Interesting thread. After a few hours of careful reading, and in line with the current vein of thinking here, I'd like to address two things.

First, the assertion that metaphysical debates are meaningless. In particular, I'm addressing the discussion between Moilere and Pseudonym and the consciousness debate...

The examples provided to bolster this claim that such debates are meaningless are inadequate. They do not offer an example of a meaningless debate. Rather, they offer an example of two sides working from different frameworks(talking past one another). It does not follow that such a debate is meaningless. When it is the case that two are arguing from different frameworks, then it is the case that both sides are employing meaningful, but different linguistic frameworks. They very well could be said to be arguing about different things despite using the same name. The frameworks are nevertheless meaningful. So, it is not the case that the debate is meaningless. It is the case that they do not have agreed upon(shared) meaning about the key terms. Such a debate is fruitless unless one side or the other accepts the opposing framework, and proceeds to show how it leads to problems. Otherwise, it is a semantic argument of the worst kind, but clearly meaningful.

Secondly, the assertion that metaphysical debates are pointless as a result of their being undecidable( not verifiable/falsifiable), at least in principle. While I would definitely agree here with some kinds of metaphysical debates, I am quite hesitant to agree with all kinds.

Doesn't explanatory power hold value equal to verification/falsification?

Kudos to the spirit of this thread!

:up:

Oh, and Carnap was wrong as a result of working from an utterly impoverished criterion for being meaningful...

Oh, and Carnap was wrong as a result of working from an utterly impoverished criterion for being meaningful... — creativesoul

Agreed. It's similar to the claim that religious believers don't really believe in their theology, when it's making claims about God or the afterlife, but are rather animated by it.

But I know that's simply not true. Some of them really do believe that way, in addition to being animated by it. Their worldview is just very different from some intellectual making a claim about what sort of statements can be believed (only the empirically grounded ones I take it).

I would say that they understand the meaning of the word just fine. What other's disagree with is not the meaning of "consciousness" -- it's well explicated — Moliere

From the SEP;

The words “conscious” and “consciousness” are umbrella terms that cover a wide variety of mental phenomena. Both are used with a diversity of meanings, and the adjective “conscious” is heterogeneous in its range, being applied both to whole organisms—creature consciousness—and to particular mental states and processes—state consciousness — Rosenthal 1986, Gennaro 1995, Carruthers 2000.

We could go on like this forever, but I'm fairly certain that the meaning of the term consciousness is not agreed on, that's the point. Nagel thinks there's something it's "like" to be us and calls this consciousness, others disagree that there is something it is 'like' to experience being us and equate consciousness directly with awareness. In what way could one of these definitions possibly be wrong? Yet they can't both be right.

To say "Nietzsche believed that the height of humanity was achieved through socialism" is just plainly false. Or to say, "Plato argued that the mind is a blank slate upon which our empirical senses impinges" is also plainly false. — Moliere

These are not interpretations of propositions, these are historical facts about the positions broadly held. As I said, I'm not suggesting that nothing outside of hard science has any vague truth value, I'm saying there is a gradation at one end of which is empirical science and at the other some of the more obscure metaphysics and religion. At some point on this gradation it becomes meaningless to debate the matters (and by debate, I mean attempt to show your interlocutor is wrong). I cannot even pinpoint exactly where that line is, but then I cannot pinpoint exactly how many grains of sand are required for it to be a 'pile'. So, the fact that saying "Plato argued that the mind is a blank slate upon which our empirical senses impinges" would be wrong, does not undermine the assertion that any individual propositions of Plato's could be interpreted in any grammatically correct way and no-one could say which interpretation was more 'right', by any measure.

I'd just say there's a difference between verification and meaning, as well as verification and falsehood -- so there is no conflict in saying that certain statements are not verifiable yet are either meaningful, or true, or false. — Moliere

Again, you seem to be missing the point, perhaps my writing is not as clear as I'd like to think, but I did write it in a single bolded sentence so I'm not sure why the message isn't getting home - I'm not saying that the beliefs themselves are meaningless, I'm saying that debating them is.. A non-verifiable statement could be packed with meaning, it could be the most meaningful thing ever said, but if it is non-verifiable, then to say it is right or wrong is meaningless, to say it is better or worse is meaningless, without first agreeing what 'better' would consist of. Using a word in a sentence your meaning of which is not the same as the meaning for the person to whom you are communicating is almost literally meaningless. It's practically the definition of the word.

Because consciousness is the feeliness of the world -- that it feels like something. Awareness is another aspect of the mind people tend to use "conscious" for, but it's not what's being talked about. — Moliere

It's not waht's being talked about by those who think that's what conciousness is. It is what's being talked about by those who don't. Read a few passages about conciousness by Paul Churchland and see how many times he mentions the 'feeliness' of the world. I guarantee it will be none (unless to dismiss it), because that's not what conciousness is for him.

My suspicion is that the words will mean -- they are not nonsense -- and that the meaningfulness of the debate will be similar to the 5th postulate: It will be relative to a philosophical attitude, a community, a set of beliefs, or some such. So what is important to some is not important to others, and vice versa, primarily because of other beliefs that are being held as true or at least viewed as desirable to retain. — Moliere

Basically I take a kind of Ramsey-Quine synthesis, which I think answers this point. All scientific theories are in the form of Ramsey sentences. "There are things called electrons which...[the rest of particle physics]", or "There is a relation between humans and their environment which...[the rest of human ecology" etc. Quine then goes on to say that metaphysics is like a science, in that it uses the same techniques on less empirical problems, but to a gradually decreasing degree until it starts becoming meaningless. The sentences become more and more fantastical and relate less and less to the real world, until they are nothing but stories. again, just to drive this point home, that doesn't make them meaningless. In fact I think stories to explain how we exist in the world are of absolutely vital importance and meaning. But it does make trying to argue that one story is better than another meaningless, it does mean that slavishly following someone else's story on the presumption that you can't develop your own meaningless. In short it makes most of the activity of modern metaphysics meaningless.

