Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:14 pm
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Aug 31, 2019 8:50 pm
True science is discovering the nature of material existence by means of reason about the evidence of that existence.
But as Descartes showed, everything about "nature" and "material existence" is capable of doubt, in a way that 2+2=4 is not. So the minute you bring in those elements, you have probabilistic, not certain knowledge. It's inductive, not deductive.
You have made some very interesting points which I'd like to comment on in another post, but I want to begin with this idea of skepticism about existence.
That descartes was a mathematical genius is unquestionable. His analytic geometry made the Calculus possible. Unfortunately, as a philosopher, he was a crackpot and did untold damage to the whole field.
The Greek sophists were wrong about everything but did prove something very useful, that if one chooses one can make arguments that seem to cast doubt on anything. It was, in fact, the reasoning of better minds discovering the deceptions of the sophists that laid the foundations of the little in philosophy that is truly sound, and there is precious little of that.
Skepticism cannot come at the beginning of any intellectual inquiry. Something must be asserted before it can be doubted, but nothing can be asserted without assuming something exists about which the assertion is made. To even suggest everything can be doubted is a self-contradiction, because it assumes there is something to doubt, and there is someone to do the doubting. It is tantamount to the self-contradictory assertion that, "nothing exists," or the absurd question, "why is there something instead of nothing?"
All Descartes ever showed was that it is possible for the brightest of minds to make the huge mistake of rationalism, believing one can discover truth by reason alone, while ignoring that which is all there is to reason about, existence, (that which exists).
Science is neither inductive or deductive. Deduction (and supposedly induction) are formalized methods of applying reason to assertions (propositions) to determine if they are true or not. Logic, like language itself, mathematics, and geometry are human invented methods of identifying existents and their relationships. Logic is only required in science when some identification or observation is not conclusive. The identification of something is not what is usually meant by induction. (It is actually concept formation.)
I have no idea why you (and most others) are so certain that knowledge of the nature of the physical is only probable. Do you think the existence of the earth, the solar system, the galaxies, and physical universe, (or you own existence), are only probable. Do you believe it is only probable that there are microscopic organisms, or that some of those organisms cause diseases, and that some specific organisms that cause specific diseases have been identified. Do you believe the circulatory system of blood, the endocrine system, autonomic nervous system and lymphatic systems are only probable?
Is the possibility of human heavier-than-air flight, wireless communication, electronic transmission of pictures, electric motors, geo-stationary satellites, antibiotics, and digital electronics only probable? Are the identification of the chemical elements and their properties only statistically probable? Do you really think sulfur can sometimes be bismuth? (As a powder they are similar in color.)
If these are only probable, what do you call certain?
[I'll get back to the 2+2=4 Kantian false dichotomy.]
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:14 pm
Material existence is all that exists
Whether you're right or wrong about Materialism, you're evidently wrong about epistemology here. This is because ironically, this claim is a metaphysical
a priori.
You can take things out of context and make them mean almost anything you like. I don't think you did that intentionally, but I never said what your truncated quote implies.
What I said was, "Material existence is all that exists and has the nature it has independent of anyone's consciousness or knowledge of that existence. 'Independent of,' means, whether or not anyone is aware of or knows what exists or what its nature is. Another way of saying it is, reality is all that is, the way it is, independent of anyone's knowledge, beliefs, desires, or wishes."
You may have confused my word, "material," for physical, something I attempted to avoid by the long definition. My definition of existence intentionally excludes any ontological assumptions. It only points out that when I use the phrase, "material existence," I mean what actually is whatever it is and whatever its nature is, known or unknown. Ontologically you would include a spiritual realm and God; I would not. While I regard the physical to be a subset of material existence, the physical is not all that exists independently of human consciousness or knowledge. Ontologically, for me, material existence includes the physical, life, consciousness, and the human mind. That is my view of what material existence actually is, your view of what material existence is different.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:14 pm
It has no way of being verified from the empirical world, because it is a claim about what is allowed to "be real," and to count as evidence in that world. In other words, it's a pure faith-claim, not some sort of given.
I hope that you now understand what I mean by material existence does not restrict in any way what can or cannot be real. It is the business of metaphysics and ontology to identify what reality or material existence is.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:14 pm
It is the physical that is the object of the physical sciences.
Perhaps.
Why would they called them, "physical," sciences if they studied something else?
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:14 pm
But "the physical sciences" are themselves a range of empirical phenomenon constrained by a set of theories. They are human constructs, not features of the real world. Before humans organized their thoughts into "the physical sciences," there literally were no such things as "the physical sciences." Many traditions still do not have them.
