Хофвебер опять
Overview of Hofweber's "Ambitious, Yet Modest, Metaphysics" and a few
comments on it.
Hofweber's article received little attention at the seminar. Perhaps the main reason for that was his (at least seeming) orthodoxal analytic mode of argumentation.
But what I disliked in his article for the first time was his strict separation of metaphysics and natural sciences without argumentation on behalf of this separation. And this was the first sign of Hofweber's rejection of Quinean ontology (as a part of metaphysics done by science).
If science approves something there is no sence for metaphysics to suggest anything contrary to that. And this gives rise to the main worry for Hofweber in connection with metaphysics: have the questions of metaphysics been long answered in other parts of inqury?
We see that Hofweber considers science as having much greater authority than metaphysics. But it's difficult to provide some good arguments here other than based on the history of science and philosophy, and perhaps meaning and epistemology as the problems for metaphysics as opposed to sciences - and this two problems were assined little priority by Hofweber.
And this distinction between metaphysics and science goes on: the immodest metaphysicians come to the mathematical department with bad news that numbers have to go. Modest attitude does not allow metaphysicians to go to the science departments with that kind of news. But does metaphysics have to be unambitious? It does not. It has to be ambitious, yet modest. But how?
It has to find its own domain and method.
And Hofweber shows two ways of defining domain for ontology. Ontology as esoteric metaphysics, which operates with the notions, that are not understood by anybody, who has not yet passed the way of a professional metaphysician in this area. And another alternative is egalitarian metaphysics, accessible to all.
Esoteric metaphysics easily finds its own domain, because it has its own notions of REALITY, GROUNDING etc. But we can already guess, that Hofweber would not like this way. He discusses Schaffer's GROUNDING relation. And says that he has enough doubts about validity of Aristotlean metaphysics not to follow him.
But we do not see, what the doubts are. Again, perhaps they are connected with some problems of meaning and epistemology. But if this is so, we can speculate, that Hofweber rejects the problematic ways of doing metaphysics (they are esoteric) and that is why he initially doesn't give this problems much attention.
Thus metaphysics can be modest, egaliterian (unproblematic in that ways). But does how it happen that siences haven't yet occupied this unproblematic domain?
Hofweber finds the place for egaliterian ontology under the ambiguity of polysemious quantifiers. Existential quantifiers can be understood as giving rise to ontological commitments on the one hand, and playing just inferential role on the other. He doesn't admit only one type of quantifiers (as for example Schaffer and Wright), he doesn't suggest two different symbols for them (as Zalta does). And this gives a sort of flexibility for a metaphysician to cope with commitments. At least mathematicians are silent about the proper reading of quantifiers. If they new, there are two symbols for them, perhaps they would choose the proper one, and modest metaphysician would loose some degree of freedom.
It seems this can give us opportunity to pose some proper metaphysical questions. Although there is some familiarity with esoteric way, it is egaliterian one (at least according to Hofweber) beeing the matter of everyday language meaning.
As we see Hofweber attacks Quinean ontology («to be is to be the value of a bound variable»). But would science as a hole project break down after this? Of course not, if we had some positivist views. And Hofweber reconsiders Carnap's internal vs. external questions distinction. Here is the lacking detail in Hofwebers scientist views. Internal questions are enough for doing science.
If a question is internal, than we have freedom to decide, wether to answer 'Yes' or 'No'. But for 'overlap' cases the answer should be 'No' (since we do not have grounds to answer 'Yes', as I understand). What is left for ontology, is to decide wether the questions are internal or external. And this shows a special role for the philosophy of language in ontology.
There are interesting details in the article, that deserve some argumentation. Why is science so good? Can it be satisfied with internal (as opposed to external) questions? Why is it bad to follow Aristotle? (Why is truthmaking is often an indicator of esoteric views, is also interesting)
On the other hand we can see an explicit problem with Quinean ontology. How to save it? We cannot join Schaffer's esoteric (GROUNDING) project. But perhaps physicalism and supervenience will do?
comments on it.
