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Tractatus Ethico-Actualicus:
A user friendly guide to actualism and its ethical system
1. The trouble with Informativity..........................................................................1
2. Pseudoinformation– internal and external.....................................................4
3. Identity, holism, truth.......................................................................................23
4. The pseudoproblem of underdtermination........................................................36
5. Ethics be good...................................................................................................39
1. The trouble with Informativity
1. Informativity is the explanation of one thing by another thing, or the
predication of one thing of another.
1.1 Though informativity is always the explanation of one thing by another,
emptiness is not only the explanation of one thing by itself (tautology). Sometime
it is the explanation of one thing by no-thing, and sometime it is the explanation
of no-thing by another no-thing, and there may be other kinds.
1.11 Examples of such emptiness are explanations by definitions, by laws of
the game, by facts in a fiction story, by facts in a dream, (or the predication that
occurs in nominal definitions). Though these seem informative, they are empty:
The ontology involved says that the objects and their laws (e.g. the knight and its
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rules) or their actions (Hamlet and his killing of Polonius) are not real. No
information about real objects is involved, only about fictitious objects.
1.111 In so far as the knight and Hamlet are real objects, all chess and literary
propositions about them may be informative but false, and in so far as they are
true they turn out to be empty.
1.112 The tell for this emptiness is the necessity of the truth accompanying
them: the knight moves only so and so, Hamlet committed suicide, the 747
stopped in midair hovering silently.
1.2 There cannot be a necessarily true yet informative proposition, because as
informative, it links two mutually separate things which, being thus separate,
there is a possible world in which they are not so linked, hence the proposition is
false in one world.
1.21 Hence propositions carrying necessity can be informative only if they are
contingently necessary. This necessity we call physical, and it says that the
proposition is true in all the sub-worlds of our given world, but this whole world
is not necessary, i.e., not the only possible world.
1.211 It is very difficult to say which are these sub-worlds. We thought that the
distributive law is a contingently-necessary truth but discovered that the atomic
realm does not obey it, maybe. For atomic particles it is not true that if p is true
and also q or r are true then p and q is true or p and r is true. We still think that it
is contingently-necessary that if p is true then its negation ~p is false. But we are
not sure at all.
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1.22 A proposition is informative only if it is false in some possible world. This
entails that it links some mutually separate things. It also entails that a proposition
that is true in all possible worlds does not link separate things. Hence, it either
links a thing to itself, or it links fictitious, unreal things. But separateness from
man and so from each other is a property unique to real things. Things which are
unreal are non-separate from us and so cannot be separate from each other. Their
non-reality entails their mutual non-separateness and this entails the emptiness of
propositions which are exclusively about them.
1.3 This is a theory of objective, i.e. separate informativity : It describes an
informativity that is a property of the proposition which holds of it separately
from its being known. This informativity has nothing to do with human
knowledge, understanding, learning, innovation, surprise, belief, etc.
1.31 This objectivity or separateness is what distinguishes this theory from
Popper’s. Though his theory classifies propositions into scientific and non-
scientific according to their objective informativity, it also demands that this
informativity be actual for man. This actual informativity Popper called
refutability, and this demand turns his concept of informativity non-separate from
human knowledge and so relative to man, or subjective. This was a mistake,
leading to further and graver mistakes (see ch ).
1.32 Another conception of subjective informativity is the following:
Knowledge, as expressed by language, is something relative to definitions.
Though this conclusion may seem paradoxical at first, it is true. For
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whether a proposition contains knowledge depends on what we know
before. (Schlick 1918:49)
1.33 Popper’s and Schlick’s concepts of informativity are pragmatic, or
subjective, or relative to man. The concept of informativity which I use is
objective – man and his knowledge are irrelevant to whether a given proposition
is or is not informative. Explaining combustion by phlogiston was informative
always and independently of the vicissitudes of the theory in history. That there is
no such thing, phlogiston, in reality, only make it false, and what makes it
informative is that were it true, it would have explained combustion by another
thing, namely, phlogiston.
2. Pseudoinformation– internal and external
2.1 Had phlogiston been introduced as a fictitious thing, the explanation
would be non-informative , no matter what. So we need to make a distinction
within unreal entities between falsely assumed to be real, such as phlogiston and
epicycles and those truly assumed to be unreal, such as fiction persona, dream
entities and game figures (Chess pieces, say ). Call the first – false, and the second
– fictitious entities. Call discourse about fictitious entities within their fictitious
worlds – fiction. Then the claim I make is that fiction is necessarily non-
informative, but this is not the case about false entities. Ptolemy’s theory of
epicycles and the phlogiston combustion theory are false but informative theories.
But all our explanations of Hamlet’s actions by his thoughts and drives and
depression etc. are empty , for the simple reason that Hamlet is a fiction, a
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figment of our imagination. Even if it turned out that Hamlet and the Danish court
are real things, this would not change the situation: the Hamlet we explain is a
fiction and will remain such come what may in the real world, just as the truth-
values of the propositions in Sheakspear’s play do not change according to the
world’s state. The sign of fiction and the fictitious is absolute fact-insensitivity.
This entails their emptiness, i.e., non-informativity.
2.1.1 Just as intended reference to real entities is a necessary condition for
informativity, so intended non-reference to real entities is a sufficient condition
for non-informativity.
2.1.1.1 One necessary condition for the separateness of informativity is the
separateness of the proposition and its truth status, i.e., when a proposition is true
or false. When an informative proposition is true, the world in which it is true, is
actual. When it is informative and false, that world is potential. When it is non-
informative, it is true in all the possible worlds, and so it is necessarily true. Truth
status and informativity status are mutually separate.
2.2 This explains the emptiness of a necessary proposition : For it follows now
that truth in all worlds entails the non-separateness of the elements constituting it.
This must be mutual non-separateness and consequently non-separateness from
us. Hence their non-reality.
2.3 “This table is square” is informative only if it is possible for it to be not
square. When it turns out that “this table is square” is an observation proposition
true in all possible states of the observer, so that no change in his perspective
effects the squareness, we conclude that the table and its squareness are mutually
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non-separate, or that at least one of them is not real. We conclude that this is a
case of optical illusion.
2.3.1 For example: the subject is non-separate from its predicates in Leibniz’s
ontology and that’s why their linkage is necessary. This is the case also for
Aristotle’s theory of definitions : “Man is a biped etc. animal” is a necessary truth
because there is no such entity - man – separate from its predicates (see my 1995:
).
2.3.2 This is also the case with Kant’s synthetic a priori. In all the worlds
possible for us the same general laws of nature will hold which are therefore
synthetic a priori. Kant’s conclusion was that the things linked by each of them
are not real exactly because they are mutually non-separate and so non-separate
from us. Their mutual non-separateness entailed, moreover, that the only way they
can at all obtain meaning is through each other and us. (see ch.3)
2.3.3 This was an external view, i.e., the laws seem informative only to us, i.e.,
from the inside. But viewed from the outside, i.e., from a vantage point from
which our actual world is just one of the rest of the possible worlds, it becomes
clear that the laws are merely our creations. To the outsider it becomes clearly
visible that the general laws of nature are just the subjective rules of our
synthesizing our fiction world. For him it is clear that being mere rules of
synthesis, the laws are non-informative.
2.4 The fictitious objects in our fictional synthesized world, according to
Kant, are space, time, substance (or object), causality, the ego. As a consequence
of their non-reality, such things as motions and the forces causing them are non-
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real, i.e., merely subjective. Only, since this subjectivity is shared by the entire
human species, it cannot be seen from within but only from the outside.
