If Grug tells Ugg not to eat the last mammoth ribs, goes to get fire wood, comes back, finds the mammoth ribs gone and mammoth grease and bits of ribs hanging from Ugg's beard, and Ugg tells him "I did leave the ribs," Grugg's judgement that this is false doesn't rely on metaphysics. I would say rather than truth appears to be one of the things metaphysics and epistemology must explain. That statements might be true or false is a basic fact of the world to be explained. — Count Timothy von Icarus
So the truth of what you just wrote only holds within the context of taken-for-granted, unquestioned presuppositions?
Metaphysics is the study of the metaphysical. The metaphysical encompasses entities (purported to be) beyond the physical. — LuckyR
And empirical observation isnt grounded in any kind of presuppositions — Joshs
The hammer as a persisting thing with attributes and properties is secondary to, because derived deom our actual use of the hammer in goal oriented activities. — Joshs
So as a separate subject from physics, metaphysics would have to talk about whatever is inside the circle of metaphysics and outside the circle of physics — Lionino
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.
So the truth of what you just wrote only holds within the context of taken-for-granted, unquestioned presuppositions? — Count Timothy von Icarus
First principles seem eminently questionable. It also seems eminently possible to put forth first principles that can clash with reality — Count Timothy von Icarus
The issue of betrayed trust is sort of besides the point. A person can utter an obvious falsehood without intending any deception, and our senses can also deceive us. The point is that notions of truth and falsity are prephilosophical. Obviously, such things are context dependent. One cannot be told false statements outside of some sort of social contact, but that broad context is also universal to the human experience.[/quote
You seem to be thinking of truth in terms of correctness , a match between what seems to be the case and what is really the case. This assumes that what is the case maintains its sense over time such that we can compare the ‘real’ with the seeming. Formal logic is based on putting into symbolic form this assumption concerning objects that they retain their original sense independent of the continually changing ways we are interacting with them and with each other. In the case of a lie, the breakdown of trust is not peripheral to the ascertainment of truth. What is perceived as a deliberate falsehood by one party may be the result of a difference of interpretation. And in the case of a deliberate lie, it is assumed by the lying party that that they will not be understood as they wish to be understood. In other words, the lie is an attempt to compensate for a breakdown in shared values, goals and understandings. You might counter that i. the case of Grug and Ugg, their breakdown in trust doesn’t negate that there is a basic fact at stake, but I would argue that even the seemingly simplest and most straightforward example of a factual situation involves a change of the sense of meaning of what is at stake , and thus a change in the interpretation of what is the case. This is what the later Wittgenstein was trying to teach us about how language doesn’t just act as a connector better subject and object, but always refreshes the sense of what an object is in the very act of using words. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But the most salient is that metaphysics is about what is real. — Pantagruel
You don’t think the history of metaphysics has to do with the changing ways we think about the sense of meaning of what is real? In other words, isn’t metaphysics more about sense than reality? For instance, if one can claim that the change in physics from Newton to Heisenberg is a change in metaphsical presuppositions, then this involves a subtle transformation in the sense of meaning of terms like mass and energy, rather than whether mass and energy are real. — Joshs
Valid, no metaphysics can make a married man a bachelor. — Lionino
what is your best description of Metaphysics? — Rob J Kennedy
the notion that reality can be understood is a metaphysical presupposition — Tom Storm
Is mathematics metaphysics now too? — Lionino
Like we assume any viewpoint has metaphysical presuppositions, but then the validity of those presuppositions is ultimately borne out...in a metaphysical sense. In other words, a metaphysical theory is consequential… having a theory about the nature of reality (if it is accurate) ought to prove useful in some way, or lead in some direction. So I'd say metaphysics is about the relationship between our understanding of reality and reality. — Pantagruel
Doesn’t any viewpoint or theory implicitly lead us in certain directions and prove useful in the sense that it organizes our world in some fashion? What does it mean to ask if a metaphysics is ‘accurate’ in its depiction of the real? Can’t different metaphysical systems be ‘accurate’ in very different ways? — Joshs
Science makes metaphysical assumptions, within which it does its thing. — Pantagruel
It seems more accurate to say that science makes pragmatic, that is methodologically determined, assumptions — Janus
You might counter that i. the case of Grug and Ugg, their breakdown in trust doesn’t negate that there is a basic fact at stake, but I would argue that even the seemingly simplest and most straightforward example of a factual situation involves a change of the sense of meaning of what is at stake , and thus a change in the interpretation of what is the case. This is what the later Wittgenstein was trying to teach us about how language doesn’t just act as a connector better subject and object, but always refreshes the sense of what an object is in the very act of using words.
We will only ever know reality as constraints and affordances that are responsive to our schemes
Scientists "make" working or methodological assumptions which themselves presuppose "metaphysical" commitments; changing such assumptions can also change what those assumptions presuppose (e.g. Newtonian absolute space & absolute time vs Einsteinian relativistic spacetime vs (background-dependent) string theory vs (background-independent) loop quantum gravity ...)science makes metaphysical presuppositions. — Pantagruel
Scientists "make" working or methodological assumptions which themselves presuppose "metaphysical" commitments — 180 Proof
Every human has some conception of truth or falsity, even if they have never spent much time pondering metaphysics. There is a naive sense of true and false that is endemic to the human experience — Count Timothy von Icarus
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