*Stephen Pepper’s World Hypotheses**: Season 1, Episode 3*
*Narrator: “Previously on World Hypotheses:” *
- We began with “common sense"
- Though “secure” (because we can always fall back on it), common sense
is nevertheless “unreliable, irresponsible, and, in a word, irritable”
(p. 44).
- As such, we are driven to “refine” (or criticize) cognition.
- Our goal is ultimately to make sense of our universe, to grasp how it
all “hangs together”
- A world hypothesis is a hypothesis about “the world itself” (p. 1).
- But how do we manage to get from common sense to a world hypothesis?
- Pepper suggests that we look out into the world of common sense and *grab
onto something*. In effect, I find myself saying: *Perhaps this is the
key to the universe!*
- This key becomes my *root metaphor.*
- Pepper offers a few generalizations, or "maxims", regarding root
metaphors and world hypotheses:
- *Maxim I:* “A world hypothesis is determined by its root metaphor"
(p. 96).
- *Maxim II*: “Each world hypothesis is autonomous" (p. 98)
- *Maxim III*: “Eclecticism is confusing" (p. 104)
- *Maxim IV*: "Concepts which have lost contact with their root
metaphors are empty abstractions" (p. 113).
So we are finally ready to dive into our first world hypothesis. Let's
start with *formism*. Pepper distinguishes two variations: immanent and
transcendent.
*Immanent Formism*
- Root metaphor = Similarity
- Simply put, multiple objects may seem similar to each other in at
least one respect
- Pepper’s example: two sheets of yellow paper.
- The shade of yellow may be so similar across the two sheets
that we are not able to tell the difference.
- With respect to objects of perception, we can make a distinction
between two aspects:
- *Particularity* – *This* piece of paper.
- *Quality* – Its *yellowness*
- In Pepper’s example, “we perceive two particulars (sheets of paper)
with one quality (yellow)” (p. 153).
- *Particularity* and *quality* are logically distinct aspects of
an object
- “There is nothing about a particular as a particular to
restrain it from having any quality whatsoever” (p. 153)
- Sometimes it is meaningful to highlight *relations* among
particulars (which can be distinguished from logically independent
qualities)
- For example, these two yellow papers are *side by side*. Yellow
is the quality, “side-by-side-ness” is the relation.
- Since both quality and relation characterize a particular object,
we can synthesize these two terms and simply refer to the *character* of
the object (as distinct from its “particularness”)
- We are just about ready to document the basic categories of
immanent formism. These categories are quite important, as they are the
keys to interpreting everything else. Recall (from Episode #2):
- On the grounds of the root metaphor, the metaphysician
delineates a list of "structural characteristics" that become
"his basic
concepts of explanation and description. We call them a set
of categories”
(p. 91)
- “In terms of these categories he proceeds to study all other
areas of fact whether uncriticized or previously criticized.
He undertakes
to interpret all facts in terms of these categories” (p. 91)
- So, here are the *basic categories *of Immanent formism:
- *1) Characters*
- *2) Particulars*
- *3) Participation *(which “is the tie between characters and
particulars, p. 154).
- e.g., this paper *participates* in yellowness; this computer
*participates* in slowness.
- Pepper insists that *participation is not a relation* (in the
sense defined above)
- If it were a relation, it would be an aspect of character, and
then we would only have Basic Categories #1 and #2 (characters and
particulars, respectively), with no logical possibility of
producing an
object (which requires “participation” as a distinct third category).
- Rather than using the term “relation” to speak of participation,
we can speak instead of *ties.*
- Consider: *this yellow sheet of paper*.
- The paper is *tied* to the character “yellowness”
- But isn’t this just a play with words (i.e., replacing
“relation” with “ties” to sustain the autonomy of Basic
Category #3 – i.e.,
“Participation”)?
- Pepper: “Ties are relations which are not relations. This
sounds very much like a self-contradiction, and seems
to indicate a
categorical inadequacy. I rather think it is.