2.5 This subjectivity Kant called “mere formal”, thus pointing out that the
general laws of nature, just like the categories and the forms of sensibility, are
empty of content, i.e., they are non-informative both about reality and obviously
about the phenomena, i.e., the fiction we synthesize by them.
2.6 Kant’s awakening from his “dogmatic slumbers” was his recognition of
this total subjectivity of experience, subjectivity that is the contradictory of
“dogmatism”, and this was the essence of his “Copernican Turn”. (His so-called
“criticism” is a red herring, for it means just this subjectivism.)
2.7 This Copernican reference was a true Kantian irony : Copernicus
suggested that it was the subjectivity of the ancient astronomical theory that was
the source of its certainty, and offered to replace it by an objective (i.e.
“dogmatic”) theory in which doubt prevails. Kant demanded that we wake up to
the horrendous objectivity of Newtonian science and replace it by a subjective
science, thus obtaining absolute certainty and truth, going back to the ancient
ideal which Copernicus demolished.
2.8 The Knight and Queen and Pawn, in their dogmatic slumbers, doubt the
certainty and necessity of the general laws of nature that make them go so and so.
The Queen, a Newtonian disciple that she is, becomes alarmed and worried about
the future of all this necessity and certainty now that god is dead. She contracts
anxiety, cant sleep, overeats, gains weight. Her husband the King calls Professor
Kant to start psychoanalysis treatment but Kant suggest psychosynthetic treatment
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instead: The queen must awaken from her dogmatic slumbers and understand that
she actually lives in illusion-world – there is no real Knight, nor Pawn, nor King
etc., and the alleged laws of nature dictating their possible motions are mere rules
of game which synthesize the Knight and the Pawn and all the rest of her orderly
world. These rules of game, moreover, are merely the brainchildren of human
beings, and so all her world is a mere creature of the human mind and is
inseparable from it. As a consequence of this illusory state, there is no power in
her world that can break these rules. Certainty and necessity are guaranteed. The
Queen shakes off her anxiety, loses weight and starts living it up.
2.9 Kant’s “Critical philosophy” is the demand to stop viewing our world
from within, and start understanding it from without. Only thus is the eye viewing
itself an enlightened eye, for only thus can it get to see the true, i.e., illusory
status, of everything it sees.
2.9.1 Enlightenment is the recognition of the limitations of our cognition. “The
categories are the limits of my world” – This is enlightenment, and this can be
grasped only by the eye that sees itself. But a view of limitations and limits is
necessarily a view of the inside from the outside. This is the notorious reflexive
thought, self-consciousness, etc.
2.10 Starting with Kant, only external questions can be answered informatively,
and so it turned out that the central classical question – what is causality, what is
force, what is a law of nature – were all mistaken questions, for they were asked
from within. But though only external question can have informative answers,
they cannot be even formulated – the categories apply only from within. This is
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why we cannot explain anything informatively – inside questions are formulable
but are slaves of the categories, and though outside questions would be free from
this bondage and so would be informatively answerable, they cannot even be
formulated.
2.11 Thus, in so far as they pose as views from the outside, all of Kant’s theses
and hypotheses are senseless. They suffer the same fatal confusion which he
showed to dominate the standard metaphysical talk about the structure of the
world-in-itself. More in detail: since only from the outside is it possible to view
the nature of causal propositions, laws of nature, etc., it is necessary to look from
the outside in order to discover that categories and laws of nature do not refer.
Only from the outside can it be seen that their sole reference is internal, i.e., to
each other, so that each concept refers to only other concepts and never to a
separate object.
2.12 It is necessary to wake up in order to see the nature of dream, it is
necessary to invent a game and to write fiction in order to see the nature of game
and fiction.
2.13 This non-reality is the root of the holism that dominates dreams and
games and fiction. Conceptual holism is the thesis that every conceptual system is
like a dream in that its concepts cannot refer outside but only inside, i.e., within
the conceptual system. Or rather : The meaning of each concept is just other
concepts. Or thus : An idea can denote only another idea (Berkeley, Pierce,
Schlick).
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2.14 Only from the outside is it possible to see the situation as it “really” is.
That’s why it can be said that Kant is a realist, that idealism is realism, that
solipsism is realism, that conventionalism is realism. This is as if taken out of
Orwell’s Newspeak.
2.1400 Transcendental idealism is realism in an abslolute sense. (Kant
1993:255)
The objective, which ought to constitute the opposite to this subjective
side, is itself subjective likewise. (Hegel :History of Philosophy:440)
2.140 But this means that he cannot be taken seriously, for he proved that language
does not create facts, i.e., he proved that there is at least one language in which
the facts described ( i.e., the fact that language creates all facts,) are not created
by any language, and this is the language in which he writes all his books.
2.1401 I call this The Escher Effect after his The Hand: Since
another hand must draw the hand that draws itself,
this proves that not everything is drawn by the hand
in the picture.
2.1402 In other words, he who declares that all facts are language-functions proves by
that act that he is wrong and that he does not wish to be taken seriously.
2.1403 He is only making a joke. He is speaking with his tongue in his cheek. Or rather
with one of his tongues in one of his cheeks.
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2.141 Only from the outside is it possible to see that the synthetic a priori is mere
form and thus empty of information.
Only from the outside is it possible to see that the world is finite, or
infinite, or Euclidean, or non-Euclidean. We cannot see this from within, because
we cannot see that or how our measuring rod changes its length as it moves
around.
Only from the outside is it possible to see that out world picture is “really”
dictated by the logical syntax of our language and by nothing else. Since the eye
cannot see itself, we believe that the fact that a surface cannot be two-colored all
over is a consequence of the laws of nature. Were the eye able to see itself, it
would understand that this fact is the consequence of its rules of logical syntax.
That is why the synthetic a priori looks to us informative.
And why the geometry of the world looks to us informative.
2.142 But from the outside, i.e., really, all of these are empty since they are mere
rules of games. This fact can be sees only from the outside, from where its
emptiness shines clear, since from the inside it is impossible to envisage different
possibilities.
2.15 Kant came back from the outside and explained to us his vision, i.e., that
all laws of nature are merely our subjective rules of game and so are really empty
(“formal”) and arbitrary. Only from the inside do they look necessary and
informative (a priori and synthetic). He saw from the outside that all our necessity
in our world is internal, i.e., logical and formal.
2.151
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2.16 Only the philosopher has the ability to be inside but observe from the
outside. He then tells us what he saw, and adds that it is impossible to say what he
just said. He also demands that we be silent about what we cannot say.
4.12… In order to be able to represent logical form, we should have to be
able to station ourselves with propositions outside logic, that is to say, out
side the world. (Wittgenstein – Tractatus)
2.161 “There is no God’s eye-view” – this is declared by the philosopher who
comes back from the “out there” where he saw that there is no “out there”. He
then concludes from this contradiction that there is only the “inside” and so all
predication and necessity are arbitrary. But even to say that there is no God’s eye
view, is to utter a contradictory statement. All the pragmatist’s dramatic
declarations are contradictions like that.
2.162 Putman’s “internal realism” is such a contradiction.
2.163 This contradiction is the conjunction of the old external insight that what
is merely internal is arbitrary (subjective) and the new external outsight that there
is not “out there”.
2.164 All of these are self-contradictions :
1. The nominalist thesis (Kant to Wittgenstein)
2. The relativistic thesis (Nietzche to Fucault)
3. The pan-force thesis (Nietzche to Fucault)
4. The linguist thesis – all is logical syntax (Wittgenstein)
5. The idealistic thesis (Kant)
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5. Hegelian actualism: abstractions are distortions of reality.
2.1641 This is how the contradiction gets constructed:
(x) (Fx Gx) ^ (Gx Kx)
in which
F = “concept”, “proposition”, “theory”, “abstraction” etc.
