Contemporary Philosophers Both Big Up and Play Down Metaphysics

Philosopher David Manley claims that “most contemporary metaphysicians are concerned with the reality that is represented” and not with “language and thoughts”. Other (analytic) philosophers argue that much (analytic) metaphysics is “shallow” and “merely verbal”. More technically, they argue that such metaphysicians make claims which simply aren’t “truth-evaluable”.

Professor David Manley (at the University of Michigan) believes that

“[m]ost contemporary metaphysicians think of themselves as concerned, not primarily with the representations of language and thoughts, but with the reality that is represented”.

David Manley goes on to write that this

“approach in mainstream metaphysics [has] only come to ascendancy lately, and is still widely challenged”.

David Manley

Manley also tells us that metaphysics “is concerned with the foundations of reality”. He continues:

“It asks questions about the nature of the world, such as: Aside from concrete objects, are there also abstract objects like numbers and properties? Does every event have a cause? What is the nature of possibility and necessity? When do several things make up a single bigger thing? Do the past and future exist? And so on.”

So what if a philosopher were to say, to take just one possible retort, the following? -

The idea of there being “foundations of reality” is preposterous.

It can even be said that talk of “the nature of the world” (rather than, say, the plural natures) raises a few questions too. In addition, why accept any distinction at all between abstract and concrete objects? Or, alternatively, perhaps there are other kinds of objects other than those which are abstract and concrete. Perhaps some metaphysicians even question that there are events in the way that others question the existence of objects. And so on.

Possibly all these questions can legitimately be asked, and it still be acceptable to talk about “the foundations of reality”, “the nature of the world”, etc. After all, the discussion must start somewhere. And even if a metaphysician rejects everything contained in Manley’s short descriptive account of metaphysics, then these basic distinctions may still be accepted by many — or even most — metaphysicians.

In a very basic sense, then, what Manley describes seems to be classic metaphysical realism — however you slice it. Thus, some philosophers may be surprised that this is still the current paradigm (or fashion) for contemporary metaphysicians. Then again, (metaphysical) anti-realism (to take just an alternative) has also only ever been one (other) option in metaphysics.

It can be added here that even though these realist (or non-deflationary— see later) metaphysicians are concerned with “the reality that is represented”, they may still be interested in what contemporary science has to say on reality (or the world). After all, if, as W.V.O Quine argued, it is physics which tells us “what there is”, then surely a metaphysical realist needs to listen. That said, metaphysicians who’ve been strongly committed to the findings of science have also taken various anti-realist positions and positions which are critical of metaphysical realism.

Manley himself stresses the importance of science (actually, physics) to metaphysical realists too when he writes:

“And the preferred methodology for answering these questions is quasi-scientific, of the type recommended by W. V. O. Quine, developed by David Lewis [].”

Strong Deflationism

Many people who are suspicious of what’s now called “analytic metaphysics” will be sympathetic to the position of what Manley calls “strong deflationism”. (That’s if people who dislike metaphysics will even care about a position which criticises it.) So it’s worth stating a few words on analytic metaphysics here.

Analytic metaphysics (see here, here, here, and here) isn’t metaphysics done by analytic philosophers, as the name may suggest. Analytic metaphysics is deemed to be a particular kind of metaphysics within analytic philosophy. In other words, not all metaphysicians who are analytic philosophers also do analytic metaphysics. (Of course some philosophers will reject this distinction and they’d probably even question whether there is such a thing — at least as just described — as analytic metaphysics.)

If we return to strong deflationism. (This term is also used by the American philosopher Theodore (Ted) Sider in his paper/chapter, ‘Ontological Realism’.)

The position of strong deflationism is still a metaphysical position. Indeed whatever position you take on the world (or on anything else for that matter) will contain some assumptions (or even explicit beliefs) which are metaphysical in nature.

So what is strong deflationism? According to Manley, it’s

“[m]otivated in part by intuitions of shallowness, they argue that the dispute is merely verbal, or that the disputants are not making truth-evaluable claims at all”.

Is all (analytic) metaphysics “merely verbal”?

Perhaps not.

One is tempted here to make the (possibly inconsequential and therefore trite) point that there must still be the way the world is.

So:

1) Sure. We talk about the world with words, concepts and theories. We also rely on our embodied/embedded nature and our contingent sensory systems. Etc. However, there is still the way the world is.

2) We may not even be able to (as it were) get at the world unless we use words, concepts or theories, sensory systems, etc. which “distort” or simply change it. However, there is still the way the world is.

Furthermore, what does analytic metaphysics displaying “shallowness” mean here? What are (realist) metaphysicians shallow about? What can they say — metaphysically or otherwise — which isn’t shallow?

Can it really be the case that a dispute — any dispute — can be “merely verbal”? Is that possible — even in principle? (See the final section on David Chalmers’ position later.)

What’s more, if the (analytic) metaphysicians’ claims aren’t (to use Manley’s term) “truth-evaluable”, then what sort of metaphysical (or simply philosophical) claims are truth-evaluable? And what would make them truth-evaluable?

These questions will require answers which must, at least in part, include answers with metaphysical components. (The critics of metaphysical realism may not, and probably will not, deny that they’re committed to at least some form of metaphysics.)

Despite my own questions and points, Manley goes on to say that

“[i]n its new forms, strong deflationism poses as serious a challenge to metaphysics as ever”.