The examples provided to bolster this claim that such debates are meaningless are inadequate. They do not offer an example of a meaningless debate. Rather, they offer an example of two sides working from different frameworks(talking past one another). It does not follow that such a debate is meaningless. When it is the case that two are arguing from different frameworks, then it is the case that both sides are employing meaningful, but different linguistic frameworks. They very well could be said to be arguing about different things despite using the same name. The frameworks are nevertheless meaningful. So, it is not the case that the debate is meaningless. — creativesoul

I'm not seeing the link you're making here. You seem to jump from saying the frameworks are meaningful (which I can agree with) to saying that the debates are therefore meaningful, and I don't see any argument which got you from the one proposition to the other. How are you reaching the conclusion that because the frameworks are meaningful, debating between two different ones must also be meaningful?

Doesn't explanatory power hold value equal to verification/falsification? — creativesoul

Absolutely, I'd venture to say that for most people it holds more value, since most people leave the verification to professional scientists. But almost anything can be explained in almost any way, given sufficient imagination. I could quite easily construct a coherent explanation for all events in the world using an imaginary pantheon of Gods I just made up. Or I could come up with some New Age woo to explain everything, use quantum physics to construct some weird reality (god knows it's weird enough to allow almost anything). Any of these might have enormous value to me, but it would be meaningless to try and convince you they were right, or that yours was wrong. What measure would I use to do so?

Doesn't explanatory power hold value equal to verification/falsification? — creativesoul

In the empirical arena the explanatory power of a hypothesis or theory is gauged according to the success of its predictions of observable phenomena. So, given that is right, I am left wondering how we would go about gauging the explanatory power of metaphysical theories.

Nagel thinks there's something it's "like" to be us and calls this consciousness, others disagree that there is something it is 'like' to experience being us and equate consciousness directly with awareness. — Pseudonym

Yes, but it's hard to believe them when they say there's nothing it's 'like' to experience being us, unless they are philosophical zombies.

I think it's far more likely they know what it's "like", but they're convinced it has to be an illusion on other grounds, so they argue that there is no actual subjective experience. That's been part of Dennett's career.

At any rate, the philosophical discussion on consciousness centers around the hard problem and subjectivity, not other areas which are more amenable to science. Dennett understands what Chalmers is saying and vice versa. They just don't agree.

So, given that is right, I am left wondering how we would go about gauging the explanatory power of metaphysical theories. — Janus

Metaphysical theories are explanatory on conceptual grounds. You argue for or against the ideas. How well they hold together, what their flaws are, whether there is anything contradictory or confusing, etc.

Yes, but it's hard to believe them when they say there's nothing it's 'like' to experience being us, unless they are philosophical zombies.

I think it's far more likely they know what it's "like", but they're convinced it has to be an illusion on other grounds, so they argue that there is no actual subjective experience. — Marchesk

Of course, and the exact same argument has been used against atheists. "I can't believe they don't really feel the presence of God, they're convinced it's just their conscience or something but they do really feel it"

Dennett understands what Chalmers is saying and vice versa. They just don't agree. — Marchesk

I might just get this available as a keyboard short-cut to save time... I'm not suggesting that the arguments in either camp are impossible to understand, or meaningless in themselves. I'm suggesting that the sentence "argument X is wrong" is meaningless because of the failure to agree on the meaning of 'wrong' in this context.

I can't speak for speak for Pseudonym, but the point I have been emphasizing is the undecidability, as opposed to the meaninglessness, of metaphysical disagreements. If we disagree over some empirical claim, the issue as to who is correct can be decided, by checking; by observation in some cases, referencing documented information in others, asking the experts and so on. Of course, no scientific hypothesis is ever proven, either, but there are at least accepted ways to corroborate opinion. I think this kind of corroboration just does not exist when it comes to metaphysical views.

So, I said I have not been emphasizing the meaninglessness of metaphysical disagreements, but actually because of the undecidability of the truth of competing views (which are themselves not meaningless, obviously, or else they could not qualify as views at all) and the presupposed premises upon which they rest, disagreement would seem to be, if not meaningless, then at least pointless. — Janus

I'm more amenable to this view -- especially because you're explicitly stating that there is a difference between meaning and decidability.

I'd say that decidability is still a possible feature of metaphhysical debate, though -- but only under certain conditions. And I'd also say that metaphysical debate can still have a point, even if it is not decidable.

On conditions of decidability: If two persons have a shared tradition, then metaphysical debate is (possibly) decidable. There are a set of propositions held T, and the arguments for or against some view from those propositions gives a kind of ground upon which disagreement can take place. (Propositions don't have to be what is shared -- it can be attitudes, goals, or whatever else might serve as the bed of agreement upon which disagreement rests)

On "the point of it all": Even if there is not a bed of agreement upon which disagreement can take place in order that some disagreement may be decidable, then debate can take place to clarify and elucidate. Sometimes I'd rather debate with my polar opposite for this purpose, because I know that they, at least, will be motivated to pick apart what I'm saying in order that I may further refine my own thinking.

We could go on like this forever, but I'm fairly certain that the meaning of the term consciousness is not agreed on, that's the point. Nagel thinks there's something it's "like" to be us and calls this consciousness, others disagree that there is something it is 'like' to experience being us and equate consciousness directly with awareness. In what way could one of these definitions possibly be wrong? Yet they can't both be right. — Pseudonym

Well, they can both be right, insofar that we are clear on what we're saying. So if we're talking about "what it is like", then it does no service to a discussion to argue over what consciousness means -- it is, in that context, wrong to say that consciousness is something else.

