Is that a problem? Shouldn't the explanation be a linguistic and psychological one? — Snakes Alive

If it can be answered by linquistics and psychology. Note that it needs to avoid using universals to do so. Rather, it needs to show how universal concepts are constructed from particulars without positing any universals in the world. Properties become problematic here, because properties can easily be universal when it's the same property shared across particulars. Thus the introduction of tropes to get around that issue.

The point isn't whether universals are real, it's whether the discussion is meaningful. And to the extent science doesn't resolve the matter without appealing to some sort of universal, the issue remains.

Note that it needs to avoid using universals to do so. — Marchesk

How can one be worried about 'avoiding' something that we cannot even describe?

Rather, it needs to show how universal concepts are constructed from particulars without positing any universals in the world. — Marchesk

How can we even posit universals if we don't know what it would be like for there to be universals or not?

How can we even posit universals if we don't know what it would be like for there to be universals or not? — Snakes Alive

Because they exist in our language when we talk about the world. We conceptualize the world as if it had universal categories of some kind.

Because they exist in our language when we talk about the world. We conceptualize the world as if it had universal categories of some kind. — Marchesk

Okay, so you see...

What does it mean to conceptualize the world 'as if' it had something, when we can't even tell what it would be for it to have that something? What are we 'conceptualizing?' Apparently nothing.

Yes, we can say anything we like. But that's no proof of anything substantive to it.

What does it mean to conceptualize the world 'as if' it had something, when we can't even tell what it would be for it to have that something? What are we 'conceptualizing?' Apparently nothing. — Snakes Alive

We're conceptualizing the particulars into abstract categories for some reason. And it ranges from laws of nature to chairs and dogs. Now, you can say this conceptualization references nothing in the world. That's nominalism. But it leaves open the questions around why and how we do it.

@Snakes Alive

It should be noted this is similar to Hume's issue with causality. We talk as if all sorts of things cause or cause other things. That's the way the world works according to our language. However, the cause itself is never in experience.

So then the question arises whether causality actually exists, or it's just constant conjunction. Both causality and constant conjunction are meaningful concepts. If causality doesn't exist, then how did it end up in our language? One answer would be a habit of thought from witnessing constant conjunction. Another would be Kant's response.

Now what does it mean to say Hume's skepticism and the debates it sparked are meaningless? That our everyday notion of causality is all there is to the matter?

It should be noted this is similar to Hume's issue with causality. We talk as if all sorts of things cause or cause other things. That's the way the world works according to our language. However, the cause itself is never in experience. — Marchesk

The difference with causality is that I recognize the difference between causality and constant conjunction by how it appropriately motivates the manipulation of cause and effect (that removing or placing the cause is a good course of action to place or remove the effect). The point is not about seeing. The point is about telling the difference in any way.

Now what does it mean to say Hume's skepticism and the debates it sparked are meaningless? That our everyday notion of causality is all there is to the matter? — Marchesk

I think in large part they probably are meaningless, but as I said just above, I do think that in many practical situations, the way one reasonably should behave in the face of mere constant conjunction versus causation is quite different. For example, if my friend always rings my doorbell at 1:00 p.m., and one day I don't want to see him, it will be appropriate to smash the clock in order to prevent him from coming, if I think there is a causal relation. If I don't, this is a silly thing to do, since my friend will come regardless.

A very comprehensive summary, thanks. As you say, I think layer one is trivially true and the interest lies primarily in the mechanism by which layer two works (a linguistic study, well outside my area of expertise) and layer three, a psychological study much more within my field. So Lazerowitz is suggesting

that here the philosopher has a desire for the world to be some way, and expresses this desire, typically secretly and unconsciously, by holding metaphysical views. The philosopher knows in some sense that his attempting to change the way he or other people speak cannot change the world in this way, but there is a kind of sleight of mind where one entertains the illusion that perhaps, just perhaps, if I adduce enough arguments to show that time is unreal, time might stop. — Snakes Alive

To me this seems unlikely to me on face value. We don't tend to believe in an ability to manipulate reality in that way as adults. I could perhaps be more persuaded if we used metaphysical talk through childhood, but we don't. It seems to be almost entirely some kind of cultural tradition that came about at some point in our history and was practiced almost entirely by one sub-class of one culture. As such, I find it hard to believe it expresses some desire which one would imagine (perhaps naively) would be easily indulged in prior to its invention in early Greece.

