Peter Holmes wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2020, 2:58 am
GE Morton wrote: ↑April 1st, 2020, 9:08 pm
"Exists" (and "real") means the same thing with regard to abstract things as it does to concrete things. It means that that term or construct has descriptive or explanatory utility.
This is patent nonsense. Things that exist are different from terms or constructs with descriptive or explanatory utility. A thing that exists has no decriptive or explanatory utility. You're conflating the way things are with what we say about them.
Peter, you don't seem to grasp that the only evidence you have for "the way things are" is the phenomena that occurs in your own mind when you see, feel, hear (etc.) something. If you understand "reality" or "the way things are" to be anything beyond that, you're speaking of something you know nothing about, and cannot possibly know anything about. You're indulging in mysticism.
You can, of course,
hypothesize an external reality as the cause of those sensory experiences that you have. That is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, and some version of it is indispensible if we hope to explain those experiences. But that hypothesized reality remains a hypothetical one, not one of which you, or anyone, can claim direct knowledge.
And yes, I conflate "the way things are" with what we say about them. All that we know, or can know, about what exists, what is real, WITHOUT the intervention of concepts, words, theories, all of which are linguistic constructs, are those sensory phenomena. We need no theories, or even language, to be certain that those exist (as Descartes realized). But if we claim that is all that exists we become solipsists, the sole inhabitants of a very small universe that is utterly inexplicable.
So we hypothesize a much larger universe, and populate it with all manner of entities, processes, "natural laws," and such abstract entities as space, time, universals, minds, gods, demons, spirits, and endless other constructs, all of which aim to help bring some order, some predictability, to the kaleidoscope of sensory phenomena.
When you say, "You're conflating the way things are with what we say about them," you imply that you have some knowledge of "the way things are" that differs from "what we say about them." You have no such knowledge, and cannot. And of course, your statement is itself an example of "what we say" about "reality."
Yes, reality is what we say it is ---
provided that what we say improves our understanding of what we perceive.
So, back to the issue: demonstrate that abstract things exist. Just saying they do is useless. The burden of proof is yours.
I've given several examples of that earlier. E.g., that Alfie can find his keys after Annabelle tells him where they are demonstrates that knowledge exists. You dismiss that because you've decided to restrict the word "exists" to a certain class of entities only, and demand that propositions asserting entities of other classes satisfy the truth conditions applicable to your "pet" class --- a restriction that is arbitrary, pointless, and woefully at odds with the everyday uses of that term.
Oh, please. So did the ether and miasma 'exist' until a better explanation came along? This is rubbish.
Nope. Because we now have better explanations, and when you adopt a new explanatory theory for some realm of phenomena the entities and processes postulated by the old theory get banished from the universe --- not only in the present, but for all time, because we naively believe the current theory is timeless and universal (which it almost certainly will eventually prove not to be).
And nearly all ontologies are mystical, but yours, according to which invented things are real, is limpidly rational. Oh-kay.
An ontology is mystical if
presumes entities or realms of them inaccessible to direct experience. Which is not the same as
postulating entities that contribute to undestanding and predicting that experience.
Please demonstrate the existence of an abstract thing such as truth, knowledge, beauty or justice.
Answered above. But of course, I can't demonstate it if you stubbornly refuse to count anything as a demonstration other than evidence applicable to your pet class of existents. You foreclose all answers
a priori.
If they're just like trees and rocks, it should be a doddle. But, of course, they aren't just like trees and rocks, and you can't demonstrate their existence.
Yes, they are just like trees and rocks, insofar as their existence is established by the explanatory value they have. Trees and rocks are themselves conceptual constructs, invented to explain a large class of regularities and relationships in our phenomenal experience.
And there's the rub. A large majority of people on the earth do indeed think gods and other invented supernatural things explain the universe and what happens. So, in your ridiculous world, gods and demons, etc, are real. (Are you for real? I have my suspicions.)
Not in MY world. But they are in theirs. Which is the "real" world? Whichever one provides, at the moment, the better, more comprehensive, more reliable explanation of the phenomena of experience. That may now be our world. But it will surely not be considered "real" 10,000 years from now (if humans are still around by then).
- By Cathal