Post-metaphysical?

Some thoughts on “post-metaphysical,” which are based on a series of metaphors:

There seems to be a certain sequence of metaphors that people learn to use when thinking about abstract topics.  All of them apply physical intuitions to non-physical concepts, and they're all based on the logic of physical objects.  They seem to correlate pretty strongly with the Spiral Dynamics blue, orange, and green memes.

The conventional, blue metaphor:

Either an object is present or it is not. => Either an abstract 'thing' is present or it is not.

This metaphor leads to the conceptualization of one quality as the absence of another, and then to the idea of opposites.  So, for example:

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Wittgenstein said “theology is grammar.”  Hartshorne gave this statement the likely interpretation that “metaphysics is grammar.”  Hartshorne accepted the truth of that statement.

I think Hartshorne and Wittgenstein perceived that language is imbued with metaphysics.  Hartshorne illustrated this by saying metaphysical statements regard a priori truths, ie, regard that which must be assumed to be true in every instance of saying something, that is, regard necessary assumptions in any manner of saying.  One necessary assumption is that something is.  Thus, one cannot conceive of saying anything—true or false or whatever—unless one assumes something is.  “That something is” is therefore a metaphysical statement.

Something is = being = the traditional realm of metaphysics.  No coincidence there.

I think Hartshorne's insight approximates what you query about any posited ability to go post-metaphysical.  Having investigated the question of post-metaphysical at some depth, I find myself aligning with Hartshorne: language itself is based on or suspended in metaphysics, on or in a certain a priori givenness.  

Moreover, it's a small leap from language to any form of thinking whatever.  Further moreover, to the extent language grows from something non-lingual can whatever is termed metaphysical be seen as part of the movement of that non-lingual realm. 

Thus to the extent movements in language correspond with movements in the physical realm does that linguistic movement called metaphysics firmly correspond to that which is.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Having investigated the question of post-metaphysical at some depth, I find myself aligning with Hartshorne: language itself is based on or suspended in metaphysics, on or in a certain a priori givenness.  

My sense is that post-metaphysics does not forbid the use of 'a priori givens' in a system, recognizing that such is not practically possible; but rather that it sees givens as features of worldspaces, not of 'the world.'

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Hartshorne would say a truly metaphysical statement applies to and within any worldspace whatever, and thus applies to any and every world, including future worlds we have yet to perceive or conceive.  Accepting this, one could generalize to say “metaphysical” is a feature of the world.  Thus the term “worldspace” assumes something exists.  And a magical-thinking view of reality assumes something exists.  I personally don't feel I can critique Hartshorne on that point.

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I think he's veering close to myth of the given territory.  What are some of his suggestions for universally applicable metaphysical statements?

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One metaphysical statement for Hartshorne is “something is.”

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What about languages which do not frame things that way – that do not use the word, 'is,' for instance?  'Is' is not universal.

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I think I recall you mentioning somewhere that a certain language had no verb to be.  Can you point me to that?

As a form of language, 'is' is itself quite new.  Let's rewind to a time when humans had no language.  Would human actions not then correspond to what we languaged beings in language call “something is”?  Think of a neanderthal grabbing an apple (apple as is) or running away from a tiger (neanderthal as is).

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There are a number of languages that don't use a 'be' verb – in particular, an equative copula such as 'is.'  A number of American Indian ones lack it, as does Indonesian, and some Micronesian languages as well.  E-Prime, as you probably know, is a form of English which has done away with all forms of 'to be' (a project growing out of Sapir & Whorf's linguistic relativity principle, which also inspired Bohm's rheomode).'

In a number of cases, you could say 'is' is implied.  For instance, in Indonesian, “Ini buku,” This book, is considered a complete sentence, so we would translate it as “This [is a] book.”  But when you leave out 'is,' the object appears to become more concretely implicated in the perceptual context – rather than being treated as something that independently 'is.'

I will respond to your prehistoric example tomorrow…

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'Is' is universal.

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I'm not sure if this is exactly W.'s intent when he says that “metaphysics is grammar.”

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He didn't say that.  He said “theology is grammar.”

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No, of course, you're correct, he didn't say that, exactly. What he did say was that essence is expressed through “grammar,” and by “grammar,” he doesn't mean what we usually mean by grammar, but something more extensive, including usage. This idea is related to the principle that language preceeds and is constitutive of thought, an important principle. In other words, we speak first, and think after.

Since the question of “essence” is one of the central features of metaphysics, it is possible to gloss “essence is expressed by grammar” with the shorthand “metaphysics is grammar,” though this is somewhat in exact.  The turn of phrase that appears in the secondary literature is “the 'structure of reality' is the 'shadow' of grammar, or later, “metaphysics is the shadow of grammar.” (To get an idea of what these turns of phrase mean, one can punch the phrase into Google.)

On a related note, Witt. also said that philosophical problems arise when  language goes on holiday, and here, as a gloss, we might say that metaphysics, or metaphysical questioning and conception in particular is “language gone on holiday.” Here, we can see the relation of his later thought with his earlier thought, which had provided the inspiration for logical positivism. In both cases there is the idea that metaphysical problems can often be “dissolved” through an analysis of language and usage and by attending to where language has exceeded its limits or where “improper” implications have been inferred (such as thinking that “mind” refers to some “thing”).

