I took a huge number of metaphysics courses during grad school and, over time, I changed my mind about pretty much everything, other than my dogged commitment to the law of non-contradiction. Then I stayed stuck, because, of course, I eventually landed on the correct answers. I thought the NYTM article on free will was pretty good, but I also no longer find the question very interesting. There are lots of uninteresting metaphysical questions. Here are a few obviously correct metaphysical conclusions not worth thinking that much about (to me).
Free will: The universe is either deterministic or it isn’t. This has nothing to do with free will. We have it. Yes, we often make mistakes in attributing agency to ourselves and others. But often we don’t. It is frequently possible to have done other than what we did in fact do. The trick is understanding the relevant sense of “possible,” which has nothing to do with ultimate issues about the nature of causation.
Ontology: Quine is right. To be is to be the value of a bound variable. That is, if something plays a role in our best explanation of some phenomenon, you should believe it exists. Otherwise, not. God, for instance, is the best explanation for nothing. That’s why you shouldn’t believe in God, or the posits of string theory. (People like Megan who hesitate to call themselves atheists because they cannot “prove” nonexistence are simply confused about ontological commitment. If Megan’s p for “God exists” is so low (“vanishingly unlikely”), then God must play no role in her economy of explanation, which is all there is to being an atheist. You don’t just get to decide whether or not you are one.)
Universals: There are “repeatable” fundamental “kinds”, which explains why there are relations of causal necessity. Realism about universals confuses the semantic generality of concepts for ontological generality. “Instantiation” and “exemplification” relations add nothing useful to property instances (tropes). There are individuals and that’s it. If two are in different locations but it would have made no difference whatsoever to the history of the universe had they been switched, then they are two of a kind. We can have essentialist scientific realism without essences. But it really doesn’t matter much: choosing a particularist or universalist ontology is just a Carnap-style choice of vocabulary. It’s an open question whether the more elegantly parsimonious vocabulary works out better in the work of explanation. It’s probably easier to think like a realist.
Modality: There is exactly one possible world, the actual one. Pace Lewis, more than one possible world is the best explanation for nothing, so that’s that. “Possible” means “not inconsistent with the fundamental laws that govern basic kinds.” Modal statements about fundamental kinds (“gold might have had a different atomic weight”) may be grammatical but are not meaningful. Whereof we cannot speak, etc. Bonus: modal epistemology is just epistemology, and epistemology is the psychology and sociology of truth-tracking. Unless there is reason to think that our haphazardly evolved and organized and imaginative abilities for some bizarre reason happen to reliably track truths about the fundamental laws governing ultimate kinds, it’s hard to see what thought experiments about transparent iron or a molecular duplicate but non-conscious Zombie me are even supposed to be about, much less explain.
Qualia: Yes! They play a computational function. (This is a joke! I don’t know that at all!)
Don’t mean to bore you. It’s all pretty obvious when you just come out and say it like that, huh?
Also, it has come my attention that some readers of this blog find philosophical jargon forbidding. Sorry! But if a man can’t use clubby, exclusive, abstruse jargon on his own blog, where can he? Anyway, if you end up on a game show, and they need the answer to the problem of universals, you’re in luck. OK… Back to hard, interesting stuff, like happiness and inequality.
Thanks for your use of philosophical jargon. We’ve been talking a lot about determinism in the last couple of weeks, so the appearance of the NYT article was fortuitous. But in trying to look into this question, everyone keeps stating vaguely that “philosophers have grappled with this for centuries.” I’m sure that’s true but I’m not sure I understand what they concluded.
Thanks for your use of philosophical jargon. We’ve been talking a lot about determinism in the last couple of weeks, so the appearance of the NYT article was fortuitous. But in trying to look into this question, everyone keeps stating vaguely that “philosophers have grappled with this for centuries.” I’m sure that’s true but I’m not sure I understand what they concluded.
Good to know your ship is well intact. Happy sailing!
Good to know your ship is well intact. Happy sailing!
I’ve also been enjoying your jargon. (I also don’t think that what you have said is at self-evident. Rather, it is thought provoking — for me, at least.)
Regarding Free Will — I think you are saying (or else I’m freely interpreting you as saying) that the question of whether we have free will or not is much less interesting than taking it as a given and then asking what sort of metaphysics will support both a deterministic world and free will.
I’ve also been enjoying your jargon. (I also don’t think that what you have said is at self-evident. Rather, it is thought provoking — for me, at least.)
Regarding Free Will — I think you are saying (or else I’m freely interpreting you as saying) that the question of whether we have free will or not is much less interesting than taking it as a given and then asking what sort of metaphysics will support both a deterministic world and free will.
“then God must play no role in her economy of explanation, which is all there is to being an atheist.”
Wouldn’t that be the definition of agnosticism?
Atheism would be to believe (oh paradoxal) that God does not exist, even if one can not prove that.
“then God must play no role in her economy of explanation, which is all there is to being an atheist.”
Wouldn’t that be the definition of agnosticism?
Atheism would be to believe (oh paradoxal) that God does not exist, even if one can not prove that.
So as you get smarter and more educated, more things become boring. Makes sense, kids get all worked up over really lame lyrics, laugh at jokes that are no longer funny to adults, etc. So education makes you less jovial. But, since education also makes you more powerful, more successful, it makes you happier, and you should prefer more to less knowledge.
So as you get smarter and more educated, more things become boring. Makes sense, kids get all worked up over really lame lyrics, laugh at jokes that are no longer funny to adults, etc. So education makes you less jovial. But, since education also makes you more powerful, more successful, it makes you happier, and you should prefer more to less knowledge.
Oliver-
Only using a standard of “prove” that no sane person ever applies to any topic *except* the existence of God when they’re trying to sound polite and reasonable and avoid tagging themselves as atheists.
Oliver-
Only using a standard of “prove” that no sane person ever applies to any topic *except* the existence of God when they’re trying to sound polite and reasonable and avoid tagging themselves as atheists.
re free will, clearly our actions are determined, in that our brains are governed by the physical laws governing the universe (there’s no magic something that frees us from the constraints of molecular interaction, etc., and even if there is quantum randomness, it still outputs a result that then determines how our neurons fire, etc.). that said, we feel like we have free will/make choices, we cannot predict what people are going to do beforehand with any great accuracy, even if it’s just doing math to arrive at an answer, the math is different for all people, so we have free will for all practical purposes.
