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NEO-ARISTOTELIAN-WITTGENSTEINIAN : THE OF THE , PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLANATION, AND CATEGORIAL

by

Alexander James

A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of

Baltimore, Maryland

March, 2015

© 2015 Alexander James All Rights Reserved

Abstract

If we regard the investigation into “grammar” and “ordinary ” in the

Wittgensteinian tradition as concerned, not with sentences, but with

(as this is roughly understood in the historically foundational work of the analytic tradition), and if we eschew the suggestion that Wittgenstein has a “theory of ”, and regard him, instead, as meaning in a non-reductive way, the result would be a meta-philosophical framework that allows us to see this tradition as continuous (at a meta-philosophical level) with certain Socratic and

Aristotelian paradigms of inquiry in . Once this link is established, the Wittgensteinian tradition can then be seen, implicitly, to contain the foundations for a neo-Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian-analytic ontology. I, explicitly, define and develop this ontology.

Some of the conclusions, which emerge from this neo-Aristotelian-

Wittgensteinian ontological framework, are as follows: (i) There is a fundamental distinction between the human and the natural world. (ii) The human , and his irreducible powers of and , belong to the human world, whereas the physiology of the human being belongs to the natural world. (iii) The natural world (which includes the sui generis animal, merely biological and merely physical domains, respectively) is not unified by any positive characteristic, but is bound together only by its privative-contrast with the human world: thus, the natural world cannot be defined as the “realm of law”. (iv) Both Cartesian dualism and post-Cartesian materialistic-, despite their ontical disagreements,

ii ascribe to one and the same understanding of the of organization and character of the basic categorial domains of . (v) So-called “philosophical ” concerning something’s “place in” the “natural world”, e.g., the problem of “free-” or problem of “” or the problem of “life”, are by-passed and overcome, but not by showing that these problems arise from confusions concerning “uses of ”, but by showing that these problems, together with their characteristic

“solutions”, are themselves a of this false ontology. Once this ontology is replaced with a “neo-Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian” one, such problems do not arise.

Committee Members: Professor Michael Williams, Professor Meredith Williams,

Professor Richard Bett, Professor Leonardo Lisi, Professor Paola Marrati

iii

Preface and Acknowledgements

The Wittgensteinian tradition has succeeded in working out a relatively clear understanding of what a Wittgensteinian philosophy of and what a

Wittgensteinian would be. What this tradition lacks is a clearly defined understanding of what a Wittgensteinian ontology would be, i.e., an ontology that would reflect the thought of the later Wittgenstein. In this dissertation,

I aim to initiate measures to address that gap in our understanding. With the addition of a Wittgensteinian ontology, our understanding of the and epistemology would only become more coherent and systematically unified.

Moreover, an understanding of all three is needed, I think, for understanding

Wittgenstein’s in the right light.

Is the fact that we do not currently possess a Wittgensteinian ontology a that traditional ontology is somehow foreign to the very character of Wittgenstein’s thought, such that the of such a thing would be a ? Or, is it rather due to our not having clearly perceived the route by which we should go about bringing it to light? I suggest the latter explanation. Wittgenstein’s work represents the greatest philosophical achievement of the 20th century, and we need an ontology that reflects this achievement. With the articulation of such an ontology, we will also attain a clearer understanding of the relation between Wittgenstein’s work and the philosophical tradition: Wittgenstein does not make a radical break with the

“philosophical tradition”, understood in some static manner: rather, Wittgenstein’s

iv work deepens and enriches our understanding of some of the philosophical tradition’s most traditional and historically original elements.

There are numerous people who have helped me throughout this long philosophical journey.

I want to thank my friends, my colleagues, and my students for countless conversations regarding many of the themes that appear in this dissertation.

I am grateful to Richard Bett for his feedback during the later stages of this project, and, most of all, for introducing me to , without whom, I would not know my way about, philosophically speaking. I want to thank Leonardo Lisi for conversations regarding Kierkegaard and his place in the history of philosophy.

Sean Greenberg helped to bring my attention to the importance of the history of philosophy for our understanding of contemporary philosophical problems. I’m grateful to Eckart Förster for introducing me to Heidegger: reading Heidegger helped me to think about what it might mean to frame Wittgenstein’s later work as a contribution to ontology. I want to thank Maura Tumulty for numerous discussions regarding the work of Wittgenstein.

I gained invaluable philosophical instruction at the University of Chicago, where I studied with James Conant, , Michael Forster, Robert Pippin, the late Leonard Linsky, the late Ted Cohen, the late John Haugeland, along with

Stanley Cavell and during their visiting appointments. It was a privilege to be a part of the “Graduate Workshop on Wittgenstein” for the last two years I was an undergraduate; and also to participate in Leonard Linsky’s extra-

v curricular reading group on On and Philosophical Investigations. During many of these meetings, it was often only the two of us. Both James Conant and

Jonathan Lear have continued to provide me with feedback on my work. Jonathan

Lear read and provided comments on an earlier version of Chapter 4.

Finally, I want to express my deepest gratitude to Meredith Williams and

Michael Williams for their instruction, feedback and support over the years.

Meredith Williams’s and Michael Williams’s philosophical work allowed me to see that the substance of Wittgenstein’s thought went beyond “therapeutic diagnosis”, and primarily involved what is called “theoretical diagnosis”. Furthermore, both

Meredith Williams and Michael Williams provided, in different areas of philosophy, theoretical diagnoses of classic philosophical problems in contemporary philosophical terms. This example led me to explore how Wittgenstein’s thought might implicitly contain a philosophical paradigm that could and should become standard in . Without the models of their work to guide and inspire me, this dissertation would have never been possible; it was by engaging with their work that I first began to understand what it means to articulate the achievements of Wittgenstein in a traditional form and then to do philosophy in a way that reflects these achievements.

vi

Table of Contents

Abstract, ii

Preface and Acknowledgements, iv

List of Figures, viii

Introduction, p. 1

Chapter 1: Foundations, p. 21

Chapter 2: Neo-Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian Ontology, p. 190

Chapter 3: Four Contemporary , p. 289

Chapter 4: The Socratic-Aristotelian Tradition, p. 317

Bibliography, p. 372

Biography, p. 383

vii

List of Figures:

Figure 1: p. 31 Figure 2: 191 Figure 3: 192 Figure 4: 193 Figure 5: 194 Figure 6: p. 342 Figure 7: p. 343 Figure 8: p. 345

viii The consequences---for …of a decision on the question whether the categoremata are charged or uncharged, are widely ramified and virtually uninvestigated. (Fred Sommers)

In an important sense, he [Wittgenstein] unwittingly revived (breathed fresh life into) the Aristotelian tradition. (P. M. S. Hacker)

In order to know an , I must know not its external but all its internal qualities. ()

ix

Introduction

In the original conception of , circa 1900, the proposition was given a central role both ontologically and meta-philosophically. Philosophy itself was understood as the analysis of elements of propositions as elements of propositions, in light of an understanding of the basic forms, notions and structures that govern those elements. However, Russell regarded the proposition as having a

Fregean logical form, and the understanding of the character of human was, in this historical period, in no small part, influenced by early modern/modern conceptions of the mind and by models of progress afforded by mathematics, and the natural .

In Chapter 1, “Foundations”, I argue that if we critically consider some of the best work in the Wittgensteinian tradition over the last 60 years, what we shall see is that, taken together, this tradition would have little reason to object to the understanding of the proposition and of analysis in the founding work of the analytic tradition. For, philosophy is, in fact, well characterized in an early-analytic manner as the analysis of elements of propositions as elements of propositions, in light of an understanding of the basic forms, structures and notions that govern those elements.1 What this tradition would have reason to object to, however, is the

1 See G. E. Moore, “The 1898 Dissertation: The Metaphysical Basis of ” in Early Philosophical Writings (: Cambridge University Press, 2011) Kindle File, Chapter II: Reason, and G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica: (Lexicos, 2011) Kindle File, Preface and Chapter 1; see, also, , A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900), p. 8, and Bertrand Russell, The of Mathematics (New York: Norton, 1996) pp. 42-52. “In the preceding investigation the ‘proposition’ was used as an ultimate term…Our object will be now to show that, whatever name be given to it, that which we call a proposition is…something of fundamental importance for philosophy.” (“The 1898 Dissertation: The Metaphysical Basis of Ethics”

1 understanding early-analytic philosophy had of logical-form, of mind, and of human knowledge that generally accompanied this conception of philosophy and the proposition. For, it was arguably the corrupting influence of the various false positions in these surrounding areas of philosophy that this otherwise reasonable meta-philosophical conception off in the wrong direction.

As wisely remarks in The , it is not possible to separate one’s understanding of meta-philosophy from one’s understanding of any other major field in philosophy: one cannot do meta-philosophy in isolation, first, and then move on to other areas. One’s meta-philosophy is itself dependent on one’s epistemology, one’s philosophy of mind, and one’s philosophy of thought/language.

And these branches are themselves dependent on one another. Of course, what this means that one has little but to make assumptions in many fields at once; there is no getting around the need for a total view. Simply because one does not

“do” ontology or epistemology, or whatever it happens to be, this does not mean that one does not implicitly have quite consequential assumptions about basic issues in such a field; for, it is by no means clear that it is even possible to “bracket” one’s assumptions about one major field, while doing work in another: one can decide not to confront the assumptions that one implicitly does have; but that’s quite different from simply not having a view at all.2 By “bracketing” assumptions, one’s position does not become more scrupulous; rather, one’s position simply

in Early Philosophical Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) Kindle File, Chapter II: Reason) 2 Rorty, Richard, “Metaphilosophical Difficulties of Linguistic Philosophy” in The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method: with Two Retrospective Essays, edited by Richard Rorty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) pp. 1-4

2 becomes less clear. And if too many satellite assumptions are bracketed, one’s position can become simply so vague that one ceases to have any position at all.

The present suggestion, then, is that if we were to re-appropriate the early- analytic understanding of analysis and the proposition, and combine it with an otherwise straightforwardly Wittgensteinian3 paradigm of thought---specifically, with a Wittgensteinian understanding of logical form, epistemology, mind and ontology--- then we would have the right point of departure. But what do I mean in speaking of a

Wittgensteinian conception of mind, epistemology, ontology and logical form? The field of Wittgenstein scholarship is large enough that it would be too difficult to make generalizations. I will, thus, simply stipulate that a Wittgensteinian conception of mind would be found in Meredith Williams’s work on language learning4 and in P.

M. S. Hacker’s work in philosophical anthropology, specifically his neo-Aristotelian conception of the mind, in which the mind is the set of powers of , cogitation, volition and of a human being.5 I will stipulate that

Wittgenstein’s understanding of knowledge would be found in Michael Williams’s contextualist epistemology.6 I will stipulate that a Wittgensteinian conception of logical form would be found in the work of Fred Sommers’s neo-Aristotelian logical system.7 But didn’t the later Wittgenstein reject the notion of logical form altogether? What I want to suggest, with Sommers, is that all that was rejected, in fact, was a straightforwardly Fregean understanding of logical form. In this sense,

3 By “Wittgensteinian”, I generally am referring to the work of the later Wittgenstein. 4 See Williams, Meredith, Blind Obedience: Paradox and Learning in the Later Wittgenstein (New York: , 2009) Kindle File 5 P. M. S. Hacker, Human : The Categorial Framework (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2010) 6 Michael Williams, Problems of Knowledge: a Critical Introduction to Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) and Unnatural Doubts (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1996) 7 Fred Sommers, The Logic of Natural Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982)

3 the criticisms of Fregean logic in the Wittgensteinian tradition should really be situated within the larger, fundamental, divergence between the Stoic/Fregean conception of logic and the Aristotelian one.8

The resulting Wittgensteinian conception of philosophy would then diverge from the historically founding conception of analytic philosophy in three basic ways.

First, the proposition, pace Russell, would be regarded as simply having the logical form that it appears to have; that is, the proposition would be regarded as having a - form, in which negation governs as opposed to whole propositions. Such a conception of logical form is non-Fregean and quasi-

Aristotelian. Second, the mind would be understood in a neo-Aristotelian manner.

Third, human knowledge would be understood as contextualist, and non-scientific knowledge would be regarded as central to our understanding of what human knowledge is. In this way, we make explicit the background of our meta-philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and logic, all at once, something we have no choice but to do, assuming Rorty is correct.

One major area of philosophy that is absent from this list is “ontology”. What contemporary can I stipulate as a representative for a “Wittgensteinian ontology”? One of the for writing this dissertation is to address this gap in our understanding of Wittgenstein’s later thought. We need an understanding of the ontology that is either implicitly or explicitly contained in the thought of the later

Wittgenstein. Otherwise, we will be left with a fundamental gap in our conception of

8 See Horn, Laurence, R., A Natural History of Negation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), Chapter 1, and David Oderberg, editor, The Old New Logic, edited by David S. Oderberg with a foreword by P. F. Strawson (Cambridge, MIT, 2005), Preface and Acknowledgments and Foreword

4 what a total Wittgensteinian view would be.

There are reasons to think that the thought of the later Wittgenstein is incompatible with the very idea of ontology. This derives in part from the thought that Wittgenstein has a “use theory of meaning”. According to this conception, we do not need to “assume” the “” of “forms”, “” and “universals” in order to make sense of the meaning of words that figure in the predicates of simple sentences; for the meaning of these words is simply given in their “use” in the

“language-”. I shall address these objections in Chapter 1, and I will try to paint a quite different picture of Wittgenstein’s interest in “use” and “language” and

“meaning”. I do not think that Wittgenstein has a “theory of meaning” at all, let alone a “use theory”. For, there is reason to think that Wittgenstein regards meaning in a non-reductive manner, as a basic notion that is not to be reductively explained in terms of other notions.

It’s one thing to say, however, that Wittgenstein’s thought is not incompatible with the idea of ontology; but it’s another to suggest that his thought contains an ontology. Where, then, shall we look for a positive ontological conception?

One clue in the search for an answer is to remind ourselves that the thought of the Wittgensteinian tradition is partly characterized by an interest in philosophical and in the notion of category confusion. Moreover,

Sommers has argued that it is only when the proposition is regarded in a quasi-

Aristotelian manner, in which negation is regarded as governing predicables, as opposed to whole propositions, that the very idea of philosophical categories and categorial structure, comes into view as philosophically intelligible. In fact, the lack

5 of sensitivity to or interest in philosophical categories in Fregean-dominated analytic-philosophy is, in no small part, owing to this Fregean distortion of the structure of the proposition.

One of the central themes one finds in the works of ordinary language philosophers is the apparent disregard or eschewal of the Fregean understanding of logical form. Ordinary language philosophers and the later Wittgenstein, by and large, regarded sentences as having the structure or form that they actually appear to have. However, one marked disadvantage of ordinary language philosophy was that it seemingly divorced its understanding of what philosophy is from traditional understandings of the subject. In some of the well-known metaphilosophical pronouncements, ordinary language philosophers and Wittgenstein officially regarded philosophy as occupied with “uses of words”, and this conception appeared to represent a radical departure from the self-understanding of traditional philosophy. In the traditional Aristotelian understanding of the subject, for example, philosophy is regarded as fundamentally concerned with “”: and in the

Socratic-Platonic understanding of the subject, philosophy is regarded as fundamentally concerned with “forms”.

I suggest, however, that by privileging the founding-analytic conception of the proposition, such that we interpret the Wittgensteinian grammatical-categorial investigation as concerned with propositions and their elements as opposed to with sentences and words, we will be able to appreciate how the Wittgensteinian grammatical-investigation and the formal-causal and categorial investigations of early-Aristotle and Socrates (as represented by early ) belong to one unified

6 form of philosophical inquiry. The original understanding of the proposition in analytic philosophy thus provides the bridge by means of which to overcome the illusory divide between the most profound work of ancient philosophy and the 20th century.

The Wittgensteinian tradition was notorious for regarding philosophy and philosophical problems as diseases/sicknesses/illnesses to be diagnosed and cured or simply prevented. Now, on our conceptualization, so-called “philosophical problems” will, in fact, be regarded as inherently confused forms of thought, and the categorial background against which these problems have their life, along with the classic responses to these problems, will be regarded as misguided. Nevertheless, as we shall argue, there is still very much such a, clear and distinct, thing as a

“philosophical question”: and there is still very much such a, clear and distinct, thing as the philosophical , which can be discovered in philosophical inquiry. Thus, our re-conceptualization allows us to regard Wittgenstein’s notorious criticisms of the tradition as directed not against philosophy and philosophical inquiry/questioning, as such, but only against certain misguided understandings of philosophy and philosophical inquiry, as well as against certain misguided pictures of mind, humanity, and knowledge that traditionally hung together with certain metaphilosophical understandings in the history of philosophy.

Within the of philosophical problems, I distinguish between two basic kinds of “‘how-possible’ problems”: “‘how-possible?’ attribute problems” and “‘how- possible?’ existence problems”. Regarding the latter, I argue that there are two basic kinds of diagnostic/therapeutic approaches in analytic philosophy: (i) a “Russellian

7 diagnosis/treatment” (I use this expression in a broad sense to include not only

Russell’s own work, but also related movements such as “”) and a (ii)

“Wittgensteinian diagnosis/treatment”. The (i) “Russellian diagnosis/treatment” leaves our basic Cartesian or post-Cartesian materialist categorial-ontology intact, but argues that the “form” of our language is radically different than it appears to be: thus, what appears to be a “commitment” to a “mysterious entity” is only the illusion of a commitment (we are thus “off the hook”). By contrast, the (ii) “Wittgenstein diagnosis/treatment” accepts that the form of our language is just as it appears to be

(i.e., it has a simple subject-predicable form); however, “Wittgensteinian diagnosis/treatment” rejects the impoverished categorial-ontology that gives rise to the problem in the first place, and it replaces it with a superior (neo-Aristotelian) one.

It also regards the very idea of a “mysterious entity” as an idea that is itself based on categorial-confusion: such an idea arises from the conflation between true non-

Substances with fictional, degenerate, Substances; it would thus be wrong to say

“mysterious entities don’t exist”; for, to describe something as a “mysterious entity” or as a “non-mysterious entity” is not even a coherent of something.

Russellian and Wittgenstein approaches to diagnosis/treatment are not compatible, and it is typically a sign of confusion when philosophers attempt to combine them.

Although there is no such (clear and distinct) thing as a “philosophical problem”, there are, however, three basic Socratic-Aristotelian philosophical questions: (i) “What is x?” (the formal-cause of x), (ii) “What kind of thing is x?” (the category and categorial grammar of x), and (iii) “Does X exist?” (the intelligibility of x in a proposition). All three philosophical questions are all defined as inquiries into

8 elements of propositions as elements of propositions, in light of the basic structures, forms and notions that govern these elements. To study an of a proposition as an element of a proposition is to study the element’s “internal nature”, i.e., the nature the element has as a propositional element “in” the proposition. We can also explicitly investigate the basic notions and categorial-grammatical structures that govern these elements and that give them their essential nature.

The internal nature of the object is “re-collected”; i.e., we “collect-again” what is always already collected in the way it is necessarily collected, given the categorial- grammatical structures and basic notions that govern these elements, as they figure in the proposition. The “external nature” of the object, by contrast, is the nature the object has over and above its figuring in the proposition; the object’s external nature cannot, thus, be ascertained by “re-collection”. One and the same entity, e.g.,

Socrates, can have both an internal and an external nature. E.g., we can say externally that Socrates is an Athenian, but internally that Socrates is a Substance. The latter claim is the sort of thing the early Wittgenstein would have regarded as “shown”

(and, hence, “nonsensical” to assert). The truth of the internal claim, I shall suggest

(drawing on work by Aristotle, Sommers, and Wittgenstein) is given, always already, by the categorial-grammar of the element Socrates, as Socrates figures in the proposition. What shows us Socrates’ Category, in re-collection, is, as we shall say, the “Dimensions” that Socrates, regarded as an element of a proposition, has or doesn’t have, as an element in the proposition. We are neither responsible for

Philosophical Categories, nor do we put things into Philosophical Categories. And we do not learn via natural history what Philosophical Categories there are. As the later

9 Wittgenstein says, Philosophical Categories, and the Categorial Grammar, that underpins them, hang together with certain very general facts of nature. The

Categorial-Grammar might conceivably undergo a transformation only when or if our understanding of these very general facts also changes. In any case, such “what if?” questions are difficult even to know how coherently to formulate, since our understanding of what does and doesn’t make sense hangs together with the very general facts. Thus, we cannot “bracket” the sense of our propositions while envisioning the general facts to be “different”; and we cannot coherently envision certain general facts to be “different”, if these facts are a condition on our making sense.

Reality is the totality of facts. Facts are what are known in having knowledge: facts thus comprise our body of knowledge. “Non-scientifically” acquired,

“everyday”, knowledge is not a form of proto-scientific or false-scientific . Our everyday, non-scientifically acquired, knowledge contributes to the “frame of reference”, which hangs together with our grammatical structures: for, there is a connection between certain “very general facts” and our “grammar”. If ordinary, non-scientifically acquired, knowledge were merely “as-if”, then our scientific knowledge would be “as-if”, as well. What is “real” needn’t be defined in terms of the material constitution of things. We might say that Worldly reality has physical material-causes, but these physical material-causes needn’t be defined as their true

“reality”. It only appears otherwise when non-physical facts (concerning the activities, e.g., of humans, animals or plants), which are accepted as conventionally correct “ways of describing things”, are nevertheless ultimately thought to imply or

10 rest on various false scientific theories concerning the workings or substrata of the entities that figure in such facts. But such rest on a failure to distinguish between philosophy and , between material and formal causes, and between what is scientific, un-scientific, proto-scientific and simply non-scientific.

Those elements of propositions that are “rooted in reality”, are those elements that figure not only in clear and distinct and known (natural and social) scientific propositions, but also in clear and distinct and known non-scientifically acquired propositions.

Chapter 2, “Neo-Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian Ontology”, outlines the neo-

Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian ontology that follows from the determination of the meta-philosophical issues treated in Chapter 1. This ontology involves (i) a categorial taxonomy of “anything” and (ii) a categorial “chain of being” of Worldly domains.

Regarding the categorial taxonomy of “anything”, the highest genus is

“something or nothing”. “Anything” is thus a purely nominal genus. The basic division within “something” is between “the categorematic (i.e., things)” and “the syncategorematic (i.e., non-things)”. The “categorematic” divides into “substances” and “non-substances”. “Non-substances” divide into properties, action-types, event- types, and kinds (i.e., non-substances), on the one hand, and events, actions, states of affairs and propositions (i.e., particular non-substances), on the other. “Substances” divide into “living” and “non-living things”; “living things” divide into “humans”, “animals”, and “plants”.

Regarding the “chain of being”, Worldly Reality divides into a number of sui

11 generis categorial Worldly domains. There are the physical, merely biological, animal, human and artifactual Worldly domains, respectively. At a more general level, there is a division between the human world and the natural world. The so- called “supernatural world” is not a clear and distinct idea, and thus there is no that something may either be contained or not contained in the

“supernatural world”. The “natural world” thus does not contrast with “supernatural world”, but with “human world”.

There are two basic failures of categorial understanding that typify the

Cartesian dualistic and post-Cartesian materialistic periods: there has been (i) a failure to acknowledge the existence of the human world, as such; there has been (ii) a tendency to interpret all of these sui generis domains as species of the artifactual domain.

One way to illustrate my positive position regarding the layout of the “chain of being” is to consider the “problem of freewill”. The standard way of framing the problem derives from Kant, in which there is a fundamental dichotomy between a natural and “supernatural” world: all Worldly reality falls into one or the other domains. And so Kant’s assumption is that if there were such a thing as free human action, then it would have to find a place as either a natural or “supernatural” phenomenon. Standard libertarian positions regard human free-action as a

“supernatural” phenomenon. Standard deterministic positions deny the existence of the supernatural world and regard the human being as a mere part of nature.

Standard compatibilist positions deny the “existence” of the supernatural world and accept, with determinists, that the human being is merely a part of nature;

12 nevertheless, compatibilists maintain that a human being can still be “said” to be free, since our “talk” of “freedom” or the “lack thereof” is still a legitimate “way of talking”.

However, my view aims to overturn, via the positive, robust, neo-Aristotelian-

Wittgensteinian ontology, the paradigmatic background assumptions that give this

“problem”, and its three characteristic “solutions”, any hold on our cultural consciousness in the first place. According to the neo-Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian ontology, humans are not “natural beings”; human are human beings; we are part of the human world. And our ability to perform free actions is just a basic fact of human reality. Humans have the Dimension of Freedom, and this is grounded not in a mere

“way of talking” about ourselves (i.e., a convention), but in actual-factual powers, which we possess as human beings. The events and states of affairs of the sui generis human world are part of reality, as it is in itself. It is certainly the case that the human being is material-causally, i.e., biologically, constituted by nothing other than our physiology; and this physiology lacks the Dimension of Freedom; however, what a human being “really” is is not what a human being is biologically constituted by.

Humans are not, first and foremost, biological organisms; nor are we, first and foremost, animals. For, what we “really” are are human beings. Our nervous system must function in the normal way it functions if it is to be biologically possible for a human to exercise his capacity for free action. But our exercising this capacity is not a phenomenon of biology, but a phenomenon of humanity.

The fact that our basic human powers of reason and action are not reducible to the animal, biological, artifactual or physical domains, respectively, does not

13 entail that these powers are, in some deep sense, “mysterious”. For, it is simply a non sequitur that a power is non-mysterious only if it can be shown to belong to a domain other than the human domain. Such an is itself a symptom of the shadow cast by the ontological-categorial figure of Cartesian thought; for Cartesian and post-Cartesian materialistic ontology obliterates the human world altogether, leaving space only for natural or “supernatural” phenomena: but, again, distinctively human phenomena are neither natural nor “supernatural”: they are human.

Because Wittgenstein’s work is to some extent rhetorically framed as a

“linguistic philosophy”, it is easy to regard Wittgenstein’s position as akin to a standard form of compatibilism: on such a reading, Wittgenstein accepts the post-

Cartesian materialist metaphysics that regards the human being as a merely natural being or machine, but nevertheless insists that “ordinary language is perfectly fine as its stands”: we should thus persist in linguistically distinguishing between free and un-free actions, as a kind of perfectly acceptable “convention”; at the same ,

“we all really know” the “convention” is not itself reflective of any underlying reality.

But this of Wittgenstein would, I think, be mistaken. I want to suggest that Wittgenstein ought to be read as embracing the reality of the human world, while rejecting both the dualistic conception of Descartes and the materialistic- naturalism of post-Cartesian thinkers. For, both Cartesian dualism and post-Cartesian materialistic-naturalism, despite their ontical disagreements, ascribe to one and the same confused understanding of the logically-possible-layout of the categories of domains in the ontological chain-of-being: for, both parties regard reality as fundamentally divided between the “supernatural” and the natural (and both regard

14 the natural realm as fundamentally inhospitable to authentically biological and animal phenomena). The “ontical” pertains to what exists or doesn’t exist within a category of entities, which is taken for granted in advance; by contrast, the

“ontological” pertains to the nature, intelligibility and legitimacy of categories of entities, as such. Thus, we can say that although Cartesian dualistic and post-

Cartesian materialist philosophers disagree about the ontical, they quite literally share one and the same ontology.

Against this confused (Cartesian/post-Cartesian) ontology, Wittgenstein can be interpreted as laying the groundwork for a superior one. It is just a basic fact that humans exist as human beings (i.e., as neither natural nor supernatural beings, but as belonging to a sui generis category); moreover, one of the defining features of the category of “the human” is the power of free action. Furthermore, our non-scientific knowledge of ourselves as free beings in the human world actually constitutes part of what Wittgenstein calls our “frame of reference”, which in turn hangs together with the foundations of our categorial grammar; and this grammar in turn makes possible the very intelligibility of the grammars that underpin our categorial understanding of facts that distinctively pertain to the natural scientific domains of inquiry. And, thus, if we can make sense of natural scientific facts as natural scientific facts at all, then we must accept that human beings exist as human beings in an irreducible sense.

Another categorial-ontological blind-spot characteristic of both Cartesian and post-Cartesian-naturalistic thought stems from an inability to conceptualize in an adequate manner the sui generis character of the biological realm. The parts of

15 plants and animals, and the processes that take place within them, are intrinsically functional, and can function well or poorly relative to the fact that a living being is something that can flourish or not, as defined by its norm of flourishing; the proper functioning of these parts contributes to “the good” of the organism, where the good of the organism is defined as the organism’s conditions of flourishing. Flourishing itself is defined as the form of proper or right balance of the homeostatic bio-systems relative to a natural-historical reference point. What is natural in a biological sense is thus what is normative. The “natural history” of an animal is the set of natural- norms for that animal in the place where the animal is meant to dwell. This normativity is intrinsic; it is not “imposed on” the biological phenomenon by some designer, whether the designer is understood literally or figuratively, as in “design by natural selection”; nor is it merely “as-if”. So-called “design by natural selection” is a meaningless process of genetic transfer under an arbitrary and meaningless constraint that impacts the genetic make-up of something that quite independently and always-already possesses functionally-differentiated parts that embody a functionality of an intrinsic sort. Contemporary philosophers of biology are thus in the grip of a Cartesian-categorial framework for the understanding of the biological, when they define the function of an appendage as “the functional role that was selected for in the course of natural selection” (thereby implicitly comparing the functions of parts of organisms to the functions of parts of artifacts/machines). Not only could natural selection not play the role of “literal designer and assigner of functions”, but even if, per impossible, it could, the kind of final , in light of which the functions of parts would be explained, would at best be “extrinsic” to the

16 organism. Considered as wholes, organisms lack intrinsic ends: however, their parts do function in light of intrinsic ends, in the context of the intrinsic functionally- differentiated-economy of a biological-being that possesses Flourishing as a

Dimension. To say that a nutrient is “good for” a plant is to attribute to the nutrient of “serving the good” or “contributing to the good” of the organism.

“The good”, as the state of balanced, well-coordinated, flourishing, relative to the natural standard, is thus formal-causally basic in our understanding of what it means for something to have the property of being good.

The deepest source of our inability to appreciate the sui generis character of the various categorial-domains stems from our need to make sense of things, conceptually, as by-products of design and production. It is the idea that something, some quasi agent (whether the mind, the faculty of Reason, language, God, law, society, culture, human action) must, in some vague sense, be responsible for the kinds of distinctive intelligibility that reality can display.

Thus, in a quasi-metaphorical but also quasi non-metaphorical sense, distinctively physical reality is conceived as what is “‘governed’ by ‘law’”; distinctively biological reality is what is “‘designed’ by natural ‘selection’”; distinctively animal reality is regarded as a realm of “‘engineered’ robotic

‘machines’”; the natural world is regarded in general as a “mechanism”; cognitive reality, i.e., the distinctive realm of the human mind, is regarded as a “‘symbolic’

‘computer program’ ‘written’ and ‘implemented’ on the ‘hardware’ of the brain”; the distinctively philosophical reality of Forms and Categories is what is “a ‘mere

‘projection’’ of the ‘faculty of reason’ or of our form of life or language or ”.

17 We persist in clinging to these artifactual metaphors, even once we have transitioned to an atheistic age; for, in an atheistic age there is no literal designer or law-giver to which we can point; and this only shows how powerful the hold on our psyche is of the “design/production/thing-designed/thing-produced” picture. The fantasy of rational- was to think that “we” could somehow be the “law- givers” of the most basic structures of thought and reality itself. Wittgenstein addresses this idea in the Tractatus when he says that we cannot have a side-ways- on-view of sense and . Any putative “institution” of the categories and subject-predicable thought would itself presuppose the categories and subject- predicable thought. This is not to say that we can make sense of the idea of propositional content and categorial-grammar independently of the idea that we are speakers of a language that belong to a form of life; nevertheless, the is true as well; thus, the basic structure of the subject/predicable proposition and the basic fact of sense/nonsense is just where things begin.

In Chapter 3, “Four Contemporary Philosophers”, I consider how these ontological considerations bear on the works of four contemporary philosophers with whom I share many assumptions.

In Chapter 4, “The Socratic-Aristotelian Tradition”, I argue that once the meta-philosophical unity between the Wittgensteinian grammatical investigation and certain Socratic-Aristotelian paradigms of ancient philosophy have been properly established, we can appreciate how the work of Søren Kierkegaard represents a significant conceptual and historical transitional link between these two periods. Kierkegaard’s primary philosophical background was in ancient

18 philosophy, but he exerted an enormous influence on the two greatest philosophers of the 20th century, Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Understanding how Kierkegaard’s work appropriates Socratic and Aristotelian elements, in a way that provides a model for philosophical work in the 20th century, helps us to illuminate connections between Heidegger and Wittgenstein, which otherwise might be difficult to see.

Kierkegaard was also instrumental in articulating what it meant for philosophy to have a “Socratic role”. “Philosophy’s Socratic role”, refers to philosophy’s capacity to be directly, locally, and contextually responsive to non- philosophical culture, on the model of a between a philosopher and a non-philosopher, in which the dialogue is motivated in response to the words of a non-philosopher. This “Socratic role” is auxiliary to philosophy’s central pursuits, which aim at philosophical clarification as an end in itself; however, it is a role that naturally accompanies a conception of philosophy that is broadly Socratic-

Aristotelian.

Kierkegaard puts Socratic-Aristotelian philosophical resources to work in his capacity (role) as a distinctively Socratic philosopher: and this Kierkegaardian model serves as the template, I argue, for what Wittgenstein comes to call

“philosophical foundations of x”, where “x” is some non-philosophical enterprise, such as mathematics, traditional , cognitive science, or .

Non-philosophers, such as scientists, always already operate with some formal-causal and ontological-categorial (i.e., philosophical) understanding of their subject, as well as of how the basic domains and that preoccupy them fit into the larger scheme of things (i.e., an understanding of the categorial “chain of being”):

19 however, they are not always aware of the extent to which they are already committed to a philosophical understanding of things. Moreover, the understanding they operate with is often philosophically unclear and indistinct or ontological- categorially or formal-causally misconceived, and this has a material impact on the way in which they think or talk about or conceive of what they or doing, and this, in turn, can have an impact on what they go on to do. And thus the philosopher can be

Socratically responsive to the need to make non-philosophers aware of the philosophical framework with which they are implicitly operating in philosophically framing the subject of their non-philosophical work. And the philosopher can provide formal-causal and categorial clarification, allowing non-philosophers, e.g., scientists, more clearly to frame philosophically their non-philosophical endeavors.

In this way, philosophy has the potential to be directly in dialogue with the broader culture in a manner that accords with the original Socratic model of .

20 Chapter 1: Foundations

I am not inclined to make a sharp distinction between the history of philosophy and philosophy itself on the grounds that the most promising paradigms for doing serious philosophy are still to be found in the works of of the Western tradition. Because I do not make a sharp distinction here, I am sympathetic to a remark that James Conant makes in an autobiographical piece explaining how he came to be occupied with the work of Wittgenstein. Conant remarks that, in his estimation, the most interesting philosophers since

Wittgenstein’s death, in 1951, have at least one central thing in common: they have all been philosophers who have taken seriously and have made an effort to come to terms with Wittgenstein’s work.9 Conant mentions such thinkers as Peter Strawson,

Peter Geach, Elizabeth Anscombe, Wilfred Sellars, , and Richard Rorty, along with , , Hilary Putnam, and John McDowell. I shall take the to add to this list , J. L. Austin, G. H. von Wright, Normal

Malcolm, Alan White, Zeno Vendler, Bede Rundle, , and

Fred Sommers, along with , , Charles Travis, Jonathan

Lear, , Michael Williams, Meredith Williams, James Conant and P. M. S.

Hacker.

I want to suggest that if we take seriously the constellation of of the thinkers from this tradition over the last 60 years, this collection of will lead

9 Conant, James, “Coming to Wittgenstein”, in Philosophical Investigations, Vol. 24, N. 2, (2001), pp. 106-107

21 us in the direction of the neo-Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian-analytic conception of philosophy and ontology I have outlined in the introduction.

(1) Strawson on the importance and centrality of the proposition

P. F. Strawson writes that the single most important lesson he learned in the

20th century is that there are propositions, over and above the sentences that are used to express them. If one says, “The cat is on the mat”, then the proposition one has uttered is that the cat is on the mat. Propositions are what are said, known, believed, thought, assumed, doubted, given in testimony, heard in testimony, as opposed to the knowing, thinking, believing or saying of that thing, i.e., that proposition. What is true or false is not first and foremost a , but the proposition asserted by that sentence. Facts are propositions that are the case. If reality is defined as the totality of facts, then reality is the of propositions that are the case. A proposition is what is signified by the nominalization of a whole sentence.

‘What is the most important philosophical lesson you have learned in the course of your career?’

That of course is a difficult and dangerous question. But just at the moment I feel disposed to risk an answer to it. The answer echoes, indeed reproduces something I wrote in my last contribution to the volume forming part of the series, which is the occasion for this event. Not that I learned the lesson as late as that. I had already grasped it, in an incomplete and inchoate form, before 1950. But a sense of its importance and its ramifications have steadily grown with me since. It is this: that the fundamental bearers of the properties of truth or falsity, the fundamental subjects of the predicates ‘true’ or ‘false’, are not linguistic items, neither sentences nor utterances of sentences. It is not, when we speak or write, the words we then use, but what we then use them to say, that is in question. It is whatever may be believed, doubted, hypothesized, suspected, supposed, affirmed, denied, declared, alleged, and so forth, that is, or may be, true. Any of these words may be followed by a noun-clause of the form ‘that p’; and it is precisely the item designated or referred to or introduced by these noun-clauses, as used on this or that occasion, that are the bearers of the properties of truth or falsity.

22 Whatever term we use for an item of this kind---and I am content with old- fashioned ‘proposition’---the essential point is that such an item is not to be identified with an inscription or an utterance or a type of inscription or utterance: it is an…abstract entity, but nonetheless an item of a kind such as we constantly think of and refer to whenever we think of, or comment on, what someone has said or someone has written, or indeed a thought that has, as we say, just entered our own heads.

It is objected that there is no clear general citation of of such items. Never mind; we get on well enough, and communicate well enough, without one.

With the admission of proposition (or judgments or ) as abstract…entities there goes along of course the admission of others…of properties, and universals in general.

It is here, perhaps most obviously, that the risk of inflation comes in: the risk of seductive images, pictures to hold us captive, myths and fantasies such as are often fathered, justly or not, on Plato. But, in order to acknowledge the items in question as the harmless, necessary things they are, regularly recognized in ordinary thought and talk, there is no need to be thus seduced, no need to yield to such temptations.10

It is not clear that the notion of “proposition” is the sole province of the 20th century. There are discussions in the works of ancient logicians of something called a “sayable” which was regarded as an abstraction over and above the sentence that expresses it.11 Moreover, whether Aristotle was sufficiently clear about this distinction in Categories, I believe his work (as I shall argue below) most certainly presupposes the distinction between propositions and sentences: a “being”,

Aristotle says, is something that can be “said of” something: a being is thus not a word. In any case, Strawson is surely correct that the 20th century is responsible for bringing the proposition into clearer focus and for using it as a basic notion in various areas of philosophy.

Strawson remarks that our scruples regarding the “existence” of such

“abstract” “objects” such as “propositions” are based on misunderstandings. I shall

10 P. F. Strawson, “What have we Learned from Philosophy in the Twentieth Century?” in Philosophical Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) (My emphasis) pp. 194-5 11 , Against the Logicians, edited and translated by Richard Bett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) (my emphasis) p. 10

23 have a good more to say about such misunderstandings below. Such misunderstandings result from what I will call “categorial confusion”. This kind of confusion was studied explicitly in the work of philosophers in the Wittgensteinian tradition, but it was also appreciated, in a rigorous form, at least as early as

Aristotle.

Acknowledging the ‘existence’ of propositions” is not akin to positing an theoretical entity for purposes of a scientific explanation of observable phenomena. In fact, the very idea that propositions are “unobservable”

“theoretical entities” is mistaken. (The following remark will not become clear until

I introduce various notions and terms: however, I will note that propositions lack the Dimension of Observability, but this does not make them “unobservable”. For, only something that has the Dimension of Observability can be unobservable.) If we acknowledge that there is such a thing as what someone says or thinks or knows, then we have acknowledged the “existence” of propositions. For, what someone says or knows is that the cat is on the mat, and not the sentence ‘The cat is on the mat’.

The sentence-type ‘The cat is on the mat’ is what one verbally utters, but the sort of thing that one verbally utters is not the same sort of thing that we have in mind when we talk about what one says or knows.

(2) Aristotle on Negation

If Strawson is correct that there are propositions and that acknowledging propositions is indispensable, the next question concerns the structure or “logical form” of the proposition. I wish to take up this topic by first considering the issue of

24 negation. What does it mean to say that something is not X, where X is some property?

On a Fregean interpretation, which was a rehabilitation of the Stoic understanding of negation as a sentential operator,12 the sentence ‘The apple is not red’ is conceived as ‘Not: the apple is red’. On this interpretation, an is made non-atomic, i.e., compound, by means of being combined with the negation operator. This operator is regarded as a truth-functional operator, with sentential scope, that takes the truth- of the sentence as the input and yields the opposite truth-value as the output.

For Aristotle, however, negation was not understood as a sentential operator at all. By contrast, Aristotle regarded negation as an operator within predicates themselves.13 On the Aristotelian understanding, the sentence “The apple is not red” does not need to be reformulated, if we are to capture its true, authentic, form. In other words, the word ‘not’ is right where it belongs in the . Let us call this understanding of negation “predicate negation” or “basic negation” or just

“negation”.

Aristotle also acknowledges the possibility of “term negation”, in which negation attaches directly to terms themselves. For example, we might say, ‘The protestors engaged in nonviolent protests’. Here the ‘non’ is regarded as a way of

12 Laurence R. Horn, A Natural History of Negation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), §1.1.2 13 Laurence R. Horn, A Natural History of Negation, §1.1.2

25 forming a contrary property that is meant directly to contrast with some opposed property.14

One of the most plausible understandings of basic, predicate, negation is found in a paper by Gilbert Ryle.15 Ryle argues that predicate negation serves to rule out a contrary against a space of contraries. To say, ‘The apple is not red’ amounts to excluding the property red relative to a range of contrary properties that all fall under the same genus, namely, the genus “color property”.

By contrast, to say, ‘The protestors were nonviolent’ serves to assert that the behavior of the protestors has a quite definite property, namely, the property of being nonviolent. Thus, the claim the protestors were nonviolent has greater specificity than the claim the protestors were not violent. The former asserts that the protestors had a quite definite , whereas the latter asserts merely that they did not cross over a certain threshold. Predicate negation is thus less committal than term negation, since predicate negation serves only to rule out a contrary’s holding of a subject, as opposed to positively asserting that a contrary holds of a subject.

Along with negation, i.e., the use of the word ‘not’, we must also take account of the use of ‘yes’ and ‘no’, which we might refer to as “affirmation” and “denial” respectively. In contrast to negation, ‘no’ does appear to be a genuine sentential operator. For example, we might ask, ‘Is the apple red?’ and get the answer ‘No’.

Here we also could have continued, ‘No, the apple is not red’. However, in some

14 In his work, On the Logic of Negation, G. H. von Wright employs a logical notion that takes into account these two notions of negation, predicate negation and term negation. See G. H. von Wright, On the Logic of Negation, (Helsinki-Helsingfors: Centraltryckeriet, 1959) 15 Gilbert Ryle, “On Negation” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 9, Knowledge, and Realism (1929), pp. 67-111

26 cases, ‘no’ is used to indicate a rejection or disapproval with the assumptions behind a claim, altogether. For example, if someone says, “I think the crystal ball deceives us”, one might shake one’s head, in disapproval, and respond with ‘No.’ But in countering the claim with ‘No’, one is not suggesting that the crystal ball does not deceive us, i.e., that it successfully predicts the future, but rather that the whole idea that crystal balls could be reliable predictors of the future is bosh. And in that case, it is important that ‘No’ is regarded as a mere sentential operator that is less committal than even predicate negation.

We can say, then, that there are three distinct “kinds of negation”. (1) denial,

(2) basic, predicate, negation, and (3) term-negation. Denial is the least committal and term-negation is the most committal, and basic, predicate, negation lies somewhere in between. Fregean/Stoic negation is, of course, syntactically modeled on denial. Term negation is a fairly trivial notion, I think. And predicate negation, I want to suggest, is what negation really is, in the most basic sense. And, thus, I shall simply use the word ‘negation’ to stand for predicate negation.

Ryle says that negation serves to rule out a contrary against a background of contraries. He says that it follows from this that the relevant range of contraries is always implicitly understood in the “negative” claim. Thus, in the claim the apple is not red, it is implicitly understood that the apple is not red relative to the relevant range of contraries. But if Ryle is right about this, it stands to reason that the range of contraries is implicit in the understanding of a “positive” claim, as well. If this is correct, to say that the apple is red is to assert, positively, that the apple has a property relative to the relevant range of contrary properties. And, in that sense, the

27 subject-predicable proposition, whether “not” occurs in it or not, is something that essentially must be understood in reference to contrariety ranges.

(3) The Spectra of Contraries

I shall refer to the range of contraries as a “spectrum of contraries”. Such a spectrum of contraries is bounded by a common genus. For example, yellow, green, blue, purple, red are all contrary colors that lie on a spectrum of contraries that are bounded by the same genus, namely, the genus Color. Happy, unhappy, sad, melancholy are contrary moods or emotional states that lie on a spectrum of contraries that are bounded by the same genus, namely, the genus Human

Temperament.16

The contrariety spectrum is defined as the set of contraries that span the

“X/not X” range, where X is a contrary. In other words, a contrariety spectrum includes the union of the contrary X with the set of relevant contraries that are compatible with something’s being not X. What this means is that Aristotelian predicate negation is required for the of the contrariety spectrum.

(4) Austin on Dimensions

Austin introduces what I think is a useful piece of terminology for capturing what we are calling the “genus of a spectrum of contraries”. He calls this genus a

16 In Trendelenburg’s summary of basic theses in Aristotle’s , he writes that “Of members of the same genus, those which stand most widely apart from one another we define as contraries”. Friedrich Trendelenburg, Outlines of Logic: An English Translation of Trendelenburg’s Elementa (Forgotten Books, 2012) p. 7. I am using the term ‘contrary’ in a more permissive sense, to include any property within the genus of properties, whether or not they “stand widely apart from one another” or not. In my sense, then, black and white are contraries, but so are red and orange.

28 Dimension. In this dissertation, I shall frequently capitalize the word ‘Dimension’, and I shall also frequently capitalize words that stand for specific Dimensions such as ‘Length’, ‘Width’, ‘Color’, ‘Spatiality’, ‘Temporality’, ‘Materiality’, or ‘Causality’.

For example, to say that the apple is red is to say that the apple has a property, with reference to the spectrum of contraries bounded by the Dimension

Color. To say that the apple is not red is to say that the apple lacks a property, with reference to the spectrum of contraries bounded by the Dimension Color.

Austin introduces the word ‘Dimension’ in the context of a discussion of human freedom. He says, in philosophical discussion, at least, the word ‘Freedom’ can and often does stand for a Dimension.

In this sort of way, the philosophical study of conduct can get off to a positive fresh start. But by the way, and more negatively, a number of traditional cruces or mistakes in this field can be resolved or removed. First among these comes the problem of Freedom. While it has been the tradition to present this as the “positive” term requiring elucidation, there is little doubt that to say we acted “freely” (in the philosopher’s use, which is only faintly related to the everyday use) is to say only that we acted not unfreely, in one or another of the many heterogeneous ways of so acting (under duress, or what not). Like “real,” “free” is only used to rule out the suggestion of some or all or its recognized antitheses. As “truth” is not a name for a characteristic of assertions, so “freedom” is not a name for a characteristic of actions, but the name of a dimension in which actions are assessed. In examining all the ways in which each action may not be “Free,” i.e., the cases in which it will not do to say simply “X did A,” we may hope to dispose of the problem of Freedom. Aristotle has often been chidden for talking about excuses or pleas and overlooking “the real problem”: in my own case, it was when I began to see the injustice of this charge that I first became interested in excuses.17

As a Dimension, the word ‘Freedom’ stands for the genus that binds together the spectrum of contrary properties characteristic of distinctively human actions. E.g., it can be said of a person that he----acts with self-control, acts without self-control, acts reflectively, acts normally, acts on the basis of passion, acts on the basis of reason, acts on the basis of instinct, acts on the basis of forethought, has options, lacks options, is

17 J. L. Austin, “A Plea for Excuses”, in Philosophical Papers, edited by J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), (my emphasis) p. 180

29 morally compelled, is morally permitted, is not free due to scheduling conflicts, has an open schedule and is free, etc. This spectrum of contrary properties, Austin wants to say, falls within the Dimension Freedom.

For two properties to be contraries, i.e., opposed to one another, they must first have something in common. And what they have in common is a common genus. As Aristotle says, “…pairs of contraries…belong to the same genus…White and black belong to the same genus, colour”.18 Contrast, thus, necessitates at a higher level.19

18 Aristotle, The Categories, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, volumes. I and II, edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) 14a16-25 19 We speak of contrary properties, but also of “contrary statements”. Two contrary statements cannot both be true, but they can both be false.

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 ZX (where the term “property” is used in the loose sense to include not only qualities but also Action-Types and Event-Types, and other categorially distinct entities.)

Negation occurs within predicable itself, as opposed to attaching directly to the property or kind in the predicable (as in “term-negation”). Thus, predicables, by their very nature, occur in binary positive/negative poles. Is red can be negated to yield is not red, and vice versa.

Let us focus specifically on the case in which the predicable contains a property, as opposed to a kind. The property is, as we’ve said, by its very nature, a

“contrary”, since all properties occur in spectra of contraries. A specific spectrum is a set of contraries that span the logical compatibility limits of the positive-negative predicable-poles. This set of contraries is bounded by a genus, which we call a

Dimension.

Some items that fall under such and such Dimensions will be combinable with such and such subjects and others won’t. And thus the very idea of the structure of the proposition presupposes modal notions.

Thus the essential structure of the simple proposition (in the case of a proposition that asserts of a Substance, “a”, that it has a certain Property20, “P”) can be schematized as follows:

a is (not) P, where P is a contrary in the P/not P spectrum, in which the spectrum is bounded by a Dimension

(6) Wittgenstein on Logical Impossibility

20 The scheme would be somewhat different in the case where “P” is a kind (as opposed to a property).

32

In the Blue Book, Wittgenstein introduces the notion of “logical impossibility” in a discussion of “grammar”.21 He posits the inference rule that if it is logically impossible that “a is P”, then it is logically impossible that “a is not P”, and vice versa.

If we combine modal operators with Fred Sommers’s enriched and define ‘◊’ as “logically possible”, this would be written out as follows:

Wittgenstein’s “first” :

−◊(S* + P) ↔ −◊(S* + (−P))

Why is this principle correct? Let us consider the case of numbers and Color properties. It is inconceivable that the number 2 is red, i.e., possesses the contrary property red, against the spectrum of contraries bounded by Color. But it is also inconceivable that the number two is not red, i.e., lacks the contrary of red against the spectrum of contraries bounded by Color.

One might have the reaction that “the number 2 is obviously not red”. This is fine. But what that means is better translated as “It is logically impossible for the number 2 to be red (or any of the contraries of red, for that matter)”. And, so, the statement is in fact a disguised modal claim. For, the non-modal interpretation of this statement asserts that the number 2 lacks the property of being red against the backdrop of contraries within Color. But the whole point of saying that it is logically impossible for a number to be red is that numbers necessarily lack Color as a Dimension. Thus, the reason it is logically impossible for S to be not P, if the

Dimension that includes P is not applicable to S, is because to say that something is

21 Ludwig Wittgenstein, The : Preliminary Studies for the ‘Philosophical Investigations’ (New York: Harper & Row, 1960) pp. 53-56

33 not P is to rule out a contrary---but one cannot rule out a contrary if the contrariety spectrum is itself inapplicable, as such.

We can also say that if it is logically impossible for something to be X, where

X is a contrary, then it is also logically impossible for something to be non-X, where non-X is some opposed contrary. This is because the logical impossibility of a property’s holding of a subject is a function of whether or not the subject possesses the Dimension that includes X and its contrary opposite.

Using “¬” to signify term-negation22, we write out this inference rule as follows:

Wittgenstein’s “second” rule of inference:

−◊(S* + P) ↔ −◊(S* + (¬P))

Hegel uses the phrase “infinite judgment” and “total negation” to describe the case where a subject is said to lack a Dimension, as such, such that any predicate attributing a contrary within the contrariety spectrum bounded by this Dimension is ruled out as logically impossible. Hegel refers to what I am calling a Dimension as a

“universal sphere”. And he refers to what I am calling a “contrariety spectrum” as

“the whole extent of the predicate”.

The negative judgment is not, therefore, total negation; the universal sphere which contains the predicate remains standing; the connection of subject and the predicate is therefore still essentially positive; the yet remaining determination of the predicate is no less connection. – When it is said that, for instance, the rose is not red, only the determinateness of the predicate is thereby denied and thus separated from the universality which equally attaches to it; the universal sphere, color, is retained; if the rose is not red, it is nonetheless assumed that it has a color, though another color. From the side of this universal sphere, the judgment is still positive.

22 This is the notation used by G. H. von Wright “On the Logic of Negation”. Also see G. Englebretsen, Logical Negation (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981) for an account of the distinction between sentential negation and “term” negation.

34 In this manner, the whole extent of the predicate is negated, and there is no longer any positive connection between it and the subject. This is the infinite judgment.

….spirit is not red, yellow, etc., is not acid, not alkali, etc., or that the rose is not an elephant, the understanding is not a table, and the like. – These judgments are correct or true, as it is said, and yet, any such truth notwithstanding, nonsensical and fatuous. – Or, more to the point, they are not judgments at all.23

Hegel notes that “infinite judgments” are “not judgments at all” because they are not normal predications in which a determinate contrary is said to hold or not hold of a subject. Rather, they are determinations regarding the very possibility of the predication of a subject of a range of contraries bounded by a Dimension. When some kind of thing is said to have the Dimension Color, this is a disguised modal statement and holds necessarily. The same is true when something is said to lack

Color, as a Dimension24

(7) Fred Sommers’s Criterion for the Demarcation of Categories

Using the terminology we have introduced so far, we can capture Sommers’s criterion for demarcating entities belonging to different Categories. Entity “a” belongs to a different category than entity “b”, if “a” and “b” “have different

Dimensions”. (Note that Fred Sommers’s uses the term “ontological feature” to stand for what I am calling a Dimension.)

As we’ve said, “to have a Dimension” is a modal notion. It means that it is logically possible for “a” to combine with contrary properties in Dimension X and that it is not possible for “b” to combine with contrary properties in Dimension X. To

23 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Science of Logic, translated and edited by George di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) Kindle File, (my emphasis) Volume II, Chapter 2, §b and §c. 24 Hegel’s claim that the infinite judgment is “not a judgment at all” is perhaps a clue to understanding Wittgenstein’s claim in the Tractatus that his propositions are pseudo-assertions.

35 “lack a Dimension” means for it to be logically impossible for “a” to combine with contrary properties in that Dimension. For example, for the number 2 to lack the

Dimension Color, means for the number 2 to be the kind of thing that is neither red nor not red. That is, it is not the sort of thing that either has a property in the spectrum, but nor is it something that lacks that property in the spectrum, since the spectrum itself is not logically relevant to the subject in question. This is because, for something to lack a property presupposes that the spectrum, in which the property is found, is logically relevant. If something cannot logically have X, then it cannot lack X either.

Categories are a unique species of the genus kind. Non-categorial kinds are not defined by means of the possession or lack of possession of Dimensions. Rather, non-categorial kinds are defined by the possession of defining properties.

Philosophers ideologically insensitive to contrariety are, ipso facto, insensitive to a real distinction between ordinary classes and ontological categories. They are equally insensitive to a distinction between a property and an ontological feature. Properties come in pairs; what isn’t wet lacks wetness and is dry. But nothing is privative to a feature; what has the feature has it; what does not have the feature does not lack it. Thus my ability to see has no Colour. But neither is it colourless for what lacks colour would have to be in the range of things that could be tested for having it. Features are essential attributes. What has a feature must have it. The apple I have is red and smooth. It need not have those properties. But it must have Colour and Texture.25

I shall frequently adopt the convention of capitalizing words for Categories (in addition to Dimensions) in order to distinguish Categories from ordinary non- categorial kinds.

Sommers’s criterion is Aristotelian in spirit. For, Aristotle maintains that one cannot deny property P of S*, if S* is not the sort of thing that, “by nature”, has or

25 Fred Sommers, The Logic of Natural Language, (my emphasis) p. 303

36 lacks P. And thus the kind of thing something is is determined by its “natural” feature-space.

Privation and possession are spoken of in connexion with the same thing, for example sight and blindness in connexion with the eye. To generalize, each of them is spoken of in connexion with whatever the possession naturally occurs in. We say that anything capable of receiving a possession is deprived of it when it is entirely absent from that which naturally has it, at the time when it is natural for it to have it. For it is not what has not teeth that we call toothless, or what has not sight blind, but what has not got them at the time when it is natural for it to have them. For some things from birth have neither sight nor teeth yet are not called toothless or blind.26

When Aristotle says that something does not “by nature have sight”, we can hear this in an Austinian/Sommersian register as the claim that the thing does not have the Dimension Sensory Perception.27

(8) Fred Sommers on Negation, Contrariety, and Philosophical Categories

Fregean negation, Fred Sommers says, “conflates contradiction with contrariety”, and this conflation is detrimental to an understanding of the idea of philosophical categories.

In the present work…I do little more than indicate how traditional logic’s way with contrariety leads to the conception of categories that is at the basis of Ryle’s seminal work in the forties and my own more formal treatment of categories in the early sixties. Indeed it was my recognition of the need for a notion of contrariety that would allow for saying, for example, that Saturday is neither fed nor unfed (‘category mistakes’) that prompted me to re-examine traditional Aristotelian logic and its characteristic distinction between contrary terms or predicates and contradictory propositions. This distinction is absent in modern logic, which uses the forms ‘Px’, and ‘-Px’ to represent contrary predicates thereby conflating the two oppositions of contrariety and contradiction so fundamental to the classical term-theoretic standpoint.28

26 Aristotle, Categories, 12a28-33 27 “In the Aristotelian doctrine of physical substance, features are substrata, potentialities for taking on determinations. Thus the Colour of an apple would be its capacity for being red (or green) or some other determinate colour and its being red would be the actualization of this potentiality.” (Fred Sommers, The Logic of Natural Language) (my emphasis) pp. 303-304) 28 Fred Sommers, The Logic of Natural Language, (my emphasis), ix, x

37 The Fregean understanding of negation assimilates negation to something like denial, i.e., ‘no’. However, when negation is taken out of the predicate, it is difficult to understand what negation actually is. For, as we have said, negation is an operator within predicates that serves to rule out a contrary against a spectrum of contraries bounded by a genus. But in that case, it is impossible to form the notion of a spectrum of contraries, along with the corresponding notion of a genus of the contrariety spectrum, i.e., a Dimension. This is because the only way to define a contrariety spectrum is by drawing upon predicate-negation: in other words, the spectrum is defined as the range of contraries in the “X/not X” range. However, if we lack the of a contrariety spectrum, it becomes impossible to form a criterion of

Category ; but, in that case, we lose a grip on the notion of Categories, as such, and everything that hangs together with this idea, including the notion of

“category confusion”, which was a notion central to the work of Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophers. What a Dimension is is tied to what a contrariety spectrum is: and what a contrariety spectrum is is tied to predicate negation. Thus the very concept of philosophical Categories qua basic kinds demarcated by

Dimensions is itself tied to the notion of predicate negation. This is why Sommers suggests that the Fregean understanding that conflates denial and negation makes the tradition insensitive to the very idea of philosophical categories.29

29 “I have tried to show that a respect for contrariety leads to a respect for categories and have tried to indicate why we ought to respect categories…Many contemporary philosophers, following Quine, see ontology as answering the question ‘what is there?’ If that were what ontology is about, it would differ in no important respect from taxonomic zoology…Indeed Quine sees ontology and zoology as differing only in breadth of interest. From the traditionalist standpoint, Quine’s view misses the crucial difference between a classification internal to an ontological sort of thing and the classification of ontological sorts of thing (categories). Classically, ontology is the science of

38

(9) A remark on the heterogeneity of so-called “universals” and why this matters

There is a long historical precedent in the history of philosophy for lumping together kinds and properties under the heading “universals”. However, this tendency is not characteristic of Aristotle’s position in Categories, which regards as fundamental the distinction between “things said of subjects but not in subjects” and

“things said of subjects that are also in subjects”.

Kinds are the sorts of things that do or do not have such and such instances; they have Instantiation as a Dimension; properties are the sorts of things that are or are not possessed by such and such a propositional subject; they have Possession as a Dimension. To assert that something falls under a kind tells us what that thing is.

To assert that something possesses a property (in the wide sense in which I am employing the term ‘property’, which includes “action and event types”) tells us how things are with that thing, or what that thing is doing, or what has befallen it, or what state the thing is in. categories, the science that studies how the different categories of being are related to one another.” (Fred Sommers, The Logic of Natural Language) (my emphasis) pp. 301-305

“…the theory of the uncharged predicate has led modern philosophers to be dismissive about classical ontology as a science of categories. One sensible exception to this attitude is to be found in the work of Gilbert Ryle. Ryle has no qualms about saying things like ‘seven is neither wise nor unwise’ or calling ‘seven is wise’ a category mistake. But Quine who considers the negative particle in ‘unwise’ to be a stylistic variant of a sentential operator like ‘it is not the case that’ has no use for categories.” (Fred Sommers, The Logic of Natural Language) (my emphasis) p. 306

“Despite its naturalness the traditional view that the categoremata are positively or negatively charged is not given its due even by linguists who ought to know better. One effect of the uncritical acceptance of the Fregean approach to the categoremata is the common linguistic practice representing the negative particle of a sentence such as ‘Socrates was not effeminate’ with sentential scope. The consequences---for metaphysics, for logic, for the ---of a decision on the question whether the categoremata are charged or uncharged, are widely ramified and virtually uninvestigated. But that decision cannot be made in isolation: it depends on which organon of logic we choose to accept.” (Fred Sommers, The Logic of Natural Language) (my emphasis) p. 306

39 Part of the reason it is wise to insist upon the distinction between kinds and properties is that this distinction is fundamental to the very notion of a Dimension and thus to the very notion of the categorial as such. Dimensions are genera of Spectra of contraries; and contraries are always contraries of properties, not kinds. Within a genus of kinds, there will be contrasting species of kinds. However, contrasting kinds under the same genus are not called “contraries”. And moreover a genus of contrasting kinds is not called a “Dimension”; rather, we simply refer to it as a

“higher genus” or “category”. By contrast, “contraries” refer to contrasting properties within the same property-genus; but it is the necessary propositional relation between propositional subjects and Spectra of contraries that determines differences between categories, i.e., fundamentally basic kinds. Thus, the distinction between kinds and properties matters for understanding what philosophical categories are. Hence, a terminology that lumps both together under the heading

“universals” is in this respect unhelpful.

(10) Non-Fregean Logical Form

In The Logic of Natural Language, Fred Sommers presents an enriched form of Aristotelian term logic that is as deductively powerful as Frege’s system---e.g. it is capable of handling deductions involving multiple generality and singular terms--- but which is arguably more natural than Fregean logic, insofar as it more closely approximates the logic of language and thought.

When Frege built MPL [Modern Predicate Logic] he offered logicians a system of logic far more powerful than any system that had gone before it.

The power of MPL (its ability to offer analyses of a wide variety of kinds of inference) coupled with Frege’s claim that the logic could serve as the foundation of mathematics (by the late nineteenth century mathematicians had become quite

40 worried about the foundations of their field), insured that it would displace the old logic in short order.

Still, there is a price to be paid. MPL is indeed powerful, but it is not simple and the logical forms which it ascribes to statements are remote form their natural language forms.

Clearly a system of formal logic which has the power of MPL and the and naturalness of traditional logic would provide the best of both logical .

[Sommers’s enriched Aristotelian logic can handle] inferences involving statements with relational expressions, inferences involving statements with singular terms, and inferences involving unanalyzed statements.

TFL [Traditional Formal Logic/Term Functor Logic] is at least as powerful as MPL, and it is far simpler and more natural.30

One uncontroversial way in which Sommers’s logical system more closely mirrors the logical form of our thought and language is that it makes room for predicate negation. And we have discussed why this understanding of negation is so critical. And there various other observations we might make about the relative naturalness of term logic over predicate logic, as a deductive system.

