Richard Rorty’s Crude Generalisations About Analytic Philosophy

Richard Rorty claimed that “analytic philosophy is still committed to the construction of a permanent, neutral framework for inquiry, and thus for all culture”.

Much of what Richard Rorty (1931-2007) wrote is insightful and a breath of fresh air — at least when taken within the context of many other (academic) analytic philosophers.

So now it must be said that even if Rorty didn’t end up as an analytic philosopher, then he certainly began as one. More specifically, when he wrote Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (which is the focus of this essay) in 1979, he was still an analytic philosopher…Of course, what exactly that last claim amounts to isn’t going to be debated here.

So the following essay should be taken within those contexts.

Importantly, because Rorty was committed to what he called “irony”, commentators are left in a difficult position as to how to interpret his words. (That said, the situation is far better than with a philosophers like Wittgenstein, Derrida and Deleuze.) Put simply, it may be the case that none of the passages quoted in the following should be taken literally. Instead, perhaps they should be taken ironically, poetically and/or even politically.

Yet, being a pendant, I am going to take them literally… That said, who’s to say that Rorty didn’t intend the quoted passages to be taken literally?

What also needs to be said here is that if there is (as Jacques Derrida argued) “nothing outside the text” (Il n’y a pas de hors-texte — which I’m not saying Rorty completely subscribed to) and that “the conversation” itself is what matters (which was Rorty’s actual position), then the following critique must itself be taken as being part of Rorty’s conversation.

Philosophy or Analytic Philosophy?

One problem with interpreting Richard Rorty’s words (if not his actual positions) is that he quickly shifted from writing about “philosophy” to writing about “analytic philosophy”. This meant that, at least in some cases, when Rorty used the word “philosophy” he actually meant “analytic philosophy” — at least in the case of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. That said, he was also guilty of generalising about philosophy-as-a-whole too.

Rorty himself gave the game away when he confessed that his problem with analytic philosophy was mainly (what he called) “biographical”. That is, Rorty just happened to have studied and written about analytic philosophy for the first 35 (or so) years of his career. Indeed he also wrote that the “therapy [he] offered” was

“parasitic upon the constructive efforts of the very analytic philosophers whose frame of reference [he] was trying to put in question”.

One single example (among many) of the fact that, at least at certain points, Rorty didn’t only have analytic philosophy in mind is when he mentioned Kant, Frege and Husserl — all in the same passage. Here is that passage:

“[T]he kind of philosophy of philosophy which stems from Russell and Frege is, like classical Husserlian phenomenology, simply one more attempt to put philosophy in the position which Kant wished it to have — that of judging other areas of culture on the basis of its special knowledge of the ‘foundations’ of these areas.”

So even though analytic philosophy was especially problematic to Rorty, then it only was so because it is (to use his own words) “one more variant of Kantian philosophy”.

In any case, there’s a strong case for arguing that Rorty’s later p̶h̶i̶l̶o̶s̶o̶p̶h̶y̶ was more a case of post-philosophy than of postanalytic philosophy. In other words, like Heidegger and Derrida before him, Rorty had a problem with the whole damn show that is (Western?) philosophy. Indeed it can be argued that Rorty’s position became more (openly and obviously) political, historical and/or sociological than, strictly speaking, philosophical. That said, a position that rejects philosophy in toto can’t help but be philosophical — in some or in many ways — itself. Indeed Rorty would have happily admitted that. (Jacques Derrida, whom Rorty admired, did admit that.)

Rorty’s Biographical Philosophy

In 1979, when most of the words quoted in this essay were written, Rorty was shifting away from analytic philosophy — and even philosophy generally — to embrace literature and a more explicitly pragmatic political/ethical, sociological and/or historical stances on philosophical issues (in the style of John Dewey). So, if all that was indeed the case, then perhaps there would have been no need to defend his (rhetorical) generalisations or offer (explicit) arguments.

Indeed Rorty did sneer at the (not his own words) “fetishization of argument” in his book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (just as many “continental philosophers” have done in the 20th and 21st centuries). In other words, perhaps the passages quoted later owe more to literature than they do to philosophy. It might even have been the case that Rorty would have admitted that.

