Re: BHA: Just when i thought it was over...

[Louis Irwin <lirwin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ruth,

>... and I give him the example we were tossing
>about, that the alethic truth of water is its molecular structure.  Yes?  He
>says, "That's not truth *or* cause, that's a *description*, one of many
>possible descriptions."

The molecular structure of water is clearly not a description.  A
description consists of words, etc., while the molecular structure of water
consists of atoms, etc.

Further, although "the molecular structure of water" is a description, it is
not a description of water.  If it were, then "the molecular strucure of
water" would refer to water (a description refers to what it describes).  I
did not drink the molecular structure of water this morning, I drank water,
which has a certain molecular structure.  So arguably water and the
molecular structure are two different, though closely related, things in the
world and exist, so says CR, at different levels.

Consider by contrast, "H2O".  That description refers to water (which as we
know is H2O), and it does so by using symbols that by conventions of
chemistry describe the molecular structure of water.  You might say that
"H2O" is one of many desriptions of water, others being "water", "Wasser",
"the stuff I brushed my teeth with this morning", etc. I did drink H20, as
opposed to the molecular strucutre of H2O, this morning.

So if you had suggested that H2O is the alethic truth of water, he might
have had a point if he had responded that "H2O" is one of many descriptions
of water.  However, you instead suggested that the molecular structure of
water is the alethic truth of water, and his response that "the molecular
structure of water" is one of many descriptions of water is a plain
falsehood.  Moreover, the point I invented for him above in relation to H2O
would not have been very good, because while "H2O does indeed describe
water, it does so by invoking the molecular structure of water.

I agree that the molecular structure of water as the alethic truth of water
is not necessarily a good model for the alethic causes of social phenomena.
 The form of causality at the level of chemistry is going to miss elements
that emerge in the formation of society.

Louis Irwin



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