Yes, grammar implies a metaphysic, but I don't think that Wittgenstein saw this as a “rationalization” for the existence of metaphysics or metaphysical conceptions, but as a means of seeing through metaphysics. I merely wanted to point out that I think we need to keep this in mind when considering conceptions such as “post-metaphysics” in relation to his thought. I'm not sure if Hartshorne and Wittgenstein's purposes are the same — and I'm sure that Wittgenstein would disagree that “language is based on metaphysics,” if that is indeed Hartshornes intent; but it is typical of philosophers to take an idea and adapt it to suit their own purposes (as Kenny has with the idea of “post-metaphysical”, “emptiness,” and a few score or so other concepts), and there is nothing necessarily wrong with that (it's the business of philosophers to creatively misinterpret) as long as we keep it straight when the senses and purposes are different.

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If grammar implies metaphysics, language is suspended in metaphysics, or in some manner based in metaphysics, as I said above.  W's “action” (grammar) becomes metaphysical by necessary implication.  W may have thought he saw through a certain type of metaphysics; he may well have done that.  But he didn't escape metaphysics: theology as grammar implies grammar as theology.  This implication is probably what Hartshorne was highlighting.

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Depends, of course, what we mean by “metaphysics.”

As for the “theology as grammar” remark it is by no means clear what, exactly, the remark is intended to show. Wittgenstein's writing is at times cryptic and his thinking is not always easy to clarify. Scholars are still debating what this passgae means. It is by no means simply to be taken literally.

And again, it is one thing to say that his thinking implies a metaphysic, and quite another to say that this is his intent. I don't think his intents are anywhere near those of Hartshorne's.

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Here's another take on “theology as grammar” from Back to the Rough Grounds of Praxis by Daniel Franklin Pilario (Peeters Publishers, 2005):

We have shown that the sociological ‘turn to practice’ is rooted in the Wittgensteinian emphasis on language and language games which…means more than just utterance. It refers to a ‘form of life.’ “Here the term language game,” he explains, “is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.” As forms of life, language games or practices are fields of embodied and materially interacting human activities converging on some sense of ‘shared practical understanding.’ Put differently, there are never isolated but constituted in fields, they are not mental but bodily, they are not superficial activities but skillful and creative performances.

These assertions are crucial to the understanding of practices in theological reflection and pastoral practice. First, practices consider the ‘body’ as central, i.e., the senses, corporality and physical presence. There is a need to kiss a crucifix, to wipe the santo with one’s handkerchief, to walk through the procession despite the long route…to make the sign of the cross no matter how hastily when one passes by a church…to wave one’s hands and shout Amen!

But what consequences does this emphasis on language and practices have for theological reflection? Wittgenstein states somewhere: “Grammar tells us what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar.)”

In other words, practices as language and as ‘forms of life’ are the only ways we have to God. This incarnational approach to the divine runs counter to the intellectual Western tradition which privileges the inner mental state, the esoteric experience, the internal consciousness. The Platonic disdain for the material dismisses the body, the sensuous and the ordinary as quite base and lowly. Yet we can only think of God through these sensuous realities (541-3).

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Ok, I'm going to leave my position for now — at least until I have had a chance to ruminate on Wittgenstein's aphorisms a bit longer — and take up Tom's cause, as best I can. ;-)

It is sometimes stated that both Wittgenstein and Nagarjuna eschew “metaphysics.”  In one sense this is true, perhaps in the sense that they are not as interested in developing ontologies as much as they are in stripping them down.

Nagarjuna, for example, goes after all the traditional theories of causality, deconstructing each of them by turning their opponents against them, such that the Samkhya desconstructs the Vaishesika, and vice versa, and the Sautrantika deconstructs the Vaibashika, and vice versa. But does this mean Nagarjuna has no causal theory of his own? I think he does: the reconstituted pratitya samutpada theory. I think this much is clear, as Jay Garfield has shown. So Nagarjuna does have a metaphysical theory after all. And he is doing “ontology” of a sort insofar as he is being critical of theories of being. (Perhaps something similar could be said for Derrida.) Nagarjuna also claims that he is describing conventional reality only, though the upshot is that there is nothing “beyond” conventional reality, there only is conventional reality, and pratitya samutpada is conventional reality seen aright, “as it is.” And that is the “ultimate” truth.

Wittgestein, too, in an analogous way claims to be “describing” and not theorizing: “Don't think, look” is one of his aphorisms. In this vein, Strawson has distinguished between “descriptive” metaphysics and “redescrptive” metaphysics. One of the premises of redescriptive metaphysics would appear to be that “things are not what they appear to be.” And so the task of the re-descriptive metaphysician is to describe things as they “really” are — as instances of the timeless “Forms,” and aspects of the “Absolute Idea,” etc.

And yet, once again, by implying that metaphysics is really just “grammar,” or to be exact, by implying that metaphysical problems can be seen for what they are by attending to the “grammar” that underlies the question or problem, we are still doing something that parallels traditional metaphysics. The same ambiguity underlies Wittgenstein's conception of “philosophy.” There is, on the one hand, the philosophizing1 that lead to all sorts of silly problems like, “what if we are all just brains in a vat?”; but on the other, there is also the practice of philosophy2 that is critical of this sort of thing: the idea of philosophy2 as a therapeutic exercise, the practice that treats philosophizing1 as a kind of disease. (“Philosophy is a disease for which it is also its own cure.”) This conception of philosophy2 is similar to, and probably derivative in some sense, of Kant's notion of a critical philosophy. And it is this conception of philoosphy2 that most closely parallels Nagarjuna's desconstructive prasanga-vada; Nagajuna saw vikalpa, or reifying thinking, as not only indicative of samsara but as constitutive, in some sense, of duhkha, insofar as vikalpa is involved in the construction “real” substantial things, things that we can become attached to, and for that reason  it as in need of a some kind of “internal check.”