Nevertheless, term logic may introduce it’s own set of distortions of the logic of human thought (Sommers calls it the “logic of natural language”). For example, term logic obscures the distinction between singular and general terms and obscures the fundamental Aristotelian distinction in Categories between entities that naturally figure in predicates versus entities that can only figure in subjects, a distinction that is arguably more closely modeled by the Fregean algebraic logic.

Throughout his work, Geach has argued that Fregean logic helps to bring out genuine categorial features of propositional discourse, which the older term logic obscures.

30 Fred Sommers and George Englebretsen, An Invitation to Formal Reasoning: The logic of terms, (Sydney: Ashgate, 2000) xi

41

A pair of contradictory predications “Fa” and “−Fa” may legitimately be taken as the results of attaching contradictory predicates, “F” and “−F” to a common subject; but if we rewrote this pair as “aF” and “−aF”, we could not regard them as the results of attaching a common predicate to a pair of contradictory subjects, “a” and “−a”. Elsewhere I have appealed to this consideration among others in order to show that names (possible logical subjects) and predicables (possible logical predicates) are necessarily different in category, and that we must reject the traditional idea of a ‘term’ that can shift from predicate to subject position without change of sense.

The doctrine of ‘terms’ is, of course, Aristotle’s doctrine in the ; but in this earlier work De Interpretation he had himself recognized the difference between names (onomata) and predicables ‘signifying what is said of something else’ (rhemata).31

This theme is also present in the work of E. J. Lowe.

Suppose, for instance, that a certain possible state of affairs consists in some particular object’s possessing some property, or exemplifying a certain universal. In that case, it seems that the state of affairs in question contains just two constituents- --the particular object and the property or universal---which belong to fundamentally distinct ontological categories. Would it not then be reasonable to represent this state of affairs by a proposition that likewise contains just two constituents of formally distinct types---by, indeed, an “atomic” proposition of the classic Frege-Russell form ‘Fa’?32

Regarding Lowe’s criticism, Sommers’s writes,

One may accept Lowe’s judgment that Aristotle’s Categories is “perhaps the most important single text in the history of ontology” while bearing in mind that when Aristotle went on in the Analytics to lay the foundations of a syllogistic logic of terms, he resolutely left the insights of the Categories and the Interpretation behind him. That he did so appalled , who called it “Aristotle’s Fall. But it was the making of Aristotle as a logician and of logic as a .33

I think that the combined wisdom of Geach and Lowe, on the one hand, with

Sommers, on the other, leads us in what is probably the right direction for an understanding of the logical form of the proposition. In fact, it simply leads us to the founding conception of the structural form of proposition that one finds in the earliest works of Aristotle, e.g., Categories. For, on the one hand, Aristotle makes a fundamental distinction between an entity that must figure in the subject position of

31 Geach, P. T., Logic Matters (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972) pp. 70-1 32 E. J. Lowe, “ and Ontology: Reflections on Three logical Systems”, in The Old New Logic, edited by David S. Oderberg with a foreword by P. F. Strawson (Cambridge, MIT, 2005) p. 54 33 Fred Sommers, “Comments and Replies” in The Old New Logic, p. 216

42 the proposition, versus an entity which naturally figures in the predicable position--

-and Frege’s distinction between can then be regarded as a descendant of this Aristotelian ontological ---on the other hand, within the asymmetry of subject and predicate, Aristotle regards negation as a predicate operator. Were this to be represented we would have as a simple sentence

(Fa) and (−Fa) as another simple sentence, but where “−” is regarded as governing the predicate alone, as opposed to the whole sentence.

Using this interpretation, we would restate “Wittgenstein’s first rule of inference” as follows

−◊(Fa) ↔ −◊(−Fa)

Independent of its relative usefulness to a potential logical system, what we want is a conception of logical form that captures the actual logical form of the proposition. And we have suggested that the logical form of the proposition as it is presented in Aristotle’s Categories, prior to the development of the term logic he adopts in Prior Analytics, is the most natural and realistic. It is important to bear in mind that the purposes of philosophers are distinct from the purposes of logicians and that a philosopher’s interest in the concept of logical form may be different from a logician’s. In philosophy what we want above all else is simply the right understanding of the structure of thought, whether or not the formalization of this understanding would make for a maximally powerful deductive logical system.

43 (11) Wittgenstein on the idea of Categorial Confusion and False Categorial Analogies

What does it mean to have a categorially confused understanding of things?

We can now define this idea precisely as follows: to have a categorially confused understanding of things means to regard something has having Dimensions that it doesn’t actually have. And it means making inferences and reasoned decisions or forming unclear and indistinct concepts and ideas, on the basis of that confused understanding. One can be consciously reflective of such categorially confused assumptions, but usually one is not fully conscious of them.

For example, to regard non-Substances, such as Properties, Kinds, Events,

Actions, and Action-Types as though they were Substances, i.e., as if they had the

Dimensions of Substances, is a classic form of categorial confusion. (Here I am using the term “substance” in the early-Aristotelian sense in Categories as the Category for things that possess the Dimension of Substratum Composition, such as Plants,

Animals, Humans and Inanimate Things.) This sort of category confusion is in fact dramatized throughout the fictional and logical works of Lewis Carroll.34 Another form of category confusion is to regard Living Things, as though they were Artifacts.

And another is to regard distinctively Human cognitive and cogitative properties as though they were Artifactual properties. In all cases, the confusion involves attributing Dimensions to an object that the object does not have.

Wittgenstein partly defines the very aim of his work in relation to the notion of categorial confusion. Philosophy, he says, is the activity that aims to break down

34 See Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Public Domain) and The Game of Logic (Public Domain) Kindle File. See, for example, Alice’s remarks about “flames of candles” and “cats’ grins”. See, e.g., Chapter 1 of the Game of Logic

44 our natural tendency to categorially assimilate one kind of thing to another kind of thing.

If I correct a philosophical mistake and say that this is the way it has always been conceived, but this is not the way it is, I always point to an analogy...that was followed, and show that this analogy is incorrect…I must always point to an analogy according to which one had been thinking, but which one did not recognize as an analogy.35

The work of breaking down false categorial analogies is achieved by means of what he calls a “grammatical investigation”, for a “grammatical investigation”,

Wittgenstein says, tells us “what kind of object anything is”.36

Wittgenstein also has a psychological theory as to why we have a tendency to become categorially confused in the first place. His theory is that we are misled by

“surface analogies” in the look or sound of expressions or in the syntax of language.

These analogies work on us at a non-conscious level, leading us to expect categorial similarities to hold between the entities signified by the syntactically-analogous expressions. This could be called Wittgenstein’s “psychological-diagnosis” of category confusion.

Part of what makes the interpretation of this area of Wittgenstein’s work confusing is that Wittgenstein articulates the task of psychological diagnosis in a way that mirrors his articulation of the philosophical task of the critique of categorial confusion. In both cases, he says, we “expose” “misleading analogies”: and this can make it tempting to assimilate these two separate stages of his thought.

However, in the case of psychological diagnosis, what we expose are “misleading

35 Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Philosophy” in Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951, edited by James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993) (my emphasis) p. 163 36 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997) §373

45 surface analogies” in the “look” or “sound” of language. And in the properly philosophical case, what we expose are “misleading categorial analogies” between categorially distinct non-linguistic objects. For, the reason the syntactical surface analogies are said to be “misleading”, in the first place, is because they lead us to overlook differences between the category of the kind of object in question. For example, because we have the ability in language to nominalize adjectives and verbs, we are psychologically led to assume, at a non-conscious level, that these nominals refer to items that fall under the category of Substance, since words that are naturally nouns typically refer to Substances. The task of a grammatical investigation would then be to show that the mere possibility of nominalizing adjectives and verbs, in our language, does not itself imply that these words will refer to Substances; for they may also refer to Properties or Action-types or Event- types. And Properties, Action-types and Event-types are not in fact categorially analogous to Substances. The grammatical investigation breaks down categorial analogies between different kinds of thing, whereas the psychological diagnosis explains how our non-conscious tendency to be carried away by these false categorial analogies is rooted in a potentially misleading surface analogy (i.e., similarity) in syntax.

Thus, when Wittgenstein says that his work aims to show the “misleading analogies in the use of words”37, this is merely a reference to what one might call the activity of “psychological diagnosis” that he is an integral part of his thought. Here the term “use” simply means something like “sensible presentation”.

37 Wittgenstein, “Philosophy” in Philosophical Occasions, p. 163

46 What is important to keep in mind is that the point of the “psychological diagnosis” is that it serves to provide a psychological theory of the psychological source of a distinctively philosophical kind of confusion, namely, category confusion regarded non-linguistic objects.38

(11.1) “Philosophical ”

What is called “reductionism” in philosophy is closely connected to the phenomenon of categorial confusion. However, reductionism is a deliberate identification of some kind of thing with some other kind of thing that belongs to a different philosophical Category. Within the Wittgensteinian tradition, at least, reductionism is thus a pejorative term, since what the reductionistic philosopher is intending to do is not something that can, coherently, be done. There is quite literally nothing that it would mean for something to “reduce” to something else in this philosophical sense. In any case, the reductionist is not “misled” by an analogy since the reductionist is deliberately assimilating two categorially distinct entities under the same category.39

38 “Philosophy shows the misleading analogies in the use of language.” p. 163 “If I correct a philosophical mistake and say that this is the way it has always been conceived, but this is not the way it is, I always point to an analogy...that was followed, and show that this analogy is incorrect…I must always point to an analogy according to which one had been thinking, but which one did not recognize as an analogy.” (my emphasis) p. 163 “One of the most important tasks is to express all false thought processes so characteristically that the reader says, “Yes, that’s exactly the way I meant it”/ To make a tracing of the physiognomy of every error.” (Wittgenstein, “philosophy”, in Philosophical Occasions) (my emphasis) p. 165 “For only if he acknowledges it as such, is it the correct expression. ()” “What the other person acknowledges is the analogy I am proposing to him as the source of his thought.” (Wittgenstein, “Philosophy”, in Philosophical Occasions) (my emphasis) p. 165 39 Bennett, M. R., and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), Part IV, §13, and Putnam, Hilary, Ethics without Ontology, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004) pp. 19-21

47 (11.2) Categorial Omission and deliberate “Categorial Elimination”

There is another closely related phenomenon that must be accounted for as well. This is the phenomenon of “categorial omission”. Sometimes the problem is not that we confuse two entities with one another. Sometimes the problem is simply that we lack certain categories in our thought altogether. Such a phenomenon can arise due to a kind of or misplaced “naturalism”, but it also can arise simply from blind spots that develop in ones thinking due to one-sided diets. For example, the very idea of the Human Being, the very idea of an Animal Being, the very idea of Living Things, and the very idea of Human Cognitive and Cogitation and

Human Action, and the very idea of propositions, as sui generis properties and phenomena and entities, have not always been categorially accommodated, even within the work of figures in the Wittgensteinian tradition.

In any case, the deliberate form of category omission is called “eliminativism”.

This describes the case where a philosopher deliberately wishes to disregard an entire class of categorially unified entities, on the grounds that they are not

“legitimate” or “rooted in reality”. According to the Wittgensteinian tradition, eliminativism is not internally coherent, insofar as the propositional elements and categorial-structures that the eliminativist wishes to eliminate are themselves necessary conditions for the intelligibility of the propositional elements and categorial-structures that the eliminativist presupposes in the very propositions he relies upon.40

40 Bennett, M. R., and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003) Part IV, §13.2.3, §13.2.4

48

(12) Confusions between Statements involving Kinds, Properties and Dimensions

There are few distinctions more important in philosophy than the tripartite distinction between kinds, properties and Dimensions.

A kind is a qualitative grouping of “things.” The things grouped may be concrete particulars, non-concrete particulars or abstract Universals or syncategorematic-non-things. One characteristic function of Socratic philosophical inquiry is to grasp the principles that determine instantiation in kinds. Kinds are either categorial or non-categorial.

When we “define” a kind, we provide instantiation-conditions for membership in some kind. E.g., if I say, “A man is an animal” this means that being an animal is a condition something must be met to count as falling under the kind man. The subject of this sentence does not refer to a particular man or even to all men. Rather, the statement provides a condition on instantiating the kind man. The statement is different from and by no means implies the generalization that “All men are animals.” This statement is in fact best interpreted as ascribing a property to all men, namely, the property of being poorly behaved.

A property, by contrast, is a way things can be. Properties by definition have contraries that belong to a Spectrum of contraries whose members are bounded by a categorial Dimension, i.e., a genus of spectral-contraries. Properties are embedded in predicables and predicables are by definition propositional fragments that have a positive/negative valence, depending on whether or not they are negated.

49 Something can have or lack a Dimension. But to have or lack a Dimension is to have or lack it in of the kind of thing something is. Dimensions are thus possessed or not possessed essentially and necessarily. For example, man has the

Dimension of in virtue of the kind of thing man is. To have Rationality is to be the sort of thing that has the categorial possibility of possessing a property on the rational/not rational spectrum. Since this spectrum is bounded by a genus, we can say that to possess the Dimension of Rationality is to be the sort of thing that categorially can have reasoning properties as such, i.e., properties that fall under the genus “property pertaining to reasoning”.

To say that man is Rational is not to say that all men have the property of being rational. Rather it is to say that man is the sort of thing that can be

(categorially) rational or not rational, reasonable or not reasonable. This distinguishes man from beasts or plants or inanimate things, which are not the sorts of things that can be (categorially) rational or not rational, reasonable or unreasonable.

It was just this between “rational” qua property and “Rational” qua

Dimension that is exploited by Sextus Empiricus, when he suggests that the

Aristotelian understanding of humanity is incoherent.

…the people who say that the human being is a rational mortal animal, and so on, are foolish; for they have not defined the human being, but have enumerated his attributes. Of these “animal” is one of the attributes that belong to him all the time; for it is impossible to be a human being without being an animal… “Reasoning and having knowledge,” on the other hand, is an attribute, but not all the time. For even some non-reasoners are human beings (for example, those who are in the grip of “sweet sleep”), and those who do not have knowledge have not been deprived of humanity…41

41 Sextus Empiricus: Against the Logicians, translated and edited by Richard Bett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) p. 55

50

Pace Sextus Empiricus, Rationality is in fact an “attribute” that man has “all the time”, i.e., essentially; for Rationality is a Dimension, not a normal property.

Indeed, as we shall suggest, what Aristotle referred to as the various “” of living things are Dimensions. Plants have the Dimension of Growth, Reproduction and Nutrition: this does not imply that plants are always growing, reproducing or taking in nutrients, but only that they are (in contrast to rocks) the kind of things for which the contraries of “is growing”/”is not growing” are logically applicable.

Animals have the Dimension of Sensory Perception; this does not imply that animals are always looking at things, but only that they are the sorts of things for which the contraries “it sees”/”it doesn’t see” are logically applicable. It would be nonsensical to say that a plant “doesn’t see something” i.e., fails to see something. For, that would mean that Plants were blindfolded or that their eyes were covered, or that the item in question was too far away or hidden from view. In order for something to not see something, the contrariety range bounded by the Dimension Sensory Perception must be applicable to the thing in question. Otherwise, there is no specific contrary, relative to a space of relevant contraries, that is being ruled out.

(12.1) Seeing the difference between normal properties and Dimensions

It often happens that the surface-form of statements that express a propositional subject’s having a property, on the one hand, and the surface form of statements that express a propositional subject’s necessarily having a Dimension, on the other hand, can look nearly identical to one another.

Consider the following pairs of sentences:

51 (a) His face lacks color, i.e., is pale. (a1) Numbers lack Color.

(b) The ghost lacks materiality. (b1) Properties and Kinds lack Materiality.

(c) A faint ray of light lacks causal powers. (c1) Numbers lack Causal Powers.

(d) An addict lacks freedom. (d1) Mere Physical or Biological systems lack Human Ethical Freedom.

In each case, the first statement in the pair asserts that a subject lacks a normal property, whereas the second asserts that a subject lacks a Dimension.

Consider also:

(a) Notes (e.g., C#) lack the Dimension of Thought. I.e., they are not the sort of things that either think or do not think. (b) Notes don’t think clearly. (c) Notes obviously don’t THINK! (d) N.N. succeeds in not thinking about unpleasant memories. (e) N.N. is not yet capable of philosophical thought, since he is a child.

(a) is a clear statement asserting the fact that a subject lacks a Dimension. (c) is a disguised statement of Dimension. I.e., it a misleading way of re-stating (a). (b) is straightforwardly absurd, since notes lack the Dimension of Thought altogether, so they cannot fail to think clearly. For, if something cannot succeed in thinking clearly, it cannot fail to think clearly either. (e) is not comparable to (a). For, to say that notes lack the Dimension of Thought is not to say that notes currently lack a human capacity, a capacity that could be acquired, at some point in time. For, the child possesses the Dimension of Maturation, whereas notes do not.

(12.2) Grammatical Jokes as deliberate misconstruals of statements of Dimension as statements of property

52 Wittgenstein introduces the phrase “grammatical joke” in Philosophical

Investigations,42 and it is reported that Wittgenstein once said that one could write a work of philosophy that consisted entirely of jokes.43 One kind of “grammatical joke”, at least, can be produced by deliberately misinterpreting a statement of

Dimension as if it were a statement of property (i.e., the very thing Sextus Empiricus does above in earnest and apparently without any irony). E.g., if a philosopher says,

“Numbers lack Color”, one might respond with the “grammatical joke” that these numbers should promptly be taken to see a doctor, given they are so pale. The joke turns on the deliberate misconstrual of a statement of Dimension as a statement of property. For, given that numbers lack the Dimension of Color, they cannot logically have the property of being pale or not pale: only something that has the Dimension

Colour can have the property of being pale.

(12.3) The systematic ambiguity in philosophy between Dimensions and normal properties

‘Spatiality’, ‘Temporality’, ‘Length’, ‘Width’, ‘Height’, ‘Weight’, ‘Volume’,

‘Color’, ‘Shape’, ‘Size’, ‘Texture’, ‘Materiality’, ‘non-Materiality’, ‘Freedom’,

‘Verification’, ‘Observability’, ‘Causality’, ‘In the World’, ‘Mental’, ‘Physical’---all of these words or phrases occur frequently in philosophy, but they are each systematically ambiguous between a property sense and a Dimension sense, and this systematic ambiguity gives rise to misleading pictures, by suggesting various

42 Wittgenstein writes, “The problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character of depth. They are deep disquietudes; their roots are as deep in us as the forms of our language and their significance is as great as the importance of our language.------Let us ask ourselves: why do we feel a grammatical joke to be deep? (and that is what the depth of philosophy is.)” (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §111)

43 , Wittgenstein: a memoir (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001) Kindle File

53 false analogies. E.g., to say that something is Material is to say that it is the kind of thing that has the Dimension of Substratum Composition. It is not to say that something has the property of being solid or dense or hard. A ghost in the popular sense has the Dimension of Materiality. I.e., the question what is the ghost made of is not nonsensical. For, we might say that ghosts are made of “ghost-stuff”. Numbers, by contrast, lack the Dimension of Materiality. That is, the question “What are numbers made of?” is not applicable. Numbers are not the sorts of things that are made of either ghost-stuff or normal, non-ghostly, stuff, i.e., the elements on the periodic table. Similarly, to say that numbers lack “Causal Powers” is not to suggest that numbers have the property of being causally inefficacious, for most practical purposes. We might say that a faint beam of light lacks the property of being causally efficacious. But it would be nonsensical to suggest that numbers were

“insufficiently robust” to make a difference in the world. Numbers simply lack the

Dimension of Causality altogether: that is, numbers are not the kinds of things that either cause or fail to cause changes in the Event-space of Worldly phenomena.

To say that a phenomenon is Worldly is not to say that it has the property of being sublunary as opposed to otherworldly (e.g., having the property of belonging to a world of shades). Instead, it is to say that it is the kind of thing for which the

Dimensions of Temporality and Spatiality and Materiality are applicable. For, the world of shades is equally qualifiable by these three Dimensions.

(12.3.1) The Categorially Confused Tendency to the Matter/“Spirit” Distinction onto the Substance/non-Substance Divide

54 One way in which the above kind of confusion has had a deleterious impact on contemporary philosophy can be seen in the tendency among contemporary philosophers to map the categorial distinction between Worldly things and non-

Worldly things onto the dichotomy between matter and “spirit”. In fact, the matter-

“spirit” distinction is a relatively trivial dichotomy that must be categorially situated within the Dimension of World. That is, a spirit-being and a normal flesh and blood animal are equally categorizable as Substances, In the World, in the categorial sense of these terms. Both ghosts and ordinary animals have Worldly Spatial Location and perform actions with Temporal Duration.

The confused mapping of the matter-“spirit” distinction onto the

Substance/non-Substance divide is one of the conflations most responsible for hindering philosophical progress in the modern and contemporary periods. It leads to the tendency to infer that “if one does not believe in ghosts, then one also should not ‘believe in’ non-Substances, such as Kinds and Properties”. (As if non-Substances were the kinds of things it would so much as make sense to “believe in” or “not”.)

However, this inference rests on a mistaken Category assumption, namely, the assumption that a true non-Substance, in the philosophical sense, is a kind of degenerate, ghostly, Substance. The widespread acceptance of such inferences has shackled philosophical progress.

(12.3.2) Clarity regarding the distinction between Dimensions and properties is needed for the mere interpretation of various philosophical texts in the history of philosophy

The distinctions between (a) Dimensions, (b) contrariety ranges, (c) predicable positive/negative polarity, and (d) normal properties give us an

55 interpretive insight into the works of many ordinary language philosophers, and even a handful of the classic works of Western Philosophy (e.g., Heidegger's Being and Time, Kierkegaard's Book on Adler and Concluding Unscientific Postscript,

Wittgenstein's Blue Book and Philosophical Investigations)

E.g., take the following sentences from the work of Bennett and Hacker44.

(1) "Brains do not contain or possess "45 (2) "Sentient creatures do not ‘contain’ consciousness"46 (3) "The brain neither takes a picture apart nor assembles one "47 (4) "Activities of the brain are neither unconscious nor conscious"48 (5) "One cannot store what is remembered, but only a representation of it"49 (6) "It is human beings, not brains, that form hypotheses"50

Hacker is NOT suggesting that

(1) brains are not accustomed to process information; (2) sentient creatures have lost their hold on consciousness; (3) the brain is failing to do its job of taking a part a picture or assembling one; (4) the activities of the brain are half-conscious, half-unconscious; (5) people find it too difficult to store memories, and so they rely on representations of them; (6) human beings, but not brains, are accustomed to form hypotheses.

Rather, what Hacker IS suggesting is that

(1) brains are not the kinds of thing that either contain or fail to contain information; (2) sentient creatures are not the kinds of thing that either contain or fail to contain consciousness, since the notion of “containing consciousness” is itself not a clear and distinct idea; (3) the brain is not the kind of thing that either takes a picture apart or fails to take a picture apart; (4) the activities of the brain are not the kinds of thing that are either conscious or not conscious;

44 M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience 45 p. 153 46 p. 298 47 p. 139 48 p. 270 49 p. 166 50 p. 137

56 (5) memories of the form "that P" are not the kinds of things that are stored or not stored; however, (digital, sentential or pictorial) representations of memories of the form "that P" are the sorts of things that are stored or not stored. (6) persons are the kinds of beings that do or do not form hypotheses, whereas brains categorially differ in this respect.

(12.4) Confusions between statements of Dimension and empirical generalizations or law-like claims

There is a characteristic statement-type that frequently occurs in philosophy that can now be critically analyzed in light of our investigation into the distinctions between kinds, properties and Dimensions. This statement-type has a characteristic form that leads us to expect it to have a logical status akin to empirical generalizations or law-like claims, in the sciences.

It will helpful to first consider a non-philosophical example. If I say, “This piano is out of tune”, I mean that the piano is out of tune, as opposed to the case where the piano is in tune. The property of being out of tune contrasts with the property of being in tune. Both properties fall within the Dimension of Consonance.

If I say, “All pianos (in the music building) are out of tune”, this is an empirical generalization based on induction. If I say, “All pianos (in the music building) will be out of tune, given the recent heat wave”, this is a law-like predication based on a theory.

However, if I say, “All pianos are in their very out of tune”, then I have uttered a claim that is not clear. For, the claim is ambiguous between a host of different possible interpretations that must be distinguished.

On the one hand, (a) the claim could mean that the word ‘piano’ is being arbitrarily re-defined as the subclass of pianos (in the ordinary sense) that are out

57 of tune. In this case, the statement means “The word ‘piano’ will be stipulated to mean ‘any out-of-tune-piano’”. Of course, if this is what is meant, then we must introduce new a word that stands for what is ordinarily called a “piano”.

On the other hand, (b) the claim could mean that the kind of thing we call a

“piano” is as such “any out-of-tune-piano”. This claim is clearly incoherent and absurd. For, what a piano formal-causally is is quite obviously not the subclass of pianos that are out of tune.

On the other hand, (c) the claim could mean that the linguistic distinction between ‘is out of tune’ and ‘is in tune’ is not a distinction that we wish, on purely conventional grounds, to use anymore. But, in that case, it will be up to us to introduce a new linguistic contrast that can replace the old one, since otherwise we will simply have deprived ourselves of a perfectly good linguistic distinction that helps us to communicate real distinctions that matter to us, concerning the actual state of actual pianos.

On the other hand, (d) the claim could mean that the actual distinction in reality between a piano’s being in tune and a piano’s being out of tune is not a distinction that is coherent. Of course, if this is what is meant, then the claim is itself incoherent and absurd. For, we are acquainted with such a distinction in “re- collection”: and we know that pianos can be out of tune or in tune, etc. We might be inclined to make such a claim from comparing actual pianos to a mathematical model of a piano. However, a mathematical model of a piano is not the kind of thing that either is in tune nor out of tune, in the ordinary sense. (We might be tempted to say, confusedly, that the mathematical model of a piano is “essentially ‘in tune’”).

58 And, thus, an ordinary piano cannot be out of tune in contrast to the mathematical model of the piano.

Thus, the original statement “All pianos are essentially out of tune” either is a trivial claim stipulating new linguistic conventions, either for a ‘general noun’ or for an ‘adjective pair’. Or, the statement is a non-trivial claim about the very coherence of a certain kind, or it is a non-trivial claim about the very coherence of a certain property-contrast. The point is that the original statement is uttered against the backdrop of a lack of clarity between these various interpretations, and once these interpretations have been clarified, the original statement will no longer be uttered without the addition of various clarifications (unless the speaker is simply bent on producing mischief.) (As Wittgenstein says, “Say what you choose, so long as it does not prevent you from seeing the facts. (and when you see them there is a good deal that you will not say.)”.51

Consider, then, a more familiar philosophical statement: “Everything flows”.

This can be rephrased as “Nothing is fixed”. Let’s suppose it is to be regarded as a statement of Dimension. In that case, it would mean that the idea of something’s being fixed is unintelligible; but, by “Wittgenstein’s second rule of inference”, if it is unintelligible that something is fixed, then it is also unintelligible that something flows, since both are contraries in the same Dimension. And thus on this interpretation “Everything flows” does not mean that everything has the property of flowing, but that it is unintelligible that something has the property of flowing or

51 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §79

59 being fixed. The statement would be better expressed as “There is no such thing as the Dimension of Fixity”.

Alternatively, we could regard the initial statement as providing a defining property for “everything”. In that case, the statement would mean that “Everything is defined as that which has the property of flowing.” However, if “everything” is just

“that which flows” that would imply that “flowing” was the only way that “anything” could be, but then “flowing” would not be opposed to anything. But there is no such thing as one possible way things can be under a Dimension. And thus, interpreted in this way, the statement “Everything flows” would be nonsensical.

Alternatively, we could regard the statement as the recommendation for new linguistic conventions. In that case, the statement would either mean (i) that the word ‘everything’ is to be defined as “the subset of things that flow” or (ii) that the verbal pair ‘being fixed’/‘flowing’ is not an adjective pair that we will currently be using.

Consider the remark, “Everything is conceptual, nothing is non-conceptual.”

The philosopher who utters this is either trivially stipulating that the word

‘everything’ is to have the meaning of “that which is conceptual”, or, the philosopher is trivially rejecting the verbal distinction between ‘conceptual’ and ‘non- conceptual’.

Or, the philosopher is non-trivially and paradoxically claiming that

“everything” is, in actual fact, formal-causally a subset of “that which is conceptual”.

Or, the philosopher is non-trivially, and paradoxically, rejecting the very distinction between what is “conceptual” and what is “non-conceptual”. For, there is

60 no such coherent state of affairs of there being “only one species of a genus”; i.e., it means nothing to speak of “conceptual things” as the “only species” of the genus

“thing”. And thus, on this interpretation, what the philosopher really intends to say is that there simply is no species level distinction whatsoever between “conceptual things” and “non-conceptual things”. But in that case, one should not speak of

“conceptual things”, at all, and thus one should not say “Everything is conceptual”, as if that serves to mark some contrast with some other possibility. The initial remark would be more clearly phrased as “The so-called distinction between what is conceptual and what is non-conceptual is unclear and indistinct.”

(13) Philosophical Problems as in our Thinking

A “problem” can signify a practical or moral difficulty. Or, it can signify an intellectual challenge. In what sense of “problem” do we want to say that

“philosophical problems” are “problems”? One clue comes from the fact that philosophical problems appear to be contradictions in our thinking. The conception of what a philosophical problem as a contradiction in our thought is well-articulated in the opening of Berkeley’s Principles.52

52 “….no sooner do we depart from Sense and Instinct to follow the Light of a Superior Principle, to reason, meditate, and reflect on the Nature of Things, but a thousand Scruples spring up in our , concerning those Things which before we seemed fully to comprehend. Prejudices and Errors of Sense do from all Parts discover themselves to our view; and endeavoring to correct these by Reason we are insensibly drawn into uncouth Paradoxes, Difficulties, and Inconsistencies, which multiply and grow upon us as we advance in Speculation; till at length, having wandered through many intricate Mazes, we find our selves just where we were, or, which is worse, sit down in a forlorn Scepticism. II. The cause of this is thought to be the Obscurity of things, or the natural Weakness and Imperfection of our Understandings. It is said the Faculties we have are few, and those designed by Nature for the Support and Comfort of Life, and not to penetrate into the inward Essence and Constitution of Things. Besides, the Mind of Man being Finite, when it treats of Things which partake of , it is not to be wondered at, if it run into and Contradictions; out of which it is impossible it should ever extricate it self, it being of the nature of Infinite not to be comprehended by that which is Finite. III. But perhaps we may be too partial to our selves in placing the Fault

61 Wittgenstein adopts this Berkeleyan conception of philosophical problems as contradictions.

The philosophical problem is an awareness of disorder in our concepts, and can be solved by ordering them.53

Philosophical problems are not “answered” in the way that “questions” are.

For, philosophical problems are not really questions at all, even though they often take the form of “how-possible?” questions (see section 13.1). Rather, philosophical problems are just constituted by the existence (or appearance of the existence) of a contradiction in our thought; for, this reason they have been described as “diseases” of the understanding. Such “diseases” are to be “diagnosed” and then cured.

Philosophical problems, as diseases, must be re-solved. For the contradiction must be removed; however, simply removing the contradiction will not be enough; and we will want to know why were in the grip of the contradiction in the first place; and we will want to know why we were wrong to be in the grip of that contradiction such that the contradiction does not come back to haunt us again. Philosophical problems are thus akin to “problems” in the sense of “practical difficulties”. To critically address a contradiction (or its appearance) in our thought is typically by no means a simple task. And so, though the genuine of the “problem” will

originally in our Faculties, and not rather in the wrong use we make of them. It is a hard thing to suppose, that right Deductions from true Principles should ever end in Consequences which cannot be maintained or made consistent. We should believe that God has dealt more bountifully with the Sons of Men, than to give them a strong desire for that Knowledge, which he had placed quite out of their reach. This were not agreeable to the wonted, indulgent Methods of Providence, which, whatever Appetites it may have implanted in the Creatures, doth usually furnish them with such means as, if rightly made use of, will not fail to satisfy them. Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater Part, if not all, of those Difficulties which have hitherto amused Philosophers, and blocked up the way to Knowledge, are entirely owing to our selves. That we have first raised a Dust, and then complain, we cannot see.” (, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, ( EBook)) (my emphasis) Introduction 53 Wittgenstein, “Philosophy” in Philosophical Occasions, p. 181

62 typically require a significant change in our way of thinking and in our understanding of things.

(13.1) Philosophical Problems as ““How possible?” questions”: “how possible? questions” are not actually questions, at all

It has become standard, within the Wittgensteinian tradition, to understand philosophical problems as “‘how-possible?’ questions” and then in turn to understand “‘how-possible?’ questions” as contradictions (or appearances of contradictions) in our thinking, and it has also become standard to identify many classic philosophical problems with “how possible?” questions54, such as the problem of freewill or the problem of . Since “How possible? questions” are not actually questions at all, let us instead speak of them as ““how possible?” problems”.

(13.2) Two kinds of “how-possible?” problems: (i) “‘how-possible?’-attribute problems” and (ii) “‘how-possible?’-existence problems”

There are two species of “how possible?” problem that must be distinguished. (i) “‘how-possible?’-attribute problems” and (ii) “‘how-possible?’ existence problems”. An example of a “’how possible?’ attribute problem” would be the problem of . How is it possible that humans are (have the “attribute” of being) free? An example of a “‘how possible?’ existence problem” would be the problem of the “existence” of abstract entities. How is it possible that abstract entities so much as exist? We will first take up Wittgenstein’s analysis of the status of “‘how-possible?’ attribute problems”.

54 McDowell, “Experiencing the World” in The Engaged Intellect, pp. 245-6

63

(13.2.1) “‘How-possible?’ attribute” Problems as Contradictions between two Statements of Dimension

As we have seen, Wittgenstein regards what I am calling a “‘how-possible?’ attribute problem” as a contradiction in our thinking. However, Wittgenstein further wishes to claim that such “problems” are characterized by the fact that we lack a clear and distinct understanding of the logical status of the propositions that constitute this contradiction. Philosophical problems are thus contradictions in our thinking, but where the logical status of the propositions that make up contradictions are not clearly and distinctly understood. Wittgenstein puts the point as follows:

For this is what disputes between Idealists, Solipsists and Realists look like. The one party attack the normal form of expression as if they were attacking a statement; the others defend it, as if they were stating facts recognized by every reasonable human being.55

Let us consider an example: “How is it possible that humans have freedom?”

This is a disguised contradiction: on the one hand, we want to say that humans lack freedom, and, on the other hand, we know humans have freedom. Now, the “realist” affirms that humans have freedom, and the “skeptic” or “anti-realist” denies that humans have freedom.

Now, Wittgenstein wishes to say that the logical status of the affirmation or denial is not clear to the parties involved. The parties assume that they are debating a factual issue on par with some scientific or ordinary factual issue; however,

Wittgenstein argues that this cannot be what the debate is about.

55 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §402

64 For, consider if this were what the debate were about. One party says that humans always have the “property” of being free. And the other party says that humans always lack the “property” of being free. Now, this cannot be what the debate is about since, no one in their right mind would or could debate such a thing.

To say that humans always lack the property of being free would mean that humans are always being coerced by other people, or that humans are always engaging in knee-jerk reflective behaviors. And no one would wish to claim that humans are either always unfree or always free, where “free” refers to a normal property that humans can have.

Instead, Wittgenstein says that the debate is really about the legitimacy of a

“form of expression”. Here, Wittgenstein interprets the anti-realist’s claim to consist of the recommendation that we reject the ordinary verbal distinction ‘is free’/’is unfree’, and he interprets the realist’s claim to consist of the recommendation that we preserve the use the ordinary verbal distinction ‘is free’/‘is unfree’.

Understood in this way, Wittgenstein is suggesting that the anti-realist’s claim amounts to the idea that the predicate-contrast ‘is free/is not free’ should not be applied to the sentential subject ‘human being’. Putting things this way makes it sound as though Wittgenstein interprets the philosophical debate as a mere debate about the conventions of language, as if Wittgenstein were suggesting that the denial that humans have free will is on par with the purely syntactical claim that

‘afternoon good’ is not a legitimate “form of expression”. But this is not what

Wittgenstein can really mean. For, as Wittgenstein says in the Tractatus, the “sign” is

65 arbitrary. Rules of syntax are mere conventions and can be changed at will, in cases where we are, e.g., constructing a code.

The question is “Why does the anti-realist think that this way of speaking would be an inherently wrong way of speaking?” And the answer to that would be that the anti-realist thinks that it is impossible for a human being to be “free or not free”, given that a human being is something akin to a mere machine or . And, indeed, a machine or physical object lacks the Dimension of Freedom: and thus this would in fact then be an inherently wrong way of talking.

Thus, a better way to understand what Wittgenstein does mean comes into view if we substitute [“claim about the applicability of ‘form of expression’”] for

[“claim about the applicability of a Dimension”]. Interpreted in this way,

Wittgenstein’s position amounts to the idea that the in the contradiction that form the how-possible problem are in fact disguised statements of Dimension; i.e., they are statements that attribute a Dimension to a subject in the guise of statements that attribute a normal property to a subject. On this interpretation of how to understand “‘how possible?’ problems”, both contradictory propositions would in fact be statements of Dimension.

Thus, when the so-called “philosophical positions” of , libertarianism and compatibilism are straightened out and interpreted along the above lines, we get the following positions. The determinist categorially regards a human being as a mere machine. And thus the determinist rightly concludes on this basis that humans lack the Dimension Freedom. The libertarian by contrast knows that the Dimension of Freedom is a legitimate Dimension, and thus he insists that

66 humans have the Dimension of Freedom. The compatibilist categorizes the human as a mere machine or mere physical system, but still stubbornly (and incoherently) insists that humans, categorized in this way, have the Dimension of Freedom.

Perhaps the compatibilist insists that there is “just a mere way of talking” (i.e., a mere convention). But as a “mere way of talking” is just a “mere way of talking”, when it comes down to it, compatibilism really just is another form of determinism.

A philosophical “‘how possible?’ attribute problem” can then be defined as follows:

The Definition of a Philosophical “‘How possible?’ Attribute Problem”

A contradiction in our thought between two statements of Dimension that are framed against a backdrop in which the distinction between Dimension and normal properties has not been clarified.56

E.g., in the “problem of freedom”, the first claim, in the contradiction that composes the problem, would assert that a human being is the kind of thing for which the actual property contrast between being free and not being free is coherent: and the second claim would assert that a human being is the kind of thing for which the actual property contrast between being free and not being free is not coherent; that is, the first claim would be well-phrased as “Humans have the Dimension

Freedom”, and the second claim would be well-phrased as “Humans lack the

Dimension Freedom”.

56 Compare: “The essential thing about metaphysics: that the difference between factual and conceptual investigations is not clear to it. A metaphysical question is always in appearance a factual one, although the problem is a conceptual one.” (Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Vol I, edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) §949

67 Once the “problem” is phrased in this form, we can immediately see how to resolve the contradiction. The claim that humans are the sorts of things that lack the

Dimension Freedom is quite obviously false. For, a human being is partly defined as what has the Dimension of Freedom. Challenging the idea of the Dimension of

Freedom means challenging the very coherence of the idea of a Human Being, as such.

Furthermore, the claim that humans are the sorts of things that have the Dimension

Freedom is quite obviously true. We thus know immediately how to avoid the contradiction. The statement of the anti-realist is false and absurd, and the statement of the realist is obviously true.

However, simply seeing our way to resolving or avoiding the contradiction is not the same as eradicating the “disease” once and for all. For, we must try to understand why it is that we are inclined to think that Humans lack the Dimension

Freedom, even when we know this statement is obviously false.

Part of the answer may stem from the fact that we have a tendency to regard

Human Beings as though they were Physical Objects or Machines, and such tendencies are in turn rooted in assumptions regarding what is ultimately real and actual and known, and in assumptions regarding how we have access to knowledge of reality, and these assumptions will have to be philosophically addressed. Thus, a genuine cure may require that we face philosophical questions in meta-philosophy, ontology, epistemology, mind, , and philosophical anthropology.

Of course, assuming Human Beings were, per impossible, categorially reducible to Physical Objects or Machines, then the Dimension of Human Freedom

68 would not be applicable to Human Beings any longer, since Physical Objects or

Machines lack the Dimension of Human Freedom. But then we would not even be in a position to coherently formulate a “problem of freedom”, at all, since, in that case,

Human Beings would obviously lack the Dimension of Freedom.

Wittgenstein’s analysis of the logical status of philosophical problems, then, does not obviate the need to engage in serious philosophy: rather, his analysis gives us the right handle on the kind of difficulty we are faced with. For, in light of

Wittgenstein’s analysis, we know (1) that we are dealing with a contradiction; (2) the contradiction concerns two statements of Dimension that are framed against the backdrop of a lack of clarity regarding the distinction between Dimensions and normal properties; (3) that one of the statements of Dimension in the contradiction that constitutes the “philosophical problem” is obviously false, and that the other is obviously true; (4) that the reasons we initially were inclined to assume that the false statement of Dimension was true rest on assumptions in meta-philosophy, ontology, epistemology, the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of mind, etc., assumptions that must then be confronted, by engaging in “traditional” philosophy.

(13.3) “‘How possible?’ existence problems” or “location problems”

There is another species of “philosophical problem”, which has been called a

“location problem”. A location problem concerns the “place” or “location” or

“existence” of some kind of seemingly “problematic” entity. E.g., we talk about abstract entities such as numbers and propositions and properties and kinds. We also talk about trees and rocks and lakes and birds. We might then wonder “how is it

69 possible that numbers exist at all?” This would, e.g., be a location problem about the

“existence” of “abstract entities”, which strike some philosophers as “problematic”.

The so-called “problem” is again a disguised contradiction. On the one hand, we want to say that “numbers exist”, since we can and do talk about numbers and because of the existence of mathematic : on the other hand, we are tempted to say that “numbers don’t exist”, since numbers aren’t the sort of thing we are able to point to “in the world”.

“Location problems” are not contradictions between statements of

Dimension. Rather, they are contradictions between “wide-existence” claims. As I shall argue below, to say that something “exists”, in the sense of “exist” relevant to philosophy, is to say that something is an element of a proposition, and I will refer to this as “existence in the wide sense”. By contrast, to “exist” in a “narrow sense” is to be part of actual factual Worldly reality.

Now, the “‘how-possible’ existence” problem is really a contradiction between two statements, both of which are statements concerning “wide sense”. To say that “numbers exist” is to say that numbers are possible elements of propositions. And to say that “numbers do not exist” is to say that numbers are not possible elements of propositions. Now, the former claim is obviously true, and the latter claim is obviously false.

However, the “‘how-possible?’ existence problem” is uttered against the backdrop of a general lack of clarity between the distinction between “existence in a wide sense” and “existence in a narrow sense”. And this is why it seems to make sense to assert that “numbers do not exist”. For, numbers are not categorially part of

70 Worldly reality at all, whether actual or fictional. Of course, such a statement makes sense only insofar as the distinction between properties and Dimensions is left unclarified; for, numbers lack the Dimension of “narrow existence” altogether; and thus it is not coherent to say of numbers either that they do or don’t exist in a

Worldly sense.

(13.4) On the very idea of Mysterious entities and Mysterious properties in Philosophy

It is common for philosophers to regard “abstract entities” as inherently

“mysterious”. According to Horwich and Wittgenstein, however, the reason why we find such entities to be mysterious is due to the fact that we are unconsciously thinking about such entities under the wrong category. We unconsciously regard numbers as having the Dimensions that Substances have and then we complain that we cannot “find” numbers in the “world”. We then say either that they “exist” in a mysterious “spirit”-world or that they do not “exist” at all, as if we were debating the existence of something akin to ghosts.

Of course, numbers do not belong to the category of Substance at all, and thus they lack the Dimension of Location, altogether. (Here again I use the term

“substance” in the early Aristotelian sense to group run-of-the-mill environmental things such as plants, animals, humans and inanimate things.) It is absurd to say of a number either that it is or is not located in this or that particular place on, e.g., the surface of the earth (or on the surface of a “‘Platonic’-heavenly” plane). Ghosts, by contrast, have the Dimension of Location. Casper the ghost, e.g., haunts the attic and moves between walls. When it comes to Philosophical Categories, ghosts are a degenerate species of Substances. Ghosts possess the Dimensions of Substances,

71 while lacking the distinctive dispositional-traits and properties, possessed by garden-variety environmental Substances.

However, if the very idea of a “mysterious entity” arises from categorial confusion, then it is clear that the very idea of such an entity is itself unclear and indistinct. In other words, if Horwich and Wittgenstein are right about the source of our sense that some objects are “mysterious”, then we should conclude that it is neither true nor false to say of some thing that that it has the property of “being mysterious”. For, such a property is simply unclear and indistinct, such that any philosophical statement of the form “X is mysterious” will be regarded as nonsensical. For, if Horwich and Wittgenstein are right, there is nothing that it would so much as be to be “mysterious” in this alleged “sense”. For, “being mysterious” is the incoherent-pseudo-property that arises from conflating degenerate Substances (spirits) with true non-Substances (such as kinds, properties, propositions, numbers, events, actions, and action-types, etc.)

What this means, however, is that any philosophical project, such as

“naturalism”, that takes its motivation from a desire to “avoid commitment” to

“mysterious entities” is a project that rests on basic philosophical confusions regarding basic distinctions between categories.

What is called “ontical parsimony” is certainly a virtue in the natural sciences; but in philosophical ontology, an emphasis on parsimony usually signifies only that the philosopher is categorially confused regarding the basic ontological distinction between Substances and non-Substances, having mapped that distinction on the relatively trivial distinction between matter and spirit, which is a merely local

72 distinction within the category of Substance. By making distinctions between basic categories of entities such as the distinction between properties and kinds, e.g., and by acknowledging the legitimacy and necessity of such a distinction, we are not

“overpopulating” our “ontical inventory of what is”, we are simply acknowledging genuine and basic and self-evident ontological distinctions.57 Below we shall also make a distinction between Substances and non-Substances that are “rooted in reality” versus those that are not. But this is a different issue. For, even something that is not “rooted in reality” must first exist, in a wide sense.

The “ontical” is what pertains to the existence of things within a specific philosophical category. However, the “ontological” is what pertains to philosophical

57 Compare what Jonathan Shaffer says in “On What Grounds What”:

“…one might object that permissivism violates some crucial methodological, epistemological, or metaphysical dictum. For instance, permissivism might be said to fall afoul of Occam’s Razor in multiplying entities; or violate empiricist scruples in admitting things beyond what our senses reveal; or conflict with nominalistic demands by countenancing spooky abstracta. I answer that there need be no conflict with any reasonable dictum.” (Jonathan Shaffer, “On What Grounds What” in Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, edited by David J. Chalmers, David Manley and Ryan Wasserman (Oxford: Oxford University Press)) Kindle File, Chapter 12)

Consider also what Paul Horwich says in “Naturalism, Deflationism and the relative priority of language and metaphysics”:

“Note, to start with, that it’s prima facie extremely plausible that amongst the facts we recognise, some are non-natural – for example, that there are numbers, that it’s good to care about the welfare of others, that if dogs bark then dogs bark, that the world could have been different from the way it is . . . An unbiased consideration of such facts will indicate that they aren’t naturalistic. For it’s as plain as day (to anyone not ‘in the grip of a theory’) that they aren’t spatio-temporally located, aren’t engendered by facts of and don’t enter into causal/ explanatory with other facts. (Paul Horwich, “Naturalism, Deflationism and the relative priority of language and metaphysics” in Expressivism, and Representationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)) Kindle File, Chapter 6)

Some of these remarks would be clearer were Horwich to make the distinction between Dimensions and normal properties. To say that numbers don’t enter into Causal Relations or that they are not Spatio-Temporally Located are statements of Dimension, not statements attributing a normal property to a propositional subject.

73 categories and their existence and legitimacy. When it comes to ontology, it is imperative that we simply describe what lies open to view and avoid collapsing genuine distinctions. In fact, within ontology, it’s more detrimental to our philosophical understanding of things to leave out a basic Category, than to include a Category that ends up being merely redundant: “I’m not that hard up for categories”, Wittgenstein is reported to have said. And that is the correct attitude to have.

(13.5) The Russellian versus the Wittgenstein way with “how-possible? existence problems”

One of the reasons that Russell was led away from his earliest Meinongian conception of existence and the proposition in The Principles of Mathematics was because he felt it conflicted with a “vivid sense of reality”. According to this conception, any meaningful nominal “referred” to some object. This led to the conclusion that all manner of “mysterious” entities “existed”, in some sense.

Russell’s way of dealing with this problem, in the years following The

Principles of Mathematics (1900), was to argue, famously, (in 1904), that the “logical form” of ordinary assertions was radically distinct from the logical form it appeared to have. Most expressions that appear to refer to things are not referential expressions at all: most names are disguised definite : and definite descriptions will disappear altogether once these statements are reframed in predicate logic.

It is clear that the kind of issue that Russell was concerned about is what we are calling a “‘How possible? existence problem”. We seem to be faced with a

74 contradiction. On the one hand, there is some kind of entity that we don’t want to acknowledge, but, on the other hand, we seem to be forced to acknowledge it, since we constantly “refer” to it in discourse. Russell’s way out of this bind is to say that the logical form of our assertions is radically distinct from the apparent logical form.

We don’t actually have to acknowledge the “existence” of such entities, since we do not in fact refer to such “things”, at all. We are off the hook. And we needn’t alter our current “ontical/ontological” assumptions.

This kind of solution may termed the “Russellian way” of avoiding the contradiction of a “‘how possible?’ existence problem”.

We might oppose this to what we call the “Wittgensteinian way” of avoiding the contradiction of a “how possible existence problem”. On the Wittgensteinian way, we do not avoid the contradiction by showing that the logical form of language is radically different than it appears to be.

In fact, according to the Wittgensteinian tradition the logical form of a simple assertoric statement will just be the logical form it appears to have. And we have suggested above that the true logical form of simple assertoric sentences would combine aspects of the Fregean and Aristotelian logical conceptions: in fact, we have suggested it would match the earliest Aristotelian (non-logical) understanding of the assertion that one finds in Categories, in which there is an asymmetry between subject and predicate (a Fregean idea), but where negation governs predicates (not whole sentences) (an Aristotelian idea).

By contrast, on the Wittgenstein way of avoiding the “‘how possible?’ existence problem”, we show that the contradiction arises, pure and simply, because

75 of categorial confusion. It is because we are inclined to regard the “problematic entity” in question on the model of the wrong category that we think there is a contradiction at all. However, once we rectify the categorial misunderstanding in this way and thereby avoid the contradiction, there is no longer any incentive for making a Russellian-style about logical form.

In this way, we can understand expressivism in meta-ethics as a movement in the, broadly speaking, “Russellian tradition”. “Being good” or “being evil” appears to refer to a property. However, such a property strikes many philosophers as

“queer”: for we are inclined to ask “how it is possible that the ‘physical world’ could contain the property of “being good”?”. Expressivists find a way out of this apparent contradiction by arguing that the logical form of remarks containing these “value” words do not express properties at all, despite surface appearances to the contrary: instead, expressivists regard such remarks to be “merely” “expressive”.

The Wittgensteinian approach in this particular case would be importantly different. First, the Wittgensteinian tradition would argue that we do not need to be limited in our understanding of what is “real” by physical reality. Thus, simply because a Property is not a Physical Property needn’t mean that the Property is

“queer”. For, if “queer” simply means “non-physical”, then we will need to scrutinize the putative ontological basis for equating these two concepts.

Second, this tradition would review the countless different uses we make of the word ‘good’ in our lives. In some cases, the word ‘good’ signifies a non-Physical

76 Property58, such as when we speak of a “nutrient” being “good for” a plant; in such a use “good” signifies the property of “contributing to the good of the organism”. (See

Chapter 2) Such a property is a distinctively “Biological”, and thus a non-Physical, one. In other cases, the word ‘good’ figures in the kind of we call a

“judgment”, which contrasts with the speech act we call a “description”. We also speak of social or cultural goods: if something is good for society as a whole it is something that contributes to the “greater good.” Consider the assessments we make of something’s functionality: to say that something is a “good tool” is a way of conveying through an expression of approval that it succeeds in fulfilling is proper role: it’s a way of conveying that it works and that it can be reliably used. Esthetic judgments are different in light of fact that works of art are cultural ends in themselves and not functional-means. We are familiar with certain paradigms of esthetic achievement or greatness, which are regarded as canonical. To judge a piece of music to be great is not to provide a description of the musical composition; it is not to describe a quality that the music has, e.g., that it has a fast tempo; it is partly to perform the speech act of placing that piece of music in a certain idealized class of musical works, in light of an appreciation and familiarity with models of esthetic greatness. The esthetic greatness of a work is related to the meaning the work has for our culture and for our esthetic experience. For, a work can be meaningful, culturally, personally, esthetically. Esthetic significance is something with which we are familiar in the human world. It is a given phenomenon.

58 See G. H. von Wright, The Varieties of Goodness (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963) Chapters III and V; see also Paul Horwich, “Naturalism, Deflationism and the relative priority of language and metaphysics” in Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism, Kindle File, Chapter 6

77 Judgments also include or recommendations regarding how things should be. E.g., an informed medical involves the consideration of relevant facts along with a reasoned assessment of how things ought to proceed in the care of the disease in light of the welfare of the patient.

The fact is that the word “property” is most at home and most naturally used to refer to the items in predicables that appear in paradigmatic cases of fact-stating discursive statements (as opposed the items in the predicables of judgments, recommendations, opinions, evaluations). This does not mean, however, that judgments cannot be said to be correct or incorrect, reasonable or unreasonable, informed or uninformed. They are not “merely expressive”.59 But it would a strain to say that such judgments “fit the facts” or not.60 In any case, I think that once the

Crypto-Cartesian ontological picture of reality is replaced with a Wittgensteinian,

59 For an interpretation of how Wittgenstein would understand the nature and logic of “evaluative discourse”, see the quotation below by James Conant.

“If one sees non-descriptive uses of language as being simply a form of non-assertoric language- use, one will obscure from view how such uses of language interweave with those regions of our discourse that most obviously do conform to norms of truth and fact. When I say 'I am happy', I am expressing my happiness through a linguistic mode of behaviour. But such an utterance cannot simply be equated with a cry of joy. For when I say 'I am happy' there is something which is my telling the truth with respect to this matter. If I say 'I am happy', I issue an inference-license, and you may now say of me 'He is happy'; and what you say of me, assuming I am telling the truth, will be true. The grammatical and logical relations that obtain between my statement and yours cannot obtain between a non- assertoric bit of behavior and a statement-say, between my smile or my cry of joy and your saying of me 'He is happy'. A smile or a cry of joy is neither true nor false, whereas an avowal is. The philosophical difficulty here, on Wittgenstein's view, lies in obtaining a perspicuous overview of the interplay between the various functions of avowals (among which are its expressive and assertoric functions).” (James Conant, On Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Mathematics”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 97 (1997), p. 207)

60 This is not to deny that logicians can and do treat value judgments just like any other assertoric sentence, in their assigning to them a “”; but that’s a different matter. For, what logicians are interested in is inference, and the notion of “property” or “fact” needn’t be internally tied to a formal notion of inference.

78 the question of the “status” of value judgments and the “nature” of “goodness” will appear to be less pressing.

(13.6) There is no such clear and distinct thing as a “philosophical problem”: but there is such a thing as a “philosophical question”

The very idea of a philosophical problem---whether a “‘how possible?’ existence problem” or a “‘how possible?’ attribute problem”---is an unclear and indistinct idea, given that the contradictory propositions that constitute the problem are understood against the backdrop of a lack of clarity regarding logically distinct kinds of statement-types. In the case of a “‘how possible?’ attribute problem”, the contradiction is framed against the backdrop of a lack of clarity regarding the distinction between Dimensions and normal properties; e.g., the determinist says that “Humans are not free (property)”; but what he really means to say is that

“Humans are not Free (Dimension)”; and what this last statement means is that

“Human beings are not intelligible beings”, since the very Dimension of Freedom is a defining condition of humanity. In the case of a “‘how possible?’ existence problem”, the contradiction is framed against the backdrop of a lack of clarity regarding the distinction between “narrow existence” and “wide existence”.

What this means is that the very idea of a “philosophical problem”, as such, is an unclear and indistinct idea, since the very idea is itself defined in terms of “ideas” that are themselves unclear and indistinct, since they are ideas that are defined against the backdrop of a lack of clarity regarding certain fundamental distinctions.

Furthermore, once the various clarifications are made, the so-called

“problem” immediately resolves (depending on the type of “ ‘how-possible?’

79 problem”) into an obviously true and an obviously false statement of Dimension or

“Wide Existence”.

However, this is not the end of the matter, but in fact is just the beginning. For, we see that what stands revealed behind these philosophical problems, once their form is properly analyzed, are a number of philosophical questions regarding deep and important philosophical issues. For, instead of asking “how freedom is possible?” what we really want to know is “What it means to be a human being?”; e.g., we need to know, e.g., how properly to understand the fact that a human being is at once a human being and also a biological organism. What follows from the fact that a human is a biological organism? What is the relation between a thing and the material substratum out of which it is composed? Is the material-cause of a thing what the thing really is? Is reality defined by what the world is material-causally composed of?

We must distinguish, then, between “philosophical problems”, on the one hand, with “philosophical questions”, on the other hand. The very idea of a

“philosophical problem” is itself an inherently unclear notion. But there is nothing confused or unclear about the idea of a “philosophical question”. In fact, what we realize is that once the “form” of “philosophical problems” is properly analyzed, what really stand behind these “problems” are various philosophical questions.

Philosophical problems are really confused ways of expressing our lack of understanding of good answers to a number of philosophical questions, questions regarding the nature of reality, meta-philosophy, existence, humanity, nature, etc.

80

(13.7) On the Idea of “Overcoming” Philosophical Problems

We have shown that “how-possible?” attribute” problems are really contradictions between statements of Dimension. The anti-realist says, e.g., that

“humans lack freedom”. He does not mean to say that “humans lack the property of being free”. For, if this is what was were meant, then this would amount to the idea that humans are always coerced or that they never exercise self-control or that they are always morally compelled to engage in some action. But this is not what is meant. And no one could possibly wish to assert such a thing. What is meant is that humans lack the Dimension Freedom. This is because humans are being categorized as machines or merely biological systems or as mere animals or as mere physical systems. And machines, etc., lack the Dimension of freedom. It would be incoherent to say that machines lack the property of being free, since machines are neither free nor not free. For, it is not as if machines fail to exercise self-control.

Thus, the philosophical problem of free-will really comes down to the idea that although a human being is a machine, we still want to say of the machine that it is “free”. And this is of course a kind of paradox. One the one hand, we want to say that we know the human is a mere machine and on the other hand we persist in saying that the human is free.

Ordinary language philosophers wanted to try to undermine philosophical problems by showing that they arise from misunderstanding concerning the “uses of words”; but it isn’t clear what that would mean. There does not seem be any failure of language-use here at all. What there is is a sense that humans are machines or that they are merely biological beings. And thus our ordinary distinction between

81 “being free and not being free” starts to look as if it were a “mere way talking”. To assert that we should respect this “mere way of talking”, since this “way of talking” is culturally important, is an understandable reaction; but this does not solve the problem. For even if we persist in respecting the way of talking, we still “know” that it is nothing more than a “way of talking”.

What is needed then is a way of “overcoming” the problem, not by accusing the philosopher of misusing words, but by showing that the ontology the philosopher possesses is both false and rooted in confusion. I will investigate in detail what it means to do this in the case of free-will below. But to provide a clue, in the meantime, what we must do is to show that humans and their sui generis actions are part of reality, as it is in itself. The actions of human beings are just basic phenomena of reality. Humans have a real sui generis power of free action. This is not a supernatural power, but a human power (and this is part of what distinguishes the position from libertarianism, which is a “position” framed against the background of a false ontology). To establish that the human and his irreducible power of action is part of reality, we must confront basic assumptions in epistemology, in metaphysics, in the , and in philosophical anthropology. We must take on many different and serious philosophical questions.

Ordinary language philosophy helps us to clarify that philosophical problems are really category problems. However, we must go further than ordinary language philosophers did and reject the ontological framework that underpins the false categorial positions that constitute philosophical problems and their solutions.

Perhaps this ontology was already implicit in the work of ordinary language

82 philosophers, but it needs to be made explicit, in any case. It is, e.g., likely that when

Wittgenstein says that the skeptic of, e.g., freewill is making a mere notational recommendation, this is because, if the skeptic’s position were anything more than that, the position would be straightforward nonsense: for, although we can easily reject the verbal contrast between ‘free’/’not free’, we cannot reject the actual contrast between being free/not being free. For, the actual contrast is rooted in reality, as it is in itself. And, thus, whatever reasons the skeptic might have for thinking this is an invalid “way of speaking” must be diagnosed.

(13.8) The three basic Philosophical Questions

There are three basic kinds of “philosophical questions”: (i) “’what is?’ questions” (the formal-cause): (ii) “‘what kind of thing?’ questions” (philosophical categories): and (iii) “‘existence’ questions”.

I shall argue that all three of these philosophical questions are defined, by the

Wittgensteinian tradition, in terms of the proposition, such that the proposition is the basic explanatory unity that allows us to understand the kind of questions these are. In other words, I shall argue that philosophical questions are questions regarding various modalities of the proposition.

However, before we move on to this topic, we must first revisit our discussion of the proposition, in light of what we have covered thus far, and make some additional remarks regarding the nature of the proposition.

(14) Propositions and the “Third Realm”

83 We are finally now in a position to revisit the Strawsonian idea we started with at the beginning of this chapter. Strawson remarks that there are propositions and that they are important. He also remarks that acknowledgment of propositions seems to suggest the existence of some kind of queer “Platonic” entity, but he says that “…in order to acknowledge the items in question as the harmless, necessary things they are, regularly recognized in ordinary thought and talk, there is no need to be thus seduced, no need to yield to such temptations.”61

We can now see why this is so. Propositions belong to a different category of entity from Substances. Propositions are non-Substances. But, we should not model the Substance/non-Substance distinction on the matter/spirit distinction, which is a distinction within the category of Substance.62

Thus, when Frege says that propositions belong to a “third realm”, we should hear this as a merely infelicitous way of acknowledging the fact that propositions are neither Substances (e.g., on the earth) nor Events (e.g., in sensory consciousness). Rather, they are non-Substances that lack the Dimension of Spatial

Location and Substratum Composition and Temporality, all together. To say that propositions are “in” a third realm is really to say that they are not the kind of thing that are either “in” or not “in” a Spatial container, in a Spatial sense. To say that propositions are “in” a third realm is really to say that proposition lack that

Dimension of Spatial Location, altogether.

61 Strawson, “What have we learned from Philosophy in the 20th Century?”, in Philosophical Writings, p. 194-5 62 “No matter with how many variations of content the opposition between ‘Nature’ and ‘spirit’ may get set up ontically, its ontological foundations, and indeed the very poles of this opposition, remain unclarified…” (, Being and Time, Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1962)) Kindle File, Division One, Part III, §19)

84 To speak of propositions occupying a “third realm” is a picturesque way of reminding ourselves that propositions belong to a different category than things “in” imaginative consciousness, such as mental images, or things “in” the world such as trees and shrubs. It is not to say that propositions are “inside” anything. For propositions are not the sorts of things that are either inside or outside anything in a Spatial sense. For, propositions lack the categorial Dimension of Spatial Location, altogether; i.e., it makes no sense to assert either that a proposition is or isn’t located in some particular Spatial local. (I capitalize ‘Spatial’ here to indicate the fact that it is a term for a Dimension; it is not a normal property, since there is no such literal thing as a “non-spatial local”. If something is Spatial, this does not mean that it has some external property; rather, it means that it internally belongs to a basic categorial kind; it is the kind of thing of which it makes sense to assert that it is in this or that Spatial place, in that Spatial place or not in that Spatial place. For, it would be absurd to suggest that propositions were not “on the earth”, where “on” expressed a normal relational property; for that would make it sound as though we were saying something like “Santa Clause is not actually ‘on’ the North Pole”; but propositions are not the sort of thing that could be located at some place or other on or off a globe at all; but neither are they the sorts of things that could be located on or off a fictional globe or on or off a globe in “Platonic heaven”).

On the other hand, although propositions lack Spatial Location, there is nothing wrong with the claim that propositions are “in the third realm”; for the sense of “in” here is non-Spatial; and thus the assertion that they are “in” this realm

85 should not raise our scruples. (We also say, non-metaphorically, that someone is “in” love, but we do not suppose that this has any Spatial connotation.)

