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441 lines
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<title>Foundation of Ontological Philosophy</title>
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="4" style="font-size: 16pt"><b>Foundation
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of Ontological Philosophy</b></font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Ontological
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philosophy is a new way of doing philosophy. Implausible though it
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may sound at this late date, after more than 2 millennia of trying,
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there is a new way of doing philosophy. And it is one that works. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Furthermore,
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since ontological philosophy is a form of naturalism that uses the
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empirical method, it is equally a new way of doing science. In other
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words, it unites philosophy and science. Not surprisingly, it has
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profound and far reaching implications. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<br><br>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>Philosophy.</b></font>
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Philosophy is different from ordinary ways of knowing. It aspires to
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a kind of knowledge that is prior to everyday reasoning, such as
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modern science and everyday practical reasoning. Since it takes a
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special foundation to defend a more fundamental kind of knowledge,
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foundationalism is the heart of philosophy. Ontological philosophy is
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a new kind of “first philosophy.”</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
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the past, philosophers have used epistemological foundations to argue
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for more fundamental truths. They used reflection on how we know to
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arrive at a theory about the nature of reason and knowledge such as
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the intuition of forms, certainty about ideas in the mind, and the
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language-users’ understanding of language. Such approaches to
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justifying a more fundamental kind of knowledge have failed, however,
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to garner general acceptance (mainly because they lead to
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metaphysical dualism and skepticism). Indeed, the failure of
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traditional, “epistemological” philosophy is one of the few
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points on which most contemporary philosophers can agree. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><i>Ontological
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philosophy.</i></font> It is not hard, therefore, to see why we
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might wish there were a new way of doing philosophy. And there is
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one. For it is possible to use <i>empirical ontology </i>(the
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acceptance of whichever ontology is the best ontological explanation
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of what is found in nature), rather than epistemology, as the
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foundation for justifying a more fundamental kind of knowledge. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">By
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“ontology,” I mean a theory about the basic substances that
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constitute the world, where “substances” are self-subsistent
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entities that never come into existence and never go out of
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existence. That is what we implicitly assume when we take objects in
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the natural world to exist independently ourselves. They must be made
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of something that can exist on its own, or else they would depend on
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us. (And they must be related to one another in some way to exist
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together as a world.) To be the best ontology, as the empirical
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method requires, however, such a theory would have to postulate the<i>
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fewest and simplest </i>basic substances (and basic relationship)
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that can explain <i>everything </i>in the world. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Suppose
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there were an ontology that is demonstrably better than any
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alternative, including those offered by physics. And suppose that it
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entailed further propositions about the world that were not already
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recognized as true. Such an ontology would be a foundation for
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philosophy, for what else it implied would be ontologically
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necessary. Its implications could be denied only by giving up the
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best ontological explanation of the world. They would be
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<i>ontologically necessary truths</i>. Such truths would be more
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fundamental than and, thus, prior to what is known by ordinary means.
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</font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">As
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it happens, there is such an ontology. It is “spatiomaterialism,”
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the theory that the world is constituted by space as well as matter
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enduring through time as substances. It is a better ontological
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explanation of the world than any alternative currently considered by
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naturalists. And it has many implications about the world that are
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not currently recognized as true, much less as necessary. It does
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what philosophy has always aspired to do. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The main
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reason that naturalists do not already accept spatiomaterialism is
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that they do not choose which ontology to believe by inferring to the
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best <i>ontological-cause explanation </i>of the world. Instead, they
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believe in empirical science, which infers to the best
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<i>efficient-cause explanations </i>of what happens in the world, and
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they accept whatever ontology is required for scientific theories to
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be true. The Einsteinian overthrow of the Newtonian belief in
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absolute space and time has led naturalists to assume that space
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cannot be a substance enduring through time. But, as will be shown
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below (under <font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change</font>), it is
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possible to explain the truth of both Einstein’s special and
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general theories of relativity on the assumption that space endures
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through time (and, thus, is absolute). That is clearly a better
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ontological explanation of the world than ontologies derived from
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realism about theories in physics, because it is simpler and less
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puzzling than the belief that spacetime is what contains all the
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matter in the world. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Spatiomaterialism
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is also better than forms of materialism that take it for granted
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that bits of matter have spatial relations and that spatial relations
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can change over time, for it explains why they have spatial relations
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and how change is possible. Furthermore, since spatiomaterialism can
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explain the truth of all the other basic laws of physics, science
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offers no reason to doubt that it is true. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Empirical
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ontology affords, therefore, a way of doing philosophy that is not
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currently being considered. And as we shall see, it has many profound
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consequences. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><i>Epistemological
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philosophy. </i></font>Ontological philosophy is different from
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traditional philosophy, because philosophers have traditionally taken
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an epistemological approach. They tried to demonstrate more
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fundamental truths about the world than ordinary ways of knowing by
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taking as their foundation a theory about the nature of reason which
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was arrived at in some way by reflecting on how we know. Those truths
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were called “necessary,” but since the foundation was
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epistemological, rather than ontological, all that could be
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accomplished was to show that they are certain. In epistemological
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philosophy, what distinguishes necessary truths from ordinary
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knowledge is certainty (rather than being entailed by a deeper
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explanation of the world). Certainty is <i>epistemological necessity</i>.