So when Wittgenstein says that we should attend to the “grammar” of philosophizing (or theologizing), he is saying that we are not seeing things a-right, and that we need to. The same goes for Nagarjuna. He too is saying that there is something wrong with the “natural attitude” as the phenomenologists would call it, or with “naive realism” as the empiricists might. In other words, for all their “this worldliness” or “naturalism,” or “immanentism,” there is still a “problem” of sorts that needs to be worked out. This is the issue I raised in the naturalism thread.

The problem I have with the formulations of these masters (my masters) is that there is a kind of duplicity or disingenousness going on, or at least a tension or inconsistency. I am loath to conclude, “therefore, metaphysics is necessary,” as I feel this would be a hasty generalization, but do they appear to be doing something that goes beyond what they say they are doing.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Here is an account, and a critical one at that, of Witt's conception of philosophy. This guy is well read and has thought about these things with a fair degree of depth and intelligence. He's also a bit of an autodidact, apparently. I'm impressed.

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Philosophy can be a good thing as it can lead thought to new insights for humankind.

However, it can be, and often is, a kind of neurosis. Why?

Because it seeks pure cognitive satisfaction and complete knowledge or  understanding of things in themselves. An impossible task which leads to further needs and satisfactions ad infinitum.  The cause of suffering itself. (Refer 1st 3 Noble Truths).

When Wilber, and other philosophers turn to intuition, they are admittiing that philosophy is a failure.

Thoght I would add that. ;-).

Gaddy





      

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Gaddy,

You wrote: When…philosophers turn to intuition, they are admitting that philosophy is a failure.

That is the first thing I have read of yours 1) that I could understand, and 2) with which I could agree.

The great irony on this pod is that Wittgenstein, in the Investigations, wrote to dissolve those issues that arose from language being on holiday, but instead created as great a swamp as he sought to drain by feeding possible, (tinkly) interpretations to those thinkers who are loath to let go of the clockwork minutets that entertain them between their feedings.

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Hey thanks! I'm sorry, I'm not much of a typist so I think I might boil things down too much.

First of all, I don't disagree with much of what you say here. Actually we may be on the same wave length when all things are told.

However, your last paragraph, well, you may want to write that again as I'm not good at anything unless it is totally down to earth. (My kids use totally a lot).

I used to work for a Company that did lots of business in China. The least of their problems was language and translation. I think this linguistic approach is way over blown.  I look at language as derivative. In other words, reality comes first, lanuage second. I have the feeling here that some people may have it the other way around.

What do you think?

Gaddy

P.S. I'll try harder in the future.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

I have to agree with Jim, that the idea of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality is, well, a contradiction in terms. (Actually a 19th Century idea).

KW lectures everybody on this fact in his book Integral Spirituality and then turns around and gives us “Kosmic Habits” - not realizing that he is substituting his own metaphysics for another. Weird.  (All we can say is, “what took you so long”).  

This is not Wilber bashing but only an observation. (He lacks a proper educated editor).

Two things here, first Pierce, where he gets this idea, was a mega-alcoholic. Of course he saw everything as a “habit” projected onto the Universe at large.

Second, we should not confuse what is problem for a human organism here on Mother Earth with a Universe, as a whole, which operates by a different set of rules. The Universe is not a living body. (I know, Ken wants it to be All One).

When Wilber goes from Body to Mind, sliding smoothly along upward he doesn't seem to realize that these two things can be in conflict with each other. It can't just be one hierarchal step at a time. Nor does he seem to realize that Spirit sounds like just another term for the body. “Feeling”. (Which probably it is).

Anyway, that's how I see it.

Gaddy ;-)

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Gaddy,
Don't simply assume that it is your deficit in writing that creates my lack of understanding. Those of you who were cohorts on that other forum can get away with shorthand among yourselves that leaves me only guessing.

You wrote: However, your last paragraph, well, you may want to write that again as I'm not good at anything unless it is totally down to earth.

Sorry that post was more or less a rough draft in the Gaia editor, written on the run. Normally I wouldn't misspell 'minuets' or mix two and a half metaphors in one sentence. It was language on holiday, it was philosophy.This is my rewrite:

One view of Wittgenstein (one that I like) sees him always impatient with mainstream academic philosophy. It does not take a lot of intelligence to see that of all the arts and sciences of western culture, all its technologies, disciplines, professions and occupations, philosophy has made the fewest advances over the last 2.5 millenia. (People still read Kant, Jesus H. Christ! Can you believe that?) Even religion is ahead of it. W reasonably blamed the language and tried twice to reform it. Both attempts failed, though he was lionized for each one. In terms of long range objectives, philosophy is just as stultified as ever. (I think this is mirrored in Rorty's progression through academia–from analytic philosopher to pragmatic professor of comparative literature, a discipline in which language has to look lively or else the discipline dies. And it is further mirrored in the nature of the outrage of those Rorty left behind.) So maybe W was wrong. It is not the fault of the linguistic structure, or essence or the mechanics of its usage, but its users keep pumping it full of anesthetic so there will never be an elegantly logical resolution, or a common usage dissolution of those tedious old philosophical chestnuts that bore most of us to distraction, but keep a relative few marginalized abstract thinkers in tenure, paychecks and/or entertainment.

The best alive language from my 29 years in the investigative rackets tells me, “Follow the money.”


Ciao,
Steven

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Steven: It is not the fault of the linguistic structure, or essence or the mechanics of its usage, but its users keep pumping it full of anesthetic so there will never be an elegantly logical resolution, or a common usage dissolution of those tedious old philosophical chestnuts that bore most of us to distraction, but keep a relative few marginalized abstract thinkers in tenure, paychecks and/or entertainment.