G = The philosophic thesis that one thing (e.g. concept, proposition) is another
thing (e.g. word, mental representation, the effect of forces, language game ,
distortion)
K = The rest of the philosophical thesis :
Hence it is non-separate, unreal, devoid of any truth-status, does not represent
anything, distort , etc.
The construction then begins thus :
Any concept (or proposition etc.) is nothing but a word (representation in the
mind, the effect of force and power etc.). The contradiction is then created when
this sentence, p, say, is substituted for x in the schema. We then get that this
proposition is K, i.e., is devoid of any truth-value, is not real, does not represent
anything, is distortion, etc.
The structure of this contradiction is the same as the Liar’s paradox.
Since all these philosophical theses are contradictions, they do not exist:
There is no nominalism, no pan-forcism, no pan-linguism, no Kantian idealism,
no Hegelian actualism , etc. All of these are philosophical illusions.
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2.18 The axiomatic-thesis is the external discovery that all meaning is strictly
internal.
2.180 Internality is relativism, and so the axiomatic-thesis entails the relativity of
all terms and concepts and propositions (Hilbert entails Skolem).
2.181 Nominalism is the external thesis that all essence is strictly internal.
2.182 Emotionalism is the external discovery that all values are strictly internal.
2.183 The relativistic thesis is the external discovery that all physics is strictly
internal, i.e., that all physics is arbitrary, including its most general structural
laws.
2.1831 Innocent relativism says that the laws of nature keep their logical form in
all reference systems.
2.1832 Sophisticated relativism says that innocent relativism is made possible
only because the laws of nature are merely internal, i.e., because they are
synthetic a priori. Only because the matter of the world possesses no logical form
or structure of its own, can there be laws of nature which conserve their logical
form in all reference frames. For only then do these laws link things unreal, i.e.,
arbitrary objects, and this is why they succeed in conserving their own form in all
changes of reference-frames. Were they to link real, separate objects, there would
have been at least one world, i.e., one reference frame, in which these objects are
not linked at all.
2.1833 Sophisticated relativism (Einstein after Kretchmann) is the external insight
that reality is amorphic (there are only intersection points of world lines) and that
innocent relativism (Einstein before Kretchmann) is merely internal view.
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2.184 Kant’s critical idealism is his external insight that all that is accessible to
our cognition is necessarily internal only. Sophisticate relativity theory is founded
on this idealism.
2.19 The characteristic externally-seen sign of the internal is its arbitrariness :
meanings, concepts, essences, values, accessible reality, formal structure – all of
these are arbitrary really, i.e., but only from the outside. From the inside they
look necessary. Uncovering the arbitrariness is the presentation of forms and
categories as arbitrary (Kant, special theory of relativity) and laws of nature as the
logical syntax of language (Kant, Wittgenstein, both special and general theories
of relativity).
2.191 The model is Helmholz’s concave mirror, Poincare’s expanding world,
Einstein’s shadows world: Only from the outside can all discoveries within the
world be seen as arbitrary and so merely internal.
2.1911 Actualism is the external thesis that only what actually appears to the
denizens of the concave mirror world is real. Moreover, it also adds that what
actually appears to them is exactly what actually appears also from the outside.
This shared actual appearance is the immediately given, purified of all structure
such as categories, laws of nature, etc. The only reality is, Einstein concluded
after much toil, are the intersections of world-lines :
Only what is really observed can be used as basis for explanations in
science:
No explanation can be accepted as epistemologically satisfactory unless
the given reason is an observable fact of experience. The law of causality
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has not the significance of a statement as to the world of experience except
when observable facts ultimately appear as causes and effects. (Einstein
1916:112-13)
2.1912 Leibniz law of identity of indiscernibles is the external insight that the
internally viewed different is not always really different.
2.1913 Only from the outside can it be seen and known that all the internally
invisibles (space, time, forces atoms, fields, causal necessity) are not real at all.
This is the insight of Russell’s rule of construction :
The supreme maxim in scientific philosophizing is this :
Whenever possible, logical constructs are to be substituted for inferred
entities.(Sense data : 148)
2.20 The inside-outside thesis says that whatever is discovered inside is unreal,
arbitrarily determined by categories, logical syntax, game rules. It says also that
this fact itself is observed from the outside and so is real.
2.21 There is no sense in the inside-outside thesis if it cannot say (1) that all
that is observed from the outside is real, and (2) that the inside-outside thesis is
itself discovered from the outside.
2.211 The inside-outside thesis must say, in other words, that the outside has no
further outside, i.e., that it is an absolute outside.
2.212 But it must also say that this outside can be observed only from outside of
itself, i.e., that it cannot be observed at all.
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2.213 If to be merely internal attribute is to be subjective (arbitrary etc.) and if it
can be internal even when there is no possible meaning to the outside, then the
properties of spacetime and the world’s mass (e.g. the radius of curvature at a
specific spot) could be subjective along with general relativity.
2.300 The actualist demands that the objective and the appearing be identical,
and he thinks he can achieve this by fleeing from content to form. He says:
Obviously form appears and is conserved in the inside-outside transformation.
Thus the merely formal becomes the only objectivity.
2.301 This flee from content is made for fear of error but is presented as
cleansing of subjectivity.
2.302 Fleeing from content to form is shared by Kant, Hilbert, Poincare,
Einstein, the logical positivists, even though the moderns love to present it as the
destruction of Kantian Intuition. With all of them, the necessary laws of the
phenomena are merely regulative.
2.303 Construction science, or the construction of the world by science, means
that science does not deal the content of the world but only with its logical form,
i.e., with the order of structure of the phenomena.
2.304 Logical structure is holistic and so hovers in logical space. There are only
two ways of anchoring it to physical reality – by finger-pointing, and by
definition. But since finger-pointing is subjective, only definition remains : the
hovering logical structure is itself what defines material, reality. The material
becomes thereby merely formal itself as well. (Hilbert’s and Schlick’s implicit
definition becomes Carnap’s “structural definite description”.)
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2.3041 The result is that each scientific statement can in principle be so
transformed that it is nothing but a structure statement. But this
transformation is not only possible, it is imperative. For science wants to
speak of what is objective, and whatever does not belong to the structure
but to the material (i.e., anything that can be pointed out in a concrete
ostensive definition) is, in the final analysis, subjective. One can see that
physics is almost altogether de-subjectivized, since almost all physical
concepts have been transformed into purely structural concepts. (Carnap
1928:29)
2.305 The trouble is that every possible structure is completely subjective,
because it is arbitrary : there is a contradiction between the holistic thesis (implicit
definition of each concept by the axiom system) and the uniqueness of the
structure (or the logical form) of a realm of objects (the proof was supplied by
Skolem in 1920).
2.3050 Any argument from induction is completely valid, since any predication is
the projection of structure upon a completely amorphous and structureless world.
Goodman’s grue argument is a proof of this thesis : There are no better and worse
structures (predications), only less or more surprising ones. But were the world to
contain a real structure, it would be impossible for all possible projected structures
to be of equal quality. Hence every such possible structure is equally true, and
every possible induction, mad as it may be, is completely true.
But there is a simpler link between actualism and the subjectivity of all
structure, and this via the non-observability of necessity ( Hume and Kant): If we
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never observe necessity, then there is none in the world, hence the world is a
chaos. In other words, actualism entails that since no necessity is actual, then no
necessity is real, but then no objective structure exists and all apparent structure is
strictly subjective. But then any of the world’s visible structure is our creation,.
