:roll:

Metaphysics is the opposite of Materialism — Gnomon

:rofl: And yet "materialism" is a form of "metaphysics."

PHYSICS vs METAPHYSICS = PART vs WHOLE — Gnomon

:lol: So a 'whole atom' exceeds the grasp of physics?

:up:

I'm closer to saying that there is no metaphysical speculation; it is rather metaphysical imagination. We speculate only about that which might later be confirmed or disconfirmed. Much of metaphysics consists in playing dialectically with language—what if such and such (such and such that is the dialectical opposite of what we actually encounter) is really the case.

For example, we appear to be mortal...but...what if we are really immortal? We appear to be finite intelligences...but... what if there is an infinite intelligence...and further what if that is our real nature? We appear to encounter only the physical...but...what if what appears physical is really mental? And so on.

The problem is we have no idea what the physical really being mental could mean. We have no idea what a disembodied, immortal life could be. We have no idea what an infinite intelligence could be. All these ideas only gain the illusion of having any sense at all insofar as they are dialectical opposites of what does make sense to us. So, it really is all just a case of "pouring from the empty into the void". It may have some poetical value, but philosophical value, not so much.

↪Joshs

Perhaps my stance appears to be an unquestioning taking for granted because it appears so alien to your way of thinking. But I continually question everything about my philosophy.

It doesn't seem unquestioning at all. I was referring back to your statement that: "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."

I am having trouble understanding how validation, proof, evidence, demonstration, etc. can rest only on what is taken-for-granted. If this was true, I don't get how radical relativism and skepticism wouldn't follow. Epistemology can be circular and falliblist, but it cannot be arbitrary without epistemic pessimism seeming to take hold. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ah, now I understand. Well, let’s compare Popper’s falsificationism with Kuhn’s Paradigm shifts. The former is a favorite among scientists because his approach seems to explain how empirical results can be both self-reflexively questionable and yet allow for progress in the ascertainment of truth. It is circular and falliblist, and it would appear to avoid arbitrariness and skepticism by assuming that what allows us to identify any theory as having been falsified is a method of verification that transcends the contingency of the theory itself.

But Kuhn argues that falsificationism’s assumption that the methods of verification are independent of the content of the theory amounts to a taken-for-granted , unquestioned normative presupposition. Kuhn’s alternative does not amount to arbitrariness , but neither does it treat scientific understanding as epistemological belief in what is the case. Our attempt to make our way around a constantly changing world is not fundamentally a matter of belief, but of engaged coping. Engaged coping has nothing to do with conceptual representation. It is more like intuiting the next move in a dance as it contextually unfolds. As Even Thompson writes:

I would give up both realism and anti-realism, then, in favour of what could be called a pluralist pragmatism. What the pluralist insists on is that there is no foundational version, one which anchors all the rest or to which all others can be reduced. The pragmatist insists that the world is both found and made: it is made in the finding and found in the making.To erase the boundary between knowing a language and knowing our way in the world gives us a fresh appreciation of the world. That world, however, is not given, waiting to be represented. We find the world, but only in the many incommensurable cognitive domains we devise in our attempt to know our way around. The task of the philosopher is not to extract a common conceptual scheme from these myriad domains and to determine its faithfulness to some uncorrupted reality; it is, rather, to learn to navigate among the domains, and so to clarify their concerns in relation to each other.

One might find metaphysics to be a confusing mess and accept no metaphysical theory, and yet still find statements about truth and falsehood intelligible and use them effectively in their daily lives — Count Timothy von Icarus

There is a difference between being able to articulate one’s metaphysical presuppositions and the very existence of those presuppositions. Metaphysics is not simply a game academic philosophers play, not a theory to be falsified. It is a precondition for any kind of experience of the world. It is precisely what makes statements of truth and falsity intelligible. We no more falsify a metaphysics than an organism falsifies its environmental niche.

