Common Terms in Philosophy
References:
Transcript
Ethan [00:01 – 00:07]
Okay, so we’re diving into the absolute deepest end of philosophy today. Like the ultimate foundational
stuff. Uh
William [00:07 – 00:14]
huh. We’re talking about the questions that literally make the rest of existence possible to think about.
Metaphysics.
Ethan [00:14 – 00:26]
Exactly. You know, when people think of philosophy, they often think of ethics. But metaphysics is the
groundwork. It’s the inquiry into foundational questions that you just cannot answer with a lab test.
William [00:27 – 00:39]
Right. Because it’s beyond sensory experience. Like you can’t put causality in a beaker and observe
it. You can’t observe events that you assume are caused. But causality itself is the scaffolding.
Ethan [00:40 – 01:16]
Scaffolding, that’s such a perfect word for it. It’s the stuff underlying the scientific tests. Like we
assume time exists, we assume space exists. But asking what time and space are, that’s the
metaphysical gig. Although the definition can be even broader, One can say that metaphysics is the
branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship
between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. It
can also discuss matter of existence and non existence. It is the big tent under which different
philosophical traditions can be placed.William [01:17 – 01:24]
And within that we get to my favorite one, which is ontology, the study of being and existence. It
sounds so grand, you know,
Ethan [01:24 – 01:39]
it does. Ontology is basically saying, let’s take an inventory of reality. What kind of entities are there?
Are there only physical things, or are there abstract things too? In essence, what exists both in
observed reality and in minds?
William [01:40 – 01:50]
That’s where the universals and particulars come in. Which is such a mind bender. Like a particular is
that red apple in your hand. But the universal is redness itself.
Ethan [01:51 – 02:05]
Oh, the universal redness. That’s a concept that applies to a million things, but it’s not a thing you can
pick up. So does redness exist outside of the apple, outside of your mind, or only in your mind? That’s
the classic debate, right?
William [02:06 – 02:18]
That’s the Platonic realism versus nominalism struggle. It’s crazy. Does the number seven exist in
some abstract realm outside of space and time? Or is it just a useful concept we invented? Wow.
Ethan [02:19 – 02:30]
No way. And that leads us to the other big one, epistemology. If ontology is asking what is being?
Epistemology is asking, how in the world can we know about that being?
William [02:31 – 02:42]
Aha. The theory of knowledge. It’s all about belief, truth and justification. Because you can believe
something to be true, but for it to be knowledge, you have to have the right justification.
Ethan [02:42 – 02:54]
Exactly. That’s the Holy Trinity right there. And the Sources of justification. Are we talking aboutperception, like seeing a tree? Or testimony, like a friend telling you about a tree? Or pure reason.
William [02:54 – 03:09]
And they all have different weights. Like, I know by acquaintance what it feels like to be cold. That’s
different from propositional knowledge, like knowing that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. It’s a
whole classification system for how we know things.
Ethan [03:09 – 03:19]
Right. And it’s not just about what is known, but. But what the limits of our knowledge are. Which is a
very humble philosophical position to take. You know, like maybe we can’t know everything.
William [03:19 – 03:26]
It is. And this whole discussion about what is real and how we know it instantly brings us to the big
two.
Ethan [03:26 – 03:40]
Oh, absolutely. The ultimate philosophical showdown. Idealism is like the mind is primary, reality is
fundamentally mental or based on consciousness. It’s about what ought to be, the perfection, the
potential.
William [03:40 – 03:53]
And realism is its direct counter. It’s saying, hold on. The world exists completely independently of
your mind. The tree falls in the forest, whether you’re there to hear it or not. It’s all about concrete
physical existence,
Ethan [03:53 – 04:06]
Though these definitions are a little fluid, because there’s a type of realism that includes things you
can’t directly observe, but you can inductively derive, like gravity or subatomic particles. It’s not just
what you can touch.
