:roll:

Anyway, we are now at 29 votes in the poll - remember the poll? This is a thread about a poll.

And still my comments on the results stand, and although the percent of folk who think the question unclear has dropped, still only half have chosen from amongst the main contenders, as opposed to just over ninety percent (78+7+7) in the PhilPapers poll.

Previously I put this down to contrariness. I now wonder if it might be vacillation or trepidation. Or simple failure to commit?

Methodological naturalism has been responsible for considerable advances in technology and science. — Wayfarer

Indeed, it is difficult to move past this, given the extraordinary success, evident even at your fingertips in the device you are using to read this.

So here's the problem: which part of what is before us is baby, and which is bathwater. Since far and away the most useable definition of the world is "all that is the case", it remains that what cannot be said - the spiritual or transcendent or mystical part of our conversations - is not about the way things are.

But it can be about what we do.

Just came across this:

An angel came down for a meeting of the American Philosophical Association. Greeting the assembled philosophers, the angel offered to answer a single question for them. Immediately the philosophers set to arguing about what they should ask. So the angel said, “Alright, you figure out what you want to ask. I’ll come back tomorrow.” And he left the philosophers to deliberate.
Some of the philosophers favored asking conjunctive questions, but others argued persuasively that the angel probably wouldn’t count this as a single question. One philosopher wanted to ask “What is the best question to ask?”, in the hope that some day another angel might make a similar offer, at which point they could then ask the best question. But this suggestion was rejected by those who feared that no such opportunity would arise and did not want to waste their only question.

Finally, the philosophers agreed on the following question: “What is the ordered pair whose first member is the best question to ask, and whose second member is the answer to that question?” Satisfied with their decision, the philosophers awaited the angel’s return the next day, whereupon they posed their question. And the angel replied: “It is the ordered pair whose first member is the question you just asked, and whose second member is the answer I am now giving.” And then he disappeared.

:up: :lol:

Methodological naturalism has been responsible for considerable advances in technology and science.
— Wayfarer

Indeed, it is difficult to move past this — Banno

Impossible, for many.

remember the poll? This is a thread about a poll. — Banno

Any pretext will do, as you can see. I shall try and remain more on topic in future.

I wouldn't count causality as metaphysical because I see causality as intimately tied with, indispensable to, the understanding of the physical, and I don't think we have any idea of causes which are not physical. I mean we can think the possibility of non-physical causes, but we have no grasp on what they would "look" like. Same thing with time and space; what could time be without physical existents, can we imagine a non-physical space? What changes if not physical things? As to identity I think that is a logical, not a metaphysical, notion.

So, again I think these notions are all intimately connected with experience of the physical or with logic. — Janus

The questions you ask seem to presuppose physicalism. To answer your questions via counterexamples: Final causes (teloi) are not deemed to be physical causes; e.g. the goal/telos of replying to you caused me to write this post as written (or, Q: “what on earth caused you to do X” A: “I wanted Z”). Are teloi real or illusory? Not a question answerable via the physical - regardless of how one answers. Nor do teloi/intents have a certain “look”. Not that I in any way endorse either, but, since they’re easy pickings, the alternative worlds of heaven and hell are temporal, comprised of befores and afters, devoid of physical existents though they are - so the occurrence of time does not logically entail physical existents. As to nonphysical spatial relations, for one example, a paradigm which is composed of ideas is larger (which can only be a spatial attribute) than a single idea it is composed of - in this case presenting spatial relations between whole and part that are nonphysical. Consciousness constantly changes despite remaining the same consciousness (maintaining the same identity) over time - and it is not tangibly physical. As to the last affirmation, metaphysical study is logical - the bad logic that sometimes results notwithstanding, just just as bad logic can permeate the empirical sciences at times.

Of course all of these examples are debatable, some more than others, but they intend to illustrate that the metaphysical subjects of causation, time and space, change and identity, etc., are not strictly contingent on the physical (nor, for that matter, on a physicalist worldview: physicalism simply affirms everything real to be physical based on underlying metaphysical presumptions … I say this though I understand you don’t label yourself a physicalist).

