One step that may be useful is to escape from "gives rise to" or "causes". — Ludwig V

All our explanations are in terms of either causes or reasons. It might be imagined that some completely new paradigm of explanation will be found, but I see no reason to think so.

Yet it is, I believe, common knowledge that Wittgenstein's approach to justifying reason grounds it in our human way of life, our practices, our language-games. If one accepts that, the idea of evolution presents itself as a way of deepening his gestural account and explaining why our way of life and practices are what they are. — Ludwig V

The fact that we have developed the capacity for reason evolutionarily does not "justify" reason. Reason needs no justification. No justification of reason that doesn't use reason is possible, and this circularity ensures that justifying reason is an incoherent, an impossible, fantasy..

The fact that we have developed the capacity for reason evolutionarily does not "justify" reason. Reason needs no justification. No justification of reason that doesn't use reason is possible, and this circularity ensures that justifying reason is an incoherent, an impossible, fantasy.. — Janus

No argument here.

All our explanations are in terms of either causes or reasons. It might be imagined that some completely new paradigm of explanation will be found, but I see no reason to think so. — Janus

Well, I thought you might find my suggestion interesting.

Well, I thought you might find my suggestion interesting. — Ludwig V

I didn't mean to be dismissive. I have to acknowledge that a new paradigm of explanation is possible, I guess I just don't see it as a likelihood.

Also, I think it's fairly easy to see the adaptive and survival advantage that reason possesses. Perhaps that is (pragmatic) justification enough. I think the advanced capacity for reasoning that symbolic language brings with it has enabled humans to successfully adapt to almost any environment and to consequently strain the planet's resources, destroy vast areas of habitat and pollute the natural world. It's reason that should let us collectively understand this, and maybe it has, but the problem now seems so vast and intractable, given the cultural impediments to harmonious global planning and action that reason alone is insufficient. Will is also needed.

One lurking factor that I've been thinking over is the change in the conception of the nature of reason over history. As David Bentley Hart puts it:

In the pre-modern vision of things, the Cosmos had been seen as an inherently purposive structure of diverse but integrally inseparable rational relations — for instance, the Aristotelian aitia, which are conventionally translated as “causes,” but which are nothing like the uniform material “causes” of the mechanistic philosophy. And so the natural order was seen as a reality already akin to intellect. Hence the mind, rather than an anomalous tenant of an alien universe, was instead the most concentrated and luminous expression of nature’s deepest essence. This is why it could pass with such wanton liberty through the “veil of Isis” and ever deeper into nature’s inner mysteries.

This has been subject of much commentary, although not much is said of it on this site, nor in analytic philosophy generally. Alexander Koyré has explored this in his books, with which I have only passing familiarity. Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason, another, and more generally the New Left's critique of the Enlightenment and the 'instrumentalisation of reason'.

I won't go further with it here, other than to note that this is the background to much of this debate, in which 'reason' is now mainly understood in terms of evolutionary adaptation, rather than as an instrument which is able to discern truth.

I must argue against that statement. Knowing truth is essential because things go very wrong when people act on incorrect ideas and bad information. Primitive people knew that problem well. They did not have bank cards to repair all the damage of bad decisions. And democracy, like scientific research, is people working together to get things right. True Aristotle made mistakes, and Greek logic defined by him was lacking. But the truth is, if we don't get things right, they can go very wrong. This is true in our private lives and public lives.

I disagree. Things don't always go wrong every time that people act on incorrect ideas and/or not knowing the truth. Running away or hiding because someone thinks that there is a dangerous threat present whether or not there's actual danger, can save that person's life.

Example:
You hear a couple loud noises and assumed that they're gunshots, so you hide.
1. No actual gunshots: Not knowing the truth that those sounds were actual gunshots and hiding, doesn’t result in anything bad happening. - Rational

2. Actual gunshots: Not knowing the truth that those sounds were actual gunshots and hiding, can have a good outcome, not getting shot. - Rational

3. Actual gunshots: Not knowing the truth that those sounds were actual gunshots and not hiding, just remaining as you were, can result with you getting shot. - Irrational


This demonstrate that rationality is not contingent on being correct or knowing the truth.