William [04:06 – 04:19]
Exactly. It’s not a simple black and white. But the core difference is that idealism focuses on the idea,the mind, perception and realism focuses on the object, the tangible, independent world.
Ethan [04:19 – 04:27]
That’s a great way to put it. And if we’re talking about the mind, we have to finish with one of the most
intriguing concepts in philosophy of mind.
William [04:27 – 04:39]
Intentionality. Ah, the mark of the mental. It’s that power of mental states to be about or stand for
something else. A belief is always a belief about a state of affairs.
Ethan [04:40 – 04:49]
Right. My thought is directed toward the red apple, you know, it’s not just an amorphous mental cloud.
It has a target. Franz Brentano basically defined consciousness this way.
William [04:50 – 04:59]
And the distinction between original and derived intentionality is so cool. Original is the inherent
capacity of your mind to represent the world.
Ethan [04:59 – 05:11]
And derived is when something else, like this podcast or a book or language, has meaning because a
mind is interpreting it. The symbol tree is only about a tree because we give it that power.
William [05:11 – 05:23]
It’s borrowed power. Wow. So we started with metaphysics, asking what is fundamentally real, which
led us to ontology. What kinds of things are there? And then epistemology. How do we know any of
this?
Ethan [05:24 – 05:35]
And finally we wrapped it up with idealism and realism, offering two different answers to the what is
fundamentally real Question and intentionality, explaining how our minds interact with whatever reality
is.William [05:36 – 05:43]
It all connects. It’s the ultimate loop of asking big questions about being and knowledge. That was
intense, but so fun.
Ethan [05:44 – 05:48]
I too loved it. It all just hangs together, doesn’t it? Uh huh.
Pragmatism
References
Transcript
William [00:01 – 00:15]
Okay, so we’re diving into this whole philosophical tradition, right? Pragmatism. And for people who
haven’t studied it, it sounds super academic, but the core idea is honestly so simple and practical,
which is the whole point, I guess. You know
Sophia [00:16 – 00:35]
exactly. Like when you first hear metaphysical considerations in pragmatism, you’re bracing for like
capital B being and the nature of reality as an unsolvable puzzle. But. But then you realize the whole
movement is basically saying, stop. What concrete difference does this belief actually make in your
life? Though
William [00:35 – 00:54]
there are different schools in pragmatism, that of William James, John Dewey, Charles Peirce,
Richard Rorty, Jane Addams, George Mead and so on. They’re united in the foundational idea that the
meaning and truth of ideas are found in their practical consequences, application and working in real
world situations.
Sophia [00:55 – 01:08]
They assert that rather than searching for absolute, unchanging truths or focusing on purely abstract
theories, pragmatists must treat concepts and hypotheses as instruments for action, problem solving,
and managing experience.
William [01:08 – 01:29]
Aha. That’s the metaphysical quietism part. They’re telling those traditional speculative philosophers,
look, if your debate about, say, the ultimate substance of the universe has no observable experiential
consequence, then we’re going to be quiet about it. It’s meaningless. It’s an exercise in futility if itdoesn’t cash out in some practical way.
Sophia [01:30 – 01:33]
Cash out. I love that. That brings us straight to, you know,
William [01:34 – 02:03]
James. He was the one who famously said the truth of a belief has to do with its cash value. Like if
believing in something, even a theological or moral idea, gives you comfort or helps you function,
that’s its truth. That’s its value for concrete life. Right. That’s where it gets interesting, because that’s
what made him and Charles Sanders Pierce, the founder of the whole thing, kind of quarrel later.
James was like, if it works for me and makes my life better, that’s, uh, a kind of truth. He was much
more personal and psychological with his radical.
Sophia [02:03 – 02:18]
That’s, uh, a classic philosophical beef. So C.S. perse, the mathematician, was like, hold on, James,
you’re making truth too subjective. It can’t just be about individual satisfaction. It’s. He called his own
view pragmaticism to distance himself, which is just hilarious.
