
A Formal Apology for Metaphysics [pdf] - lainon
https://philpapers.org/archive/BARAFA-6.pdf
======
dvt
Probably one of the few people that read the whole thing, but the argument is,
in my opinion, pretty weak. It basically boils down to making some kind of
equivalence between metaphysics and pure mathematics. Of course, it ignores
the main force of mathematical progress: theorem-building. Metaphysics might
be "interconnected in much the same way" as Dr. Baron argues, but let's not
kid ourselves. To argue that metaphysics is as "conceptually interrelated" as
mathematics is is a real stretch. Just consider volume: it's estimated that
around _a quarter of a million_ theorems are proved every year. That's real,
measurable, progress; what's the metaphysics equivalent?

The distinction between "internally applied metaphysics" and "externally
applied metaphysics" on page 14 is a shameless red herring. The _only_ thing
we ought to care about, given the preceding section on applications of pure
mathematics is "externally applied metaphysics," but in typical philosopher
fashion, Dr. Baron equivocates for a few unnecessary pages. Finally, let me
leave you with this gem: "All three cases are examples in which scientists
appear to be doing metaphysics. Computer scientists build models of objects
and categories in order to provide the resources for artificial intelligence
to successfully navigate the world, or make judgements [sic] about it." Yeah,
that's not metaphysics; it's pretty much just regular taxonomy (and, by the
way, the term of art is _labeling_ ). TensorFlow models have nothing to do
with metaphysical models, and this is exactly why philosophers get such a bad
rap. They extend far beyond the reaches of their knowledge base and don't even
have the courtesy to look up "machine learning model" on Wikipedia.

~~~
myWindoonn
Mathematics is metaphysics. I'd like your refutation to center on any nuance
which might separate the two disciplines other than the sad fact that many
philosophers don't learn much maths.

Logic is metaphysics:
[https://philpapers.org/archive/ALVLIM-3.pdf](https://philpapers.org/archive/ALVLIM-3.pdf)

Logic is mathematical, logic is _categorical_ (structured in a deep way
amenable to category theory), maths is categorical:
[http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/rosetta.pdf](http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/rosetta.pdf)
[https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/internal+logic](https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/internal+logic)
[https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/topos](https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/topos)

Ontology is categorical:
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1102.1889v2](https://arxiv.org/abs/1102.1889v2)
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.00526](https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.00526)

The working programmer _is_ an ontologist and a taxonomist, but this fact
isn't well-understood.

~~~
hackinthebochs
This kind of response really grinds my gears about these discussions of
philosophy (more often than not related to metaphysics). You're referencing
the mostly unobjectionable features of the field to defend the objectionable
features, when there is very little similarity between the two. You can't
defend ontology language games by appealing to the truth of logic or
mathematics, as they share nothing of relevance in common. If you want to give
an actual defense of the things people find objectionable about metaphysics,
you have to defend the features being attacked, not tangentially related
things that happen to be categorized under the same broad label.

>Logic is metaphysics:

Maybe this is true, but _doing_ logic isn't _doing_ metaphysics. One does not
need to take a stance on the metaphysics of logic to study and create formal
systems.

>The working programmer is an ontologist and a taxonomist, but this fact isn't
well-understood.