In this respect, consider other common cases in which we use ‘in’ in a non-

Spatial sense. We say, e.g., that shrubs are “‘in’ the world”; but, we should remind ourselves that such a claim is also non-Spatial. For, if “the world” is defined as the totality of existing particulars, then “the world” is not a place, in which something could be literally “inside”; for what lies “outside” of the world defined in this way?

Instead, the phrase ‘In The World’ signifies a categorial notion. If something is “In

The World”, this just means that it is the sort of thing for which certain categorial grammars apply in the proposition; e.g., it is the sort of thing for which it makes sense to ask, “Where is it located?” or “What is it made of?”.

Indeed, if “The World” is defined as the totality of particulars that have actual, non-fictional, existence, then “The World” is not a container. For, what would it mean for something to not be In The World? It might mean that it was an abstract entity. But being an abstract entity is not a way of being on the outside of Spatial boundary line, inside of which is The World. It is simply a way of belonging to another category of entities altogether.

Consider another example; we say that images are “in” consciousness. But the sense in which images are “in” the mind or consciousness is also non-Spatial, since one’s consciousness is not a Substantial thing at all (i.e., it makes no sense to ask “what consciousness is made of”). (I capitalize the word ‘Substantial’ since this word does not refer to a property; rather it is the name of a grammatical possibility in the proposition; i.e., if something is Substantial it is the sort of thing for which the

86 question “What sort of stuff is that made of?” is coherently applicable, in the proposition.)

Nor is the mind an arena that could “house” something like a mental

(since it makes no sense to ask where consciousness is located at all, whether here or there). To have a “in consciousness” is just, e.g., for a person to be daydreaming. But “consciousness” is not a place (analogous to the Black Forest), a place “where things go” when one daydreams. “Consciousness” is not a container.

For a mental image to be “in consciousness” is just for that image to be something a person is imagining.

(14.1) Do propositions “exist” “independently” of human beings?

There were additional concerns that the idea of a “third realm” suggested that propositions were the sorts of things that “existed independently” of human beings, as if they were “out there”, “pre-made”, “waiting” to be grasped and thought.

However, the idea of “dependent” or “independent existence” does not categorially fit propositions, since propositions are not categorially analogous to Substantial objects (i.e., things that can be said to exist either independently or not independently of human beings).

The clearest thing to say here is that propositions belong to a sui generis category, and are not categorially akin to either Artifacts (man-made Substantial things) or Natural Substances. The former, by definition, “depends for its existence on human beings.”

Propositions are the structures signified by “that-clauses”. Reality, human knowledge, thought, and claim making are all defined in terms of the proposition.

87 Are these structures “dependent” or “independent” of human beings? Such a question is not a clear one.

Is “negation” “dependent” on human beings? What would it mean if it were?

(15) More clarifications regarding the proposition and fundamental notions related to it

We must distinguish between (1) the sentence ‘Socrates is pale’ from (2) what is asserted when this sentence is used to make an assertion, namely, that

Socrates is pale, from (3) the saying of what is said, namely the particular action on the part of a person who has uttered this proposition. It is only (2) that is said to be a “proposition”, and it is only (2) that is properly said to be true or false.63 While the saying of P may be reasonable or unreasonable, rational or not, depending on whether there is reason, for the person in question, to say P, the potential fact that P may itself be either evidentially grounded or ungrounded, depending on whether there is evidence for the possible fact that P (i.e., known facts that establish or make probable P as a fact). Unlike the saying of P, the potential fact that P is neither reasonable nor unreasonable; but it may be probable or improbable.64

Propositions are what are known or said or thought; propositions are what is or is not the case. Propositions are “possible truths” or “possible falsehoods”:

63 Cf. G. E. Moore: “‘Truth’ and ‘falsehood’ are used in two main senses, according as (a) our belief in some propositions, (b) the proposition which we believe, is said to be true or false. True and false belief may be defined, respectively, as belief in propositions which are true or false: and error denotes false belief. Further, true and false propositions may be called, respectively, truths and errors.” (G. E. Moore, “Truth and Falsity” in G. E. Moore: Selected Writings, edited by Thomas Baldwin (London: Routledge, 1993) Kindle File, Chapter 2 64 Cf. Michael Williams, Problems of Knowledge: a Critical Introduction to Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) Consider in this context Williams’s distinction between “responsibility” and “grounding”. pp. 21-3

88 propositions are “facts”: “human knowledge” is the totality of true propositions that are knowledgably possessed by our culture.

(15.1) The Identity “Theory” of Truth as a Truism

G. E. Moore and John McDowell both regard the identity theory of truth as a truism. When we say that say that such and such is the case, and such and such is the case, then what we have said is just a fact. There is no difference between what we say, when what we have said is true, and a factual part of reality itself. And, if what is truly said contains “parts” or “elements”, then these parts or elements will also just be the elements that belong to that part of factual reality itself.65

We might say that a truth that we assert, i.e., a true proposition asserted, doesn’t “correspond” to a fact; for, it just is a fact. Why is this truistic? Because what we assert is (the proposition) that P; and suppose that that P (i.e., this proposition) is a fact; it follows, then, that the truth we assert is a fact; thus, if a proposition is true, it is a fact; and if something is a fact, then it is a true proposition. And thus the so-called “identity theory” is really tautological, and for this reason it is pretentious to even refer to it as a “theory” at all.66

(15.2) Reality is a subset of true propositions in the third realm

65 McDowell, Mind and World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996) p. 27-8 66 Cf. G. E. Moore, “Truth and Falsity”, in Selected Writings: “once it is definitely recognised that the proposition is to denote, note a belief or form of words, but an object of belief, it seems plain that a truth differs in no respect form the reality to which it was supposed merely to correspond: e.g., the truth that I exist differs in no respect form the corresponding reality….” Kindle File, Chapter 2

89 Let us define “reality”, in the broadest sense, as everything that is the case.67

Frege maintains that “propositions” belong to a “third realm”, and let us also adopt this way of talking, since the application of this figure of speech is uncontroversial, when properly interpreted categorially.68

In light of the identity “theory” of truth, it will follow that reality is a subset of the totality of propositions in Frege’s “third realm”. And “third realm” will signify the set of possible reality. Since a fact is identical to a true proposition, the totality of facts, i.e. reality, will be a subset of the totality of propositions in the third realm.

Insofar as facts “contain elements”, then true and false propositions will also

“contain elements”.

(15.3) On the idea of something being “in” a proposition

When the assertoric sentence “Socrates is pale” is used to express a proposition, what is said is that Socrates is pale. When we say that Socrates is pale, we say that Socrates himself---and no one or nothing else, no mere representation of

Socrates, no mere stand in for Socrates---is pale. Socrates, we say, is thus “in” this proposition: he occurs in the proposition. Such a notion is on the one hand truistic, but it also has the ring of paradoxicality.69 It can seem difficult to wrap our minds around the idea that Socrates is somehow “in” a proposition. How is this possible?

This is due to the misleading use of the word ‘in’. We say that Socrates is literally in the . But when we assert that Socrates is in the Lyceum, Socrates, and no

67 Cf. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, translated by C. K. Ogden (London: Routledge, 2002) §1 68 Frege, “Thought” in The Frege Reader, edited by Michael Beaney (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997) p. 337 69 See Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §95 where he speaks of a “paradox” that has the “form of a truism”.

90 substitute for Socrates, is also “in” our proposition. How can Socrates both be in the

Lyceum and in our proposition? The answer, of course, is that Socrates is Spatially in the Lyceum in a Spatial-relational sense. On the other hand, what is said is that

Socrates, and not an effigy or representation of Socrates, is in the Lyceum; for, if it were merely a representation of Socrates that was in the proposition, then this would mean we had asserted the quite different proposition, namely, that a representation of Socrates is in the Lyceum. And the fact that this is not what we have said is just to say that Socrates (as opposed to an effigy or representation of

Socrates) is “in” this proposition. When we say that “Socrates is in a proposition”, all this means is that when we say that Socrates is pale, it is Socrates that is said to be pale. What leads to the appearance of paradoxicality is thus confusion regarding what is signified by the term ‘in’.

(15.4) Propositions and their elements are individuated by their wording

The identity statements “The morning star is the evening star” and the

“morning star is the morning star” are different propositions, despite the fact that the morning is the evening star. Although propositions contain things and non- things as elements, the elements of propositions are individuated by the way they are worded. Morning star and evening star are different propositional elements despite the fact that they are one and the same thing. The elements of propositions do not fall under the genus “senses”: rather they fall under the genus “thing or non- thing”: however, “things” are individuated by the way they are worded by their corresponding sentences.

91

(16) With the proposition in view, we are now in a position to define the nature of the three traditional philosophical questions: together these philosophical questions constitute what I call “internal inquiry”

As we have noted above, there are three traditional philosophical questions:

(a) What is X? (b) Does X exist? (c) What kind of thing is X? I will now make the argument that each question, insofar as it retains it distinctive philosophical sense, is to be analyzed in terms of the notion of the proposition. And I will ultimately argue that this is how the Wittgensteinian tradition does and must understand things as well.

(17) Inquiry into the Essence of a Thing: What is X? What it is to be X or an X: the Conditions of Application of a Predicable to a Propositional Subject

How does philosophy begin? If we consider an early Platonic dialogue such as the Euthyphro, we can see that philosophy begins with a non-philosophical assertion. Euthyphro’s family asserts that what Euthyphro is doing in prosecuting his father is impious, and Euthyphro contradicts this allegation by insisting that what he is doing is not in fact impious.70 So, the two propositions in question are (i) that

Euthyphro’s actions are impious and (ii) that my [Euthyphro’s] actions are not impious. This disagreement provides the occasion for Socrates to ask Euthyphro

“what does it mean for something to be pious?” Socrates’ question narrows in on the

“what is said of” Euthyphro, namely, that he is or isn’t pious: that he is pious or is not pious is what is said of him. And Socrates’ question is as follows: “what does it mean to say of someone or someone’s actions that they are or are not pious?” “What does it

70 Plato, Euthyphro in The Complete Works of Plato, Translated by Benjamin Jowett (The Complete Works Collection, 2011) Kindle File

92 mean for someone or his actions to be or not be pious?” This is then a question about what it amounts to, what it comes to, to say of some-thing (in this case a person or action) that it is or isn’t some way (in this case pious or impious). It is a question about the meaning of some “predicable”, where a “predicable” is “what is said” of something, some “subject” about which something is said. We could say that it is a question regarding the conditions under which it would be true or correct to say of some-thing that it is pious: the conditions of correct applicability of the predicable is pious to some subject. We could also say that it is a question about what it amounts to for something to be pious, in the proposition. (I say, “in the proposition”, for, we are not concerned with the worldly, “external”, consequences of the state of affairs of someone’s having some quality, but only with what pertains to the internal, i.e., what it amounts to as far as assessing the meaning of the proposition.)

Here the notion of “meaning” is not that of “word meaning”. We are not asking, first and foremost, for the meaning of the word ‘piety’. What we are asking for is the meaning of something’s being so of something, in the proposition. We are asking what it means for something to be so of something, in the proposition. And so, while it is a question about “meaning”, we should not assume that all questions of meaning must be questions, first and foremost, about language or words. “Meaning” here means something along the lines of “what it (i.e., something’s being so of something) comes to” or “what it (i.e., something’s being so of something) amounts to”, in the proposition.

The way in which Socrates poses this question is to ask “What is piety”? and also “What makes something pious?” Asking “What is X?” or “What makes something

93 X?” are traditional and paradigmatic forms of philosophical questions. But these ways of posing the question can lead to various misinterpretations of what is being asked; and some of these misunderstandings are explored in the Euthyphro dialogue itself.

(17.1) Aristotle distinguished four kinds of explanations (a) efficient, (b) material, (c) formal, and (d) final.

When we ask what “makes” something X, we are asking for an “explanation” of X’s being true of some-thing. Aristotle distinguished between four types of explanations: efficient-explanations, material-explanations, formal-explanations and final-explanations.71

We should not confuse the formal-causal nature of an entity with its material-causal nature; and thus we cannot assume that the formal-causal nature of an entity will just be its material-causal nature. In fact, this will only be so in the case of raw materials and physical-chemical elements. The material-cause of zinc is zinc, and zinc is also the formal-cause of zinc. But this kind of case is an exception not the rule. E.g., suppose that all chairs in the world are made of wood such that there is no exception to the rule that a chair is materially-causally wood. It would not follow from this that a chair was formal-causally definable as wood. A chair is formal- causally definable as whatever structure, embodying such and such features, functionally affords the particular human activity of sitting. In the case of artifacts, such as chairs, a final-cause, i.e., some end, in light of which the function is

71 Aristotle, Physics and Metaphysics in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. I, and Vol. II, Edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton University Press, 1984) 194b18-30 and 983a24-31

94 intelligible, is invoked in the formal-cause. Consider another example: a human being is materially-causally a biological being. But a human being is not formal- causally defined as the brain-body-physiological-structural-bio-system out of which it is biologically constituted. This is not to say that there is some other material-causal stuff other than the biological system out of which the human is biologically constituted, but it does not follow from this that the human being is, formal-causally, this biological system out of which it is biologically constituted, material-causally.

(For, a human being is the animal that possesses the Dimensions of Reason and

Freedom, and the bio-system lacks both Dimensions; and thus the human being and the human being’s material-cause are not equivalent.)

An efficient-explanation is a causal-explanation; a material-explanation is an explanation of something by way of revealing the entity’s underlying material substratum; a formal-explanation is an explanation of the “what it means to be” of something “in the proposition”. (Formal-causal explanations are thus one kind of explanation we are concerned to provide in “internal”, philosophical, inquiry.) A final-causal explanation is a teleological explanation by means of the specification of some goal or purpose or want or reason or motive or end relative to which something (e.g., a physiological organ or appendage, the behavior some biological process in a bio-system, human action, a plan of action, functional part of an artifact, or an artifact as a whole) is thereby made intelligible. (Note: ends can either be extrinsic or intrinsic; the ends of organs of biological organisms are intrinsic; that is, these ends are not assigned by a designer; such intrinsic ends are intelligible solely

95 in terms of the possibility of bio-flourishing on the part of the organism relative to its natural historical environment.)

This means that the question “what makes something X”? can mean various things depending on how the word ‘make’ is interpreted, that is, depending on whether the word ‘make’ is intended to refer to an efficient, material, formal or final explanation.

Throughout his work, Aristotle cites, to various ends, the example of Socrates pale, during the winter, and then dark during the summer, when the sun is stronger. Now, if, e.g., we ask, “What makes someone pale?”, this can amount to various different questions depending on how the word ‘make’ is interpreted. If we are asking for an efficient explanation, the question means “what has caused this person to be pale?”, and the answer might be “lack of exposure to sunlight”. If we are asking for a material explanation, the question means “what in the material substratum of the skin is the material precondition for the observed visible property of paleness?”, and the answer might be “lower concentrations of the compound melanin”. If we are asking for a formal-explanation, the question means “under what conditions is the predicable is pale true of some subject, in the proposition” or “what does it mean to say of some-thing that it is pale, in the proposition”, and the answer might be “to be pale, in the proposition, is to be light in color” or “to say, propositionally, of something that it is pale is to say, propositionally, that it is light in color” or “for something to be pale, in the proposition, is for it to be light in color”. If we are asking for a final-causal explanation, the question “What makes someone pale?”, as it stands, lacks a clear sense. However, we could ask, “What makes

96 someone desire to be pale?” That is, we could ask what reason or purpose a person might have, in light of their desires and beliefs, to wish to be pale (as opposed to tanned or sunburnt), i.e., to realize the end state of affairs of their being pale (as opposed to tan or sunburnt). And the answer may cite some cosmetic or health consideration. We could also ask “what function, in light of the fact that the human organism is something that can flourish in its natural historical environment, does pale skin have?” And the answer might be that the of skin functions to facilitate vitamin D synthesis, which in turn is a precondition of the normal maintenance of biological functions, in the normal life-cycle of the organism, as is given by what is naturally historically normal for that species.72 This is a way of inquiring into the final-cause of this phenomenon.73

Let us consider another example: let’s suppose we ask, “What makes someone cheerful?” this question too can amount to various different questions depending on how the word ‘make’ is interpreted. If we are asking for an efficient explanation, the question means “what has caused this person to be cheerful?” and the answer might be “this person has just returned from a backpacking trip”. Here

72 While there are indigenous populations, it is unclear whether the human race can be said to have a natural history anymore. For, human beings are a civilized people, and are no longer beings that are “found in nature”. Of course, prior to the widespread march of civilization, humans did have a natural history; however, this does not imply that humans are or were ever merely “natural beings”. In any case, most living things on the planet have a natural history.

73 Michael Thompson has investigated what he calls the “natural historical mode” of speech in ordinary language. We say that “Vitamin D is produced in the summer months”; this means that, in relative to the natural historical norm, vitamin D is supposed to be produced in the summer. It does not mean that all vitamin D is produced in the summer or that it must be or that it ought to be in some moral sense. It just means that this is the species norm in the natural historical environment. (Michael Thompson, Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008)) Kindle File, Part I, Chapters III and IV); (Michael Thompson, “The Representation of Life” in and Reasons: and Moral Theory: Essays in Honour of Philippa Foot (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)) pp. 247-296

97 the idea is that backpacking is an activity that leads a person to be cheerful. Going backpacking “causes” the person to feel good, in the sense that it leads to this outcome. Of course, it isn’t as though the “activity of backpacking” somehow “bumps into” the psychological state of “feeling good” and pushes it into “the mind” of the person. We are not dealing with causation in the manner of billiard balls exerting physical forces on one another. But this is of no concern: for, an efficient causal phenomenon need not conform to this kind of “billiard ball impact-causality model”.

It is sufficient for an occurrence S to efficiently cause another occurrence P that S temporally results in the occurrence of P. But the “resulting” needn’t take the form of a “bumping into”.

This is not to say that we cannot consider the human being from a purely physiological standpoint (even though this is to consider the human being as something other than the human is most authentically); and from this standpoint, we could try to better understand the physiological workings that provide the causal linkages between the two observed states of affairs, namely, going backpacking and feeling good. And we could perhaps explore these linkages in an efficient explanatory sense if we knew more about the person’s physiology and how it is affected by the activity of backpacking and also if we knew how those physiological consequences are correlated with the actualization of a person’s psychological capacity for being cheerful. But this should not lead us to assume that feeling cheerful is “nothing but” some state of the brain. For, a human being is what has a psyche and is the sort of thing for whom the property of “feeling cheerful”, or

98 its contraries, is combinable in the proposition. But a brain is not the sort of thing that has this grammatical possibility in the proposition.

Now, if, in our “what makes?” question, we are asking for a material- explanation, then the question lacks a clear sense. For, cheerfulness is not the sort of thing that is made of anything. However, we could ask, “What are the necessary physiological structures that must be physiologically present if a person is to have the psychological potentiality of being cheerful?”

If we are asking for a formal-explanation, the question means “under what conditions is the predicable is cheerful true of some subject, in the proposition” or

“what does it mean to say of some person that he is cheerful, in the proposition” or

“what would it be for some person to be cheerful, in the proposition” and the answer might be “to be cheerful, in the proposition, is to be in good spirits” or “to say of someone that he is cheerful is to say that he is in good spirits”.

If we are asking for a final-causal explanation, the question would have to be interpreted as “What reason does a person have for being cheerful?”, and the answer to that might be “Because the person has achieved such and such a goal, which he had wanted to achieve.”

When Socrates asks “What makes something pious?”, Socrates is asking for a formal explanation of piety. And thus the question means “under what conditions is the predicable is pious true of some subject, in the proposition?” or “what does it mean to say of some-thing, in the proposition, that it is pious?”; and the answer might be “to be a pious person or to perform a pious deed is to act (or to be the kind of person who acts) in such a way that the person or action is characterizable as

99 being respectful of what is sacred.” This in turn will raise the formal-question “What does it mean for an action to be respectful of what is sacred”? And there will be various other questions which we will have to explore: to what extent is “respecting what is sacred” a function of not only what is done but also how it is done and why it is done, i.e., out of what considerations it is done for? For, upon reflection, we may come to re-collect that the pious person may not merely be the person who does such and such types of actions, but is also the person who does them in the right way, and for the right reasons, and out of such and such considerations.

In any case, an analysis of the conditions of application of the predicable “is pious” “in the proposition” will raise other deeper questions concerning the application of the elements contained in the initial statement of the conditions of application. And this process of questioning and re-collecting will continue, until we arrive at notions that are fundamental and basic; that is, we will reach the point at which our formal-causal explanations cease to provide illumination; and at that point, we will have arrived at the basic ethical notions that shed light on a whole host of different elements of propositions. Such notions will likely include the notion of

“respect”, “acknowledgment”, “person”, “end in itself”, “intrinsically valuable” and so on; that is, we will invariably arrive at the notions that have been the subjects of the works of the great foundational thinkers in ethics.

The question “What makes someone pious?” is not asking for a final, material or efficient explanation of the true applicability of piety to a subject. Indeed, it is not even clear what an efficient, material or final-causal interpretation of this question would even amount to.

100 Consider: if someone were to ask, “What causes, in an efficient sense, someone to be pious? The answer might be “I don’t understand the question”. For, a person is a being who can act for reasons in light of goals and who possesses the

Dimension of Freedom; i.e., a person is the sort of entity regarding whom it makes to say that he is or isn’t coerced, is or isn’t responsible, or is or isn’t in rational control. A person is not, categorially, a machine; and machines are not the sorts of things that are either pious or impious, whatsoever. Someone might suggest that it is conceivable that the probability of the performance of putatively pious behavior on the part of a person might become higher in the presence of some state of affairs.

And perhaps we could show that such and such state of affairs usually leads to the performance of this behavior. But then the question is “is the behavior authentically pious?” or does it just resemble actual pious behavior? E.g., a person might be led to sacrifice to the gods out of an overwhelming sense of necessity for fear for his life.

But this may in fact disqualify their behavior from being pious, if pious behavior must be behavior that is done out of respect for what is sacred. And thus, in some contexts at least, behavior that is psychologically caused, in the sense of psychologically compelled, may be sufficient to disqualify it from counting as authentically pious behavior, regardless of whether the behavior is behaviorally similar to authentically pious behavior. Pious behavior thus may be partly defined as behavior that is done for the right reasons and out the right considerations, as opposed to having been done “automatically” or “unthinkingly”.

Were we to ask, “What makes someone pious?”, and were we to intend this question in a material-explanatory sense, then we could be accused of categorial

101 confusion. Piety is not the sort of thing that is made of anything. Piety is not a

Material thing at all. (Here the term ‘Material’ signifies a Dimension not an ordinary property. That is, “Material” is a genus of contraries that marks off a fundamental category of things; thus it is a notion that figures in “internal”, not “external” claims.)

What piety is is an ethical or religious attribute judged to hold of persons or actions, in light such and such formal explanatory conditions of application.

Of course, we can coherently ask, “What are the necessary brain-structures that must be in place, without which a person would not be in a physiological position to exercise their ability to act for reasons at all?” However, it should not be assumed that the answer to this question has any bearing whatsoever on the formal-causal question regarding piety.

Were we to intend the question “What makes someone pious?” in a final- explanatory sense, we would, for the sake of clarity, need to first rephrase the question as “What reason does a person have to be pious?” And the answer to that question might be “Being respectful of what is sacred is something that needs no reason; for that something is sacred is reason itself to respect it; a person will pursue the pious for the sole reason that he sees what is sacred and acts accordingly and out respect for what is sacred; the pious is an end in itself; not a means to some other end.”

We said that Socrates also poses the question “What makes someone pious?” with the alternative formulation “What is piety?” This formulation can also be misinterpreted. For, it is tempting to think that this question can be answered by supplying various general truths regarding the phenomenon of pious behavior, as

102 we might study it “in the world”. I.e., we might be tempted to think that various

“non-internal” facts about pious behavior, especially law-like facts, may be what we are looking for.

Suppose we asked, in a Socratic sense, “What is ice cream?” And suppose it were answered “Ice cream is the dessert that all children love” or “Ice cream is the dessert that has such and such effects when digested” or “Ice cream is the dessert that will freeze or melt at such and such temperatures”. These would be true, “non- internal”, generalizations that hold of ice cream as it actually manifests itself “in the world”, but they would not be answers to the formal-causal question “What is ice cream?” For, the formal-causal question concerns the conditions of application of the predicable is ice cream “in the proposition”. It is a properly “internal” question. It does not concern what is discovered to be true of ice cream “in the world”.

Though this is deliberatively crude, we might call the study of the general truths that hold of ice cream “in the world” the “science of ice cream”. And, though this is deliberatively crude, we might call the formal-explanatory investigation into the conditions of application of the predicable ice cream in the proposition the

“philosophy of ice cream”. Now, there are various senses in which the philosophy of ice cream is “presupposed” in the science of cream. (1) Unless the scientist has some understanding or other of the formal-explanatory conditions for the application of ice cream in the proposition, then he will have no understanding of what he is saying in making his scientific report about the correlation between ice cream and the dispositions of children. And thus the rationality of the scientist’s behavior is contingent upon his having some philosophical understanding or other. (2) Unless

103 the scientist has the right understanding of the formal-explanatory conditions for the application of ice cream in the proposition, then he will lack the right understanding of what he has said in saying that ice cream is loved by all children.

(3) Unless there is some formal-explanatory nature of the kind of thing called “ice- cream” as such, a scientific statement containing the element ice cream will lack content, altogether. (4) The specific content that a scientific statement containing this element has is partly determined by the meaning of this element.

Keeping in mind the example of ice cream, consider an actual example from the Euthyphro. Famously, Euthyphro offers as an answer to the question “What is piety?” that that piety is what all the gods love. But Socrates and Euthyphro soon realize that this is not the right sort of answer to a properly philosophy question.

For, they acknowledge that the gods love piety because it is pious (in other words, the final-explanatory explanation of why the gods love piety is simply that it is intrinsically love-worthy); and they also acknowledge that it is not the case that something is pious because the gods love it (in other words, that something is pious is not in a formal-explanatory sense given by the condition of its being loved by the gods); and this means that the statement that piety is what all the gods love can be nothing more than a true generalization about the relation between godly esteem and pious behavior “in the world”. To ask “What is piety?” in the relevant philosophical sense is not to ask a question about what is generally or even necessarily true of pious things “in the world”; it is instead to ask about the formal

104 conditions of application of a predicable “in the proposition”. It is not to ask a non- internal, external, question; it is to ask an internal question.74

The non-internal claim that piety is what all the gods love initially masquerades as a philosophical (internal) claim; but now we see that this non- internal claim in fact “presupposes” (in at least four different senses) the philosophical (internal) claim about piety (where “claim” is subject to an “ing/ed” ambiguity). For, (1) a person who uttered this non-philosophical claim must have some philosophical understanding of piety; i.e., the rationality of the claiming of the claim presupposes some philosophical understanding of piety; (2) it is this person’s obligation to have the right understanding; for otherwise, he will not understand what he has actually said; (3) the claim itself, i.e., the content of the claim,

“presupposes” that there is some coherent answer to the philosophical question

”What is piety?” for otherwise the claim would have no content at all, and thus would not even be a claim; (4) the specific content the claim has is itself partly a function of the correct answer given in the philosophical (internal) investigation.

To sum up: we have seen the ways in which the questions “What makes something pious?” and “What is piety?” can be misinterpreted. And in seeing these characteristic misinterpretations we are beginning to get a clearer picture of what internal-philosophical inquiry might be and how it relates to other kinds of inquiries.

74 “We must know what explanation means. There is a constant danger of wanting to use this word in logic in a sense that is derived from physics.” (Wittgenstein, “Philosophy”, in Philosophical Occasions, (my emphasis) p. 177)

105

(17.2) “”: a linguistic and non-linguistic sense

Another characteristic misinterpretation of these Socratic “What is…?” questions is to regard them as asking for a “definition of a word”. The term

‘definition’ has a double meaning. On the one hand, a “definition” can be the pairing of a word with some element of a proposition; on the other hand, a “definition” can refer to the elucidation of the element of a proposition, in light of its conditions of application in the proposition, in light of what is basic in the order of intelligibility.

The former could be called “word definition” or “linguistic definition”, and the latter could be called “Socratic definition” or “philosophical definition” or “formal-causal definition/explanation”. “Dictionary definitions” are often hybrids since they associate a word with the conditions of application in the proposition of the propositional element with which the word has, ahead of time, already been understood to be paired.

Thus, when Socrates asks, “What is piety?”, he is asking for the definition of a thing, an element of a proposition. He wants to know what it means for something to have this thing called “piety”, to possess this property we call “piety”. The word

‘piety’ is the word we use to designate this thing, but the thing is what we are really concerned with, not the word, which is arbitrary. For, any number of words could be used to designate this thing.75 (Here one is inclined to say “All there is is a word;

75 Cf. G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica: “What, then, is good? How is good to be defined? Now, it may be thought that this is a verbal question. A definition does indeed often mean the expressing of one word’s meaning in other words. But this is not the sort of definition I am asking for. Such a definition can never be of ultimate importance in any study except lexicography. If I wanted that kind of definition I should have to consider in the first place how people generally used the word ‘good’; but my business is not with its proper usage, as established by custom. I should, indeed, be foolish, if I tried to use if for something which it did not usually denote: if, for instance, I were to

106 there is no thing”; or “Piety only “exists” because of the use of the word ‘piety’ in our form of life”; or “Piety is just a concept in the mind, not a mind-independent thing”; I address these objections below.)

While we have control over how words are conventionally used, we have no control over the meaning of words. I can switch in a code the words ‘book’ and ‘tree’.

But I have no ability to switch or tamper with the meanings of the words ‘book’ and

‘tree’. How the word ‘book’ is used is potentially up to me, .e.g., in the context of fashioning a code; but what a book is is not up to me.

What Quine ridicules as the “museum myth of meaning”76, I regard as a mere truism. Moreover, this picture is entirely compatible with what McDowell calls

“naturalized ” and with Wittgenstein’s critique of the “Augustinian picture” of language learning. For, the point is that word-object relations make no sense outside the context of categorial-grammar; and categorial-grammar is tied to language itself, which itself is tied to a form of life.

So one might say: the explains…the meaning…of the word when the overall role of the word in language is clear. Thus if I know that someone means to explain a colour-word to me the ostensive definition "That is called 'sepia' " will help me to understand the word.77

Grammar, word-object-relations, language and a form of life are all tied together; but that by no means makes the very idea of word-object relations

announce that, whenever I used the word ‘good,’ I must be understood to be thinking of that object which is usually denoted by the word ‘table.’ I shall, therefore, use the word in the sense in which I think it is ordinarily used; but at the same time I am not anxious to discuss whether I am right in thinking that it is so used. My business is solely with that object or idea, which I hold, rightly or wrongly, that the word is generally used to stand for. What I want to discover is the nature of that object or idea, and about this I am extremely anxious to arrive at an agreement.” (G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica: (Lexicos, 2011)) Kindle File, Chapter 1 76 See W. V. Quine, “Ontological Relativity”, in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969) p. 27 77 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, my emphasis, §30

107 suspect. There is nothing wrong, e.g., with the idea that ‘human being’ refers to the kind “human being”.78

To sum up: we have seen how philosophy, or at least Socratic philosophical inquiry, “begins” with a non-philosophical assertion. We can now say that the sense in which philosophy “begins” with a non-philosophical assertion is both temporal and explanatory. For, early Socratic philosophical dialogues do temporally begin in reference to a non-philosophical assertion. However, the “what is?” question is itself defined with reference to the proposition. And thus the proposition is “first” in both a temporal and an explanatory sense in Socratic philosophy.

The assertion has the form “S is P” or “S is a K”, where P is a “property” or K is a “kind”. And the Socratic question is “What does it mean for something to be P (or a

K)?” or “What is P (or a K)?” or “What makes something P (or a K)?” or “In virtue of

78 There are objections to the idea of “Forms” that are independent of the fact that they were mythologically pictured by Plato to belong to “another world”. One concern expressed by Michael Williams is that the idea of Platonic forms implies that they exist “beyond” our “control”. Williams writes, “pragmatists are anti-Platonist. They want to treat norms as human phenomena that we are responsible to but also responsible for.” (Michael Williams, “How Pragmatists can be Local Expressivists”, Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)) Kindle File, Chapter 7

“Neo-Pragmatists deny that there is anything spooky about the idea of standards (of reasonableness, sanity, etc.). They are standards that we set and can revise. We are responsible to them but also responsible for them: this is the main point of the Wittgensteinian analogy between language and .” (Michael Williams, ”Context, Meaning, and Truth”, p. 112)

“A belief is no more justified, wholly independently of human evaluative attitudes and practices, than a certain kind of tackle in football is a foul, wholly independently of our practices of judging certain types of tackle to be against the rules”. (Michael Williams, Problems of Knowledge: a Critical Introduction to Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)) pp. 170-1

“…anti-Platonism embodies what calls ‘pragmatism about norms’: the view that normative statuses are instituted by our taking up normative attitudes (as is obviously the case with respect to the rules of games).” (Michael Williams, “How Pragmatists can be Local Expressivists”, Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)) Kindle File, Chapter 7

108 what is something P (or a K)?” or “What are the conditions of application in the proposition of a predicable containing P (or K)?” We have seen that these questions, properly understood, are interchangeable ways of framing one and the same question, a question which is defined in terms of the concept of the proposition; they are questions regarding the meaning of propositional predicables when applied to a propositional subject, in light of basic notions, that are fundamental in the order of intelligibility, the order of which is “given”.

(18) Existence; or What is Intelligible: What Can be In a Proposition

What Exists? Like the question “What is X?”, this is another basic and traditional philosophical question. I want to make the case that this question too is to be understood in terms of the proposition.

(18.1) What is a Thing?

Before we attempt to get a handle on the meaning of the question of existence, let us first explore a related and equally significant question: “What is a thing?” If we ask, “What is a thing?”, we may at first be tempted to answer that a thing is something along the lines of a tree, rock or shrub.79 These things are what we call “Particulars” that exist in the actual-World. We may also be tempted to say that fictional entities are things too, just not things that exist in the actual World.

Fictional things, we might say, exist in a fictional World. But why should we stop there? What about particular Events and Actions? Are these not things? What about particular Propositions and particular States of Affairs? What about Types of Actions

79 Martin Heidegger, What is a thing?, translated by W. B. Barton and Vera Deutsch (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1967) pp. 19-22

109 and Events? And what about the Properties of the concrete Particulars with which we began? Are all these not “things” in some sense too? And what about the Kinds under which these particulars fall? Are they also things?

The medievals distinguished between categorematic elements and syncategorematic elements. Categorematic elements were defined as those elements that were capable of “standing alone”; by contrast, syncategorematic elements were those elements that only occur “together with” the categorematic elements. But where are these entities standing, and standing alone or standing together with for that matter?

I shall assert that a categorematic element is what stands alone in the proposition. But what does it mean for something to stand alone in a proposition? It means for something to be categorially-propositionally capable of being a propositional subject.

One convenient way of thinking about this is to think of a categorematic element as any element in the proposition that is referred to by a noun or “potential noun”, i.e., a word or phrase or whole sentence that can be nominalized. For any noun or “potential noun” can figure as the linguistic subject of a possible grammatical sentence. And when it does, this linguistic subject will refer to a potential propositional subject and this potential proposition subject is a categorematic element.

Thus we can say that the “categorematic” elements are the elements in the proposition that are referred to by nouns or potential nouns, whereas the

“syncategorematic” elements are the elements that do not correspond to words that

110 can be nouns. The syncategorematic elements are the elements that can never be propositional subjects.

Using this terminology, we can then define a “thing”, in the widest sense, as any potential categorematic element of a proposition.80

By contrast we can use the separate word ‘being’ to refer to any potential element of a proposition, whether syncategorematic or categorematic.

Thus, a “being” is anything that can be “in the proposition”. That is, if something is something, in the broadest possible sense, then it is something that can figure in a proposition.

(18.2) If something is “potentially in” a proposition, this is a necessary truth that cannot be otherwise (by definition): the very idea of a coherent element being “not potentially inside” a proposition is unintelligible (by definition)

It is important to bear in mind that when something is said to be “potentially in” a proposition, in the broadest possible sense, this claim, when true, is true necessarily. The very idea of coherent element “not being potentially in” a proposition is unintelligible.81 For, if, per impossible, some coherent element were

“necessarily outside” a proposition, then it would nevertheless be something, and then it would be “potentially in” the proposition.

80 Cf. Russell, “Whatever may be an object of thought, or may occur in a true or false proposition, or can be counted as one….is a term…”. Bertrand Russell, The Principles of Mathematics (New York: Norton, 1996) p. 43. Consider also what G. E. Moore writes in a letter to MacCarthy: “I have arrived at a perfectly staggering doctrine….An existent is nothing but a proposition: nothing is but concepts. There is my philosophy.” (Thomas Baldwin, G. E. Moore (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 41) 81 Cf. John McDowell, Mind and World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996) Lecture III; Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Preface

111 To say that “something” is necessarily outside the proposition is to say that

“something” is not an element at all. It is to say that “it” is nothing. And when this sort of claim is true, it too is true necessarily.

This is a way of saying that the very definition of “something” is that

“something” is what is potentially “in a proposition”. Thus, if “‘something’” is not

“potentially in a proposition”, then “‘something’” is not by definition “something”.

Rather, “it” is “‘something’” else. This “‘something else’” it is, we call “nothing”.

The “properties” of “being potentially in” or “not being potentially in” a

“proposition” are what demarcate, definitionally, the primary division within ontology, the division between something and nothing.

(18.3) “‘Something or nothing’, i.e., ‘the authentic or inauthentic possible elements of propositions’” is the highest genus

The phrases “potentially in a proposition” and “not potentially in a proposition” thus distinguish something from nothing.

Nothing is not a “potential proposition element” that is flawed in some way.

Rather, nothing is just nothing. “Something” can, thus, be defined as a possible element of a proposition. “Nothing” can be defined as the pseudo-correlate of the notional-appearance of there being a possible element of a proposition, when there is nothing more than a string of words, given that these words are actually nonsensical.82

82 Cf. James Conant, “Wittgenstein on Meaning and Use”, Philosophical Investigations, (July 1998) pp. 222-250; “The Method of the Tractatus”, in From Frege to Wittgenstein: Perspectives on Early Analytic Philosophy, edited by Erich H. Rech, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 374-404

112 This means that the very notion of a “limit” or “boundary” that demarcates the “potential propositional elements” from the “not potential propositional

‘somethings’” is itself incoherent. For, the “not potential ‘somethings’” are nothing.

Thus, there is nothing to limit. And thus the very idea of a boundary makes no sense in this context.83 Thus “what” necessarily lies outside the proposition, i.e., nothing, does not lie outside a limit. For if there were a limit, we could ask what was on the other side of the limit, and then we would invariably point to something or at least the possibility of something, and so the limit would not really be a limit at all, and our boundary line would have to expand. But this would continue on ad infinitum, and thus there is really no sense to be made of a limit or boundary of intelligibility at all. What is intelligible is in the proposition. And “what” is not intelligible is not a

“something” at all. It is “nothing”; but the very idea of “nothing” is the very idea of the mere appearance of intelligibility, of an intelligible, without anything, really, behind it.

One might object that if it is nonsense to say that something is “not potentially in a proposition”, then it is also nonsense to say that something is

“potentially inside a proposition”. This is true. However, we do not say that

“something is potentially outside a proposition”: what we say is that the phrase “not potentially in a proposition” means that “something” is nothing. And the phrase

“potentially in a proposition” means that “something” is something. “Something” in quotation marks is just a verbal placeholder. It remains to be determined whether

83 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Preface James Conant, “The Method of the Tractatus”, in From Frege to Wittgenstein: Perspectives on Early Analytic Philosophy, edited by Erich H. Rech, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) pp. 374-404

113 “something” is something (i.e., potentially in a proposition) or whether “something” is nothing (not potentially in a proposition). It can seem as though it is nonsense to say of nothing that it is nothing (i.e., unintelligible). For, if we can refer to nothing, then isn’t nothing something (i.e., intelligible)? “Nothing”, however, is just the pseudo-correlate of an expression. In “referring” to nothing, we do not refer to anything. And, thus, in so much as speaking of nothing, we are not contradicting ourselves.

Nevertheless, there must be a genus that provides the grouping for the subject-bearers that properly take the predicables “is intelligible/is potentially in a proposition” and “is not intelligible/is not potentially in a proposition”; for, otherwise, there would be no common “kind of thing” that these predicables were suited for, and that would mean that these contrasting predicables were not really contrasting predicables; but that would be incoherent. Therefore, we must introduce the kind “the authentic or inauthentic possible elements of propositions”, as the genus “above” something and nothing.

“Something or nothing” as the highest genus cannot be non-circularly defined. The genus “something or nothing” is simply defined as “something or nothing”. Were we able to define “something or nothing” in terms of some differentiating property, then we would be forced to acknowledge a contrasting genus and then yet another highest genus. And if we in turned defined that genus in a non-circular manner, this process would go on indefinitely. For example, if we were to define “something or nothing” as the “apparent possible elements of propositions”, then we would be forced to acknowledge the contrasting genus “the

114 non-apparent possible elements of propositions” and then we would require a higher genus to encompass both of these. This is why we must simply stop with

“something or nothing” as the highest genus. It is categorial-taxonomic bedrock.

Like the predicables “is a mathematical truth/is not a mathematical truth” the predicables “is intelligible/is not intelligible” are always used to express necessary truths.

(18.4) The Nature of Existence and non-Existence

From here we can arrive at a broad concept of existence. We can define

“existence”, in the widest possible sense of the term, as the property of any categorematic or syncategorematic element that can appear in the proposition.

Increasingly narrower definitions of existence would then become possible; for example, we might choose to reserve the term “exist” only for the categorematic elements, excluding the syncategorematic elements; or we might choose to reserve the word ‘exist’ for the categorematic elements that fall under the category of

“particulars”, whether substantial or non-substantial; or we might choose to reserve the word ‘exist’ for the Substantial particulars (as opposed to non-substantial particulars) in the real or fictional world. And we could continue to restrict our definition until we narrowed down our account of existence to “the being of particular Substantial things in the real world”: this is what is meant by “ontical existence”.

And this observation leads us to a concept of “non-existence”, in the widest sense of “non-existence”. For something to not exist, in the widest sense, is for it to

115 be incapable of appearing in the proposition as a categorematic or syncategorematic element. An example, would “round-square”.

To exist in the widest sense is thus to be an “Intelligible”, i.e., an element that can occur in the proposition. And any element that “cannot” occur in the proposition is merely the illusion of an element: it is the pseudo-entity corresponding to an unclear and indistinct idea. And that is what it means for something to lack

“existence” in the widest sense of “non-existence”.

What is required for assessing wide-existence is thus an understanding of the inheritance of given elements of propositions from the culture in which one is brought up, along with an understanding of the meanings of these elements, and an ability to apply the principle of non-contradiction to these meanings in assessing and coherence.

(18.5) What Exists

If something is a thing (i.e., a categorematum), then it Exists, in the wide sense. If something exists in the wide sense, it exists necessarily, by definition.

(18.6) The World is a subset of Categoremata

The world is defined as the set of all Substantial and non-Substantial particulars in the actual world. Thus, on the two widest senses of “exist”, what is called the “world”, i.e., all the Substantial and non-substantial particulars in the actual world, would be a subset of the total set of categoremata.

Consistent with this definition of “wide-existence” is the idea that there may be “apparently existing items” that seem to exist but do not. For example, if we utter

116 the claim “The round-square is round”, we may appear to assert a proposition with content; but since the notion of a “round-square” is incoherent, there is no such existing categorematic element and thus no proposition.

(18.7) Why is there something as opposed to nothing?

Let us then ask why is there something as opposed to nothing? The answer, in light of our above definitions, is that something is by definition given with propositional content itself, and ‘nothing’ is a word that lacks any reference to anything. Wittgenstein appears to have wanted to define ‘God’ as the “givenness” of propositional content, along with the unities and structures that govern this content, itself.84 And there is no objection to this stipulation, so long as one keeps in mind that this is not the “God” either of Abraham or of the philosophers.

“Givenness” is the fact of there being propositional Intelligibles and grammatical-structures at all; and “givenness” can be stipulatively defined as “God”, as we are free to use words however we please; but this stipulation is fitting since the notion of “givenness” “explains” in a formal-causal sense “why there is something as opposed to nothing”; that is, it explains the meaning of “the existence of something”, as the “givenness of Intelligibles”: and so the name of the essence of the existence of something, as opposed to nothing, is God.

Why is there, then, something as opposed to “nothing”? ‘Nothing’ has no reference at all; and so “something” necessarily must “exist”, in the wide sense, if we

84 Ludwig Wittgenstein, “A Lecture on Ethics” in Philosophical Occasions, pp. 42-44

117 can even mention it at all, which we can.85 And yet, for “something” to exist means for there to be potential “Intelligibles” in the proposition.

(18.8) Quine’s of principle of “ontological” commitment is sensible, if “ontological” is replaced with “ontically real” and if “best natural scientific theory” is replaced with ”our non-scientific knowledge, along with our best natural and social scientific theories”

Quine asserts that what we are “ontologically” committed to are the values of the variables, when our best natural scientific theories are put into quantificational notation.

In this “criterion of ‘ontological commitment’”, Quine fails to distinguish between the “ontical” and the “ontological”.86 The ontical is what pertains to what exists within some given Philosophical Category. We can distinguish between what is ontically Worldly and also rooted in reality, and what is ontically Worldly but not rooted in reality. By contrast, the ontological is what pertains to the reality of

Philosophical Categories as such. One of the primary tasks of ontology is to provide a categorial-taxonomy of “beings”, in the widest sense, i.e., anything that can figure in a proposition.

What Quine is doing is really providing a criterion of “ontical” commitment of

“of existing things in the actual, non-fictional, World”. Moreover, articulating the principle by which we would determine this issue, it would be quite mistaken to

85 “The simplest existential propositions are then to be regarded as necessary propositions of a peculiar sort.” (G. E. Moore, “The Nature of Judgment” in G. E. Moore: Selected Writings) Kindle File, Chapter 1 86 Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1962) Kindle File, Introduction, §3, Footnote 3 and Introduction, §5 and Division I, Part III, §19

118 limit the propositions to be put in quantificational notation, to the propositions of our best natural scientific theories. For, as we argue below, human knowledge spans not only what we gain in the natural sciences, but also what we gain in the social sciences; moreover, much of human knowledge is altogether non-scientific. And this means that what exists in a Worldly sense, will include all sorts of entities that do not figure as basic natural scientific entities in the natural sciences. One such entity is what we call human beings, i.e., Free persons with a Socratic-Kantian , i.e., a . Another such entity is the status of being good, i.e., the status a person has when he takes into account in his actions what is called for by the categorical imperative.

(18.9) The “Rootedness in Reality” of Universal Non-Substances, i.e., Properties and Kinds

We speak of a propositional element’s being “rooted in reality”. To be “rooted in reality” means that the propositional element figures in clear and distinct known propositions, whether those propositions are scientific or non-scientific.

The notion of “rootedness in reality” is broader than the notion of “Worldly existence”. For, that which “exists in a Worldly sense” is a real Worldly Particular, such as a Substance, Event, Action or State of Affairs. Properties and Kinds, by contrast, are not Worldly Existing Particulars. Properties and Kinds neither exist nor don’t exist in a Worldly sense. Nevertheless, the Properties and Kinds that figure in known propositions (whether scientific or non-scientific) are “rooted in reality”.

And the Properties and Kinds that do not figure in propositions taken seriously by educated culture are “not rooted in reality.”

119 Consider, e.g., the categorematum wizard. It is ridiculous to say of something in the Existing World either that it is or that it is not a wizard. This is because the notion of a wizard is not taken seriously by educated culture. We know that there are no instances of the kind “wizard”, and so to say of some specific person that he is not a wizard is absurd. Wizards exist only as part of the fictional World. We do not non-fictionally assert propositions of the form “He is not a wizard” or “He is a wizard”, or “This wizard has cast a spell”, or “This person is under the spell of a wizard”, since the idea of something’s being a wizard at all is not taken seriously as a factual possibly. ‘Wizard’, we might say, “is not one of our words”.

What this means is that the property of “being under the spell of wizard” is not a property that is “rooted in reality”. And the kind “wizard” is not a kind that is

“rooted in reality”, either.

All things that exist in a Worldly sense are rooted in reality; but not all things that are rooted in reality are things that exist or don’t exist in a Worldly sense. The notion of rootedness in reality is thus the broader notion.

(19) Categories; The Kind of Thing Something Is; Combinatorial Possibility in the Proposition; Negation and Grammar; Dimensions

We have considered two basic philosophical questions, “What is X?” and

“Does X exist?”. We have seen how both questions, in their properly philosophical sense, are rooted in the unity of the proposition. I want to consider a third basic question, namely, “What kind of thing is X?”. And I want to argue that this third question is also grounded in the unity of the proposition, if it is understood in its specifically philosophical sense.

120 Let us take what are intuitively a group of “simple” sentences.

(a) ‘Socrates is pale.’ (b) ‘Socrates is a human being.’ (c) ‘Socrates walks.’ (d) ‘Socrates falls.’ (e) ‘Socrates is in the forest.’

We can distinguish between the subjects and predicates. We can distinguish between different parts of speech.

The terms that figure in the predicates needn’t occur there. In fact, they can occupy the subject-position of a sentence that could convey the same meaning. E.g.,

(a1) ‘Paleness is a property possessed by Socrates.’ (b1) ‘Human being is a kind that is instantiated by Socrates.’ (c1) ‘Walking is a type of activity that is performed by Socrates.’ (d1) ‘Falling is a type of occurrence that befalls Socrates.’ (e1) ‘Being in is a relation that relates Socrates and the forest.’

Any term that occurs in the subject position of the sentence must be a noun.

And this means that, in moving an item that occurs in the predicate to the subject, we often are forced to nominalize words that were not formerly nouns. But we can nevertheless distinguish, in an intuitive sense, in these examples, between words that “naturally” occur as nouns versus words that do not “naturally” occur as nouns.

And we can intuitively distinguish between words that naturally occur in the predicate versus words that either do not or could not occur there.

Sentences (a1)-(e1) are awkward. This is because the terms that occupy the subject position do not “naturally” occupy this position. And as a result we are forced to supply general terms such as ‘property’, ‘kind’, ‘activity’, etc. and obscure verbs such as ‘possessed’, ‘instantiated’, ‘performed’, ‘relates’ in order to form a grammatical sentence that can express the same meaning as the original. In

121 fact, these unwieldy terms provide clues regarding the sort of category of entity to which the nominalized term in the subject position refers.

Nevertheless, these terms can occupy the subject position. And having done so, we can ask what these terms refer to. Our sortal terms already provide us with a clue or answer. ‘Paleness’ refers to a Property. ‘Human being’ refers to a Kind.

‘Walking’ refers to a Type of Action. ‘Falling’ refers to a Type of Occurrence. ‘Being in’ refers to a Relation.

There are various other means of creating new sentences with nominalizations that can express the same sense. Consider:

(c2) ‘Socrates’ walk (was a particular action that) took place at such and such a time.’ (c3) ‘Socrates’ fall (was particular event that) occurred at such and such a time.’

In these cases, the grammatical subjects refer to Particular Actions and Particular

Events, respectively. Particular Actions or Events (e.g., Socrates’ walk) are distinct from Types of Actions or Types of Events (e.g., the activity of walking).

Also, consider:

(d2) ‘Socrates’ being in the forest is a state of affairs that obtains.’

In this case the grammatical subject refers to a “State of Affairs”. And:

(d3) ‘That Socrates is taking a walk is a fact.’

Here the grammatical subject is a possible Fact.

It is also possible, to nominalize whole sentences

(f) ‘Socrates says, “Piety is part of ”.’ (f1) ‘That piety is part of justice is something Socrates says.’

Consider also:

122 (g) ‘Socrates thinks that piety is part of justice.’ (g1) ‘That piety is part of justice is a possible truth that Socrates thinks.’

Here the subject common to (f) and (f1) ‘That piety is part of justice’ refers to a particular Proposition.

(19.1) “A thing”, i.e., a categorematum, is defined as anything that falls under a philosophical Category

We are now in a position to revisit our question “What is a thing?”. A “thing”, we said, is anything that can occupy the position of propositional subject. But anything that can occupy the position of propositional subject is something that falls within one of the categories; for, it is a thing that has a categorial grammar, in the proposition.

A “non-thing” is whatever cannot occupy the position of propositional subject, e.g., “not” or “the”. A non-thing is not nothing.

A “being” is either a thing or non-thing: it is a propositional intelligible: it is what has the potential to figure in the proposition.

“Nothing” is whatever cannot figure in a proposition in any respect at all.

“The authentic or inauthentic possible elements of propositions” is the highest genus.

(19.2) Aristotelian Categories

These investigations are a clue to understanding how Aristotle, in Categories, divides all “things”, i.e., categoremata, into four basic categories.

The propositional position and combinatorial Dimensionality of the beings are the criteria Aristotle uses in determining differences between categories.

123 (i) Some things are neither said of nor in subjects; (ii) some things are said of but not in subjects; (iii) some things are in but not said of subjects; (iv) some things are both in and said of subjects.

Some propositional elements naturally figure in the subject position, and some naturally figure in the predicable position. Of the latter, some are the kind of thing that instantiate substances and some are the kind of thing that are possessed by substances. Of the former, some are of the sort to be never capable of belonging to the predicate, and some are of the sort to have been formed by elements in the subject and predicate, such as in the case of Particular Events or Particular Actions.

(19.3) The Criterion of Category Difference; Grammar; Combinatorial Possibility; Sense and Nonsense

Let us now revisit the question of the “criterion of category difference”, which we discussed above in introducing ideas in the work of Fred Sommers.

What makes something belong to one category as opposed to another in the philosophical sense is that the instances of the category “have”, in the proposition, certain (a) combinatorial possibilities with spectra in certain categorial Dimensions or (b) basic possibilities of propositional position, which are not possessed or afforded by propositional-element-members of other categories. For example, a

Substance (as opposed to a Kind or Quality or Action-Type) can never, e.g., occupy the propositional position that an Action-Type occupies, in the proposition. And a

Plant (as opposed an Animal or Human Being or Artifact or mere Physical Object) has possibilities of combination with Dimension-bound spectra that distinguish it from a mere Physical Object. E.g., a Plant can combine with the contrary predicables

124 “is flourishing”/”is not flourishing”, whereas mere Physical Objects lack this

Dimension altogether. Moreover, while other Living Things have a Biological aspect that links them categorially with Plants, they possess Dimensions, which Plants do not have. Thus, in the case of living things, at least, there is a hierarchical chain of categorial Dimensions that separates the categorially distinct entities (Plants,

Animals, Humans) within the genus Living Thing.

To say that members of a category possess such and such Dimensions means that it “makes sense” to say of one of these members as a propositional subject that it has one of the properties in the Spectrum that lies in the relevant Dimension. To say that these members lack such and such a Dimension means that it makes no sense to say of them that they have such and such property within the Spectrum that lies in the relevant Dimension.

And thus the primitive and given phenomenon of sense and nonsense is the basis of the understanding of categories and category differences.

E. J. Lowe’s criterion of category difference is not capable of doing justice to the heterogeneity of categories; for, according to him, items that belong to two different categories belong to these distinct categories in virtue of the fact that they possess different “identity conditions”.87 But this presupposes that all “things”, i.e., anything which can fall under a category, possess “identity conditions”; but only a certain categorially distinct range of kinds of things possess “identity conditions”, namely, those things that are either Substances or particular non-Substances (e.g., particular Events and Actions).

87 E. J. Lowe, The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical foundation for Natural Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) Chapter 1, §1.2

125

(19.3.1) “Kind of Thing”, “Kind of Substance, “Thing of a Kind” and “Kind”

“Kinds” are either categorial kinds or non-categorial kinds. Categorial kinds are kinds whose members are demarcated insofar as they possess or lack

Dimensions not shared by members of other categorial kinds. Non-categorial kinds are kinds that contrast with other non-categorial kinds and whose members are distinguishing by their defining, normal (i.e., non-categorial), properties. Soccer balls and medicine balls fall under different non-categorial kinds, within the genus ball; they are distinguished by having different defining functional-properties, but they share with each other all the relevant categorial Dimensions. By contrast, basic kinds such as Actions and Substances are categorial kinds; their members are distinguished by having different categorial Dimensions. Like defining properties,

(but unlike externally possessed properties) categorial Dimensions are possessed essentially, i.e., internally. However, such essences are not grounded in any stipulations on the part of human beings; rather, these essences are given in the very structure of the proposition common to thought and reality itself.

The phrase ‘kind of thing’ is ambiguous. It can either refer to a kind as such.

Or it can refer to a kind of a substance more specifically, i.e., to what Aristotle called a “secondary substance”. Or, it can refer to a thing insofar as that thing is understood to be a thing belonging to such and such kind.

In light of these distinctions, the criterion of category difference can be stated as follows: two basic kinds, i.e., categories, are distinct when the things of those kinds, given the kinds of things they are, have differing possibilities of categorial

126 Dimensions or differing possibilities of basic propositional position, in the proposition.

(19.4) Categorial Action-Types

“Categorial action-types” are contraries that belong to Dimensions that allow us to mark distinctions between basic categories. Properties are what are possessed or not possessed by a propositional subject. Kinds are what are instantiated or not instantiated by a propositional subject. An action-type is what is performed or not performed by a propositional subject. An event-type is what occurs or doesn’t occur on the part of a propositional subject. Particular non-substances such as events or actions do or do not take place, and states of affairs are what obtain or don’t obtain.

Possession, Instantiation, Performance, Occurrence---these are examples of what are called categorial action-types. They are Dimensions that characterize differences between the most general of all categories.

What has the possibility of instantiating is a kind.

What has the possibility of being possessed is a property.

What has the possibility of being performed is a type of action.

What has the possibility of occurring is a type of event.

What neither has the possibility of being instantiated or possessed is a basic propositional subject.88

Kant regards “categories” as “functions of unity”.89 It is frequently assumed that the Kantian understanding of categories90 is superior to and supplants the

88 Cf. Aristotle’s four-fold division in Categories, 1b25-2a20

127 Aristotelian understanding; but, for a whole host of reasons, which would lead us astray, this is mistaken.

In any case, what we are calling “categories” are not “functions of unity”; however, what we are calling “categorial-action-types” may be conceptualized as

“functions of unity”. It is conceivable that Kantian Categories might bear some

Resemblance to what we are calling “Categorial-Action-Types”. One of Kant’s categories, e.g., is “inherence”.

(19.5) Confusions between ordinary kinds and Philosophical Categories

The genus ball, a genus that includes the species of cricket ball and soccer ball, is not a philosophical category. However, Human Being, Animal, and Plant;

Living Thing and Non-Living Thing; and Substance, Property and Kind are philosophical categories. For, the members of each of these kinds have possibilities of properties in Dimensions or the actualization of propositional positions that members of the other kinds lack, whereas the distinction between balls and bats or between the various kinds of balls is determined entirely by differences of functions and functional purposes, and not by differences in categorial Dimensions.

One can discover through empirical observation that there is some new kind of thing in the world. But one cannot discover through empirical observation that there is a new Philosophical Category. For, what Category something belongs to is always already shown by the grammar it has in the proposition. One can discover

89 , Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) (A69/B94) 90 See, for example, Gilbert Ryle, “Categories” in Collected Papers Vol. II (New York: Routledge, 2009) §2

128 that there is some new kind of beetle. But one cannot discover that there are Plants or that there are Animals. For, the plant-grammar or the animal-grammar is already understood in thought by the time one becomes a mature language user.

One will be tempted to conjure up so-called “thought-experiments”, i.e., factually bizarre scenarios, in which the facts are regarded as being very different than they actually are. And it is true that there is a correspondence between “certain very general facts” and our “grammar”, such that, within fairly restrictive limits, we can imagine the bare possibility of different grammars, on the assumption that the facts were different. But this point needn’t concern us; and essentially nothing follows from it of any real importance. It does not show that grammar is trivial or arbitrary or optional any more than it shows this concerning the laws of physics.

For, we are interested in the actual world and the grammar to which it corresponds.

And that is enough. Furthermore, it is difficult if not impossible to frame such thought experiments in which “the facts are very different than they are understood to be”. For, if the general facts are connected to categorial-grammar, then they are connected to what does and does not make sense. And thus it isn’t clear that we would be able to make sense of a very radical change in fact at all.

We might adopt Kant’s distinction between pure and impure concepts which we find throughout Critique of Pure Reason and speak of “Pure” and “Impure”

“Kinds”. Such distinction is doubtless related to our contrast between “Philosophical

Categories” and non-categorial kinds.

Pure kinds are those kinds that will be grammatically implicit in human thought no matter how things are discovered to be in the world. Pure kinds are

129 made explicit in internal, categorial, reflection: they are the categories. Impure kinds are those kinds that emerge in taxonomic frameworks as a result of, e.g., natural historical (i.e., descriptive-biological) observational investigation of the world.

The pure kinds define what it is for something to be a thing as such. And what a thing is in turn partly defines what thought and thinking are. Thus, what is called thought and thinking are not independent of the categories. Thus, per impossible, we were to “imagine” a “civilization” of “thinkers” who didn’t “recognize” the categories, we would not be able to understand them as thinkers at all.

A thinker, of course, needn’t be a philosopher. That is, a thinker needn’t be someone who explicitly recognizes the categories of things or who has an explicit understanding of the categories. However, a thinker must be someone who implicitly recognizes the categorial grammar that is the foundation of the distinctions between categories. A thinker who did not implicitly understand grammar would not be intelligible as a thinker at all. That is, if a “thinker”, per impossible, putatively treated “plants” as “inanimate things” or either one as though they were “human beings” or putatively treated “non-substances” as though they were “substances”, in the proposition, then we could not conceptualize this person as a thinker at all.

(19.6) The Basicness of Categorial Grammar, Dimensions and Categories

Categories define Socratically what it is for something to be a thing, as such. A thing is a categorematic element of a proposition, i.e., an element that falls under one of the fundamentally basic kinds, the categories, in virtue of having the categorial-grammar that it has. For, any-thing will have a categorial-grammar, i.e., a

130 basic propositional position along with combinatorial potentials with spectra in

Dimensions.

The categories thus define what a thing is. A thing, in turn, defines what a proposition is; and the grammatical structures in the proposition in turn define what a thing is. Thing, category, proposition are all equiprimordial in the order of understanding and in the formal-causal order of things.

Propositions in turn define what a fact is and what a thought is. And a thought defines what thinking is. And the capacity of thinking defines what a human being is.

Moreover, a human being could not count as thinking if a human being did not have a basic understanding---an understanding that for the most part is inexplicit---of categorial grammar. For, without such an inexplicit understanding, the human being would not be intelligible as a thinker at all. For, it is necessary condition for the intelligibility of being a thinker at all that a thinker has the ability, at a behavioral level, to distinguish sense from nonsense, i.e., distinguish which

Dimensions do and do not go with which kinds of propositional subjects. If an “alien thinker”, systematically makes (what appear to be) “mistakes” of categorial- position, in which, e.g., the “alien” puts Socrates where action-types belong, in the proposition, and has no concept of why this is incoherent, then this “alien thinker” does not count as a thinker at all. For, to be a thinker one must think thoughts. And to think thoughts, one must have an understanding that takes the form of an inexplicit grasp of categorial-grammar, of the difference between sense and nonsense. For, there is no such thing as a “nonsensical thought-content”.

131 The categorial grammar and the categories that go hand in hand with this grammar are absolutely basic in the internal, categorial, understanding of thought, reality and thinking. They are the unmoved movers of philosophical truth.

“Explanations come to an end somewhere,” said Wittgenstein.91 This is true both in ordinary life, in science, as well as in philosophy. Philosophy can help internally to elucidate formal-causally the categorematic elements that appear in propositions in physics, in biology, in psychology, in ordinary rational explanation of human action, in esthetics, in ethics and in . But in each case, it will draw upon categories that are delineated by means of the combinatorial potential of propositional subjects with Dimensions, potentials, which are basic in the internal order of things. The basic categories, notions and grammatical potentials that underpin the formal-causal nature of the internal are the foundational elements that provide the structure upon which everything in the internal realm rests; they are indispensible and irreplaceable and are the notions we arrive at when philosophical explanations come to an end.

