Mereological Essentialism and Language

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

This position draws on mereological nihilism. This is the idea that an object is the sum of its parts, but that object does not actually exist. Although the parts that constitute negative liberty can have intrinsic value, negative liberty does not have intrinsic value because it’s a container. For instance, baby pollution, a conjunction of newborn babies and pollution, is not intrinsically valuable. Babies are intrinsically valuable. The rest is a language game to defend pollution from criticism.

I will concede that if mereological nihilism is denied, liberty may hold some intrinsic value, and I would be interested in seeing such a defense. However, if an inclination is harmful, and a desire is harmful, liberty doesn’t seem to have value. We run into the same mereological nihilist issues. If inclination is valuable with respect to its results, inclination can be harmful, but it still is made of parts. One part is the consequences, and the other part is the inclinations themselves. Harming the latter certainly constitutes harm, but the conjunction does not constitute harm. Eating chocolate has value, but it also contains harm. We seem to consider harm analysis with respect to all variables, but something is valuable if it is utility maximizing. This is why negative liberty is not intrinsically valuable, but it always contains good.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

You can now see the confusion you end up with when you try to do philosophy the traditional way, can't you Dooga?

Why do you think there is an answer to such empty questions?

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

There is always confusion. Is my example the confusion or the solution? Since I'm confused, I would suspect the former.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In traditional philosophy, it is always the former.

Even so, you have my deepest sympathies if you have to study this stuff for a college course.

You might find this remarkable book of some assistance:

Simons, P. (1987), Parts: A Study In Ontology (Oxford University Press).

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

In traditional philosophy, it is always the former.

Even so, you have my deepest sympathies if you have to study this stuff for a college course.

You might find this remarkable book of some assistance:

Simons, P. (1987), Parts: A Study In Ontology (Oxford University Press).

I study philosophy intentionally due to interest. Maybe it's useless, but I haven't figured that out yet. The people who criticize philosophy, like Wittgenstein, practically require philosophical background to understand in the first place.

For instance, philosophy is often about looking at things from a different perspective. Whenever you change the perspective, you change the answer, in some cases. However, that's mostly metaphysics. Even then, the metaphysics only proposes possible solutions. Science evaluates them.

As for others areas of philosophy, I'm not sure their altogether useless. You suggest philosophy hasn't solved anything, but if that's the case, that's a solution Wittgenstein reached through philosophy, isn't it? It seems a bit self-defeating.

Ethics should be grounded in science, but I think the hypotheses ethics provides about "what could be the case" are useful in giving science avenues to explore once the technology advances.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dooga:


Maybe it's useless, but I haven't figured that out yet. The people who criticize philosophy, like Wittgenstein, practically require philosophical background to understand in the first place.

Sure, but that is the intellectual equivalent of digging holes just to fill them up again.


For instance, philosophy is often about looking at things from a different perspective. Whenever you change the perspective, you change the answer, in some cases.

That is actually a Wittgensteinain comment.


As for others areas of philosophy, I'm not sure their altogether useless. You suggest philosophy hasn't solved anything, but if that's the case, that's a solution Wittgenstein reached through philosophy, isn't it? It seems a bit self-defeating.

That's an odd use of the word 'solution', a bit like saying a bullet in the head is a solution to a headache.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I'd say its more like digging holes to find treasure, finding nothing there, then filling them back up again. You can't know there is nothing there unless you dig. The reason you have for digging in the first place is probably just curiosity.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dooga:


I'd say its more like digging holes to find treasure, finding nothing there, then filling them back up again. You can't know there is nothing there unless you dig. The reason you have for digging in the first place is probably just curiosity.

!) Theorists have been 'digging' for over 2400 years, and have found zippo. In fact, there is no evidence/argument to show there is a 'treasure' there to begin with, or that we know where to dig, or with what we should dig, or what we are looking for. Watching your toenails grow seems therefore to be a far better use of your time.

2) This answer commits you to the age-old ruling-class idea that there is a hidden world, inaccessible to the senses, underlying appearances/the material world which is more real than the world we see around us, accessible to thought alone. In other words, it commits you to the 'truth' of idealism.