2.305101 Thus actualism entails subjectivism and nominalism (such as Kant’s and his
successors’):
Philosophy is this tyrannical impulse , the most spiritual Will to Power,
the will to ´creation of the world‘, the will to causa prima. ( Nietzsche,
Beyond Good and Evil # 9 )
2.30511 Just as whatever is not perceptible in phenomena is thereby subjective, so also
whatever is not aposteriori in propositions is thereby subjective, i.e., the a priori
is necessary through being subjective, and it is subjective by not being an
aposteriori.
2.30512 The existence of synthetic a priori is entailed by the subjectivity of all that is not
empirically given.
2.30513 The non-informativity of the synthetic a priori now follows trivially from its
subjectivity: Since all its subjective elements are mere fictitious entities (entia
rationis ), they carry no information about the world. This Kant expressed by
emphasizing the strict formality of all synthetic a priori judgments.
2.30514 The arbitrariness of form is essential in Kant’s thesis : if form is merely
subjective, it is logically arbitrary.
2.3053 The arbitrariness of form came to dominate philosophical view, beginning
with Riemann’s (1865) insight that geometry and physics constitute one
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indivisible conceptual whole. Since such holism produces circularity at each
attempt to determine our physical space’s geometry, it follows that any such
decision is logically arbitrary. If scientific knowledge is merely formal
(Aristotle’s thesis of the non-separabilty of Forms, later on to be adopted and
reshaped by Kant’s thesis of the formality of all the synthetic a priori i.e.,
“thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”
[Critique:A51/B75], modernized by the logical positivists construction of the
logical form of the world), then it is necessarily arbitrary if the world is
amorphous. But arbitrariness implies subjectivity (though Kant and the logical
positivists attempted to identify it with objectivity).
2.3054 Einstein embedded this holism into the foundation of his physics, and so
turned it into a subjective physics.
2.3055 Thus the Einsteinian revolution became the toughest refutation of the
logical positivist program to identify what is objective in physics with the formal,
and the subjective with content.
2.3056 And so also collapsed the notion that the objective is what is conserved in
the transformation from the inside to the outside : If one structure is conserved
then all structures will be, mad as they may be. Thus, conservation of form under
any transformation, far from guarding against its arbitrariness and subjectivity, is
in fact the clinching proof of its subjectivity.
2.3057 The general theory of relativity looks as an effort to derive content (the
geometry of our physical space, the nature of gravitation) from the alleged
objectivity of some universally conserved form (the covariance principle) and
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thereby to prove the objectivity of this content. But in fact, this was no content at
all – it turned out to be mere form all over again.
2.3058 The fatal blow to the objectivity of form was that any ontology can take on
the covariance form. That is, form has no contentual consequences. Form is empty
of information. This was the final collapse of the modern attempt to evade the
Hume-Kant discovery of the non-informativity (arbitrariness, subjectivity) of
form.
2.306 All of this was known to Helmholz, Einstein and Schlick, even before
being proved by Kretchmann (1917) and Skolem (1920) and explained to Russel
by Newman (1928). But it never really took. It is almost completely ignored
today.
2.307 Cantor was the first to show that a property taken till now to be part of the
logical form of a class is not such : Though the naturals differ from the rationals
in being discrete (whereas the rationals are dense), in fact this property does not
capture their logical form. For if logical form is captured by isomorphism, then
the class of naturals and that of rationals are isomorphic to each other, i.e., they
posses the same logical form. But in fact the logical form of the class of rationals
and that of the reals are different, it is impossible to create a one-one correlation
between them.This in spite of the fact that both are dense, i.e., there are an infinite
number of other rationals between any two rationals, and the same goes for the
reals.
Bechler/Ethico 22
2.310 Actualism holds that for meaning to be real, i.e., for a word or concept or
statement or proposition etc. to be really meaningful, its meaning must be an
actual thing (event, object, property etc.), i.e., meaning must be observable.
2.311 Hence follows the verification thesis: some series of observable actions
and events exhausts the meaning of any given proposition.
2.312 Thus, the meaning of a proposition about the existence and properties of a
separate entity is exhausted in some phenomena. In other words, meaning is
strictly internal, i.e., the whole meaning is a part of “my system” or “my world”.
There cannot be any part of an object that is external, i.e., not observable.
2.313 Hence every real entity is completely observable, i.e., every reality is
phenomenal:
Wittgenstein says it is nonsense to believe in anything not given in
experience.[...] For to be mine, to be given in experience is the formal
property of a genuine entity[..
This is the reason that the world is my world.
(Frank Ramsey, cited in Hintikka Ludwig Wittgenstein Kluwer 1996:138)
2.32 A road chart: From actualism to the verification thesis and from there to
strict internality and from there to the strict phenomenality of every reality.
Consequently there can be no limits to human knowledge, nothing escapes it. The
electron as the meaning of the concept “electron” is completely exhausted in
phenomena,i.e., of its properties is a “hidden variable”. There cannot be
unknowable properties:
Bechler/Ethico 23
[…] a fine example of an important principle of consistent empiricism, as
upheld, for example, by the Vienna School, [is] the principle that nothing
in the world is intrinsically unknowable. (Schlick Philosophical Papers
II:489)
2.33 This is the reason why any doubt about the completeness thesis or any argument
against it is necessarily based on potentialism, and consequently is an invalid
argument. Einstein argued against Bohr that there is a quantum reality which is
unobservable according to quantum mechanics itself. But he could not have
concluded this without presupposing some potentialist interpretation of quantum
mechanics or of meaning in general. Hence his argument was circular.
2.331 This is the reason why Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle was interpreted
by Bohr as a completeness principle : Since there is no reality separate from
(external to) phenomena, observation creates quantum reality and hence there is
no possible uncertainty about this reality.
2.332 It was Russell who discovered the incompleteness of logic, but somehow missed
this fact : In elementary set theory there are propositions whose truth value is
unsolvable within this theory, because from their truth follows their falsity
(Russell’s antinomy). Since the proposition is either true or false, it follows that
its truth value cannot be determined within this theory.
3. Identity, holism, truth
3.0 According to the actualist, the actual is prior in all respects (conceptual,
logical, temporal) to the potential. Thus, material objects are prior to the space in
which they are located, hence space is constituted by or is relative to them.
Bechler/Ethico 24
Similarly, counting is prior to number (Aristotle, Kant) and therefore number is
relative to the counting man. This notion of the relationality to man in the case of
numbers was expressed by Wittgenstein– “Number is the exponent of the action”
(Tractatus 5.021), meaning that number denotes strictly some human action, i.e.,
how many times it was repeated.
3.1 Since the actual is logically prior to the potential, it follows that as long as
the distinction or difference between two things (e.g., concepts, objects,
propositions) is only potential, it is not real and so it is no difference at all. This
leads to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. This identity principle is the
first and most important consequence of actualism and it expresses its essence,
i.e., the priority of the actual.
3.2 From the principle of identity follows the theory of meaning of concepts
and theories, and from this follows the ontology of a formless and contentless
world.
3.3 Thus, two theories will be identical if their meanings are identical, and this
will be the case when their “truth conditions” are identical, for then they cannot be
“discerned” in actuality.
3.4 The identity-of-indiscernible theory is the philosophical core of such
actualistic theories as Kantian idealism, American pragmatism, and Logical
positivism.
3.5 The principle of the identity of indiscernible meanings expresses the
demand for the actualization of meaning: If a concept possesses meaning, it must
Bechler/Ethico 25
appear as phenomenal, e.g., as actual use conditions, actual “truth conditions”,
“verification method”, etc.
