non-physical existence

Does Objectivist metaphysics accept physicalism? Explain. The issue came up in another thread. It's been awhile since I've seen this issue discussed in Objectivist circles. I'm curious to see what discussers here have to say on the issue.

Jordan

Post 1

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 3:59pm

Rand doesn't commit herself. She views the matter as properly epistemological, i.e., what are the fundamental givens, rather that metaphysical, i.e., what is the ultimate nature of reality. She wrote either in her letters or in her journals that an a priori search for the ultimate nature of reality is one of the fundamental mistakes of philosophy that we have inherited from the pre-Socratics. There is no way to know a prior the answer to what is fundamentally a scientific question. Peikoff also adresses the issue in OPAR with his discussion of "meta-puffs" (If I remember his term correctly.)

Since Rand takes sense perception as the ultimate given, and views consciousness as relational, a physicalist (i.e., bodily) metaphysics makes sense. I would say that all that exists either is body or exists in relation to body at some remove. The bodily, not the atomic, is the given on our scale of consciousness.

There are many lay Objectivists who end up accepting some sort of materialism out of default, often without realizing, since such notions are taken for granted in science and in the neo-Cartesian world view. The problem with metaphysical reductive materialism is that atomism is not a given, but a complex theory that is derived at length from induction from sense perception. All too often atomistic theories (which may be fine as theories of what the smallest constituents of bodies are) end up denying the reality of bodies and the validity of sense perception. Atomism is fine as science, it just can't invalidate the evidence upon which it depends for its existence.

Stephen Boydston has provided many links on this.

Post 2

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 4:38pm

Hi Ted,

Adding, Sciabarra also argues that Rand rejected atomism.

Jordan

Post 3

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 6:16pm

The relevant page-long comment is on p 698 of her Journals. Here are a few phrases:

"Cosmology has to be thrown out of philosophy. When this is done, the conflict between "rationalism" and "empiricism" will be wiped out � or, rather, the error that permitted the nonsense of such a conflict will be wiped out.

Thales. . . and all subsequent philosophers . . . attempt to establish the literal nature of reality . . . by philosophical means . . . if so, then philosophy is worse than a useless science because it usurps the domain of physics and proposes to solve the problems of physics by some non-scientific and therefore mystical means.

Philosphy has dangled on the strings of physics . . . since the renaissance . . . and every new discovery of physics has blasted philosophy sky high such as the discovery of the nature of color giving a traumatic shock to philosophers from which they have not yet recovered.

This kind of view merely means rationalizing from an arrested state of knowledge . . .

On this premise every new step in physics has to mean a new metaphysics.

The real crux of the issue is that philosophy is primarily epsitemology . . .

All philosophers (except Aristotle) have been projecting their epistemologies into metaphysics . . .

"Existence exists" (or identity plus causality) is all there is to metaphysics. All the rest is epistemology.

Obviously the problem for the pre-Socratics was that there was no science of physics, and hence no differentiation between what was properly philosophical and what was properly scientific. You can see with Pythagoras that even music and number theory weren't yet differentiated from philosophy. Rand is quite right that philosophy never properly differentiated itself from physics.

You do have to have a very minimum of ontology. (And cosmology to address the nature and place of man in the universe in order to ground ethics.) Objectivism has to accept the Aristotelian notions that there are entities which have properties and relations, that being is a unity of form and substance, and that mind is a relation, not a substance. This is a basic vocabulary that doesn't need to attempt to address such things a what the underlying physical nature of entities is. It is a provisional vocabulary, not an a prior theory.

Post 4

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 6:36pm

Hi Ted,

Cosmology and even physics can be rejected without rejecting physicalism.

Objectivism does accept some ontology, as you noticed, but the question is whether that ontology (or metaphysics, generally) accepts non-physical existence, i.e., non-physical existents.

Jordan

Post 5

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 7:03pm

Rand doesn't reject cosmology or physics, she just treats them as special sciences separate from philosophy, which is based on the given, available to normal adults without technical specialization.

