I really can't disagree with this. An actual adoption of Ontologese is utopian, or possibly dystopian, as you point out. But if, having taking Sider's ideas on board, we can do a better job of keeping debates substantive, that would be significant. The question of substantivity is what motivated Sider in the first place, and it certainly drives us nuts when we get pulled away into terminological wrangles.

I think there are interesting questions remaining about reference magnetism. @T Clark has articulated the issue with fundamentality very well. I find myself pulled both ways on it. I don't want reference magnetism (or joint-carving) to depend on a perception of ontological structure that is completely independent of human conceptualization. Rather, I want it to do what Sider (mainly) asks of it: to help us separate terms from what they refer to. Is there more? It's worth quoting Sider again:

Epistemic value: joint-carving languages and beliefs are better. If structure is subjective, so is this betterness. This would be a disaster. . . If there is no sense in which the physical truths are objectively better than the scrambled ["bizarre"] truths, beyond the fact that they are [true] propositions that we have happened to have expressed, then the postmodernist forces of darkness have won. — Sider, 65.

That last phrase is silly rhetoric, but the rest is provocative. Sider brings in the idea that some languages and beliefs are epistemically better. He doesn't elaborate on what "betterness" is, but we could probably fill in the story using the successes of science, at the very least.

So maybe we should concentrate on epistemology rather than ontology. There is no knowing without a knower. If joint-carving terms are better for us in knowing the world, isn't that consistent with agnosticism about Fundamental-with-a-capital-F ontology? Turning the question around: Is "knowing better" a fundamental ontological category? I don't see how, and that's good.

The other question that Sider's thought highlights is the role of truth in epistemology. He's not the first to have noticed that "truth is not enough" -- that we don't want just any truths, but truths that carry a certain perspective or depth. Giving content to that additional "oomph" isn't easy. For Sider, it has to do with the references of the true statements -- whether they're reference magnets and carve at the joints. I think this is a promising line of inquiry. It's always going to be helpful to remind ourselves that what is true and what matters are different issues.

This is the most fun I've had with a discussion in a long time. — T Clark

Very good discussion!

we just differ on the solution. We don't even disagree much on that. — T Clark

Especially because I see a lot of latitude in interpreting what Sider recommends. To say it again -- his main concern is to draw some kind of distinction (that matters) between a term and its reference. One way of doing that is to use some version of Ontologese, but a curious, flexible willingness to "try on" another's terminology might accomplish much the same thing.

how can we interact with, experience, the Tao without being able to consciously, i.e. verbally, think about it? What is non-verbal consciousness? What is awareness without consciousness? — T Clark

Yes, these are aspects of the consciousness question that are often ignored when Western philosophers talk. You'd think, reading the literature on consciousness, that no one had ever tried to meditate -- much less entire centuries-long traditions of it!

"Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking" by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander. — T Clark

Thanks, I'll check it out. I've read a bunch of Hofstadter with pleasure.

Yes, but there is a distinction between technical language and jargon. — T Clark

My concern is what is advocating for is a massive jargonization of philosophy. — hypericin

You're both pointing to the problem -- what's the difference between defining operators and domains in logic, versus a similar operation in ordinary language? Sider is a good writer, but his background is what I'd call technical. I agree, we don't want jargon, and we don't know how far we can push this idea before Ontologese becomes unintentionally comic. Heidegger is an interesting example. I think he was absolutely right to invent some new coinages to talk about his idea of Being, and amazingly enough, at least one (Dasein) has actually stuck. But his way of using those new terms . . . not easy, and often not clear, which was supposed to be the whole point. Sartre too, with pour-soi and en-soi.

it seems a fantasy that a singular set of terms, with universally agreed definitions, could ever be achieved. — hypericin

Yes, but . . . isn't that what happened, more or less, with several logical languages? So it can be done, and done usefully. The problem, once again, is whether ordinary language is flexible enough, and its users willing enough.

I don't really see an alternative to what is sometimes done already: for individual philosophers to rigorously define their terms from the outset, as best they are able. — hypericin

I think that's fine, as long as everyone steers clear of arguing whether they're the right definitions. Maybe that could come later, after the participants have gotten a better look at what sort of structure you can build using those definitions. This presupposes that structure is to a significant degree independent of language, so I'm with Sider there.

OK, I understand. You value the "leap of faith" whether it's religious or merely toward an ethical ideal. I agree that "faith" or "belief" (in this sense) are different from picking the most likely explanation, or going with the best evidence.

They [ontological questions] are about us and the world as a single entity. And yes, they are also about language." - T Clark

This leaves open the possibility that "the world" doesn't have to be construed as something apart from how we experience it.
— J — T Clark

I'm happy with this way of putting it, as long as we remember that being "about language" is in a sense peripheral. I'm just highlighting Sider's point -- and I think yours too -- that when a philosophical debate switches from what a term refers to, to whether it is the correct term to use, we are likely moving to something non-substantive. Though see below, about "metaphysics" . . .

I don't know how open you are to Taoist thought. Lao Tzu wrote "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." We might say "The world as expressed in words is not the same as your experience of the world.” I think that's a good response to Sider, although I'm not sure he would disagree with me. — T Clark

I'm very comfortable with Taoist thought, and appreciate your bringing it in here. I've sometimes wondered whether the Tao is the same idea as a perfectly noumenal world, a world that by definition is beyond human experience, just as Kant said. But we'd have to add a layer to Kant's thought and say that nonetheless we have a kind of intuition, or constant awareness, of the noumenal -- that we can know it in a way that is not rational. Kant would hate that, I suppose. Maybe Sider too, though I take him seriously when he says he's open to any first-order ontology.

I guess two examples of a particular subatomic particle really are identical, but few other pairs in the world are. Two apples from the same tree are not identical physically, only conceptually. — T Clark

Good point. The particles are peculiar, in that they aren't numerically identical -- they reside at two different points in space-time -- yet, as best we know, they are physically exactly the same. How about two triangles of the same dimensions? Are they identical in the way the particles are? Maybe "identicalness" is best considered from a mathematical perspective, which is not my specialty.

