META-PHILOSOPHY: HOW DO WE DEFINE PHILOSOPHY?

Can we coherently describe absolutely anything and

everything?

Meta-PhilosophyBrainstorming some possible

characterizations of Philosophy As a Love of Wisdom As Study of Systems As Study of

Methodology Historicity Self-reference and Self-

application Disagreement and

diversity Primacy of the practical Learning good and bad

As study of assertion As exposition As life style Literature as

philosophy Pursuit of beauty As science As argument As folklore Philosophers As pedagogy

Oblio in Land of Point“The pointed man had a point in every

direction and as he quickly pointed out, ‘ A point in every direction is the same as no point at all’” – from a story by Harry Neilson.

If Philosophy is defined too broadly it looses all semantic force: if it is defined too narrowly it fails to

encompass all well accepted usages.

Does this addition belong in the list ? If you object, what reasons

can you give?

As a Love of Wisdom As Study of Systems As Study of Methodology Pissing on a red ant Historicity Self-reference and Self-

application Disagreement and diversity Primacy of the practical Learning good and bad

As study of assertion As exposition As life style As literature Literature as philosophy Pursuit of beauty As science As argument As folklore Philosophers As pedagogy

A Meta-Philosophical Strategy

Note methods and heuristics behind a favored characterization of philosophy, e. g.,

Authority, The phrase ‘Love of Wisdom’ is given by many texts and is attributed

to Socrates. Essentialist,

Find necessary and sufficient conditions Intuition,

A favored use of philosophy may produce an affective response – an emotional reaction.

History-Etymology, Lexicographers may research a first published use of the term

philosophy and provide definition relying on that context. Demonstrative

pointing Synthesis

Create new meaning

Two competing constraints

In logical and mathematical systems either of two mutually antagonistic types of economy may be striven for, and each has its peculiar practical utility. On the one hand we may seek economy of practical expression: ease and brevity in the statement of multifarious relationships. This sort of economy calls usually for distinctive concise notations for a wealth of concepts. Second, however, and oppositely, we may seek economy in grammar and vocabulary; we may try to find a minimum of basic concepts such that, once a distinctive notation has been appropriated to each of them, it becomes possible to express any desired further concept by mere combination and iteration of our basic notations. This second sort of economy is impractical in one way, since a poverty in basic idioms tends to a necessary lengthening of discourse. But it is practical in another way: it greatly simplifies theoretical discourse about the language, through minimizing the terms and the forms of construction wherein the language consists. – from Two Dogmas of Empiricism, W. V. O. Quine.

A workable characterizationof Philosophy

Work towards solutions for the broadest possible questions that still make sense and the narrowest possible questions that still make sense.

where "making sense" is delimited by our current and near future concerns. Consequently, an appropriate response to any philosophical query is simply "So!"

What makes sense to you?

Goals, Aspirations, Desires

Greatest Concerns

Tools for Furthering Inquiry

Definition is an engine for discovering presuppositions.

Move the question into philosophical territory by broadening its scope.

Put on the brakes by asking, “Does it still make sense to ask such questions?”

You’re onto something when you can respond to a retort of “So.”

Metaphysics – Ontology

First you tell them what you’re going tell them.

Then, you tell them.

Then, you tell them what you told them.

What I’m gonna tell ya

Situating Metaphysics in our Mental Maps

Relevance to Current Debates Quine Vs. Kripke What about Mary

Making Sense of Essence Puzzles of Change to Aristotle

Mental Maps

Meta-Philosophy

Philosophy

Metaphysics-ontology

Epistemology

Ethics

Relevance to Current Debate

Quine Necessity is an outmoded dogma of

empiricism Kripke

Uses a refined version of essentialism to argue against the identity theory

Making sense of Essence

Substance

•Material •Immaterial Esse

ntialism

•Essential properties•Accidental propertiesNece

ssity

•a priori •a posterioriAnalyti

c-Synthe

ticcontingen

tde re – de dicto

Puzzles of Change

Thales Everything consist in and is caused by water All things are filled with gods

Anaximander: The infinite (boundless) contains all in chaotic

mixture The universe, vortex like, sorts together its

material, (earth, water, air, and fire) into the proper place.

Puzzles of Change

Heraclitus: All things come into being through opposition And all are in flux, like a river.

Democritus There are nondenumerably many atoms and a

void of empty space.

Puzzles of Change

Parmenides: There is no “many”, only the one. You can only speak of what is. Change (coming to be) is an illusion of perception Yet, perception is knowledge (the secret doctrine).

Eliminative Protagorean Theory

The declarative sentence “ The wind is hot.” may have these interpretations. S1 : The state of w’s being hot at I S1*: The state of w’s phenomenally appearing hot to some preceiver, x at t

(1)Assumption: There are no states of the same sort as S1

(2)Assumption : There are states of the same sort as S1* , therefore,

(3) S1 is not reducible to S1* and (4) S1 is not supervenient upon S1*

Reductive Protagorean Theory

(1) There are states of the same sort as S1*, S2*, etc, But, these are reducible to nothing more than states which are micro-physical. ,Therefore,

(2) States which are of the same sorts as S1 are supervenient upon states of the same sort as S1*, and that’s an ontological claim about the states of Heracletean flux.