Nevertheless, the theory
contains too many insights for us safely to neglect it,
until a much better
world theory comes in view” (pp. 155-156)
- On the grounds of our basic categories, we can develop other
concepts. Fore example: *c**lasses*
- “A *class* is a collection of particulars which participate in
one or more characters” (p. 159).
- E.g., blue jays
- A class “is itself neither a character, nor a particular, nor
a participation…*It is simply the actual working of the three
categories in the world*” (p. 162)
- “We simply observe that a character or a group of characters
normally participates in a number of different
particulars” (p. 162).
- “A class is, accordingly, a thoroughly real thing, but what
is real is the functioning of the categories” (p. 162).
- A *classification* is an organization of classes (e.g., from
the more general to the less general)
It is possible to make a modest shift in our root metaphor and open up new
conceptual possibilities. For example, of speaking of crude "similarity",
we might think instead of “the work of an artisan in making different
objects on the same plan or for the same reason” (e.g., “a carpenter making
beds”; p. 162) or “natural objects appearing or growing according to the
same plan” (e.g., “oak trees”; p. 162). Similarity remains the animating
metaphor, but these ideas allow for considerable enrichment of our
world hypothesis. Immanent formism gives way to...
*Transcendent Formism*
- Categories
- *1) Norms* (which parallel “characters”)
- *2) Matter* for the exemplification of norms (which parallel
“particulars”)
- *3) *The principle of *exemplification* which materializes the
norms (which parallels “participation”)
- So, what’s the difference between a character (immanent formism) and a
norm (transcendent formism)?
- “A norm is a complex set of characters” (p. 164).
- Significantly, a norm need not ever actually *appear*.
- A *norm* is not a *class *(which is a collection of *actually
observed* objects)
- Indeed, we might not ever observe a norm.
- “The norm of the oak is rarely or never fully present in any
particular oak. Particular oaks merely approximate the norm” (p. 164).
- "Norms seem to be used or presupposed in much of the basic work of
empirical scientists” (p. 165).
- A species is a norm (not a class)
- A species can be viewed as “a state of biological equilibrium in
nature, a structural point of balance and stability” (p. 165).
- Empirical specimens are imperfect exemplifications of a species
- Similarly, molecules, atoms, electrons, etc. can be considered as
“norms of physical structure” (p. 165).
- *Evolution: *A commitment to a formist philosophy of science does not
imply a commitment to the notion that norms must remain *fixed*.
- “There is no reason why, in a world in which norms constituted a
basic type of order, there should not be an order of evolution among the
norms” (p. 165)
- “If there is a good evidence that the ancient ancestors of men were
fish, that does not in any way disturb the structural differences between
men and fish” (p. 165-166)
- What, then, does the transcendent formist really believe?
- Answer: *There are norms in nature.*
- And “there seems to be plenty of apparently direct inductive
evidence” (p. 166) for such norms.
- *The transcendent formist is on a quest to discover the **laws of
nature*.
- “Persons who accept the theory that there are laws of nature, and
that the aim of science is to discover these laws, which nature
‘follows,’
seem…to imply that these laws are norms which regulate (literally render
regular) the occurrences of nature” (p. 165)
- “On this view, the inductive method is a method of collecting
observations for the discovery of the regularities or laws which
‘hold’ in
nature.” (p. 166).
- Immanent and transcendent formism seem to be wholly compatible.
- Characters [immanent formism] *participate in* norms [transcendent
formism]
- *Existence*: The field of basic particulars [Category 2 in
immantent formsim]
- Existence is “primarily the field of bare particulars”
- But this can never be observed. It may be a “sheer
abstraction” (p. 167).
- The example given above was “this particular piece of
paper” (before we qualified it with the term yellow).
But this isn’t
quite a “bare particular” because we are already
considering it as “paper”
- Existence is “secondarily the field of all basically
particularized characters” (p. 167).
- So, “this particular piece of paper” is a basically
particularized character. It can be further
characterized as yellow.
- “Concrete objects such as we perceive and handle are all
in the field of existence as secondarily considered.
That is, they are all
basic particulars with character” (p. 167-168)
- This is the field of *concrete existence*.
