātman inasmuch as the ātman is the Knower of all things. So, no question regarding the ātman can be put, such as "What is the ātman?' 'Show it to me', etc. You cannot show the ātman because the Shower is the ātman; the Experiencer is the ātman; the Seer is the ātman; the Functioner in every respect through the senses or the mind or the intellect is the ātman. As the basic Residue of Reality in every individual is the ātman, how can we go behind It and say, 'This is the ātman?' Therefore, the question is impertinent and inadmissible. The reason is clear. It is the Self. It is not an object.

“Everything other than the ātman is stupid; it is useless; it is good for nothing; it has no value; it is lifeless. Everything assumes a meaning because of the operation of this ātman in everything. Minus that, nothing has any sense.

Then Uṣasta Cākrāyana, the questioner kept quiet. He understood the point and did not speak further. — Brihadaranyaka Upaniṣad

And why? Because ‘that of which we cannot speak...’ But that itself is not a proposition. It’s a stance, if you like.

In the first place, when I began thinking about whether the world around us is solid, I began thinking to what extent we, as human beings are solid. However, I guess that is more complicated than whether tables are solid, partly due to the aging processes and also, because we are made up mostly of water. So, thinking about tables makes it a bit easier as a starting point, although I do think it is worth considering whether we are more solid or less solid than tables in terms of firmness. I actually think that tables are firmer than human beings because they are not part of nature, and do not get sick and die.

But, if you think about the solidity or firmness of tables, it partly comes down to them not being liquid, and they don't evaporate. If we leave a table in the room overnight, we can rely on it being there, in the same shape in the morning. However, I can remember one table I had collapsing when I put about 200 books on it, but that probably didn't mean that it was not solid in the way of physical existence, because it is not as if it just disappeared.

I think being solid is also about being in the three dimensional world, although I think that there are probably about 5 or 6 dimensions, or even more. But, thinking about objects is about being in three dimensions. So, we could say that the e books we read are less solid than the paper ones. Going back to tables though I think that existing and being surrounded by space is important. It comes down to existing as matter and being a structure which ensures for a substantive amount of time. I am not sure that they are absolutely solid, but I think that they are more solid than living parts of nature, because they are not subject to impermanence to the extent that living beings are, and are not mortal.

I think that your point based on your reading is extremely important. It is useful to think about whether rather than just asking about whether question about reality are about asking those metaphysics and about the physical world, or about the human construction of the idea of reality. I think that it is complex because we are human beings and viewing the matter from the human perspective.

But, the idea of reality is a construct and, most definitely, before I started this thread I was thinking about that. Any description of the way we view reality, even if it involves certain ideas, such as descriptions of the facts about the physical world is bound up with the idea of there being a 'reality', of which we can speak or discuss.

I agree that the scope of our understanding is one which is evolving. However, I do wonder if it all goes in trends in what ideas are seen as popular and what is pushed and that there may be cycles in this. In particular, we have so much science and that is the en vogue perspective in philosophy and mainstream academic and thinking within Western culture. However, there are many who think that ideas going back to the Greeks are of vital importance.

Of course, I think that each one of us wishes to find the essential ideas, but we are basing our thinking upon the ideas from our own education. Certainly, I don't think that many people would disregard science completely, or I doubt whether any point in the future of humanity that could happen, but I do still wonder if the development of thinking is strictly linear, and if humanity is able to survive for many centuries to come, how will philosophy and ideas evolve further?

:up:

When I raise the issue of solidity, I am speaking about foundations and strengths and, of a capacity to stand firm and not be thrown asunder. — Jack Cummins

I'm with @Banno in bringing in Austin in this case. His epiphany of sense from pointing out our ordinary lives makes philosophy feel fresh and workable. However, the sentiment expressed here by I believe @Wayfarer that Austin is not replying to or connected with traditional philosophy (he also gets pegged with "just discussing language") is just something Austin doesn't dine to explain, skipping to showing how "real" is, say, opposed to fake. He doesn't show how we got here, nor parse out the motivations or implications.

We aren't led through the creation of the Gordian knot that has become "reality" in philosophy. I'm not the best historian; the story I remember starts with really getting yourself to feel the fear of skepticism: how can we be sure about what's right? how do I know what you're thinking? And then Plato makes a fatal error in the Theatetus and transfers moral doubt onto physical objects. The actual question is not "is it real?" but can we be certain, universally, ahead of time, and project that into the future.

The next step is philosophy imagined "real" as a quality to objects or existence, and a continuous quality. The "real" world; "reality" not as say compared to denial, but as something fundamental, epistimologically relevant which is solid and strong that stands firm against uncertainty. As if what is real had to be proven itself, rather than being a presumption to contrast against outlying cases. So now the question "what is reality"? can seem necessary to answer.

I agree with you in seeing philosophy in relation to the issue of certainty and knowledge. I think that the area between imagination and knowledge is one which is not completely answered by metaphysics or science. I think that this is the challenge, going right back to questions of knowledge, and I probably see this as one of the most interesting horizons within philosophy for the future.

Thanks for your reply, and it is a relief to hear that you feel that you see physics as you weakness. Sometimes, it seems as if those who have expertise in the sciences are coming from a certain expertise, or position of knowledge far beyond all others. I believe that it is complex. I think physics and other scientific understandings are models. I am not saying that with a view to undermining their importance because I believe that they offer incredible insights into nature and human nature, as well as the other aspects of reality, but even this knowledge is partial, in the understanding of reality in an ultimate way.

I think that your reflections on the nature of 'energy' based on your reading in Eastern metaphysics are extremely useful, and I do wonder about the possibility of such ideas being incorporated into Western philosophy. I do think that there are limitations of philosophy as a discipline. This probably means that certain ideas are excluded from mainstream thought, but I do believe that such ideas are probably understood more by some other worldviews, including shamanic perspectives.

I am interested to know more about your ideas of limitations, including space and time, and how that relates to reality. Are you suggesting that these are the absolute boundaries?

Keep going.

Notice that gas occupies three dimensional space, but is far from solid. The room you are in is full of gas, but you can pass through it without effort.

It seems more explanation is needed.

That is true, but it is only one way of seeing reality. I am not saying that you are wrong, but life and reality is more than gaseous exchanges. It is also about perspectives.

@Jack Cummins

I don't see the point of your question. Whether the world, or existence, or reality, is "solid" or not, what difference does it make either way? The OP raises an issue of understanding reality and "understandings" have been presented. What about yours? Tell us, Jack, how you understand reality in such a way that it matters whether it is "solid" or not.

I will answer a bit later, because I just got really wound up reading something on another thread.

I've calmed down. I think that I see the idea of potential lack of 'solidity' more as basis for thinking and contemplating impermanence. However, I have been spending a bit too much time and energy focusing on my threads and the site in the last few days, so I think I will go out and take a bit of a break today and, maybe, tomorrow.

I think philosophy is about finding a basis for contemplation more than anything else. Also, I think it is important to keep all ideas and everything else in life in balance, to hold onto a certain amount of psychological 'solidity.'

Okay, go clear your head. I'll be here ...