827 lines
88 KiB
HTML
827 lines
88 KiB
HTML
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
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<title>Method</title>
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<meta name="author" content="Amr Gharbeia">
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; 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 color="#ff0000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>M<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMMethod_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="101" height="38" border="0">ethod.</b></font></font>
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The final assumption needed to secure a foundation for ontological
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philosophy is a method for deciding which of the possible ontological
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explanations to believe. We will assume that we ought to believe the
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best ontological explanation of the world, and since we are
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naturalists, that means preferring the best ontological explanation
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of the natural world. Since the empirical method can be defined as
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inferring to the best explanation, that makes the foundation of
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ontological philosophy <i>empirical ontological naturalism</i>. </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">The
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empirical method is the same method that science uses, except for
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applying it to a different kind of explanation. But it is not the
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only possible method for deciding what to believe. The alternative is
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the rational method of traditional, epistemological philosophy. Its
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foundation was a theory about how we know, which was based on
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reflecting on our processes of knowing. It might also be considered
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an inference to the best explanation. But since the way we ordinarily
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explain what is known by reflection is by giving reasons, the method
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of epistemological philosophy always came down to the claim that
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certain truths are required by reason itself. Though the actual
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standard was different in different eras of Western philosophy, they
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can all be called forms of the <i>rational method</i>.</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">The
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empirical method, by contrast, may be considered an inference to the
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best explanation of what is known by perception. Perception provides
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relevant evidence in deciding what to believe because it discloses
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facts about what exists in the world. But for naturalists seeking an
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ontological explanation, there is no need to limit the evidence to
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perception. </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">Given our
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assumption, as naturalists, that the natural world is the world
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disclosed to us by perception, the empirical method might also be
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described as inferring to the best explanation of the natural world.
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Though science may limit itself to explaining what is known by
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perception, the latter formulation is preferable, given our
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ontological purposes, because there is no need to limit the evidence
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we have about the natural world to what is known by perception.
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Reflection should also be accepted as providing evidence about the
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nature of the substances and relations constituting the natural
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world, because we believe, as naturalists, that the beings in whom
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reflection occurs are themselves parts of the natural world. That
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would not be to revert to the rational method of epistemological
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philosophy, as long as we take reflection and what is known by it to
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be something found in the natural world that needs explaining, and
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not as providing a standard for judging what is true. What is known
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by reflection is no less evidence of what exists in the natural world
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than what is known by perception, though when we define "naturalism"
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ontologically, as holding that the world is just what is in space and
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time, we are taking perception to disclose its basic nature more
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completely. Thus, since it is the natural world itself, not just what
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is perceived, that we are trying to explain ontologically, we shall
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interpret the empirical method broadly as inferring to the best
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explanation of the natural world, not just what is known by
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perception. </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">Having
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assumed naturalism and the validity of ontological explanation, the
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third and final assumption of ontological philosophy is the empirical
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method. That is, if this argument is logically valid, it will not be
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possible to reject the necessary truths justified by it, unless one
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denies naturalism, the validity of ontological explanation, or the
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empirical method.<sup><a class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote1anc" href="#sdendnote1sym"><sup>i</sup></a>[1]</sup>
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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: 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 color="#800000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMEmpM_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="128" height="32" border="0">he
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empirical method.</b></font></font> By the "empirical method,"
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I mean an inference to the best explanation of what is found in the
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natural world (either by perception or perception and reflection).
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Though this way of deciding what to believe presupposes a kind of
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explanation, the method can be stated abstractly, because its
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standard for judging what is best that can be applied to any kind of
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explanation, or at least, any kind that cites causes in order to
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explain effects. So let us consider the method abstractly, and then
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take up the various applications of it. </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"><b>I<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMIbe_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="156" height="57" border="0">nference
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to the best explanation of the natural world.</b></font> The standard
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for the best explanation is simply explaining the most with the
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least. The best explanation can be identified as the one that
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requires the least in the way of causes to explain the most in the
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way of effects. After explaining what this empirical standard
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requires generally, we will see how it applies to various kinds of
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explanation, including ontological explanation.</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"><i><b>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMIbeScope_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="71" height="25" border="0">cope.</b></i>
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The explanation with the greater scope is better, other things being
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equal. That is, if two explanations are equally simple, the empirical
|
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method requires us to prefer one over the other, if it explains more
|
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of what is found in the world than the other. </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">The
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preference for explanations with larger scopes does not always
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determine which explanation to believe even when other things are
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equal. When two theories have overlapping scopes, for example, it may
|
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be unclear which explains more. </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"><i><b>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMIbeSimp_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="72" height="26" border="0">implicity.</b></i>
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The simpler explanation is better, other things being equal. What
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does the explaining in an explanation are its causes, for they
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produce the effects, which are what is explained by the explanation.