Mild Deflationism

The “mild deflationist” position (as expressed by Manley) is difficult to grasp. Manley tells us that mild deflationists “admit that there is a genuine dispute at issue”. However, they also believe that “it can be resolved in a relatively trivial fashion by reflecting on conceptual or semantic facts”. Moreover, “nothing of substance is left for the metaphysician to investigate”.

So how does all that work?

If these mild deflationists admit that there are “genuine disputes” here; then how can they be entirely resolved by “reflecting on conceptual or semantic facts”?

Of course concepts and semantics are important. However, they can’t possibly tell the whole story.

Indeed can any dispute be merely verbal in any literal sense? That is, can any dispute be entirely “due to differences in the way the disputants are using certain terms”?

So perhaps the problem here is taking the words “merely verbal” too literally. That is, in the sense that surely no one really believes that any dispute is literally all about semantics and/or language… Yet, perhaps, that’s unless any remainder is — by (semantic) definition — “trivial” (or “nothing of substance”).

The only situation in which I can conceive of this position (as it has been stated) working would be when it comes to the position of linguistic idealism or perhaps some other form of idealism — and even then, it’s not clear that it would work.

It’s not surprising, then, that Manley rounds off his description of mild deflationism by stating that

“mild deflationists tend to be motivated more by intuitions of triviality than by the intuition that nothing is really at issue in the dispute”.

Here again we see the word “triviality”. Moreover, Manley hints that if these mild deflationists aren’t motivated “by the intuition that nothing is really at issue in the dispute”, then doesn’t that mean that they may well believe that something really is (or could be) at issue? And if that’s the case, then how is this mild-deflationist circle squared?

Manley’s second point is more telling.

He states that mild deflationists claim that “[n]either side” in a metaphysical dispute “succeeds in making a claim with determinate truth-value”. Surely here the mild deflationist has moved away from the merely verbal if he’s now also talking about truth-values. In other words, if neither metaphysical position x nor the alternative (or conflicting) metaphysical position y (on the same subject) can be given a truth-value, then surely that must mean that the mild deflationist is — even if only tacitly — making a metaphysical statement about the nature of the world. That is, surely he’s arguing that the world couldn’t possibly provide an answer to the question of whether or not position x or position y has a “determinate truth-value”. Thus, that would mean that the mild deflationist is still firmly in the domain of metaphysics.

Let’s now go into a little detail as to the nature of some of these metaphysical issues (i.e., of the kind which are either played up or played down by contemporary philosophers). David Chalmers’ examples are worth considering.

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David Chalmers on Verbal Disputes and Metaphysical Trivia

The Australian philosopher David Chalmers’ once wrote a paper called ‘Verbal Disputes’. (He also gave a seminar on this subject, which could be found on YouTube.) Many other philosophers have also tackled the problem of whether certain philosophical issues are “merely verbal disputes” (see here). This debate actually goes back through the centuries. And perhaps it was best highlighted by the criticisms of metaphysics by the logical positivists in the 1920s and 1930s.

In terms of contemporary philosophy, the notion that some philosophical issues are merely verbal has often been levelled at analytic metaphysics (as discussed above). Chalmers himself tackles some of these issues. That said, Chalmers never names any names and he certainly doesn’t use the term “analytic metaphysics”.

More particularly, Chalmers discusses such things as whether or not a “random booklike” x is… well, a book. (Or, to use the contemporary jargon, is x only a collection of “particles arranged” bookwise?)

The following is more or less Chalmers’ position on such verbal disputes — at least as I’ve interpreted him and added some detail of my own.

Firstly, let’s take two philosopher-scientists: Smith and Jones.

Philosopher-scientist Smith has access to all the facts, laws, information, etc. about spatiotemporal slice (or state of affairs) A and says that it is x. Philosopher-scientist Jones has access to all the same facts, laws, information, etc. about the same spatiotemporal slice (or state of affairs) A and says that it is y. Yet both Smith and Jones agree on the facts, laws, etc. Thus, this must mean that what Smith and Jones say about A is over and above the facts, laws, etc. In addition to facts, laws, etc., Smith and Jones must have brought in theory, prior beliefs, conceptual decisions, semantics, etc. into the discussion.

The given facts may well be determinate. However, it doesn’t follow from this that what we say about them is also determinate. Or, in another manner of speaking, the facts alone don’t entail what we say about them…

But hang on a minute!

One may now wonder how this clean and neat distinction between facts and what we say about them can be upheld. After all, aren’t the facts (or simply what we take to be the facts) themselves somewhat dependent on what we say?

In any case, David Chalmers himself doesn’t only argue that what we say is indeterminate. He also argues that “the facts [themselves] are indeterminate”.

Much of what’s just been said is fairly standard in science and in the philosophy of science. That is, the very same facts, data, observations and/or evidence may engender different theories. Indeed some philosophers have argued that the very same facts, data, observations and/or evidence could engender a (possible) infinite number of theories. (This situation is called the underdetermination of theory by the data and it’s been widely discussed in philosophy.)

And here again we can question the clean and neat separation of empirical data from the theories which, it seems to be supposed, come later.

Now Chalmers often mentions what he calls “stipulation” in these respects.

The basic point is that if we stipulate what we mean by a particular word, then the answers to the questions about facts, data, evidence, what x is, etc. must — at least partly — follow from such stipulations. Of course some people will be horrified by the argument that acts of stipulation are decisive when it comes to what we take to be matters of fact…

Yet it’s not that simple.

Of course there is a problem with over-stressing the importance of stipulation; or even with simply emphasising the importance of stipulation at all. Chalmers sums up this problem with a joke. He wrote:

“One might as well define ‘world peace’ as ‘a ham sandwich.’ Achieving world peace becomes much easier, but it is a hollow achievement.”