↪Gnomon I'm closer to saying that there is no metaphysical speculation; it is rather metaphysical imagination. We speculate only about that which might later be confirmed or disconfirmed. — Janus

A metaphysical position is closely related to a scientific paradigm. To empirically confirm a paradigm is just to tighten up the definitions and boundaries that were formed prior to confirmation . Such validating procedures allow us to identity what it is we are overthrowing when we eventually dump that paradigm in favor of another. But the movement from one paradigm to another is not driven by confirmation. It is driven by a wholesale qualitative reconceptualization of premises, the fabricating of a new world. This does not have to do with what is ‘true’ but with how the world can be organized to make sense in a qualitatively different way. Truth is then a secondary procedure within the newly created frame.

Much of metaphysics consists in playing dialectically with language—what if such and such (such and such that is the dialectical opposite of what we actually encounter) is really the case.

For example, we appear to be mortal...but...what if we are really immortal? We appear to be finite intelligences...but... what if there is an infinite intelligence...and further what if that is our real nature? We appear to encounter only the physical...but...what if what appears physical is really mental? And so on. — Janus

You seem to be attempting to shove all metaphysics into the particular slot of a dialectical metaphysics. The change from one metaphysical scheme to another is not a matter of dialectical opposition. For instance, it is not the opposition between mortal and immortal , finite and infinite, the physical and the mental, since moving from one pole to the other of this binary is merely a matter of slot rattling within an already given frame of meaning. To move from one metaphysical worldview to another is arriving at a different world, a new frame. Rather than simply choosing one term over the other, both what it means to be mortal and what it means to be immortal take on an entirely new sense within a new metaphysics. This is what makes paradigm shifts revolutionary rather than evolutionary.

This is what makes paradigm shifts revolutionary rather than evolutionary. — Joshs

Can you elaborate on this evaluation? Why could a paradigm shift not be both?

That world, however, is not given, waiting to be represented. We find the world, but only in the many incommensurable cognitive domains we devise in our attempt to know our way around. The task of the philosopher is not to extract a common conceptual scheme from these myriad domains and to determine its faithfulness to some uncorrupted reality; it is, rather, to learn to navigate among the domains, and so to clarify their concerns in relation to each other.

The statement that reality does not exist simpliciter, or that there can be no canonical representation of reality as it exists simpliciter, advances both metaphysical and epistemic claims. Given that Thompson claims that this defines what is truly the "task of the philosopher," it would seem to me that these claims are not intended to be taken as being "equally valid/accurate/true/demonstrable, etc." as contradictory claims to the effect of: "The task of the philosopher is to discover the nature of uncorrupted reality and figure out how to accurately represent it."

Or, at the very least, if we are to embrace a position like Thompson's we must have some way of determining between it and Saint Augustine's formulation that "truth is equivalent with being; what is true is, and what is false is not." To say that Thompson is right is to say that Augustine is wrong. To say that they are both right, is still to say that Augustine is wrong.

Further, if we're to have any faith that one understanding should be held in higher regard than the other, then we must have some non-arbitrary means for judging between them. The invocation of pragmatism itself implies some sort of yardstick by which the plurality of positions to be considered are vetted. To be pragmatic is to judge things based on practical concerns. Pragmatism requires that there be a non-arbitrary way to decide if a theory under consideration actually furthers practical interests. If there is no basis for such judgements, or if all metrics by which theories might be judged are equally valid, then pragmatism is not possible. Every position can be said to equally advance or fail to advance practical interests.

Likewise:

Our attempt to make our way around a constantly changing world is not fundamentally a matter of belief, but of engaged coping. Engaged coping has nothing to do with conceptual representation. It is more like intuiting the next move in a dance as it contextually unfolds.

We no more falsify a metaphysics than an organism falsifies its environmental niche.

These statements appear to make/be based on particular assertions about the nature of human experience, anthropology, and metaphysics. I might agree that they are accurate assertions, but in virtue of what would they be considered accurate? If they can only be considered accurate in terms of arbitrary presuppositions, then their contraries are equally valid.

Claims about the falsifiability of metaphysical claims seem to themselves make metaphysical, or at least epistemic claims. We could consider 180 Proof's earlier comment here:

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: — 180 Proof

All validation cannot depend on metaphysics, and metaphysics in turn necessarily be based on unquestionable presuppositions we take for granted. If this were the case, then all judgements re validation/truth/accuracy etc. would be equally valid, merely a matter of which presuppositions we have embraced.