(19.6.1) The connectedness of the body of everyday non-scientific knowledge and the Categories

What hangs together with these categories and Dimensions are the multitude of non-scientific, ordinary truths that contain categorematic elements that necessarily fall under the Categories and possess such and such Dimensions.

Whatever we may learn from science, it will and could never teach us that there is no distinction, e.g., between living and non-living things. Whatever we may learn

91 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §1

132 from science, it will and could never teach us that there is no such thing as Freedom and Action; whatever we may learn from science, it will and could never teach us that there is no such thing as the mind of the human being. This is not because these notions are “unscientific” but because these notions are grounded in the formal- causal nature and structure of the elements contained in the multitude of non- scientific, everyday, known truths, truths whose existence is presupposed in our grasp of the intelligibility of the notion of either science or proto-science.

(19.7) The idea of a thing that does not fall under a philosophical category is incoherent

Given that the Aristotelian categories define (disjunctively) what a thing in the broadest sense is, the categories are absolutely primitive in our understanding of anything including facts, thoughts and thinkers. For, whatever else a fact is, it is something that contains categorially differentiated things as elements. And whatever else a thought (qua item thought, as opposed to process of thinking) is, it is something that contains categorially differentiated things as elements. And whatever else a thinker is, a thinker is someone who thinks thoughts, i.e., items that contains categorially differentiated things as elements.

The idea that there might be an “uncategorized thing”, i.e., “a thing that is not the sort of thing that falls under one of the categories”, is incoherent. For, “a thing that is not the sort of thing that falls under one of the categories” is “a thing that is not a thing”.

This does not mean, however, that anyone or anything puts things into categories. In fact, this is the wrong picture altogether.

133

(19.8) The common idea that things are “put into categories” or that they are “categorized” is mistaken

That the categories are imposed upon “uncategorized things” by “us” (or some other putative agent) is also mistaken. For again, there is no such coherent thing as a “non-categorematic ‘thing’”. A thing, by definition, is always already something that falls under one of the categories. And thus “we” are not coherently able to give categories to these “non-categorematic ‘things’”, since there is no such intelligible “non-categorized thing” in the first place.

But, moreover, any act of “categorizing” on our part would already presuppose the categories for its intelligibility, since “categorizing” is a form of thinking and thinking, as we said, already presupposes the categories for its intelligibility. And thus the picture of man as a categorizer whose intelligent acts of can be understood categorially in isolation from the categories he imposes upon things is incoherent. For, to even be categorially intelligible as a categorizer at all, we must presuppose the categories.

For this reason, our word ‘category’ is perhaps misleading, since it suggests the possibility of subsequent categorization of an uncategorized thing on the part of a person. Someone might, e.g., organize their currently uncategorized books on their bookshelf under “categories” that enable them to more easily access their books.

However, what are called “the categories” are fundamentally basic kinds that cannot coherently be “thought up” or “originally applied” to “things”, in this ad hoc manner.

For, the categories, are always already in place in light of the basic grammatical structures that govern propositions, structures that must be in place if the very idea

134 of notions such as thought, thing, thinker, fact, make sense at all. In categorial inquiry, we discern the categories that things always already fall into. But the categories are basic and cannot themselves be categorially explained. Explanations come to an end at some point. And the understanding we arrive at of categorial grammar, sense, nonsense and philosophical categories is where things come to an end.

Were we to imagine that that we were responsible, in an efficient causal sense, for the Categories, then we would be on the verge of an infinite regress of explanations. For, the act of decision making and reasoning that would be required in order to institute the categories as basic groupings for things would consists of acts that themselves were only intelligible on the assumption that the entities we were in touch with in this decision making process were themselves propositionally-categorially structured. And thus we would need a “second” man, brought in as the institutor of categorial structure for the original institutor, and then a third for the second, and so on.92

Something one might find compelling in the idealist rebellion in the earliest work Moore and Russell is that it side-steps this problem regarding the “explanation of the fundamental categorial unity” of the proposition. For, the proposition and its unity are just regarded as the basic phenomena (i.e., the philosophical explanatory starting point). In this paradigm, propositions are the basic explainers, not the entities that stand in need of explanation.

92 See Leonardo Lisi, “Kierkegaard’s Epistemology of Faith” for an exposition on how this kind of structural problem manifests itself in post-Kantian idealist philosophy. (Leonardo Lisi, “Kierkegaard’s Epistemology of Faith: Outline towards a Systematic Interpretation”, Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook (2010) pp. 353-367)

135

(19.9) The Givenness of the Categories

We cannot learn, subsequently through, e.g., natural historical observation, that some-thing falls under such and such philosophical categories; for, it’s falling under whatever category it falls under is already implicit in the grammatical- position and the grammatical-Dimensionality that it has in the proposition. And this position and Dimensionality is not something we discover, e.g., empirically or theoretically. It is simply given in our understanding of the positionedness of the elements themselves.

This is why Fred Sommers criticizes classical as having an insufficient appreciation of the distinction between philosophical categories and non-categorial kinds.

In a classic empiricist argument one is asked to perform the gedanken experiment of stripping a thing of its attributes. Having done this the empiricists say we are left with ‘something I know not what’ (Locke) or with nothing at all (Berkeley and Hume). This line of thought ignores the difference between properties like redness and feature like Colour. One can imagine the apple without its colour; one cannot imagine it without its Colour. So the empiricist’s gedanken experiment cannot be done. The rationalists were characteristically sensitive to the distinction between features and properties. In his experiment with the bit of wax, Descartes emphasized that certain attributes remained under all the imagined transformations and these attributes Descartes held to be essential to material substance. The rationalists thus agreed with Aristotle’s view that substance is something that we know quite a bit about. The substance of a thing is to be conceived under its features and these are attributes essential to it and tied to one another by the principle of feature dependence.

That terms come in contrary pairs is in this way related to the idea of an essential categorical attribute of the kind that plays so central a role in the thought of the rationalist philosophers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is known that the empiricists’ hostility to this idea, and to generally, has important roots in the nominalist tradition, a tradition that is congenial to Frege’s views concerning the semantic role of the basic elements of the basic propositions. It is more than probable that the question whether terms or other categorematic elements have a valence goes way back. The answer to it is in any of abiding importance for metaphysics.93

93 Fred Sommers, The Logic of Natural Language, (my emphasis) p. 306

136

A Plant is what has the possibility of Flourishing, in the proposition. An animal is what has the Dimension of Flourishing, plus the Dimension of Action and

Perception. That is, an animal is, e.g., the sort of thing that can see or fail to see something in the environment. A plant cannot fail to see something. For to fail to see something might mean that an animal’s or human’s eyes were covered, etc. A human is what has the Dimensions of plants and animals, but which additionally has the

Dimension of Ethical Freedom and Reason, i.e., the possibility, in the proposition, of possessing contraries in the range is/is not reasonable. A mere animal cannot fail to be reasonable, to see the light of reason. For, to fail to be reasonable is to fail to exercise one’s capacity for good judgment in light of what is rationally called for. But a mere animal is not the sort of thing, grammatically, that either does or doesn’t exercise its capacity for good judgment, in light of rational considerations.

We cannot learn that the run-of-the-mill plants in the garden belong to the philosophical category of Living Things. For the way that the plant elements figure in the proposition will always already show this. And we cannot learn that the

Dimension of Flourishing, which is partly what demarcates the category of living things from the category of inanimate non-living substance, is something that must pertain to living things. For, we would not understand what a living thing was if we did not already understand this, at some level, i.e., at the level of our knowing it is coherent to say of a plant that it is “doing well” or “doing poorly”.

We do not put things into categories, in the sense of making a decision or judgment. (For, there is a kind of necessity to it; it’s not up to us; and there is a right answer.) We do not put things into categories in the sense that the grammars they

137 are based upon are not the sorts of things we are or were responsible for constructing; they are given as soon as we allow for the intelligibility of thinking at all.

To say of a certain thing that it belongs to a philosophical category is itself a necessary truth. It just means that something that necessarily occupies such and such a kind of place in the proposition occupies that very kind of place.94

(19.10) Sense and Nonsense are not determined by “Norms” or rules: and categorial- grammar is not constituted by “norms” or rules

Hacker says that “what does and doesn’t make sense is determined by rules”.

This cannot be correct, however.

Were this to be correct, we would have a side-ways-on point of view on something and nothing and intelligible propositional content and the absence of intelligible propositional content. To have a side-ways-on point of view on something and nothing would be to treat something and nothing as if they both fell within the genus of something: it would be to treat nothing as a real (as opposed to merely apparent) object of thought.

What does and doesn’t make sense defines the essence of thought itself. We cannot get outside the essence of thought-content and think about making changes to the essence of thought-content in thinking about it, i.e., by having thoughts about it. For, this would mean that we were thinking about something (something that makes sense) and deciding whether it would be nothing (something that lacks

94 This section can be regarded as a reading of parts of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.

138 sense); or it would mean that we were thinking about nothing (something that lacks sense) and deciding whether it would be something (something that makes sense).

Hacker thinks he can make sense of rules for the determination of sense and nonsense, only because he like many in the Wittgensteinian tradition, does not clearly separate propositions from sentences used to make assertions.

However, given that what does and does not make sense is determined by the rules of language, then surely we can change the rules as we think fit? So it may seem that we can ‘adopt a framework’ in which it does make sense to say that believing is a state of the brain, or that the brain thinks and f=draws inferences. But this is misguided. There is no such thing as ‘adopting a framework’ in which nonsense makes sense---without changing the rules of the game.

We can give them a meaning, and ‘adopt a new framework’ in which it makes sense to speak thus----if we lay down coherent new rules for the use of these expressions. But the words will not then mean what they do now, and we shall have given a new meaning to ‘five o’clock’ or to ‘on the sun’, and to ‘red’ or ‘green’ …..95

We can change the definitions of words however we wish. Having done so, some things that used to be “nonsense sentences” may now make sense. However, the genuine propositional intelligibilities and the lack thereof, however, have not changed at all. And when we discuss the topic of sense and nonsense, we are not discussing sentences but potential propositional contents. While we can change the

“rules” for pairing words with their meanings, there is no such thing as a rule for determining what does or doesn’t make sense. Sense and nonsense are just given: they are bedrock. Sense and nonsense define the essence of thought-content and thinghood itself. Thus the notion that we could have “thought-contents” about changing the “rules” that determine the essence of “thought-content” is incoherent.

For, this would mean that we were thinking about something and deciding whether it would be nothing; or it would mean that we were thinking about nothing and

95 M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, p. 382

139 deciding whether it would be something. To have a side-ways-on point of view on something and nothing would be to treat something and nothing as if they both fell within the genus of something: it would be to treat nothing as a real (as opposed to merely apparent) object of thought. And this is why there are and could be no

“rules” in the first place. For, rules imply control that comes from getting a side-way- on point of view; but we could have no intelligible control over what does and doesn’t make sense. Rules would require that we could think nonsense and then apply a rule to it showing that it was not nonsense.

Furthermore, Hacker argues that philosophical statements that concern categories are really “normative” statements: statements that prescribe “rules” for

“uses of words”.

It is one thing to grant that substances of a given kind have essential as well as accidental properties, or that the instantiation of certain properties or relations entails the instantiation or exclusion of certain other properties and relations. It is quite another to hold that propositions that state the essential properties of a given substance or the relations of inclusion or exclusion that hold between properties and relations describe mind-independent, language-independent, metaphysical necessities in reality. What appear here to be descriptions of de re necessities are actually norms of representation. That is, they are not descriptions of how things are, but implicit prescriptions (rules) for describing how things are.

Consider the following four propositions: (i) A material object is a three-dimensional space-occupying entity that can be in or at rest and consists of matter of one kind or another. (ii) Every event is temporally related to every other event. (iii) Nothing can simultaneously be red all over and also green all over. (iv) Every rod has a length. Such propositions appear to be descriptions.

They are what we think of as necessary truths, for, to be sure, nothing can be a material object that is not a space-occupant or that does not consist of material stuff; it is inconceivable that there be an event that is neither earlier nor later nor yet simultaneous with, or a constituent phase of, any other event, or that something be both red all over and green all over simultaneously; and it is not a contingent matter that we shall never find a rod without a length.

Appearances are deceptive. These sentences express rules for the use of their constituent terms in the guise of descriptions. If we characterize something as a material object, then it follows without more ado that we may characterize it as a space-occupant made of matter of some kind. We do not have to check to see

140 whether perhaps this material object is not made of some matter or other, or whether it may have no spatial location. These internal (defining) properties and relations are constitutive of what it is to be a material thing: they are part of what we mean by ‘material object’. If reference is made to some event, we can infer without more ado that it is either earlier than, later than, simultaneous with, or a constitutive phase of any other event. If something is described as being red all over, it follows that it is not also green all over – this is not something that we need to confirm by looking. And if something is said to be a rod, it follows that it can be described as having a certain length. What appear to be descriptions of meta- physical necessities in nature are norms (rules) for describing natural phenomena. We would not call something a material object if it occupied no space or did not consist of matter; we would not deem something to be a genuine event if it were not simultaneous with, earlier or later than, or a phase of, any other given event; we would not describe something as being red all over if we were willing to describe it as green all over; and we would not hold something that lacked a length to be a rod. These are not discoveries about things, but the commitments consequent on employing a certain form of representation or description.96

Here again, Hacker’s thinking would benefit from a clearer distinction between propositions and sentences. Consider a statement of Dimension such as

“Rocks lack Nutrition, i.e., that rocks are the kind of thing that neither take in or do not take in (fail to take in) nutrients”. This is not a claim about language at all. It is not a claim that the word ‘rock’ is not to be combined with the words ‘take in nutrients’. Why shouldn’t it be combined with this predicate? It is not syntactically incorrect.

What is the case, however, is that the putative propositions expressed by this syntactically well-constructed sentence are incoherent. And this is because rocks lack the Dimension of Nutrition. However, to say that they lack this Dimension is not to state a “rule”. Statements of Dimension are not rules or norms, and nor are they constituted by rules or norms.

There are two reasons why such a statement cannot be a rule or norm: first, were it a rule or norm, we could conceivably have control over whether a putative propositional content makes sense or not. However, we don’t. Second, a statement of

96 P. M. S. Hacker, Human Nature: The Categorial Framework, (emphasis) pp. 7-9

141 Dimension does not even have the logical status of a rule in the first place. That is, it doesn’t even logically resemble a rule. A rule has the form “do X, period” or “do X, in circumstance Y”: or “X is allowed” or “X is not allowed”. But a statement of

Dimension simply says “X does not have Y”. But this is not because someone does not “allow” this. What putative agent would that be? Were there to be such an agent the agent would be able to “see both sides of the limit” and then make a “ruling”: but this scenario is impossible for the simple reason that the pseudo-combination is always-already nonsensical, in light of the truth of the statement of Dimension. The statements of Dimension, which are just expressions of basic sense-combinations or the lack thereof, are thus basic and cannot be explained.

Ordinary school-book rules of grammar are principles that state conventions for constructing sentences in a conventional manner. However, philosophical categorial-grammar cannot possibly consist of “conventions”. For, conventions imply the possibility of control. And we lack all control here.

(19.11) Certain very general facts of nature

Does this mean that categorial-grammar is fixed, permanently and is incapable of change? No, it does not. What Wittgenstein says is that grammar hangs together in a very general sense with certain general facts of nature. This means that if the general cultural understanding of nature were to change, e.g., very gradually, e.g., over thousands of years, then we might also expect a change in grammar to parallel this. Wittgenstein’s puts the point as follows:

What we have to mention in order to explain the significance, I mean the importance, of a concept, are often extremely general facts of nature: such facts as are hardly ever mentioned because of their great generality.

142 If the formation of concepts can be explained by facts of nature, should we not be interested, not in grammar, but rather in that in nature which is the basis of grammar?—Our interest certainly includes the correspondence between concepts and very general facts of nature. (Such facts as mostly do not strike us because of their generality.) But our interest does not fall back upon these possible causes of the formation of concepts; we are not doing natural science; nor yet natural history—since we can also invent fictitious natural history for our purposes.

I am not saying: if such-and-such facts of nature were different people would have different concepts (in the sense of a hypothesis). But: if anyone believes that certain concepts are absolutely the correct ones, and that having different ones would mean not realizing some- thing that we realize—then let him imagine certain very general facts of nature to be different from what we are used to, and the formation of concepts different from the usual ones will become intelligible to him.

Compare a concept with a style of painting. For is even our style of painting arbitrary? Can we choose one at pleasure? (The Egyptian, for instance.) Is it a mere question of pleasing and ugly?97

Our categorial-grammar is capable of undergoing subtle changes in light of significant changes in the character of our culture or in our understanding of reality, changes that would occur gradually over time. Although subtle changes can occur, we cannot “choose” or “institute” grammars or essences at pleasure, as if they were akin to certain kinds of conventions. For, any act of institution would itself presuppose the ability to think thoughts, which are themselves grammatically articulated unities. It is also unlikely that, when these subtle changes occur over the course of some long stretch of time, that we would play much if any deliberate or conscious role in this process.

Moreover, simply because the essence of some ordinary kind might conceivably change, in this vague counterfactual sense, it does not follow that our ordinary kinds are “mere concepts” or “rules” or “nominal notions”. There is no dichotomy between nominal and natural kinds; the majority of our ordinary kinds fall into neither category: they are real, without being natural or nominal. For, as I

97 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, (my emphasis) Part II, §xii

143 shall argue below, reality, as it is in itself, is constituted by ordinary non-scientific facts. And, it must be this way, if we are to so much as make scientific fact intelligible to us as scientific fact. There is nothing insubstantial, then, about ordinary kinds.

For, they constitute basic “substances” in the explanatory sense of this term.

Furthermore, “certain sorts of changes” are not even coherent “kinds of changes” at all, since were “they” per impossible to change, we would be deprived of the resources by which we are so much as able to make or fail to make sense. The sorts of factual changes that would need to be imagined would themselves be impossible to “get into view”, for the very reason that such changes would, per impossible, impinge on the very conditions of the distinction between sense and nonsense.

Regardless, such issues are not the sorts of things we need to occupy ourselves with; for as Wittgenstein said,

One might…give the name "philosophy" to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.98

What we explore in philosophy is the essential-formal causal and grammatical reality that is.

(20) The Categorial Modes

The categorial Modes are basic qualifications of genera of Aristotelian categories that give rise to species-categories. The set of categorial modes include physical, biological, animal, psychological, artifactual, and human as qualifications of general Aristotelian categories. A mode, like a category, is determined by

Dimensions possessed by the item that is qualified by the mode. The categorial

98 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §126

144 mode of the biological is the mode that something has when it is relevant to what makes a biological thing biological; and this will have to do with the Dimensions that characterize distinctively biological phenomena.

(21) On the very idea of a categorial-framework

A “categorial-framework” is to be distinguished from the categories or the categorial-structures that there are. A “categorial-framework” is rather the ideational, intellectual, reflective understanding, which philosophers have produced, of the latter phenomenon. A categorial-framework is thus the ideational, intellectual, result of a philosopher’s attempt to understand how things are actually organized categorially.

We can give names to categorial-frameworks by associating these frameworks with historical thinkers whose thought was guided by these categorial- assumptions that underlie the categorial-frameworks.

For example, a “Cartesian categorial framework for the understanding of the mind” might refer to the assumption that the mind is to be categorized as a

Substance. It would make sense to oppose this categorial framework with what would be called an “Aristotelian categorial framework for the understanding of the mind”, in which the mind is categorized as a “non-Substance” and more specifically as a non-Substance of a human substance bearer, as opposed to a non-Substance of a non-human substance bearer.

Now, it is important to keep in mind that instances of a “Cartesian” categorial framework will not necessarily accord with Descartes actual philosophical views at more specific local levels. For, example, the idea that the mind is the brain is an

145 instance of a view that accords with this “Categorial framework”, since the brain is a

Substance. However, Descartes himself did not regard the mind as a physical substance, at all. Thus, to speak of a “Cartesian framework” is only to speak of the most abstract categorial assumption that is common to any view that regards the mind as a Substance, whether the mind is regarded as a physical substance or not.

If we assume that the Aristotelian categorial framework for understanding the mind (and its relation to the human being and the biological parts of the human being) is the correct framework, then any view that does not categorially fit the

Aristotelian framework will be said to be “categorially confused”. For, example, if the Aristotelian framework is right (as I will argue in Chapter 2), then Descartes dualism and physicalistic identity theories, which identify the mind with the brain, are equally confused categorially.

Let us take another example: we might speak of the “Aristotelian categorial framework for understanding “forms”” versus the “Platonic categorial framework for understanding “Forms””: on the Aristotelian categorial framework, forms will be understood as non-Substances, whereas on the Platonic categorial framework forms will be regarded as Substances. Hence, views that regard “forms” as physical or non- physical Substances will be equally “Platonic”, in this very general categorial sense.

Thus, both realists who identity forms with heavenly objects and anti-realists who regard forms as mere token “names”, will be equally “Platonic”. And if the Platonic framework is mistaken (as I will argue in Chapter 2), then both of these contrasting views will be equally categorially confused.

146 Let us take another example: we might speak of the “Aristotelian categorial framework for understanding “living things” versus the Cartesian categorial framework for understanding of living things. According to the Aristotelian framework, living things would be understood as “living things”; according to the

Cartesian framework living things would be regarded as machines. Now, at this level of generality, a view which held that this machine was designed by God, or a view that held this machine was “designed” by the “natural selector” would both be equally “Cartesian” (and false, as I shall argue in Chapter 2), despite the fact that the historical Descartes knew nothing of Darwin’s theory of evolution or the ways in which this scientific theory was philosophically misused.

Let us take another example: we might speak of the “Cartesian/early modern categorial understanding of Cognitive and Cogitative processes” versus the

“Wittgensteinian categorial understanding of Cognitive and Cogitative processes”.

According to the Cartesian view, a cognitive or cogitative process would be an artifactual (involving images, or representations) and quasi-computational process in accordance with “rules”; according to the Wittgenstein view, a cognitive or cogitative process would be an irreducibly human process. Thus, whether the mind/brain is understood to be engaged in computational processes (symbols) or whether it is understood to be engaged in “imagistic” or “representational” associative processes, the mind/brain would nevertheless be conceived as engaged in some kind of artifactual processes (since images, representations and symbols are part of the artifactual realm). And if cognition and cogitation are not artifactual processes that involve artifactual or cultural entities such as (images,

147 representations, pictures or symbols) then both early modern or contemporary computational views will be equally categorially confused (as I shall argue in

Chapter 2), for what the early modern and contemporary accounts of the mind have in common is a categorial commitment to an artifactual understanding of cognition and cogitation.

Categorially sensitive philosophers thus speak of a historical-period or movement within philosophy as “being in the shadow of Descartes”99 or as being

“crypto-Cartesian”. These are names for false-categorial-frameworks that typify a certain era of philosophy.

(22) Re-Collection

We might wonder how are we in a position to determine any internal facts that we know in the course of internal inquiry?

How are we in a position to determine the conditions of application of a predicable “in a proposition”? If we utter a proposition and understand it, understand what it means, then presumably we must already possess an (implicit) understanding of these conditions. And this is why Socrates says that engaging in

“what is…?” inquiry is “re-collective”. Re-minding ourselves of the conditions of application in the proposition of a predicable is not a matter of learning something about “the world”; it is a matter of “re-collecting” something about what we already must understand insofar as we have understood what we have said in saying whatever we have said.

99 This phrase derives from G. H. von Wright’s book In the Shadow of Descartes: Essays in the Philosophy of Mind. See also and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, pp. 109-117

148 If someone says P and means something by this and understands what he means or at least has some conception of what he means, then he must have some understanding, whether implicit or explicit, of the conditions of application of the predicable to the propositional subject in this proposition. For, to have an understanding of P also requires an understanding of the propositional parts of P.

We can “re-collect” how we do understand the conditions of application of this predicable, but we can also “re-collect” what the actual conditions of application of this predicable are in the case where the two are not the same.

But how do we know what the conditions of application are? Who is the authority here? We are the authorities, each one of us, equally. For, our ability to mean something by what we say is not something that is granted to us by some other authority. It is a basic ability that each one of us has as a person and . Some of us may be more able to gain an explicit grasp of these conditions, but what we are consulting when we do so, namely, our understanding of what things mean, is not a domain that is the possession of any one person. Plato picturesquely imagined this domain to be a domain “forms”, where “forms” are pictured on an analogy with substances. But regardless of this metaphorical conception, it is central to Plato’s view that any person, the “slave boy”, is in an equally good or authoritative position to re-collect these forms. In other words, the distinction between authority and the lack thereof has limited application when it comes to “re-collection”.

But who is to say that there is only one answer to the question “what are the conditions of application of such and such a predicable?” Well, if there weren’t, then

149 disagreement and agreement would not be possible. It is only because Euthyphro disagrees with his family that his actions are impious that it makes sense to ask into the philosophical nature of piety. For, only if there is a right understanding of the conditions of application of “is pious” can disagreement about what is and isn’t pious be possible.

Re-collection is also the name we give to the act of determining “what exists” in the sense of what is an intelligible (non-contradictory) element of a proposition, and re-collection is the name we give the act of determining “what kind of thing something is” in the sense of what grammatical structure governs some particular categorematic element. For, in each case, we are consulting something that we always already must have some understanding of, if we are to be recognizable as thinkers at all. We must re-group and organize and sort out something, a knowledge, of which we already are in possession.

Re-collection is thus the name we give to the act of doing internal inquiry. It is merely a name and is not intended to be explanatory. But, it is the name of an activity that is sui generis. For, it is the activity by which we determine the formal- causal and categorial nature of elements of propositions as elements of propositions.

We are collecting again in a conscious and explicit manner something that is always already collected in the internal. We possess a basic capacity to do philosophy in this traditional analytic manner. It is part of the human condition.

(22.1) The problem of access to the subject matter of philosophy

Re-collection is the name we give to our basic capacity to engage in internal inquiry. During the linguistic turn in philosophy, it began to seem as though there

150 was a problem of how we have access to the internal. For, according to that paradigm, we explore the elements of thoughts only through an analysis of language.100 However, there are three issues to distinguish here, (i) a methodological question, (ii) an epistemological question, and (iii) a metaphysical question. It is methodologically critical that the Forms and the Categories are explored not without a careful attention to the uses of words. This was one insight in the ordinary language tradition. For, without this methodological principle, one is only bound to lose one’s way at some point. Nevertheless, we have a basic epistemic ability to reflect on these Forms and Categories, and what we explore are not words, but, e.g., elements of propositions as elements of propositions in light of the basic notions and structures that govern these elements. Finally, what the Forms and

Categories are is not something that can come into view independently from a consideration of the phenomena of language and form of life. They are equiprimordial but not reducible to these phenomena. And this is important to keep in mind lest we slip into a kind of “rampant Platonism”, to use McDowell’s expression.

(23) For-getting

If we were to denominate a phenomenon with the term “for-getting”, which was to contrast with our concept of “re-collection”, we could say that “for-getting” was the phenomenon in internal inquiry that results when the concept of internal

100 M. A. E. Dummett, “Can Analytic Philosophy be Systematic and Ought It to Be?” in Truth and Other Enigmas (London: Duckworth, 1978) p. 442

151 inquiry lacks clarity and distinctness. For, this leads to a situation in which we lack a serious concept of what a priori analytic philosophy is.

(24) Internal Inquiry Defined

Socrates, we said, is an element or potential element of a proposition.

Socrates is also an Athenian. To study Socrates as an element of a proposition is to study Socrates “internally”. One and the same element then can be studied externally and internally. The internal nature of an element of a proposition is defined as the nature that element has as an element of a proposition. And the external nature of an object is the nature the object has over and above the fact that it potentially figures in the proposition, in the way it does. Anything that is anything is potentially in a proposition; and thus the “internal” is all-encompassing, by definition.

All of the three “philosophical questions”, namely, “what is X?”, “what kind of thing is X?” and “Does X exist” are all internal questions regarding elements of propositions, as elements of propositions. Internal inquiry also concerns itself with the elucidation of the basic notions and grammars that govern and structure and inform the elements of propositions as elements of propositions.

Internal inquiry is not a scientific form of inquiry; it is rather a descriptive enterprise that explores the “internal” nature of elements of propositions; it explores what pertains to an element of a proposition as an element of a proposition, but it does not investigate the “non-internal” nature of things, i.e., what is true of things over and above what pertains to an element of a proposition as an element of a proposition. Thus, internal inquiry is concerned only with what is “absolutely

152 essential” to a thing, and not with what happens to be the case or even with what is necessarily the case, given certain laws of nature. For, even in the case of a necessary fact, rooted in a law of nature, we are dealing with a phenomenon that could nevertheless be imagined to be other than it is, in the proposition.

(24.1) Tractarian Objects and Elements of Propositions

If the identity theory of truth is correct, then there is no distinction between the totality of true propositions and the totality of possible facts. Facts “contain” elements; but these elements will then just be elements of propositions. Thus the elements of propositions are the elements of possible facts.

In light of the identity theory of truth, some of the things Wittgenstein says about objects, in the Tractatus, can, therefore, be linked to what we have said about the “elements of propositions”. Objects he says have both an external and internal nature.

In order to know an object, I must know not its external but all its internal qualities.

If things can occur in atomic facts, this possibility must already lie in them.

Just as we cannot think of spatial objects at all apart from space, or temporal objects apart from time, so we cannot think of any object apart from the possibility of its connexion with other things.

If I can think of an object in the context of an atomic fact, I cannot think of it apart from the possibility of this context.

Every thing is, as it were, in a space of possible atomic facts. I can think of this space as empty, but not of the thing without the space.

A spatial object must lie in infinite space….A speck in a visual field need not be red, but it must have a colour; it has, so to speak, a colour space round it. A tone must have a pitch, the object of the sense of touch a hardness, etc.

153 The possibility of its occurrence in atomic facts is the form of the object.101

Similarly we say that, at least a subset of, elements of propositions have an external and internal nature. But philosophy is concerned only with the internal nature of these objects, i.e., elements of propositions. Furthermore, objects,

Wittgenstein says, cannot be conceived independently of their occurrence in facts.

Similarly, we say that elements of propositions cannot be conceived independently of their occurrence in propositions, given the grammatical structures that govern these elements.

For, in light of the identity theory of truth, there is no substantive distinction between objects and elements of propositions. Although an element of a proposition,

Socrates, may be counted differently than a thing, Socrates, conceived independently of its occurrence in the proposition, they are, in another sense, one and the same thing. For, elements of proposition are identified and counted by means of their wording: thus, the first Athenian philosopher and Socrates, while distinct propositional elements are nevertheless one and the same thing. And simply because propositional elements are identified by their wording, it doesn’t follow that propositional elements are words. Rather, propositional elements divide into things and non-things.

(25) The Wittgensteinian tradition is engaged in a form of internal inquiry

Wittgenstein remarks that there are “two ways” of talking about the “nature” of an object. In the one case, we can discuss an object’s “external properties”: in the other case, we can discuss its internal nature.

101 Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, (my emphasis) §2.01231-2.0141

154 There are different ways of talking about “the nature” of an object. One way is by giving its properties; as when I say “Anthracite is hard”---where “hard” is not one of the defining criteria of anthracite. But we may also talk of the nature when we do mention one of the defining criteria.

One might say that space and colour have different properties: what is true of colour is not true of space. But the nature of the objects in this case is not determined by properties which we can attribute to them truly as opposed to those which we can’t. It is determined by the grammar of the word which denotes it. “The colour green has a different nature from a cubic foot”: this is an expression of the fact that a different grammar applies.102

Certain kinds of propositional elements are not distinguished by their

“properties”. Rather they are distinguished by their grammatical structures.

Essence is expressed by grammar.103

Grammar tells what kind of object anything is.104

What Wittgenstein calls a grammatical investigation spans both what we are calling formal causal investigations, along with categorial investigations into the kind of thing something is.

(26) Objections to regarding the Wittgensteinian tradition as engaged in a form of internal inquiry

In his piece “Ordinary Language”, Ryle provides a clear account of the position which I believe is fundamentally mistaken. According to this account, the

Wittgensteinian tradition is best regarded as engaging in a special form of philosophy, what we might call “linguistic philosophy”.

Ryle writes:

Later on, when philosophers were in revolt against psychologism in logic, there was a vogue for another idiom, the idiom of talking about the meanings of expressions, and the phrase “the concept of cause” was replaced by the phrase “the meaning of the word ‘cause’ or of any other with the same meaning.” This new idiom was also subject to anti-Platonic and anti-Lockean cavils; but its biggest drawback was a

102 Wittgenstein, “The Language of and Private Experience” in Philosophical Occasions, p. 307 103 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, (my emphasis) §371 104 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §373

155 different one. Philosophers and logicians were at that time the victims of a special and erroneous theory about meaning. They construed the verb “to mean” as standing for a relation between an expression and some other entity. The meaning of an expression was taken to be an entity which had that expression for its name…. It was partly in reaction against this erroneous view that philosophers came to prefer the idiom “the use of the expressions” …We are accustomed to talking of the use of safety pins, banisters, table knives badges and gestures; and this familiar idiom neither connotes nor seems to connote any queer relations to any queer entities.

But the more longwinded idiom [i.e., the idiom “the use of a word”] has some big compensating advantages. If we are inquiring into problems of perception, i.e., discussing questions about the concepts of seeing, hearing and smelling, we may be taken to be tackling the questions of opticians, neurophysiologists or psychologists, and even fall into the mistake ourselves. It is then salutary to keep on reminding ourselves and one another that what we are after is accounts of how certain words work, namely words like ‘see”, “looks”, “overlook,” “blind”, “visualize” and lots of other affiliated expressions.105

Here Gilbert Ryle, attributes a number of central tenants to the

Wittgensteinian tradition: (i) philosophy is an investigation into the “uses of words”;

(ii) the meaning of a word “is” its “use”; (iii) the alleged referents of general terms would be “mysterious” if they “existed”; (iv) the reference relation, if it “existed”, would be mysterious.

I want to challenge all four ideas on their own merits. But I also want to argue that Wittgenstein himself is unlikely to have adopted any of these four positions.

(26.1) Confused motivations behind “ordinary language philosophy’s” turn towards talk of “uses of words”

Ryle remarks that the turn in ordinary language philosophy towards talk of

“uses of words” was a means of avoiding the traditional talk of investigation into

105 Gilbert Ryle, “Ordinary Language” in Collected Papers Vol. 2, Collected Essays 1929-1968 (New York: Routledge, 1971) Kindle File

156 “universals” or “meanings”.106 For, he says that talk of “meanings” or “universals” had the “inconvenient” suggestion that one was “committed” to the “existence” of

“meanings” and “universals” over and above particular worldly things. But again, if this is what in fact did motivate ordinary language philosophy’s turn towards talk of

“uses of words”, then this motivation rests on assumptions that imply a fundamental category mistake. I.e., it involves the mistake of supposing that “existence” is a homogenous property. Particular worldly things along with meanings and universals can all exist together in the wide sense of “exist”; but, by definition, only particular worldly things can coherently exist the narrow sense, whereas meanings and universals cannot be said to either exist or not exist in this narrow sense at all.

However, that meanings and universals exist in the wide sense is uncontroversially true.

And thus, the fact that a certain notation---indeed our ordinary language is just one such “notation”----suggests that such things exist in the wide sense cannot be a serious cause for concern. In fact, it should not be a cause for concern at all, since such things uncontroversially exist in this wide sense. And so it should not raise our scruples in the first place, and it should not be the basis of a movement called “ordinary language philosophy” which favors talk of “uses of words” as opposed to talk of “kinds” and “properties”.

Moreover, as we have said above, it is absolutely essential to see that there is no analogy whatsoever between asserting that universals exist, in a wide sense, and

106 Gilbert Ryle, “Ordinary Language” in Collected Papers Vol. 2, Collected Essays 1929-1968 (New York: Routledge, 1971) Kindle File

157 asserting that ghosts exist, in a narrow sense. Indeed, the two claims are categorially disparate on all levels of analysis.107 And this alone should lead us to see that there is no good reason for rejecting a notation that suggests that certain abstract entities

“exist”. Moreover, a good example of such a notation is just our ordinary language.

For our ordinary language contains the possibility of the nominalization of words that do not naturally occur as nouns, (by contrast with words for simple substance things) and which refer, when nominalized, to abstract entities that “exist”.

That we tend to picture the existence of universals or meanings on an analogy with the existence of “ghosts” may be of psychological interest; but it is certainly no reason to found a movement called “ordinary language philosophy” in which one eschews talk of meanings and universals in favor of talk of “uses of words” (on the assumption that talk of “uses of words” allows us to avoid talk of

“universals”, which itself an assumption which we shall see is false). For, it would be better to simply point out the lack of categorial analogy between ghosts and universals, along with the lack of analogy between an assertion of existence in the narrow versus the wide sense, and then move on.

In fact, such a preliminary clarification of the categorial nature of the terrain would then clear the way for a traditional philosophical investigation of universals and meanings that started off on the right categorial-foot. The irony is that ordinary language philosophers were in possession of the resources for making these very categorial distinctions---distinctions which would have obviated their felt-need to

107 Cf. G. E. Moore “The Nature of Judgment”, “It may be doubted here whether even the concepts of which the proposition consists, can ever be said to exist. We should have to stretch our notion of existence beyond intelligibility, to suppose that 2 ever has been, is, or will be an existent.” Kindle File, Chapter 1

158 take the route of a quasi----since they had developed the philosophical resources to ground category differences on the basis of differences in grammatical structures.

And thus the very idea that a “universal” would be a “queer” entity if it

“existed” is an idea that rests on categorial confusion. Furthermore, the very idea that if “universals” “existed” then “reference” would be a “queer relation” between a general term and an abstract entity is also an idea that rests on categorial confusion.

There is nothing wrong with the idea that general terms refer to things or that there are abstract things that exist. The only thing wrong is the way that philosophers tend to picture this, since they are inclined to do so on the model of a false categorial analogy.

Moreover, the philosophical price that is paid for eschewing the truistic idea that “words refer to universals” or that “there are universals” is enormous. For, the consequence of adopting this position, throws countless other basic assumptions into an upheaval, and one constrains oneself to the point that it becomes difficult to deal with traditional philosophical issues, at all.

(26.1.1) Wittgenstein does not hold that “universals” are mysterious or that reference would be mysterious if it allowed us to refer to “universals”.

In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein writes:

Augustine does not speak of there being any difference between kinds of word. If you describe the learning of language in this way you are, I believe, thinking primarily of nouns like "table", "chair", "bread", and of people's names, and only secondarily of the names of certain actions and properties; and of the remaining kinds of word as something that will take care of itself.108

The Brown Book contains a similar passages which is illuminating.

108 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §1

159

Augustine, in describing his learning of language, say that he was taught to speak by learning the names of things. It is clear that whoever say this has in mind the way in which a child learns such words as “man”, “sugar”, “table”, etc. He does not primarily think of such words as “today”, “not”, “but”, “perhaps”.109

These “remaining kinds of word” are what we have been calling

“syncategorematic” expressions; they are words such as “not”. “Not” we say does not stand for anything, since it is not categorematic; i.e., it cannot stand alone in the proposition.

(Remark: Our use of expressions like “names of numbers”, “names of colours”, “names of materials”, “names of nations” may spring from two different sources. One is that we might imagine the functions of proper names, numerals, words for colours, etc., to be much more alike than they actually are. If we do so we are tempted to think that the function of every word is more or less like the function of a of a person, or such generic names as “table”, “chair”, “door”, etc. The second source is this, that if we see how fundamentally different the functions of such words as “table”, “chair”, etc., are from those of proper names, and how different from either the functions of, say, the names of colours, we see no reason why we shouldn’t speak of names of numbers or names of directions either…110

Wittgenstein suggests that there is no reason not to speak of “names of numbers” and “names of properties” and “names of kinds” alongside the expression

“names people”; there is nothing wrong with this, so long as this does not mislead us into thinking that all these kinds of thing are not categorially analogous to one another. So long as we keep this in mind, there is nothing wrong with this way of speaking.

Moreover, this way of speaking, in fact, allows us to mark a contrast between syncategorematic words and categorematic words, despite the fact that there is a great deal of variety within the “categorematic”. For, syncategorematic words cannot be said to be names under any circumstance, since they cannot be nouns.

109 Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, p. 77 110 Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, p. 82

160 Thus, in these passages Wittgenstein is acknowledging that our words can refer to (by being names for) a variety of kinds of things, namely, numbers, properties, kinds, colors, people, etc.

It is unlikely that Wittgenstein would be inclined to suppose that “if a name could refer to a universal, then the act of reference would be ‘queer’”.

It is also unlikely that Wittgenstein would be inclined to suppose that “if our words referred to universals, then our words would refer to ‘queer objects’”.

Really the only thing wrong with what you say is the expression "in a queer way". The rest is all right; and the sentence only seems queer when one imagines a different language-game for it from the one in which we actually use it. (Someone once told me that as a child he had been surprised that a tailor could 'sew a dress'— he thought this meant that a dress was produced by sewing alone, by sewing one thread on to another.)111

What is clear is that Wittgenstein regards our perception that something is “queer” to be the result of a confusion of categories. There is nothing wrong with supposing that our words refer to universals. The only the thing is wrong is the way in which we tend to picture universals, when we start doing philosophy.

(26.2) The idea that ordinary language philosophy explores “the use” of a word “as opposed to” Forms is not a clear thought

What is the “use of a word”? This expression can mean various things. The use of a word can be the appearance, i.e., occurrence, of a word in print. The use of a word can also be the function of a word. Now, what kinds of functions do words have? Well, let us consider the case of assertoric sentences. Assertoric sentences are used, function, to express propositions. And what about the words within basic assertoric sentences? We can distinguish very broadly two kinds of word here.

111 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §195

161 There are (i) words that are used in reference to particulars; there are (ii) words that are used in description and categorization; these are the words that show up in the predicates; there are (iii) words that have merely logical or expressive functions, such as the word ‘not’.

Let us focus on (ii). The uses of language such as description and categorization are only intelligible in terms of the notion of something’s have a property or something’s falling under a kind. These uses of language, thus, presuppose, for their intelligibility, universals. The notion of the “use of a word” is thus posterior in the order of categorial explanation to the notion of a propositional element, and cannot serve as a basic explanatory notion. For, the only way to specify the use of words that figure in such predicates is by drawing on the descriptive and categorizing functions of these predicates, and these functions are in turn only possible to illuminate by drawing on the categorial distinction between kinds and properties and particulars, which are the basic categorematic elements of propositions. For example, the use of the word ‘cat’ is to allow us to say of some thing that it falls under the kind “cat”. And kinds are universals.

Moreover, as we have seen above, the notion of a “use of word” qua

“function” or “role of a word” is not something that could coherently replace talk of

“forms”. For, the “use of a word” does not have the same meaning as the meaning of the word “Form”: so they cannot be interdefined. The “use of a word” is the purpose for which a word is used. In this sense, the “use of a word” is the function or role the word has. Words that correspond to categorematic elements are used in either reference or predication. Words that correspond to syncategorematic elements are

162 used for logical structure and for various expressive functions. The expression “the use of the word” can also be shorthand for the idea of “what the word amounts to in its use”; but then it is clear that the “use of a word” simply means “the meaning of a word”. But then “the meaning of a word” would be prior to the idea of the “use of a word”.

Some words, namely, words that correspond to syncategorematic elements in propositions have a use, but signify nothing. The word ‘not’, e.g., signifies nothing but it has a function; namely, it is a predicable operator that rules out a contrary against a background of contraries bounded by a genus. The words that correspond to categorematic elements, by contrast, are used in description or categorization or reference to particulars. But, unlike words such as ‘not’, these words also either naturally or potentially signify “things”, in the sense that they are words that (i) correspond to “natural” propositional subjects, or are words that (ii) when nominalized signify categorematic propositional elements. And this is what distinguishes this class of words from words such as ‘not’. For, ‘not’ can never be nominalized, and thus ‘not’ is not the sort of word that refers or might refer to any- thing; what “stands behind” the word ‘not’, so to speak, is a non-thing.

For a large class of cases, then, to explore “the use” of a word cannot be separated from exploring the Universals associated with the word. And while one is certainly free to explore the use of a word, there is no deep contrast to be made between exploring the use of a word “versus” getting a handle on the universals that correspond to the word.

163 (26.3) The commonplace notion championed by many ordinary language philosophers that what we investigate in philosophy are “concepts” is also an unclear idea

Part of the motivation behind the idea that we “explore” “uses of words” is that “uses of words” appeared to be “tractable”. Words are part of language and language is part of human culture. And thus it all seems within our reach. We are not faced with seemingly “mysterious” entities the “exist” in a “mysterious realm”.

This same idea is operative in the idea that philosophy explores “concepts”.

For, concepts, at least, historically were understood to “exist” “in” the “mind”. And thus they enjoyed a kind of “accessibility” that was thought to not be shared by our relation to “forms”. However, during the period of ordinary language philosophy, concepts were defined as “rules for uses of words”. And thus concepts were

“tethered” to something “tangible” by being “tethered” to “language”. I have criticized the idea that there could be such things as “rules” that govern meaning.

In any case, it is simply not the case that what we investigate in philosophy are “concepts”, in the “ordinary use” of the word ‘concept’.

Categorial inquiry investigates “things”; some things are concepts; all concepts are things; but, not all things are concepts. Categorial inquiry investigates the nature of things such as kinds, properties, internal-Grammatical possibilities, and Dimensions, along with the role of syncategorematic elements. A concept, however, is a way of thinking about or understanding something. Philosophers do not study concepts, unless they are acting in the capacity of intellectual historians. For, one may be interested in Wittgenstein’s concept of philosophy. But philosophers qua philosophers (in contrast with intellectual historians) do not study concepts, but rather study things and non-things, in the broadest sense. But, they study these

164 things and internally, not externally (in the manner of science, e.g.) For, a proposition is not composed of concepts, but is rather composed of categorematic elements and syncategorematic elements. And a true proposition is identical with a fact; and it would be absurd to suggest that a fact was “composed of concepts”; rather a fact, e.g., consists of a property (i.e., a non-substance thing) being truly applicable to a substance-thing. A property or a kind is not a concept.

The notion of “concept” is also connected to the idea of a nominal-kind or

“category” in the non-philosophical sense of the word ‘category’. In this sense, “we put things” into “groups”, and we are in control of the parameters of what does or doesn’t fall into the group. But such “categories” actually ultimately presuppose

“philosophical categories”. Were there merely nominal-kinds “all the way down”, so to speak, then we would not be able to make sense of thought, at all. For anytime we decided to put “something” in one of our nominal groupings, we have to know what this “something” is. And what this “something” is is a something that falls under one of the “philosophical categories”, always already.

(26.4) The idea that the meaning of a word is nothing more than its “use”

It would be quite mistaken, I think, to suggest that Wittgenstein has a “theory of meaning”112 at all, whether it is a “use theory”113 or some other “theory”. A

112 Michael Williams distinguishes two senses in which philosophers use the phrase “theory of meaning”: a broad sense and a narrow sense: I use the term only in the broad sense. I.e., a “theory of meaning” provides an account of “what meaning is”. (Michael Williams, “Meaning and Deflationary Truth”, in Deflationary Truth, edited by Bradley P. Armour-Garb and J. C. Beall (Chicago: Open Court, 2005) pp. 308-310) 113 Consider O. K. Bouwsma’s early criticism of the idea that Wittgenstein advocated a “use theory of meaning”:

“The meaning of a word is its use. No sentence has more powerfully formed the jargon of

165 “theory of meaning” implies that meaning is something that requires “explanation”. I do not think that Wittgenstein thinks that meaning is something that must be

“explained”. I would assume that he would think it is a primitive notion.

According to Wittgenstein, the meaning of a word is given in an “explanation of meaning”. And he says that there are two basic kinds of explanation of meaning: verbal definitions and ostensive definitions.114 In a definition what is given is the essence of the thing. And in an ostensive definition what is given is some paradigm that allows us to understand the essence of the thing. The meaning of the word is thus the “form” or essence that the word is used to convey in descriptive discourse.

And as O. K. Bouwsma says in the quotation above, it would be bizarre to equate the idea of “essence” or “form” with the idea of “use”.

It is fine to say that the meaning of a syncategorematic word is nothing over and above its use. But it is false to say this of categorematic words. For, the meaning contemporary discussion in philosophy. Nearly everyone these days speaks and writes in this new fashion. And yet nothing has been changed. If before we were puzzled with: What is the meaning of a word? Now we are puzzled with: What is the use of a word? (I think I paced up and down in this cage for years.) Having made a puzzle out of this we ask such further questions as how the author came upon such a definition. What English would ever allow the interchange of the words “meaning” and “use”? As a definition the sentence is indefensible and if it is defensible, what good comes of it?...Some people have even been misled into identifying the statement with some old or new Pragmatism….The author on page 67 writes: “Think of words as instruments characterized by their use, and then think of the use of a hammer, the use of a chisel, the use of a square, of glue-pot, and of the glue.” One can see from this how the sentence on page 4 is to be understood. It is intended not as a definition but as an analogy…It will help you to rid yourself of the temptation to think of the meaning as something in the dark which you cannot see very well. The idea is that if you thinking is dominated in this case by one misleading analogy then you may be led right by another leading analogy. If, of course, the second analogy also misleads one, not much may be gained. But as long as one is well aware of the analogy an what it is for, it should do its work. And it should now help one to see what the role of a word is in the various circumstances of our lives in which we speak and write that word together, of course, with other words. And if allow that we understand the word, are acquainted with the meaning, then this is where it is to be found, since this is all we know. So we may understand that sentence as one which is intended to help us to a change in perspective. Once that change has come about, the sentence, like the ladder, is of no further use.” (O. K. Bouwsma, “The Blue Book”, The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 58, No. 6 (Mar. 16, 1961), pp. 158-9)

114 Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, p. 1

166 of a categorematic word is given by a verbal or ostensive definition (when the

“overall” “role” of the word is clear). And what is given is the formal-cause of the thing that is paired with the word. But to make these uncontroversial observations is not to provide a “theory of meaning”.

A theory of meaning would require avoiding the notion of meaning altogether and then elucidating it in terms of some other notion. But this, as John

McDowell has forcefully argued, is clearly not what Wittgenstein does.115

Wittgenstein tells us that the meaning of a word is given in an explanation of meaning. There is certainly no way to understand the idea that words have meaning independently of the idea that we are speakers of a language who use words within the context of a human form of life. But this point is quite different from the point that “meaning is nothing but use”. Perhaps meaning, reference, categorial-grammar, use, language, human being, inference and proposition are all equiprimordial, all needed for the elucidation of the others.

Wittgenstein’s criticism of the Augustinian account of the learning of language is that it obscures the difference between an adult who has a categorial- grammar from a child who does not yet possess a categorial-grammar. An adult can be ostensively taught the meaning of a word by pointing, since the adult knows what kind of word is being explained. By contrast, a child can only be ostensively trained; but the child cannot be ostensively taught the meaning of any word.116

115 John McDowell, “Motivating Inferentialism: Comments on Chapter 2 of Making It Explicit” in The Engaged Intellect: Philosophical Essays, pp. 288-307 116 Meredith Williams, Blind Obedience: Paradox and Learning in the Later Wittgenstein, Kindle File, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3

167 But in criticizing the Augustinian picture of language learning, Wittgenstein does not criticize the very idea that our words have meanings that can be explained via ostensive definition.

So one might say: the ostensive definition explains…the meaning…of the word when the overall role of the word in language is clear. Thus if I know that someone means to explain a colour-word to me the ostensive definition "That is called 'sepia' " will help me to understand the word.117

(26.5) On the other hand, Wittgenstein does think that the meaning of syncategorematic words is nothing more than their use

When it comes to the syncategorematic words in language, there is a truth in the idea that the “meaning is nothing more than the use”. For, syncategorematic words are not names of “objects” at all.

For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.118

This is why Wittgenstein says that the principle that “the meaning is just the use” holds only “for a large class of cases---though not for all”.119

(26.6) Three kinds of words in simple-sentences: (i) natural nouns, (ii) potential, but not natural, nouns, (iii) words that can never be nouns

It is important to distinguish words that are naturally or potentially nouns, with words that can never be nouns. But we must distinguish between words that are (1) naturally nouns; words that are (2) potentially nouns, but not naturally nouns; and words that (3) can never be nouns. And in general we can say that the words that are naturally nouns are words for substances and kinds (including what

Aristotle called “secondary substances”). Such words naturally signify “things”.

117 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §30 118 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §43 119 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §43

168 Words that are potentially, but not naturally, nouns include adjectives, adverbs, verbs and whole sentences. Nevertheless, when such words are nominalized, they signify “things”. A verb can be nominalized into a term that signifies an action-type or event-type, e.g., ‘the walk’. Or, a verb can be nominalized into a phrase that signifies a particular event or action, e.g. ‘Socrates’ walk’.

The sentence (a) “Socrates walks”, can be reformulated as (b) “Walking is an action performed by Socrates” or (c) “Socrates’ walk took place at such and such a time.” In (b) the grammatical subject refers to a type of action. In (c) the grammatical subject refers to a specific action. However, in both cases, what these nouns refer to is something that would not have naturally been signified at all, were it not for the nominalizations.

Words that can never been nouns are words that correspond to syncategorematic elements in propositions, e.g., the word ‘not’ or ‘hello’. Such words signify “no-thing”. For, they cannot be nouns, and only nouns signify.

Thus it is only of the syncategorematic words that it would be correct to say that the meaning is the use. But when it comes to the two kinds of categorematic words, it would be implausible to say that their meaning is nothing more than their use. For, both kinds of categorematic expressions are capable of signifying things.

We have certain words such that if we were asked, “What is the reality which corresponds?”, we should all point to the same thing---for example, “sofa”, green”, etc. But “perhaps”, “and”, “or”, “two”, “plus”…are quite different. If a man asks, Does no reality correspond to them?” what should we say? How should we explain this feeling that there is a reality corresponding to these words, too?---He means “Surely we have some use for them.” And that is obviously true.

169 So with these words “and”, “or”, etc., we can say that the reality which corresponds to them is that we have a use for them.120

Wittgenstein classifies ‘green’ and ‘sofa’ as words that signify a “reality”.

There is a reality that corresponds to them; for, they do not merely have a use.

‘Green’ belongs to the second kind of categorematic expression I distinguished; and

‘sofa’ belongs to the first. Wittgenstein opposes both of these words to the conjunctions, which “only have a use” and which signify nothing: these are the syncategorematic words. Interestingly, Wittgenstein classifies ‘two’ with the conjunctions, regarding ‘two’ as word that “only has a use”, despite the fact that

“two” is a noun, and is capable of standing for the number 2. We might wonder, then, whether this is a mistake on Wittgenstein’s part, or whether it is illuminating.

(26.7) Wittgenstein does, however, clearly ascribe to the linguistic priority in a methodological sense

What Wittgenstein does subscribe to, however, is what we might call a methodological interpretation of the linguistic priority thesis. The idea is that in order to know the meaning of a word, (assuming it has one at all), it is methodologically necessary to first consider its “use”. But here the word “use” is not intended to be explanatory. To talk of “exploring the use of a word” simply means something along the lines of “exploring what the word is used to mean, when we use it in communication”, “or what the upshot of the word is, what it comes to in its use”.

But in this case, “use” does not explain meaning; rather, it actually presupposes it.

If you want to understand a word, we always say: “You have to know its use.” It is immensely important that to the great majority of words there correspond certain pictures which in some sense or other represent for us the meaning of the word.---In

120 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge,1939, edited by (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989) pp. 248-9

170 one sense this is clear: a picture of a chair may stand for the word “chair” and so on. In the case of “chair” that picture is of enormous use; it is actually used to explain the word----or to explain what a ‘Chippendale’ is, for instance. Once we are shown this, we are sure to sue the word in the same way.

But in other cases these pictures are more or less misleading or useless. For instance, the picture of a ‘particle’ can be extremely misleading---where the expression is no longer applied in such a way that this picture is of any use. You cannot explain how “particle” is used in physics by pointing to, say, a grain of sand; indeed, if you did that, you’d make a hash of it.121

In order to recognize the in the sign we must consider the significant use.122

These passages do not suggest that “meaning is use” in some explanatory sense.

Rather they suggest that if one wants to know what a word means one needs to consider the use of the expression. This is how lexicography is carried out. Paradigm sentences in which a word occurs are given and then the meaning of the word is extrapolated from these “uses”.

Moreover, through an investigation of the use of a word we will be able to determine what the word actually means despite the pictures that we naturally associate with the word. E.g., if we hear the word “psyche”, this may lead us to think of some kind of hidden amorphous realm. But if we consider the use of this word, the actual understanding we get of its meaning will be quite different. And thus by conscientiously exploring the use of a word, we may help ourselves avoid making false assumptions about the kind of thing we subsequently go on to deal with in philosophy.

When I teach someone the formation of the series…I surely mean him to write…at the hundredth place.” --- Quite right; you mean it. And evidently without necessarily even thinking of it. This shews you how different the grammar of the verb “to mean” is from that of “to think”. And nothing is more wrong-headed than calling meaning a mental activity! Unless, that is, one is setting out to produce confusion. (It would

121 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge, 1939, edited by Cora Diamond (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989) (my emphasis) p. 252 122 Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, (my emphasis) §3.326

171 also be possible to speak of an activity of butter when it rises in price, and if no problems are produced by this it is harmless.)123

‘Meaning’ is one of the words that Wittgenstein thinks misleads us by its appearance. Because of its surface form, we are inclined to think that “meaning” is akin to “pointing” or “touching” or “thinking”. And the pictures that arise from this linguistic comparison lead us to make assumptions about the meaning of ‘meaning’.

We are inclined to think that to mean something is to perform some cogitative or imaginative act. However, if we consider the use of this word, we will discover that the actual meaning of this word is such that “meaning something” needn’t have these sorts of implications.

(26.7.1) The methodological exploration of uses of words is essential for safe passage in philosophy

Wittgenstein writes,

The primitive forms of our language: noun, adjective and verb, show the simple picture into whose form language tries to force everything.124

An investigation into the uses of words is an absolutely critical initial step before engaging in any kind of philosophical reflection about a topic. For, language possesses an extraordinary potential to be misleading, and we have basic psychological tendencies that lead us to make false assumptions about the meaning of words. Consider, for example, the word ‘seems’ or ‘looks’. We say, “It seems that we’ve lost the trail” or “It looks like we’ve lost the trail”. What we mean in making such a claim is that we believe we have lost the trail, and we believe this on the basis of what we have gathered about our surroundings, on the basis of the exercise of

123 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §693 124 Wittgenstein, “Philosophy”, in Philosophical Occasions, (my emphasis) p. 199

172 our human-cognitive-faculty of perception. Now, were we to simply stare at the word ‘looks’ or ‘seems’ in a sentence, we might be inclined to assume that this word

“stands” for “something”, some act or property. But, in fact, it does not. It doesn’t signify anything at all, in fact.

However, because of our tendency to assume that everything must conform to the “noun-verb-adjective picture”, a picture which only tends to fit simple subject- predicate sentences, we are inclined to assumed that ‘seems’ and ‘looks’ must

“stand” for “something”. And, thus, philosophers are inclined to speak of “seemings” and “lookings”, as if there were actions or properties called “seemings” and

“lookings”. But this is a mistake: there are no such things.

(27) The unity of philosophical inquiry

Robert Fogelin writes, “In his biographical sketch, von Wright says ‘that

Wittgenstein’s new philosophy is, so far as I can see, entirely outside any philosophical tradition and without literary sources of influence….The author of the

Philosophical Investigations has no ancestors in philosophy.’ I think that von Wright is substantially correct in this claim…”125

I think this perspective misplaced. Wittgenstein is unquestionably a highly original philosopher; however, part of Wittgenstein’s achievement was to re- discover Aristotelian-Socratic concepts in the aftermath of the scientific and logistic

(Fregean) revolutions. For, due to Frege’s reconceptualization of the proposition, and his rejection of Aristotelian logic, certain gaps opened up in our understanding

125 Fogelin, Robert, Wittgenstein (The of Philosophers) (New York: Routledge, 1995) Kindle File, Chapter XV

173 of numerous issues, gaps that were tied to the fact that predicable negation had been lost from our cultural consciousness, and these gaps needed to be addressed by someone. I suggest that Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophers stepped in to fill this need. Thus, whether they were conscious of this or not, they were, at the deepest level, redressing a conceptual imbalance that was created due to the displacement of Aristotelian good sense, by means of the Fregean revolution in logic. This is not to say that the work of Wittgenstein and others was a mere recovery of something Socratic-Aristotelian. For, their work also constituted an enrichment and development of this Socratic-Aristotelian starting point; however, I maintain that their work is continuous and not incompatible with this starting point.

The result of the synthesis of the work of the Wittgensteinian tradition with this ancient Socratic-Aristotelian starting point is something along the lines of what we have been calling “internal inquiry”. It is re-collective inquiry into the nature of the elements of propositions as they appear or figure in or manifest themselves in propositions, along with an inquiry into the basic notions and grammars that govern these elements, where the structure of the proposition and negation are regarded in an

Aristotelian manner, and where the legitimate elements of analysis include those that figure in non-scientific propositions. Part of the achievement of the 20th century was to ground the Aristotelian inquiry into categories in an understanding of categorial grammar, but the understanding of categorial grammar is itself rooted in the basic

Aristotelian concepts of contrariety, negation and genera of contrariety spectra.

For, the Socratic-Aristotelian conception of philosophy was enriched in the

20th century by means of the Wittgensteinian notions of “philosophical grammar”,

174 the distinction between the “propositionally internal” and the “external”, the

Heideggerian notions of “existentialia” and “categories”, the Austinian notion of

“Dimensions”, and the Sommersian notion of “ontological features”. Such 20th century contributions are best regarded not as constituting a radical break with the philosophical tradition (as they frequently are), but as enriching, fortifying and making intelligible the most historically original conception of philosophy, i.e.,

Socratic-.

(27.1) A Barrier to Understanding the Continuity between the 20th century and Ancient Philosophical Traditions

What stood in the way of clearly seeing the work of Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophers as a rediscovery of elements in ancient philosophy was the of so-called “linguistic philosophy”. According to this conception,

20th century philosophy constituted a radical break with the tradition, since it regarded itself for the first time as being concerned with “uses of words”, as opposed to with beings. But, as I have argued above, I do not think the deep philosophical work of either Wittgenstein, Austin, Ryle or Hacker is accurately captured by this meta-philosophical construal. Aristotle regarded the exploration of the use of language as a critical methodological tool in philosophy. But he did not identify the subject matter of philosophy with “uses of words”. And there is a critical distinction between those two ideas. In many ways, I think ordinary language philosophers confused the importance of the methodological concern with uses of words, with the subject matter of philosophy itself.

175 This movement was also accompanied by a trend to reductively define linguistic meaning as “use”, which meant that the ordinary sense of ourselves as referring and talking about objects in our environment was dismissed as

“Augustinian”. However, seeing what is problematic about the Augustinian picture requires no attack on our ordinary notions of reference, meaning, signification, description, predication; and it certainly does not require adopting an account of meaning as “use”. It is not clear what would motivate a theory of meaning in the first place, since meaning needn’t be explained in terms of something else, as if it were not itself a primitive notion. Moreover, if we take seriously our ordinary understanding of “word use”, then it will be clear that “use” actually presupposes

“meaning” already, since the “use” of categorematic words is “reference”,

“categorization” and “description” in predication. And, in one sense, to explore the use of a word is just to explore what the word means. For in one very ordinary sense of “use”, the use of a word just is its meaning; i.e., it is what the word comes to in its use.

(27.2) Aristotle says that we study “beings”; Plato says we study “Forms”; Sellars says that we study “things in the broadest sense”; Heidegger says that we study “phenomena”, Wittgenstein says we study “possibilities of phenomena”: however, we must understand at a very general level what kind of things these “things” or “beings” or “forms” or “phenomena” are.

If philosophers study “beings”, we must understanding what sort of thing a

“being” is. Otherwise, we will be locked into a dichotomy between supposing that philosophy is either about “uses of words” and is thus trivial, or that philosophy is an extension of science and thus that it studies scientific phenomena along with the sciences.

