Philosophy Examined

Metaphilosophy in Pragmatic Perspective

Nicholas Rescher

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783110747454
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Epistemology in Philosophy

The book presents a detailed examination of many key aspects of philosophizing, ranging from the mission of philosophy, its method, its dialectic, and its epistemology. It conveys to the reader, student and scholar alike, a clear account of the aspirations and potential of the discipline. Readers will come away with a clearer understanding of the promise and challenges of philosophizing.

1 Speculative Thinking

Speculation

“What if?” is the doorway to speculative thinking. For as human mentality matured over the ages, its range was decreasingly limited to factualities, with truths and falsities no longer the prime objects of its consideration. We came to be in a position to consider situations we neither accept nor reject but simply contemplate as instructive possibilities. From the cognitive point of view we became amphibious creatures, with minds that can address (be it correctly or not) not only the realm of the real but also that of mere supposition.

“What if” suppositions are matters of factual pretense, of cognitive play-acting: they state not actual facts but mere assumptions and hypothesis. Unlike assertions and postulations the do not affirm what is or is taken to be so, but only what is taken provisionally and pro tem—not for purposes of affirmation and information but only for purposes of consideration and exploration. The response to “what if?” questions differ from “since-because” claims in that they suspend belief in the antecedent. Here the critical thing is mere supposition, a proceeding that dispenses with belief.

The speculative wonderment of “What if?” paves the way to the imperatively conditional: “If-then.” For the proper response to what-if questions is generally of the format if-then. (Question: “What if he misses the train?” Answer: “If he misses the train, he’ll miss the boat.”) And what makes such an answer correct is the linkage between its antecedent and its consequent, be it empirical and contingent as in the train/boat example or a matter of logico-acceptability necessary. (Question. “What if one of the five people present leaves?” Answer: “If one of the five people present leaves, then only four people will remain.”) Thus in answering a “what if” question by a response of the format “If – – – then …”, we are looking to the consequences of that dash-indicated antecedent.

Consider for example the following sequence of what-if reasoning:

The room is empty. [Fact]

Suppose someone were in that room. [Supposition]

If someone were in the room they would have had to climb in the window. [If-then consequence of supposition.]

Why? Because the only door has been sealed shut. [Fact]

But what if the window were also sealed shut? [Follow-up supposition]

It is clear that once we embark on speculation there is no end to the process. Just as with facts we can contrive unendingly to seek for the reason why behind the reason why, so with suppositions we can inadequately continue to wonder along the paths of possibility.

“What-if” thinking provides a vastly versatile instrument. In scientific contexts, it is a guide to experimentation (“What if we X and Y at a high temperature?”), in everyday contexts a goal to planning (“What if a misfortune X were to occur, how could we protect ourselves against its consequences); or it could be an instrument of criminal investigation (“If X committed a crime, what clues and indications might yet remain to show this?”).

A key issue to address here is that of the semantical condition and status of the conditional antecedent. It must, of course, be meaningful otherwise we don’t know what we are about. But it lies in the very nature of end hypotheticals that it need certainly not be true. Nor even need it even be something that is possible. There is virtually no limit to supposition. Beyond meaningfulness, assumptions are subject to no further restrictions. Not even logical self-consistency is required here, seeing that ad absurdum reasoning provides a clear counter-example.

As such, supposition is a resource of virtually unlimited scope. One can make suppositions about virtually anything—not just matters of conceivable fact, but also questions, injunctions, instructions, actions, problems. However, we shall here focus on fact-purporting suppositions on the order of: “Suppose that . . . were so, then – - -.” And the affirmation at issue in the antecedent need not be an accepted truth. Its truth-status may be either false or unknown and problematic.

More on Prioritization

A crucial difference is operative when new data are introduced by way of discovery (finding and observation) rather than by way of supposition (hypothesis and assumption). For in the former case if the data don’t fit it is they themselves that will need readjustment. But assumptions are sacrosanct. Other, preexisting materials have to be revised to make room for them. Reciprocal adjustments is the instrument of consistency in mandating either way. An optimal landscape of reciprocal accommodation has to be achieved one way or another via principles of rational economy.

Paradox analysis affords another illustration of this phenomenon. Thus suppose we adopt the underlying principle at issue in the classic “Paradox of the Heap”:

   “If n sand-grains do not constitute a heap, neither do n + 1.”

And in the wake of this supposition we are confronted with two further concepts:

One or two sand-grains do not constitute a heap

A million sand-grans constitute a big heap

It is clear that the sequential addition of sand-grains will engender a contradiction here, seeing that we realize full well that eventually a heap is before us. So we arrive at the puzzle: “What if to a single grain of sand we keep adding more. Just when do we arrive as a heap?”