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</font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">To
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be sure, the systems constructed by the most ambitious
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epistemological philosophers had ontologies, and the claims they made
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about substances were supposed to be necessary. But these ontological
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truths were not <i>ontologically </i>necessary; they were truths
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about ontology that were supposed to be epistemologically necessary,
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or certain. That is because ontology is just an afterthought in
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traditional philosophy. The primary goal is to show the
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conclusiveness of the certain propositions about the world. But
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insofar as those necessary truths entailed theories about what
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exists, epistemological philosophers found themselves committed to
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some ontology or other. In other words, their ontological theories,
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or metaphysical systems, as they are called, were just implications
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of their epistemologically necessary truths, not their foundations. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Furthermore,
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these implications were unwelcome in the end, for their metaphysical
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systems inevitably cast doubt on their epistemological argument,
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leading to skepticism. Since success in epistemological philosophy
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comes from demonstrating that something beyond the epistemological
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foundation can be known (or so-called realism), it entails a
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problematic ontological dualism of some kind. In addition to whatever
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accounts for the existence of their epistemological foundation,
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epistemological philosophers find themselves committed to the
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existence of the other kind of substances whose reality they are
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demonstrating, and as it happens, it is never easy to explain how
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such different kinds of substances fit together as parts of a single
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world. Thus, realism leads by way of some problematic ontological
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dualism to anti-realism, or skepticism about the reality of what is
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supposed to be demonstrated, and the failure of epistemological
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philosophy in inevitable.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<br><br>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>The
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foundation of ontological philosophy.</b></font> Though ontological
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philosophy is based on ontology, rather than epistemology, it must
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also secure its foundation. That requires defending a specific theory
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about the nature of the world, and as mentioned above, the specific
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theory that will be defended here is spatiomaterialism. It cannot be
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justified by reflecting on how we know without reducing to
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epistemological philosophy. By calling it “empirical ontology,” I
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mean to suggest that it is justified empirically. Before saying what
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I mean by the empirical method, however, let me say a bit more about
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the other two assumptions on which spatiomaterialism will be
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justified.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><i>Naturalism.</i></font>
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The following defense of spatiomaterialism assumes that what is being
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explained by empirical ontology is the natural world. By the natural
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world, I mean everything in space and time. This is a form of
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naturalism, for it is to assume that the world is <i>just </i>the
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natural world. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This kind
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of naturalism is implicitly assumed by natural science. Naturalism is
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implicit in science’s commitment to the empirical method, for
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science has traditionally limited the evidence that is relevant in
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choosing among theories to observation, or what can be known by
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perception. Everything that can be known by perception is located in
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space and time. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Reflection,
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by contrast, has been excluded by the empirical method of traditional
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science. That has enabled science to set aside the reflection-based
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epistemological theories of traditional, epistemological philosophy.
