What Is Neo-Positivism and How Could We Argue for It?

2021 ◽  
pp. 201-217
Author(s):  
Mark Balaguer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Philosophical Argument ◽  
Scientific Question ◽  
Metaphysical Question ◽  
Modal Sentence ◽  
Truth Value

Chapter 7 explains how the non-factualist views established in the first part of this book fit into a general anti-metaphysical view called neo-positivism. This chapter formulates neo-positivism, explains why neo-positivism isn’t self-refuting, and explains how we could argue for neo-positivism. Neo-positivism is (roughly) the view is that every metaphysical question decomposes into subquestions, and in connection with each of these subquestions, we can endorse one of the following three anti-metaphysical views: non-factualism, scientism, or metaphysically innocent modal-truth-ism. Non-factualism about a question Q is the view that there’s no fact of the matter about the answer to Q. Scientism about Q is (roughly) the view that Q is an ordinary empirical-scientific question about some aspect of physical reality, and Q can’t be settled with an a priori philosophical argument. And metaphysically innocent modal-truth-ism about Q is (roughly) the view that Q asks about the truth value of a modal sentence that’s metaphysically innocent in the sense captured by the Chapter-6 view modal nothingism.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Mark Balaguer
Keyword(s):  
Wide Class ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Philosophical Argument ◽  
Scientific Question ◽  
Composite Objects ◽  
Metaphysical Question ◽  
Modal Sentence

Chapter 1 provides a synopsis of the entire book. Roughly speaking, the book does two things. First, it introduces a novel kind of non-factualist view and argues that we should endorse views of this kind in connection with a wide class of metaphysical questions—most notably, the question of whether there are any abstract objects and the question of whether there are any composite objects. Second, the book explains how these non-factualist views fit into a general anti-metaphysical view called neo-positivism, and it explains how we could argue that neo-positivism is true. Neo-positivism is (roughly) the view that every metaphysical question decomposes into subquestions, and in connection with each of these subquestions, we can endorse one of the following three anti-metaphysical views: non-factualism, or scientism, or metaphysically innocent modal-truth-ism. Non-factualism about a question Q is the view that there’s no fact of the matter about the answer to Q. Scientism about Q is (roughly) the view that Q is an ordinary empirical-scientific question about some aspect of physical reality, and Q can’t be settled with an a priori philosophical argument. And metaphysically innocent modal-truth-ism about Q is (roughly) the view that Q asks about the truth value of a modal sentence that’s metaphysically innocent in the sense that it doesn’t say anything about reality and, if it’s true, isn’t made true by reality.

Metaphysics, Sophistry, and Illusion

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Balaguer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Philosophical Argument ◽  
Abstract Object ◽  
Scientific Question ◽  
Composite Object ◽  
Metaphysical Question ◽  
Modal Sentence

This book does two things. First, it introduces a novel kind of non-factualist view, and it argues that we should endorse views of this kind in connection with a wide class of metaphysical questions, most notably, the abstract-object question and the composite-object question (more specifically, the book argues that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any such things as abstract objects or composite objects—or material objects of any other kind). Second, the book explains how these non-factualist views fit into a general anti-metaphysical view called neo-positivism, and it explains how we could argue that neo-positivism is true. Neo-positivism is (roughly) the view that every metaphysical question decomposes into some subquestions—call them Q1, Q2, Q3, etc.—such that, for each of these subquestions, one of the following three anti-metaphysical views is true of it: non-factualism, or scientism, or metaphysically innocent modal-truth-ism. These three views can be defined (very roughly) as follows. Non-factualism about a question Q is the view that there’s no fact of the matter about the answer to Q. Scientism about Q is the view that Q is an ordinary empirical-scientific question about some contingent aspect of physical reality, and Q can’t be settled with an a priori philosophical argument. And metaphysically innocent modal-truth-ism about Q is the view that Q asks about the truth value of a modal sentence that’s metaphysically innocent in the sense that it doesn’t say anything about reality and, if it’s true, isn’t made true by reality.

scholarly journals Testing Economic Theory

2018 ◽  
pp. 303-313
Author(s):  
Christopher P. Guzelian
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Number System ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Economic Knowledge ◽  
Fractional Reserve Banking ◽  
Physical Universe ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Reserve Banking ◽  
The One