Yet despite the implicit digs at the (again, not Rorty’s own words) “mindless analysis”, etc. referred to a moment again, in Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature there’s quite a lot of analysis! (For example, Rorty spends over nine pages analysing behaviourism and over twelve pages analysing — of all arcane things — the various theories of reference.) Indeed in an interview conducted by Wayne Hudson and Win van Reijen, Rorty stated the following:

“I think that analytic philosophy can keep its highly professional methods, the insistence on detail and mechanics, and just drop its transcendental project. I’m not out to criticize analytic philosophy as a style. It’s a good style. I think the years of superprofessionalism were beneficial.”

[Even when Rorty seemingly praised analytic philosophy, he couldn’t resist slipping in the ironic phrase “[i]t’s a good style”.]

Yet perhaps the technical detail, analyses and arguments which can be found in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature were nothing more than Rorty’s means to back up his metaphilosophical ends.

How do I know that? Well, Rorty (more or less) says as much in that book (as well as elsewhere).

Thus Rorty (as it were) joined in various debates within analytic philosophy in order to show his readers (or so he believed) that they’re all … well, pointless. (He uses synonyms of the word “pointless” — in relation to analytic philosophy or at least many of its concerns — many times in that book.)

Rorty on Analytic Philosophy as a Natural Kind

To use Rortyesque poetic rhetoric, it can be (self-referentially) argued that the American pragmatist took a Platonist position on analytic philosophy. And, at the very same time, Rorty saw all of analytic philosophy as being (essentially) Platonist. This means that when Rorty talked of analytic philosophy you can almost hear his capitalised classification — Analytic Philosophy. That is, Rorty talked about analytic philosophy as it it were a natural kind with a determinate and known (at least known to Rorty himself) essence.

Of course one may be willing to accept that there are at least some — perhaps many — things which draw all analytic philosophers together. However, Rorty made it seem as if every analytic philosopher belongs to a small and narrow tribe whose members all have virtually identical views — as least on the issue of what philosophy actually is.

Rorty also made it seem that every analytic philosopher is as metaphilosophical, philosophically self-conscious and historically-minded as he was.

Yet, despite stating all that, it can be argued that Rorty was writing not about the detailed work of analytic philosophers, but about the historical tradition of analytic philosophy (see here).

But which aspects of that tradition? All aspects of that tradition?

And which particular analytic philosophers? All analytic philosophers?

Indeed did (or do) all analytic philosophers have an philosophical essence in common?

And let’s not forget that philosophical analysis (broadly speaking) occurred well before the analytic tradition got under way. That is, what is it that Aristotle, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Hume, etc. did if it wasn’t — at least in part — philosophical analysis?

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Generalisation 1

Richard Rorty took the view that analytic philosophy has as its primary aim the creation of a form of knowledge which grounds all other forms of knowledge.

This is odd.

It’s true that much traditional philosophy has placed various philosophical domains in the position of what used to be called First Philosophy. (It was once metaphysics, then epistemology, then language, then mind…) However, in the 20th century this was far from being the case. Indeed analytic philosophers specifically (as well as non-analytic philosophers) — throughout the 20th century — actually argued against the need for (or nature of) a first philosophy.

So here is Rorty again talking about philosophy in the singular. He wrote:

“Philosophy as a discipline thus sees itself as the attempt to underwrite or debunk claims to knowledge made by science, morality, art, or religion.”

This is so obviously false that perhaps even Rorty himself would have admitted that the statement’s primary purpose was (to use Rorty’s word about his own work) “therapeutic”. Indeed even some of the philosophers Rorty admired and wrote about didn’t fit the generalisation above.

And all that is one reason why Rorty did probably meant “analytic philosophy” when he wrote “philosophy”. That said, he does also state such generalisations about Kant, Husserl and other philosophers too… so it’s hard to tell.

So here are just a few philosophers (often mentioned by Rorty himself) who most certainly didn’t fit into Rorty’s neat little box: Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, William James, John Dewey, etc… This may mean, then, that Rorty was, after all, only talking about analytic philosophers.

Generalisation 2

Now take this massively-general claim from Rorty:

“For analytic philosophy is still committed to the construction of a permanent, neutral framework for inquiry, and thus for all culture.”

