[Serious Phil] The Viability of the Substance/Property Distinction

[Peter D]

--- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <Philscimind at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "Peter D" <Philscimind@> wrote:
>  
> > --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <Philscimind@> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "Peter D" <Philscimind@> wrote:
> > >  
> > > > --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <Philscimind@> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "Peter D" <Philscimind@> wrote:
> > > > >  
> > > > > > --- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <Philscimind@> wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Joe writes: 3. in #996, I explained why it did in fact matter whether Chalmers philosophy constitutes substance dualism:
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > "positing two property sets of one substance is not the same as positing two substances each of which has a set of properties. the former is far less significant than the latter."
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > He goes on: you declined to address the question of the relative significance of positing Chalmers' style of dualism vs positing Descartes' style of dualism; and, instead, diverted the thread into a discussion of whether physics supports or undermines the philosophical use of 'substance'.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > My Reply:
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > False I did "address the question of the relevant significance of positing Chalmers' style of dualism vs positing Descartes' style of dualism" to wit: 
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > "AN ONTOLOGICAL DUALIST . . .  IN THE RELEVANT SENSE . . . IS NO DIFFERENT FROM BEING A SUBSTANCE DUALIST SINCE BOTH POSITIONS POSIT TWO SEPARATE BASICS, ONE TO REDUCE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA TO, THE OTHER TO REDUCE MENTAL PHENOMENA TO."
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Although they are different, since their respective "basics" 
> > > > > > are different, and have different implications. Substance dualism
> > > > > > supports life-after-death, property dualism doesn't.
> > > > > >
> > > > > 
> > > > > So? I'm speaking above of the terms "ontological dualism" and "property dualism". What "property dualism" amounts to and what it implies is a different issue.
> > > > > 
> > > > >  
> > > > > > > Then, where I wrote: "When you peel away any and all possible properties there's nothing left standing as it were. 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > But you have never in fact pealed away all properties, so
> > > > > > that is just speculation.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > That's why it's conceptual. You look at the concept being presented and consider its implications, etc.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > And then what?
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Then sometimes you understand a little better than before or your interlocutor does. And sometimes he or she doesn't.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > You got the expected implication from your concept,
> > > > I got the expected implication from mine. Neither of us learnt
> > > > anything.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > If you were a little less rigid you might learn what I have in mind and I might learn what you have in mind.
> > > 
> > > > Sometimes aprioristic reasoning--and that IS what you
> > > > are doing,
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Nope. I am exploring the uses of the terms to better understand what we mean by what we say. 
> > 
> > 
> > How could that be anything but aprioristic?
> >
> 
> Because exploring our word uses hinges on looking at actual word usages, how we and other language speakers use our words.

That doesn't tell me how it isn't aprioristic. Apriori arguments
are based on meanings, or, as you put it, uses.

> And "looking at" doesn't just mean using our eyeballs anymore than "pointing at" just means using our fingers. 
> 
>  
> > > > for all that you describe it like an performable
> > > > experiment--can settle an issue. 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Issues are only settled when interlocutors share enough common premises and are prepared to acknowledge that. Otherwise arguments go on interminably, like this debate with you.  
> > 
> > You are hinting that there si some issue I am failing to share, or somethig. How about saying what it is?
> >
> 
> 
> Start with what it means to look at how we actually use our words.


It means you are trying to prove a metaphysical thesis by apriori
means, despite having claimed that such a procedure is impossible
and wrongheaded. It means you are contradicting yourself again.

> > > > One concept might lead to a contradiciton that while the other does not. That did not
> > > > happen in this case. Yet you seem to regard your version of the
> > > > thought experiment as somehow dispositive. 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Which "thought experiment" are you on about now? 
> > 
> > 
> > The one about stripping properties. The one this is all about.
> >
> 
> That's not a "thought experiment" it's an exercise in analysis of usage, i.e., to try to find something a "propertyless property bearer" actually designates other than a "propertyless property bearer". In other words explain the term's application by telling us what it picks out.


But it's NOT an EMPIRICAL trying-to-find. It you sitting in an armchair claiming that something doesn't exist because of
some abstract reasoning you have engaged in, and NOT because
you have ACTUALLY tried looking at any real thing.

> So here is another thing we don't share: what counts as a "thought experiment". I would say the Mary's Room scenario is a thought experiment and the Chinese Room is a thought experiment. In those cases we carefully construct a scenario by spelling out all the details (the specs) and then ask our interlocutor to reach a conclusion from the imagined situation, betting that they can't help but come to the same conclusions we do or, if it turns out they don't, that we can show them why they should by analyzing the scenario constructed.
> 
> But asking you to point out what your term "propertyless property bearer" denotes isn't such an experiment. It's just a case of asking you what you actually mean.    