As noted above, the priority order of claims on retention in the face of counterfactual supposition runs as follows: (1) the assumptions and suppositions whose postulations are at issue, (2) definitions and terminological explanations, (3) general laws, rules, principles, (4) speculative contingent factualities, (5) plausibilities and probabilities. Such a hierarch of epistemic-tenscity status obtains and serves to determine the weakest link at which to break the cycle of inconsistency that counterfactual suppositions engender.

In the wake of such considerations we have to reject that seemingly plausible addition principle in the face of more fundamental factualities. But of course the question “At just what point is the transition from non-heaps to heaps made?” is one that has no answer; it is inappropriate on grounds of resting as on mistaken presupposition. Transition there is and must be, but it is not punctiform. In this regard the question is based on the erroneous presuppositions of potential exactitude.

One useful and very common use of thought experimentation relates to its explanatory employment. We here reason along the lines of “If only such-and-such were the case, then something-or-other (which otherwise would be very difficult to explain) now admits of a ready and satisfying explanation.” For example, Thales (6^th century B.C.), the very first of the nature philosophers of ancient Greece, proposed to explain the annual flooding of the Nile as the result of a backing up of its outflow due to the opposing force of the annually recurrent Etesian winds.

Thought Experiments

Overall, a proper thought experiment involves five stages; supposition, context specification, commitment adjustment, conclusion deriving, and lesson drawing. And at each of these stages a mishap or malfunction can in theory arise.

• The supposition can turn out to be meaningless;
• The context may be set up inappropriately, in relation to the purposes of the thought experiment in particular by way of error of omission;
• The commitment adjustment may fail to be realistic, in particular by way of errors of omission that plunge matters into inconsistency;
• The course of reasoning by which the intended conclusion is drawn may be flawed and erroneous;
• The wrong lesson can be drawn for the experiment by overlooking possibilities for its interpretation.

In sum, all sorts of procedural flaws can in theory arise to vitiate a thought experiment.

Philosophical Speculation

Science addresses the real world. Granted it too engages in unreal and sometimes even counter-factual speculating, but always only to illustrate the ways of the real. Philosophy, by compassion, throws in speculation. It acknowledges that one can often best understand the nature and meaning of reality by considering the ways and means of what is not. Even as we often most acutely appreciate life’s benefits when adverse circumstances compels us to do without them, so the contemplation of what is not can lead not to understand and appreciate the offerings and arrangements of the real. If a second man banished the doctrines and bathed our planet in eternal light, organic life or rather as we know it would become impossible. Since the very start of philosophy, thought experimentation has been one of its main instrumentalities.²

2 On Problems of Getting It Right

Getting It Wrong

It is instructive to approach the matter from the negative side, in considering the problems of getting it right in matters of belief and acceptance and begin with considerations about getting it wrong. Getting it wrong—error—is a matter of mistaken judgment, of accepting an incorrect answer to a question. It occurs principally in two domains, that of cognition and that of action, of wrong thinking and of wrong doing.

Wrong belief exacts its penalty by way of misinformation. But apart from such cognitive penalties for mistaken information there are also the substantive penalties for incorrect acting. And since homo sapiens as a rational being bases his actions on his beliefs, and acts with a view to putative consequences, this means that generally even accepting incorrect information is apt to exact a substantive penalty.

Even as the arrow can win the bull’s eye by more or by less, so error of every kind can be more or less off the mark. And there are primarily two sorts of errors:

1. Errors of the first kind: Errors of commission arising when we mistakenly accept as true what is actually false. So what results is a wrong picture regarding the facts of the situation;
2. Errors of the second kind: Errors of omission arising when we inappropriately leave things out of manifold of acceptance. Here we mistakenly deem false what is actually true. So what results is a wrong picture as to the details of the situation.

Correspondingly, two sorts of error (error of information):

• Errors of truth (defec...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: The Mission of Philosophy?
• 1 Speculative Thinking
• 2 On Problems of Getting It Right
• 3 Contextual Acceptance and Cognitive Compartmentalization
• 4 Philosophical Methodology
• 5 Aporetic Method in Philosophy
• 6 Metaphilosophical Coherentism
• 7 On Philosophical Systematization
• 8 On Validating First Principles
• 9 Our View of Reality
• 10 Optimalism and Explanatory Totalization
• 11 Thematic Stability Amidst Philosophical Development
• 12 Philosophical Disagreement and Orientational Pluralism
• 13 Philosophical Cogency
• 14 The Pragmatic Perspective
• Index of Names