Two years ago, Bob Mulligan and I empirically tested whether the Bank of Amsterdam, a prototypical central bank, had caused a boom-bust cycle in the Amsterdam commodities markets in the 1780s owing to the bank’s sudden initiation of low-fractional-re-serve banking (Guzelian & Mulligan 2015).1 Widespread criticism came quickly after we presented our data findings at that year’s Austrian Economic Research Conference. Walter Block representa-tively responded: «as an Austrian, I maintain you cannot «test» apodictic theories, you can only illustrate them».2 Non-Austrian, so-called «empirical» economists typically have no problem with data-driven, inductive research. But Austrians have always objected strenuously on ontological and epistemolog-ical grounds that such studies do not produce real knowledge (Mises 1998, 113-115; Mises 2007). Camps of economists are talking past each other in respective uses of the words «testing» and «eco-nomic theory». There is a vital distinction between «testing» (1) an economic proposition, praxeologically derived, and (2) the rele-vance of an economic proposition, praxeologically derived. The former is nonsensical; the latter may be necessary to acquire eco-nomic theory and knowledge. Clearing up this confusion is this note’s goal. Rothbard (1951) represents praxeology as the indispensible method for gaining economic knowledge. Starting with a Aristote-lian/Misesian axiom «humans act» or a Hayekian axiom of «humans think», a voluminous collection of logico-deductive eco-nomic propositions («theorems») follows, including theorems as sophisticated and perhaps unintuitive as the one Mulligan and I examined: low-fractional-reserve banking causes economic cycles. There is an ontological and epistemological analog between Austrian praxeology and mathematics. Much like praxeology, we «know» mathematics to be «true» because it is axiomatic and deductive. By starting with Peano Axioms, mathematicians are able by a long process of creative deduction, to establish the real number system, or that for the equation an + bn = cn, there are no integers a, b, c that satisfy the equation for any integer value of n greater than 2 (Fermat’s Last Theorem). But what do mathematicians mean when they then say they have mathematical knowledge, or that they have proven some-thing «true»? Is there an infinite set of rational numbers floating somewhere in the physical universe? Naturally no. Mathemati-cians mean that they have discovered an apodictic truth — some-thing unchangeably true without reference to physical reality because that truth is a priori.

scholarly journals CHALLENGING INGARDEN’S “RADICAL” DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE REAL AND THE LITERARY

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 703-728
Author(s):  
HEATH WILLIAMS ◽  
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Intentional Object ◽  
Real Object ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Real ◽  
Ontological Approach ◽  
Real Objects ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
Truth Value

Ingarden’s phenomenology of aesthetics is characterised primarily as a realist ontological approach which is secondarily concerned with acts of consciousness. This approach leads to a stark contrast between spatiotemporal objects and literary objects. Ontologically, the former is autonomous, totally determined, and in possession of infinite attributes, whilst the latter is a heteronomous intentional object that has only limited determinations and infinitely many “spots of indeterminacy.” Although spots of indeterminacy are often discussed, the role they play in contrasting the real and literary object is not often disputed. Through a close reading of Ingarden’s ontological works and texts on aesthetics, this essay contests the purity of Ingarden’s ontological approach and the ensuing disparity between real and literary object, particularly on the question of spots of indeterminacy. I do this by demonstrating the following five theses: 1) Ingarden’s claim that the real object has an infinitude of properties belies an epistemology, and we should instead conclude that ontologically the real object’s properties are finite. 2) Ingarden’s a priori argument that absent properties of real objects are ontologically determined is unsound. 3) The radical difference between the infinitude and finitude of givenness and absence of the real and the literary object ought to be relativised. 4) Indeterminacies within the novel are concretised in much the same way that absent properties of real objects are intended. 5) Literature makes claims that have a truth value that we can attribute to their author.

scholarly journals Machines, Logic and Quantum Physics

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Deutsch ◽  
Artur Ekert ◽  
Rossella Lupacchini
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Physics ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Mathematical Structures ◽  
Eugene Wigner ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Modern Status

§1. Mathematics and the physical world. Genuine scientific knowledge cannot be certain, nor can it be justified a priori. Instead, it must be conjectured, and then tested by experiment, and this requires it to be expressed in a language appropriate for making precise, empirically testable predictions. That language is mathematics.This in turn constitutes a statement about what the physical world must be like if science, thus conceived, is to be possible. As Galileo put it, “the universe is written in the language of mathematics”. Galileo's introduction of mathematically formulated, testable theories into physics marked the transition from the Aristotelian conception of physics, resting on supposedly necessary a priori principles, to its modern status as a theoretical, conjectural and empirical science. Instead of seeking an infallible universal mathematical design, Galilean science usesmathematics to express quantitative descriptions of an objective physical reality. Thus mathematics became the language in which we express our knowledge of the physical world — a language that is not only extraordinarily powerful and precise, but also effective in practice. Eugene Wigner referred to “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the physical sciences”. But is this effectiveness really unreasonable or miraculous?Numbers, sets, groups and algebras have an autonomous reality quite independent of what the laws of physics decree, and the properties of these mathematical structures can be just as objective as Plato believed they were (and as Roger Penrose now advocates).

scholarly journals Teria o Metro-Padrão um metro?