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Thus, if two explanations explain the same range of phenomena, the
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empirical method requires us to believe one rather than the other, if
|
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it requires fewer causes or the causes it requires are simpler. </font></font></font>
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</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">Nor
|
||
does the preference for simpler explanations always determine which
|
||
theory to believe when other things are equal. There may be a
|
||
trade-off between fewer causes and simpler causes. There is no way to
|
||
say in general whether to prefer fewer, more complex causes or a
|
||
larger number of simpler causes. It depends on the kind of
|
||
explanation involved or, perhaps, the specific case. And even then,
|
||
there may be no way to decide. </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">Scope
|
||
and simplicity are the basic criteria for judging explanations, but
|
||
there is no reason to deny that there may be other issues about which
|
||
is the best explanation that arise when specific kinds of
|
||
explanations are being considered. Appeal can always be made to the
|
||
basic standard for judging the best among explanations of the same
|
||
basic kind: explaining the most with the least. </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">Two
|
||
sources of error using the empirical method should be noticed. </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">First, any
|
||
limitation in the range of theories being considered can lead to
|
||
errors. Since the empirical method chooses the best among the
|
||
possible explanations, it works only insofar as <i>all </i>possible
|
||
theories are being considered. </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">Second, any
|
||
limitation in the range of evidence being considered can lead to
|
||
errors. Since the empirical method chooses the best explanation of
|
||
what is in the world, it works only insofar as we have found
|
||
everything relevant in the world. And as mentioned above, naturalists
|
||
have no reason, in principle, not to include as evidence, along with
|
||
perception, what is found out about the natural world by reflection,
|
||
if it is relevant. The subjects and the mental processes on which
|
||
they reflect are part of the natural world.</font></font></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>K<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMKinds_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="157" height="58" border="0">inds
|
||
of inferences to the best explanation of the natural world.</b></font>
|
||
Since the empirical method is relative to the kind of explanation
|
||
being sought, we must have the ability to comprehend some kind of
|
||
explanation in order to use it. Nor can we say in advance which kind
|
||
of explanation ought be used. We must simply develop whatever ways of
|
||
explaining we can understand, and then compare them to see how they
|
||
fit together or, if we must choose among them, which to believe. </font></font></font>
|
||
</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"><i><b>E<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMEce_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="85" height="49" border="0">fficient-cause
|
||
explanations.</b></i> The empirical method of science is to infer to
|
||
the best efficient-cause explanation. Explanation by efficient causes
|
||
is understood as depending on laws of nature, which describe
|
||
regularities about how causes lead to effects. It is usually
|
||
represented by the deductive-nomological model (or covering law
|
||
model, which can be traced to David Hume). This model holds that an
|
||
event (or regularity) is explained when a description of it can be
|
||
deduced from true laws of nature and the relevant initial and
|
||
boundary conditions. </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"><img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="DNExplanation" align="bottom" width="385" height="80" border="0"></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">The
|
||
initial and boundary conditions, or certain salient parts of them,
|
||
are said to be the cause, and the event (or regularity) entailed by
|
||
them and the law of nature is the effect. </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">This model
|
||
works well for physics, but there has been a long dispute about its
|
||
adequacy for other branches of science. Those disputes are not
|
||
relevant here, since we are more concerned with comparing
|
||
efficient-cause explanations with other forms of explanation than
|
||
with details about how it is applied in specific cases. (A better
|
||
account of the kinds of scientific explanations that this model
|
||
slights will be given when we take up the necessary truths of
|
||
ontological philosophy. See <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCcC.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Change:
|
||
Epistemological theories of causation</font></a></u></font>)</font></font></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"><i>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMEceScope_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="62" height="26" border="0">cope.</i>
|
||
The explanation of any specific event (or regularity) is just one of
|
||
a whole range of explanations that may be based on the same law, and
|
||
the scope of the explanation includes all the events (and
|
||
regularities) that can be explained by it. According to the empirical
|
||
method, therefore, the best efficient-cause explanation, other things
|
||
being equal, is the one that follows from the most general laws of
|
||
nature, that is, the natural laws with the largest scope. </font></font></font>
|
||
</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"><i>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMEceSimp_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="66" height="26" border="0">implicity.</i>
|
||
The simplicity criterion requires us to prefer the explanation with
|
||
the fewest causes and the simplest causes, other things being equal. </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">The
|
||
explanation with the fewest causes, in the case of efficient-cause
|
||
explanations, would be the one with the fewest relevant initial and
|
||
boundary conditions. Since what makes such conditions relevant are
|
||
the laws of nature, this is usually the requirement of preferring
|
||
efficient-cause explanations that require the fewest laws. Thus,
|
||
given any two explanations with the same scope, the empirical method
|
||
requires us to prefer the one requiring the fewest laws of nature and
|
||
the fewest relevant initial and boundary conditions. But if two
|
||
explanations appeal to the same laws, we should prefer the one that
|
||
requires the fewest and simplest initial and boundary conditions.</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">The
|
||
explanation with the simplest causes may also mean, in the case of
|
||
efficient-cause explanations, the one with the simplest laws of
|
||
nature. The criterion of simplicity in this case has notorious
|
||
problems, because natural laws formulated in terms of quantitatively
|
||
precise mathematical formulas can be simple in different ways.
