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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Mind in Nature' and 'Reasoning and the Logic of Things'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics
19218 Metaphysics is pointless without exact modern logic [Peirce]
     Full Idea: The metaphysician who is not prepared to grapple with the difficulties of modern exact logic had better put up his shutters and go out of the trade.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I)
     A reaction: This announcement comes before Russell proclaimed mathematical logic to be the heart of metaphysics (though it is contemporary with Frege's work, of which Peirce was unaware). It places Peirce firmly in the analytic tradition.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 4. Metaphysics as Science
15477 Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB]
     Full Idea: Ontology sets out an even more abstract model of how the world is than theoretical physics, a model that has placeholders for scientific results and excluders for tempting confusions.
     From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6)
     A reaction: Most modern metaphysicians accept this account. The interesting (mildly!) question is whether physicists will accept it. If the metaphysics is really rooted in physics, a metaphysical physicist is better placed than a metaphysician knowing some physics.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 5. Metaphysics beyond Science
19229 Metaphysics is the science of both experience, and its general laws and types [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Metaphysics is the science of being, not merely as given in physical experience, but of being in general, its laws and types.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I)
     A reaction: I agree with this. The question then is whether such a science is possible. Dogmatic empiricists think not. Explanatory empiricists (me) think it is.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
19219 Metaphysical reasoning is simple enough, but the concepts are very hard [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Metaphysical reasonings, such as they have hitherto been, have been simple enough for the most part. It is the metaphysical concepts which it is difficult to apprehend.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I)
     A reaction: Peirce is not, of course, saying that it is just conceptual, because for him science comes first. It is the woolly concepts that alienate some people from metaphysics. Metaphysicians should challenge the concepts they use much, much more!