P is supervenient upon G iff necessarily, if any two things have G, then they have P

S1 may be expressed by collapsing it to a singular term wind-hot which has no referent but is the expression of some ideal limit.

Further distinctions

S1 = ” The wind is hot.” S2 = The wind appears hot to meBs

S3 = The wind appears hot to meBT

S1 : The state of w’s being hot at I S1*: The state of w’s phenomenally

appearing hot to some perceiver, x at t

On one interpretation, Socrates argues it is puzzling that,

Apparently, S1 has the truth value T iff S2 is true

Yet it also appears that, S1 does not have the truth value T iff S2 is true.

Suppose two individual utter S, S2 is T and S3 is T

But sometimes S2 and S3 may not have the same truth value ?

Therefore , S1 cannot have truth values. S1 can express a statement but not a

proposition – Pollack's rule.

Relevant text

162c5“Aren’t you surprised if you’re going to turn out,

all of a sudden, to be no worse in point of wisdom than anyone whatever, man or even god?”

Objection to Protagorean relativism: It goes against our intuitions about wisdom.

We are inclined to feel that some persons are more wise than others. The presumption is that this would be disallowed by the version of Protagoreanism discussed to this point.

Relevant text 162d5‘Gentlemen, young and old you sit about making debating point. You trot

out the gods, whom I exclude from my speaking and writing . . . An you say things that the masses would accept if they heard them, for instance that it’s strange if no man is to be any better in point of wisdom than any farmyard animal. But there’s absolutely no proof or necessity in what you say’ on the contrary, your relying on plausibility. If Theodorus, or any other geometrician, were prepared to rely on plausibility when he was doing geometry, he’d be worth absolutely nothing.’

First Reply to objections to Protagorean theoryNote the reply is put in quotes as though it were indeed the reply of

Protagoras and not Socrates’ interpretation. Moreover, it is ambiguously, a hypothetical reply.

1) The Socratic objection is rhetorical only2) some entities are categorically excluded from the Protagorean thesis

e.g. god3) plausibility, intuitions are not proofs

163 5 Reiterates the general theme

i.e.,Theaetetus’ thesis that knowledge and perception are the same thing.

163bRestates the problem by exampleT or F: At time t for all instances of

perceiving (via seeing or hearing) knowledge is co-instantiated in the perceiver.

But the example brings in yet another distinction between perceptions properly so called and interpretations of the appearances.

163cTheaetetus picks out the distinction of 163b

affirming the former while denying that the later distinction picks out anything in the category of interpretations which is either knowledge or perception

But is this the trap?

152d It is to the effect that nothing is one

thing by itself and that you can’t correctly speak of anything either as some thing or as qualified in some way.

.

156The universe is change and nothing else.

There are two kinds of change, each unlimited in number, the one having the power of acting, and the other the power of being acted upon - - - - there come to be offspring, unlimited in number but coming in pairs of twins, of which one is a perceived thing and the other a perception.

What I told ya

Early Greek philosophy is concerned to learn the ultimate nature of the world, i. e., Metaphysics, and to understand the constitution of knowledge, i. e., Epistemology.

This effort focused on competing theories of change and permanence.

Plato’s examination of these theories, e. g., in the Socratic dialogue ‘Theatetus’ produces an epistemological survey of perception and an array of theories of knowledge, most notably the Protagorean identification of perception with knowledge and the ‘standard’ definition of knowledge as justified true belief.

Plato to Aristotle

First you tell them what you’re going tell them.

Then, you tell them.

Then, you tell them what you told them.

What I’m gonna tell ya

Contrast Plato to Aristotle

Provide a basic Aristotelian framework

Consider contemporary applications

Introduce theoretic anomalies

Proto-Empiricism

Aristotle may be considered a founder of Empiricism since he take the natural world as given through the senses to be the basic building block of his Metaphysics and the privileged objects of knowledge in his Epistemology.

This contrasts sharply with and rejects the notion of Universal Forms as privileged objects of knowledge which, according to Plato have an existence independent of particulars .

According to Aristotle

Substance is not simple but rather a complex of both matter and form, i. e., informed matter.

Essentialism: Essential properties are Necessary, i. e., such

that it is inconceivable that the substance lack the property and yet remain numerically one and the same object.

Accidental properties are not necessary to preserve the identity of the substance.

Contemporary Application

See Saul Kripke – Naming and Necessity.For counterpoint

see W. V. O. Quine – Two Dogmas of Empiricism

What I told ya

Ancient Greek thought progresses from simple, vague, and sometimes confused myths and metaphors toward ever more exacting demands for first principles

that begin to replace storied narratives about ourselves and the world with grounded ontology's and prescriptive methods for identifying knowledge about ourselves and the world.