Pure metaphysical claims

David Gould said:

This is exactly my thinking, and the reason for this thread in the first place.

My position is that if there is no methodology for evaluating metaphysical claims, all such claims should be ignored. However, first I need to determine whether my premise that there is no such methodology is correct - hence the thread.

I think that not having a method indeed stops us from looking - or it should.

But I assume you mean searching for methodologies - and that is true, which is what I am doing in this thread.

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It seems to me that we've gone a long way just to say that what we can't know, we can't know. Anywhere we are isolated from contact, we have no point of contact. We could have just agreed on this at the beginning.

David Gould said:

So do you agree with the proposition that because we have no methodology for evaluating the truth or falsity of such claims, they should be ignored?

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I don't know if I'd ignore them if they came from somebody I respected, ethically or intellectually. For all I know, (s)he has a point of contact. Suffice to say, though, if I can't find a connection, I have no foundation upon which to work with such things. In that case, let me say that I would do my best to maintain a suspension of disposition somewhere between belief and disbelief.

David Gould said:

And for all you know, they do not. Why not ask them if they have a point of contact and what that point of contact is? In other words, why not ask them if they have a methodology?

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I think I would do just that.

David Gould said:

I am unable to do such a thing. I think that my position would have to be one of provisional disbelief.

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You don't need to justify yourself to me. You know, I have a difficult time putting my disposition in suspension. In MBTI, I measure about 30% J. I like things orderly. Suspension of disposition is anything but. All I can do is try.

Willtor said:

I don't know if I'd ignore them if they came from somebody I respected,

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Hence the power of culture.

joebudda said:

Hence the power of culture.

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Or, as we say in Boston, "culchah."

I'm very far behind in the reading on this thread, so sorry if someone has already responded to this.

David Gould said:

'David Gould is wearing a hat,' is not a metaphysical claim - I can reach up and check my head, people can come look et cetera.

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I would like to clarify and say that when you "check" you are checking in the physical sense. So if one person makes a claim about something sensed with their eyes, then someone else can potentially "check" that claim by also using their eyes.

However, if someone makes a philosophical claim (even if it's about the physical), then we ideally will need to use philosophy to "check" that claim. We could probably agree if we are both present when you are claiming to be wearing the hat. But if you claimed to have worn a hat yesterday, and if you produce 100 or 1000 people who also claim to have seen you, then that is still no longer a physical claim that I can verify myself. It's sort of an odd distinction, but I find it to be rather significant. Although, despite not seeing you with a hat on, I would count your claim as evidence, the claims of the 100s of people you saw as evidence, any pictures as evidence, etc...

David Gould said:

In other words, a metaphysical - beyond the physical - claim is a claim we cannot use physical means to check.

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Just to verify that we're on the same page. Hume argued that we couldn't actually verify whether or not natural laws could continue workign in the future as they have in the past. Sure we can check it a bunch of times and verify that it worked in those circumstances, but we can't actually "check" what will happen in the future until that future moment comes. So any scientific claim made about how something will react in the future then, by the way you're describing it, is in fact a metaphysical claim (if I'm understanding you correctly).

David Gould said:

Now, this does not mean that some physical claims are not difficult to check. But all physical claims are theoretically checkable.

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Hmm... again, I wouldn't have any way of checking whether or not you actually had a hat on. At best I can take your word on it, look at pictures and expect them to not be doctored, listen to others backing your claim, etc... So I do agree that many claims of the physical are checkable in that sense, they aren't necessarily checkable in the physical sense.

David Gould said:

This does not mean we can have proof of every claim, either - proof is only available in logic and mathematics.

The scientific method works on evidence - in other words, I can use evidence to determine whether I have a hat on my head or not. Or, indeed, to determine whether George Washington existed or not.

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I'm not sure that the scientific method is necessarilly all that helpful in determining whether or not George Washington existed or not. Nor do I think it helps me in determining whether or not you had a hat on.

David Gould said:

With metaphysical claims, there is no evidence - it is not possible to gather evidence about whether or not hell exists, for example, or which particular rules see you end up there.

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I'm still having a hard time distinguishing exactly how you're categorizing what is metaphysical and physical. If the only evidence I have about you wearing a hat is something I read on the internet and we're going to count that as evidence, then surely we're going to count anyone's claim about anything on the internet as evidence as well. The problem then becomes making sure the claims don't contradict.

As far as I can tell, you're claim that you had a hat on may be just as valid as Jesus's claim that there's a hell, that he's the son of God, and so forth. We still seem to be left with using inductive reasoning as to trying to determine what we believe to be the truth.

David Gould said:

However, I am not asking about why we believe certain things.

I am asking about whether there is a methodology that we could, in theory, use to determine the truth or otherwise of these claims.

With regard to physical claims, there is - the scientific method, backed up by logic.

With regard to metaphysical claims, is there such a method?

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Maybe you can explain to me how we can use the scientific method to determine whether on a certain date and time that you wore a hat. I guess that's just where I'm getting hung up at.

