Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Metaphysical Explanation Again

One question I am discussing with Micheal Lacey is whether any sense can be attached to the notion of metaphysical explanation. I answer in the affirmative. Perhaps he can tell me whether he agrees with the following, and if not, then why not.

Tom is a tomato of my acquaintance. The predicate 'red' is true of Tom. Equivalently, 'Tom is  red' is true.  Now the sentence just mentioned is contingently true. (It is obviously not necessarily true in any of the ways a sentence, or the proposition it expresses, could be necessarily true. For example, it is not true ex vi terminorum.)  

Now ask: could a contingently true sentence such as 'Tom is red' just be true?  "Look man, the sentence is just true; that is all that can be said, what more do you want?"  This response is no good. It cannot be a brute fact that our sample sentence is true.  By 'brute fact' I mean a fact that neither has nor needs an explanation.  So the fact that 'Tom is red' is true needs an explanation.  And since the fact is not self-explanatory, the explanation must invoke something external to the sentence.

This strikes me as a non-negotiable datum, especially if we confine our attention to present-tensed contingently true sentences.

I hope it is clear that what is wanted is not a causal explanation of why a particular tomato is red as opposed to green. Such an explanation would make mention of such factors as exposure to light, temperature, etc.  What is wanted is not a causal explanation of Tom's being ripe and red as opposed to unripe and green, but an explanation of a sentential/propositional representation's being actually true as opposed to possibly true.  The question, then, is this: WHAT MAKES A CONTINGENTLY TRUE PRESENT-TENSED SENTENCE/PROPOSITION TRUE?

Our contingently true sentence is about something, something in particular, namely Tom, and not about Tim. And what the sentence is about is not part of the sentence or the (Fregean) proposition it expresses.  It is external to both, not internal to either.  And it is not an item in the speaker's mind either.  Tom, then, is in the extralinguistic and extramental world.  Now I will assume, pace Meinong, that everything exists, that there are no nonexistent items.  Given that assumption I say: VERITAS SEQUITUR ESSE (VSE).  Truth follows being. Truth supervenes on being if we are talking about contingently true, present-tensed, truth-bearers.

That is to say: every contingently true, present-tensed, truth-bearer has need of at least one thing in the extralinguistic world for its truth.  Thus 'Tom is red' cannot be true unless there is at least one thing external to the sentence on which its truth depends. What I have just said lays down a necessary condition for a contingent sentence's being true.

But VSE is not sufficient for an adequate explanation of the truth of 'Tom is red.'  If Tom alone was all one needed for the explanation, then we wouldn't be able to account for the difference between the true 'Tom is red' and the false 'Tom is green.'  In short, the truth-maker must have a proposition-like structure, but without being a proposition. The truth-maker of 'Tom is red' is not Tom, not is it any proposition; the truth-maker of 'Tom is red' is the state of affairs, Tom's being red.  (I am sketching the Armstrong line; there are other ways to go.)

The state of affairs Tom's being red is the ontological ground of the truth of the corresponding sentence/proposition.  It is not a logical ground because it is not a proposition.  Nor is it a cause.  

It seems to me that I have just attached a tolerably clear sense to the notion of a metaphysical explanation. I have explained the truth of the sentence 'Tom is red' by invoking the state of affairs, Tom's being red.  The explanation is not causal, nor is it logical. And so we can call it metaphysical or ontological.

Have I convinced you, Micheal?

Posted

in

, ,

by

Bill Vallicella

Tags:

Comments

6 responses to “Metaphysical Explanation Again”

  1. Micheal Lacey Avatar
    Micheal Lacey

    Thanks Bill. You said keep it short, so I did – but wrote two responses instead! (There was a lot of info in what you wrote, so forgive that)
    Response 1:
    One of the many criticisms of neo-Quinenans is that they look to LANGUAGE and LOGIC for answers to ontological questions, not to the world. Is that what you’re doing? Yes, I know you’re acquainted with your pal Tom and that the scientists are dealing with his various peculiarities; but are you dealing with Tom, some feature of the world, or just language and generally how language “maps onto” or represents the world?
    Some questions then:
    Is the datum that requires explanation some feature of the world, the familiar concrete particular “Tom the tomato”, or is your datum particular sentences, or is your datum propositions that can be said “of” Tom the tomato? (obviously only propositions can be true or false, not things, but propositions, while often expressed linguistically, are not merely linguistic items, are they? They seem to be something more). Or can we dispense with Tom and just ask how language latches onto the world?
    Is this a proper topic for Metaphysics? Or best left to linguistics, psychology, biology etc?
    Keep in mind, that van Inwagen isn’t opposed to metaphysics providing accounts: only accounts that are explanatory. I’m not completely taken with the idea that the proposition “Tom is red” needs an explanation of why it’s true rather than false – when I can pick up the tomato and say, “Dude, this is evidently not Tim, and obviously not green!”. I have just invoked Tom the tomato, but didn’t make a metaphysical fuss about it, and didn’t explain anything. But if one embraces truthmaker theory, a potential obstacle to the ostrich nominalist, then sure, every true proposition will need an extralinguistic truth-maker.
    But. Let’s hold on a second. I’m not quite opposed to the idea that metaphysics might explain. I think the scope of van Inwagen’s claim needs to be refined.
    But given van Inwagen’s challenge, I am sometimes left wondering “how am I epistemically better of now knowing that universals are transcendent rather than immanent” or that “the fragility of glass is grounded in its molecular structure”. Such matters are interesting, and certain data are being accounted for – but I’m still unsure if I have an explanation in these matters.