Hofweber's article received little attention at the seminar. Perhaps the main reason for that was his (at least seeming) orthodoxal analytic mode of argumentation.
But what I disliked in his article for the first time was his strict separation of metaphysics and natural sciences without argumentation on behalf of this separation. And this was the first sign of Hofweber's rejection of Quinean ontology (as a part of metaphysics done by science).
If science approves something there is no sence for metaphysics to suggest anything contrary to that. And this gives rise to the main worry for Hofweber in connection with metaphysics: have the questions of metaphysics been long answered in other parts of inqury?
We see that Hofweber considers science as having much greater authority than metaphysics. But it's difficult to provide some good arguments here other than based on the history of science and philosophy, and perhaps meaning and epistemology as the problems for metaphysics as opposed to sciences - and this two problems were assined little priority by Hofweber.
And this distinction between metaphysics and science goes on: the immodest metaphysicians come to the mathematical department with bad news that numbers have to go. Modest attitude does not allow metaphysicians to go to the science departments with that kind of news. But does metaphysics have to be unambitious? It does not. It has to be ambitious, yet modest. But how?
It has to find its own domain and method.
And Hofweber shows two ways of defining domain for ontology. Ontology as esoteric metaphysics, which operates with the notions, that are not understood by anybody, who has not yet passed the way of a professional metaphysician in this area. And another alternative is egalitarian metaphysics, accessible to all.
Esoteric metaphysics easily finds its own domain, because it has its own notions of REALITY, GROUNDING etc. But we can already guess, that Hofweber would not like this way. He discusses Schaffer's GROUNDING relation. And says that he has enough doubts about validity of Aristotlean metaphysics not to follow him.
But we do not see, what the doubts are. Again, perhaps they are connected with some problems of meaning and epistemology. But if this is so, we can speculate, that Hofweber rejects the problematic ways of doing metaphysics (they are esoteric) and that is why he initially doesn't give this problems much attention.
Thus metaphysics can be modest, egaliterian (unproblematic in that ways). But does how it happen that siences haven't yet occupied this unproblematic domain?
Hofweber finds the place for egaliterian ontology under the ambiguity of polysemious quantifiers. Existential quantifiers can be understood as giving rise to ontological commitments on the one hand, and playing just inferential role on the other. He doesn't admit only one type of quantifiers (as for example Schaffer and Wright), he doesn't suggest two different symbols for them (as Zalta does). And this gives a sort of flexibility for a metaphysician to cope with commitments. At least mathematicians are silent about the proper reading of quantifiers. If they new, there are two symbols for them, perhaps they would choose the proper one, and modest metaphysician would loose some degree of freedom.
It seems this can give us opportunity to pose some proper metaphysical questions. Although there is some familiarity with esoteric way, it is egaliterian one (at least according to Hofweber) beeing the matter of everyday language meaning.
As we see Hofweber attacks Quinean ontology («to be is to be the value of a bound variable»). But would science as a hole project break down after this? Of course not, if we had some positivist views. And Hofweber reconsiders Carnap's internal vs. external questions distinction. Here is the lacking detail in Hofwebers scientist views. Internal questions are enough for doing science.
If a question is internal, than we have freedom to decide, wether to answer 'Yes' or 'No'. But for 'overlap' cases the answer should be 'No' (since we do not have grounds to answer 'Yes', as I understand). What is left for ontology, is to decide wether the questions are internal or external. And this shows a special role for the philosophy of language in ontology.
There are interesting details in the article, that deserve some argumentation. Why is science so good? Can it be satisfied with internal (as opposed to external) questions? Why is it bad to follow Aristotle? (Why is truthmaking is often an indicator of esoteric views, is also interesting)
On the other hand we can see an explicit problem with Quinean ontology. How to save it? We cannot join Schaffer's esoteric (GROUNDING) project. But perhaps physicalism and supervenience will do?