This is what makes paradigm shifts revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
— Joshs

Can you elaborate on this evaluation? Why could a paradigm shift not be both? — Pantagruel

Actually, Kuhn would say yes. Paradigms shifts are revolutionary in the sense that the content of new schemes and standards of measurement and validation are not logically commensurate with those they replace. But they are evolutionary in that new paradigms solve more puzzles than older ones.

:up:

I don't understand your response to my post (re: negative ontology). Plesse clarify.

if we are to embrace a position like Thompson's we must have some way of determining between it and Saint Augustine's formulation that "truth is equivalent with being; what is true is, and what is false is not." To say that Thompson is right is to say that Augustine is wrong. To say that they are both right, is still to say that Augustine is wrong. — Count Timothy von Icarus

One could say that Thompson’s position subsumes and enriches Augustine’s without invalidating it. Each offers a valid, workable guide to navigating the world by anticipating events. To say that Thompson’s approach enriches Augustine’s is to say that Thompson understands from his vantage , and can effectively summarize and live within, Augustine's approach. But he can also place the dimensions of Augustine’s model within a more intricate structure of understanding that accomplishes what Augustine’s does, but exceeds it in of anticipatory power.

All validation cannot depend on metaphysics, and metaphysics in turn necessarily be based on unquestionable presuppositions we take for granted. If this were the case, then all judgements re validation/truth/accuracy etc. would be equally valid, merely a matter of which presuppositions we have embraced — Count Timothy von Icarus

They are equally valid, but not at the same time and in the same context. We only inhabit one social milieu at a time, and each dictates its own unique ways of making our way around. We may take these ways of sense making for granted. That is , their presuppositions may be hidden from us, but they are nevertheless always being put into question in subtle ways in the way our language continually shifts the sense of its meanings within a given culture. This is what Wittgenstein’s language games point to. Every time we use a word, its conceptual meaning subtly shifts its sense in response to the novelty of the context of interaction. Word use is thus a kind of questioning concerning what is at stake and what is at issue whenever we use a word concept. Wittgenstein said that these subtle shifts in sense of words via their use can be seen to share a family resemblance. But this resemblance is not a general category of meaning supervening on the particular senses. There is no common element among all the senses.

We take for granted that words just mean what they mean, that they are merely tools that hook onto a reality independent of the words. But this taking for granted doesn’t prevent actual word use from continually shifting. We simply don’t notice this in the way we tend to talk about the relation between concepts and reality. As we alter our milieu with our arts , sciences and technologies, the way these changes feed back to us requires us to alter our metaphysical assumptions and along with it the basis of our scientific truths. Again, we may take for granted that the truths about the world we describe with our word concepts remains constant as we adjust those concepts, because we simply don’t notice the subtle way that our paradigm shifts alter the very foundations of those truths.

I'm closer to saying that there is no metaphysical speculation; it is rather metaphysical imagination. We speculate only about that which might later be confirmed or disconfirmed. Much of metaphysics consists in playing dialectically with language—what if such and such (such and such that is the dialectical opposite of what we actually encounter) is really the case. — Janus

I agree that much of modern linguistic discussion is like a "what if" word-game played with abstruse terminology that wouldn't mean much to us mere mortals. But I prefer to think of Metaphysics, as Aristotle did : the study of Nature in general, and of ourselves as imaginative beings. This is the essence of Philosophy, as the search for useful Wisdom --- attempting to gain an omniscient worldview.

Since modern Science took over most of the objective pragmatic study of physical Nature though, Philosophy was left with mostly navel-gazing subjective subject-matter : turning its focus inward to learn about the mysterious Self doing the looking. Unfortunately, that self-directed introspection opens us to the slippery-slope of spiraling like a moth around an imaginary Truth. But forums like this can reveal non-self perspectives on the inner world, that may help to pull us out of our spin.

What-if counter-factual games may reveal more about the player, than about the wider world. :smile:

PS___ My response above was tongue-in-cheek, because I suspected that your post was a tease. Hence the :joke: smilie.