(re the conscious-less zombies, that’s one of my pet peeves — all the evidence we have indicates there’s no special consciousness to be explained — we feel the way biological machines with a certain kind of design should feel; someone who wants to talk about conscious-less but otherwise identical to us zombies might as well want to talk about unicorns — there’s no reason to think either exists, or that they have any relevance to whether there’s any particular problem with consciousness.)
re free will, clearly our actions are determined, in that our brains are governed by the physical laws governing the universe (there’s no magic something that frees us from the constraints of molecular interaction, etc., and even if there is quantum randomness, it still outputs a result that then determines how our neurons fire, etc.). that said, we feel like we have free will/make choices, we cannot predict what people are going to do beforehand with any great accuracy, even if it’s just doing math to arrive at an answer, the math is different for all people, so we have free will for all practical purposes.
(re the conscious-less zombies, that’s one of my pet peeves — all the evidence we have indicates there’s no special consciousness to be explained — we feel the way biological machines with a certain kind of design should feel; someone who wants to talk about conscious-less but otherwise identical to us zombies might as well want to talk about unicorns — there’s no reason to think either exists, or that they have any relevance to whether there’s any particular problem with consciousness.)
I’m not sure that that’s so. God may be the best explanation of religious experience. Saying we can watch it happening in the brain doesn’t, IMHO, tell us much; we can also see the effects of people watching sunsets in the brain, but that doesn’t prove the nonexistence of the phenomenon. However, I don’t think I’ve ever had a religious experience, so I can’t judge from my own experience. I also find God a possibly more convincing explanation of Fatima than mass hypnosis, which seems to me to be a thoroughly unsatisfactory explanation of anything. On the other hand, i think it more likely that we’ll continue to fill in the gaps where God has existed.
I don’t particularly mind being called an atheist–I don’t think sticking to agnostic will get me brownie points with the Angel of Death or anything–except that the public representatives of the breed are so unpleasantly evangelical. (Well, and my grandmother would cry if she found out). I want to join the Episcopalians of the atheist movement.
I’m not sure that that’s so. God may be the best explanation of religious experience. Saying we can watch it happening in the brain doesn’t, IMHO, tell us much; we can also see the effects of people watching sunsets in the brain, but that doesn’t prove the nonexistence of the phenomenon. However, I don’t think I’ve ever had a religious experience, so I can’t judge from my own experience. I also find God a possibly more convincing explanation of Fatima than mass hypnosis, which seems to me to be a thoroughly unsatisfactory explanation of anything. On the other hand, i think it more likely that we’ll continue to fill in the gaps where God has existed.
I don’t particularly mind being called an atheist–I don’t think sticking to agnostic will get me brownie points with the Angel of Death or anything–except that the public representatives of the breed are so unpleasantly evangelical. (Well, and my grandmother would cry if she found out). I want to join the Episcopalians of the atheist movement.
Thanks, Will. I prefer to shun metaphysics, but don’t mind watching it get a good whipping, too.
Thanks, Will. I prefer to shun metaphysics, but don’t mind watching it get a good whipping, too.
Jane, Best explanation = highest probability of being right relative to the standards of the most reliable practices of belief formation, i.e., science. Hypotheses for religious experience making reference to mechanisms and kinds already in the catalog of scientific explanation are ipso facto better than ones that introduce fundamentally new, otherwise unecessary, ad hoc ontological kinds. And God isn’t even what you want if you’re going for the best completely arbitrary ad hoc explanation. Rather, you’d want to posit something much simpler, such as “spiritrons,” defined as the entity that causes spiritual experience.
To be an atheist is simply not to be ontologically committed to God in your conception of the world. You aren’t. You are an atheist. It’s OK. You can still hate Dennett.
Jane, Best explanation = highest probability of being right relative to the standards of the most reliable practices of belief formation, i.e., science. Hypotheses for religious experience making reference to mechanisms and kinds already in the catalog of scientific explanation are ipso facto better than ones that introduce fundamentally new, otherwise unecessary, ad hoc ontological kinds. And God isn’t even what you want if you’re going for the best completely arbitrary ad hoc explanation. Rather, you’d want to posit something much simpler, such as “spiritrons,” defined as the entity that causes spiritual experience.
To be an atheist is simply not to be ontologically committed to God in your conception of the world. You aren’t. You are an atheist. It’s OK. You can still hate Dennett.
With a few more iterations through the works of modern metaphysicists we might hit upon a combination of philosophical cant bereft of any consequence whatsoever. Or not.
With a few more iterations through the works of modern metaphysicists we might hit upon a combination of philosophical cant bereft of any consequence whatsoever. Or not.
Will: Isn’t your definition of atheism dependent on your ontological assumptions? If one rejects the notion that something must be the “best explanation” for anything in order to exist, then surely the agnostic/atheist distinction that you’re trying to elide remains very real.
Will: Isn’t your definition of atheism dependent on your ontological assumptions? If one rejects the notion that something must be the “best explanation” for anything in order to exist, then surely the agnostic/atheist distinction that you’re trying to elide remains very real.
John, I am saying that believing something exists just is for that thing to play some role in one’s operative conception of the causal structure of the world. One can reject that this is what it is to believe something exists, but then one would be wrong. It is true that people’s self-conscious attitude may be one of the suspension of judgment. But existence is not a property things either have or not, about which you can wait around to find out whether something has it or not. If one actually uses a concept that represents a putative something in prediction, explanation, inference, intention, etc., that’s all there is to believing in it. If you fail do so, you don’t believe in it. Now, lots of people THINK they believe in God who don’t. The fact that you consciously avow an ontological commitment is not sufficient for having one. You either believe in God or you don’t. The law of excluded middle is unavoidable.
John, I am saying that believing something exists just is for that thing to play some role in one’s operative conception of the causal structure of the world. One can reject that this is what it is to believe something exists, but then one would be wrong. It is true that people’s self-conscious attitude may be one of the suspension of judgment. But existence is not a property things either have or not, about which you can wait around to find out whether something has it or not. If one actually uses a concept that represents a putative something in prediction, explanation, inference, intention, etc., that’s all there is to believing in it. If you fail do so, you don’t believe in it. Now, lots of people THINK they believe in God who don’t. The fact that you consciously avow an ontological commitment is not sufficient for having one. You either believe in God or you don’t. The law of excluded middle is unavoidable.
Will,
I think Isaac Newton had metaphysics all wrapped up in one line: “All is matter in motion”.
