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“Metaphysics is a knowledge of being
outside of conditions of experience”
Nicolai Vasiliev (Russian logician)
1. I began my philosophical studies in the Soviet Russia. In those times Marxists were exclusively engaged in criticism of the logical empiricism to demonstrate the advantages of dialectical and historical materialism. However lately the attitude to the analytical philosophy has begun to change entirely. I guess it is connected with gradual awareness of the constructive potential containing in criticism of classical metaphysics within the framework of the logical empiricism.
Criticism of classical metaphysics was begun in the XIX century by Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Bergson. The logical empiricism has found the own approach to a critical estimation of classical philosophy. It has con vi ncingly demonstrated groundlessness of metaphysics claims on the construction of the general scientific picture of the world, by distributing criteria of science to philosophy. Such approach to philosophy is rightful, but it can be dis pu table. First, the philosophy is not a science and it is not quite correctly to demand scientific character requirements from it. Second, the science does not meet completely such particular requirements, because in any scientific theory there are statements about existence of essences behind the phenomena. It implies, that the subject of philosophy cannot coin ci de with a subject of any particular sciences. Therefore the problem for philosophy is to show necessity and meaning of metaphysical preconditions of any scientific knowledge. In fact, we cannot assert, that theoretical beliefs about essences correspond to that physical reality which we can verify with the help of a scientific experience. But whether the reality is reduced to those things, which are found out only by scientific experience? Perhaps it is necessary to expand understanding of an experience so that metaphysical beliefs acquire meaning.
2. It is due to the logical empiricism that we understand the necessity to refuse classical metaphysical realism naive beliefs. The Putnam’s reconstruction of metaphysical realism is reduced to the following set of positions.
A. The world consists of some fixed number of objects independent of consciousness.
B. The truth is the knowledge corresponding to external objects.
C. The truth is independent of a position of "observer".
D. U ni queness of the true description.
Thus, the belief in existence of some certain absolutes is peculiar to classical metaphysics. At early stages the logical empiricism aspired to showing meaninglessness of metaphysical beliefs about essences as a special timeless world existing se parately from the real world. In Carnap's opinion it is ext re me meaninglessness to use the notion of nothing (R. Carnap “Overcoming of Metaphysics by Logical Analysis of Language”). This notion does not have meaning, because it corresponds actually to nothing. And so it is necessary to follow Wittgenstein, who marked “what it is impossible to tell about, you have to keep silence”. So we should avoid the use of judgments, which include the terms meaning absolutes. However in some modern variants of the logical positivism a weaker thesis is offered. So in van Fraassen‘s constructive empiricism it is shown that it is possible tobelieve absolutes, though they could not be verified.
Van Fraassen claims that it is enough to accept the theory as empirically adequate and it is not necessary to believe its truthfulness. Let’s consider some arguments of the given concept concerning absolute (Fraassen B.C. van. To Save the Phenomena // The Journal of Philosophy, 1976. Vol. 73, N 18. P. 623-632). Van Fraassen no tices that concerning the certain set of the phenomena we may construct some set of empirically equivalent theories, i.e. theoretical models. T(x) is a set of empirically equivalent theories at different values of pa ra meter “x” concerning essence behind the phenomena. Empirical equivalence of theoretical models does not give any foundations for a choice of “x” and preference of one model (or theory) before another. Therefore the question about the tru thfulness of a theory is not connected with the co mpetence of an experience. The preference of one model before all the rest is the act of belief. And moreover because van Fraassen considers that the truthfulness of any model of reality excludes the truthfulness of other models, then the choice is impossible. It is obvious that the impossibility of the choice is followed from u ni queness of the true representation. Therefore van Fraassen concludes that the description of the phenomena does not demand the belief in a reality of essences behind the phenomena. So the notion of essence is relative and conventional.
Many researchers considered the thesis about the existence of a set of true descriptions of the world. In particular H. Reichenbach and H. Putnam. H. Putnam, for example, understood it as an evidence of an advantage of the co he rent conception of truth. Equivalent descriptions are understood as theories, which, on one hand, concern to the same area and result in the same empirical consequences, and, on the other hand, they are translated into one another. It means, that the formal tools of one theory can be transferred to the formal tools of another one by identical transformations. Due to the possibility of such transformation all the facts con fi rming one theory confirm another one as well. But it implies that if one of equivalent descriptions is true, then the other one is automatically true too. However, equivalent descriptions can be greatly various or even incom pa tible. Due to this circumstance concept of equivalent descriptions is a strong argument against understanding of truth as a correspondence to the reality. If there are comp le tely various conceptualizations of the same sets of the observable facts and all of them are true, then an idea of "correspondence" is destroyed. According to Putnam a correspondence is the particular relation, therefore speaking about a set of "correspondences" means to contradict oneself. However, if we reject the idea of correspondence, then a concept of ad equacy of the empirical description becomes meaningless. By the way, from the texts of van Fraassen and Putnam it is not clear what is the difference between the truth and the ad equacy of scientific beliefs. An ad he rent of understanding of truth as a correspondence to the reality might argue Putnam’s statement saying that the idea of equivalent descriptions does not contradict the idea of correspondence, but it only te stifies the multi- qua litative character of a reality.