This is simply false and it’s false on many levels.

But, firstly, even if a particular analytic philosopher (or a set thereof) believed that his analyses of this and that were absolutely true (or simply correct), it still wouldn’t follow that he must also be “committed to the construction of a permanent, neutral framework for inquiry, and thus for all culture”.

In any case, perhaps because Rorty simply grew bored with analytic philosophy and philosophical argument, and then began to embrace other (not his own words) “modes of knowledge” such as literature and art (as he often stated himself), then that statement above might only have been intended as a simple rhetorical and poetic device designed to simply stop (à la Wittgenstein) the entire Analytic Philosophy Show. In fact Rorty stated as much in various ways and in various places. Indeed he even called himself an “ironist”.

In detail (if Rorty even cared, at this point), virtually no philosopher saw analytic philosophy in terms of the “construction of a permanent, neutral framework for inquiry, and thus for all culture”. Of course some analytic philosophers might have done so subconsciously. Yet, as already stated, Rorty’s take on analytic philosophy — and its relation to other parts of what Rorty called “culture” — is very metaphilosophical, self-conscious and historical. The problem is, this isn’t also true of all — or even most — analytic philosophers.

Generalisation 3

It may be pedantic to say that when Rorty wrote that

“[philosophy — not even analytic philosophy] purports to [underwrite or debunk claims to knowledge] on the basis of its special understanding of the nature of knowledge and of mind”

perhaps he should have written the following pluralised and qualified version instead:

Different philosophers purport to do this on the basis of their various and different special understandings of the nature of knowledge and of mind.

Indeed not all analytic philosophers have concentrated on “knowledge and mind” in the first place.

So it’s odd that during his admonitions of (capitalised) Philosophy’s neat and tidy ways of (as it were) mirroring the world, Rorty should have offered his very own neat and tidy (even essentialist) mirroring of analytic philosophy… and, indeed, his mirroring of philosophy generally.

Generalisation 4

Now for an outrageous generalisation that claims that all all analytic philosophers were committed to the notion of the a priori… in a big way! Rorty wrote:

“It is the notion that human activity (and inquiry, the search for knowledge, in particular) takes place within a framework which can be isolated prior to the conclusion of inquiry — a set of presuppositions discoverable a priori [].”

Rorty’s slipping in of the term a priori at the end of the passage above was surely yet another rhetorical move on his part.

Various and many analytic philosophers have written large amounts of stuff against the notion of the a priori.

Of course Rorty might have meant a priori in a purely metaphilosophical sense, not in a detailed (or technical) sense. That is, even though many analytic philosophers have offered telling critiques of the notion of the a priori, Rorty’s (somewhat implicit) argument might have been that they still saw philosophy itself as an a priori discipline. That is, a discipline which “discovers” and “isolates” this and that even before (as it were) any details are in… So where does this place the many analytic philosophers who’ve also been naturalists?

And then Rorty took all analytic philosophers to be foundationalists too. He wrote:

“Philosophy can be foundational in respect to the rest of culture because culture is the assemblage of claims to knowledge, and philosophy adjudicates such claims []”

Clearly, many analytic philosophers have been anti-foundationalists.

Yet, as with the a priori case a moment ago, perhaps Rorty was making a distinction between a commitment to foundationalism within philosophy and a commitment to foundationalism when it comes to philosophy’s role itself.

[This is somewhat like Michael Williams’s terminological distinction which has it that epistemological realism “is not a position within epistemology [it is a] realism about the objects of epistemological inquiry”. In other words, this is a realism about epistemology, not a realism within epistemology.]

So, when it comes to the latter case, Rorty was on much stronger ground.

To put Rorty’s case another way. A philosopher may be anti-foundationalist when it comes to, say, epistemology, but foundationalist when it comes to philosophy itself. That is, an analytic philosopher may, at the very same time as being an anti-foundationalist, also be committed to the idea that “philosophy can be [or is] foundational in respect to the rest of culture”.

But, yet again, this is all very metaphilosophical. Rorty assumed that all analytic philosophers paint with the same broad brush strokes that he himself painted with. This means that Rorty wanted to have his cake and eat it. That is, in one breath he warned against (not his own words) “mindless analysis”, a “concern with minutia”, “conceptual pedantry”, etc. Yet, in the next breath, he claimed that all analytic philosophers had metaphilosophical dreams about — and positions on — philosophy itself and, more broadly, on philosophy’s vital relation to culture as a whole.

