Re: BHA: Emergence

[Ruth Groff <rgroff@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I can't pursue this at length either, but I have obviously not communicated my position well enough.

Mervyn wrote:
>Ruth writes:
>
> >I don't see how, QUA belief systems, different metaphysical positions can be
> >said to differ in ontological status.
>
>I don't see how you don't see, except on the assumption that you hold
>(perhaps as a result of a reification of the epistemology/ ontology
>distinction) that belief systems are somehow not included within
>ontology.


No.  It's exactly the opposite.  I said,

>  certainly different belief systems (e.g., Kantianism, Hegelianism, transcendental
> >dialectical critical realism, etc.) may contain different claims about what
> >exists, and the basic properties thereof (i.e., have different ontologies).

For example, person A might argue that the only things that can be said to exist are things that can be observed.  Everything else is metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.  Person B might respond that there exist underlying dispositional properties, which give rise to those things which can be observed, and that such properties exist even if they cannot be observed.  In this case we can certainly say that B's theory, if it is true (and even if it isn't, although there the case is a little trickier) contains concepts whose CONTENT is ontologically more basic than those contained in A's theory.

I continued:
>It is also the case that some belief systems can be seen to presuppose others.

This relationship, of "presupposing" can take a number of different forms, I would say.  Kant's work presupposes Hume's for example; Marx's work presupposes Hegel's in an entirely different way.

But in all of this we are talking about the content, or meaning of the ideas.  If we shift categories, and talk instead about the ontological status *of ideas per se*, considered as one of the kinds things that exist in the world -- along with beer (the existence of which I know gives a lot of you guys pleasure), cats, nation-states, people, etc. -- then, in my view, all of the members of the kind have the same existential status.  Think for a minute about books.  Most of us would agree that books exist, though we probably disagree about exactly what a book *is*, ultimately.  Whatever one's preferred account is, however, what I object to (by analogy) is the idea that, AS a book, any *given* book's ontological status depends on its content.

This seems to me to be a category mistake.  I may be wrong about this -- and I may even be willing to change my mind, or modify the position (for example, I probably would want to make certain general ontological claims about ideas that are ideological in the strict sense)  -- but the judgment is not based on excluding beliefs from my ontology.

Warmly,
Ruth



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