These are not interpretations of propositions, these are historical facts about the positions broadly held. As I said, I'm not suggesting that nothing outside of hard science has any vague truth value, I'm saying there is a gradation at one end of which is empirical science and at the other some of the more obscure metaphysics and religion. At some point on this gradation it becomes meaningless to debate the matters (and by debate, I mean attempt to show your interlocutor is wrong). I cannot even pinpoint exactly where that line is, but then I cannot pinpoint exactly how many grains of sand are required for it to be a 'pile'. So, the fact that saying "Plato argued that the mind is a blank slate upon which our empirical senses impinges" would be wrong, does not undermine the assertion that any individual propositions of Plato's could be interpreted in any grammatically correct way and no-one could say which interpretation was more 'right', by any measure. — Pseudonym

Is the assertion I provided not grammatically correct?

I can agree with the notion that there are multiple interpretations. But I can't agree that there's no point, or that all one needs is grammar to make an assertion. Interpretative arguments are full of examples from some author -- usually you have to look at the corpus as a whole.

I think maybe this is where we keep talking past one another. In part I think I agree with you, but I don't agree with your conclusions. But more on that in the next paragraph.

Again, you seem to be missing the point, perhaps my writing is not as clear as I'd like to think, but I did write it in a single bolded sentence so I'm not sure why the message isn't getting home - I'm not saying that the beliefs themselves are meaningless, I'm saying that debating them is.. A non-verifiable statement could be packed with meaning, it could be the most meaningful thing ever said, but if it is non-verifiable, then to say it is right or wrong is meaningless, to say it is better or worse is meaningless, without first agreeing what 'better' would consist of. Using a word in a sentence your meaning of which is not the same as the meaning for the person to whom you are communicating is almost literally meaningless. It's practically the definition of the word. — Pseudonym

I disagree. :D

I think where I'm becoming confused is from the first part of your paragraph to your second part. Where we agree is with your bolded sentence. But where we disagree is on verifiability, worth, and agreement.

Let's say consciousness is not verifiable. There is nothing we could point to to decide whether or not consciousness is an illusion or whether it is as real as anything else. In fact we might even be able to say that the debate on conciousness is really like this -- that there is no agreement on, at least, what view is better. (I think that the reductive materlialist understands what Nagel means well enough, they just deny that the existence of consciousness is true -- in a similar manner that someone might say of any entity, like a hole, or a God, or whatever).

Yet, in spite of this, the debate is interesting to myself. It provides a challenge to certain of my views, and forces me to reconcile -- one way or another, though it doesn't have to be the same as those who publish -- my beliefs with the arguments put forth. I think through them and wonder if they are right or wrong, and try to provide reasons for that.

Without the debate then my thoughts would have continued along another trajectory. But I value a challenge to my beliefs, and consciousness was one of those arguments that did challenge my beliefs at one point.

It was the disagreement that was valuable. Not the agreement. And insofar that we at least understand what we mean by terms then we can actually disagree with one another without talking past one another. Of course we can use the same locution to mean different things -- that's true of any word, and why we specify exactly what we mean within the context of a conversation .

So basically if we agree on the one -- that metaphysical statements have meaning, in the sense that they are both syntactical and semantic, and it also seems we agree that two speakers need to be clear about what they mean about a term (to change meanings mid-conversation would be wrong, given what's already set up) -- then where we really disagree is on the value of metaphysical debate. I'd say that the value is relative to whatever beliefs, arguments, attitudes, or whtaever a reader or thinker or interlocutor or whatever currently holds -- call this philosophical preference.

Basically I take a kind of Ramsey-Quine synthesis, which I think answers this point. All scientific theories are in the form of Ramsey sentences. "There are things called electrons which...[the rest of particle physics]", or "There is a relation between humans and their environment which...[the rest of human ecology" etc. Quine then goes on to say that metaphysics is like a science, in that it uses the same techniques on less empirical problems, but to a gradually decreasing degree until it starts becoming meaningless. The sentences become more and more fantastical and relate less and less to the real world, until they are nothing but stories. again, just to drive this point home, that doesn't make them meaningless. In fact I think stories to explain how we exist in the world are of absolutely vital importance and meaning. But it does make trying to argue that one story is better than another meaningless, it does mean that slavishly following someone else's story on the presumption that you can't develop your own meaningless. In short it makes most of the activity of modern metaphysics meaningless. — Pseudonym

Cool. I don't think of metaphysics quite like that. I think of it as the study of what exists, how we come to have beliefs about the nature of things, as well as the study of synthesizing all that comes before -- not that these are all the same, but that's how I group it together in my mind and try to figure out what someone is doing specifically when they say they are doing metaphysics. I think there comes a time when reason no longer can justify beliefs (I have in mind here something like proving that I have a hand, or whatnot), but I'd say even this is fluid and changing with person, time, and place.

So from my perspective, at least, I don't see science as somehow better than metaphysics in its decidability. It's just one tradition of metaphysics in which people are able to disagree and have a measure of decidability -- but I don't think that makes it more purposeful or meaningful in terms of deciding what is the case.

Well, they can both be right, insofar that we are clear on what we're saying. So if we're talking about "what it is like", then it does no service to a discussion to argue over what consciousness means -- it is, in that context, wrong to say that consciousness is something else. — Moliere

Exactly, now imagine this process like a decision tree (I wish I could draw in these posts, it would be so much easier). First fork in the tree is "what do we mean by conciousness?" and there's Nagel on one branch and Churchland on the other. And you're saying that once you've chosen Nagel's path, there's no meaningful discussion using Churchland's definition, because we're in a completely different framework. We're not going to decide between them "they can both be right" you say.

