Philosophy 3260a --- Metaphysics
Spring 2004
Lectures
Jan. 9/04
-- selection from Upanishads, “Thou Art That” -- unfortunately, out of context -- and may seem
almost pointless without much background discussion
-- Vedas -- ancient writings -- oral tradition -- going back to Ice Ages!! --- Upanishads -- commentaries on Vedas -- more recent
-- a bit hard to see what the point is of this
-- Brahman -- not God! -- “being” -- everything is aspect of being -- God is being as seen under
the veil of Maya (illusion) -- it is illusion to see any aspect of Brahman as an entity, even God!
-- disagreement with Tao de Jing -- Brahman does not come from non-being, Tao says Tao does
-- long-standing dispute -- however, this is not the main thing I want to focus on here -- we’ll
come back to this again when we look at Parmenides --- including individual self -- “Brahman is Atman”
-- Brahman is in everything -- like salt distributed in water -- sounds like pantheism (define),
except that Brahman is not really God --- Maya -- snake story -- (Sankara) -- God as biggest illusion -- whenever we see something as a
separate entity, it is Maya -- “exist” -- “ex” means “out of” -- very notion of existent entity as
separate is therefore illusory, on this view
-- role of meditation -- non-verbal knowledge -- cf. Western view of knowledge, which is that it
is discursive (words and symbols) --- samadhi or satori -- dissolution of self
-- known neurological state -- interpretation remains controversial -- received view in Western
science is that the brain is fully local --- is this just a brain state or actual perception of something beyond the person? -- issue of
nonlocality -- does QM play a role in the operations of the mind? --
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Jan. 4/04
-- Thales -- eclipse prediction 585 BC
-- Aristotle’s story -- olive oil presses
-- everything is water
-- not so primitive -- underlying substance -- all matter exists as transformed versions of
it -- can’t be like what we experience --- modern in spirit -- but lacking in mathematics
-- Anaximenes -- chose air rather than water, but similar speculation otherwise
-- Anaximander -- similar speculation but more abstract -- the underlying substance is apeiron,
that which is formless, indefinite, or finite -- closer to Eastern notions -- Brahman --- again, these all lack mathematics --- Pythagoras --- music: consonant intervals (intuitive grasp of harmony); octave, fourths, fifths --- string held at ½ gives octave, 3/2 fifth, 4/3, fourth; all add to 10
-- sounds recognized as harmonious have exact representation in terms of ratios -jumped to conclusion that universe as a whole is ordered on the basis of rational numbers
-- proof of theorem: (optional!)
-- proof that root 2 is irrational (we skipped this in class; see Russell chapter if you are
interested):
-- interesting point (Guthrie) -- if matter is infinitely divisible, the existence of
incommensurable magnitudes makes sense -- cf. current debates (Jan Sci Am) -- long
debate about continuity -- (Aristotle, etc) --- Milesians: there is underlying substance (water, air, apeiron) -- but what clearly counts is the
forms that this substance can take --- Pyth. added idea that the forms have a mathematical basis -- the fact that we live in a more or
less orderly cosmos must have a mathematical expression -- in a sense this is the view that still
animates modern physics -- though we have added experimental method, systematic skepticism
about a priori --
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-- form/matter distinction -- is all matter form, or is there an inexpressible? -Jan. 19/04
-- Parmenides:
-- nothing can come from nothing -- concept of change is incoherent --- why? -- because change involves something moving from what it was not -- but we are “not
allowed” to say that nothing can come from nothing
-- ex nihilo nihil fit --- neither can anything really come to and end, because again it would be moving from what it is
to what it is not! --- nor can things have gaps between them, because these would again be conditions where
something came to an end
-- more generally, all notion of difference is incoherent -- for same reason
-- so reality is continuous, unchanging blob -- but it is not infinite! -- unclear, but perhaps
involves rejection of concept of actual infinity (vs. potential infinity -- explain) -- it must be
equal in all directions (since inequality is also incoherent for similar reasons) --- meaning that reality is a great spherical blob! --- example of extreme rationalistic tendency -- what does not allow of rational explanation
cannot exist, despite all the evidence of the senses -- vs. empiricism --- contrast to Heraclitus, who saw reality as changing, dynamic --- followers were Zeno of Elea, Melissus -- Zeno’s paradoxes of motion, designed to show that
motion is unreal because it is contradictory in nature -- Achilles, arrow --- arrow: if we say the arrow is moving, then it cannot occupy a definite space, since the very
nature of movement is change of place -- on the other hand, as an arrow it must occupy a definite
space -- could just as easily be turned around to show that the notion of rest is incoherent --- problem still arises in QM --- cf. Eastern thought -- snake in forest -- enlightenment comes when we see emptiness, lack of
sharp or unchanging essence
-- skip ahead to selection from Protagoras -- p. 22
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-- “nothing ever is, but is ever coming to be” -- but this implies that we can never fully rationally
grasp things!