No wonder no one has found anything...

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

For number 2, I don't think it means that. Not a "hidden world," but a hidden best answer. For instance, if you know opening one door will kill you, you enjoy living, and opening the other door will be harmless, you open the other door. Problems of "what to do," I think, are what philosophy addresses.

For number one, it's an intuition. Intuition is often wrong, but it's still an intrinsic motivation that, if strong enough, some people have difficulty ignoring. For instance, here are some philosophical questions:

1. Does God exist?
2. What is the best form of government?
3. Should abortion be illegal?
4. Should gay marriage be illegal?

I'd say these questions all have inductive solutions. Would you disagree? If so, what kind of questions are they? If they are meaningless, how do we address the people who want to make abortion and gay marriage illegal?

Also, I looked up a bit more on Wittgenstein. Are you following young or old Wittgenstein?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dooga:


Not a "hidden world," but a hidden best answer. For instance, if you know opening one door will kill you, you enjoy living, and opening the other door will be harmless, you open the other door. Problems of "what to do," I think, are what philosophy addresses.

But, as my posts on another thread have shown, such an 'answer' will be devoid of sense, since you will know it is true just as soon as you understand it. In other words it will be necessarily true, and it will be true independently of the way to world is (or evidence would be required to show it was true), having been derived from thought alone.

As I have argued in Essay Twelve Part One:


Intractable logical problems soon begin to emerge (with regard to such putatively super-empirical, but nonetheless metaphysical, sentences) if an attempt is made to restrict or eliminate one or other of the paired semantic possibilities associated with ordinary empirical propositions: i.e., truth and falsehood.

This occurs, for example, when an apparently empirical proposition (i.e., one whose main verb is in the indicate mood) is declared to be only true or only false (or, more pointedly, 'necessarily' the one or the other) -- as a "law of cognition", perhaps -- or, more likely, when a 'necessary' truth or falsehood is mis-identified as a particularly profound sort of empirical thesis.

As we will soon see, this tactic results in the automatic loss of both semantic options, and with that goes any sense that the original proposition might have had, rendering it incomprehensible.

This is because empirical propositions leave it open as to whether they are true or false; that is why their truth-values cannot simply be read-off from their content, why evidence is required in order to determine their semantic status, and why it is possible to understand them before their truth or falsehood is known. If that were not so, it would be impossible to ascertain their truth-status, as we have seen.

When this is not the case -- i.e., when either option (truth or falsehood) is closed-off, when propositions are said to be "necessarily true" or "necessarily false" -- evidence clearly becomes irrelevant. Thus, whereas the truth or falsehood of an empirical proposition cannot be ascertained on linguistic, conceptual or syntactic grounds alone, if the truth or falsehood of a proposition is capable of being established solely on the basis of such structural factors, that proposition cannot be empirical.

If, however, such propositions are still regarded (by those who propose them) as truths (or Supertruths) about the world, about its "essence", then they are plainly metaphysical.

Otherwise the truth or falsehood of such propositions would be world-sensitive, not solely meaning- or concept-dependent. And that explains why the comprehension of a metaphysical proposition appears to go hand in hand with knowing its 'truth' (or its 'falsehood') -- it is based on features of thought/language alone, and not on the material world.

Of course, it could always be claimed that such 'essentialist' thoughts 'reflect' the world, which might seem (to some) to nullify the above comments.

But, if thought 'reflects' the world, it would be possible to understand a proposition that allegedly expressed such a reflected thesis in advance of knowing whether it was true or false, otherwise confirmation in practice, or by comparing it with the world, would become an empty gesture.

And yet, on the other hand if its truth could be ascertained from that proposition/'thought' itself (i.e., if it were "self-evident"), then plainly the world drops out of the picture, which just means that that 'thought'/proposition cannot be a reflection of the world, whatever else it is.

Furthermore, if a proposition can only be true (i.e., necessarily true), then its falsehood must be ruled out conclusively. But the falsehood of metaphysical truths cannot be entertained (that is why they are sensitive only to 'conceptual proof' -- their truth allegedly follows from the concepts they contain/express, so that, if they could conceivably be false, that would indicate that the concepts they contained/expressed had been misunderstood), without undermining the concepts they contain/express.

