Thomas
Nagel’s review of Stroud’s book is reprinted in his collection Analytic
Philosophy and Human Life.
Nagel raises an important objection to Stroud’s pessimism. To understand it, we need first to understand
Stroud’s rebuttal to skepticism about causality, necessity, and value.
To begin
with causality, Hume famously holds that we have no grounds for believing that
one event causally generates another, nor even a clear idea of what it would be
for it to do so. We observe, for
example, that when one billiard ball contacts another, the latter moves. Having experienced this on multiple
occasions, we come to believe that any event like the first will be followed by
an event like the second. But what we
don’t actually observe, says Hume, is any causal
power in the first billiard ball by virtue of which it brings about the motion of the second. It is only the repetition of the sequence –
the “constant conjunction” of events of the first type with events of the
second type – that we can strictly claim to experience. This constant conjunction produces in us an expectation that events of the second
type will follow events of the first type, and the mind then projects this expectation onto the
world, interpreting what is really only a habit of ours as if it were a feature
of the billiard balls themselves. The
expectation and projection are merely psychological facts about us and tell us
nothing about objective reality.
The trouble
with this sort of analysis, argues Stroud, is that it is incoherent. Hume claims to cast doubt on the reality of
causality by making of it a mere psychological projection born of a conditioned
expectation on our part. But our being
conditioned to form this expectation, and then going on to project it onto the
world, are themselves causal
processes. Hence, Hume has to make
crucial use of the notion of causality in the course of trying to cast doubt on
the notion of causality.
Causal
necessity is a species of necessity in general, so let’s turn to that. We take it that whereas it is only
contingently true that there is water on the earth, or that beetles exist, or
that the Allies won World War II, other things are true of strict
necessity. That is to say, there are
things that not only are the case, but could not possibly have failed to be the
case. For example, it is true of
necessity that 2 + 2 = 4. It is true
that, if all men are mortal and Socrates is a man, then it follows of
necessity that Socrates is mortal. And so on.
But some
have cast doubt on the idea that anything is, as a matter of objective fact,
true of necessity, and Hume is once again representative of this skeptical
position. What we take to be necessary
truths are, in his view, merely expressions of the “relations of ideas.” We hold, for example, that all bachelors are
unmarried, and indeed this is true by definition. But that merely reflects how we have, as a
matter of contingent fact, decided to use certain words; and this in turn
reflects how we have, as a matter of contingent fact, decided to relate certain
ideas (the idea of being unmarried and the idea of being a bachelor). Once again, what appear to be facts about
objective reality turn out, on the Humean analysis, to be facts about human
psychology.
But here
too, Stroud argues, there is incoherence.
In developing arguments like Hume’s, one has, as with any argument, to
apply canons of valid logical inference (such as modus ponens, modus tollens,
and the like). Otherwise one’s arguments
will be unsound and thus without force.
But such rules of inference reflect necessary
connections between premises and conclusion. For example, modus ponens tells us that if it
is true that If p, then q and it is
true that p, then it must of necessity also be the case that q is true. The Humean skeptic therefore has to
presuppose certain kinds of necessity in the course of arguing against the
claim that there are any genuine necessities.
Now consider
value. The Humean skeptic about value
holds that whenever we judge some action to be the best one to take or some
belief to be the best one to hold, that is only because of some desire we
happen contingently to have. Hence, if
the desire were different, what would count as the best would be different.
Stroud
objects that this is simply not how such judgments are actually formed. If someone believes that p is true and also believes that if p is true, then q is also true, then if he goes on to form the
belief that q is true, that has nothing
to do with his having a desire of
some sort. He simply notes that the
premises are a reason to believe the conclusion. Similarly, if someone decides to help a
friend in distress, that can be simply because he judges such distress to be a
good reason to help a friend, rather because some additional factor – his
having a desire to help the friend –
plays any role in his judgment.
Note also
that the skeptic’s position ends up being self-undermining if he takes his
analysis of such judgments to cast doubt on their validity. For that would entail that the skeptic’s own
belief that his analysis is the correct one has no more connection to the way
things objectively really are than the judgments he criticizes do.
