Some scientists, for instance, may posit that they don't do metaphysics, but the notion that reality can be understood is a metaphysical presupposition.
Apologies that I cannot briefly do so. But to put it overly-simply, each of metaphysics (and ontology, for that matter), and the objects of its pursuit, and the person pushing are inescapably bound by (very simply) Language (Structures made of Signifiers stored in memory, operating under a system of rules, having an affect on the Body). It requires no proof here that Language isn't the "thing" it only re-presents the "thing." Thus, it is irredeemably alienated from the Truth at the instance of its manifestation or use. All human experiences, including the noblest pursuits in pure reflection, pure reason, metaphysics, are necessarily bound in Language, where the Truth is displaced (traditionally, "mediated") by what only pretends to be the Truth, or, Fiction.
I like it, but what is your best description of Metaphysics?
s it not the case that every worldview is located in some form of metaphysics (the nature of reality)? The extent of awareness of this varies. Some scientists, for instance, may posit that they don't do metaphysics, but the notion that reality can be understood is a metaphysical presupposition. — Tom Storm
My jam is negative ontology (i.e. a deductive process of elimination of the impossibie, or ways the world necessarily could not have been or cannot be described), a rationalist near-analogue of negative theology. :smirk:[W]hat is your best description of Metaphysics? — Rob J Kennedy
↪Rob J Kennedy A collection of semantic games — some based on reality and empirical observation, others based on fantasy — Lionino
the reality that surrounds us, is the subject matter of metaphysics — Rob J Kennedy
….best description of Metaphysics…. — Rob J Kennedy
To answer your last question first since you're right, in my thinking, that is always implied. If any human (necessarily meaning humans with that seemingly unique human Consciousness) pursuit including expressions are necessarily Fictional, then so is This expression, and so on. But the so called liar's paradox, paradoxically affirms my hypothesis (and paradoxically, I have to assume my hypothesis is valid for this present point to work). It reveals a defect that (yes, I am necessarily also that defect, always implied) one would think doesn't belong in Truth. Paradoxes reveal a crack in the foundation...therefore of Fiction. Truth (if we are even qualified to address It, and, we're not) wouldn't have any cracks.
are you suggesting Language and, I would presume, Reason, pre-exist their emergence in the human experience?
[Husserl] tries to show how the formal, logical structures of thinking arise from perception; the subtitle of Experience and Judgment is Investigations in a Genealogy of Logic. The “genealogy” of logic is to be located not in something we are born with but in the way experience becomes transformed. Husserl describes the origin of syntactic form as follows.
When we perceive an object, we run through a manifold of aspects and profiles: we see the thing first from this side and then from that; we concentrate on the color; we pay attention to the hardness or softness; we turn the thing around and see other sides and aspects, and so on. In this manifold of appearances, however, we continuously experience all the aspects and profiles, all the views, as being “of” one and the same object. The multiple appearances are not single separate beads following one another; they are “threaded” by the identity continuing within them all. As Husserl puts it, “Each single percept in this series is already a percept of the thing. Whether I look at this book from above or below, from inside or outside, I always see this book. It is always one and the same thing.” The identity of the thing is implicitly presented in and through the manifold. We do not focus on this identity; rather, we focus on some aspects or profiles, but all of them are experienced, not as isolated flashes or pressures, but as belonging to a single entity. As Husserl puts it, “An identification is performed, but no identity is meant.” The identity itself never shows up as one of these aspects or profiles; its way of being present is more implicit, but it does truly present itself. We do not have just color patches succeeding one another, but the blue and the gray of the object as we perceive it continuously. In fact, if we run into dissonances in the course of our experience – I saw the thing as green, and now the same area is showing up as blue – we recognize them as dissonant precisely because we assume that all the appearances belong to one and the same thing and that it cannot show up in such divergent ways if it is to remain identifiable as itself. [It's worth noting the experiments on animals show they are sensitive to these same sorts of dissonances].
[Such experience is pre-syntactical, nevertheless] such continuous perception can, however, become a platform for the constitution of syntax and logic. What happens, according to Husserl, is that the continuous perception can come to an arrest as one particular feature of the thing attracts our attention and holds it. We focus, say, on the color of the thing. When we do this, the identity of the object, as well as the totality of the other aspects and profiles, still remain in the background. At this point of arrest, we have not yet moved into categoriality and logic, but we are on the verge of doing so; we are balanced between perception and thinking. This is a philosophically interesting state. We feel the form about to come into play, but it is not there yet. Thinking is about to be born, and an assertion is about to be made…
We, therefore, in our experience and thoughtful activity, have moved from a perception to an articulated opinion or position; we have reached something that enters into logic and the space of reasons. We achieve a proposition or a meaning, something that can be communicated and shared as the very same with other people (in contrast with a perception, which cannot be conveyed to others). We achieve something that can be confirmed, disconfirmed, adjusted, brought to greater distinctness, shown to be vague and contradictory, and the like. All the issues that logic deals with now come into play. According to Husserl, therefore, the proposition or the state of affairs, as a categorial object, does not come about when we impose an a priori form on experience; rather, it emerges from and within experience as a formal structure of parts and wholes...
