I wrote this essay during the1st_Semester at theUniKonstanz for the seminar Reality. It is connected to The Frequency of Telling Stories.
Abstract
In the first section I briefly quote Descartes’ and Putnam’s standpoint with the purpose of presenting both the classical and contemporary variation of similar attempts. I present them together with their affirmed and admittedly conclusive counter-argument so that I can exclude them from my proposal of giving a linguistic meaning to “reality”.
In the second and third section I bring instead some arguments of my own: in the former I deny the possibility of using any sort of empiricist or scientific approach by assuming in the discourse the Quinean maxim “no entity without identity”. In this way I show how it looks likely that conceptions of reality must be, in a way, linguistic.
code
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\title{\enquote{Reality} is a Word}
\author{Simone Testino, Seminar: Reality}
\date{August 2023, 1640 Words}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
In the first section I briefly quote Descartes' and Putnam’s standpoint with the purpose of presenting both the classical and contemporary variation of similar attempts. I present them together with their affirmed and admittedly conclusive counter-argument so that I can exclude them from my proposal of giving a linguistic meaning to \enquote{reality}.
In the second and third section I bring instead some arguments of my own: in the former I deny the possibility of using any sort of empiricist or scientific approach by assuming in the discourse the Quinean maxim \enquote{no entity without identity}. In this way I show how it looks likely that conceptions of reality must be, in a way, linguistic.
\section{Classical Arguments}
\subsection{The Descartes' Case}
The argument that became a milestone in the discussion on reality has certainly been the one exposed by Descartes in the \enquote{Meditations on the First Philosophy}. Here I briefly recall that after doubting any belief Descartes manages to reconstruct the usual conception of reality that we have thanks to the \emph{proof of God}. In the fourth meditation in particular he shows how thanks to the certainty that God exists and of His good-willness, we can now trust that whatever we perceive distinctively must have a tight relation with the actual reality.
\subsubsection{Playing with Existence}
The canonical and well-known confutation of this argument came first with Kant and got its final form in Frege, where it has been showed that considering existence as a predicate on objects gives several paradoxes and therefore we observed the shift from the predictive nature of existence, $E(x)$ to it's quantifier-nature $\exists_x P(x)$. This shift made it impossible for Descartes' reasoning to work properly since the proof of God strictly needed existence to be a predicate on objects.
\subsection{The Putnam's Case}
Most important in the Putnam's\footnote{In this section I am referring not only to the Putnam's article but also from \url{plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/skepticism-content-externalism/}} argument is the: \emph{Causal Reference}, or in general, the \emph{Semantic Externalism}. The intuition beyond this is very natural: referents and meaning of most singular terms (and thus sentences) are determined by the external environment (despite its simplicity, it is far from obvious, though I won't focus on that but on the proper argument only). The words \enquote{brain} and \enquote{vat} have a meaning as long as they are in a \emph{causal connection} with some actual brains and vats in the world. But clearly, if we were brains in a vat, we couldn't be in any causal relation with such objects since all our impressions are controlled by nutrients and electrical stimuli controlled by the computer. Therefore, if we were BIV then our utterances on BIV must refer to something other than brains and vats. Hence, if it refers to what the brain is experiencing, then clearly \enquote{I am a BIV} must be false since the computer wouldn't allow the BIV to realise that\footnote{See p. 4 and 5 for further details that I decided to cut here}.
\subsubsection{Playing with Reference}
There have been few attempts to formalise the BIV-argument and all of those showed that it is far harder than how it looks like and it became in the years a reason why the Putnam's argument got recognised as not properly working\footnote{I am referring here to the SEP article quoted above, in particular to Ch. 5 - 8} even if one blindly accepts his causal reference. What one notices in common to most such formalisations is that one can analyse the \enquote{I am a BIV} said by a BIV only if one has already assumed a disquotation argument\footnote{That is to say that \emph{The trees is green} is true iff all trees are actually green. This assumption gets interpreted differently depending on whether she is or isn't a BIV. For a better understanding of the circularity of Putnam's argument I just suggest a brief read to the conclusions of the quoted article}, i.e. assume that the supposed BIV is in fact not a BIV.
\section{A Failed Empiricist Approach}
Trying to discover what reality is by looking at it has always been the naive response to the presented discussion. As we have noticed in the two previous arguments, though, only those thinkers that first acknowledged the problem of accessing reality have been able to make valuable attempts. The question I want to address in this section is in particular if there is any empirical, a posteriori or scientific way to understand what reality properly is and what is our relationship to it.