What do you mean by "non-physical existence" or "existents"? If you mean things which are treated as existents but not as bodies per se then yes, Objectivism accepts that concepts are existents that are not bodies. But if you mean non-physical as in having no relation to the physical whatsoever then no, Objectivism does not accept the existence of existents which stand in no relation to the physical. While concepts, for example, are not themselves bodies, they are possessed by bodies (sentient beings) and they are of bodies or of the properties or relations of bodies at some remove. This is all implicit if not explicit in the arguments in ItOE.

Rand doesn't use the terms supervenience or emergence but it is obviously arguable that she would have.

Post 6

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 8:09pm

Hi Ted,

Rand doesn't reject cosmology or physics, . . .

Whoops. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I was going for the point that physicalism needn't entail cosmology or physics.

"Non-physical" is tough to define because "physical" is tough to define. Nevertheless, to take a stab, I'd say that which has extension or dimension is physical, and that without extension or dimension is non-physical.

"Existent," according to Rand, refers to something that exists, be it a thing, an attribute or an action.

Popular examples of (so-called) non-physical existents include God, consciousness, free will, and qualia. Applying supervenience, these existents are non-physical if and only if there is ever any real difference between them and some set of physical existents.

Jordan

Post 7

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 9:03pm

The physical, the bodily, is the given. (Physical as it is used here does not mean material! The idea of matter is a complex learned theory.) An attempt to define the physical on the basis of abstractions like extension is a mistake. We know what extension is because we know what bodies are, they are they prior given. We learn what extension is by comparing bodies, not bodies by comparing extension.

You are a body in a world of bodies. This is perceptually given. It is not an argument based upon something more prior. This is not to argue that what we are is bodies, but to say that body is the word that we use to identify ourselves as givens. To state that the physical is the extended as if extension explains what it is to be physical is to steal the concept and to smuggle in the materialist premise.

You cannot understand Objectivism without understanding this point. (And in order to understand this point you must also grasp the hierarchical and inherently developmental Objectivist theory of concepts.) The word material and the word physical do not mean the same thing. A child understands that a body is a body and an image such as a cartoon drawing of a body is not a body without being told. (Tell a child to pick up a carrot he sees on a Bugs Bunny cartoon and you will deserve the contemptuous look he gives you.) This is not a theory he has to learn, it is perceptually given to him and is prior to any theory. That physical bodies can be broken down into constituent parts and that these smaller parts are miniature mindless bodies like dust has to be learned. It was a discovery, theorized at by the Greeks and systematically validated by modern science. The materialist philosopher has simply forgotten that he once had to learn this.

The notion that God is non-physical simply results from two things. First, some people never differentiate their own minds from the minds of others. They have somehow internalized God as the voice of their fathers or of earliy authorities in their lives. They are on the pre-conscious level in the Jaynesian notion of consciousness. Second, at a certain level of theatrical sophistication it becomes obvious to people that priestly miracles are a sham of special effects. Once a culture reaches this level, the priesthood has to find somewhere other than a statue or a mountaintop or the sky to house its God. The Jews were perhaps the first to achieve this notion. Combine people who hear voices in their heads with people who say god is not a body and you get "non-physical" deities.

As for consciousness not being physical, of course it is physical in just the same way that a C# note is physical. It is not a body, but it exists in relation to a body. To think that qualia are not physical because they are not atoms is, frankly, puerile. (Well, no, that's an insult to boys.) Materialism is the theory that to exist is to be an atom or to be made of atoms. But we only know that atoms exist because we already know that bodies exist, and have discovered that bodies are made of atoms. We cannot distinguish one body from another, and hence, we cannot discover that the metal lead is heavy and grey and malleable while the crystal sulfur is yellow and light and fragile unless we can rely on qualia to make such distinctions. Materialism itself, is not an element or a chemical or a particle, so by its very own presuppositions the theory does not exist.

Post 8

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 9:51pm

Hi Ted,

I'm not seeing your issue with "extension." Better than "bodily," it allows for stuff like gravity, World War II, photons, autumn. These are not "the given," nor are they easily construed as "bodies," yet they are physical.

I pose "extension" to *identify* the physical, not to "explain it." *If* there is no existence apart from the physical, then according to Objectivism, the physical -- just like existence -- just *is*, and no attempt to explain it can avoid including it.

You seem to be conflating atomism with materialism and perhaps with physicalism as well.