Metaphysics, for Aristotle, was the study of nature and ourselves. In this sense he brings metaphysics to this world of sense experience–where we live, learn, know, think, and speak. Metaphysics is the study of being qua being, which is, first, the study of the different ways the word “be” can be used
https://open.library.okstate.edu/introphilosophy/chapter/__unknown__/

Much of metaphysics consists in playing dialectically with language—what if such and such (such and such that is the dialectical opposite of what we actually encounter) is really the case. — Janus

:up: :up: Thus, in the main 'kataphatic metaphysics' – the Classical / Aristotlean tradition – is ad hoc (e.g. "this is the Really Real"-of-the-gaps), mostly derived from invalid arguments, which usually amounts to dogma like "only Euclidean geometry is Really Real because non-Euclidean geometries are mere appearances" or as you suggest "what if this / my set of axioms is Absolute ..."

A typically incorrigible example:

I prefer to think of Metaphysics [ ... ] attempting to gain an omniscient worldview. — Gnomon

:mask:

Is the "elimination of the impossible," or discovery of "ways the world necessarily could not have been or cannot be described," not, broadly speaking, a form of falsification?

I was bringing up your post as an example of why the Joshs' claim that "we no more falsify a metaphysics than an organism falsifies its environmental niche," itself would seem to invalidate some views re metaphysics.

One could say that Thompson’s position subsumes and enriches Augustine’s without invalidating it.

One could say it, but whether or not they would nonetheless be contradicting Augustine's standpoint is another matter. If I claim that "truth is absolute," and you in turn claim that "yes, truth can be absolute, but only ever relatively," this seems more like negating my claim than "subsuming" it. Further, the claim that "truth can be absolute, but it is only ever absolute in relative terms, based on presuppositions that are taken-for-granted, and people can always accept multiple equally valid, but different presuppositions," itself appears to be an absolute statement about truth to the effect that "there can be no absolute statements re truth." So aside from contradicting the position it claims to still affirm, it also refutes itself.

They are equally valid, but not at the same time and in the same context.

This does not work vis-a-vis absolute statements. If one claim is that something is absolute and inviolable, then a contrary claim that this "absoluteness" is actually relative is not affirming the original claim. The second claim is saying that the "absolute" in the first claim is, in fact, merely contextual. If the claim is that the first claim is both "absolute" and "relative," or that both claims are equally valid (the first claim, and its contradiction) then it seems that we are left in a state where both claims are both true and false, valid and invalid, or neither. But if claims are equally valid in this way, then there is no reason to advance one over the other.

Perhaps some claims are like this, neither true nor false. But were it the case that all claims are like this, there would be no reason for believing it.

Is the "elimination of the impossible," or discovery of "ways the world necessarily could not have been or cannot be described," not, broadly speaking, a form of falsification? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. It's a logical expression, not a scientific claim.

No. It's a logical expression, not a scientific claim.

And only scientific claims can be falsified? The claim "the Goldbach Conjecture is false," wouldn't be falsified by a successful mathematical proof demonstrating the Goldbach Conjecture?

I don't see how eliminating a metaphysical claim "because it is impossible," wouldn't amount to falsification of that claim under the broad definition of falsification as "to disprove" or "remove justification for."

Falsification (Popper) isn't a term used to indicate the mere negative truth-value of a proposition but precisely that to be falsifiable means 'experimental tests of an explanatory model's predictions can fail'. Don't confuse the issue, Count: IMO, metaphysics is not theoretical (Witty).

Yes, I am aware of how ways in which Popper specifies the term "falsification" vis-a-vis scientific theories (although in The Logic of Scientific Discovery he is still talking about/grounding the concept in logical contradiction). Hence, "broadly speaking," i.e. the dictionary definition of falsify: "to disprove or remove justification for," since the point I was making has nothing to do with Popper's particular definitions re the logical versus the methodological sides of falsifiability.