As it is, Chalmers only applies his joke to a single case: consciousness. So perhaps it can also be applied to other cases (such as the cases of a random cup, a non-biological virus, etc.). Clearly, even someone who argues that stipulation is important won’t also accept that we can define the words “world peace” as “a ham sandwich”. In turn, some philosophers and laypersons will feel just as strongly about claiming that, say, a “computer virus is alive” or that “bacteria learn”.

The philosopher P.M.S. Hacker, for example, holds a very strong position on the philosophers and scientists who use such terms (or words) in ways which are radically at odds with everyday usage (see Hacker’s ‘Languages, Minds and Brain’ in Mindwaves). Many physicists, on the other hand, are very keen on using old words (or terms) in very different ways. (Think here of “information”, “space”, “time”, “intelligence”, “law”, “string”, “hole”, etc.)

Now let’s look at two examples from David Chalmers which are right up the street of analytic metaphysicians: a “cup-shaped object” and a “random book-like entity”.

What are Cups and Books?

David Chalmers asks:

“Is a cup-shaped object made of tissues a cup?”

Now take this question:

Is it the case that if any x functions as a cup, then surely it is a cup?

Here’s another question:

What if this cup-shaped object (or “particles arranged cupwise”) wasn’t designed to be cup?

Well, does that matter?

If any given x holds liquid, and even looks like a cup, then surely it is a cup. Why does it matter whether or not it wasn’t designed to be a cup?

So is whether it does or doesn’t matter a purely stipulative matter? In other words, is the following the case? -

x can only be classed as a “cup” if it were designed to be a cup.

This would mean that any natural object which were used as a cup could never be classed as a “cup” or even be a cup. Yet all sorts of natural things are used as functional devices and which we then name according to their functions (e.g., a stick classed as a “weapon”, extracted venom classed as a “poison”, etc.). Does their natural status stop them from being named “weapons”, “cups”, etc?

In any case, whether people call x a “cup” or not, they’re all still talking about the same x. (This seems to be Chalmers’ central point.) Not only that: all people agree that it looks like a cup and can be used as a cup. The only difference, then, is what Chalmers calls “terminology”.

Here’s another question from Chalmers:

“Is a booklike entity that coagulated randomly into existence a book?”

This strange book’s very existence (or its mere possibility) is a little like the infinite monkey theorem in which, after an infinite amount time in which an infinite number of monkeys play with a typewriter, at least one of them will produce the complete works of Shakespeare. (In an infinite amount of time, surely an infinite number of monkeys will produce the entire works of Shakespeare an infinite number of times.)…

Such is the nature of the logical possibility which Chalmers is so keen on.

In any case, it can be presumed that Chalmers doesn’t argue that x is book-shaped or arranged bookwise. Surely something that’s only shaped like a book can’t be a book. That’s because, after all, it may not have any words in it. Then again, if stipulation rules, then why can’t shape alone be a necessary and sufficient condition for bookhood?

But let’s say that this random book does contain words. Not only that: it contains words which make sense. Here again we can ask the following question:

Is it relevant that this “booklike entity” is natural and that it wasn’t written and produced by a human being?

After all, if it looks like a book and contains grammatical sentences, a coherent story, etc., then surely it must be a book…

And such is the nature of certain debates in analytic metaphysics.

There Are No Conceptual Schemes

Philosopher Donald Davidson once wrote that conceptual schemes are deemed to be “ways of organizing experience”; as well as “systems of categories that give form to the data of sensation”. What’s more, “they are points of view from which individuals, cultures, or periods survey the passing scene”. From this line of reasoning (which Davidson himself rejected), we pass on to such things as “linguistic relativity” (or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) and, perhaps (!), Kuhnian paradigms and Wittgensteinian language games.

Let’s start off with Donald Davidson’s take on what conceptual schemes are supposed to be. Davidson wrote the following:

“Conceptual schemes, we are told, are ways of organizing experience; they are systems of categories that give form to the data of sensation; they are points of view from which individuals, cultures, or periods survey the passing scene.”

This passage can be found in Davidson’s paper ‘On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme’. That paper at least partly inspired the following essay.

Donald Davidson (1917–2003)

Davidson (who died in 2003) was primarily responding to the thesis that different “individuals, cultures, or periods” have different conceptual schemes. What’s more, these schemes are said to be at odds — or even in conflict — with each other.

The position that Davidson was at least partially arguing against is what’s called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. (It’s worth stressing here that Davidson certainly wasn’t doing anthropology, history or political commentary.) The following is one definition of that hypothesis:

“The simplest Sapir-Whorf hypothesis definition is a theory of language that suggests that the language a person speaks determines or influences how they think. According to Sapir-Whorf, a person’s native language has a major impact on how they see the world.”

This means that Davidson’s clause “we are told” (in the opening passage) gave his game away…

That game being his rejection of the very idea of a conceptual scheme.

Davidson’s position was that there is only one conceptual scheme.

This basically means that, in a strong sense, there are no conceptual schemes at all… Or at least there are no conceptual schemes as such things came to seen by certain philosophers — and, indeed, by various social scientists.

Crudely speaking, this particular take on conceptual schemes (i.e., the one which Davidson had a problem with) partially mirrors Thomas Kuhn’s notion of a scientific paradigm and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion of a language game. However, if anything, a conceptual scheme has been deemed to be much deeper and far broader than a (scientific or otherwise) paradigm or a language game. Indeed it can even be argued that paradigms and language games must themselves belong to (or be embedded within) broader conceptual schemes.