- *Subsistence*: “the field of characters and norms so far
as these are not considered as participating or being
exemplified in basic
particulars” (p. 168).
- In other words, we can talk about characters and norms as
abstractions, without reference to specific objects.
- We can also consider “relations” among characters and norms,
without reference to specific objects.
- “All these ‘relations’ are, of course, ties of various
sorts” (p. 168)
- “Norms…are complex in character and are definitely
subsistent forms” (p. 168).
- A norm [such as the iPhone] will “participate in” (or be tied to)
various characters (shiny, etc.).
- In a sense, a norm (the iPhone) is a *particular* that can be
“characterized” like any other particular, but it is a “subsistent or
second-degree particular” (p. 169).
- “It is a subsistent entity which, as subsistent, participates in
certain subsistent characters” (p. 169).
- Characters can also participate in other characters, and –
interestingly enough – this gives us *gestalts* (“complex characters or
patterns”; p. 169). [Notice here the incredible *scope *of transcendent
formism]
- Gestalts “are not analyzable completely into elementary characters,
though they participate in them” (p. 169).
- *Causality* for the formist:
- Causality “is the result of the participation of patterns, norms,
or laws in basic particulars through the forms of time and space” (p. 175)
- So, here’s “the causal structure of a series of events” (p. 176):
- We begin with a basic particular (or a set thereof) “having
certain characters” (p. 176).
- These characters participate "in a law, which itself
participates in time and space characters” (p. 176)
- This law determines "other basic particulars as having certain
dates or positions and as having certain characters the same as those
possessed by the first basic particulars, or different from
them” (p. 176)
- *More simply,* “causality is the determination of the characters
of certain basic particulars by a law which is set in motion by the
characters of other basic particulars which participate in
the law” (p.
177).
- Example:
- *Presumed law:* Stress elicits a desire to affiliate with
others
- *Character of the first set of basic particulars*: Subjects
are told that “*In this experiment, you will suffer
painful electric shocks*!” [which presumably induce stress]
- *Character of a second** set of basic particulars:* A desire
to *wait with others* while the experimenter sets up the shock
generator [an operationalization of the desire to affiliate]
- The first set of basic particulars "sets in motion" the law
which determines the second set of basic particulars.
- If all this seems far removed from the root metaphor of
similarity, it is worth remembering that “events are genuinely similar to
one another because they genuinely participate in the same law” (p. 177).
- For a formist, “a law is not to be identified with a concrete
existent structure” (p. 177).
- Rather*, “a law is a form”* (p. 177).
- *“This is one of the fundamental distinctions between formism and
mechanism”* (p. 177).
- Formism serves as the foundation for a *correspondence theory of truth*
.
- Consider: “pictures, maps, diagrams, sentences, formulas, and
mental images” (p. 180).
- These are “concrete existences”
- We can ascribe truth to some of them
- But if was declare (say) a map to be “true”, it acquires this
truth by virtue of its similarity to some object of reference.
- So, when we make a truth claim, we are declaring that a certain
set of objects is similar to some set of objects (*in some respect*
).
- *Truth* can be defined as “the degree of similarity which a
description has to its object of reference” (p. 181).
- Of course, “the objects they are said to be true of are not
exactly similar to them, but only in respect to the form under
consideration or in accordance with certain conventions” (p. 180).
- *“[A] true description actually possesses the form of its object” *(p.
181).
- There are two kinds of truth in formism:
- Historical truth: *Existence,* “descriptions of the qualities
and relations of particular events” (p. 182)
- Scientific truth: *Subsistence,* “descriptions of norms and
laws” (p. 182)
- *Empirical uniformities* (e.g., “the tides rise twice a day”) are
*not* scientific truths.
- “Descriptions of empirical uniformities are simply rungs in the
ladder from contingent fact to necessary law. They are signs of human
ignorance.”
- “For if we knew the whole truth about them, we should know the
law or the combination of laws which made their regularity
necessary, or we
should know that they were not necessary but were mere historical
coincidences which have been mistakenly generalized and which
cannot be
relied upon for scientific predictions” (p. 183).