176 My proposal is that a being is an element of a proposition. And such a thing can be analyzed for its nature insofar as it figures in the proposition: thus philosophy is the study of things and non-things as they figure in propositions in terms of the notions and grammar that govern them, and in light of the non-scientific body of knowledge that hangs together with these legitimate propositional elements and structures: philosophy also studies these basic notions and grammars. To study beings, in this sense, is different from studying the functions of words; for, that is at best only an indirect means of studying beings. And moreover, the very idea of a

“use of a word” presupposes the existence of beings ahead of time; but the study of beings is also different from the study of the nature of things in an external manner, i.e., the study of the actual, factual, state of affairs of things, in the world. Philosophy, as circumscribed by the concept of Socratic-Aristotelian inquiry i.e., inquiry into

“What something is, in the proposition” and “What kind of thing something is, in the proposition”, is concerned with the internal study of beings. But such an inquiry is not concerned with either “the functions of words” or with “matters of empirical or theoretical science”. Furthermore, beings are not a species of the genus concept; that is, beings are not concepts; and a proposition is not composed of concepts, but is composed of things and non-things, i.e., categoremata and syncategoremata. Things divide into substances, kinds and properties and into particular events and particular actions. A concept is a manner or way of conceiving something. But a property or kind is not a manner or way of conceiving something.

But what this means is that the “proposition” is a central notion that grounds the understanding of the Aristotelian-Socratic tradition. Thus we can agree with

177 Strawson that one of the greatest contributions of the 20th century was to bring our attention to the notion of the proposition as explanatorily basic and central. For, the early-analytic understanding of the proposition in the work of Russell and Moore and Frege, as an abstract but real entity, gives us the notion that allows us to unify in a non-reductive and satisfying manner the work of ancient philosophers who regarded their work in a vague manner as concerned with “things”, with the work of

20th century philosophers, who mistakenly regarded their work as “merely linguistic”. For the proposition gives us a precise but non-linguistic, understanding of the subject matter of philosophy: it is the elements of propositions as elements of propositions along with the notions and structures that govern these elements.

If we regard Wittgenstein’s grammatical investigation as concerned not with sentences but with propositions (as propositions were roughly conceived in the founding conception of analytic philosophy), and if we eschew the idea that

Wittgenstein has a “theory of meaning”, then this gives us the right conception.

(28) Human Knowledge

What kind of thing is known? There is view today called “epistemic naturalism”, which holds that only propositions of the natural sciences are known or potentially known. This view has it roots in various philosophical confusions. It stems, among other things, from (1) a conflation between philosophy and science; from (2) the false contention that categoremata that figure in non-scientific propositions are reducible to categoremata that figure in scientific propositions; from (3) a conflation of proto-scientific belief with non-scientific knowledge; from

178 (4) a lack of appreciation of the formal-causal categorial dependence of the elements of scientific facts on the grammars of the elements of non-scientific facts.

(28.1) Not all knowledge is scientific.

There are various specialized branches of knowledge that are a-scientific, such as history and philosophy. But even so, not everything known arises from some specialized or disciplined form of inquiry in the first place. Much of what we know is simply non-scientific (where what is “non-scientific” is to be distinguished from what is “un-scientific”). Moreover, our scientific knowledge expands outwards from this nucleus of non-scientific knowledge, and thus depends upon it, as its foundation.

P. M. S. Hacker puts the point as follows:

…it is absurd to suppose that science, no matter whether social or natural, is the primary measure of what does and what does not exist. One needs no science to discover or come to know that there is a tree in the garden or that there are not trees in one’s room. Nor does one need any science to explain that one went to Paris because one promised a friend to be there. Not everything that can be known can be known by mere observation, but nothing at all could be known without mere observation---and the ability to learn facts about the world around us is a prerogative of any human being, antecedent to science and the acquisition of scientific knowledge. It is simply false to suggest that all observation is theory- laden.

Thirdly, it is wrong-headed to suppose that the only forms of understanding are scientific, and that the only respectable forms of explanation of empirical phenomena are theoretical.126

(28.2) Non-Scientific knowledge forms the background against which we engage in scientific research, and what we learn in scientific research cannot subsequently impugn our non-scientific knowledge: Appearance and Reality

126 M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003) p. 374

179 Moreover, our non-scientific knowledge forms the nucleus from which we subsequently engage in scientific work. We know that we see such and such; and then, on this footing, we want to gain an understanding of the material-causal processes that make this physiologically possible. We know that such and such is a solid object; and then we want to gain an understanding of the material-causal structures it embodies, the micro-structures which physically underpin this observed property. Scientific knowledge of material-causes constitutes an expansion and outgrowth of human knowledge as a whole.

Although our non-scientific knowledge forms the background against which we explore scientific topics, there is a temptation to suppose that subsequent knowledge gained in scientific work might impugn the original non-scientific knowledge we began with. But this is mistaken. The knowledge discovered in our scientific investigations does not and cannot impugn our non-scientific knowledge.

Wittgenstein provides the following example in the Blue Book.127 We are said to know non-scientifically, e.g. that such and such table is solid; for, if we stand on it, it won’t collapse, etc. However, in light of what we have discovered about the atomistic structure of physical reality, popular science has concluded that the seemingly solid table is not in fact solid at all.

And yet being solid is opposed to being unsturdy; and the scientific research cannot show that the stable is in fact un-sturdy despite what we know. And it is not in the business of doing so in the first place. I.e., the science cannot show that the

127 Wittgenstein, The Blue Book and Brown Books, p. 45

180 table will not in fact support the weight we place on top of the table, despite what we know; and nor does the science purport to show this.

All that the science could impugn is a proto-scientific or false scientific understanding of the understanding of the material-causal structure of the atomic substrata of physical matter. E.g., let’s suppose we assumed that given that the table is solid, it must have a material-causal microstructure in which there are no “gaps”.

This proto-scientific assumption would then be impugned by the serious scientific investigations. But abandoning the proto-science (i.e., abandoning a conception of how things appear proto-scientifically in light how things are scientifically), does not require abandonment of the known non-scientific facts, e.g., that we know that such and such is a solid (i.e., not un-sturdy) table. For, the two propositions (i.e., the proto-scientific proposition and the non-scientific proposition) are simply not equivalent whatsoever.128

Similarly, we all know that we see a chair in the room. However, popular science supposedly has taught us that scientific knowledge regarding “the workings of visual processes” lead to the conclusion that we do not really see the chair at all.

On the one hand, we can study the underlying bio-neuro-physiological processes that make human vision and perception, which are, first and foremost, human-cognitive and psychical-sensory phenomena, physiologically possible. But

128 Two other examples of this phenomenon are as follows: (i) we conflate the mere idea that biological cells engage in intrinsic functional processes with “vitalism”; (ii) we conflate the mere idea that animals have consciousness with the idea that animals possess an “immaterial soul”. We equate our investigations into the physical substrata of Worldly phenomena with “reality”. In this process, certain proto-scientific or false scientific theories are rejected; but, we then, in turn, mistakenly, associate our ordinary non-scientific knowledge of phenomena in these domains with “mere appearance”, since we confusedly equate the proto-scientific or false scientific theories with the mere idea that these domains are categorially sui generis.

181 whatever we learn in this physiological investigation cannot impugn basic non- scientific facts that we know, regarding human perception; e.g., it cannot impugn our knowledge that we all see a chair in the room. And, thus, popular science is mistaken to suggest that such research has discovered (on the basis of the discovery of the neuroscientific underpinnings of vision) that amazingly “humans do not really see anything in the world”.

That we see a chair in the room is something we know non-scientifically. To see something is opposed to not seeing it. And when a human being does not see something, e.g., a chair, this is because, e.g., the object is not in view or because one’s eyes are covered or because there is something blocking one’s line of sight or because the object is too far away or because one’s eyesight is poor or because one was not paying attention. But the physiological research into the physiological processes that underpin human vision is not in the business of showing that (remarkably), contrary to what we know, our eyes are actually covered or that the chair is not in our field of vision!

All that the research can impugn is a proto-scientific or false scientific understanding of the physiological underpinnings of human vision and perception.

For example, if we assumed proto-scientifically that whenever we see something there must be special rays that project outward from our eyes and touch the objects seen, then this assumption (which is how things might appear in a proto-scientific conception) would be impugned by the serious science (i.e., by the discovery of how things really are scientifically). But throwing out this proto-scientific assumption does not require throwing out our known non-scientific knowledge. For, the proto-

182 scientific conception (which is rejected by a more complete understanding of natural scientific reality) is not equivalent to the known non-scientific fact (the fact, that we see a chair, in such and such, a place).

(28.3) The distinction between proto-science and non-science

Our non-scientific knowledge cannot be represented as though it were equivalent or even similar to proto-scientific or false scientific views that may be impugned in the course of serious science. For, our non-scientific knowledge is not un-scientific; it is simply non-scientific. Moreover, our non-scientific knowledge is knowledge, which means it is true, correct or factual. And, thus, it cannot, by definition, be shown to be false.

P. M. S. Hacker puts this point as follows:

Psychological concepts are not concepts of imperceptible entities like genes or viruses, or concepts of theoretical entities, like mesons or quarks. They are not concepts of ‘entities’ at all. Our concepts of beliefs, thoughts hopes, fears, expectations, etc. are not concepts of kinds of things, but abstractions from believings, thinkings, hopings, fearings and expectings. In one sense, what many of these verbs signify is often perfectly observable. For it is a conceptual confusion to suppose that the evidence for someone’s suffering, joy or grief, for his believing or thinking, fearing or hoping, consists of ‘bare bodily behavior’ of mere physical movements.129

Of course, all articulate judgment involves the application of concepts. Articulate observation is concept-laden. But is does not follow that it is therefore theory-laden. There must be a contrast between what is theoretical and what is not if the term ‘theoretical’ is to have any content. A scientist’s description of particle decay in a cloud chamber will be theory-laden, involving the use of non-observational theoretical terms. But a description of a garden as tidy, with daffodils and tulips in bloom, is not. Neither is the description of a person as wondering whether to go to the theatre tonight, as thinking that it would be enjoyable and deciding to get tickets.130

(28.4) Much of our knowledge must be non-scientific

129 M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, (my emphasis) p. 370 130 M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, (my emphasis) p. 369

183

Furthermore, the very idea that there could be scientific knowledge depends upon our knowing many other non-scientific facts. Getting a scientific measurement of some phenomenon with an instrument requires that we know all sorts of non- scientific facts about ourselves, how our instruments work, our assumptions, our environment. If a scientist were to take a reading of something with a scientific instrument, but then felt it was an open question whether or not he had eyes or hands or was using instruments, at all, the very idea that he was a practicing scientist or was doing science would itself become unclear.

Furthermore, if we did not possess a great deal of non-scientific knowledge, it would become unclear in what sense we could be said to posses “scientific” knowledge, at all. If I cannot claim to know (non-scientifically) that I have eyes and am using an instrument to take a reading, it becomes unclear to what extent I can be said to know that such and such is the scientific-reading of the scientific-instrument.

In fact, it becomes unclear what it even means to take a reading of a scientific instrument, period.

I can make a mistake regarding the reading of some measurement in a lab; but I cannot make a mistake about whether or not I have eyes. Were I to claim I didn’t have eyes, when I did, we would not call this a “mistake”; for, this would imply that in professing this, I have overlooked something that might be understandable to overlook; on the contrary, we would classify this as a form of “delusional thinking”, a “mental disturbance”.

Michael Williams puts the point as follows:

184 In the first place, justification is subject to intelligibility or semantic constraints. Wittgenstein remarks that , if you tired to doubt everything, you would not get as far as doubting anything. This is not a matter of practicality: one reason we have lots of default entitlements is that holding many true beliefs, or not being subject to certain kinds of error, is a condition of making sense, thus of being in a position to raise questions at all. Unless we routinely get lots of thing right, it is not clear what we are talking or thinking about, if anything. Wittgenstein makes the point with characteristic flair: ‘Suppose a man could not member whether he had always had five fingers or two hands? Should we understand him? Could we be certain of understanding him?” The answer is: no, we could not be certain. At some point, ‘mistakes’ shade off into unintelligibility. Someone who cannot do the simplest calculations, or perform the simplest counting operations, is not making arithmetical mistakes: he does not understand numbers. Of course, there is no sharp boundary here---that is why mistakes shade off into unintelligibility----but the fact remains that one cannot, in just any circumstances, be mistaken about anything whatsoever. A contextualist must therefore be careful about how he states his . It is tempting to say that anything can be called in question, but not everything at once. But it is not true even that anything can be called in question in any situation. To be intelligible at all---and not just to be reasonable---questioning may need a lot of stage-setting.

Intelligibility constraints have to do with our being able to raise meaningful questions at all. But the exclusion of certain types of doubt can also arise from what is required to raise questions of some specific kind. I shall call these exclusions methodological constraints; and I shall call propositions that have to be exempted from doubt, if certain types of question are to be pursued, methodological necessities.

The boundary between intelligibility and methodological constraints is not a sharp one.131

Furthermore, many non-scientific truths regarding certain general facts pertaining to the world affect what Wittgenstein calls our “frame of reference”.132

Our “frame of reference” is reflected, in a counterfactual sense, in our basic notions and in categorial grammars that govern the very intelligibility of propositional content itself, such that if these general facts were different, the grammars would be too.

131 Michael Williams, Problems of Knowledge: A Critical Introduction to Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) pp. 159-160; Michael Williams, “Why (Wittgensteinian) is not ”, : A Journal of , Volume 4, Issue 1, (2007), pp. 93-114 132 “The truth of certain empirical propositions belongs to our frame of reference.” (Ludwig Wittgenstein, , edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1969) §83)

185 (28.5) The of categorial structures that govern non-scientific discourse on the assumption that natural scientific discourse makes sense

In fact, it is a necessary condition on the intelligibility of the knowledge we do have that much of our knowledge is non-scientific. This is because the irreducible and basic grammatical structures arrived at in internal inquiry are structures that govern elements of non-scientific propositions. And so, if those basic structures are to have validity, then we must assume that the elements that provide the matter for the grammatical structures are legitimate. And we can make this assumption, if we assume that most of our knowledge is non-scientific: that is, if we assume that the great majority of the known propositions that exist are non-scientific. Moreover, there are good independent reasons to assume that most of our knowledge is non- scientific, which we shall explore; and, moreover, there are various categorial confusions which have tempted us to assume otherwise; and once these confusions are removed, the claim that most of our knowledge is non-scientific should stand as uncontroversially true.

It is universally assumed that there is such a thing as natural scientific fact.

However, in order to grasp the formal-causal intelligibility of the grammatical structures that govern the elements that figure in natural scientific facts, we must assume, as prior, the existence of the grammatical structures that govern the elements of non-scientific facts. This is because the grammatical structures that govern the elements of scientific facts are privatively defined in terms of grammatical structures that govern the elements of non-scientific facts. The mechanistic is defined as what is “meaningless”, where to be “meaningless” means to lack the grammatical-categorial-Dimensions of Flourishing and Freedom, but

186 these are precisely the Dimensions that ground the elements that occur in countless non-scientific propositions that concern entities and states of affairs within the human domains. We must assume, therefore, that these grammatical-Dimensional structures have validity, if the grammatical-Dimensional structures that govern the elements of scientific propositions have validity; but that necessitates that the elements of non-scientific facts themselves have legitimacy.

(29) Reality, as it is in itself

As we have argued above, ordinary, non-scientifically known, facts are not equivalent to proto-scientific belief or pseudo-scientific belief or false scientific belief; and, thus, if reality is the totality of facts, then ordinary non-scientific fact has as much claim to being part of “reality” as any other domain of fact. For, ordinary non-scientific fact is not “appearance” in the way that the false proto-science is.

What is known is a “fact”. Facts are true propositions. And reality is the totality of “facts”. And this totality, we might say, divides into non-scientific facts and scientific facts. But because non-scientific knowledge plays a transcendental role in our understanding of the intelligibility of all other facts, we can say that non- scientific knowledge is privileged, over and above scientific factual reality. For this reason we can say that non-scientific factual reality is “reality as it is in itself”. The expression “reality as it is in itself” is a way of emphasizing this part of reality, in light of the importance that it plays.

(29.1) Ordinary language philosophers tended to affirm the “reality” and “authenticity” of ordinary kinds in a roundabout manner

187 Consider the following passages by Malcolm.

…it is an important to note that people can learn the meaning of the word ‘ghosts’ without actually seeing any ghosts. That is, the meaning of the word ‘ghost’ can be explained to them in terms of the meanings of words which they already know. It seems to me that there is an enormous difference in this respect between the learning of the word ‘ghost’ and the learning of expressions like ‘earlier’ ‘later’ ‘to the left of’ ‘behind’ ‘above’… ‘it is possible that’ ‘it is certain that’. The difference is that, whereas you can teach a person the meaning of the word ‘ghost’ without showing him an instance of the true application of that word, you cannot teach a person the meaning of these other expressions without showing him instances of the true application of those expressions.

People could not have learned the meaning of the expressions ‘to the left of’ or ‘above’ ‘ unless they had actually been shown instances of one thing being to the left of another, and one thing being above another. In short, they could not have learned the meaning of expressions which describe spatial relations without having been acquainted with some instances of spatial relations. …..

In the case of all expressions the meaning of which must be shown and cannot be explained, as can the meaning of ‘ghost’, it follows, from the fact that they are ordinary expressions in the language, that there have been many situations of the kind which they describe; otherwise so many people could not have learned the correct use of those expressions.

Whenever a philosophical paradox asserts, therefore, with regard to such an expression, that always when that expression is used the use of it produces a false statement, then to prove that the expression is an ordinary expression is completely to refute the paradox.133

And P. M. S. Hacker writes:

Our ordinary psychological concepts are neither theoretical nor empty.

Our psychological concepts are not theoretical concepts devised for scientific purposes, though it is true that the psychological and neuropsychological sciences use them, just as chemistry uses the concepts of water and iron, and biology uses such concepts as cat and dog. ….It may well be that there are technical concepts in current empirical psychology that will be abandoned by future psychology. But this does not show that there are no beliefs and thoughts, and sensations, desires and . Nothing answers to the concepts of phlogiston, caloric or élan vital. But it cannot be said that nothing answers to our ordinary psychological concepts. There are criteria of the applications of these terms, and these criteria are satisfied daily, innumerable , in the life of every normal human being. It is only when the logic of these expressions is misconstrued, as it is by the eliminativists, and wrongly taken to signify theoretical, unobservable entities, that it can confusingly seem as if it might be that nothing answers to these concepts.134

133 Norman Malcolm, “Moore and Ordinary Language” in The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method: with two Retrospective Essays, edited by Richard M. Rorty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) pp. 119-120 134 M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (my emphasis) p. 375

188

Part of what Malcolm and Hacker are trying to do in these passages is to remind us that although our ordinary kinds are not “natural kinds”, they are nevertheless real and genuine kinds. Why are they real, genuine, kinds? Because they are kinds that figure in known non-scientific propositions. They are, to use a phrase we’ve introduced above, “rooted in reality”. And these known non-scientific propositions, in which these kinds figure, constitute part of reality, not some simulacrum of reality, but reality (as it really is).

189

Chapter 2: Neo-Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian Ontology

(1) Ontology, as a fundamental part of internal inquiry

I shall now explore the ontology that uncontroversially follows from the metaphilosophy established in Chapter 1. The ontology will consist of two central parts: (i) a categorial taxonomy of categoremata; (ii) an articulation of the categorial-Domains of Worldly reality. Some propositional elements are either substantial or non-substantial particulars. These elements figure in known propositions that comprise the vast body of human Worldly knowledge. And they then can be grouped by means of categorial modes to form categorial Worldly domains, into which reality is always already divided.

(2) Taxonomy of Categoremata

190  $"0- Y@  Syncategoremata or Categoremata or non-Things

Things

Substances Non-Substances

Exclamations Conjunctions

Universal Non-Substances Particular Non-Substances Segments of Imperatives

Kinds Properties Events Actions Propositions States of Affairs Segments of Performatives Quantities

Qualities Relations Capacities States Action-Types Event-Types                  

 X`X   $"0- Z@   Categoremata or

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Artifacts Physical Objects Partitions of Raw Stuffs Humans Animals Plants

Modes of Non-Substances

HumanNatural Artifactual Mathematical Logical Categorial Value Relevant

Animal Vegetal Biological Physical

Bio-Teleological Ethical Moral Esthetic Culturally Significant Practical    

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The Unintelligible The Intelligible

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 X`Z  $"0- \@   The Highest Genus Authentic or Inauthentic Possible Elements of Propositions i.e., something or nothing

The Unintelligible The Intelligible, i.e., Nothing, i.e., Something, i.e., “what” is not a i.e, an actually possible element possible element of of a proposition a proposition; a pseudo-element of a proposition

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 X`[ there is are phrases or words that appear to denote something intelligible, but which do not. “The intelligible”, then, does not mark out a sphere within “beings”, such that there is a boundary past which something is “unintelligible”. There is no such thing as a “boundary of intelligibility” or a “limit of intelligibility”.135 For, if there were, then there would be such a thing as “the other side of the limit within something” and that is just the notion we regard as unintelligible.

On the other hand, there must be a higher genus that unifies the intelligible and the unintelligible as species. Otherwise, we would not be able to make sense of the property of “being intelligible” versus “being unintelligible”, since there would be no common subject-bearer to which this property-contrast applies. This highest genus we call “something or nothing”.

Within the genus “the intelligible”, we can distinguish between the

“categoremata” and the “syncategoremata”. What is categorematic is whatever can figure in the proposition as a propositional subject. What is syncategorematic is whatever cannot figure in the proposition as a propositional subject. Another term for what is “syncategorematic” is a “non-thing”. And so, within the genus “the intelligible”, we distinguish between things and non-things. A non-thing is not a nothing or a nonsense; rather, it is a syncategorematic element such as the element

“not”, i.e., an element that cannot occupy the propositional position called

“propositional subject” and which instead serves a propositional function.

Within the genus categoremata, we can distinguish between substances and non-substances.

135 See Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Preface

195

(2.1) Substances

Substances are what possess the Dimension of Materiality or Substratum

Composition. That is, they are the sorts of things for which the question “What is that made of?” makes sense. Non-substances are what lack the Dimension of

Substratum Composition. The distinction between spirit and matter is thus a distinction within category of Substance, insofar as “spiritual beings” are made of

“spirit stuff”.

(2.2) Non-Substances

Non-substances are always “of” or “by” substances. And this is what accounts for the fundamental divide between the two categories Substance and non-

Substance. A property is always possessed by a substance. A kind is always instantiated by a substance. An action-type is always performed by a substance. A specific action is always bound up with a substance. A state of affairs is always the combination of a non-substance and substance. And so on.

Some categoremata figure as propositional subjects in the “simple propositions”, whereas other categoremata do not figure, in simple propositions, as propositional subjects but figure in the predicable. In the standard case, the categoremata that figure as propositional subjects in simple propositions are substances, i.e., beings that have the Dimension Materiality. The categoremata that figure in predicables in simple propositions are predicable/universal non- substances. They include kinds, properties, action-types, and event-types.

196 A kind is a qualitative grouping of beings. A kind is not a set, for it is a not a collection of things, but rather the criteriologically unified grouping of things. A kind can group any kind of thing.

A property is a way things can be. Properties exist in spectrums of contraries that are bounded by genera, which we call Dimensions. Properties are essentially connected to negation, first and foremost, governs predicables. A predicable in which a property occurs has a positive and negative possibility. And the negative expresses “anything but the property in question, in light of the total spectrum bounded by the genus”. The function of negation is to express that the place to look for what is true of the propositional subject is in the privative part of the spectrum bounded by the property-genus.

An action-type is something performed.

An event-type is something that occurs.

When action-types and event-types are combined with propositional subjects there arise specific actions and specific events and states of affairs. These are called “particular non-substances” in contrast with “universal non-substances”.

A particular event has Duration: it occurs from t1 to t2. A particular action also has

Temporality. That is, we can always ask, “At what time did he do that?”

Thus, within the category of non-substances, we distinguish between universal non-substances and particular non-substances.

Quantities we might say are a kind of universal non-substance, although they are distinguished, from other universal non-substances, by the fact that they do not

197 appear in the predicables of simple propositions. Quantities are the “how many” or

“the count” of a descript set of things.136

(2.3) Living versus non-Living Substances

Within the category of Substance, we can distinguish between Living and

Non-Living things. Within the category of non-living things we can distinguish merely Physical Things and Artifacts. Within the category of living things, we can distinguish between Plants, Animals, and Humans.

A living thing is what has the Dimension of Flourishing. That is, living things are what can take predicables that include properties in the Spectrum of contraries that include healthy, unhealthy, growing, regenerating, dying, etc. Non-living things are what lack the Dimension Flourishing. A non-living thing does not fail to grow and regenerate; it does not fall to take in nutrients and expel waste; it simply lacks the possibility of either regenerating or not regenerating, etc.

A merely living thing does not have the goal of flourishing. For, only a being that can have intentions can have goals. However, despite the fact that flourishing is not a goal, the good of flourishing is something in reference to which merely living things are intelligible as living things. For, it is only in reference to the good of flourishing that the parts of merely living things can be said to function in such and such ways in light of such and such ends. For, any end of a process within a merely living thing is ultimately in the service of the good of the organism: i.e., the specific conditions of flourishing that are defined for the organism in light of what is

136 E. J. Lowe, The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical foundation for Natural Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) Kindle File, Chapter 2, Part 5, §5.8

198 naturally historical normal for that species. The good of the organism is the

“ultimate end” for the sake of which everything else is carried out.

A plant is what has the Dimension of Growth and Reproduction; an animal is what has the Dimension of Growth and Reproduction as well as the Dimension of

Perception and Action. A human has the Dimensions that plants and animals have but additionally has the Dimension of Reason and Ethical Freedom. This is a categorial interpretation of the idea that nature is organized according to a “scala naturae”.

Merely physical things are what lack all the various defining Dimensions of the various kinds of living things, such as Flourishing, Perception, Reason and

Freedom. They are what lack all of the distinctive Dimensions possessed by the various living things, as well as the Dimensions possessed by Artifacts, including

Functional-Excellence. Physical things are thus defined privatively in terms of the

Dimensions that they lack. They are defined by their lack of various Dimensions.

Artifactual things are what possess the Dimension of Extrinsic Functionality and extrinsic Functional-Excellence. That is, we can always ask, “What function does that artifactual entity or part of this artifactual entity serve in light of the extrinsic design?” And we can ask, “Does the artifact perform well or poorly in light of its intended end?” I say “extrinsic functionality” as this contrasts with “intrinsic functionality”, which is the kind of functionality possessed by the parts of biological organisms.

(2.4) Categorial Modes

199 We can distinguish between various categorial modes: the physical, the biological, the animal, the psychological, the artifactual, and the human. The physical is what pertains to merely physical things; it is what pertains to things that lack various relevant Dimensions possessed by living things. The human is what pertains to human beings; it is what pertains to beings that possess the richest set of

Dimensions, including the Dimensions of Ethical Freedom and Reason.

These modes allow us to form new genera of categories of non-substances.

For, with these modes, we can distinguish between physical properties versus human qualities; or physical events versus psychological occurrences, etc.

We know that the above categories and the elements, which they subsume, are legitimate, since we have non-scientific knowledge that formal-causally presupposes the grammars that underpin these categories. E.g., we say of a plant that it is growing and doing well. And we know this proposition to be true. It is a known non-scientific proposition. And what we are suggesting is that the grammar that is required for understanding the elements of this non-scientific proposition internally presuppose the Dimension of Flourishing and thus always already presuppose the philosophical category of Living Thing.

(2.5) Kinds of kinds of non-substances

Lower down on the taxonomy there will be kinds of kinds of non-substances.

This is due to there being modes of non-substances. A non-substance treated in terms of a particular mode gives rise to a new kind of non-substance that is a species of the broader genus. We will now consider one such kind: human non-substances.

200

(2.5.1) Human Non-Substances

Paradigmatic human non-substances include the exercises of cognitive and cogitative powers, as well as the powers themselves.

(2.5.1.1) Three human non-substances: Perception, Cognition and Cogitation

Cognition is a human power of understanding or knowing or awareness.

Cogitation is a human power of thinking or reckoning.

Perception (visual) is a (i) power of awareness (of states of affairs or things or events) that involves the operation of the sense-faculty of vision, or a (ii) cognitive power of apprehending facts that involves the operation of the sense- faculty of vision or (iii) the animal-sensory power of vision. Perception is a phenomenon that straddles the divide between the human mind (awareness and understanding) and the animal psyche of sensory and visual consciousness (the operation of an animal sense-faculty).

Perception can also refer to the exercise of these powers; and thus perception can refer to the exercise of perception in senses (i), (ii) and (iii).

Perception in sense (ii) is a basic source of knowledge; it has a claim to being the basic source of all sources of knowledge.

“Perceptions” in the sense of what is known through the exercise of the cognitive capacity of perception is just (iv) knowledge itself. Thus, our perceptions, i.e., the propositions known via perceptual cognition, provide us with reasons for beliefs or thoughts. For, knowledge, and perceptual knowledge specifically, uncontroversially, constitutes a foundation of reasoning. But perception, as a source

201 of knowledge, is not a reason for belief, since a source of knowledge is not the kind of thing that could be a reason for anything. Reasons are propositional, whereas epistemic sources are capacities. And capacities are not propositions and vice versa.

It is important to not confuse cognition and cogitation and then to assume that perception is a form of cogitation, i.e., a testimony or opining of the senses. For, categorially, perception, in the strictly cognitive sense, signifies either (a) knowledge itself (i.e., perceptions), or a (b) source of knowledge or (c) the exercise of the capacity to gain knowledge perceptually. But perception is never a kind of thinking, i.e., a form of cogitation.

(2.6) The point past which a categorial-taxonomy must cease making divisions

A categorial taxonomy must cease making its divisions, when we can no longer make categorial-divisions, i.e., divisions that are grounded in Dimensions and when we instead must resort to using definition properties within Dimensions. At that point, the taxonomic baton is passed off to one of the special sciences, e.g., biology (which uses their own principle of demarcating genera, e.g., morphology or genetic ancestry) or simply to our ordinary everyday ways of classifying things within non-categorial kinds.

(3) Categorial Confusion of Categoremata

A taxonomy of categoremata provides for us a means by which to single out any possible type of categorial confusion or combination of categorial confusions.

It can happen that a philosophical idea is categorially confused at more than one level; and having the taxonomy of categoremata allows us to specify the

202 multiple levels of confusion at play. We will begin, however, by describing the characteristic confusions that can occur at each separate level, before we discuss cases where they are compounded.

(3.1) Category Confusions Regarding the Distinction between Substances and Non- Substances

(3.1.1) Immaterial Things

The notion of an “immaterial thing” is an unclear and indistinct notion that arises from the confusion between the idea of a ghostly substance with the idea of a true non-Substance, against the background of a lack of clarity regarding the distinction between normal properties and categorial Dimensions.

A substance is an individual item that has the Dimension of Materiality. It is the sort of thing for which the question “what is that made of?” is applicable. A non- substance by contrast is not the sort of thing that has Materiality. That is, it is not the sort of thing that can categorially be made of this or that material.

A ghost, in the popular sense, is a substance that possesses a “ghostly substratum”. Ghosts have Location, while lacking other properties we expect of normal substances. And thus a ghost is a kind of degenerate substance, but it is a substance nevertheless.

The property of being “immaterial” could be defined as the property of being made of ghostly matter. But in this sense, only something could have the property of being immaterial if already had the Dimension Materiality. Ghosts have the dimension Materiality, which is why they can be “immaterial substances”, in this sense.

203 But non-substances do not, by definition, have the Dimension of Materiality, and so non-substances cannot be “immaterial”, in this sense.

Ghosts are not regarded as existing entities according to serious science, but it does not follow form this that the non-existence of ghosts implies the non- existence of non-substances. A non-substance is not something that could be an

“immaterial” object, in the above sense; for a non-substance lacks Materiality. Thus it is a category mistake to regard non-substances as though they were ruled out by serious empirical science. Naturalism, insofar as it is partly defined as a way of thinking that embodies skepticism regarding the “existence” of “immaterial objects”, where “immaterial objects” include non-substances and ghosts, is a position that is sustained against the backdrop of category confusion. For, there is no categorial analogy between ghosts (which are a kind of substance) and non-substances. And thus it does not follow that if ghosts do not exist, then non-substances do not exist either. And it can only appear that this inference holds if we have failed to grasp the categorial distinction between substances and non-substances in light of the notion of grammatical-Dimensionality.

In any case, the notion of an “immaterial thing” in philosophy is best regarded as an unclear and indistinct idea. For, it is an idea that arises due to a failure to distinguish between ghostly substances and true non-substances. The notion of an “immaterial thing” combines the notion of a degenerate substance with the notion of a true non-substance, but such an idea is a categorial mongrel.

Regarded in this unclear and indistinct “sense”, an “immaterial thing” is not

204 something that should so much as be said “not to exist”. For, only something that is clear and distinct can fail to exist.

(3.1.2) Material Things

The notion of “material thing” is likewise confused, in philosophy; for the notion blurs the distinction between “material thing” qua kind defined by a mere property, versus “Material Thing” qua categorial-kind defined by a Dimension. A

“material thing” might refer to a non-ghostly substance. Or, a “Material Thing” might refer to a thing with Materiality, i.e., it might just be a way of referring to a

Substance, period, as opposed to a non-Substance, which is a thing that lacks

Materiality.

These two senses of “material” are confused with one another, however, in the standard understanding of the phrase “material thing”. For, a “material thing” is said to be the “only kind of thing” that exists on the grounds that “ghosts do not exist”. And what is thought to follow from this is that non-substances do not exist, and that only substances exist. But this is confused. Simply because ghosts do not exist, it does not follow that “only categorially Substantial things exist”, since the existence or non-existence of ghosts has no bearing on the existence of Non-

Substances.

A “material thing” might refer to a non-vaporous substance (as opposed to a vaporous-ghostly substance) or to a Material Substance, as such. But as it is used in philosophy, the term “material thing” hovers indeterminately between these two very distinct senses, and it, thus, should be abandoned altogether.

205

(3.1.3) A note regarding the ambiguity in the term “substance”

Before we continue, I must make a brief clarification regarding the term

“substance” in philosophy. The use of this term is polymorphous. Aristotle defines a

“substance” as an individual thing with Materiality that figures in the propositional subjects of simple propositions. However, historically, the term “substance” also came to refer to whatever plays a basic role in elucidating the categorial order of things. I will refer to “substance”, in the second sense, as “explanatory substance”.

Were anything to count as an “explanatory substance” in Chapter 1 of this dissertation, it would be the notion of “proposition”.

(3.2) Category Confusions regarding Substances and Universal Non-Substances

(3.2.1) Platonic Forms

The idea of a “Platonic form” is the idea of a universal non-substance regarded as if it were a substance. If a “Platonic Form” is regarded as a substance in the sense of an individual item with Location, that also has the Dimensions of a universal non-substance, then the notion of a Platonic Form is simply incoherent.

On the other hand, we could say that what is signified by Platonic forms, i.e.,

Universals, are “explanatory Substances” in the sense that universals are basic propositional entities that are irreducible and equiprimordial in the order of elucidation of the categorial order of things.

(3.2.2) The Mind

206 The mind is the set of capacities of intellect, reason and volition of a human being. Capacities are non-substances. Descartes, however, regarded the mind as a

“substance”. The notion that the mind is a substance in the sense of an item with

Location is incoherent. However, the mind is an “explanatory Substance”, since the notion of the mind is indispensible in the formal-causal understanding of the nature of the human being and all that hangs together with this.

(3.3) Category Confusions regarding Kinds of Universal Non-Substances

(3.3.1) Inherence

The notion of “inherence” is a mongrel that conflates instantiation, on the one hand, with possession, on the other hand. This reflects a confusion between the two basic kinds of predicable/universal non-substances: kinds and properties. Although there can be a kind of for any object, where ‘object’ is taken the wide sense, kinds are what are instantiated or not instantiated paradigmatically by substances.

However, properties are not instantiated or not instantiated by anything. Properties are possessed or not possessed, paradigmatically by substances, although other kinds of objects aside from substances can possess properties as well.

It does no good and causes much harm to blend together the categorial action-types of instantiation and possession into one mongrel notion called

“inherence”. For, this makes it difficult to appreciate the notion of contrariety, the notion of a Dimension, the notion of a categorial possibility and the notion of grammar, since these are notions that can only be elucidated when the distinction between kinds and properties is made explicit. And since these notions underpin the

207 understanding of the categorial as such, it is of the utmost importance to jettison the confused notion of “inherence” altogether.

(3.4) Category Confusion Regarding Substances and Particular non-Substances

(3.4.1) “Third Realm” Propositions

The notion of a “third realm” is the idea of a “place” or “domain” that

“contains” propositions. Such an idea arises from the fact that propositions are neither (psychological) events nor substances, but are a sui generis kind of thing.

It is reasonable to want to call attention to the categorial uniqueness of propositions. And propositions are enormously important items in philosophical explanation and thus are basic and irreducible “explanatory Substances”. Indeed, the very notion of internal inquiry and of the categorial more specifically, as we have been exploring it, rests on the notion of the proposition.

However, propositions are not items in a Spatial realm. And the notion of a

“realm” makes the most sense when it is applied to regions of substances on the earth. And this is what gives rise to the air of in talk of a “third realm”.

Propositions neither have Location nor Materiality. It is absurd to say either that propositions are or are not located in some particular place; and it is absurd to say either that propositions are made or not made of this or that sort of stuff.

There is nothing wrong with the idea that propositions belong to a “third realm” so long as the suggestion of location is not taken literally, but is regarded as a merely picturesque way of speaking, in which a figure of speech is used to signify

208 the categorial uniqueness of propositions, a figure of speech that is most at home, in its literal use, with entities that are categorially unlike propositions.

(3.4.2) Sensations as “Inner Objects”

Sensations are not substances at all.137 Sensations are a class of particular events. Sensations are thus particular non-substances. Like all other particular non- substances, sensations are paradigmatically isolated with reference to the referent of a nominalization of a fragment of a simple sentence.

Consider the following sentence.

(1) ‘He has a headache.’

We can think of this sentence as equivalent to the following.

(2) ‘His head aches, in a certain characteristic manner.’

This can be transformed as follows.

(2a) ‘The type of event called “an aching of the head” occurred.’

And finally:

(2b) ‘An occurrence of an aching of his head took place.’

The subject of (2b) refers to what is called a “sensation”. Sensations are particular non-substances, i.e., sensory events, in the conscious life of an animal or person that possesses a normal nervous system.

It has been said that sensations would not “exist” were it not for a consciousness to “contain” them. But this is misleading. Sensations are not substances that exist or don’t exist. Being events, they occur or don’t occur. Of course, such events are only the kinds of things that occur in the lives of sentient

137 See M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, p. 269

209 beings, i.e., beings with a sensory psyche, beings with sensory consciousness. And thus the idea of an occurrence of a sensation is something that is only intelligible in the context of the idea of a being with sensory consciousness, since sensations occur in the sensory consciousness of a sentient being. A mere plant, by contrast, lacks a sensory psyche and thus lacks the Dimension of Sensory Consciousness. However, to speak of a sensation’s being “in sensory consciousness” is not to suggest that a sensation is “inside” anything in a Spatial sense. Nor is it to suggest that sensations are akin to substances (since they are events). To say that a sensation is “in sensory consciousness” is just to say that someone has a sensation; it is to say that someone feels such and such, e.g., that his head aches.

(3.5) Category Confusion Regarding Universal Non-Substances versus Particular Non- Substances

(3.5.1) Tropes

Tropes are putative “particularized properties”. The notion of a

“particularized property” arises from the confusion between a universal non- substance, such as property, with a particular non-substance, such as a state of affairs.

Consider the following sentence.

(1) ‘The stone is round.’

We can reformulate this as

(1a) ‘Roundness is a property possessed by the stone.’

or

(1b) ‘The stone’s possession of the property of being round is an actual state

210 of affairs’.

The subject in (1a) refers to a universal property, whereas the subject in (1b) refers to a particular state of affairs. However, it is an illusion to suppose that there is such a thing as a “particularized property”, e.g. “the stone’s particular roundness within the stone” that contains simultaneously the features of both particular states of affairs and universal properties. The notion of a “trope” arises when we conflate properties with states of affairs and imagine that the particularity of a state of affairs is inherited by an abstract, universal, property. Talk of the “stone’s roundness” is just a way of talking about the state of affairs of the “stone’s being round”. But a state of affairs, while particular, is not a property. Properties, by contrast, are inherently universal.

(3.6) Category Confusions Regarding Differences between Kinds of Substances

(3.6.1) The human being versus mere living things (i.e., merely biological entities, e.g., plants)

It is common to regard the human as nothing more than the brain-body of the human being, and thus to regard the human being as nothing more than a natural biological structure, a physiological system.

A human being is biologically constituted by a brain-body, an organic- biological physiological system. However, a human being is not formal-causally equivalent with the physiological system out of which it is biologically constituted. A human being is defined by the categorial possibility of rational and volitional capacities and by its potential for personhood.

211 The human being is not part of the natural world; for a human being is part of the human world, i.e., the world of Freedom; however, the brain-body, the organic- biological structure, the physiological system of a human being, out of which the human being is biologically constituted, is something in the natural world.

(3.6.2) Living Things and Biological Systems versus Merely Physical Objects or Physical Systems

A being, in virtue of the kind of thing it is, has the Dimension of Life if it has the Dimension of Flourishing, i.e., if it is the kind of thing that has a good. For something to have the ontological feature of Life is for it to be the kind of thing that is capable of life and death. For something to have the ontological feature of

Flourishing means that it makes sense to say of this kind of being that it flourishes or doesn’t flourish (in the proposition). Cells, as basic biological units, are the sorts of things that have a good, in this sense. To “have a good”, in the categorial sense, means to be the sort of thing that has the “Dimension of Flourishing”. And “the good of the organism” is defined as “the specific conditions of flourishing of a living organism”.

Mere “physical systems”, such as solar systems, are not the sorts of things that “have a good”, in the categorial sense. The very intelligibility of the most basic cellular processes, such as homeostasis, which is a process that aims at cellular

“stability” and “balance”, including, the taking in of “nutrients” and the elimination of “waste”, are only intelligible in light of the fact that a cell can be harmed or can flourish, with reference to the conditions of flourishing of the cell, as determined by the normal case. Such processes, e.g., homeostasis, are made chemically possible by

212 means of various chemical structures illuminated in the study of bio-chemistry; but such processes could not be reductively defined, categorially, as “a mere set of chemical processes”, since a “mere set of chemical processes” is not the kind of thing that “has a good”, in the categorial sense.

To lack the Dimension of Life means that something lacks the “internal” categorial intelligibility of entering into propositional relations with predicables within the ontological genus of Flourishing. Solar systems, e.g. lack Flourishing, in this sense, since they do not have a good; i.e., they are not the sorts of things of which it makes sense to say “It is harmed” or “It is flourishing” or “It has not met its bio-needs” or “It has met its bio-needs”, (in the proposition).

The notion that an organ has a specific intrinsic function is only intelligible in light of the fact that organisms are the sorts of things for which there are “conditions of flourishing”, i.e., conditions which may or may not be realized depending on the extent to which the organs are doing their normal job. The reason that physical system, then, cannot intelligibly possess functional parts is due to the fact that physical systems lack conditions of flourishing. It is only with reference to the conditions of flourishing that it makes sense for us to say that a specific organ

“functions to do such and such”. This is because the notion of “function” is only intelligible with reference to some goal or end, since a function is just defined as some characteristic activity-role (of a part of an organism) that helps to facilitate the realization of some end, either directly or indirectly.

We are inclined to say that our talk of Plants as having intrinsically functional parts is a “mere way of speaking”: it is a “mere convention”, since at bottom plants

213 are mere “physical systems”. However, this would be mistaken. Plants are not “mere physical systems”; they are biological organisms. Moreover, plants and their basic functional parts are part of reality, as it is in itself. We can inquire into the chemical substrata that constitute the chemical basis of biological phenomena. But, in doing so, we are not studying what the biological phenomena really is, as opposed to what it merely appears to be.138

(3.6.3) Living things and Artifacts

The “specific function of a part of a living thing” is defined as “the role it plays in the anatomical system” or “the role that it plays in its natural historical environment”. This role is “intrinsic” as opposed to “extrinsic”. Living things are not properly categorized as “functional artifacts”, where “functional artifacts” are entities that possess functions that are “extrinsic” in light of the role that they are conventionally assigned to play (or explicitly assigned to play by a designer) in human society, in light of some human, utilitarian, end.

There is a common contemporary position in the philosophy of biology in which the specific function of an organ is defined as “the specific activity that was selected for in the course of evolution”. Such a view is inchoately influenced by the

Cartesian categorial framework for understanding living things, since this kind of account yields an understanding of “function” that is or would, per impossible, be

“extrinsic” to the organism.

138 We cannot confuse the false scientific theory of vitalism with the ontological idea that biological beings belong to a sui generis categorial domain of reality. For, at that point, our talk of cells having intrinsically functional parts will appear to be a mere way of talking, which, although useful and intuitive, will have been shown to be groundless.

214 However, the notion of “extrinsic design” is only relevant to artifacts and not to living things as such: for, if an entity has been “designed”, the relevant kind of function it will have is “extrinsic” function. By contrast, living things, by definition, have functions that are intrinsic, in light of the way these functions facilitate

(directly or indirectly) the intrinsic good of the organism. And thus living things, qua living things, are not well categorized as artifacts, whatsoever. It follows that, if even we imagine, per impossible, that living organisms were “designed”, either by “god” or by “the natural selector” (a phrase which cannot be taken literally), to have such and such functions (e.g., in light of some divine plan or in light of the so-called “goal” of

“survival to reproduction”), these extrinsically assigned functions would not be the intrinsic functions of the parts of the organism, since intrinsic functions are functions the parts of organisms have---regardless of any alleged extrinsic plan---in virtue of the mere fact that they are living organisms (that possess a good).

Evolution by natural selection predicts that organisms (at a species level) change over time due to the constraint of “environmental survival to reproduction” on genetic transfer. All things being equal (e.g., environment, competition, etc.), we might expect that the probability that the genes of some isolated species will make it through the hoop of survival to reproduction will increase with time. But this process or state of affairs is mechanistic, meaningless, blind and thus devoid of any intent or

“final-causality”. It thus cannot explain the intrinsic final causality of the parts of living things. However, such final causality does not stand in need of any “reductive explanation”: it is just a basic part of biological reality.

(3.6.4) Physical Systems and Artifactual Systems

215

The merely physical is “law governed”, in a metaphorical sense. For

“laws” literally imply “law-givers”. And so, perhaps it would be better to say that the physical universe is “lawful” or “regular”. There are basic physical regularities or exceptionless to which all merely physical occurrences conform. The physical universe is thus “mechanistic” in one sense, where “mechanistic” means to be explicable in terms of merely “physical laws”.

However, the universe is not a “machine” or literal “mechanism”, since the universe is not an artifact. For, the merely physical universe lacks the Dimensions that artifacts possess. The merely physical universe lacks the Dimension of

Functional Excellence and Extrinsic Design.

The occurrences in the universe are “meaningless” in the sense that they lack any at all. The occurrences of a machine, however, are not meaningless.

Machines operate in light of some final-cause that is determined by the intentions of the designer. Moreover, the parts of a machine each have functions assigned them in the design and which facilitate the overall end of the machine. Machines have

“needs”, i.e., conditions that must be met if the machine is to function well or do its job. A machine can function well or badly, and thus possesses the Dimension of

Functional Excellence.

By contrast, a purely physical system, such as the solar system is not designed. There is no end purpose to any of the occurrences. And the parts of the system have no functions. Physical systems lack “needs”. And physical systems lack the Dimension of Functional Excellence. That is, the movement of an electron

216 around a nucleus is not capable of being assessed as functioning well or badly in light of the design of the system.

(3.6.4.1) Biological systems defined as “mere physical systems designed by natural selection”

Biological systems have been defined as physical systems that have been designed by natural selection. But this is mistaken. For, biological systems are not physical systems at all. And biological systems have not been literally designed by anything either.

It is as if we said that a machine was mere physical parts designed and put together by a designer.

(3.6.5) Human Beings and Merely Physical Things

A human being is not a merely physical thing.

A human being can be regarded as if it were a merely biological entity; i.e., we can disregard the fact that a human being has the Dimension of Freedom and regard it only in terms of what it has in common categorially with merely biological phenomena such as Flourishing.

Furthermore, a biological being can be regarded as a merely physical entity; i.e., we can disregard the fact that a biological being has the Dimension of

Flourishing and regard it only in terms of what it has in common categorially with merely physical phenomena, such as the Dimension of Materiality.

But, what a human being really is is not a merely biological or a merely physical entity. Rather, in a formal-causal sense, what a human being really is is a

217 human being. And so, what a human being is biologically or physically constituted by is not what it actually is, formal-causally.

(3.6.6) Animals and Merely Biological Beings (e.g., Plants)

An animal is not a merely biological being; for, an animal is, first and foremost, a psychical being. And psychology is not reducible to biology. Animals possess a sensory psyche, which means that they possess the Dimension of

Sensation and Action. However, animals lack Ethical Freedom, and thus their actions are instinctual and neither Ethically Free nor Ethically Rational. Animals possess sensory consciousness but are nevertheless part of the Natural World, i.e., the set of domains whose entities are directly or indirectly characterized by those substances that lack of the Dimension of Freedom, in the specifically human sense.

The psyche is something that lies on the borderline of the human and natural worlds. For there is such a thing as the human psyche, and it is a richer outgrowth of the primitive animal psyche.

The animal domain is categorially more basic than the merely biological domain since the merely biological domain is partly defined in terms of the privation of the Dimension characteristic of the animal domain.

(3.7) An Example of Compound Categorial Confusion; The Transition from Dualism to ; Subtracting Categorial Confusions without Eliminating them altogether

Let us consider the transition from dualism to “property dualism” in contemporary philosophy. It has been said that property dualism avoids the

Cartesian category confusion of supposing the mind is a substance, since according

218 to property dualism the mind is rightly regarded as a non-substance. But simply because property dualism avoids one specific category confusion doesn’t mean that it does not subscribe to many other categorial confusions, confusions which we are now in a position to discern in our taxonomy.

Property dualism is the idea that the mind is an artifactual set of properties

(information processing properties) of the body. This avoids the category confusion of supposing that the mind is a substance but it introduces the category confusion of supposing that the non-substance that is the mind is a non-human set of non- substances. And this is a grammatical mistake. For, it is only the propositional subject of the human being that can have cognitive or cogitative predicables.

Moreover, property dualism regards the specific non-substances that constitute the mind as if they were artifactual non-substances: i.e., informational processing capacities and exercises of such capacities. Additionally, property dualism fails to distinguish the brain-body of the human being from the human being itself, and thus it confuses two kinds of substances, the human being and the anatomy-physiology of the human being, which is a merely biological thing.

Property dualism is thus a good example of how progress in our understanding of categories at the most general level does not ensure freedom from categorial confusion, if one does not also take into account the categorial modes.

For, one must also keep track of possible confusions between categorial modes that ground the distinctions between the domains of reality, e.g., the biological, physical and human. One may properly categorize the mind as a non-substance. But if one regards the mind as a non-substance of a merely biological thing or of an artifactual

219 thing, or regards the mind itself as a set of artifactual non-substances, then one is guilty of a confusion of categorial modes.

Standard dualism, of course, involves not only a confusion of modes but also a confusion of very general categories, i.e., distinctions between substances and non- substances.

In any case, both standard and non-standard dualisms represent compound categorially confused forms of thinking.

(4) Categorial Domains: the Human, the Animal, the Psychological, the Artifactual, the Biological, and the Physical

A “domain” is a set of particulars, including substantial particulars and non- substantial particulars that are qualified by some categorial mode. A domain could be called “a world” (in contrast to the totality of all particulars spanning the domains, which could be called “the world”). Domains or worlds are essentially qualified by categorial modes. We speak of the physical domain, the biological domain, the animal domain, the psychological domain, the artifactual domain, and the human domain. Each of these domains encompasses a set of particulars that are qualified by some categorial mode. The human world is defined as the set of particulars that are qualified by the human categorial-mode.

The human being is defined as that which is understood in terms of the

Dimensions of Ethical Freedom and Reason. What is human, i.e., the human mode, as such, is that which pertains to the human being. This means that the human domain is the set of particulars that are categorially pertinent to the human being. And so the human domain is the domain whose entities are intelligible either directly or

220 indirectly in terms of the Dimensions of Ethical Freedom and Reason. The human domain thus contains human beings, human actions, human events, and states of affairs involving human beings.

(4.1) The atomistic particulars of each domain are distinct

Each domain has its characteristic set of categorially atomistic particulars.

The categorially atomistic units in the human domain are human beings and human actions and thoughts. The categorially atomistic units in the psychological domain are humans, animals and psychical states and occurrences. The categorially atomistic units in the mechanical-artifactual world are machines and their functional parts. Each functional machine-part has its characteristic functional- action in the operation of the machine.139 The categorially atomistic units in the biological world are appendages, organs and cells engaged in intrinsically homeostatic processes in light of some natural historical norm of flourishing. The categorially atomistic units in the physical world are mere physical objects and physical events and physical regularities.

It is wrong to suggest that efficient causality is a phenomenon that pertains only to the mechanical, physical or biological domains. All that is required for occurrence X to efficiently cause occurrence Y is that X must lead to and give rise to

Y. Efficient causality is something that exists both within and between all of the domains. A human action can cause a noise to occur in the street; at a material-

139 Georges Canguilhem, “Machine and Organism” in Knowledge of Life, Edited by Paola Marrati and Todd Meyers, Translated by Stefanos Geroulanos and Daniela Ginsburg (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008) pp. 75-97 Aristotle, , in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. II, Edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton University Press, 1984) 847b10-847b10

221 causal level this noise consists of physical sound vibrations, which can give rise to neurological processes in the biological domain; the noise can cause psychological anxiety, something in the psychical domain. And the psychical phenomena of anxiety can in turn give rise to further biological occurrences, by means of the fact that the psychical phenomena is correlated with simultaneous biological occurrences which biologically interact with the subsequent biological occurrences in question.

Final-causality, i.e., the ends and purposes and goals, along with the functions that serve these goals, is something that pertains formal-causally to the mechanistic- artifactual domain and the biological domain. However, in the mechanistic- artifactual domain, the final-causality is “extrinsic” final-causality. That is, the function of a part of a machine is assigned by the designer of the machine in light of some goal that is itself set by the designer or user. By contrast, in the biological domain the final-causality is “intrinsic” final-causality. A function of a part of the body is determined intrinsically in light of the role that that part plays in the anatomical system or in the natural historical environment relative to some natural- historical norm of flourishing. Biological organisms as a whole do not have purposes or functions (one exception being worker or queen bees who belong to a kind of super-organism); however, the parts of biological organisms do have functions, in light of the fact that organisms are entities that can flourish or not.

Were organisms not the sorts of things that had the Dimension of

Flourishing, then their parts could not have intrinsic functions. For, the function of a part of an organism is the role it plays in the facilitation of the good of the organism, i.e., the state of affairs of flourishing on the part of the organism as a whole.

222 Flourishing, however, is not a goal of the organism, intrinsically. But it is a good in light of which the functions of the parts of the organism are categorially intelligible.

(4.2) The Domain of the Physical

A physical categoremata is anything that is constituted by or internally related to physical substances. A physical substance is what lacks the Dimension of

Meaning, Final-causality, Reason, Freedom, and Flourishing.

The set of physical substances, physical events, physical processes and physical states of affairs constitute the Physical World or Domain.

(4.3) The Domain of the Biological

What makes a living organism alive as opposed to dead is the continuation of biological functions biologically necessary for the continuance of life. However, what distinguishes biological things from purely physical entities, which lack the

Dimension of Life altogether, i.e. the internal possibility in the proposition of being alive or dying, is the Dimension of Biological Flourishing.

The biological thing is anything that is constituted by or internally related to biological substances. A biological substance is what lacks the Dimension of

Freedom and Reason, but which possesses the Dimension of Flourishing. A biological thing is not mechanistic, but there is a sense in which it is organized

“mechanically”; for the efficient causal behavior of the parts of organisms can be fruitfully compared, for purposes of scientific inquiry, to the efficient causal

223 behavior of the parts of a machine. However, the functional organization that we find in the biological is “intrinsic”. It is not the result of some outside designer.

The set of biological substances, biological occurrences and biological states of affairs, constitutes the Biological Domain of living organisms.

(4.3) The Domain of the Animal: the Animal Domain

An animal categorematum is anything that is constituted by or internally related to animals. An animal is a biological organism, with a nervous system, that possesses the Dimension of Sensation and Action, but which lacks the Dimension of

Ethical Freedom and Reason. Some animals with highly developed brains lack these

Dimensions only in the robust and rich sense in which they are present in humans.

It is because animals possess Sensation and Action that they possess an animal psyche. Animals are part of the primitive psychological realm. The behavior of the animal is neither quasi-mechanical (as is the case with merely biological organisms such as plants) nor “quasi-mechanistic” (as is the case with merely physical objects). Rather, the behavior of animals is instinctual and non-Rational, but nevertheless it is action rooted in a psychical being, not a quasi-mechanism.

(4.4) The Domain of the Psychical: the Psychological Domain

The psyche of a person is the person’s psychology. The psyche is the characteristic aspects of a person’s inner life, behavior and patterns of thought. The psyche also includes the emotional, sensory and instinctual aspects of the animal or human.

224 The atomistic units of the psychological domain are moods, sensations, mental states, drives, and instincts.

What is called cogitation and cognition, on the part of a human being, are not themselves psychical phenomena. And thus the contemporary philosophical practice of classifying thoughts and beliefs as “mental states” or “psychological states” is mistaken. For, the exercises of cognition or cogitation, as such, do not characterize the psyche of a person, although recurrent or dysfunctional tendencies of cogitation may, in fact, characterize the psyche of a person. To think that the cat is on the mat is not a psychical state. For, it is not a state at all. And it is not something that characterizes the psyche of a person.

The psychical domain is a domain that spans the divide between the natural and human worlds. For, animals as well as humans have a psyche. Animals, first and foremost, have a sensory psyche. But other “higher” animals also possess a range of emotions and drives and feelings and mental states.

Many of the atomistic units of the psychical have no material-causes, by definition. That is, the mood of a person is not the kind of thing that is or isn’t “made of such and such stuff”. The atomistic units of the psychical thus lack Materiality as a

Dimension. This does not mean, however, that the atomistic units of the psychical are ghostly events or occurrences. For, as we have already discussed, ghosts do not lack Materiality as a Dimension. Rather they possess Materiality, given that they are made of a ghostly substratum. And thus ghostly events are not analogous to psychical events. The fact that psychical events lack Materiality does not make them

“mysterious” since there is nothing remotely ghostly about lacking Materiality.

225 Nor does it mean that psychical occurrences lack efficient causal powers.

Psychical occurrences can have efficient causal effects on biological states of affairs and vice versa. This is possible because psychical occurrences are correlated with biological structures and occurrences that interact biologically with biological phenomena. However, psychical occurrences are themselves causally efficacious in a perfectly ordinary sense; for the psychical occurrence brings about the change in the biology. E.g., grief literary causes changes in one’s heart tissue, since grief is correlated with such and such physiological phenomena that biologically interact with the heart.

Thus, it is fine to say that the psychical occurrence “causes” the biological state, so long as we do not imagine that the psychical occurrences and the biological states are both like homogenous billiard balls, knocking into one another, on a table.

As a matter of categorial grammar, psychical states are always possessed or experienced by a person or animal, and not by a “mind” or “brain” or “mind-brain”.

Although psychical states are correlated with biological phenomena, they are not formal-causally reducible to biological phenomena. Biological phenomena possess the Dimension of Flourishing, but a person’s psyche possesses the

Dimension of Well-being, which is distinct. An optimally homeostatic biological system is not the same thing as a balanced psyche. Biological phenomena are not essentially possessed by a person or animal, but psychical phenomena are essentially possessed by a person or animal. Biological phenomena do not lack the

Dimension of Materiality, but psychical phenomena lack the Dimension of

226 Materiality. Sensations and the like occur in the sensory consciousness of an animal.

But nothing in the biological realm occurs in the sensory consciousness of an animal.

The psychical level of a human being or animal comprises an irreducible domain of reality. It is just an irreducible fact of reality that human beings and animals experience sensations, have feelings, experience emotions, are subject to mental states and moods. For, the known facts regarding the psyche contain categorematic elements that are not formal-causally reducible to categorematic elements of distinctive biological or physical or artifactual propositions.

(4.5) The Domain of the Human: The Human Domain

The mode of the human qualifies items in the human world.

A human thing is anything that is constituted by or internally related to a human being, i.e., a human substance. A human being is a biological organism, with a nervous system, and developed brain, that possesses the Dimensions of Sensation,

Perception, Action, Reason, and Ethical Freedom. The uniquely human actions of a human being, which are assessable in the light the Dimension of Freedom, are neither quasi-mechanistic or quasi-mechanical or merely animal-instinctual. Rather they are Rational and Free. This does not mean that much of human action is not also animalistic.

The Dimension of Freedom is the genus of contraries spanning such predicables as acting with self control, not acting with self control, being responsible for one’s actions, not being responsible for one’s actions, being coerced, being free from coercion, acting with rational judgment, acting irrationally, etc. A normal functioning brain is required for the human’s ability to engage in actions that are

227 indicative of self-control. A mal-functioning brain may impair the ability of a person to perform actions that indicate self-control. A brain is not the sort of thing that has the Dimension of Freedom. But a human being is Free, i.e., is the kind of thing whose actions can exhibit self-control or not, and Freedom is a defining feature of what it means to be a human being.

Human action, i.e., action done under the control of a person for reasons, is a sui generis phenomenon of the human world. Action, in the sense of intentional human action is what can be rational or reasonable, irrational or unreasonable in light of the interests and goals of the person, but also in light of what is in fact objectively important in life. Human intentional action cannot be reduced to any phenomena in the animal, biological or physical realms. An animal action cannot be reasonable or unreasonable, rational or irrational; an animal action cannot be done for reasons in light of goals. A merely biological occurrence is not an intentional action at all, and neither is a merely physical event.

Human beings possess a mind, psyche and soul; but all three of these phenomena are distinct. The soul is the inner depth or character of a person. The psyche is the psychology of a person. The mind is the set of cogitative, cognitive

(including perceptual) and volitional capacities of a person. These capacities are capacities of a human being, not of the brain or soul or mind of the human being, a supposition that would be categorially and grammatically incoherent.140

140 See M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience for a sustained defense of the idea that the mind is grammatically tied to the human being, not a part or set of properties of the human being.

228 Human beings are capable of having the status of persons, i.e., beings who are responsible for the care of their souls, where “soul” is understood in a Socratic sense, to mean one’s sense of self, one’s conscience, one’s inner depth, and one’s integrity.

A healthy human being, in the purely biological or vegetal sense of the term

“health” is a human being who has a brain-body that is in good working order. But a good human being is a moral person. And a well-adjusted human being is a person who is in psychical balance. All three goods, physiological health, psychical well- being, and moral goodness, are categorially distinct.

A person is not “a mind and a body”.141 And a person is not “a Self”. The notion of “the body” is also unclear and indistinct. There is such a thing as the trunk

(the body) of a person: there is such a thing as the physique (the body) of a person: a dead person is a corpse (a body). But there is no such clear and distinct thing as

“the body”. There is, however, a brain-body or a physiology of a person. And the person is not his brain-body, though from a material-causal standpoint there is nothing in addition to the brain-body to account for. But a brain-body (i.e., a physiological system) is not a grammatical subject of psychical or cognitive or cogitative or ethical predicates and it lacks the Dimension of Freedom.

(4.6) The Domain of the Artifactual

The artifactual mode is the mode that qualifies items in the artifactual realm.

141 See P. M. S. Human Nature: the Categorial Framework, Chapter 8

229 An artifactual thing is anything that is constituted by or internally related to an artifact. An artifact is a not a biological organism but an inanimate man-made thing, designed for some cultural purpose.

Machines are special artifacts, whose parts function mechanistically in light of some end. Machines have needs, which are conditions that must be met if the machine is to function with excellence.

Machines have parts with functions. The notion of “the specific function of a part of a machine” is formally causally defined as whatever function it is designed to have by the designer of the machine. Thus to determine the function of a part of a machine one must consult its blueprint or design. The of the designer at some historical point in time is thus relevant to the determination of the specific function of some part.

The fact that machines have functionality at all derives from the fact that machines are things that belong to human culture and are man-made entities designed to function in light of some end.

The functionality and functions of machines are thus extrinsic. They are the sorts of functions that are assigned by a designer.

(4.7) The truth in the so-called Great Chain of Being

Traditionally the idea of the “chain of being” consists in the idea that nature or reality is “hierarchal”, “continuous” and “replete”142.

