According
to Craig Callender (in his paper 'Philosophy
of Science and Metaphysics'), it's the case that
“mainstream
analytic metaphysics has moved further away from scientific concerns
at the same time that philosophy of science has moved closer to
science”.
Callender's
position, prima facie, is very similar to that expressed by the logical positivists (in the 1930s and 1940s) when it it came to
various (or all!) metaphysical disputes.
Callender
also writes:
“The
reason is that it's hard to imagine what feature of reality
determines whether a fist is a new object or not. How would the world
be different if hands arranged fist-like didn't constitute new
objects?”
The begged answer is: No difference whatsoever.
Take
also the case of
A.J.
Ayer when writing about the rival claims of metaphysical pluralism
and monism.
In his book, Language,
Truth and Logic,
he wrote:
“...
the assertion that Reality is One, which is characteristic of a
monist to make and a pluralist to controvert, is nonsensical, since
no empirical situation could have any bearing on its truth.”
Since
logical positivists have just been mentioned, it seems clear that
Callender is also asking for a kind of positivist answer to his questions.
That is, he's asking if these questions can be answered by
experience. The analytic metaphysician, of course, would say that
such questions are themselves... well, meaningless. Of course experience
is irrelevant to these questions. Or, at the very least, experience
alone can't answer them. Indeed experience alone couldn't
even answer any of the logical positivists' questions.
Experience alone
can't answer any question.
Not
that those who have a problem with analytic metaphysics also have a
problem with metaphysics when it's seen more generally.
Callender
puts the case that one can be against much/all of what's called
analytic metaphysics and yet still not be against metaphysics itself.
He says:
“I
come at the question simultaneously convinced that many debates in
analytic metaphysics are sterile or even empty while also believing
that metaphysics is deeply infused within and important to science.”
Moreover,
it's not only that one must accept metaphysics even when one also
places science in an/the important position. It's simply that one simply
can't avoid metaphysics – not even in science itself.
Callender
continues:
“...
we have these concepts, 'metaphysics' and 'sciences'. There is no
sharp difference between the two. To a rough approximation, we can
think of metaphysical claims as more abstract and distantly related
to experiment than scientific claims.”
And
finally:
“I
think that what we conventionally call science in ordinary affairs is
inextricably infused with metaphysics from top (theory) to bottom
(experiment). If this is right, metaphysics is deeply important to
science. Laying bare the metaphysical assumptions of our best
theories of the world is a crucial and important part of
understanding the world.”
Analytic
Metaphysics and Science
Not
all analytic metaphysicians ignore science.
Take
Ted (Theodore)
Sider.
Sider
doesn't ignore or disparage science. Or, rather, he sees (much?)
analytic metaphysics as being “quasi-scientific”. In his paper, 'Ontological
Realism', Sider
writes:
“[Metaphysicians']
methodology is rather quasi-scientific. They treat competing
positions as tentative hypotheses about the world, and assess them
with a loose battery of criteria for theory choice. Match with
ordinary usage and belief sometimes plays a role in this assessment,
but typically not a dominant one. Theoretical insight, considerations
of simplicity, integration with other domains (for instance science,
logic, and philosophy of language), and so on, play important roles.”
It
may also be interesting to mention panpsychism here.
Panpsychists
(or
at least some of them)
have the same position as Sider on this aspect of the debate. They
see their own theories as being quasi-scientific.
That is, they
stress
“competing
[panpsychist] positions as tentative hypotheses about the world, and
assess them with a loose battery of criteria for theory choice”.
And
they too emphasise “simplicity”, “integration”, and (to use a
word often used by Philip Goff) “parsimony”.
This
isn't a surprise. All sorts of unlikely candidates can be seen as
being quasi-scientific
or
indeed plain scientific.
Marxism and Freudianism, for example, were also seen as being
scientific. Indeed the Austrian-American philosopher Paul Feyerabend
even stressed the scientific nature of astrology and voodoo.
For
example, in his book, The
Trouble With Physics,
Lee Smolin (when he was discussing what makes something a science with
Feyerabend himself) wrote:
“Was
it because science has a method? So do witch doctors. Perhaps the
difference, I ventured, is that science uses math. And so does
astrology, he responded, and he would have explained the various
computational systems used by astrologers, if we had let him...
Newton had spent more time on alchemy than on physics. Did we think
we were better scientists than Kepler or Newton?”
In
other words, we need to be careful when people drop scientific
technical terms into their discourse. Or, alternatively, we need to be careful when
theorists or philosophers include certain aspects of science; though
who also ignore (or reject) what could very well be far more
scientifically important or relevant when it comes to the legitimacy
of their non-scientific (or strictly philosophical) claims.