There is one conundrum that you do not seem to have addressed though: what is the definition of God? If I, as a Newtonian, define God by saying “the physical universe is the body of God” (a phrase I am lifting from the Upanishads, by the way), that gives you all kinds of implications such as “God exists”, “Nothing but God exists”, “I am a part of God”, “I have an ontological committment to the existence of God”.
… and the realist becomes a true believer, not an atheist at all.
KP
Will,
I think Isaac Newton had metaphysics all wrapped up in one line: “All is matter in motion”.
There is one conundrum that you do not seem to have addressed though: what is the definition of God? If I, as a Newtonian, define God by saying “the physical universe is the body of God” (a phrase I am lifting from the Upanishads, by the way), that gives you all kinds of implications such as “God exists”, “Nothing but God exists”, “I am a part of God”, “I have an ontological committment to the existence of God”.
… and the realist becomes a true believer, not an atheist at all.
KP
I enjoyed the humor you used
my favourites:
“I changed my mind about pretty much everything, other than my dogged commitment to the law of non-contradiction.”
—————
Free will: “We have it.”
Ontology: “You don’t just get to decide whether or not you are one.)”
—————
I enjoyed the humor you used
my favourites:
“I changed my mind about pretty much everything, other than my dogged commitment to the law of non-contradiction.”
—————
Free will: “We have it.”
Ontology: “You don’t just get to decide whether or not you are one.)”
—————
Will: So you’re redefining the word “believe” to mean something that it doesn’t, in common English usage, actually mean, and thus creating an otherwise untelligible category of people who “think they believe” things but really don’t. That’s sophistry, and I’m begining to think you must be at least half-kidding.
To quote the classics:
Dole Office Clerk: Occupation?
Comicus: Stand-up philosopher.
Dole Office Clerk: What?
Comicus: Stand-up philosopher. I coalesce the vapors of human existence into a viable and meaningful comprehension.
Dole Office Clerk: Oh, a bullshit artist!
Will: So you’re redefining the word “believe” to mean something that it doesn’t, in common English usage, actually mean, and thus creating an otherwise untelligible category of people who “think they believe” things but really don’t. That’s sophistry, and I’m begining to think you must be at least half-kidding.
To quote the classics:
Dole Office Clerk: Occupation?
Comicus: Stand-up philosopher.
Dole Office Clerk: What?
Comicus: Stand-up philosopher. I coalesce the vapors of human existence into a viable and meaningful comprehension.
Dole Office Clerk: Oh, a bullshit artist!
Care to explain what you mean by “understanding the relevant sense of ‘possible?’” What sense is relevant, outside of within the law of causation?
Care to explain what you mean by “understanding the relevant sense of ‘possible?’” What sense is relevant, outside of within the law of causation?
I like the idea about accounting for modality via compatibility with the laws. Part of the reason why is that I dislike the common assumption that modal statements require representational structures (e.g. propositions, pictorial structures, concrete words, etc.) to serve as truth-makers. But…
“Modal statements about fundamental kinds (”gold might have had a different atomic weight”) may be grammatical but are not meaningful.”
They’re meaningless? Weird. What about “Necessarily, all red objects are colored” or “Necessarily, I am Alex B.”? Are these meaningful? If so, what laws are involved?
Nice post, anyway. Hope you weren’t too bored writing it.
I like the idea about accounting for modality via compatibility with the laws. Part of the reason why is that I dislike the common assumption that modal statements require representational structures (e.g. propositions, pictorial structures, concrete words, etc.) to serve as truth-makers. But…
“Modal statements about fundamental kinds (”gold might have had a different atomic weight”) may be grammatical but are not meaningful.”
They’re meaningless? Weird. What about “Necessarily, all red objects are colored” or “Necessarily, I am Alex B.”? Are these meaningful? If so, what laws are involved?
Nice post, anyway. Hope you weren’t too bored writing it.
Love the post. I got the same feeling, that most of the questions of metaphysics and epistemology have fairly straightforward answers; but I got that feeling early enough in my education that I only took a couple philosophy courses, and so I can’t follow the jargon to check my answers against yours
So two questions, if you don’t mind:
On free will: my position is that free will is a sort of a mental abstraction—the universe follows causal laws and such, but free will is a description of some of the higher-level interactions. Saying “you don’t have free will, your actions are determined,” is sort of like saying, “that’s not a stool, it’s a collection of protons, neutrons, and electrons.” The second characterization is strictly accurate, but that doesn’t make the first false. Since “who I am” is described by my past history and my choices, the statements “I chose to do X,” “my genetics, biology, and past history led me to be the kind of person who chooses to do X,” and “My genetics, biology, and past history caused me to do X” are all equivalent and express the same idea, just in different manners. Is this sort of like what you’re saying? Sounds like it might be, but I’m not sure.
Ontology: you begin with the statement, “to be is to be the value of a bound variable,” but the rest of your paragraph talks about when you should “believe” something exists. Do you think these beliefs can be true or false—that they describe an underlying reality of what actually exists—or that they’re just collections of stories we tell to explain our experiences, but aren’t really true or false? I basically side with Rorty, who was influenced by Quine, on this one: asking what the universe is really like, or what really exists, is pretty futile. We tell different stories, and argue about which ones hold together better or are more useful for our lives, but saying that one of them is really true is pointless.
Love the post. I got the same feeling, that most of the questions of metaphysics and epistemology have fairly straightforward answers; but I got that feeling early enough in my education that I only took a couple philosophy courses, and so I can’t follow the jargon to check my answers against yours
So two questions, if you don’t mind:
On free will: my position is that free will is a sort of a mental abstraction—the universe follows causal laws and such, but free will is a description of some of the higher-level interactions. Saying “you don’t have free will, your actions are determined,” is sort of like saying, “that’s not a stool, it’s a collection of protons, neutrons, and electrons.” The second characterization is strictly accurate, but that doesn’t make the first false. Since “who I am” is described by my past history and my choices, the statements “I chose to do X,” “my genetics, biology, and past history led me to be the kind of person who chooses to do X,” and “My genetics, biology, and past history caused me to do X” are all equivalent and express the same idea, just in different manners. Is this sort of like what you’re saying? Sounds like it might be, but I’m not sure.
Ontology: you begin with the statement, “to be is to be the value of a bound variable,” but the rest of your paragraph talks about when you should “believe” something exists. Do you think these beliefs can be true or false—that they describe an underlying reality of what actually exists—or that they’re just collections of stories we tell to explain our experiences, but aren’t really true or false? I basically side with Rorty, who was influenced by Quine, on this one: asking what the universe is really like, or what really exists, is pretty futile. We tell different stories, and argue about which ones hold together better or are more useful for our lives, but saying that one of them is really true is pointless.
