The Case for Idealism

John Foster

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000362862
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Originally published in 1982, the aim of this book is a controversial one – to refute, by the most rigorous philosophical methods, physical realism and to develop and defend in its place a version of phenomenalism. Physical realism here refers to the thesis that the physical world (or some selected portion of it) is an ingredient of ultimate reality, where ultimate reality is the totality of those entities and facts which are not logically sustained by anything else. Thus, in arguing against physical realism, the author sets out to establish that ultimate reality is wholly non-physical. The crucial elements in this argument are the topic-neutrality of physical description and the relationship between physical geometry and natural law.

The version of phenomenalism advanced by John Foster develops out of this refutation of physical realism. Its central claim is that the physical world is the logical creation of the natural (non-logical) constraints on human sense-experience. This phenomenalist perspective assumes that there is some form of time in which human experience occurs but which is logically prior to the physical world, and Foster explores in detail the nature of this pre-physical time and its relation to time as a framework for physical events.

This book was a major contribution to contemporary philosophical thinking at the time.

PART I

An Outline of the Issues

1

The Options

Even among philosophers the term ‘idealism’ is used in a variety of different senses to denote a variety of different positions. In what follows, I shall be concerned with three kinds of idealism, which can be expressed, summarily, by the following three claims:

• (1) Ultimate contingent reality is wholly mental.
• (2) Ultimate contingent reality is wholly non-physical.
• (3) The physical world is the logical product of facts about human sense-experience.

My defence of idealism will be primarily a defence of claims (2) and (3), though I shall also try to show the plausibility of (1). I shall begin by explaining what the claims mean and how they are related.

Reality is all that exists or obtains, the totality of entities and facts. Thus, if John is heavier than Mary, reality includes the entities John and Mary and the fact that John is heavier than Mary.

I shall not pursue the question of whether facts themselves are entities. Certainly, I do not regard myself as incurring (as philosophers say) an ontological commitment to facts merely by employing the fact-terminology. I do not think I am committed to recognizing facts as entities when I say ‘There are several facts we must take into account’ anymore than I think I am committed to recognizing respects as entities when I say ‘There are several respects in which crocodiles and alligators differ’. And certainly it is not as entities that I am taking facts to be ingredients of reality when I say that reality is all that exists or obtains, the totality of entities and facts. For a fact to obtain, in this sense, is just for something to be the case, i.e. for it to be the case that ..., for some suitable filling of the blank. The obtaining of the fact that John is heavier than Mary just is its being the case that John is heavier than Mary. Thus I might have said: reality is all that exists or is the case. None of this, of course, precludes our construing facts as entities. But if we do construe them as entities, we must still distinguish the two ways in which facts are ingredients of reality – as elements of what exists and as elements of what obtains. We must still recognize that someone else who rejects this construal is not denying, in the relevant sense, that facts obtain. For, in this sense, he is accepting that facts obtain merely by accepting that John is heavier than Mary or that the earth moves or that 2 + 2 = 4.

An entity (or fact) is contingent iif its existence (obtaining) is not necessary, in some sense of necessity stronger than merely natural necessity. (Here and throughout I use ‘iff as an abbreviation for ‘if and only if.) The number 2, as normally conceived, is non-contingent, since its existence is necessary in the relevantly strong sense:¹ there could not have been a world, however different from the actual world in composition and natural laws, in which 2 failed to exist (though, of course, there could have been a world in which the symbol ‘2’, having a different meaning, failed to denote anything). Likewise, the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 is non-contingent, since its obtaining is necessary in the relevantly strong sense: there could not have been a world, of whatever composition and natural laws, in which 2 + 2 failed to be 4 (though, of course, there could have been a world in which the sequence of symbols ‘2 + 2 = 4’, having a different meaning, failed to express a truth). In contrast, this chair (if it exists) and the fact there is a chair in this room (if this is a fact) are both contingent: the existence of the one and the obtaining of the other are not necessary in the relevant sense or, indeed, in any sense. Moreover, the fact that unsupported bodies fall is also contingent, since even though its obtaining is or may be the result of natural necessity (viz. the law of gravity), it is not necessary in any stronger sense. At least, it is not necessary in a stronger sense unless we define the term ‘body’ in such a way that it only applies to objects that behave in that way. And even if we do define the term in this way, there could have been a world, with different natural laws, in which objects with the same intrinsic properties as bodies behaved quite differently.