*On the limits of **forms*
- Nature seems to be comprised as a constellation of discrete laws.
- But: “*the laws of nature may not be so discrete, so separate from one
another, as the formist assumes*” (p. 184)
- “*The integration of scientific laws into a single system is…a
constant threat to formism”* (p. 184).
- If all laws could be amalgamated, then scientific descriptions
would not approximate a constellation of 'separate subsistent forms', but
rather “the single concrete existential structure of the
universe” (p. 184)
- “There would be no subsistence left” (p. 184)
- Also, “the weakness of formism…is its looseness of categorical
structure and consequent lack of determinateness” (p. 185)
- “Just what constitutes one particular, one character, or one norm
or law?”
- “How many particulars are there in a sheet of paper?”
- “How many in the flight of an airplane?
- “How can we definitely tell a tie from a relation?” (p. 185)
Formism, it should now be clear, is a world hypothesis with unlimited scope.
We can use it to ground a complete, and reasonably coherent, philosophy of
science. In a previous post, I suggested that the typical psychology
student “assimilates a more-or-less unified account of the scientific
enterprise”. Here I can be more specific: *Transcendent formism is the
default metaphysics of the modal research psychologist.* I don’t mean to
imply that this default metaphysics guides the thinking of the research
psychologists in all contexts (e.g., I may be a transcendent formist when I
teach Research Methods, but an animist when I read Heidegger). But
transcendent formism (as a metaphysics with unlimited scope) is the
backdrop against which our parochial theories typically emerge. What we
end up with, of course, is a constellation of loosely-affiliated
theoretical systems, each with its own constellation of discrete laws (or
empirical regularities that *cry out *to be interpreted as laws).
*Mechanism*
We will begin our discussion of mechanism with a very simple observation:
The world is like a machine.
- Root metaphor = Machine
What could be simpler than that? And it certainly seems possible to
interpret the cosmos as a giant "machine" of sorts. But refined mechanism
will enrich this metaphor to such an extent that the ultimate metaphoric
machine will bear little resemblance to a spinning jenny.
Pepper distinguishes two variations of mechanism: discrete and consolidated
*Discrete** Mechanism*
Consider a watch. It has a collection of parts that need not be described
here. But we can say that each of the parts is *externally related* to the
other parts. That is, they can be considered as conceptually distinct.
This is an example of the "discreteness" of discrete mechanism. [Another
example is the thesis that "space is distinct from time"; p. 196].
Something else worth noting about the watch is that *it matters where the
parts are located in the machine*. If you fidget with a part -- *and move
it to a place it is not supposed to be* -- the watch might not work any
more. This insight clears the way to consider the basic categories of
mechanism:
- *Category 1: The field of locations*
- Reality is determined by location.
- “Whatever can be located is real, and is real by virtue of its
location” (p. 197).
- The love experienced by the mystic is real once we’ve found
its place in a (properly situated) neural network.
- “What cannot be located has an ambiguous reality until its place
is found” (p. 197).
- So, in mechanism (unlike formism) “only particulars exist” (p.
198), and these particulars are located in space and time.
- *Category 2: The primary qualities*
- “The traditional discrete mechanism is the theory of atoms and the
void, or, as the view develops, the theory of elementary particles
distributed in space and time” (p. 201).
- Elementary physical particles are “qualitative differentiations of
the field of locations” (p. 203).
- “Without such differentiations the field would be utterly
undifferentiated. Every location would be like every
other….Nothing…would
be going on in the universe” (p. 204).
- “Reciprically, if there were only the characters of matter, and
no field in which these characters could be deployed, there
could be no
configurations” (p. 204)
- “Field and matter are, therefore, complementary concepts” (p.
204).
- “[We] need differentiating characters in the field to render the
cosmic machine descriptive and explanatory of the actual
world in which we
live” (p. 204)
- “The ultimate differentiating characters of the ultimate physical
particles are the *primary qualities*” (p. 204)
- Traditional primary qualities:
- *Size*
- *Shape*
- *Motion*
- *Solidity*
- *Mass (or weight)*
- *Number*
- Pepper notes that all of the above primary qualities, with the
exception of mass (or weight) are concerned with “localization in the
spatiotemporal field” (p. 205).