3.6 The demand for actuality of meaning is the central motive of empiricists
such as Berkeley and Hume, of idealism from Kant on, of American pragmatism
and of logical positivism:
It is permissible to assume differences in reality only if there are
differences in experience, in principle (Schlick xxx)
3.7 For use and truth conditions to capture the meaning of a given concept, no other
concepts can be involved even if their meanings are given in phenomena. The
concept must be completely isolated.
3.8 Since this is an impossible demand, i.e., any concept can be explicated
only through other concepts, the actualist tends to conclude that meaning can only
be reference to other concepts. The holistic theory of meaning is the conclusion
from the impossibility of the actualization of the meaning of a single concept.
3.9 Similarly about the meaning of propositions: a proposition’s meaning can
be presented only through other propositions, and therefore these are its meaning.
Concept-holism leads to proposition-holism
3.10 From the (Leibniz’s) identity principle follows the total holism thesis,
which is, in effect , the thesis of total relativity – of essence, of space and time, of
the concept, of theory, of meaning – to language.
3.11 Einstein’s general relativity theory is a theory of the relativity of theories.
That is, the thesis of the identity of indiscernible theories is the thesis of the
relativity of any theory to its actuality.
Bechler/Ethico 26
3.12 From the thesis of the relativity of theories to their actualities follows at
once the insignificance of interpretation. This is the thesis of no-interpretation
interpretation. It was first urged by Berkeley and its peak is the Copenhagen
interpretation ruling today.
3.13 Since, by the identity principle, equivalent theories are identical, none of
them can be informative, for otherwise they would be contradicting each other yet
be true. Hence none of them can be taken to carry information about the world.
Hence it is impossible to be informative.
3.14 Consequently the world is devoid of both form and content.
3.15 A set of road charts: From the identity of indescernibles to the internality
of reference and meaning , i.e., to conceptual holism. This is its actualistic
geneology.
3.16 From the identity principle, the essence of actualism, to the absence of
form and content of the world.
3.17 And backwards too: From the separateness and objectivity of the world’s
form and content to the falsity of the identity principle. For if the world possesses
its own form, then it is a fact that there are indescernibles which are different.
3.18 The actualist must conclude that theories lack truth value – a theory cannot
be true and it cannot be false.
3.19 Hence the notion that science can progress towards truth is sensless for the
actualist. It makes as much sense as the notion that science can progress towards
acidity or triangularity.
Bechler/Ethico 27
3.191 The certainty of science is the certainty of the non-informative talk, not of
truth.
3.20 And so the actualist conquers doubt, acquires certainty, but loses the
meaning of truth and the possibility of progress towards it. On the contrary, for
the actualist history supplies further proof for the inseparability of the concepts
and theories and truth from man.
3.201 Actualism holds that concepts are inseparable from man and it uses to
show this by the fact that the concepts employed in human society change their
meanings through history. We must understand this passage from history to
inseparateness from man, and so to the non-reality of separate meanings (e.g.,
from Weber to Kuhn and Foucault etc.)
3.203 This passage is made by the principle that any property is real only if it
can be discerned (or identified). For historicity is a proof of the impossibility of
certain identification of the meaning of any concept and theory. Hence their
inseparability from man and period, and hence their non-reality.
3.21 Scientific progress must be measured by another criterions than
diminishing error and increasing truth or increasing certainty level in the truth of a
proposed theory. Usually what replaces these is usefulness.
3.211 But there is no escape in this – for propositions about usefulness must by
true or false if they are to be used as progress criteria. But since they are theoretic,
they are neither true or false, nor can they be useful themselves. Utilitarianism is
an actualistic thesis and therefore it is empty of information about man in the
world.
Bechler/Ethico 28
3.22 Since theory cannot be informative, its concepts do not refer to things in
the world. This, “electron” does not refer to electron, etc. concepts lake reference
and so all they possess is internal meaning, i.e., links to their non-referring
concepts in the theory.
3.23 The holistic theory of reference entails that truth too is necessarily
internal. A proposition can refer only to another proposition, and so it can be
compared only with another proposition and not with separate facts and world.
Truth is necessarily internal.
3.24 This is brought out in the balloon model of theories:
A system of truths constituted by implicit definitions does not touch the
ground of reality at any of its points. On the contrary, it hovers freely, and
like the solar system it carries within itself the guarantee of its stability.
(Schlick:1918:37)
3.25 On the net model of meanings:
Each concept is like a point at which several propositions intersect (i.e.,
those containing the concept); This is the knot that binds them. Our system
of science is a net in which concepts represent the knots (die Knoten) and
the propositions represent the ropes that link them. (Schlick 1918:46)
3.26 This is also the situation with Kant, only he explained also the way truths
are created as internal – by our synthesis of the whole phenomenal world from our
”representations” (vorstellungen). Since all that is externally originated are only
Bechler/Ethico 29
these “representations” and all the rest is “combined” (verbunden) from them
according to our Forms and Categories, all meanings can only be internal, i.e., any
thought or concept can only refer to another thoughts or concepts.
3.27 Kant clarified that his holism is conceptual because all the concepts of
pure reason and therefore all laws of nature (or at the general ones) are a priori
products of pure reason. For it follows from this alone that pure science of nature
is a typical holistic structure, just as it is pure reason itself:
But pure reason is a sphere so separate and self- contained, that we
cannot touch a part without affecting all the rest. We can therefore do
nothing without first determining the position; of each part, and its
relation to the rest; for, as our judgment cannot be corrected by anything
without, the validity and use of every part depends upon the relation in
which it stands to all the rest within the domain of reason. So in the
structure of an organized body, the end of each member can only be
deduced from the full conception of the whole. ( Prolegomena ,
Introduction)
3.28 Even though it is impossible to say what the meaning of a concept is
without saying also the whole system of concepts, this whole cannot be said. For
this whole conceptual system can be pointed at only from the outside, externally,
and since we cannot step out of our conceptual system anymore than we can step
out of our skin, this is impossible. Speaking about this whole can be done only by
using concepts not within it, but then the whole difficulty repeats.
Bechler/Ethico 30
3.29 If, in spite of our inability to say the whole conceptual system or to say
anything about it, it is nevertheless possible to “see” it or “present” it, then
meaning became an observable object or fact or phenomena. This is what
happened to Wittgenstein.
3.30 The actualist concludes that the meaning of a concept is its conceptual
neighborhood, and this is internal meaning. This is the logical form of a concept,
its essential meaning. Consequently, its reference is merely external, glued on,
contingent. And so, contrary to its form and meaning, which are the essence of the
concept, its reference and content are arbitrary and contingent. So its meaning is
independent of and neutral to its reference.
3.31 This neutrality shows in the non-uniqueness of content and reference: the
same concept can refer to, or represent, just any object and any relation, because
its meaning (i.e., the whole in which it sits) does not determine at all (and not just
uniquely) the objects that satisfy it, i.e., its model.
3.32 That we often think otherwise, is only a sign that we got confused and
conferred on some concepts meanings that are independent of the system. Thus,
for example, we tend to think that the observation proposition “between every two
points there is another point lying on the straight line connecting them” describes
an observed fact, independently of any conceptual system. The holist regards this
as confusion and error since all the observation-words are already part of the
whole, i.e., of the conceptual system, and so their meanings are “fixed” strictly by
and within this whole (and not the phenomena). Consequently, if the fact
Bechler/Ethico 31
described here (about the points and line) is true by virtue of three meanings then
it is a necessary truth ; but if otherwise, then it is necessarily false.
3.23 This implies that it is logically impossible for phenomena to contradict any
proposition. When we are presented with such a case we must re-assign
references, i.e., we must conclude that these things are not “points”, this relation
is not “between”, that those things are neither “straight” nor a “line” etc. this is
how phenomenal reality is constructed, or “combined”, or “synthesized”.