!


Perhaps language holidaying indicates people have too much time on their hands, that thinking structures move *very slowly* and that, between structure jumps, there's little to actually do, philosophically speaking.  I've often wondered why philosophers still refer so often to such as Kant.

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Hey,
In a totally unrelated Google search I serendipitously found a link to a conversation that Edward and I had last August, the subject matter of which has a direct relationship to what we write of here.

Plus it contained one of the foundational posts for the now ever self-refining school of thought called Aeluroicism.

The more this pod gets repetitive and self-referential it gets happily more amusing and, yes, entertaining.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

“Life's a bitch and then you die.” Dora & I had a nice chuckle about this Steven. She asked me about you and I was telling her a little of your background, raised in Wyoming, living in Venezuela with a lady and that you had a forge.

Yeah, cats & dogs and indeed it does get more amusing and entertaining. We're having a glass of Australian Port, she's looking at IL, I'm looking here. The beach was wonderful today…

Cheers to you & all,
Mark

 

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Mark,

“…a shared impulse of delight”

You can't make that change…it bastardizes Yeats and that's just being tacky.

S.
===================
I didn't know that was a quote from Yeats; I thought it was your own. Tacky, huh?
Ciao,
Mark

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Yes Steven, I agree that thread is relevant here. Here are some excerpts:

From the SEP entry:

“Nagarjuna however does not buy into this set of ontological categories in the first place, and so the Logician is being disingenuous in trying to covertly pull him into the ontological game with this charge that the idea of emptiness is metaphysically unintelligible. The Brahminical Logician is insisting that no person can engage in a philosophical discussion without buying, at least minimally, into a theory of essences and issues surrounding how to categorize essences. It is exactly this very point, Nagarjuna demurs, that is eminently debatable!”

From the Garfield entry:

“Rather he [Nagarjuna] asserts that his use of words does not commit him to the existence of any convention independent phenomena (such as emptiness) to which those words refer. What he denies is a particular semantic theory, one he regards as incompatible with his doctrine of the emptiness of all things precisely because it is committed to the claim that things have natures (Garfield 1996). Compare, in this context, Wittgenstein's rejection of the theory of meaning of the Tractatus, with its extralinguistic facts and propositions, in favor of the use-theory of the Investigations.”

Karl’s assertion is that pomo partakes of the same Abstraction as Object metaphor. But does it? Balder makes clear that while pomo still makes metaphysical claims it calls the metaphor into question by a different set of metaphors, “moving from representation-of to enactive-as.” It’s like the Logicians trying to pull Naggie into their ontological assumptions when they are what he calls into question. So yes, the enactivists and cogscipragos make metaphysical claims like Naggie but upon an anti-foundational, non-self-refuting “groundless ground” which does not accept the “objective” metaphor of essences but rather the more pragmatic, embodied “use-theory” of the latter Wittgenstein.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Steven: The best alive language from my 29 years in the investigative rackets tells me, “Follow the money.”

It's not high finance, it's called heart and soul…

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Re: Post-metaphysical?

In the United States, Independence Day, known as, and more commonly referred to by the phrase ”Fourth of July”, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, political speeches and ceremonies, and various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the national day of the United States.

Interdependence is a dynamic of being mutually and physically responsible to and sharing a common set of principles with others. This concept differs distinctly from “dependence” in that an interdependent relationship implies that all participants are emotionally, economically, ecologically and or morally “interdependent.” Some people advocate freedom or independence as a sort of ultimate good; others do the same with devotion to one's family, community, or society. Interdependence recognizes the truth in each position and weaves them together. Two states that cooperate with each other are said to be interdependent. It can also be defined as the interconnectedness and the reliance on one another socially, economically, environmentally and politically.

My wife & I are going to Sauvie Island today, get some sun, swim and celebrate both independence & interdependence day! Afterwards, we're going to eat some sushi in downtown Portland. This evening, we're going to watch the fireworks shooting from a barge on the Willamette River! And yeah, we get naked!

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Edward,

Do you want me to remove the “Islands in the Stream” embedded video? Or have you boldly alerted your management at work that those pesky IT spies interfere with your productivity as you get your daily dose of inspiration from here? You are very skilled at charting new courses here and it is definitely a transferable skill there.

Those IT spies limit both your freedom and ours.  Right, Locutus of Berg(e)?

Thanks,
Mark

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Yes Mark, please remove the embed and instead provide a link. The workplace just doesn't understand some (many) things, the need to come here one of them. And while my creativity makes me one of their best producers, so they like the rain I make, they are just as threatened by it as it challenges their limits. If I didn't make them so much money I'd be long gone.

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Do they give you your fair share of the profitability that your creativity produces?

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I have removed the embedded video and the link.
I am removing myself too.

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Ha ha, that's great stuff,  loved every second of it. Keep up the good game, I mean work.

Gaddy  ;-) 

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Steven: but instead created as great a swamp as he sought to drain etc

[insert picture of woman, head slightly back, back of hand to forehead]

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This is not Wilber bashing but only an observation. (He lacks a proper educated editor).

Bashing is a harsh, gratuitous, predjudicial attack on a person, group or subject. Literally, bashing is a term meaning to hit or, colloquially, to assault but when it is used as a suffix, or in conjunction with a noun indicating the subject being attacked, it is normally used to imply a sense of uncompromising vehemence and bigotry about the assailant.

In contrast, giving constructive feedback for dummies is oftentimes more effective. Furthermore, he has many properly educated editors. He chooses to ignore them.

It is Wilber who does the bashing, eg. ”Suck my dick…”

Anyway, that's how I see it.