So now we're committed to Nagel's branch and he makes a proposition of the form "conciousness does not superveniene on the physical". Now we have exactly the same problem with 'superveniene on the physical'. One interpreter might think he means literally neuron/thought reduction, another might be more inclined to weak supervenience. We cannot say which is right. In fact, no differently to the first branch about what conciousness means, we must conclude that they are both right.

So now we commit ourselves to the "conciousness is like something which doesn't strongly superveniene on the physical" branch. Then we encounter some proposition of the form "conciousness, in not superveniening on the physical, must also be timeless". The third fork. What do we mean by timeless? Outside of time, without time, is it just metaphorical? Again we can't say that any one interpretation is right, indeed just like the two forks before us, they must both be right.

And so it goes on. The route you take through the decision tree is what became known as a Ramsey sentence (apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, it's just that Ramsey's not all that well known so I don't presume people are aware of him) . You can't meaningfully criticise another branch from the context of your own branch because the other branch is derived from all the one before it, not all the ones that you have committed yourself to.

But if, at each fork, we can only say "they are both right" then any discussion about which branch is most 'right' is meaningless. It a nonsensical contradiction as we cannot possibly determine the 'rightness' of the final result having determined each stage is indeterminable.

I can completely sympathise with your finding some value in 'testing' your beliefs against those of others, you might find another position more satisfying, or more robust, and we do seem to like our beliefs to be robust (well, some of us anyway) but that's a one way passive event. The philosopher only needs to 'present' you with their proposition, for you to do with what you will. But then there's no sense in which you're "studying" anything, there's no body of knowledge to learn (other than the entirely historical facts of who said what). No one is 'better' than anyone else, there's no sense in which some grammatically correct interpretation could be 'wrong' (again, other than in a purely historical sense that such an interpretation is unlikely to be what the author intended to say. Because what the author intended to say is a fact of history, not metaphysics).

As I say, I have a lot of sympathy for the value in the more mystical metaphysical propositions. I think I would even go as far as to say it would be virtually impossible for a person to go through life without taking a position on some of the most important metaphysical questions,and I'd love to be involved in discussing them as such, but that, sadly, is just not how it's done.

Of course, and the exact same argument has been used against atheists. "I can't believe they don't really feel the presence of God, they're convinced it's just their conscience or something but they do really feel it" — Pseudonym

Good one, but having God experiences is not universally reported, unlike dreams, imagination, feeling pain, etc.

Subjectivity is universal. But when the nature of subjective experience is argued about it, some are convinced that it's an illusion and not something fundamentally hard to explain in objective terms.

Or they pretend they don't understand what having your own individual experiences means, and they argue about something else related that's third person, such as being awake and responsive, or reports.

Some of these arguments involve a degree of sophistry. Talk of subjectivity is granting ground to the hard problem, so it's easier to argue about something else.

I'm not seeing the link you're making here. You seem to jump from saying the frameworks are meaningful (which I can agree with) to saying that the debates are therefore meaningful, and I don't see any argument which got you from the one proposition to the other. How are you reaching the conclusion that because the frameworks are meaningful, debating between two different ones must also be meaningful? — Pseudonym

Is our debate here meaningless?

:worry:

Naw, I don't know Ramsay, so no worries there.

I think there's a difference between "They can both be right" and "They are both right" -- so when I say that it is wrong to say that consciousness is awareness, I'm talking about in the context of the hard problem of consciousness. And by wrong I don't mean false, only that if one were to mean what "awareness" means then they'd be talking about something else. I'd call this phenomena talking past one another, sometimes just because of the locutions involved are the same but also sometimes because there are some unstated beliefs that haven't be explicated yet causing confusion.

This would hold true further down the tree you describe. So supervenience is easily explained in a single sentence, but takes a long time to develop exactly what that sentence means (just like consciousness) because it is complicated. So we can make a distinction between weak and strong supervenience, and clarify what each means then ask, "What are you committed to?" -- this is just laying the groundwork for understanding someone.

Now I would agree that you can't criticize another branch of the tree merely be asserting your own branch of the tree. That would be thoroughly uninteresting, and amount to about the same thing as saying "P" "~P". But I would say that there's more to critique than simply taking a route down a tree of possible decisions -- and that we can be right or wrong in using a word in such and such a way only because of the context of the conversation, but that this does not mean the same thing as being true or false. We're just hammering down terms to begin to understand each other.

I can completely sympathise with your finding some value in 'testing' your beliefs against those of others, you might find another position more satisfying, or more robust, and we do seem to like our beliefs to be robust (well, some of us anyway) but that's a one way passive event. The philosopher only needs to 'present' you with their proposition, for you to do with what you will. But then there's no sfnsd in which you're "studying" anything, there's no body of knowledge to learn (other than the entirely historical facts of who said what). No one is 'better' than anyone else, there's no sense in which some grammatically correct interpretation could be 'wrong' (again, other than in a purely historical sense that such an interpretation is unlikely to be what the author intended to say. Because what the author intended to say is a fact of history, not metaphysics). — Pseudonym

Here again I don't think we can see eye to eye. :D Though I'll try and state why. (After all, it's disagreement that I think is valuable, at least at times)

What is a one way passive event? What is a two-way active event that makes it more valuable?

Is philosophy really just a collection of propositions? It seems to me that philosophy is bound up with reasoning and reflection, and not mere assertion. There are also traditions within which philosophy takes place. So, for instance, physics is a body of knowledge, and physics is just another tradition of metaphysics. It was born out of wholly metaphysical speculations about the nature of the cosmos. I would caution, here, to say that metaphysics is not a wholly a priori discipline -- like all of philosophy it's more like by hook and by crook (to steal something from Searle). There is an art to it, and sometimes you use examples, sometimes you use empirical methods, sometimes you use thought experiments, and sometimes you use arguments.