Do arguments
like these show that causality, necessity, and value really are features of
objective reality? Again, Stroud resists
this conclusion. The most we can say, he
thinks, is that we cannot help but conceive of objective reality as having
these features. But for all that, it may
be that these features are nevertheless not really out there in the world. Stroud draws an analogy with G. E. Moore’s
famous paradox. The statement “I believe
it is raining, but it isn’t” is not one that anyone could coherently
affirm. If you sincerely say that you
believe it is raining, you cannot consistently go on to deny that it is
raining. Still, it is possible for the
statement to be true. That is to say, it
can be true both that you sincerely believe that it is raining, and also that
it isn’t in fact raining. Your belief
could be false even if you can’t coherently think that it is. Similarly, Stroud says, while we cannot help
but believe in the reality of causality, necessity, and value, it is still
possible that our belief in them is false.
I think
Stroud’s position goes wrong at this point, and so does Nagel. As Nagel points out, the analogy Stroud draws
with Moore’s paradox fails in a crucial respect. Moore’s paradoxical statement has the form “I
believe that p, but not-p.” Where p is “It
is raining,” while I cannot coherently believe the statement in question, I can
certainly conceive of a scenario where it is true. That is to say, I can coherently conceive of
a situation where I believe that it is raining and yet it isn’t raining.
But suppose
instead that p is “There are necessary truths.”
In this case, not only can I not coherently believe the statement, but I
also cannot conceive of a scenario
where it is true. That is to say, I cannot conceive of a scenario where I believe
that there are necessary truths and yet there are no necessary truths. For the whole point of Stroud’s critique of
Humean skepticism is that I can’t coherently doubt the reality of necessary
truths (or of causality, or of value). “Not-p”
is conceivable where p is “It is raining,” but not where p is “There are
necessary truths.” Hence the purported
parallel with Moore’s paradox is bogus.
I think this
is correct, and that Stroud can and should have drawn from his arguments a more
robustly anti-skeptical conclusion than he was willing to draw. He argues persuasively that we cannot
coherently doubt the reality of causality, necessity, and value, but stops
short of concluding that this shows that these are features of objective reality. He should not have stopped short.
Stroud’s
rebuttal of Humean skepticism deploys what are sometimes called “retorsion
arguments.” The strategy of such an
argument is to defend some claim p by showing that anyone who denies p is led
thereby into a performative self-contradiction.
Critics of retorsion arguments sometimes suggest that all they show is that
the skeptic cannot coherently reject p, but not that p is actually true. Stroud seems to be conceding this sort of
objection, which is why he draws a more modest conclusion than, in my view, he
ought to have.
But he
should not have conceded it. At pp.
80-84 of my book Aristotle’s
Revenge, I defend retorsion arguments against this sort of objection. As I there argue, the right way to understand
a retorsion argument is as a kind of reductio
ad absurdum argument. That is to
say, it defends p by showing that to deny p leads to a contradiction. And if a reductio
argument succeeds, it doesn’t show merely that we must believe p (where this
could be the case even if p were false).
It shows that p is actually true.
(As it
happens, at pp. 346-50 of Aristotle’s
Revenge I also discuss and defend an argument Stroud develops in his book The
Quest for Reality which rebuts skepticism about the objective reality
of colors. Here too, Stroud stops short
of concluding that his argument actually establishes the truth of realism, as
opposed to merely rebutting arguments against it. And here too, I argue that Stroud is too
modest and that his argument does in fact establish the stronger conclusion.)
Related
reading:
After all these years of reading Feser, the two key questions I always ask when I hear a fishy argument that sounds logical on it's face are, "Is it self consistent?", or "Does it prove too much".
ReplyDeleteThat's the kind of post that keeps our philosophical spirit alive! Excellent work, Ed.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I’ve been thinking lately about the differences and similarities between Ein Soph and the God of Classical Theism. I’d love to see you explore the topic one day, though I suggest it somewhat timidly for two reasons.
