Hmm, it’s been quite a while since I last posted anything to this blog.
Dan Kaufman is rethinking metaphysics, as indicated in a recent post:
Judging by the relatively small number of comments, I don’t think there’s a lot of enthusiasm among readers. But I will be looking forward for continued posts on this topic.
In agreement with Dan, I do want to see some rethinking. And that’s why I started this blog.
I’ll use this post to give some of my own ideas on the topic. I expect that some of them are very different from Dan’s ideas.
Basic realism
I am assuming some sort of basic realism. That is to say, I assume that there is a reality which is human independent. And we interact with that reality.
I’m calling this an assumption, because I see no possibility of proof. But it does make clear that I reject Berkeley’s idealism. I don’t think anything important depends on this assumption.
Strictly speaking, basic realism, as defined above, is false. We ourselves are part of reality. And anything we do affects that reality. So reality cannot be strictly human independent. That is to say, the idea of basic realism as a convenient over-simplification.
Metaphysical realism
I do not see any possibility that there could be a human-independent true description of reality. How to describe reality is not given to us. We have to invent ways of describing our world. And how to describe the world is vastly underdetermined.
As usually described, metaphysical realism has to do with the existence of true descriptions of reality. By denying the possibility of human-independent true descriptions, I am rejecting metaphysical realism. I’ll note that in the linked post and comments, Dan Kaufman has been clear that he rejects metaphysical realism.
Ontology
Dan questions materialism. I have previously posted on my view of materialism. I don’t think I have ever been a materialist. Chairs and tables are material objects. But cats, dogs, butterflies, etc seem very different kinds of things.
What makes something a cat is not the matter. After a month or two, most of that matter will be elsewhere, replaced by different matter. And it isn’t the arrangement of matter, for that arrangement changes depending on whether the cat is sitting, standing, running, etc.
What makes something a cat, is that we perceive it as a cat. Berkeley was right about the importance of perception, although he took that idea too far.
I have never seen the point of ontology. When we say something exists, that licenses us to talk about it. When doing mathematics, I talk of numbers existing. We have existence theorems for the solutions of equations. But people typically want more than that for using “exists”. And I don’t see that there is anything more for numbers or other mathematical objects. That’s why I’m a mathematical fictionalist.
For tables, chairs, rabbits, etc, there is more than just talking about them. For example, we can perceive them. So we use “exists”. But most of philosophy is concerned with what we can talk about. Of course, it can be of interest to discuss whether gremlins exist. However, mathematical platonists and mathematical fictionalists seem to be able to discuss their mathematics in spite of their disagreement over what can be said to exist.
Causation and free will
Some of the discussions on causation and free will are puzzling. It seems to me that the way a scientist tests causation, is by attempting to control events. When a scientist says that A causes B, he tests that by attempting to use A to cause B. In effect, a scientist is testing what he or she can cause either directly or indirectly.
But then some people conclude that science shows that we have no free will and cannot cause anything. To me, this denies how scientists go about establishing causation.
Arguments against free will often talk of the world being governed by the laws of physics. I’m skeptical of that use of “governed”. Yes, if we use a cue stick the right way, it sends a billiard ball in the pocket. But the billiard ball isn’t paying attention to the laws of physics, so “governed” does not seem the right word here. As I look at it, the laws of physics are not rules for billiard balls to follow. Rather, they are laws for humans to follow. And if we follow them, then we can do very well at predicting the motion of billiard balls. So I see the laws of physics as governing the behavior of physicists, not as governing the behavior of inanimate matter.