My point about grounding was definitely a conceptual one. We have a variety of terms we can use to describe the similarities and differences we observe in the world (and in our own conceptions). I think all of them may require the concept of "identity" in order to make sense. I'm not sure about this, but let's say it's true. That would mean that in an important sense "identity" is structurally more fundamental that, say "being green". This may be partly what Sider has in mind when he talks about "deep" structure. And, as discussed, one could make this case without requiring the deep structure to exist apart from our conscious experience of it.

I need bricks shaped like "metaphysics" to help build the wall. If I use another shape, the wall will be less stable. I guess I can call the bricks something else, but 1) there are already smart, qualified, experienced people out there using the word the same way I do and 2) making up new words almost never makes things better. — T Clark

Yes, and this is why I don't really think philosophy will ever be reformed along Siderian lines, even if we all agreed it ought to be. In fact, I could challenge (2) and point to many cases where making up new words (and logical relations) has been extremely helpful, and I still don't think most philosophers are willing to burn down the house and erect a more precise terminology. It is, in a way, unreasonable for me to say to you, "Stop talking about metaphysics and talk about metaphysics*!" It may be more trouble than it's worth, to you and to the people you talk to. But at least we can take Sider to heart and remember that we have a diagnosis available, when a conversation becomes terminological rather than substantive.

("A brick shaped like metaphysics" is another good image for a reference magnet. It "pulls" us, in this metaphor, because we need it as a conceptual cornerstone.)

Yes, we shouldn't get too lost in abstractions here. The problem with racism and homophobia is that it insists on telling people they are defective when in fact they are not. I don't much care what grounds the bigot uses to try to justify this; it's the attempt to harm and denigrate that is repulsive.

Question for anyone - Isn't belief in a God literally a choice to believe when no proof is possible? — Jeremy Murray

Could you clarify this a little? What would constitute proof that a given entity exists? I assume you're not using "proof" in the logical sense of being entailed by premises.

If this list doesn't constitute homophobia, what does? Do you have to advocate imprisonment or violence?

Should TPF tolerate homophobia? No.

A "thick" term can also pack an emotional or spiritual punch. This is a type of connotation, but worth calling out on its own. We're reluctant -- I think rightly so -- to treat "love" or "evil" or "enlightenment" as mere pieces to move around on the conceptual board. They matter to us, or at least to many of us.

I think (J will correct me if I'm wrong) one of the motivations for this post was a discussion whether 'reality' and 'existence' can be differentiated, citing C S Peirce, who makes that distinction. Whereas in common discourse, they are naturally regarded as synonyms - that what is real is what exists and vice versa. — Wayfarer

The question that interests me is whether "reality" and "existence" refer, perspicuously, and if they do, whether it's possible to focus on what they refer to, rather than the intellectual (and ordinary-language) history of how the terms have been used. Peirce's distinction is an excellent one -- wouldn't it remain just as excellent if it used different terms? In Sider's language, Peirce identifies important reference magnets, and helps us understand how they relate. But if we start talking about whether he's using "reality" and "existence" correctly, the discussion immediately turns non-substantive.

I have made the case that it only really makes sense to talk about real or reality in the context of, or at least with a connection to, everyday human life. That's probably a good example of a "non-bizarre interpretation," or "right sort of basis." — T Clark

This is a good target statement for the viewpoint that "fundamental structure" can only be fundamental to a certain perspective. Your use of "everyday human life" is interesting. Is that what Sider has in mind when he counterposes it to a bizarre interpretation? Another possibility is that human life can extend beyond the everyday, into some highly abstruse areas such as logic and semantical analysis, and still be the touchstone for what we can say about fundamentality or "reality."

The pivotal question, as so often, is whether this extension beyond the everyday can ever take us completely out of ourselves, into some sort of "view from nowhere" that is deeply fundamental, so to speak. If we want Sider's opinion on this, we may have to settle for: "Ontological realism [is the view that] ontological questions are 'deep', 'about the world rather than language'." And he adds, "It is consistent with all positions on first-order ontology." So he's not saying that being "about the world" is necessarily being about something perspectiveless. The contrast he wants to highlight is with being about language, about terms. This leave open the possibility that "the world" doesn't have to be construed as something apart from how we experience it. I think his comment about first-order ontology lends support to this interpretation too. What Sider cares about is that metaphysics be substantive, in whatever way our ontology may allow it to be, and not merely a wrangle about language.

That said, I'm not sure we've really done justice to the electrons and the cow. I need to think more about it, but just to indicate where I'm going with it: The two electrons exhibit the property of "sameness" or "identicalness in every way but numerically". As you point out, the cow certainly shares properties with the electrons -- but not that property. So we have to ask, Is identicalness a property for us because it is a fundamental property of ontology? Does being identical ground the other ways we can understand similarity or communality of properties?

I think this is a good example of a situation where our argument becomes pointless unless you are willing to accept my ideas about metaphysics or I am willing to abandon them. — T Clark

But suppose we both agreed that there is a reference magnet in the vicinity which is joint-carving. You want to say that "metaphysics" is the best word to apply to one division of the resulting conceptual carving -- the division which includes Collingwood's "absolute presuppositions [that] have been made by this or that person or group of persons." Other divisions might, on your terms, be "derivative assumptions" and "meaningless non-human-world statements about an inaccessible 'fundamentality'," or words to that effect, yes? For my part, I'm not as clear about the right terms, but let's say I held a different set of labels, but was willing to bracket them while acknowledging that what you mean by "metaphysics" is indeed a reference magnet, and an important one. Might we not be able to continue the discussion on that basis?

I think "happiness" is a different, simpler, case than the other concepts we've been discussing. It's a human emotion, a psychological entity, not abstract at all. Not interesting ontologically any more than an apple is. — T Clark

I understand what you mean, but happiness is such a crucial term in ethical theory that I would argue it's elevated itself out of the merely psychological and become one of those "big" theoretical terms. No matter.

Maybe I'll start a thread with lists of statements I consider metaphysical by my standard and ask people to describe how they fit into their own understanding of the term. — T Clark

I'd like to see that, but be prepared not only for descriptions but for arguments about why their understandings are correct! :wink:

There's a fascinating book called Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind, by Cheney and Seyfarth, that makes a strong case that baboons have a more-than-rudimentary "theory of mind" which allows them to make predictions based on what they believe other baboons are thinking.

