• _db
    3.6k
    This is a question that I've sort of prodded elsewhere in the past.

    Basically, as I see it, a metaphysical theory's goal is to not just describe reality in its most general and fundamental sense, but also manage to include itself in the picture as well. In other words, if "all is x", then the metaphysical theory itself ought to also be x.

    But is this possible? Or will there always be "something more" to whatever we claim about x?

    For example, it would be silly to claim that reality is made up of ballpoint pens. Clearly ballpoint pens exist in some sense but they are too specific to be a metaphysical theory. Atoms are too specific as well. Electrons also seem too specific. These can plausibly be seen as "objects" in the loose sense. We can "break them down" to their lesser parts, or explain their existence by the relationships between them and other things.

    The contemporary analytic metaphysics culture uses terms like "particular", "universal", "concrete", "abstract", "kind", "sortal", "object", "property", "concept", etc. Of course if we advocate something different, like perhaps a "rainforest realism" of sorts then some of these aren't going to applied, in particular the dichotomies between particular and universal, and concrete and abstract.

    But regardless we can still ask what an "object" is, or what a "property" is. We can say that planets are objects, that red is a property, but we're only describing objects and properties by means of example. An example of an object is a planet, an example of a property is red.

    Ways to get around this inevitably depend on these terms anyway. For example, we might argue that properties are "ways things are" - which in my opinion is pretty accurate and intuitive. Yet this still begs the question as to what the hell a "way" is, and what the hell a "thing" is. But I "know" what a "way" is, and I "know" what a "thing" is - it's just that I can only refer to them by examples. But I still insist that they are somehow "real".

    So again, to go back, perhaps we argue that the world is entirely composed of x - let's say x represents energy. But what even is energy? Tough question to evaluate without adding in extraneous terms, which would defeat the hypothesis that all is energy. Clearly if energy has different features, then it's not really the what the universe is composed of in the metaphysical sense.

    From what I can tell, in order to even conceptualize something requires complexity. Of course, I must define what complexity is, which I take to be equivalent to a structure of sorts (with a part-whole relationship, discernible properties, etc). To be complex means to have an identity.

    Therefore it is hard to see how a "property" can possibly be a contender for the most basic and general aspect (what does aspect mean? lol) of the world. It's too specific - properties have an identity, they're properties!

    And thus this is where the Aristotelian notion of substance comes into play - that which cannot be predicated upon. But, as Heidegger noted, even this is not enough, because substance necessarily exists - but we have not explained what it means to exist (Being). Substance is defined as a fusion between matter and form - yet matter and form are still names for something - matter and form. Yet what is matter and form? And the regress begins...

    So the overall point being made here is that it seems as though if we can name something, that is, identify something as something, then we can always ask what else is behind the curtain, supporting this something. Thus complexity, and thus intelligibility, cannot be the fundamental and general aspect of reality. It seems, rather, that intelligibility must emerge from a processual background of the unintelligible, or that which cannot be predicated upon whatsoever, including indirect names like "the infinite" or "the apeiron" or "Nothing". For we can always ask what makes it the case that whatever it is, is what it is. The intelligible must evolve - or, rather, intelligibility must make itself intelligible. Within our cocoon of intelligibility, we exist. Yet intelligibility is only intelligible to those in which exist within the intelligible - just like how foreign languages are unintelligible to outsiders. There doesn't seem to be anything objective about intelligibility - it's merely something that happened.

    If we can find the basic structures of intelligibility, then these basic structures can yet still be scrutinized. Like baking a cake - we have flour, yeast, sugar, salt, milk, butter, etc. Yet clearly these ingredients exist in their own way. So how do they? Similarly, we can see how reality is "made up" of properties, objects, relations, sets, change, time, etc. Yet clearly we can also identify these parts are things-themselves, since we have identified them. Perhaps we try to eliminate some of them. Perhaps we try to argue that time is just change, or that change is just the addition/subtraction of properties in objects. But this method merely pushes the can down the road, pushes the explanation further and further away. Things keep getting reduced to other things - when does it stop?
  • Shawn
    12.6k
    A picture cannot picture itself, or something along those lines Wittgenstein would say. I think that would be apt in reference to saying anything about that which cannot be said will lead to non-sense.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    And thus this is where the Aristotelian notion of substance comes into play - that which cannot be predicated upon. But, as Heidegger noted, even this is not enough, because substance necessarily exists - but we have not explained what it means to exist (Being). Substance is defined as a fusion between matter and form - yet matter and form are still names for something - matter and form. — DarthBarracuda

    I read the Aristotelean claim as 'substance (ouisia) is that which is always subject, never predicate'. It is that which undergoes or bears. But whether substance exists, is still an open question in my opinion - is there anything known to the natural sciences which would qualify as substance in that sense? Materialism would say that it's matter, but what is matter now?