The methodological side of Popper's project is based on the fact that "all swans are white," (universal claim) is contradicted by "there is at least one black swan." The second premise would contradict the first (falsify it, remove justification for it, etc.). The rest is a methodological bridge to take advantage of this in the empirical sciences

One could say it, but whether or not they would nonetheless be contradicting Augustine's standpoint is another matter. If I claim that "truth is absolute," and you in turn claim that "yes, truth can be absolute, but only ever relatively," this seems more like negating my claim than "subsuming" it. Further, the claim that "truth can be absolute, but it is only ever absolute in relative terms, based on presuppositions that are taken-for-granted, and people can always accept multiple equally valid, but different presuppositions," itself appears to be an absolute statement about truth to the effect that "there can be no absolute statements re truth." So aside from contradicting the position it claims to still affirm, it also refutes itself — Count Timothy von Icarus

Earlier, I commented that an absolute statement about truth to the effect that "there can be no absolute statements re truth” isn’t really how I see what I do when I find constant change in my experience moment to moment. An absolute statement is absolute only because the person who makes it has already decided that it will always be the case and doesnt have to be re-affirmed. When one believes a meaning is absolute , they don’t believe it has to be checked against the contextual changes that time brings. When I declare that the world continually reinvents itself moment to moment, this ‘truth’ is only applicable this moment. You’ll have ask me again next moment , and the moment after that , if I still find this to be the case. I am letting time, history and actual events dictate for me whether this ‘truth’ continues to be valid, and in what form, rather then deciding in advance what is absolutely the case.

Since l don’t believe there is any aspect of the world that sits still, that persists as itself, that isn't changed by a change in any other aspect of the world, truth and refutation mean something different for me that for you. Contradiction, in the sense of fundamental difference that precedes any notion of identity or the same, is thus the basic ‘fact’ of being. Can one understand something that contradicts itself every moment , yet continues to be the ‘same’ differently , through and as a result of this endless self-contradiction, as a style, pattern, theme? If we say that something is validated in the sense that it belongs to such a continually self-contradicting, temporally unfolding theme, pattern or style, then what do people mean when they say that something is refuted or is self-refuting?

Thompson would look at his approach as continually self-contradicting, but in a way that maintains a relative ongoing thematic unity. He would also consider Augustine’s model of truth as a continually self-contradicting thematic that maintains its own validity.
Augustine’s assertions already deconstruct themselves internally. When he depicts truth as presence, it is presence relative to a context of use and relevance, and this context of relevance re-affirms itself by altering itself. It may sound like I’m adding things that are foreign to and contradict Augustine’s assertions, but all I’m
doing is drawing out explicitly what is already implicit in his own thinking.

So what would Thompson consider to be the difference between his valid thematic and Augustine’s valid approach? It can’t simply be that they contradict each other, since everything exists in a state of contradiction with respect to everything else. He might say that Augustine’s self-contradicting thematic approach unfolds more slowly and ploddingly than his own, and he prefers approaches that transgress into new territory more aggressively since they bring him pleasure and a richer sense of meaning. We could say Thompson swaps out the ethical notions of refutation , truth and falsity for fast vs slow speeds of transformation.

IME, the reliance on dictionary definitions for key terms (or distinctions) muddles more than it clarifies in philosophical discussions, especially where there are precise terms of art in standard usage. I stand by my answer: negative ontology, like any other speculative supposition (i.e. philosophical proposal) or formal expression (e.g. logic, mathematics), is definitely not falsifiable – it is a criteriological method and not a hypothetical explanation of phenomena.

The definition is sort of besides the point, I was just trying to express what I intended to you. Although for future reference you might consider reviewing how Popper himself grounds his theory and consider if it is inapplicable to formal expressions and logic, or if rather the entire edifice relies on precisely the fact that it is applicable to logical statements. Because when I was reading it, it seemed like the application to logic was what all the methodological considerations were based around, i.e. an empirical theory is falsified when observations contradict it.

But the real question is: Does your negative ontology "eliminate the impossible," or does it simply eliminate "what is impossible given certain unquestioned and taken-for-granted presuppositions?" Can it only ever say what is impossible from within a given framework and are all frameworks equally valid? Is it a problem for "impossible" or contradictory claims to be considered equally valid?

Because the issue I see with Joshs' arguments, which do have parts of them with plenty of merit, is not the fallibalism or circularity, but rather the total relativism. And the problems related to relativism seem particularly acute when claims about "how the world is," "how experience is," etc. are brought in to bolster the arguments, since, even if I agree with these claims, it doesn't seem I can allow that they are "as valid as any others," and then use them to justify my beliefs. If every position is valid, then we appear to have lost something very important.