|
||
However, even without a generally accepted standard of mathematical
|
||
simplicity, scientists usually manage to reach agreement on this
|
||
matter. Those issues need not, in any case, concern us, given the
|
||
altitude of our comparison of these forms of the empirical method.</font></font></font></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">Since
|
||
criteria for explaining the most with the least can be traded off
|
||
against one another, the empirical method does not necessarily
|
||
determine which theory to believe in science. But this is how the
|
||
goal of science is usually formulated. The so-called "holy
|
||
grail" of contemporary physics is an example. That goal is to
|
||
find a single, basic natural law that would cover all the forms of
|
||
motion and interaction among bits of matter that physics recognizes,
|
||
including not only electromagnetism and the weak and strong (or
|
||
color) forces, but also gravitation. This goal shows a commitment to
|
||
finding the simplest explanation with the largest scope, though
|
||
physicists have encountered intractable problems in their quest to
|
||
formulate such a law. (The biggest problem is that it does not seem
|
||
possible to state Einstein's theory of gravitation in the same kind
|
||
of mathematical formulation as the laws for the other basic forces,
|
||
that is, as a quantum field theory, without postulating ten or more
|
||
dimensions of space!)</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">Efficient-cause
|
||
explanations are also given in ordinary life, engineering, and less
|
||
basic branches of science, where the empirical method is applied more
|
||
loosely. We can understand most causal connections apart from formal
|
||
deductions for mathematically formulated laws of nature, because we
|
||
have a form of imagination (spatial imagination) that enables us to
|
||
think about the relations of objects in space and to how they change
|
||
as objects move and interact over time. Spatial imagination
|
||
represents very basic regularities, which are implicit in the laws of
|
||
physics, but it can also represent what specific laws of nature
|
||
require against this background understanding. This remarkable
|
||
capacity is easily overlooked, because it is built into our faculty
|
||
of perception as our way of understanding what perception discloses
|
||
about nature. In any case, this way of understanding efficient-cause
|
||
explanations enables us to use the empirical method, because, despite
|
||
its non-formal nature, it enables us to see which theory explains the
|
||
most with the least. </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">When
|
||
events that depart from expectations, such as accidents, for example,
|
||
are explained by efficient causes, the empirical method enjoins us to
|
||
prefer the explanation that requires the simplest causes (the
|
||
simplest deviations from normal, which are most likely) and the
|
||
fewest causes (rather than a combination of independent deviations).
|
||
But it also requires us to prefer the explanation with the largest
|
||
scope, and thus, we prefer an explanation that can also account for
|
||
other details about the accident. Or in the case of regularities
|
||
generated by a mechanism of some kind, the empirical method would
|
||
have us prefer the simplest mechanism that can explain the most about
|
||
the regularity in its behavior. Such judgments depend more on our
|
||
capacity for spatial imagination than precise formulations of laws of
|
||
nature, though the latter may be relevant in choosing among them when
|
||
more precise quantities are relevant.</font></font></font></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"><i><b>R<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAFQAAAAxCAMAAABzjH4aAAAAwFBMVEX////38PDv4ODt3Lzo2Ljn0NDdza/fwMDOwKTXsLDBs5m6rZPMmZm1qJDHkJC/gICflH6YjXm3cHCKgW6BeGavYGB7cmFwaFmmUFBrY1WeQEBlXlBfWEuZMzOOICCGEBB+AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACb6XZwAAAC5klEQVR4nO2WbXPbIAyAgZYSbxStXlk8Wl76///kJNkQn2Mn7i3Z3XbTh8RG8FiA3sTDXvny8XHYOVU8iJvLI0LLjUU83QN6uAf0+R7Ql3tAXxfQHEjSYloOm4QVlTguoEEYFGnyaciEEs0mNIizIfF2BuXPqx5/UwjEFqHaFMeHyMOTeg36vgotCM1or5ZDQWcGGnXCKBVxgtU0XNX7oICiVS6DRDucYUtxpZd40E7hI26i65p6L9SKPvN2e1ANahwNicAQME29e/s9GoqmGAf2BAWe36BVje8U7jvO1CCLTesaFBS+epErtKr3X1SWfQHpQEtdiuzIvKwVnosvFVrVe6AJRjbeRgCICXKJ4Hl0gD5NE4Jv6mnBRegt5D90Gxo46PMiaaXpNWxmrgtQLznGMeSNgDGtkPsYhUHPWiP9Z6FJYE4CnSTCBtGgQaSSu8TaKJZ59xoU9PQQPJgTNCtlfcL4oryjzn30CnTMy0lpC3CCluytEn6EwvqxbkODwKQSpSWDe4IO/B9soYxHp1CyjZ+EFquckxZzMnQSP2AkWC1KkgYc3p/F0Fc6r6685FIRg5tiHYZCDx4GivPsOQWQdthY+I9EFEpav4rL6mtQ2C74CUuBd1egadGXcJVn6FT/W7hH/m8pv/UDNRs0KJVxZXLWHcV1BK0NeQxCa4HnIZVKVIr+A1a7QN+c+oGqnkMtwkpn0Q9hwOAB8nWs7lw2xwIPGO7UuVArUDSwpaiu/UBVz6Ho41TwaVeUfDjyMY/MCjyfBBXqFND9G7T2A029hAI5t+L0ZMZTmxX4ugowpvqTpbUfWIMaimkPWIk7S2fJe+7mBb6uooPJqkFrP7AGjfh9KutIpMsCiVVexnmBr6uMAqekw2zqEt3j1A+sQaeYjsClPYKJQA3VrMDTY/GB9tMn6gsGCDw29gNNve38F5z+uvxR6G/JXwa9uSD08enw/PJ6fHu/mbwx9Ou37z+OP28mx19nppM9YQMCtQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" name="OdeMRce_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="84" height="49" border="0">ational-cause
|
||
explanation.</b></i> Though social science also uses the empirical
|
||
method of natural science, it has another kind of explanation which
|
||
it shares with the humanities, distinguishing it from natural
|
||
science. It is called "rational explanation." Since it
|
||
explains phenomena by causes, the empirical method can be used in
|
||
inferring to the best rational explanation. But the nature of
|
||
rational explanation is such that the empirical method does not, in
|
||
general, lead to agreement about what to believe about the world.