Bizarre and Trivial Analytic Metaphysics… and Clenched Fists

Philosopher Craig Callender believes that “many debates in analytic metaphysics are sterile or even empty”. Is he right about this?

“We divide analytic metaphysics into naturalistic and non-naturalistic metaphysics. The latter we define as any philosophical theory that makes some ontological (as opposed to conceptual) claim, where that ontological claim has no observable consequences. We discuss further features of non-naturalistic metaphysics, including its methodology of appealing to intuition, and we explain the way in which we take it to be discontinuous with science.” -

— — From ‘What is Analytic Metaphysics For?’

According to the philosopher 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”.

Prima facie, Callender’s position is similar — though obviously not identical — to that expressed by the logical positivists (in the 1930s and 1940s) when it it came to various (or even all!) metaphysical issues and disputes.

Callender continues:

“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 the English philosopher A.J. Ayer (1910–1989) when he was writing about the rival claims of metaphysical pluralism and monism. In his book Language, Truth and Logic, he wrote:

“[T]he 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 — at least in part! — be answered by experience. The analytic metaphysician, of course, would say that such “positivist” questions are themselves… well, meaningless. Of course experience (or the empirical) 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. And that’s because experience alone can’t answer any question.

Not that all those who have a problem with analytic metaphysics also have a problem with metaphysics when it’s seen more generally.

Not All Metaphysics is Bad

Callender puts the case that one can be against much (or even all) of what’s called analytic metaphysics and yet still not be against metaphysics itself. He states:

“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 — or the — important position. It’s simply that one simply can’t avoid metaphysics — not even in science itself.

Callender continues:

“[W]e 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.”

Yet, seemingly, not all analytic metaphysicians ignore science.

Analytic Metaphysics and Science

Take the American philosopher Ted (Theodore) Sider.

Sider claims not to ignore or disparage science. He also sees (much?) analytic metaphysics as being “quasi-scientific”.

In his paper ‘Ontological Realism’, Sider writes:

“[Analytic 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 and idealism here.

Panpsychists and idealists (or at least some of them) have the same position as Sider on this aspect of the debate. That is, they see their own isms as being quasi-scientific. For example, analytic metaphysicians stress

“competing positions as tentative hypotheses about the world, and assess them with a loose battery of criteria for theory choice”.

And panpsychists and idealists too emphasise “simplicity”, “integration” and (to use a word often used by panpsychists) “parsimony” (see here).

This isn’t a surprise.

All sorts of unlikely candidates have been seen as being quasi-scientific — or indeed, just plain scientific. To take two obvious examples (i.e., other than idealism and panpsychism): Marxism and Freudianism were — and sometimes still are — seen as being scientific. Indeed the Austrian-American philosopher Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994) even stressed the scientific nature of astrology and voodoo (see here).

For example, in his book, The Trouble With Physics, the theoretical physicist 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?”

All this means that we need to be careful when philosophers and theorists drop scientific technical terms into their writings. Or, alternatively, we need to be careful when theorists or philosophers include only certain aspects of science; though who, at the very same time, 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.

So now let’s take a few seemingly extreme positions in analytic metaphysics (or plain metaphysics, for that matter).

Take Peter van Inwagen.

Bizarre Analytic Metaphysics: Craig Callender’s Clenched Fist

The American philosopher Peter van Inwagen (1942-) believes that only elementary particles and living organisms exist. That is, he believes that cups, tables, planets, etc. don’t exist…

In his book Material Beings (1995), Van Inwagen argues that all material objects are either elementary particles or living organisms. (It’s the case that every “composite object” — by definition! — is made up of elementary particles.) Van Inwagen concludes by arguing that tables, chairs, bikes, etc. don’t exist.

We can immediately ask three questions here:

1) Does Peter van Inwagen believe that such …s don’t exist?

2) Does he believe that …s don’t exist qua objects?

3) Is it simply that van Inwagen believes that we have the wrong philosophical conceptions of …s?