I didn't mean to be dismissive. I have to acknowledge that a new paradigm of explanation is possible, I guess I just don't see it as a likelihood. — Janus

I don't think that what I'm proposing is a new paradigm. It's just a different way of looking at an old paradigm, which better reflects the questions that we ask and dissolves some of the puzzles that the old paradigm seems to generate.

Also, I think it's fairly easy to see the adaptive and survival advantage that reason possesses. ..... Will is also needed. — Janus

Too right. We oscillate between seeing reason as our crowning glory and seeing it as merely the slave of the passions. It all depends how you define it - particularly the place of our values in what we do.

So throughout this passage, he's presenting Nozick's proposal as an example of a naturalised epistemology based on evolutionary biology. — Wayfarer

Yes, that makes sense of it. I might have written a rather different response if I had realized that. I have a feeling that he thinks that refuting that kind of naturalised epistemology in some way supports his view of reason. The vision of reason that he seems to present does not attract me in the slightest. But that's another issue.

Well, that I take to be his point. Basically I read the argument as saying, to rely on scientific or evolutionary justifications for reason, is to undermine the sovereignty of reason. And why? Because it points to factors outside reason itself to ground reason: — Wayfarer

This is where the fundamental obscurity in foundationalism creates unnecessary (in my book) confusion. It's very simple. Question - are the foundations of a house part of the house or not? Well, builders dig trenches and fill them with concrete and they call that putting in the foundations. So the foundations are part of the house. From this perspective, the foundations of mathematics require more mathematics. But the soil and rock into/onto which they build those foundations are the foundations of the foundations and they are not part of the house. So more mathematics just pushes back the question of the foundations. Sooner or later, there must be something analogous to the soil or rock which is not built, but on which a house is built.

Things are a bit different when you come to consider something like a ship or a car. These are self-supporting structures and so, strictly speaking do not need and cannot have foundations. However, the keel of the ship or the chassis of the car plays a role analogous to the foundations of the house. The keel of the ship and the chassis of the car are part of the car. But you can build a car without a chassis - the functions of the chassis are fulfilled by the entire bodywork, which is a true self-supporting structure, without a foundation. (The same applies to ships, but they still need a keel, to give the ship a grip on the water.) But ships and cars do still have a medium, an environment, in which they exist.

I think that what Wittgenstein says about ways of life and practices trades on the first kind of foundation, but the idea is applicable to the second as well. I think a case could be made for counting it as a form of naturalism, but that's only a label, so I do not care much.

Plenty of animals get along just fine without mathematics and science. So appealing to evolutionary principles in support of reason actually has rather the contrary effect of undermining it, rather than strengthening it. — Wayfarer

You must mean "without articulating mathematics and science". The hawk that can catch a rabbit is, in one sense, solving a complex mathematical problem even though it can't solve it in the way(s) that we can; it can also distinguish quite reliably between what it can, with benefit, eat without any (articulate) knowledge of chemistry.
Well, plenty of living things, including some animals, manage pretty well, without or with only very poor vision. Which does not invalidate the idea that vision gives an evolutionary advantage to those animals that have it. It depends on your way of life and whether you can work out some other survival strategy. (Living underground, or developing an effective ultra-sound system) However, an advantage in surviving does not negate the possibility of side-effects which may or may not play into survival.
I don't see how you can argue that evolution does not and cannot validate reason, even if it contributes to survival and argue that evolution undermines reason. If you advance the latter claim, you are accepting that reason might contribute to survival.

The 'something more' is a reason that carries its own authority, which need not and should not be grounded in something else. — Wayfarer

Well, that's an outline. It needs a good deal of unpacking.