William [02:19 – 02:39]
It is. He basically said, my version is the rigorous scientific one, not this popular feel good stuff you’re
doing. James. He had the pragmatic maxim, which is to clarify a concept, you have to think about
what conceivable practical effects the object might involve. It’s about what you would expect, what
reactions you must prepare for.
Sophia [02:39 – 02:58]
That’s fascinating. So? So, for Pearce, if you want to know what hard means, you don’t just feel it. You
consider that it would resist scratches if you tried to rub it. That’s his would Be’s right. Even if the
diamond is never tested, the truth of its hardness lies in that potential, that general, conditional.
William [02:58 – 03:16]
Exactly. It’s logical, not psychological. And his big sticking point was that truth isn’t what you
personally agree upon, but what the community of scientific investigators will eventually agree upon in
the long run. And he was a communalist. No individual satisfaction allowed in the truth finding mission.Sophia [03:16 – 03:34]
Wow, that’s a huge difference from James’s cash value and pluralism, where he was fine with multiple
conceptualizations of reality being sound depending on context. It all comes back to instrumentalism
though, doesn’t it? The idea that concepts, theories and beliefs are just tools.
William [03:35 – 03:55]
They are. Think about it like different maps. You don’t say. A topographical map is the ultimate
objective truth of the area, and a subway map is a lie. They’re both sound, but they’re instruments for
different purposes. That’s the core of their pluralism. Except James version of it allowed it to be
subjective. There’s more than one sound way to conceptualize the world.
Sophia [03:56 – 04:12]
huh. And that idea of tools really shines with John Dewey too, doesn’t it? He took that radical
empiricism and turned it into experimentalism, focusing on experience as a dynamic transactional
process. Not just passive observation, but an active two way interaction with the environment.
William [04:12 – 04:33]
Oh, Dewey is the learning by doing guy. Absolutely. Knowledge for him isn’t something you acquire
and file away. It’s functional, it’s problem solving, it’s social, and it’s continuously evolving. You have an
obstacle, you form a hypothesis, you act on it, and you assess the results. That’s how science works.
And that’s how he thought education should work.
Sophia [04:34 – 04:48]
Right. So his view of truth isn’t static, it’s tested through the process of inquiry. It’s super contextual.
Like if I have a flat tire, the truth is whatever idea or action successfully solves the problem of getting
the car rolling again in this specific situation.
William [04:49 – 05:05]
Precisely. And then you jump forward to the late 20th century and you have Richard Rorty, the neo
pragmatist who goes even more radical than the others, which is saying something. He’s like, let’s
abandon the idea that knowledge represents an objective reality entirely.
Sophia [05:05 – 05:16]
So he’s anti representationalist. That’s a huge leap even from Dewey. He basically said truth is justsocially constructed. What our peers will let us get away with saying in a conversation.
William [05:17 – 05:38]
He did. He took that pragmatist rejection of a single objective reality and pushed it into a purely social
and linguistic critique. He rejected Pearce’s idea that inquiry will eventually converge on a faded truth.
For Rorty, it’s all about language as a tool, social solidarity and practical utility, not finding some
ultimate objective truth mirrored in nature.
Sophia [05:39 – 05:56]
Wow, so you’ve got this spectrum right. Peirce, the scientific realist who wanted logical rigor. James,
the pluralist who wanted moral and psychological fulfillment. Dewey, the social problem solver,
focused on education and. And then Rorty who just made it all about language and culture.
William [05:56 – 06:11]
Exactly. But here’s the cool part. The one thing that unites them all, and this is a great takeaway, they
all reject Descartes idea that philosophy has to begin with universal doubt or a search for absolutely
certain indubitable foundations.
Sophia [06:11 – 06:21]
Oh, the anti Cartesianism. They’re like we’re already in the world, living and acting. We start inquiry
from real practical doubts, not feigned ones.
William [06:21 – 06:35]
Yes, and they all share fallibilism. The belief that all beliefs in knowledge, no matter how successful
they are now, are tentative and might be corrected or replaced in the future. There is no God’s eye
view or permanent neutral matrix.