Mereological nihilists also believe that only elementary particles (if not also living organisms) 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 left butt cheek 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?)

And, as already mentioned, Craig Callender (quoting Eli Hirsch) asks the following question:

“[W]hen 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. For a start, his hand changed its shape. So did that change — in and of itself —help constitute or bring about a different (or new) object?…

Does anyone know?

Does it matter?

Does this fist-clenching involve something (as Callender himself puts it) “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 bizarre ones — may provide us with the means to establish what an object is; as well as how we can decide that issue.

To repeat. We have a hand… surely that’s an object. Or is it?…

Then that hand has formed a clenched fist.

Is that clenched fist 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 a clenched fist as a “new object”, “the same object”, or even “not an object at all”, then what ontological (or plain 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 exactly why is it deep or interesting?

We may agree with the Australian philosopher David Chalmers (1966-) here and say that this is merely a “verbal” dispute (see here); or a dispute primarily about definitions. That is, we are free to define a clenched fist as a separate object to a hand if we want to. On the other hand, we may decide not to do so.

So how could we decide which definition (or position) is the correct one?

Can we decide that issue — even in principle?

More relevantly, does this issue take us beyond the verbal and tell us something about the “structure of mind-independent reality”?

Indeed forget mind-independent reality:

What does this clenched-fist issue or position tell us about reality — full stop?

A mereological nihilist will (or may) argue 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 and why does it do so?

The four-dimensionalist will (or may) argue 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 will (or may) argue 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.

So 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 conclude that they aren’t genuinely metaphysical positions at all!

Straw Targets?

If Craig Callender hadn’t chosen what can be seen as bizarre and absurd examples, then perhaps we can take such metaphysical positions more seriously.

The question is: Are they simply bizarre and absurd?

Take Callender’s next example.

This example seems even more bizarre and absurd than the one just cited. Callender writes:

“[W]hether 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 of Callender’s other examples does appear to be a reference to a more (as it were) concrete case. It was originally cited by W.V.O. Quine in his paper ‘Ontological Relativity’ (1968). Callender writes:

“[W]hether 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. Yet this odd scenario was primarily motivated by the issue of interpreting the utterances of aliens — and even people here on earth — 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 an issue in semantics or one in epistemology (perhaps both).

Ted Sider’s Metaphysical Realism

The American philosopher Ted Sider believes that “the realist picture requires the ‘ready-made-world’” and that “there must be a structure that is mandatory for inquirers to discover”. Is he right about all this?

Theodore “Ted” Sider is an American philosopher who concentrates on metaphysics. He is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

Sider has also taught at the University of Rochester, Syracuse University, New York University and Cornell University. He has had three books published and written many papers.

Introduction

Ted Sider (sometimes deemed to be an “analytic metaphysician”) tells us what he takes metaphysics to be.

Alternatively put: Sider tells us what he believes metaphysics should be.

In his paper and chapter, ‘Ontological Realism’, Sider writes:

“The point of metaphysics is to discern the fundamental structure of the world.”

What’s more, “[t]hat requires choosing fundamental notions with which to describe the world”. Indeed Sider continues by saying that “no one other than a positivist can make all the hard questions evaporate”. Finally:

“There’s no detour around the entirety of fundamental metaphysics.”

Sider also makes it plain that metaphysics asks fundamental and important questions by asking his readers this question:

“Was Reichenbach wrong? — is there a genuine question of whether spacetime is flat or curved?”

The obvious response to that question is say it’s a scientific (i.e., not a metaphysical) question… That’s unless it’s the case that metaphysicians (such as Sider himself) can offer insights on this issue which physicists (at least qua physicists) are simply incapable of.

More technically, Sider cites W.V.O Quine’s work (as well as the quantification of metaphysical structure) as the means to answer the question above (as well as other similar questions).

Ted Sider on Objective Structure

What is realist in Sider’s “ontological realism” is what he calls “objective structure”. This does the work formerly done (i.e., in the history of metaphysics) by such things as objects, events, laws, essences, kinds, etc.

The main force behind all of Sider’s positions is his metaphysical realism. That classification isn’t such a big problem because that’s how Sider (if sometimes implicitly) classes himself. For example, he writes:

“A certain core realism is, as much as anything, the shared dogma of analytic philosophers, and rightly so.”