I found this very interesting: “That is, if something plays a role in our best explanation of some phenomenon, you should believe it exists.” There’s something a little tricky about this. What is this “our best explanation”?
Is “our” = “the scientific community”? Should one’s belief rest on a consensus opinion of a collection of scientists? But scientists are just people — their consensus opinion changes over time, is subject to the vagaries of history, chance, and social pressure, and in many, many cases, there is no consensus yet. Plus, a large proportion of today’s scientific theories are bound to be largely incomplete, if not downright wrong. And anyway, the scientific method exhorts one to cultivate an attitude of *doubt*, not an attitude of belief.
Finally, of course, science is simply not very good at establishing beliefs about non-replicable experiences. Perhaps I told you I saw a fairy in my garden the other night. A scientist would naturally suspend belief until the experience had been replicated, preferably with some kind of recording devices present. But fairies are capricious creatures, and it’s often hard to get them to cooperate. Even if fairies “really do” exist, they will, by nature, never sit still and allow scientists to do experiments on them. So should I trust the scientific consensus on something that cannot be experimented on, or should I trust my own eyes?
I found this very interesting: “That is, if something plays a role in our best explanation of some phenomenon, you should believe it exists.” There’s something a little tricky about this. What is this “our best explanation”?
Is “our” = “the scientific community”? Should one’s belief rest on a consensus opinion of a collection of scientists? But scientists are just people — their consensus opinion changes over time, is subject to the vagaries of history, chance, and social pressure, and in many, many cases, there is no consensus yet. Plus, a large proportion of today’s scientific theories are bound to be largely incomplete, if not downright wrong. And anyway, the scientific method exhorts one to cultivate an attitude of *doubt*, not an attitude of belief.
Finally, of course, science is simply not very good at establishing beliefs about non-replicable experiences. Perhaps I told you I saw a fairy in my garden the other night. A scientist would naturally suspend belief until the experience had been replicated, preferably with some kind of recording devices present. But fairies are capricious creatures, and it’s often hard to get them to cooperate. Even if fairies “really do” exist, they will, by nature, never sit still and allow scientists to do experiments on them. So should I trust the scientific consensus on something that cannot be experimented on, or should I trust my own eyes?
John Tabin: It’s not clear what’s especially problematic about thinking there is such a class of people who ‘think they believe’ things but really don’t. If belief is in some sense a propositional attitute that is answerable to the world (i.e. a belief that p should disappear in light of a perception that not p), then those attitudes toward propositions that are insulated from such answerability might not properly deserve to be called beliefs. For example, there is a rational requirement that if one believes p and one believes that p -> q, then one will believe q. However, the argument p -> q, p, therefore q, does not end in ‘i believe q’ but rather, simply, q. If one does not accept q after having accepted that such an argument is valid, then we cannot allow it to be said that he believes that p.
More simply, there is no special problem about people thinking they want some things when they actually don’t. I can’t find a reason to suspect the case should be any different concerning beliefs.
John Tabin: It’s not clear what’s especially problematic about thinking there is such a class of people who ‘think they believe’ things but really don’t. If belief is in some sense a propositional attitute that is answerable to the world (i.e. a belief that p should disappear in light of a perception that not p), then those attitudes toward propositions that are insulated from such answerability might not properly deserve to be called beliefs. For example, there is a rational requirement that if one believes p and one believes that p -> q, then one will believe q. However, the argument p -> q, p, therefore q, does not end in ‘i believe q’ but rather, simply, q. If one does not accept q after having accepted that such an argument is valid, then we cannot allow it to be said that he believes that p.
More simply, there is no special problem about people thinking they want some things when they actually don’t. I can’t find a reason to suspect the case should be any different concerning beliefs.
Super! I’m going to have this printed up on a t-shirt. I will never have to argue metaphysics again, except as a way to pass the time once I’m too old for more robust pleasures.
Super! I’m going to have this printed up on a t-shirt. I will never have to argue metaphysics again, except as a way to pass the time once I’m too old for more robust pleasures.
Will, it seems to me that you’ve skipped over the most pressing problem in ontology, namely, the question of what is “existence”?. (Most of what you have written under that category seems closer to epistemology, as Jadagul noted. Though I fully agree with you on the atheism point.)
I discuss a deflationary view of ontology here. [Intro: "We all have an intuitive grasp of what it is for entities to exist. My parents exist whereas Santa doesn't, and all that. But what of abstract objects? When philosophers argue about whether numbers truly exist, what is in dispute here? Even ontological debates about material entities seem dubious: does there exist an individual entity which is a table, or are there merely particles arranged table-wise? What's the difference? These don't seem to be debates about how the world is. Everyone agrees that there is table-ish stuff in the world. They merely dispute how to count or describe it..."] I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.
Will, it seems to me that you’ve skipped over the most pressing problem in ontology, namely, the question of what is “existence”?. (Most of what you have written under that category seems closer to epistemology, as Jadagul noted. Though I fully agree with you on the atheism point.)
I discuss a deflationary view of ontology here. [Intro: "We all have an intuitive grasp of what it is for entities to exist. My parents exist whereas Santa doesn't, and all that. But what of abstract objects? When philosophers argue about whether numbers truly exist, what is in dispute here? Even ontological debates about material entities seem dubious: does there exist an individual entity which is a table, or are there merely particles arranged table-wise? What's the difference? These don't seem to be debates about how the world is. Everyone agrees that there is table-ish stuff in the world. They merely dispute how to count or describe it..."] I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.
Matt — I’m guessing he means a kind of epistemic possibility, i.e. at least no one else can know in advance that you weren’t going to do otherwise. It “could” have happened for all anyone could know. (Consider: even in a deterministic universe, one can assign statistical probabilities, and flip a “fair” coin, etc. There’s a 50% epistemic chance of tails, even if it is causally determined to land heads.) Of course, it’s certainly debatable whether this form of possibility is sufficient for genuine choice, moral responsibility, and all that stuff we care about.
Jeff – is the mere fact that someone had a visual experience as of fairies really sufficient reason to accept that they exist? Or, given our background knowledge, should we instead think it more likely that they were hallucinating? Assuming the latter, I argue here that this is also what the person themselves should conclude.