First, it’s a deep and demanding subject. Second, given the current geopolitical tensions, some might unfortunately try to politicize the discussion. They could (deliberately or even stupidly) misinterpret a purely metaphysical exercise as a veiled political statement — for instance, by claiming that arguing the Classical Theist conception of God is superior in certain respects somehow amounts to antisemitism. I know this sounds absurd, but unfortunately, it’s a possible reaction in today’s climate.
That said, I love these kinds of posts. Keep up the good work, Ed!
I've read that Hume objected to causation being certain on the empiricist grounds that causation is not directly perceivable. But neither are other minds. So do empiricists concede on the same grounds that the existence of other minds are just as uncertain as causation?
ReplyDeleteInfamously and perversely Yes they do or rather did. This is why Behaviourism, both philosophical and psychological e.g. Skinner and Watson, was so popular in the era of Logical Positivism--because it was considered the only verifiable and thus "scientific" form of psychology. Let us all take a moment to wonder at the sublime logic of combining Humean phenomenalism, a form of radical first person idealism or solipsism, with a quasi-eliminativist view on minds. . .
DeleteAnik Waldo, in her book "Hume and the Problem of Other Mind", addressed that question.
DeleteI wondered what motivated this line of empiricist line of reasoning. I did some quick research. Is it true that it was motivated by a desire to provide a philosophical basis for a political idea. That idea is that there should be no hierarchy in human affairs.
DeleteIf no one had any innate knowledge and everyone was born as a blank slate and only acquired knowledge through the senses then everyone would be equal. Since everyone is equal there should be no aristocracy or any other form of hierarchy.
The fact that taken to its logical ends led to absurd conclusions produced other systems that led to other absurd conclusions. Did anyone ever consider dropping the original political goal in order to do philosophy? Or would that lead to physical assaults on the philosopher?
@Bmiller,
DeleteI am uncertain as to whether that can be the motivation if only because the Lockean idea of the blank slate and worse the dreadful notion of Imagism which under-girds all the nonsense of Berkley and Hume is pretty standard Aristotle, with the key difference that the great Greek philosopher is clear to distinguish between images/phantasms which he held were particular thoughts and concepts which were universal thoughts. Locke was a a dreadful writer so it's quite probably he was just going on as a moderate nominalist scholastic minus the "logic chopping."
Really if one accepts Descartes primary and secondary quality distinction something like innate knowledge starts to look inevitable (the other option being God literally intervenes to put the qualities which cannot come from the external world directly in the mind of the subject.)
Both Descartes and Locke accepted primary and secondary qualities, right? So the concept was common to both rationalists and empiricists, both rejecting "Aristotelianism".
DeleteLocke wrote that he was originally motivated to start writing the Essay Concerning Human Understanding as a result of a discussion concerning morality and religion, the book that expounds the blank slate theory. But that book also draws a political conclusion from the blank slate that argues against tyranny.
"Nor is it a small power it gives one man over another, to have the authority to be the dictator of principles, and teacher of unquestionable truths... [It] take[s] men off from the use of their own reason and judgment, and put[s] them upon a blind implicit faith... In which posture they might more easily be governed by those who... have the skill to use them."
It's probably no coincidence that he noticed this connection since he was a Whig that opposed the royal tyranny of that time.
Hume is easy to read, unlike other philosophers.
ReplyDeleteHere I think one of the rare weaknesses of Analytical philosophy is allowing Stroud too much wiggle room. One might start to challenge what this unknowable external reality could be, how we could know of it or even what logical sense it would have. At least it might be an unnecessary and confusing postulate at worst a logically incoherent notion. This is exactly what Kant's more consistent disciples did opening the royal road to Idealism.
DeleteA related argument against skepticism about the 'external' world is given in my 'Stroud, Hegel, Heidegger: a Transcendental Argument' 2018 International Journal for the Study of Skepticism.
ReplyDeleteThis was a great post Prof !
ReplyDeleteThe fact that these notions of causality ,necessity and value are inevitable is something that a lot of people questioning them don't even realise.
I think you do a really good work at pointing that out.
Do you happen to know of any 20th century physcists who took the notion of "change" to be fundamental to our understanding of science ?
I know that change is at the heart of your understanding of causality.