You have switched from the discussion of science as a method of acquiring knowledge to discussing what is assumed be established science. I'm only addressing the nature of the discipline called science, not what is taught as science in school.
I agree that much of what goes by the name science (supposed scientific theories) is based on spurious hypotheses and preconceived premises.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:14 pm
I'm not saying they're not good: I'm saying they are a "method," which means they are an artificial arrangement intended to clarify certain kinds of knowledge by eliminating others from the field of vision. They are not the totality of reality or truth. They are constructs -- useful ones, but still constructs.
I do not quite understand why the idea that a "method" is used to accomplish or achieve something that would in some way, invalidate that accomplishment or achievement. Of course science uses methods (not just one, but many). All intellectual exercise uses human invented methods, including language, logic, mathematics, geometry, formulas, tools, instruments, and processes. They are not, as is implied when someone calls them, "constructs," just made up, but sound and effective methods for what things are, what their natures are, and what their relationships to each other are. From the simplest method of determining the number items in a collection (counting) to the vastly more complex method of the calculus to determine the precise nature of measurable relationships. Dissection, examination with microscopes or telescopes, the cataloging of various kinds of observed existents (taxonomy), electrical, chemical, and physical experiments are not constructs, nor are the recordings of the results of those methods and experiments constructs.
Was lased light, long theorized before being actually produce, discovered be eliminating something from the field of inquiry? Are lasers only some kind of construct? Science does not proceed by leaving out knowledge, but by including more and more into the hierarchy of knowledge, such as the wave nature of electromagnetic spectrum that now includes everything from light to sub-atomic particles.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:14 pm
There is no pre-determined method for making that discovery.
Sure there is. I've just outlined some of its features above. But you can fill it out by reference to Baconian science, and "the scientific method."
Bacon's real contribution to science was the observation that to understand something, that thing itself must be examined. If you want to know how the blood circulates in the human body, you have to examine human bodies. Reading Galen, or Aristotle, or any other authority is the wrong way to do science. If you take Bacon's view of "induction" to mean, one must actually examine a thing to understand it, that would be OK, but to suppose it means something can be established merely on the bases of and often repeated observation, it is wrong.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:14 pm
The first and most important aspect of science is the identification of the existents which are existence.
Absolutely. But science cannot solve this problem for itself. It cannot define ontology. All it can do is to take an ontology as presumed, and work from there. Materialism is just such a presumptive ontology, not some sort of self-evident fact.
Why would you call, "identifying existents," a problem? All knowledge begins with the identification of existents. Those identifications are called
concepts. I think you have made an epistemological mistake here, and since you mention ontology, (on which epistemology depends) I'll address that too. This is the relationship: epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge; knowledge is knowledge of that which exists; ontology identifies the nature of that which exists that makes it knowable.
[
NOTE: It is not possible, nor would you want me to address the whole of epistemology and ontology in a single post. If you are interested in a correct epistemology and ontology, please see my articles here on Philosophy Now:
Ontology Introduction, and
Epistemology, Concepts, and if those interest you, the article on propositions by which all knowledge is held,
Epistemology, Propositions, may interest you..
Ontologically, every thing that exists is whatever its qualities (attributes, properties, or characteristics) are. To identify anything, epistemologically, it is a thing's qualities that are that thing's identity.
Concepts are our means of identifying existents. I'll only describe what a concept is and how it identifies existents.
Concepts
A concept consists of two components a "perceivable existent," and a "specification." The, "perceivable existent," is a symbol, usually a spoken or written word. The "specification" is a definition which specifies or indicates the existent or existents the concept identifies.
The word (or other perceivable symbol) for a concept is not the concept. The word is our means of being conscious of the concept. The concept is the identification of an existent. The definition of a concept indicates what existent or existents a concept identifies.
How Concepts Identify Existents
If asked what he would like, a young boy wanting an apple might point to the apples in a bowl and say, "I'd like one of those, please." If there are no apples in plain sight, however, he might say, "I'd like an apple, please." The pointing and using the word apple have performed the same function—they have identified the kind of thing the boy wants.
It is not the word apple, but "using the word apple," that is the identifying action, because a spoken or written word is only a symbol, and it is the concept (symbol plus definition) that does the identifying. When the boy uses the word apple, he has already identified apples mentally before saying the word, else he could not say it. It is also not the spoken word that identifies an apple for the listener but the concept, apple, which hearing the word recalls to the listener's mind.
The identity of the apple is independent of anyone's knowledge or understanding of it. The apple's material identity is an ontological fact consisting of all an apple's qualities and attributes, known or unknown. To identify an apple by means of the concept "apple" does nothing more than pointing and saying, "one of those," does.