-- another point is that modern physics does allow for the possibility that something can come
out of nothing
-- but also allows for conservation laws -- something always has to add up -- such as energy -- so
change is real but conservation laws maintain balance --
-- Empedocles -- notion of evolution --- Anaxagoras -- sun was not a god
-- atomists -- Democritus -- nothing but atoms and the void -- regarded as blasphemous by Plato
January 21/04
-- comment on inadequacy of text -- Reader’s Digest Condensed Metaphysics!
-- but don’t confuse brevity with lack of depth
-- be prepared to go beyond in your area of research interest
-- passage from Thaeatetus -- does it make sense to talk of things as they are in themselves -- or
only as they appear from various perspectives? -- (a wind that is hot to one person is cold to
another, etc.) --- Socrates does not deny this -- but he shifts ground -- interestingly -- if you are looking for
logical rigour, don’t expect to find much of it in Plato! --- could go on to ask if there is something invariant behind changing appearances -- relativity,
uses invariance principles --- view of Protagoras was that there is not! --- but Socrates suddenly shifts ground here -- and suddenly starts talking about the problem of
change -- “nothing ever is, but everything is coming to be” --- Plato more subtle view than Parmenides -- does not deny ordinary experience --- but accepts it implications for understanding --
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-- theory of Forms -- realm of Being vs. realm of Becoming -- there are different levels of reality
-- see lecture notes, “What is Really Real?” --
Jan. 26/04
--theory of forms
-- Parable of Cave
-- multiple levels of reality
-- difficulty faced by anyone with unusual insight
-- political question -- why are the prisoners being held in the dark? -- in fact, in Rep.
Plato basically advocates this himself!!
Feb. 2/04
-- introduction to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, doctrine of substance
-- Ari. rejected Plato’s doctrine of Form -- though he revered Plato --- we look at selections from Categories, Metaphysics -- (Categories a sort of
philosophical grammar) --- substance: from Latin “substantia”, that which underlies or stands beneath --- Gk. ousia -- often translated as “being” -- once also meant “property” in legal sense,
that which is owned -- close to sense of physis -- nature of a thing
-- modern commonsense notion of substance -- stuff that things are made of
-- but was invested with large metaphysical significance from Aristotle onward until
rather recent times --- plays central role in rationalistic philosophies of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza -- we
will look at their notions of substance later on -- sometimes will seem a bit weird to
modern eyes --- Ari. was very interested in how change occurs -- he strongly rejected staticism of
Parmenides, which he regarded as absurd -- (later we will look at phil. of time.) --- actuality vs. potentiality -- substance to be understood as something like a centre of
activity -- “alive” -- potentialities being transformed continuously into actualities --
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-- potentiality quasi-reified --- substance is also something that has a nature or essence -- makes it what it is -- thus a
substance is a substratum for change -- we recognize the same person even though they
may have changed over the years --- substance has to have something that defines its central core, the part that doesn’t
change -- Ari. was very troubled by the idea that substances themselves could change -of course he could not deny that they did -- but he wanted to see how this was possible --- “On Generation and Corruption” -- general analysis of process of change -- biologizing
metaphysics --- essence (nature): set of necessary and sufficient properties that make a substance what
it is, make it distinct from all other substances
-- this works well in mathematics -- at least as the Greeks understood it -- substance as
the definition of the thing -- one sees much concern in Plato and Aristotle with finding
the right definitions of key terms -- one would thereby uncover their essence --- but for physical things it is often very difficult to say just what the substance of various
identifiable entities would be -- human is “rational animal”? -- (or “rationalizing
animal”??) -- “featherless biped” -- (until someone threw a plucked chicken over the
wall of the Lyceum! -- )
-- even in math we know that this breaks down -- Gödel’s incompleteness theorem
amounts to statement that the natural numbers have no closed definition --- substance versus attribute -- roughly, like noun versus adjective --- Ency. of Phil., substance is the “concrete individual thing” -- that which can be the
subject of a sentence --- (the article on “Substance and Attribute” in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edwards
(ed.), 1967, is excellent.)