Jordan

Post 9

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 10:28pm

Jordan I outright and flatly reject the validity of the conventional notions of (philosophical) atomism, materialism and physicalism. Those concepts are faulty at the root and one cannot fix them or find a way out of the problems they generate. Those ideas are a straightjacket I refuse to wear and it is an illusion to think that they are the prerequisites of philosophical discussion. I hope you believed me when I told you that physical and material don't mean the same thing, but I suspect you may not have.

By physical I mean bodily. Either being a body or being in relation to a body. Body is not a technical concept. No matter how little physics he knows, every four year old knows what is his body. And when I say physical I don't equate that with material. Matter is a technical term. It was unknown before the Greeks, that's why they had to use their word for wood to stand for it � look it up � and is still relatively unknown.

Reread what I have written in the posts above and see if you cannot understand me fully if everywhere I have said physical you replace it with the term bodily.

I don't have an issue with the word "extension" I just say that the concept of body is prior to the concept of extension and hence any attempt to explain body by means of the idea of extension is a doomed attempt to steal the concept.

I have to assume that you know what your body is � that is, not what your body is made up of, but what thing in the world is your body. That is the primary given of your entire existence. The other givens are the other bodies your body has interacted with, such as the foods you have tasted with your tongue, the human bodies you have felt with your skin, the speakers you have heard with your ears, the fragrant volatile substances you have smelled with your nose and the heavenly bodies you have seen with your eyes. If you do not understand how it is that the interaction of your bodies with other bodies is a directly perceived given, and you really want me to make it perfectly clear on a perceptual level, then I offer, if it will help, to smack you with my hand until your jaw rings, in the most friendly manner. That sort of an ostensive definition is hard to mistake. But just imagining what that sort of a given would be like perceptually should, one hopes, suffice.

I am curious if you have read and think you understand Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology well enough to explain Rand's chapter heads and especially what the stolen concept is? The stolen concept seems to be a common thread in these discussions.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 11/23, 11:30pm)

Post 10

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - 10:30am

Hi Ted,

Yes, I've read ITOE. I understand it and the stolen concept well. It's obnoxious of you to ask. We might be talking past each other.

I don't know what "conventional" version of physicalism you feel straightjacketed by, nor how, nor who would make it a prerequisite for philosophical discussion. I take no issue here with the notion that bodies are the perceptually given and that they are epistemically prior to "extension." That's irrelevant when it comes to whether existence is always and only physical. Bodies might be the epistemic (perceptual) starting point, but that says nothing about whether they are the metaphysical endpoint.

Also apparently irrelevant is your distinction between material and physical. I understand you consider the former a technical term. Fine, but no one brought that up or is arguing otherwise. We're talking just about the physical, which is not best identified as the bodily because some physical stuff is not bodily. Do you acknowledge this? That's why I posited extension as an alternative. Paraphrasing Rand, extension is epistemically simpler than other concepts, even though we learn that concept later than others. Do you understand the point that extension isn't meant to explain the physical, just to identify it.

Jordan

Post 11

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - 6:27am

Rand called herself an Aristotelian. Presumably she bought into his theory of categories. To be a physical body is one way of being (the primary kind, a necessary condition to the others). To be an act, a relation, a state or a number are other ways. That needn't be a complete list. but you get the idea.

Post 12

Saturday, December 5, 2009 - 9:21pm

That physical does not mean material is not an argument. It is a stipulation. A premise.

I really don't know how to make this any clearer.

First, throw out any conventional ideas that treat the concept of the physical and the concept of the material as identical.

That supposed equality is not a given. It is neither directly perceived, nor is it axiomatic.

The physical is the bodily. The word is cognate with being, build, bud, booth and perhaps beam. This is not a theoretical statement that bodies are explained as being physical. It is a stipulation of naming. The physical is simply that which we call the bodily. It is the fancy name for what you call your body and I call mine and anything which interacts with your body or my body. The physical is whatever it is. But it is a simple given.