So, the argument about equivalence of empirical descriptions assumes that there is something concerning which these descriptions are equivalent. That something should be the same concerning which equivalent descriptions are indis ti nguishable. It might be a self-identical reality or an experience with the help of which we cannot distinguish equivalent descriptions. In any case we appeal to the certain reality independent of a way of its description. Van Fraassen’s speculations do not deny an opportunity of using of beliefs about unobser va ble essences. He speaks only about impossibility of empirical ad equacy establishment of these beliefs. However it is not a ban for using these beliefs like at Carnap’s. If we recognize it then we com pe l to solve the problem about the role of these metaphysical beliefs and the ne ce ssity of their application. I believe that in such situation one of the probabilities not connected with the metaphysical realism, is to recognize the existence of certain absolute foundations of our empirical beliefs. Thus the absolutes should not be thought as special things of the physical world. Claims of metaphysics for positive knowledge of the world are not groundless. In general metaphysical statements are not meaningless. They are only meaningless from the point of view of scientific rationality cri te ria.
The stated opinion is justified, first, by fundamental metaphysical intention of human thinking. This intention consists of aspiration to learn a being outside of conditions of experience. Realization of this aspiration provides an opportunity for understanding of the reality. What for? In the sphere of scientific knowledge it allows to formulate the law, which probably cannot be verified, but it allows to explain the phenomena and to establish the empirical equivalence of various theoretical models. We should certainly describe the phenomena as ad equately as possible. But once we wish to give an interpretation of empirical laws, we have to ask the question “Why are there such phenomena and not any others?” ”Why do we observe what we are observing?” In that case we cannot be limited by only scientific concepts. Then metaphysics begins to work.
3. Further I shall try to explicate and prove my beliefs basing on the analysis of a particular scientific concept. It is known that some modern unified theories of matter are based on the theory of the gauge fields of H. Weyl. The Weyl’s theory provides not only an effective ma thematical model, but also contains some ontological statements, which are nontrivial. There are very interesting for my analysis.
G. Leibniz stated the idea of global gauge invariability of our world. He proposed that if God changes the scales of all things in the world, we wouldn’t be able to detect this transformation. H. Weyl offers the physical interpretation of local gauge invariability. The next example explains the essence of that interpretation. Let’s imagine a spaceship that is moving in the space far from gravitational mass. The astronaut is in the state of imponderability. There is such gauge transformation of the flight path, that the spaceship begins moving around the circle. To provide physical processes occurring identically both in the first and in the second case the gravitational field must exist, which compensates the effects of the spaceship path curvature. The general idea of this example consists in the assumption that physical laws may be invariant in respect to local gauge transformations on condition if there is some physical field for compensation of changes from point to point. Thus the theory of local gauge transformations gives the geometric description of physical forces and fields.
The fundamental idea of Weyl’s theory is the assumption that there are absolute ideal measures of physical values. These measures are distributed throughout Weyl’s space, or the space of gauge transformations. This space has a wonderful property; transference of a real physical value in Weyl’s space results in a change of its scale. That fact is established on the basis of local comparison of a real value with the ideal scale. The knowledge about a change of a real scale is a posteriori. Then we can speak about presence of ideal scales identical each other in different points of Weyl’s space without realization of pro ce dure of comparison of these scales. Such knowledge might be only a pri o ri.
Ideal measures are strange, absurd objects. They cannot be defined as physical objects because one cannot conduct physical experiences in which these objects could be thought as the existent. If the ideal scales were real physical objects, they would change their own scale during transfer along Weyl’s space. However, this fact would conflict with the epistemological status of the ideal scales as a means of measurement, because they do not depend on the properties of the space. At the same time if the ontological status of the above-mentioned ideal scales as identical to one another is not assumed, it is impossible to speak about the existence of gauge transformation of real physical values. One can thus speak of ideal scales as metaphysical objects. The ideal scales give a physical meaning to gauge transformation and allow us to substantiate gauge invariability (or non-invariability) of the physical laws. Those metaphysical objects simultaneously exist (or they ought to be) and do not exist (they cannot be). So they can be understood as such existences, which do not have any predicates of being of me asurable physical objects.