All that said, I won’t be commenting on Davidson’s paper or even on anything specific within it. The main reason for that is that Davidson had a particularly epistemological take on this issue. (See the note at the end of this essay.)

We can start here with the American philosopher Thomas Nagel.

Nagel advanced the view that we can divorce ourselves from our conceptual schemes and even from our concepts. (It must be stressed here that the position which Nagel advanced is quite unlike Davidson’s.)

Thomas Nagel, Thomson Clarke and Steven Stitch

In his book The Last Word (1997), Thomas Nagel argued that the “obsession with language” and conceptual schemes has “contributed to the devastation of reason”. He went on to argue that if philosophers and laypersons stress the importance of language and conceptual schemes generally (which are, after all, contingent), then they’re in effect stressing the contingencies of psychology and culture too. And it’s this approach, Nagel concluded, which “leads to relativism”.

All this raises the following two questions:

(1) How many (broadly speaking) differences are required to create a separate conceptual scheme?

(2) How many differences are required to make two different conceptual schemes mutually incompatible or even incommensurable?

If a distinction were to be made between two different conceptual schemes, then the boundary between them may well be vague. So how deep must conceptual variance go before something is christened a conceptual scheme? Would it necessarily mean that a new conceptual scheme would — or could — never (metaphorically) look out at other (possibly rival or competing) conceptual schemes in order to judge (or simply evaluate) them?

Clearly, simple differences in beliefs can’t themselves constitute different conceptual schemes. If that were the case, then we’d all belong to different conceptual schemes. In fact each individual would have his or her own conceptual scheme.

So perhaps it’s when concepts and/or beliefs begin to link up together and have mutual implications and entailments that the question of different conceptual schemes arises.

Take the following technical distinction which was made by the American philosopher Steven Stitch (1943-) in his paper ‘The Problem of Cognitive Diversity’. He wrote:

“[T]he Yoruba do not have a distinction corresponding to our distinction between knowledge and (mere) true belief.”

In this essay’s context, this raises the question as to whether or not having (or accepting) the distinction between knowledge and true belief itself entails, implies or generates other concepts which, in turn, partly help form a distinctive conceptual scheme. (Of course we can also ask if this is just a philosophical distinction that not even all members of “our own” culture — whatever we take that to be — share.)

Firstly, a belief in true belief or knowledge isn’t itself really a single belief. It’s a belief made up of other beliefs.

Again, the main question is whether or not we can stand outside our conceptual scheme (or conceptual schemes) and evaluate other conceptual schemes (or other cultures and historical periods).

Perhaps the American philosopher Thompson Clarke (1928–2012), for one, believed that we can. In his paper ‘The Legacy of Scepticism’, he wrote:

“Each concept or the conceptual scheme must be divorceable intact from our practices, from whatever constituted the essential nature of the plain. […] [O]bservers who usually by means of our senses, ascertain, when possible, whether items fulfil the conditions legislated by concepts.”

So did Thompson Clarke himself step outside his own conceptual scheme into other conceptual schemes in order to evaluate them? Alternatively, did he adopt a God’s-eye view (or “view from nowhere”) of what he called “the plain”?

There is a hint in the above passage that Clarke believed that he could become free of both concepts and conceptual schemes when he asked “whether [sensory] items fulfil the conditions legislated by concepts”. Thus, these sensory items (contrary to the note on Davidson at the end of this essay) seem to come first — at least in this instance. In any case, Clarke was certainly committed to the world’s “essential” nature when he wrote about “the essential nature of the plain”.

Some readers may now ask what “truth in all discourses” (if not in all conceptual schemes) actually is. It may also be asked if truth can be external to all conceptual schemes.

Truth in All Conceptual Schemes

What if a member of each conceptual scheme has his/her own version (or versions) of the nature of truth? And what if each member of such conceptual schemes also has his/her own truths?

Wouldn’t this create difficulties in communication… or worse?

That said, if different conceptual schemes can accept or believe (discounting different languages) the same claims (for example, that 2 + 2 = 4 or that Napoleon was an Emperor of France), then why can’t they agree on other more esoteric, recondite or controversial things too? Indeed it could be the case that from the fact that different conceptual schemes accept the non-contentious, then they may then (mutually) accept the contentious too.

Think here of how easy it is to agree on the weather, “established facts”, etc., and yet how hard it sometimes is to agree on politics, morality, art, music, etc.

More particularly, if different conceptual schemes can discuss and even agree on the weather, when Hitler died or what is the largest body in the Solar System, then perhaps they can also discuss and agree upon more contentious issues…

Or are there language games about the weather, historical facts and astronomy too?

Let’s get back to truths (or indeed facts) which are external to conceptual schemes.

If a conceptual scheme is chosen (rather than, say, born into) by an adult individual, then it must be so for reasons which are external to that conceptual scheme. Similarly, an individual may reject his — or a — conceptual scheme for reasons external to that conceptual scheme.

Now let’s (perhaps) be a little naïve here. Take these three simple logical examples and statements:

(1) A = A (in all conceptual schemes)

(2) A = B = C ⊃ A = C (in all conceptual schemes)

(3) P ⊃ Q
P
∴ Q

(in all conceptual schemes)

Similarly, does the schema (if not the actual content)

The sentence “Snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white.

hold in only one conceptual scheme?

More factually and empirically.