The primal body of which you are aware is your own. Everything you experience perceptually you experience in relation to your body, you experience physically. The first things whose names you learn are bodies. (We also call them entities.) Then you learn the qualities of bodies, their colors, and so forth, and the relations of bodies, spatial and moral (mine, yours) and so forth. Eventually you will come to realize that your ideas of bodies are not the bodies themselves. This will, perhaps, lead to some confusion in later years if you grow up in a culture with a dualistic metaphysics. But nonetheless your ideas will always be ideas of or about bodies or of things that exist in relation to bodies more or less directly. When you reduce your abstract concepts to more basic ones and then to perceptions you are tracing the links of your ideas to bodies. And of course since we are our bodies, our ideas are manifestations of body as well. An idea is a relationship by which one body (a sentient being) vibrates sympathetically with other bodies in its environment. Think of a tuning fork vibrating next to a plucked guitar string. That is the best metaphor by which to understand consciousness. But consciousness is much more complex, since instead of one tuning fork we have millions of nerve and receptor cells each of which is sensitive to different modalities and which can influence each other in myriad ways.

Now please note that not yet once have I spoken of or needed to speak of matter, atoms, parts or extension.

The savages and the ancients have always known of beings and bodies. The concept of the physical, of the bodily, of beings is so old that the word itself has cognates that reach back into our ancient Siberian past and are reflected in languages such as Eskimo which have been distinct from ours since before the end of the last ice age.

The concept of the material is much newer. It is a scientific concept. It derives not from a name that we give to the self-evident, but from a theory of what bodies are constituted of in their smallest parts.

The word matter itself comes from Latin materia literally meaning "wood" and translating the Greek word hyle which also originally meant "wood" and which now means substance in technical philosophy. If you ask a savage what his body is made of when cut up into pieces, he will probably answer meat or flesh. He may tell you that his bones are rocks. That suffices for him. There is no savage word that means the underlying substance as substance of what a thing is. (Substance is another word that the Romans coined to translate an idea originated by the Greeks.)

It was the Greeks who first realized that all bodies could likely be reduced into smaller and smaller parts that would probably be homogenous in some way. There were many theories. Thales reduced everything to water, a smart guess because it is pure, it is irreducible, we are largely composed of water, our breath condenses as water on cold objects, and water, unlike any other earthly substance, is found freely in solid, liquid and gaseous form. Others thought of fire or settled on four irreducible elements. Then the atomists said that whatever the "wood" was that made up all bodies it wasn't itself an element as such, but an almost infinitely small and simple indestructible body with only the most simple of characteristics. Note that the atomic theory is (as are the other materialistic theories) abstract and learned and that the idea of body is prior to the idea of atom. Note also that while the Indo-European language did have a common word for being or physis it did not have a common word for matter or substance or even a common word for wood.*

It is here that we develop the idea of the material. And it is here that we can fall into the traps of dualism if we take the material not as a derived theory of the makeup of the parts of bodies but as a primary given in itself. Perhaps the atoms or some other particle is the smallest constituent of which our bodies parts are comprised. Perhaps our bodies are comprised of fields or strings or meta-puffs. Whatever we discover, if we discover the smallest parts of our bodies to be, that discovery will depend upon our use of our bodies and other bodies we perceive directly such as microscopes and synchrotrons and cloud chambers and computer monitors and telescopes.

No child ever has to be taught what his body is, or, better what thing is his body. That is a directly perceivable given. No child would ever know what the material is if the Greeks had not discovered the concept and the child had not, once he was old enough to wonder what things are made out of, was taught the Greek theory of substance.

Neither ideas as ideas nor matter as matter is given to man. The dualistic metaphysics of Descartes and the mystics is based upon a mistake, the mistake of taking the ideas of matter and mind as if they are given primaries. The bodily, the directly perceived which is perceived by bodies and of bodies is the given. Technically we merely name the bodily the physical.

(This is not a theory, nor is it an explanation. We do not learn that we are physical, that we are bodies, any more than we 'learn' that a slap in the face is painful. That we are bodies, or physical, and that a slap in the face is painful is given, we merely learn those words to identify what we have always known. If, as babies, we should learn Spanish in stead of English the words will be cuerpo, corporal, cara and doloroso but the reality will be the same.)