So what would Thompson consider to be the difference between his valid thematic and Augustine’s valid approach? It can’t simply be that they contradict each other, since everything exists in a state of contradiction with respect to everything else.

He might say that Augustine’s self-contradicting thematic approach unfolds more slowly and ploddingly than his own, and he prefers approaches that transgress into new territory more aggressively since they bring him pleasure and a richer sense of meaning. We could say Thompson swaps out the ethical notions of refutation , truth and falsity for fast vs slow speeds of transformation.

Again, he might say it, but he'd have no justification for it. For it would be equally valid to say that it is Augustine's approach that unfolds more quickly and with more agility than Thompson's, traversing greater depths of creative space. But presumably, in choosing to advance his interpretation, and in choosing to label it "pragmatism," Thompson does not think his speculations are simply equally pragmatic and unpragmatic, worthwhile and not worthwhile, when compared to all other possibilities.

A metaphysical position is closely related to a scientific paradigm. To empirically confirm a paradigm is just to tighten up the definitions and boundaries that were formed prior to confirmation . Such validating procedures allow us to identity what it is we are overthrowing when we eventually dump that paradigm in favor of another. But the movement from one paradigm to another is not driven by confirmation. It is driven by a wholesale qualitative reconceptualization of premises, the fabricating of a new world. This does not have to do with what is ‘true’ but with how the world can be organized to make sense in a qualitatively different way. Truth is then a secondary procedure within the newly created frame. — Joshs

I think you are confusing yourself by thinking in terms of paradigms...that's not how science works. In any case I think that way of thinking about it is wrong-headed so there is little point presenting arguments to me in those kinds of terms.

All this epitomizing philosophies which argue against an examined life — javra

You do realize I was kidding? :joke:

You do realize I was kidding? :joke: — Gnomon

:up: Yes, that was my best hunch. :grin: All the same, not being then fully certain, I stated what I stated as a general fact (it should be noted, without any explicitly given value judgment concerning this affirmed fact).

The statement was aimed at those - including some hereabouts on a philosophy forum - which are antagonistic toward metaphysical enquiries period, to include investigations into the nature of causation, time, space, and identity, among others issues of metaphysical concern. And to me it goes hand in hand with what I've said here.

To be blunt, upholding ignorance as a virtue to be pursued and safeguarded - or maybe worse, that the status quo perspectives of today accurately appraise in full all that there is to know about the nature of reality (e.g., regarding causation, time, space, etc.) - is not my cup of tea. But, to each their own.

Does your negative ontology "eliminate the impossible," or does it simply eliminate "what is impossible given certain unquestioned and taken-for-granted presuppositions?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think of it this way: Any world that contains, or is constituted by, either contradictions or objects with inconsistent properties is, in terms of modal logic, impossible; therefore, such constituent entities (i.e. versions of the world) are necessary fictions.

Can it only ever say what is impossible from within a given framework and are all frameworks equally valid?

Yes and no. I use terms of modal logic (e.g. actual, contingent, possible, necessary, impossible) since it is the clearest, most precise "framework" I've found. Specifically, actualism rather than possibilism.

Is it a problem for "impossible" or contradictory claims to be considered equally valid?

No. They are equally fictional.

... total relativism. And the problems related to relativism seem particularly acute when claims about "how the world is," "how experience is," etc. are brought in ...

I agree. "Total relativism" (like global skepticism; existential/semantic/epistemological/ontological nihilism) is self-refuting. I think (aspect, property & valence) pluralism is a more reasonable principle – and very strongly correlated with actualism (as well as N. Goodman's irrealism) – for which variations, or counterparts, are neither equivalent (i.e. "equally valid" in every circumstance) nor always, or even mostly, commensurable. Yes, like the heights and depths of a landscape, most(?) valid paths / positions are patently better or worse – more adequate or less adequate – than others.

Is it a problem for "impossible" or contradictory claims to be considered equally valid?