It’s certainly not the case that “core realism” has been a “shared dogma of analytic philosophers”. That’s simply a generalisation. There have been anti-realists, idealists, positivists, pragmatists, instrumentalists and all sorts of other philosophers (even a small number of panpsychists) within analytic philosophy.

Thus Sider may (or must) mean something more subtle by his claim above.

Perhaps he means this:

Deep down and when push comes to shove, “realism is a shared dogma of analytic philosophers”, as it is for almost everyone.

Does Sider really believe that almost everyone (including all/most analytic philosophers) believes that the “world is out there, waiting to be discovered”? That may well be the case. However, it may only be the case in a very vague way — a way which often doesn’t amount to much. Indeed even most anti-realists and idealists, for example, believe that something is out there (see note).

In other words, there’s a world (or an x) that exists regardless of minds…

So?

And it’s what Sider says next that problematises his position.

Sider argues that this world that’s “out there, waiting to be discovered” and also that it’s “not constituted by us”.

Those two claims depend on so much.

Minds, conceptual schemes, language, sensory systems, brains, etc. don’t literally make the world in the sense of creating its spacetime, matter, forces, etc. (That said, some idealists — such as Professor Donald Hoffman with his “conscious realism” — do believe that.) However, minds may well — even if in some subtle or limited sense — structure/shape/determine/colour (or whichever word is appropriate) the world. That is, anti-realists — and almost the majority of philosophers — believe that we never get the world “as it is” in its pristine condition. More importantly and as Karl Popper and, later, Richard Rorty once put it: “the world doesn’t tell us what to say about it”.

In that sense, then, Sider is simply wrong when he argues that

“[e]veryone agrees that this realist picture prohibits truth from being generally mind-dependent”.

The problematic word above is, of course, “truth” — and that usage may explain Sider’s ostensibly extreme philosophical position.

Ted Sider on Truth

Again, it’s simply not the case that “everyone agrees” that the world (or nature) is “generally mind-independent”. Sure, it may depend, for one, on how that phrase is taken. That is, people may well believe that truth is in some (or many) ways mind-independent. However, metaphysics itself is about the world and its “fundamental nature”.

Thus the truths Sider is talking about are about the world.

So do we ever have guaranteed truth in metaphysics?

We don’t in physics, cosmology and in all the other sciences. So perhaps we don’t in metaphysics either.

Yet, in once sense — a sense given by some metaphysicians and philosophers — truth is by definition mind-independent. However, Sider seems to be fusing that position with our metaphysical statements about the world.

So is it that we can argue that if such statements are true, then what makes them true is “mind-independent”? That doesn’t follow. At least it doesn’t automatically follow.

On the other hand, perhaps we simply don’t have metaphysical truths in the first place. Perhaps we only have metaphysical positions. And, as already stated, metaphysical positions involve mind, language, concepts, brains, psychologies, conceptual schemes, contingent sensory-systems, human intellectual and social history, etc. And all these things can be said to (rhetorically) pollute our metaphysical purity.

Thus perhaps we never have the Realist Truth Sider speaks of in metaphysics — analytic or otherwise.

Ted Sider on the Ready-Made World

Sider also states the following:

“The realist picture requires the ‘ready-made-world’ that Goodman (1978) ridiculed; there must be structure that is mandatory for inquirers to discover.”

There may well be a (to use a phrase also used by Hilary Putnam) “ready-made-world”. However, perhaps Nelson Goodman’s point was that we don’t have access to it except through our contingent minds, languages, conceptual schemes, brains, sensory-systems, etc. All those things make it the case that we must colour (or interpret) that ready-made-world. Thus, to us embodied human beings, it’s no longer a ready-made world: we make it (at least in a loose or vague sense).

What’s more, if all the above is the case, then grand claims about the independent nature of the world amount to very little.

The other point is that even if there is a mind-independent-ready-made-world, that doesn’t automatically mean that everyone — not even every realist philosopher — will says the same things about it. (The English philosopher Crispin Wright — in his book Truth and Objectivity — believes that we would say the same things if we all had what he calls “Cognitive Command”.) It doesn’t even guarantee that contradictory things won’t be said about this ready-made-world. Indeed contradictory things have been said about it — even by metaphysical realists!

