Metaphysics: The Study of the Nature of Existence or Reality I

1. Metaphysics: The Study of the Nature of Existence or Reality I Materialism: all reality is material/physical; only bodies in motion are real • Eastern (Charvaka) materialism: since we can know only that which we experience by sense, only that which is sensible/physical can be understood as real. There are no spiritual realities and no afterlife

2. Metaphysics: The Study of the Nature of Existence or Reality II • Western materialism: only physical things are real, either as atoms in motion (Democritus) or moving bodies (Hobbes) • In principle, everything is completely predictable (Laplace): there is no real freedom or afterlife

3. Objections to Materialism • Mental activity (e.g., consciousness) does not have physical properties (e.g., location). Even if mental activity is correlated with physical activity, that does not prove they are identical • Consciousness can be “of” or “about” things that don’t exist; physical objects lack such intentionality • Sub-atomic particle physics shows how matter itself lacks physical properties

4. Metaphysical Idealism: All reality is comprised of minds and ideas Western Idealism: • Physical objects are real only insofar as they are intelligible as the kind of thing they are. What makes a thing be that kind of thing is its unchanging essence, “form,” or “idea” (Plato) • For something to be real means that it is experienced (or “perceived”) by some mind (including God): its existence consists in its being perceived (George Berkeley)

5. Idealism (continued) • Eastern Idealism: things we perceive are only sensations in the mind (as in a dream), not real objects outside our minds. Meditation and an ethical life wake us from the dream (Vasubandhu) Objections to Idealism: • Anthropomorphism: just because we think of reality in terms of mind does not mean that it is a product of mind: the objects we perceive are not limited simply to objects as we perceive them • Minds and ideas occur only in material systems

6. Pragmatism: metaphysics is meaningful only if it has practical consequences What we mean by reality is the product of our ideas and ideals, all of which are creative solutions to practical problems John Dewey (1859-1952) William James (1842-1910)

7. Logical Positivism:Metaphysics is Meaningless A. J. Ayer (1910-89) • Statements are meaningful only if they are analytic (tautologies, true/false by definition) or empirical (based on experience) • Objection: this principle is neither, so it is meaningless • Because metaphysical, aesthetic, theological and ethical statements are neither tautologies nor statements of fact, they are meaningless (or express only a feeling or emotion, not some truth) • Objection: we really don’t believe this

8. Anti-realism: objects in the world depend on how they are described or perceived • Postmodernism: the features of reality depend on language. Different (e.g., feminine) languages or ways of thinking identify different realities • Objection 1: this makes all realities (even sexist ones) equally valid and not open to critique • Objection 2: our descriptions of reality might vary, but not reality itself: otherwise, we could not talk about the “same” thing

9. Phenomenology: reality is not some objective thing distinct from experience; rather, it is what appears to us as “phenomena” in experience • Instead of assuming that the world is as it appears (the natural standpoint), we should “bracket” all that can be doubted in order to be certain about reality as (1) the act of consciousness and (2) the objects of consciousness as experienced (Husserl) • Being (reality) is not a being, a thing that can be thought; rather, it is what is common to all beings, intentionality itself (Heidegger)

10. Existentialism: existence/reality is significant only as subjective, personal, and passionate • To exist is to be a self committed to action though a “leap of faith” (Kierkegaard) • For consciousness, reality is the product of our choice to give meaning to brute facts. For us, “existence precedes essence”: we create reality through our actions, thinking of things in terms of what they are not/negation (Sartre) • Despite social institutions and constraints (e.g., gender discrimination), we are free and responsible for ourselves: reality is what we make of it (de Beauvoir)

11. Objections to Phenomenology and Existentialism • It is difficult to eliminate our prejudices; in the case of language, it is perhaps impossible • Because the choice to think of reality as open-ended is itself open-ended, it can never be the basis for a determinate metaphysics • Phenomenological/Existentialist reply: the possibility of thinking otherwise reveals how reality or being is tied to consciousness