- *Size:* “spatial volume of the differentiated locations”
- *Shape:* “the boundaries of these”
- *Motion:* “their temporal path”
- *Solidity:* “the absence of undifferentiated interior
locations”
- *Number:* “the means of specifying distinct locations”
- Pepper observes that these so-called qualities are "not
technically qualities at all, but field *relations* in
*relation* to the one genuine quality, mass” (p. 205)
- Of course, we can substitute other lists of primary qualities.
But whatever list we generate, it will typically include:
- *1) Properties of location in the field* (e.g., size and
motion)
- These are “actual field properties” that do not sustain
the true distinctness of the qualities under consideration.
- Pepper describes them as “highly consolidating”, which
anticipates his discussion of consolidating mechanism
[considered below]
- 2) *Differentiating properties* (e.g., mass)
- These “seem to be discrete qualities inhering in
spatiotemporal volumes” (p. 206).
- “These differentiating properties are not structural
characteristics of the field like volumes, [they are]
not consolidated with
the field” (p 206).
- They “just *happen* to have the locations they have” (p.
206).
- *Category #3: “Laws holding among the primary qualities in
the field”* (p. 207)
- Laws [such as Newton’s laws of motion] “constitute the
*dynamic* element
in the mechanistic universe” (p. 210).
- “The field itself is static and undifferentiated” (p. 210)
- “Even when the field is dotted with masses, it still lacks
efficacy” (p. 210)
- “The dynamic structure of nature comes from the laws which connect
the masses together and guide them from one configuration to another” (p.
210).
- Puzzle: What is the ontological status of these laws?
- There is a real danger of slipping back into transcendent
formism (where the laws of nature served as transcendent norms).
- Formism “is the constant threat in the rear of mechanism” (p.
210).
- “The only way of avoiding this mechanistic catastrophe [of
slipping back into formism] is to imbed the primary qualities *and
the law* firmly in the spatiotemporal field. Things are real only
if they have a time and a place. Only particulars exist.
This principle
must never be abandoned, for the penalty is the dissolution
of mechanism”
[p. 211]
- “The mechanist is scornful of abstractions and forms. He wants
his feet on the ground, and the ground in the field of time
and space, and
he does not want to believe in anything that is not also on
the ground (p.
212)
- “To achieve this end, however, he must *consolidate his
categories*” (p. 212)
- *“The primary qualities and the laws must become structural
features of the spatiotemporal field…*” (p. 212)
- This brings us to *consolidated mechanism*.
*Consolidated mechanism*
- “In place of the discrete particle is the spatiotemporal path” (p. 212)
- “In place of the discrete laws of mechanics is a geometry, or,
better, a geography” (p. 212)
- “The purpose of this cosmic geometry is simply to describe to us the
unique structure of the spatiotemporal whole” (p. 212)
- Example: Relativity theory
- “The chief modern impetus for consolidation comes, of course, from
relativity theory, for this has to do with the details of the
spatiotemporal field. The special theory of relatively breaks down the
clean-cut traditional separation between space and time” (p. 213)
- “But the most important evidence is *the general theory of
relativity*, which *amalgamates the gravitational field with the
spatiotemporal field*” (p. 213)
- Gravitation is linked to mass – one of the primary
qualities considered
above
- But “gravitational mass is interpreted in terms of a
gravitational field, which has the effect of amalgamating the law of
gravitation into the first category [location], so that the
field is no
longer just the spatiotemporal field but the
spatiotemporal-gravitational
field” (p. 213).
- “Strictly speaking, there are no laws in consolidated mechanism;
there are just structural modifications of the spatiotemporal field” (p.
214)
- There are “no primary qualities, either, for these are resolved into
field laws, which are themselves resolved into the structure of the field”
(p. 214) .