    Overall, I think the issue you're grappling with here is embedded in the mystical origins of philosophy itself. Consider for example the Parmenides, which is seminal in the contemplation of the nature of 'what is'. 'What is, cannot not be, and what is not, cannot come to be'. But what is that describing? What is it about? I don't think it is anything that can be spoken of in ordinary discourse, or concieved of in objective terms, either. I think such foundational elements of Greek philosophy are more like 'inspired utterances'. Much later, Plotinus was full of such 'inspired utterances', based on the contemplation of the One. So such utterances provide some kind of anchor point outside the quotidian and the merely objective; I think that is why ancient philosophy always concieved of the philosophical task as one of 'ascent' to a transcendent truth which is beyond, but is also the source, of reason.
  • Moliere
    4k
    For we can always ask what makes it the case that whatever it is, is what it is.darthbarracuda

    I just want to focus in on this bit of reasoning, because it seems to me that a good deal of your pondering comes about from this simple argument.

    Why does it matter that we are able to form a question? It seems to me that we are free to form all manner of questions. But, just as a statement is not true by our ability to form a statement, a question may not have an answer just because we form the question.

    So we might say everything is material, and then ask "What makes it the case that material is material?" -- but if this is our foundation, then nothing makes it the case that material is material. Or, if there be no foundations, then we should never expect some sort of self-evident termination to our line of questioning. In either case the former becomes what you end your paragraph with --

    when does it stop?darthbarracuda

    Though I might offer a slight modification to "when should we stop?"

    It doesn't stop, as you note, because we can always ask a question even if the question has no answer. There will never be a self-evident answer given to your question when we just say to ourselves "And now we can stop"

    But we can and perhaps even should stop at some point. Especially if our previous line of argument is something which will offer no terminus (and we happen to desire a terminus)
  • wuliheron
    440
    The law of identity is the issue and so long as metaphysics rely upon the principle of the excluded middle there's nothing to be done except split semantic hairs. They simply don't reflect reality as modern science now describes it and are demonstrably merely pragmatic assumptions that are more or less useful in different contexts. For example, a recent mathematical examination of causal mathematics and physics revealed that any number of simple metaphors can describe them fully. You can describe the observable universe as causally composed of bouncing springs or whirling vortexes or vibrating rubber sheets for all I know and, at some point, metaphysicians must become pragmatists as their field is superseded by the realities of quantum mechanics.
  • mcdoodle
    1.1k
    Collingwood thinks that understanding someone's metaphysics is a process of asking a question, and then another question, and then another, and that one arrives at a given philosopher's metaphysical presuppositions when you arrive at a bedrock question, i,e. one to which there is no answer in that philosopher's schema.

    This appeals to me, although on some days I think that it shows I don't accept any ontology at all. For me there's only epistemology, putting together provisional ontologies that are always subject to revision, a kind of engineer's metaphysics.

    This is the appeal of 'structural realism': there is a structure to our ways of thinking that we can recognise across epochs even as we disagree about the details. Then that can come in two flavours 'ontic' and 'epistemic', of which I would of course be the latter.

    I think this may be pretty much to say: I agree with Moliere :)
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    But we can and perhaps even should stop at some point. Especially if our previous line of argument is something which will offer no terminus (and we happen to desire a terminusMoliere

    While agreeing in general with your reply, I would add that what makes metaphysics doable and useful is that its argument takes the special form of being dialectic or dichotomistic. And so its terms are self -grounding, self-terminating.

    Is it general or particular, atom or void, discrete or continuous, stasis or flux, matter or form, etc or etc? Every term can be grounded in being the limit of what it is not.

    So questioning can stop (because more questioning would be fruitless) when we have identified a logically complementary limits on ontological possibility. That is simply what intelligibility consists of.
  • _db
    3.6k
    So questioning can stop (because more questioning would be fruitless) when we have identified a logically complementary limits on ontological possibility. That is simply what intelligibility consists of.apokrisis

    This reminds me of Kant, except instead you're a realist (like me) and that the noumenon is just unintelligibility.
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