It could only mean that God's idea of the best doesn't remotely resemble what a human would mean - J

This is partially true, I think: for example, we tend to think suffering is intrinsically bad; but I don’t think this is true. — Bob Ross

I'm not sure that helps. We can think of far too many cases -- the majority, probably -- in which suffering is bad for specific reasons. Let me really load the dice: The suffering and slow death of children who are trapped beneath a cliff after an earthquake is "bad," for reasons we can both give, though that word is much too weak. Preserving our ordinary meanings of goodness and badness, we could, perhaps, just about make a plausible case for why such suffering "had to happen" in this best of all possible worlds. The problem is that you have to multiply your plausible case by a million million, to equivalently explain all the other instances of "bad suffering." This is where the "likely-ometer" starts to go off, especially if you don't have a previous belief in a loving God.

The other alternative is, as you say, to just acknowledge that we don't have a clue. We lack the knowledge God has about outcomes, possibilities, etc. But, to be consistent, that would mean we could no longer speak about God as "good" or "loving", since we no longer know what those words mean from the cosmic viewpoint. They can't mean "sparing suffering whenever possible," unless our understanding of "possible" also is immeasurably out of whack. And if it is, we're back to wondering why it wasn't possible for God to do something that any child can do for its pet, namely create a "world" that is on the whole kind and nurturing.

This sense of what is loving and possible is not something most believers are willing to give up, and I don't think we should.

The electrons go together, and neither goes with the cow.” -- Sider — J

The only reason electron-plus-cow seems like a bad way of carving reality is context--not any absolute ontological structure. — T Clark

Now I want to depart from Sider on one point. (And I should emphasize that much of the above is my own interpretation of Sider.) I’m not convinced that “reality’s fundamental structure” is the best way to talk about what Sider wants to talk about. I don’t know how fundamental the various reference magnets may be, or whether it’s necessary to drag in “reality” (one of those very terms whose ambiguity causes so much trouble). — J

I think there are natural kinds, but they are natural human kinds. They are manifestations of our human nature and, beyond that of our own specific personal natures. — T Clark

With all of these quotes, we're focusing on a key point for Sider and the idea of reference magnetism. I believe it's a somewhat open question. If we could adopt the ultra-objective "view from nowhere/anywhere," would the same reference magnets exert their influence? Is that what we require in order to talk about "reality's fundamental structure"? Sider declares himself to be an ontological realist; he thinks the answer is Yes. Yet, in his discussion of the electrons and the cow, he never claims that a cow-plus-electron grouping is impossible, or incoherent, or even wrong according to some principle. He calls it "bizarre," and says that "the three objects should be [my itals] divided into two groups" as custom would dictate.

When I ended the OP by saying that we needed to do a lot more work on concepts like "right sort of basis," this is the kind of situation I had in mind. In Sider's favor: There is surely such a thing as a non-bizarre interpretation, in which the two electrons do "go together"; he isn't making that up. Your suggestion is that bizarre vs. ordinary is a referendum on human uses and contexts. And that too seems plausible. The question, I think, is whether we can argue that our human uses are themselves not arbitrary, but reflect actual ontological structure of some kind. I was jibbing at "fundamental," but there may be other kinds of structure which are to some extent invariant, though depending upon the life-world of humans for their perceptibility. Arguably, that's enough to satisfy Sider; he could reply that these kinds of structure are all that logic and metaphysics means to deal with. Quantification isn't a statement about ultimate reality, or even an endorsement that there must be such a thing.

in Ontologese, quantifiers are stipulated to carve at the joints. In other words, they are attracted by the correct, eligible reference magnets.
— J

Can you give an example of this? — T Clark

First, a little more elaboration. This gives us the context:

Suppose . . . that there exist, in the fundamental sense, nothing but sub-atomic particles. Given such a sparse ontology, the most plausible view about natural language quantifiers might be that they do not carve at the joints. The best metaphysical semantics of an ordinary sentence like 'There is a table' might be . . . a tolerant semantics, which interprets it as making the true claim that there exist sub-atomic particles appropriately arranged. The English 'there is', according to such a semantics, would not express fundamental quantification. . . So even if there is a joint-carving sort of quantification, the quantifiers of ordinary language might not carve at the joints. — Sider, 171-72.

Thus, Sider's E* is introduced as the quantifier that does carve at the joints -- on this example, it would refer to sub-atomic particles.

We're talking here about the "big" term "exist". Let's move to a less austere term: "happiness". Philosopher A maintains that happiness refers to a state that's measured in terms of pleasures and pains. Thus, it's possible, though unusual, for a person to fail to seek their own happiness, due to some defect of the psyche. Philosopher B maintains that happiness is best understood as that state which all people do in fact seek, since we are egoistic hedonists, and cannot fail to act in our own behalf.

This is a classic dispute about terms. A and B can go on (and on) to argue out their respective uses of "happiness" (perhaps joined by Philosopher C, who will maintain that happiness has nothing to do with pleasures and pains). Or . . . they can pose the Siderian question, "Is there something here that carves at the joints, ethically or psychologically? Is there a way of putting aside the divergent use of terms and discovering some actual structural item to which we can agree to refer?" With a term like "happiness," there are those who would claim that there is no such item. But I think there is. We can point out that there is such a thing as experiencing pleasure. Likewise, we might agree that there is such a thing as attempting to act in one's own best interests. These are reference magnets; they are "in the vicinity" of the term "happiness," and exert pressure on different philosophers to make the identification with "happiness." But we can resist that pressure, and instead decide to talk about the references, not the terms. Sider suggests this is best done not by stipulating one use of "happiness" for purposes of the discussion, but by coining or adapting a new term that is stipulated to carve at whatever joint may be available to be carved at.

Sider warns us, "Whether the introduction of Ontologese succeeds depends on the facts, on whether there is a joint-carving sort of quantification." He compares this with a proposal to introduce the term "dirt" as meaning "that element of the periodic table that allows trees to grow, etc." This isn't going to work, because there is no such element, and presumably no other reference magnet in the vicinity that is joint-carving.