- “So now, at last, *only particulars exist*, or, more truly still, *only
a particular exists*, namely, the consolidated
spatiotemporal-gravitational-electromagnetic field” (p. 314)
- “Laws and masses *are* the structure of the field itself” (p. 215)
- But consolidated mechanism lacks “scope”. e.g., what does the general
theory of relativity have to do with the fact that Bill and Sam have
decided to stop talking to each other?
- The scope of mechanism might be expanded if we introduce the
notion of *secondary
qualities.*
- Secondary qualities include “all the irreducible characters of the
world which are not identifiable with the primary qualities…[Among] them
are probably all the characters of human perception” (p. 215).
- How do we connect primary with secondary qualities? Implicit here is
the issue regarding how we understand the relationship between
*brain* (which
is presumably consolidated with the primary qualities -- or the
spatiotemoral field) and *mind* (a constellation of secondary
qualities).
- Three possibilities (for the mechanist to consider):
- *Identity:* Primary and secondary qualities are really the same
thing
- Pepper doesn’t think this works: “Color and sound, for
instance, are not literally electromagnetic or air
vibrations, nor even
neural activities. They are irreducible qualities” (p. 216).
- *Causation: *Primary qualities somehow “cause” secondary
qualities
- Pepper doesn’t think this works any better. The laws
considered by the mechanist (e.g., electromagnetic-field
laws) “have no
application to such qualities as colors and sounds” (p. 216)
- *Correlation:* The observation that “upon the occurrence of
certain configurations of matter certain qualities appear
which are not
reducible to the characters of matter or the characters of the
configurations” (p. 216-217)
- “The term *emergence *signalizes such correlated appearances”
(p. 217).
- If we go with *correlation [emergence],* we have the problem of
somehow getting from “matter” to “mind” (and eventually “culture”).
- “The gap between such secondary qualities as our sensations of
color or sound and the configurations of matter among primary
qualities
seems to be so great as to *suggest many intervening levels of
successively emerging secondary qualities” *(p. 217).
- *“Thus we pass from the elementary and primary electrons,
positrons, neutrons, and so forth, to atoms, molecules,
crystals, amino
acids, cells, tissues, organisms.” (p. 217)*
- *“At each level new properties seem to emerge which are not
reducible to, or predictable from, the properties of
configurations at the
lower levels” (p. 217).*
- As an aside, I wonder if Pepper (were he to have ten minutes
to peruse a brief sketch) might classify Gregg’s *ToK System*
as *consolidated mechanism with successively emerging
secondary qualities.*
- I don’t think this is the appropriate way to consider the
ToK system (which is why I specified that Pepper only spent ten
minutes looking at a brief sketch). Further comments on the
matter will have to await a subsequent episode of this series.
*The mechnanistic theory of truth*
- Does "correspondence theory" work?
- Pepper observes that many mechanists do indeed embrace a simple
correspondence theory of truth whereby an idea (or image) in my mind
corresponds with the object about which I am making truth
claims. But this
doesn’t really work because “both the object and the idea which are being
directly compared for their correspondences are private
awarenesses of the
individual organism making the comparison. We get no assurance from such
correspondence about the truth of our ideas concerning the external
world” (p. 222).
- Correspondence theory leads us to the conclusion that “the truth
can never be known, since it can never be reached for a
direct comparison
with an idea that is within the organism” (p. 222).
- Simple correspondence theory may eventually give way to a more
sophisticated *symbolic correspondence theory*, where the “idea” is
replaced by a “a group of symbols in a sentence or a scientific formula"
(p. 222).
- “[If] these symbols correspond with features of the object, and
the symbolized relations among the symbols with the relations
among the
objects, [then] the sentence or formula is true” (p. 222)
- Symbolic correspondence theory doesn’t solve the problem noted
above (i.e., acquiring knowledge of primary qualities).
- But another path may be open to the mechanist.
- *The causal-adjustment theory*
- We can begin a consideration of this theory by observing the
mechanist's commitment to *nominalism*:
- Words such as “blue jay” are not references to immanent forms or
transcendental norms.
- Rather they are simply labels for a number of objects.
- “Blue jays are grouped into a class simply by virtue of the
fact that they are all called by that name” (p. 226).
