Bunge on What Exists
Premise Checker
Here's an old, but UseNet standards, piece of mine on this subject of what
exists. Bob K., do you agree 100% with the great Mario Bunge? Two more
pieces on him follow.
MARIO BUNGE ON OBJECTIVITY
_Treatise on Basic Philosophy_, Vol. 6 =
_Epistemology & Methodology II_ =
_Understanding the World_
(Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1983, 296 pp.)
Part V. Variety and Unity
Chapter 15. Upshot
2. Philosophies of Knowledge
2.2. Realism and Scientism
(pp. 258-264 in the book)
By definition factual knowledge is knowledge
of facts, i.e. items in the real world, such
as states of things and changes in things. The
facts that are objects of inquiry can occur
inside the inquirer or in his external world,
and they can occur spontaneously or as a
result of his activity.
Facts are sometimes said to be _hard_ in that
they do not occur or fail to occur just
because we fancy or abhor them. In contrast,
our knowledge of facts can be said to be
_soft_ for being incomplete, at best nearly
true, and always corrigible. This distinction
between facts in themselves and our images,
concepts, or descriptions of them is sometimes
blurred in ordinary parlance, as when one
speaks of 'getting one's facts straight' when
actually meaning "getting an accurate
knowledge of the facts that interest one".
Occasionally philosophers indulge in this
confusion. Thus Feyerabend states that "Facts
[probably meaning 'our descriptions of some
facts'] contain ideological components" (1975,
p. 77), and he rejects the thesis of the
autonomy of facts (ibid., pp. 38-39).
All scientific and technological inquiry
presupposes the autonomy of facts, even of the
facts resulting from our own action. (Recall
Ch. 4, Section 3.2.) Otherwise, i.e. if we
could invent facts, or if we were always
unable to distinguish them from fiction, we
would not care to check our ideas about them.
Error, a mismatch between knowledge and its
object, is ever present in cognitive
enterprises, and in principle it can always be
corrected--if not right now, later on. Knowing
that our knowledge of facts may contain
errors, and must therefore be checked,
presupposes and also confirms the reality or
autonomy of the facts in question. (See Bunge
(1981), Appendix, for the use of error to
criticize subjectivism.). To put it
positively: the very search for factual truth
presupposes the philosophical theses that
there are autonomous facts and that these can
be known if only partially. These two theses
constitute the nucleus of realism or
objectivism.
Objectivism is the thesis that objectivity is
attainable and desirable. Now, objectivity is
a property of some perceptions, ideas, or
procedures. Actually the word 'objective'
designates at least three different concepts,
which we shall call 'referential', 'alethic',
and 'methodological'. _Referential
objectivity_ is identical with lack of
reference to the knowing subject--as in the
statement that there are two people in this
room--regardless of its truth value. _Alethic
objectivity_ is truth for all, as in "I feel
pain every time I experience a tooth
extraction", which is referentially subjective
but alethically objective, for it holds for
all the substitution instances of the pronoun.
And _methodological objectivity_ is
reliability together with lack of personal
bias in preparing the material of study or
performing tests on it, as when using
randomization in constructing a statistical
sample or conducting studies of performance in
evaluating a new artifact or plan.
Natural science, social science and technology
are supposed to be referentially, alethically
and methodologically objective--i.e.
_objective simpliciter_. Objectivity is not
easy to attain, particularly when the subject
of study is new or one of ideological
controversy. Thus it is possible to give a
true account of the luminous side of a society
while silencing its dark side--a
characteristic of propaganda as opposed to
social science. A commitment to objectivity is
insufficient: we also must strive to account
eventually for the whole object of our
research.
Nor should objectivity be equated with the
search for truth. I may truly assert that I am
feeling well, and I may claim that all stars
are composed of ice. In the first case I state
a truth about a subjective state of mind, in
the second I am falsely affirming a
referentially objective construct. Nor is
objectivity identical with the refusal to
study subjective experience. Indeed the
requirement of objectivity is methodological
not ontological: it entails searching for
descriptions the truth value of which does not
depend on arbitrary individual fiat, and
prescriptions the efficiency of which is
likewise independent of fancy. And such
research can bear on subjective experience and
opinion: witness many psychological and
sociological studies of either. Hayek (1955)
[_The Counter-Revolution of Science_] confused
subjectivism with recognizing the existence
and importance of opinions, and consequently
declared the social sciences to be
subjectivistic.)