The problem with that for me is, again sticking with metaphysics as the example, I need the idea as formulated in my understanding of philosophy. The way I’ve dealt with that in discussions that I started is to specify in the OP exactly the definition of metaphysics I want to use for the purposes of that particular thread. As I noted, it’s often a struggle to keep other posters on that path. — T Clark

I sympathize, and I think Sider has this sort of thing in mind. Is there a way to bracket your use of "metaphysics," so to speak, and instead specify the (joint-carving) way in which you use that term? It could be set out not as a definition of 'metaphysics', but as an interesting conceptual or structural category you've noticed. I dunno . . . people might still want to argue terms.

Thanks for your appreciation, and I'm really glad the concepts made sense, and spoke to experiences you've previously had doing philosophy. It was much the same way for me, reading and thinking about Sider's ideas. They rang so many bells, and seemed to put questions very clearly that I'd been inchoately trying to formulate.

To respond to a couple of things:

For the record, I love the term "joint-carving." — T Clark

(My vegan sensibilities squirm. :wink: Leave those joints alone!)

How is [Sider's plan B] different from just agreeing on the definition of the word in question at the beginning of the discussion? — T Clark

I think it both is and isn't the same. Sider is urging us to give up, or at least view with suspicion, the idea that we can agree on how to use "exist", for instance, for purposes of discussion, and then retreat back into our usual practices. Let's say you and I had quite different construals of how "exist" ought to be used. I'm sure that, being reasonable people, we could stipulate a meaning to employ in examining some given question. And we might learn quite a bit about this term -- call it E^. But neither of us really believes it means "exist"! We're clinging to the idea that there is some right way to use "exist", even as we agree to stipulate E^ for this discussion.

Sider's E* is different. With E*, we stipulate that it does refer to whatever joint-carving meaning is in the vicinity. Each of us gives up the idea that our respective "exist" terms do that. Another way of putting this: The move from E to E^ would be regarded by both disputants as a move away from metaphysical accuracy, again for the purposes of securing agreement on a given discussion. Whereas the move from E to E* is, as Sider says, to frame a superior question, not a less accurate one. The disputants agree that E* is what they really want to talk about, and drop their insistence that their respective Es are helpful in doing so.

Rather than trying to convince me, perhaps it makes more sense for you to say "You and I just see things too differently for this to be a fruitful discussion." Then you go find someone else to talk with. — T Clark

Yes, I'd far rather do that than keep wrangling. But as we know, a lot of philosophy consists of people insisting that Great Philosopher X was right about Big Term A, and they're sure they can come up with the persuasive argument somehow. That said, I enjoy talking with people who tone this down a bit, and want to show me how a particular philosopher's construal can be helpful, insightful, creative, et al., without necessarily settling the question for all time.

I also want to respond to your thoughts about fundamental ontological structure; whether it really must be context-dependent. But I've run out of time. I'll return to it.

This assumes that it would have been better for their to be less suffering at the cost of the natural world in which we live now; and I am not sure why that would be the case. — Bob Ross

But not to assume it is to assume something much harder to swallow -- that this is indeed the best of all possible worlds, so good that not even God could make it any better. You acknowledge this, on behalf of classical theism. How would one go on to argue which of the two assumptions is more likely? I don't know if there's a "likely-ometer" we can employ! But in favor of the first assumption, it's hard to disagree with the idea that a world without the suffering of my neighbor's child wouldn't be a better world; or, if that would upset some cosmic balance, then the next suffering child, or the next, or the next . . . etc. Surely just one could have been spared? There are so many to choose among! And while we're at it, maybe the Holocaust? And the Rwandan genocide? And . . .etc. Again, we're spoiled for choice. So much horror and suffering is all necessary?

Against the second assumption, we'd have to recalibrate all our moral and imaginative language in order to consider our current world "the best". It could only mean that God's idea of the best doesn't remotely resemble what a human would mean. And if that's the case, there's not much point in even talking about God using human attributes like goodness.

we have this intuition that suffering is bad and that we can conceive of a world without it — Bob Ross

No, that's too broad-brush. We have the intuition that a great deal of suffering is bad and that we can conceive of a world without at least some of it. If that intuition's incorrect, then see above: We are so in the dark about matters of good and bad, and of what is possible, that we might as well stop trying to talk about it.

There are, by the way, other defenses of the ways of God that don't back us into this corner, as you of course know.

Sider is doing something different - he is trying to come up with a kind of meta-philosophical framework against which the incommensurability of divergent explanatory paradigms can be interpreted. . . Do you think that’s what it is about? — Wayfarer

This is an interesting context to put it in. First off, I agree there's some similarity with what Williams is doing with "thick terms," in that Williams is pointing out the difficulty of using them merely descriptively, as if their meanings could be read off from some common lexicon. The difference I see is that the unclarity around what I'm calling "big terms" has to do with conflicting usages on the same linguistic level, so to speak. It's not that "real" is ontological in one construal and aesthetic in another (though I suppose that could happen), but rather that different philosophers, or philosophic traditions, will tend to reserve "real" to demarcate different conceptual territories.

So, is Sider offering a meta-philosophical replacement for the Tower of Babel? Yes, in part. As I read him, he's suggesting that it's often possible to sharpen up a contested term in a way that all the parties can agree to. But he's not saying we should do this by dubbing one use of "real", for example, to be the correct one, even for purposes of argument. He recognizes, I think wisely, that even if this could be made to stick, in the course of a single discussion, its usefulness would rapidly fall away as others join in, bringing their own preferred meanings, and the terminological clarification would have to begin all over again.

Instead, he thinks we can be upfront about needing a new (but related) term that "carves better at the joints." Whether one thinks there are metaphysical joints to carved, and whether one thinks those joints are perceptible apart from the language used to describe them, will greatly influence whether one thinks Sider's proposal has merit. But assuming one does, then we can look at possible uses of "Ontologese," as Sider calls it. I don't want to get too off-topic, but I'll just say that Sider approaches this in terms of quantification; the idea is that, in Ontologese, quantifiers are stipulated to carve at the joints. In other words, they are attracted by the correct, eligible reference magnets.