|
||
What follows is not meant to defend rational explanation in science,
|
||
but merely to show how rational explanation can be seen as another
|
||
instance of the empirical method.</font></font></font></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">It
|
||
is possible to explain what rational beings like us do and believe by
|
||
the reasons that lead them to choose to do it or to believe it. For
|
||
example, actions can be explained by the beliefs and desires that are
|
||
responsible for them, and beliefs can often be explained by the
|
||
perceptions and established beliefs that are responsible for them.
|
||
When we are explaining the actions or beliefs of other subjects, what
|
||
is explained are ultimately objects of perception, just as in natural
|
||
science, for we know about their intentions and beliefs of others
|
||
only by perceiving their behavior. Some of that behavior is, of
|
||
course, verbal behavior, which is especially revealing, but this kind
|
||
of explanation can also be given of other animals, notably, mammals.
|
||
What makes human beings basically different is that they are
|
||
reflective subjects. That is, in them, beliefs, desires and
|
||
perceptions are not mere causes of actions and belief, but causes
|
||
that have effects on other beliefs or behavior by way of the
|
||
subject’s reflecting on them. These causes are so special that they
|
||
are called "reasons." Furthermore, what enables us to
|
||
identify these causes and see their roles in causing action and
|
||
belief is reflection. </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">Reflection
|
||
plays a role in rational-cause explanation that is analogous to the
|
||
role of spatial imagination in ordinary efficient-cause explanations
|
||
and the laws of nature cited in more formal scientific
|
||
efficient-cause explanations. What enables us to connect cause with
|
||
effect in the case of rational explanations is reflection on our own
|
||
capacity for reasoning. When we explain another person’s action by
|
||
citing certain beliefs and desires, our ability to tell the relevance
|
||
of those beliefs and desires as causes of the action in question
|
||
comes from reflecting on what we would do if we had certain desires
|
||
and we believed that we were in the relevant situation. Likewise in
|
||
seeing the relevance of reasons as causes explaining certain beliefs,
|
||
we reconstruct the argument in our own brains. </font></font></font>
|
||
</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">Rational
|
||
explanation works well enough in the case of the actions and beliefs
|
||
that occur in the ordinary practice of carrying out our lives.
|
||
Insofar as the actions and beliefs to be explained have to do with
|
||
moving bodies around in a world of objects in space in order to
|
||
satisfy desires, we can understand the causes of the other’s
|
||
behavior by reflecting on what our own spatial imagination would lead
|
||
us to do in the situation. That is the kind of behavior that can be
|
||
explained rationally in other animals. But we can usually reach
|
||
agreement about ordinary social interactions of human beings as well,
|
||
because members of a society share expectations about one another’s
|
||
actions and beliefs. To explain a particular action or belief is
|
||
usually just a matter of identifying which of the familiar reasons
|
||
happened to be responsible for it in that case. </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">Agreement
|
||
about which is the best rational explanation is reached easily in
|
||
such ordinary causes, and it can be seen as an application of the
|
||
empirical method. Familiar reasons are the simplest in the sense that
|
||
they fit into the background of beliefs and desires that people
|
||
share, and we usually prefer explanations that require the fewest
|
||
familiar reasons to explain any particular action or belief. In
|
||
short, we assimilate their behavior to what is normally expected.