Another confusion to be avoided is that
between objectivism and impartiality or the
refraining from taking sides. If somebody
exhibits a certain preference and can somehow
justify it in the name of objectivity, then he
is being partial without being subjective. For
example, anyone engaging in curve fitting
prefers order to chaos and hopes that the
smooth curve will be truer than the isolated
irregular empirical dots. And if a
theoretician prefers a deep inaccurate theory
to an accurate superficial one he is not being
subjective but partial to deep theories. In
either case the scientist is supposed to be
able to argue for his preferences instead of
taking refuge in dogma. In any case the search
for truth involves taking sides for the most
promising ideas and methods.
Occasionally scientists forget the requirement
of objectivity or even revolt against it. One
famous example was von Uexku"ll's (1928)
[_Theoretische Biologie_, 2nd ed. Berlin:
Springer Verlag] influential view that "there
are as many worlds as there are subjects". He
seems to have drawn this conclusion from his
own important work on the different ways
different animal species perceive their
environment. Now, it is true that a scientist
and an octopus perceive the world differently,
but (a) physics, chemistry and biology assume
that it is the same world, and (b) unlike the
octopus, man can become aware of subjective
factors and can succeed in overcoming the
limitations of perception by constructing
objective and even approximately true
theories.
Another example of subjectivism is the extreme
Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics,
according to which the experimenter "conjures
up" all the facts. A related view is [J.A.]
Wheeler's (1974) ["The Universe as Home For
Man," _American Scientist_ 62: 683-691] "no-
knower-no-world" view, included in his wider
"anthropic principle". According to it, the
universe was designed and built as man's home-
-an old religious dogma--so that we are really
participants in the foundation and subsistence
of the world--presumably a heresy. Of course
there is not a shred of evidence for this
piece of theological speculation.
The most fashionable vindication of
subjectivism rests on a misunderstanding of
epistemological realism and a
misinterpretation of the recent experimental
refutation of Bell's inequalities. Actually
these inequalities, which hold for all hidden
variables theories, are not so much committed
to realism as to two tacit principles of
classical physics, which quantum theory does
not obey, and which Einstein mistakenly
believed to be inherent in epistemological
realism. These principles are that (a) all
physical properties are "sharp" or "well
defined" at all times, and (b) what happens at
a given place can be influenced only by what
occurs in its immediate neighborhood
(principle of locality or separability).
Experiment has refuted the conjunction of
these two principles. Realism cannot be
refuted experimentally because every well-
designed and well-performed experiment
involves a clear distinction between object,
apparatus, and subject: we must know, at the
very least, what is being measured by what and
by whom. More in Vol. 7.
In addition to such occasional flares of
subjectivism among scientists, the ideal of
objectivity has been criticized by two groups
of people. The one formed by the Nazi and
Stalinist ideologists who demanded that
scientists explode the "myth" of objective
research and embrace openly a partisan
attitude, i.e. one agreeing with the party
line. As is well known, such attacks on
objectivism culminated in uncounted personal
tragedies and in banning of entire fields of
research. The second group of enemies of the
ideal of objectivity is formed by those
philosophers, historians and sociologists of
science who, following Fleck (1935), Polanyi
(1958), Kuhn (1962), and others, claim that
all knowledge is personal (meaning
subjective), that truth is a social artifact,
that the scientist constructs in his own
object of research, and that the very term
"discovery" should abandoned because it
presupposes the autonomous existence of the
object of discovery. (See, e.g. Brown, 1977;
Barnes, 1982.)
Of course we construct all of our concepts and
propositions: these are not found ready made
in nature; but we construct models of the
world not the world itself. Of course every
scientific finding is the end result of
process of inquiry and creation in which
imagination is involved; but whatever is
discovered--unlike that which is invented--was
presumably there to begin with. Even
technological inventions are modifications of
existents rather than creations out of
nothing. Of course original research and
invention are subjective processes impossible
without passion and hope, fancy and intuition;
but in science, technology and the humanities
the results of such subjective processes must
be checked for truth or usefulness.
If the net results of the 'new" epistemology
associated with Fleck, Polanyi, Kuhn,
Feyerabend, and their followers are that the
scientist (or the scientific community)
constructs reality instead of modeling it;
that there are no objective methods and no
objective standards of evaluation; and that
society determines what is good or bad
science, then this is, a _counter-revolution_
accompanying the vogue of transcendental
meditation, biorhythm, tarot cards, astrology,
and parapsychology. It sounds attractive
because it emphasizes the subjective aspect of
cognition and its social matrix. But it is
obscurantist in so far as it rejects
objectivity and condone sloppiness. So much
for the recent revolt against realism.
Realism is a family of doctrines. Two genera
of realism are usually distinguished:
ontological and epistemological. _Ontological_
(or metaphysical) _realism_ asserts the
autonomous existence of the world, i.e. its
reality independent of the inquirer. (The
Platonic variety of ontological realism holds
that ideas are the most real of all entities.)