I think its more about gaining control over the the expansion of science. Personally (and I'm not an historian so I could be completely wrong here) it seems non-coincidental that the tradition of philosophy came about around the same time as the first of what we might call serious empirical investigations. I think a way was devised by which knowledge could be claimed in way immune to this new risk of being shown to be demonstrably wrong. It's this immunity which draws people into obscure metaphysical discussion, I think.

We don't tend to believe in an ability to manipulate reality in that way as adults. — Isaac

I'm not quite sure about this. As I grow older I see more and more that people do behave in a magical way, and have trouble distinguishing between their desires and reality. There is a conscious, overt belief that things don't work this way in most adults, but much of people's behavior seems to have magical implications. If you look at reports of ongoing contentious political events, for example, people don't seem to have the ability to recognize that something might happen independent of their desires or ideology, and can 'deduce' what has actually happened in the world from whichever ideology they prefer. At the very least, reality manipulation is our baseline, from which some sort of conscious adult mind pulls us, and this conscious adult mind is never fully present.

It seems to be almost entirely some kind of cultural tradition that came about at some point in our history and was practiced almost entirely by one sub-class of one culture. — Isaac

This is an attractive hypothesis, and I'm interested in the historical origin of this sort of thinking in classical Greece, but I'm troubled by apparent independent parallels across the world, especially in India and Tibet, which developed parallel stylized forms of philosophical argumentation. I think it would make things easier if the historically contingent hypothesis were true, because even if individual historical events are harder to explain fully, they remove the burden of looking into more general mechanisms.

I think a way was devised by which knowledge could be claimed in way immune to this new risk of being shown to be demonstrably wrong. It's this immunity which draws people into obscure metaphysical discussion, I think. — Isaac

Interesting idea. I don't deny that this is one appeal of philosophy – but there is also a kind of magical thinking here, isn't there? On the one hand, my conclusions must be substantive – or else there is no point in drawing them – but on the other, they must be devoid of content, or that content could potentially be shown to be mistaken.

People criticizing metaphysics tend to forget what motivates metaphysical questions in the first place. — Marchesk

Snakes Alive!

I think I know where you're going with this, or at least what you're trying to argue (and I read a bit of Lazerowitz's argumentation). That being, that because the nature of existence is essentially unknown, then it directly follows that all metaphysical questions are meaningless using the limitations of logic, language and relating concepts ( feel free to correct me there).

However, are you also suggesting there is no value in drawing the applicable distinctions between what is considered physical and meta-physical (or not physical)?

For instance, Marchesk raises the existential/psychological point of our sense of wonderment being the driving force behind such questions. What is that? It appears to be a metaphysical component to conscious existence, correct? Or, what about subconsciousness, how did cognitive science discover the subconscious mind? Why should they care? Why should the physicist care about causation? Is there value to learning about the cosmos and the subconscious mind...I think you see where I'm going with those [rhetorical] metaphysical questions. And so, if there is said value to such human inquiry, what am I missing?

BTW, great topic!!!

The third (deep) layer is the layer at which the drive for making the claim in the first place exists. Though Lazerowitz does not focus on this so much, I think the drive often happens for simple confusion – we are not metasemantically transparent creatures, and often in doing metaphysics we literally don't understand what's going on (and we are, in a Wittgensteinian sense, idling the engine while thinking we're driving, or like roadrunners on a treadmill wondering why we're not moving).