Mark ;-)

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Mark, that blog you posted of Wilber's isn't pretty. But then again, I'm just too green so he can dismiss anything I say about it, right? So easy…

and of course, it was posted three years ago, so what relevance does it have toWilber2009b?

love,

nicole

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Well Nicole, if he had any heart, he'd make you Editor-In-Chief, but you can't teach an' old dog new tricks.

love bak,
mark

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that'll be the day! what an imagination you have lol!

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Here is an account of Wittgenstein's use of the term “grammar” that appears to proceed along lines that I have been indicating.

What I take issue with below is the notion that Wittgenstein's account is “not the least bit theoretical.” The author writes:

“This is as close as Wittgenstein came to revealing the “metaphysical presuppositions” of his work; what is noteworthy is that this statement is not in the least theoretical. The subject of his logic of language is no more removed – or hidden – from the experience of everyday life than the subject of a practical guide to gardening is; – and Wittgenstein's treatment of it is no less practical.”


I think that is overstating the case, a bit.

In any case, I think Wittgenstein and Nagarjuna's “conventionalism” may have some resonance with the idea of “naturalism” that we discussed elsewhere. This is another tangent upon which that particular subject might be spun. Deleuze's “immanentism” might be another.

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Along the lines of an immanent, natural, embodied meaning, see this from “Signing in the flesh: notes on pragmatist hermeneutics,” by Dmitri Shalin, Sociological Theory,25:3 September 2007:

This article takes a clue from the incipient movement in the social sciences aiming to complement the traditional concern for discursive dimensions of cultural life with the embodied forms of social phenomena. In particular, it seeks to extend the “paradigm of embodiment” (Csordias 1994) and the pragmatist notion of “bodymind” (Lakoff and Johnson 1999) to interpretation theory, suggesting the way in which we can turn body and emotion into a hermeneutical resource. The discussion begins with classical hermeneutics, which equates meaning with authorial intent and logical sense and then contrasts this tradition with the pragmatism-inspired approach that brings into the interpretation process somatic, emotional, and behavioral signs. After outlining pragmatist hermeneutics and based on it, biocritical analysis, I focus on postmodernism as a discourse and an embodied practice. Next, I propose a line of inquiry grounded in the hermeneutics of embodiment, discuss its potential as an alternative to depth hermeneutics, and explore interfaces between pragmatist hermeneutics and kindred theoretical perspectives. The article concludes with a list of questions central to hermeneutical analysis in a pragmatist key.

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I'm sure I'm not alone Edward in my admiration of your skill at charting our course…
…to boldly go where no one has gone before.

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Kela, Tom,
Wittgenstein wrote, “Grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar).”

Note that it was used as a parenthetical example of the preceding sentence. “As”– significantly different than “is.”

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Steven, yes, he says 'as,' but I read it to imply 'is.'  'As,' here, would not imply 'is' only if 'as' were hypothetical.  I don't read W to be speaking hypothetically.

Note a few lines back at para. 371 he says “Essence is expressed in grammar.”

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Tom,
I guess you are highlighting a difference in our interpretive styles. I am sort of older, simpler and less developed so I read 'as' for 'as' and 'is' for 'is' the same as I read 'cat' for 'cat' and 'dog' for 'dog.'

“Essence is expressed in grammar.” is just reversing the order of words in the phrase, “Grammar tells what kind of object anything is.” Anyway that's the way it shakes down for us  'cat' for 'cat' kind of primitives.

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Yes Steven, in business terms, it IS called a rathole.

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Nice posts, Karl and Tom. 

In my understanding, post-metaphysics does not entail going beyond metaphysics altogether, or totally rejecting metaphysical concerns.  Perhaps we can see it as a development of reflexivity within, or out of, metaphysics.

The “abstraction as object” metaphor is instructive.  One of the things that I see going on in the 'postmetaphysical turn' is a movement from object-thinking to process-thinking:  from 'object' to 'objectivation,' from 'abstraction' to 'abstracting.'  It is a reflexive movement to the degree that we come to see the 'objects' that make up our worlds as inseparable, to some degree, from our embodied evolutionary history, our perceptual and linguistic tools and processes, our cultural beliefs and cognitive development, etc.  It is not so much an outright rejection of external 'things,' as a view which sees 'things' dynamically, as enactively emergent. 

In my language thread, I recently posted an excerpt of a discussion between physicists and Native Americans, regarding the highly verbal and kinesthetic grammar of many Amerindian languages:  where folks can talk all day long and never use a noun.  If metaphysics is grammar, then perhaps post-metaphysics is, in part, a critique of our present (nominalizing, thingifying) grammar.  Perhaps a better word could be found than post-metaphysics; perhaps Wilber should describe his project as Integral enactive spirituality.

Karl said:  From what I gather, going “post-metaphysical” seems to involve rejecting the assumption of the actual independent existence of things, while simultaneously accepting perspectivalism.  But the very idea of having an abstract perspective is derived from the assumption of the actual existence of 'things' to look at!

As I mentioned above, I don't think the view Wilber presents (as 'post-metaphysical') rejects the notion of 'externally' existing things altogether; rather, it shifts the focus to something like enactively emergent 'thing-spaces.'

Re: Post-metaphysical?

“If metaphysics is grammar, then perhaps post-metaphysics is, in part, a critique of our present (nominalizing, thingifying) grammar.”
 
I thinik that's closer to the idea; e.g., “mind.”

