Category Archives: Philosophy

Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt

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Journalist and former philosophy grad student Jim Holt sets out to answer that long-standing philosophical/scientific question: Why is there something rather than nothing? 

His principal method is to interview a number of well-known philosophers (Adolph Grunbaum, Richard Swinburne, John Leslie and Derek Parfit) and scientists (David Deutsch, Andre Linde, Alex Vilenkin, Steven Weinberg and Roger Penrose). He also talks to John Updike, who is surprisingly knowledgeable about both science and philosophy.

Nowadays, when people ask why the world exists they are generally asking why the Big Bang occurred. Unfortunately, nobody knows. The most common answers are that there was some kind of random quantum event that made it happen or that God made it happen. Some people think that our universe is just a small part of reality and that somehow the existence of a vast, possibly infinite, collection of other universes explains why ours is here and/or why ours is the way it is. The philosopher John Leslie thinks that our universe might exist because it’s good.

As soon as a particular cause or reason for our universe to exist is suggested, it is natural to ask why that cause or reason is the explanation, rather than some other cause or reason. Why are the laws of quantum mechanics in effect? Where did God come from? This is why the answer provided by a Buddhist monk at the very end of the book is my personal favorite: “As a Buddhist, he says, he believes that the universe had no beginning….The Buddhist doctrine of a beginning-less universe makes the most metaphysical sense”.

Perhaps the reality that exists (the super-universe, whatever ultimately caused the Big Bang) has always existed and always will. It simply is. It never came into existence, so no cause, reason or explanation is necessary or possible. Perhaps it’s cyclical. Perhaps it’s not. But it’s eternal, with no beginning or end.

This book is worth reading, but not as good as it might have been. Mr. Holt writes well and seems to accurately present the ideas of the thinkers he interviews. But his own thoughts on the subject, and other subjects, such as consciousness and death, aren’t especially interesting or profound. In particular, his attempt to prove the existence of an infinite yet mediocre universe is completely unconvincing. His travel writing — where he stayed, what he ate, his strolls through Oxford and Paris — is also a bit much. He doesn’t just bump into a philosophy professor at a local grocery store; it’s a “gourmet” grocery store. He has excellent taste in food and drink as well.  (9/8/12)

Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, edited by David J. Chalmers, et al.

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Metametaphysics is the study of metaphysics. It deals with these questions: how metaphysics is done, how it should be done, and whether it is worth doing at all. The particular branch of metaphysics that is the principal subject of this book is ontology, the philosophical study of being or existence.

Metaphysicians who do ontology argue about what things are fundamental or real or exist: for example, in what sense do tables and chairs exist? do numbers exist in the same sense? are collections of things like your-house-and-your-left-ear just as real as your house or your left ear? Or, for example, is a statue made of marble one thing (a statue made of marble) or two things (a statue and some marble)? Some philosophers argue that ontological questions are pointless or merely verbal. Some philosophers disagree. This book has sixteen recent essays that are intended to explain what ontology is, how it should be done, and whether it should be done at all. 

My favorite essay in the book was “Answerable and Unanswerable Questions” by Amie L. Thomasson. Professor Thomasson argues that many metaphysical or ontological questions cannot be answered. For example, they presume that there are reasonable criteria for deciding whether numbers or propositions are things in some supposed neutral or generic sense of “thing” that can be applied to numbers and propositions just as well as it can be applied to dogs, tables or elementary particles.

She correctly points out that it makes no sense to ask whether something is a thing unless we already know what kind of thing it is supposed to be. We should all agree that numbers exist, since we can all identify numbers, such as the number 3. But we cannot say whether the number 3 is a thing in some more general sense, since there are no agreed-upon criteria for identifying things in that more general or neutral sense.

It seems that the only interesting ontological questions are whether it is more coherent or consistent or helpful to categorize various things as existing or real or fundamental. There is a lot of agreement about what exists, but not about which words should be used to say what exists.  (6/25/12)

Philosophical Relativity by Peter Unger

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Unger argues that some philosophical problems have no solution because certain key terms can be understood in two different ways. Since neither way of understanding these terms is better than the other, there is no correct solution to the problems in which these terms play a role.  

He offers the word “flat” as a typical, non-philosophical term that has two such senses. In one sense, something is flat if it is relatively flat compared to other things of a similar or different nature, depending on the context. Kansas is flat compared to Vermont, and the tops of coffee tables are flat compared to lots of other objects. Unger calls this the “contextualist” case.  

In another sense, however, Kansas clearly isn’t perfectly or absolutely flat, nor are coffee tables. The only thing that is flat in this sense is probably a plane as defined in geometry. Unger calls this the “invariantist” case, since the meaning of the specified term in this case doesn’t vary from context to context.  

Unger identifies four philosophical problems that he thinks are subject to this kind of ambiguity: the problems of knowledge (the word “know”), free will (words like “can” and “could”), causation (“cause”) and explanation (“explain”).  