I won't go further with it here, other than to note that this is the background to much of this debate, in which 'reason' is now mainly understood in terms of evolutionary adaptation, rather than as an instrument which is able to discern truth. — Wayfarer

I wasn't aware that this evolution business is so mainstream. There's no need to treat it as a dilemma or competition. I think it is quite plausible to say that reason can contribute to survival because it is able to discern truth.

One lurking factor that I've been thinking over is the change in the conception of the nature of reason over history. — Wayfarer

Yes. And that's not merely marginal to understanding what people mean by "reason".

This demonstrates that rationality is not contingent on being correct or knowing the truth. — night912

That's certainly true. But the reasoning you outline starts from "If someone has fired a gun, I might get shot, so I should hide", and then considers a range of possibilities around that. That's the starting-point. Factoring in my beliefs and knowledge amounts to factoring those possibilities in. It's still about the facts.

The hawk that can catch a rabbit is, in one sense, solving a complex mathematical problem even though it can't solve it in the way(s) that we can; it can also distinguish quite reliably between what it can, with benefit, eat without any (articulate) knowledge of chemistry. — Ludwig V

:chin:

:chin: — Wayfarer

I'm really sorry. I can't decode that.

“….If we think at all, we must think of ourselves (…) as submitting to the order of reasons rather than creating it….”
(Nagel, 1997)

“….finespun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force themselves on every man who rises to the height of speculation.(…) it would be more consistent with a wise regard for the interests of science (…) to favour a criticism (…) by which alone the labours of reason can be established on a firm basis, than to support the ridiculous despotism of the schools, which raise a loud cry of danger to the public over the destruction of cobwebs, of which the public has never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it can never feel….”
(Kant, 1787)



What, in your opinion, is meant by the order of reasons? And depending on what it is, can we think of ourselves as submitting to it, but NOT creating it?

I don't think that what I'm proposing is a new paradigm. It's just a different way of looking at an old paradigm, which better reflects the questions that we ask and dissolves some of the puzzles that the old paradigm seems to generate. — Ludwig V

It seems to be that there is an inherent incommensurability and thus incompatibility between our two paradigms of explanation—the one in terms of experiences and reasons and the other in terms of mechanisms and causes. It's that inherent incompatibility that leads me to believe that the so-called "Hard Problem" is a pseudo-problem that comes with failing to recognize this fundamental incommensurability.

Isn’t the ‘order of reasons’ simply what it says? Something which any valid syllogism will exemplify? The book from which the Nagel essay is taken, is The Last Word (review), a defense of reasoned argument against relativism and subjectivism. They will insist that everything is perspectival, or that facts depend on parochial rather than universal considerations. Nagel spends considerable time illustrating that these styles of argument are necessarily self-defeating, as they provide no grounds for thinking anything true.

As for the ground of reason, obviously a deep question, but I will generally argue that the ‘furniture of reason’, the basic laws of thought, are discovered and not invented.

That passage from Kant is also polemical, namely against the ‘ridiculous despotism of the schools’, meaning scholastic philosophy with its rigid adherence to dogma under the banner of revelation trumping reason.

Isn’t the ‘order of reasons’ simply what it says? Something which any valid syllogism will exemplify? — Wayfarer

I thought that as well, but isn’t a syllogism a logical construct in propositional form, which we create?

Oh. Nice catch on scholastic philosophy/rigid adherence to dogma. It didn’t necessarily pertain to my comment; I just didn’t want the quote to feel naked cuz I was to lazy to included as its author would have expected.

I thought that as well, but isn’t a syllogism a logical construct in propositional form, which we create? — Mww

Construct, I think, rather than 'create', out of materials ready to hand, so to speak.

What, on your opinion, is meant by the order of reasons? And depending on what it is, can we think of ourselves as submitting to it, but NOT creating it? — Mww

One can make a start by getting a better idea what Nagel meant by the order of reasons. You can get a clue by going back to the beginning of the essay and re-reading the quotation from Pierce at the top of p.2.