\subsection{The Identity Criterion}
One principle must be counted among the fundamentals of any empirical approach: the identity criterion. It has been summarised by Quine in the motto: \enquote{no entity without identity}\footnote{Quine, \emph{Ontological Relativity and Other Essays}, New York: Columbia University Press, 1969, or also: Gottlieb, Dale. \enquote{No Entity Without Identity.} The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 9, no. 2 (1978): 79–96. \url{http://www.jstor.org/stable/43155224}}: if we are investigating some entities we need always to know \emph{what is required for two such entities to be identical}. Applying this discourse to the investigation of reality is not natural because one is left with the question: to which class of entities does reality belong? I.e what else \emph{could} be identical to reality? Those questions, if one accepts the necessity of the identity criterion\footnote{For economy of discourse I am here leaving to the reader the work of understanding why the identity criterion is crucial for any (at least) empirical research, my discourse just assumes it. The given reference by Quine may well help.}, must be answered before any empirical investigation on reality begins.\\
Reflecting upon these questions should bring us to one unique answer, in particular if we bear in mind that we are here trying to go for an \emph{empirical} approach. Therefore reality can't but be a perceived entity, this is what an empirical method requires. But now, clearly we well know how any sceptical argument would quickly convince us that reality, in its empirical instance only, can't be identified: no identity can be stronger than the \emph{phenomenal correspondence} and this has been shown to deceive us in many ways\footnote{Here I'm basically doing nothing but repeating the Descartes' method of doubt which he presents in the first two meditations.}.
\section{A Linguistic Approach}
Without God or any sort of metaphysical construct of a very forced fundamentalist taste, and without any empirical way to grasp what reality is, one would admit, we are left with very few ways to go on. Influential streams of contemporary philosophy, though, and in particular the Putnam's attempt which I have exposed before, shed light on another path we may embrace: a \emph{linguistic approach}.\footnote{I ground this discourse on Kaplan's Theory of Indexicals as exposed in the SEP, see: \url{plato.stanford.edu/entries/indexicals} but also to the lecture Kripke gave in New York in 2006, transcribed and published in \emph{Saul Kripke, Philosophical Troubles}, Volume I, Ch. 10, \emph{The First Person} and, in particular the discussion on the \enquote{scientific language}.} In this section I examine the meaning of \enquote{reality} and will only sketch one way to find its denotation in the following section\footnote{Here I am referring to the Fregian distinction of meaning and denotation as in \enquote{Sinn und Bedeutung}.}.
\subsection{Meaning of \enquote{Reality}: from the Scientific Language}
A characterisation of reality must entail its independence from the subject(s). That is the basic thesis of realism and I want now to propose a way of how reality could be considered from a purely linguistic perspective. We may say that reality is \emph{what we mean} when we use a so-called \emph{scientific language}.
\begin{quote}
Kaplan mentions Quine as an originator of the conception that scientific language should not contain indexicals, tense, and the like, even though Kaplan himself disagrees with the view that such devices are not susceptible to logical study. [...]
In Philosophical Investigations he [Wittgenstein] writes:
\begin{quote}
\enquote{I} is not the name of a person, nor \enquote{here} of a place, and \enquote{this} is not a name. But they are connected with names. Names are explained by means of them. It is also true that physics is characterised by the fact that it does not use these words.\footnote{Wittgenstein, L. (1953) \emph{Philosophical Investigations} §410 Ed. and trans. G. E. M. Anscombe Oxford: Blackwell}
\end{quote}
What does he mean here? Certainly, as I have said, not that such indexical terminology never appears in physics papers. It might be claimed that such terminology never appears in physical laws, but once it is granted that many terms are explained by them, this strikes me as dubious.\footnote{\emph{Saul Kripke, Philosophical Troubles}, Volume I, Ch. 10, p. 293, footnote 4 \emph{The First Person}}
\end{quote}
The way Wittgenstein described what physics is could be of very much help in our attempt to define what reality is: couldn't we say that what we \emph{mean} with \enquote{reality} is exactly something that can be described without mentioning any \enquote{indexicals, tense, and the like}\footnote{ibid.}? I believe this linguistic description of reality goes to the very core of what we commonly\footnote{I am here embracing the so-called \emph{common-sense-philosophy} even though I personally dislike this approach very much. In this case though, I believe that the fuzzy correspondence with the usual meaning should convince the reader that I am \emph{actually} talking about reality; I can communicate little more than this \enquote{correspondence feeling} that I hope the reader shares.} mean with \enquote{reality}. In this way we have a perfect \emph{semantic}\footnote{I regard this as being a purely semantic distinction since indexicals are to be distinguished semantically only: their syntax remains the same and their denotation changes not more than how the semantic does.} distinction of what is talking about reality and what is not, what we are now left with is attempting to understand what the denotation of such a meaning should be.
