Hey David, My two definitions:
1) Metaphysics is the general framework, or understanding, or set of assumptions, that people unconsciously (with various degrees of self-consciousness) interpret, or see, or live in the world. As an activity, it is the attempt to make the unconscious self-conscious (this activity is also known in some circles as "philosophy"). 2) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that attempts to display the basic, universal, ahistorical underpinnings of reality (this activity is also sometimes known in some circles as "Platonism," and in a few circles the acronymic "SOM"). David said: Can I suggest a possible number three, or is it a better number 1: Metaphysics is about the study, criticism and human invention of the most basic categories we use to understand our experience (to talk about the 'world' is to start making such categorial assumptions, of course, so is 'experience'). These categories change and have a history. Undertaking critical metaphysics suggests that we cannot do without such categories as opposed to certain naive forms of empiricism and positivism and naturalism that assume that we can do without them. Matt: Yeah, I would include what you said under my first definition. Better? Eh. I was trying to be general and wide enough to include a lot of individuals' self-understandings of metaphysics, and your's fits nice in the encoded "set of assumptions." But other people might not like your use of "categories": it will seem too blocky to them. That's why I included the more squishy "understanding." Matt said: I'm not sure what's supposed to be causally independent of physics. This seems to me to suggest that we cannot give a physical description of everything, but I'm pretty sure that if you can't give a physical description of a thing, it doesn't exist. David said: A printed poem is a physical thing, but do physical descriptions give a full description of its existence? Matt: No. I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything about "full description." I was just saying that if a thing doesn't have a physical description amongst its many possible descriptions, it's fair enough to say it doesn't exist. David said: What is this weird platonic desire to identify certain aspects of our experience as non-existing? If we can talk about something it exists. Matt: Yeah, that's what I said, right after you clipped me above-- "But all that this physicalism excludes--so far as I can see--are kinds of magic, for instance a God that can willy-nilly interrupt the causal order of things, so-called miracles. God can exist, because as a pragmatist I think that as long as it is useful to talk about God, He exists--and we can give a physical description of our talking and writing." I apologize if that was confusing. I've noticed something about our relationship: you nip at my heels a lot, David, but what I'm constantly caused to wonder is whether you have something you want to bite me about, or whether you just like to nip me. A "keeping me honest" kind of thing. What do want me to say? I'm a non-reductive physicalist. I think reductionism was the problem, not physicalism, because I take physicalism to be "whatever it is science comes up with as a description". I know you don't like Rorty's philosophy of science, but most of the time you just pick at things you already know my, and Rorty's, answer to, as if you just want to hear us say it again. Yes, we are pragmatists who think that science is awesome and poetry is awesome. We think philosophy as Sellars thought of it, as seeing things, it the broadest sense of the term, hang together, in the broadest sense of the term. We'll talk using any particular terms we need, "experience," "language," "metaphysics," "God," "mind," etc., but sometimes we insist on some terms over others to avoid problems (just like we avoid swearing when talking to our mothers). Is there something you wanted to talk about? Matt _________________________________________________________________ Get in touch in an instant. Get Windows Live Messenger now. http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_getintouch_042008 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