I'm assuming that you have a copy. I'm too lazy to type it out. My copy doesn't like me using copy and paste. You can get an idea of what "submit" means by reflecting that I have to submit to the order of the software. Which means that I want something different from what the software provides. Then ask yourself why you would want something different from what reason provides.

Reading Pierce, I'm driven to ask myself what he is trying to do with that stuff about Nature being "great and beautiful and sacred and eternal and real". For me, Nature is as real and beautiful and sacred and eternal and real as a wet Sunday afternoon or washing my socks.

It's that inherent incompatibility that leads me to believe that the so-called "Hard Problem" is a pseudo-problem that comes with failing to recognize this fundamental incommensurability. — Janus

You may have a point. I think the two are different articulations of the same problem. Which I agree is a pseudo-problem, except that I can't spot how the illusion is created - yet.

I thought that as well, but isn’t a syllogism a logical construct in propositional form, which we create? — Mww

As for the ground of reason, obviously a deep question, but I will generally argue that the ‘furniture of reason’, the basic laws of thought, are discovered and not invented. — Wayfarer

We need to get past this opposition between discovery and invention - or construe it in radically different ways.
1.We should recognize (and I do mean recognize) that discovering Neptune is different from Pythagoras' discovery of his theorem or the discovery of the irrationality of pi or sqrt2.
2. Perhaps also a distinction between a theory/hypothesis (invented by Copernicus) and recognizing/proving that it is true (submitting to the facts or evidence). The second phase cannot happen until the first phase has happened. But what made Copernicus invent his theory? Recognising that Ptolemy's theory was problematic because the facts didn't fit.
3. Nagel supposes that our first order of business in life to ask ourselves what to believe and how to live. He was wrong. Our first order of business to learn how to ask questions, and that takes years, by which time we have already begun to live our lives and acquired many beliefs. The questions arrive too late to be fundamental.

Construct, I think, rather than 'create', out of materials ready to hand, so to speak. — Wayfarer

That looks like a false opposition to me. Doesn't all creation use materials ready to hand, but perhaps in new ways. Doesn't construction always result in something new? (BTW Have you been reading or reading about Heidegger?) Did he construct his distinction between present-at-hand and ready-to-hand or create it? I don't think either construct or create is quite right for that case.

Construct, I think, rather than 'create', out of materials ready to hand, so to speak. — Wayfarer

Yes, much better. Thanks.
(Self dope-slaps. Shoulda got there by myself)
———-



You, too. Nice rendition of the essay. Thanks.
But I reserve self dope-slappin’ here, cuz I might not have got there by myself at all.

You may have a point. I think the two are different articulations of the same problem. Which I agree is a pseudo-problem, except that I can't spot how the illusion is created - yet. — Ludwig V

What springs to mind is that they are two different articulations of the human all too human need to explain. The need to explain is the problem. We have to explain our behavior to others and we do so mostly in terms of reasons, although sometimes in terms of causes. We have to explain the behavior of animals and we do this sometimes in terms of (imagined and projected) reasons and sometimes in terms of causes and we have to explain natural phenomena and we do so in terms of mechanism, forces and causes. In regard to the last in ancient times some explanations of the natural were also in terms of reasons.

1.We should recognize (and I do mean recognize) that discovering Neptune is different from Pythagoras' discovery of his theorem or the discovery of the irrationality of pi or sqrt2. — Ludwig V

Traditionally, this was regarded as a distinction between a posteriori (learned through observation) and a priori (established through deduction), although this distinction has become far less clear-cut than it was in Kant's day.