|
||
Furthermore, the scope of such explanations is maximally large,
|
||
because the rational explanation is confirmed by how normal
|
||
expectations also explain other aspects of the person’s behavior.</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">Actions
|
||
or beliefs that are unusual, however, cannot be assimilated to the
|
||
normal pattern. They call for rational explanation in a way that can
|
||
also be seen as an application of the empirical method. We start, as
|
||
always, from the neutral background of ordinary behavior and beliefs
|
||
with generally accepted reasons in the society and we try to identify
|
||
the special reasons that are responsible for the unusual beliefs or
|
||
behavior. These are desires, beliefs or perceptions that stand out as
|
||
different from that neutral background, and since the empirical
|
||
method requires us to explain the most with the least, we look for
|
||
the explanation that requires the fewest deviations from the
|
||
background and the simplest (or most plausible) ways in which they
|
||
might deviate. And we look for the combination of such deviations
|
||
with the largest scope. The same beliefs and desires can cause many
|
||
different actions and beliefs, and thus, we prefer the rational
|
||
explanation of the action (or belief) in question that can also
|
||
explain other actions (or beliefs). The more of a person’s behavior
|
||
that a rational explanation can explain, the better the explanation,
|
||
other things being equal. </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">Though each
|
||
of us may use the empirical method to decide what to believe about
|
||
the reasons for a person’s behavior or beliefs, this may not lead
|
||
us to agree on which the explanation. The problem is that rational
|
||
explanation depends on reflection, rather than just perception. Each
|
||
of us must use our own processes of reasoning to judge which possible
|
||
reasons explain the most with the least. Those reasoning processes
|
||
involve our own beliefs about the world, the perceptions that we have
|
||
had, our own desires, values and what we have already decided to do
|
||
or believe on the basis of them. And the further what is being
|
||
explained is from the familiar, everyday actions and beliefs that we
|
||
have all made part of our way of viewing the world, the more
|
||
differences tend to show up in how we think. People have vastly
|
||
different views about the most general and basic issues, such as the
|
||
nature of the world, what is possible, where beings like us come
|
||
from, what is the purpose of life, what is good and bad, what to
|
||
strive for, what is worth worshiping, and the like. And such
|
||
differences extend into everyday actions and beliefs when those
|
||
giving the explanations come from different cultures. Since what is
|
||
the best rational explanation depends, in part, on which set of
|
||
background beliefs and goals the explainers themselves accept, the
|
||
empirical method does not, in general, make it possible to reach
|
||
agreement.</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">It is
|
||
widely recognized that the social sciences and humanities are not as
|
||
objective as the natural sciences. But that is not an indication of
|
||
any inherent weakness in the empirical method. It is, rather, an
|
||
indication of the difference between the forms of understanding that
|
||
are required for the explanations involved. Spatial imagination is
|
||
more uniform than rational imagination, and that makes it easier for
|
||
people to agree about which theory explains more with less. What the
|
||
relativism of the social sciences and humanities shows is not the
|
||
weakness of the empirical method, but the weakness of rational
|
||
explanation (at least, as long as we come from different cultures and
|
||
have different basic beliefs and values). </font></font>
|
||
</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"><i><b>O<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMOce_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="85" height="49" border="0">ntological-cause
|
||
explanations.</b></i> The empirical method can also be used in
|
||
philosophy (and science) by inferring to the best ontological-cause
|
||
explanation of the world. The nature of ontological explanation has
|
||
already been explained: it explains the existence of everything found
|
||
in the world by showing how it is constituted by basic substances and
|
||
the basic relationship by which they exist together as a world. </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">This
|
||
kind of explanation is intelligible to us because of our spatial
|
||
imagination (that is, the capacity to think coherently about spatial
|
||
relation and how they change as a result of motion). That is the same
|
||
capacity on which efficient-cause explanation depends. The difference
|
||
is that what is being explained by ontological explanations includes
|
||
the existence and basic traits of the objects found in the world,
|
||
such the fact that objects have spatial relations and that change is
|
||
possible, not just what happens to them. But an adequate ontology
|
||
must also be able to explain why (true) efficient-cause explanations
|
||
are true. The relationship between an efficient cause and its effect
|
||
is a kind of regular change, and an ontology must show how the
|
||
regularities described by the basic laws of physics can be just
|
||
aspects of basic substances enduring through time with the basic
|
||
relationship that makes them parts of the same world. That is how
|
||
ontological-cause explanations are more basic than efficient-cause
|
||
explanations -- they explain the premises of efficient-cause
|
||
explanations, both the laws of nature and the initial and/or boundary
|
||
conditions. . </font></font></font>
|
||
</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">Ontological
|
||
explanations differ from one another in the kinds of basic substances
|
||
they postulate and what they assume about how substance exist
|
||
together as a world, and empirical ontology decides which is true by
|
||
which offers the best ontological explanation of the world, that is,
|
||
which explains the most with the least. </font></font></font>
|
||
</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"><i>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMOceScope_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="62" height="27" border="0">cope.</i>
|
||
It might seem that ontological theories are all alike in scope,
|
||
because they all claim to explain the possibility of everything found
|
||
in the world. The failure to account for any aspect might be said to
|
||
show that it is not an ontological explanation at all, must less an
|
||
adequate one. This is not quite true, however, for two reasons.</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">First,
|
||
because there is a difference between <i>explaining </i>and merely
|
||
<i>assuming</i>. The causes by which an ontology explains the world
|
||
are the substances it postulates and the basic relationship it takes
|
||
them to have, and thus, to the extent that what is being explained
|
||
about the world is the same as what is assumed by the ontology, it is
|
||
not really explained, but merely assumed. To some extent, that may be
|
||
true of every possible ontology, but the best one will be, other
|
||
things being equal, the one in which more is explained and less is
|
||
merely assumed. That one has the greater scope.</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">The
|
||
second reason is that, in an ontological explanation, there is a
|
||
difference between explaining the possibilities of aspects of the
|
||
world and explaining their necessity, and the more aspects of the
|
||
world that are shown to be necessary, the better the ontological
|
||
explanation. </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">What an
|
||
ontology entails about the world holds necessarily. Though that
|
||
determines the range of what is possible, contingent aspects of the
|
||
world are left to be known though experience of what is actual. An
|
||
ontology does not itself explain why certain contingent conditions
|
||
are actual and others not; that requires an efficient-cause
|
||
explanations. However, since it must explain the <i>possibility </i>of
|
||
what is contingent, it may be said to "account for"
|
||
whatever falls within the range of the possible. </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">Thus, the
|
||
minimum requirement of an ontological explanation is that it, at
|
||
least, "accounts for" everything in the world (in the sense
|
||
of showing that it is possible). And if anything is found in the
|
||
world that could not exist, if the ontology were true, then the
|
||
ontology must be false. But ontologies that are not falsified may
|
||
differ in the range of what they show to be necessary and what they
|
||
imply is merely contingent. The principle of explaining the most by
|
||
the least would require those committed to the empirical method to
|
||
prefer ontological explanations in which more about the world is
|
||
shown to be necessary and less turns out to be merely contingent.