You ask whether this is also about "the incommensurability of divergent explanatory paradigms." I'm not sure about this. If the example of two such paradigms is analytic philosophy and existentialism, then it seems broader than what Sider intends. I haven't read everything he's written, by any means, but as best I can tell he's only interested in sorting out problems within analytic phil, especially as derived from logic and semantics. I don't know if he'd be happy with describing two uses of "real" or "good" as two explanatory paradigms. But that may not matter, since he'd agree they're incommensurate at whatever level you want to take them.

Leaving Sider aside, it does seem as if joint-carving terms for non-asterisked words like "real" or "good" could be part of an explanatory framework that potentially reaches across philosophical schools. An obvious obstacle would be to get some agreement about whether there are such things as joint-carving or ontologically privileged concepts. Some versions of post-modernism, for instance, would stop right here and ask for an account of this that makes sense in their tradition. Can we give one? Food for thought.

omnipotence, "all-powerfulness", and "maximally powerful" refer to the same thing in this view; that is, that a being has intrinsic power unrestrained by anything else. — Bob Ross

God is maximally powerful, as innate power itself, which is constrained by metaphysical possibility. — Bob Ross

'omnipotence' . . . it is to have innate power. — Bob Ross

OK. I thought you were drawing a distinction between the two terms, in terms of metaphysical possibility, but no matter. I now see you mean them both to refer to the characteristic of having innate or intrinsic power.

But how would a classical theist -- who I guess you're defining as pre-Christian? -- apply this concept of omnipotence to the usual set-up requiring a theodicy? When the questioner asks why God did not create a world without (or merely with less) suffering, this request doesn't seem to have anything to do with what is metaphysically possible, or what would be beyond "innate" power.

Hey J! Long time no see, my friend. — Bob Ross

I'm glad to be considered your friend :smile: but . . . have you mistaken me for another TPFer? I don't think we've conversed before. If I've forgotten, my apologies.

Trying to grasp this . . . Are you saying that "omnipotent" and "maximally powerful" don't mean the same thing, in what you're calling classical theism?

Modern analysis of trauma often assert that 'trauma is written on the body', or similar propositions. In this conception, 'forgetting' is not even possible? — Jeremy Murray

Probably true. The "amnesia theodicy" would require that God eliminate even such unconscious bodily traumas.

The classical problem of evil remains intact. — Truth Seeker

That's probably true, but these discussions do show that the classical problem isn't necessarily the only way to frame our understanding of God and evil. What I'm going to take away from the discussion is the thought that, when it comes to human suffering, subjective experience and judgment may carry a lot more ethical weight than it would first appear, from a strictly rationalist perspective. See: justice vs. mercy.

Appreciate your work on this.

Glad it makes some sense. This is a nice coincidence, because I'm trying to finish up an OP about this very thing. "What X means" is not a straightforward matter in philosophy, and it's so easy for any of us to get pulled into a dispute about terms when we'd rather talk about something more substantive. As you just pointed out, it's a disappointing result when the argument then seems to hinge on "how I use X" vs. "how you use X." Theodore Sider has some excellent things to say about this, which I'll try to lay out.

if you cannot tell the semantic difference between an illusion and reality when discussing them, I don't think the problem is the terms. They are almost always unambiguous. — AmadeusD

Yes, almost always. But philosophy is one context in which they are not. Consider the context of the discussion you quoted: We're trying to decide whether an illusion -- a mirage, say -- ought to be counted as part of "reality," understood as the totality of all that happens to us. In one sense, no, of course not, because the mirage appears to be one thing -- an object in the world -- when in fact it is something utterly different -- a brain glitch. But in another sense, we can't leave it out of the account of our experience of the world. It has to be explained, just as much as any other item of experience. So there is justification for applying this word "real" to all genuine events, regardless of whether they are what they seem to be.

And this is why I'm so down on terms like "real" -- you have to take precious time spelling out in which sense you're using them.

OK, that's better. I didn't realize you wanted the second instrument to be playing something that would be mistaken for an overtone produced by the first instrument.

So my answers would be:
1. Two pitches.
2. One timbre.
3. Trick question. :smile: Let's say there are four relevant overtones being produced by the first instrument. To this we add the false or apparent overtone that is actually a regular pitch being played by the second instrument. How many overtones total? It depends from whose point of view, and what we agree to count as an overtone in this bizarre case. I, the listener, believe I'm hearing a timbre composed of five overtones (though remember, it's unlikely I'd be able to actually hear the overtones as discrete pitches). Out there in the objective world, there is a timbre composed of four overtones plus a new pitch sneaking in and pretending to be one.

Some of this is just convention. We generally don't use the term "timbre" to talk about how multiple instruments sound together -- "the timbre of a chord played by the wind section," for instance. "Timbre" is reserved for single instruments. But I suppose there's no reason we couldn't broaden the usage.

timbre is a subjective quality that you hear. — Pneumenon

Well, yes, but no more subjective than most of the other elements of music. it's not subjective the way loudness, for instance, is subjective. Timbre is also used to refer to the instrument itself, not just to how it sounds to me. As we've already noted, we know how to create various timbres by tweaking the frequencies, and when we talk about timbre in this way, there's nothing subjective about it, anymore than pitch is subjective -- though of course pitch is also something that is heard, and hence part of subjective experience.

I guess I'm not understanding your question. If an oboe plays an A, that is a tone with overtones. If you actually change the overtones, it doesn't sound like an oboe anymore. I don't know what the "real" sound would be that you're referring to -- can you say more? I'm sensing there's a confusion here between "sound" as referring to what an instrument creates, and "sound" as referring to what a listener hears.

I tried reading Nausea once—I wasn't able to get far with it. — Janus

It isn't very good, as a work of art. But it does capture that "draining life of meaning" feeling.

For me, to live fully is to live a life of intense feeling, with the intellectual concerns informed by, not separate to, that life. — Janus

It's a problem for philosophers, isn't it? We tend to overdevelop the intellect, maybe especially in the moral sphere. You can read volumes and volumes about ethics and never find a discussion of what compassion is, and why it's central to our lives.