David Gould said:

Again, it is not really about why you personally believe - although, to be honest, it sounds to me like you are saying, 'It feels to me as though it is true.'

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The difference is I think I'm hearing you sort of exalting the scientific method or claims about the physical as if we can know them to be true because they're claims about the physical, whereas with other claims we can't know them to be true because they're not within the realm of the physical. My problem is that nearly all claims made about the physical are not physically verifiable in the sense you seem to be saying. So in short we really are left with using inductive reasoning. So without proof or omniscience, it basically does boil down to saying, "It feels to me as though it is true".

David Gould said:

It is about what methodology I, who have no feeling about these two claims either way, could test them to determine which one is true (or, at least, more likely to be true.)

And ignore the fact that they are about Hell - I should have chosen two different examples, as that is not what this question is about.

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My claim is that I use the same method of inductive reasoning on both. If Bob claims X and Adam claims not X, then I would ask myself whether or not X is consistent with the rest of the facts of the world that I beleive to be true. I would want to verify whether or not Bob has a history of being honest, whether or not one of them appears to be motivated to gain something by their claim, whether someone asked them to claim that or if they did their own research, etc...

I can understand the whole physically verifying something... the problem is I think we, as people, only have physically verified about 1% of all that we believe to be true. And there's the issue that senses aren't necessarily reliable. For example, have you ever witnessed a car accident with some of your friends. Then later when recalling the story you remember some detail differently then the other 4? In that case it's not usually reliable to rely on your own senses but instead to go with the popular opinion of what happened. For all things I think it's best to be consistent with how we approach discovering the truth. And as such I don't feel like the approach I take is different for claims about hell then for claims about whether or not you are wearing a hat.

yay i found my account.. does it work? By the way.. all claims have a metaphysical origin..

David Gould said:

So do you agree with the proposition that because we have no methodology for evaluating the truth or falsity of such claims, they should be ignored?

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Surely the cruel subtlety of Christian claims (or at least a certain species of Christian claims) is that they cannot be ignored. We're not allowed to suspend judgement. If we do not explicitly accept them then we implicitly reject them.

I'm also not sure how one distinguishes between methodology and claim.

I would like to see the author present a claim that has no metaphysical content behind it..

David Gould said:

I gave an example. The claim, 'There is a hat on my head' is not a metaphysical claim.

Indeed, if the world of ideas is not divided into metaphysical and physical claims, what is it that prevents science from examining all claims?

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It contains time, space, existence. Just off the top of my head... This example has metaphysical ideals behind it.

I beg to differ. Time does not exist and cannot be measured. Space does not exist and cannot be measured. Existence is not a property of things and is not experienced. We must have different methods. In the realm of sense objects are encountered. Surely we are talking about the world of sense here.

Ok, a hat is a metaphysical phenomenon. Now that we have established that, what´s next?

David Gould said:

I am looking at a clock right now.



I have a ruler on my desk.



Existence is the thing that the scientific method actually detects. Scientific problem: do gravity waves exist? Test and find out.

As such, existence is not metaphysical.



Are we?

Please define what you mean by 'metaphysical claim'. I have given my definition.

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If your looking at clocks to verify time you not understanding what I am saying. Rulers do not verify space. Space itself is a metaphysical concept. You measure objects not space. I wish existence could be detected that would be a neat trick. Underneath all this hocus pocus lies what the kind of thing that cannot be verified or detected but is assumed. Underneath these "empirical" observations is a metaphysical foundation. All claims are metaphysical.. That is, the contain things that are not experienced in the world of sense. That is a rather loose and broad definition,

David Gould said:

Time is not a metaphysical concept - it can be measured.

Space is not a metaphysical concept - it can be measured.

Existence is not a metaphysical concept - it can be detected.

So unless you are using a completely different definition of metaphysics than I am using, I cannot see how those are metaphysical ideas.


I define metaphysical claims as those claims which cannot be tested using the scientific method.

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[rant]
I don't understand people's obsession with the scientific method. I'm not suggesting that David is obsessed with it, but there certainly is an implication here that perhaps a large or significant part of our knowledge comes from the scientific method, or at the very least that only sort of the "reliable" parts come from using it. Again, I would challenge anyone to try to write down all the claims of truth that they believed in a single day, and then to write down how many of those claims were verified by using the scientific method. I don't mean that you heard Bob proved evolution and that he used the scientific method, because if you believe that then you have definitely not used the scientific method. At the very best you can perform the experiments yourself. But even then you're likely relying on evidence that you're unable to verify or validate.[/rant]

But there's still the issue that a claim that you wore a hat yesterday cannot be tested by the scientific method. And further, the claim that gravity will continue to work in the future as it has in the past is not a testable claim.

I suppose my simple answer to your OP is that when you understand the methodology of how you judge the truth of a claim as to whether or not someone wore a hat, then you'll understand how someone judges the truth of a claim about other things as well.