I doubt this will in any way resolve the matter, and presume it will raise certain eyebrows. But your asking of questions motivated me to answer them.

As I previously said, we differ in our understandings of what metaphysics entails.

I wouldn't count causality as metaphysical because I see causality as intimately tied with, indispensable to, the understanding of the physical, and I don't think we have any idea of causes which are not physical. I mean we can think the possibility of non-physical causes, but we have no grasp on what they would "look" like. — Janus

What a non-physical cause "looks" like is a freely willed act of intention (final cause as javra explains). We have lots of experience with such non-physical acts of causation, and all you have to do is look into yourself, in introspection, to "see" them. The problem is that the attitude of scientism has induced some people to enter into a condition of self-denial, refusing to recognize the basis of one's own existence as a self-moving being.

I would not count someone as having learned the history of ideas unless they understood the ideas. — Janus

Well I guess no one has learned the history of metaphysical ideas then, because no one truly understand them all yet. That's even more reason why metaphysics ought to remain in the curriculum. We need more people working on those problems.

Previously I put this down to contrariness. I now wonder if it might be vacillation or trepidation. Or simple failure to commit? — Banno

It's neither contrariness nor trepidation, it simply demonstrates the pervasiveness of the attitude of Janus, displayed above. There's no need to teach metaphysics, we ought to just let people grope in the dark when it comes to metaphysical issues. And if you add in the fact that "non-skeptical realism" is essential equivalent to "no metaphysics" you can see that the attitude of 'no need to teach metaphysics' is extremely pervasive.

I see a priori reasoning to principles as phenomenological and pragmatic, not metaphysical. — Janus

That’s fine, but with respect to Kant, from whence this exchange originated, metaphysics is a priori reasoning from principles, and the latter would always and necessarily consider the former as merely the tail wagging the dog. Unfairly perhaps, but from the meager top-down predisposition, there it is.

My definition of what qualifies as a metaphysical claim would be that it purports to be a universal and absolute truth, independent of human experience and understanding. — Janus

That definition would certainly turn any metaphysical doctrine endorsing it into irredeemable junk. Thankfully there are definitions without those conceptual relations, which do not.

That definition would certainly turn any metaphysical doctrine endorsing it into irredeemable junk. Thankfully there are definitions without those conceptual relations, which do not. — Mww

If Kant thinks that the metaphysical a priori reasoning from principles is apodeictic, would that not be to posit that such reasoning yields universal truth, at least as regards the human?

The questions you ask seem to presuppose physicalism. To answer your questions via counterexamples: Final causes (teloi) are not deemed to be physical causes; e.g. the goal/telos of replying to you caused me to write this post as written (or, Q: “what on earth caused you to do X” A: “I wanted Z”). Are teloi real or illusory? — javra

I acknowledge that in regard to thinking about human behavior we encounter the domain of reasons, whereas we think about events in terms of causes. Causes are understood to be physical drivers and conditions and reasons to be emotional or rational drivers and conditions.

I'm not sure what you mean by asking whether our reasons for acting are real.or illusory. If I say I did something for some reason or think something for some reason, if I am right then the reasons are real, and if I am mistaken then the reasons are illusory.

The same thing applies to thinking about what causes events; if I am right in positing some causes to explain an event then the causes are real, if not they are illusory,

Think about Chinese medicine; it explains illnesses in terms of chi; a subtle energy flowing in channels through the body called meridians. There is no empirical evidence for the existence of chi, so it might be illusory, or maybe we just haven't discovered the evidence for it yet.

Not that I in any way endorse either, but, since they’re easy pickings, the alternative worlds of heaven and hell are temporal, comprised of befores and afters, devoid of physical existents though they are - so the occurrence of time does not logically entail physical existents. — javra

In heaven and hell there are spiritual existents: souls, no? Where do we get the notion of a soul? Is it not a notion of a body? The soul is understood to be discrete in the sense that my soul is not your soul, right? I would say it is arguable that the notion of a soul is the notion of body composed of finer material than the gross physical body, otherwise what else could it be?