But Lazerowitz's explanation is a bit more interesting – he holds that here the philosopher has a desire for the world to be some way, and expresses this desire, typically secretly and unconsciously, by holding metaphysical views. The philosopher knows in some sense that his attempting to change the way he or other people speak cannot change the world in this way, but there is a kind of sleight of mind where one entertains the illusion that perhaps, just perhaps, if I adduce enough arguments to show that time is unreal, time might stop. In other words, there is a recognition that since one can speak however one pleases, that one can in some sense 'make true' whatever one pleases, just by talking about it. But as we saw in the second layer, this has no descriptive effect, and cannot really change the world or even what one thinks about it. Yet making a sentence like 'time is unreal' true according to one's logic, which follows from the employment of words in a certain way, one can sort of blur the eyes and almost believe he has stopped time.

The third layer, therefore, exists on the border of the unconscious, where the philosopher harbors fantasies about the omnipotence of the intelligence, and tries to transfigure the world by means of a kind of 'verbal magic.' He can, like the sophists, 'talk about anything,' and indeed 'argue for anything' – so perhaps he can 'make anything true.' This does not work of course, and the philosopher consciously may know this. But the process itself is so intoxicating that it pulls us in pre-rationally. And it may even service deeper desires – for instance, if I fear change, the mantra that 'time is unreal' may comfort me, because that means change is unreal, and so change cannot hurt me. — Snakes Alive

I do not agree with this characterization of metaphysics at all. What the metaphysician seeks, as all honest philosophers do, is truth. As exemplified by Plato, and Aristotle who was the founder of metaphysics, the process is to delve deep into the practises of mysticism, and derive logical principles. This is not an act of attempting to change the world by changing the way that we speak about it. It is an act of determining the correct way of speaking about it, as exemplified by Platonic dialectics. Furthermore, it involves the very opposite to "fantasies about the omnipotence of intelligence", it involves recognition of the deficiencies of intelligence. I refer you to the thread on mysticism, and remind you that "being" is the subject of metaphysics. Lazerowitz's entire representation of metaphysics is nothing but "chitta chatta" as described below. We cannot get to the "deep layer" in this way.

What I mean by chitta chatta is all dialogue with other people, or with one's self and all conscious thinking. Also all unconscious thinking which emerges into the consciousness. Indeed all mental activity which is involved in and with the sense of self. Alternatively, If you practice meditation for a few hundred hours until you are able to still the mind, what you have stilled is the chitta chatta. The mental activity involved in communion with the higher self does involve some of this*, but is largely that which supports a growing together as an organism. Rather like the grafting of a plant, or a joining together of two plants at the graft. So that after the graft, the two plants merge and become, after some time, indistinguishable. — Punshhh

But Lazerowitz's explanation is a bit more interesting – he holds that here the philosopher has a desire for the world to be some way, and expresses this desire, typically secretly and unconsciously, by holding metaphysical views. — Snakes Alive

While I do like to criticize metaphysics myself, I'd say that Laze is one more metaphysician, however much he hates the term. He's got one more conspiracy theory, built on a folk-psychoanalysis that he forgets to apply to himself it seems. (To be clear, I too am being 'one more metaphysician here. But, Klein bottle that I am, I (this role held at a distance) 'know' that I'm the system trying to climb out of itself. Laze dreams of already being outside. But you and Laze (seems to me) need metaphysics, if only as a foil. And traditional metaphysicians (where you can still find them) need you and Laze. Then I need that 'false opposition' as my foil. Then I need myself 10 minutes ago as this moment's foil. I suspect that the sincere anti-metaphysician (or anti-philosopher or whatever new terminology-magic you like) just didn't come to this little party we're having.

because if even the sense of the expressions are unclear, one can always deny or affirm a claim, by construing the words in a certain way or marshaling and endless array of supplementary hypotheses or hermeneutic and argumentative techniques, themselves undetermined or underdetermined for meaning. In other words, conversations about such metaphysical sentences are in principle endless, because they have in principle no way of being resolved, because their structure, despite being grammatically like a claim with coherent (if sometimes vague or ambiguous) truth conditions, do not have any such that the speakers can converge on. — Snakes Alive

True, and it applies IMO also to Laze and his meta-metaphysics.