_Epistemological realism_ maintains that the
world can be known. (The scientific variety of
realism contains the semantic thesis that
scientific theories refer to putatively real
entities even though some such entities may
turn out not to exist.) Obviously,
epistemological realism presupposed
ontological realism. Having defended the
latter in Vols. 3 and 4, let us turn to
epistemological realism.
We distinguish two species of epistemological
realism: naive and critical. _Naive (or
spontaneous) realism_ holds that the world is
just as we see it, i.e. that we know it
directly through our senses. On the other hand
_critical_ (or _constructive_) epistemological
_realism_ holds that perceptual knowledge is
deficient--superficial, incomplete, often
wrong; that it must be enriched with
conceptual (in particular theoretical)
knowledge; and that concepts and their
compounds--such as propositions, rules, and
theories--are constructions that often go far
beyond appearance; and that these
constructions represent the world, albeit
imperfectly, in a symbolic, not an iconic
fashion.
Ordinary knowledge suffices to refute naive
realism by noting that one and the same fact
may be perceived differently by different
subjects. (This argument presupposes that the
perceived fact is indeed unique, which of
course need not be accepted by the naive
realist. But then he runs the risk of
switching to subjectivism.) A somewhat more
sophisticated argument, used by the later
Wittgenstein to attack the naive realism
inherent in his _Tractatus_, is that plenty of
indispensable concepts, such as those of
negation and disjunction, have no real
counterparts. (To counter this argument the
naive realist may demand that we use a logic
deprived of negation and disjunction--which
would render discourse extremely poor and
clumsy, and argument totally impossible.) A
still more sophisticated argument against
naive realism is that many important
scientific theories refer to unobservable
entities and are couched in a complex
mathematical language, as a consequence of
which they are counterintuitive and cannot be
checked by ordinary means. (The naive
realist's reply could be that he does not care
for such theories.) In conclusion, if we care
for science (and technology) we must reject
naive realism--not for being realistic but for
not being realistic enough, i.e. for not
admitting that reality is far more inclusive
than appearance.
Realism, then, must be critical or
constructive, i.e. it must admit that, in
order to know reality, we must invent
constructs, in particular theories, that
represent reality in devious ways. In fact
such theories neither epitomize experience nor
represent reality in a point-wise fashion. The
first point is clear: theories must be
processed and enriched with data before they
can represent any empirical facts (e.g.
observations). As for the manner in which
scientific theories represent reality. We
argued in Vol. 1, Ch. 3 that it is not the
case that every component of a theory has its
real counterpart. Rather, the theory _as a
whole_ represents its referent (or rather some
aspects of it) _as a whole_, so the
correspondence is global rather than
point-wise. For example, the hub of classical
electromagnetic theory is the system of
equations stating that the d'Alembertian of
the four-potential is proportional to the
four-density current. In this statement. the
d'Alembertian operator is syncategorematic
(has no independent meaning); the
four-potential is an auxiliary concept (does
not represent directly the field); and its
analysis into components is (like that of the
current) as conventional as the choice of a
coordinate system and of a system of units.
Only the whole represents (to a first
approximation) a system of currents and
fields.
Scientific realism is a special version of
critical realism. namely the one distinguished
by its scientistic component. The word
'scientism' has been assigned several
significations (Lalande, 1938). We are
interested in two of them. The first is
_epistemological scientism_, the thesis that
science can give us, and actually often does
yield, rather accurate and deep knowledge of
reality and, in fact, the best possible
factual knowledge. The second is
_methodological scientism_, the assertion that
the scientific method can and must be tried in
all cognitive fields, including the social
sciences and humanities.
One may adopt epistemological scientism and
not methodological scientism; in fact many
natural scientists and many writers on social
problems doubt that the latter can be studied
in a scientific manner, and some favor
"humanistic sociology" and even "humanistic
psychology" instead--of which more in Vol. 7.
We adopt the two theses of scientism. But we
do not accept the reductionist (physicalist)
thesis according to which everything
biological and social can be reduced to
physical and chemical terms: recall Ch. 13,
Section 2. 2. Nor do we approve of a "slavish
imitation of the method and language of
Science", which is how von Hayek (1955)
defined 'scientism'. Nor, finally, does our
variety of scientism require that we accept
science in its present state: on the contrary,
the attitude of scientism, like that of
science, is one of inquiry not belief.
All that scientism states is that scientific
research is the best mode of inquiry into any
matters of fact--even though it often errs So,
embracing scientism entails accepting
alternative modes of inquiry--in particular
ordinary knowledge--only provisionally, or
because no more accurate or deeper knowledge
is needed for a particular purpose. It also
entails adopting the philosophical outlook of
factual science, which includes not only a
realist epistemology but also an ontology of
lawfully changing things and the ethos of the
free search for truth (Ch. 14, Section 2.1.).