142 Lovejoy, Arthur O., The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964) Kindle File, Chapter II

230 Leaving aside the notion of “repleteness”, there is an important and illuminating sense in which our categorial-grammar by which we demarcate the categorial-Domains contains the structure of a “chain of being”, so long as the

“chain” is interpreted in a categorial sense.

Roughly speaking, in our categorial version of the “chain of being” or “scala naturae”, each kind of being on the hierarchy of beings possesses the relevant

Dimensions possessed by the being “below” it, plus some additional Dimensions.

Plants have Nutrition and Flourishing: animals have the Plant Dimensions plus

Perception. Humans have the Animal and Plant Dimensions plus Freedom.

Our version of the “chain of being” meets the requirements of “continuity” and “hierarchy”; after all, there is a clear sense in which animals are “higher” than plants, if “higher” is interpreted in a purely categorial sense (as opposed to in a phylogenic sense).

A human being is at once a psychological being, a biological being, and a physical object, and yet a human being is not any of those things, first and foremost.

For, a human being can be regarded as a mere physical object or a mere biological being----and yet a human being is also a Rational, Free and Ethical being. And that’s what a human being really is; a human is a being that has Reason, Action and Ethical

Freedom and is capable of personhood. And this means that a human being is what can act ethically or not, and what can take responsibility for its actions.

Similarly, an animal can be regarded as a merely biological being or a merely physical being, but that is not what an animal is, first and foremost.

231 Similarly, a plant, i.e., a merely biological being, can be regarded as a merely physical being, but that is not what a plant, first and foremost, is.

In the history of the , biological beings arose from physical matter; psychical beings arose from merely biological beings; and human beings arose from animal-psychical beings. In each case, the transition was gradual and there were and continue to be borderline cases of phenomena that lie on the boundary between these categories. However, once, e.g., the biological arose out of physical matter, there emerged a wholly distinct kind of being that was irreducible categorially to anything merely physical, no matter how complex. And there emerged categorially new kinds of worldly facts, facts, e.g. about plants flourishing or not. For, consider the most complex of merely physical systems; such a system lacks Flourishing as a

Dimension. No matter how complex the physical system, we cannot locate anything that might be called an intrinsically homeostatic process that serves the good of the system. We cannot distinguish events that cause harm versus events that that beneficial. For a merely physical system, no matter how complex, is characterized by a lack of meaningfulness.

(4.7.1) The Hierarchy of Dimensional Richness in the Categorial Order of Things

Because the origin of human beings in the cosmos can be traced back from animal beings to merely biological beings to merely physical things, a human being is what can be conceptualized as belonging to the most number of domains. For, we can consider a human being as if it belonged to the merely biological or physical domain, even though it does not really belong to these domains, first and foremost.

To do this we abstract entirely from what makes the human being what it in fact is,

232 namely, the categorial Dimensions of Ethical Freedom and Reason, and regard the being only in terms of the Dimensions it shares with entities in the other categorial domains, Dimensions such as Sensory Consciousness and Flourishing and

Materiality.

For this reason, we might say that the human domain is the “richest” order of being in a categorial sense. For it has the richest possibility of conceptualization in terms of Dimensions. The physical domain is the “poorest” order of being, in a categorial sense. For there is but one way to conceptualize physical things, without metaphor, and that is as merely physical things. There is no way to strip physical things down to some categorially more impoverished set of entities.

(4.7.2) Certain Important Notions are Formed by Conceptualizing the Human within Categorially “Poorer” Domains

Consider the phenomenon of “human health”. Health is the optimal state of harmony or coordination or balance of the homeostatic-bio-systems in the bio- physiology, in light of some natural historical ideal. To speak of the “health” of a human being is to speak of the biological flourishing, the coordination, of homeostatic bio-systems, of the human physiology. But such a good is not distinctive of the human domain as such. “Health” is rather an authentic good of the biological domain. And that is where is it categorially at home. To have “health” is to possess the distinctive good of “plants”, or “merely biological beings”.

Consider, by contrast, the phenomenon of “psychical well-being”; this is not a good that is distinctive of the human domain either; it is rather a good that is authentically at home in the animal or psychological domain. For, animals, in

233 possessing a Sensory Psyche, Action, Instincts, Emotional States, and Drives categorially can have or fail to have the good of a balanced psyche.

But the good that pertains distinctively to the human domain, and which is not relevant to the other domains, is what Socrates calls (human) ethical excellence or health of the soul or the ethical good.

And thus to speak of the flourishing of a person, we must consider whether we have in mind a merely biological good, a merely animal-psychological good, i.e., psychical well-being, or a distinctively human good, i.e., the health of the “soul”, i.e., ethical excellence, where the soul is understood not as a “ghost substance” but as the inner character of the person, their inner depth or integrity. A person can certainly flourish as a human being without also flourishing in a plant or vegetal sense, i.e., as a merely biological organism, or without flourishing in an animal sense, i.e., as a psychical being. However, happiness seems to be defined as the realization of all the distinctive goods of each of the domains, i.e., health, well-being and virtue, in one human life.

“The good” was understood in ancient philosophy to be a genuine, quite definite, state of affairs. The good was regarded roughly as the state of affairs of

“proper or right balance.” Now, if the ancients are correct in this understanding of

“the good”, this gives us a way of conceiving of “being beneficial” or “being harmful” as a genuine property. We can regard the property of “being beneficial” as the property of “achieving or realizing or contributing to the good, i.e., the state of right- balance”.

234 We might say that “the good” applied to the biological would be “health”: the proper state of balance or coordination leading to a state of flourishing of the homeostatic bio-systems. “The good” applied to the psychical would be “well-being”: the right state of balance of the psychical states, processes, and drives. “The good” applied to the animal-communal would be a “harmonious social organization”. “The good” applied to the human ethical sphere would be “justice”: the ethical- interpersonal-social harmony towards which we aspire that takes into account oneself and others as persons and which takes into account one’s place within a larger social contract. The good applied to the soul, i.e., the moral fiber of a person, would be the “health of the soul”.

Similarly, we might say that “the good” applied to the esthetic-artifacts would be, in the case of visual art, a harmony of colors, shapes, contrasts and forms in some representation or, in the case of music, an acoustical harmony of a manifold of notes and rhythms in the presentation of a musical idea.

The Greek idea of the biological, which is connected to the Greek idea of balance and harmony and homeostasis, is actually required for understanding what

“the good” is. And what it means for something to be good is actually explained in terms of the prior concept of “the good”. In many respects, the so-called “location” problem regarding “goodness” in the natural world is really a function of our lack of interest in or sensitivity to the sui generis biological mode.

(4.8) The Natural World and the Human World

The natural world is the set of domains whose entities are internally related, either directly or indirectly, to entities that lack the categorial Dimension of

235 Freedom, and which are not under the control of the human realm (which excludes the artifactual realm from belonging to nature). The human world is the domain whose entities are internally related, either directly or indirectly, to entities that possess the categorial Dimension of Freedom.

The natural world includes the animal, biological, and physical domains.

(4.8.1) The human world is categorially more basic than the natural world, since the natural world is defined privatively in terms of the lack of the Dimension that defines the human world

There is no positive way in which to characterize the natural world. The natural world is really what is not human; for, it is defined as the realm whose entities are characterized by either directly or indirectly relating to beings that lack the categorial Dimension of Freedom, which is the Dimension that defines what it is to be a human being. And thus from the standpoint of formal-causes, the natural world is less basic than the human world.

This is another sense in which there appears to be “truth” in the idea of the

“chain of being”. For, we might justifiably say that the human domain possesses

“more reality” than the natural domain. For, the human domain is presupposed by the natural domain, which is merely defined as the lack of something contained in the human Domain.

The natural world contains a whole motely of categorially distinct entities; and it is important to appreciate the lack of homogeneity here.143 Within nature,

143 See Introduction and Chapter 6 of John Dupre, Human Nature and the Limits of Science (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001) for a defense of “” regarding what I am calling “Worldly domains”. See also Chapter IV of John Dupre, The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996)

236 there are merely physical things, which are meaningless and quasi-mechanistic; there are merely biological things (such as plants or mere physiological systems), which are meaningful and quasi-mechanical without being mechanistic; there are animal beings, which are biological and instinctual and psychical and which can act instinctually, but who cannot act for reasons; the actions of animals lack the

Dimension of Ethical Freedom.

It is important to bear in mind is that there is little categorial analogy whatsoever between merely physical events, e.g., the orbit of plants, and the actions of animals, despite the fact that both the orbit of planets and the actions of animals belong to the natural world.

(5) The Domains are sui generis; possible facts that pertain to one domain cannot be (formal-causally) reduced to possible facts belonging to another domain

What would it mean for the fact that P to just be nothing more, in a formal- causal sense, than the fact that S? It would mean that the elements that make up P are formal-causally reducible to the elements that make up S. But this is just what is not the case when it comes to the facts that make up the various domains: human, animal, psychological, biological physical, artifactual.

Distinctively human facts, i.e., facts about persons dealing with ethical situations, cannot be formal-causally reduced to merely psychological or animal facts; and psychological or animal facts, i.e., facts about the lives of animals, cannot be reduced to merely biological facts. And biological facts, i.e., facts about living things qua living things, cannot be reduced to merely physical facts. And merely physical facts are the lowest (categorial) level of reality.

237

(6) Moreover, each of the sui generis Domains is real; they constitute part of reality as it is in itself

The irreducibility and reality of these categorematic elements stems from the fact that we possess non-scientific knowledge of facts pertaining to all these distinct domains, and the categorematic elements in those facts are categorially structured by means of grammatical Dimensions that are unique to each realm. We are in knowledgeable possession of non-scientific ethical facts, of non-scientific facts about animals, of non-scientific facts about biological phenomena, of non-scientific facts about purely physical phenomena. And the elements that show up in each of these facts possess their grammars, and these grammars divide reality into the various categorial domains.

This is not to say that we cannot study the material-causal substrata and processes that physically or biologically underpin distinctively human or animal phenomena. It does not mean that we cannot study the material-causal substrata and processes that physically underpin distinctively biological phenomena.

However, in doing so, we are not learning what these phenomena are in an internal formal-causal sense, as they figure in the proposition. Rather, we are learning external facts, a posteriori, about their material-causes, in the world.

(7) Confusions of the Categorial Domains

(7.1) The “Supernatural” and the Natural World

Naturalism is the view that holds that the “supernatural realm” does not

“exist” and that all that “exists” is the “natural world”. Thus understood, naturalism

238 involves quite serious philosophical misunderstandings regarding the internal nature of the internal structures governing categoremata.

First of all, the “supernatural realm” is not a clear and distinct idea. For, the idea of a “supernatural object” is not a clear and distinct idea. This is because the idea of a “supernatural object” is connected to the idea of an “immaterial object”.

And the idea of an “immaterial object” as we have argued is incoherent.

It would thus be quite nonsensical to suggest that the supernatural realm

“did not exist” in a narrow sense of the word ‘exist’. For, only something that could coherently exist, can be said not to exist. But “the supernatural realm” is not a coherent idea; and thus it cannot be said to either exist or not exist, in the narrow sense. Rather, to suggest that the “supernatural realm” does not “exist” is analogous to saying that “round squares” do not exist. And thus it is quite different from the claim that unicorns do not exist; for unicorns are fictitious objects that correspond to clear and distinct ideas, whereas the supernatural is the pseudo-counterpart of an unclear and indistinct idea.

Furthermore, to say that all that “exists” is the “natural world” is unclear.

Either this statement means that the supernatural realm, while a notionally coherent realm, is in fact a fiction, or it means that the notion of the supernatural realm is simply incoherent. However, if what is meant is that the notion of the supernatural is incoherent, then this implies that the notion of the “natural world” is also incoherent, for the natural, in this context, is opposed to the supernatural. For, if “supernatural” were incoherent, then “natural” would be an oppositional term that was not opposed to anything that all; and so it would not make sense either.

239 But we know that the term “supernatural” does in fact lack a clear meaning.

And it is a necessary condition on a term’s making sense in a property-opposition that the opposed makes sense. But this means that “natural” cannot be opposed to

“supernatural”. But what then is it opposed to?

In actuality, natural is opposed to human.144 The natural world is opposed to the human world. The human world is the world of Freedom, and the natural world is the world that lacks Freedom.

The human world contrasts with the natural world. And both worlds are real and exist in an irreducible manner; for, the human world is categorially presupposed by the vast body of non-scientific knowledge, which we possess.

(7.2) The Biological and The Artifactual

Although it is practically useful to compare the biological domain with the artifactual domain, the biological domain is not an artifactual domain.

Biological organisms possess the Dimension of Flourishing; that is, they are capable of flourishing or not flourishing, in the proposition. Artifactual entities do not flourish; however, they do possess functional excellence. Biological organisms, as a whole, do not have intrinsic biological purposes. However, artifactual entities do have purposes that are extrinsic. Extrinsic purposes are assigned to these entities by a design or by a customary use in society. Biological organisms have parts that have functions, but these functions are intrinsic to the biological realm itself, and imply

144 Compare this with Michael Williams says: “The only sense in which norms do not belong to the ‘natural’ world involves the sense of ‘nature’ that contrasts nature with culture, not the sense that contrasts the natural with the supernatural or the non-natural.” (Michael Williams, “How Pragmatists can be Local Expressivists”, Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)) Kindle File, Chapter 7

240 no outside designer. Artifactual entities such as machines also have functional parts, but these functions are extrinsic; they are given in the design of the machine.

An intrinsic function and an extrinsic function are categorially distinct kinds of functions. An intrinsic function we might call a “biological function”, whereas an extrinsic function we might call an “artifactual function” or “culturally assigned function”.

The fact that biological organisms are intrinsically functional sorts of entities is only intelligible in light of the fact that biological organisms are beings that can flourish or not; i.e., it is only intelligible in light of the fact that biological organisms have an intrinsic good, i.e., a state of affairs in which things are in proper homeostatic ecological balance and coordination in light of some natural historical ideal. For, an appendage functions to do x, in the facilitation of the good of the organism, and the sense in which this is so is normative. For, flourishing is the ultimate end state, in light of which these processes carry out their various functions. And without an end, there is no function. Mere physical systems, no matter how complex, do not have a good. They cannot be harmed or benefited, as the processes that occur within them are Meaningless (i.e., they lack the Dimension of Meaning); and they are not the sorts of things that aim at anything or are for anything.

Evolution by natural selection is a meaningless genetic process that is essentially telos-less. It results, all things being equal, in a species becoming increasingly likely to survive to reproduce in some specific environment.

241 An adaption is a beneficial change within a species within an environment.

And the process of adaptation is the process of species becoming better suited to its environment.

The theory of natural selection explains how adaption is possible in an efficient causal sense. However, the theory of natural selection does not explain what an adaptation is in a formal-causal sense. In other words, an adaptation cannot be defined as a “design improvement” “designed by natural selection” “for the purpose of survival and reproduction”. For, an adaption is not a “design improvement” since a biological organism is not something extrinsically designed.

And natural selection is not a process of design at all. Furthermore, survival and reproduction are not goals of “natural selection”; rather survival-to-reproduction is a constraint on gene transfer that is built into the nature of things. And this constraint is what results in some genes being transferred and others not.

By contrast, when we define a “design improvement in a machine” we can define it as an “improved design change” “designed by a designer” “for the purpose of facilitating some machine-function”. But there is no analogy with “natural selection” in the biological sphere. For, “natural selection” is not an agent of design that designs things in light of a goal, e.g., survival and reproduction.

The contemporary notion that “the function of a body-part is the activity that is responsible for its current existence in light of natural selection” is categorially incoherent. For, it results from a conflation of the artifactual domain with the biological domain. This would only be a coherent formal-causal definition of “the function of a body-part” if an organism were something extrinsically designed. But

242 an organism is not something designed. For, we can say that “the function of a part of a designed artifact is the activity that is responsible for its current existence in light of the mental plan of the designer, who saw that this function would facilitate some end”. But there is simply no analogy in the biological realm. The processes of natural selection that give rise in an efficient-causal sense to the genetic make-up of a species have no relevance in the formal-causal definition of the “specific function of a body-part”. For, the definition of “specific function of body-part” is whatever role the body part plays in the anatomical system in the natural historical environment. And the natural historical environment is not necessarily the environment that the animal “evolved in”; it is the environment that the animal lived in and is meant to live in.

It is the task of the anatomist to empirically discern what this specific functional role is by empirically discerning the role it plays in the anatomical system. It is not the task of the anatomist to discern the “design-intent” of “the natural selector”, since there is no such thing.

Even if a human being were made in an efficient causal sense by a god, and even if that god had some plan for humans or for the functions of the parts of the human body, this plan would nevertheless be “other”, and thus it is something we could freely and ethically ignore as individual persons, regardless of whatever consequences this might have; moreover the plan would assign functions that are

“extrinsic”. That is, the kind of thing we call “an intentional plan a god has” for, e.g., the physiological of a biological organism is not conceptually equivalent to what we call “the intrinsic biological functional-design” which is determined by the natural

243 historical context in light of the intrinsic-end of biological flourishing, such a functional-design being independent of extrinsic-intentional design or planning on the part of a person or god.

Consider, e.g., the difference between the intrinsic function of a root system of a tree in light of possibility of flourishing in the natural historical context and then, on the other hand, the landscaper’s extrinsic intentional goal of using the root system to prevent erosion. It is a grammatical joke for a landscaper to say “My goal for the root system of the tree is the taking in of nutrients on the part of the tree.”

And it would be no less of a joke for a god to say this, insofar as we regard a god as a kind of “divine landscaper”. For, at least as far as the metaphors work, a god is made in the image of man and not the other way around, as Xenophanes once observed.

Whether or not a specific organ or system or body-part functions to promote survival or reproduction depends upon the role that that part plays in the anatomical system. A reproductive organ functions for reproduction. An emergency system in the body, such as an adrenaline response, functions to ensure survival.

However, organisms as a whole do not have functions, intrinsically. And thus they do not function for the purpose of reproduction or survival. An environmentalist may have the goal of reproduction and survival for a species, if, e.g., the species is endangered, but this is not an intrinsic goal of the species.

The idea that “natural selection” gives rise to functional parts by design out of biological raw materials is confused. There is no analogy between the blind and meaningless process of “natural selection” and the work of a designer working with raw materials, in light of a telos. Moreover, by definition, the atomistic units of

244 biological phenomenon are always already functionally differentiated in a total anatomical system and natural historical context, in light of the possibility of bio- flourishing. For, that’s just what a biological organism is. Function is not imposed upon something bare, and intrinsically function-less, from the outside, as it were.

Philosophers are frequently of the view that “norms” are themselves inherently mysterious kinds of things. But if what we have suggested is correct, then norms are just an intrinsic part of biological reality. For, biological reality is characterized by the concept of what is “normal” for the organism. And what is

“normal” in the biological realm is what is “natural” in the biological realm.

(7.2.1) Neurological processes and Computational processes

The nervous system, including nerve cells, neurons, neurological processes and the brain, belongs within the domain of biology.

A computer is a complex artifact. A computer manipulates in accordance with human instituted procedures or commands. In a modern computer, we assign a voltage level a binary symbol and assign a mediating transistor, a logical function over binary signs. Signs belong to sign systems, and sign systems are part of human culture and thus belong to the human-cultural domain. A sign is a conventionally determined character that can bear meaning in a language. Signs are thus defined in terms of the human world, for they are defined as something related to human Freedom and Meaning.

Signs do not belong to the physical or biological domains. And thus it is quite unintelligible that something in the physical or biological domain could be a

245 computer, i.e., could be an artifactual-machine that is manipulating signs intrinsically in accordance with human instituted rules.145

Searle suggests that nothing in “reality” can intrinsically be a computer. But, that is not true; for, artifacts are part of reality and can intrinsically be computers.

That is, actual computers are intrinsically computers. Something biological cannot be intrinsically a computer, since for something biological to be a computer, it would require an extrinsic symbolic assignment to the biological processes; but something artifactual can be intrinsically a computer, since the artifact may already just be, as the artifact it is in our culture, a symbolic instrument. Indeed, the artifactual realm contains entities that can be intrinsically computers, since artifacts just are formal- causally defined as entities that intrinsically have extrinsic design.

There may be surface resemblances between neurological processes and the behavior of circuits; but this does not make the strengths of synapses into signs. For they cannot be signs, unless we are ad hoc regarding them as if they were man-made artifacts. And thus the neurological processes cannot be intrinsically computational, either. Such processes can be regarded as if they were computational if we can specify clear markers for symbols and clear mediators for logical functions. But the brain and its neurological processes cannot be a computer, intrinsically.

Moreover, even if the brain and its neurological processes were regarded as if they were computational, this would not help us explain human cognition. For, signs are entities that must be interpreted and read. Computers presuppose users.

145 See John Searle, The Rediscovery of The Mind (Cambridge: MIT, 1994), Chapter 9

246 And a computer can only explain in an efficient causal sense how a person gains information, via a computational process, if there is someone to read the computational result. The idea that there could be computation all the way down, as it were, without any human interpreter of the signs is nonsensical. For, a computer is just defined as a complex artifact that utilizes signs, and signs are conventional, cultural, characters to be read and interpreted by human beings.

(7.2.2) The Human-Cognitive and the Artifactual

The human mind is distinct from the human or animal psyche. The psyche is the set of moods, emotional states, drives, instincts, and sensations. It also includes the actualization of the sensory capacity of vision. The mind, by contrast, is the set of powers of intellect and will, deliberation, volition, concentration, cognition, reasoning, reflection and cogitation. The mind also refers to the exercise of these powers in thinking, believing, deciding, and willing. That someone is in a peculiar mood describes her psychical state. That someone is mentally well-balanced describes her psyche. But that someone thinks such and such or has such an opinion or believes such and such or knows such and such describes, not her psyche, but her mind, i.e., the exercise of the powers of cognition and cogitation.

In the human (as opposed to the artifactual) case, computation is a particular form of cognition. Human computation involves manipulating symbols in accordance with some procedure to yield a computational result. Normal human cognition is not computational, in this sense, since typically when we think or reason we are not carrying out procedures, in this sense.

247 Machine computation involves the assignment of symbolic values to physical states of a machine, e.g., voltage levels. The machine contains parts that can mediate these physical states in such a way that they then literally engage in computational procedures over these symbols. Such machines are genuine computers, in the sense that they really are engaged in computing, given that the states in the computer really do stand for such and such binary symbols in our culture. Machine computers really do compute in light of the assignment of symbolic values to the voltages levels.

Machine computers are not “as if” computers. However, artifactual computers are not entities in the natural world, but belong to the realm of culture, since they presuppose the assignment of symbolic values to voltage levels. Computers qua automated symbol manipulators, that manipulate symbols in accordance with human procedures, are, by definition, cultural artifacts.

It was common in the to define thinking as the operation of signs, symbols, images or representations, in accordance with rules.

However, signs, symbols, images and representations are entities in the artifactual domain. They are entities that exist in the realm of human culture. An image is what is made to be beheld by human beings. A representation is a reproduction made to be beheld by human beings. A sign is a conventional character that belongs to a human sign system. A symbol is a meaningful character that belongs to a language, and language is necessarily a human phenomenon. Thus it is misguided to define

(formal causally) human cognition and cognition in terms of the manipulation of signs, symbols, images or representations. For, such entities presuppose the prior intelligibility of human cognition in their formal-causal analysis, since they belong to

248 the artifactual-cultural realm, which presupposes the human world, including the human powers of cognition and cogitation.

Because of this categorial dependence, such early modern descriptions and accounts of human cognition always fall prey to a homunculus regress. On some particular occasion, the question will be “how did so and so see the object”: and the answer will be “by having an image of the object presented to him”. However, if the

“workings of” perception are efficient causally explained in terms of the having of images, the question is, who sees the image? A second mind-perceiver? But then who sees the image in the second mind-perceiver? And so on. If a person’s thinking (on some occasion) is efficient-causally explained as their having representations (in the mind), the question is who interprets the representation? A second cogitator? But then, if interpreting which is a form of thinking is also the having a representations, then that second cogitator will require a third cogitator and so on. For, a representation is picture created by human to be beheld by humans.

We can efficient causally explain how I learned about a trip N.N. took by explaining that I looked at a photo album of his trip. But if it were images all the way down so to speak (in the mind, e.g.,), with no one to look at them, then simply citing the existence of images (without reference to human-image-consumers) would explain nothing (about how human knowledge comes to be).

What explains how a human being is “able to see” something has nothing to do with “images” or “representations”, at all. A good account of “how” a human being is “able to see” something, on a particular occasion, would be that the human being

249 looked at the thing; or put on his glasses; or removed an object that was obstructing his view of the thing.

Because human beings are defined in early as machines, the “inner workings” of human beings are formal-causally defined mechanistically and computationally or symbolically/imagistically in terms of “processing”. And then an efficient causal explanation some bit of behavior or cognition will be framed in terms of the machine having “carried out some processing on symbols/images”.

It is best to simply acknowledge that the human mind is a sui generis phenomenon of the human world that cannot and categorially reduced to notions that define the artifactual realm.

Consider the case of perception: one’s visual field is not an image or movie that is playing in the head. And the objects in one’s visual field are not in the head or in the mind. The activation of the sense modality of vision does not result in the production of “images” or “representations” since “images” and “representations” are cultural artifacts that are made by people to be visually contemplated by people.

If the activation of the sense modality of vision resulted in the production of images or representations, the question would be “who is looking at the images and representations?” and “who made them?”.

(7.2.3) The Animal and the Biological

To possess Sensory Consciousness one must be a Psychical Being, i.e., an

Animal. It is an animal that has sensations and moods; it is not the physiology of the animal that has sensations or moods. Biologically, there is nothing more to the animal that its physiology. But the animal is not its physiology. For, an animal is an

250 animal, not a physiology. And animals as such are psychical beings with Sensory consciousness.

Beings with sensory consciousness are biological organisms. But they are not mere biological organisms. This does not mean that they have something “extra” some non-biological part that gives them “consciousness”. Rather, they are just irreducibly psychical beings, first and foremost; and psychical beings are also biological beings, though not mere biological beings. That there are psychical beings, such as animals, is just a non-scientific fact; and it is a fact that is wholly uncontroversial. For, we know that humans and animals feel such and such or don’t feel such and such. And our feeling such and such is not a biological phenomenon but a psychical phenomenon, since it is a phenomenon of sensory consciousness.

For, it is the animal that feels the sensation; it is not the physiology of the animal that feels the sensation. The physiology of the animal is not the sort of thing that has

Sensory Consciousness.

We have discovered ad hoc that beings with a Sensory Psyche have such and such an underlying biology. We have also discovered that if this biological substratum is impaired, then the activation of the sensory modalities will also be impaired. But the relevant biology doesn’t define what a Sensory Psyche is.

(7.3) The human and the merely biological

A human being is not the physiology, or physiological system or brain-body, out of which the human being is biologically constituted.

The Dimension of Freedom is the genus of contraries spanning such predicables as acting with self control, not acting with self control, being responsible

251 for one’s actions, not being responsible for one’s actions, being coerced, being free from coercion, acting with rational judgment, acting irrationally, etc. A normal functioning brain is required for the human’s ability to engage in actions that are indicative of self-control. A mal-functioning brain may impair the ability of a person to perform actions that indicate self-control. A brain is not the sort of thing that has the Dimension of Freedom. But a human being is Free, i.e., is the kind of thing whose actions can exhibit self-control or not, and Freedom is a defining feature of what it means to be a human being.

(7.4) The Human and the Animal

It is of the utmost importance to distinguish the psyche from the mind.

Animals have a psyche. That is, animals have the capacity of sensation and vision; they have emotional states, moods, drives, and instincts. However, animals do not possess a mind or if they do it is a primitive form of mind. Some animals can be said to possess rudimentary knowledge of their surroundings. However, animals lack powers of cognition and cogitation in the sense that would allow them to count as Rational. Humans have a psyche as well as having a mind in the robust sense.

Biologically speaking (i.e., in categorial taxonomy), a human being is classified as an animal. But philosophically, (i.e., in categorial taxonomy) a human being cannot be defined as a Rational animal. For, an animal is rather defined privatively in terms of the lack of capacities that define human beings. Thus, the notion of the “human being” is categorially more basic than the notion “animal” and it cannot be defined in terms of it.

252 I do not object to the claim that we should privilege the fact that we are language users in philosophy. Propositional content cannot be understood independently of language; but it is equally true that language cannot be understood independently of the proposition either. And thus language and the proposition are equiprimordial. And so there is no reason to choose one or the other as absolutely basic.

(7.5) The Human World is not part of the Natural World

This follows from what we have said above. The human world is the realm of

Freedom, whereas the natural world is the realm that lacks Freedom. We do not follow the so-called “liberal naturalists” who collapse the distinction between the human world and the natural world and argue that the human world is part of

“nature”.

Liberal naturalists are wrong to suggest that the supernatural “does not exist”. Rather, the supernatural realm is an unclear and indistinct idea and is incoherent. But given that the term “supernatural” is incoherent, “natural” cannot contrast with “supernatural”, since a term cannot contrast with a term that is incoherent. For, if the notion of “supernatural” is incoherent, so too is the notion of the “natural” to which it is opposed. It is thus nonsensical to assert that “all that exists is nature”, when the term “nature” is no longer opposed to anything. For, that is akin to suggesting that the genus “everything” has only one species, i.e., “nature”.

But the idea of a genus with only one species is nonsense.

253 Pace the liberal naturalists, natural contrasts with human.146 And we do not want to blur that distinction whatsoever.

Liberal naturalists, by contrast, suggest that the (irreducibly) human and natural worlds belong to one and the same realm, i.e., “nature”. Both are simply part of “nature”, they say. If we were to use their idle notation, we would be forced to clarify that we fundamentally insist on a distinction between “the human-part-of- nature” and “nature-minus-the-human-part”.

Moreover, pace, the liberal naturalists, the “‘natural’-world-minus-the- human-world” is not reducible to “the realm of law”. Indeed, the “‘the natural’- world-minus-the-human-world” is more categorially diverse than liberal naturalists suggest, since it contains the sui generis animal and biological domains, which are not domains governed by “laws of nature” in the sense in which the physical realm can be so characterized.

(7.6) The Natural World is not Reducible to the “Realm of Law”

It is false to suppose that (what is ordinarily called) the “natural world” is reducible to the “realm of law”.147 The natural world includes anything that is non- human, i.e., non-Free, with the exception of the artifactual realm, which is “man- made” and with the exception of the realm of agriculture, which is cultivated by man.

The natural world encompasses more than mechanistic physical or quasi- mechanical biological phenomenon. The animal realm is a psychical realm that is

146 Cf. Michael Williams, “How Pragmatists can be Local Expressivists”, Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)) Kindle File, Chapter 7 147 See the introduction to Naturalism in Question, edited by Mario de Caro (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009) for a outline of the view that there may be a contrast between the normative and the natural understood as the “realm of law”.

254 non-mechanistic and non-mechanical; animals perform actions in response to perception. Animals are neither machines nor merely biological beings; animals are beings with a primitive sensory and emotive psyche that can act, as primitive psychical beings, and who possess rudimentary knowledge.

(7.7) The Natural World as Artifactual; the “natural-artifactual” realm as “reality itself”

Within post-Cartesian, materialistic, and naturalistic thinking, there has been a tendency to make two assumptions: (1) reality is equatable with natural scientific fact and (2) the natural world is quasi-artifactual, i.e., it is a “mechanism”.

Within this picture of reality, the human domain goes missing altogether, and the biological and animal domains are significantly distorted. Biological organisms are regarded as if they were artifacts. Animals are regarded as if they were robots.

And the human “mind-brain” is regarded as if it were a computer.

However, it is a familiar fact, a fact which we can appreciate in the course of reflection on Turing Machines, that computational results of computations over symbols require interpretation; but this means that if the brain is regarded as a computer, i.e., a mechanism that manipulates symbols in accordance with rules, then there must be some entity that can interpret these symbols, if they are to have any meaning. And this leads to ascribe cognitive and cogitative processes directly to the brain, as the means by which the brain interprets the computational work of the brain! And thus we have become accustomed to using such phrases as “the brain interprets”, “the brain reads”, and “the brain writes”. For, some homunculus is needed in order to consume the symbolic results of the alleged

255 symbolic computational procedures in the artifactual “mind-brain”. That this leads to an explanatory regress is not noticed; for, if the homunculus is itself the brain or part of the brain and if the cognition of the homunculus is to be analyzed in terms of computations, then there will need to be a third homunculus, and so on ad infinitum.

(7.7.1) Confusions regarding the Notions of Natural Selection and Adaptation: The Theory of Evolution may be Central to the Scientific Study of Living Things; but it is not central to the Philosophical Study of Living Things

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution."148 ---This statement may be true scientifically, but it is surely false, when interpreted philosophically. (Science and philosophy are constantly being confused with one another. Consider in this context Wittgenstein’s remark that “The Darwinian theory has no more to do with philosophy than has any other hypothesis of natural science.”149)

The Aristotelian philosophical framework for understanding living things, namely, as beings that embody intrinsically functional anatomical systems which can flourish or not, is categorially prior to and more basic than any concepts introduced in biology post-Darwin. And the post-Darwinian concepts do not displace or replace or eliminate any of the Aristotelian ones that are truly basic and foundational in our understanding of the concept of life.

An improvement to the design of machine can be regarded as a “machine adaptation”. And this can be defined as a “beneficial change designed by a designer in light of some telos”. However, an adaptation cannot be defined as a “beneficial

148 These words constitute the title of an essay by Theodosius Dobzhansky. 149 Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, §4.1122

256 change designed by a designer in light of some telos”. For, an adaptation is not something designed.

First, natural selection is not a literal designer but a blind process of genetic transfer. Second, there is therefore no telos in natural selection. There is no goal called “survival” or “reproduction” that natural selection aims to bring about in the transformations it brings about; rather survival and reproduction are arbitrary hoops that must be passed through if genes are to transfer. And thus they are non- teleological constraints on a blind process of gene transfer in nature. Third, natural selection does not bestow functionality upon raw materials that were previously not functional. Biological organisms have parts that are intrinsically functional. For, in the transition from merely physical matter to biological phenomena, there is a categorial transition from phenomena that have Flourishing versus phenomena that do not. But this means that the atomistic units that are transformed in the process of natural selection, e.g., the , always already are intrinsically functional sorts of things. And natural selection is not something that could bestow functionality on something that is not otherwise functional. This again contrasts with the artifactual domain, in which raw materials can be given a function by means of intentional assignment on the part of the designer. Thus, the comparison then between natural selection and machine-design is misguided. And the notion of

“adaptation” should not be defined as if it were a species of artifactual-machine- improvement.

257 (7.7.2) The Cartesian versus the Aristotelian Categorial Frameworks for the Understanding of Living Things

There are two basic categorial frameworks for the understanding of living things: the Aristotelian Categorial Framework and the Cartesian Categorial

Framework. It is doubtful that there are other serious competing philosophical frameworks, when it comes to the question of historical influence, at least.

According to the Aristotelian Framework, a living thing is a living thing: it is a being that has the Dimension of Flourishing; it has parts that have specific functions in light of the role that they play in facilitating flourishing on the part of the organism. Flourishing is a good that is judged relative to the norm of natural historical flourishing, where the natural history of the organism is the normal or good or natural or right manner of life or existence of the organism. According to the

Cartesian Framework a living thing is an artifact: it is a being that has the Dimension of extrinsic-Functionality and extrinsic-Functional-excellence. It has a function that is extrinsically assigned by the designer or user of the artifact: and its parts have functions that are assigned their function in the artifact-blueprint.

The standard debate between atheists and (intelligent design) theists, over the proper understanding of living things, has taken place within a categorial framework for the understanding living things, which could be called “Cartesian”: this is a categorial framework which regards living things as artifacts, i.e., designed kinds of entities, and specifically as machines. However, the Cartesian categorial framework is an inadequate and false framework for the representation of the categorial nature of living things. Debates about whether it is (per impossible) God or (per impossible) natural selection that is (per impossible) responsible for the

258 extrinsic (final-causal) design of living organisms are neither here nor there, since living organisms are not, at a categorial level, extrinsically designed things at all.

What we might denominate as the “Aristotelian categorial framework”, which regards living things as living things (not as artifacts), is what is required for understanding living things.

Talk of evolution by “natural selection” is a mere metaphor behind which stands a meaningless mechanism of genetic transfer constrained by a meaningless constraint of survival to reproduction. That is, “survival to reproduction” is not a final-causal goal in light of which any specific activity could intelligibly be literally assigned an extrinsic function (rather “survival to reproduction” is a mere constraint on an efficient causal mechanism (of genetic transfer)). And so it was never clear how Darwin’s theory was even supposed to provide a serious alternative to the final-causal explanation of the parts of organisms given by early modern theists.

Indeed, what might be termed “the modern problem of life” is perhaps just the inchoate awareness---that arises within a Cartesian categorial framework---that, on the assumption that God does not exist, living things must then be conceptualized as extrinsically designed things without a literal designer: and this is an “insoluble conceptual paradox” (since when made explicit in this way, the notion is straightforwardly incoherent). But, this “problem of life” can (and must) be overcome150, by switching to an Aristotelian categorial framework for the

150 I want to distinguish between “overcoming” a philosophical problem and “dissolving” a philosophical problem. There is a strain in the Wittgensteinian tradition that regards the treatment of philosophical problems to be a trivial matter; philosophical problems are resolved by merely “re-

259 understanding of living things. For, within the Aristotelian categorial framework, atheists no longer need (per impossible) the notion of “design” and “selection” in

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection to be literally construable (i.e., interpretable without metaphor) in order to understand fully how livings things can have parts that have intrinsic functions.151

(7.7.3) Fitting Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection Within the Framework of Aristotelian Categorial Framework of Natural History

There was a tendency, in the philosophical interpretation of Darwin’s work, to want to understand Darwin’s theory of natural selection within a Cartesian categorial Framework as opposed to within an Aristotelian categorial framework for the understanding of living things. At that point it seemed as though natural selection could actually be the process of “design” that formal-causally defined the specific function (i.e., final-cause) of a part of an organism, such that the specific function (final-cause) of a part of an organism was the activity the organ displayed that was responsible for its current existence as having been selected for by natural selection. It also came to seem as though “survival and reproduction” might be goals

ordering” our concepts (where a concept is defined as “the use of a word”). I think that that rhetoric gives us the wrong impression. Philosophical problems are indeed “overcome”; and, once they are overcome, both the philosophical problem and the characteristic traditional solutions to this problem cease to make any sense. However, they are overcome by adopting the right ontology, not merely by clarifying uses of words.

“The philosophical problem is an awareness of disorder in our concepts, and can be solved by ordering them.” “A philosophical problem always has the form: ‘I simply don’t know my way about.’” “As I do philosophy, its entire task consists in expressing myself in such a way that certain troubles //problems// disappear. ((Hertz.))” “If I am correct, the philosophical problems must be completely solvable, in contrast to all others.” “The problems are dissolved in the actual sense of the word---like a lump of sugar in water.” (Wittgenstein, “Philosophy” in Philosophical Occasions, pp.182-3) 151 See P. M. S. Hacker, Human Nature: The Categorial Framework (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007) Chapter 6

260 of the “design of natural selection”. And it came to seem as though an “adaptation” was something “designed by natural selection”.

But not one of these ideas is in the least bit coherent. First, natural selection is, of course, of metaphor for a process of gene transfer under the constraint of

“survival to reproduction”: “survival to reproduction” is not a goal of the process of natural selection at all. And thus neither survival nor reproduction is a telos. Some parts of biological organisms may have the intrinsic final-cause of survival or reproduction: this is the case with reproductive organs or with survival mechanisms such as autophagy or an adrenal response: but it is not the case with the vast majority of the specific bio-parts, which do not have survival or reproduction as their ends. Think of the hand, e.g.; the function of the hand is neither survival nor reproduction; rather, the function of the hand is for grasping things, etc. The function of an appendage is to do x or for doing x or for x. Moreover, organisms as a whole lack functions altogether (one exception is colony organisms), and thus survival and reproduction are not goals of organisms as a whole. An environmentalist who aims to protect an endangered species may impose the extrinsic-end of survival and reproduction on an endangered species, but this is not a goal that the species has intrinsically. Second, the formal-causal account of “the function of a specific part of an organism” is “the role that it plays in the anatomical system in the natural historical environment”. Thus, the very idea of functionality is intrinsic to the biological domain as such, in light of the biological-good of flourishing, and it requires no outside designer for its intelligibility. Mere physical systems, such as solar systems, lack the Dimension of Flourishing. And thus the parts of these

261 physical systems lack functions as well, since they cannot coherently “do anything in light of some good”, since, in physical systems, there is no good to be found. We are only tempted to think that the function of an appendage is the “the activity that was selected for by the putative designer of natural selection”, since, through the influence of the Cartesian framework, we are tacitly comparing biological organisms to machines; for, in the case of a machine, the specific activity of a machine-part is the activity that is indicated in the blue-print by design. Third, an adaptation is not formal-causally definable as something “designed by natural selection”; rather an adaptation is defined as a beneficial change in the life of an organism. The best efficient-causal explanation for such a change is that it arises due to the process of natural selection. But we cannot think of the beneficial change as analogous to an improvement to a machine on the part of an engineer. For, in the case of a machine- improvement, the final-cause of the novel machine-part is given by the extrinsic design in the blueprint: whereas in the case of a biological adaptation, i.e., a beneficial change, the novel appendage has a function that is defined, not by the blueprint of the natural-selection designer, since there is no such thing, but by the role that the novel bio-part plays in the anatomical system, in the natural historical environment. And thus there is no definitional connection between the efficient causal processes of design by natural selection and the final-cause of the bio-part. By contrast, in the case of machine-design, there is often a connection between the efficient causal process of designing the machine and the final-cause of the novel machine-part, since the designer of the machine is will have thoughts about what the novel part should do in his thinking through the design of the machine.

262 We mustn’t assume that the following two definitions are grammatically- categorially-formal-causally analogous to one another:

(i) “An adaptation is a beneficial functional trait designed by natural selection, increasing the survival-reproductive potential.”

(ii) “A machine-improvement is a beneficial functional machine part, designed by a designer, for the express goal of serving the good of the users.”

For, in (i) the increase in survival-reproductive potential is not a goal of anything, it is merely what we would expect over time for a species, all things being equal, when an organism passes genes under the constraint of survival-to-reproduction. And in

(ii) the function of the beneficial trait is not connected formal-causally to the so- called “design by natural selection”. The function of the beneficial trait is defined in terms of concepts of natural history that have nothing to do with any specific and technical concepts utilized in the theory of Darwinian natural selection. That is, a biological function of a bio-part is defined as the role the part plays in the anatomical system in the natural historical environment, and not as role assigned to it by a designer. Furthermore, natural selection is not a literal designer, at all. And the functions that bio-parts of biological organisms have is intrinsic-design, not extrinsic-intentional-design on the part of beings who belong to the human domain.

Extrinsic-design is design that involves a designer, whereas intrinsic design is biologically immanent functional differentiation, in light of a good of flourishing, that involves no designer.

It is mistaken to imagine that Darwin’s theory of evolution somehow influences the choice between philosophical-categorial frameworks for the

263 philosophical understanding of living things. While Darwin’s theory is a profoundly influential and important scientific theory, it has no philosophical relevance, at the categorial level at which we are operating. Thus, we must choose how to categorially frame Darwin’s theory philosophically. And our choice is between an Aristotelian and Cartesian categorial framework.

(7.7.4) Confusions of Evolutionary psychology

There is a sense in which a robot “has a mind”; it has an artificial mind. For, a robot is designed to behave and speak, as if it had a mind. But this is not the sense in which a human being has a mind. A human being just has a mind; and this is a basic formal-causal fact concerning the nature of human beings; for, to have a mind is not to be designed as if we had minds! The philosophical culture that surrounds the practice of evolutionary psychology is guided by a Cartesian-categorial-framework: within this framework, the human being and its mind are conceptualized as if they were artifacts “designed by natural selection”. This may at first appear to be nothing more than a harmless metaphor. However, that this metaphor is taken more literally than it should, in the philosophical culture surrounding evolutionary psychology, is clear from the following example.

There is a debate, among evolutionary psychologists, concerning whether the human need for self-transcendence is something that was “selected for or not” in the course of the history of evolution by “natural selection”. The idea is that, if it were, then “the need for self-transcendence” would be a legitimate “mental function”, and, if not, then it would be nothing more than “a bug” or “glitch” in the “computational bio-neuro program”.

264 However, the notion that we are faced with such a dichotomy rests on categorial confusion. A human being is not a machine-computer-robot. And so we are not designed by anything (the term ‘selection’ in the phrase “natural “selection”” is a metaphor) to perform functions for, or in light of, some final-cause. And thus our need for self-transcendence cannot be evaluated as if it were a behavior that either is the result of design (with some end in mind) or the result of random chance, such that if it is the latter, then it would somehow be revealed as illegitimate, since

"unintended" and "telos-less". The very fact that we are ready to infer that, if the psychical need for self-transcendence was not selected for, that, therefore, it is a

“glitch”, shows that we are taking the metaphor of artifactual design in the context of evolutionary psychology literally to the point of categorial confusion.

A basic human need is not the kind of thing that could be either a “program glitch” or a “legitimate machine function”.

(7.8) Efficient causal interactions between the domains

The question "How does the brain produce consciousness?" is not a well- formulated question; and so any competing answers to that question will themselves rest on unclear ideas. The question is analogous to asking, "How do chemical processes produce biological phenomena?". They don't, or, at least, not in accordance with the intuitive picture of what that would mean. For, it’s just a basic fact that there are such things as biological organisms, animal sensory , human beings, and human thoughts and actions. We can then ask about the material causes of such things or the material causes of the underlying substrata that constitute material preconditions for these phenomena. And within that

265 circumscribed arena, we can explore efficient causes among the categorially homogenous phenomena; this is not to deny that there can be efficient causes between different orders of reality; but it requires care to describe them in a way that reflects ontological clarity. For, example we can say that a loud noise causes psychical anxiety. Although the “mechanical” explanation of that will have to do with the fact that psychical anxiety is biologically underpinned by various neurological phenomena, which are “mechanically” effected by the sound waves.

Simply because distinctively human phenomena cannot be reduced to animal or biological phenomena does not make them mysterious. The everyday, ordinary, facts that pertain to the human world are part of reality, as it is. The human world is just given as a part of basic reality.

Neuroscientists frequently speak as if the normal actions of a human being were caused by the processes in the brain. But this is categorially confused. Normal human actions are correlated with brain processes, but that is all one can say. There are cases in which defects or abnormalities in the brain may impair the human’s capacity for self-control. But in the normal case, a normally developed brain is correlated with the human capacity of self-control and with the ability to engage in human voluntary action.

Voluntary action is something that is by definition not a “mechanical” event; and so it is the sort of thing that, by definition, is neither caused nor not caused by such and such a mechanism, in the manner in which parts of a machine are caused or not caused to move. For, a voluntary action is an action performed by a person,

266 under the control of the person. And thus voluntary action is categorially opposed to mechanical events, which are items that stand in mere causal relations.

Human actions are not events, at all. We do not “cause” the actions we perform, in the way in which we might cause our arms to rise by pushing them against the door frame and then waiting for them to rise, involuntarily; rather an action is something under the control of a person with self-control.

(8) The “problem of free-will”

In light of the fact that the sui generis human world is factually given as part of reality, as it is in itself, the very problem of free will and determinism along with the characteristic “solutions” to this problem can all be seen to have their life against the background of a false ontology.

Hilary Bok writes,

Libertarians who regard freedom and mechanism as incompatible also believe that we are free and therefore that mechanism is false. In the words of : “We have a prerogative which some would attribute only to God: each of us, when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing—or no one—causes us to cause those events to happen.” This view is remarkable in that it is supported neither by evidence nor by apparent plausibility. It is impossible, for obvious practical reasons, to see whether or not two people in exactly the same physical state will always perform the same actions unless some indeterministic event causes them to behave differently; barring the discovery that they will not, it is hard to imagine what evidence could support the libertarian position. Nor is it plausible to claim that we, alone among natural beings, have this sort of power; and no libertarian, to the best of my knowledge, has given a clear account of what it is, or of how, exactly, we use it.152

But what I am denying is that human beings are “natural beings”. Human beings are human beings. When Bok writes that our ability to act freely is “not supported by evidence” this is indeed true; for, our ability to act freely is not as it

152 Hilary Bok, Freedom and Responsibility (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 4

267 were a scientific hypothesis. And so it is not the kind of thing that would be

“supported by evidence” in a paradigmatic sense. No “evidence” that we could provide for this claim would be more certain than the claim itself. And so “evidence” is neither here nor there. That human beings act freely, to use an expression from On

Certainty, constitutes part of the frame of reference of our entirely way of thinking.

It is this frame of reference that is presupposed by all the social sciences, along with the natural sciences that study the physiological basis of human free action. That we can exercise a basic human power to act freely is just a basic fact of reality, as it is in itself.

The problem of free-will arises after the initial category confusion to assimilate human beings to machines or physical systems or biological systems has already occurred: the problem is framed against the backdrop of an ontological framework in which reality is potentially divided between a natural and supernatural realm. If something is real then it must find a place within one of these two exhaustive divisions of reality.

However, once this ontological framework is replaced with the right ontological backdrop, the problem of free will, as a problem, simply vanishes from view and is not noticed, at all. What is needed is to replace the Cartesian and post-

Cartesian materialistic categorial framework with a neo-Aristotelian-

Wittgensteinian understanding of the categorial chain of being. After this transition takes place, the motivations that seem to make the problem of free-will compelling appear quite distant and foreign.

268 Libertarianism, determinism and compatibilism are all positions that make sense only against the backdrop of “Cartesian” or post-Cartesian-materialist categorial framework for the understanding of human beings. On this framework, human beings must be placed either within a natural-nomological realm or in a supernatural realm; over the human must be split down the middle, as in dualism.

On the neo-Aristotelian-Wittgenstein position human uncontroversially possess the Dimension of Freedom. However, this is not equivalent to

“libertarianism”; for “libertarianism” is a philosophical position that makes sense only against the backdrop of the false ontology that I am rejecting. On that ontology, a human being is either a supernatural being or a machine. Traditionally, libertarianism is a form of “supernaturalism”. Or, if the supernaturalist route is rejected, libertarianism becomes the view that there is some sense in which a machine can be said to be free, where machine-freedom is defined as a mechanistic system that is merely probabilistic, as opposed to strictly deterministic. But this is neither here nor there.153

The neo-Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian view is not a form of determinism: for, determinism is the view that human beings are biological organisms or machines.

And I am suggesting that this is ontologically-categorially false. Humans are of

153 For, as Hume noted in “On Liberty and Necessity” this question concerns a distinct contrast, unrelated to the issue of human freedom; it concerns the contrast between chaos and - governedness, which is not in fact the relevant distinction under consideration in the problem of freedom. (, “On Liberty and Necessity” in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Public Domain) Kindle File.) Hume is certainly correct that much of human behavior is in fact pattern governed and regular; and such patterns are of interest to psychologists and sociologists. But our topic is human action, not behavior. And it obviously doesn’t follow, as Hume pointed out that simply because human behavior conforms to rough sociological-psychological patterns that there is, therefore, no such thing as the distinction between free and unfree human action.

269 course biological organisms, but they are not mere biological organisms. A human being is biological constituted by nothing more than its biology, but this does not imply that a human being is its biology. And simply because a merely biological entity lacks Freedom as a Dimension, this does not mean that a human being lacks

Freedom as a Dimension. For, a human being quite uncontroversially possesses

Freedom as a Dimension.

Moreover, if humans were, per impossible, to lack the Dimension of Freedom, then the whole notion of a “human being” would lose its meaning, since a human being is partly defined as what possesses this Dimension. This is why determinists who categorize humans as machines, should not express their view by asserting that

“humans lack freedom” in a property-sense. For, that would be akin to suggesting that machines lack self-control, which is a category mistake. For, machines lack

Freedom as a Dimension, and thus machines cannot have the property of lacking self-control.

Compatibilism is the view that the human being is part of the natural world but that we can nevertheless “say” we are “free” or “not free”, as a legitimate way of talking: it is a mere convention. But this is not my view, either. My view is that human can be free or not free, really, in the world. This is not “as-if”; it is basic reality.

There was a tendency to want to regard Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophers as compatibilists who, at a basic level, accept the post-Cartesian

Materialistic metaphysics, but who nevertheless “defend” the “conventions of ordinary language” on the grounds that they remain “perfectly legitimate” and

270 “culturally important”. According to this view, we are at bottom Machines; however, ordinary “talk” of the “free”/“not free” is, nevertheless, perfectly “legitimate”: there is a perfectly legitimate “rule governed use”, which we should not “tamper” with.

For, according to this view, “ordinary language” does not in fact contradict the post-

Cartesian materialistic metaphysics, but is merely a “conventional overlay” that should be “respected”.

But Wittgenstein, I want to say, was not a compatibilist. For, what

Wittgenstein wanted to do was to reject the ontological framework of post-

Cartesian materialistic metaphysics, altogether. Such a metaphysics is confused about meta-philosophy, about the nature of knowledge, about the nature of reality: it is also confused about the nature of human beings, animals, plants, machines, and physical systems. Wittgenstein does not make any concessions, whatsoever, to post-

Cartesian materialists. Wittgenstein’s view is not that we are non-supernatural machines, who nevertheless “talk about ourselves” in distinctive ways that should be “respected”, since these “distinctive ways of talking” cannot be “reduced” to

“physicalistic vocabularies”. For, Wittgenstein’s view is that we are not machines at all.154

154 See John McDowell’s criticism of Richard Rorty in “Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mind”. On McDowell’s interpretation, Rorty does not want to eliminate or reduce what is distinctive about humanity by suggesting that it is really something else. But Rorty nevertheless accepts the dichotomy between the natural and the supernatural; and thus Rorty has no option but to deny that what is distinctive about humanity must be captured merely in “our ways of talking about each other”.

“Rorty suggests that we should not conceive knowledge as a natural phenomenon. Of course that is not to say we should conceive it as a supernatural phenomenon. Instead, Rorty urges that we stop thinking of knowledge as a phenomenon---feature of actuality---at all, and shift to talking about the social role of attributions of knowledge.” “Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mind” in The Engaged Intellect: Philosophical Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009) p, 263

271 It is simply part of what Wittgenstein calls of “frame of reference” that human actions are freely performed by people. We can study the brain-body- physiology of the human being, which is a merely biological phenomenon. And we can correlate the capacity of a human to perform free actions with the normal operation of certain structures of the brain. But it does not follow from this that a human’s free action is a biological phenomenon.

The Dimension of Freedom is the genus of contraries spanning such predicables as acting with self control, not acting with self control, being responsible for one’s actions, not being responsible for one’s actions, being coerced, being free from coercion, acting with rational judgment, acting irrationally, etc. A normal functioning brain is required for the human’s ability to engage in actions that are indicative of self-control. A mal-functioning brain may impair the ability of a person to perform actions that indicate self-control.

How is it possible that a human being is Free, when the human is biologically constituted by a biological system, which is not Free? The answer is that the human being is not formal-causally its biological system, out of which it is biologically constituted. And it is a non-scientific, known fact, that such and such human beings perform such and such actions, which they are responsible for, etc. Were our nervous system, per impossible, to behave in a purely “chaotic” manner, then we would lose our capacity for self-control. It is only because the nervous system functions in the normal way that it does that humans have the capacity for self control. Damage to that nervous results in an impairment of that capacity.

272 Among living beings, it is only those beings that possess Freedom that turn out empirically to have such and such a complex neurological system. But that’s an empirical matter, which we learned a posteriori. And the scientific investigation into the neurological underpinnings of human action takes place always already within the categorial framework in which humans are understood as Free.

Scientists haven’t “discovered”, via experimental research, that “humans never perform free actions”. For, that would mean scientists had “discovered” that humans always act under coercion or always behave reflexively (as if all actions were “discovered” to be akin to “arm rising’s” as opposed to “arm raisings”). But no scientist has ever seriously claimed to have “discovered” this. Scientists who do claim to have discovered empirically that humans never perform free actions are always already operating with the categorial assumption that the human being is fundamentally a quasi-machine: at that point the question degenerates into the question of whether para-mechanical processes in the machine are required to explain the mechanistic workings of the machine or whether, the real-mechanical processes in the machine are perfectly sufficient to explain the outputs. And, at that point, the scientist then “discovers” that the real-mechanical processes are perfectly sufficient, in an explanatory sense, to explain the output. But this is neither here nor there. For, the question of whether a human acts freely is a question that concerns whether a human being did or didn’t do something; it is not a question about competing para-mechanical versus real-mechanical efficient-causal explanations of the workings of a putative machine.

(9) The Artifactual Picture of Reality

273

(9.1) Theism, and the Artifactual Categorial Framework

We have investigated numerous ways in which categories of categoremata are confused with one another, as well as ways in which the categorial domains become confused. However, there is one particular manner of categorial confusion that deserves to be singled out and emphasized above all others, due to the importance it has played in shaping the basic notions of the early-modern, modern and contemporary traditions of philosophy. This is the categorial confusion in which entities and domains that are non-artifactual are regarded within the artifactual mode and within the artifactual domain. Non-artifactual substances are regarded as artifactual substances and non-artifactual non-substances are regarded as artifactual non-substances. Moreover, non-artifactual domains of reality are regarded as if they were a species of the artifactual domain of reality. This confusion-type can be encapsulated in the phrase “the artifactual picture” or “the artifactual categorial picture”. The “artifactual picture” is the foundational idea that contributes in no small part to the particular shape that modern and contemporary philosophy has taken, and thus it deserves to be emphasized above all other instances of categorial confusion.

More specifically, the particular kind of artifact that underlies the artifactual picture is the “machine” or “mechanism”: it is the “mechanical artifact”. The physical universe is regarded as a “mechanism”; biological organisms are regarded as

“machines”; the “body” of the human being is regarded as a machine; the mind of the human being is regarded as a representation or information processing mechanism.

274 But all of these specific ideas are grounded in the general conception of reality as something that embodies Extrinsic Design, which is the categorial Dimension that underpins the artifactual-mode, as such.

Certain notions become philosophically problematic when framed in light of the artifactual picture. “Freedom”, in particular, seems to lack any coherent interpretation, since a mechanism is not something that possesses the Dimension of

Freedom. As a general point, we have argued that “philosophical problems” are really categorial incoherences that arise when one categorial framework is confusedly imposed upon entities that belong to another categorial framework. But we can say that many of the deepest philosophical problems of the modern tradition involve the imposition of the artifactual categorial framework on categorematic elements that belong to other categorial frameworks. The problems of modern philosophy specifically have centered on the issue of how to make sense of the very idea of the human being or the very idea of living things or the very idea of animals or the very idea of the psyche, in light of the dominance of the “mechanistic-

Artifactual picture”.

But what is of central importance to recognize is that this artifactual categorial picture has survived nearly every major movement in philosophy since

Descartes. The post-Cartesian philosophical tradition whether naturalistic or supernaturalistic is unified by the commitment to the artifactual-categorial framework for the categorial understanding of the domains of reality. During this period in the history of philosophy, it has mattered little whether or not a philosopher believes in “God”, acknowledges the “soul” or acknowledges a

275 “supernatural” realm over and above a “natural” one---for, what has remained constant throughout modern and much of contemporary philosophy is the commitment to the basic artifactual-categorial-picture.

The deistic modern philosophical tradition, typified, e.g., in the work of

Descartes, conceived of reality as something that was “designed by God”. This meant that all the domains of reality, the physical, the biological, the animal and the human, were regarded as if they were analogous to the artifactual domain. The physical world was regarded as a set of processes that obey natural laws, which were the laws ordained by the deity. The biological world was regarded as a set of bio- artifacts that were designed by God, to function in light of God’s plan. The animal world was regarded as a set of animalistic-machines designed by God. The human world was regarded as consisting of human beings whose “bodies” were animalistic- machines and whose “minds” were immaterial representation-manipulating machines.

In the move from theism to atheism, which took place largely in the 20th century, this categorial artifactual-framework was, nevertheless left wholly in place.

The only difference was that God was now absent from the picture. This meant that reality was conceived as an artifactual realm, despite the fact that there was no longer an explicit designer. And this gave rise to an even deeper aura of paradox: for, without the addition of God to round out the artifactual picture, reality became doubly paradoxical. The physical realm was regarded as a realm of law, despite the fact that there was no law-giver. The biological realm was regarded as an artifactual- bio-realm, despite the fact that there was no longer a designer. The animal realm was

276 regarded as a realm of robotic-machines, despite the fact that was no longer a designer of these robots. The human realm was no longer regarded as a dualistic realm, but a monistic realm in which the human being was regarded as an animalistic-body-machine with a computer-brain, despite the fact that there was no programmer of this computer.

At that point, the notion that the concept of “natural selection” could be brought in to help fill the gap seemed plausible to many thinkers. But sooner or later, we reminded ourselves that the notion of a “natural selection” was in fact a metaphor that referred to a blindly mechanistic process of gene transfer under constraint such that there is no more of a telos in this process of natural selection than any other purely physical or chemical phenomenon.

At that point, there arose, in stark relief, what one might call the paradox of life. Life became intrinsically paradoxical since life was regarded as something that seemed, in light of the artifactual picture, to display extrinsic-design but which now lacked a designer. Similarly, there arose a specific paradox of the mind. According to the artifactual picture, the mind it seemed be a faculty in which representations were processed in accordance with rules; but who was the programmer of the computer?

Post-Cartesian philosophy whether naturalistic or supernaturalistic is unified by the commitment to the artifactual-categorial framework for the categorial understanding of the domains of reality. What matters for a deep philosophical understanding of this historical period is not the trivial assumptions regarding non- categorial matters that distinguish the works of theistic and atheistic philosophers,

277 such as whether or not there is a “God” or “soul”, but the deep assumptions regarding categorial matters that unify theists and atheists, assumptions that are themselves categorially confused. For, with these categorially confused assumptions in place, it matters little whether a philosopher does or doesn’t believe in God; their work will be, regardless of such a theological issue, misguided at a fundamental philosophical level. Real philosophical progress is only possible by means of addressing and criticizing a deep categorial framework, as opposed to by debating non-categorial issues within the framework.

(9.2) An Illustration of the influence of the Artifactual Picture in an Atheistic Age: Sartre’s conception of man as “raw-materials” awaiting “design”

The survival of the artifactual picture in the contemporary period, despite the transition from theism to atheism, is well-illustrated by Sartre’s concept of

“”, namely, the idea that “existence precedes essence”. Sartre assumes that if God does not exist, then the human being is not made in the image of God, but is a mere set of raw-materials that can be fashioned by the human being, and which the human being is responsible for fashioning. Now, Sartre never clarifies how a human being can be both a set of raw materials and the sculptor of raw materials.

But in any case, the very conceptualization of ourselves as “raw materials” is itself a symptom of the artifactual picture. Entities that are conceptualized as raw materials are entities that play a role in the artifactual context. They are the raw materials for subsequent design. By contrast, mere physical objects, in the physical domain, are not “raw materials”. For, there are no “raw materials” in the physical domain at all, since nothing in the physical domain is “designed” or “lying in wait of being

278 designed”: for, “raw materials” contrasts with “utilized materials” in the context of human culture. But, a human being is not an artifactual entity at all, neither a sculpted-artifact, whether sculpted by God or man himself, nor a pre-sculpted block of raw materials. To regard the human being as either a set of raw materials (an unsculpted-entity) or as a sculpted-entity is to regard the human being within the framework of the artifactual picture.

Sartre’s famous dictum that humans are “radically responsible” for their lives and for themselves because God does not exist, is thus an idea and an inference that rests on categorial confusion, namely, on the adoption of the artifactual picture of reality. Humans are neither “radically responsible” nor not “radically responsible” as the idea of “radical responsibility” rests on ontological confusion.

Sartre’s idea stems from the picture in which reality is something created, whether by god or man, and if not by god, then by man.

(9.3) The Artifactual picture of reality stems from our tendency to assume that if something “is”, then something must be “responsible” for it; however, we must remember that “explanations come to an end at some point”

The various agents of responsibility historically have included the “mind”,

“God”, “language”, “human practice”, “culture”, “reason”.

When we say, e.g., that the parts of biological organisms have functional parts, there is a tendency to think that something must be “responsible” for assigning the functions to the parts: otherwise these final causal facts would be inexplicable and mysterious.

What I been arguing, however, is that biological reality is sui generis, real and basic; nothing is responsible for its distinctive character. It just is.

