Is Metaphysics Pointless? Discussion | F.H. Bradley's "Appearance and Reality" Introduction
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- čas přidán 11. 07. 2024
- The introduction to F.H. Bradley's Appearance and Reality is discussed with Ryan from Pessimistic Idealism ( / pessimisticidealism ) and Jordan from Monistic Idealism (czcams.com/channels/R5A.html.... This is the first episode in the chapter by chapter examination of his great metaphysical work, so influential in British Idealism. It is a discussion of the introduction that follows from a video in which I read and explain it, available here: • Introduction. Appearan... .
NOTE: Apologies for the low quality, I will try to get future discussion recorded at higher resolution. It's all still a bit experimental!
A free readable online copy of Appearance and Reality can be found here:
archive.org/details/appearanc...
A free online PDF can be found here:
www.holybooks.com/wp-content/...
A paperback print on demand version can be bought here:
www.amazon.co.uk/Appearance-R...
And you might be able to pick up an old copy here:
www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Se...
#Idealism #FHBradley #AppearanceAndReality
---------Video Contents---------
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:02:03 - Ryan's reasons for being interested in Idealism
00:03:03 - Jordan's reasons for being interested in Idealism
00:05:42 - Overview of the history of Appearance and Reality
00:09:08 - Overview of the philosophical content of Appearance and Reality
00:15:16 - Jordan's first impressions
00:17:55 - Bradley's writing style
00:21:32 - British idealists, German idealists, and Early analytics writing style and approach to metaphysics compared
00:30:48 - Is avoiding metaphysics possible?
00:43:06 - Why is metaphysics ignored?
00:55:24 - How metaphysics and science relate
01:02:50 - Other approaches to idealism
01:08:45 - How has science affecting metaphysics?
01:12:40 - Why metaphysics needs to be refreshed
01:26:40 - Could we get a metaphysical consensus?
01:40:18 - How rational is philosophy?
01:49:05 - The role of intellectual satisfaction
02:03:15 - Wrapping up
---------Channel Details---------
This channel features videos about big ideas in philosophy, explained as simply as I can. The focus is on late 19th and early 20th century thought, with a particular emphasis on the British Idealists (e.g. F. H. Bradley, J. M. E. McTaggart) and early analytic philosophers (Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Frank Ramsey). Welcome to the channel!
---------My Details---------
I am a PhD student and Gates Scholar at Cambridge near the end of a thesis on Frege's views on Truth. I have lectured at Cambridge on Frank Ramsey and Bertrand Russell, regularly taught undergraduate logic classes, and have also supervised students in metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, epistemology, and early analytic philosophy. But I have a keen interest in the British Idealists that I hope to pursue by making videos about what I'm reading, so much of the content of this channel will be an outlet for that interest.
this is a truly wonderful channel and i am glad i have found it - looking forward to catching up especially as someone who only has a cursory knowledge of historical idealism . also being a lifelong, devout materialistic atheist who has later in life discovered idealism ......i am really looking forward to watching the rest of your videos and learning as much as i can
Hi,
As a (pluralist) idealist I found this discussion extremely useful because I’m not as well-versed as I should be in the history of idealism. The division of this video into chapters is very helpful.
I find it quite shocking that many scientists today - even eminent ones - reject philosophy wholesale. It is ironic that they do this while claiming to be physicalists.
Close agreement with contemporary science (importantly including cosmology, and evolutionary and developmental biology) is a crucial condition for the adequacy of any metaphysical system. It was the utter failure of physicalism to solve the mind-body problem that led me first to panpsychism; and then to a form of panpsychism grounded in idealism.
Interpretations of quantum mechanics amount to (partial) metaphysical systems, this is because empirically they are either identical or indistinguishable. And metaphysical principles can help in deciding which candidates one prefers. In my opinion, an idealist should prefer those interpretations of quantum mechanics that do not involve mind. This is because idealists hold that the world is ontologically grounded in mind, and our task is to explain the entirety of physics in terms of this ground. There are several candidate interpretations that fit this criterion.
A counterexample is that “many worlds” is unacceptable for idealists for several reasons: it takes mind to be part of physics; even worse, it takes human mental states to be determined by human brain states - i.e., it presumes physicalism.
Apologies for veering wildly off-topic. There seem to be hints of a revival of interest in idealism. I hope this will continue to grow, just as it has for panpsychism over recent years.
Regards, Peter
Just to pick up on one of your points. I'm not sure how much I would agree with the idea that metaphysics needs to have 'close agreement with contemporary science'. Grated, it should ideally not be inconsistent with the *theories* of science (as distinguished from their *interpretations*). But I see no reasons why it should agree with them, if by that you mean provide some kind of support for them, or even corroborate them. Better if it does not, for then the metaphysical view will not be held ransom to changes in the scientific outlook.
Perhaps I think this because I approach metaphysics from a logico-semantic angle rather than a phil science or phil mind angle. I take metaphysics to be more closely linked with logic and language than with science. But it seems many metaphysicians like to defer to the latest science, and regularly take their cue from it. But I think there are principled reasons why metaphysics should think of itself as independent of science. And that is because it is more fundamental than physics (which is assumed to be the fundamental of the natural sciences).