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Recall the following from The Philosophy of the Flesh in the Mead thread. Lakoff & Johnson state in the book that they are in the tradition of the American Pragmatists like Dewey. They show that there is indeed a “given” reality but that we cannot “have objective and absolute knowledge of the world-in-itself.” The latter is the myth of the given and to refute it is what we might call post-metaphysical. It accepts that the world exists, so has a metaphysical commitment. And it is therefore not “merely” relativism of the type described, because they have “an account of how real, stable knowledge, both is science and in the everyday world, is possible.” So what are they, if not orange or green? 

The excerpt: 

Perhaps the oldest of philosophical problems is the problem of what is real and how we can know it, if we can know it…. Aristotle concluded that we could know because our minds could directly grasp the essences of things in the world. This was ultimate metaphysical realism. There was no split between ontology (what there is) and epistemology (what you could know), because the mind was in direct touch with the world.

With Descartes, philosophy opened a gap between the mind and the world…. Ideas…became internal “representations” of external reality…but somehow “corresponding” to it. This split metaphysics from epistemology.

…embodied realism…is closer to…direct realism…than…representational realism. [It] is, rather, a realism grounded in our capacity to function successfully in our physical environments. It is therefore an evolutionary realism. Evolution has provided us with adapted bodies and brains that allow us to accommodate to, and even transform, our surroundings.

It gives up on being able to know things-in-themselves, but, through embodiment, explains how we can have knowledge that, although it is not absolute, is nonetheless sufficient to allow us to function and flourish.

The direct realism of the Greeks can thus be characterized as having three aspects:

1. The Realist Aspect: The assumption that the material world exists and an account of how we can function successfully within it;
2. The Directness Aspect: The lack of any mind-body gap;
3. The Absoluteness Aspect: The view of the world as a unique, absolutely objective structure of which we can have absolutely correct, objective knowledge.

Symbol-system realism of the sort found in analytic philosophy accepts 3, denies 2 and claims that 1 follows from 3, given a scientifically unexplicated notion of “correspondence.”

Embodied realism accepts 1 and 2 but denies that we have any access to 3.

All three of these views are “realist” by virtue of their acceptance of 1. Embodied realism is close to direct realism…in its denial of a mind-body gap. It differs from direct and symbol-system realism in its epistemology, since it denies that we can have objective and absolute knowledge of the world-in-itself.

…it may appear to some to be a form of relativism. However, while it does treat knowledge as relative—relative to the nature of our bodies, brains and interactions with the environment—it is not a form of extreme relativism, because it has an account of how real, stable knowledge, both is science and in the everyday world, is possible (94-6).

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Ed, the above language sounds confused to me.  To wit, what is the meaning of a phrase (absolute knowledge) that has no reality, no application, no functioning in the human realm?  If what is called absolute is given only that meaning—ie, it has no meaning in the modern post-thing-in-itself world—what is the meaning of relative?

Is it not more coherent, both linguistically and developmentally, to say that thing-in-itself thinking is foundational to that which follows it developmentally, and that likewise the conception of “absolute” in thing-in-itself thinking is foundational to whatever notion of absolute is appropriate to post-thing-in-itself thinking?

Re: Post-metaphysical?

I'm not sure I understand you. I think what L&J are saying is what Balder has indicated, that there is a “there” there but that we don't know it in some direct, 1-to-1, “objective” way as in the representational paradigm. That would be “foundationalism.” That is, we enact what is “given” so it indeed changes depending on our evolutionary development.

Is such representational, foundationalist thinking a prerequisite for a post-foundationalist, postmetaphysical thinking? It appears so, that it is a necessary step. Do L&J acknowledge that and instead see it as a wrong turn? Not sure.

However, looking at PF further, here are some more excerpts on the myth of some unmediated, direct knowlege/experience (foundationalism). And how reason evolves out of our bodily capacities but is not of a different kind.

The evidence from cognitive science shows that….there is no such fully autonomous faculty of reason separate from and independent of bodily capacities such as perception and movement. The evidence supports, instead, an evolutionary view, in which reason uses and grows out of such bodily capacities.  

Cognitive science provides a new an important take on an age-old philosophical problem, the problem of what is real and how we can know it, if we can know it. Our sense of what is real begins with and depends crucially upon our bodies, especially our sensorimotor apparatus, which enables us to perceive, move, and manipulate, and the detailed structures of our brain, which have been shaped by both evolution and experience. 

Every living being categorizes. Even amoeba categorized the things it encounters into food or nonfood. 

Categorization is therefore a consequence of how we are embodied. We have evolved to categorize; if we hadn’t, we would not have survived. Categorization is, for the most part, not a product of conscious reasoning. We categorize as we do because we have the brains and bodies we have and because we interact with the world the way we do. 

A small percentage of our categories have been formed by conscious acts…most are formed automatically and unconsciously as a result of functioning in the world. 

Living systems must categorize. Since we are neural beings, our capacities are formed through embodiment. What that means is that the categories we form are part of our experience. They are the structures that differentiate aspects or our experience into discernable kinds. Categorization is thus not a purely intellectual matter, occurring after the fact of experience. Rather, the formation and use of categories is the stuff of experience. It is part of what our bodies and brains are constantly engaged in. We cannot, as some meditative traditions suggest, “get beyond” our categories and have a purely uncategorized and unconceptualized experience. Neural beings cannot do that (17-19).

Re: Post-metaphysical?

There's really some humor here.  Post-modern questioning of objective reality is largely based on extending the very same metaphor that gave us the notion of an objective reality in the first place.

My basic point is that the idea of an abstract perspective is dependent on a particular metaphor – Conceptualization As Seeing An Object From A Particular Angle – that presumes the actual existence of an object and an actual relationship between the object and the observer.  It is thus somewhat odd to attempt to separate out the notion of perspectives from the notion of what really exists; one depends on the other by the logic of the originating metaphor.