Where a necessity is stronger than natural necessity, I shall, to mark the distinction, call it a logical necessity. This is obviously a rather broad use of the term ‘logical’, since there are many cases where something which is, in that sense, logically necessary cannot be established from (what we ordinarily take to be) the laws of logic alone. Indeed, there are cases where something which is, in that sense, logically necessary cannot be established a priori (e.g. it is logically necessary that Hesperus and Phosphorus are numerically identical, though, given the difference in the concepts Hesperus and Phosphorus, this is not something we can know a priori²). But this broad use of the term ‘logical’ seems to me appropriate, because any stronger-than-natural necessity is a necessity of the strongest kind – the kind for which the necessity of logical truth, in the narrow sense, provides the clearest measure.

If reality is the totality of entities and facts, contingent reality is, correspondingly, the totality of contingent entities and contingent facts – all that contingently exists or contingently obtains. I might equally have said: contingent reality is the totality of contingent entities and states of affairs. For I shall draw no distinction between contingent facts and states of affairs. I shall draw no distinction between the fact that John is heavier than Mary (i.e. its being the case that John is heavier than Mary) and the state of affairs of John’s being heavier than Mary, nor between the fact that there is a chair in this room (i.e. it being the case that there is a chair in this room) and the state of affairs of there being a chair in this room. Maybe, strictly speaking, there is a subtle difference between contingent facts and states of affairs. But if there is, it is not relevant to my purposes.

I will say that a fact or set of facts F is logically sustained by a fact or set of facts F′ iff F obtains wholly in virtue of F′ in the following sense:

• (a) F is a logical consequence of F′, i.e. it is logically necessary that if F′ obtains, then F obtains.
• (b) F is mediated by F′, i.e. the obtaining of F is achieved through
  and by means of the obtaining of F′.
• (c) F is exhausted by F′, i.e. the obtaining of F is wholly constituted by and is nothing over and above the obtaining of F′.

To take a simple and philosophically trivial example, suppose that John weighs 14 stone and Mary weighs 10 stone. Now consider the fact (F₁) that John is more than 2 stone heavier than Mary. In the sense defined by (a), (b) and (c), F₁ obtains wholly in virtue of the fact (F₂) that John is exactly 4 stone heavier than Mary. So F₁ is logically sustained by F₂. And, quite generally, wherever two individuals instantiate some generic relation R, there is a determinate relation R′ of R such that their instantiation of R is logically sustained by their instantiation of R′. F₂, in turn, obtains wholly in virtue of, and is thus logically sustained by, the combination of the facts (F₃) that John weighs 14 stone and (F₄) that Mary weighs 10 stone. And, quite generally, wherever two individuals instantiate some determinate weight-relation R, their instantiation of R is logically sustained by the combination of their specific weights. Finally (at least for present purposes), F₃ and F₄ are logically sustained by certain facts (partly general, partly specific to John, Mary and the earth) about mass, distance and gravity.

Since a fact does not mediate itself, the relation of logical sustainment is irreflexive. It is also, for obvious reasons, transitive (if F sustains F′ and F′ sustains F′, then F sustains F”) and asymmetric (if F sustains F′, then F′ does not sustain F). It is also asymmetric in a special and stronger sense. Thus let us say that a fact F contributes to the sustainment of a fact F′ iff there is a set of facts F′ such that F′ is sustained by F and F′ together, but is not sustained by either F or F′ on its own. Then the special asymmetry consists in this: that for any facts F and F′, if F sustains or contributes to the sustainment of F′, F′ does not sustain or contribute to the sustainment of F.

I shall say that an entity x is the logical creation of (or is logically created by) the fact or set of facts F iff the existence of x (i.e. the fact that x exists) is logically sustained by F. For example, and quite trivially, the set {John, Mary} (likewise, the aggregate John + Mary) is the logical creation of, in combination, the existence of John and the existence of Mary. Thus logical creation is a special case of logical sustainment, namely the sustainment of an entity’s existence. I shall use the expression ‘ ... is the logical product of ...’ to cover, generically, both cases of sustainment and cases of creation. Thus if F is a fact or set of facts, a fact F′ is the logical product of F iff F′ is logically sustained by F, and an entity x is the logical product of F iff x is the logical creation of F Likewise I shall speak of a collection of entities and facts as the logical product of F when each element in the collection is the logical product of F.

Where a fact is not logically sustained by any fact or set of facts I shall call it logically basic (or just basic) and where an entity is not the logical creation of any fact or set of facts I shall call it ontologically primitive (or just primitive). I shall also use the term ‘ultimate’ to apply generically both to logically basic facts and to ontologically primitive entities. Ultimate contingent reality is then the totality of ultimate (i.e. primitive, uncreated) contingent entities and ultimate (i.e. basic, unsustained) contingent facts. It is all that ultimately contingently exists or obtains. For short, I shall refer to it in future as simply ultimate reality.