Extreme Analytic Metaphysics
So
let's take a few seemingly extreme positions in analytic metaphysics
(or plain metaphysics, for that matter).
Peter
van
Inwagen,
for example, believes that only elementary particles and living
organisms exist. That is, he believes that cups, tables, planets,
etc. don't exist....
... Or
is that the case?
We
can immediately ask three questions here:
i)
Does Peter van Inwagen believe that such [?s] don't exist?
ii)
Does he believe that [?s] don't exist qua
objects?
Iii)
Or, alternatively, is it simply that van Inwagen believes that we
have the wrong philosophical conceptions of [?s]?
Mereological
nihilists also believe that only elementary particles exist; or that
they're the only genuine objects.
Mereological
universalists, on the other hand, believe that any arbitrary
combination of otherwise separate objects can - or do - constitute a
further object. That means that your own arse
and the
sun above it can (or do) constitute a single object.
It's
the nature of these metaphysical beliefs which are often deemed to be
“bizarre” and “trivial”. (Can the trivial and bizarre
exist side by side?)
Craig
Callender's Clenched Fist
As
quoted in the introduction, Craig Callender (quoting Eli Hirsch) asks
the following question:
“...
when I bend my fingers into a fist, have I thereby brought a new
object into the world, a fist?”
Well,
it's certainly true that something
must have changed when Callender bent his fingers into a fist. His
hand changed its shape for a start. Did that change - in and of
itself - constitute a different (or new) object?
I
simply don't know.
Does
it matter?
Does
this fist-clenching constitute (as Callender himself puts it)
something “deep [and] interesting, about the structure of
mind-independent reality”? It's hard to say because it's difficult to understand the question. And even if the question can be
understood, how would we know how to find a determinate (or even any)
answer to that question?
We
can excuse analytic metaphysicians by saying that this example – or
other less rhetorical ones – may provide us with the means to
establish what an object is; as well as how we can decide that
issue.
Thus
we have a hand – that's surely an object... Or is it?... Then we have
a clenched fist. Is that a different object? If it is a different
object, then why is it so? If it's the same object with a different
shape, then why is it still the same
object? In any case, if we christen it a “new object”, “the
same object”, or even “not an object at all”, then what
metaphysical or philosophical difference would that make? That is, it
certainly makes no practical or scientific difference; though is it
still metaphysically “deep” or “interesting”? If it is, then
why is it
deep or interesting?
We
may agree with David Chalmers here and say that this is merely a
“verbal” dispute; or a dispute primarily about definitions. That
is, we can define a clenched as a separate object to a hand if
we want to.
On the other hand,
we may decide not to do so. How would we decide which definition (or
position) is the correct one? Can we decide that - even in principle? Does this issue take us beyond the verbal and tell
us about the “structure of mind-independent reality”? Indeed
forget mind-independent reality:
What does this issue
or position tell us about reality - full stop?
A
mereological nihilist will say that neither the hand nor the clenched
fist are objects. So does this position take us beyond the verbal or
definitional? And if it does, then how does it do so?
The
4-Dimensionalist will say that the clenched fist is a “temporal part” of the hand. Again, does this position take us beyond the verbal or definitional?
A
mereological
universalist
may say that the clenched fist and the iron glove it comes in
together
make an object; which also includes the moon above the clenched fist
in its iron glove. Is this position taking us beyond the verbal or
definitional?
Indeed
if all these positions are essentially about definitions and verbal
descriptions; then, arguably, we can ask if they're genuine
metaphysical positions at all.
Straw
Targets?
If
Craig Callender hadn't chosen what can be seen as straw targets, then
perhaps we can take these metaphysical positions more seriously. The
question is:
Are they straw targets?
Take
Callender's next example; which seems even more absurd than the one just cited. Callender
writes:
“....
whether a piece of paper with writing on one side by one author and
another side by a different author constitutes two letters or one...”
One's
first reaction to this may be:
I simply can't be
bothered with it! Does it matter? Are there really metaphysical
implications to this question? Is it, again, all verbal or
definitional?
Nonetheless,
one example does appears to be a reference to a more concrete case; which was originally cited by Quine in his paper
'Ontological
Relativity' (1968). Callender
writes:
“...
whether rabbit-like distributions of fur and organs (etc.) at a time
are rabbits or merely temporal parts of a rabbit.”
Quine
- when talking about “ontological relativity” and the
“inscrutability of reference” - used the example of rabbits in a specific field of vision. Nonetheless, this was a question about
interpreting the meanings of aliens who spoke a language the
researchers didn't understand. Thus, in one respect, this isn't
(strictly speaking) a metaphysical issue at all; it's either a
question in semantics or one in epistemology (or perhaps both).
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