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Ontological philosophy also relies mainly on perception. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">But there
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is no principled reason to exclude reflection as a source of
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information about the natural world. Reflective subjects are, after
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all, parts of the natural world, and in the end, an ontology of the
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natural world will have to explain what is known about the world
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through reflection as well as what is known through perception. What
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is still excluded from ontological philosophy, however, is the use of
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reflection as a foundation for proving necessary truths. The
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foundation of necessary truths in ontological philosophy is the
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ontological explanation that best explains what is perceived. Only
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ontologically necessary truths are justified from its ontological
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foundation. As it turns out, however, spatiomaterialism puts
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ontological philosophy in a position to explain why it has seemed
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that some propositions can be known with certainty. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><i>Ontological
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explanation. </i></font>What makes it possible for empirical ontology
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to be used as a philosophical foundation is the recognition that
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ontology can be a kind of explanation. "Ontology" means,
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literally, "theory of being." It is a theory about the
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nature of existence, and ontology <i>can </i>be explanatory, if
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existence can be reduced to basic substances and how they exist
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together as a world. That is to assume that substances, as
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substances, are self-subsistent entities. Since basic substances
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exist on their own, each distinct from all other substances in the
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world, it may be possible to explain everything in the world by
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showing how it is constituted by basic substances of certain kinds
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with a certain basic relationship to one another.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">For
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naturalists, the world in which everything is to be explained
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ontologically is the natural world, or what is found in space and
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time. But to explain everything in such a world is not merely to
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explain the existence of the objects in space. It is to explain all
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their properties, their relations to one another, and how properties
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and relations change as time passes. In other words, the natural
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world can come down to a few basic kinds of substances related in
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certain basic ways only if that can explain everything in the natural
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world and everything about the natural world. The inability to
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explain the possibility of some aspect of the world would show that
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the world is not constituted by the basic substances and
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relationships postulated by the ontology.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><i>Empirical
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method.</i></font> When ontology is understood as a kind of
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explanation, it is possible to use the empirical method to choose
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which specific ontology to believe. By the empirical method, I mean
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the method used by science. I assume that that method is basically an
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inference to the best explanation of what is found in the natural
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world. Thus, by empirical ontology, I mean the project of <i>inferring
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to the best ontological explanation of what is found in the natural
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world</i>. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">No attempt
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will be made to justify the empirical method. Justifying the
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empirical method is a road traveled by traditional philosophy, and
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ontological philosophy takes a different road by simply using the
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empirical method, as science does. This way of judging between
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conflicting theories is what beings like us do naturally. (Later,
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when we take up necessary truths about evolution, we will trace that
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disposition to the function of the brain and how the brain works.)</font></font></p>
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||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Our main
|
||
departure from empirical science is, therefore, to apply the
|
||
empirical method to ontology, rather than just to theories about
|
||
efficient causes of what happens. That is, we shall be deciding what
|
||
to believe about the nature of <i>what exists </i>in the world,
|
||
rather than only what to believe about the causes of <i>what happens
|
||
</i>there. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">More
|
||
precisely, we shall infer to the <i>simplest </i>and <i>fewest</i>
|
||
basic substances (and basic relationship among them) that can explain
|
||
everything in the world, that is, every kind of object in the natural
|
||
world and every aspect of the natural world, including those which
|
||
