Notes on Analogy and Univocity

– Aquinas and Scotus have two different ways of speaking and knowing of God – analogy and univocity, respectively. The former is more well known (and in this old post I give a quick overview of it).

– Scotus is concerned primarily with with developing a concept of being that applies to both God and man, because, as Scotus sees it, unless there were such a concept, we could not have objective, positive metaphysical knowledge of God. We could have negative knowledge of God, but Scotus sees that as empty (if that’s our only knowledge of God). To say only what God is not cashes out like this: we can say that God is not a rock, but we can say the same thing about anything not a rock. All we know, then, is that God, like anything not a rock, is not a rock.

– He holds that if our knowledge of God is equivocal (as Henry of Ghent held), then we can have no real knowledge of God, since our terms would be emptied of all their meaning.

– So what exactly is this univocal concept of being? This: a concept such that it cannot be both affirmed and denied without a contradiction. So, in the case of being, both God and man fall under the concept of being, but not in the sense that they are both under a single genus – Scotus’ univocity is logical, and not metaphysical  concept. Put another way, God and man are both infinitely different in their being – but they are both opposed to nonbeing, though opposed in different ways.

– Scotus and Aquinas are both in agreement that knowledge of God comes from knowledge of creatures – our experience of creatures is the source of all our concepts that we apply to God. They also both agree that these concepts don’t apply to God directly or perfectly. Aquinas holds this by way of analogy, where concepts apply to God in both a similar and dissimilar sense. Scotus holds, however, that analogy is fundamentally a kind of equivocity, and that for analogy to work at all it must presuppose some kind of univocity.

– Scotus holds that our concepts apply to God via abstraction – that is, he abstracts the creaturely imperfections in, say, our concept of wisdom, and them applies them to God with maximum perfection.

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T.F. Torrance on Kant and Theoretic Structures

‘There is certainly a profound element of truth here, the fact that in all our knowing there is a real interplay between what we know and out knowing of it. Man himself is a part of nature and is so intimately related to nature that he plays a formative, and nature a productive, role in scientific inquiry, discovery and interpretation. This is everywhere apparent in the magnificent achievements of empirical and theoretic science, but the way in which Kant himself combined the theoretical and empirical components of the epistemic process has grave consequences.

It is certainly to be granted that we do not apprehend things apart from a theoretic structure, but if the theoretic structure actually determines what we apprehend, then what we apprehend provides no control over our understanding. The one way out of that impasse requires a theoretic structure which, while affecting our knowledge, is derived from the intrinsic intelligibility of what we seek to know, and is open to constant revision through reference to the inner determinations of things as they come to view in the process of inquiry. But this is ruled out by the Kantian thesis that the theoretic structure is aprioristically independent of what we apprehend and that there is no possible knowledge of things in their own inner determinations or relations.

While Kant was certainly concerned to show the limits of the pure reason, his theory of knowledge served to reinforce the Enlightenment doctrine of the autonomous reason (e.g. in its Lockean and Cartesian forms alike) and even to exalt it into a position beyond what had hitherto been claimed, where through prescriptive legislation it subdued nature to the forms of its own rational necessities. As F.C.S. Northrop expressed it: ‘For neither Locke nor Hume was the human person as a knower a positively acting creating being. With Kant the position is entirely changed. Apart from the knowing person, which Kant termed “the ego”, the a priori forms of sensibility and categories of the understanding which this ego brings to the contingent data of sense, there would be no single space-time world whatever, with its public, material objects and knowers. In this fashion Kant transforms modern man’s conception of himself from a merely passive into a systematically active and creative being.’ (T.F. Torrance, ‘Transformation and Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge, p. 42, reformatted for ease of reading)

Kant and the Objectivity of Experience

(This is a rough gloss on Strawson’s exposition of Kant’s doctrines of unity and objectivity in ‘The Bounds of Sense’)

– Kant notes that our experience has to include the awareness of objects distinct from the state of being aware of them – call this the objective reference of experience. Put differently, experience has the objective reference of objects conceived as distinct from the particular experience (or representation) of said object.

– This is, in effect, the statement that we have to be aware of the thing-in-itself in order to have an objective reference. Our experience, if it is to have an objective reference, must be unified for it to be a representation of the objective world.

– Our empirical concepts, if they are to be employed at all, depend on this unified, coherent and connected experience.