Feb. 4/04
-- more on substance -- especially as in Aristotle -- but also a bit on how it cashed out
later on --- conceptions of substance:
-- stuff or substrate out of which things are made -- apeiron of Anaximander is a
conception of substance -- of which Ari. must have been aware
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-- being, existence -- especially as in Ari. conceived of in dynamical sense -- emphasis on
the “ing” in being! “ing-ing!”
-- concrete individual thing -- some substances more substantial than others -- there are
“abstract” substances (such as species, genus) --- whatever can be subject of sentence -- possesses attributes, which are predicates or
adjectives of substance -- “Snow is white” --- that which is not in anything else, but which other qualities and predicates can be
within -- snow is white, but white is not white --- centre or subject of change -- potentialities turning into actualities -- and vice versa --- that which can exist on its own -- not a modification of anything else -- that which
underlies everything else -- (Spinoza -- argues that this is equivalent to God) -- nothing in
it that is an adjective!
-- many have argued that Aristotle’s metaphysics is a consequence of Greek grammar! -similar to many Indo-European languages including English -- subject-verb-predicate
structure taken as given
-- it is as if Aristotle thought that all significant assertions were of the form “Socrates was
wise.”
-- every significant truth amounts to the attribution of a predicate to a subject -- subject
can have contrary predicates at different times -- a stone can be both hot and cold -- but
coldness itself cannot also be hot --- it is difficult to fully account for relations in substance ontology -- e.g., “Paul is taller
than Kent” -- Ari’s logic gives no clear way of formalizing this -- later substance
ontologists explicitly tried to reduce such statements to statements about adjectives of
terms -- but how can we make the relation go away? -- modern view is that some facts are
irreducibly relational, and that is that --
Feb. 6/04
-- relations are parasitical on substance -- led to difficulties in logic -- only in late 19th
century that we developed a logic that could treat relations on an equal footing with
individuals -- predicate logic notation --- doctrine of internal relations -- vs. external relations -- tricky concept -- although we do
have adequate logical notation for most practical purposes, there are still some
metaphysical questions here -- especially in physics, where whole notion that things can
be separate comes into question --
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Feb. 9
-- some things seem to be inherently relational in their nature -- e.g., windows -- which
cannot exist without walls --- also -- we might have a very different metaphysics in languages that have a different
grammar -- Hopi, other native NA languages -- use verb constructs -- “the stone falls”
becomes “it stones down” -- notion of substance might not arise in such a culture --- empiricist (Humean) critique: if we take away all the qualities, what is left? -- is
substance anything more than a bundle of qualities? -- concept is redundant -- a mere
descriptive convenience, and nothing that imposes necessity
-- because this is what gives metaphysical weight to the old notion of substance from
Aristotle onward -- the idea that we uncover something that is lawlike, necessary when
we grasp the nature of a substance -- something that would have ontological priority -whereas to Hume all phenomena are on equal ontological footing, all theory equally
conjectural --
Feb. 11/04
Augustine:
-- I’ve had a hard time making sense of this -- seems to want to make the distinction
between existence in time, and eternal existence --- as in Plato -- (Aug. is neoplatonist, Aquinas “neo-Aristotelian”) -- only now it is not
the Forms that are eternal, but God -- only that which is eternal is fully existent -- that
that which becomes is always flittering in and out of existence
-- we only become truly real as we participate in God
-- illustrates the ambiguity in conceptions of God in Xtianity --- Old Testament god is like a big person -- flinging lightening bolts around --- starting with Aug., they work toward a conception of god as at a different metaphysical
level -- eternal being
-- paradoxes about God of omnis comes from treating god as if He could act in the way a
finite being could act, and yet is infinite --
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Aquinas --- “essence (quiddity) is distinct from existence” -- because essence includes potentiality - existence is dynamic, active
-- God alone is “his act of existing” -- all other created being participate in God’s
existence --- God is pure “act” or actuality -- hardly a static conception of God!