    Reply
  2. Micheal Lacey Avatar
    Micheal Lacey

    Response 2:
    A couple of comments and then a question:
    1. The over-riding question is: “Can metaphysics explain?”. This is different to what sense can be made of “metaphysical explanation”.
    2. “Metaphysical explanation” is often contrasted with “causal explanation” in the literature, and “metaphysical explanation” is sometimes identified with “grounding”. But this is unnecessarily confusing. There are determination relations and dependence relations, each of which are metaphysical in nature (some conflate them) and both grounding and causation and supervenience etc. are each metaphysical in this respect.
    3. But EXPLANATION is fundamentally an epistemological matter. Explanation is a particular kind of description, I guess, one related to understanding, and the truth of some phenomena. My central question is: in what way are accounts in metaphysics explanatory (however precisified) rather than merely descriptive?
    4. I’m open to the idea, say, of grounding. The fragility of the glass is grounded in, not caused by, its molecular structure. Okay. Have I explained some feature of the world in saying so, or only described? That’s an epistemological question. (I find the idea of grounding intriguing, but I also feel short-changed)
    5. With causal explanations, there is empirical feedback, so to speak; perhaps the feedback comes with the ability to predict thus having hypotheses corroborated or some such thing. What feedback is there for accounts in metaphysics that turns the descriptive accounts of phenomena into explanatory accounts of phenomena? (Theoretical virtues don’t cut it).
    6. I’m particularly concerned with the problem(s) of universals. What is added to an account of phenomena that invokes primitives (transcendent universals, immanent universals, modes, instantiation relations etc.) such that the account is rendered explanatory? What epistemic gain has been made? How am I philosophically better off?

    Reply
  3. BV Avatar
    BV

    Micheal,
    I don’t see that you have responded directly to what I said above. Do you agree that ‘Tom is red’ cannot just be true and therefore needs a truth-maker? Yes or no? Give a SHORT answer in a sentence or two. If YES, then do you agree that the explanation of the truth of the sentence in question is neither causal nor logical? If YES to the second question, then you have admitted that there is metaphysical explanation.

    Reply
  4. Micheal Lacey Avatar
    Micheal Lacey

    It doesn’t make sense to say that the the sentence “Tom is red” is just true; I don’t know what it means to say it is “just true”. If it’s a sentence about Tom, and Tom is red, yes, then it’s about Tom. But it seems superfluous to say that the truth of that sentence is EXPLAINED by invoking TOM; like there is some picture theory division between our sentences and the world.
    To help me understand, can you provide me with success conditions for what constitutes an explanation (rather than some other account) so that I can check your claim against that?

    Reply
  5. BV Avatar
    BV

    Suppose Russell said that the universe just exists, as he did say in his debate with Copleston. You understand that, right? It means that the universe exists as a matter of brute fact: there is no explanation as to why it exists in terms of a cause external to it.
    To say that a sentence is just true is to say that its being true has no explanation in terms of anything external to it. Is that not perfectly clear?
    You grant that ‘Tom is red’ is about Tom. And you must grant that Tom is no part of the sentence, and also no part of the Fregean proposition the sentence expresses, assuming the sentence expresses a Fregean proposition.
    So, obviously, Tom enters into the explanation of why the sentence is true, even though it is not the whole of the explanation. For if Tom did not exist, then the sentence could not be true.
    For some reason I don’t understand, you balk at my use of ‘explanation’ here. Why? It is perfectly clear to me.
    Do you deny extralinguistic reality? Do you think reality is exhausted by words, phrases, sentences? Not even the ostrich nominalist goes that far.

    Reply
  6. Micheal Lacey Avatar
    Micheal Lacey

    Oh no. I don’t balk at your use of “explanation”. I’m trying to identify HOW you’re using it, WHAT is being explained: what are 1) the criteria for explanation your using and 2) what then counts as a good explanation in metaphysics? This, you don’t seem to want to answer. It’s just “evident” for you that a metaphysical explanation is required. Okay. I’m on the fence and would like to have a fuller sense of the questions above. I recognize an account the sentences’ truth is interesting, and involves all kinds of approaches, but unsure if this account is explanatory.
    I agree that there are extralinguistic realities. Of course. And I’m curious of the relation between language and these extralinguistic realities.
    I understand that the sentence “Tom is true”, if we’re to ask what makes it true, would point to good oul Tom; I’m unsure if this pointing is explanatory. Snow is white iff snow is white. I’m not sure I feel enlightened.
    I’m reading a paper by Anna Sofia Maurin at the moment which she sent to me: “A van Inwagean Defense of Constitutionalism” – it seems she finds it appropriate too to ask what kind of explanation is being offered.
    Don’t you think the epistemic question important? Might the account your giving of Tom be merely descriptive?
    (and thanks again for the continued exchange)

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *