{"id":7494,"date":"2014-12-24T15:51:41","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T15:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/12\/24\/john-anderson-on-levels-of-reality-2\/"},"modified":"2014-12-24T15:51:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T15:51:41","slug":"john-anderson-on-levels-of-reality-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/12\/24\/john-anderson-on-levels-of-reality-2\/","title":{"rendered":"John Anderson on Levels of Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Anderson\"<\/a>Call it the MOB doctrine: there are modes of being, ways of existing, levels of reality.  I have defended the MOB in these pages and in print, chiefly in "Existence: Two Dogmas of Analysis" in Novotny and Novak eds., Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics<\/em>, Routledge 2014, 45-75.  But I have yet to come to grips with John Anderson's attack on levels of reality.  I begin to do so in this entry.  The Scot Anderson (1893-1962) is not much read today, but his teaching activity in Australia was highly influential.  Central ideas in David M. Armstrong come from Anderson.  One is naturalism<\/a>.  The other is the notion that the world is a world of states of affairs or facts.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. According to Anderson, the contention that there are different kinds or degrees of truth and reality" is what distinguishes rationalism from empiricism.  Empiricism "maintains that there only one way of being." (Studies in Empirical Philosophy<\/em>, p. 1.  From a 1927 article, "Empiricism." SEP was originally published in 1962 together with a helpful introduction by John Passmore.)<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a very interesting ontological as opposed to epistemological way of distinguishing rationalism from empiricism.  I am not sure that it is adequate. (Granted, an empiricist must eschew levels of reality; but must a rationalist embrace them?  Not clear.  Many do of course.  But all?) This demarcation issue is not my concern in this entry.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. ". . . any postulation of different orders of being is illogical." (SEP 2)<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a very strong claim.  It is to the effect that anyone who postulates different orders of being or levels of reality embraces either a formal-logical contradiction or some sort of broadly logical incoherence.  What arguments could Anderson have that would generate such a strong conclusion?<\/span><\/p>\n

 3. Anderson gives a couple of question-begging arguments on p. 2. (a) Nothing can transcend existence. (b) Only empirical facts exist.  These are worthless.  One blatantly begs the question if one identifies the existent with the spatiotemporal or the empirically factual and then announces that nothing can exist in any other way.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Anderson's main argument, however, cannot be dismissed out of hand: "The very nature and possibility of discourse" rule out any theory of higher or lower orders of being or of truth.  That there should be different levels of being is "unspeakable." (SEP 2)  Why?<\/span><\/p>\n

The proposition is primary.  Whatever we think about or speak about we do so using propositions.  Our only epistemic access to anything is via propositions.  Therefore, ". . . we are concerned with a single way of being: that, namely, which is conveyed when we say that a proposition is true<\/em>." (SEP 3, emphasis in original)<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea seems to be that whatever is<\/em>, is propositional.  Therefore, there is nothing supra-propositional and nothing infra-propositional.  There is no Absolute, but also no "mere data, not yet propositionalized."  Armstrong holds that the world is a world of states of affairs or facts, where facts are not propositions, but proposition-like entities.  Anderson's position is more radical: facts are propositions.  So, strictly speaking, we do not access the world via propositions; propositions are what we access.  In Armstrong there is a distinction between truth-bearers and truth-makers; in his teacher Anderson this distinction is not made.  Now if everything that exists is a true proposition, then to be (to exist) = to be true.  Since there are no degrees or modes of truth, there are no degrees or modes of being.<\/span><\/p>\n

A proposition for Anderson is not a Fregean sense or a merely intentional object.  Just what it is I am still trying to figure out.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. But isn't Anderson's a rationalist<\/em> scheme? Anderson is maintaining that reality must conform to discourse and discursive reason.  We think in propositions and cannot do otherwise; therefore (?!) reality is propositional.  Nothing is real except what conforms to the way we must think if we are to think at all. Facts are propositions; for a fact to exist is for it to be true.  Since there is only one way for a proposition to be true, there is only one way to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

And isn't there something idealist<\/em> about Anderson's approach?  The only world is the world as it is for us.  Whether you pull the world into the mind, or push the mind out into the world by reifying propositions, the result is the same.  I am merely sounding a theme to be pursued in future entries.  Elaboration and clarification can wait.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no "getting behind the proposition to something  either lower or higher . . . ." (3)  One can neither ascend to the Absolute not descend to the raw data of sensation uncooked by categories.  Think of Kant's sinnliche Mannigfaltikeit<\/em>, the sensory manifold that provides the matter that is then worked up by the categories, the forms of understanding.  Anderson's scheme rules out the sensory manifold as much as the One of Plotinus or Mr Bradley's Absolute, not to mention the simple God of Aquinas and the 'unspeakable' Tao of Lao Tzu.<\/span><\/p>\n

6.  Let's see if we can beat Anderson's argument into a more formal and rigorous shape.  Here is one possible reconstruction:<\/span><\/p>\n

a. Truth is what is conveyed by the copula 'is' in a proposition.<\/span>
b. Propositions can only be true or if not true then false.<\/span>
Therefore<\/span>
c. There are no degrees or kinds of truth.<\/span>
d. Propositions are facts.<\/span>
e. Truth = existence.<\/span>
Therefore<\/span>
f. There are no degrees or kinds or levels or modes of existence, being or reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right now I am merely trying to understand what Anderson is maintaining.  Evaluation can wait. <\/span><\/p>\n

Anderson, I think it is fair to say, is an enemy of the ineffable.  What we mean cannot outrun what we can say.  There is nothing ineffable or inexpressible.  Contrast this with the position of the Tractarian Wittgenstein.  For Wittgenstein, the Higher, home to our ethical and religious concerns,  is<\/em>, but it is the Inexpressible, das Unaussprechliche<\/em>.  Es gibt allerdings das Unaussprechliche<\/em>.  There is the Unspeakable.  For Anderson, what is unspeakable is nothing at all.  Reality is exhausted by the propositional.<\/span><\/p>\n

7.  Anderson holds that to distinguish among modes of being is "illogical." (SEP 4)  Perhaps one can argue for this as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

g. Law of Excluded Middle: a proposition is either true, or if not true, then false.<\/span>
h. Truth = existence (being).<\/span>
Therefore<\/span>
i. To postulate different modes of being is to violate LEM, a law of logic, and to be "illogical."<\/span><\/p>\n

We shall continue with this.  It is Christmas Eve, boys and girls.  Time  to punch the clock and enjoy some holiday cheer.  In moderation of course.  As I always say:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Moderation in all things, including moderation.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Call it the MOB doctrine: there are modes of being, ways of existing, levels of reality.  I have defended the MOB in these pages and in print, chiefly in "Existence: Two Dogmas of Analysis" in Novotny and Novak eds., Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics, Routledge 2014, 45-75.  But I have yet to come to grips with … Continue reading “John Anderson on Levels of Reality”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564,356],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anderson-john","category-modes-of-being"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7494","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=7494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}