-- God as Self-subsistent
Descartes
-- distinction between imagination (conception) and understanding -- relevant to disputes
between rationalists and empiricists
-- God = (Df.) absolutely infinite being --- empiricists will argue that this is meaningless because we can form no idea of it --- Berkeley -- argues that the very notion of unperceived matter is contradiction in terms -- distinction D. wants to make can get around these objections, I suggest -Feb. 23/04
-- will do Spinoza, Leibniz -- rationalists
-- then critics of rationalism: Locke, Berkeley, Hume --- Kant -- attempted synthesis --- after that I’m not sure where we go --- Spinoza --- self-caused: essence involves existence --- comment: treating existence as a predicate -- Kant -- Scott’s car metaphor --- substance: in itself -- conceived through itself -- can form conception independently of
any other conception --- comment: implicit rationalistic assumption -- that conception can map reality
completely -- “adequate idea” -- what if there is a self-subsistent reality that we
cannot consistently define!!
-- attribute: that which constitutes part of essence of substance
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-- mode: modification of substance -- as conceived through something else -- circle looks
elliptical when seen at a certain angle -God: absolutely infinite being -- infinite attributes, each expressing eternal and infinite
essentiality --- comment: concept of infinity was not well-defined in his time -- tended to be
given negative definition, as “without limit” --- Cantor gave precise definition of infinite magnitudes -- (similar to proper
subset) -- |P(A)| > |A| -- hence no largest infinite magnitude -- we get a
contradiction as soon as we think of a largest infinite quantity -but is this relevant to the notion of infinity that Spinoza conceived? -- Spinoza
might say that natural numbers are infinite only after their own kind -- but each
number is finite! -Feb. 25/04
-- Spinoza on infinity -- last time I suggested that Spinoza’s notion of absolute infinity
might not make mathematical sense
-- on other hand, perhaps he would argue that he is talking about a different kind of
infinity -- natural numbers are perhaps only infinite after their own kind -- not limited by
any specific number -- but each number is finite -- has finite attributes --- so maybe there is some sort of absolute infinity as a limiting case -- ?????
-- axiom of infinity -- cannot prove that natural numbers exist -- just have to
assume it! --- he goes on to prove several propositions:
-- existence belongs to nature of substance (not quite same as saying it necessarily
exists -- not yet!) -- because it cannot be produced by anything else, since then it
would not be self-subsistent as defined
-- there can be only one substance (because otherwise it would be limited and
thinkable in terms of something else)
-- substance is infinite -- because otherwise again it would be definable in other
terms, etc --- God = substance
-- God necessarily exists:
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(i) RAA: if G did not exist, its essence would not involve existence -absurd -- (but why not? -- could I not define God as “existent being” -- but
definitions have no force to bring something into existence! -- ) -- this is a
version of the classic ontological argument, going back to Anselm (12th c.)
and used by many other thinkers (Descartes, Gödel…)
(ii) -- “a thing necessarily exists if no cause or reason be granted which
prevents its existence” -- if there is a reason for God to not exist, it would
have to be found either in some external substance or in his essence -- the
former is impossible since there are no other substances, and if they were
they would have to be totally independent, since each substance by
definition can be understood entirely in reference to itself -- the latter is
impossible since that would be self-contradictory -(iii) -- if only finite beings exist, they have greater power than an infinite
being -- because the potentiality to exist is a power -- but that would be
absurd -- hence an infinite being necessarily exists -- it’s just infinite,
dammit --- we also get the following:
-- God (substance) is indivisible
-- God is the only substance
-- whatever is, is in God -- (either as mode or attribute) -- p. 61 --- some further points:
-- rejection of notion that nature has telos, purpose, end -- would imply
incompleteness, and that is a misunderstanding
-- rejection of Argument from Design (favourite argument of many) -- says that
this explanation is a mere substitute for ignorance of causes --- rejection of free will, real change -- Parmenidean view in effect -- though it
does not deny difference -- it denies potentiality as distinct from actuality --- enlightenment consists of acquiescence --- beneficial in ways but could lead to dangerous inaction --
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