– The issue here can be seen clearly: the objective world, the world of things-in-themselves apart from any perceptual activity or cognition of the knowing subject, must be known for our experience to have an objective reference, or for our representations to be of the real world. The things-in-themselves, however, lie outside our experience entirely – we are not aware of them. All we are aware of are appearances.

– Thus, if we are to use empirical concepts, we have to have a substitute objective reference. This substitute is, simply, the rule-governed connected-ness of our experience and our representations. Strawson notes:

‘This surrogate is precisely that rule-governed connectedness of our representations which is reflected in our employment of concepts of empirical objects conceived of as together forming a unified natural world, with its own order, distinct from, and controlling, the subjective order of perceptions. Really, nothing comes within the scope of our experience but those subjective perceptions themselves; so that all that can be really understood by empirical knowledge of objects is the existence of such rule and order among those perceptions as is involved in our being able to count them as perceptions of an objective world, having its own independent order, to which we can ascribe, as a consequence, the order of our perceptions.’ (‘The Bounds of Sense’, p. 104)

– In other words, if I’m reading Strawson/Kant right, our perceptual experiences, being rule-governed and connected, give us empirical knowledge of objects, that is, knowledge of objects of experience, which we can ‘count’ as perception of the objective world.

Humean, All Too Humean

I intended this post to be a bit of reflection on agent causation and free will, but I was led in a more fundamental direction after concluding with Timothy o’Connor that an account of agent causation really depends on the impossibility of a Humean account of causation. This is a rather simple thesis that can be summed up as follows: agent causation (AC) takes as fundamental that causes really do necessitate their effects – let’s call this Real Causality (RC). Humean-ism (H) fundamentally denies that causes necessitate their effects. Therefore, the first step towards an account and defense of agent causation ought to begin with a look at the metaphysics of causation – more specifically, why we shouldn’t take H to be the case.

Tim Maudlin in his excellent volume ‘The Metaphysics Within Physics’ maps out H by way of two doctrines derived from a reading of David Lewis:

‘Doctrine 1 (Separability): The complete physical state of the world is determined by (supervenes on) the intrinsic physical state of each spacetime point (or each pointlike object) and the spatio-temporal relations between those points.’

‘Doctrine 2 (Physical Statism): All facts about the world, including modal and nomological facts, are determined by its physical state alone.’ (p. 51)

Maudlin then takes these ideas to task, drawing arguments against Doctrine 1 from quantum physics. Classical physics was indeed separable – the physical state of the universe is, more or less, determined by spatio-temporal relations, dispositions and properties in space and time. Maudlin spends a fair amount of time doing some pretty fancy math and comes to the conclusion that given quantum theory as a part of a true description of the world (which is a separate but related contention – Maudlin isn’t trying for an instrumentalist or consciousness-based interpretation of quantum theory here), separability cannot be sustained. He arrives here by an exposition of particle systems, spin states and entagled states, which is rather technical.

Doctrine 2 Maudlin takes to be indefensible as well, and I’ll quote him at length here:

‘It matters not whether one starts with Newton, who, in the Principia, simply announces his three laws of motion after giving the definitions of various terms, or whether one turns directly to any contemporary textbook on quantum theory, which will treat, e.g., the Schrodinger equation as a fundamental dynamical principle. Physicists seek laws, announce laws, and use laws, but they do not even attempt to analyze them in terms of the total physical state of the universe or anything else…Unlike reductive analyses of possibility, causality, and chance, reductive analyses of laws are not endorsed by scientific practice.

Indeed, scientific practice seems to preclude such an analysis. As we have seen, physical possibility is easily understood in terms of models of the laws of physics. Let us suppose (and how can one deny it) that every model of a set of laws is a possible way for a world governed by those laws to be. Then we can ask: can two different sets of laws have models with the same physical state? Indeed they can. Minkowski space-time, the space time of Special Relativity, is a model of the field equations of General Relativity (in particular, it is a vacuum solution). So an empty Minkowski space-time is one way the world could be if it is governed by the laws of General Relativity. But is Minkowski space-time a model only of the General Relativity laws? Of course not! One could, for example, postulate that Special Relativity is the complete and accurate account of space-time structure, and produce another theory of gravitation, which would still have the vacuum Minkowski space-time as a model. So under the assumption that no possible world can be governed both by the laws of General Relativity and by a rival theory of gravity, the total physical state of the world cannot always determine the laws. The only way out is either to assert that empty Minkowski space-time must be governed by both sets of laws, since it is a model of both, or (a more likely move) that it can be governed by neither set of laws, since neither is the simplest account of space-time structure adequate to the model (the simplest account is just Special Relativity). But how can one maintain that the General Relativistic laws cannot obtain in a world that is a model of the laws, and hence allowed by them? The necessity of distinguishing the physical possibilities (i.e. the ways the world could be given that a set of laws obtains in the world) from the models of the laws signals a momentous shift from philosophical analyses that follow scientific practice to analyses that dictate it.’ (p. 67-68)