Science is a lot like this. The only difference is that science is institutionalized to be a certain way, whereas philosophy is broader and able to change traditional assumptions -- to make new traditions, if it happens to bear fruit.

And if metaphysics is the study of what exists, then it seems to me that science is either metaphysics in that sense, or just something which doesn't deal in existence, contrary to what it appears to do. While I'm not a scientific realist, in the sense that I think science spells out all of that which exists, or all knowledge, I do think that it deals in existence -- it makes claims about what exists and why such and such exists by using reasons, broadly construed. The only reason it's more decidable than all of philosophy is because it is a tradition, which holds certain things as true, wherein many people believe such and such and so are able to appeal to that bed of agreement to decide upon what is being disagreed with.

It is philosophy, and it is metaphysics.

So I'm uncertain I'd say there is no knowledge in philosophy, either, beyond historical facts. Maybe so. I just wouldn't state it so strongly as that. (Because surely there is a kind of difference between philosophy and science, I just don't find it to be all that strong -- the difference is just in what is being held T, what is the space of reasoning that's allowable, the traditions that are important to thinking)

As I say, I have a lot of sympathy for the value in the more mystical metaphysical propositions. I think I would even go as far as to say it would be virtually impossible for a person to go through life without taking a position on some of the most important metaphysical questions,and I'd love to be involved in discussing them as such, but that, sadly, is just not how it's done. — Pseudonym

Often times I think you're right. But I'd still insist that within the context of a tradition that a metaphysical belief can be decidable based upon what is being held T -- such as the belief that the universe is coherent, or the belief that we live in the best possible world, or something. Also, I think I'd maintain the distinction between wrong/false, or the distinction between avoiding talking past one another, and making an argument for something being false. I think we both value not talking past one another.

I think perhaps where we are in disagreement is in how metaphysics can be done, as well as in how open "falsity" might be -- like, I can hear the reasons from someone I disagree with for why they think I'm false, and I'd like to hear it, but even if I don't find the reasons persuasive I still find the reasoning valuable.

Funnily enough I don't think I'm very sympathetic to mystical metaphysical propositions. :D But that's OK. I'm open to them being discussed meaningfully all the same -- though perhaps those sorts of statements really do need a high degree of agreement before discussions can feel like they were worthwhile.

That was long. Just noting here real quick I think we also probably are closer than what may have seemed to be the case at first. I am generally skeptical of metaphysical justification, and usually don't think that it leads to knowledge (though being simultaneously unescapable). I'm sort of trying to challenge my own beliefs here, too, in looking at what might be exceptions to that general feeling.

There is no such metaphysics, since any consistent metaphysics is merely a valid elaboration of premises which cannot be demonstrated from within the system

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Sure, it would be circular if a premise for an argument for a metaphysics depended on something in the metaphysics that was being argued for.
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(if at all).

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Typically not at all, with nearly all metaphysicses.
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Nearly all metaphysicses depend on a brute-fact. Materialism is the familiar example of that.
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The metaphysics suggested by Michael Faraday’s comments, and which I’ve been advocating, from the subjective point-of-view, and with emphasis on its uncontroversial-ness, doesn’t have a brute-fact, or depend on any assumptions.
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This is analogous to the way the axioms of geometry cannot be proven geometrically except that metaphysical premises are not self-evident.

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The premises of my metaphysics are self-evident.
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1. There are abstract implications (implyings of one proposition by another—“If A were true, then B would be true.”), and complex systems of inter-referring abstract implications (at least there are those in the sense that we can speak of them). They relate hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things.
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There are infinitely-many such systems, each with many combinations of hypothetical truth values for their antecedents and consequents. Because an antecedent of one implication can be the consequent of other implications, of course many combinations of truth-values are impermissible due to inconsistency, because there’s no such thing as inconsistent facts
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2. We have the experience of being a physical biological organism in a physical world, a world that produced that organism via its physical events.
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Conclusion:
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There’s no reason to believe that the experience named in 2) is other than a system such as described in 1)
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Argument:
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Because there are infinitely-many systems such as described in 1), an infinite subset of them model an organism’s life-experience. Inevitably, among those infinitely-many systems, one of those models the events and relations of your experience, with no reason to believe that your experience is other than that.
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(But, when dealing with objections, the argument can become extended to larger discussion.)
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Michael Ossipoff

Nearly all metaphysicses depend on a brute-fact. Materialism is the familiar example of that. — Michael Ossipoff

If by "brute-fact" you mean "unsupported axiom" that would apply to all metaphysics. The aim of any metaphysical theory is to postulate the fundamental nature of being or reality.

Explain clearly for once just how your "Faraday" metaphysics doesn't depend on any assumptions. (If this was actually true, everyone of sound mind would become your follower; you might want to take a 'reality-check' on that :wink: ).

So, given that is right, I am left wondering how we would go about gauging the explanatory power of metaphysical theories. — Janus


Metaphysical theories are explanatory on conceptual grounds. You argue for or against the ideas. How well they hold together, what their flaws are, whether there is anything contradictory or confusing, etc. — Marchesk

What you are referring to here is consistency and coherency, not explanatory power. Consistency and coherency can be assessed 'internally'. Explanatory power cannot; it needs to reference something which can actually be observed. An empirically-based theory explains what we would expect to observe if it was correct.

At a minimum, metaphysical theories must be internally consistent and coherent but they also must be, if they are to be any good (which means to be comprehensive), consistent with, and explanatory of, all of human experience. Really there are just a handful of competing metaphysical theories that succeed in that; and there is nothing per se to choose between them, otherwise the most successful one would be accepted by all thinking people as the correct one.