Once we accept the bodily as the given in our metaphysics the supposed question of the mind/body connection or the materialist/idealist dichotomy disappears. Matter is the particular substance of bodies. Ideas are the means in which we apprehend bodies' universal form. Mind and matter each exist in bodies. Matter is the extended and particular substance of physical entities. Ideas are a harmonic relation between us as bodies and the bodies whose forms we mentally assimilate.**

----

*The English word 'tree' derives from a word which in other languages comes to mean 'oak' or 'tree' or 'wood.' But since it is not differentiated the root *deru- cannot properly be defined to mean 'wood.' A better gloss would be to say that *deru- meant 'oak' since oak indeed can mean a species, a specific tree and a kind of wood.

**This is not to say that the universals which exist in bodies exist because of some prior mind such as a creator god, but to say that the reason minds are possible is because universal resemblances do exist in things themselves.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 12/06, 12:14pm)

Post 13

Sunday, December 6, 2009 - 10:30am

Ted,

This is not to say that the universals which exist in bodies exist because of some prior mind such as a creator god, but to say that the reason minds are possible is because universal resemblances do exist in things themselves.

The key phrase is "the universals which exist in bodies." That's an Aristotelian metaphysical realism (rather than a rival view of what I have come to refer to as Intentional Conceptualism). Universals aren't found inside the bodies themselves, but are "in" the relation of the mind to the body (bodies). It's a old canard but, with regard to universals: "Thinking makes them so."

This, contra Aristotle, was the position of both Abelard and Rand.

Ed

Post 14

Sunday, December 6, 2009 - 10:44am

Universals, as concepts, which are mental entities, do not exist in those bodies which are the object of our thought. But the resemblances, which we identify, are real. If they weren't our concepts would be groundless.

Do you have no comments on my central point, that the bodily is the given and the proper point upon which to ground a monist metaphysics?
(Edited by Ted Keer on 12/06, 12:02pm)

Post 15

Sunday, December 6, 2009 - 1:02pm

Hi Ted,

I take no issue with your position. It appears quite similar to, if not the same as, Stoic corporealism. My contention with your terms remains, but it doesn't undermine your position, so I'd just as soon let it be. Now for some follow-up questions. . .

First, am I correct that you view Objectivism as embracing the claim that only bodies exist, that there is not such thing as non-bodily existence? If so, I'll take that as tantamount to rejection of the non-physical.

Second, why do you call it a monist metaphysics? It's odd because Sciabarra construes Objectivist metaphysics as you do but calls it metaphysical pluralism. In Ayn Rand: Russian Radical, Sciabarra writes:

Rand was commited to metaphysical pluralism. Since everything that exists in the universe is a particular, particularity is inherent in existence as such. Every entity that exists is something in particular. (pg 143-44.)

While I'm at it, Sciabarra, like you, also discerns Rand's view from atomism:

But metaphysical pluralism is not atomism. Judt as Rand rejected metaphysical, oragnic collectivism, she also repudiates metaphysical atomisn. In her emphasis on the ontology of individuals, Rand did not dissolve reality into wholly independent entities. (pg. 144.)

Incidentally, since Peter mentioned Aristotle, I do believe Arisotle would reject that view that only bodies exist. In Metaphysics, Book 1 part 8, he writes:

Those, then, who say the unvierse is one and posit on kind of thing as matter, and as corporeal matter which has spatial magnitude, evidently go astray in many ways. For they posit the elements of bodies only, not of incorporeal things, though there are also incorporeal things.

Jordan

Post 16

Sunday, December 6, 2009 - 4:36pm

Well, the subject of terminology is secondary. You can replace the word physical with bodily in all of what I have said, although physical is preferable since body has the connotation of corpse. The starting point is your body which is a given to you and in relation to which you experience all other bodies, whether through direct perception of by abstraction from direct perception.

While term a study of etymology shows that the "body" words to be/being/build/beam/booth/bud/physics (phusikos, phusis) all come from the exact same PIE root, *bheu while the words for matter are late (are coined by the philosophers) and come from different roots materia, hyle (ὕλη), Stoff which refer to wood or stuffing and the like. So, while most people now take material and physical to mean the same thing, that is both a philosophical and an etymological mistake. It is so ingrained in our culture and the way we speak (we "have" bodies rather than be them) that it has to be consciously identified and rejected with effort.