There is no shortage of less physics-based reasons to not be a Humean, however. One might point out that Hume’s conclusions have force only if his empiricism is accepted, and there are many good reasons why that shouldn’t be accepted – modern philosophy is, in fact, partly composed of such rejections (Reid, Sellars, and the rejection of the positivists make up part of this history. The positivists, who claimed that non-analytic statements or statements that go beyond empirical justification are meaningless, are left in a position which doesn’t exactly aid one in the search for the laws of nature. Nor are things such as quarks and their flavors logical constructions out of sense-data). This isn’t to say that a wholesale rejection of Hume is called for – his observation that causation is not empirical is absolutely correct, though not his further conclusion that it doesn’t exist at all, since causation is very real though metaphysical category. But if the foundation for Humean-ism, which is a strict empiricism, isn’t sound, then we have far less reason to accept Humean-ism.

Given this all-too-cursory look at why we might not want to be Humean, what exactly follows? Concerning agent causation, we are left with a good bit of space with which to work, now that the shackles of Humean causation have been loosed – we are free to develop an account of agency and freedom in which agents are real causes of events.

Freedom and Its Human Face

– Timothy o’Connor helpfully distinguishes between the ‘capacity to choose’ and ‘freedom’ – the former is necessary but not sufficient for an account of free will. The latter, interestingly enough, can be diminished without the former being so.

– Crucial in o’Connor’s account of free will are reasons – reasons that are acted on (desires, belief, what have you) and reasons that are acted for (goals).  Reasons are themselves non-causal, since o ‘Connor is defending agent causation, but they are causally influential. To use his terminology, reasons structure the agent-causal capacity.

– Self-knowledge plays a significant role here – if a person is unaware of the factors and reasons which motivate his action, then he has a lesser degree of freedom than someone who has a greater knowledge of the factors motivating his action – the more self-aware person will be able to reflect on his motivating factors and actions

– Another crucial aspect for his account of freedom is the integrity of self-formation. Citing Robert Grosseteste’s angelic thought experiment (where an angel is formed for an instant with a full set of memories and psychological dispositions- which he doesn’t actually have, having only existed for an instant – and then makes a decision or chooses to act) o’Connor concludes that a person’s history (his/her full set of psychological dispositions, previous choices, character, etc) is a source of freedom.

– This conclusion is reached by noting that in the above thought experiment, the instant-existing angel merely has his ‘history’ as a ‘given’, which as such determines how he will act/choose – this ‘given’ is more or less the factors that shape our choices. If one has a real history, then one also has a ‘given’, but this ‘given’, as we grow and choose and interact with our world and are exposed to all kinds of rich new horizons, is shaped in such a way as to reflect more of our own action. Thus, our ‘given’ becomes becomes more of our own creation, and through our actions in the world our freedom grows.

‘We come into the world with powerful tendencies that are refined by the particular circumstances in which we develop. All of these facts are for us merely ‘given.’ They determine which choices we have to make and which options we will consider (and how seriously) as we arrive at a more reflective age. However, presuming that we are fortunate enough not to be
impacted by traumatic events that will forever limit what is psychologically possible for us, and, on the positive side, that we are exposed to a suitably rich form of horizon-expanding opportunities, the structure of our choices increasingly
reflect our own prior choices. In this way, our freedom grows over time.’ – (Timothy o’Connor, ‘Freedom With a Human Face‘)

– Simplifying that out a bit: as a person grows and chooses they shape some of the factors that shape their choice. All other things being equal, this effectively grows our freedom since we shape our ‘given’ by our own choices. Perhaps an argument can be extracted:

If persons have a histories, they are free

Persons have histories

Therefore, they are free

– While not very convincing, this may serve to show the point being driven towards.