I'd say that decidability is still a possible feature of metaphhysical debate, though -- but only under certain conditions. And I'd also say that metaphysical debate can still have a point, even if it is not decidable.

On conditions of decidability: If two persons have a shared tradition, then metaphysical debate is (possibly) decidable. There are a set of propositions held T, and the arguments for or against some view from those propositions gives a kind of ground upon which disagreement can take place. (Propositions don't have to be what is shared -- it can be attitudes, goals, or whatever else might serve as the bed of agreement upon which disagreement rests)

On "the point of it all": Even if there is not a bed of agreement upon which disagreement can take place in order that some disagreement may be decidable, then debate can take place to clarify and elucidate. Sometimes I'd rather debate with my polar opposite for this purpose, because I know that they, at least, will be motivated to pick apart what I'm saying in order that I may further refine my own thinking. — Moliere

I agree with you that metaphysical debates could be decidable in the sense that like-minded people within a certain language game could come to agree with one another, once they had ironed out their differences,confusions, or mutual misunderstandings. I think that is a more relative kind of decidability than the decidability of empirical propositions and theories, though. But it is worth noting that there is no ultimate decidability in any domain of inquiry. Mathematics probably comes closest to complete decidability and metaphysics remains the most distant, with ethics and aesthetics and the human and natural sciences located at various imprecise points along the continuum.

I also take your point about the point of metaphysical discussions. We can appreciate a discussion, and thus find a point in it, just for its conceptual richness and elaboration and clarification of concpets, and I already acknowledged this earlier.

The origin of Western metaphysics is the Parmenides. And the point of the Parmenides is that the domain of sensory perception, our everyday experience of the world, is an illusion. This has similarities with other Indo-European philosophies of the 'axial age', specifically the Hindu idea of the world as a cosmic illusion, 'maya' (although Parmenides, typically of the Greeks, emphasised reason as the means to penetrate this illusion, which made him very different to the Vedic sages.) But in any case, it illustrates the sense in which metaphysics has an import: that the basis our conception of life might indeed be an illusion, or a cognitive error, or a profound mistake in what we assume about the nature of things. But that has to matter for metaphysics to be meaningful.

Arguably scientific method itself originated in the attempt to ameliorate or overcome this issue (as argued in an interesting and insightful book called The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science, Harrison.) However, along the way, the possibility of arriving at a 'unitive vision' of the nature of things seems to have become impossible, as the amount of data and information, and the number of disciplines that science embraces, makes it impossible for any individual to understand the whole picture. Maybe that's why metaphysics has indeed become meaningless.

If by "brute-fact" you mean "unsupported axiom" that would apply to all metaphysics. — Janus

Most of metaphysics, yes. But not to the metaphysics that I propose.

The aim of any metaphysical theory is to postulate the fundamental nature of being or reality.

You're kidding, right?

That's a bit over-ambitious for metaphysics, a topic of discussion, description, debate, assertion..

You really believe that that covers all of reality?

That words don't describe Realiity is easily shown by the fact that no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words.

Explain clearly for once just how your "Faraday" metaphysics doesn't depend on any assumptions.

What assumption(s) do you think it depends on?

The logical-mathematical relational-structure that Faraday referred to is just uncontroversially "there", In other words, there is it (...as I said, in the sense that we can speak of it).

In particular, the infinity of complex systems of abstract implications, with their hypothetical propositions, with their hypothetical truth-values. ...many configurations of mutually-consistent truth-values.

There's no need for an "assumption" that there are those things. There's no need for an assumption that there's one such that models the events of your experience. Uncontroversially, there is, and there is.

Maybe you believe in a brute-fact rule that says that our experience can't have that as its basis. But there's no physics experiment that says our experience is other than that relational structure that Faraday spoke of.

I can't prove that our physical world isn't more than the hypothetical setting for that hypothetical story. I only say that there' sno reason to believe that it's more than that.

Michael Ossipoff

That words don't describe Realiity is easily shown by the fact that no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words. — Michael Ossipoff

You have an argument to support that claim?

What assumption(s) do you think it depends on? — Michael Ossipoff

I don't know. I have no idea what you are trying to say in your post after the sentence quoted above. If it is a claim you are trying to make, though, it must rest on some premise in order to count as a claim at all, and no premises are true by definition. Definition is a slippery thing, in any case; which your dictionary example above does show, and which your definition of events as "if-then propositions" also demonstrates.

However, along the way, the possibility of arriving at a 'unitive vision' of the nature of things seems to have become impossible, as the amount of data and information, and the number of disciplines that science embraces, makes it impossible for any individual to understand the whole picture. Maybe that's why metaphysics has indeed become meaningless. — Wayfarer

I would agree that probably no one can master every one of today's many intellectual disciplines, but I don't think that one has to master them all in order to get a sense for what they all share in common. Metaphysics, after all, is nothing more than a general conceptual framework that describes the most general structure of reality. That's how I have come to think of it, at least. This doesn't require comprehensive mastery of all disciplines, though it probably does require adequate familiarity with many or most of them.

The aim of any metaphysical theory is to postulate the fundamental nature of being or reality.

~ Janus

You're kidding, right? — Michael Ossipoff

He's not kidding - he's giving you the definition.

metaphysics
noun
the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time, and space.