(L&J's solution, where there is something actually there, but we can't know it objectively (ahem), seems to follow the logic of this metaphor quite well.)

Re: Post-metaphysical?

“There's really some humor here.  Post-modern questioning of objective reality is largely based on extending the very same metaphor that gave us the notion of an objective reality in the first place.”

Bingo. Was thinking the same thing. It is really an extension in some sense of modernism. After all, to a significant degree it develops out of Kant. It may also have to do with a shared vocabulary.

What seems to be happening though is “Pomo” thought is gradually stripping away modernist presuppositions, such as the search for foundations (in which case “anti-foundationalism” isn't a “stance” as much as an indication that a project has been abandoned).

That L&J are abandoning the “brain in a vat problematic” and are attempting to return to something more akin to the classical realism of the greeks would seem to be indicative of this. Still, they retain some of the old vovabulary. The phrases “thing in itself” and “absolute reality,” “objectivity” and so on are perhaps unfortunate. They lead us onto the hamster wheel as to what all these mean, whether or not they are possible, and so on.

But I think Karl is right: the Matrix certainly looks like it might be a post-modern film. But the premise for the film is right out of Descartes.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Bruce, I suspect languages that do not use the verb to be are older, simpler, less developed languages, and that 'to be' is developmentally more complex.  Your example above that 'this book' implies is, like my historical example where behaviour implies 'is,' by their implication suggest a developmental line where 'is' (including its thing-like and post-thing-like spawn) over time emerges ever more distinctly into linguistic view and function.

I agree with what Karl is saying, and can see similar dynamics from a slightly different Particular Angle.  It seems to me that metaphysical thinking is a higher development, both conceptually and linguistically.  Metaphysical thinking, which in a sense can be seen to be based on 'is'—the root word of essence and being—is more abstract than the concrete thinking of the Native American languages I've read about in the Bohm dialogue extract Bruce posted.  It is even moreso developed than Neanderthal 'functional' language (grabbing an apple being a functional 'apple is').

Wittgenstein's word-games approach, though expressed by W quite subtly, feels to me to be regressive.  It's the same feeling I get when I read about the interest in the kinesthetic language of Native Americans.  That interest likewise seems in some regards regressive, a kind of groping in observed differences absent criteria to understand why those differences are there (the essence of green, IMO).  It seems to me there's a developmental dynamic at play here, and that language and concept and with them feeling develop over time into ever more abstract expressions.  Eckhart Tolle's “presence” (based of course on 'is') is a highly abstract mental and feeling and fundamentally metaphysical mode.

The metaphysical can therefore be seen as a late emergent, in some regards the most highly developed and most abstract mento-linguistico-feeling mode humans have attained.  Piaget would probably agree.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Tom writes: Bruce, I suspect languages that do not use the verb to be are older, simpler, less developed languages, and that 'to be' is developmentally more complex.

I don't think you can get away entirely with this unless you make some clear distinctions about the nature of the development and the cash-value of its usage. There are cultures whose language simply does not need “to be” in their vocabulary because that concept is a given through other uses or the existence of whatever goes without saying. Meanwhile that same language is far more developed in areas where the Indo-European languages just stumble around.

More later.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

That's probably true, Steven.  I'm not supposing to understand how languages have evolved, and I don't know if an observable thread can be observed in those evolutions allowing generalization into a theory of how language evolves.  But I wouldn't be surprised to find such a thread, and I suspect it would implicate 'is.'

Re: Post-metaphysical?

In regard to enaction, I see the basic idea as being that what is observed depends on both what is being observed and on how the observer is observing.  I'm phrasing that in language compatible with the object metaphor intentionally, in light of the apparent developmental sequence of increasing complicated versions of the same Abstraction As Object metaphor.  When phrased this way, enaction can be understood as a further extension of the metaphor.

The mapping is

physical object => given
observer => experiencer
position and orientation of the observer => abstract perspective
what the observer is capable of seeing => what the experiencer is capable of experiencing
how the observer views the object => how the experiencer examines the given
what the observer notices => what the experiencer is aware of

On the physical side, suppose I look at a painting.  There are many possible angles I can look at it from, each of which will have an effect on how I perceive the image.  Not only that, but depending on which colors I am capable of registering, I may see entirely different shapes.  And even beyond that, I might be looking in a particular way – I might be examining the brush strokes in particular, or the shapes and lines, or the compositional relationships.  Or I might be focusing on a particular area of the painting to the exclusion of the rest.  All of those factors will play a role in determining what I actually notice about the painting.

Under this mapping, the set of things I actually notice about the painting is mapped to my abstract world-space.  Using the logic of physical vision, my world-space depends on the given actuality, on my abstract perspective, and on how I focus or shape my own awareness.

This metaphorical logic is fairly compatible with how Wilber defines a world-space. In the notes of SES (Ch4 n13), he describes a world-space as “the sum total of all stimuli that can be responded to.”  However, Wilber partially inverts the logic of this metaphor and says that it is awareness, not the physical object, that is given:  “Worldspaces are a priori to physical parameters but not ultimately a priori to awareness…”

Wilber often seems to consider the shape or focus of awareness to be the primary determinant of what is experienced – although he is somewhat inconsistent on this point.  The absolute/relative thing seems to be at the heart of the inconsistency.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

With the developments of postmodernism and the enactive paradigm, I don't think there is a simple extension of the 'abstraction as object' metaphor, but there does still appear to be a traceable lineage from those metaphors:  'cognition as construction' and 'abstraction as construct,' for example.