He can, like the sophists, 'talk about anything,' and indeed 'argue for anything' – so perhaps he can 'make anything true.' This does not work of course, and the philosopher consciously may know this. But the process itself is so intoxicating that it pulls us in pre-rationally. And it may even service deeper desires – for instance, if I fear change, the mantra that 'time is unreal' may comfort me, because that means change is unreal, and so change cannot hurt me. — Snakes Alive

'Time is unreal' may comfort me. 'Metaphysics is all just confusion' may also comfort me. My main gripe is that Laze is lazy in being insufficiently suspicious of himself. That his targets can lie to themselves implies that reality is mediated, that there's a distance between the subject and the world. The metaphysicians are trapped in the Matrix, and Laze is a red-pilling Morpheus. (If I use a pop-culture metaphor, it's because Laze's idea is pop-simple.)

(The show was this feet sleep.)

what is the difference between universals existing, and not existing? Can you describe two scenarios, one in which they do, and one in which they do not? If you cannot do this, why should I believe you understand the claim or its denial? — Snakes Alive

So here’s a question: how can there be necessary truths, without there being universals? Put another way, if no term has universal applicability, then how to convey a necessary truth? Every single truth claim, about every single possibility, has to be made one at a time.

As to whether universals exist, you might say that they only exist as signifiers of meaning, but as our ability to reason and navigate is grounded in our ability to discern meaning, this mode of existence is still fundamental to rational creatures such as ourselves. I like to think of them as the ligatures of reason.

I'm really not sure what to make of any of these questions.

As to necessary truths, I tend to think that they're the result of conventions of language use. It's not clear to me that a better notion of necessity than this has ever been put forward. Of course there are truths 'necessary' in a banal sense within some domain, as in 'It's necessary for you to apply for a new passport before your current one expires,' or 'necessarily, if you remove the foundation of a house, it'll collapse.'

As to how a term can have 'universal applicability,' I'm not sure what this means. Is the question, for example, how we can use the same word for multiple things? How it is that 'apple' can refer to multiple fruits, for example?

people don't seem to have the ability to recognize that something might happen independent of their desires or ideology, and can 'deduce' what has actually happened in the world from whichever ideology they prefer. — Snakes Alive

I agree, but I don't think there's sufficient evidence to draw from this behaviour in the realm of discourse a conclusion that this extends to beliefs in the realm of real world consequences. We see time and again people talking one way and acting another. I'm not going to deny, though, that people do have beliefs about the world which do not stem from rational analysis of the evidence, I'm just not personally sure how much this spills over into philsophical rhetoric, but devising a means fo finding out for sure is complicated and, to my knowledge, no-one has really tried yet, so the matter will have to remain speculative I suppose.

I'm troubled by apparent independent parallels across the world, especially in India and Tibet, which developed parallel stylized forms of philosophical argumentation. — Snakes Alive

Interesting. I didn't know that Tibet had parallel developments. The progress from agricultural development to technological development ad thence to science (or at least empirical investigation) can be traced from at least three locations that I know of, so it might be like the evolution of the eye. There's just a tendency in that direction so that a fairly wide range of starting points will all still tend to converge on similar methods, like strange attractors. I wish I'd read more about the combined histories but this is areas which is of only recent interest to me.

On the one hand, my conclusions must be substantive – or else there is no point in drawing them – but on the other, they must be devoid of content, or that content could potentially be shown to be mistaken. — Snakes Alive

Yes. It think its reasonable to assume that multiple factors are involved. Again, determining which would require a level of research which has not been undertaken, but I think it's definitely an interesting line of speculation.

But it leaves open the questions around why and how we do it. — Marchesk

But what would an answer to those questions look like? "We do it because..." sounds like a sociological issue and "We do it this way..." sounds like a linguistic issue. Neither are the types of question which can be resolved by talking about them. That it references nothing in the world is self-evident. You can't identify the thing it references.