If everyone — or almost everyone — believes that Napoleon was an Emperor of France, then they must also believe many other things which can be — or are — derived from (or dependent upon) such a belief. For example, that France exists. That France did indeed have an Emperor. That there was a time when France didn’t have an Emperor. (This last belief isn’t logically derived from the initial belief.) And if we all believe that Napoleon was an Emperor of France, then surely we may then also mutually believe that there were specific reasons as to why he became such a leader. So perhaps there can be agreement on those reasons too.

Those simple bits of logic above were intended to show that the contentious can be derived from the uncontentious. This itself may shows that if conceptual schemes share the uncontentious, then there’s nothing to stop them — in principle — from sharing the contentious too.

All this, in turn, casts doubt on the incommensurability (see also Kuhnian incommensurability) and untranslatability theses when applied — specifically — to conceptual schemes. And, if that’s the case, then perhaps the idea of different — or even rival — conceptual schemes is flawed.

That said, none of the above need imply that there’s a possibility of escaping from all conceptual schemes into Thomas Nagel’s or Thomson Clarke’s wilderness of Nowhere — the view from where we can see the world As It Truly Is

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Note: Donald Davidson’s Own Take

It’s worth stressing here that Donald Davidson’s own position (which is quite unlike anything advanced in the essay above) was grounded on purely epistemological and philosophy-of-mind considerations, not on denying (or, for that matter, stressing) anthropological, historical and/or cultural differences.

That grounding can be found in the following passage (from the paper ‘A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge’), in which Davidson wrote:

“The relation between a sensation and a belief cannot be logical. Since sensations are not beliefs or other propositional attitudes. What then is the relation? The answer is, I think, obvious: the relation is causal. Sensations cause some beliefs and in this sense are the basis or ground of those beliefs. But a causal explanation of belief does not show how or why the belief is justified.”

Another passage (from the same paper) is even more apposite in this context. Davidson continued:

“Accordingly, I suggest that we give up the idea that meaning or knowledge is grounded on something that counts as an ultimate source of evidence. No doubt meaning and knowledge depend on experience, and experience ultimately on sensation. But this is the ‘depend’ of causality, not of evidence or justification.”

Basically, then, if this distinction between (as it were) pure and given “experiences” (or “sensations”) and later beliefs is rejected (as Davidson did), then the idea of conceptual schemes being free to (metaphorically) make sense (in multiple different ways) of those pure and given sensations is much harder to defend.

There Are No Abstract Propositions

Crudely, should we believe that there are abstract propositions simply because, say, the German for “Snow is white” is “Schnee ist weiß”?

One

Many philosophers and logicians have argued that abstract propositions don’t belong to a particular language or even to a set of languages. However, it can be argued that propositions (if not abstract propositions) do belong to the set of all languages — or to language simpliciter…

Yet, if that’s the case, then perhaps such things aren’t propositions at all. That is, perhaps propositions don’t exist (or have being) if they’re seen to be abstract entities. (The British philosopher P.F. Strawson — some 70 years ago — suggested substituting the word “statement” for the word “proposition”.)

A proposition is often said to be a “unit of information”.

Thus, if propositions are abstract entities, then how do they contain (or deliver) such units of information? Surely only sentential expressions can offer us (or contain) units of information — at least of the informational form said to be (metaphorically) contained in propositions and which are then expressed by natural-language sentences.

Let’s concede that a proposition (like a mental image or a representation) is a… something. However, how can that something contain units of information unless that information is expressed by a sentence (or by sentences)? Perhaps it can be provisionally accepted that a proposition is the ground (or basis) of later units of information. But can an abstract proposition itself be a unit of information? Moreover, much like the mental images or representations mentioned in parentheses a moment ago, these (possible) grounds of later sentential expressions surely can’t be either true or false.

[Relevantly, Bertrand Russell believed — at least at one early point in his career — that abstract propositions were structured entities which have properties and objects as their parts or constituents. See here.]

Similarly, truth conditions and truthmakers alone don’t offer us fixed and determinate units of information. That said, they are still the conditions (or grounds) which give later sentential expressions their truth values — thus also offering us units of information. These units of information, however, only become determinate and fixed when expressed in sentential form. This means that sentential expressions must actually produce (or offer up) units of information and thus allow and determine truth values. Consequently, such units of information don’t actually have any status (or reality) as units of information before their sentential expressions. Indeed, even the aforementioned word “their” (as in “before their sentential expressions”) is incorrect because if abstract propositions don’t exist, then there can be no such thing as their expression. And that’s because this temporal position would entail a distinction between abstract propositions and their later (sentential) expressions.

[I’m not convinced about many of the distinctions which are made between truthmakers and truth conditions in the philosophical literature. For one, if truth conditions belong purely to semantics, then some of the truth conditions of specific sentences offered by philosophers and logicians certainly don’t supply what many laypersons — and other philosophers — would deem to be the meanings of those sentences… But, of course, that simply raises the issue as to what meanings are. In addition, even if a truthmaker (i.e., “that in virtue of which something is true”) is deemed to be a “parcel of reality” (or even a parcel of an abstract world), then it would still need to be expressed by a sentence (or sentences). Thus, truthmakers must become the subject of semantics. Moreover, the linguistic expressions of truthmakers also require semantic evaluation.]
 
All this raises further questions.

Two

Firstly, can the content of a (linguistic) statement be separated from the form of that statement?

Another way of putting that question is to ask what sort of being and identity an abstract proposition has before it finds itself expressed by a natural-language sentence.