Matt — I’m guessing he means a kind of epistemic possibility, i.e. at least no one else can know in advance that you weren’t going to do otherwise. It “could” have happened for all anyone could know. (Consider: even in a deterministic universe, one can assign statistical probabilities, and flip a “fair” coin, etc. There’s a 50% epistemic chance of tails, even if it is causally determined to land heads.) Of course, it’s certainly debatable whether this form of possibility is sufficient for genuine choice, moral responsibility, and all that stuff we care about.
Jeff – is the mere fact that someone had a visual experience as of fairies really sufficient reason to accept that they exist? Or, given our background knowledge, should we instead think it more likely that they were hallucinating? Assuming the latter, I argue here that this is also what the person themselves should conclude.
Richard, thanks for your reply! Your argumentation is quite clear. I wonder, though, why our hypothetical fairy-watcher should trust an amorphous concept like “scientific consensus” (or even “background knowledge” or “everybody knows that…”) rather than visual experience. Is it simply because the latter is a social construct — an opinion created by many people with lots of give-and-take? Why is that necessarily a better guide to truth? Certainly people sometimes hallucinate and dream; but equally as certainly, communities of people sometimes believe mad things.
Richard, thanks for your reply! Your argumentation is quite clear. I wonder, though, why our hypothetical fairy-watcher should trust an amorphous concept like “scientific consensus” (or even “background knowledge” or “everybody knows that…”) rather than visual experience. Is it simply because the latter is a social construct — an opinion created by many people with lots of give-and-take? Why is that necessarily a better guide to truth? Certainly people sometimes hallucinate and dream; but equally as certainly, communities of people sometimes believe mad things.
True, I wouldn’t recommend blindly deferring to others, either. Coherentism plausibly suggests that justification arises from relations of coherence and mutual support within our whole “web of beliefs”. In short, I shouldn’t believe in fairies because that doesn’t cohere so well with everything else I understand about the natural world. My resulting worldview is more coherent if I instead believe the experience to be merely hallucinated. (But we might imagine someone in very different circumstances for whom the opposite might be true.)
If the scientific community reached an apparently mad consensus, I guess it would raise the following question: which is more likely, that the bizarre claim is true, or that the scientists are all deluded? I grant that there may be (at least hypothetical) situations in which the latter conclusion would be the most reasonable.
True, I wouldn’t recommend blindly deferring to others, either. Coherentism plausibly suggests that justification arises from relations of coherence and mutual support within our whole “web of beliefs”. In short, I shouldn’t believe in fairies because that doesn’t cohere so well with everything else I understand about the natural world. My resulting worldview is more coherent if I instead believe the experience to be merely hallucinated. (But we might imagine someone in very different circumstances for whom the opposite might be true.)
If the scientific community reached an apparently mad consensus, I guess it would raise the following question: which is more likely, that the bizarre claim is true, or that the scientists are all deluded? I grant that there may be (at least hypothetical) situations in which the latter conclusion would be the most reasonable.
Just so you know God exists. Your premise that God is not the “best explanation” for anything is partly right but mostly wrong as wrong can be. God is the best primary explanation for everything .
However, if we want to study the natural world, we use science to do so. Science provides us secondary explanations for things in our natural world, but it does so partly by observing cause-effect relationships in said world. In effect, there is a presumption that things in our world must follow a certain rules. It is this presumption that makes science work. And science works quite well when we restrict our study to things in that natural world.
God, however, is not subject to any of the rules of nature, not one. That is why you cannot use the study of nature to prove or disprove the existence of God. It is also one reason why God is a different from other things in which we choose to believe or disbelieve.
Just so you know God exists. Your premise that God is not the “best explanation” for anything is partly right but mostly wrong as wrong can be. God is the best primary explanation for everything .
However, if we want to study the natural world, we use science to do so. Science provides us secondary explanations for things in our natural world, but it does so partly by observing cause-effect relationships in said world. In effect, there is a presumption that things in our world must follow a certain rules. It is this presumption that makes science work. And science works quite well when we restrict our study to things in that natural world.
God, however, is not subject to any of the rules of nature, not one. That is why you cannot use the study of nature to prove or disprove the existence of God. It is also one reason why God is a different from other things in which we choose to believe or disbelieve.
Will,
I’d love to believe in your anti-platonism about universals. But I haven’t yet seen an argument that justifies a belief in it. Then again, I haven’t looked as hard as I should have. (I hate abstract objects, and I would LOVE to hear a great argument against platonism of all kinds.)
Your claim about there being only one kind of possibility isn’t easy for me to believe either. It’s difficult for me to shake the idea that talk about possible worlds is useful for helping us understand our concepts and/or the meanings of our words. Of course. that doesn’t mean that there are other possible worlds. But it might mean that there is another kind of possibility than the one you think is real.
Cool post.
Will,
I’d love to believe in your anti-platonism about universals. But I haven’t yet seen an argument that justifies a belief in it. Then again, I haven’t looked as hard as I should have. (I hate abstract objects, and I would LOVE to hear a great argument against platonism of all kinds.)
Your claim about there being only one kind of possibility isn’t easy for me to believe either. It’s difficult for me to shake the idea that talk about possible worlds is useful for helping us understand our concepts and/or the meanings of our words. Of course. that doesn’t mean that there are other possible worlds. But it might mean that there is another kind of possibility than the one you think is real.
Cool post.
Richard, I like what you’re saying about “coherence”. It seems to fit with Will’s commitment to having no contradictions in his belief system (which led him away from Christianity, if I’m remembering some of his earlier blog posts aright). But there are issues with this approach as well. “GOD DID IT” is a perfectly coherent way to explain everything you see, but that doesn’t mean it’s true.
Conversely, the body of scientific knowledge we have is relatively coherent now (setting aside, e.g., the clash between quantum mechanics and relativity), but that certainly hasn’t always been the case. Maybe something like *predictive power* is what we want: a proposition is likely to be true if it helps you predict future events. But then we’re back to the reproducibility problem again, aren’t we? 
Richard, I like what you’re saying about “coherence”. It seems to fit with Will’s commitment to having no contradictions in his belief system (which led him away from Christianity, if I’m remembering some of his earlier blog posts aright). But there are issues with this approach as well. “GOD DID IT” is a perfectly coherent way to explain everything you see, but that doesn’t mean it’s true.
Conversely, the body of scientific knowledge we have is relatively coherent now (setting aside, e.g., the clash between quantum mechanics and relativity), but that certainly hasn’t always been the case. Maybe something like *predictive power* is what we want: a proposition is likely to be true if it helps you predict future events. But then we’re back to the reproducibility problem again, aren’t we? 