I think all our notions derive from experience of the everyday material world. But I'm not saying that the real is, in any ultimate sense, material, just that our experience is of what we class as material things and events. All we mean by ascribing the concept of "material" is that what it is ascribed to interacts with our bodies, which are also experienced as tangible, material. We can only experience consciousness in terms of bodily feelings and images.

Previously I put this down to contrariness. I now wonder if it might be vacillation or trepidation. Or simple failure to commit? — Banno

I might put it as not understanding what idealism and non-skeptical realism are. The PhilPapers voters overwhelmingly voted for non-skeptical realism in both epistemology and metaphysics (drop-down menu). I entered PhD, then all respondents. Similar results, over 80% leaning towards non-skeptical realism.

So, my guess with the results in this forum is that not enough voters who understand the philosophies in the poll, and not enough voters.

Grumph. Too much emphasis on causation for my taste. A better epitome of a metaphysical principle would be the conservation laws. The causal relations between billiard balls, or instance, are an expression of conservation of momentum.

not enough voters who understand the philosophies in the poll, and not enough voters. — L'éléphant

You might say that., I couldn't possible comment. — Francis Urquhart

:up:

I'm not sure what you mean by asking whether our reasons for acting are real.or illusory. — Janus

Here, I didn't mean via particular examples but as a form of determinacy that either can or cannot occur in the world. If final causes can and do occur in the world, then they are real determinacy types. If final causes cannot and thereby do not occur in the world ... then the awkward conclusion that all our teleological reasons (e.g., goals/intents) for our actions are illusory/nonexsitent.

Yes, in terms of particulars, goals can be both real and illusory; same can be said, in short, for any perception of some object: it can be real or illusory (e.g. mirage or hallucination). But few, if any, would doubt that perceptions occur within the world - i.e., would sustain that perceptions per se could be all be illusory and thereby nonexistent.

Thing is final causes, such as our goals/aims/intents, cannot be accommodated for within physicalism, and the empirical sciences cannot empirically observe them (this as physical existents can be observed) ... or at least so I last gathered.

Beside which, even efficient causes (what we today commonly simple express as causes), though easily understood from a distance, become problematic logically in numerous ways when investigate up close. As one easily expressed example, some have proposed backward causation - wherein the effect occurs before the cause - in attempts to explain some aspects of quantum phenomena. This, though, is not scientific reasoning but metaphysical reasoning about what science has discovered - whether its good or bad metaphysical reasoning being another matter all together.

A better epitome of a metaphysical principle would be the conservation laws. The causal relations between billiard balls, or instance, are an expression of conservation of momentum. — Banno

Surely you must hate optics?

How so?

….would that not be to posit that such reasoning yields universal truth, at least as regards the human? — Janus

That’s not what kills the definition. Independent of human understanding, in the original post’s wording, does. But I see you’ve added the qualifier later.

There may be things that are true universally, re: pure mathematical and logical propositions, in accordance with our intelligence, but I’m not sure about universal truth as such. What could be true under any possible condition, including whatever kind of possible intelligence, when the totality of possible conditions is itself inconceivable?

If I understand you aright I think we agree. Let's see if you agree with the following: there can be no justifiable universal claims that purport to obtain independently of the context of human experience and judgement.

There could be justifiable universal claims about human experience, but I understand such claims to be phenomenological, not metaphysical.

That said if I understand correctly, Heidegger equates phenomenology with metaphysics, but then that would not be the kind of traditional metaphysics that does make claims that purport to obtain independently of the human context.

….there can be no justifiable universal claims that purport to obtain independently of the context of human experience and judgement. — Janus

Ok, close enough. There certainly are justified universal claims, but there are no justified universal claims independent of human intelligence. I mean…where else but from human intelligence can any claim come from, justified or not?