It is true, by definition, that every fact is either basic or sustained. But, in what follows, I shall make the additional assumption that every fact is either basic or sustained by some set of basic facts. In particular, I shall assume that the totality of basic contingent facts, which forms the factual component of ultimate reality, is, in a certain sense, exhaustive: that it encompasses, explicitly or implicitly, all that contingently obtains – that every contingent fact (every state of affairs) is either an element of this totality or sustained by it. This assumption is not one which I require as a basis for my arguments: I could manage perfectly well without it. But without it, the first two idealist claims would have to be re-expressed. For I want these claims to set a restriction on contingent reality as a whole. I want claim (1), that ultimate reality is wholly mental, to imply that every contingent fact is either a mental fact or logically sustained by mental facts, and I want claim (2), that ultimate reality is wholly non-physical, to imply that every contingent fact is either a non-physical fact or logically sustained by non-physical facts. Without the assumption that the totality of basic contingent facts is, in the relevant sense, exhaustive, the claims would not have these implications. (1) would be compatible with the assertion that there are non-mental facts which are not logically sustained by mental facts, and (2) would be compatible with the assertion that there are physical facts which are not logically sustained by non-physical facts. Thus construed, the two claims would be too permissive to carry the philosophical significance which I accord them in my subsequent discussion. To carry this significance, I would have to strengthen them by adding, as extra clauses, the propositions I want them to imply.

It is for convenience of exposition that I am adopting the assumption of exhaustiveness: as I have said, I do not require it as a basis for my arguments. But, given the transitivity and asymmetry of sustainment, I also think that the assumption is true. It would only be false if there were some non-basic fact whose sustainment was infinitely regressive, such that every set of facts which sustained it, however directly or remotely, contained at least one fact which was itself sustained. And I can think of no case in which I would acknowledge a regress of this kind. The only case which suggests itself is a regress of physical constitution, whereby each space-occupant is composed of smaller occupants by whose arrangement and organization its existence is sustained. But even if there were such a regress of constitution (and it is far from clear that there is), it would not follow that there were no basic facts by which the existence of each occupant was sustained. For we could still insist that, in the final analysis, all occupants, however large or small, are logically created by facts about the physical properties of points at times. Indeed, such a position is one which I shall defend in chapter 5.

Let us now consider, in more detail, the content of claims (1) and (2). (1) is the claim that ultimate reality is wholly mental. More precisely, it is the claim that:

• (a) Apart from purely temporal contingent entities (if there are any), e.g. moments and periods (if these are contingent), the only ultimate (ontologically primitive) contingent entities are mental, i.e. are entities such as minds (or conscious subjects) and mental events.
• (b) Apart from purely temporal contingent facts (if there are any), e.g. the fact that time is infinitely extended (if this is a fact and if it is contingent), the only ultimate (logically basic) contingent facts are mind-concerning, i.e. are facts about the existence and intrinsic character of minds, their location and structuring in time, the events and processes that occur in them, and the natural laws to which such events and processes are subject.

In short, (1) is the claim that ultimate reality entirely consists, both ontologically and factually, in a world of time, minds and mind-governing laws. I shall call this claim the mentalist thesis, or, for short, mentalism. (2) is the claim that ultimate reality is wholly non-physical. More precisely, it is the claim that:

• (a) Apart from purely temporal contingent entities (if there are any and if they qualify as physical), no contingent physical entity is ontologically primitive.
• (b) Apart from purely temporal contingent facts (if there are any and if they qualify as physical), no contingent physical fact is logically basic.

Thus (2) excludes from the realm of ultimate reality: physical space, bodies, physical colour, elementary particles, electromagnetic fields, physical laws and everything else (apart from time), whether ontological or factual, which either common sense or scientific theory recognizes as an element of the physical world. I shall call this the physical anti-realist thesis or, for short, physical anti-realism, though often, where the reference to the physical is clear from the context, I shall speak simply of the anti-realist thesis and anti-realism. Both mentalism and physical anti-realism are theses which confine ultimate reality to entities and facts of a certain sort: mentalism confines it to entities and facts which are (including the temporal) mental, and anti-realism confines it to entities and facts which are not (excluding the temporal) physical. And in both cases, given the assumption of exhaustiveness, the confinements indirectly cover contingent reality as a whole. Mentalism requires that every contingent fact is either mental or logically sustained by mental facts (and therefore, as a special case, that every contingent entity is either mental or the logical creation of mental facts) and anti-realism requi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Part I An outline of the issues
• Part II The topic-neutrality thesis
• Part III The refutation of realism
• Part IV The case for phenomenalism
• Part V The nature of time