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 465
Author(s):  
Kherian Gracher
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
True Proposition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Truth Value

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2015v19n3p465Saul Kripke (1972) argued for the existence of a priori propositions that are contingently true. Kripke uses the example of a case presented by Wittgenstein (1953) about the Standard Meter of Paris. The Standard Meter is an object to determine the standard lenght, in the measure system, of a one meter unit. Wittgenstein argued that we can’t affirm that the Standard Meter has one meter, since it is the standard for measure and works as a rule in the language. Therefore, the phrase “the standard meter has one meter” doesn’t have a truth-value. On the other hand, Kripke argued that that phrase expresses a true proposition and can be known a priori by whom stipulated that this object will be the standard for measure. I will argue in favor a kripkean position, analyzing the dispute and thereafter answering possible objections from proponents of the wittgensteinian position.

scholarly journals Why are myths true: Plato on the veracity of myths

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 441-451
Author(s):  
Irina Deretic ◽  
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ethical Norms ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
The Republic ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Real State ◽  
Remote Past

Distinguishing myths in terms of their veracity had almost been neglected in Plato’s studies. In this article, the author focuses on Plato’s controversial claims about the truth-status of myths. An attempt is made to elucidate what he really had in mind when assessing the veracity of myths. The author claims that Plato, while discussing the epistemic status of myths, actually distinguished three kinds of myths in regard to what they narrate. Additionally, it is argued that he endorses three different kinds of truth value for myths: they can be either true or false, probable, or factually false but conveying some valuable truths. In the Republic II and III, Plato implicitly distinguishes the truth value of theological myths from the truth value of aetiological and normative ones, each of which are explained in detail in the article. In Plato’s view, the theological myths can be either true or false, because he determines the divine nature a priori. When ascribing the probable character to myths, Plato has in mind mostly aetiological myths. Given that we are unable to establish the truths on the origins and development of many phenomena, because they originated in the remote past, what we can do is to reconstruct plausible and consistent myths of these phenomena, which, among others, might contain the arguments and even proofs, such as the proof of the cosmic destruction in Plato’s own myth in the Politicus. In the third case, when Plato says that myths are lies, yet containing some truth, he had in mind myths which might be the product of our imagination like eschatological myths, for example. Being a kind of fiction, they are false, in the sense they do not correspond to any real state of affairs. Since they convey profound ethical norms or religious insights, they can be regarded as true.

Conceptual Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 218-247
Author(s):  
Mark Balaguer
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Scientific Question ◽  
Analysis Question ◽  
Almost All

Chapter 8 argues that neo-positivists can endorse scientistic views of conceptual-analysis questions—i.e., questions like ‘What is free will?’, ‘What is a person?’, and so on. Very roughly, scientism about a question Q is the view that Q is an ordinary empirical-scientific question about some aspect of physical reality. This chapter argues for scientism about conceptual-analysis questions by arguing that these questions are completely settled by physical-empirical facts about us—in particular, by psychological facts about what we mean by our words. This is an important part of the neo-positivist argument; for in connection with almost all metaphysical questions, one of the main subquestions that neo-positivists need to address is (or is something like) a conceptual-analysis question. So if neo-positivists can endorse scientistic views of all conceptual-analysis questions, then this simplifies things for them considerably (it makes it much easier for them to motivate neo-positivist views of specific metaphysical questions).

Knowledge by Invention

1998 ◽  
pp. 127-132
Author(s):  
Priyedarshi Jetli
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Information Gathering ◽  
Socratic Method ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Pedagogical Model ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Definition Of

I argue for the possibility of knowledge by invention whch is neither á priori nor á posteriori. My conception of knowledge by invention evolves from Poincaré’s conventionalism, but unlike Poincaré’s conventions, propositions known by invention have a truth value. An individuating criteria for this type of knowledge is conjectured. The proposition known through invention is: gounded historically in the discipline to which it belongs; a result of the careful, sincere and objective quest and effort of the knower; chosen freely by the inventer or knower; and, private in its invention but public once invented. I extend knowledge by invention to include the knowledge of the invented proposition by those who do not invent it but accept it as a convention for good reasons. Finally, knowledge by invention combined with a revisionist, Platonist definition of knowledge as actively justified true belief provides a pedagogical model reviving the proactive spirit of the Socratic method with an emphasis on invention and activity and a de-emphasis on information gathering and passivity.

Kitcher’s Circumlocutionary Structuralism

1991 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-89
Author(s):  
Michael Hand
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Mathematical Truth ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Philip Kitcher ◽  
Physical Knowledge ◽  
The World

Philip Kitcher has proposed an account of mathematical truth which he hopes avoids platonistic commitment to abstract mathematical objects. His idea is that the truth-conditions of mathematical statements consist in certain general structural features of physical reality. He codifies these structural features by reference to various operations which are performable on objects: the world is structured in such a way that these operations are possible. Which operations are performable cannot be known a priori; rather, we hypothesize, conjecture, idealize, and eventually wind up with theories which are true of the world (taking into account our idealizations), just as we do in the sciences. Kitcher argues that mathematical and physical knowledge are continuous, in that they concern the same subject matter (the physical world) and are subject to the same epistemological and methodological constraints.

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