How it would be possible to in te rpret these physically impossible existences?It is very important thatcalibration of ideal scales can be changed arbitrarily, but these changes cannot be found in real experience and do not affect the physical pro cesses. Japanese physicist R. Utiyama expresses this idea in saying that it does not matter how God fixes the measured relation (calibration) in each point; we still are not able to observe it. And if He decides to change calibration, we shall not be able to observe it, either (Utiyama R. A Physics Come to That? The theory of gauge fields. Moscow: Nauka, 1986. P.162). Here God is understood as a transcendental subject who knows and notices what an empirical subject or “internal” observer does not see or know.The transcendental subject has a priori knowledge because the subject does not get this knowledge from real experience. That a priori knowledge (about the world) presets the interpretation of the observable world.According to H. Weyl, physical force and gauge change are not distinguished. But that disappeared change of scale is a meaning of physical force compensating action. There is the same thing in the theory of relativity. For the connected to local framework observer a relativity of simultaneity is meaningful so far as the signals moving with infinite speed are impossible. But at same time all watches are sy nchronized, what it is impossible to make practically.
In general the idea of God often associates with the metaphysical realism. It is explained by a simple reason. To compare two objects and establish between them con fo rmity we should have an access to the both objects, (to begin with). Then we have to have the certain knowledge about them and, finally, we have to take an external position in relation to these objects.Who but God can know what there is really in the world and what is unobservable for “internal” spectators? Who can take a position outside of the reality and human representations to compare them except God? These questions seem to be rhe to rical. But in the idea of God it is reflected an opportunity to know things what does not verify empirically and what relates to super empirical conditions of conceivability of experience.
Absolute existences are absurd and may lead to semantic paradoxes. Putnam considers that the reason to it is the metaphysical realism, which has become stronger in co nsciousness of analytical philosophers. Therefore we could avoid such paradoxes in scientific theories if we don’t become metaphysical realists and refuse from the "paradoxical" ideals. In particular, the aspiration to give the description of the world as "the view from nowhere",though it is one of the possible ways to explain semantic antinomies. However, refusing from the "paradoxical" and unat tai nable ideals we should not forget that the aspiration to come beyond the "limits" of a subjective position is an important point in our understanding of objec ti vity. The American philosopher Thomas Nagel has connected an opportunity of an ob je ctive view on the world with our ability "to make a step aside from our initial position and to formulate new representation, which has our initial position and its attitude to the world as its object".
It is necessary to state that in science there are a lot of absurd ideas, which make sense though they do not have referents in the real world. As J. Deleuze says, they are from "super-being" (Deleuze J. Logic of Sense. Moscow: Academia, 1995. P.53). The Divine Mind, the absolute space, the absolute time, the per pe tuum mobile, an ideal scale, and others are physically impossible existences. Any physical theory must contain beliefs about impossible existences. Without them a person cannot comprehend nature and physical experience or substantiate physical principles and laws. And though such existences do not take "place" in the world, they can be thought of as a semantic "dimension" of being of the existent. Metaphysics con cei ves of being not as the existent, but as a principle and basis for distinguishing varied existences, which are not distinguishable from the physical point of view, or real physical experience.
4. I would like to offer an interpretation of physically impossible existence. As it was already mentioned, physically impossible absolutes are absurd. On one hand, they must exist in physical reality as a condition for the possibility of its cognition, but, on the other hand, they are not the objects of any experience; i.e., they do not have any predicates of existence in the physical world. Such types of absurd existences are not an object of knowledge and do not have corresponding notions. The knowledge about them is not a belief, or a representation. If it is possible to define so they are self-representative. They are empty notions. Thus I call them symbolic existences. And though such existences do not take "place" in the world, they still can be determined by a set of observable objects. So the first-essence, ideal measures, the absolute space and time, and another absolutes are expressed with the help of a meta-language, which is in se parable from an object language.
It is necessary to notice, that such type of absurd objects was a subject of interest and discussions from the part of mathema ti cians for a long time. H. Poincare was probably the first of them. Impredicative definitions of such objects are often a source of logical contradictions and paradoxes. Therefore Poincare called upon mathema ti cians do not use impredicative definitions. But it appears that sometimes it is impossible to avoid such definitions.