Did he construct his distinction between present-at-hand and ready-to-hand or create it? — Ludwig V

I know that 'ready to hand' would suggest Heidegger but it wasn't really meant as an allusion to him. It's closer to something Frege said:

Frege believed that number is real in the sense that it is quite independent of thought: 'thought content exists independently of thinking "in the same way", he says "that a pencil exists independently of grasping it. Thought contents are true and bear their relations to one another (and presumably to what they are about) independently of anyone's thinking these thought contents - "just as a planet, even before anyone saw it, was in interaction with other planets." '

...in The Basic Laws of Arithmetic he says that 'the laws of truth are authoritative because of their timelessness: "[the laws of truth] are boundary stones set in an eternal foundation, which our thought can overflow, but never displace. It is because of this, that they authority for our thought if it would attain to truth." — Frege on Knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge

The fact that impresses me is the discovery of scientific and mathematical principles that are true, independently of any grasp of them. So they're mind-independent, on the one hand, because they're true for anyone who can grasp them. But at the same time, they're only perceptible to reason (which I will continue to insist is not available to animals in anything but the most rudimentary form.)

So such principles are in some basic sense 'structures of rational thought'. They pertain to and arise from what has been known in some schools as 'the formal realm', the domain of laws and principles (hence Frege's 'third realm'.) The difficulty this presents for moderns, though, is that this 'realm' is not an actual place or location, it's real in the same sense that the 'domain of natural numbers' is real while not materially existent. Whereas empiricism usually continues to insist on the reality of the mind-independent physical object, which I regard as an oxymoronic construction.

//

Frege held that both the thought contents that constitute the proof-structure of
mathematics and the subject matter of these thought contents (extensions, func-
tions) exist. He also thought that these entities are non-spatial, non-temporal,
causally inert, and independent for their existence and natures from any person's
thinking them or thinking about them. Frege proposed a picturesque metaphor of
thought contents as existing in a "third realm". This "realm" counted as "third"
because it was comparable to but different from the realm of physical objects and
the realm of mental entities. I think that Frege held, in the main body of his career,
that not only thought contents, but numbers and functions were members of this
third realm. — ibid

Compare with:

(Many) scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.

Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all? — What is Math? Smithsonian Institute

Well, there's a good answer to that - someone has to build and maintain all the things we rely on. But they shouldn't have the last word.//

What springs to mind is that they are two different articulations of the human all too human need to explain — Janus

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

Nice!

Frege believed that number is real in the sense that it is quite independent of thought: 'thought content exists independently of thinking "in the same way", he says "that a pencil exists independently of grasping it. — Frege on Knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge

Note that Burge writes "number" not 'numbers'. I find it to be an important distinction because the quality of number is of course present wherever there is diversity whereas numbers as entities are not. To put it another way, say there are four objects—it seems to me to make sense that the quality or pattern of four, that is fourness, is present, but not the number four as a separate entity.

I think of number as an act rather than an entity.

Yes, much better. Thanks.
(Self dope-slaps. Shoulda got there by myself)
You, too. Nice rendition of the essay. Thanks.
But I reserve self dope-slappin’ here, cuz I might not have got there by myself at all. — Mww

I'm glad you liked it. You deserve a pat on the back for self-criticism.

We have to explain our behavior to others and we do so mostly in terms of reasons, although sometimes in terms of causes. — Janus

In this context, perhaps there is room for a question I mostly shelve, about whether the difference between reasons and causes is also discovered or created. Mostly, philosophers treat it as a given, though explaining it to people learning philosophy or reluctant to recognize it can be difficult. (It's not intuitive). I don't have a crisp answer. It could be either or some combination.

In regard to the last (sc. mechanism, forces and causes) in ancient times some explanations of the natural were also in terms of reasons. — Janus

Yes. Indeed, with some reservations, it would not be wrong to say that for them, teleological explanations were dominant. Which suggests that explanation by causes was developed later, by distinguishing it from the teleological. (Though it would be more accurate to say that it was developed from Aristotle's account of explanation, which gives one model for everything.) It's curious that the non-teleological explanation has taken over and nearly ejected teleological explanations altogether - like a cuckoo.