The crux of the matter I think is this: Skeptical arguments like Hume's all consist of claims to the effect that things we take to be objectively real (like causality, necessity, and value) are merely subjective, on the grounds that we can't know anything about objective reality, only our subjective experience.
ReplyDeleteBut to say that something is merely subjective is to positively affirm that subjects objectively exist, and really do have the subjective experiences in question, which is a claim about the very objective reality that the skeptic said we couldn't know anything about. To the extent that the skeptic uses logic to argue for his position, he's affirming that logical necessity tells us something about objective reality as well.
Positions like Stroud's do the same thing. To say that we must believe in rules of logic, value, and causality is not just an assertion about subjective experience. It's a claim about how subjects are constructed in objective reality and the rules governing them.
Because skeptical arguments are necessarily claims about objective reality, try as the skeptic may to obscure that fact, retorsion arguments that show the skeptic's position to be incoherent necessarily tell you about objective reality as well.
The same flaw applies to materialist arguments too. To argue that anything reduces to anything else, for instance that A reduces to B, is just to say that only B exists objectively and thst A only seems to exist subjectively because of how we experience B. Hence all reductionist claims entail a positive assertion that subjects objectively exist. Hence when the reductionist argues that subjects themselves reduce to blind mechanisms (and so are not objectively real but only exist subjectively) he's contradicting himself, and that absurdity in his position likewise tells us something about objective reality, namely that subjects do not reduce to something else such as blind mechanisms.
"But to say that something is merely subjective is to positively affirm that subjects objectively exist, and really do have the subjective experiences in question, which is a claim about the very objective reality that the skeptic said we couldn't know anything about."
DeleteAre you sure this is saying anything meaningful?It sounds like you're talking about epistemological subjectivism, in which case I don't see how they'd actually be affected by your claim. Sure, observers (presumably) exist in objective reality, but the mere fact that we exist in the world isn't really a useful or interesting fact about it. Their main point is that we can't access information about it that isn't filtered through our subjective experiences, or in more modern scientific language, a simulated reconstruction of the world created by our brains using data from the senses. I don't see how saying "hah, you admitted that observers objectively exist in the world!" actually does much of anything. At most, that gets you precisely one fact about the outside world, one that's logically implied by the idea that other people exist at all. How does that actually get you close to a workable epistemology? At best, this seems kind of like nitpicking.
"or in more modern scientific language, a simulated reconstruction of the world created by our brains using data from the senses"
DeleteIf we're taking Humean skepticism seriously, the whole idea that we even have brains, and that these brains "use data" to "reconstruct" the world or exercise any causal powers whatsoever (especially teleological ones like forming representations) is one of those things that we can have no grounds for believing.
"At most, that gets you precisely one fact about the outside world, one that's logically implied..."
So two facts (for starters): that subjects objectively exist in the world (or to put it another way, that the world is the sort of thing in which subjects can and do objectively exist), and that logical implications (aka necessity) do in fact tell you things about the world.
I'm not some kind of dedicated or knowledgeable Humean, so I'd prefer not to pretend to have knowledge that I don't. I'm content to leave Hume where he stands, I'm not that invested in his particular philosophy.
DeleteHowever, I'm curious about this other claim you make:
"To argue that anything reduces to anything else, for instance that A reduces to B, is just to say that only B exists objectively and thus A only seems to exist subjectively because of how we experience B."
Even if this were true, it would be insufficient as a response to materialism or naturalism per se. It only addresses *reductionist* materialism, and that's hardly the only form of materialism that exists. One could just as easily say that all things which exist are explainable by natural processes, but that some of those things are emergent properties of material processes rather than simply properties of the materials themselves. After all, the Sun is very hot and bright, and is made of little else but hydrogen and helium atoms. Yet hydrogen and helium atoms are neither hot nor bright. The heat and light is a byproduct/epiphenomenon of the atoms being arranged into a certain shape. Similarly, one could argue that the mind (hence the subject) is an epiphenomenon of neurons being arranged in a certain pattern. Certainly, that would be a simpler explanation of our thoughts, and of why our minds become damaged when our brains are damaged, as opposed to supposing that there is some otherworldly substance located within us that somehow interacts with the brain in precisely such a way as to be diminished when our brains are damaged.