>
I’m now thinking that what you meant was “atomic number”, since that is what defines a gold atom.
>
I’m now thinking that what you meant was “atomic number”, since that is what defines a gold atom.
Why is it that Christians call anyone who does not claim to have a deductive disproof of God “agnostic”, all the while NOT calling those who cannot furnish deductive proofs of this God’s existence by the same label – “agnostic”? I can see no other reason than hypocricy.
Why is it that Christians call anyone who does not claim to have a deductive disproof of God “agnostic”, all the while NOT calling those who cannot furnish deductive proofs of this God’s existence by the same label – “agnostic”? I can see no other reason than hypocricy.
km: Is there really no problem with saying people think they want things they actually don’t, if you’re speaking literally (as opposed to metaphorically describing the phenomenom of self-deception)? I’m not so sure. In any case, a belief doesn’t need to be “answerable to the world” any more than any other thought does.
km: Is there really no problem with saying people think they want things they actually don’t, if you’re speaking literally (as opposed to metaphorically describing the phenomenom of self-deception)? I’m not so sure. In any case, a belief doesn’t need to be “answerable to the world” any more than any other thought does.
As to Jane Galt’s statement above (science will contiunue to fill the in the gaps for which we used to posit God as the explanation), consider the following from Stanley Jaki — from one of his books of essays, the eponymously titled essay “The Limits of a Limitless Science.”
(It might bear mentioning, that Jaki — a physicist and leading historian of science — holds two Ph.D.’s, one in physics (written under Victor Hess, the nobel laureate discoverer of cosmic rays), the other in theology).
To wit:
“It would be a mistake to assume that science finds new entities in the ontological sense. Science merely uncovers new aspects in the vast gamut of material existence. Were it otherwise, one would endorse the Platonic fallacy that it is the quantitative properties that give existence to material entities. Moreover, were such the case, nothing would exist that cannot be given a quantitative formulation. In that case, such words as conscience, free will, purpose, moral responsibility, to say nothing of the soul, would be so many empty words, standing for anthropomorphic illusions. But, there would be no scientists who would investigate things freely and be conscious of the fact they are investigating.
The distinctness between quantitative and non-quantitative (qualitative) realms of knowledge is not a starting point for human knowledge. Sensory knowledge begins with the registering of external reality, or ‘things’ in short. This is true eventhough what is most directly perceived in things is their size. This is why the category of quantities holds first place among all categories [cf. Aristotle, Categories, 16a]. Sensible qualities cannot be understood unless quantity is presupposed and neither can we understand something to be the subject of motion unless we understand it to possess quantity. Quantities do not admit analogical degrees of understanding. This constitutes their radical difference from other categories and even from substance and existence. The inseperability of quantities from matter justifies the quantitative character of the scientific method. Compared with it, all other considerations about science are of secondary importance.
As to Jane Galt’s statement above (science will contiunue to fill the in the gaps for which we used to posit God as the explanation), consider the following from Stanley Jaki — from one of his books of essays, the eponymously titled essay “The Limits of a Limitless Science.”
(It might bear mentioning, that Jaki — a physicist and leading historian of science — holds two Ph.D.’s, one in physics (written under Victor Hess, the nobel laureate discoverer of cosmic rays), the other in theology).
To wit:
“It would be a mistake to assume that science finds new entities in the ontological sense. Science merely uncovers new aspects in the vast gamut of material existence. Were it otherwise, one would endorse the Platonic fallacy that it is the quantitative properties that give existence to material entities. Moreover, were such the case, nothing would exist that cannot be given a quantitative formulation. In that case, such words as conscience, free will, purpose, moral responsibility, to say nothing of the soul, would be so many empty words, standing for anthropomorphic illusions. But, there would be no scientists who would investigate things freely and be conscious of the fact they are investigating.
The distinctness between quantitative and non-quantitative (qualitative) realms of knowledge is not a starting point for human knowledge. Sensory knowledge begins with the registering of external reality, or ‘things’ in short. This is true eventhough what is most directly perceived in things is their size. This is why the category of quantities holds first place among all categories [cf. Aristotle, Categories, 16a]. Sensible qualities cannot be understood unless quantity is presupposed and neither can we understand something to be the subject of motion unless we understand it to possess quantity. Quantities do not admit analogical degrees of understanding. This constitutes their radical difference from other categories and even from substance and existence. The inseperability of quantities from matter justifies the quantitative character of the scientific method. Compared with it, all other considerations about science are of secondary importance.
Thanks for settling all those difficult questions once and for all. When I woke up this morning, I had no idea that I was about to finally understand the universe. I guess I can sell all my books now.
Thanks for settling all those difficult questions once and for all. When I woke up this morning, I had no idea that I was about to finally understand the universe. I guess I can sell all my books now.
Dan, You’re welcome!
Dan, You’re welcome!
“Metaphysics is Boring When You Know the Answers”
I like the title, it ‘dares’ me to read on.
“Free will: The universe is either deterministic or it isn’t. This has nothing to do with free will. We have it. [...] It is frequently possible to have done other than what we did in fact do. The trick is understanding the relevant sense of “possible,” which has nothing to do with ultimate issues about the nature of causation.”
I can’t do other than what I did. I can turn left or I can turn right or I can get out of my car and take a nap in the middle of the road, but I have to choose one, and by making a choice I have to choose NOT to do all the others; and NOT choosing to do something is as much of a choice as doing it.
“Ontology: Quine is right. To be is to be the value of a bound variable. That is, if something plays a role in our best explanation of some phenomenon, you should believe it exists.”
“To be is to be…” a tautology. (fun with words!)
Knowledge is not static (especially scientific knowledge). Ethics are not static. Moral agency is not static. Why should God be static?
If we exist as bound variables, what’s to stop “God” from being the set of all values for x?
“Modality: There is exactly one possible world, the actual one.”
Donald Trump: “Free-Will, you’re fired!”
“[I]f a man can’t use clubby, exclusive, abstruse jargon on his own blog, where can he?”
Heck yes. Viva la blogs.
“Metaphysics is Boring When You Know the Answers”
I like the title, it ‘dares’ me to read on.
“Free will: The universe is either deterministic or it isn’t. This has nothing to do with free will. We have it. [...] It is frequently possible to have done other than what we did in fact do. The trick is understanding the relevant sense of “possible,” which has nothing to do with ultimate issues about the nature of causation.”
I can’t do other than what I did. I can turn left or I can turn right or I can get out of my car and take a nap in the middle of the road, but I have to choose one, and by making a choice I have to choose NOT to do all the others; and NOT choosing to do something is as much of a choice as doing it.