In logic there are two different situations connected to impredicative definitions. First, the de te rmining object is al located from a set as an already existing one in this set. In this case logical paradoxes do not arise. For such cases, for example, kinds and species and descriptive definitions are attributed. The second situation is characterized by the fact that an existence of a determining object is arisen from the definition. This is the case, for example, in a definition of an absolute measure. The absolute ideal scale is defined through the multitude of measurable physical values. Thus the scale is not included into a class of real physical values.
The impossible existence in the world (“super-being”) can be defined impredicatively, that is, its existence is arisen from the definition. Then the question appears whether this existence is meaningful.
I mean that a person as a su pe rfluous creature for the nature exists due to such impossible symbolical existences. A person requires these as his own basis to be a subject of knowledge and cognition. He does it via empty notions, which designate essences as if existing.
5. This theory allows taking a new look at Putnam’s concept of epis te mically ideal conditions. Though Putnam does not point out anywhere what these epis te mically ideal conditions means, however, probably they must be understood as such conditions of carrying out of research when there are absolutely exact equipments and tools. When it is possible to carry out any measurements and observations to establish the truth of any judgments. Defining the truth as a rational accepta bi lity, Putnam em phasizes the importance of taking into account the criterion of the truth in its definition. (Definition of the truth must include the criterion of the truth.) It means we can speak about the truth or fa lsity of any judgment only in the case if we have a possibility to establish it. I agree with that. And I think it is necessary to make the following addition. The conditions of a person being as a subject of knowledge are necessary to be added in the list of epis te mically ideal conditions.
These reasons seem to me to be greatly important for a critical esti ma tion of relativism. The idea of relativism expresses states that each person (every discourse, or each culture) has got own beliefs, norms, customs, assumptions, etc. And the truth (and, accordingly, the justification) depends on these beliefs, norms, etc. Thus according to relativism there is no an ob je ctive notion of the truth, but there is only a truth-for-me, truth-for-him, etc. In this connection Wittgenstein's argument directed against the idea of a "private language" is interesting. A private language is a language by which a person might de signate its own sen sa tions and the inside conditions inac ce ssible to an “external” observation. The specificity of these inside conditions consists in the fact that only a person himself has exclusive access to them. (L. Wittgenstein: sections 243-351 of his "Philosophical Investigations".) According to Wittgenstein a private language is impossible. Wittgenstein means that an exclusive access of a person to his own sensations is the result of a public language grammar. Due to various language games people are trained to use the words desig na ting sensations (for example, "pain") in such a way that it guarantees the exclusive usage by the first person. The creator of a private language does not have such guaran tee. We cannot find any criterion, which would allow the person using a private language to be sure that his words have referents. The above-mentioned absolute conditions of cognition are “non-private” conditions of an experience. Therefore, following Putnam, I would say that for a relativist there is no distinction between "to be knowing" and "to imagine himself knowing".
Metaphysics conceives of absolutes. Absolute does not exist in some particular world like the existent. Metaphysics speaks about different things - about transcendence, that is, about a person ability to come beyond the frameworks of the nature, culture, ide ol ogy, and social forms. A person finds the basis of his own being, which does not depend on any conditions of experience, on that what occurs in the time with a society, culture, and ideology. With reference to the theme of my report it means, that absolutes necessary for a person are conditions of his being as a subject of knowledge and cognition. Though these absolutes do not belong to the sphere of physical experience and they are unobservable, still they are metaphysical conditions for observation and cognition.
Many of modern philosophers try to distance from the absolute essences or meanings. The ambitions of their pre decessors to know "the first and the last" became un be arable for them. But I suppose that in spite of these attempts all of us are ho stages of dis co urse and ob li ged to keep up with certain ontological obligations. Perhaps the existential drama of a philosopher consists in the fact that he is under such conditions, that he has to represent absolute things, though he does not believe in them.
(At last there is one more methodological remark. Sure, modern theories of knowledge should develop in the view of arguments of relativism. Now it is already impossible to deny con di tionality of contents of our knowledge about the world via language, culture, and society etc. One strategy is that realism should recognize relativism. But the other strategy is hardly tested; relativism should recognize realism, and it includes the conditions of human being into the notion of reality. I mean “realism with a human face”.)
Finally I would like to formulate some of my theoretical proposals:
1. I am against “metaphysical realism” (in Putnam’s sense). But I think, that metaphysics can apply for positive knowledge of the world including a person.
2. Metaphysics is a necessity to think of absolutes as conditions of the person attitude to the world. Absolute is that mediates relation of the person with the world.
Доклад, прочитанный 14 июля 2001 г.
на конференции “Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism”
Вена (Австрия)
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