Stoic corporealism is very interesting, and, considering the alternatives, a wonderful attempt. But it is not the same as my position. My position is Aristotelian. I see bodies/entities as the primary realities. Entities have attributes and there exist relations between entities. Entities like a person, the sun, a ball are existents that exist on their own. Attributes, like tall, hot or round exist of other existents. Relations, like being near, illuminating, and weighing the same as exist between various existents. And of course there are such things as attributes of relations and relations of attributes and relations of relations and so forth.

Entities as entities also have both substance and form. Substance is basically the parts (homogenous or not) of which a thing is composed and form is the arrangement of those parts. Those are my five basic categories; entity, attribute, relation, substance and form. This is not an exhaustive or a restrictive list, and it does not constrain reality � reality is what reality is. Aristotle's more specific categories like location, which is a type of relation, are subcategories of these five.

The Stoics, at least at first, didn't really have these categories. The soul, for instance, is treated as hot breath, which is a certain type of small fast moving set of bodies or particles of air and fire like a miniature internal thunderstorm. For me, the word mind is a name by which we treat a very complex set of relations between our body and its environment (the self and the bodies and their attributes and relations which affect the self) as if it were an entity. Stoicism tries to incorporate an early science of physics and psychology into philosophy. I don't take a philosophical position as to what the specific nature of the mind is scientifically. That the mind is relational is not, for example, a theory of whether brains are made of neurons, or whether neurons are made up of atoms.

First, am I correct that you view Objectivism as embracing the claim that only bodies exist, that there is not such thing as non-bodily existence? If so, I'll take that as tantamount to rejection of the non-physical.

Well, not exactly. First, I do not make the a priori claim that only bodies exist. I make the claim that the bodily, your body, and the bodies which interact with your body are the primary givens. Since physical is simply an adjective which is synonymous with bodily it follows that if I think everything exists in relation to the body, then in that way I think everything is physical - But physical in my meaning, not in the conventional meaning. I do not think that every thing is a body. Ideas exist, but they are not bodies, they are relations between bodies. So, in that sense, no, everything is not physical.

As for whether everything is bodily, I don't have to take a stand before any evidence is presented. To speak paradoxically, but in agreement with Rand, my ontology is epistemological, not cosmological. So far as I know, everything in the universe is a body or an attribute or a relation of a body of some sort like an action which is a kind of limited temporal relation. There is no reason for me to rule out the existence of things which are not bodies before someone presents me with credible evidence of some non-bodily existent. But I am not quite sure what that would be, since if someone did bring me some sort of non bodily thing I would assume he would have to interact with it by means of his body.

"Second, why do you call it a monist metaphysics? It's odd because Sciabarra construes Objectivist metaphysics as you do but calls it metaphysical pluralism. In Ayn Rand: Russian Radical, Sciabarra writes:

Rand was commited to metaphysical pluralism. Since everything that exists in the universe is a particular, particularity is inherent in existence as such. Every entity that exists is something in particular. (pg 143-44.)

Well, I say monism to distinguish what I call physical monism from traditional mind/matter dualism. In that sense, the term is negative, it is like atheism, it really only has meaning as the denial of a falsehood. Sciabarra uses the term pluralism to cover Rand's notion that there are different types of entities each with their own particular sorts of powers, namely, in the case of humans, free will. This is his way of describing her rejection of a materialist reductionism which denies the reality of consciousness, the will, etc.

I have no problem with that goal. I would simply say that questions of specifically how such things as the mind and the will emerge are scientific ones. I think such concepts as emergence and supervenience allow us to see that arrangement matters and that we can speak of real properties of wholes which it is absurd to attribute to disarticulated parts as parts. One can build an arch with Lego blocks even though Lego blocks themselves are not arches. A reductive "down to earth" empirical positivistic science of Legoland (I am mocking the behaviorists and their ilk) that treats only of blocks and not the emergent properties of blocks in their arrangements ends up relegating such things as arches to the mystics and "metaphysicians." What is relevant is that Rand is willing to say that arches are real, but she wants the special scientists, not a priori metaphysicians, to be the ones to broaden their scope to more than a reductive description of disarticulated Lego blocks.