To summarize this section and the preceding
one. There are several "theories" (actually
views or doctrines) of knowledge, and nearly
every one of them contains some truth. In
particular, rationalism is adequate for the
early phases of rational speculation as well
as for formal science, whereas empiricism fits
the early phases of factual inquiry. They
should therefore be weeded and merged, as well
as enriched with principles suggested by the
actual practice of inquiry in the most
advanced epistemic fields. Two such principles
are those of critical (or constructive)
realism and scientism. The resulting synthesis
may be called scientific realism. It is the
epistemology we have tried to build in this
book.
We claim that scientific realism is not one
more speculative or dogmatic _ism_ but the
epistemology practiced by all scientific
investigators in the basic and applied factual
sciences, regardless of the philosophy of
knowledge they happen to profess. This we have
tried to show in every chapter of this book,
by supporting our principles on scientific
ways and findings, and criticizing their
philosophical rivals on the same grounds. In
other words, we presume that our epistemology
enjoys a strong inductive support of a very
special kind: that of contemporary scientific
research. Hence it may fit neither the science
of the year 1600 nor that of the year 2200.
For ease of reference we shall now proceed to
collect, in the next two sections, some of the
epistemological and methodological maxims
scattered throughout the previous pages.
Premise Checker
First of three pieces about Mario Bunge's views. Bob, do you agree with
Mario Bunge?
Article: 2326 of humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: The relationship between philosophy and science
Date: 12 Aug 1996 21:28:58 GMT
In article <4ulncl$g...@loki.tor.hookup.net>,
Brad Aisa wrote:
>Premise Checker wrote:
>>Lionell Griffith wrote:
>
>>>In fact, philosophy is a primary pre-requisite for science.
>>
>>It might seem that way, but what really happens is that both evolve
>>together. Consider that time has been the subject of a great deal of
>>philosophical labors. But today, no philosopher except Mike Huemer (who
>>things relativity theory and quantum mechanics are wrong) and perhaps a
>>few others would write in contradiction to the scientific findings of
>>relativity theory. What they said earlier was, in many places, just
>>wrong. But these earlier philosophers were quite convinced by their own
>>reasoning, as much as many of those on this Newsgroup.
>
>Ayn Rand correctly recognized very early in her career that cosmology and
>other fundamental branches of physics are NOT part of philosophy.
It is part of the folklore? I remember reading this is Sciabarra's book
(I've come to conclude that it's central thesis, namely that Ayn Rand was
hugely influenced by Russian philosophy, is wrong, but that's for another
time.), but only in passing. That stray remark certainly got lots of play
on h.p.o. and elsewhere, just as her remark that she could not have
developed her philosophy before the Industrial Revolution. She never
elaborated on either remark, to my knoweldge.
But that's neither here nor there, though I am curious about when she
decided to separate cosmology from philosophy. (The usual dictionary
definition is metaphysics = ontology + cosmology.)
Mario Bunge agrees with this. He asks "What does the world consist in and
of?" He answer to the "in" question this way:
"The world is the aggregation of its constituents, which are things.
[He very carefully defines all these terms and gives axioms for them.]
Or, if preferred, the world is that thing which is the physical sum of
all concrete or material existencts. This is of course a materialist
answer. However, most materialist seem to prefer the formula "The world
is material". We do not adopt the latter formula because it suggests the
physicalist thesis that the only realities are physcial systems, while in
point of fact living systems and supersystems (e.g. ecosystems and
societies) are just as real--and concrete....
"As for the second questin-namely What is there?-we shall abstain from
answering it. That is, we shall not list the kinds of constitutent of the
world but shall leave the task to the special sciences. For, no sooner
does the metaphysician pronounce the world to be "made of" such and such
kinds, than the scientists discovers either that some of the alleged
species are empty or that others are missig in the metaphysician's list"
(_The Furniture of the World_, p. 152f).
A major question is where the boundary between philosophy and science
should be placed.
Earlier, in the Introduction, Bunge lists ten view of what metaphysics
constitutes. The tenth is "Metaphyscis is *general cosmology or general
science*: it is the science concerned with the whole of reality--which is
not the same as reality as a whole. 'Its business is to study the most
general features of reality and real objects' (Peirce, 1892-93)....In
other words, metaphysics studies the generic (nonspecific) traits of
every mode of being and becoming, as well as the peculiar features of the
major genera of existents....