So do we ever have the propositional content of a sentence before the sentence itself is constructed? (Propositions are sometimes said to be the “contents of truth-evaluable statements”.)

Take the following often-used T-schema:

The sentence “Snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white.

The words “snow is white” are in quotation marks and the italicised (on the right side) snow is white is (meant to be) the truth condition for the antecedent (in quotes) sentence.

An entire proposition, unlike truth conditions (such as snow being white), is believed to be either true or false. It tells us something either is or isn’t the case.

In the past there have been many candidates for the role of a proposition. Some of these candidates, admittedly, were simply variations upon — more or less — similar themes.

For example, is a proposition the meaning of a sentential statement?

So it’s worth noting here that in much 20th-century philosophy a “meaning” was also deemed to be an abstract (or at least non-linguistic) entity which is shared by all the natural-language sentences which were believed to “have the same meaning”. Clearly, this position is tied to the philosophical debate about abstract propositions.

Alternatively, is a proposition a Fregean “Thought”?

[Fregean Thoughts are entities “for which the question of truth arises”. Gottlob Frege himself held the view that propositions are abstract entities (or Platonic entities) which exist in a non-physical “third realm”.]

And a recent popular choice — at least from the 1970s to fairly recently — was that a proposition is the “set of possible worlds” which would make the sentence which expresses it true. (This position is said to date back to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.)

Again, provisionally it can be accepted that propositions may be distinguishable from particular sentences. However, a proposition can’t exist separately from all sentences. And if a proposition necessarily requires a sentence (or the set of all — synonymous — sentences) to be the proposition it is, then perhaps abstract propositions as a whole shouldn’t have been given so much kudos in the philosophical tradition.

That said, it seems fairly easy to accept that the following two sentences express the same proposition:

1) “The father of Johnny Smith is a liar.”
2) “Johnny Smith’s dad lies.”

However, even here we can say that (1) and (2) aren’t exact. Yet that difference isn’t all down to differences in wording. Thus, if two different sentences (in the same language) can never be exact equivalents, then perhaps it’s incorrect to say that they “share [the same] proposition”.

Despite that, it can be said that 1) and 2) above are simply (as two words can also be) sentential synonyms. This means that when we say that 1) and 2) are the same proposition, we mean that 2) is “simply the uttering of a synonym” of (1). Or, if 2) came first, then (1) would still be the uttering of a synonym of (2). (As Quine argued, the synonym needn’t be “clearer”, simply different.)

Does all this mean that it was the synonymous (or nearly synonymous) nature of two or more sentences which made philosophers and logicians think in terms of abstract propositions?

For a start, we can accept that such sentential synonyms do indeed — nearly — say the same thing. However, they don’t do so because they (metaphorically) share the same abstract proposition.

Take 1) and 2) again.

We can provisionally argue that they express the same proposition. Yet can the (supposed) abstract proposition (as it were) behind or underneath the natural-language sentences escape all such expressions?

On a related issue.

It can be argued that sentences (or persons-with-minds using natural-language sentences) individuate and determine the facts or states of affairs. Yet the fact of x being y has been seen to be a “gerrymandered entity”. (Philosopher P.F. Strawson called such things “sentence-shaped objects”.) That is, what Johnny’s dad did before he told lies, what he did after he told lies, the events and people which surrounded him when he did and didn’t tell lies, etc. — all these things are erased to create the determinate entity (or simply “string”) that is the statement, “The father of Johnny Smith is a liar”.

It’s not being said that x’s telling lies (or snow’s being white) only has any reality (or being) when expressed in a sentence (or sentences). It’s the individuating that’s sentential and therefore a product of human minds. It may be the case that both the concrete and abstract things which make such statements true do indeed exist independently of minds. However, the statements which capture such things are clearly not independent of minds.

Yet, again, all this depends on what philosophers, logicians and laypeople mean by the word “proposition”.

It can be admitted that many of the things which are required to make natural-language sentences true (facts, truth conditions, states of affairs, abstract objects, sets of possible worlds… take your pick) exist separately from all sentences and from all persons-with-minds. However, propositions themselves do not do so.

Consider this comparison.

Books can exist separately from libraries. However, when books are brought together, they constitute a library. Nonetheless, a single book isn’t a library. Similarly, many mind-independent things are necessary in order to make sentential statements true. However, only these things plus sentences (as well as persons-with-minds) are then sufficient for all the sentences which have truth-evaluable content.

Perhaps all this is what made propositional realists (a subset of metaphysical realists?) make a fundamental mistake.

Again, many of the (as it were) things required to make sentences true may well be mind-independent (or abstract) and therefore separate — or separable — from such sentences. Thus, because of that, propositional realists might well have concluded that propositions themselves are separable from all sentences — as well as separable from all persons-with-minds.

Finally, is an abstract proposition really non-spatiotemporal and mind-independent? Mind-independence, of course, has just been discussed. So what about propositions being non-spatiotemporal? If propositions are non-spatiotemporal, then how do we gain (causal) access to them? …

That issue is, of course, another very-familiar philosophical ballgame.

****************************

Final Thought

The essay above is a tidied-up version of something I wrote in 2015. So I’ve been thinking about this issue for a few years (on and off, of course). I’m still not sure about it. That said, I’ve seen no convincing arguments which have shown me that my (as it were) eliminativism about abstract propositions is incorrect.