Concepts do nothing except identify existents. They do not represent existents, describe existents, or indicate anything about the existents identified. It is necessary to emphasize this to prevent criticisms of knowledge based on a wrong understanding of what concepts are. Statements, like, "we can never know anything completely because concepts are only incomplete abstractions representing actual things." Concepts are not abstractions, not "stand-ins" for existents, they are identifications of actual existents with all their qualities and all that can be known about them.
What A Concept Means
What concepts mean are the actual existents they identify. The existents identified by concepts are called a concept's referents, units, particulars, instances, or specimen.
The concept "apple" means any apple there has ever been, is now, or ever will be. As the identifier of apples, what it identifies is the entire ontological nature of any apple in its entire ontological context, because that is what any apple is. That nature and context are not part of or in any way contained in the concept, apple. The nature and context pertain only to what the concept identifies, that is, actual individual apples themselves.
The concept, apple, used by a child who knows little more about apples than what they look and taste like, or the same concept used by a botanist specializing in the study of apples, means exactly the same thing, actual apples. Neither the child's limited knowledge or the botanist's extensive knowledge is about the concept apples or part of the concept apples; the knowledge is about that which the concept identifies for both the child and the botanist, apples themselves.
Definitions
A concept does not mean its definition. It is ignorance of this simple fact that is the basis of the whole Kantian (synthetic vs analytic) and logical positivist nonsense. A definition only indicates what existent or existents a concept identifies. Depending on what any specific existent is, a definition performs its function by including whatever qualities (or class of qualities) are necessary to that kind of existent and whatever qualities are necessary to differentiate the existent or existents from all other existents. Every definition is within the context of any individual's present knowledge, so that a child's definition of apple, though much simpler than a botanist's, is sufficient for the child to know what existent he is referring to when using the word for the concept apple because it indicates for the child the very same existents as the botanist's much more sophisticated definition.
2+2=4
The argument that, "ice is a solid," is true in a way that, "ice floats on water," is not, because the first proposition is, "analytic," and the second is, "synthetic," (al la Kant), or to use your example, "2+2=4" is true in a way that, "2 qts. of water mixed with 2 qts. of ethyl alcohol yeilds 3.86 qts. of liquid," is not, is flat-out epistemological mistakes (or more likely an intentional obfuscation of the truth).
So called "analytic" propositions are supposedly true on the basis if logic alone. "Ice is solid," is true because ice is defined as solid water and to deny that ice is solid would be a logical contradiction, while, "ice floats on water," is "synthetic," and must be observed to be true, and then is only true statistically, because unless every possible example of ice is observed it is always possible some ice might not float on water.
This entire mistake is the result of bad epistemology. A concept does not mean its definition. Ice means every possible example of water that is frozen because it is below its freezing temperature, and it means that substance with all its actual qualities, known or unknown. Two of the qualities of actual ice are that it is solid and that it has more volume than the same amount of unfrozen water, which is why it floats on water. The qualities that are ice are its epistemological identity. If anything were discovered that had different qualities than ice, no matter how similar to ice it was, it would not be ice. Ice floats on water is true, just as ice is solid is true, because whatever does not float on water is not ice.
The example of 2+2=4 is worse. "2+2=4," is not a proposition about entities, but about concepts. "2" is a symbol which identifies the same concept as the word, "two." "4" is a symbol which identifies the same concept as the word, "four." The expression, "2+2=4," is only an example of a
method that uses arbitrary (human invented) symbols to perform a short-cut method of counting, called addition. "2+2=4," is true only in the same way that "a gerund is the form of a verb used as a noun," is true. Neither is a proposition about material existents, they are statements describing the correct use of a humanly invented method. "2+2=4," is NOT TRUE, because it doesn't state anything about anything. It only describes how a method works by the example: if you have two items, then you have two more of those items, if you count them all there will be four of those items, but that presumes there are items and that they are the same kind of items.
The proposition, "2 qts. of water mixed with 2 qts. of ethyl alcohol yeilds 3.86 qts. of liquid," is true because water has a specific nature, as does ethyl alcohol, which natures determine when mixed, the mixture will be less in volume than the sum of the separate volumes of unmixed liquids. If 2 qts. of some liquid are mixed with 2 qts of another liquid and the total volume is something other than 3.86 qts. one of the liquids is neither water or ethyl alcohol, or both are not. One attribute of water is that when mixed with an equal volume of ethanol the resulting volume will be 96.5 percent of the combined but unmixed volumes, and one attribute of ethanol is that when mixed with an equal volume of water the resulting volume will be 96.5 percent of the combined but unmixed volumes. These facts are not based on induction or statistics, but on the principle that a thing is what its attributes or qualities are. Anything that has the qualities that are an existent's identity, is that existent, and anything that does not have those qualities is not that existent.