(Part 1)
DeleteAlright, time to jump in! While "reductionism" is one of those terms whose meaning is debated, the way I (and many others) prefer to think about it is that if A reduces to B, then the A-facts logically follow from the B-facts. If you knew all the B-facts (and perhaps a "that's all" clause saying there are no other relevant factors in play), you could derive the A-facts with nothing else needed. So in the Sun example EXE used, the Sun being hot and bright is reducible to facts about its structure and composition, given the laws of physics we have.
Note that this is, of course, entirely compatible with the claim that the heat and light objectively exist! I think what The Deuce might be getting at is our experiences, such as of heat and brightness, but those clearly don't depend on facts about the Sun alone (they also depend on facts about us). Or perhaps the issue is that if complete reductionism in this sense (from the facts about the fundamental physics of the universe, you can logically derive all of the other facts) holds, then "emergence" is not objective, but relative to a subject's knowledge. Someone who doesn't know physics might be shocked that you can get heat and light from hydrogen and helium atoms, but once you learn the relevant physics, it's not a surprise anymore.
So I don't think reductionist materialists are claiming that subjects don't objectively exist (if anything, it's eliminativists who might be claiming that, and if they are, that does seem to lead to the incoherence The Deuce described). The reductionists are claiming that certain systems of "blind mechanisms" just are subjects - that if you knew enough about these mechanisms, all the facts about subjects would logically follow. Now, this is not obviously self-contradictory, because it's not denying the existence of subjects - and as EXE points out, some things can have properties that none of their parts have.
The debate is about whether all the properties of minds, such as consciousness, intentionality, and rationality, can be understood in fully mechanistic terms after all. (There are other things that have been brought up such as unity and personal identity over time, but this blog doesn't focus as much on them, I think.) And many people have argued that they cannot be - some of those arguments have been discussed in previous blog posts. For instance, the "Mary's Room" argument claims that all the physical facts alone are insufficient to derive facts about conscious experience, and the "indeterminacy of the physical" argument (which even some materialists such as Quine and Rosenberg accept - though then they must deny that determinate meaning exists at all), claims that it is impossible to determine with 100% accuracy the meaning of thoughts or words from all the purely physical facts alone.
Of course, these arguments are controversial, but if they are sound, reductionism fails. Now, I think even a failure of reductionism is at least technically compatible with a view of "strong emergence" in which all substances are physical and everything is a product of material processes, but some things have properties that you could not realize existed with full knowledge of the lower-level facts alone. However, claiming that something is "emergent" in this strong sense is not an explanation in the way that a reduction (in the sense I described earlier) is. The heat and light of the Sun are not strongly emergent precisely because there is a logical derivation of their existence, given more basic facts. Now, although this is controversial too, perhaps not everything has an explanation, though many scientists would hope otherwise. So that may not be an insurmountable issue.
(Part 2)
DeleteAnd to finish up - at least specifically in the philosophy of mind, I believe "epiphenomenon" is generally used to refer to something that is an effect of something else but does not cause anything in turn on its own. The light of the Sun is not epiphenomenal in this sense, because its photons, despite being the product of hydrogen and helium atoms, have causal powers that those atoms do not and can affect atoms. But in the philosophy of mind, epiphenomenalism is the view that mental phenomena are caused by physical phenomena but do not in turn cause physical effects.
The problem with epiphenomenalism might be that part of what would have no physical effects is reasoning, so none of our actions are rational, including arguments for epiphenomenalism itself. That indeed seems self-refuting. In fact, part of the motivation for reductive materialism is to avoid epiphenomenalism - mental events can cause physical events if the mental events are themselves physical. Again, the question is whether determinate conceptual content logically follows from the physical facts, which would allow reduction, or not. It's also important to note that even non-materialist views can explain the brain's effects on the mind. For instance, Dr. Feser's A-T view is that for embodied humans, though the intellect is not physical, it requires mental imagery of some sort, which is physical, for it to function. I'm not necessarily saying I accept it, but it does provide an explanation for why brain damage affects the mind. Non-materialism is even consistent with the view that the physical brain is necessary for the mind - without being sufficient for it.