\subsection{A Trance to Find a Denotation}
As I have previously exposed, talking about denotation would require a metaphysical context that tells us what the semantic corresponds to. Here one notices quickly that avoiding circularity may require some tricks, since we are looking for denotation of \enquote{reality} which has to be found in reality\footnote{I believe that any formulation one gives of denotation must entail a well-formed conception of reality, that is the origin of the intended circularity.}. One such trick could be to consider a \emph{host reality}, say reality$_1$, which is \enquote{previous} to the \enquote{reality$_2$} of which we are looking for the denotation. We may consider, e.g. reality$_1$ to be a phenomenalist reality, constituted only by ideas of a subject and then we may look in there for some denotations of reality$_2$ (the word whose meaning is expressed by indexicals-free sentences). In such an example we would find the denotation of \enquote{reality$_2$} in all those concepts that we may grasp independently from indexicals.
\subsubsection{A Couple of Problems}
One might here quickly notice that it is not that easy to distinguish meaning and reference in phenomenalism (reality$_1$), it is therefore not obvious that we can affirm to have found a denotation of reality$_2$. Furthermore it is hard to imagine any other reality$_1$ apart from the phenomenalist one, which may not convince many.
\subsubsection{A Twist of the Argument}
The second problem of the argument that I just remarked may suggest that we use this argument for another purpose: proving that the phenomenalist reality is the only one not requiring a \emph{host reality}. In fact we've seen that if (i) \enquote{reality} is a word (i.e. we are using syntax and requesting meaning and denotation) and (ii) \enquote{reality} must have a denotation\footnote{Unlike, e.g. fictive characters, which we may consider without denotation, I believe any realist wants \enquote{reality} to have a denotation, else a few paradoxes would arise}, then clearly such a denotation can't be found in the same \enquote{reality} we are defining. In fact, the only denotation we can find of \enquote{reality} that doesn't give rise to circularity is the one that has its reference in nothing more than its meaning. Left to prove is that this is a characterisation of the phenomenalist reality\footnote{I believe that, given the right framework I will manage to prove this claim so that, given (i) and (ii) I prove that the phenomenalist reality is the only one we will ever be able to properly define.}.
\end{document}Host Reality (Further Reasonings)
In the quoted essay I discussed what could be regarded as a good technique to prove some reality to not be the maximal reality. In order to do so I need:
- Show that “reality” has a meaning but can’t have a reference.
- The referent is to be found in a reality that can’t be “reality” or it is circular, then there must be a reality which is its host. Def. a Maximal Reality has no host. Theorem a Maximal Reality has is a “reality” whose denotation is its meaning or (equivalently?) it lacks of denotation. Proof? The two axioms should be taht (i) you accept “reality” to be, first of all, a word (you are not God, i.e. language comes before metaphysics) and (ii) you want to have a denotation for reality.
Attempt 1
Say is a set of symbols, is a symbol, for a finite is a sentence, call it . Say is a set of concepts, is a concept, for finite is a word, call it . Say relation from s.t. , call it meaning. Define , as the indexicals, every one of its element is . Define s.t. , say “reality” and . Say is a set of material objects Say is a relation from s.t. Assume: ? ? Per quale motivo dovrei avere difficolta ad assumere mentre posso farlo ez per e per ? Potremmo avere due tipi di argomentazioni qui: (i) è effettivamente lecito assumere e perché sono più fondanti oppure, una più bella (ii) posso definire e da soli, in qualche modo migliore.
Sketch
First define what words are
Attempt 2 on LaTeX
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\newtheorem{Notation}{Notation}
\usepackage{graphicx}
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\title{A Maximal Reality}
\author{Simone Testino}
\date{August 2023}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\subsection*{A Definable Word}
I say that a word is made by a triple $w:=(\tau, \omega, \rho)$ s.t. $\tau \rightsquigarrow^r \omega$ and $\omega \rightsquigarrow^d \rho$.
\noindent When I write \enquote{Let ...} I mean that there you are free to insert any more precise definition you wish of the word \emph{emphasised}.