No. They are equally fictional. — 180 Proof

As a minor contention, while contradiction necessitates that something is fictional or else false in any non-dialetheistic system of logic, contradiction does not necessitate the fictionality or else falsity of all givens which contradict. For ease of expression, I'll here use the adjective "false" rather than that of "fictional".

If A contradicts with B, the three following possibilities then strictly unfold: a) A is false and B is true, b) A is true and B is false, or else c) both A and B are (equally) false.

As an example, that the Earth is flat contradicts with the Earth being roughly spherical. This, however, does not entail that Earth is thereby neither flat nor roughly spherical (needless to add, Earth in fact being roughly spherical).

Unless I'm mistaken, I think contradiction

in (non-dialetheistic) logic = necessary falsity;

in modal logic = necessary impossibility; and

in modal metaphysics = necessary ontic-impossibility (e.g. sosein)*.

*fiction

As modal metaphysics, my proposal of 'negative ontology' – basically expressed in actualist terms (as suggested in my previous post) – distinguishes versions of the world** which could not be (fictions) from those versions of the world** which could be (facts).

**actuality

@Count Timothy von Icarus

Unless I'm mistaken, I think contradiction

in (non-dialetheistic) logic = necessary falsity;

in modal logic = necessary impossibility; and

in modal metaphysics = necessary ontic-impossibility (e.g. sosein)*. — 180 Proof

Yes, I fully agree with that. I was only addressing the issue that contradictory claims are not necessarily equally fictional ... as per my example of "the Earth is flat" and "the Earth is roughly spherical" being contradictory claims that are however not both fictional.

↪Joshs
So what would Thompson consider to be the difference between his valid thematic and Augustine’s valid approach? It can’t simply be that they contradict each other, since everything exists in a state of contradiction with respect to everything else.

He might say that Augustine’s self-contradicting thematic approach unfolds more slowly and ploddingly than his own, and he prefers approaches that transgress into new territory more aggressively since they bring him pleasure and a richer sense of meaning. We could say Thompson swaps out the ethical notions of refutation , truth and falsity for fast vs slow speeds of transformation.

Again, he might say it, but he'd have no justification for it. For it would be equally valid to say that it is Augustine's approach that unfolds more quickly and with more agility than Thompson's, traversing greater depths of creative space. But presumably, in choosing to advance his interpretation, and in choosing to label it "pragmatism," Thompson does not think his speculations are simply equally pragmatic and unpragmatic, worthwhile and not worthwhile, when compared to all other possibilities. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don’t think he wants to justify it, not as a trans-historical absolute. All preferences , for the large over the small, the faster over the slower, the more pragmatic over the less pragmatic, the more worthwhile over the less worthwhile, produce differentiations made intelligible with reference to a specified content , a sense of meaning. Thompson isn’t assuming that content is absolute. On the contrary, such preferences only maintain their stable sense within a given cultural context. So within Augustine’s cultural context it would make sense to say that his approach unfolds more quickly and with more agility than Thompson's, traversing greater depths of creative space.

This what Thompson means when he says

We find the world, but only in the many incommensurable cognitive domains we devise in our attempt to know our way around. The task of the philosopher is not to extract a common conceptual scheme from these myriad domains and to determine its faithfulness to some uncorrupted reality; it is, rather, to learn to navigate among the domains, and so to clarify their concerns in relation to each other.

He doesn’t mean that we navigate among these domains from some neutral vantage beyond them all, but by being shaped and changed in the interactions within and among them.

The statement was aimed at those - including some hereabouts on a philosophy forum - which are antagonistic toward metaphysical enquiries period, to include investigations into the nature of causation, time, space, and identity, among others issues of metaphysical concern. And to me it goes hand in hand with what I've said here. — javra

To put this as colloquially as I can, metaphysical enquiry is the attempt to figure out what reality is really all about. — javra

I agree that Aristotle was concerned with Reality in general, and included Mental phenomena under the heading of Phusis (nature). But, since modern empirical Science split-off from traditional Philosophy, to go its own way, for some the term "metaphysics" came to mean "unscientific", with implications of "irrational". For my own purposes, I equate Metaphysics with Modern Philosophy, which has abandoned Empirical research to focus solely on Theoretical speculation. I even spell it with a hyphen, Meta-Physics, to emphasize that it's primarily the study of non-physical phenomena, such as Consciousness, and causation-in-general (vs specific causes).