But, for something to be true implies that it is not false, and yet, for metaphysical propositions, no content can be given to the supposition that they are false. In that case, no content can be given to their truth.

Hence, both semantic options evaporate; these propositions can neither be necessarily true nor necessarily false -- they lack any semantic sense, and are thus non-sensical.

Moreover, because the putative truth-values of such sentences are plainly not determined by the world, they have to be given a truth-value by fiat. They have to be declared "necessarily true" or "necessarily false".

Or, more grandiloquently, their opposites have to be pronounced "unthinkable" by a sage-like figure -- a Philosopher, perhaps.

Metaphysical decrees like this are as common as dirt in traditional thought.

Of course, this 'ceremony' must be performed in abeyance of any evidence (indeed, none need ever be sought), since sentences like this transcend by decree the usual grubby, materialist details that govern the social practices underlying the determination of truth-values of ordinary empirical propositions.

Nevertheless, semi-divine theses like these have to be set apart, and have their exclusive, semantic pre-eminence bestowed on them as a gift; they cannot be expected -- nor must they be allowed -- to mix with vulgar empirical utterances, covered as the latter are in such worldy, working-class grime.

Since no one can even so much as specify what would count as evidence showing such pseudo-propositions are either true or false, they are not materially-based (i.e., they are not empirically sensitive to reality). In that case, they cannot be used to help understand the world, nor indeed assist in changing it.

Instead of reflecting the world, these sentences do the opposite; they determine the way the world must be, not the way it happens to be. This hidden, Ideal world reflects the distorted language from which it was born; this sort of language does not reflect the material world. That is why the truth or falsehood of such sentences is not decided upon by comparison with nature, but as a gift bestowed on them by the lone thinkers who dreamt them up. The normal cannons that determine when something is true or false must be set aside, and a spurious 'evidential' ceremony substituted for it.

Hence, the necessary exclusion of one of the logical 'properties' of empirical sentences completely wrecks their capacity to accommodate the working of their non-excluded, semantic twin -- truth in the case of falsehood, and falsehood in the case of truth. For, as we have just seen, if such sentences can only be true, and never false, they can't actually be false. This is because, normally, if a sentence is false, it is untrue. But, if we cannot say under what circumstances such sentences are true then we certainly cannot say in what way they fall short of this so that they could be untrue, and hence false. Conversely, if they can only be false, the conditions that would make them true are likewise excluded, and hence their truth (or non-falsehood) similarly falls by the wayside.

However, since our comprehension of empirical propositions is intimately connected with the inter-relation between these logical 'Siamese Twins' (i.e., truth and falsehood), the abrogation of such socially-sanctioned rules means that semantically-mangled sentences like these are not just senseless, they are non-sensical. That is, they are now incapable of expressing empirical truth or falsehood; incapable of expressing a sense. Whatever we try to do with them collapses into incoherence.

This error has certainly fooled traditional Philosophers into thinking that the supposed 'necessity' of metaphysical 'propositions' derives from the nature of reality, not from the distorted language on which their ideas depend.

Innocent-looking linguistic infelicities like these helped motivate the invention of theses that were regarded as a 'reflection' of the essential features of reality, accessible to thought alone. But, if such 'truths' are and were based on nothing more than linguistic chicanery, then no evidence could be offered in support -- except that which is based on yet more verbal trickery.

Metaphysical 'necessity' is thus little more than a shadow cast on the world by such mis-shaped, ersatz jargon (to paraphrase Wittgenstein).

Over the centuries, metaphysical systems thus developed not by becoming empirically more refined (or materially useful, in relation to, say, technology), as is the case with science, but by becoming increasingly labyrinthine, convoluted and baroque -- as further incomprehensible layers of jargon were deposited on this ancient, linguistically deformed bedrock.

Naturally, all this just confirms the fact that these two semantic possibilities -- truth and falsehood -- must remain as open options if a proposition is to count as empirical, subject to evidential confirmation, and thus to count as "thinkable", in this sense.

In which case, as the above shows, no sentence can express a 'necessary truth' about the world and remain empirical.

This argument is developed in extensive detail here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2012_01.htm

Dooga:


1. Does God exist?
2. What is the best form of government?
3. Should abortion be illegal?
4. Should gay marriage be illegal?

I'd say these questions all have inductive solutions. Would you disagree? If so, what kind of questions are they? If they are meaningless, how do we address the people who want to make abortion and gay marriage illegal?

Your last three examples can be treated in a traditional way, with theorists looking for the answer, or they can be handled in a Wittgensteinian manner, which would seek to clarify the issues.

But I wasn't too sure about this:


For number one, it's an intuition. Intuition is often wrong, but it's still an intrinsic motivation that, if strong enough, some people have difficulty ignoring.

And what could you say to someone who had the opposite 'intuition'. The problem with 'intuition' is that it can be used to justify/excuse anything, and as such is an intellectual cop out -- it saves you having to give reasons. If you had any, you would not have had to appeal to 'intuition'.

So, your response simply tells me that you have no good reason to think there are such 'treasures', which is what I indicated: no one has been able to provide an argument justifying traditional philosophy. On the other hand, I have been able to supply several that show it is a bogus discipline.


Also, I looked up a bit more on Wittgenstein. Are you following young or old Wittgenstein?

Wittgenstein came to reject parts of his earlier work as far too narrow; in fact, he said it was rather like a broken clock that told the 'right' time twice a day.

He developed an entirely new method of doing philosophy (totally original to him, and like nothing that had gone before in the previous 2400 years, which also showed that all that previous work had been in vain) in his later work. In fact, I employ a modified version of it here. Even so, my ideas are based on both his earlier and later work, plus that of others.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I'm appealing to intuition as an intrinsic motivation rather than an intrinsic proof. If I said, "I have a feeling philosophy is great, so it is great" that would be an appeal. I'm saying more than just intuition here. More like the following:

1. Intuitively, I think philosophy is valuable.
2. The pursuit of intuitions is harmless.
3. Personally, I find philosophy interesting.
4. Personally, I find philosophy enjoyable.

Conclusion, philosophy is useful as a form of entertainment, at the least, and a method of determining truths, at the most. There is no harm in utilizing philosophy and engaging in its practices, by default, unless there is reason to believe otherwise.

Opposition: There is reason to believe philosophy is harmful and/or cannot discover truths about the world.

Response: Philosophy doesn't necessarily need to discover truths to be useful. It can discover possibilities, falsehoods, evaluate probabilities, et cetera, and then science can discover truth by experimentation. Until science has the means to provide answers, philosophy provides inductive assumptions useful for providing meaning and motivation in life.

I'd be curious what you would consider the necessary characteristics of science and philosophy? Of course, you could Wittgenstein your way out of such a question because I am playing Socrates, perhaps. Apply Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblance, science because particularly hazy when it comes to quantum mechanics.

I don't completely understand family resemblance, either. It seems to follow from the idea that language and "what is" conventions. I'll agree wholeheartedly there. A chair is what we call a chair. There is no form of a chair. Of course, there is still the spacial-temporal matter that corresponds to what we call a chair. In this sense, there are universals, but it isn't a practical sense. How we interpret things is what is important for our language. If we call a person firewood, we can run into obvious problems.

However, I think he still accepts that there are times to refine our language. Logical rules, Leibniz's Law, for instance, exist outside of convention. There seems to be some universal, our physical nature, that justifies not calling a person firewood. We attempt to justify our nature, pleasure is good, based on establishing ethical axioms. The logical axioms are separate from these, I think. Axioms as existing provide some considerable difficulties, of course, which I am not sure how to resolve (yet logicians and scientists seem very comfortable using them).

Ethical or philosophical axioms, theoretically, are justified by coherency or irrefutablity. I'll elaborate on this in a bit, hopefully, because I'm not sure how this works myself. The problem is that the individual nature, what motivates them, changes based on individuals. Ethics follows your "the elite use philosophy to reinforce norms" argument. I'll agree. However, ethics are necessary for dealing with conflicting motivations. To achieve the best ethical system for themselves, the capitalists oppress. Some capitalists would benefit more under other systems, and they are mistaken based on logical axioms.