As to how a term can have 'universal applicability,' I'm not sure what this means. Is the question, for example, how we can use the same word for multiple things? How it is that 'apple' can refer to multiple fruits, for example? — Snakes Alive

That’s close! You see how ‘apple’ or some other categorical descriptor can have ‘universal applicability’. In some ways, that’s what the term ‘universals’ describes. So when you ask ‘what difference does it make if universals exist or not’, I think it’s a mistake about what the term ‘universal’ refers to. It’s not as if the universal ‘apple’ exists in some ‘Platonic timeless realm’ apart from the world - that there is some actual ‘ideal apple’. It’s more that, when we refer to an idea - in this case, a form or species, like ‘apple’ - then we can gather many divergent individual particulars under one general term. But it’s more than simply linguistic, because there genuinely are high-level categories, like species and genera. So, sure, language depends on it, but they also exist in reality. We can form an idea of ‘apple’ which then describes a vast range of somewhat dissimilar particulars. So the question is, in what sense is the idea of apple real? And that is a metaphysical question. I’m not proposing to answer it, although I myself lean towards scholastic realism, meaning that, such universal terms are real, but that their reality is of a different order, to the reality of individual particulars.

And I’m also arguing that reason and language must make use of such ideas all the time, otherwise we couldn’t make any sense of things in a global sense. So the general ideas, which are universal, also correspond with real categories. That’s what I take scholastic realism to mean.

there genuinely are high-level categories, like species and genera. — Wayfarer

No there genuinely aren't.

So the question is, in what sense is the idea of apple real? And that is a metaphysical question. — Wayfarer

So what would constitue an answer? What would you expect to see in a newspaper after the headline "Turns out the idea of apple is real"? By what criteria would we judge arguments for or against?

I’m also arguing that reason and language must make use of such ideas all the time, otherwise we couldn’t make any sense of things in a global sense. So the general ideas, which are universal, also correspond with real categories. That’s what I take scholastic realism to mean. — Wayfarer

If that's what scholastic realism means (not what it proves, or what it argues for, but what it actually means) then it's not a debate in metaphysics at all. It's a linguistic question.

It's a linguistic question. — Isaac

As I said before,

you might say that they only exist as signifiers of meaning, but as our ability to reason and navigate is grounded in our ability to discern meaning, this mode of existence is still fundamental to rational creatures such as ourselves. I like to think of them as the ligatures of reason. — Wayfarer

our ability to reason and navigate is grounded in our ability to discern meaning, this mode of existence is still fundamental to rational creatures such as ourselves. — Wayfarer

Again, not a metaphysical question. This claim is either meaningless or amenable to empirical evidence. Is our ability to reason and navigate grounded in our ability to discern meaning? If it isn't, what would be different about the world, how would we notice? If something about the world being the way it is demonstrates that our ability to reason and navigate grounded in our ability to discern meaning, then it is an empirical matter. If nothing about the way the world is demonstrates this, then what does it mean for it to be true?

Is our ability to reason and navigate grounded in our ability to discern meaning? If it isn't, what would be different about the world, how would we notice? — Isaac

You may not notice, but you would not be able to ask such questions. You’d be chasing a stick, or something.

For empiricism to get out of bed, it has to start from some assumptions, as to what to study, what to consider as ‘evidence’, what ideas to pursue. And those kinds of elements aren’t themselves empirical - they’re prior to it.

Which is interesting, because one of the basic points of Aristotle’s metaphysics is that first principles can’t themselves be proven.

Before embarking on this study of substance, however, Aristotle goes on in Book Γ to argue that first philosophy, the most general of the sciences, must also address the most fundamental principles—the common axioms—that are used in all reasoning. Thus, first philosophy must also concern itself with the principle of non-contradiction (PNC): the principle that “the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect” (1005b19). This, Aristotle says, is the most certain of all principles, and it is not just a hypothesis. It cannot, however, be proved, since it is employed, implicitly, in all proofs, no matter what the subject matter. It is a first principle, and hence is not derived from anything more basic.