have to do with how things change over time. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<br><br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>Ontological
|
||
science.</b></font> Empirical ontology affords, therefore, a way of
|
||
doing philosophy that is not currently being considered. It is
|
||
equally, however, a new way of doing science, because ontological
|
||
philosophy is tantamount to recognizing ontology as a more basic
|
||
branch of natural science than physics. That means that the basic
|
||
substances (and basic relationship) discovered by empirical ontology
|
||
must be able to explain the truth of all the basic laws of physics,
|
||
much as physics has often been thought to explain the laws of less
|
||
basic branches of science, such as chemistry and biology. But that
|
||
does not mean that science is any less empirical, not as long as
|
||
ontology also uses the empirical method. Nor is this a trivial or
|
||
meaningless change in science, for it makes all the explanations of
|
||
less general sciences reducible to the most basic branch of
|
||
(ontological) science. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Ontology
|
||
is not, however, quite like other branches of science, because its
|
||
uses substances, rather than laws of nature, to explain what is found
|
||
in the world. That is the difference between ontological-cause
|
||
explanations and efficient-cause explanations. Efficient-cause
|
||
explanations depend on laws of nature to connect efficient causes to
|
||
their effects, and accordingly, to infer to the best efficient-cause
|
||
explanations is to attempt to discover the simplest and most
|
||
comprehensive laws describing the regularities found in nature. But
|
||
the causes in ontological explanation are the basic substances and
|
||
the basic relationship among them, and since things are explained
|
||
ontologically by showing how they are constituted by substances,
|
||
ontological explanations do not depend on laws of nature. Ontological
|
||
explanations show how basic substances are identical to what is found
|
||
in the world. And since the laws of nature are explained
|
||
ontologically (by showing how the basic substances and relationships
|
||
postulated by the ontology make the laws true), the explanations
|
||
given by ontological science all cite substances as causes in the
|
||
end.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
||
is now widely recognized that laws in less general branches of
|
||
science are not reducible to the laws of physics. But as we shall
|
||
see, when empirical ontology is seen as the most basic branch of
|
||
natural science, it is possible to reduce not only the basic laws of
|
||
physics, but also the laws of all the less general branches of
|
||
natural science, including biology, physiology, and the social
|
||
sciences, to the best explanation in the most basic branch of
|
||
science. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To be sure,
|
||
it is an ontological reduction, rather than scientific reduction (or
|
||
reduction to the laws of physics). But in “ontological science,”
|
||
all the theories of the less general branches of natural science can
|
||
be reduced to the most basic branch, accomplishing a great
|
||
unification of scientific knowledge. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">That
|
||
is how empirical ontology unites philosophy and science. But a
|
||
difference between them can still be discerned because of their
|
||
different interests. While philosophy sees empirical ontology as a
|
||
foundation for defending ontologically necessary truths about the
|
||
world, science sees it as a way of explaining the truth of theories
|
||
in physics and other branches of science. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">That is,
|
||
the recognition that ontology is a more basic branch of empirical
|
||
science than physics introduces the project of discovering the
|
||
simplest and fewest kinds of basic substances that can explain the
|
||
truth of the laws of physics. That is spatiomaterialism, and combined
|
||
with the truth of the laws of physics, it entails the ontological
|
||
necessary truths by which all the theories in less general branches
|
||
of science are reduced to a simple ontological theory.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<br><br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>the
|
||
Wholeness of the World.</b></font> The reason for calling this
|
||
philosophical argument “the Wholeness of the World” is that
|
||
spatiomaterialism explains everything in the world. As an ontological
|
||
theory, spatiomaterialism must be able to account for (in the sense
|
||
of explaining the possibility of) everything found in the world,
|
||
including not only all the objects in space, but all their
|
||
properties, relations and how they change. But it can lead to new
|
||
beliefs about the world only by demonstrating ontologically necessary
|
||
truths about the world. In some cases, what is new is just
|
||
recognizing the necessity of what is already believed to be true, but
|
||
in other cases, the beliefs themselves are new. It is the
|
||
completeness of its ontological explanation in this latter sense that
|
||
earns this argument the title, "the Wholeness of the World."
|
||
Once spatiomaterialism is elaborated in a way that can explain why
|
||
the basic laws of physics are true, its implications hold in every
|
||
possible spatiomaterial world like our own, and those ontologically
|
||
necessary truth explain the nature of the world in a most complete
|
||
way. How complete it is can be suggested by mentioning that it
|
||
explains all the puzzling phenomena that seem to lie beyond the
|
||
limits of science and have raised doubts about naturalism, including
|
||
<i>consciousness</i>, <i>goodness</i>, and even how there can be
|
||
something worthy of worship, or <i>holiness,</i> in a strictly
|
||
natural world. What makes this possible are its implications about
|
||
the nature of evolutionary change, and the completeness of this
|
||
theory of evolution is evident in how many organisms in our world
|
||
turn out to have essential natures, including not only plants and
|
||
animals, but also subjects like us who come to know that the world is
|
||
whole in this way. But it will not be possible to explain fully what
|
||
all is meant by “the wholeness of the world” until the
|
||
conclusion, because its various aspects fit together in a way that
|
||
makes the world even more whole than can be seen at first. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Insofar
|
||
as it is a complete explanation the nature of the world, it is not
|
||
merely <i>an </i>explanation of the world. It is <i>the </i>explanation
|
||
of the world. That is the sense in which it is the Absolute Truth.
|
||
This is to deny the conceptual relativism of contemporary kantians,
|
||
like Hillary Putnam, because there is no other theory that can
|
||
explain everything in and about the world as simply as one based on
|
||
spatiomaterialism. Ontological philosophy <i>is </i>the "metaphysical
|
||
realism," the "One True Theory," and the "God's
|
||
Eye View" of the world whose possibility is denied by such
|
||
so-called internal realists. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html> |