3.34 It is also clear that just as content and reference are not “fixed” by
meaning or form, even so experience cannot refute or change meanings : there are
infinitely many models but not even one refutation.
3.35 And the converse follows too: just as the logical form of a theory cannot
fix its contents, i.e., its models, even so no group of objects can fail to be a model,
i.e., the content, of any given theory.
3.36 Hence the infinite freedom of interpreting any set of facts: the
indeterminacy of reference entails the truth of every possible interpretation of
facts, i.e., any theory fits any set of facts.
3.37 In sum: The holistic thesis about meaning and references entails that no set
of facts or objects possesses a form or logical structure.
3.371 This consequence of holism was proved by Skolem. His aim was a
reductio ad absurdum of Hilbert’s axiomatic thesis, which is a form of the holistic
thesis.
3.38 But the holistic thesis about reference is just a simple formulation of the
actualistic thesis about meanings, i.e., the ontology which denies separate
Bechler/Ethico 32
meanings. To remind ourselves – only if meanings are separate from all language,
can propositions in any given language carry definite and unique contents. This
they do by referring to those separate meanings and contents called concepts. By
separate meaning is meant that content which is carried by a concept (not a word)
irrespective of the conceptual system in which it may happen to reside. The
actualist denies separate meanings and therefore separate propositions and
therefore separate facts. Thus Peirce:
No present actual thought has any meaning, any intellectual value for this
lies not in what is actually thought, but in what thins thought may be
connected with in representation by subsequent thoughts; so that the
meaning of a thought is altogether something virtual. It may be objected
that if no thought has any meaning, all thought is without meaning. but
this is a fallacy similar to saying, that, if in no one of the successive spaces
which a body fills there is room for motion, there is no room for motions
throughout THE WHOLE.
At no one instant in my state of mind is there cognition or representation,
but in the relation of my states of mind at different instants there is. In
short, the Immediate... runs in a continuous stream through our lives; it is
the sum total of consciousness whose mediation which is the continuaity of
it, is brought about by a real effective force behind consciousness.
(“Consequences of Four Incapacities”: 173)
Bechler/Ethico 33
3.381 Consequently, only if meanings are separate can a conceptual
system be false or contain a contradiction, or be refuted by facts. If meanings are
internal, i.e., determined or fixed by the whole, this automatically bars any
possible contradiction within the whole. In any axiomatic system consistency is
insured a priori.
3.39 The holistic theory of reference is a simple corollary from the
actualism of meanings, and conversely, therefore, it is the view accompanying
any version of actualism (e.g., Leibniz’s theory of monads, Berkeley’s idealism,
Kant’s critical idealism, Pierce’s pragmatism):
There are no single facts. The diamond is not a separate fact but it is
interwoven in the network of all the rest of facts. It is unsevered, although
singled part of the unitary fact. The hardness of the diamond is part of this
whole. ( Peirce, Issues of Pragmatism:1905:218)
3.40 The holistic thesis about language reflects an important impossibility
thesis: it is impossible to extract the meaning of any word (concept), in a
language. The actualist must conclude that “meaning is nonsense” ( Quine). But it
also leads to an even more extreme impossibility – it is impossible to describe
language or explain it or present its logical structure. First, the theory that would
attempt any of these must be expressed within some language, and if it is the same
language then it must be holistic and so would be unable to extracts any of its own
elements and clarify them. Second, whatever be the language it is in, it will get
implicated in an infinite regress once it attempts to explain any of its elements.
Bechler/Ethico 34
3.401 In other words, there can be no semantics for a holistic language.
3.402 Consequently the very notion of another , alternative language is senseless
in an holistic language: Describing this language and presenting it must
presuppose the original, holistic language and so the alternative would be just its
sub-language.
3.403 From the holistic to the universalist thesis: The language in which we live
is the only possible for us, and every thing that exists, i.e., the whole world, must
be described within it.
3.404 Since there is no alternative to our actual language, there is no other world
possible except the actual.
3.405 From the actualism of meaning to linguist holism, and from there through
the universalist language thesis to the meaninglessness of the notion of possible
worlds, i.e., back to the starting point of actualism.
3.406 The universalist thesis leads at once to the impossibility of semantics, and
this through the impossibility of externality: the universality of language prevents
externality to it, but any semantics demands externality.
3.407 The natural result of the universality thesis is (through the meaninglessness of
possible worlds) the thesis of universality of logic: the laws of logic are the most
general laws of actuality, that is, they are true about any possible fact in the actual
world, but not about facts external to it, i.e., not about possible worlds (because
there aren’t any). These are our synthetic a priori laws of the world (Frege,
Russell).
Bechler/Ethico 35
3.408 Wittgenstein held the universalist thesis, and so he eliminated the notion
of external speech, but got stuck in the tautological nature of the laws of logic. It
is difficult to link these two.
3.409 The characterization of analyticity as truth in all possible worlds is
forbidden for the actualist and for holders of the universalist thesis. Analyticity
must therefore be characterized by universality within the actual world only – e.g.,
the laws of logic will be analytic exactly because they are universal within this
actual world. And so they will be analytic but also synthetic.
3.410 This is the case also with Kant’s laws of his transcendental logic – our
synthetic a priori laws are both synthetic and analytic.
3.411 Truth “by virtue of logical form” as a characterization of analyticity won’t
be able to overcome the problem – if logical truths are universal, their logical
form would be universal – a form that holds for every fact in this world.
3.412 The actualist cannot characterize analyticity by non-informativity since he
denies possible worlds.
3.413 So Wittgenstein’s tautology is informative about our world since it is the
logical form of every fact in it.
3.414 Since the universalist thesis says that it is impossible to change the actual
model of language. It seems to negate the notion of language as an uninterpreted
calculus. Such a calculus would be considered an impossible abstraction.
3.415 But the calculus thesis contains a meaning holism.
Bechler/Ethico 36
4. The pseudoproblem of underdtermination
4.1 Though conceptual holism is an expression of actualism (idealism, the non-
separability of meaning etc.), the potentialist too holds a holism, but this is
another animal – we’ll name it complexity holism. For whereas the actualist
contends that conceptual holism leads to the logical impossibility of testing a
theory in experience, the potentialist holds that experiment can indeed refute a
false theory, such refutation is useless for us: since theory is a very complex
entity, consisting of several sub-theories, it is impossible for us to know exactly
what is the error in this complex.
4.2 Thus, there can be no doubt that Newton’s theory of gravitation was
refuted, but it is impossible to know which one of the many components of the
complex is to blame (geometry, optics, atom theory, electromagnetic theory, or
maybe the gravitation theory itself). This is complexity holism, not conceptual
holism.
4.3 Confusion between these two species of holism is widespread. Proponents
of complexity holism are taken to be actualists whereas they really are merely
potentialists (e.g. Duhem) and vice versa (e.g. Poincare, Popper). That is why
potentialists, who should be pessimists as to the prospect of recognizing progress
towards truth are often optimists (e.g. Duhem, Popper) but actualists whose
conceptual holism should have delivered them from the burden of such progress,
are often pessimists (e.g. Kuhn, Feyerabend, Rorty).
4.4 A closely related confusion is that between the problem of induction and
the problem of under determination. It is impossible to verify any theory because
Bechler/Ethico 37
not only is it universal but mainly because it is top complex. But conceptual
holism make it impossible to test any theory, irrespective of its complexity, since
all testing becomes then circular.
4.5 This difference is rooted in the type of truth that applies in the two cases:
Induction is a difficulty about external truth (copy or correspondence theory) but
conceptual holism admits only internal truth, and so faces no problem of
induction.