The overtones of which sound? The one you're hearing or the one played on the first instrument? — Pneumenon

If the actual overtones were changed, that would be a change in the sound played on the first instrument, and it would be objectively measurable. Changes in what I hear, on the other hand, don't actually change any overtones, unless by "change" we want to include "make them more or less audible." But that is necessarily subjective in large part.

That we have the illusion is not itself an illusion. — Janus

That's a great way of putting it. (And we see again how binaries like illusion/reality can rapidly become so equivocal as to be unhelpful. "Are illusions real?" "Well, yes and no . . . stipulate how you want to use the terms!")

I doubt whether a complete account of the world we encounter is possible — Janus

I kind of do too, but it feels important to hold it up as a desideratum. Even unreachable goals can be motivating, and express something aspirational about the overall human project of knowledge.

life is being, but it is not merely being in the sense of sheer mere existence. — Janus

"Life is meaningless" is surely a mood everyone has felt at some time. How can we fall into such a mood? (other than reading Sartre's Nausea :smile: ). Usually by noticing, often with horror, that the values we hold, and organize our lives around, cannot be discovered in the world in the same way we discover what Heidegger called (in Manheim's translation) "essents" -- rocks and birds and math problems and everything else that has being but not being-there-for-us (Dasein, more or less). But as you say, living as a human is more than that, or at least so some of us believe.

Strong arguments. Nicely done.

You perhaps know that this "heaven theodicy" is found in Kant (in the 2nd critique, I believe, though I can't cite the section), and your post prompted me to look back at some old notes and see whether Kant's version can stand up. Rereading, I saw that Kant frames the problem a little differently. For him, what's required of God is not the usual trio of omniscience, omnipotence, and omni-benevolence, but rather that he grant all humans eternal happiness. As long as he does this, he satisfies the requirements for a maximally moral being. And this, for Kant, can be done even if there is temporary suffering. So it's not exactly a traditional theodicy. And it raises interesting questions about what "heavenly happiness" would be. If it's meant to be a perfection, a state than which there is no better, then quite possibly I might agree, once I experience it, that I couldn't possibly be any happier even if I hadn't suffered on Earth. So the amnesia postulate may not even be necessary.

Do you think it makes a difference, then, if "perfect happiness" is substituted for "no suffering"? And can you accept the idea that such a perfect happiness might be consistent with having previously suffered? I guess part of the perfection would involve a realization that the past no longer matters, not just subjectively, but ethically.

Yes, good analysis. As you point out, it comes down to 1) whether you think suffering can be anything other than subjective, and 2) whether my identity largely consists of being the same person I was in the past.

When I run the thought experiment on myself, try as I may, I can't make myself believe that forgotten (and consequence-less) suffering matters. To whom? But then I'm stopping at the subjective, as you clearly are not. I think different people will have different intuitions about this.

Not being a mathematician, I may be missing some of the nuances of what you're bringing up, but it reminds me of translation problems in general. Is it fair to say that working in binary could be considered a different language, one that you don't really speak but know how to use in a pinch? (If that's wrong, ignore the next paragraphs.)

Consider reading and writing for a transposing instrument, in musical notation. Perhaps I need to write out a flute part, a non-transposing instrument, for an alto sax, playing in Eb. I'm fluent in "concert C," as the non-transposing notation is called, whereas in Eb I'm translating as I go along. So it can easily happen that I "calculate the right note" in Eb without knowing what that note would be called in concert C. This speaks to this point:

I multiplied it correctly in binary. But I had no idea what the numbers were.
— Patterner
You did know what the numbers were since you had the answer. You just didn't know the base-10 representation of that answer. — noAxioms

[So I can correctly calculate/represent the note in alto clef, and hear it mentally -- in that sense, I "know what the note is" -- but since I don't have perfect pitch (which is learned in concert C), I don't automatically know what its treble-clef representation would be.]

EDIT:
Sorry, that last paragraph should read:


So I can correctly calculate/represent the note in Eb, and hear it mentally -- in that sense, I "know what the note is" -- but since I don't have perfect pitch (which is learned in concert C), I don't automatically know what its concert-C representation would be.

The subject–object distinction is therefore not just a quirk of how narrowly we define certain words; it is assumed by logic itself. It was implicit throughout much of traditional philosophy, but made explicit in phenomenology in particular. — Wayfarer

This is a good point. You're right to question whether "subject-object" might not, in some cases, capture a genuine metaphysical structure.

And yes, we can “understand subjectivity.” But we can only ever be one subject; the only instance of subjectivity we directly know is our own, and that by being it, not by knowing it objectively. — Wayfarer

Well, then I think we're on the same page. I agree, and my suggestion is that all we can require of scientific inquiry is to (eventually) understand subjectivity. I could quibble a little, using Nagel's point about self-reflection as "a kind of objectivity," but that's a somewhat different issue. Again, it all comes down to the difference between experience and understanding. To my mind, science (and other similar, rational practices) can give us understanding without needing to experience the impossible. And of course, where you and I and Nagel are all in accord is in the tremendous importance of including subjectivity in the world of what is, without reduction or waving-away.

As for Frank’ book, it is a philosophy of science book. It isn’t aimed at Kuhn, Feyerabend, or Polanyi—or likely even at readers who take those figures seriously. Its target is metaphysical realism, which presumably those you are speaking too don't hold to. — Wayfarer

Fair enough.

Would you say that you can pick out a tone from a timbre while listening? — Moliere

You mean, a tone other than the root pitch? I would say, sometimes but not often. It's easier or harder depending on the instrument/timbre in question.

I cannot pick out red/green from a brown I'm seeing even though, conceptually, I know that's a way to make a brown/grey. — Moliere

Me neither.