For example, we commonly say that we know many things, but, when pressed, we confess that we could be wrong. Which standards must be met for knowledge to exist? Should our everyday standards be applied (“I saw a dog in the car going by”) or much more stringent standards that would rule out any possibility of error (“I  stopped the car and confirmed that a dog was present by sight, touch and hearing; discussed the matter with other observers; and then performed a series of medical tests to verify that the dog was a living organism with canine DNA”)?  

As Unger points out, we could still be wrong relative to the very highest standards, except possibly with knowledge of the “Cogito, ergo sum” variety (“I know that there is something”.) Understanding terms in the invariantist fashion can obviously lead to skepticism, but Unger argues that skepticism may be warranted — there is no right answer when it comes to choosing between contextualist and invariantist positions. He offers extended discussion of semantics vs. pragmatics and semantic intuitions, but his basic point is that some important terms are ambiguous and there are no compelling reasons to choose one meaning over another. 

There are at least three different kinds of relativity involved here. First, there is the idea that the meanings of some terms are relative to the context in which they are used (this is the position called “contextualism”). Second, there is semantic relativity: the idea that the meaning of certain terms is relative to certain assumptions, e.g. the standards that are appropriate for saying that someone knows something. Third, there is philosophical relativity: the idea that some semantically relative terms are philosophically significant, and that this semantic relativity results in certain philosophical problems having no solution. Unger argues in favor of all three kinds of relativity. 

It seems quite correct to say that some terms are contextually and semantically relative, and that some of these terms play a key role in philosophical disputes. I’m not sure that this explains why these disputes are hard to solve, however. For example, it seems clearly true that if we understand “know” in the ordinary sense, we know many things, and if we understand “know” in the ideal sense, we don’t know much at all. Unger doesn’t spend much time explaining why this ambiguity is so crucial. Few philosophers would deny that this kind of ambiguity exists, yet they would continue to argue about the nature of knowledge and justification, and whether or not there are grounds for choosing between the ambiguous meanings Unger describes.  (5/16/12)

Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche by James Miller

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Examined Lives tells the life stories of some famous philosophers. There are six ancients (Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Aristotle, Seneca, Augustine) and six moderns (Montaigne, Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, Nietzsche), but no one who lived after 1900. 

Some of these philosophers had lives that were relatively interesting, since national leaders and religious authorities used to care about what philosophers had to say. Some of them were hired to give advice and some were persecuted for the advice they gave. But even these twelve philosophers are mostly interesting because of what they said, not because of the lives they led.

The author is mainly concerned with whether the philosophers lived up to their ideals and their advice. Did they live the way they said a person should live in order to have a good life? Not very often. His main conclusion is that being a philosopher and examining your life is no guarantee of having a life worth living. Or, to be a little unkind: having a life worth reading about.  (4/27/12)

Scientific Perspectivism by Ronald N. Giere

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Scientific perspectivism, as Professor Giere describes it, is a somewhat weak form of scientific realism: “For a perspectival realist, the strongest claims a scientist can legitimately make are of a qualified, conditional form: ‘According to this highly confirmed theory (or reliable instrument), the world seems to be roughly such and such’. There is no way legitimately to take the further objectivist step and declare unconditionally: ‘This theory (or instrument) provides us with a complete and literally correct picture of the world itself'” (pp. 5-6).

Even the most accurate instrument gives us just one perspective on the world, since it picks out some feature(s) of interest, it’s subject to some margin of error, and its output is subject to interpretation according to some theory. 

Giere begins by discussing color vision and other sense perception, then moves on to the use of various instruments for scientific purposes, and finally discusses the creation of scientific models and theories. He is especially concerned with how scientists actually do their work. His conclusion is that all truth claims are relative to a perspective, even the claim that all truth claims are relative to a perspective (p. 81). “The strongest possible conclusion is that some model provides a good but never perfect fit to aspects of the world” (p. 93). Giere’s own theory of scientific perspectivism “may be regarded as a set of models of various scientific activities … these models exhibit a good fit to actual scientific practices. That … is as much as anyone can do” (p. 95). 

Some models fit the world better than others, however, meaning that they better serve our purposes. Perspectivism might be considered a kind of relativism, but not the kind that says all perspectives are equally valid.

One of the most interesting parts of this book is the discussion of “distributed cognitive systems”. Giere argues that much of science involves the operation of such systems, most of which involve instruments and models that are perspectival. A simple example of a distributed cognitive system is a student’s use of pencil and paper to perform long division. The student making the calculation is part of a system that includes the pencil and paper. The system generates a calculation. This doesn’t mean that the pencil and paper are part of the student’s mind, as some philosophers who talk about “extended” or “embedded” cognition have argued. It’s not necessary to go that far in order to describe human cognition.

This is the first book I’ve read in a long time that I want to read again.  (4/24/12)