4.51 This is reflected in conventionalism (e.g., Poincare) which is the scientific
counterpart of idealism: Truth is the result of projecting the theory onto the
actualistic reality, “man legislates to nature”, as Kant’s “complete solution of
Hume’s problem” of induction goes.(Prolgomena, XX).
4.52 Actualism cannot entertain the problem of induction since it holds that all
reality is open to our gaze. Moreover, since it holds that our gaze determines
actuality (Helmholz’s spectacles), it cannot even entertain underdetermination. So
who is it that does entertain it, if it is to be distinguished from the classical
problem of induction ?
4.6 Nothing remains of underdetermination once it is realized that the
problem of induction is the exclusive pride and property of the potentialist. So
either underdetermination is just a glorified induction problem, or it does not
exist.
4.7 The only shadow that might remain of the evanescent underdetermination
problem is that of free choice – which part of theory (i.e., of the world) we should
fix (determine) arbitrarily and which let experience fix in accordance with this.
Bechler/Ethico 38
Since there is no question here of external truth, it is impossible to choose falsely,
and so all possible choices are equally true (internally).
4.8 This is then the actualist final resolution of the problem of doubt, and it is
known as conventionalism or idealism. The world “must conform to our
knowledge” (Kant, Critique, Preface to 2nd edition: XVI) which is strictly
arbitrary (our “nature” even if not choice), and so every theory must be true.
4.9 The problem of induction exists only if the world possesses its own form
and content, but if it doesn’t then not even the problem of underdetermination can
exist. For then we are what determines its form and content. Either there is a
problem of underedetermination even for the actualist for he holds that “there is
no fact of the matter”, or it is merely the old problem of induction, but then, as the
potentialist holds, there is a definite fact of the matter.
4.10 A potentialist ontology makes certainty in science an impossibility, and
the rage against such a fate is the core of actualism: For science to be possible, the
world must be fully pliable, like dough, by my concepts – the world must be my
dough, and the concepts which cut it into small cookies must be my concepts :
This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in
solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be
said, but makes itself manifest.
The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of
language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of
my world. (Wittgenstein: Tractatus : 5.62)
Bechler/Ethico 39
“my” because it is impossible for me to entertain any doubts about the cookies that
I have created:
A concept which I have invented I can always define; for since it is not given to me either by
the nature of understanding or by experience, but is such as I have myself
deliberately made it to be, I must know what I have intended to think in using it.
(Kant, Critique : A729/B755)
as regards the formal element, we can determine our concepts in a priori intuition, in as much
as we create for ourselves in space and time, through a homogeneous synthesis,
the objects themselves. (Critique A723/B751)
We may look at these two confessions, together as clear recognition that
Kant replaced “Hume’s problem” of induction with his own problem of
underdetermination, and then solved it “completely” ( ) by his
substitution of his dough world for Newton’s granite, Jehova-created world. This
re-instituted modern actualism for classic potentialism, and this institution of
was his “Copernican turn”.
5. Ethics be good
5.1 If all that is internal is a product of our conceptual and language system, and
values are strictly internal, they are our creation and fictions and figments of our
imagination.
Bechler/Ethico 40
5.11 Kant called ethical rules “regulative” meaning they are strictly fictitious and, like
the rest of the laws of nature, they are merely formal principles by which we
construct the social part of reality.
5.12 For the actualist, in so far as the moral values and rules pretend to be normative
they must be regarded as external, but then they are meaningless, referring to what
is inaccessible to any possible experience. This conclusion from Kant was adapted
by the logical positivists:
Logical analysis, then, pronounces the verdict of
meaninglessness on any alleged knowledge that pretends to
reach above or behind experience. ... the same verdict must
be passed on all philosophy of norms, or philosophy of value,
or any ethics or esthetics as a normative discipline. For the
objective validity of a value or norm is ... not empirically
verifiable nor deducible from empirical statements; hence it
cannot be asserted in a meaningful statement at all. (Carnap
- Elimination:77 (Ayer)
5.2 The identification of the good with actuality is the prime version of modern
theodicy: it is the effect of the external vision that all values have only internal
reality and so no reality at all. This legitimizes the conclusion that all reality is
good.
5.3 Values as norms can, therefore, be only things external to the world, or things
that can be seen only on the outside:
Bechler/Ethico 41
The sense of the world must be outside the world. In the
world anything is as it is, and everything happens as it does
happen: in it no value exists - and if it did exist, it would have
no value. If there is any value that does have value, it must
lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case.
[...] So too it is impossible for there to be propositions of
ethics. Propositions can express nothing that is higher. It is
clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is
transcendental. (Wittgenstein - Tractatus: 5.41, 5.42)
5.4 Kant’s ethics is a strong example for the actualistic thesis that values do not exist
as separate entities in our world. He derives the ethical case as a special case of
the general actualistic thesis that there are no separate laws of nature. Since the
laws of ethics must be universal laws, they are part of the laws of nature, and so
are not separate from man. This is the full subjectivity of ethics.
5.5 But more follows: since laws of nature are forms without content, so must be the
laws of ethics. This combination of subjectivity and emptiness (contentlessness) is
the end product of Kant’s actualistic ethics.
5.6 The actualism of the logical positivists was, as in most other cases, a close
repetition of Kant’s steps while shouting and kicking him:
One of the worst errors of ethical thought lies in this belief
that the concept of the moral good is completely exhausted
by the statement of its purely formal property, that it has no
Bechler/Ethico 42
content except to be what is demanded, “what should be”.
( Schlick in Ayer: 253)
5.7 What Schlick’s ethics changes here was in replacing Kant’s formal subjectivity by
contentual subjectivity – the ethical ought became the anthropological is.
5.8 What is essential to actualistic ethics is not its emptiness (its non-informativity)
but rather its subjectivity. For in the ethical realm, since subjectivism transforms
the ought to the statistical is, the ethical element disappears, and the ethical laws
become laws of nature, just as they were with Kant.
5.81 The formality of laws in Kant, which is the outcome of his demand for the
objectivity of the laws of nature, becomes in the ethical case the emptiness of
ethical content: for since the law is an anthropological fact, it cannot contain any
command. Its information is only about the species man, instead of the ought.
5.9 Kant’s synthetic a priori implies information about man’s nature but not about the
world. What the synthetic a priori appears to say about the world is not such at all,
and so is not real information.
5.10 Just so here too: though something is said about man in an anthropological law, it
does not say anything about the ethical except declare it to be non-separate.
Hence there can be no information about the ethical.
5.11 Popper’s reaction to the Nazi phenomenon was an attack on essentialism and what
he called “historicism”. Both doctrines share as a crucial element some version of
absolutism, of essences or of laws of nature governing human history. This
shared element he regarded as the source of tyranny, the vision of a closed
Bechler/Ethico 43
society. But he failed to see that in rejecting them he was committing himself to
relativism and therefore to some kind of radical nihilism, both about values and
about laws of physical nature. For both must go together and stay together.
5.01 The birth of 20th century ethical relativism was linked heavily to Weberian
historicism, and this one had its roots in the attack on the absolutism of values, an
absolutism that grounded the French Revolution.( Strauss : Natural Right :13-14).
5.12 Popper thus belongs to the tradition of the attack on social utopias, on the social
revolutionaries, the social reformers in the name of progress towards a closer
actualization of some ideal Good. Popper thus belongs to some conservative
right wing political view.
5.13 By attacking Plato’s demand to base social reform on the reality of separate Ideas,
Popper placed himself right in the middle of the modern anti-humanist
philosophy of Nietzsche and Heidegger and post-modernist existentialism. He
became, unwittingly, an actualist who was not only against the notion of
absolutism but also against the separateness of the Good and Justice and Truth.
