{"id":12809,"date":"2009-02-17T18:56:34","date_gmt":"2009-02-17T18:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/02\/17\/contrast-arguments\/"},"modified":"2009-02-17T18:56:34","modified_gmt":"2009-02-17T18:56:34","slug":"contrast-arguments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/02\/17\/contrast-arguments\/","title":{"rendered":"Contrast Arguments"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the weapons in the arsenal of Ordinary Language and other philosophers is the contrast argument. Such arguments are used to show the meaninglessness of certain terms, typically, the terms we metaphysicians like to bandy about. One type of contrast argument has the form:<\/font><\/p>\n

1. If a term T is meaningful, then there are items to which T does not apply.
2. There are no items to which T does not apply.
Ergo
3. T is not meaningful.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

The form of this argument is Modus Ponens, so there is no question of its validity. The only question is whether (1) is true or has some such lesser epistemic virtue as plausibility or rational supportability. I am assuming that T is nonvacuous: it does apply to something.<\/font><\/p>\n

The idea behind contrast arguments is plausible: if a term applies to everything, or everything in a specified domain, then there is a 'failure of contrast' that drains the term of all meaning. But I will argue that contrast arguments are not probative.<\/font><\/p>\n

Suppose a Heideggerian strolls up to you in a shopping mall and intones: Das Seiende ist! Aber was ist das Sein des Seienden<\/em>? (Beings are<\/em>. But what is the Being<\/em> of beings?) He is asking about that which makes beings be<\/em>, that in virtue of which that-which-exists exists<\/em>. <\/font><\/p>\n

Since you are a ground-hugging anti-metaphysical type, and want to blow this portentous Schwarzwaldontologe<\/em>, Black Forest ontologist, out of the water, you reach into your O.L. bag and pull out a contrast argument:<\/font><\/p>\n

1. If a term T is meaningful, then there are items to which T does not apply.
4. There is nothing to which 'Being' does not apply.
Ergo
5. 'Being' is not meaningful.<\/font><\/p>\n

From this you infer that inquiries into Being and existence are predicated on a mistake. 'Being' has meaning only if there are items that lack Being; but nothing lacks Being, hence 'Being' is meaningless. (Sidney Hook championed a version of this argument back in the '60s in a book entitled The Quest for Being<\/em>.)<\/font><\/p>\n

Although you may like the conclusion of the foregoing argument, try running the argument with 'physical object' substituted for 'Being.' The conclusion would be
<\/font><\/p>\n

6. 'Physical object' is not a meaningful term.
<\/font><\/p>\n

But this ought to strike you as highly counterintuitive. If you maintain that everything is a physical object, are you maintaining something meaningless? This version of materialism may be false, but is it meaningless? Or try 'Either a physical object or supervenient upon a physical object.' Or 'natural' in the sense of not supernatural. A naturalist who maintains that everything is natural and nothing is supernatural is presumably not maintaining something meaningless. False perhaps, but not meaningless.<\/font><\/p>\n

One sort of nominalist maintains that everything that exists is a particular, an unrepeatable entity, and that there are no universals, repeatable entities.  Surely it would be feeble to argue that this brand of nominalism is false because of a failure of contrast.  "There must be nonparticulars because if there weren't any then the claim that every entity is a particular would be meaningless!"<\/font><\/p>\n

According to Ayn Rand, "It is Aristotle who identified the fact that only concretes exist." (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology<\/em>, 2nd ed., p. 52)  One could not plausibly  argue that it is not that case that every entity is a concretum by urging that the existence of abtracta is necessary for the meaningfulness of the claim being forwarded.<\/font><\/p>\n

Everything is self-identical and nothing is self-diverse.  And this is necessarily so.  Hence necessarily there is nothing to which 'self-identical' does not apply.  This fact, however, does not render 'self-identical' meaningless.  Since it is true that everything is self-identical, it follow that it is meaningful.<\/font><\/p>\n

Harry Binswanger <\/font>gives<\/font><\/a> the following contrast argument: "But to identify something as 'an experience in my mind,' I have to contrast my mental experiences with something else. Without the contrast between the internal and the external, 'internal' loses its meaning."  That is, 'internal to consciousness' has  meaning only by contrast with 'external to consciousness,' so that if nothing is external to consciousness, then the claim that every object is internal to consciousness is meaningless.<\/font><\/p>\n

But this contrast argument is no more compelling than the other ones cited above.  My point, of course, is not that there is nothing transcendent of consciousness, but that Binswanger's attempt to prove that there is is feeble and uncompelling.<\/font><\/p>\n

My interim conclusion: contrast arguments are unsound. Does anyone care to defend them? <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the weapons in the arsenal of Ordinary Language and other philosophers is the contrast argument. Such arguments are used to show the meaninglessness of certain terms, typically, the terms we metaphysicians like to bandy about. One type of contrast argument has the form: 1. If a term T is meaningful, then there are … Continue reading “Contrast Arguments”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contrast-arguments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}