metaphysics and logical positivism

[Faust]

matty-

I think this is the key. I’m not denying that people who call themselves “metaphysicians” might well take this view. However, to me it is arse-about-face. Metaphysics is not about the actually existing - that’s what physics, in the broad sense, is about. On the contrary, metaphysics is second-order, which is the whole point of the meta prefix.

I agree. Well, not really - I think metaphysics is nonsense. But I get your point. But Descartes, Kant and certainly Hegel make the point that the Real is realer than the real. I guess Hegel is the prime example, but I take him to be bringing rationalism to it’s “logical” conclusion, so I think he’s a representative example, not despite that his is an extreme position, but because it is.

However, this does not mean that metaphysics is about some mystical ineffable (in that case it would come before physics, like theology or dialectical materialism, for example). What I should have said about LP is not that it “assumes” but that it extrapolates and that is what is metaphysical, or epistemological, about it.

I am focusing on the classic examples. “Metaphysics” is, lately, somewhat more malleable an idea, I suppose, but I think all metaphysical roads ultimately lead (back) to Plato, who does tend to the ineffable. Or to Kant, who leads to the incoherent and incomprehensible.

The whole history of science (physics in the broad sense) demonstrates that we have to understand how we know in order to know effectively (this is what separates knowledge from belief and technique from good fortune). However, because so much of the second-order bit is internalised and taken for granted we think it is self-evident or we think that it is something we “just know”. The radical message of LP, on the other hand, is that we should never take it for granted but that we should rather subject it to constant and vigilant analysis.

I don’t think so. I think science rests upon falsifiability, which is another way of regarding verification, but that this verification is dependent upon observation. Call that an epistemic assumptin if you want, but the fact is that science works in no other way, and it’s still paramount that it works on a practical level, or not nearly as much science as is being done would be done. No one would pay for it. Yes, we can “go quantum”, but theoretical physics is not representative of science as a whole.

I’m not in the least bit interested in whether or not you know your DVD player is real but in how you understand how to use it.

Is it really an epistemic issue that I have read the owner’s manual?

[gib]

If I may interject my own insight at this point in the discussion, it seems to me that the distinguishing mark between LPs and those of other persuasions (call them ‘realists’) is that LPs recognize the use of knowledge in human life but don’t necessarily take knowledge as an accurate reflection of the “truly real”.

Think of it this way. We all “know” how to use the remote control that operates our DVD players. But the fact of the matter is that this faculty of “knowing” is technically not required in order to have the ability to use the remote control effectively. Behavioral psychologists in the practice of training animals can condition a monkey, given enough time and care, to use the remote control effectively enough to perform basic operations on DVD players. Is this the imparting of “knowledge” unto the monkey or pure conditioning? Could the monkey be said to “know” how to operate the DVD player or simply to be conditioned, or have the skill, to do so. Of couse, one might say that the monkey has such knowledge, but only in the sense that one has knowledge of how to ride a bike - that is, it isn’t necessarily cognitive in the fully conscious sense. The monkey simple has an urge to be stimlated by the tube, and has the ability to perform certain actions that satisfy that urge.

Well, it seems to me that what the LPs recognize is that human knowlegde, though (perhaps) unique to human beings, and certainly fills a place in our conscious (internal) experiences, is not really anything above and beyond a tool we inhereted through the evolutionary process, and the function of this tool seems to be precisely the same as those tools used by the great majority of species on Earth that can be conditioned by their experiences. Not that this tool is in any way equal in complexity or efficacy, for it certainly seems to give us an advantage that far surpasses many (all?) species as far as we know, foremostly because it seems to rest an a wholy different algorithm than simple conditioning, but nonetheless functions as a tool for exactly the same purposes as conditioning - namely to learn from our experiences and to make accurate and reliable predictions about future experiences.

I believe, like LPs, that we can make great use of this so-called “knowledge” because it seems to have passed the test of time with respective to its function, but also like LPs, I believe that this use relies highly on its proper application. This is the key point that, as I interpret it, the LPs are on about. They turn away from the traditional take on knowledge - namely that its use is in its ability to accurately reflect the way reality “really is” - and towards a take on knowledge that it is useful for its ability to help us make accurate and reliable predictions of future experiences.

In short, LPs still make great use of knowledge insofar as it is produced from experience but where they differ from the typical mindset of the average man is in the manner by which they regard knowledge and its relation to reality, and this change in regard has practical implication on how knowledge is acquired, applied, and sanctioned as such.

On a related note (should it be relevant or interesting to others), I think metaphysics can be approached in a similar vein. I call myself a metaphysicist (not a metaphysician ), not because I take certain metaphysical concepts as real or metaphysical statements as true (at least, not in the context of the correspondence theory of truth), but because they can, in certain cases, be useful, and furthermore, this use is not necessarily, and rarely is, in regards to future empirical experiences, but rather in regards to certain states of mind - namely, states of understanding, feelings of “making sense” out of complicated philosophical or abstract puzzles, making coherent certain systems of ideas/beliefs that might have hitherto been incoherent on particular points, or even emotional states - and I find that this in no way depends on taking metaphysical ideas as accurately reflecting the “real”.