“Ontology: Quine is right. To be is to be the value of a bound variable. That is, if something plays a role in our best explanation of some phenomenon, you should believe it exists.”
“To be is to be…” a tautology. (fun with words!)
Knowledge is not static (especially scientific knowledge). Ethics are not static. Moral agency is not static. Why should God be static?
If we exist as bound variables, what’s to stop “God” from being the set of all values for x?
“Modality: There is exactly one possible world, the actual one.”
Donald Trump: “Free-Will, you’re fired!”
“[I]f a man can’t use clubby, exclusive, abstruse jargon on his own blog, where can he?”
Heck yes. Viva la blogs.
“The universe is either deterministic or it isn’t. This has nothing to do with free will. We have it.”
I agree that we have free will.
But where does our free will come from? If I can choose to do A or B, and my choice isn’t determined simply by the current state of my brain, or by some simply random process inside my brain, then there has to be something acting outside the realm of nature to allow “me” to “choose.” That there is something outside of nature allowing me to have free will wouldn’t prove the existence of God, but it would prove that everything we see in “nature” is not everything that exists.
I saw an argument similar to this somewhere else. The author said that we give natural laws too much credit, and turn them into God. He thought it was perfectly non contradictory to say that everything followed natural law, and that our choices aren’t predetermined by natural law. But it seems to me that either all of you is completely subject to natural law, including that which supposedly gives you free will–or it’s not.
I think it is a contradiction to believe in “free will” and also to believe that everything, including us, always precisely follow deterministic natural laws (even including natural laws which involve random probability–a random event involves no choice by us).
Now an aside. I am not that knowledgeable about philosophy, which probably shows in my previous discussion. However, it seems to me that something I read at one time must absolutely be true. The statement “the only things which exist are the things we can observe directly or indirectly with our senses” is a self-stultifying statement. There is nothing you can observe with your senses that will prove that there is nothing you cannot observe with your senses. It is simply impossible to claim, with certainty, that the natural world observed with our senses is all there is.
“The universe is either deterministic or it isn’t. This has nothing to do with free will. We have it.”
I agree that we have free will.
But where does our free will come from? If I can choose to do A or B, and my choice isn’t determined simply by the current state of my brain, or by some simply random process inside my brain, then there has to be something acting outside the realm of nature to allow “me” to “choose.” That there is something outside of nature allowing me to have free will wouldn’t prove the existence of God, but it would prove that everything we see in “nature” is not everything that exists.
I saw an argument similar to this somewhere else. The author said that we give natural laws too much credit, and turn them into God. He thought it was perfectly non contradictory to say that everything followed natural law, and that our choices aren’t predetermined by natural law. But it seems to me that either all of you is completely subject to natural law, including that which supposedly gives you free will–or it’s not.
I think it is a contradiction to believe in “free will” and also to believe that everything, including us, always precisely follow deterministic natural laws (even including natural laws which involve random probability–a random event involves no choice by us).
Now an aside. I am not that knowledgeable about philosophy, which probably shows in my previous discussion. However, it seems to me that something I read at one time must absolutely be true. The statement “the only things which exist are the things we can observe directly or indirectly with our senses” is a self-stultifying statement. There is nothing you can observe with your senses that will prove that there is nothing you cannot observe with your senses. It is simply impossible to claim, with certainty, that the natural world observed with our senses is all there is.
Jeff Mauldin said:
“It is simply impossible to claim, with certainty, that the natural world observed with our senses is all there is.”
First of all, we don’t ever claim “with certainty” even the things we can observe. Empirical claims are necessarily probabilistic, not deductive proofs.
But my real point (and Will would probably agree with me) is that what you cannot observe isn’t very interesting! It might be true that something “exists” beyond our ability to observe it, but that what difference does its existence make to us, as observers?
This is exactly what Will was getting at when he said:
“That is, if something plays a role in our best explanation of some phenomenon, you should believe it exists. Otherwise, not.”
So it is perfectly correct to claim that an entity does not exist, if we can’t observe it (e.g. “the natural world is all there is”).
Also, there is the matter of burden of proof. The naturalist has no obligation to prove that nature is all there is. It’s up to the non-naturalist to adduce evidence for the claim that nature is not all there is.
(Of course, how he would be able to adduce such evidence is another matter. What would evidence of a non-natural entity look like, if it’s not observable??? Good luck with that…)
Jeff Mauldin said:
“It is simply impossible to claim, with certainty, that the natural world observed with our senses is all there is.”
First of all, we don’t ever claim “with certainty” even the things we can observe. Empirical claims are necessarily probabilistic, not deductive proofs.
But my real point (and Will would probably agree with me) is that what you cannot observe isn’t very interesting! It might be true that something “exists” beyond our ability to observe it, but that what difference does its existence make to us, as observers?
This is exactly what Will was getting at when he said:
“That is, if something plays a role in our best explanation of some phenomenon, you should believe it exists. Otherwise, not.”
So it is perfectly correct to claim that an entity does not exist, if we can’t observe it (e.g. “the natural world is all there is”).
Also, there is the matter of burden of proof. The naturalist has no obligation to prove that nature is all there is. It’s up to the non-naturalist to adduce evidence for the claim that nature is not all there is.
(Of course, how he would be able to adduce such evidence is another matter. What would evidence of a non-natural entity look like, if it’s not observable??? Good luck with that…)
Matthew Hearney makes some excellent points:
“First of all, we don’t ever claim “with certainty” even the things we can observe. Empirical claims are necessarily probabilistic, not deductive proofs.”
“It might be true that something “exists” beyond our ability to observe it, but [then] what difference does its existence make to us, as observers?”
I think we apparently agree that there can’t be certainty that there is nothing outside what we might call the material world or the realm of pure naturalism.
So, what do we do? Exactly what we’ve done throughout history. If we observe events in the natural world which cannot be explained by the mechanical operation of natural laws, that constitutes proof of something operating outside those natural laws. So if we observe something non natural, that is the extra-natural intruding on the natural world. Then there is something more than the material world, and it sometimes affects the material world.
The existence of nature itself, the existence of life, the existence of intelligent life, and our apparent free will are some possible candidates for things which we observe which we can, at least arguably, say are not the result of the mechanical operation of natural laws. Then there are the cases of historical events which observers claim to have experienced things which contravene the mechanical operation of natural laws.
