Timeline for Is metaphysics justified in its conclusions?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
17 events
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| Sep 26, 2019 at 15:13 | comment | added | user20253 | @JustinOrosz - I feel this answer neatly addresses your question, but you go on to ask in the comments - "But what knowledge does metaphysics give us...?", I would suggest asking this as a separate question since it is crucial but cannot be answered in a comment-box. Or, it can be but not helpfully. . | |
| Sep 24, 2019 at 14:13 | comment | added | Frank Hubeny | Let us continue this discussion in chat. | |
| Sep 24, 2019 at 0:45 | comment | added | The victorious truther | How am I doing, I try to philosophize once in a while but lack the requisite knowledge to really jump into discussions. | |
| Sep 24, 2019 at 0:44 | comment | added | The victorious truther | Would you somewhat agree with my analysis or comparison between you and the realist camp of scientists? I know that despite your true convictions to remain close to the indisputable facts of reality I still feel there will be elements of your analysis that are not as conclusive as you would hope them to be or just conclusions of a variety that will remain untapped by further investigation. | |
| Sep 24, 2019 at 0:40 | comment | added | The victorious truther | The confirmation or disconfirmation of theory is with regards to whether a theory "better" discribes reality over another by being experientially "consistent". I'm skeptical whether we could actually move beyond descriptions of our reality to prescriptions of it. I feel you are in the same boat as the scientist or naturalized metaphysician struggles to argue for realism in the outskirts of science, you would seem to have consistent facts presented to you to describe or make predictions with respect to reality but remain restricted in how far we can venture before it becomes too speculative. | |
| Sep 24, 2019 at 0:34 | comment | added | The victorious truther | I admit that the scientist hasn't gained knowledge about the world either, he's gained experience with the experiential aspects of reality however that would be considered reasonably objective to being consistent with a theory or used in disconfirming it. I've always been subtly skeptical of a realist approaches to scientific discourse, aside of course from the medical or biological sciences, its clear to me that much of particle or astronomical physics does more describing than it does uncover any prescriptions of reality. | |
| Sep 23, 2019 at 23:20 | comment | added | Frank Hubeny | @JustinOrosz We would know almost purely through checking a rational argument much as mathematicians "know" there are uncountable infinite sets except that some subjective evidence is used by the metaphysician such as realizing that we actually exist (or think in Descartes' case). Empirical science uses data restricted to what can be objectively observed. The metaphysician adds back in subjective experience through a reasoning process to argue for what else must be out there that can't be objectively observed. The scientist doesn't know he has gained true knowledge either. | |
| Sep 23, 2019 at 22:57 | comment | added | The victorious truther | How would we come to know then that a god or soul actually exist in reality? By purely rational arguments? How would we know that we have actually gained knowledge that these entities do in fact exist even after presenting rational arguments in their favour? | |
| Sep 23, 2019 at 22:44 | comment | added | Frank Hubeny | @JustinOrosz Feser's position is metaphysics is about more than an interpretation of data from empirical science. Metaphysics would not be interested in justifying the existence of space-time from empirical data, but given the existence of anything a divine being has to be included as part of the data. . Similarly for the philosophy of mind. It is not just that there are qualia, but there is a soul. Both God and the soul would have to be considered as data, not as an interpretation of already existing empirical data from science. | |
| Sep 23, 2019 at 22:36 | comment | added | The victorious truther | Take an example from physics, given the experimental breath of evidence from general and special relativity there is usually the implication from the mathematical structure of the theory as well as from the observations that there is an existant substratum of space-time. To me this is an interpretation but also a conclusion that is up and beyond the raw experimental data of the theory. | |
| Sep 23, 2019 at 22:32 | comment | added | The victorious truther | I still see what you are saying as an interpretation in the sense that we are given data and you may interpret it differently coming to the conclusion, through rational investigation, that there must be an immaterial mind to be accounted for or included in our analysis of the data. | |
| Sep 23, 2019 at 22:31 | comment | added | The victorious truther | Are you saying something along the lines that given a set of experimental assumptions and data from a scientific investigation there is also something more to be concluded from the data that is different from the interpretation but like an inference from the data? | |
| Sep 23, 2019 at 22:26 | comment | added | Frank Hubeny | @JustinOrosz In the case of the philosophy of mind, Descartes' dualism demonstrates the existence of immaterial substance. This is distinct from what materialists recognize as empirical data, but is part of the data, not just an interpretation of the data. Metaphysics is more than clarifying concepts from empirical science. It provides a rational argument about what the data actually is that it expects empirical science to accept as data. Feser knows "scientism" is a negative word. I think he uses it to nudge people to examine their unexpressed assumptions about metaphysics. | |
| Sep 23, 2019 at 22:15 | comment | added | The victorious truther | Further, is metaphysics merely mean't to interpret the data and reality of scientific theories then? That's something I happened to glean from your post and I'm curious as to how you would agree with this. | |
| Sep 23, 2019 at 22:13 | comment | added | The victorious truther | But what knowledge does metaphysics give us, that is possibly distinct from and possibly inaccessible from the known sciences? Note i'm at least admitting some low-brow metaphysics for science and not attributing scientism to myself but to me metaphysics is there to clarify the concepts outlined in scientific theories but not to go out of its way beyond experimental methods to assert the existence of proposed entities without any interaction with reality. You could say I follow some watered down empiricism in contrast to contemporary metaphysics with which I view as 17th century rationalism. | |
| Sep 23, 2019 at 20:37 | history | edited | Frank Hubeny | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
correct quote
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| Sep 23, 2019 at 20:26 | history | answered | Frank Hubeny | CC BY-SA 4.0 |