279 Explanations come to an end at some point. And it must be this way. There is no getting around acknowledging the givenness of something itself and the ontological chain of being. We can contemplate the chain and we can appreciate it; but it, as a whole, cannot be explained away philosophically in terms of something else. It is simply given in the formal causal basic way in which it is given and in the very way it is divided.

(9.4) Re-Collection of the Biological, Psychological and Human Domains by means of a Critique of the All-Encompassing Artifactual Categorial Framework Common to the Theistic and Atheistic Post-Cartesian Philosophical Traditions

Of course, the historical source of the artifactual-picture of reality is itself theological. For, we never would have regarded reality as if it were something artifactual unless we had initially regarded God as the creator and designer of all things. In the atheistic rejection of the , the more general categorial- artifactual-picture was nevertheless retained, such that reality continued to be understood as something that has the categorial character of something with extrinsic-design (i.e., it is presented as a mechanism or information processing system), but which, due to the introduction of atheism, nevertheless lacked a designer. Such a conception of reality in which reality exhibits extrinsic-design in the absence of a designer is paradoxical and indeed actually contradictory. And thus we can say that while the artifactual-picture of reality itself represents a philosophical confusion, the atheistic variant of the artifactual-picture is doubly confused.

Of course, if the notion of the supernatural is unclear and indistinct, there never was any clear and distinct motive by which the artifactual picture of reality

280 could have legitimately gotten a foothold in the first place. However, motivations aside, given that the artifactual picture of reality has come to be entrenched in the philosophical consciousness of the modern and contemporary periods, it must be criticized directly, and this we have done in our discussions of the various categorial modes and domains.

In contrast to the artifactual categorial picture, we embrace a conception of reality in which reality divides into various categorially distinct, irreducible, sui generis domains of entities and states of affairs. Reality divides into the physical domain, the biological domain, the animal domain, the artifactual domain, and the human domain. In our conception, the artifactual domain is just one of the various sui generis domains, and not the genus-domain of which all the other domains are species. A human being can be conceptualized as if it belonged to one of the other domains (with the exception of the artifactual domain), but such a conceptualization involves disregarding the Dimensions that define what a human being really is. The natural world consists of the Freedom-less worlds (with the exception of the artifactual world, which is not part of nature) and thus is opposed to the human world, i.e., the world of Freedom.

The human world is real and irreducible. However, the material causes of the human world can be explored. And the material causes come within the ambit of the natural world. But simply because the human being is constituted biologically doesn’t mean that the human being is a biological organism, first and foremost. A human is a human, first and foremost; and the human being has various human powers, such as the power of free action, which we know the human to have light of non-scientific

281 knowledge. And such knowledge and basic facts hang together with our philosophical categories and categorial grammar and Dimensions, such as the Dimension Freedom.

(9.4.1) The Respective Goods of the Domains

All realms except for the physical realm contain phenomena that are intelligible in light of the idea of a “good”. At the highest level of generality, “the good”, as conceived in ancient philosophy, is the state of affairs of optimal harmony or balance. And “to be good” is to have the property of “contributing to the good”.

But what optimal-balance amounts to will vary depending upon the particular categorial domain in question. The good applied to the biological realm is health: it is the state of affairs of optimal coordination and balance in the homeostatic systems in a physiological bio-system, in light of some natural-historical ideal. The good applied to the psychical realm is well-being: it is the state of affairs of optimal balance in the psychical states or dispositions. The good applied to the human realm is “the health of the soul”: it is the state of affairs of ethical harmony in which Reason qua rationality rules over the appetites and passions.155 But reason also implies reasonableness and when such ethical judgment is cultivated, the ethical agent is in a position to find the mean between the two extremes (or vices).156 The human being not only is a biological being whose physiological state is assessed in light of a biological good, but a human being is also a Rational creature that pursues in the actions he takes, intentional goals, in light of reasons and rational deliberation. The

155 Plato, Phaedrus in The Complete Works of Plato, Translated by Benjamin Jowett (The Complete Works Collection, 2011) Kindle File 156 Aristotle, , in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. II, Edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) Kindle File, Book IV

282 human pursues courses of action that are reasonable or unreasonable, rational or irrational, and the rational course of action is the one that best suits the person’s goals and which best harmonize with what is actually important, objectively, e.g.,

“the health of the soul”, and the reasonable course of action is the one that best accords with good judgment, in light of what is fitting, in light of axiological ideals, i.e., a sense of what is significant and what matters.

(10) A Non-Reductive Conception of the Ethical without Associated Kantian Paradoxes regarding “Worlds”

The human being is, by definition, Ethical; i.e., the human being is what is defined as having the Dimension of Ethical Freedom. To say that a human being is

Ethical (capital ‘E’) is not to say that human beings have the property-status of being ethical (lower case ‘e’). It does not mean that humans always obey the Kantian categorical imperative. It only means that humans are the kinds of beings for whom the Kantian categorical imperative is the kind of thing that has binding status: in other words, it means that human beings are persons. (Capital ‘E’) “Ethical” is a

Dimension, not a property. To say the human being is Ethical (capital ‘E’) means that humans possess the Dimension of Freedom of an Ethically relevant sort, i.e., Ethical

Freedom.

But, the fact that the human being is Ethical does not imply that the human being belongs to a “supernatural realm”. Rather, the Ethical human being belongs to the human world and is not paradoxically divided between a putative “mechanistic” and “supernatural” realm, as Kant supposed. Moreover, there is no question that the

283 human being, qua, being of Freedom, exists, and so we do not need to take this on

“faith”, as Kant supposed.

The Ethical is a Dimension. To say that a human being is an Ethical being is to say that a human being is an Ethically-Free being. To be Ethically-Free means to be the kind of thing for which the contraries of being coerced versus being un-coerced, being in control, versus lacking self control, being responsible versus not being responsible, and so on, are applicable. This spectra of contraries lies within the

Dimension of Ethical-Freedom,157 and a human being is defined as what possesses the Dimension of Ethical-Freedom, i.e., a human being is the propositional categorematic subject that can combine grammatically with contraries in the genus of this Dimension.

Entities that figure in non-human domains lack Ethical-Freedom as a

Dimension. This is quite distinct from the claim that they lack the property of freedom, which is opposed to the property of being un-free.

Kant suggested that we know that the human being belongs to the “sensible” or “mechanistic” realm, but we cannot know if the human being belongs to the

“intelligible” world, i.e., the world of Freedom.158 But, in light of the above categorial investigation, we would regard this dichotomy as misguided.

First of all, there is no such thing as either the “intelligible world” or the

“mechanistic world”, in Kant’s sense. The idea of the “supernatural world” is

157 CF. Hilary Bok, Freedom and Responsibility (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). One of the central theses of this text is that ethical freedom in particular is the distinctive form of freedom that ultimately separates human beings from the rest of nature. 158 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by H. J. Paton (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964) Chapter 3

284 incoherent. Moreover, the “sensible mechanistic world” is the idea of the world that arises from the Artifactual-Categorial-Picture. It is the idea that knowable reality is an Artifactual-mechanism. But as we have shown artifactual domain is not the genus-domain under which the others are species. The natural world is not an artifactual-mechanistic world; for, a human being is not a machine-body plus a computer brain; and an animal is not a machine; and biological organisms are not artifacts; and the merely physical world is not an extrinsically-designed realm of

“law-governed” events.

It follows, contrary to what Kant supposed, that the human being is neither part of the “sensible mechanistic world” nor the “intelligible supernatural world”; for, a human being is neither a “machine-human” nor a “supernatural entity” nor some combination of the two.

We said that human beings possess the Dimension of Ethical-Freedom. And we know this to be true, uncontroversially, since we possess non-scientific knowledge that humans behave ethically and unethically towards themselves and others as persons.

(11) Conclusion: Neo-Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian Ontology and the Space of Options in Contemporary Philosophy

What matters is not whether a philosopher accepts the isolated proposition that “there are humans, animals and plants”; what matters is the ontological background against which this proposition is understood.

In a Cartesian-ontological-framework possible-reality is bifurcated between a supernatural para-mechanical domain and a merely physical-mechanical domain.

285 In a post-Cartesian-materialistic-ontological-framework possible-reality is also bifurcated between a supernatural para-mechanical domain and a natural physical-mechanical domain. Thus, the post-Cartesian-materialistic-ontological framework and the Cartesian-ontological-framework are actually identical to one another. The only disagreement between these historical paradigms concerns the merely ontical question of whether there are, ontically speaking, any supernatural beings within this logically possible supernatural realm. For, according to the post-

Cartesian view, there are not.

Now, someone working within the post-Cartesian-materialistic-ontological- framework can certainly “say” that there are humans, animals and plants; but what this claim means is that there are a number of natural-mechanistic beings that embody different kinds of mechanistic systems with different functional properties designed by natural selection. Nevertheless, when it comes down to it, they are all, at bottom, machines.

Any kind of potential fact that doesn’t at fist appear to fit this picture must then be reduced to a kind of fact that does fit this picture; and if this is not possible, then it must be eliminated altogether.

It critical to note that there is also a third position, which we might call

“compatibilism”: this is the view that although all living things belong to the natural world, there, nevertheless, exists a perfectly legitimate “way of talking” that cannot be “linguistically reduced” to a merely “mechanistic vocabulary”. And this way of talking should be “respected” since it is “culturally important”. Nevertheless, the appearance that humans have free-will or that animals have consciousness or that

286 plants have functional parts with bio-final-causality is just mere appearance: it is appearance rooted in a mere “way of speaking” or “convention”, but it is not rooted in reality, as it is in itself.

The work of some ordinary language philosophers, I think, hovered quite indeterminately between this compatibilist position and the view I think is actually correct. For, it is not as if ordinary language philosophers did not have an ontology: it was simply not something they discussed; it was suppressed; what they did discuss, however, was how certain vocabularies were “irreducible”: but the question is “why does this matter?” Why should we care about a vocabulary or a mere convention? If a way of talking is a “mere” way of talking, then it is not so important.159 And critics of ordinary language philosophy are perfectly within their rights, when they dismiss the work of ordinary language philosophy at this point. By definition, a “mere way of talking” is something that can be dispensed with in favor of a more direct way of talking. However, if a way of talking is not a “mere way of talking”; then this “way of talking” must actually be rooted in something real. But then the question is: why not just talk directly about the thing “the way of talking” is rooted in? Why beat around the bush and talk only about words? At some level, ordinary language philosophers wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted to avoid reductionism while avoiding having to take any ontological stand: however, insofar as they did not take themselves to be analyzing “mere

159 It would be idle to suggest that “all uses of language are mere ways of talking”; for, this would simply amount to the stipulation that the phrase “use of language” is to be defined as “a way of talking”. But, at that point we would have to supply a new verbal distinction that would allow us to do the work of the original distinction between what is a “mere way of talking” versus what is not a “mere way of talking”, in the ordinary sense. For, it would not be clear what it would so much as a mean for there to be no actual distinction between a mere way of talking and what is not a mere way of talking.

287 vocabularies”, but vocabularies that were actually rooted in reality, then their work implicitly pointed in the direction of a traditional neo-Aristotelian ontology. For, if the vocabularies they regarded as “irreducible” were rooted in reality, then this would point to the phenomenon of the irreducibility of what these vocabularies correspond to in reality itself.

The view I think is actually correct, then, is called “neo-Aristotelian-

Wittgensteinianism”. This is not a view about language or “vocabularies”; rather it is an ontological position. According to this ontology, the supernatural realm is not clear and distinct: thus, there is no coherent contrast between the supernatural versus the natural: furthermore, reality divides into an ontologically divided chain of being (or scala naturae) that accommodates sui generis human, animal, and biological forms of reality. What this means is that humans, animals and plants can all be accommodated, as humans, animals and plants, respectively. Mechanics, by contrast, is a domain within the cultural realm: and is not part of the natural world at all. That humans are really irreducibly free, that animals are really irreducibly conscious or that plants really have irreducibly functional parts is not “mere appearance”, associated with a mere linguistic convention. Thus, when we say that a human being performed a noble act, that an animal is happy or that a plant is thriving, this is not a “way of talking”; rather, this is reality, as it is in itself.

288

Chapter 3: Four Contemporary Philosophers

I shall now consider the work of four contemporary philosophers with whom

I share a great many assumptions, in light of the above foundational and ontological work.

(1) John McDowell on Perception and the Natural and Human Worlds

A number of McDowell’s central philosophical positions resonate with the metaphilosophical and ontological positions we have taken thus far. For example,

(i) McDowell regards the identity theory of truth as a truism. (ii) He is critical of reductionistic thinking in philosophical anthropology and in the philosophy of mind.

(iii) In Mind and World, McDowell famously argues that “the conceptual” is

“unbounded”. And in “Avoiding the Myth of the Given”, McDowell further clarifies the implications of this claim. There he argues that the unboundedness of the conceptual needn’t imply that we, in all cases, regard some environmental object as falling under a non-categorial kind; but it does imply that any environmental object falls under a categorial kind. Such a position is in fact akin to the position we have taken in Chapter 1, in which a “thing” is defined as what falls under one of the philosophical categories. According to this view, any environmental object, being a subset of “Things”, is by definition something that falls under a categorial kind. (iv)

McDowell endorses what he calls “naturalized Platonism”, the idea that propositional content is sui generis, despite the fact that the concept of propositional content is only intelligible in the context of a group of linguistic “rational animals” that share a form of life. (v) McDowell argues that what Sellars calls the “myth of the

289 given” is truly a myth: the myth of the given is the idea that the exercise of a non- cognitive potentiality (such as a merely physical or merely biological potentiality) could yield something that has the requisite “form” that “reasons” have, a form which enables these reasons to stand in the rational relations in which they stand.

(vi) McDowell regards philosophical problems as “‘‘how possible?’ problems”, and he regards “‘how possible?’ problems” as disguised contradictions. (vii) McDowell argues that we would not be able to make sense of the very idea of empirical thought about how things are in our environment, if we couldn’t understand how perception plays a critical role in making “the world” rationally available to us.

I am in agreement with all seven of the above positions; and there is, without a doubt, a great deal of overlap in our views. However, I wish to make two criticisms of McDowell’s thought. First, I believe that the specific details of McDowell’s understanding of human perception are confused.160 Specifically, McDowell conflates cognition with cogitation, and he fails to command a clear view of the varieties of perception. Second, I want to say that McDowell’s claim that he is, in some sense, a “philosophical naturalist” is vacuous, and that McDowell’s position would be clearer, if he didn’t endorse “naturalism” at all.

(1.1) McDowell on Perception

160 The texts by McDowell I have in mind include McDowell, Mind and World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996); McDowell, John, “Are the Senses Silent?” (Lecture, University College ); “Avoiding the Myth of the Given” in Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel and Sellars (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009

290 As we have said, McDowell regards perception as being indispensible in allowing us to understand how “the world” can be rationally available to us in thought about the world. McDowell suggests that if we could not understand how the world was available to us in this way, then we would lose a grip on the very idea of there being such a thing as “thought about the world”. For this reason, perception, according to McDowell, is not only epistemically but also

“transcendentally/conceptually” indispensible in our understanding of ourselves as

“rational animals”.

But how does perception “make the world rationally available to us”?

According to McDowell, perception does this by “providing reasons for beliefs”.161 In

McDowell’s picture, the function of perception is to offer up “positions” about “how things are in the world”, which a person is then free to accept or reject. So, if someone looks around his environment, his perceptual faculty will function in the following way: it will offer to this person a position on how things are in his environment. If, e.g., I am walking in the woods, then my perception will offer to me the position that “I am walking in the woods”. At that point, I am then free to accept or reject that position. Insofar, as I accept the position, then I have reason to believe that I am walking in the woods. And this is how perception provides us with reasons for beliefs.

Now, what I wish to suggest is that this conception of perception as something that functions to offer up to us positions that we are free to accept or

161 Cf. G. E. Moore “It now appears that perception is to be regarded philosophically as the cognition of an existential proposition; it is thus apparent how it can furnish a basis for inference, which uniformly exhibits the connexion between propositions” (G. E. Moore, “The Nature of Judgment” in G. E. Moore: Selected Writings, Kindle File, Chapter 1)

291 reject is confused: specifically this idea results from a conflation between cognition and cogitation, along with a lack of clarity regarding the varieties of perception.

As we have discussed in Chapter 2, perception is a multifarious notion, and there are a number of distinctions between different kinds of perception that we must keep in view, if we are to proceed safely in this terrain.

(i) Perception can signify vision, which is something we share with animals; it is a sense-faculty, which can be exercised. (ii) Perception can signify awareness of something in the environment. E.g., I can see or notice an object or person. I can be conscious of an event or occurrence. This typically involves laying eyes on the thing and taking note of it.162 (iii) Perception can signify the apprehending of a fact. E.g., I can observe that such and such is the case; e.g., I can make the observation that the cat is on the mat.

Moreover, “perception” in senses related to (ii) and (iii) can be understood to signify a

(a) capacity, (b) an exercise of a capacity, or the

(c) object perceived in the exercise of the capacity.

That is, perception in senses (ii) and (iii) can signify (a) the capacity of perception, (b) the exercise of the capacity of perception, and (c) the “object” of perception, the “object” perceived.

And perception in sense (i) can be understood to signify a

(a) capacity,

162 The exercise of the capacity for perceptual awareness of an object is not something that happens as a matter of course. We are sighted beings, but this does not mean that there such a thing as “a process of seeing”, i.e., some alleged process that takes place continuously once our eyes are open. In fact, most of the time our eyes are open we usually do not “notice” much of anything.

292 or

(b) an exercise of a capacity.

Consider sense (iii); in sense (iii), perception is a form of cognition. If we consider sense (iii) in light of the permutations of (a)-(c), we can say that perception, in sense (iii-c) would signify what is apprehended, namely, the fact itself.

Here we say that the fact that the cat was on the mat is what was apprehended; in this sense, the fact just was his perception. In sense (iii-a), perception signifies a faculty or capacity for apprehension. In this sense, perception is a source of knowledge. In sense, (iii-b) perception signifies the actualization of this cognitive capacity.

Perception, in sense (iii) is a cognitive phenomenon as opposed to a cogitative phenomenon. And perception is never a cogitative phenomenon, in any sense (i-iii)163. Perception, in sense (iii) is thus akin to knowing, as opposed to thinking or believing. Perception provides us with knowledge, perceptual knowledge, as opposed to with beliefs or opinions.

Perception as the exercise of a cognitive capacity (iii-b) is an occurrence in the life of the human being; it is the acquiring of knowledge. And perception, as what is perceived (iii-c) in the exercise of this cognitive capacity, is just the knowledge itself.

Perception understood in (iii-a), namely, as a source of facts gained through perception, is a source of knowledge. Perception in this sense is not a “reason for

163 The exercise of the capacity for observation allows us to “come to know” some fact. We come into cognitive possession of a fact. The exercise of this capacity is thus a source of knowledge. But it is critical that the exercise of this capacity is not a form of thinking. It is not a form of thinking; it is a form of possessing, i.e, the coming to possess a fact.

293 belief”, but a source. This body of knowledge (iii-c) can, of course, be the foundation for the formation of beliefs. And so, in a sense, perception as a source of fact (iii-a)

“provides us” with materials for belief, i.e., known facts (iii-c). But perception (iii-a) is not a “reason” for anything; for, a reason is something that has propositional form; but a capacity is not something that has propositional form. Rather, what the perception provides us with, i.e., knowledge, is the reason. For, a reason for belief is a proposition believed or known. And a source is categorially dis-analogous to a proposition. Rather a source is a kind of capacity, and propositions and capacities are not categorially analogous to one another.

Perceptions in (iii-c) are just facts (which are) known perceptually. And these facts, which are known perceptually, can be reasons for beliefs. They can serve as premises in inferences. But (iii-c) is the only clear sense in which “perception can constitute reasons for beliefs”. However, perception’s constituting reasons for beliefs is not due perception’s “offering us a position on how things are”; rather it is simply that the perception is itself knowledge, i.e., a known fact. And a known fact is not a belief. For a known fact is something secured within our possession; but a belief is something we hold or put forward.

McDowell confuses cognition with cogitation164, in the context of his discussion of perception, when he says that our perception offers to us a position about how things are. That is akin to suggesting that perception is a homunculus-

164 One sees the general conflation in contemporary philosophy between cognition and cogitation in the way in which we define knowledge which is a cognitive phenomenon in terms of the idea of “truly believing”: for insofar as “believing” is regarded as a form of thinking, this means that the cognitive phenomenon of knowledge is defined in terms of the cogitative phenomenon of thinking.

294 cogitator providing veritable testimony or opinions or reasoned beliefs about how things are. But perception is a source of knowledge; it is a form of cognition.

(1.1.1) McDowell’s debate with Travis concerning the ordinary uses of perceptual vocabulary

McDowell unpacks the idea that perception offers us “positions on how things are” by suggesting that in perception things “look to us to be a certain way”.165 In “things looking to us to be a certain way in perception”, perception

“suggests a position for us to adopt or reject”. In reference to this idea, Charles

Travis has rightly pointed out that it is critical to not overlook the distinctions that

Austin makes in Sense and Sensibilia166 between the uses of the words ‘looks’,

‘appears’ and ‘seems’.167 If something seems to me to be a certain way this is because I have inferred that things are this way on the basis of evidence gained via perception qua source of knowledge. Thus, in something’s “seeming a certain way”, perception itself does not “offer a position” to me (whatever that would mean, once the anthropomorphic metaphor is dropped); rather, I make an inference to a belief based on my evidence. On the other hand, when things look a certain way to me, that

165 See Lecture I of Mind and World. In “Avoiding the Myth of the Given”, McDowell says that perception does not offer us a “propositional content” but only an “intuitional content”. This, as far I can tell, is a mere verbal maneuver. McDowell is reserving the word ‘propositional content’ for the content of paradigmatic cogitative acts such as thinking and believing. And he using the term ‘intuitional content’ for the content of perception. However, intuitional content has all the earmarks of a content given in a that clause. The only difference is that the content is not actively endorsed, as it is in paradigmatic cognitive acts. He also says that the entities contained in an intuitional content needn’t fall under non-categorial kinds, but only categorial kinds. But one could say this about “propositional content” as well. I can assert the proposition that “Socrates is pale”, but I can also assert the proposition that “A substance is pale”. (John McDowell, “Avoiding the Myth of the Given” in Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel and Sellars (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009) Sections 3-7)) 166 J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), Chapter 4 167 See Charles Travis, The Silence of the Senses in Mind (2004) pp. 57-94; See also Charles Travis, “Reason’s Reach” in John McDowell: Experience, Norm, and Nature, edited by Jakob Lindgaard (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008) for a development of the argument.

295 typically means that I am inclined to compare the visual presentation of the object with certain models of comparison. For example, if a certain chair looks like a antique, even though I know it is not an antique, this means that I am inclined to compare the chair to an antique based on how it looks. But in such a case, there is no suggestion that there is some specific objective way the chair is, which I am invited to accept or reject. Travis thus argues that there is no hope in grounding the idea that perception “offers us positions on how things are” in the idea that “in perception things look a certain way to us”.

McDowell counters this criticism with the suggestion that there is a perfectly ordinary sense of ‘look’ in which “how things look” is how things would be objectively described on the basis of the exercise of the visual faculty. For, example if I am walking with a person who is blindfolded, the blindfolded person might ask me “how do things look?”: and I might respond “We are approaching a hill, and so watch your step”. Of course, it is not clear that McDowell is correct that this is in fact an ordinary use of ‘look’. Were I accompanying a blindfolded person, the blindfolded person would be more likely to simply ask me “what is in front of us?” and not “how do things look?”.

In any case, it is ultimately because McDowell fails to distinguish between cognition and cogitation that McDowell becomes mired in this debate with Travis over ordinary uses of perceptual words, in the first place. For, perception is not something that “offers us positions on how things are” at all (whether or not we say the content is “intuitional” or “propositional”). For, that is to compare perception with a form of cogitation, when in fact perception is a form of cognition.

296 To illustrate the distinction between cognition and cogitation, consider what

Austin has to say about the distinction between the questions “How do you know?” versus “Why do you believe?”. Austin notes that we do not typically use the expression “Why do you know?”, at all, except when we wish to suggest that someone shouldn’t know what they know, and we never, under any circumstance, say “How do you believe?”168 This, again, is due to the fact that cogitation is not the same thing as cognition. Perception in (iii-a) explains “how I know”, but not “why I believe”, since perception, in this sense, is a source of knowledge; and perception in

(iii-c) helps to explain “why I believe” but not “how I know”, since perception in this sense is just a foundation of perceptual knowledge itself.

(1.1.2) Animal versus Distinctively Human Forms of Perception

A human can fail to exercise the capacity for perceptual attention (seeing) even when the sensory capacity for vision remains in operation. This describes the case in which a person’s eyes are open and are functioning normally, but where one fails to notice or see something within the field of vision. Thus, we must distinguish

(a) the activation of the sense modality of vision, from (b) seeing an object, from (c) the perception of a state of affairs. The activation of the sense modality of vision is a purely animal-sensory phenomenon; by contrast, the seeing of an object involves the person’s noticing some particular thing in the environment. And the perception of a state of affairs, on the part of a person, involves the acquisition of knowledge of a state of affairs involving environmental entities or events. (One can have (a) without either (b) or (c)) The objects one sees (in the case of b) and the states of

168 J. L. Austin, “Other Minds” in Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961) p. 81

297 affairs (in the case of c) one perceives are not “in the head” or “in the mind”; they are things we are conscious of or states of affairs which we perceive, but they are not

“part of consciousness” in the sense of being akin to sensations, which are mere occurrences in sensory consciousness.

We must further distinguish sensations, such as pains, from distinctively sensory qualities, such as being salty, from ordinary observable qualities such as being large or being red, from physical qualities such as having a boiling point of such and such. Sensations are occurrences in sensory consciousness. Sensory qualities are sensed attributes of objects that are by definition appreciated in sensory consciousness. Observable qualities are qualities of objects, period, which are possible to discern through observation, but they are not essentially sensed qualities, such as being pungent.

Animals possess vision (i) and, some “higher animals”, possess rudimentary forms of perception in senses (ii) and (iii). But animals lack Reason. And thus even when animals possess rudimentary forms of knowledge gained via perception (iii- a), there is nothing that they can go on to do with this knowledge. For, animals lack the rational capacities to make inferences on the basis of their rudimentary knowledge. Nevertheless, we might say that it is, first and foremost, the Rational animal for whom perception is a full-blown source of knowledge, as opposed to being a mere faculty of vision.

Aristotle regarded Perception as what distinguishes animals from plants.

This is not to suggest that animals have a “property” that plants lack. It is rather to

298 suggest that animals are the sorts of things that are combinable with a range of contraries that fall under the genus Perception, in the proposition.

Aristotle also regarded Perception as something that humans share with animals.169 The idea that we share Perception with animals seems hard to deny when perception is understood in sense (i). But it is not the case that animals have perception in senses (ii) and (iii) in the robust senses in which human possess them.

For, perception as a form of full-blown cognition is only intelligible in the context of the other cognitive, cogitative and linguistic capacities of a human being. Thus, while humans share Perception with animals, humans have Perception in a distinctively human way.

Perception in sense (i) is not the sort of thing that can be a source of reasons or constitute reasons at all. And that is what Sellars has in mind when he speaks of the “myth of the given”.170

(1.2) McDowell on Naturalism

McDowell is correct to suggest that if perception, in the epistemically relevant sense, were a merely biological phenomenon (he calls it a phenomenon within the “realm of law”), then it would not be the kind of thing that could intelligibly allow us to understand the possibility of human knowledge.

Now, in light of the above remarks, the way I would be inclined to frame this idea would be to say that, if perception is to be a source of knowledge, then

169 Aristotle, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. I, Edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) 145a1-10 170 , Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997) Chapter 1

299 perception cannot be a purely biological phenomenon. For, pace McDowell perception is a form of cognition, not cogitation; and thus perception consists of a source of knowledge.

For, were “perception” to signify the material-causal basis of perception, i.e., the neural structures that make human perception physiologically possible, then

“perception” would merely consist of brain structures that stand in causal relations to various brain phenomena. And, such a thing would not be an epistemic source of knowledge, in any sense: that is, it would not be a human cognitive faculty, the exercise of which yields true propositions, propositions that are knowingly possessed. As a source of knowledge, perception is a human cognitive phenomenon; and cognition is not a phenomenon of the psychical, biological or physical domains.

For, nothing in the merely biological or physical worlds could constitute a human source of knowledge.

And we can also accept a qualified version of McDowell’s transcendental claim; for, were perception not intelligible as a source of knowledge, then we would not be able to make sense of knowledge at all. No mere animal has a perceptual faculty that constitutes an epistemic source. For, a source of knowledge is a faculty the exercise of which yields knowledge. And mere animals do not exercise a faculty, in the distinctively human sense, to acquire knowledge, in the distinctively human sense. Animals, e.g., do not go and take a look at how things are in order to determine how things are. We might say that it is first and foremost the Rational animal for whom perception is a source of knowledge in a robust sense of the word.

300 McDowell is correct that perception is a human capacity and that it cannot be a merely biological phenomenon, if it is to play the explanatory role that it must.

Nevertheless, McDowell insists on classifying perception as a “natural” phenomenon. What could this mean?

McDowell says that perception is a “natural” phenomenon because he does not want to regard perception as a “supernatural” phenomenon, and he worries that by simply avoiding reductionism in philosophical anthropology and in the philosophy of mind, that his position will be thought to entail the existence of a

“supernatural perceptual and mental phenomena”.171

In any case, this leads McDowell to make a distinction between “two kinds of nature”, what he calls “first nature” and “second nature”. “First nature” is what we, in Chapter 2, have been referring to as “nature”; i.e., the mode that qualifies the

“natural world”. And “second nature” is what we have been referring to, in Chapter

2, as the “human”, i.e., the mode that qualifies the “human world”.

Thus, from our point of view, McDowell’s idea that the human being and the human mind and perception are a part of “second nature” amounts to the claim that these phenomena are part of the human world.

However, as we have argued in Chapter 2, there is no clear and distinct idea called “the supernatural world”. And, thus, “the natural world” cannot be opposed to

171 McDowell argues that Rorty does not want to embrace reductionism either, but that Rorty is unable to see how to find a place for perception and cognition that is neither merely natural nor supernatural; thus, according to McDowell, Rorty is forced to deny that perception and cognition are “phenomena” at all. McDowell suggests that with the concept of “second nature”, Rorty would be free to embrace the idea that perception and cognition are natural and irreducible phenomena. (John McDowell, “Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mind” in The Engaged Intellect: Philosophical Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009) p. 263

301 “the supernatural world”, since a term cannot be opposed to something that is incoherent. We would thus argue that there is no reason for McDowell to worry about whether perception is or isn’t a “supernatural” phenomenon, in the first place; since the idea of the “supernatural” is not clear and distinct.

From our standpoint, McDowell’s “naturalism” is thus not a form of naturalism at all. It is simply a recognition that there is a distinction between the natural world and the human world. And McDowell, we think, is quite right to recognize this.172

From our standpoint, then, it would be vacuous to suggest that the human world is “also” natural. For, then there would simply be no distinction whatever between what was natural and what was not natural, since the only relevant opposition to natural in this context is human, and so the term “natural” would lose its meaning. We would simply have to supply a new verbal distinction to make the contrast. And this McDowell does with his idiosyncratic terminology “first nature” versus “second nature”.

Summing up:

We are not forced to choose between two false understandings of human perception, the naturalistic understanding, and the McDowellian understanding.

According to the naturalistic understanding, perception is a merely causal- dispositional-phenomenon in the biological realm. And according to the

McDowellian understanding, perception is a quasi-rational-intuitional-phenomenon

172 Where we disagree is in McDowell’s claim that the natural world can be defined as the “realm of law”; for, we have argued above that, in light of the categorial plurality of Worldly domains, the natural world cannot be defined positively in this way; it can only be defined privatively, as what is “not” human.

302 in the space of cogitation or reckoning (reason giving). But, perception is neither.

Perception is a human cognitive phenomenon. It is a human-source of human- knowledge.

(2) John Searle and the Reality of the Artifactual Realm

We have argued that human cognition cannot be defined as computation. For, the definition of computation must already presuppose human cognition. A computational process is a process in which symbols are manipulated in accordance with human-instituted rules. And if we ask what symbols are, we invariably must make reference to human culture and to human beings and thus to human cognition and cogitation and Reason. Computation, thus, cannot define cognition or cogitation; rather, it formal-causally presupposes cognition and cogitation as necessary conditions of its formal-causal intelligibility. To say that human understanding or thinking is essentially “computational” is thus false: it can be computational if someone is computing something by manipulating symbols in accordance with rules; but it cannot be essentially computational, since computation is a special case of cogitation/cognition.

We have also argued that phenomena of biology and physics cannot be intrinsically computational, i.e., that computation cannot be present intrinsically in biological and physical phenomena. For, computation involves operations on symbols in accordance with instructions. Symbols belong to human culture. And instructions are phenomena that make reference to the human realm. There are no symbols, intrinsically, in the physical or biological worlds, and neither are there, intrinsically, human instructions being carried out in these realms. The brain is part

303 of the biological world. Symbols and rules (procedures) are part of the cultural world. Computation is defined in terms of symbols and rules (procedures).

Therefore, computation is part of the cultural-human-artifactual world, and cannot be part of the biological world.

This last point, I think, can be found in the work of John Searle. However,

Searle works with a naturalistic assumption about what is “ultimately real” that leads him to frame this point in a manner that is misguided. Physics and biology,

Searle, says are what are ultimately “real”. Thus, if something can be shown to be a non-natural phenomenon, then it is thereby shown to be “unreal”.

In light of these assumptions, there are three inferences that Searle is inclined to make: first, since computation essentially involves “symbols” and since symbols are part of culture and thus not part of physics or biology, then it follows that computation is “unreal”. Second, since the hardware of the machine-computer is real (as opposed to the unreal computation), then it follows that the hardware of the computer is a physical phenomenon, a phenomenon that belongs to “physics”.

Third, since the “computational” aspects of a computer are “unreal”, then it follows that they are “in the eye of the beholder”; these “fictional” processes take place “over and above” the “brute” “physical” processes in the computer.

I am not inclined to accept any one of these inferences, for, these inferences rest on a false assumption about what reality “really” is, as well as on a failure to understand the distinction between mechanics and physics.

(5.1) The Hardware of a computer is not part of the Physical World: it is part of the Artifactual World

304 A machine-computer is not a physical phenomenon at all; it is manmade artifactual machine. It is a phenomenon of the artifactual world.

There is a deeply ingrained prejudice in contemporary and modern philosophy that “mechanics” is a branch of “physics”. But mechanics is a branch, not of physics, but of engineering. The atomistic units of mechanical phenomena are machine parts, which have their characteristic functions in light of some telos. But in the merely physical world, there is no telos whatsoever and thus no functions. The physical world is meaningless, but the world studied in “mechanics” can hardly be said to be meaningless.

A machine-computer is thus an entity in the artifactual realm. And being a peculiar sort of entity in the artifactual realm, namely, a symbolic processing mechanism, a machine-computer is “really” just that, namely, a symbolic processing mechanism. Now, a machine-computer can be regarded as if it were nothing more than a collection of physical phenomena. But that is not what the computer is, what it really and most authentically is. Consider the case of a chair; a chair can be regarded as a merely physical object; but that is not what a chair is; a chair is a artifactual-functional object, with functional parts, along with a basic primary function, in light of a telos. Thus, to regard a chair as mere bits of wood is not to regard the chair as what the chair most authentically is.

We are within our rights if we wish to conceptualize a machine-computer as a mere conglomeration of physical phenomena, but that does not make the machine- computer a mere physical phenomenon. A machine-computer is an information processing mechanism. The logic gate circuits of a computer quite literally involve

305 the manipulation of symbols in accordance of rules. This is because the logic gate circuits are not “mere physical objects or phenomena”; rather they a mechanical- artifactual phenomena. And they are expressly designed such that the voltage levels mediated by the logic gates can be used as symbols. In fact, the voltage levels of the logic gate circuit are just symbols. The voltage levels are symbols, no less than ‘1’ and ‘0’ are symbols: and in this sense, quite literally ‘1’s’ and ‘0’s’ being manipulated inside the hard drive; however, there is nothing mysterious about that.

A binary computation on a chalkboard involves the manipulation of symbols in accordance with rules. But, it would be absurd to suggest that was not real, simply because at a physical level all that exists is chalk particles and no symbols. The same can be said about the logic gates and the voltage levels they mediate. In hardware

“code” the voltage levels just are symbols; but it would be absurd to suggest that simply because these symbols can be regarded as mere voltage levels as opposed to as symbols, which is what they are, that therefore, they are not really symbols, and that the symbolic processes of the gates are thus merely “in the eye of the beholder”.

For, the symbolic processes of a computer are no less in the “eye of the beholder” than the symbolic calculation in chalk on a chalkboard is in the “eye of the beholder”. For, indeed, it is not “in the eye of the beholder”; it is on the chalkboard.

(5.2) The artifactual and cultural realms are as real as any other

Searle’s idea that computation is not “real” arises from the prejudice that reality exclusively consists of the physical and biological domains. But this is contradicted by the existence of an enormous body of non-scientific knowledge regarding the artifactual domain, along with the categorial irreducibility of the

306 categorematic elements of this knowledge to notions that structure the biological and physical domains.

Searle argues that “chairs” wouldn’t exist if humans didn’t exist and that, therefore, chairs are not “real kinds of things”. He says that “chair” is a not a

“genuine kind”. But this, I think, is confused. If humans had never existed, then, all things being equal, no one would have been around to make chairs. But, if all the humans were to perish, all else being equal, then there would certainly still be many chairs that remained in the world. The fact that chairs belong to the artifactual realm is no reason to suggest that chairs are not a legitimate kind of thing or that the kind “chair” is not an actual real kind and is somehow “merely nominal”. For, not only do chairs exist, really, but the kind “chair” has a clear essence.

Why should we assume that kinds of physical phenomenon are the only legitimate kinds? If that were the case, that would imply that the only genuine knowledge was of physics. But, that is simply mistaken and also unintelligible, as such an assumption would actually prevent us from making sense of the very idea of physics itself, as we have shown above. For, the existence of the legitimate grammars that govern the elements of non-physical known propositions are required for the intelligibly of the grammars that govern the elements of physical reality.

In summary:

John Searle is correct that computation and information processing are not part of physics and biology, and thus he is, of course, correct that it is nonsensical to assume, as cognitive scientists do, that the brain is intrinsically a computer.

However, Searle is wrong to suggest that computation and information processing

307 are not “real” or “legitimate” phenomena, that they are somehow fictions or “in the eye of the beholder”. The artifactual and cultural domain is as real as any other domain of reality. Machine-computers are not merely physical phenomena; they are artifactual phenomena: and the symbolic operations of a computer are genuine and real operations that take place on the hardware of these artifacts.

Searle overlooks the essential ontology of computers when he suggests that computers are “mere physical systems that are engaged in make-believe processes”; on the contrary, computers are real, artifactual, systems engaged in real symbolic- processes.

(3) P. M. S. Hacker and the Deepest Source of the Mereological Fallacy

I am quite sympathetic to Hacker’s philosophy across the board. His neo-

Aristotelian account of philosophical anthropology and his (I call it “Socratic”) example of how philosophers can engage with the scientific community have been integral to my whole way of thinking. Hacker’s proposal that Wittgenstein inadvertently rediscovered aspects of Aristotelian philosophical anthropology has also had an enormous influence on the general point of view of this dissertation.

Where I primarily diverge from Hacker is in his account of meta-philosophy. I have discussed these disagreements in Chapter 1.

What I want to suggest in this section is that Hacker should pay more attention to what I am calling the “artifactual categorial framework” in his diagnosis of what he calls the “mereological fallacy”.173

173 Bennett and Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Part I, Chapter 3

308 The mereological fallacy is the idea that the cognitive and cogitative acts and processes and occurrences can be borne by propositional subjects other than the human subject bearer. Descartes commits this fallacy when he ascribes cognitive and cogitative predicables to the mind. And post-Cartesian, materialist, philosophers commit this fallacy when they ascribe cognitive and cogitative predicables to the brain. According to Hacker, post-Cartesian philosophers replaced the mind-body dualism with the brain-body dualism and then mapped the predicables that were attributed to the mind onto the new subject bearer of the brain.

For this reason Hacker regards contemporary property dualism as embodying this form of categorial confusion. For, although property dualism avoids the categorial mistake of categorizing the mind as a Substance, it nevertheless commits the mereological fallacy by ascribing cognitive and cogitative predicables to the brain. At a very high level of generality then, property dualists are thus still

“Cartesian” according to Hacker; for, in a categorial-sense of the word “Cartesian”, what makes someone Cartesian is simply that they eschew the human subject bearer as the proper bearer of cognitive predicables. Like Cartesian dualists, property dualists are still categorially committed to the idea that cognitive and cogitative predicables are grammatically attributable to a non-human subject.

What Hacker does not explain is why the post-Cartesian, non-dualistic, philosophers simply didn’t replace the Cartesian mind with the human being, as the bearer of cognitive predicables. And, more importantly, Hacker never provides a deep diagnosis of why Descartes himself was originally inclined to ascribe cognitive predicables to the mind, in the first place.

309 The really deep question, then, which Hacker does not sufficiently take on, is why philosophers in the early modern, modern and contemporary period have been inclined to regard cognitive and cogitative predicables as predicables that must attach to a non-human subject. The really deep question is why we have been wont to commit the mereological fallacy ever since the early modern period. What we want to know is why philosophy became “categorially-Cartesian” in the first place.

What I want to suggest is that the answer lies in the fact that early modern, modern and contemporary philosophy has been mired in what I call the “artifactual categorial picture” of reality.

According to this framework, reality is a kind of artifactual realm, whether the relevant substances are regarded as material or immaterial.

On the artifactual categorial picture, the “body” is regarded as a machine, the physical world is regarded as a great “mechanism”, and the mind is regarded as an

“information or representation processing system”. On Descartes’ conception, the mind was regarded as an immaterial representational system. And on the post-

Cartesian materialist conception, the mind was regarded as a material representation processing system. But, the distinction between whether the systems are material or immaterial is itself relatively unimportant. What matters is the categorial-character of these systems, namely, that they are regarded in terms of an artifactual grammar.

We know, however, from reflection on Turing Machines that some homunculus is needed to interpret the results of the computations or representations of the symbolic information processing system. And, thus, when the

310 mind is regarded as an information processing system, run on, e.g., the brain, or on some “immaterial entity”, some homunculus is needed to interpret the results of these computations or representations. And thus “interpreting” and “reading” and

“processing” become the primary forms of cognition assigned to the entity running the information processing system. And this I believe constitutes the deepest source of the tendency to represent the mind or brain as the bearer of cogitative predicables.

When Descartes learned in a rudimentary sense about the neurological processes that make human vision neurologically possible, he was tempted to suggest that the “retinal reflection” perceivable by an outside observer was

“transmitted” “inside” the person and that this imagistic retinal transmission is what allowed the person to see. Descartes thus concluded that “what” a “person” sees when “he” sees are “images” inside the “person”. The “inside” of the “person” was interpreted “non-materially”, but what is important is that it is “images” that were said to be seen.

An “inner” “proto-movie theater” whether it is constituted on a material or

“non-material” medium requires an “audience” of “movie watchers” in the “proto- movie theater”. But the human being as whole could not be the observer of the

“inner movie”, since the human being is not “inside” the “human being”. And thus

Descartes posited an “inner observer” of the images, which he called “the Ego”. Of course, it was never explained how the “Ego sees” things given that the “Ego” does not have eyes, but this problem was simply ignored as pedestrian.

311 In the post-Cartesian era, an era that was still dominated by the artifactual categorial picture, the brain (as opposed to the putative “non-material” medium) came to be regarded as the hardware that is responsible for running a symbolic information processing system. It was because the brain was regarded as a computer that we needed a homunculus to interpret the symbolic results. And this is what ultimately explains the tendency to interpret the brain as if it were thinking or interpreting or reading or perceiving, over and above its merely processing representations or symbols. For, there was some homunculus needed to interpret or read the results of the brain-computer. And this is why cognitive and cognitive predicables were ascribed to the brain. Of course, what is never explored is how the

“brain” “reads” given that the brain does not have “eyes” and has never “learned” to read by being taught an alphabet. But such concerns are regarded as distractions.

And thus the deepest source of the mereological fallacy in the history of philosophy lies in the conceptual pressure exerted by the artifactual categorial framework. For, the reason we are stuck with the brain, as opposed to the human being, as the entity that should bear cognitive predicables is because we have already regarded reality exclusively within the artifactual mode (a mode which excludes the human being, or which only references the human being indirectly).

And this has led to the brain being interpreted as the hardware of a computer, since we need some medium to ground the computational processing. But, as with

Turning Machines, there needs to be some interpreter of the results of this system, and this we have invariably supplied by committing the mereological fallacy in

312 ascribing to the brain capacities of “interpretation” and “reading” without which the artifactual picture would lack coherence.

(4) James Conant

James Conant’s understanding of the distinction between sense and nonsense has been central to my understanding of ontology, existence, categories and categorial-grammar, throughout this dissertation.

Conant claims, following Wittgenstein’s remarks in the Tractatus, that there is no such thing as a side-ways-on view on “the intelligible” and “the lack thereof”.

Were we able to have a side-ways-on view, then “the intelligible” and “the unintelligible” would belong to a higher non-nominal genus. We would then be in a position to see “what” is “unintelligible” alongside “what” is “intelligible”, such that we could then draw a boundary line around “what is intelligible”, excluding, for the first time, as it were, what is unintelligible. Conant’s objection is that this would imply that we were treating nothing as a real (as opposed to merely apparent) object of thought.

What follows from this is that the very idea that there could be “rules of sense and nonsense” is incoherent. For, the idea of “rules of sense” requires that there be some access to a genuine higher genus that allows us to think about something and nothing, as if they were both something: however, the only higher genus is “something or nothing”: and this genus provides no guarantee that “what” we think makes sense. For, if “something” is nonsense, it is not because “it” is nonsense; for there is no “it” at all.

313 In fact, sense and nonsense defines the essence of thought itself. For the basic categorial-grammatical structures that define thought-contents are determined by rock bottom facts about what does and doesn’t make sense. Thus, we cannot engage in thinking, i.e., the having of thoughts, concerning the changes we would like to make in the essence of thought itself. We have no control over sense and nonsense.

For, this would mean that we were thinking about something and deciding whether it would be nothing; or it would mean that we were thinking about nothing and deciding whether it would be something.

Conant is inclined to express this position by saying that “there is no such thing as substantial nonsense”; “there is only mere nonsense”. “Substantial nonsense” he says would the kind of nonsense there would be if there were such a thing as a “meaningless proposition”. However, all propositions, he says, are by definition meaningful; there is no such thing as a proposition that is meaningless; if it is meaningless then it is not even a proposition.

Conant is inclined to infer, however, that because there is no such thing as

“substantial nonsense”, then there is also no such thing as a “category mistake” or a

“logical impossibility”.

However, here I want to say that Conant is making an inferential leap that depends on a controversial , which I do not accept. The premise is a radical version of a semantic interpretation of the .174 The principle says that a word has a meaning only in the context of a meaningful sentence. It follows

174 James Conant, “Wittgenstein on Meaning and Use”, Philosophical Investigations, 21:3 (July 1998) pp. 222-250

314 from this that if a sentence is meaningless, then the putative words in the sentence cannot be assigned a meaning either. Interpreted in terms of “propositions”, this principle would come to the idea that a propositional element only is a proposition element in the context of a proposition. The reason Conant thinks this undermines the idea of “category mistakes” is because a category mistake presupposes the possibility that there could be propositional elements that don’t combine with one another, in isolation from their occurrence in a (by definition, meaningful) proposition.

Now, I want to suggest that this version of the context principle is likely to be false. Furthermore, Conant does not need this principle in order to criticize the idea of substantial nonsense anyway.

By contrast, the context principle is quite sensible if it is construed as a methodological principle. Methodologically interpreted, it would amount to the idea that we should consider the context in which a sentence is used if we wish to understand the meaning of a word. For, then we can best see how it is being used in this present context.

Given that Conant eschews the notion of “category mistake”175, why does

Conant think a sentence is nonsense when it is? He says that we “fail to find a context of significant use”. But then the question is why do we fail to find this?

Conant says that we fail to find a “context of significant use” because we fail to see how the words given their typical meanings in significant contexts add up to a

175 James Conant, “Three ways of Inheriting Austin”, in La philosophie du langage ordinaire: Histoire et actualité de la philosophie d’Oxford, edited by Chirstoph Al-Saleh and (Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 2011) Chapter 17

315 context of significant use in this context. But here, Conant seems to be splitting hairs; for we can say that the “meaning” of a word is just what Conant is calling the

“meaning it typically has in its context of use”. But in that case, nonsense is just explained by what I have been calling “categorial-grammar”.

With Conant, we can reject the idea of substantial nonsense, while holding on to the idea of “category mistakes”, which Conant mistakenly lumps together under the same heading as “substantial nonsense”. For, there is no reason to accept a radical version of the context principle, in which words cannot have meanings at all outside the context of a meaningful sentence. Moreover, such an idea appears to be little more than a notational convention. For, Conant captures the common idea of word meaning with the idea of the “meaning the word typically has in its context of use”.

316

Chapter 4: The Socratic-Aristotelian Tradition

(1) Aristotle’s Socrates

Western Philosophy begins in a decisive manner with Socratic inquiry.

Socrates introduced into the western tradition a conception of inquiry that was intended to contrast with the “scientific” inquiry of his day. [Socrates] soon “became convinced that the study of nature is not man’s concern and therefore began to philosophize about the ethical in workshops and in the market-place. (Diogenes

Laertius, II, V, 21)”176

Socrates and his interlocutor inquire into “What is…?” questions, typically regarding the essential-“philosophical” nature of some ethical attribute.

We can say that whatever else philosophy is, it will include Socratic inquiry, as a part. For, Socratic inquiry is a paradigm of Western philosophical inquiry. It is difficult to imagine what philosophy would be without Socratic inquiry.

(2) Aristotle’s expansion of Socratic inquiry in Categories

In Categories, Aristotle teaches us to ask a new kind of philosophical question: namely, the question “What kind of thing is X?” This is a different kind of philosophical question altogether. The latter asks for the formal-cause, whereas the former asks for the “category” of X.

(3) Both Socratic and Aristotelian inquiries are rooted in the essential structure of the proposition

176 Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, edited and translated by Edna Hong and Howard Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985) p. 11

317

But, as we have argued in Chapter 1, what is essential to appreciate is that both inquiries, i.e., inquiry into the Socratic Form and inquiry into the Aristotelian category, are a priori inquiries that are rooted in the subject-predicable structure of the proposition. And thus they are inquires that are deeply related to one another.

Socratic inquiry is inquiry into the “what it means to be?” of some predicable in the proposition. And, Aristotelian categorial inquiry is inquiry into the possibilities of predication in the proposition. Some beings, Aristotle says, are said of subjects; and some are not said of subjects.177 And this basic potentiality in the proposition is the key to fundamental differences of category.

With the proposition as a reference point and philosophical touchstone, we can understand both the specific Socratic (What is X?) and the Aristotelian (What kind of thing is X?) inquiries as belonging to a unified conception of philosophical inquiry in which philosophy is a reflection on the nature of entities in light of various modalities of the proposition. And, we have used the name “internal inquiry” to refer to any inquiry that defines itself in terms of the various modalities of the proposition.

Indeed, some of the basic aspects of what we call “internal Inquiry” can be traced back historically to Socrates and Aristotle. In this sense, our understanding of internal inquiry is historically grounded in basic ideas from ancient philosophy.

(4) Due to the influence of Plato on our interpretation of Socrates’ thought, there is some resistance to regarding Socrates and Aristotle as part of a unified conception of

177 Aristotle, Categories in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. I, Edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) 1b25-2a20

318 philosophical inquiry; however, this can be rectified by recalling that Aristotle rejected Plato’s mythological interpretation of the meaning of the Socratic quest for “forms”.

It can be difficult to see how Socratic inquiry can be continuous with

Aristotelian categorial inquiry, given the way in which Socratic inquiry is interpreted, by Plato, in the middle and later Platonic dialogues. For, it can seem as if the Platonic notion of Forms as substance-like entities that exist in the “true-world” of “forms”, over and against the “apparent” world of our environment, runs counter to Aristotle’s entire way of thinking. It is Aristotle, after all, whose palm faces the earth in Raphael’s “School of Athens”.

And yet, our understanding of what Socratic inquiry is can be divorced from

Plato’s own interpretation and conceptualization of this inquiry. And, it is of great interest to recall that Aristotle himself rejected Plato’s conceptualization of the

Socratic inquiry into Forms, on the grounds that Plato’s conception was rooted in a category mistake.

In the Metaphysics, Aristotle says that Socrates was the first philosopher to introduce “universal definition” into philosophy. However, Aristotle says that

“Socrates did not make the universals or the definitions exist apart; his successors, however, gave them separate existence, and this was the kind of thing they called

Ideas.”178

Aristotle goes on to say that

….those who believe in the Ideas…treat the Ideas as universal, and again as separable and individual. That this is not possible has been shown before…[Those who believe in the Ideas] thought that the sensible particulars were in a state of flux and none of them remained, but that the universal was apart from these and different. And Socrates gave the impulse to this theory, as we said before, by means

178 Aristotle, Metaphysics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. II, edited by Jonathan Barnes, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) 1078a17-32

319 of his definitions, but he did not separate them from the particulars; and in this he thought rightly, in not separating them. This is plain from the results; for without the universal it is not possible to get knowledge, but the separation is the cause of the objections that arise with regard to the Ideas. His successors, treating it as necessary, if there are to be substances besides the sensible and transient substances, that they must be separable…gave separate existence to these universally predicated substances, so that it followed that universals and individuals were almost the same sort of thing.179

Here Aristotle is critical of Plato’s conceptualization of sort of object relevant to Socratic inquiry, i.e., the forms. According to Aristotle, Plato was deaf to the categorial distinction between the kind of thing a substance is versus the kind of thing whose nature is being studied in Socratic inquiry, i.e., kinds and properties, both of which are non-substances. Plato’s assimilation of kinds and properties to substances led to the unclear and indistinct notion of a “Platonic Form” and this, in turn, resulted in the production of a number of confused questions about the

“existence” or “interaction” between “Forms” and the things of our environment, which we popularly associate with the philosophy of Plato.

(5) The criticism of a philosophical debate on the grounds that the debate rests on category confusion: an Aristotelian theme

Aristotle criticizes a debate of his day, namely, a debate about the “existence of forms”, on the grounds that both parties in the debate are making one and the same category-mistake. According to Aristotle, Plato’s “categorial framework” is not adequate to do justice to what forms are.

We might then distinguish in between two categorial-frameworks in which to understand the very idea of Socratic forms: the first we might call the “Platonic framework”, which tended to regard all entities as quasi-substances, and the second

179 Aristotle, Metaphysics, (my emphasis) 1086a30-b13

320 we might call the “Aristotelian framework, which made the distinction between substances and non-substances. And this allowed Aristotle to avoid the mistake of regarding the “forms” as “things that exist in a realm that is categorially analogous to the earthly environmental realm”.

The debate about whether “Forms exist” is a debate that takes place within the scope of the “Platonic-categorial framework”. In other words, the “realist” about

“forms” says that “forms exist” qua Substantial entities in “a supernatural realm”; and the “anti-realist” about “forms” says that they “don’t exist”, since the

“supernatural realm” doesn’t exist. Aristotle, however, would reject this entire debate on the grounds that both parties are working with unclear and indistinct ideas of “forms”, “existence”, “non-Worldly things”, which stem from categorial confusion.

The Platonic-categorial-framework is, of course, the framework common to both realism and nominalism, as well: for, according to this framework, the forms are qausi-substances; and whether those substances exist in an otherworldly realm or whether they exist as mere tangible signs, as nominalists think, is a less significant matter. The point is that the debate between nominalists and realists itself is one that takes place within the Platonic-categorial-framework. The debate is a symptom of the categorial framework itself. And if the framework is misguided, then the debate is as well. The Aristotelian categorial framework breaks free from this bogus dichotomy between realism and nominalism by regarding forms as non- substances.

321 As I have argued in Chapter 1, contemporary naturalists have inexplicably tended to map the matter/spirit distinction onto the substance/non-Substance distinction. But this is serious confusion, rooted in a lack of attention to the work of

Aristotle, which has hindered philosophical progress for quite sometime. The matter/spirit distinction is a distinction “within” the category of Worldly particulars. And thus it is relatively trivial. Questions, for example, as to whether a god exists or not have little to do with any issues in ontology: such questions are ontical, not ontological.

(6) The Socratic Role of Philosophy

I want to discuss another founding idea in Western philosophy that is connected to Socratic inquiry. This is the idea that philosophy has an essential

“Socratic role” to play. Philosophy’s “Socratic role” refers to the way in which philosophy engages in a dialogical manner with the broader non-philosophical culture.

In the early Platonic dialogues, the occasion for philosophical discussion is the utterance of a non-philosophical judgment, on the part of a non-philosopher.

The resulting philosophical discussion then concerns the formal-cause of one of the elements in the non-philosophical proposition that was uttered. The point of the philosophical discussion is to help the interlocutor clarify “what he means” by propositional-element X and what propositional-element X really does mean. In the process, the interlocutor may realize that his implicit philosophical understanding of X was misguided and that moreover the production of his non-philosophical

322 utterance (in light of the reasons he had for uttering it) was something that was reflective of this lack of understanding.

In the Euthyphro, e.g. Euthyphro, who is not a philosopher, makes the non- philosophical judgment that he, contrary to the opinion of his family members, is not acting impiously. The philosophical dialogue that follows, and which is occasioned by this judgment, is a form of internal inquiry into the “what it means to be” of the predicable “is pious”, as it figures in a possible proposition.

Once we arrive at the proper understanding of the conditions of application of this predicable, we will have a clearer interpretation of the formal-causal nature of the categorematic element “pious”: this may force us to revise our implicit philosophical understanding of piety; and we may then have a new perspective on the appropriateness of our having uttered this judgment.

The non-philosophical claims of the regarding their authority as provided the paradigmatic occasion for engaging in this kind of Socratic philosophical inquiry.

Part of what Socrates does in those contexts180 is to Socratically explore the differences between the kind of excellence that pertains to plants versus the kind of

180 “If you have heard from anyone that I undertake to teach people and charge a fee for it, that is not true either. I think it a fine thing to be able to teach people as ….and Prodicus and Hippias….Each of these men can go to any city and persuade the young, who can keep company with any one of their own fellow citizens they want without paying, to leave the company of these, to join with themselves, pay them a fee, and be grateful to them besides…..I learned that there is another wise man from Paros who is visiting us, for I met a man who has spent more money on sophists than everybody else put together, Callias. ….so I asked him---he has two sons---“Callias” I said, “if your sons were colts or calves, we could find and engage a supervisor for them who would make them excel in their proper qualities, some horse breeder or farmer. Now since they are men, whom do you have in mind to supervise them? Who is an expert in this kind of excellence, the human and social kind? I think you must have given thought to this since you have sons. Is there such a person,” I asked, “or is there not?” “Certainly there is,” he said. “Who is he?” I asked. “what is his name, where is he from? And what is his fee?” “His name, Socrates, is Evenus, he comes from Paros, and his fee is

323 excellence that pertains to animals versus the kind of excellence that pertains to humans. And then on that basis, Socrates inquires into the meaning of the very idea

“human excellence”. One possibility that emerges is that we have confused the kind of thing human excellence is with these other forms of excellence, and then on that basis have assumed that there could be such a straightforward thing as an

“authority of human excellence”.

The route to plant excellence, i.e. the route to bio-flourishing, can be taught; and so there can be authorities on how to attain it by following specific procedures.

Animal excellence, i.e., psychical flourishing, can also be advised; and so there can be advisers on how to attain it by following general guidelines. But, human excellence, i.e., the health of the soul, cannot be taught in this way; for, that would imply that one human being could make another human being excellent through some rote procedure; and it would also imply that there could be differences in authority among human beings regarding the “practice” of being an excellent human being.

And this contradicts the assumption that humans are Rational creatures, who are essential authorities on the ethical, in virtue of possessing Reason and Reason alone.

There is no such coherent thing as an authoritative person who by his or her

“authority” obviates the other’s need to listen to the “universal authority” of reason itself.”---In this sense, much of what Socrates does in these contexts consists in adumbration of the concept of Enlightenment, as, e.g., understood by Kant.181 Given

five minas.” I thought Evenus a happy man, if he really possesses this art, and teaches for so moderate a fee. Certainly I would pride and preen myself if I had this knowledge, but I do not have it, gentlemen.” (Plato, Apology, The Complete Works of Plato, Translated by Benjamin Jowett (The Complete Works Collection, 2011) (my emphasis) Kindle File)

324 the differences between plant excellence, animal excellence and human excellence, we might say that among human beings, the “highest relation” that one person may bear to another is that of being a “mid-wife”.182

Philosophical reflection occasioned in this context may help to change the interlocutor’s philosophical understanding of what “human excellence” is. Once the understanding is changed, the non-philosophical assertion that “I am a unique authority on human excellence” will perhaps no longer be a non-philosophical assertion that would be uttered, in that form, or with that kind of emphasis.

For, (i) the content of the non-philosophical utterances that a speaker utters,

(ii) the understanding of that content, and (iii) the tendency to utter such statements at all (for the reasons they are uttered), reflect that person’s philosophical understanding of the forms of the propositional elements contained in the propositional contents uttered. And non-philosophers will always already have some philosophical understanding of the formal-causes of these elements. But his understanding may be false or confused.

181 See Kant, Immanuel, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” in Perceptual Peace and Other Essays, translated by Ted Humphrey (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1983)

182 This is what Kierkegaard claims in his famous and lyrical interpretation of similar passages from the Apology and .

“In view of this, it is manifest with what wonderful consistency Socrates remained true to himself and artistically exemplified what he had understood. He was and continued to be a midwife, not because he “did not have the positive,” but because he perceived that this relation is the highest relation a human being can have to another. And in that he is indeed forever right, for even if a divine point of departure is ever given, this remains the true relation between one human being and another, if one reflects upon the absolute and does not dally with the accidental but with all one’s heart renounces understanding the half-measures that seem to be the inclination of men and the secrete of the system.” (Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, edited and translated by Edna Hong and Howard Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985) (my emphasis) p. 10

325 What I am then calling the “Socratic-role” of philosophy, then, consists in the dialogical, contextual, and dynamic, engagement between a philosopher and a non- philosopher, regarding the philosophical understanding that informs and is reflected in the interpretation of and tendency to utter the specific non- philosophical discourse in question. Although the “Socratic-role” of philosophy is not the central task of philosophy as such, those philosophers who regard philosophy as a form of Socratic-Aristotelian inquiry in the way we have outlined above will naturally see their work as having an essentially Socratic role. For, the conception of philosophy as Socratic-Aristotelian is rooted in the unity of the proposition. And the Socratic role of philosophy is itself defined as a philosophical reflection on the propositional elements of non-philosophical utterances, which appear in the context of dialogue between a philosopher and a non-philosopher.

(7) The methodological and meta-philosophical background of Kierkegaard’s “signed works”, along with the “pseudonymous works” that are philosophically akin to the signed writings, i.e., those “edited by Kierkegaard” (such as The Book on Adler: the religious confusion of the present age) can be understood as an inheritance and appropriation of the above Socratic and Aristotelian themes and concepts

I want to suggest that the methodological and philosophical work that is found in Kierkegaard’s signed writings along with the pseudonymous works that are

“edited by Kierkegaard”183 constitutes an appropriation of the above Socratic and

183 Not all of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works are “edited by Kierkegaard”. And Kierkegaard uses the “‘edited by Kierkegaard’ pretense” as a way of indicating that these works, though not written with Kierkegaard’s own voice, nevertheless accord with Kierkegaard’s own philosophical understanding of things. See Kierkegaard, The Point of View, pp. 31-2 and Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers, Vol. 6, §6445, §6431, §6433. This cannot necessarily be said of the pseudonymous works that are not “edited by Kierkegaard”. See “A First and Last Explanation”, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments;

326 Aristotelian concepts and themes, we have discussed. In making this argument, I want to distinguish three themes or concepts:

(i) Philosophy as Socratic-Aristotelian inquiry: philosophical inquiry is a combination of Socratic-Aristotelian philosophical resources: i.e., the idea that philosophical inquiry combines an inquiry into Socratic formal-causes enriched with Aristotelian categorial questions;

(ii) Categorially sensitive philosophy as something that can serve a critical function in the context of categorial confused debates: categorially-informed philosophy can provide a perspective on philosophical or intellectual debates in which the various parities in the debate all share the same categorial-confused assumptions regarding the subject matter of the debate;

(iii) A conception of philosophy as Socratic-Aristotelian is naturally connected to the idea that philosophy has an important “Socratic role” to play;

I want to argue these three ideas are combined and synthesized into a powerful meta-philosophical methodological conception of philosophy in the work of Kierkegaard; in fact, the dominant philosophical work of Kierkegaard’s signed writings along with those “edited” by Kierkegaard can be understood, for the most part, using the resources of Socratic thought combined with the Aristotelian sensitivity to categories.