Here I'm thinking that the rules of quantification might differ in describing color and sound perception — Moliere

Maybe a place to start would be to ask, is there some obvious parallel between the orthogonality of shape and color, and the orthogonality of some two sound elements. Which might those elements be? One candidate might be pitch and rhythm. We know we can vary pitch while holding rhythm steady, and vice versa, just like shape and color. But what's the parallel with the visual dictum that we (as far as we know) don't see two colors at the same time, in the same place? I think the analogy is in trouble here, because we can surely hear polyrhythms, and more than one pitch at a time. We need an entirely different construal of "at the same time and place" that would exclude polyrhythms and intervals/chords. And I don't know what that would be. We can't even say that a single rhythmic pattern can only be heard as one thing, unlike, say, a color. As for pitch, it's probably true that you can't simultaneously hear an A as a B, but you can hear a chord as two different musical objects. In both these cases, it's the musical context that makes the difference, in a way that doesn't see to come up for visual experiences. Or does it? Optical illusions?

Your use of 'primitive', even with scare quotes, implies that this, too, will somehow be unravelled by the inexorable march of science. But there's a logical contradiction which you're not seeing. — Wayfarer

With respect, what you're not seeing is that this is only a logical contradiction if we define the terms in such a way that it is. Logic tells us nothing about the world; it only tells us what terms can be sensibly used together, given their definitions. Sure, if "subjective" and "objective" can only mean what you say they mean, then they can't be used in certain ways to say certain things without contradiction. But I'm questioning that use as too narrow. Specifically, I'm suggesting that understanding a number-theoretical statement, for instance, is not a subjective experience in the same way that eating a chocolate is. In such a case, the apparent bipolarity of subjective and objective starts to break down, it seems to me. This is a deep problem in how to understand the role of rationality (or call it hermeneutics, perhaps) in human experience. I think the possibility remains open that we can understand subjectivity without requiring that everyone have the same subjective experience, or that we somehow simultaneously inhabit objectivity and subjectivity, as defined in this way.

"Subject-object relations are fundamental to embodied existence" -- yes, they are, but that doesn't mean we understand them, or understand what we mean when we create this bipolarity, whether it is mere appearance or reflects something more. Do you believe it reflects a genuine metaphysical fact? I don't know if it does. I'm asking for more humility in the face of what we don't know. As philosophers, we should be suspicious of any position that says, "We know it to be the case that something is either A or B."

And actually, I don't think the march of science, by itself, will change how we understand subjectivity. It seems to me that what usually happens is a kind of two-step between scientific inquiry and philosophical analysis. As we learn more about what science discovers, we find we require new ways to talk about it (science tends to talk in math). So our concepts broaden, and innovate.

What would be an alternative to Frank's 'dated historical account'? — Wayfarer

What I find a bit dated is statements like this, as a description of what a scientific materialist must believe: "The scientific method enables us to get outside of experience and grasp the world as it is in itself." My reference would be to Kuhn, who I think shook this up pretty definitively, mid-20th century. I'd also reference my conversations with two scientist friends, but that's merely anecdotal. For what it's worth, they're both interested in philosophy of science, and enjoy chewing these things over with me, and I've asked them about the God's-eye view. It makes them smile. I've never heard either of them claim they were trying to grasp the world as it is. As best I can tell, they're trying to solve equations and make reliable predictions. Perhaps if I pressed them, they'd own to wanting something more . . . but as they're both physicists, they're hyper-aware of the role of the observer.

That passage you quoted above from Thomas Nagel's 'View from Nowhere' is from his chapter on Mind, and the difficulty of framing an objective view of consciousness, given its first-person nature. — Wayfarer

Yes. And as I understand him, Nagel is acknowledging the difficulty but arguing that it's possible, at least in part. That's because, when he uses the term "view," he's making the distinction I described earlier, which Frank does not, between understanding and experience. To my mind, this definitely puts the two men at odds, though they do share a number of common concerns.

This is not 'science has reached a dead end', or that 'silence is the end of the story'. The point is polemical: to illustrate how these fundamental elements of experience are outside the scope of science. — Wayfarer

Maybe polemical is the right word. I agree, Frank isn't giving an interim report on what science has learned so far. I was saying that that's what he should be doing -- but he (and you) believe that we can demonstrate why science will never, on principle, be able to say anything about those elements of experience.

If one conceives of science in the way he does (based on what I regard as a somewhat dated historical account), then sure, science is limited in that way. But I'm not at all convinced that such a definition really captures the essence of scientific inquiry. There's way more to say about that, and probably more than you'd want to hear from me, but I'll just add that the pressure point lies here: "Science is grounded in objective analysis, that is, analysis of those things, states, processes that can be made objects of analysis." You're stipulating that subjective experience can never be made into such an object, and I'm saying that it probably can be -- that we shouldn't leap from our current (primitive) understanding of the concepts of "subjective" and "objective" to conclude that our concepts are not only adequate, but force a philosophical conclusion.

the other category being whatever is amenable to experience, which is thought of as being real for us. — Janus

And we can even put a highly skeptical slant on "real for us" and insist that this is a kind of bastard child of true Reality, consisting of illusions and "perspectives," without changing Nagel's point. Illusions actually happen; if we see something illusory and believe it is (deeply) Real, this is an experience we have. It has to be explained, just as much as anything else, if we want to give a complete account of the world we encounter. Of course, when we start parsing "real" in a way that requires a capital R, we start to confuse ourselves.

"Real" is being used outside or beyond the structure that it usually carries with it.
But sometimes there does seem to be a meaning to it. — Ludwig V

Yes. I strongly dislike using "real" in serious philosophy, but we can't simply erase hundreds of years of usage. We need it, or something like it, for some of the important things we talk about. Just make sure you define it as "according to X . . ."!

I don't think that "metaphysically fundamental" helps much. I'm trying to suggest we should pay attention to different kinds of case. — Ludwig V

But notice that, if one says, "There is little that's helpful in the term 'metaphysically fundamental'; we should instead look at things case by case," one has nonetheless said something metaphysically fundamental! -- indeed, something of great importance. This is what Sider means when he says, "If nothing else, the choice of what notions are fundamental remains. There’s no detour around the entirety of fundamental metaphysics."

So here we go - three different metaphors in two lines — Ludwig V

:grin: I wonder if it's possible to write about metaphysics at all without using metaphors. Better not to mix them, though, I agree.

In order to understand the experience, one has to be the being experiencing it. — Punshhh

This is what is in question, I think. Nagel, in the passage I quoted in response to @Wayfarer, doesn't think this follows. And I don't see why it must, though no one would deny that we learn more about an experience if we're the ones having it.