Incidentally, since Peter mentioned Aristotle, I do believe Arisotle would reject that view that only bodies exist. In Metaphysics, Book 1 part 8, he writes:

Those, then, who say the universe is one and posit on kind of thing as matter, and as corporeal matter which has spatial magnitude, evidently go astray in many ways. For they posit the elements of bodies only, not of incorporeal things, though there are also incorporeal things.

This makes me worry that maybe you haven't really, deep down, understood me.

First, I would want a quote of Aristotle in context to know exactly of whom he is speaking, and most importantly I would also want the original Greek, since the translator's word choice may be very misleading. Incorporeal is a very loaded Latin term.

Second, as I have said, I am not at all claiming that only bodies as bodies exist. Nor do I take extension or space as primaries. Definitely not in the way that atomists claim that atoms and the void are primaries, and that only atoms and the void really exist. Since I hold that bodies (which we later analyzes as wholes with parts) are the primaries, you could say that I am a pluralist; existence is identity; a body is its (virtually infinite) attributes and relations. (This is also reminiscent of Spinoza, whom I respect as much as the Stoics.)

I am saying that Aristotle's first category in its most basic given sense refers to our selves and those entities with which we interact, and that we call these things bodies. (The first thing children learn to recognize is entities because we are entities.) Attributes and relations of bodies exist, but are not themselves bodies.

Also, one can, as a matter of language, treat an idea as a thing. The word idea is a noun. In that sense, since an idea is a thing and it is not a body, if we use nouns to refer to existents that are not bodies then we can speak in a certain way of incorporeal things.*

The starting point is this. What is at the center of your universe? The center of your universe, which is given to you from birth, is that which lies between the outside of your ears and behind the surface of your eyelids, above the soles of your feet and beneath the top of your scalp. That undeniable immediate given is your body. There are other similar bodies in your environment, some are animate and some inanimate, some within reach and some that you learn are millions of miles away. The existence of these bodies which you perceive by means of your body is the given. That there are minds in some of those bodies and not others, that bodies can be divided into smaller parts, and that we can investigate the nature of those parts as parts is not given, but learned.

The body is the beginning.

-----
*(Since metaphysics is epistemological, it is appropriate for us to speak of things like minds or ideas which are relational as if they were entities in so far as that is useful. Aristotle's first category is not actually entity in his writing as we translate it, but ousia, which we translate as "substance." (Confusingly, ousia and entity are cognates from the same PIE root, *(e/o)ntia.) By substance, Aristotle means that which can be the subject of a verb, and not necessarily substance as a opposed to form, or chemical substance. Entities can be the subjects of verbs. So can abstractions, universals like "The just." And so can things like water or gold which are substances in the scientific sense, which are physical but which we treat without regard to their limitations, their actual form. For example, we say that gold is yellow without regard to the fact that all real gold comes in the form of nuggets, bars, dust and so forth. That we speak in different ways doesn't delimit what the reality of things is.)

(Edited by Ted Keer on 12/06, 10:31pm)

(Edited by Ted Keer on 12/07, 12:06am)

Post 17

Sunday, December 6, 2009 - 8:55pm

Ted,

Do you have no comments on my central point, that the bodily is the given and the proper point upon which to ground a monist metaphysics?

If, by "a monist metaphysics," you mean entity ontology (as opposed to a substance ontology), then my only comment is to agree with you.

The Metaphysical
Metaphysically, everything that exists exists either as an entity or in relation to an entity. Existence, then, is entity-dependent.

The Epistemological
Epistemologically, entities are the given and are the first grounds for human thought. The human search for other kinds of existents (attributes, actions, relations, etc) begins with the study of entities.

For the above, in place of "entity" (as used by myself and Rand), you have substituted "bodily." I don't see a reason to disagree with that.

Ed

Post 18

Sunday, December 6, 2009 - 9:04pm

Ted,

One can build an Arch with Lego blocks even though Lego blocks themselves are not arches. A science of Legoland that treats only of blocks and not the emergent properties of blocks in their arrangements ends up relegating such things as arches to the mystics. What is relevant is that Rand is willing to say that arches are real, but she wants the scientists to broaden their science to more than a reductive description of disarticulated Lego blocks.

What a beautifully simplifying analogy!

Ed

Post 19

Sunday, December 6, 2009 - 10:43pm