"We maintain that the ontologist should stake out the main traits of the
real world as know through science, and that he should precooed in a
clear and systematic way. He should recognize, analyze and interrelate
those concepts enabling him to produce a unified picture of reality"
(_Furniture, p. 5).
"As for scientific metaphysics, it is still largely a program. Even
Peirce (1892-3), perhaps the first to employ the expression, did not
advance beyond some programmatic remarks. To implement that program we
need some guidelines. Here are some of the _reulgae philosophandi more
geometrico et scientifico_ we shall try to abide by:
[I'm just going to list them and omit his comments--Frank]
"1. Take the metaphysical tradition into account but do not stick to it.
"2. Avoid any words that fial to convey clear ideas.
"3. Try to formalize everything.
"4. Do not mistake symbolization for mathematization.
"5. Strive for rigor but do not allow it to curtail vigor.
"6. Explain the concrete by the abstract.
"7. Keep clear of subjectivism.
"8. Do not reify whatever is not a thing.
"9. Strive for systemicity.
"10. Check your metaphysical hypotheses and theories not only for
internal consistency but also for compatibility and even contiguity with
contemporary science.
"Abiding by these rules should help us in building science-oriented
ontological frameworks and even theories, though it won't secure them"
(_Furniture, p. 8f.)
That
>a philosopher might speculate on scientific topics does not make such
>speculation valid, nor does it invalidate the claim that for those areas in
>which philosophers *should* be working, that their ideas serve as the basic
>foundation for other sciences. Now by "foundation", I do not mean a
>*deductive* foundation, from which other sciences will deduce their
>content, but an *integrative* *contextual* foundation, in which they must
>operate, as they attempt to identify and integrate the evidence of the more
>particular aspect of existence which is their purview.
Yes, indeed: the special sciences will have their own concepts and
axioms. And, yes indeed, the ontology so erected will have a integrative
function if Bunge's guidelines are followed.
>The data upon which a philosopher reasons is as wide as existence, and
>must, necessarily, include the products of science, technology, the arts
>and humanities, to his day.
Again, yes, And the philosophy may undergo modification as our
understanding of these products change.
But philosophers are concerned with universal,
>fundamental truths. Certain historical developments may have provided
>important new data upon which to conceptualize and integrate, but it is
>still not the case that a more particular science or field was acting as a
>foundation of philosophy, only that this may have made data available for
>philosophic examination that did not exist before.
Also very true: philosophy must not be inconsistent with the data.
>A good example of this, is the Industrial Revolution, the advent of
>capitalism, and the use Ayn Rand made of the data from these developments
>in formulating her ethical and political theories. But Ayn Rand's ethics
>are not based on the science of steam engines, the facts about mechanical
>looms, nor the felicity of double-entry bookkeeping. They are based on the
>widest consideration of the nature of man, reason, and reason's role in
>man's life, based on the observations of these phenemenon from a
>philosophic point-of-view. So the *results* of the Industrial Revolution
>that were important to her theorizing.
But just what were the *data* that went into this "widest consideration"
that did not exist before the Industrial Revolution? You may need to
rephrase what you have said.
>I think that the concept of 'time' is an excellent example for
>understanding the proper role of philosophy, and of physics. It would be a
>philosopher who would be responsible for providing a clear analysis of this
>concept, from an epistemological/existential view. "Time is a measure of
>motion with respect to a unit which serves as a standard." 'Time' contains
>and expresses the fundamental fact of causal action. This is a philosphic
>notion.
It is very interesting that causality would be a more basic notion than
time! But: Bunge's fifth chapter is called "Change," in which he develops
the notions of event, process, action and reaction. It is the *next*
chapter that is called "Spacetime." First comes space, then duration and
with it the notions of before and after. He says:
"The basic temporal relations have been defined only for the states of a
single thing. So far we do not have any concept of temporal relations
between states of different things (in particular distant) things. It
will also be noted that the preceding elucidations depend upon the notion
of lawful change but not upon that of causation. Our postulates allow for
temporal relations in a stochastic universe, i.e. one in which every
single law is stochastic. Causality is sufficient for temporality and it
may be necessary to *ascertain* which events precede which, but it is not
necessary for the relatinos of before and after to *obtain*. The relatin
between precedence and causation is this: For all events e and e', if e
causes e' then e precedes e'. But the converse is false. Hence precedence
in time is not definable in terms of causation, nor is the converse move
possible. Therefor our theory of time [yet to come!--Frank], though
relational, is not causal.... Ours is a nomological rather than a causal
theory of time" (_FW_, p. 298f.).