"Similarly, if someone decides to help a friend in distress, that can be simply because he judges such distress to be a good reason to help a friend, rather because some additional factor – his having a desire to help the friend – plays any role in his judgment."
ReplyDeleteBut he will *not* judge such distress to be a good reason to save his friend unless he also holds the desire "I want to protect my friend(s)", or "I want to be the kind of person that saves his friends' lives", or something of the sort. I don't claim to be an expert on Hume, but as far as my brief overview of his views on morality show, that seems to be his entire point. Namely, that merely observing relations of facts or logic cannot by itself move us to action. You can understand clear as day that "if I exercise, I will lose weight", but this will not move you to exercise unless you actually have the desire to lose weight.
Great post and truly clarifying. Perhaps I may add the point here that Humean Psychological reductionism or for that matter any kind of reducing the world to one of its dimensions or abstract aspects (e.g. mathematicism, physicalism, vitalism, historicism) of the special sciences, is in danger of losing sight of Being as the fundamental philosophical concept. As a consequence, all these reductionisms attempt to elevate the special aspect or dimension they have in view to the metaphysical status of replacing Being, or to narrow it to this or that kind of Being. But if all Being is either psychological, or physical, or historical, &c, then it seems to me that the very terms 'psychological', 'physical' or 'historical' lose their original special sense and meaning and become senseless and meaningless by being made universal and all-encompassing.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: can you unpack Being? Does "Being" cash out as more than "existence"? Is it meaningful to say, for example, "there exists an X that is F [put in some property here, even "extension"] but is not G, where G is 'being'"?
DeleteHi Prof
ReplyDeleteIn Scholastic Metaphysics you talk of the causal relationship as a metaphysically necessary relationship between cause and effect.
However in Aristotle's revenge you demarcate the causal relationship between perceptual experiences and external objects from there being a necessary connection between them.
Are you using the term necessary in a different way here ?
Do you mean to say something like, a cause is necessarily related to it's effect but the same effect may be brought about by a different cause ?
Regarding Hume's skepticism: in addition to other points made, I think that he underplays the problems behind the very idea of "constant conjunction". If you see a white billiard ball hit a green one, what makes you "decide" (it's not a conscious decision, certainly) to put that into the same class as the event of a red one striking a yellow one? Or a larger one hitting a smaller one? Or a tennis ball hitting a billiard ball? Or...any OTHER event than a white one of exactly the same size, color, weight, and shine, with exactly the same scuff marks (and other marks) in exactly the same orientation, in exactly the same location, hitting a green one with again the same exact details, in exactly the same direction with the same speed? (A "conjunction" that happens virtually never.) Indeed, why would we so lightly set aside a difference in TIME, i.e. assuming that the event of 2 minutes ago should fit into the same class as this event this moment, to be considered any sort of "conjunction"? There is a boatload of assumptions about what counts as different and what does not, unexplained by Hume's analysis.
ReplyDeleteI am also a bit dismayed, regarding the discussion above, by the lack of precision (at least in some places) in identifying the pertinent interior activities, at some places using "believe" to cover other kinds of interior behavior than "belief" properly. Knowledge and opinion differ from belief. When you state "if p then q, and p, therefore q", the interior action in holding the conclusion isn't "belief", and isn't "opinion", it's "knowledge".
Sensing is a kind of "knowing" (using the term in an extended sense), which provides an input of which you are certain: When I see the red ball, I might be mistaken as to whether there is in fact a red ball, but I am NOT EVER mistaken as to whether "I am experiencing red". Images in the imagination are neither knowledge nor belief: they are not something capable of being true or false, though an asserted relationship between the images and some other thing is capable of being true or false.
Hume may wish to claim that all of the interior acts whereby we assert a truth claim are really belief or opinion, but he has to ALLOW the position that they are not such to be possible, while he makes the argument. And when he makes the argument using truth claims he holds OTHER THAN as belief or opinion, his argument fails.