\subsection*{Formalisation}
Let $\mathcal{X}$ be a set of \emph{symbols}.\\
Let $\Psi$ be a set of \emph{concepts}.\\
Let $\mathcal{R}$ be a \emph{reality}.\\
Call $\tau:= (x_n)_{n \in I}$ s.t. $\chi_i \in \mathcal{X}$ and $I \subset \mathbb{N}$ and $I$ is finite, call any $\tau$ a term.\\
Call $\omega:= (\psi_n)_{n \in I}$ s.t. $\psi_i \in \Psi$ and $I \subset \mathbb{N}$ and $I$ is finite, call any $\omega$ a word.\\
Call $\rho:= (\rho_n)_{n \in I}$ s.t. $\rho_i \in \mathcal{R}$ and $I \subset \mathbb{N}$ and $I$ is finite, call any $\rho$ an object.\\
Let $\rightsquigarrow^m$ be a relation from $\{\tau| \tau \subset \mathcal{X}\} \times \{\omega| \omega \subset \Psi\}$ s.t. $\tau \rightsquigarrow^m \omega$ iff. $\tau$ \emph{means} $\omega$.\\
Let $\rightsquigarrow^d$ be a relation from $\{\omega| \omega \subset \Psi\} \times \{\rho| \rho \subset \mathcal{R}\}$ s.t. $\omega \rightsquigarrow^d \rho$ iff. $\omega$ \emph{denotes} $\rho$.
\subsubsection*{Proof for Contradiction}
Note that \enquote{symbols} is a term then let $\omega_\mathcal{X}$ be the \emph{meaning of \enquote{symbols}} and say that $\mathcal{X}$ is the denotation of \enquote{symbols}.
Also note that $\tau_\mathcal{X}:=($\enquote{s}, \enquote{y}, \enquote{m}, \enquote{b}, \enquote{o}, \enquote{l}, \enquote{s}$) \subseteq \mathcal{X}$.\\
Similarly, consider the following two hypotheses:\\
If I affirm hat \enquote{concepts} is a term, let $\omega_\Psi$ be the \emph{meaning of \enquote{concepts}} and say that $\Psi$ is the denotation of \enquote{concepts}, then $\omega_\Psi \subseteq \Psi$.\\
If I affirm hat \enquote{reality} is a term, let $\omega_\mathcal{R}$ be the \emph{meaning of \enquote{reality}} and say that $\mathcal{R}$ is the denotation of \enquote{reality}, then $\mathcal{R} \subseteq \mathcal{R}$. %Then any reality must contain itself... is that weird in any sense? Only if you need to see an order in how you create a word or stuff like that...
\end{document}
LaTeX Source form Reality is a Word
\section{A Linguistic Approach}
Without God or any sort of metaphysical construct of a very forced fundamentalist taste, and without any empirical way to grasp what reality is, one would admit, we are left with very few ways to go on. Influential streams of contemporary philosophy, though, and in particular the Putnam's attempt which I have exposed before, shed light on another path we may embrace: a \emph{linguistic approach}.\footnote{I ground this discourse on Kaplan's Theory of Indexicals as exposed in the SEP, see: \url{plato.stanford.edu/entries/indexicals} but also to the lecture Kripke gave in New York in 2006, transcribed and published in \emph{Saul Kripke, Philosophical Troubles}, Volume I, Ch. 10, \emph{The First Person} and, in particular the discussion on the \enquote{scientific language}.} In this section I examine the meaning of \enquote{reality} and will only sketch one way to find its denotation in the following section\footnote{Here I am referring to the Fregian distinction of meaning and denotation as in \enquote{Sinn und Bedeutung}.}.
\subsection{Meaning of \enquote{Reality}: from the Scientific Language}
A characterisation of reality must entail its independence from the subject(s). That is the basic thesis of realism and I want now to propose a way of how reality could be considered from a purely linguistic perspective. We may say that reality is \emph{what we mean} when we use a so-called \emph{scientific language}.
\begin{quote}
Kaplan mentions Quine as an originator of the conception that scientific language should not contain indexicals, tense, and the like, even though Kaplan himself disagrees with the view that such devices are not susceptible to logical study. [...]