Sophia [06:35 – 06:55]
then. You have so many brilliant branches of these philosophers work. For example, Dewey’s work in
the philosophy of education and C.S. persis semiotics, a foundational theory of signs defining meaning
as a triadic relationship between a sign and its object and the interpretation it generates. Interpretant.
William [06:55 – 07:21]
I would also like to add the example of the three grades of clarity espoused by peers, the first beingan, uh, unreflective, direct and subjective understanding of a concept based on everyday experience
the second obtaining a, uh, clear, abstract and general definition of a concept through further
observation and analysis the third consider what effects which might conceivably have practical
bearings. Thus, we conceive the object of our conception to have.
Sophia [07:22 – 07:40]
That’s such a freeing concept, you know. And it totally ties in with their rejection of the spectator
theory of knowledge. That the mind is a passive mirror reflecting a pre given reality. They say no.
Knowledge is an active experiential social interaction with the environment. We’re not just spectators,
we’re players.
William [07:41 – 07:51]
That’s it. They bring philosophy down from the ivory tower and make it about what we do, how we act
and the practical differences our beliefs make. It’s a philosophy of actions.
Phenomenology
References
Transcript
William [00:01 – 00:09]
Okay, so we’re diving into this fascinating branch of philosophy today, phenomenology, and how it
writes the script on what we think reality is.
Sophia [00:10 – 00:24]
Right? And the whole tension is incredible, you know, because traditionally this whole school of
thought is said to bracket metaphysics. They use that term, the epoche, to basically hit a philosophical
pause button on all our assumptions about whether the world is really out there.
William [00:24 – 00:54]
Exactly. That bracketing is so crucial. The idea is, let’s stop worrying about the ultimate nature of
reality for a second and just describe how the world presents itself to our experience, how things
appear to us. Huh? Phenomenology’s metaphysical consideration isn’t about proving metaphysical
claims, but about investigating the conditions for our experience of reality, exploring how things show
up for us and what structures of consciousness make our world intelligible, often revealing deep
connections between perception, meaning, and being.
Sophia [00:54 – 01:33]
In phenomenology, metaphysical considerations involve often by investigating, how objects in the
world present themselves to our experience, which is called appearances in phenomenology.
Traditionally, phenomenology aims to bracket metaphysical assumptions, to study pure experience
without any prejudgment or even reference to previous experiences. But here’s the interesting part
where the tension comes in. By describing how the world appears, how objects and the world show up
for us, they end up challenging those simplistic views of objective reality versus subjective experience.
And it’s almost impossible to talk about the structure of experience without accidentally doing some
kind of metaphysics.William [01:34 – 02:19]
Totally. It’s like you try to avoid metaphysics, but your method for describing experience, which is
conscious life, ends up being the grounding for a modest metaphysics. Anyway. It’s an exploration of
the conditions for our experience of reality. Wow. Phenomenology studies the lived world, lived
experience, rather than an abstract, objective world separate from human perception. While
acknowledging the subjective viewpoint, Phenomenology, especially Husserl’s, aims for an objective
science of subjective experience by identifying universal, invariant structures of consciousness. But
we must remember that some phenomenologists argue that pure phenomenology must remain
neutral, that letting metaphysics be determined independently.
Sophia [02:19 – 02:37]
No way you can exclude anything, right? Because the whole thing is rooted in consciousness and
experience. There are even transcendental phenomenologists who state that there are essential truths
or essences in the world that can be revealed through these lived experiences. This form of
phenomenology bridges idealism and realism.
William [02:38 – 02:52]
That brings us to one of the key aspects. Metaphysical intentionality. That’s the heart of it. It’s the
structure of consciousness. It’s not just a blank slate. It’s always directed towards something. Thinking
is thinking about something. Perceiving is perceiving something.
Sophia [02:53 – 03:09]
Aha. It raises huge questions about the mind world relationship. If consciousness is always reaching
out, always intentional, then how does meaning arise? It arises in that very act of directedness. We’re
not separate from the object. Our consciousness is of the object.