|
||
Thus, there is another possible difference in scope among ontological
|
||
theories</font></font></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"><i>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMOceSimp_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="66" height="27" border="0">implicity.</i>
|
||
The simplicity criterion requires us to prefer the explanation with
|
||
the simplest and fewest causes, other things being equal. In the case
|
||
of ontological causes, the explanation with the simplest and fewest
|
||
causes would be the one that postulates the simplest and fewest kinds
|
||
of basic substances and simplest basic relationship among them. Thus,
|
||
given two ontological explanations with the same scope, the empirical
|
||
method requires us to prefer the one that postulates the simpler
|
||
basic substances, the fewer kinds of basic substances, and the
|
||
simpler basic relationship among them.</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">Though
|
||
it is generally clear which theory has the fewer basic substances, it
|
||
may not be clear which kinds of basic substances and which basic
|
||
relationships are simpler. From what we have assumed about the
|
||
essential natures of basic substances and relationships, however,
|
||
there is one clear criterion. We have seen that the essential natures
|
||
of substances may be temporally simple or temporally complex,
|
||
depending on whether their essential properties exist fully at each
|
||
moment or they are dispositional and have to do with regularities
|
||
about how contingent properties change over time. And we have seen
|
||
that there are also such differences in the simplicity of the basic
|
||
relationship by which an ontology describes how they are parts of the
|
||
same world. Thus, given two ontological explanations with the same
|
||
scope and same number of kinds of basic substances, the empirical
|
||
method requires us to prefer the ontological explanation whose
|
||
substances have the simplest essential natures and the simplest basic
|
||
relationship to one another. </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">When
|
||
all these criteria weigh in for the same alternative, the empirical
|
||
method is decisive. But trade-offs among them can keep the empirical
|
||
method from telling us which ontological theory to believe. That does
|
||
not necessarily mean, however, that limitations in the mechanical
|
||
application of these criteria can be used to argue that no choice can
|
||
be made among theories in which there are trade-offs. It may still be
|
||
obvious, when specific trade-offs are considered, which one explains
|
||
the most with the least. </font></font></font>
|
||
</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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#800000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMRatMetho_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="138" height="31" border="0"><img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="EpistCmt" align="right" width="202" height="20" border="0">he
|
||
rational method.</b></font></font> For epistemological philosophy, by
|
||
contrast, the method of choosing what to believe is not the empirical
|
||
method, but the rational method. This is not quite the same as an
|
||
inference to the best rational-causal explanation, because what
|
||
epistemological philosophy needs in order to be a kind of philosophy
|
||
is a foundation from which to prove necessary truths about the world.
|
||
What makes epistemological philosophy different from ontological
|
||
philosophy is that it uses as its foundation a theory about the
|
||
nature of reason rather than a theory about the nature of the
|
||
substances constituting the world. And the necessity of its
|
||
implications comes down to their certainty, given the certainty of
|
||
the epistemological foundation. Its reliance on a theory about how we
|
||
know about the world is what earns it the name "epistemological"
|
||
philosophy (epistemology being, literally, the explanation of
|
||
knowing). Moreover, such a foundation is secured by reflecting on how
|
||
we know. As we have seen, reflection is what enables us to give
|
||
rational-case explanations of the beliefs and behavior of other
|
||
beings like use. But epistemological philosophy uses reflection to
|
||
explain how reason works in general. That is, it uses reason's own
|
||
power to reflect on how it works to defend a theory about how reason
|
||
works, rather than merely to say which reasons are responsible for
|
||
particular conclusions about what to believe or do.</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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Its
|
||
theory of how we know is supposed to show that certain truths must
|
||
hold of the world, and its success in using its foundation to prove
|
||
necessary truths about the world is called realism. Since it would
|
||
show that something exists beyond its epistemological foundation, it
|
||
typically leads to metaphysical dualism of one kind or another (as we
|
||
have seen in <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/L/LoOtdO17.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Ontology:
|
||
As realism</font></a></u></font>). </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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
theories about the nature of reason used by epistemological
|
||
philosophy are all based in one way of another on a faculty of
|
||
intuition, which is taken for granted. (The reason for this reliance
|
||
on intuition is explained in <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCbGeRRS10C.htm" target="Lo">Change:
|
||
Evolutionary stage 10: The career of epistemological philosophy</a></u></font>.)</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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
|
||
is, however, so little agreement in the history of philosophy about
|
||
the nature of reason that the best way to explain the rational method
|
||
of epistemological philosophy is to survey the main kinds of theories
|
||
about the nature of reason that have developed in the history of
|
||
philosophy. </font></font></font>
|
||
</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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>A<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMAncient_up" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="8" width="26" height="158" border="0">ncient
|
||
Philosophy.</b></i> Plato assumed that we know by a kind of intuition
|
||
in which the objects of knowledge are present to the subject. In the
|
||
case of perception, they are visible objects in space which can move
|
||
and interact with other objects, and these he assumed were parts of