Here are four key points which Varela uses to summarize the major claims of the enactive paradigm.

Cognition is enactively embodied:  co-determination of inner/outer
Cognition is enactively emergent:  co-determination of neural elements (local) and cognitive subject (global)
Cognition is generatively enactive:  co-determination of Me-Other
Consciousness is ontologically complex:  co-determination of first- and third-person descriptions

Varela continues:

If you put together key point one and key point two, embodiment and emergence, [the first corollary is that] the mind is fundamentally a matter of imagination and fantasy.  In other words, it's the internal activity of these rich emergent properties, plus the fact that you have an ongoing coupling that forms the core of what the mind is.  The mind is not about representing some kind of state of affairs.  The mind is about constantly secreting this coherent reality that constitutes a world, the coherence of the organizing through the local-global transitions.  Stated in other words, perception is as imaginary as imagination is perception-based.  [My bolding.]

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Bruce, I have a difficult time thinking mind is entirely not about representing.  It's that coupling thing.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

I think Varela would go along with that.  I think his interest here is primarily to challenge the dualist split that underlies the representational paradigm: moving from representation-of to enactive-as.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

FWIW, representationalist dualism never turned my crank.  Notice that what we call object is often (always?) another subject, rendering 'object' but a relation to a given subject.  The whole world, so far as I know, could be a conglomeration of subjects viewing as from their perspectives.  But this is not to deny the objecthood of Subject 1 to Subject 2's perception of that S1.  S1 remains S1 regardless of S2's perception, whether naive representationalist or otherwise.

If I look at my green grass, then close my eyes and look at the sun, then open my eyes and look again at the now green-blue grass, the change in the view of the grass had not only to do with my retinas being impacted by red light, but also by the givenness of the light and the blood that produced that shift in my retina, and the givenness of the light from the grass.  That light, in both instances, and that blood, are all S1s that were affected not at all by the change in my retina.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Nice post, Karl.  Wilber loves awareness.  He loves it so much he idolizes it by setting it up as the Absolute Given.

The world is given to our senses.  Yes, our senses (and further up the chain our mentation) undeniably shape what we call the world, but what do these shape?  Nothing?  No, they shape the somethingness of what is given to the senses (including the somethingness given to mentation).  There is no 'red' without light.  Light, to 'red,' is a given.  It's why red is red and is not and never will be blue.  The world is not merely of our making.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

And who specifically is denying that there is a world there? Postmodernists? Which ones? Give examples.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Karl or Tom,

Do you think “we can have objective and absolute knowledge of the world-in-itself?”

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Ed, your question is incoherent.  If I answer 'no,' world-in-itself is a meaningless because unknowable phrase.  What possibly could be meant by world-in-itself if I say it's unknowable?

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Perhaps it is you that are incoherent? You admitted above that the world is shaped by us so that we cannot have an unshaped, direct experience of said world. That's what I mean and that seems obvious.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

I'm curious if you're in a contrarian mood today, Tom?  You are questioning things that you yourself have stated elsewhere.  Or are you reconfiguring your own thinking, making room for things that perhaps you felt you'd walled off too much previously?

Re: Post-metaphysical?

Bruce, I don't think I'm being any more contrarian than usual.  I suspect you're seeing a bit of reconfiguration.  Remember my post where I sketched a relative view of absolute?  That view, when I sketched it, seemed mostly 'yes,' with a hint of discomfort.  That discomfort has since grown into an added 'no' to the original 'yes.'

Ed, I'm not saying world-in-itself is a defensible notion.  I'm merely pointing out that in the development away from naive representationalism (world-in-itself), I no longer ask questions about world-in-itself because the phrase has become meaningless.  By necessity, if “world-in-itself” is meaningless, it is incoherent to say “I can't know the world-in-itself.”  What would “can't know” possibly mean in that sentence?  In my view, world-in-itself dies in the move away from naive representationalism, but knowledge does not.  What is knowledge if not in some essential part but of the world?

Re: Post-metaphysical?

What is knowledge if not in some essential part but of the world?
 
I don't recall ever arguing to the contrary of that statement.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

I'm not exactly making an argument in favor of a particular metaphor, but instead pointing out the implications of using certain metaphors.  Since I take the inferences drawn from these metaphors to be largely, um, metaphorical, I'm not sure I have a position as to whether or not we can have objective and absolute knowledge of the world-as-it-is.

One of the things I'm trying to point out is that the very idea of objective knowledge is metaphorical.  So is the idea of absoluteness as the essence of all things that exist independently of any observer – this understanding is also based on the object metaphor.  Along those lines, the world-as-it-is conceptually depends on the object metaphor, in that it requires that something can exist independently of being experienced, just as objects seem to persist even we don't directly experience them.  And more fundamentally, the idea of world as a category containing all particular items whose shared essence is existence or being is also metaphorical. 

These are physical intuitions applied to abstract conceptualizations.  I'm not saying that's good or bad, or right or wrong.  I'm simply noting that the logic used with abstractions is imported from interaction with physical objects.

Re: Post-metaphysical?

But it seems we'd need metaphors to reflect our post-objective metaphor, and it seems that's what L&J are providing, no? And that part of the L&J metaphor is indeed the idea that “abstractions [are] imported from interaction with physical objects.”

Re: Post-metaphysical?

As stated, yes, it is metaphorical.  I'm considering logic to be an object that can be moved from one space to another (which it is not.)

However, I think it can be stated in a non-metaphorical fashion, simply by noting that we use the same words in the same way to describe physical objects as we to do describe abstractions.