Since we cannot with certainty rule out the existence of something outside of nature, we can’t start with the position that everything happens as the result of the mechanical operation of natural laws, and then use this position to discard any evidence to the contrary simply because we hold that position. We can certainly have the debate–we can, for example, argue that life evolved by chance or that it must have been created by a force outside nature, or that it makes more sense to believe a certain naturalistic explanation of what observers saw (or that observers were wrong or lied) or that it makes more sense to believe a “super natural” explanation. But one side of the debate can’t claim victory simply because it holds to pure materialism to begin with–we’ve already seen that there is no a priori reason to hold to pure materialism.
Considering a few more of Matthew Heaney’s points:
(from Will)
“That is, if something plays a role in our best explanation of some phenomenon, you should believe it exists. Otherwise, not.”
I agree. But, as I’ve pointed out, you can’t discard the “extra natural” as playing a role in our best explanation. If you being with the assumption that all there is is the material world, the extra natural can never play a role in the best explanation, no matter how outlandish the best explanation is without the extra natural. But, as I’ve tried to argue, you can’t discard the possibility of something outside the material world a priori, so you have to consider whether something “extra natural” plays a role in the best explanation.
“Also, there is the matter of burden of proof. The naturalist has no obligation to prove that nature is all there is. It’s up to the non-naturalist to adduce evidence for the claim that nature is not all there is.”
I think I simply disagree with this point. Philosophically, I think, the naturalist has no superior claim to the truth. Since we have nature at all, it seems to me just as valid to say that the naturalist has the burden of proof to show how nature came into being without something outside of nature. But even without that kind of “first mover” argument, I don’t see any special status for a naturalism from a purely philosophic point of view. If it has a special status, it derives from the fact that everyone can see and feel and hear things for themselves–but then we’re back to our previous discussion about how the extra natural would intrude on the natural world and how we’d experience that with our senses.
Matthew Hearney makes some excellent points:
“First of all, we don’t ever claim “with certainty” even the things we can observe. Empirical claims are necessarily probabilistic, not deductive proofs.”
“It might be true that something “exists” beyond our ability to observe it, but [then] what difference does its existence make to us, as observers?”
I think we apparently agree that there can’t be certainty that there is nothing outside what we might call the material world or the realm of pure naturalism.
So, what do we do? Exactly what we’ve done throughout history. If we observe events in the natural world which cannot be explained by the mechanical operation of natural laws, that constitutes proof of something operating outside those natural laws. So if we observe something non natural, that is the extra-natural intruding on the natural world. Then there is something more than the material world, and it sometimes affects the material world.
The existence of nature itself, the existence of life, the existence of intelligent life, and our apparent free will are some possible candidates for things which we observe which we can, at least arguably, say are not the result of the mechanical operation of natural laws. Then there are the cases of historical events which observers claim to have experienced things which contravene the mechanical operation of natural laws.
Since we cannot with certainty rule out the existence of something outside of nature, we can’t start with the position that everything happens as the result of the mechanical operation of natural laws, and then use this position to discard any evidence to the contrary simply because we hold that position. We can certainly have the debate–we can, for example, argue that life evolved by chance or that it must have been created by a force outside nature, or that it makes more sense to believe a certain naturalistic explanation of what observers saw (or that observers were wrong or lied) or that it makes more sense to believe a “super natural” explanation. But one side of the debate can’t claim victory simply because it holds to pure materialism to begin with–we’ve already seen that there is no a priori reason to hold to pure materialism.
Considering a few more of Matthew Heaney’s points:
(from Will)
“That is, if something plays a role in our best explanation of some phenomenon, you should believe it exists. Otherwise, not.”
I agree. But, as I’ve pointed out, you can’t discard the “extra natural” as playing a role in our best explanation. If you being with the assumption that all there is is the material world, the extra natural can never play a role in the best explanation, no matter how outlandish the best explanation is without the extra natural. But, as I’ve tried to argue, you can’t discard the possibility of something outside the material world a priori, so you have to consider whether something “extra natural” plays a role in the best explanation.
“Also, there is the matter of burden of proof. The naturalist has no obligation to prove that nature is all there is. It’s up to the non-naturalist to adduce evidence for the claim that nature is not all there is.”
I think I simply disagree with this point. Philosophically, I think, the naturalist has no superior claim to the truth. Since we have nature at all, it seems to me just as valid to say that the naturalist has the burden of proof to show how nature came into being without something outside of nature. But even without that kind of “first mover” argument, I don’t see any special status for a naturalism from a purely philosophic point of view. If it has a special status, it derives from the fact that everyone can see and feel and hear things for themselves–but then we’re back to our previous discussion about how the extra natural would intrude on the natural world and how we’d experience that with our senses.
To be
The Appearance Is
Matter
Consciousness
Movement.
The consciousness is
Feeling,
growth,
Perception,displacement,
Appearance,communication.
Conscious is.
To be
The Appearance Is
Matter
Consciousness
Movement.
The consciousness is
Feeling,
growth,
Perception,displacement,
Appearance,communication.
Conscious is.
wow! like that pal I’m going to have this printed up on a t-shirt so ! .
wow! like that pal I’m going to have this printed up on a t-shirt so ! .
Quality
Cheers to m-jayz for leading me back here!
Qualia: Yes! They play a computational function.
Don't say that out loud. Daniel Dennett will appear and destroy you.
“The universe is either deterministic or it isn’t. This has nothing to do with free will. We have it.”
This is correct, except for the third sentence, which should read “We have it, as long as you redefine it as consisting of properties we have.” Preserving a folk concept like 'free will' and recasting it as “reasons responsiveness” (or whatever) in order to confirm that actually, we do have free will seems like the epitome of a pointless equivocation. (Cf. “We have free markets; it's just that they're centrally planned.”)
“To be is to be the value of a bound variable.”
No. To be a justified existential postulate is to be the value of a bound variable. (Cf. your subsequent musings about epistemology.)
“Modal statements about fundamental kinds (”gold might have had a different atomic weight”) may be grammatical but are not meaningful.”
Only if we insist on reading it in terms of the Kripkean construction that gold necessarily has the atomic weight that it does. (Again, cf. your remarks on epistemology.)
Who said we know the answers?
Thanks for the info. May God have mercy on us all.
great article!, grats for u site
your blog is really great! 953
tu blog es excelente! te mando 565 felicitaciones!
great blog!
It might even help to read this first: http://www.FoolQuest.com/metaphysics_for_dummie…
It might even help to read this first: http://www.FoolQuest.com/metaphysics_for_dummie…