|
||
what he called the "realm of Becoming." We also have a
|
||
capacity to reason about things, in which we understand their
|
||
natures, and the objects that are present to us in this way of
|
||
knowing are what Plato called the Forms, which he believed exist in a
|
||
realm of Being outside space and time. His "doctrine of
|
||
recollection" is a myth that explained this rational intuition
|
||
as resulting from our immortal souls having existed in the presence
|
||
of the Forms prior to our acquiring bodies in the realm of visible
|
||
objects. Since the objects of rational intuition are the natures that
|
||
we recognize in visible objects, he thought that the Forms were
|
||
responsible for visible objects having whatever natures they seemed
|
||
to have. Thus, by intuiting the Forms directly, we could know truths
|
||
about them that are necessary relative to perception, that is, our
|
||
ordinary way of knowing. That included knowing what is good about
|
||
visible objects, since the Forms were supposed to follow from The
|
||
Good Itself and visible objects were supposed to be striving to be
|
||
like their Forms.</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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Aristotle
|
||
also understood perception and reason as forms of intuition that make
|
||
their objects present to us, though he explained them differently.
|
||
Perception was supposed to be the result of our sensitive soul taking
|
||
on the same kinds of sensible forms that exist in the particular
|
||
substances, and reason was supposed to be the result of our rational
|
||
souls taking on the essential forms of the objects as a result of
|
||
"induction" from our perceptual experience of many
|
||
instances of their kinds. Knowing the essential form of an object
|
||
gives us knowledge of what holds necessarily, because according to
|
||
Aristotle, there are final causes at work in nature that make natural
|
||
substances change in the direction of an end state which is the
|
||
fullest actualization of their essential form. Not only does that
|
||
explain certain changes that they undergo, but it also tells us what
|
||
is good for them. This knowledge, Aristotle argued, was prior to the
|
||
received, ordinary ways of knowing the true and the good.</font></font></font></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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>M<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMMed_up" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="8" width="26" height="158" border="0">edieval
|
||
philosophy.</b></i> Medieval philosophy is basically a continuation
|
||
of Platonic dualism, except that The Good Itself, or a Form, is
|
||
replaced by God, or a person. Thus, it retains the theory about the
|
||
nature of reason on which ancient epistemological philosophy was
|
||
based. If anything was new in the Medieval period, it was how the new
|
||
view about the nature of the transcendent being was used to argue for
|
||
its existence. And the main reason that these argument for the
|
||
existence of God were not compelling in the end is that they are
|
||
based on the assumption that principles recognized to be valid within
|
||
the natural world can be applied to the natural world as a whole. </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">The
|
||
belief that every event has an efficient cause can be used, for
|
||
example, to show that there must be a first cause, when it is assumed
|
||
that the world as a whole is an event to be explained. Final
|
||
causation affords a similar proof of the existence of God. Given that
|
||
every natural change within space and time has a final cause, it
|
||
could be argued that there must be a final cause of the natural world
|
||
as a whole, as long as it was assumed that the world as a whole is a
|
||
kind of natural change and can be explained by the same principle.
|
||
The argument from design works in the same way. Given that artifacts
|
||
can change for the sake of an end that is good for them only because
|
||
they are designed to do so by their creator, the fact that nature
|
||
itself involves change for the sake of ends that are good could be
|
||
used to show that there is a creator who designed the natural world
|
||
to bring about such ends. Even the argument from the recognition of a
|
||
difference between better and worse to the existence of something
|
||
that is best can be used to show the existence of God when it is
|
||
assumed that the world as a whole is not the best. </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">The
|
||
ontological argument was the most original use of the rational method
|
||
in the medieval period to prove the existence of God, and given our
|
||
assumptions about the nature of existence, we can see the fallacy
|
||
involved in it. As Anselm put it, since we can think of being "than
|
||
which none greater can be conceived," God exists. For if the
|
||
being we are thinking of did not exist, there would be a greater
|
||
being, namely, one with all the same perfections we were thinking of
|
||
plus existing. The premise of this argument is that absolute
|
||
perfection entails existence. But if existence and essence are the
|
||
two basic aspects of the nature of substance as substance, existence
|
||
is not entailed by perfection, for perfection characterizes a things
|
||
essential nature and that is a different aspect of any substance from
|
||
its existential nature. The perfect being would exist only if he is a
|
||
substance, and not just a conceivable essence. </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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This is not
|
||
quite Kant’s critique of the ontological argument, for he argued
|
||
that existence is not a property at all. On our theory about the
|
||
nature of substance, existence is a property, albeit a very basic
|
||
property — as basic as having an essence is. Having both properties
|
||
is what makes something a substance.</font></font></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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>M<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMMod_up" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="8" width="25" height="158" border="0">odern
|
||
philosophy.</b></i> Modern philosophers had a fundamentally different
|
||
theory about how we know, for they had given up naïve realism about
|
||
perception and recognized that the appearance of the natural world in
|
||
perception is part of the subject, which they understood as ideas in
|
||
an immaterial mind. That was also to give up the belief that reason
|
||
is a direct intuition of Forms existing independently of the mind.