We have to explain the behavior of animals and we do this sometimes in terms of (imagined and projected) reasons . — Janus

I like the concept of a rational reconstruction for this. (I found it recently in Lee Braver's "Groundless Grounds".)

Note that Burge writes "number" not 'numbers'. I find it to be an important distinction because the quality of number is of course present wherever there is diversity whereas numbers as entities are not. To put it another way, say there are four objects—it seems to me to make sense that the quality or pattern of four, that is fourness, is present, but not the number four as a separate entity. — Janus

I like this. It helps to bridge the gap between counting (as the ground in our practices) and arithmetic.

I think of number as an act rather than an entity. — Wayfarer

That's very helpful.

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle — wonderer1

I like that a lot. Vonnegut used to be a great favourite of mine. I don't know why I stopped reading him. It just happened somehow.

Well, ‘being’ is a verb.

Well, being is a verb. — Wayfarer

Excellent. If only it was possible to get our software to remind anyone who types the word "existence" or "being" of it.

Traditionally, this was regarded as a distinction between a posteriori (learned through observation) and a priori (established through deduction), although this distinction has become far less clear-cut than it was in Kant's day. — Wayfarer

Quite so. Looking back, the original clarity looks like an inheritance from Plato. But perhaps that's just me.

I know that 'ready to hand' would suggest Heidegger but it wasn't really meant as an allusion to him — Wayfarer

OK. I just wondered.

Frege believed that number is real in the sense that it is quite independent of thought: 'thought content exists independently of thinking "in the same way", he says "that a pencil exists independently of grasping it. — Frege on Knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge

That "in the same way" is the problem. Even if we grant him the reality of abstract objects, which is true in a sense, it would be hard to grasp what that phrase means.

Thought contents are true and bear their relations to one another (and presumably to what they are about) independently of anyone's thinking these thought contents - "just as a planet, even before anyone saw it, was in interaction with other planets. — Frege on Knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge

That's an interesting quote. I would think it was the ancestor of Wittgenstein's idea in the Tractatus that all possible combinations of atomic propositions are given in advance - which I'm pretty sure he later abandoned.

. It is because of this, that they authority for our thought if it would attain to truth — Frege on Knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge

Yes. It looks to me as if something has gone wrong with this sentence. But the general sense is clear. This is the same metaphor that Nagel is appealing to. (What else does one submit to but authority?) But it seems to me that the assimilation of the place of reason in our lives to the place of the law or a tyranny (depending on your point of view) is a distortion - a failure to pay attention in pursuit of a grand universal statement. (Notice how much post-modernist rhetoric turns on attacking this.) Mind you, if one has a creator-God, the metaphor becomes less metaphorical.

— What is Math? Smithsonian Institute

Yes. It's curious that they chose to give such a feeble, illogical argument here. Perhaps they reflected they are addressing a lay audience, which might not appreciate harder-edged arguments.

Looking back, the original clarity looks like an inheritance from Plato. But perhaps that's just me. — Ludwig V

Not at all, a priori/a posteriori was Kant’s summary of a fundamental philosophical distinction, later called into question by Quine in his Two Dogmas of Empiricism. But I still think it’s a valid distinction, in fact I recall it being one of the first things I was taught as an undergraduate, in the class on Hume.

Even if we grant him the reality of abstract objects, which is true in a sense, it would be hard to grasp what that phrase means. — Ludwig V

When Frege says that 'thought contents' are real 'in the same way' as a pencil, he means, well, real. (He distinguishes 'thought content' as numbers and logical laws from casual thought.) So he's granting reality to abstract objects, which nowadays is controversial. As regards the empiricist rejection of Platonic realism, it's sadly typical, I'm afraid. The simple reason is - and it is simple - that if number is real but not material, then it's a defeater for materialism - and we can't allow that :rage:

Mathematical platonism has considerable philosophical significance. If the view is true, it will put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical. For platonism entails that reality extends far beyond the physical world and includes objects that aren’t part of the causal and spatiotemporal order studied by the physical sciences. Mathematical platonism, if true, will also put great pressure on many naturalistic theories of knowledge. For there is little doubt that we possess mathematical knowledge. The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate. — SEP