A Problem for Direct Realism

Here I take a central thesis of a direct realism theory of perception to be the idea that if we are directly aware of objects, and not a sense-datum or idea, then we have to say that things such as colour must be such that reference can be made to them without reference to any subjective or phenomenal experience of perceivers- we cannot reference colour except by way of referencing it as we experience it, ergo phenomenal concepts. However, how can colour be referenced in a way that avoids phenomenal concepts and still be about colour in any coherent way?

John McDowell explains further, referencing J.L. Mackie’s view of primary and secondary qualities (in which experiences of, say, red do not need to be understood in terms of the experiences the red object gives rise to):

‘According to Mackie, this conception of primary qualities that resemble colours as we see them is coherent; that nothing is characterized by such qualities is established by merely empirical argument. But is the idea coherent? This would require two things: first, that colours figure in perceptual experience experience neutrally, so to speak, rather than as essentially phenomenal qualities of objects, qualities that could not be adequately conceived except in terms of how their possessors would look; and, second, that we command a concept of resemblance that would enable us to construct notions of primary qualities out of the idea of resemblance to such neutral elements of experience. The first of these is quite dubious…But even if we try to let it pass, the second seems to be impossible. Starting with, say, redness as it (putatively neutrally) figures in our experience, we are asked to form the notion of a feature of objects which resembles that, but which is adequately conceivable otherwise than in terms of how its possessors would look (since if it were adequately conceivable only in those terms it would be secondary). But the second part of these instructions leaves it wholly mysterious what to make of the first: it precludes the required resemblance being in phenomenal respects, but it is quite unclear what other sense we could make of the notion of resemblance to redness as it figures in our experience.’ (‘Values and Secondary Qualities’, in ‘Essays on Moral Realism’, ed. Geoffrey Sayre-Mccord, p. 169)

I think the following argument can thus be extracted:

Direct realism holds that reference to colour (or any phenomenal quality) can be made apart from phenomenal concepts – or, there is a neutral figuring in experience for colour.

We cannot reference colour except by way of phenomenal concepts – or, there is no neutral figuring in experience for colour.

Therefore, a direct realism theory of perception is false.

Kant and Non-Materialistic Naturalism

Kant is, interestingly enough, concerned to uphold naturalism without materialism. While this seems odd at first blush, his reasons for doing so are fairly interesting and constitute a universally acknowledged important (though to what degree it’s successful is somewhat more in doubt) project. Let’s bracket to the side the fact that Kant has only a small number of not-so-good arguments for his position as well as some serious questions of coherence and see just what happens when we dig through his thought.

In more contemporary terms, metaphysical naturalism generally cashes out to a kind of materialism or physicalism – the only things that there are are material things (or, if we want to Quine things up, whatever we’re committed to by our best theories). It is, at its broadest, non-supernaturalism. The physical, causal order is all there is, in one way or another.

Kant was a naturalist in a slightly different sense: he took everything to be governed by mechanical laws but wanted to resist and undermine the assumption of materialism, which is more or less one of the driving reasons behind his transcendental idealism, which may be best understood as contrasting with its opposite, transcendental realism.

As I see Kant, he means two things by ‘transcendental realism’ (TR). (1) The epistemological thesis that we are fully aware of of the limitations of our own mind and can thus know the things in themselves, and (2) the metaphysical thesis that things exist in time and space apart from human cognition.This is a problem because the mathematical and mechanical laws of nature, on this scheme, govern literally every thing, including the things in themselves – and from this, Kant takes it, follows materialism.

Kant’s idealism needs little introduction, but setting it against TR, we can see that the basic gist is that (1) we aren’t fully aware of the limitations of our mind and can’t know the things in themselves and (2) the objects of our experience, things in time and space, exist as a result of our cognition and conceptual activity.

What this doctrine secures is this: a naturalism without materialism. How? By restricting the mathematical and mechanical laws of nature to the objects of our experience, Kant has protected the things in themselves from being naturalized or material-ized.

Put another way: if we can experience or know the things in themselves, then the universal laws of nature apply to them, because they apply to everything. By restricting our knowledge and experience from the things in themselves, Kant has both secured his naturalism (because the laws of nature apply to everything we experience) and attacked materialism (by showing that the universal laws of nature do not apply to everything).

If Kant is right then, naturalism is correct in the sense that universal laws govern everything we experience – but by restricting this to the appearances, he can both avoid and attack materialism, since the laws apply only to our experience and not to the things in themselves. Thus, while everything we expereince is ‘natural’, not everything is in nature.