An open metaphysical question to anyone including Prof
ReplyDeleteIs physics in anyways dependent on the possibility of there being multiple instantiations or objects of the same type , such that if there were no individuals of the same type in principle, physics wouldn't be possible ?
Any thoughts would be appreciated including Prof
Norm, can you elucidate on the placement of the problem here?
DeleteIs there anyone who is arguing that there cannot be multiple instances of the same kind? Are they arguing against the very appearance that there are in fact multiple instantiations? Or merely that our judgment of that appearance is to be accounted as real distinct instantiations of the same kind?
Would the people arguing this urge that there are no living beings that generate new beings, that (like Hume) it's only an appearance of generation?
such that if there were no individuals of the same type in principle, physics wouldn't be possible ?
I can see an argument suggesting that if there were no cases of several individuals of the same type, Aristotelians could have had no good source from which to draw the form-matter distinction. But how would that prevent real bodies from having physical activities according to laws? If God had created the universe as having only one hydrogen atom and one helium atom (and enough space to allow them to move), how would this entail an impossibility of physical behavior according to rules, though there might be difficulty of those rules in such a sparse field of activity?
I don't see the question as a real problem.
Hi Anon
DeleteThanks for your kind engagement.
I would say that the existence multiple instantiations of things is an argument against the mathematical universe hypothesis. On their view there can't be two objects of the dsmee type because the moment they allow that they have to deal with things like plato's third man.
So typically they just try to deny that there are multiple instantiations of the same type.
Since these views typically ground themselves in science, I feel if we show science itself requires there to be multiple instantiations of the same type.
Then we can cut them at the legs.
Which is why I was asking Prof, if he thinks that physics is in anyways dependent on the possibility of there being multiple instantiations or objects of the same type , such that if there were no individuals of the same type in principle, physics wouldn't be possible ?
Would appreciate other engagement as well
Delete@ Anonymous re multiple instances of the same kind: it would depend on how strictly defined is the kind, no? If angels exist, they populate different kinds (thrones, dominions, etc.), but at the species level, each species of angel has only one member.
DeleteIf this makes it easier , I could perhaps specify,
DeleteIs something like theory of relativity dependent on there being multiples instantiations of the same form
Ficino4ml
DeleteGood point !
I am speaking about it in a general sense as in for example if you take the theory of relativity.
So what I asked Prof was
Would it in any way be dependent on there being multiple instantiations of anything
Would appreciate more engagement on the question of June 8
DeleteProf himself made reference to a similar argument while refuting idealism
Delete"If you have two or more stones, for example, then you need, in addition to what they have in common – the form of being stone – something to differentiate them, and that’s what matter does. Different bits of matter instantiate the same form. For the Thomist, then, it makes no sense to say “There are two stones, and neither one is material.” "
For those interested the reason for my doubt is
DeleteIf you have two or more stones, for example, then you need, in addition to what they have in common – the form of being stone – something to differentiate them, and that’s what matter does. Different bits of matter instantiate the same form. For the Thomist, then, it makes no sense to say “There are two stones, and neither one is material.”
But it seems to me that people could effectively dismiss "two or more stones" as an illusion and deny the existence of multiple objects of the same form.
Nor have I seen an argument to the effect that our apprehension of multiple objects of the same form is such an integral part of our experience such that to undermine it would undermine our sensory experience wholesale, Have you ?
Although to be precise
DeleteI am looking for an argument to the effect that our apprehension of multiple objects of the same form is an integral part of our conceptualisations of the theory of relativity.
If anyone knows any Thomistic author apart from Dr Feser who might have touched upon it feels free to share
Sometimes people see long comments and think that the question is long, but that is just because I prefer to do some stage setting before asking the question.
DeleteThe basic question is
Does anyone know of a good argument to the effect that our apprehension of multiple objects of the same form is such an integral part of our experience such that to undermine it would be to undermine our sensory experience wholesale ?
Or do ya'll think that one could still trust our senses even if our apprehension of multiple instances was shown to be an illusion.
Open to everyone including Prof :)
Norm,
DeleteThomists follow Aristotle in that our sense perceptions are reliable. We really see what the light entering our eyes presents to us.