Not at all, a priori/a posteriori was Kant’s summary of a fundamental philosophical distinction, later called into question by Quine in his Two Dogmas of Empiricism. But I still think it’s a valid distinction, in fact I recall it being one of the first things I was taught as an undergraduate, in the class on Hume. — Wayfarer

Oh, yes, it was one of the early bedrocks that I was taught as well. What I don't know is exactly why Kant embedded it in his work. I also know about Quine, but then he wanders off into what he calls naturalism. Wittgenstein didn't exactly abandon it. But he did argue that it was more a matter of how certain propositions were used - a question, if you like, of statements rather than propositions.

When Frege says that 'thought contents' are real 'in the same way' as a pencil, he means, well, real. ...... So he's granting reality to abstract objects, which nowadays is controversial. As regards the empiricist rejection of Platonic realism, it's sadly typical, I'm afraid. — Wayfarer

Now you have opened the door to the world of pain that is reality in philosophy. The meaning of "real" depends heavily on the context of its use.
The essence of the problem is this. When Frege (philosopher) says that all numbers are real, everyone will agree. Mathematicians include all the rational numbers, such as the integer −5 and the fraction 4 / 3 and the irrational numbers (and 0) as real. For Frege, as a philosopher, an unreal number is a number that does not exist. But for mathematicians, there are three kinds of number that are not real - imaginary numbers, infinite numbers and complex numbers. All these most certainly exist. I could multiply examples. Strictly speaking, the philosophical use of real is a figment of the philosophical fantasy that there is a use of real such that it is not context-dependent; I think it is absurd but I think it is now so common that it has to be accepted. But it does not correlate with the use of real in other departments of our language.
I do accept that numbers exist and that they are abstract, which is a category of existents, which means they have a different kind or mode of existence from physical objects. So I'm not with Frege, either. Meinong? Maybe. I haven't thought about that. I think the best short story about this is Quine's slogan "To be is to be the value of a variable". My long story would be about language-games and the different kinds or modes or senses of existence they define.

The simple reason is - and it is simple - that if number is real but not material, then it's a defeater for materialism - and we can't allow that. — Wayfarer

That's their problem. Certainly not mine, and I'm guessing not yours either.

The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate. — SEP

That's fascinating. It's as if the last 50 years of philosophy never happened. Oh, well, that's how the cycle works. One day people will look again and find it was not so awful after all.

…..a priori/a posteriori was Kant’s summary of a fundamental philosophical distinction….
— Wayfarer

What I don't know is exactly why Kant embedded it in his work. — Ludwig V

If I may:

As to the summation….

“…. That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise (…) and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience? (…) But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion)…..”

As to the why…..

“…..Of far more importance than all that has been above said, is the consideration that certain of our cognitions rise completely above the sphere of all possible experience, and by means of conceptions, to which there exists in the whole extent of experience no corresponding object, seem to extend the range of our judgements beyond its bounds. And just in this transcendental or supersensible sphere, where experience affords us neither instruction nor guidance, lie the investigations of reason, which, on account of their importance, we consider far preferable to, and as having a far more elevated aim than, all that the understanding can achieve within the sphere of sensuous phenomena. (…) The science which, with all its preliminaries, has for its especial object the solution of these problems is named metaphysics—a science which is at the very outset dogmatical, that is, it confidently takes upon itself the execution of this task without any previous investigation of the ability or inability of reason for such an undertaking.…”

Me, I think Kant imbedded this distinction in his work, because no one else, even if acknowledging the possibility of the distinction in one form or another, had constructed a method sufficient to prove both its feasibility and its limitations.

I'm intrigued. I have no idea what you mean unless you are thinking of counting as an act.