And by being, I’m not talking of the mind*, I’m talking of a living creature. — Punshhh

This is good. We equate mind with subjective experience much too facilely.

[The tree] is there, is reacting to, is growing through all these events and circumstances. These are events being experienced by a living being. — Punshhh

Or at least they may be. Unless we stipulate a certain meaning for "experience" which we're not entitled to ("everything that happens to an entity is an experience"), I don't think we can know whether a tree has them.

Structure and grounding are not the same thing. — Ludwig V

Sorry, forgot to respond to this. Sider doesn't mean grounding in any physical sense. Rather, it's a question of what must be metaphysically fundamental -- what concepts give rise to, or secure, other concepts. Jonathan Schaffer's excellent essay, "On What Grounds What," gives a clear picture of these issues, influenced by both Sider and Aristotle.

Presupposing that the question can be meaningfully asked is not the same as knowing how to answer it. Perhaps you are thinking that we can work out what will count as an answer and go on from there. It may be possible, but it doesn't exclude the possibility that it cannot be answered because nothing would count as an answer. On the other hand we can answer lots of questions about the world and, for me, these count as telling us how the world really is. What is puzzling is why you think those answers do not count. — Ludwig V

I don't think we're that far apart on this question. There may, as you say, be no answer at all to the question, which, just to jog our memories, was:

The problem, I think, comes when we ask which of these points of view (if any) reflect how the world really is. — J

The "if any" was meant to acknowledge your point: No answers may be forthcoming, and that could be for (at least) two reasons: We can't find the answer, or the question is badly put because it implies that "how the world really is" is meaningful when in fact it isn't. I'm not sure I know how we would "work out what will count as an answer," exactly, though I rather like putting it that way because it's a reminder that there's probably no way to simply discover the answer.

As for the kinds of answers we do have about the world, I certainly think they count, but it's not obvious what they count for. If we decide that "how the world is" is a matter of semantics, and we ought to just go ahead and allow that our current best objective knowledge is about how the world really is, then that knowledge counts for a lot, maybe everything. But I'm arguing that it's an open question whether we need to do that.

That's not quite what I mean by a point of view. — Ludwig V

I know, but I deliberately chose an outrageous example so I can illustrate the idea that "point of view" is uncomfortably ambiguous, though it gets invoked constantly in these discussions. As you say, my deluded self has "most likely . . . adopted a way of interpreting the information that you have, so let's allow that it is a point of view." But is a point of view merely a perspective, any perspective? How is what I do when I take a deluded point of view different from what any non-insane, objective, scientifically respectable point of view does? I think it's a lot different, myself, but why? What makes objectivity different from "just what I think"? Surely it has something to do with the way the world is . . . and maybe we should just leave out the "really" part.

So for me it is meaningless to say that our experience gives us no true picture of the real. It doesn't give us a complete picture, but that is a different consideration.
— Janus
I can buy that. — Ludwig V

Me too. As Nagel says, how the world appears to us is part of what is real.

I have no real argument with what Frank says about the God’s-eye view and “unvarnished reality.” I only point out that this isn’t what we mean when we talk about objectivity.
— J

Who is this "we?" — Wayfarer

The "we" is aspirational, I guess: I'm addressing those of us who think there is a problem about objectivity, but aren't willing to say that either it doesn't exist at all, or that it has to be synonymous with a God's-eye view. You're right that this "we" has not cleared the field of other viewpoints, but I suggest that in many ways it's the standard fallback position for non-technical thinkers (and non-arrogant scientists).

“Objectivist ontology became king as scientists grew accustomed to assuming that the creations of their mathematical physics could be treated as timeless laws held in the “mind of God” and viewable from a perfectly objective, perfectly perspectiveless perspective—a “view from nowhere.” Thus, when quantum mechanics appeared from the same experimental workshop that had created the triumph of classical physics, many scientists believed their job was to defend the ontological heights and equate reality with the abstract formalism." So, no, I don't believe their interpretation is at odds with Nagel's, in fact Nagel is cited repeatedly in the text. I think they're converging on a similar point. — Wayfarer

Here my question is about your "they" (though I may just be misreading you). Do you mean Frank and Gleiser, or the scientists referred to in the quote? I think you mean F&G, in which case I'd ask you to expand on this. Yes, I see that F&G disagree with the "ontological heights" scientists who try to save the appearances of perspectiveless classical physics. But how is this not at odds with Nagel?

I don't know which texts of Nagel's F&G may be citing, but in the passage I quoted from View from Nowhere, Nagel describes a project of "forming objective concepts that reach beyond our current capacity to apply them. The aim of reaching a conception of the world which does not put us at the center in any way requires the formation of such concepts." He doesn't then come out and say that such a project will bear fruit, but I read him as suggesting that it will, and that we ought to pursue it. Otherwise, why write the book? Similarly, "we should also be able to apply the same general idea to ourselves, and thus to analyze our experiences in ways that can be understood without having had such experiences. That would constitute a kind of objective standpoint toward our own minds."

"Kind of" is murky, but wouldn't F&G have to deny that even this modest version of an objective standpoint is not only impossible but misleading?

The question comes down to what a "perspectiveless viewpoint" could mean. Frank thinks it's a contradiction in terms -- that because everything is experience, then everything is subjective. Nagel (and I) think it's both possible and appropriate, once we sort out how to understand the difference between an experience and a piece of knowledge. Or to be more precise, Nagel wants it to be possible, and insists there is no structural and/or transcendental argument against its possibility.

Whether the simultaneous experience of red/green perception can happen depends on how we understand "simultaneous," I think. I've had some very mild experiences of synesthesia, and the dual-mode perception is simultaneous in the sense that, when I heard a particular tone, I also saw a particular visual field: color, but also brightness. I've heard others -- probably deeper synesthetists -- describe it as actually seeing the note as having a color, which would be another sense of simultaneity.

Red/green simultaneity doesn't seem to fit either of those models. What I picture is: A person sees the color brown, and is able, at the same time, to see both red and green "within" the brown. And no, I don't know what "within" means, exactly. If anyone reading this has had something like this happen, speak up!