Unfortunately, some TPF posters still seem to think that Metaphysics should be empirical. Hence, they insist that dissecting brains is the only way to understand the quality of Self-Awareness --- which seems to be unique to only a small selection of organic matter. For example, asserted above that "metaphysics is not theoretical". So, it seems that he is "antagonistic" only to Theoretical inquiries, that go beyond physical evidence, to conjecture about, not what is physically Real, but what is logically Possible. Hence, he might reject the Multiverse theories, not as Meta-Physical (literally beyond our space-time world), but as merely un-scientific, because empirical evidence is impossible. But the parallel notion of a First Cause, prior to the Big Bang, would be characterized as mystical "woo-woo", presumably because it's pure speculation, un-grounded in hard facts.

According to that reasoning, "investigations into the nature of Causation" would have to be limited to looking at its material effects, not its original source : Aristotle's imaginary First Cause. For those "antagonistic" toward theoretical Metaphysics, any universal or general concepts would be taboo. That's because empirical Science can only study particulars, and to generalize (via induction) would be presumptive of omniscience. Ironically, polymath scientists do that all the time, crossing the line between Empirical Science and Theoretical Philosophy ; between what's Real, and what's Ideal ; twixt what's Actual and what's Potential . :smile:

For my part, in the world I live, most people need there being an unquestionable authority in their life. Most of those that then in one or another do away with the Abrahamic notion of an omni-this-and-that deity—which I find quite understandable on multiple grounds—will then turn to this nebulous term “science” as being just such an unquestionable authority. As a common enough example, for such people proclaiming “science says so” is to proclaim the unquestionable truth of that which is stipulated.

This is a gross misrepresentation of what the empirical sciences are. The vast majority of today's, for example, sciences regarding physics are, if fact, thoroughly entwined with a large sum of theoretical speculation—both inductive and abductive. There is zilch empirical about any interpretation of QM, regardless of what it might be. And when one takes a look at the nitty gritty of how we’ve arrived at today's QM, one will find a plethora of such inductive and abductive theoretical speculations regarding what in fact is. The proof that there is something objectively and fundamentally wrong with today's physics is that QM cannot be integrated into the theory of relativity in as is form so as to provide a theory of everything physical.

Science's only merit is that it can falsify those theoretical suppositions regarding that which can be empirically observed—this via empirical observations—and, by not falsifying, it can then to varying extents validate, but never “prove”, the theoretical suppositions in question.

This gross misunderstanding of science typically held by most people—these very same yet upholding science (hence, scientific inferences taken to be scientific knowledge) to be the de facto unquestionable authority regarding what is real—is, for example, readily witness in the popularized claim that “science has not proven human-caused global warming”. This being an utterly nonsensical claim, least of all because absolutely nothing of science is infallible and thereby beyond any and all doubt.

All that for now being placed aside, other than validating that it has a brain, science has nothing to say about whether or not a dog, for example, is conscious of anything, thereby holds a consciousness, thereby is a conscious being. It has no possible solution to the Sorites paradox. Nor does it have anything to say regarding the ontological standing of that which we all empirically perceive to be and label “the physical world”. In keeping with a long list of pertinent issues that science can only remain silent on is that of whether or not the universe is foundationally meaningless. Any position held on all of these many issues then being entirely metaphysical claims.

Which in a way brings me full circle to this:

Because, for one example, there’s nothing wrong with a bunch of lemmings actively swimming their way toward a climate change catastrophe in today’s status quo metaphysics of a meaningless universe. — javra

To deny the importance of any and all metaphysics is to be (bluntly expressed) ignorant of one's very own suppositions (be they culturally inherited or else arrived at by oneself) regarding what reality in fact is and consists of. Which, however, is not to then claim that all such suppositions are of equal value; some such being valueless, e.g., being the brain in a vat constructed by another brain in a vat constructed by another, this ad infinitum, though plausibly conceivable as a metaphysical possibility, is devoid of any value regarding, for example, what I should best do with my life or else how I should best understand value theory and, hence, the values by which I and others live our lives.