I would agree that probably no one can master every one of today's many intellectual disciplines, but I don't think that one has to master them all in order to get a sense for what they all share in common. — Esse Quam Videri

That’s not quite the point, though. I think the ‘unitive vision’ of the ‘cosmos as an ordered whole’ (bearing in mind, that is the meaning of the word 'cosmos') is more characteristic of mysticism and the original Greek rationalists, than it is of today’s scientific empiricism. What today's disciplines all share in common nowadays is a methodology, and a large part of that methodology is to set aside just such ideas as whether the cosmos is indeed an ordered whole. (I'm sure it's no coincidence that controversy is raging about the 'multiverse'.) And also, there's the fact of the tremendous fragmentation of worldviews that we see today, which is one of the reasons, if not the reason, that Carnap et al will declare that metaphysics is meaningless. It seems impossible to arrive at consensus, and empiricism by definition is not able to adjudicate the question. Welcome to post-modernity.

but having God experiences is not universally reported, unlike dreams, imagination, feeling pain, etc. — Marchesk

That's not what 'they'd' say though is it? They'd say that every tingling of conscience is God, every feeling of mystical beauty is God, every time you feel the warmth of the sun etc. I refer you back to @Srap Tasmaner's apposite Ramsey quote;


"I think we realize too little how often our arguments are of the form:-- A.: "I went to Grantchester this afternoon." B: "No I didn't."

We're forever presuming that the way we feel about something simply must have some deep significance, simply must say something meaningful about the world, but really I think its just the latest story we came up with to explain the chaos of our senses, and there's no sense in saying my story is better than yours because it 'feels' right. There's no sense in telling someone else their story is 'wrong' because it doesn't 'feel' right to you.

Subjectivity is universal. But when the nature of subjective experience is argued about it, some are convinced that it's an illusion and not something fundamentally hard to explain in objective terms.

Or they pretend they don't understand what having your own individual experiences means, and they argue about something else related that's third person, such as being awake and responsive, or reports. — Marchesk

So how do you determine whether someone is "pretending" to not understand. Is this not just narcissism?, Failure of a theory of mind? "how could anyone possibly think differently to me?"

It's been skirted around without specifically mentioning it, but a some point a huge chunk of the idea that metaphysics is decidable come down to a belief in the truth of one's own a priori intuitions, and this is just vanity.

What is a one way passive event? What is a two-way active event that makes it more valuable? — Moliere

By one way and passive I mean that the philosopher holding the proposition plays no invested part in the process (one way) and that there's no competing, no right and wrong (passive). A two way, active event is one where the proposing party has a justified interest in changing the view of the receiving party, and vice versa (two way) and that each will consider the other to be wrong until they agree (active, or aggressive). I'm actually making the claim that the former is more valuable where the consequences would be irrelevant to each, the latter is more valuable where there will be consequences. Now, in order to engage in the latter (a fairly unpleasant and confrontational approach) I think ethically one should have a fairly good cause to believe the consequences will be manifest.

So, consider the latter first. I think gravity acts on objects to cause them to move toward the earth, and I build a bridge with that in mind. A fellow engineer thinks that gravity does not work that way, rather that it propagates like a wave and can be disrupted like one too. He intends to build a bridge with that in mind. There will clearly be manifest consequences if one or other of us is 'wrong', by which I mean 'does not correspond with our shared experience of the world'. The bridge based on the 'wrong' theory will fall down.

Now consider the former. Is a broadly Buddhist conception of the nature of reality more 'right' than a materialist one? Well, it doesn't seem to matter. There are happy Buddhists, there are unhappy Buddhists. There are happy materialists, there are unhappy materialists. It may make a difference in the real world (I'm not saying that they're equal), but that difference is certainly not demonstrable, and so I don't think the second techniques (two-way aggressive) is justified in these instances.

By 'aggressive' I don't mean only tone and language (although that's a big problem in places like this, it's much less so in academic philosophy), but I mean to include all forms of aggression such as hierarchy, idolatry, dominance, etc. The very notion of marking a philosophy essay is an act of aggression, in this sense, of dominance.

(and I've spent more of my life as the marker of essays than I have as the writer of them, by the way, just in case you might be tempted to think this position arises out of the bitterness of having just been given and 'F' for what I considered my magnum opus)

There is an art to it, and sometimes you use examples, sometimes you use empirical methods, sometimes you use thought experiments, and sometimes you use arguments. — Moliere

The important question is whether this is a meaningful art or a rhetorical one. A politician uses exactly the same mix to get elected.

Science is a lot like this. The only difference is that science is institutionalized to be a certain way, whereas philosophy is broader and able to change traditional assumptions -- to make new traditions, if it happens to bear fruit. — Moliere

The only reason it's more decidable than all of philosophy is because it is a tradition, which holds certain things as true, wherein many people believe such and such and so are able to appeal to that bed of agreement to decide upon what is being disagreed with. — Moliere

No, I don't think so, the other difference is that science affects us all in a shared experience. Electricity is electricity. It works your computer and mine in a shared and entirely predictable way. To the extent that science speculates on matters that do not affect anyone in a shared and predictable way (like Multi-verses), then it is metaphysics. As I mentioned to Marchesk, I think we too often presume that our internal understandings must have some universality to them, but there's no evidence that that is the case.

I'd still insist that within the context of a tradition that a metaphysical belief can be decidable based upon what is being held T -- such as the belief that the universe is coherent, or the belief that we live in the best possible world, or something. — Moliere

So, back to my branching tree example, all the forks (decisions about competing possibilities) up to now represent "the tradition", where that tradition is at now is just one fork (the current question within that tradition that you're trying to decide). Only one of three possibilities exist as far as I can see.

1. All such forks are decidable - but then all the forks prior to it must have been decidable too and so whole traditions can be 'wrong' right from the first fork. This seems impossible since thousands of years worth of thought has not yielded such a conclusive answer. Either we're wrong here, or we're right but clearly do not have any mechanism whereby we can make such decisions.

2. No such forks are decidable - This allows all the different traditions to be equally 'right', or at least not 'wrong', but accepting it necessarily entails that the fork currently being debated within that tradition must also be un-decidable, making the two way aggressive debate (as defined above) pointless.