That having been said, Bunge goes on to develop his notion of time (which
does indeed deal with the concept of a clock and with units of time), but
it is later still that causality itself gets defined. It would, of
course, be fascinating to see an ontology with the rigor of Bunge's
developed which has the notion of causality (as opposed to lawful change)
developed *before* the notion of time. For the time (!) being, I'll stick
with Bunge.
(And a philosopher could refute such nonsense as time "travel",
>purely on an analysis of what identity and causality are...)
Bunge's Theorem 6.6 says "There is no return to the past.
"Proof. If there were (timelike) loops in spacetime it would be possible
to modify the past states of things from the future--contrary to
Postulate 6.12" (_FW_, p. 322).
This postulate takes up nearly half of the preceding page and involves
two complex equations. If you can come to the same conclusion on the
basis of very simple statements about identity and causality, I would
like to see your derivation.
>But philosophy *cannot* make any oracular pronouncements, such as "time is
>everywhere invariant". ...Why would it be? Because it sounds nice? Because
>the notion has an appealing esthetic?... These are not the proper
>epistemological methods of science. A study *of* 'time' is thus the
>province of science -- physics.
No, but what the philosoher can do, indeed what the Master has in fact
done, is to build a very general theory of time. I was not jarred at all
when reading Bunge's book as he made the transition between duration and
causation into that of time. In other words, I did not sense that I was
reading philosophy from the start of the book though the notions of
duration and causality and then was suddenly doing physics.
My reaction, or rather total lack of one, may not be yours, and you are
invited to read the Furniture book for yourself and report back. I must
report that I read that Miss Rand had a relational conception of time.
Though I cannot cite the source of this, I was most striken that she
would come to the same conclusion as Bunge. Perhaps, it was someone else
who expressed this view *for* her.
I will also say that Ayn Rand made numerous pronouncements about matters
psychological, in the sense of being testable statements in the special
science of psychology. But she did not seem to think of them as
tentative, refutable scientific statements but rather as truths of such
generality as would belong to philosophy. (That she could speak
tentatively is well-documented in her speculations about music.)
I leave this matter, and the others, in your hands.
>It is the first responsibility of philosophers to know what is the purview
>of their field,
They have all been irresponsible, then, Ayn Rand and Mario Bunge, and
even you and me.
and the second to both use and recommend the appropriate
>epistemological methods in approaching any question.
Statement too abstract. Please illustrate the use of an epistemological
method used inappropriately.
>I can't think of any post to which my .sig is more appropriate...
>
>"The highest responsibility of philosophers is to serve as the
>guardians and integrators of human knowledge." -- Ayn Rand
And I trust that your post has made you more aware of just what the
quotation implies!
Premise Checker
Second of three pieces about Mario Bunge. This series is dedicated to Bob
Kolker.
Premise Checker
Third of three pieces about Mario Bunge's ontology.
3.2 Bunge's Furniture
3.2.1 _The Furniture of the World_, the first of
Bunge's two volumes on ontology, reads like a
mathematical theory of the building blocks of the
universe, complete with definitions, postulates,
theorems, proofs, all intermixed with remarks about
what is going on, traps to be avoided, hints to help
one understand, and discussions of the virtues and
drawbacks of earlier philosophers along the way. Much
of this first volume will not be of direct concern to
the issue of liberty, and mostly I shall sketch the
development of his ideas in summary form.
3.2.2. Chapter 1 of Furniture, "Substance," lays down
in precise language the notion of bare existents (also
called substantial individuals), as yet to be decked
out with any attributes. Bunge elucidates how one
object is part of another, how two things may be
placed side to side, and how they might be mixed. He
also discusses how an object may be (conceptually)
decomposed to certain levels: a social system to
people, at the living level, and to all the atoms of
the people at the atomic level. This concept of level
will come into play throughout, but the first chapter
is mainly of technical and aesthetic value
(substantially so) rather than of value for the prime
concerns here.
3.2.3. "Form" is the title of Chapter 2 and fleshes
out bare existents with properties. Here Bunge takes
pains to distinguish the properties of substantial
individuals, composite or not, taken singly or
multiply, from our statements about them. Properties
are always properties of something: "There is no
substantial property apart from entities, let alone
prior to them and dwelling in a separate Realm of
Forms." (FW 64) We can make negative statements about
properties, but the properties themselves are always
positive. Thus, the statement that neutrons are
electrically charged happens to be false, but this
does not mean that neutrons have the property of
not-being-charged, let alone of being anti-charged.