He failed to see the tight link between absoluteness, which he hated, and
separateness, which he could not reject without becoming a nihilist.
5.14 If Popper held that relativism does entail nihilism, but was also against Platonic
essentialism, then he was anti-relativist and also anti-essentialist, which means
that, just as the round square, he was nothing.
5.15 But even more perplexing is the position of Leo Strauss. He regarded a return
to Plato as the only or at least the best program we can choose for the restoration
of western culture. But he also could not stomach Plato’s notion of the separation
Bechler/Ethico 44
of the Ideas. So he held that for Socrates, his moral beacon, the good was not a
separate entity, not a being, but merely
the good is primarily what is good for a given intellectual in
these or those circumstances, but being is primarily the
‘what’ of a class or tribe of beings. ( Xenophon’s
Socrates :119)
Moreover, for Socrates all good was strictly relative, a good for something:
Things are good in relation to needs; something that does not
fulfill any need cannot therefore be known to be good.( ibid.
75; cf. City and Man: 29)
But since Strauss retained the Platonic view that the good is the causal element
in our practical life, and yet this good turned out to be a mere class concept, not a
being at all, he was boxed in the conclusion that “ the class, or the class character
is the cause par excellence”. ( City and Man: 19) And, as is only to be expected,
it turns out that the root of this confusion is, strange as it may sound , Strauss’
passion for certainty. The concept of class he calls ‘the whole’ and he says that
since “the roots of the whole are hidden” it follows that “The elusiveness of the
whole necessarily affects the knowledge of every part” (ibid:19, 21 ) and therefore
the Socratic way is imperfect and is in need of some supplement.
5.16 The philosophy-of-nature basis of modern actualistic ethics turns out to be the
same one we meet in Hobbes and Spinoza, i.e., the identity of force and the
motion it causes. Thus Hobbes pointed out that “power” may be attributed to a
thing only when it is actualized by it:
Bechler/Ethico 45
powers, as I said in the first article, are but conditional,
namely, the agent has power if it be applied to a patient,
and the patient has power, if it be applied to an agent;
otherwise neither of them have power, nor can the
accidents which are in them severally, be properly called
powers. (Hobbes EW I )
5.16.1 Hobbes also made it clear that such actual power is identical with the motion
caused by it:
all active power consists of motion also; and that power is
not a certain accident, which differs from all acts, but is,
indeed an act, namely motion. (ibid., ?6)
5.17 In the same vein Spinoza attacked the Cartesians who
distinguish between the thing itself and its conatus by
which each object is conserved, although they do not know
what they mean by the term conatus. For these two things,
although they are distinguished by reason, or by words,
which fact deceives them, are not to be distinguished in
the thing itself. ( Spinoza Cog.Met.I, 6, p.134)
5.18 The actuality of strength, Nietzche explained, is necessarily the activity of
overpowering, conquering, overthrowing, mastering, looking for antagonism and
triumph, and the reason is that
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A quantum of force is just such a quantum of movement,
will, action – rather it is nothing else than just those very
phenomena of moving, willing, acting… (Genealogy §13(656).
There is no potential energy, all energy is kinetic, actualized energy. Hence to say,
as scientists use to do, that “‘Force moves, force causes’ and so on” is in fact a
logical tautology, masking the fact that our
whole science is […] a dupe of the tricks of language, and
has never succeeded in getting rid of that superstitious
changeling “the subject” (the atom, to give another
instance, is such a changeling, just as the Kantian “thing-it-
itself”). (ibid:657)
So, just as there is no such thing as “force” to cause and change motions, so there
is no thing-in-itself and no atoms that cause the phenomena, and no “subject (or,
to use popular language, the soul)” (ibid.657) to cause and decide human action.
Hence there is no logical sense in the notion of checked or contained or
unexpressed strength: “To demand that it should not express itself as strength” is
an absurdity, and a logical one at that – it is a self-contradictory demand, since
that strength is always and only expressed strength is a tautology.
5.19 This is the actualism that is at work as the ground of the modernist attack
on the “subject.” This notion is an outcome of “the fundamental fallacies of
reason” which got “petrified” in the grammar of language, to the effect that “all
working [is] conditioned by a worker, by a ‘subject’ ” (ibid.). And so, “popular
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morality separates strength from the expression of strength” because it is using the
“subject” ontology:
As though behind the strong man there existed some
indifferent neutral substratum, which enjoyed a caprice
and option as to whether or not it should express strength.
But there is no such substratum, there is no “being” behind
doing, working, becoming; “the doer” is a mere appendage
to the action. The action is everything. (ibid.).
“The action is everything”, i.e., there is nothing real behind or underneath action
and actuality, hence the morality of restrain is senseless, based as it is on a false
ontology. Obviously, it follows that there is no such thing as will and choice, free
or otherwise. The “belief in a neutral, free-choosing ‘subject’ ” took root merely
because it proved to be “the best dogma in the world” for the self-justification of
the weak via “the interpretation of weakness as freedom, of being this, or being
that, as merit” (ibid.658).
5.20 Nietzsche regarded Kant’s notion of “pure” understanding etc. not just as
typical distortion of actuality but, rather (or maybe by virtue of being such
distortion) as contradiction. He urged to
guard ourselves more carefully against this mythology of
dangerous ancient ideas, which has set up a “pure, will-
less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge”; let us guard
ourselves from the tentacles of such contradictory lifeless
Bechler/Ethico 48
“pure reason,” “absolute spirituality,” “knowledge-in-
itself”:( GM :744)
That is, there is no pure will, pure thought, pure anything, since in actuality
everything is mixed up and interacts and relates to many other things. This comes
out best in his summing up of his theory of the eye: it is supposed to think, but it
is an unthinkable eye since it is supposed also to have “no direction at all”,
meaning that it is supposed not to have any “active interpretive functions”.
(Obviously, it cannot be Kant that is attacked here, but then who is the target?)
Nietzsche pointed out that these are just the functions that do the “abstracting”
which constitutes thought (they are “the means by which “abstract” seeing
became seeing something” (745)). So it seems that thought is by essence
perspectival, the name he now called this abstracting activity of the thinking eye:
There is only a seeing from a perspective, only a “knowing”
from a perspective, and the more emotions we express
over a thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we train on the
something, the more complete will be our “idea” of that
thing, our “objectivity.”( GM 745)
These “perspectives” are in actuality the various interests which drive the soul,
such as its “emotions”, and so thinking is in actuality emotive in an essential way.
Hence “objectivity” is just so much subjectivity, and the more the greater the
objectivity, whereas eliminating such emotive perspectivism is in effect
eliminating thought as such:
Bechler/Ethico 49
But the elimination of the will altogether, the switching off
of the emotions all and sundry, granted that we could do
so, what ! would not that be called intellectual castration?
(ibid.)
Objectivity is, then, the infinite plurality or multiplicity of the will (or desire)-
directed views of something, for these are all there is and so all that is possible for
human reason. This was, then, the real objection to Kant, i.e., that his kind of
perspectival model of reason was too poor, abstracting from will and desire which
are always there, allowing the eye just one, universal pair of coloured glasses, the
same for all eyes of humanity.
How can we reconcile Nietzsche’s super-perspectivism with his disdain of
skepticism and then with his attack on Kant’s “intellectual integrity” for not
having been rigorously skeptic? Only one way is open for the first puzzle – he had
equal disdain for the notion of a reality independent of the eye, a reality with its
own separate form. Hence the outcome that all views are equally true and that the
more various and numerous they are, the greater is the resultant “objectivity.”
Doubt is impossible, skepticism is an absurdity, error is a nonsense, and all
demand for consistency is basically meaningless.
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