So the world’s mind-independence doesn’t guarantee discovering Sider’s “mandatory structure” (just as it didn’t guarantee C.S. Pierce’s “future convergence”).

Yet Sider doesn’t accept any of this.

Instead, Sider believes that there are “predicates that carve nature at the joints, by virtue of referring to genuine ‘natural’ properties”. He continues:

“The world has a distinguished structure, a privileged description. [] There is an objectively correct way to ‘write the book of the world’.”

Well:

How does Sider know all that?

Does Sider know all that through metaphysical analysis and then referring to the “best science”?

Neither of these things can guarantee that we (not Sider’s words) “carve nature at the joints” or obtain metaphysical truths about the world. Again:

(1) How would we know when we have a “privileged description”?

(2) How do we know what that privileged description is?

What’s more, is there only one “objectively correct way to ‘write the book of the world”? Even if there is, then how does Sider know that?

Sider also gets to the heart of the matter (at least in the debate between metaphysical realism and what he calls “deflationism”) when he states the following:

“Everyone faces the question of what is ‘real’ and what is the mere projection of our conceptual apparatus, of which issues are substantive and which are ‘mere bookkeeping’.”

That’s certainly not true of “everyone”. It’s just true of many — not even all — philosophers. Sure, it’s true that many laypersons are concerned with what is real. However, they don’t also think in terms of the possibility that it’s our “conceptual apparatus” that hides — or may hide — the Real. Many laypersons believe that other things hide “what is real”: lies, propaganda, “the media”, politicians, religions, mind-altering drugs (or a lack of such drugs) and even science and philosophy.

Nonetheless, the philosophical issue of realism does indeed spread beyond philosophy. Take Sider’s comments on science.

Ted Sider on Science

Sider writes:

“This is true within science as well as philosophy: one must decide when competing scientific theories are mere notational variants. Does a metric-system physics genuinely disagree with a system phrased in terms of ontological realism feet and pounds? We all think not.”

Now take Donald Davidson’s less theoretical example of centigrade and Fahrenheit. According to Davidson, these are simply two modes of presentation of the same thing (see here).

However, Sider asks if the same can be said of “a metric-system physics” and a “ontological realism feet and pounds”.

Does Sider’s position have something to do with what’s called “empirical or observational equivalence” and theoretical underdetermination? If it does, then theories which are empirically equivalent needn’t also be theoretically (or philosophically) identical. Sider continues:

“Unless one is prepared to take the verificationist’s easy way out, and say that ‘theories are the same when empirically equivalent’, one must face difficult questions about where to draw the line between objective structure and conceptual projection.”

Sider also asks what he calls “deflationists” a couple of good questions.

Ted Sider on Metaphysical Deflationists

Firstly, Sider asks this question:

“Is your rejection of ontological realism based on the desire to make unanswerable questions go away, to avoid questions that resist direct empirical methods but are nevertheless not answerable by conceptual analysis?”

It’s hardly surprising — if we take the positions above (alongside the earlier reactions) — that Sider himself has heard “[w]hispers that something was wrong with the debate itself”. Despite that, according to Sider:

“Today’s ontologists are not conceptual analysts; few attend to ordinary usage of sentences like ‘chairs exist’.”

It’s tempting to say that ontologists should indulge in a bit of conceptual analysis!

That said, it’s not the case that conceptual analysis should be the beginning and the end of metaphysics; only that it may help things (just as a basic knowledge of science does).

Indirectly, Sider does comment on conceptual analysis; or at least on what he calls “ontological deflationism”. He writes:

“These critics — ‘ontological deflationists’, I’ll call them — have said instead something more like what the positivists said about nearly all of philosophy: that there is something wrong with ontological questions themselves. Other than questions of conceptual analysis, there are no sensible questions of (philosophical) ontology. Certainly there are no questions that are fit to debate in the manner of the ontologists.”

In terms of conceptual analysis and ontological deflationism being relevant to the composition and constitution of objects, Sider writes:

“[W]hen some particles are arranged tablewise, there is no ‘substantive’ question of whether there also exists a table composed of those particles, they say. There are simply different — and equally good — ways to talk.”