Biographically speaking, we know that Kierkegaard was indebted to ancient philosophy, as historians of Kierkegaard’s work have emphasized both Socratic and

(Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1992)) (Kierkegaard deliberately omits the pagination to this appendix, since it is signed by him);

327 Aristotelian influences.184 Moreover, Kierkegaard’s thought is itself defined in terms of Socratic and Aristotelian themes. In The Point of View, Kierkegaard defines his methodological understanding of his “authorship” in terms of the concept of the

“”. And Kierkegaard outlines in detail how his work, which not obviously dialogical in its form, is, nevertheless a kind of variation of this method.

The name Kierkegaard gives to the audience of his work is “the present age”, which by no means marks off an exclusively philosophical audience: for, the present age is just the boarder culture in which Kierkegaard finds himself. This, of course, resonates with the Socratic idea that philosophical conversation arises in the context of non-philosophical ordinary life. Moreover, the central problem in the implicit conceptual framework, in thought of the present age, according to

Kierkegaard, is that it involves a form of what he calls a “confusion of categories”185.

And Kierkegaard seeks to rectify this categorial confusion by means of what he calls

“”186.

(7.1) Kierkegaard’s Socratic-Aristotelian understanding of philosophy and his “Socratic” understanding of the method and “role” of philosophy

Kierkegaard regarded the methodology of his own work as a variation of the

Socratic method.187

184 Kierkegaard wrote his dissertation, The Concept of Irony, on Socrates, and he was well-acquainted and sympathetic with the work of Trendelenburg who was one of the great scholars of Aristotle in the 19th century and who aimed to rehabilitate an interest in Aristotle’s thought. See the references to Trendelenburg in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Chapter II, and. See also Beiser, Late for an account of Trendelenburg’s thought. 185 Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1992) pp. 30-1 186 Søren Kierkegaard, Practice in , edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991) p. 29 187 Kierkegaard, The Point of View, (my emphasis) pp. 43-54

328 I calmly stick to Socrates. True, he was no Christian, that I know, although I also definitely remain convinced that he has become one. But he was a dialectician and understood everything in reflection. And the question here is purely dialectical—it is the question of the use of reflection in Christendom. Qualitatively two altogether different magnitudes are involved here, but formally I can very well call Socrates my teacher.188

In his work, The Point of View, Kierkegaard notes that the occasion for his philosophical project is the widespread utterance of the non-philosophical judgment that “I am a Christian” on the part of his contemporaries.

Everyone who in earnest and also with some clarity of vision considers what is called Christendom, or the condition in a so-called Christian country, must without any doubt immediately, have serious misgivings. What does it mean, after all, that all these thousands and thousands as a matter of course call themselves Christian! These many, many people, of whom by far the great majority, according to everything that can be discerned, have their lives in entirely different categories, something one can ascertain by the simplest observation!189

This non-philosophical judgment---“I am a Christian”---occasions formal- causal and categorial reflection on the meaning of the kind Christian, as well as on the genus . --- This should remind us of Plato’s Apology: for, it was the non- philosophical judgment on the part of the sophists that they were “authorities” that provided the occasions for Socratic inquiry. --- This leads Kierkegaard into a categorial investigation into the categorial differences between religious, ethical, scientific and esthetic preoccupations, more generally, as well differences in the category of the personal versus the category of the impersonal.

Something that is qualifiable by the categorial-mode of the esthetic is the kind of thing for which esthetic evaluation is called for, i.e., evaluation in terms of predicables such as is interesting or not, is beautiful or not, is profound or not, etc.

188 Kierkegaard, The Point of View, (my emphasis) pp. 54-5 189 Kierkegaard, The Point of View, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1998) (my emphasis) p. 41

329 Something that is qualifiable by the categorial-mode of the ethical is the kind of thing for which ethical evaluation is called for, i.e., evaluation in terms of predicables such as is conformable with the categorical imperative or not, etc. Something that is qualifiable by the categorial-mode of the scholarly is the kind of thing for which epistemic evaluation is called for, e.g. evaluation in terms of the predicables is epistemically conscientious or rigorous or not, etc. And something that is qualifiable by the categorial-mode of the religious is the kind of thing for which religious evaluation is called for, i.e., evaluation in terms of predicables such as is obedient to the supernatural authority or not, or obeys the supernatural authoritative scripture or not, etc. For, religion, according to Kierkegaard, is defined as what pertains to supernatural authority, which is regarded by Kierkegaard as an authority that

“paradoxically” transcends the universal authority of human enlightened reason.

(That this so-called “transcendence of enlightened reason” might make the concept of “religion” actually conceptually unstable is perhaps insufficiently explored by

Kierkegaard in his signed works.190)

Something belongs to the category of the personal (i.e., what Kierkegaard calls the “subjective”191) if it is a preoccupation that pertains to the life of an individual person. Something belongs to the category of the impersonal (the

“objective”) if it is a preoccupation that is indifferent to the life of an individual person. E.g., the word ‘student’ can refer to someone who has a certain impersonal

190 This issue is, however, raised in some of the pseudonymous writings. 191 See Jonathan Lear, Therapeutic Action: An Earnest Plea for Irony (New York, Other Press, 2004) Introduction and Chapter 2

330 objective status, e.g., being enrolled in an institution, but it can also refer to someone who has attained a kind of personal status by being engaged in a certain kind of life, namely, the life of a learner. One can succeed in being a student in an impersonal sense, by being enrolled in school, e.g. while failing to be a student in a personal sense, i.e., failing to engage in the kind of life of learning, as an individual: and the opposite scenario is also possible.

Kierkegaard thinks that once we make these internal categorial and formal- causal clarifications between the categories of the esthetic, ethical, religious and scholarly, along with the categories of the personal and impersonal, we will have a new perspective on the initial non-philosophical judgment that occasioned the philosophical investigation, namely, “I am a Christian”. For, (1) we will be able to provide a formal-causal interpretation of what this statement might mean. And (2) in light of these differing interpretations, we will be able to see that we did not have any clear idea of what we were saying, in uttering this statement. For, our utterance of this statement was a function of the fact that we lacked a clear and distinct idea of the differences between the religious, ethical, esthetic and scholarly categories.

Indeed, it is central to the cultural identity of what Kierkegaard calls “the present age” that each of these categories are confused with one another in the minds of his contemporaries.

Specifically, (a) epistemic scholarly earnestness is confused with religious obedience; (b) ethical virtue is confused with religious obedience; (c) esthetic or philosophical or scholarly or scientific authority is confused with religious authority; (d) religious understanding, i.e. obedience in action is confused with

331 scholarly understanding, i.e., knowledge; (e) esthetic greatness, e.g. an esthetically great novel, is confused with religious authoritativeness, e.g. a sacred religious text;

(f) the impersonal status of being a Christian on account of merely being a citizen of a Christian country or having a Christian name or having been baptized is confused with the personal status of being a Christian qua person who imitates the life of

Christ or who honestly acknowledges his inability to do so.

One in the same term, such as “inspiration” or “faith” or “authority” can signify properties belonging to different Kierkegaardian categories. And the promiscuity of words to signify items in different categories is actually exploited, according to Kierkegaard, consciously or unconsciously, by the present age, in order to obliterate, or shield from view, a clear and distinct concept of the religious and the

Christian.

Kierkegaard writes that the reason we (i.e., what he calls “the present age”) are inclined to call Socrates a genius is because, by putting him within the category of the esthetic-intellectual, we seemingly obliterate his status as an ethical role- model.192 And at that point, Socrates is no longer “that which every person can be”, i.e., the person who has the strength to go to his own death in the service of justice.

Once Socrates is regarded as an intellectual or genius, or as someone who is

“interesting”, he no longer exerts any ethical pressure on us. Kierkegaard makes analogous points about the way in which we discuss religious messiahs or apostles; we are inclined to treat them as philosophers, and thereby destroy their distinctively religious authority. He makes analogous points about religious-sacred

192 Søren Kierkegaard, The Diary of Søren Kierkegaard, edited by Peter Rohde (New York: Citadel Press, 1960) Part V, §5

332 texts; we treat such texts as philosophical works or as works of literature that require scholarly attention or literary criticism, as opposed to as texts that call for immediate obedience or rebellion. Religious earnestness is then tacitly re- conceptualized as scholarly seriousness or as esthetic appreciation, as opposed to what it actually is: i.e., existential resolve and obedient action. Lauding Socrates (the

“ethical hero”) as an intellectual or praising Christ (the “religious authority”) for his

“philosophical wisdom”, is something Kierkegaard regards as a form of “well- intentioned, unconsciousness rebellion”. It is a subtle and indirect way of destroying the distinctive character of the ethical or the religious, altogether.

Category confusion thus serves the present age’s strategy to avoid having to make a choice. For, the present age is marked by an incoherent but understandable desire to be both pagan and Christian, at the same time. And what Kierkegaard calls the “confusion of categories”, by means of the exploitation of the promiscuity of words, is the means by which this incoherent feat is seemingly achieved. This is

Kierkegaard’s moralistic diagnosis of the situation, at least. For, when the esthetic, scholarly, ethical, and religious are all confusedly blended together, it can easily come to seem that a pagan life and a Christian life are, essentially, “one and the same”.

What is it that the erroneous exegesis and speculative thought have done to confuse the essentially Christian, or by what means have they confused the essentially Christian? Quite briefly and with categorical accuracy, it is the following: they have shifted the sphere of the paradoxical-religious back into the esthetic and thereby have achieved the result that every Christian term, which by remaining in its sphere is a qualitative category, can now, in a reduced state, serve as a brilliant expression that means all sorts of things. When the sphere of the paradoxical-religious is now abolished or is explained back into the esthetic, an apostle becomes neither more nor less than a genius, and then good night to Christianity. Brilliance and spirit,

333 revelation and originality, the call from God and genius, an apostle and a genius---- all this ends up being just about one and the same.193

In this way an erroneous scholarship has confused Christianity, and from the scholarship the confusion has in turn sneaked into the religious address, so that one not infrequently hears pastors who in all scholarly naiveté bona fide prostitute Christianity. They speak in lofty tones about he Apostle Paul’s brilliance, profundity, about his beautiful metaphors etc.---sheer esthetics. If Paul is to be regarded as a genius, then it looks bad for him; only pastoral ignorance can hit upon the idea of praising him esthetically, because pastoral ignorance has no criterion but thinks like this: If only one says something good about Paul, then it is all right. Such good- natured and well-meaning thoughtlessness is due to the person’s not having been disciplined by the qualitative that would teach him that an apostle is simply not served by having something good said about him when it is wrong; then he becomes recognized and admired for being what is unimportant and for what he essentially is not, and the, because of that, it is forgotten what he is.194

Yet rarely, very rarely, does one hear or read these days a religious address that is entirely correct. The better ones still usually dabble a bit in what could be called unconscious or well-intentioned rebellion as they defend and uphold Christianity with all their might----in the wrong categories.195

According to Kierkegaard, it is only because these confusions are in place, that many people in the present age are even inclined to utter the statement “I am a

Christian” (in anything more than a purely sociological sense, e.g., signifying that one is born in an officially “Christian country”); for, once these confusions are addressed and cleared up, Kierkegaard expects that a typical person, if he is serious and sufficiently thoughtful, will be inclined to have little to do with Christianity whatsoever; for, according to Kierkegaard, the present age is, among other things, essentially a pagan age196 with a nominal and essentially meaningless qualification that it is “Christian”.

(7.2) Kierkegaard appropriates the Aristotelian theme of diagnosing an intellectual debate on the basis of categorial confusion

193 Kierkegaard, The Book on Adler, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) (my emphasis) p. 173 194 Ibid. (my emphasis) p. 174 195 Ibid. (my emphasis) p. 183 196 Kierkegaard, Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and The Present Age a literary review, edited and translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009) pp. 68-112

334

Another major theme in Kierkegaard’s work, revolving around the idea of

“categories”, is the way in which Kierkegaard attempts to criticize philosophical or intellectual debates on the grounds that both parties share the same mistaken categorial assumptions.

To make Christianity probable is the same as to falsify it. Indeed, what is it atheists want? Oh, they want to make Christianity probable. That is, they are well aware that if they can only get Christianity’s qualitative extravagance tricked into the fussy officiousness of probability---then it is all over with Christianity.

But the orthodox apologetic endeavor also wants to make Christianity probable; thus it is working hand in glove with heterodoxy. Yet apologetics has worked this way in all naiveté, and this whole tactic, together with the relation here between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, must be regarded as an amazing example of what lack of character and lack of qualitative dialectic can lead to: that one attacks what one defends, that orthodoxy and heterodoxy continue to be enemies who want to exterminate each other, although they are allies who want one and the same thing--- to make Christianity probable.

Every defense of Christianity that understands what it wants must do the very opposite and with all its might and with a qualitative dialectic assert the improbability of Christianity. Such an introductory scholarship, which would develop the dialectic of the improbable and its scope, together with the existence- category (faith) that corresponds to it, would---especially if a Greek substructure is laid down in order to illuminate by contrast----such an introductory scholarship would in our age be a festival of renewal from which something still could be hoped.197

Kierkegaard says that claims of faith lack Probability. This does not mean that claims of faith have the property of being improbable. It rather means that such claims lack the Dimension of Probability, as such. Claims of faith are neither probable nor improbable. “Probable”, qua Dimension, means “capable of being probable or improbable in the proposition” and “Improbable”, qua Dimension, means “incapable of being probable or improbable in the proposition”.

197 Kierkegaard, The Book on Adler, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) pp. 39-40

335 Atheists wish to make Christianity “Probable”; i.e., they want Christianity to be the sort of thing whose doctrine is intelligible as being probable or improbable, in a property sense. By establishing that Christianity is Probable (in the sense of the

Dimension), atheists will then be in a position to show that Christianity is improbable (in the property sense), given that the historical record of the history events during this time is unreliable. However, the task of the categorially clear defender of Christianity will not be to argue against the atheists by asserting that the doctrine possesses the property of being probable; rather, the task of the categorially clear defender of Christianity will be to characterize the doctrine of

Christianity as “Improbable”, i.e., as the kind of thing that lacks accessibility in terms of Probability-properties as such, whether positive or negative.

Therefore, both the "defenders of Christianity" and the "attackers of

Christianity" who argue with each other over the issue of whether Christian doctrine is probable or improbable (in the property sense) are both making one and the same category mistake. The debate itself, thus, rests on categorial confusion. For, according to Kierkegaard, the doctrine of Christianity has the Dimension of

Improbability, i.e., the doctrine lacks combinability with the contraries in the probable/not probable contrariety spectrum.

Consider another passage in which Kierkegaard invokes the notion of a

“confusion of categories”.

Alas, and let us not mention what on this point is perpetrated by a confusion of categories in the rhetorical stupidities of ecclesiastical speakers. Faith taken in vain…will not and cannot, of course, hear the martyrdom of faith, and in our day an address informed by real faith is perhaps the address most rarely heard in all Europe. Speculative thought has understood everything, everything, everything! The ecclesiastical speaker still exercises some restraint; he admits that he has not yet understood everything; he admits that he is striving (poor fellow, that is a

336 confusion of categories!). “If there is anyone who has understood everything,” he says, “then I admit (alas, he is sheepish and is not aware that he should use irony toward the others) that I have not understood it and cannot demonstrate everything, and we lesser ones) alas, he senses his lowliness in the wrong place) must be content with faith.” (Poor, misunderstood, supreme passion: faith---that you have to be content with such a defender; poor preacher-fellow, that you do not know what the question is! Poor intellectual pauper Per Eriksen, who cannot quite make it in scholarship and science but who has faith, because that he has, the faith that turned fishermen into apostles, the faith that can move mountains---if one has it!)198

Kierkegaard remarks that the Dimension of Evidential-Belief, i.e., belief that is or is not backed up by evidence is not applicable to the question of Christian doctrine, since Christian doctrine possesses the Dimension of Improbability; i.e., it is not the sort of thing that is probable or improbable.

It is thus a category mistake to suggest that one can “understand everything” if the term “everything” includes the “paradoxes” of Christianity: for the “paradoxes” are not the sort of thing that are either understood or not understood.199 However, it is also a category mistake to suggest that “one cannot understand everything”, if the

“paradoxes” are contained within the meaning of the term “everything”, since the

“paradoxes” are neither understood nor not understood.

Thus, both the “humble” and the “hubristic” positions in this religious conflict rest on one and the same category mistake, namely, the mistake of assuming that the “doctrine of Christianity” is the kind of thing that might be understood or not understood, i.e., the sort of thing that possesses the Dimension of Intelligibility.

198 Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) pp. 30-1 199 James Conant argues that Kierkegaard does not succeed in making any clear distinction between “paradox” and “mere nonsense”. James Conant, “Putting Two and Two Together: Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein and the Point of View for Their Work as Authors”, in The Grammar of Religious Belief, edited by D. Z. Phillips, St. Martins Press, NY: 1996, pp. 248-281

337 (8) Kierkegaard had an enormous influence on the two greatest philosophers of the 20th century.

We know that Kierkegaard had an enormous influence on the two greatest philosophers of the 20th century: Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Wittgenstein is reported to have said that “Kierkegaard was by far the most profound philosopher of the 19th century”200. Interestingly, the works by Kierkegaard that both

Wittgenstein and Heidegger appear to have focused on or were familiar with are by and large the texts that I have grouped as the “works signed and/or edited by

Kierkegaard”.201 In Being and Time, Heidegger, for example, notes that there is

“more to be learned philosophically from his [Kierkegaard’s] ‘edifying’ writings than from his theoretical ones…”202

What I want to claim is that Kierkegaard bequeathed to the 20th a paradigm of philosophical practice that become central to the works of the greatest philosophers in the 20th century: specifically, he provided a model of (i) what the practice of the

“Socratic-role” of philosophy looks like when equipped with Socratic-Aristotelian philosophical resources. And he provided a model of (ii) how to make categorially sophisticated criticism of categorially confused debates that rest on mistaken assumptions about categorial-Dimensions.

(9) Aristotelian-Kierkegaardian Categorial themes in the 20th century

200 Genia Schonbaumsfeld, A Confusion of the Spheres: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 10 (Quoted by M. O’C. Drury, in Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein, 87) 201 See Genia Schonbaumsfeld, The Confusion of the Spheres, Chapter 1, for a discussion of the works by Kierkegaard that Wittgenstein was likely familiar with. 202 Heidegger, Being and Time, Division II, §45, note iv: The edifying writings are among those that are signed by Kierkegaard.

338 I will now explore examples from the history of 20th century philosophy from the work of Wittgenstein, and Heidegger and Austin, in which these thinkers are engaged in a Kierkegaardian-style criticism of classic philosophical debates on the ground that these debates rest on categorially-mistaken assumptions.

(9.1) Categorial-Criticisms of debates in work in Wittgenstein

(9.1.1) Wittgenstein on Free-will

Consider Wittgenstein’s discussion of the problem of free will.

This is analogous to an ethical discussion of free will. We have an idea of compulsion. If a policeman grabs me and shoves me through the door, we say I am compelled. But if I walk up and down here, we say I move freely. But it is objected: “if you knew all the laws of nature, and could observe all the particles, etc., you would no longer say you were moving freely; you would see that a man just cannot do anything else.”---But in the first place, this is not how we use the expression “he can’t do anything else”. Although it is conceivable that if we had a mechanism which would show all this, we would change our terminology---and say, “He’s as much compelled as if a policeman shoved him.” We’d give up this distinction then; and if we did, I would be very sorry.203

Here Wittgenstein remarks that increased knowledge of the motor systems of our physiology may lead us to abandon a “distinction”. It is quite important that

Wittgenstein does not say that increased knowledge of the motor systems of our physiology will lead us to assert that we lack the property of being free. For,

Wittgenstein wishes to elucidate the difference between the property of freedom, on the one hand, and the contrariety spectrum, on the other.

When Wittgenstein says that this is not “how we use” the expression “he can’t do anything else” what Wittgenstein means to say is that physiologists have not discovered via increased knowledge of the motor systems of the physiology that

203 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge, 1939, edited by Cora Diamond (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989) p. 242

339 humans lack the property of being free. For this would mean that physiologists had learned that humans always acted irrationally, instinctually (at the expense of rational control), passionately (at the expense of rational control), or on the basis of manipulative and false information, or under coercion. Or it might mean that humans always behaved reflexively, as if all their actions were akin to a knee jerk response or that humans were always drugged or sleep walking. But not one of these generalizations would be endorsed by anyone; and certainly no (categorially clear headed) scientists have ever claim to have discovered such things.

Even if scientists were to get to the point where they were able to predict the movements of our limbs, this would not show that humans always act without freedom in any of the above senses.

Rather, the philosopher is impressed by a comparison between a human being and something that is not categorially akin to a human being, i.e., a mechanical artifact, and, on that basis, the philosopher is led to impose the artifactual-grammar on the conceptualization of the human being, thereby denying the applicability of the contrariety spectrum of Freedom to the human being, altogether. For, machines lack the Dimension of freedom; that is, it is nonsense to say of a machine that it lacks self-control or that it has it.

One cannot deny that the human lacks the property of freedom (the property), while, ahead of time, interpreting the human being in such a way (i.e., as a machine) that it lacks Freedom (the Dimension). And if the human lacks the

Dimension of freedom, then it would be clearer to say not that “The human is

340 unfree” but that “The concept of the human being is being rejected”, since the

Dimension of Freedom is actually a defining condition of what it means to be human.

The debate between compatibilists, libertarians and determinists all takes place after the human being has already been mistakenly categorized as a machine: or at least against the backdrop of the assumption that the dichotomy between natural and the supernatural represents an exhaustive-categorial division for reality.

Determinists claim that humans lack freedom, when they really should say that humans lack the Dimension of Freedom. Libertarians, who deny the plausibility of placing the human in a supernatural realm, assert that humans have freedom, despite the fact that the human has been categorized as a Machine, and thus lacks the Dimension of Freedom altogether. This is why it seems to some libertarians as if the ontological feature of Chaos is relevant to the solution of the problem of freedom. For, the question becomes whether there are aspects of the “system” that are potentially random or whether the behavior of the system is strictly defined.

Compatibilists essentially agree with the determinists that humans are mere machines, but argue that the merely verbal distinction between “being free” or “not being free” is a perfectly legitimate “way of speaking”.

Though Wittgenstein’s position can sometimes sound akin to compatibilism,

I think it is distinct. Charitably interpreted, Wittgenstein’s position is different from all of the above. Wittgenstein’s position is that it is categorially mistaken to categorize the human being as a machine in the first place. For, we know that

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to be chaotic to not be chaotic

to be chaotic to behave in accordance with a clear and fixed pattern to behave randomly

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 Z[Z also makes sense to say that you do. When on the other hand, you granted me that a man can’t know whether the other person has , you do not wish to say that as a matter of fact people didn’t know, but that it made no sense to say they knew (and therefore no sense to say they don’t know). If therefore in this case you use the term “conjecture” or “believe”, you don’t use it as opposed to ‘know”. That is, you did not state that knowing was a goal which you could not reach, and that you have to be contented with conjecturing; rather, there is no goal in this game. Just as when one says, “You can’t count through the whole series of cardinal numbers”, one doesn’t state a fact about human frailty but about a convention which we have made. Our statement is not comparable, though always falsely compared, with such a one as “it is impossible for a human being to swim across the Atlantic”; but it is analogous to a statement like “there is no goal in an endurance race”. And this is one of the things which the person feels dimly who is not satisfied with the explanation that though you can’t know…you can conjecture…204

On the Cartesian conception, the “mind” is an “arena” that is categorized on the analogy to an “abstract entity”. Contained within the mind are “non-physical mental processes and acts” that are conceptualized on the model of mechanical processes of machines.205 On this conception, there can be no logically possible

“causal connection” between anything “in the mind” and anything “in the world”; for the mind lacks the Dimension of Causality. And thus the putative “hypothesis” that

“X is in so-and-so’s mind” is not the sort of “hypothesis” that could bear the

Dimension of Evidential-Belief-on-the-basis-of-worldly-states-of-affairs. That is, there is nothing that could be called “worldly evidence for or against the proposition that someone has X in his or her mind”. And this means that the very idea of

“worldly evidence” for the “existence of something in the mind” is already ruled out as absurd. And thus our putative “hypothesis” (that someone has X in their mind) is not even a coherent “hypothesis” at all, since a “hypothesis” is a claim that can be backed up by evidence.

204 Wittgenstein, The Blue Book and Brown Books (Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical Investigations) (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965) pp. 53-4 205 See Ryle’s discussion of the para-mechanical conception of the mind, in (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000) pp. 19-23. See also the discussion of the para- mechanical in John McDowell, “Experiencing the World” and Michael Williams, “Context, Meaning, and Truth”

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The Contraries

to believe to conjecture to assume to know to hypothesize to doubt

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 Z[\ And the lack of clarity regarding this distinction leads us to regard the “” not as an issue that reflects a lack of clarity regarding categories, which is what it really is, but as a “genuine problem about our access to something that seems inaccessible, but which we feel we should be able to access”, a problem that is akin to how things seem when there is some barrier that needs or ought to be surmounted. But, if we are clearer about the actual implications of our Cartesian- ontological assumptions, what we should say is that, there is no intelligible barrier here whatsoever, for the very idea of surmounting “the barrier” or failing to surmount it is incoherent, since success or failure would presuppose the coherence of the idea of “worldly evidence for or against something’s being in the mind”.206 But on a clear understanding of the ontological implications of Cartesian philosophy of mind, the very coherence of such a possibility is ruled out.

Thus, the standard debate between skeptics regarding the “existence” of

“other minds” and “realists” who argue that we can “prove” the existence of “other minds” rests on categorial confusion. Both parties accept the categorial interpretation that the mind is a “Cartesian abstract object”. Both parties also accept that “mental processes” are categorially akin to mechanical processes, the only difference being that mental processes are “in” the “mind”. Skeptics then conclude that we cannot know whether someone really has a mind or has something in their mind: in fact, what they should say is that the Dimension of knowledge is ruled out.

Realists conclude that we can know the existence of other minds despite the fact

206 See, also, the discussion of the problem of other minds in Michael Williams, Problems of Knowledge: a Critical Introduction to Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) Chapter 6

346 that this is categorially incoherent in light of the shared Cartesian ontological assumptions.

In fact, according to Wittgenstein, who rejects the entire Cartesian ontology along with its naturalistic offshoots (which themselves belong to the same overarching categorial framework), there is nothing wrong with the idea that we just see a person thinking about something, since a human being is a Rational being, who possesses Rational powers of mind that can be exercised in cogitation. A human needn’t share that he is thinking or what he thinks, but that or what someone is thinking is often perceptible to others on the basis of what one says or does. For, the “mind” is not an “abstract arena” and exercises of cogitative capacities are not mechanical processes “in” an “abstract arena”. And thus to observe a person is not to observe a physical-machine behind which may lurk an “abstract realm of para- mechanical processes”. Rather to observe a person is to observe being capable of thought.

(10) Heidegger on the “ of the external world”

Consider Heidegger’s remarks on the “problem” of the “proof” of the

“external world”.

Kant calls it "a scandal of philosophy and human reason in general" that there is still no cogent proof for "the existence of things outside us"' which will do away with any skepticism. He himself proposes such a proof as the foundation of his "" that "the mere consciousness of my own existence which, however, is empirically determined, proves' the existence of objects outside of me in space."

The "scandal of philosophy" does not consist in the fact that this proof is still lacking up to now, but in the fact that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again. Such expectations, intentions, and demands grow out of an ontologically insufficient way of positing what it is from which, independently and "outside" of which, a "world" is to be proven as objectively present. It is not that the proofs are insufficient, but the kind of being of the being that does the proving and requests proofs is not definite enough. For this reason the illusion can arise that with this demonstration of the necessary objective presence together of two objectively present things something is proved or even demonstrable about Da-sein as being-in- the-world. Correctly understood, Da-sein defies such

In directing itself toward . . . and in grasping something, Da-sein does not first go outside of the inner sphere in which it is initially encapsulated, but, rather, in its primary kind of being, it is always already "outside" together with some being encountered in the world already discovered. Nor is any inner sphere abandoned when Da-sein dwells together with a being to be known and determines its character. Rather, even in this "being outside" together with its object, Da-sein is "inside," correctly understood; that is, it itself exists as the being-in-the-world which knows. Again, the perception of what is known does not take place as a return with one's booty to the "cabinet" of consciousness after one has gone out and grasped it.

347

Descartes distinguishes the ‘ego cogito’ from the ‘res corporea’. This distinction will thereafter be determinative ontologically for the distinction between ‘Nature’ and ‘spirit’. No matter with how many variations of content the opposition between ‘Nature’ and ‘spirit’ may get set up ontically, its ontological foundations, and indeed the very poles of this opposition, remain unclarified; this unclarity has its proximate…roots in Descartes’ distinction. What kind of understanding of Being does he have when he defines the Being of these entities?207

Similar Kierkegaardian-style remarks which we made about Wittgenstein’s treatment of the problem of other minds apply to Heidegger’s treatment of the

“external world”. The mind is regarded as an “abstract realm”; it thus lacks the

Dimension of Causality. The skeptic says we cannot know anything about the world; but what he should say is that we lack the Dimension of Knowledge-of-an-external- world. For, it isn’t as though we fail to causally interact with the world, on the skeptic’s picture. Rather, it makes no sense to suppose either that we do or that we fail to causally interact with the world. The realist contradicts the skeptic in arguing that we can know the world; but in light of the basic categorial picture the realist shares with the skeptic, this would be incoherent.

Heidegger, of course, simply rejects the entire Cartesian categorial ontology, along with its naturalistic offshoots (which themselves belong to the same overarching categorial framework). Human beings are part of the human world.

And, thus, the very idea that philosophers should aim to “prove” the existence of the

“external” world is an entirely unintelligible description of a philosophical task.

(11) Heidegger on the Distinction between Dimensions and Properties

One benefit of understanding the Kierkegaardian background influence on

Heidegger is that it gives a window into a very general feature of Heidegger’s

207 Heidegger, Being and Time, Division I, VI, 43(a)

348 philosophical apparatus in Being and Time. At a very high level of abstraction, Part I of Being and Time is fundamentally an exploration of what we have been calling

Dimensions, which, as we have shown above, is a concept that figures prominently in the works of Kierkegaard. I believe that bringing attention to this Kierkegaardian theme in Heidegger will actually help to make Heidegger’s text more accessible than it might otherwise appear to be.

What Heidegger is interested in exploring specifically are the differences in the Dimensions that uniquely pertain to human beings versus the Dimensions that pertain to non-human entities. What Heidegger calls “Being in” or “Concern”, e.g., are examples of Dimensions that Heidegger regards as uniquely human or at least uniquely animal (in contrast to everything “lower down” on the “great chain of being”).

Heidegger states that human beings possess Concern. What does this mean?

According to Heidegger, to possess “Concern” does not mean that a human possesses, the property of being apprehensive or anxious. He remarks that a human who possesses the property of being lackadaisical and care-free also possesses

Concern. This is because “Concern” signifies the contrariety Dimension of the categorial possibility of being absorbed or not absorbed with some task. To say that the human has Concern is to say that the human is the kind of thing that can enter into contraries within the spectrum of properties that lie within the absorbed/not- absorbed range. This is in categorial contrast to plants or rocks, which are not the sorts of things that possess this Dimension.

349 Heidegger also says that human possess “Being in”. What does this mean?

Heidegger says that it does not refer to the property of “being inside some space”.

“Being in” is rather a Dimension: furthermore is a Dimension that specifically pertains to the human subject bearer, in contrast to other possible subject bearers.

“Being in” is thus way of categorially demarcating human beings from other kinds of beings such as Plants, which lack the Dimension of “Being in”.

The term ‘concern’ has, in the first instance, its colloquial signification, and can mean to carry out something, to get it done, to ‘straighten it out’. It can also mean to ‘provide oneself with something.’ We use the expression with still another characteristic turn of phrase when we say, “I am concerned for the success of the undertaking.” Here ‘concern’ means something like apprehensiveness. In contrast to these colloquial ontical significations, the expression ‘concern’ will be used in this investigation as an ontological term for an existentiale, and will designate the Being of a possible way of Being-in-the-world. This term has been chosen not because happens to be proximally and to a large extent ‘practical’ and economic, but because the Being of Dasein itself is to be made visible as care. This expression too is to be taken as an ontological structural concept. (See Chapter 6 of this Division.) It has nothing to do with ‘tribulation’, ‘melancholy’, or the ‘cares of life’, though ontically one can come across these in every Dasein. These---like their opposites, ‘gaiety’ and ‘freedom from care’---are ontically possible only because Dasein, when understood ontologically, is care. Because Being-in-the-world belongs essentially to Dasein, its Being towards the world is essentially concern. [Care is an ontological feature.]

From what we have been saying, it follows that Being-in is not a ‘property’, which Dasein sometimes has and sometimes does not have, and without which it could be just as well as it could with it. It is not the case that man ‘is’ and then has, by way of an extra, a relationship-of-Being towards the ‘world’---a world with which he provides himself occasionally. Dasein is never ‘proximally’ an entity which is, so to speak, free from Being-in, but which sometimes has the inclination to take up a ‘relationship’ towards the world. Taking up relationships towards the world is possible only because Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, is as it is. This state of Being does not arise just because some other entity is present-at-hand outside of Dasein and meets up with it. Such an entity can ‘meet up with’ Dasein only in so far as it can, of its own accord, show itself within a world.208

Heidegger explicitly states that Concern and Being-in are not “properties”.

Dasein has Concern, even when Dasein is un-concerned; and Dasein has “Being-in” even when Dasein is not inside some space, such as a park.

208 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, (my emphasis) Kindle File, Division I, II, 12

350

(11.1) Heideggerian categories versus Heideggerian Existentialia: both are species of the genus Dimension: Heidegger Distinguishes between fundamental Dimensions uniquely possessed by human beings versus Dimensions possessed by substances other than humans: he calls the former Existentialia and the later “Categories”

One confusing aspect of Heidegger’s text is that he uses the word ‘category’ in neither an Aristotelian nor in a Kantian way. However, the use Heidegger makes of the word ‘category’ is deeply related to what will have been calling Aristotelian categories. For, when Heidegger uses the word ‘category’ what he has in mind is what we have been calling “Dimensions”.

Furthermore, Heidegger wishes to distinguish between two fundamentally different kinds of “categories”, or, as we would say, Dimensions: (1) “human categories”, or, what he calls, “Existentialia”, and (2) “categories not unique to human entities”, or, what he calls “traditional categories”. However, of these so- called “categories” are really species of the genus, of what we call, a Dimension.

For, this is not the way in which we are using the term ‘category’ in the present dissertation. In the present dissertation, we understand by the word ‘category’ the

Aristotelian categories, i.e., the basic kinds, that group together any possible propositional subject, on the basis of differences in grammatical-Dimension.

Examples of Aristotelian categories are Substance, non-Substance, Animal, Plant,

Human, non-living thing, etc.

Examples of what Heidegger calls “traditional categories”, i.e., Dimensions that apply to non-human things, include Temporality, Spatiality, Substratum

Composition, Volume, Distance, and Speed. Examples of what Heidegger calls

“existentialia”, i.e., Dimensions that apply uniquely to human beings include Care,

351 Being-In or Cognition. These are names of genera of contrariety spectra that uniquely apply to human propositional subject bearers in the proposition.

One of Heidegger’s central claims in Being and Time is that the philosophical tradition has simply forgotten about Existentialia and have thereby regarded the human being in terms of “traditional categories”. This, according to Heidegger, has led to numerous categorial distortions, distortions that underpin many of the subsequent “projects” and “concerns” of philosophers. Such a confusion in fact is quite similar to the sort of confusion that P. M. S. Hacker finds in the work of

“property dualists”; for property dualist attribute distinctively human Dimensions to the wrong subject bearer, i.e., the brain. Hacker’s focus on the mereological fallacy can thus be regarded as a special case of the sort of more general problem that

Heidegger is interested in, when he says that the philosophical tradition has conflated “categories” with “existentialia”.

(11.2) Heidegger Distinguishes between three Categorial Modes

Related to his distinction between Existentialia (i.e., human Dimensions) and

Traditional Categories (i.e., non-human Dimensions), Heidegger also works with the notion of a categorial “mode”, and he notoriously distinguishes between (i) a human mode, (ii) an artifactual mode and (iii) a physical mode.

A mode is a basic qualification of any-thing, where a thing is a substance, property, or particular non-substance. Modes cut across Aristotelian categories of things. For, the same mode can qualify things of different categories. Thus, a human being, a particular action on the part of a human being, and an action-type characteristic of a human being are all qualifiable as being human---i.e., qualifiable

352 in terms of the mode of the human being. The mode of the human is what qualifies a thing as pertaining to the human being, given the kind of thing the human being is, i.e., given the Dimensions characteristic of the human being.

But what this means is that it is possible to identify the general category under which something falls, while failing to comprehend the right categorial mode for the item’s intelligibility. E.g., property dualism regards the mind as belonging to the category of “capacity”, which is a correct categorization. However, property dualism regards this capacity as a capacity of a non-human biological substance, namely, of the brain; and this involves interpreting the capacity of the mind as if it were intelligible in terms of a categorial mode that is not actually relevant to its ontological character. Property dualism specifically regards the mind as intelligible in terms of a biological modality, when, in fact, the mind, qua set of cognitive and cogitative capacities, is only intelligible in terms of the human mode.

(11.2.1) Heidegger suggests that Animalistic Dimensions, i.e., Dimensions we Share with Some Animals must be Presupposed in the Internal Elucidation of Paradigmatically Human Cognitive Dimensions

Heidegger suggests that the Dimension of is formal-causally prior to the Dimension of Cognition. We would not be able to make sense of ourselves as knowers or potential knowers if we did not also understand ourselves as animals of a certain sort, animals that were capable of Concern. This is not to say that human beings are mere animals, but it is only to say that if we could not regard ourselves as having an animal aspect we could not understand ourselves as distinctively human either. For, to imagine a being with “merely cognitive capacities” but with no authentically animal capacities for absorption is not to imagine any coherent kind of

353 being at all. For, only a being that could have Concern as a Dimension could be a being with human Cognition.

Heidegger frequently frames this point in a misleading manner, when he says that knowing arises only after a “breakdown” in absorption; this makes it sound almost as if he were making a point about human psychology; however, Heidegger’s point is categorial, and it consists in the idea that authentically animal Dimensions are categorially presupposed in the internal elucidation of the cognitive capacities that are distinctively human.

(12) Austin criticizes the debate between realists and indirect on the ground that it rests on category confusion

Although Austin may not have read or concerned himself with Kierkegaard,

Austin’s thought was certainly influenced by the work of Wittgenstein and the

Wittgensteinian tradition more broadly. And some of the most interesting aspects of

Austin’s thought revolve around the very categorial themes that we have traced back from Wittgenstein to Kierkegaard’s work.

In Sense and Sensibilia, Austin mounts a criticism of the debate in the between direct versus indirect on the grounds that this debate rests on confusion.

The general doctrine, generally stated, goes like this we never see or otherwise perceive (or ‘sense’), or anyhow we never directly perceive or sense, material objects (or material things), but only sense-data (or our own ideas, impressions, sense, sense-perceptions, percepts, &c).

I am not, then----and this is a point to be clear about from the beginning----going to maintain that we ought to be ‘realists’, to embrace, that is, the doctrine that we do perceive material things (or objects). This doctrine would be no less scholastic and erroneous than its antithesis. The question, do we perceive material things or sense-data, no doubt looks very simple---too simple----but is entirely misleading (cp. Thales’ similarly vast and over simple question, what the world is made of.)

354

One of the most important points to grasp is that these two terms, ‘sense-data’ and ‘material things’, live by taking in each other’s washing----what is spurious is not one term of the pair, but the antithesis itself. 209

The skeptic says that we “see things only indirectly. However, Austin argues that the skeptic faces a dilemma; either his remark is to be interpreted as a philosophical statement or his remark is to be interpreted as an empirical generalization. If the remark is an empirical generalization, then it would mean something along the lines of “We always see things through mirrors or periscopes or at oblique angles”. However, this is obviously not a claim anyone would make.

However, if the remark were interpreted as a philosophical claim, then it would mean one of two things: it could mean that (a) “seeing” as a subset of what we ordinarily call seeing, namely, the kind of seeing that is indirect; or it could mean that (b) seeing is not the sort of thing that possesses the Dimension of Direction at all. As Austin says,

[I]f we are to be seriously inclined to speak of something as being perceived indirectly, it seems that it has to be the kind of thing which we (sometimes at least) just perceive, or could perceive, or which---like the backs of our own heads---others could perceive. For otherwise we don’t want to say that we perceive the thing at all, even indirectly.210

But what motivates the skeptic to say that we “can never see anything directly” in the first place? It is obvious that this position arises from the skeptic’s picture of the mind, in which the mind is regarded as a kind of “abstract arena”, in which “we” are sealed up. “Images” and “representations” populate this realm that are “caused” by events on the “outside”. We “see” the “representations” directly and thereby infer the “existence” of the “outer” events that “cause” the representations.

209 J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, edited by G. J. Warnock, (Oxford University Press, 1962) (my emphasis) pp. 3-4 210 J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, edited by G. J. Warnock, (Oxford University Press, 1962) p. 18

355 In light of this picture, the skeptic says that we can’t see the object. However, what the skeptic should say is that we lack the Dimension of Sight; for the very idea of laying eyes or an object or failing to lay eyes on an object would be, according to this categorial picture, incoherent; it’s not that we fail to lay eyes on an object; for it isn’t even clear what it would mean to fail to lay eyes on an object.

Countering this position, the realist says that we “can see objects”. But in light of fact that realist does not replace the Cartesian ontological picture of mind with anything different, the realist is in no position to assert this.

What needs to be rejected is the incoherent categorial picture common to the background of the debate between the skeptic and realist, in which perception is regarded as a quasi-movie being watched (by “something”) in an abstract-mind- realm.

(12.1) Austin’s Categorial Humor Shows the Proper Subject Bearer of the Dimension of Perception

When Austin deliberately misinterprets the philosopher’s claim that “we always see things indirectly” as the empirical generalization that “we always see things through mirrors or periscopes”, Austin thereby shows, indirectly, via humor, what the proper subject bearer of perceptual predicables actually is. For Austin’s remark shows that human beings, not minds, are the kinds of things that have the

Dimension of Perception. It is we, not our minds, that see things either through a mirror or straight on. In other words, the remark shows that the Dimension of

Perception is a Dimension of human beings and that human beings are the proper

356 propositional subjects of this Dimension. Austin’s deep humor is the means by which he is able to convey this fundamental point about “categorial grammar”.

(13) The Socratic Role of Philosophy: The Socratic-Role of philosophy in the Socratic- Aristotelian Tradition

The philosophers in the 20th century who were influenced by Kierkegaard’s

Socratic-Aristotelian understanding of the nature of philosophy, also naturally regarded their philosophical work as having an important “Socratic role” to play with respect to the broader non-philosophical culture.

It is not possible to be a rational-animal, who possesses a body of knowledge and who can engage in cogitative processes, unless one possesses, at least implicitly, some categorial and formal-causal understanding of the elements that figure in these propositions. What this means is that non-philosophers have a philosophy, at least implicitly: and it is likely that non-philosophers even have some explicit philosophical understandings regarding the formal-causes and categories of the entities that occupy their attention in life.

Scientists are a subset of the class of non-philosophers. Given that scientists are occupied empirically and theoretically with specific domains of reality, such as

“biological” reality, it is highly likely that practicing scientists also possess some explicit categorial and formal-causal understanding of the specific domains that occupy them, along with some explicit or inexplicit understanding of the way in which their domain of inquiry relates categorially to surrounding domains.

357 What this means is that non-philosophers, and especially scientists, operate either explicitly or implicitly with an understanding of the categorial chain-of-being, whether they realize it or not.

It is common to suppose that newer forms of organization, such as post-

Darwinian biological taxonomies, have replaced the great chain of being in our way or organizing things. This is certainly true if the chain of being is interpreted as a scientific form of organization. However, if the chain of being is interpreted as a philosophical form of organization, then this view would be mistaken.211 For our culture has by no means renounced the categorial chain of being as a means by which to organize things philosophy. If anything, what has happened is that our understanding of the proper way of situating things within the chain of being has undergone some changes. In some respects, our culture has simply inverted the traditional direction of the scala naturae, while leaving the specific levels more or less in tact. In other words, today it is common to regard physical reality as the basic form of reality and sociological reality as the least basic.212 Other tacit forms of the

211 See the Preface to Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964) Kindle File “It [the chain of being] was, in fact, until not much more than a century ago, probably the most widely familiar conception of the general scheme of things, of the constitutive pattern of the universe; and as such it necessarily predetermined current ideas on many other matters. (Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964) (my emphasis) Kindle File. Preface) In fact, I would argue that, when categorially interpreted, the general form of this way of thinking has not and could not abandoned; for we necessarily must divide reality up into categorial parts. Thus the serious question is “what is our current understanding of the chain of being?” and “how has it gone wrong?” E.g., to suggest that all reality is physical and that human beings are their actions are “fictions” is one way of thinking about the chain. It simply inverts the traditional order of the hierarchy. 212 This, e.g., is the picture that one finds were one to interpret ’s “intentional stance” in a purely instrumentalist manner. The farther one moves from physical reality the more “as if” things become. This is not the rejection of the chain of being, but rather the chain of being turned on its head. (Daniel C. Dennett, “True Believers: the Intentional Strategy and Why It Works” in The Nature of Mind, edited by David M. Rosenthal, (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1991) Part IV, §36)

358 chain of being now involve regarding “computation”, as occupying the highest step on the staircase; for, computation is frequently regarded now as the “realest” thing there is; it is the notion in light of which everything else in reality is defined.213 Thus, scientists have not eschewed the chain of being at all, if the chain of being is interpreted in a philosophical sense; they have merely altered its specific content or its general orientation, by turning it upside down or sideways, or by replacing the upper levels with artifactual kinds of phenomena.

In any case, the specific understanding of the chain of being, whatever specific form it happens to take, on the part of scientists, is often, or, even, usually categorially or formal-causally mistaken. This mistaken understanding can have repercussions for science in a number of ways. First, it may lead scientists to have a false categorial or formal causal understanding of the nature of their subject matter.

It may lead scientists to make claims that they would not have otherwise made. It may lead scientists to interpret the claims they make in mistaken ways. It may lead scientists to formulate projects and carry out scientific research which they otherwise would not have done. It may lead them to draw false conclusions from the research that they do. It may lead them to fail to understand their achievements, formal-causally or categorially, due to a failure to understand the categorial framework in which their achievements ought to be presented in.

Hacker argues that although Aristotle may have been mistaken about certain scientific matters, his philosophical anthropology and general way of doing

213 See, e.g., “Constrains on the Universe as a Computer Simulation” Silas, R. Seane, Zhoreh Davoudi, Martin J. Savage (Submitted on 4 Oct 2012 (v1) last revised 9 Nov 2012 INT-PUB-12-046 (Cornell University Library)

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 Z]W been ontically discovered, and by purifying it in a way which is ontologically more transparent.215

What Heidegger suggests in this passage is that once ontological-categorial inquiry arrives at the right understanding of the categorial domains, modes and taxa, it will be in a position to return to the non-philosophical propositions of science and interpret them formal-causally and categorially in light of our clarified understanding of the internal-categorial. The implication is that the human sciences are operating with a concept of the human being that has not been adequately clarified at a categorial level. And that this in turn has an influence on the culture and understanding of the achievements of the human sciences. For, the human sciences remain within the grip of a fundamentally Cartesian understanding of the categorial chain-of-being.

(13.2) Wittgenstein as a Socratic philosophy: the Relation between the Philosophical and the Non-Philosophical in the work of the later Wittgenstein

In the Blue Book, Wittgenstein writes,

When we say that by our method we try to counteract the misleading effect of certain analogies, it is important that you should understand that the idea of an analogy being misleading is nothing sharply defined. No sharp boundary can be drawn round the cases in which we should say that a man was misled by an analogy. The use of expressions constructed on analogical patterns stresses analogies between cases often far apart. And by doing this these expressions may be extremely useful. It is, in most cases, impossible to show an exact point where an analogy begins to mislead us. Every particular notation stresses some particular point of view. If, e.g., we call our investigations “philosophy” this title, on the one hand, seems appropriate, on the other hand it certainty has misled people (one might say that the subject we are dealing with is one of the heirs of the subject which used to be called “philosophy”.) The cases in which particularly we wish to say that someone is misled by a form of expression are those in which we would say: “he wouldn’t talk as he does if he were aware of this difference in the grammar of such-and-such words, or if he were aware of this other possibility of expression” and so on. Thus we may say of some philosophizing mathematicians that they are obviously not aware of the differences between the many different usages of the word “proof”; and that they are clear about the

215 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, Kindle File, (my emphasis) Division 1, §9

361 difference between the uses of the word “kind”, when they talk of kinds of numbers, kinds of proofs, as though the word “kind” here meant the same thing as in the context “kinds of apples”. Or we may say, they are not aware of the different meanings of the word “discovery”, when in one case we talk of the discovery of the construction of the pentagon and in the other case of the discovery of the South Pole.216

Here Wittgenstein is suggesting that popular mathematicians would not make certain non-philosophical statements were it not for certain internal misunderstandings regarding the differences between certain notions, such as

“mathematical proof” versus “scientific discovery”, and “categorial kind” versus

“ordinary kind”. This is not to say that the statements of these mathematicians are necessarily false or nonsensical; but Wittgenstein is suggesting that such statements would not have been made were the mathematicians clearer about the relevant notional differences, for the uttering of such a non-philosophical statement, on the part of a non-philosopher, reflects a confusion at the level of the utterer’s understanding.

Consider also:

The confusion and bareness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a “young science”; its state is not comparable with that of physics, for instance, in its beginnings. (Rather with that of certain braches of mathematics. .) For in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion. (As in the other case conceptual confusion and methods of proof.)

The existence of the experimental methods makes us think we have the means of solving the problems which trouble us; though problem and method pass one another by.

An investigation is possible in connexion with mathematics which is entirely analogous to our investigation of psychology. It is just as little a mathematical investigation as the other is a psychological one. It will not contain calculations, so it is not for example logistic. It might deserve the name of an investigation of the ‘foundations of mathematics’.217

216 Wittgenstein, The Blue Book and Brown Books (Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical Investigations) (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965) (my emphasis) pp. 28-9 217 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, (my emphasis) Part II, xiv

362 Here Wittgenstein suggests that the non-philosophical propositions of psychology reflect “philosophical confusion”. The remedy for this situation is what

Wittgenstein calls an “investigation into the philosophical foundations of psychology”. The title of Hacker and Bennett’s recent work Philosophical

Foundations of Neuroscience is a reference to this Wittgensteinian concept of philosophy, in which the role of philosophy consists in supplying the correct categorial-internal framework for the interpretation and conceptualization of the elements of non-philosophical propositions.

“Philosophy for Mathematicians” was the title of a lecture Wittgenstein gave in 1932 in Cambridge.218 We can generalize the idea expressed in the title to form the notion of “philosophy for non-philosophers”, and this is precisely how to understand Wittgenstein’s concept of “philosophical foundations of X”: it is philosophy designed for the specific needs of non-philosophers (typically scientists of mathematicians). “Philosophical foundations of X” is thus a form of Socratic philosophical engagement with the non-philosophical culture. It is the heir to

Kierkegaard’s Socratic philosophy aimed at helping the present age work through distinctions between basic categories. We can anachronistically regard

Kierkegaard’s signed and edited work in general as a form of “Philosophical foundations of religion for the present age”, where the “present age” is composed of an entirely general audience (and not a specifically philosophical audience).

I shall also point out, in this context, that Philosophical Investigations begins with Augustine’s non-philosophical description of how Augustine imagines having

218 Wittgenstein, Lectures Cambridge 1932-1935, From the Notes of and Margaret Macdonald, edited by Alice Ambrose (New York: Prometheus Books, 2001)

363 learned language as an infant. And Wittgenstein’s suggestion is that Augustine’s non-philosophical account seems itself to reflect certain unclear and indistinct philosophical ideas of what language, meaning and thought are. Augustine,

Wittgenstein says, confuses the concept of an adult learning a second language with the concept of a child learning its first language.219 Thus, the opening of Philosophical

Investigations mirrors the opening of early Platonic dialogues: a non-philosophical set of remarks is the occasion for a distinctively philosophical investigation.

(13.3) Socratic Philosophers in Contemporary Philosophy

(13.3.1) Hacker and Bennett as Socratic Philosophers: the Relation between the Philosophical and the Non-Philosophical in Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience

In Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Bennett and Hacker write,

Distinguishing conceptual questions from empirical ones is of the first importance. When a conceptual question is confused with a scientific one, it is bound to appear singularly refractory. It seems in such cases as if science should be able to discover the truth of the matter under investigation by theory and experiment---yet it persistently fails to do so. That is not surprising, since conceptual questions are no more amenable to empirical methods of investigation than problems in pure mathematics are solvable by the methods of physics.220

Also,

Furthermore, when empirical problems are addressed without adequate conceptual clarity, misconceived questions are bound to be raised, and misdirected research is likely to ensue. For any unclarity regarding the relevant concepts will be reflected in corresponding unclarity in the questions, and hence in the design of experiments intended to answer them. And any incoherence in the grasp of the relevant conceptual structure is likely to be manifest in incoherences in the interpretation of the results of experiments.…221

Also,

…conceptual entanglement can coexist with flourishing science. This may appear puzzling. If the science can flourish despite such conceptual confusions, why should scientists care about them? Hidden reefs do not imply that the seas are not

219 See Meredith Williams, Blind Obedience: Paradox and Learning in the Later Wittgenstein, Kindle File, Chapter 1 220 M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, p. 2 221 M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, p. 2

364 navigable, only that they are dangerous. The moot question is how running on these reefs is manifest. Conceptual confusions may be exhibited in different ways and at different points in the investigation. In some cases, the conceptual unclarity may affect neither the cogency of the questions nor the fruitfulness of the experiments, but only the understanding of the results of the experiments and their theoretical implications. So, for example, Newton embarked on the Optics in quest of insight into the character of colour. The research was a permanent contribution to science. But his conclusion that ‘colours are sensations in the sensorium’ demonstrates failure to achieve the kind of understanding he craved. For, whatever colours are, they are not ‘sensations in the sensorium’. So in so far as Newton cared about understanding the results of his research, then he had good reason for caring about the conceptual confusions under which he labored---for they stood in the way of an adequate understanding.222

Also,

In other cases, however, the conceptual confusion does not so happily bracket the empirical research. Misguided questions may well render research futile….Rather differently, misconstrual of concepts and conceptual structures will sometimes produce research that is by no means futile, but that fails to show what it was designed to show….In such cases, the science may not be flourishing quite as much as it appears to be. It requires conceptual investigation to locate the problems and to eliminate them.223

One and the same neuroscientific discovery, regarding, e.g., the workings of the brain, will be described in ways that reflect radically different categorial and notional frameworks, depending upon the internal-framework the interpreter draws upon in his interpretation.

Someone working with an Aristotelian categorial framework will regard a discovery in cognitive-neuroscience as a discovery regarding the physiological conditions of the physiological possibility of certain human cognitive or cogitative or volitional capacities and their exercise. However, someone working with a Crypto-

Cartesian categorial framework will regard a discovery in cognitive-neuroscience as a discovery regarding the specific constitution of the hardware of a representation or information or symbolic, processing, computational system.

222 M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, p. 5 223 M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, p. 5

365 According to the Aristotelian categorial framework for understanding the relation between the mind and brain, the mind is the set cognitive, cogitative and volitional capacities of a human being, along with their exercise. Whereas the brain is an organ that is a physiological prerequisite for the physiological possibility of a human being’s possessing a mind. The idea that the brain could be the mind is nonsensical, within this framework, since the mind is a set of capacities, whereas the brain is a biological-substance.

By contrast, according to the Crypto-Cartesian categorial framework for the understanding of the relation between the mind and the brain, the mind is an abstract information or representation or symbol processing system, and the brain is the hardware that implements this computational system.

One and the same neuroscientific (non-philosophical) discovery that correlates brain activity or structures with cognitive phenomena will be described in ways that reflect radically different categorial frameworks, depending upon which categorial framework the interpreter of the non-philosophical statement draws upon.

According to Bennett and Hacker, the correct categorial framework is the

Aristotelian one. And we concur with them in this. But our point here is merely that

Bennett and Hacker regard one of the central functions of philosophy to be the preparation for the formal-causal understanding and conceptual framing of the non- philosophical.

(13.3.2) John Searle as a Socratic Philosopher

Regarding the discipline of cognitive science, John Searle writes,

366

…another stylistic feature of this literature is the haste and sometimes even carelessness with which the foundational questions are glossed over. What exactly are the anatomical and physiological features of brains that are being discussed? What exactly is a digital computer? And how are the answers to these two questions supposed to connect?...Since we have such advanced mathematics and such good electronics, we assume that somebody must have done the basic philosophical work of connecting the mathematics to the electronics. But as far as I can tell, that is not the case. On the contrary, we are in a peculiar situation where there is little theoretical agreement among the practitioners on such absolutely fundamental questions as, What exactly is a digital computer? What exactly is a symbol? What exactly is an algorithm? What exactly is a computational process?224

John Searle is suggesting that at the root of the discipline of cognitive science are certain unclear and indistinct ideas that result from a lack of a clear internal understanding of the notions of nature, computation, mind, brain, etc. Cognitive science is founded on the idea that the brain is a kind of computer that runs a program (i.e., “the mind”) on the “hardware” of the brain’s neural networks. Not one of these notions, however, is categorially-internally coherent, according to Searle.

Thus, the non-philosophical statements that are characteristic of the works of cognitive scientists that presuppose that the brain is a computer and that the mind is a computer program are statements that rest on philosophical confusion and, in many cases, may even be incoherent. This is not to suggest that cognitive science achieves nothing or somehow lacks scientific merit; rather, it is to suggest that what cognitive science does achieve will need to be clarified, on the basis of the proper internal-categorial framework. This will mean considering cognitive science’s respective contributions to computer science, versus cognitive science’s contributions to the brain sciences, versus cognitive science’s contributions to traditional psychology. But, we will steer clear of the misguided assumption that

224 John Searle, The Rediscovery of The Mind, pp. 204-5

367 there is some kind of master discipline that studies a homogenous natural phenomena, i.e., “the brain’s running of a computational program”, that results in a contribution to all three disciplines at once.

Artificial is a sub-field of computer science, and computer science is neither a human nor a natural science. However, the non-philosophical statements which formal-causally presuppose that it is a natural or human science will often reflect this misconception either directly or indirectly.

(14) The use of the Dialogue form as an indication of the emphasis placed on philosophy’s Socratic role

The fact that Plato uses the dialogue format in which a philosopher engages with a non-philosopher is itself indicative of a conception of philosophy in which philosophy functions as a way of providing a conceptual perspective on the interpretation of non-philosophical propositional elements. For, the dialogue format makes it clear that philosophy directly engages with the non-philosophical realm by means of the clarification of categoremata via basic notions and grammatical structures.

There have been various philosophers throughout history, such as

Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein, who have been influenced by Socrates’ conception of philosophy as a preparation for the formal-causal interpretation of non- philosophical contents, and who have, on this basis, been led to incorporate this dialogical structure into the literary form of their work.

How would this dialogical model work in today’s culture? The

Max Bennett has argued that traditionally trained analytic philosophers ought to

368 quite literally work as Socratic partners with practicing scientists. According to

Bennett, scientific culture would be enriched were analytically trained philosophers to be hired by science departments to be critics of potentially misguided philosophical foundations that underpin current scientific thought.

I believe that nowadays that every first rate neurophysiological laboratory and/or institute needs an absolute first rate critical analytical philosopher there…we need them very badly…we have gone off the tracks in all sorts of crazy directions; we are wasting our time; we [scientists] do not want [philosophers to be our] acolytes …we need criticism.225

This paints a very different picture of the current cultural relation between philosophers and scientists that is dominant today. In today’s culturally dominant picture, philosophers are somehow supposed to take the lead from scientific work in forming their philosophical views. According to Bennett, however, this gets things wrong. Philosophy is not a scientific activity; it is a non-scientific activity; however, all rational-animals, including scientists, implicitly possess a philosophy; however, it is a philosophy that is often mistaken; and it is a philosophy that often has a negative cultural impact on what scientists go on to do scientifically.

Philosophy does not criticize the achievements of scientists or of science; what it does do, however, is clarify the philosophical foundations that are presupposed by scientists.

(15) We see the possibility of regarding a group of philosophers---- Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Wittgenstein---as belonging to a unified tradition in philosophy, a tradition rooted in Socratic-Aristotelian Concepts

225 Max Bennett, Recording of the APA 'authors and critics' session, December 2006 between Max Bennett and and Dan Dennett and John Searle

369 Kierkegaard’s work we have argued synthesizes philosophical resources in ancient philosophy into a conception of philosophy that is Socratic-Aristotelian. This conception of philosophy naturally is combined with an understanding of philosophy as having a “Socratic role”. And this “Socratic role” is then carried out with these very Socratic-Aristotelian philosophical resources. Kierkegaard presents a model of philosophy in which the philosopher engages with the implicit philosophical understanding of non-philosophers in a formal-causal and categorial manner, thereby having a philosophical influence, via philosophy, on non- philosophical culture.

We are able to appreciate how this Kierkegaardian conception of philosophy represents a link between paradigms of ancient philosophy and the 20th century.

For, Kierkegaard synthesizes ideas, which belong together, from the ancient tradition into a powerful conception of philosophy, which we might describe as

“Socratic-Aristotelian”; it is this conception that is then appropriated by philosophers in the 20th century, and which forms the basis of what Wittgenstein calls “philosophical foundations” of a non-philosophical domain of inquiry.

(15.1) The Idea of a Socratic-Aristotelian Tradition

In the above discussions we can isolate seven major themes that are characteristic of the works of this set of philosophers: (1) the Socratic idea that philosophy is not science, but is a form of “re-collective” inquiry; (2) the Aristotelian idea that negation governs predicables or predicates; (3) the Aristotelian idea that, as a result of the logic of predicable negation, there are fundamental differences between kinds of things; i.e., that there are categories and Dimensions; (4) an

370 understanding of and preoccupation with the categorial that is grounded in (1-3);

(5) a conception of reality that includes non-scientific, everyday, fact as basic: (6) a conception of philosophy in which philosophy is concerned with the diagnosis of categorial confusion as resting on mistaken categorial-framework-assumptions

(assumptions which are shared by parities otherwise holding locally conflicting viewpoints), and (7) the idea that philosophy has an essential Socratic role to play in relation to the broader philosophical culture, such that a philosophical dialogue with a non-philosophical audience is motivated in response to the need to clarify the implicit philosophical foundations that underlie the philosophical understanding non-philosophers have of the domain with which they are occupied.

I would suggest that these six propositions are central to the work of

Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophers. This is not altogether surprising since Kierkegaard’s understanding of and admiration for

Socrates was unsurpassed; and both Heidegger and Wittgenstein were openly indebted to the work of Kierkegaard; and the ordinary language tradition was strongly influenced by the work of Wittgenstein. A philosopher whose work is wholly or primarily characterizable by this constellation of commitments can be regarded as “Socratic-Aristotelian”.

371

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———— Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology Vol I, edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980)

———— The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the ‘Philosophical Investigations’ (New York: Harper & Row, 1960)

———— “The Language of Sense Data and Private Experience” in Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951, edited by James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993)

———— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, translated by C. K. Ogden (London: Routledge, 2002

———— Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge, 1939, edited by Cora Diamond (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989)

White, Alan, Truth (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1970)

———— Modal Thinking (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975)

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Biography

Alexander James was born in Walnut Creek, CA. He studied philosophy at the

University of Chicago prior to attending graduate school in philosophy at Johns

Hopkins University.

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