3. Some such forks are decidable, while others aren't - A classic have your cake and eat it position, but not one we can rule out only on its remarkable convenience for the status quo. The problem here is that, in order to justify an aggressive, two-way debate about a particular fork in this scenario, we'd need some agreed method of determining which type of fork this is, a decidable one, or an un-decidable one. This is exactly what Carnap was trying to do. I'm not saying he succeeded, but you can see from the range of possibilities and their consequences why he felt it necessary to try.

Absolutely, I'd venture to say that for most people it holds more value, since most people leave the verification to professional scientists. But almost anything can be explained in almost any way, given sufficient imagination. I could quite easily construct a coherent explanation for all events in the world using an imaginary pantheon of Gods I just made up. Or I could come up with some New Age woo to explain everything, use quantum physics to construct some weird reality (god knows it's weird enough to allow almost anything). Any of these might have enormous value to me, but it would be meaningless to try and convince you they were right, or that yours was wrong. What measure would I use to do so? — Pseudonym

In the empirical arena the explanatory power of a hypothesis or theory is gauged according to the success of its predictions of observable phenomena. So, given that is right, I am left wondering how we would go about gauging the explanatory power of metaphysical theories. — Janus

Explanatory power is one way to 'gauge' or measure the power of a metaphysical theory. Coherency(lack of self contradiction) is yet another. Given multiple competing theories with equal coherency and explanatory power there needs to be another means for further discrimination between them. Logical possibility alone does not warrant belief. I'm reminded here of the Scopes Monkey Trials. There are several. We can assess which one works from the fewest number of unprovable assumptions, we can also assess which posits the fewest amount of entities. We can also follow the logical consequences. Then there's always the verifiability/falsifiability aspect. In addition to all this, we can use our best judgment to winnow out clearly unbelievable theories(The Flying Spaghetti Monster kind).

That's a quick and dirty run-down off the top of my head while sitting here. In particular though, just to be clear, I'm not arguing in favor of just any metaphysical theory. To quite the contrary, I'm arguing about how to assess the quality of a very specific subject matter. Theories of thought and belief.

There's a bit of irony here however with Pseudonym, in that the subject of contention is what it takes to be meaningful. As far as I know, meaning is itself a metaphysical matter, at least in part. The case at hand has opposing sides. The one is arguing that if there is no agreed upon sense of the term "meaningful", and each side argues from their own sense, then the debate itself is meaningless.

That's exactly what's going on here. So, does Pseudo think that s/he is involved in a meaningless discussion/debate?

I might just get this available as a keyboard short-cut to save time... I'm not suggesting that the arguments in either camp are impossible to understand, or meaningless in themselves. I'm suggesting that the sentence "argument X is wrong" is meaningless because of the failure to agree on the meaning of 'wrong' in this context. — Pseudonym

So the argument is that when two opposing/contradictory metaphysical camps have contradictory criteria for what counts as wrong, when either calls the others' argument "wrong" the calling itself is meaningless as a result of the lack of agreement regarding what counts as "wrong"?

but really I think its just the latest story we came up with to explain the chaos of our senses, and there's no sense in saying my story is better than yours because it 'feels' right. There's no sense in telling someone else their story is 'wrong' because it doesn't 'feel' right to you. — Pseudonym

I don't experience "chaos of the senses". I experience an intelligible world. This is something Heidegger pointed out. The chaos of the sense which the mind has to make sense of to form an intelligible world is something we infer after the fact. It's not something primary in our experience.

So how do you determine whether someone is "pretending" to not understand. Is this not just narcissism?, Failure of a theory of mind? "how could anyone possibly think differently to me?" — Pseudonym

Because they're refusing to acknowledge points made in a straight forward argument. I've seen and done this myself in dumb arguments about sports or movies before, where metaphysics or the "chaos of the senses" isn't a point of contention.

People want to win arguments and confirm their biases. This is well known.

Coherency(lack of self contradiction) is yet another. — creativesoul

But lack of self-contradiction is easy. Name me an argument in metaphysics that is self-contradictory. Anyone who understands basic grammar can construct one, this leaves virtually all metaphysical theories still in play.

We can assess which one works from the fewest number of unprovable assumptions — creativesoul

Can we? How would we go about enumerating the assumptions? Again, do you have an example from metaphysics where a theory has been discarded because it has one more assumption that a competing theory?

We can also follow the logical consequences. — creativesoul

And then do what with them?

There's a bit of irony here however with Pseudonym, in that the subject of contention is what it takes to be meaningful. As far as I know, meaning is itself a metaphysical matter, at least in part. The case at hand has opposing sides. The one is arguing that if there is no agreed upon sense of the term "meaningful", and each side argues from their own sense, then the debate itself is meaningless.

That's exactly what's going on here. So, does Pseudo think that s/he is involved in a meaningless discussion/debate? — creativesoul

As I've said in my responses (possibly mostly to Moliere), there are three factors I think are relevant.

1. I'm not arguing that there is a sharp dividing line between meaningless metaphysical statements and meaningful scientific ones. I'm arguing (from Quine) that there is a gradation, and somewhere along that line statements become so vague that debating them is meaningless. Arguing about arguing, I think, is sufficiently empirical to be (just) on the right side of that line. We have empirical evidence of the way debates actually go and the consequences they have for the direction of philosophical thought. After all, It's a fairly simple empirical matter to point in the direction of a metaphysical debate where one theory was widely determined to be 'better' than another without any intelligent and well-educated detractors.

2. I think that the problem with arguing over matters that cannot be resolved by demonstration is a psychological one, it simply has a cost, that's all. If it's worth that cost, then maybe it's worth doing, if there's something at stake. I think there's something at stake here.

3. Maybe I just like arguing.