To achieve the best ethical system for ourselves, we need to fight. Philosophy of ethics is a battleground. We can just overpower all opposition, which is essentially all that happens in ethical disputes, but the methodology we use to establish our norms sets a precedent. We have to qualify this, conforming to logical rules, in a way that protects our interests. If we murdered ten thousand people for five dollars, we need to say "that was alright for reason X, but it is not alright for reasons Y." We also need to consider contradictions, possibilities, and things that might cause others to misinterpret our views and later cause harm (Marx failed here). Ethics is at its foundation a battleground. Dismissing ethics altogether, as being capitalist in nature, requires some universal argument. I'd be more inclined to suggest skepticism and refoundationalizing (made up word) our ethics.

All of philosophy may be a battleground of ideas. People attempt to force their notions on others because, for individual reasons, they think their ideas are better. So we consider the following:

An attempt to justify anti-foundationalism using our foundations, below. Replace "deduction" with whatever criteria you/Wittgenstein consider as the scientific method that produces non-axiomatic truths.

P1: Axioms do not exist.
P2: {P1} is not an axiom.
P3: {P1 and P2} are deducible.
P4: Deduction does not rely on axioms.
P5: {P4} is not an axiom.
P6: {P5} is not an axiom.
P7: {P(n)} is not an axiom.
C: There are an infinite number of deductive justifications, and this allows us to free ourselves from belief in axioms.

I don't take Wittgenstein to believe in Infinitism. He's a skeptic, certainly, but that doesn't avoid problems. Buridan's ass seems like a problem for this view. I'll side with Fallibalism, we could be mistaken, but that doesn't justify inaction with respect to matters of knowledge. I also don't see how science and philosophy can be distinguished in a way that the former produces truths and the latter produces nothing. I see the practical distinction, but we accept scientific truths based on some axiomatic notion that is ultimately questionable.

Therefore, science and philosophy are both questionable. The difference is the degree of questioning. Science involves accepting the minimum number of axioms to achieve desirable results (including the axiom that desirable results self-justifying). However, science also uses axioms to establish new axioms, ad infinity.

Philosophy uses axiom X that science approves. Philosophy uses axiom Y that science established from axiom X. Philosophy uses methodology Z, and science uses methodology A. They are equivalent in their properties a,b,c,d... until eventually philosophy differs in F(n) ways, where n is the number of unacceptable methodologies it uses. Why these methodologies are unacceptable necessitates from some axiomatic contradiction (the methodologies it uses are self-contradictory). For instance, if killing is always bad was an axiom, killing people for any reason would be a self-contradictory methodology.

What methodologies do you/Wittgenstein consider philosophically contradictory, useless, or otherwise? "no sentence can express a 'necessary truth' about the world and remain empirical." That seems to make the issue of how science establishes truth considerably difficult, as I mentioned earlier.

Putting this issues aside, I'll go to metaphysics. I'll quote Hume, philosophical superstar that he was:

"If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

Weak verification refers to statements which are not directly verifiable, for example 'Yesterday was a Monday'. The statement could be said to be weakly verified if empirical observation can render it highly probable.

I'm not sure metaphysical statements, let alone philosophical statements, are entirely meaningless. Empiricism and verifiability should be considered as useful for reaching a more probable conclusion, of course. However, if we consider:

If I stab myself, it will be painful. This isn't verifiable based on the particular instance. I could verify it, but I won't, of course. It's induced based on similar tests, logical rules, et cetera. I "could" be somehow different in a way that makes this false, but we won't entertain this a legitimate notion. There is no evidence. The potential for verifiability is there, but the inductive probabilities favor another conclusion.

1. Metaphysics is not based on logical first principles.
2. Metaphysics does not involve experimentation.

In case one, metaphysics might involve logical first principles. There are certainly motivations that lead people to prefer view X over view Y. In case two, it involves though experimentation. These experiments should correspond to empirical truths, such as in the stabbing example. Metaphysics does not necessarily fail to correspond to reality.