There could be justifiable universal claims about human experience, but I understand such claims to be phenomenological, not metaphysical. — Janus

Sure, I guess. There is no such thing as universal human experience is itself a justified universal claim about human experience. Still, being tautological, the claim tells us nothing we didn’t already know, given the infinite conditions of space and time, which are the necessary conditions for experience in the first place, both of which are implied by universality, and is certainly contained in a metaphysical doctrine.

If phenomenology justifies universal claims about human experience other than the one I just stated…..so be it. I wouldn’t dare say there aren’t any, but I would dare you to offer one that isn’t every bit as metaphysical as it is phenomenological.
———-

Heidegger equates phenomenology with metaphysics, but then that would not be the kind of traditional metaphysics that does make claims that purport to obtain independently of the human context. — Janus

Hmmm. That presupposes there is such a traditional metaphysics, which may be true whether or not I’m even the least familiar with it. Which puts me in a tough spot, insofar as if you offer such a justified universal claim that purports to obtain independently of human context, in a non-traditional metaphysical way, in accordance with the phenomenological doctrine, I’m pretty sure I won’t understand it. But others seems to well enough, so…there ya go.

The neyballs werenot for you, but for a now-deleted comment.

water under the bridge.....

There may be things that are true universally, re: pure mathematical and logical propositions, in accordance with our intelligence, but I’m not sure about universal truth as such. What could be true under any possible condition, including whatever kind of possible intelligence, when the totality of possible conditions is itself inconceivable? — Mww

I think this is an important point. I'm assuming from this that you don't think there are moral or aesthetic truths?

I mean…where else but from human intelligence can any claim come from, justified or not? — Mww

Well, leaving aside the possibility of intelligent alien species, nowhere of course. But that wasn't what I've been driving at. Maybe an example will help. If I claim that the Universe existed prior to humans that is a claim about existence outside of the context of human experience and judgement. It is also a pretty standard realist claim, so this is not off-topic.

Our notion of existence is derived from our experience and the concept is fine in that context. But are we justified in projecting that concept beyond that context, by saying things like 'the world existed prior to humans' or the 'the world didn't exist prior to humans'?

There is no such thing as universal human experience is itself a justified universal claim about human experience. Still, being tautological, the claim tells us nothing we didn’t already know, given the infinite conditions of space and time, which are the necessary conditions for experience in the first place, both of which are implied by universality, and is certainly contained in a metaphysical doctrine.

If phenomenology justifies universal claims about human experience other than the one I just stated…..so be it. I wouldn’t dare say there aren’t any, but I would dare you to offer one that isn’t every bit as metaphysical as it is phenomenological. — Mww

I don't know what you mean by "There is no such thing as universal human experience", so I don't know whether that is a justified claim or not. An example of a universal claim about human experience would be "all human experiences are temporal", that is they take time. But I don't understand that as being a metaphysical claim, but rather a phenomenological, or even tautological. claim.

Not all experiences are spacial, but the body and all other objects are experienced as existing in spacetime. Does it follow that we and all other objects can only exist or be in spacetime? If it does follow, then it must be a logical truth, not a metaphysical one. But if we imagine that there might be a greater existence, that we derive our little concept of existence from unknowingly, then it might be possible to say, with for example Spinoza, that we exist in eternity. The concept of existence will not be the same in this imagined greater context, though. So, then it is not clear whether it is coherent or not to even speak of such a possibility.

That presupposes there is such a traditional metaphysics, which may be true whether or not I’m even the least familiar with it. Which puts me in a tough spot, insofar as if you offer such a justified universal claim that purports to obtain independently of human context, in a non-traditional metaphysical way, in accordance with the phenomenological doctrine, I’m pretty sure I won’t understand it. But others seems to well enough, so…there ya go. — Mww

Think about the metaphysical claims of the presocratics for example. All is water, all is apeiron, all is air, all is fire. Or Democrites' atoms and void. Or God exists or doesn't exist. I'm not saying that such claims could ever be justified phenomenologically. As I understand it such claims are justified only if you believe that the very fact that we can imagine certain things reflects some higher, human-independent truth.

