[Textop-en-phil] Metaphysics section

[Larry Sanger]

Hi all,

OK, I'm sure the following is going to be pathetic, since it seems like I'm
talking to myself, but I'm going to go ahead and answer my own questions!

First, a report--huge news day for the DU:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/personal_tech
nology/15109345.htm

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact

(HILARY PUTNAM was interviewed for this!)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-haisch24jul24,0,4744260
.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-opensource23jul23,1,774105,full.story

And here are my blog replies:

http://www.dufoundation.org/blog/

I'm also happy to report that I'll be working with at least two of you in
the coming days!  As to the rest of you, please see if the following makes
any sense.

========

> 1. I shouldn't be using names of disciplines, like 
> "metaphysics," as node headings, should I?  It has always 
> made me uncomfortable.  The reason I chose discipline names 
> is in order to dodge difficult questions that could be raised 
> about the relationship between the top-level headings and the 
> subheadings.  For instance, while each of the concepts under 
> the heading "metaphysics" have been studied-as-part-of 
> metaphysics, if I were to substitute "Being" or "Being in 
> General" or "Being qua Being" or "Stuff in General" (which 
> have been proposed as the object, in general of metaphysics), 
> then I would have to answer questions like "Wait, do 
> 'fiction' and 'divinity' really belong under 'being'?"  So 
> you could help me think about this.

The deep question here really is whether names of disciplines should ever be
used for an outline of knowledge.  The reason this makes me uncomfortable, I
think, is that "metaphysics" is properly speaking the name of a *study* or
*intellectual endeavor*, which is not the most general topic.  It's *what
metaphysics studies* that is the most general topic.  So--I've persuaded
myself--for the nonce, "metaphysics" (and other names of subdisciplines)
will have to go.  Another advantage of jettisoning these headings is that it
does not bias the discussion in the direction of any one discipline.
Logicians and mathematicians might be more likely to contribute to certain
parts of what I want to put under the new heading if the supercategory isn't
labelled "metaphysics" (if it's "things in general" instead, for instance).
Similarly, if "right and wrong" are used rather than "ethics,"
anthropologists will be more comfortable getting into the act.

Before asking whether "being" is a good name for the top-level node, I
should discuss at least a little what the parent-child relationship *means*,
or what relationships are supposed to order the hierarchy.  I can't get into
this too deeply.  I've already talked about this quite a bit with Philippe
and others, and I've put some programmatic thoughts down in a section of
"how to collate a text" called "Part of the outline is ordered according to
semantic reducibility" (see http://tinyurl.com/mpf6h).

I hardly need to tell philosophers that it's very contentious to say that
all concepts can be placed in a hierarchy in which they are semantically
reducible to, say, concepts learned directly by experience.  That such a
thing is not possible is supposed to have been one of the negative results
of the Vienna Circle.

But to hell with that, I say.  Let's pretend *as if* concepts were thus
reducible.  Let's pretend we are naïve naturalistic reductionists.  The
idea, then, is that philosophical topics--and all other topics too, except
for ones about spatio-temporal particulars like Greece--are arranged by the
concepts they mainly concern, and the ordering of any two concepts X and Y
is determined by whether X can be defined without Y (or any term(s) that
iteratively depend on Y), or vice-versa.  It is possible to talk about being
in general without talking about any particular type of being; it is
possible to talk about life in general without talking about human life; it
is possible to talk about the mind in general without talking about specific
mental functions; it is possible to talk about some aspects of individual
human beings without talking about human beings in society; and so on.

I am hoping that this all sounds at least somewhat familiar to you.
Personally I have thought quite a bit about the hierarchy of concepts that I
am proposing.  Just bear in mind that it *isn't* my view that semantic
reducibility is *sufficient* to structure the outline: other relations have
to be used as well.

The problem, however, as I think Aristotle found, is that it is impossible
to say anything even about the most basic concepts (which he called
"categories") without talking about other basic concepts at least.  You
can't talk about properties without talking about objects; you can't talk
about objects without talking about properties (or predication anyway); you
can't talk about possibility without talking about consistency and law; you
can't talk about law without talking about necessity; and so forth.  I don't
know to what extent these various "you can't talk about X without talking
about Y" claims are true, but without arguing about the details, I'll hope
you know what I mean and agree.

So I am inclined to think that, if we're going to behave like naturalistic
reductionists, then we're going to start with a whole set of categories.
You might say that we can start with Being, but frankly I think it's
possible to talk about mere possibilia that do not enjoy existence (nor do I
claim that enjoy any sort of special reified "being": I just think we can
and often do talk about stuff that doesn't exist).  So the most encompassing
category would be things.  And I don't mean physical objects.  I mean things
in general.  Items.  Stuff--which may or may not exist.  But it gets very
messy right after that, because if existence *is* a property, as I
idiosyncratically believe, then we might be busy defining it in terms of
"bumpability" (as OSU's George Schumm colorfully put it), i.e., having a
spatio-temporal location.  But then we have to say what sort of things *can*
have a spatio-temporal location in order to distinguish existent things from
mere possibilia, and it gets very complicated, as I said, particularly if
you're partial to bundle theories of objects.

This is why my "Metaphysics" category has no structure yet.  Does anyone
have a way to help?

Anyway, I have persuaded myself to make one change: in place of
"metaphysics" you will now see "things in general."

Comments very welcome...

> 2. Bear in mind that the outline is meant eventually to serve 
> *all* disciplines, not just philosophy.  Where do you see 
> physical principles, like theorems from Newton's *Principia*, 
> fitting in this outline?  Is another top-level node 
> necessary, or what?
> 
> 3. Any ideas on more interesting internal structure, given 
> the list of metaphysical subtopics?  To wit: nature, fiction, 
> motion, time, causality, divinity, and life.  Feel free to 
> propose a few chunkless nodes just to make a little sense of 
> it all.  I just haven't even tried to do this!
> 
> 4. The material re religion I put there only 
> because...nevermind, it's a long story.  Question: where 
> should the stuff about religion, its explanation and the 
> argument against it, be moved?  Look at the chunks before 
> answering this please.

I'll have to answer these later.  The above is enough for one evening!

--Larry