Perhaps all this simply shows that this is really a non-issue. Either that, or it’s all mainly — or even entirely — down to how each individual defines the words “abstract proposition”. More fundamentally, it may depend on how each individual defines the word “proposition”. Alternatively, it may be a non-issue precisely because it all mainly boils down to conflicting definitions.

Sociologist Steve Fuller Challenges the “Would-Be Emperors” of Physics and Biology

Professor Fuller believes that his fellow sociologists (perhaps simply himself) could “solve, or at least “dissipate” the “deep puzzles” of physics and biology. He also wrote that some biologists have only “interdisciplinary pretentions” and that the evolutionary biologist “[Stephen] Gould wants to flaunt his well-roundedness”. Finally, Fuller believes that A.C. Grayling’s “grasp of the history of science [doesn’t go] beyond head-banging standards”.

“It seems to me that much of the comment on science by the social constructivists and postmodernists is motivated by the desire to enhance the status of the commentator — that he be seen not as a hanger-on or adjunct to science, but as an independent investigator, and perhaps as a superior investigator, by reason of his greater detachment.”

— Theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg (1933–2021), in his book Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries. (See source here.)

[Professor Fuller is mentioned in Steven Weinberg’s book. Weinberg commented on Fuller’s defence of the journal Social Text, which published the “Sokal hoax”. Apparently, Fuller believes that Alan Sokal “abused the trust of the editors of Social Text”.]

Introduction

The first two essays of this series concentrated on scientists criticising (sometime insulting) other scientists and other scientific disciplines. Now let’s move away from those scientists quoted in John Brockman’s The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution to a sociologist commenting on that book itself.

In this case, then, we have a sociologist attempting to trump both other sciences and other scientists.

[See my first two essays: ‘Scientists at War With Scientists: Insults, Politics, and Darwinism’ and ‘Science is Red in Tooth and Claw: Biologists vs Physicists vs Biologists’.]

Professor Fuller Challenges Some Would-Be Emperors

In ‘Book Review: The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution’, Professor Steve Fuller (1959-) laid his cards on the table when he told us that his prime motive was to

“challenge these skimpily clad would-be emperors”.

Of course Fuller wasn’t entirely critical of Brockman’s book or the scientists included in it. After all, Fuller’s main (or only) gripe is that the social sciences (or his own sociology) aren’t included in it. That said, in Brockman’s later books, many social scientists have indeed been featured — see (here and here). But, alas, not Professor Fuller himself. (Perhaps Brockman read Fuller’s critical review.)

In any case, Steve Fuller went on to state the following:

“[T]o a sociologist, it will be apparent that many of the ‘deep puzzles’ that these scientists brood over could be solved, or at least dissipated, by a dose of social science [].”

That’s an incredibly highfalutin claim.

That said, Fuller moves away from the obvious rhetoric when he also said that sociologists must

“assess critically their [i.e., natural scientists’] proposals and not be afraid to reveal gaps in their knowledge”.

He then went on to argue that

“much of what is said could have benefited from the presence of a sociological interlocutor”.

Isn’t all this simply an embarrassing display of outrage from someone who’s so immersed in his own subject (i.e., sociology) that he can’t see the wood for the trees? That said, it can of course be supposed that Professor Fuller will probably believe that the social sciences (or his own sociology) would enable both physicists and biologists to see the wood, rather than the trees.

Yet surely this simple embrace of social science (or Fuller’s own sociology) is hardly likely to solve these deep puzzles… That’s if Fuller believes that there are any deep puzzles at all in physics and biology.

The words “Fuller’s own sociology” (Fuller has also used the term “collective epistemology”) were put in parentheses a few moments ago. That’s because although Fuller used the words “social science” once or twice, he refers to “sociology” more often. For example, Fuller told his readers that

“[w]hen Penrose sketches a unified theory of everything, he sees roles for physicists, psychologists, computer scientists and maybe even theologians — but not sociologists”.

Fuller also puts the words “deep puzzles” in scare quotes, which strongly suggests that he doesn’t actually believe that they are deep puzzles. More precisely, Fuller believes that if physicists and biologists injected themselves with a strong dose of social science (or Fuller’s own sociology), then these deep puzzles would simply (to change the tenses of his own words) dissolve or dissipate. (I suppose that this would make Professor Fuller the Wittgenstein of Sociology.)

Fuller continued:

“[T]he most disturbing feature of these interviews is that despite their interdisciplinary pretensions, none of the scientists ever feels the need to refer to theories or findings of the social sciences (except for a few derogatory remarks about economists). When Gould wants to flaunt his well-roundedness, he quotes Horace and Shakespeare, not Marx and Weber [].”

This just sounds like a sociologist attempting to enlarge his own academic (or career) fiefdom.

Indeed, perhaps Fuller gave his political and career-minded game away when he used these (seemingly) envious words:

“[T]he most highly subsidized areas of the natural sciences (high-energy physics, cosmology, evolutionary theory, artificial intelligence).”

This (what seems like) enviousness displays itself again when Fuller wrote the following:

“Whenever a non-fiction best- seller is written by an academic, it tends to be by a natural scientist, not a humanist or social scientist.”

Fuller’s problem above may have something to do with the prose styles of certain academics who’re also sociologists. That is, much stuff that’s written by sociologists (i.e., those indebted to Michael Foucault, poststructuralism, postmodernism, etc.) is arcane and sometimes outrightly pretentious. Such sociologists also don’t want to transcend their tribal academese because, if they did, then the paucity of their ideas would be clearly displayed to all those on the outside.