What a non-physical cause "looks" like is a freely willed act of intention (final cause as javra explains). — Metaphysician Undercover

Can you present an actual example of such a cause?

Well I guess no one has learned the history of metaphysical ideas then, because no one truly understand them all yet. — Metaphysician Undercover

Learning and understanding are not all or nothing.

If final causes cannot and thereby do not occur in the world ... then the awkward conclusion that all our teleological reasons (e.g., goals/intents) for our actions are illusory/nonexsitent. — javra

I don't see that. If the final cause of something is the purpose for which it is created, then we know that there have been final causes for countless human artefacts. This is a very human way of understanding human motivation and creativity, but do we have any warrant for projecting that onto the cosmos?

But few, if any, would doubt that perceptions occur within the world - i.e., would sustain that perceptions per se could be all be illusory and thereby nonexistent. — javra

I agree, there can be no doubt that perceptions occur within the world. Would an illusory perception be non-existent, though, or rather would it be a perception of something non-existent? Think of an after-image or a dream; do we say there is a perception, but nothing is being perceived or do we say that there is no perception? I think this comes down to different usages or playing with words.

Thing is final causes, such as our goals/aims/intents, cannot be accommodated for within physicalism, and the empirical sciences cannot empirically observe them (this as physical existents can be observed) ... or at least so I last gathered. — javra

They cannot be accommodated within eliminative physicalism perhaps, but I don't see why they cannot be accommodated within physicalism tout court. They are not observable empirical objects. @Apokrisis sees entropy as final cause, since it seems to be the most universal "top-down' constraint in and on existence. How do we know that entropy is real beyond our experience, though?

As one easily expressed example, some have proposed backward causation - wherein the effect occurs before the cause - in attempts to explain some aspects of quantum phenomena. This, though, is not scientific reasoning but metaphysical reasoning about what science has discovered - whether its good or bad metaphysical reasoning being another matter all together. — javra

Are you referring to collapse of the wave function? Otherwise I'm not familiar with the idea. Doesn't sound like it could be testable in any case, so yes it would be metaphysics.

This is a very human way of understanding human motivation and creativity, but do we have any warrant for projecting that onto the cosmos? — Janus

My own idiosyncratic inclinations aside, the issue as I see it is whether the metaphysical model of the world we endorse (e.g., physicalism) can allow for the existence of final causes within the cosmos. Humans are undeniably within the cosmos. So whether or not final causes can apply to things such as rocks, the question still is can the metaphysical model acknowledge that they apply to, at the very least, humans?

Would an illusory perception be non-existent, though, or rather would it be a perception of something non-existent? — Janus

I was aiming to affirm that we cannot in good faith in any way doubt that perceptions, illusory or not, occur (in the world). I'm hoping that makes better sense. But to answer your question, the second.

They cannot be accommodated within eliminative physicalism perhaps, but I don't see why they cannot be accommodated within physicalism tout court. — Janus

All I know is that the reality of final causes were rejected along with rejection of Aristotelian thinking in the history of ideas (not tout court, but by in large), leading to the metaphysical doctrines of materialism and, later on, physicalism. For my part, I will only affirm that physicalism would drastically change as belief system where it to uphold the reality of final causes operating in the cosmos. As one maybe blatant example, if final causes do occur, this then opens up the realm of possibilities toward an ultimate final cause as unmoved mover (not a psyche as unmoved mover, but an ultimate telos ... in the way you've presented Apo's views, entropy would then be just this ultimate telos of all things in his philosophical views). The physicalism of today does not allow for the possibility of such ultimate telos as unmoved mover (of everything that is).

Are you referring to collapse of the wave function? Otherwise I'm not familiar with the idea. — Janus

I tend to associate it with events such as the delayed-choice quantum eraser, but there is an SEP article on it if you're interested.