|
||
But on reflection, they found certain ideas in the mind whose truth
|
||
they could not doubt, and such so-called clear and distinct ideas
|
||
were taken to be truths that hold necessarily. Descartes believed
|
||
that clear and distinct ideas enabled him to prove (by way of proving
|
||
the existence of God) that a natural world exists independently of
|
||
the mind and is the cause of our perceptions. He also believed that
|
||
this showed that the natural world has the essential nature of
|
||
extension, and thus, he claimed that philosophy provided knowledge
|
||
about the natural world that is necessary, relative to what is known
|
||
by perception. Since rational knowledge is prior to what is known by
|
||
experience, Descartes believed that he had justified the method of
|
||
modern science as a way of learning the details of natural
|
||
mechanisms. Other rationalists, such as Spinoza and Leibniz, argued
|
||
from similar theories about the nature of reason to necessary truths
|
||
about the natural world. </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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Kant
|
||
defended necessary truths about the natural world on a theory about
|
||
how we know that sees the mind as constituting in part what is known,
|
||
including the natural world investigated by science. Thus, Kant could
|
||
argue that the part of what is known that depends on the mind’s
|
||
contribution is <i>a priori</i> knowledge about the natural world,
|
||
holding universally and necessarily relative to what perception
|
||
discloses about what is actual in the world, or what he called
|
||
synthetic <i>a priori</i>. </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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Kant’s
|
||
theory of knowledge forced him to deny that we could know the real
|
||
nature of things in themselves, that is, what really exists
|
||
independently of mind, but Hegel adapted Kant’s theory of knowledge
|
||
in a way that enabled him to claim for philosophy the power to know
|
||
the real nature of the world. He assumed that that the object of
|
||
knowledge was entirely constituted by a mental substance through what
|
||
he called dialectical reason, and thus, by reflecting on the nature
|
||
of dialectical reason, Hegel also thought that it was possible to
|
||
show what holds necessarily about the world, relative to what is
|
||
known by science or other ordinary ways of knowing.</font></font></font></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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>C<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdeMContemp_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="25" height="158" border="0">ontemporary
|
||
philosophy.</b></i> Even contemporary analytic philosophy had a
|
||
rational method of knowing what is necessary about the world. They
|
||
assumed that as users of language, we know the meanings and reference
|
||
of the terms and sentences we use. Though we can use language to
|
||
describe what we observe in the world and, thereby, follow the
|
||
empirical method in science, they argued that there are certain
|
||
truths that hold necessarily about the world because they are
|
||
entailed by the meanings of the terms we use. Thus, analytic
|
||
philosophy had a rational method for justifying necessary truths,
|
||
though it was much less ambitious than earlier kinds of epistemology,
|
||
because what is necessary was limited to analytic truths. </font></font></font>
|
||
</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; background: #66ccff; border-top: 6.75pt double #000080; border-bottom: 6.75pt double #808080; border-left: 6.75pt double #808080; border-right: 6.75pt double #808080; padding: 0.28cm 0.46cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
each era, there have also been skeptics about the rational method,
|
||
especially when they entailed kinds of ontological dualism, such as
|
||
form and matter and mind and body, in which it was hard to explain
|
||
how the two different kinds of substances could be related as parts
|
||
of the same world. The inability to answer those skeptics led to
|
||
doubts about the rational method itself and ultimately to the demise
|
||
of epistemological philosophy.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<div id="sdendnote1">
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western" style="margin-top: 0cm"><a class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote1sym" href="#sdendnote1anc">i</a><sup>[1]</sup>
|
||
It might be argued that ontological philosophy relies on only one
|
||
assumption, naturalism, because the other two assumptions might be
|
||
shown to be consequences of it. We are defining naturalism as the
|
||
assumption that the world is just what exists in space and time.
|
||
Since that is an ontological definition, we might already be
|
||
committed to explaining the natural world by substances and the
|
||
relations among them, for we will need self-subsistent entities of
|
||
some kind to explain its existence. Thus, naturalists already
|
||
accept, in effect, the validity of ontological explanation. And
|
||
since the world of objects in space and time we mean is the one that
|
||
is disclosed to us by perception, we might already be committed to
|
||
using what is perceived as evidence in choosing what to believe
|
||
about it. Thus, naturalists already accept the empirical method,
|
||
assuming that the standard of the best explanation is implicitly in
|
||
the nature of the explanation being given. Hence, naturalism might
|
||
be said to be the sole assumption for the foundation of ontological
|
||
philosophy. But the argument is not put that way here, because to
|
||
start by trying to defend a way of knowing about the world (or a way
|
||
of explaining it) as implicit in naturalism would obscure the
|
||
difference between ontological and epistemological philosophy. In
|
||
the present context, it is better simply to distinguish the three
|
||
assumptions and make them independently, since they are all equally
|
||
plausible.</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western"> </p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html> |