(Of course, dialetheism takes issue with this axiom, although this is beside the point, which is that empiricism itself always rests on at least some assumptions or axioms. Not everything is ‘given in experience’ but is subject to interpretation, and the interpretive rules are not themselves given in experience. These questions too verge on the metaphysical, or at least the meta-scientific.)

You may not notice, but you would not be able to ask such questions. You’d be chasing a stick, or something. — Wayfarer

So you're saying that if "our ability to reason and navigate is not grounded in our ability to discern meaning" we'd all be chasing sticks or something?

Firstly, what mechanisms do you think would cause this (or is it just a guess)? Secondly, if that's the case, then isn't that noticing?

For empiricism to get out of bed, it has to start from some assumptions, as to what to study, what to consider as ‘evidence’, what ideas to pursue. And those kinds of elements aren’t themselves empirical - they’re prior to it — Wayfarer

I don't see how. Are there other things one might consider evidence other than those delivered by our interaction with the world? I'm not sure I see the 'choice' empiricism has to make here - between some way the world seems to be and....what? What's the other source of evidence about the way the world is that empiricism is rejecting?

Is the question, for example, how we can use the same word for multiple things? How it is that 'apple' can refer to multiple fruits, for example?
— Snakes Alive

That’s close! — Wayfarer

Yep, and by taking the plunge and facing the further truth that reference is never a matter of fact but a sophisticated social game of pretend, you get, if you want, to avoid metaphysics but discover a world of useful work for philosophy.

foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc — bongo fury

And ethics, of course.

Some important-seeming questions of the 'globalising' variety will always arise. The trick is to be prepared to recognise when one's efforts have developed the symptoms described in the OP, and to then have the humility (or strategic sense) to retreat to more solid ground.

So you're saying that if "our ability to reason and navigate is not grounded in our ability to discern meaning" we'd all be chasing sticks or something? — Isaac

Yep. You’d be an animal.

Yep. You’d be an animal. — Wayfarer

So animals have an ability to reason and navigate that is not grounded in their ability to discern meaning? Is that your claim?

Animals don’t reason, no. It’s amazing what they do - salmon returning to their home streams from across the Pacific, birds flying halfway around the planet, but none of it involves if I do this, then that will happen.

Animals don’t reason, no. It’s amazing what they do - salmon returning to their home streams from across the Pacific, birds flying halfway around the planet, but none of it involves if I do this, then that will happen. — Wayfarer

Firstly, I'm curious as to how you know this because there are quite a few scientists working in the field of animal neurology who'd be interested in your data.

But secondly, "do animals reason?" was not the question. Your claim was that "our ability to reason and navigate is grounded in our ability to discern meaning". That's a claim about the grounding (we'll come to whatever that means in a minute) of our ability to reason and navigate, not a claim merely that we have such an ability.

I'm not asking what the world would be like if we did not have such an ability. I'm asking what it would be like if we did have such an ability, but that it was not grounded in our ability to discern meaning as you claim.

So the question is, in what sense is the idea of apple real? And that is a metaphysical question. — Wayfarer

I really don't understand what the question is supposed to be. Again, what is the difference between 'the idea of apple' being real or not? It sounds like nonsense to me, but maybe you can show otherwise.

Animals don’t reason, no. — Wayfarer

This seems like an astounding claim.

I'm not sure it matters. The point is not some kind of 'gotcha!' to make fun of philosophy, or anything. The point is to understand where it comes from and how its discourse functions. Whether Lazerowitz's own ideas have a similar source or function is beside the point, and there is no tu quoque magic that 'turns around' the accusation and shows it up. Lazerowtiz himself did see his claims as meta-philosophical, but I think it would be interesting to see them as something else – psychological, historical, sociological, anthropological? It's hard to say, because as natives to the Western philosophical tradition, we've never really looked at it, just worked within it. That is part of what makes thinking about it so hard to start with.