Why do you need to ask? You don't find the phrase linguistically incomprehensible. YOu claim it has no referent because substances don;'t exist, and
you claim substances don't exist because "substance" has no referent.

Your argument is completely empty.


>  
> > > > Why, for heaven's sake?
> > > > It's just an echo chamber. It is not real empirical proof. 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > I am not offering nor seeking proofs. I am seeking a way of understanding what consciousness is that best fits the evidence of our experience. 
> > 
> > 
> > We don't experience property-stripping. 
> > 
> 
> That's why it's an exercise in analysis, 

Make your mind up: is it abstract analysis, as you are now saying,
or evidence, as you were saying?

>as in break down what you mean by your terminology. We don't have to perform an experiment to grasp that we cannot have square circles 

We note that it is contradictory. If you could show that substance
is a contradictory idea, you would have a valid apriori argument
againsst substance . But you can't. You keep trying to draw this
analogy, but it isn't actually analogous.


>(they are contradictions in terms) and we don't have to do so to grasp that nonsense words like "'twas brillig in the slithy tove" have no meaning for us.

Propertyless property bearer is not made of nonsense words. Again, there is no analogy.

> As to unicorns, we might want to scour the earth for one but there's enough evidence around that the animal is mythical so that we need not bother, 

And everyone knows that. But it is not common knowledge that
there are no substances, it is a contentious  philosophuical claim.
For the third time, there is no real analogy.


>though, of course, THAT isn't conclusive proof there are none in reality. On the other hand this isn't about conclusive proofs, only about finding intelligible meanings.
> 
> But if you want to insist that some term which you cannot adequately explicate

Oh please. You have never even asked me to explicate it. You haven't
even offered the objection that you don't undesrtand the definition
I have given. You have just offered a different objection, the objection that is has no referent because substences don't exist,
and vice versa.


> has meaning because you CAN say the word in question, no one can stop you. There is no law against private languages. Or against letting our imaginations run wild. 
> 
> 
> > > > You keep
> > > > saying that metaphyscial questions are unsettleable, yet you talk
> > > > as though you had settled it...
> > > 
> > > 
> > > How, since I am not arguing a metaphysical claim but a conceptual one?
> > 
> > 
> > Oh good grief1 Do you really think the Metaphysical and the Conceptual are disjoint categories? Do you really think 
> > there are no metaphysical concepts?
> > 
> 
> I never said that.

If you did not even imply that, then your comment was nonsense--
it would make no sense to claim "not metaphysical but conceptual"
when the metaphysical is in fact conceptual!

> I only said I wasn't "arguing a metaphysical claim". 


So? Is the problem then the "arguing" bit or the "claiing" bit?
Since you are very clearly doing both, how am I to guess your meaning?
Which absurdity are you claiming?

>You should address what I actually said, not try to get over by putting words into my mouth (or, as in this case, onto my screen -- after all, I know how literal you can be when it suits you).
> 
> 
> > 
> > > > by employiong a procedure which
> > > > would not necessarily settle anyhting.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > See above.
> > > 
> > > > > > >In other words, the idea of substance is a moving target, a function of the role any particular set of properties is assigned in the referencing game, e.g., `that substance over there is the gooey, shiny stuff I mean'.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > Joe Replied: "unexplained is why you think this is a problem."
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > My Reply: In fact I have often explained it. Here it is again.
> > > > > > > When you use a referring term but it has no referent (it appears to pick out a referent but really doesn't) then you've got an empty usage, i.e., one that is either confused or deeply mistaken or both.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > You have not established that the term has no referent (see above).
> > > > > >
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > Peel it away conceptually and tell us what's left other than a term.
> > > > 
> > > > If I conceptually peel away the conceptual properties from my concept of a thing
> > > > I am left with my concept of a propertyless bearer of properties, 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > An empty concept since it has no description except by listing what isn't there.
> > 
> > 
> > It has the description I have given it.
> > 
> 
> 
> And a "square circle" is a circle that has four corners and four sides, etc. 

Which is a contradiction UNLIKE propertyless property bearer.


>If wishes were horses, beggars would ride! 
> 
> 
> > > I recall a childhood ditty my father used to recite. It went something like this: There was a little man who wasn't there. Where he was I cannot say, but sure enough one thing I know, he wasn't there again today.
> > 
> > 
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigonish_%28poem%29
> >
> 
> Already found and posted here. And just as your "propertyless property bearer" can find no referent, neither can the man that wasn't there go away because, lo and behold, he wasn't there in the first place.

Another failed analogy.