Sider also attacks what he calls “conventionalism”.

Ted Sider on Conventionalism

Sider argues that if we accept conventionalism, then we “demystify philosophy itself”.

In his book, Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics (co-written by Earl Conee), Sider puts his case more fully:

“If conventionalism is true, philosophy turns into nothing more than an inquiry into the definitions we humans give to words. By mystifying necessity, the conventionalist demystifies philosophy itself. Conventionalists are typically up front about this: they want to reduce the significance of philosophy.”

That is strong stuff!

Is conventionalism really that extreme?

Is Sider’s account of conventionalism even correct?

At first blast, Sider’s passage above sounds more like a description of 1930s and 1940s logical positivism!

In any case, do conventionalists (if they exist at all) really argue that philosophy is “nothing more than any inquiry into the definitions we humans give to words”? Or do conventionalists simply stress the importance of our words and our conventions when it comes to philosophy?

Moreover, surely the conventionalist doesn’t believe that it’s only a question of word-definitions: he also stresses our concepts. That is, how do our concepts determine how we see, conceive of, or interpret the world? Indeed if it were all just a question of word-definitions, then conventionalists would be little more than linguists or even lexicographers.

Perhaps conventionalists, on the other hand, don’t give up on the world at all. Perhaps they simply argue that our words, concepts, conventions, sciences and indeed our definitions are important when it comes to our classifications, descriptions, analyses, etc. of the world.

Is Ted Sider a Platonist?

When Sider argues that “[b]y demystifying necessity, the conventionalist demystifies philosophy itself”, he implies that philosophy is nothing more than the study of necessity! In that case, it’s no wonder that the conventionalist (real or otherwise) “wants to reduce the significance of philosophy” if that’s really the case.

Sider’s position seems to be a thoroughly Platonic (as well as perhaps partly Aristotelian) account of philosophy (i.e., with its obsession with necessity and essence).

Is that really all that philosophy is concerned with — essence and necessity? Indeed, if the conventionalists’ supposed exclusive focus on word-definitions is wrong, then perhaps obsessing about necessity and essence is too.

Arguably, this was largely true of Plato and indeed Aristotle. But what about 20th- and 21st-century philosophers? Indeed what about Hume and many other pre-20th century philosophers?

Now we can see more evidence of Sider’s Platonist notion of philosophy’s role when he answers the question, “What is philosophy?”

Sider answers that question five times, thus:

(1) Philosophy “investigates the essences of concepts”.

(2) Philosophy “seek[s] the essence of right and wrong”.

(3) Philosophy “seek[s] the essence of beauty”.

(4) Philosophy “seek[s] the essence of knowledge”.

(5) Philosophy “seek[s] the essences of personal identity, free will, time, and so on”.

According to Sider, conventionalists believe that “these investigations ultimately concern definitions”. Not only that, according to the conventionalist, “[i]t seems to follow that one could settle any philosophical dispute just by consulting a dictionary!”.

It would be nice to know if there is such a conventionalist animal who really believes all this. As stated earlier, Sider’s account of conventionalism really seems like an account of 1920s and 30s logical positivism — or perhaps an account of the later ordinary language philosophy of the 1950s. And surely no contemporary philosopher is such an old-fashioned animal.

Again, Sider’s take on conventionalism seems thoroughly old-fashioned in nature. What’s more, his Platonist account of philosophy (or its role) seems even more old-fashioned. This, of course, isn’t automatically to argue that Sider’s positions are false or incorrect simply because they’re old-fashioned. It’s only to say, again, that they’re old-fashioned. So perhaps all Sider’s philosophical positions are still correct or true.

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Notes:

(1) It’s interesting that Ted Sider stresses the importance of structure in both science and metaphysics considering the fact that analytic metaphysicians (ones just like Sider himself) are against, for example, ontic structural realists; whom also stress structure.

(2) An Objective Idealist (at least of a kind) can believe that, say, Universal Consciousness and “entangled conscious agents” are out there. And an anti-realist can believe that what’s responsible for “what we say” is out there; even though, when we say what we say, then that something we say is no longer about something that’s “mind-independent” — even if it is out there.