In Philosophical Investigations he [Wittgenstein] writes:
\begin{quote}
\enquote{I} is not the name of a person, nor \enquote{here} of a place, and \enquote{this} is not a name. But they are connected with names. Names are explained by means of them. It is also true that physics is characterised by the fact that it does not use these words.\footnote{Wittgenstein, L. (1953) \emph{Philosophical Investigations} §410 Ed. and trans. G. E. M. Anscombe Oxford: Blackwell}
\end{quote}
What does he mean here? Certainly, as I have said, not that such indexical terminology never appears in physics papers. It might be claimed that such terminology never appears in physical laws, but once it is granted that many terms are explained by them, this strikes me as dubious.\footnote{\emph{Saul Kripke, Philosophical Troubles}, Volume I, Ch. 10, p. 293, footnote 4 \emph{The First Person}}
\end{quote}
The way Wittgenstein described what physics is could be of very much help in our attempt to define what reality is: couldn't we say that what we \emph{mean} with \enquote{reality} is exactly something that can be described without mentioning any \enquote{indexicals, tense, and the like}\footnote{ibid.}? I believe this linguistic description of reality goes to the very core of what we commonly\footnote{I am here embracing the so-called \emph{common-sense-philosophy} even though I personally dislike this approach very much. In this case though, I believe that the fuzzy correspondence with the usual meaning should convince the reader that I am \emph{actually} talking about reality; I can communicate little more than this \enquote{correspondence feeling} that I hope the reader shares.} mean with \enquote{reality}. In this way we have a perfect \emph{semantic}\footnote{I regard this as being a purely semantic distinction since indexicals are to be distinguished semantically only: their syntax remains the same and their denotation changes not more than how the semantic does.} distinction of what is talking about reality and what is not, what we are now left with is attempting to understand what the denotation of such a meaning should be.
\subsection{A Trance to Find a Denotation}
As I have previously exposed, talking about denotation would require a metaphysical context that tells us what the semantic corresponds to. Here one notices quickly that avoiding circularity may require some tricks, since we are looking for denotation of \enquote{reality} which has to be found in reality\footnote{I believe that any formulation one gives of denotation must entail a well-formed conception of reality, that is the origin of the intended circularity.}. One such trick could be to consider a \emph{host reality}, say reality$_1$, which is \enquote{previous} to the \enquote{reality$_2$} of which we are looking for the denotation. We may consider, e.g. reality$_1$ to be a phenomenalist reality, constituted only by ideas of a subject and then we may look in there for some denotations of reality$_2$ (the word whose meaning is expressed by indexicals-free sentences). In such an example we would find the denotation of \enquote{reality$_2$} in all those concepts that we may grasp independently from indexicals.
\subsubsection{A Couple of Problems}
One might here quickly notice that it is not that easy to distinguish meaning and reference in phenomenalism (reality$_1$), it is therefore not obvious that we can affirm to have found a denotation of reality$_2$. Furthermore it is hard to imagine any other reality$_1$ apart from the phenomenalist one, which may not convince many.
\subsubsection{A Twist of the Argument}
The second problem of the argument that I just remarked may suggest that we use this argument for another purpose: proving that the phenomenalist reality is the only one not requiring a \emph{host reality}. In fact we've seen that if (i) \enquote{reality} is a word (i.e. we are using syntax and requesting meaning and denotation) and (ii) \enquote{reality} must have a denotation\footnote{Unlike, e.g. fictive characters, which we may consider without denotation, I believe any realist wants \enquote{reality} to have a denotation, else a few paradoxes would arise}, then clearly such a denotation can't be found in the same \enquote{reality} we are defining. In fact, the only denotation we can find of \enquote{reality} that doesn't give rise to circularity is the one that has its reference in nothing more than its meaning. Left to prove is that this is a characterisation of the phenomenalist reality\footnote{I believe that, given the right framework I will manage to prove this claim so that, given (i) and (ii) I prove that the phenomenalist reality is the only one we will ever be able to properly define.}.
Conclusions
The last argument presented requires a better understanding of the procedure of creating a word. It is not evident at all that a word requires a decending order (syntax, semantic and then denotation) or an ascending order. It is not even clear that a word like reality requires an order at all. I suppose it is true that any word in a (perhaps non-platonistic) language is created respecting a certain order which shall be one of the two I just presented, though I see no actual reason to pick one of the two (psicologically one might say that the descending order is more likely to be used by someone trying to decipher or learn a language and the ascending more by someone creating a language fro scretch, though psicological reasons are far from being rightfully interpreted). Without such an ordering, the only thing that is required to “reality” is that its denotation is part of reality, hence which is not weird at all. We could say similarly for semantic and perhaps for syntax too.