In this context, perhaps there is room for a question I mostly shelve, about whether the difference between reasons and causes is also discovered or created. Mostly, philosophers treat it as a given, though explaining it to people learning philosophy or reluctant to recognize it can be difficult. (It's not intuitive). I don't have a crisp answer. It could be either or some combination. — Ludwig V

I've thought about this question in regard to mathematics. I think it's fair to say it's both. Thinking about reasons and causes we discover a valid distinction in our thinking between them in that we consider acting for reasons to be self-generated, intentional. Being caused to act is thought in terms of being pushed by an external agent. There are many ways in which the two notions bleed into one another, so there is no absolutely clearcut distinction.

Yes. Indeed, with some reservations, it would not be wrong to say that for them, teleological explanations were dominant. Which suggests that explanation by causes was developed later, by distinguishing it from the teleological. (Though it would be more accurate to say that it was developed from Aristotle's account of explanation, which gives one model for everything.) It's curious that the non-teleological explanation has taken over and nearly ejected teleological explanations altogether - like a cuckoo. — Ludwig V

Is it curious or is it because in the development of our investigations and understandings of the world we have come to see that there is no need for imaginary entities to explain natural phenomena?

I like the concept of a rational reconstruction for this. (I found it recently in Lee Braver's "Groundless Grounds".) — Ludwig V

By "rational reconstruction" do you mean something along the lines of 'thinking about how things seems to us and then imputing it (in some kind of suitably modified form) to animals' or something else? I have that Braver book on my shelves somewhere, but I've never gotten around to reading it. Would you recommend it?

I like this. It helps to bridge the gap between counting (as the ground in our practices) and arithmetic. — Ludwig V

Would you be able to elaborate on this a little?

I have no idea what you mean unless you are thinking of counting as an act. — Janus

Yes, I’m exploring that way of thinking about it. It’s often said that numbers are abstract or intelligible objects, but I’ve long felt that ‘object’ is the wrong word, a reification (thingifying). But number as the representation of the act of counting and other mathematical operations makes sense to me. It is also linked to the active sense of being, which is what I mean by ‘being is a verb’. (I sense some connection here with Aquinas on the dynamic nature of being but I won’t take that up right now.)

Now you have opened the door to the world of pain that is reality in philosophy. The meaning of "real" depends heavily on the context of its use. — Ludwig V

My intuition is that numbers are real but not existent in the same sense that objects are. The deep issue is that in modern philosophy, ‘what is real’ and ‘what exists’ are generally understood to be synonymous. Whereas I believe ‘what exists’ is a subset of ‘what is real’, which includes potentiality, possibility, logical laws and mathematical principles, and much else besides. (C S Pierce has a similar view and has writings on the distinction between reality and existence.)

But this is why, when you say ‘number is real’, the difficult question comes up ‘what do you mean by “real” or “exists”?’ The analogy of the divided line in the Republic addresses this. Plato says there are different kinds or levels of knowing with different kinds of objects - pistis, doxa, dianoia and noesis. But this is precisely what has been lost in the transition to modernity. Dianoia - mathematical and geometrical knowledge - was retained, through Galileo’s Platonism, but noesis was rejected, along with realism concerning universals. And the other background issue is that the idea of the hierarchy of being and knowing had become integrated with the ‘medieval synthesis’, Ptolemaic cosmology and geocentricity, so that when this collapsed, the ‘great chain of being’ collapsed with it. And it was that metaphysics which had allowed for ‘degrees of reality’. Without it mankind is confined to a kind of single dimension of reality, that of objects and forces, the isolated Cartesian ego exploring and manipulating a world of objects through abstract geometry - modern materialism, in a nutshell.

OK, that makes sense. I also think of being or existing as a verb. Being can also be thought of as a noun, but then it is an abstraction. It's interesting that existing cannot be thought of as a noun, for that the word gets changed to existence, which is also an abstraction.

Looked at from either the perspective of being as a verb or as a noun we cannot conceive of there being real being without there being real beings.