When we see a stick halfway in the water the light reaching our eyes really do make it appear as if the stick is bent even though that is because of different refractive indexes of air and water. We know this because we can physically manipulate the stick and observe how it only appears to bend in the water. So, our senses did not lie, we have just discovered
that light gets refracted in different media.
Similarly If we see multiple objects, we can manipulate them and determine if there really are distinct objects or not. If we cannot manipulate some particular objects because we are far away or something we usually rely on past experience (even though we could still be fooled). If they are something we've had no experience with and cannot manipulate them then we could be wrong in thinking they are actually distinct objects or not.
So if our senses are working properly and our minds are working properly there is no reason to doubt what we see is what we see. If you ask what if we find out that a particular case we think are multiple instances of the same kind turns out to be an illusion, then as in the case of the stick in the water we would have to have a means of determining they were a single object but that too would rely on our senses to make that determination.
Also in case anyone is wondering,
DeleteI am not the first to ponder these questions,
Here is a quote from a book I hold dear, Aristotle's Revenge
"If Parmenides and Zeno were correct, then for one thing, we could not trust our senses, since the senses tell us that change occurs and that there are multiple things. Accordingly, the observational and experimental evidence upon which science rests could not be trusted."
Obviously Prof has hinted at them before but he hasn't expanded
Hence I was wondering if something like there being multiple instantiations of an object is significant enough such that even if science said it was a illusion, we couldn't assent to it because it's something that our senses generally tells us and denying it would undermine the senses.
Hence my question is when does something like there being multiple instantiations of things become crucial to our experience such that it cannot be done away with.
Hi Bmiller
DeleteThanks For Your Kind response!
I am extremely grateful!
I agree with what you say , however unfortunately the thing with scientific theory is that it often tends to undermine aspects of our experience wholesale, and usually it does so based on purely mathematical reasoning derived from their theories, the undermining of the existence of time is a common example.
So your explanation works on a particular example but what if our belief in multiple instantiations of objects is undermines for mathematical reasons
Norm,
DeleteThanks for the example. I assume you are referring to Minkowski space. Maybe treating time as a forth spatial dimension makes it easier to solve some physics problems, but of course we don't experience time as a forth spatial dimension and so it would be absurd to treat it as such. I think that is the point Feser was making regarding Parmenides, not that Parmenides' theory could possibly convince us that what we sense is an illusion. No sane person lives their lives as if there is no change, and any argument they may use to convince you would be self-undermining.
Can you give a similar example of some physics theory that would bring into question the existence of multiple instantiations of the same kind? If I see 2 kittens and then hold them in my arms, I have verified their existence using multiple senses. What in current theoretical physics would deny the existence of 2 kittens. Or do you mean something like nominalism where the category of kitten is just considered a convention and not a real feature of reality?
Hi Bmiller
DeleteThanks for your kind response.
So there are physicists like Max Tegmark, who take reality to be nothing but literal mathematical structure, not just as a manner of description. If that were really the case there cannot be two instantions of an abstract mathematical structure, because then that particular structure would be abstract and concrete at the same time.
Now obviously there can be all sorts of objections to this, for example one can point to the faulty metaphysics of assuming that higher level reality is reducible to lower level reality, which is just a ad hoc assertion on their part, and also make use of aristotelian notions of act and potency and the undeniability of change.
I think these are great approaches and I fully agree with them.
But I think if one could show that the existence of multiple instantions was crucial to the practice science in some way or something like denying such a common facet of our experience would radically undermine the reliability of our senses, it could be a good objection against the mathematical universe hypothesis.
As you can see in the thread above the good professor has indeed made reference to such argument. But I just wish he would expand on it more. As to when some feature of our experience is critical to the reliability of our senses. And also whether he would consider the existence of multiple instantions of the same form as undeniable on pain of undermining our senses even if science concludes that there is no such thing as multiple instantions of the same object.
Unfortunately the effort has been in vain. The good Prof is just too busy.
But I am grateful for this interaction Bmiller. It s really helpful to me !
Norm, It's all Brownian Motion.
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