So whether or not final causes can apply to things such as rocks, the question still is can the metaphysical model acknowledge that they apply to, at the very least, humans? — javra

I don't see why not if we acknowledge that what we think of as a "purpose" could be a constraint on possibility due to the nature of things. Something like this is how we think of the evolution of apparently designed biological forms due not to any "transcendent designer" but to natural selection.

That said, there would not seem to be any way to conceptually incorporate the notion of a transcendent designer into a physicalist model, so if that is what you mean then I think we agree.

Apo seems to think of entropy as more than merely a constraint inherent in the nature of physical existence, but as a driver that explains even human behavior. So, a kind of unconscious final cause of everything taking the quickest path to entropy.

So, I guess in that view the genesis and evolution of apparently negentropic phenomena, like biological life, is driven and explained by the "race to the bottom", so to speak. I don't share that view, as I tend to think that entropy is illegitimately projected outside the context of human experience.

So, for me the same goes for all worldviews, including physicalism, as I explained in my responses to Mww. I do think that, phenomenologically speaking, physicalism is kind of irrelevant, because our understanding of physicality cannot deal with intentionality, yet that doesn't lead me to posit anything non-physical or transcendent.

I don't expect humans to be able to understand and explain everything, because I see inherent limitations in the nature of dualistic thinking. Naturally we can't help trying to make it to overstep its limits. I see the failure to acknowledge our limitations as hubris, but many people on all sides of this debate think the idea of such limitations is anathema. In any case we will be constrained by our limitations, however limited they turn out to be in the long run, no matter what we believe or hope for.

I tend to associate it with events such as the delayed-choice quantum eraser, but there is an SEP article on it if you're interested. — javra

Cheers, I'll have a look.

Something like this is how we think of the evolution of apparently designed biological forms due not to any "transcendent designer" but to natural selection.

That said, there would not seem to be any way to conceptually incorporate the notion of a transcendent designer into a physicalist model, so if that is what you mean then I think we agree. — Janus

:smile: Want to clarify this: "Transcendent designer" entails there being a transcendent psyche ... that designs. Yes, physicalism can't incorporate this. I was however addressing an ultimate telos as unmoved mover of everything that is not a psyche and, hence, not a "designer". So far don't think physicalism can incorporate the latter either ... even if it does not in any way address the presence of a deity. Wouldn't mind someday being proven wrong about physicalism's aversion to teleology, though.

As to the rest, I respect your views.

Previously I put this down to contrariness. I now wonder if it might be vacillation or trepidation. Or simple failure to commit? — Banno

I'd put another spin on the difference.

Our community is less homogenous than the professional community, and so it's harder to say the three views put on offer are of the sort where one can actually go ahead and make a choice, even knowing all the difficulties.

Or perhaps this is just a way of coming down firm on "trepidation" as an explanation for the difference.

It makes sense to feel trepidation on an online poll, I think.

Want to clarify this: "Transcendent designer" entails there being a transcendent psyche ... that designs. Yes, physicalism can't incorporate this. I was however addressing an ultimate telos as unmoved mover of everything that is not a psyche and, hence, not a "designer". So far don't think physicalism can incorporate the latter either ... even if it does not in any way address the presence of a deity. Wouldn't mind someday being proven wrong about physicalism's aversion to teleology, though.

As to the rest, I respect your views. — javra

Cheers javra.

I think this is relevant:

I do think that, phenomenologically speaking, physicalism is kind of irrelevant, because our understanding of physicality cannot deal with intentionality, yet that doesn't lead me to posit anything non-physical or transcendent. — Janus

Our understanding of the nature of physicality cannot deal with intentionality, either in its phenomenological meaning as "aboutness" or its ordinary meaning as "purposefulness". Our own intentionality is understood to be inherently bound up with consciousness or "psyche".

So, I'm wondering how we can conceive of an "ultimate telos" without thinking of it as being purposeful. If it is just an apparent general natural tendency like entropy, I don't see why that could not be incorporated into a physicalist model.