Some properties are frame-dependent (as in relativity
theory), and some are even observer-dependent, but
only in psychology and definitely not in the most
general science, ontology. "A scientific metaphysics
must be just as [p.59:] objectivisitic as science
itself, i.e. thoroughly." (FW 67)
3.2.4. Bunge postulates the existence of only a finite
number of very general properties (like mass and
charge) but an (uncountably) infinite number of
particular properties of special cases (e.g.,
properties of a specific atom at a specific time,
there being a continuum of instants of time). This is
a critical assumption, and here is his justification
(FW 72-73):
"It seems reasonable (and comforting) to assume that
the set of substantial properties in general, though
extremely numerous, is finite. Thus one thinks of an
animal as having different weights, metabolic rates,
and ages at different times; yet all these are just
different values of only three general
properties--weight, metabolic rate, and age at
different times and relative to different frames. In
any case we stick out our necks and assume:
"Postulate 2.3 The set of general substantial
properties is finite, and that of substantial
[particular] properties...is non-denumerable.'
3.2.5. There are certainly more than three ways to
characterize an animal, and Bunge is postulating that
the number of ways is limited, although perhaps in the
billions. The number could be infinite, though it is
hard to conceive how, except mathematically, for it
would be impossible to classify things in a finite
amount of time. We do so classify, and the hope is
that we do not always leave important characteristics
out.
3.2.6. Compare now Unger's second statement of the
doctrine of intelligible essences: "The theory of
intelligible essences states there are a limited
number of classes of things in the world, that each
thing has characteristics that determine the class to
which it belongs, and that these characteristics can
be known directly by the mind." (KP 79) In Bunge's
view, much of our knowledge is indirect, mediated by
scientific theories, rather than being directly
perceptible, and so his notion is not quite the same
as that held by ancient and medieval philosophers.
Bunge's definition of a *natural kind*, to be
discussed shortly, is also connected to the idea that
there are only a finite number of general properties.
Bunge defines the *scope* of a property as the set of
individuals for which the property holds and
postulates *a principle of lawfulness*, which states
that the scope of any property either contains or is
contained in the [p. 60:] scope of some other
property. In other words, there are no stray
properties unrelated to everything else in the
universe.
[KP = Robert Manabiera Unger, _Knowledge and
Politics_ (New York: Free Press, 197).]
3.2.6. Bunge then gives the important definition of an
*emergent property* as one that is true of the whole
but of none of its parts. Equilibrium is an excellent
example of an emergent property economists are
familiar with. Bunge postulates that all composite
things have some emergent properties but that these
properties are epistemologically *analyzable* with
reference to the parts. This latter contradicts holism
and its discussion of wholes apart from their parts.
Bunge allows for the explanation of ontological
novelty and warns that "a mountain is not explained
away when explained as composed of atoms." (FW 98)
3.2.7. In other words, epistemological reductionism,
*si*; ontological reductionism, *no*. It is the
lawfulness of the world, of things being and becoming
and of processes, that makes epistemological reduction
possible at least in many cases. (Bunge does not claim
that we will someday understand everything.) Later
Bunge will view the world as made up of
layers--physical, chemical, biological, and
social--and protest the "ontological bulldozing of
reality" to a single level.
3.2.8. Stated in such a summary fashion as we have
done, it may seem that Bunge's development of his
system is arbitrary, full of unnecessary
technicalities, and bound to do nothing but add to the
bulk of pointless argumentation that is philosophy.
Philosophy hitherto has never been conclusive, as the
quote from Mencken at the beginning made clear, but
Bunge's program is to make philosophy consistent with
science, and this is perhaps the only way any
consensus can be reached. Consensus may never become
unanimous, however: "We cannot prove the existence of
concrete things any more than we can prove the
existence of deities or of disembodied minds. What can
be proved is that, unless there were things, other
items--such as acting on them and investigating
them--would be impossible." (FW 112) Bunge frequently
intersplices the formal mathematical exposition of his
system with discussions of previously advanced
solutions, what is objectionable (in part) about them,
and how they might be modified so as better to conform
with science and the way scientists operate. He is
uniquely qualified for this task, for he was a
practicing scientist (physics), and his _Foundations
of Physics_ (1967b) is still the only book to lay down
the implicit background assumptions of physicists in
an exact way. Bunge has also written extensively on
the philosophy of science, and his _Treatise_ might be
viewed as an extension of _Foundations of Physics_.
[p. 61:]
[Bunge 1967b = Mario Bunge, _Foundations of Physics_
(New York: Springer-Verlag).]