All that said, what about the (relative) “best-sellers” of such people (not all sociologists) as Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Zygmunt Bauman, Slavoj Žižek, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Jurgen Habermas, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, Alain Badiou, etc?

Some of Professor Steve Fuller’s 21 books.

What’s more, Professor Fuller himself has been successful when it comes to selling his many (i.e., 21) books. He has also given more than 100 media interviews and his works have been translated into fifteen languages. In addition to all that, 23 academic symposia have been published on his work…

But, clearly, Fuller wants more.

That said, Fuller is still not, of course, a best-seller in the Stephen Hawking or Jackie Collins sense. But he’s still an (as it were) academic best-seller…

In any case, perhaps there are many reasons as to why the scientists Fuller targeted didn’t embrace (or even refer to) the social sciences. Perhaps one such reason is that much social science (especially sociology) is devoted to advancing certain political and social goals — and surely that must get in the way of the science part of social science. And there may be many other reasons why Brockman’s (natural) scientists ignored sociology too, but none of them are mentioned by Professor Fuller. (As stated in the introduction, social scientists are extensively featured in Brockman’s later books.)

And let’s say that even if one of the scientists in The Third Culture did state (as Fuller says) “derogatory remarks about economists”, then does that also mean that all the scientists in that book believed exactly the same thing? (I actually recall some positive remarks about economics and other social sciences in the very same book.)

So the fact that such scientists didn’t mention Fuller’s examples of “Marx and Weber” may simply show us that Fuller himself can’t get over the fact that his targeted scientists simply don’t have the same interests, theories and (often political) concerns which he does. Indeed Fuller’s mention of Marx may also show us (as already mentioned) that the politics in social science (or, usually, sociology) can be much stronger than the science in social science…

So it’s worth saying here that Fuller himself is both honest and explicit about the political nature of all his work — even his epistemology. (He captures this by stressing the difference between “collectivism” and “individualism” in philosophy — specifically epistemology - and the sciences. See here.) …

Consequently, all this will almost certainly mean that Fuller would reject my (no doubt “naïve”) science-politics “binary opposition”.

So, again, all the above may be one reason as to why the scientists featured in The Third Culture kept away from Fuller’s own discipline — sociology.

Steve Fuller then went into more detail when he wrote the following:

“Clearly, Gell-Mann is not familiar with the ‘path-dependent’ accounts of technological development that sociologists and economists have set out over the years. Brockman has unwittingly given us a wake-up call to challenge these skimpily clad would-be emperors.”

Again, Fuller was simply displaying his highly-specific interests and biases when he mentioned “‘path-dependent’ accounts of technological development”. And, lo and behold, Fuller just happens to have written on this subject himself (see here)!

Moreover, Fuller even concedes that theoretical physicist Murray Gell-Man did acknowledge history when he wrote the following:

“Murray Gell-Mann observes that it ‘finally’ draws attention to the fact that history is determined by ‘frozen accidents’, such as the fact that Henry VIII, rather than his brother, ascended to the English throne.”

But that wasn’t enough for Professor Fuller!

Fuller effectively wanted Murray Gell-Mann to be as emersed in sociology (or the social sciences generally) as he is. But, of course, if that had been the case, then Gell-Mann would have actually become a sociologist.

Personally, I know a little about path dependence in physics. However, I confess to knowing nothing about path-dependent accounts of technological development. So that must mean that I’m precisely the kind of person Fuller castigates.

What’s more, Fuller might well have mentioned innumerable other theories which his targeted scientists didn’t mention — or which they don’t know anything about. So surely this must mean that Fuller mentioned a very-specific area (or “account”) which he does know about (i.e., path-dependent accounts of technological development). And then he went on to simply assume ignorance on the part of his targeted scientists for not knowing — or simply mentioning — it.

All that said, there will be many other (relevant) things which these scientists know, and which Fuller himself doesn’t know. So should such scientists now arbitrarily namedrop the theories and ideas which Fuller himself doesn’t know?

Professor Steve Fuller can also be quoted picking up on my first essay’s scientists-at-war-with-scientists theme (see ‘Scientists at War With Scientists: Insults, Politics, and Darwinism’) when commenting on Brockman’s The Third Culture. He wrote:

“[] Darwin’s defenders seem keen on accusing each other of theological proclivities. For example, Gould attacks Dawkins’s belief in the adaptive quality of all organic traits as being a secular version of creationism, whereas Dennett diagnoses Gould’s belief in the limited explanatory powers of natural selection as a latent desire to hold something more exalted than blind natural forces responsible for things as they are.”

The problem here is that Fuller got involved with this war himself when he uses such phrases as “these skimpily clad would-be emperors”, “[Stephen] Gould wants to flaunt his well-roundedness”, “despite their interdisciplinary pretensions”, etc.

So it’s worth saying here that Fuller has also aimed his criticisms and insults at philosophers — as well as others — too.

Take his little spat with the British philosopher and author A.C. Grayling (1949-).

Steve Fuller says (in his article ‘Against the Faith’, which was published by New Humanist) that Grayling’s “grasp of the history of science [didn’t go] beyond head-banging standards”. (That’s not very humanist, is it?) And then Grayling got all macho himself (in his sarcastically titled article ‘Origin of the Specious’) when he retorted:

“I’ll take on Fuller any day regarding the history and theology of the various versions of Christianity with which humanity has been burdened. […] The same applies to the history of science.”

Perhaps all this is more a case of academics — rather than scientists — being at each other’s throats, vying for various academic and career fiefdoms, and crudely displaying their (manly) egos.