- In its simplest form, nominalism has no real way to account for
the fact that a particular set of objects were grouped together in the
first place (only to be named later).
- But the mechanist can develop a more sophisticated nominalism
- “What, now, is a name? It is a specific response made by an
organism on the stimulus of specific environmental
confifurations. In
principle it is exactly the sort of thing that happens
when an organism
reacts positively to food stimuli and negatively to prick
stimuli. It is
simply specificity of response in an organism carried to a
higher degree of
refinement” (p. 226)
- So, “a sentence or scientific formula physiologically
interpreted is nothing but a combination of such reactions
or conditioned
reflexes. The whole thing can be causally interpreted” (p. 226).
- If I say “that is a sharp nail!”, I can test this truth
claim by recreating the original experience that led me
to make this
statement:
- “I would tentatively step on the nail, and if I
reacted negatively, I would say that the sentence
was true; if not, I would
say that it was false and look about the causes
which produced the
illusion” (p. 226)
- Contra formism, “nothing is implied about an identity
of form between the sentence and the nail” (p. 226)
- “What makes error possible is itself causally explained.
An organism develops a set of attitudes, or physiological
sets, on the
basis of certain physical stimuli. These attitudes often
lack specificity,
so that they may be set off by stimuli which usually
support the attitude
but on [some occasions] do not” (p. 228)
- “The nail turns out to be a twig that looked like a nail”
(p. 228)
- “The mistake can be easily explained, and is the bases
for making the attitude still more specific, so that
these mistakes will be
rarer” (p. 228).
- “Truth thus becomes a name for physiological attitudes which
are in adjustment with the environment of the organism” (p. 228).
- Pepper suggest that we might dub this the *causal-adjustment
theory of truth*.
- According to this theory, we “learn about the structure of the
great machine by a sort of detective work” (p. 229)
- We document “changes among our private secondary qualities”
- And then we “infer their correlations with physiological
configurations which are in our organism"
- And “thence infer the structural characters of the
surrounding field from its effects upon the configuration
of our organism”
(p. 229).
- Example: “Are there any red-winged blackbirds?”
- We first establish a pattern of secondary qualities: e.g.,
“we construct the image in our minds or write out our
description in words”
(p., 229).
- We then "infer that these [secondary qualities] are
correlated with effective and specific physiological
configurations within
our organism” (p. 229)
- Our organism (*in tune with our mind*) thus becomes an
instrument that allows us to address the matter at hand.
- “We then propel our organism about the environment to find
out whether there are any configurations in the world that
will directly
stimulate this physiological attitude, and so bring up the
correlated words
in our sentence, or the correlated shapes and colors in
our perception” (p.
229)
- “If this happens, we call our sentence or idea true” (p.
229).
*On the limits of mechanism*
- Secondary qualities are merely *correlated* with primary qualities. This
reintroduces *discreteness* into an otherwise consolidated metaphysics.
- *The “gap between the primary and secondary categories still remains
the center of inadequacy for mechanism”* (p. 231).
- If we abandon secondary qualities entirely (as does the strict
*materialist*), mechanism has a serious problem with scope.
So, we now have sketches of two world hypotheses: Formism & Mechanism. Each
world hypothesis employs a unique set of "fundamental categories" to make
sense of the world. This set of categories functions as a (more-or-less)
consistent system, with unique approaches to the problem of refined truth.
Coming next week: *Contextualism*.
Here's my episode guide for Season 1 of* Steven Pepper's World
Hypotheses. *
- Episode 1: Evidence & Corroboration [Chapters 1-4] -- January 7, 2018
- Episode 2: Root Metaphors [Chapters 5-7] -- January 14, 2018
- Episode 3: Formism & Mechanism [Chapters 8-9] -- January 21, 2018
- Episode 4: Contextualism [Chapter 10] -- January 28, 2018
- Episode 5: Organicism; Conclusions [Chapters 11-12] -- February 4,
2018]
Eventually, I'll release the complete Season #1 on PDF, with hours of
special features, deleted notes, etc.
Until next week,
~ Steve Q
Note: Bold-faced text = emphasis added
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