3.2.9. Chapter 3 of _The Furniture of the World_ is
entitled "Thing," which is defined as an individual
(simple or composite) together with all its
properties, known or unknown. Bunge distinguishes real
things from our concepts and ideas of them: "The
failure to distinguish the thing represented from its
model is not just a form of mental derangement: it is
also at the root of black magic and subjectivism" (FW
121). Part of modeling something is to characterize
the states it can be in from one of many alternative
viewpoints. **Scientific laws restrict the possible
states a thing can be in.**
3.2.10. Several definitions: A *class* of things is
not an arbitrary set of things but a set that is the
scope of some property. (Recall that the number of
properties is finite.) Several properties taken
conjointly (e.g., human = rational and animal)
determine a *kind*, and a set of properties, each of
which is also a law, determines a *natural kind*. All
of this, however, is just a framework: "We shall not
list the kinds of constituents of the world but shall
leave that task to the special sciences. For no sooner
does the metaphysician pronounce the world to be 'made
of' such and such kinds, than the scientist discovers
that some of the alleged species are empty or that
others are missing from the metaphysician's list" (p.
153).
3.2.11. "Possibility" is the title of Chapter 4 of
_Furniture_. Bunge conceives of reality as the union
of the actual with the really possible. A conceptual
possibility could be any characterization (what Bunge
calls a state function) of some thing, but real
possibility must also conform with scientific laws.
What actually happens depends on possibility and also
upon circumstances. Laws plus circumstances may force
a unique fact or they may not. Bunge's world is not a
rigidly deterministic one and he allows for chance
propensities. Looking at it mathematically, each law
divides all conceptual possibilities into two subsets:
the possible and the impossible. All the laws (known
and unknown) taken conjointly reduce the domain of the
possible to the intersection of a number of subsets.
Rigid determinism would assert that this intersection
has one and only one member: that there is but a
unique outcome. However, there is no a priori reason
to suppose this in advance, and so Bunge leaves open
real possibility. The ideas in this chapter will
become useful when discussing choice and free will
later.
3.2.12. Chapter 5 is called "Change," and it is a
thing of beauty to behold the way Bunge can define
change without introducing time. This chapter paves
the way for the final one of _The Furniture of the
World_, [p. 62:] "Spacetime," and he is able to
conceive of time with sufficient abstraction as to be
compatible with relativity theory. These last two
chapters are bound to be controversial among both
philosophers and physicists--or if we agree with him,
he sets things right at last. Of interest here is
Bunge's simple and elegant definition of causality:
One event in a given thing _causes_ a (later) event in
some other thing if the difference the first thing has
on the (otherwise free) trajectory of the second thing
includes the later event." But there is no necessity in
postulating that every event has a prior cause, as
this would arbitrarily rule out spontaneity or
self-causation, and thus free will.
Robert Kolker
Premise Checker (che...@clark.net) wrote:
> Here's an old, but UseNet standards, piece of mine on this subject of what
> exists. Bob K., do you agree 100% with the great Mario Bunge? Two more
> pieces on him follow.
I read the segments you entered and I see nothing in what Bunge
says that I disagree with. However Bunge is a very prolific
writer and I would have to read *all* that he has to say to
answers your question.
I have read a few other articles by Bunge, one of them on time
and intervals. He is clear, rigorous, pricise and even in
his tone. In short he is the philosopher Ayn Rand should have
been but wasn't because Bunge is much smarter than she.
Bob Kolker
gsol...@virginia.edu
In article <6me6fu$vq$1...@clarknet.clark.net>,
Premise Checker <che...@clark.net> wrote:
>
> As for the manner in which
> scientific theories represent reality. We
> argued in Vol. 1, Ch. 3 that it is not the
> case that every component of a theory has its
> real counterpart. Rather, the theory _as a
> whole_ represents its referent (or rather some
> aspects of it) _as a whole_, so the
> correspondence is global rather than
> point-wise.
Quine (a dreaded pragmatist), of course, makes the same point. Does Bunge
acknowledge Quine in any way?
Gordon Sollars
gsol...@virginia.edu
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Premise Checker
In article <6mge6g$r4d$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <gsol...@virginia.edu> wrote:
>In article <6me6fu$vq$1...@clarknet.clark.net>,
> Premise Checker <che...@clark.net> wrote:
>>
>> scientific theories represent reality. We
>> argued in Vol. 1, Ch. 3 that it is not the
>> case that every component of a theory has its
>> real counterpart. Rather, the theory _as a
>> whole_ represents its referent (or rather some
>> aspects of it) _as a whole_, so the
>> correspondence is global rather than
>> point-wise.
>
>acknowledge Quine in any way?
Bunge spends most of his efforts *building* his own semantics, ontology,
and epistemology, designed to be compatible with current science and the
practices of scientists. He does discuss the works of other philosophers,
but mostly in passing, though his passing remarks are pithy and to the
point. I don't recall what he said, specifically, about Quine, though. You
should go to a good academic library, or borrow his books from
Interlibrary Loan, and check out the indexes.
--