This is how Husserl describes the genealogy of logic and logical form. He shows how logical and syntactic structures arise when things are presented to us. We are relatively passive when we perceive – but even in perception there is an active dimension, since we have to be alert, direct our attention this way and that, and perceive carefully. Just “being awake (Wachsein)” is a cognitive accomplishment of the ego. We are much more active, however, and active in a new way, when we rise to the level of categoriality, where we articulate a subject and predicate and state them publicly in a sentence. We are more engaged. We constitute something more energetically, and we take a position in the human conversation, a position for which we are responsible. At this point, a higher-level objectivity is established, which can remain an “abiding possession (ein bleibender Besitz).” It can be detached from this situation and made present again in others. It becomes something like a piece of property or real estate, which can be transferred from one owner to another. Correlatively, I become more actualized in my cognitive life and hence more real. I become something like a property owner (I was not elevated to that status by mere perception); I now have my own opinions and have been able to document the way things are, and these opinions can be communicated to others. This higher status is reached through “the active position-takings of the ego [die aktiven Stellungnahmen des Ich] in the act of predicative judgment.”
Logical form or syntactic structure does not have to issue from inborn powers in our brains, nor does it have to come from a priori structures of the mind. It arises through an enhancement of perception, a lifting of perception into thought, by a new way of making things present to us. Of course, neurological structures are necessary as a condition for this to happen, but these neural structures do not simply provide a template that we impose on the thing we are experiencing...
-Robert Sokolowski - The Phenomenology of the Human Person
My jam is negative ontology (i.e. a deductive process of elimination of the impossibie, or ways the world necessarily could not have been or cannot be described), a rationalist near-analogue of negative theology. :smirk:
Nietzsche states that which is fundamental to the metaphysicians of all ages is the antitheses between values. So I conclude fundamentally metaphysics is a style of exploration of seemingly contrasting values, such as "mind and matter" or "substance and attribute" or "potentiality and actuality" or "good and evil." Metaphysics seems to me to be a dualist's reductionist vision of the world. That isn't to say benefits haven't been derived from metaphysics, but it's like dissecting abstracts thoughts.
As Thomas Kuhn showed with respect to scientific knowledge, these larger relevance relations define what is recognized as evidence of the real , and informs all our observations. Such superordinate schemes of interpretation, or paradigms, are what contemporary philosophers mean by metaphysics.
Those that are "rejected" are ones referred to as impossible and thereby are self-negating; however, whichever "assertions" are not negated, whether they are stated explicitly or not, are "granted" ...Would it be fair though to say that such a project requires positive metaphysical assertions that they might be either rejected or granted a stay of execution? — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think, Count, Spinoza's Ethics exemplifies an exception to such a rule (pace Hegel).It seems to me that metaphysics, like other disciplines, must be dialectical.
Ate you suggesting that a metaphysical scheme is the kind of thing that can be proven true or false?Would it be fair though to say that such a project requires positive metaphysical assertions that they might be either rejected or granted a stay of execution? I — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think, Count, Spinoza's Ethics exemplifies an exception to such a rule (pace Hegel).
Ate you suggesting that a metaphysical scheme is the kind of thing that can be proven true or false?
I mean, this really depends on what you mean by "proven." Certainly, some metaphysical theories might be shown to be contradictory via actual proofs, but in general they get shot down in a more abductive manner. You can't prove that Ayn Rand's Objectivism isn't good metaphysics with an abacus, but you can certainly make very good arguments that it's fatally flawed — Count Timothy von Icarus
Only within a taken-for-granted , unquestioned set of normative presuppositions concerning the nature of the real can empiricist notions like proof and validation be considered as definitive. A metaphysics is the basis of the intelligibility of truth and falsity, not the product of empirical ascertainment of truth and falsity.
Oh. You wrote "metaphysics" not "metaphysicians" and, in reference to my post on negative ontology, your response here to my reference to Spinoza Ethics makes even less sense especially since I'm engaged in a "back and forth" with the OP, you (so far) and other readers of this thread.I was thinking more of the back and forth between different metaphysicians over history. — Count Timothy von Icarus
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