> > > You can tell yourself you have a concept articulated entirely by what is excluded from it but that is no concept at all, just wordplay.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > >  ie substance, as expected. Because it's an echo chamber, not a real informative experiment.
> > > > 
> > > > > > In any case, your further claim that reference falure is always due
> > > > > > to mistake or confusion on the part of the speaker is itself 
> > > > > > false. If I say "God Bless the Queen" right now, my reference
> > > > > > to Her Majesty might fail due to her having died a minute ago.
> > > > > > That's no fault of mine.
> > > > > >
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > That's a mistake even if you don't realize it at the time you make it and could not have been expected to realize it. It still turns out to be a mistaken claim.
> > > > 
> > > > It's not a mistake in the sense of muddled thinking on my part, the mistake you originally claimed. (And it is not even a factual
> > > > assertion anyway).
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > That you can put words together is not evidence they signify anything and thinking otherwise is muddled.
> > 
> > 
> > zzzz
> > 
> 
> You're right. There's no point in wasting more pixels here. If your responses are as unsubstantive as that, why should I waste further time with you?

It is not within anyone's power to give substantive responses to
unsubstantive comments. Your whole approach is empty. You say
that there is somehting wrong with my use of language, but
you are completely unable to say what. You are just repeating the
empty claim that I am wrong because I am wrong.

> > > > > > > In the case of "substance" used as Joe and PDJ like to use it, metaphysically, and described as a "bearer of properties" (Joe) or a "propertyless bearer of properties" (PDJ) but cannot point to what you have in mind you have no referent.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > That didn't parse.
> > > > > >
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > Yeah, I got careless. Not a complete sentence and I'm afraid I've forgotten the rest of what I meant to say. No biggie. I'm sure we'll be doing this again some time.
> > > > > 
> > > > >  
> > > > > > > If "substance" refers to a "bearer of properties" then anything, including other properties can be the bearer, and so there is no genuine distinction at some basic level. One man's property is another's substance. The reference is in flux.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > But if "substance" refers to a "propertyless bearer of properties" the problem is even greater because, on analysis, once you pare away all possible features by which something is known (that is, all properties) you've nothing left to show,
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Other than a propertyless bearer of properties. You  can't prove
> > > > > > Bundle Theory with these question-begging one-sentence arguments. 
> > > > > > It's a complicated and  contentious debate. You know that.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > I'm not offering or debating a theory, 
> > > > 
> > > > Yes you are. To reject "there are substances" you have
> > > > to embace "there are no substances". it's called bivalence.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Nope. I don't say there are no substances.
> > 
> > 
> > Oh good grief. You are saying there are ono substnaces in my
> > sense of the term. You are disagreeign with me.
> > 
> > > I recognize lots of uses for the word "substance" which are quite legit. That I think there is at least one use that is not legit and so misleading doesn't amount to a denial of some content for the word. To note that the word can and has been used illegitimately is also not a theory but a claim about how the word is and ought to be used.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > > >about bundles or otherwise.
> > > > 
> > > > Explain the differnce in content between your no-substance theory
> > > > and Bundle theory.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > I don't offer or have a "no-substance theory".
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > > I am making a conceptual point, i.e., that an examination of the uses of "substance" shows that, used as you want to use it, there's no there there. 
> > > > 
> > > > As I want to use it, it is what is conceptually left when I conceptually strip off conceptual properties. You have NOT
> > > > shown an inconistency in MY usage.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > What I've shown is that your use which claims to name something  names nothing because it involves an absence of any possible content which is incoherent like the little man who wasn't there and wasn't there again today.
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > >That is, there's no referent. There's nothing that can be singled out in words that is distinct from the term 
> > > > 
> > > > How do you know? Your argument is just as conceptual as mine.
> > > > You are NOT using REAL empiricism to investigate a REAL world.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > My argument most certainly is conceptual. It is a claim about your attempt to use a word to designate a concept with no content. My point is empirical to this extent: it depends on actually referring to things you have said which I have read here (hence learned about through experience). On the other hand, I don't need to do experiments here to find this out.
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > >itself and nothing in the world to point at.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > > Now one can elaborate theories from this but that's not what I'm doing here.
> > > > 
> > > > Irrelevant. Your claim is  a theory anyway.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Only in your overly broad notion that anything anyone says is a theory or expresses some aspect of a theory they hold.
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > > I am merely making the point that this is a case of a referring word without a referent which means the word is without content even if we may hide that fact from ourselves at times.  
> > > > 
> > > > Saying it is without a referent is just an opinion. It proves
> > > > nothing.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Show me the money, as in show us the referent. If you can't you are merely engaged in wordplay.  
> > 
> > Oh good grief. Show me the dark side of the moon--now!
> > 
> > 
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