Not in any substantive sense. There is a surface-level connection between what
a programmer does and a metaphysician does, but this is the extent of the
connection. The ontologies studied in metaphysics attempt to make true
substantive statements about what exists in the actual world. The programmer
is merely stipulating the basic objects and relationships in a fully
contingent domain of inquiry. The programmer is doing metaphysics only if you
remove anything of substance from what we take the metaphysician to be doing.

~~~
myWindoonn
And this kind of response really grinds my gears; I am relatively certain,
given the time scales involved and the nature of your response, that you
didn't read my links, and you haven't provided any of your own. Nonetheless!

Doing logic is doing metaphysics. Suppose 1+1=2 for addable numbers, that you
have oranges and can add more oranges, and also that the number of oranges you
have is an addable number. Now you know, as a matter of plain old
philosophical handwavey logic, that if you have 1 orange, and you add 1 more
orange, then you'll have 2 oranges. Easy, right? This generalizes to any topos
and it's known as "internal logic". The slogan we have is, "a topos is a place
for doing logic".

Doing metaphysics is doing logic. Want to know what's impossible? If it can be
characterized purely by mathematical structures, and those structures'
existence leads to contradiction, then it's impossible. Thus, "models" in the
first sense of the original article, free unconstrained unicorn metaphysics
models, are actually logically (and thus mathematically) constrained by
"models" in the second sense, in the mathematical sense. A powerful example of
this is M-theory, borne from string theory; right now, the "swampland" cleanup
is sweeping through string theory and helping refine our sense of which
particle physics are possible.

An ontologist in today's postmodern world surely knows that the (inherently
mathematical!) structures that they are building and studying are created, not
discovered; subjective, not objective; narratives, not truths. Mathematicians
know this formally, via Tarski's Undefinability. Just like an ontologist tries
to find models, a programmer tries to find models, searching for the database
schemata and the class hierarchy that will match their problem.

(Indeed, what is "anything of substance"? Is it physical?)

~~~
hackinthebochs
>I am relatively certain, given the time scales involved and the nature of
your response, that you didn't read my links, and you haven't provided any of
your own

The content of the links didn't seem relevant to the objection I offered.
Perhaps that's incorrect, but you didn't make the case.

>Doing logic is doing metaphysics. Suppose 1+1=2 for addable numbers... that
if you have 1 orange, and you add 1 more orange, then you'll have 2 oranges.

I could object to doing math being an instance of metaphysics, but setting
that aside, the issue is that the connection between logic and metaphysics is
the "mostly unobjectionable" subset of metaphysics that I mentioned
previously. So again, you can't substantiate the objectionable parts with
arguments that only apply to the unobjectionable parts.

>An ontologist in today's postmodern world surely knows that the (inherently
mathematical!) structures that they are building and studying are created, not
discovered; subjective, not objective; narratives, not truths.

Here you seem to be admitting that metaphysics is unsubstantive! Metaphysics
purports to discover what exists, not subjective notions of preferred
taxonomies. But it is precisely the charge that nothing objective is being
discovered that underpins the argument against metaphysics.

Now I understand why you see a close connection between what a programmer does
and what the metaphysician does: they're both theorizing about contingent
domains of inquiry, with no external objective facts at stake. But now I don't
get why you object to saying metaphysics is unsubstantive.

------
AltruisticGap
Maybe readers will enjoy this related post from Bernardo Kastrup. It may argue
the point better, or not. I can't argue myself as it's too obvious for me.
It's a unwinnable argument in my opinion, since it drives right into what it
means to know something.

Why dismissing philosophy threatens the integrity of science

[https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2018/12/why-dismissing-
philo...](https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2018/12/why-dismissing-philosophy-
threatens.html)

~~~
whatshisface
Only the most radical suggest eliminating philosophy, because that would
include ethics and from that law, and also some art criticism. A much more
common stance is that certain "impossible" areas of philosophy are a waste of
time, and if you ask a "science-ist" to be specific about what they don't
like, they'll probably only list those parts of philosophy.

------
gglon
Meta theories should be evaluated by their fruits, theories they help
cognitive system to discover. By how good the theories are and how easy it is
to discover them. For example: instead of teaching a child a great bunch of
theories one can teach it a simple/short meta-theory and see if the child,
based on its experience with the world, discovers a greater bunch good
theories.

------
klyrs
This isn't an apology, it's blame-shifting.

"Don't hit people! Apologize to your sibling NOW!"

"Sorry mom, my sibling plays baseball and gets congratulated whenever they hit
the ball; so we're really no different"

------
josh_fyi
The actual justification for non-directly-observable metaphysics is Occam's
Razor.

~~~
whatshisface
How do you know that the true metaphysics of the world doesn't have one
additional thing beyond your theory? There is no way, there is not even any
way to get a sense of what pattern it is following.