@@AbsolutePhilosophy
Many thanks for your reply. I agree that metaphysics is more fundamental than contemporary physical theories. But many of the latter are so well-established that they can be taken as fact. They are also informative as to which metaphysical systems are plausible.
One can argue for idealism in a general way, by stating that we have no epistemic access to the universe except through our senses. But it is far more credible if one can develop a specific variant of idealism tied as closely as possible to contemporary physics. In my opinion, the risk of being wrong is worthwhile. Peter
Ryan and Jordan! 🤩
They're great, aren't they?
@@AbsolutePhilosophy, great and lowly are RELATIVE, but nevertheless, I cannot get enough of these Idealism discussions, since I, myself, am a Monistic Idealist.
I'm reading the Bhagavadgita (an Indian text from around the 5th century BCE) and was recommended Bradley's book by a monk.
You might find it interesting that the concept of Brahman in the Advaita (lit. "non-dual") Vedanta school of Indian philosophy is not too different from Bradley's ideas about the Absolute.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman
I don’t want to claim that they've figured out all of the answers, but these ideas have been discussed and argued about for thousands of years in India. Might be worth looking into.
I'm enjoying your video series so far. Keep up the good work!
I'm always pleased when I hear good ideas have historic precedent in various cultures and places. Your comment is not the first time someone has told me some of the metaphysical positions I've discussed are associated with Indian thought. Glad to hear it :).
Ryan - I can definitely relate to the issue of concern regarding sufficient depth with regard to any review of anything entailing what seems to be a sea of stuff. So, looking at things on the lower end one quickly understands the reality of the following "Facts are opinions to those that don't know."
you guys should do one more round
A shame I have a huge backlog of books to go through. Probably will get to Appearance and Reality as soon as I finish understanding The Worlds as Will and Representation first
Well, the videos will be there for when you get around to it :).
What's the schedule for tackling chapters 2 and 3 (the regress arguments). I'd be interested in being included on the discussion for that. There is a lot of disagreement in the secondary literature as to what the regress arguments are actually about. I really want to get straight what the significance of the regress arguments are for my dissertation.
Hard to say on exact timing but I want to make sure we do a chapter every month. Once my thesis is done (end of September) I'll hopefully be able to speed it up a bit. But sure, you can join us for the chat on those chapters.
Hi Paolo. I'm planning to do chapter 1 soon. If you want to be in on the discussion, get in touch. Email should be in the about tab somewhere.
@@AbsolutePhilosophy I responded to the email you have on your channel
Still waiting for the next vid! Hope it's out soon :)
It will be. Draft thesis done now. Submission date is the end of the month. Thanks for your patience.
Will you ever do an episode on Phillip Mainlander?
I don't know his work. So no plans at the moment. From what I read he sounds a bit far from my expertise.
As thinking and speaking beings can we escape ontological assumptions, scientist or not.?
In my view, we all have assumptions, whether conscious of them or not. But I see no reason why they need to be ontological. Lots of philosophers have an ontology that they 'read off' from their theories and the like. I suppose you could say their ontological assumption was that it is given by our best theory. But that sounds more like a metaontological assumption.
You stumped me there, shows that one might be best prudent in assuming one understands terms. But mistakes are useful. Thanks.
Well, you are right in thinking that we all do (as a matter of fact) have ontological assumptions. But if we are talking about philosophers speaking carefully, 'in the philosophy room' so to speak, then they may articulate their theory without ontological assumptions built into the ground level. Then again, even those that use first-order logic have to assume there is at least one thing (or the logic doesn't work). So I suppose its hard to avoid the ontological assumption that something exists, i.e. there isn't merely 'nothing'. But as far as ontological assumptions go, that one is rather thin.
@@AbsolutePhilosophy A bit on idealist logic to contextualise, Bradley,s A&R. A bit of a cheek, to Oxford and Cambridge scholars, not an academic just a fellow traveler but here it is if link works : www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2177177.pdf Enjoy Absolute Philosophy, thank you for doing it.
@@AbsolutePhilosophy Sorry link does not work, title “ Professor Bosanquets Logic and the Concrete Universal.”
Why the resistance to metaphysic tapestries?
I suspect that rigorous attempts to structure an all encompassing claim about reality in the fashion that the material you read attempts to do to some degree amounts to an attack on most other conceptual models immediately. Thus, unless there is some core aspect being shared, such enterprises are inherent existential attacks on a core cognitive construction of most in varying degrees that merely referencing particulars of reality and the various relationships between such does not do.
Putting aside my various suspicions of various individuals making the claim of doing metaphysics, I do think the enterprise as I have seen it thus far is missing the details of the engine of interlinkages which animates all that is observed. This omission strikes me as a grave oversight - or it is simply the case that my current knowledge base is simply too impoverished to know that there are active attempts to address such.
It's hard for me to understand how a human being can come to the conclusion that there can be existence that isn't the product of an idea...
I know that they do, but then we get the contradictions...
I understand that my beautiful cat can't come to that conclusion, ontologically speaking, but a human coming to a conclusion
(existence as brute fact and essentially nothing else) that is essentially the same as my cats inability , ontologically speaking, is... astounding!!