If a metaphysical argument is based on physical truths, it is corresponding somehow to physical principles. Is it useful? Curiosity motivates. Potential changes in circumstance can be a motivating factor. Of course, most of the issues metaphysics addresses don't entail realistic changes in circumstance. Brain transplants, matter transporters, et cetera, aren't necessarily realistic. Even if we established such things, we would likely want a scientific test. Of course, such a test may require a human, and we could simply get a terminally ill person to do it (so metaphysics doesn't need to convince someone to take the risk).

Curiosity isn't much of a justification for creating unverifiable hypotheses that may never been verifiable. I'll concede that. However, metaphysics can illuminate flaws in our own reasoning, how are conventions work, why we adopt them, et cetera.

For instance, establishing the idea that what "an object is" is a matter of convention is a particularly useful insight. That seems to me a metaphysical insight. Determinism and free will seem to have implications for ethics, perhaps.

I'll admit metaphysics isn't the most useful thing in the world. I usually end up choosing the most skeptical position in metaphysics issues. However, it seems like these positions are reached through metaphysics by the failures of metaphysics itself. In this sense, metaphysics involves falsifying its own ideas. Free will exists? Well, demonstrate that, deduce it, induce it, et cetera. No? Then we assume otherwise.

I don't know. Metaphysics is kind of fun. That's the main reason I like it, honestly. I also encounter issues where one conclusion seems better than the other, in metaphysics, and it seems difficult to consider two people arguing over a metaphysical claim as arguing over nothing. They seem to be arguing over that, "if we could test this, I am more likely to be right." Once the probabilities of being right are high enough, we just induce something. The idea behind metaphysics, I think, is that if we utilize the right accessible facts, we can induce something.

[Hoxhaist]

This position draws on mereological nihilism. This is the idea that an object is the sum of its parts, but that object does not actually exist. Although the parts that constitute negative liberty can have intrinsic value, negative liberty does not have intrinsic value because it’s a container. For instance, baby pollution, a conjunction of newborn babies and pollution, is not intrinsically valuable. Babies are intrinsically valuable. The rest is a language game to defend pollution from criticism.

I will concede that if mereological nihilism is denied, liberty may hold some intrinsic value, and I would be interested in seeing such a defense. However, if an inclination is harmful, and a desire is harmful, liberty doesn’t seem to have value. We run into the same mereological nihilist issues. If inclination is valuable with respect to its results, inclination can be harmful, but it still is made of parts. One part is the consequences, and the other part is the inclinations themselves. Harming the latter certainly constitutes harm, but the conjunction does not constitute harm. Eating chocolate has value, but it also contains harm. We seem to consider harm analysis with respect to all variables, but something is valuable if it is utility maximizing. This is why negative liberty is not intrinsically valuable, but it always contains good.
I'm sorry, but I dont understand what this definition means could you put it into layman's terms? (at first glance I thought it said "meteorological" essentialism :D)

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I'm sorry, but I dont understand what this definition means could you put it into layman's terms? (at first glance I thought it said "meteorological" essentialism :D)

Mereological means when you see a chair, you're seeing a chair because of human prejudices in how we see things. We see things as "wholes," but there are actually only parts. It is similar to mereological essentialism.

Mereological essentialism says although the "whole" is just the sum of its parts, it still exists. A chair is a chair.

Mereological nihilism says that is false. The chair is only your seeing various different parts that make up the chair. Fundamentally, there are only the building blocks of matter.

It's the idea that categories don't exist outside our prejudices. When we distinguish objects as different, we appeal to our own morals, prejudices, et cetera.

If the chair is a distinct object, it should be separable from its parts. Since it is not, it isn't an object at all.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dooga, thanks for that long reply (which, I must say, contains some rather odd logic), but I just cannot summon up the will to reply.

So, if you want to waste your time on such idle, ruling-class speculation, who am I to stop you?

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Dooga, thanks for that long reply (which, I must say, contains some rather odd logic), but I just cannot summon up the will to reply.

So, if you want to waste your time on such idle, ruling-class speculation, who am I to stop you?

Not a problem. Not everything has to be productive to be enjoyable, anyway.