There is an odd fact about Hume. He almost got one thing right. His idea that if an observation were correct, it would only require one such observation to establish the certainty of it. Unfortunately he was referring to his odd idea of cause and effect. If he had been thinking about identification, he would have been right. It is not necessary to see hundreds or thousands of turtles to identify, "turtle." It is only necessary to see one and identify it in terms of its attributes. Once the concept of a turtle as been formed, all turtles (all organisms with the attributes of a turtle) will be correctly identified by the concept turtle.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:14 pm
If you mean an event or phenomena that is unobserved by anyone is not evidence, it is true, because a thing can only be evidence to an observer. Seeing something is not processing or interpreting it, it is simply being conscious of it. Until there is evidence one perceives there is nothing to process or interpret.
It's not just perception. One can perceive something, but not perceive it to be evidence for another thing.
This is a very old obfuscation. The word, "perception," has two very different meanings. Some use that difference to cover up disingenuous arguments. You have done this, but I know it was not intentional.
By perception I mean the direct consciousness of whatever we are seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, or tasting.
The other meaning of perception refers to the way in which something is regarded, understood, interpreted, or evaluated, such as how one perceives the state of society, or the importance of welfare, or the state of old age.
I never use the word perceive with its second meaning just because it is so ambiguous, but it is how you have used it. "One can perceive something (first meaning), but not perceive (regard or recognize) it to be evidence (second meaning). The existence of evidence does not depend on anyone's recognition of it, or even awareness of it. For the record I regard any phenomena which can be perceived (first meaning) as evidence and the only evidence there is for whatever exists physically, and the fact that we can consciously perceive existence the only evidence for everything else.
About Cause
"Cause," is a very important concept but everything that has been called, "cause," since Aristotle is misconceived. "Cause only pertains to events and is the explanation of how and why any event occurs.
Events are the actions or behavior of existents. How any existent behaves is determined by the nature of existents in relation to all other existents or their ontological context. Events do not cause events.
The bad example used by hume and repeated today of a "cause" (a billiard ball striking another billiard ball) causing the "affect" (the second ball moving away) illustrates what is wrong with the event theory of cause. If the second ball is replaced with an egg, the supposed, "affect," will be totally different. The event theory of cause makes the behavior of existents determined by something other than the entities own nature.
Some examples of wrong explanations of cause are: "the effect of temperature on the pressure of a gas, or the effect of length on the period of a pendulum, or the effect of distance on the gravitational force between bodies.
Here is what is wrong with them:
1. The change in pressure of a confined gas that is heated, which supposes the heat causes the increase in the gas pressure. The true nature of cause in this case is the fact that the temperature and pressure of a gas are attributes of the gas, an entity, and its behavior is determined by its own nature. It is not "caused" by something else. The fact that the attributes of pressure and temperature in a confined gas have a specific relationship is itself an attribute of gas. It does not exist for liquids or solids, for example. (Boyle's law should not be confused with an existent's coefficient of expansion.)
2. The cause of the change in a pendulum's period is supposedly caused by the length of the pendulum, but a pendulum's length is a property of the pendulum. It behaves the way it does (has a specific period) because of its own attribute, length. It is not "caused" by something else.
3. The motion of bodies in space relative to other bodies is determined by the nature of the bodies themselves and their own reaction to other bodies. One body does not make another body behave in any way. How any body will react relative to any other body is determined by it's own nature in the ontological context of other bodies. This certainly be called, "cause," meaning the explanation of the behavior of bodies relative to each other.
Part of the identity of any existent is how it relates to other existents which includes its relative behavior. It is an existent's own nature the determines what that behavior will be. When science seeks the explanation for events, it is not, "cause," it seeks, but the identification of the nature of existents which determines their behavior. There is almost never a single simple description of that behavior because the relationships are complex.
One simple example is Ohms law, "E=IR," that is, the voltage in a DC circuit is equal to the current times the resistance. There is no, "cause," of the voltage, because the voltage, current, and resistance are mutually related in the exact ratio described by Ohms law, which is why the ratio may be equally expressed as "I=E/R," or "R=E/I." Most scientific principles (laws) are not descriptions of cause at all, but of relationships which explain why events occur and have the nature they have.
Enough
Sorry this was so long IC. There was much to consider and I'll be interested in your comments.
We may not agree on some things, which is what makes our conversation interesting.
[Now I have to go finish cooking my curry.]
RC