William [03:09 – 03:23]
And this is where the appearance versus reality debate hits its peak. Are we just describing
appearances that point to some ultimate underlying reality? Or does the Appearance, the
phenomenon actually constitute the reality for us.
Sophia [03:24 – 03:56]
Exactly. A central theme is how phenomena appearances relate to underlying reality. While some see
phenomenology as describing appearances that point to reality, others like Husserl sought grounding
for metaphysics through originating intuitions, the immediate, non inferential experiences where an
object or essence is directly given to consciousness. They wanted certainty. But others argue that
pure phenomenology must remain neutral, letting metaphysics be determined independently. It’s aconstant struggle.
William [03:56 – 04:06]
It is. And you see the shift when you move to thinkers like Merleau Ponty, who really said, wait a
minute, we can’t get away from the body. He brought in the concept of the lived world. The Lebenselt
Sophia [04:07 – 04:20]
the lived world is everything. Right? It’s the world as we experience it pre reflectively before we start
doing science or math on it. It’s the counter to scientific objectification which tries to reduce everything
to inert particles.
William [04:21 – 04:40]
The lived body is the starting point for his metaphysics. We don’t have a body, we are our body. You
know, it’s our fundamental way of engaging with the world. My hand doesn’t just see a coffee cup, it
already understands it as something to grasp. That’s a metaphysics rooted in immediate, subjective,
embodied encounter.
Sophia [04:40 – 05:27]
That’s the I can of motility before words exist. Your body understands the world through action and
perception, that practical pre reflective knowledge. It’s phenomenal. It’s how he shows that reality is
constructed through a sedimentation of embodied experience and perception. At this point I would like
to make special mention of Martin Heidegger’s principle. The most famous one is Dasein, or being in
the world. Human existence is defined not as a detached observer, but as being intimately embedded
in a world of practical, meaningful relationships, equipment. This one is easy to understand. Time is
the horizon for understanding being. Our existence is fundamentally shaped by our past thrown ness,
present action and future possibilities. Projection.
William [05:28 – 06:09]
Sedimentation, that’s such a great word. It’s like layers of meaning and experience building up in your
body that inform every new perception. It’s like your body itself becomes the signifier. Sophia I would
like to add a very important one of Heidegger’s principle, and that resonates with me. He stated that
technology can be, and often is, enframing, meaning modern technology is not just tools but a way of
viewing the world as a standing reserve of raw materials for efficiency, which limits our understanding
of being. In fact, this enframing can be seen in how life and experience itself is framed now by
technologies. He predicted the effect of social and mass media already in the early 20th century.
Sophia [06:10 – 06:23]
And this gets into his whole thing about language, which is super cool. He distinguishes betweenspeaking speech and spoken speech. Spoken speech is just the existing linguistic structures, the
dictionary words we use every day. Uh
William [06:23 – 06:36]
huh. But speaking speech, that’s the creative act. That’s the moment you make a new meaning, you
express something fresh. Meaning originates in that creative act of expression, which is an extension
of our body’s interaction with the world.
Sophia [06:36 – 06:49]
Right? And that means there must be a world of silence. A pre linguistic meaning perception of the
world happens before it’s conceptualized in language. You see something and you get it before you
even have the words to describe it.
William [06:50 – 07:05]
It’s a fundamental engagement in a world. Merleau Ponty is basically suggesting a non traditional
metaphysics that grounds the very possibility of meaning, truth and existence in our lived experience,
moving way beyond just physical descriptions,
Sophia [07:06 – 07:18]
which is a beautiful way to bring it full circle back to the core purpose. Phenomenology isn’t about
proving some grand metaphysical claim. It’s about investigating the structures of consciousness that
make our world intelligible.
William [07:19 – 07:33]
Exactly. It explores how things show up for us. It reveals those deep connections between perception,
meaning and being. It’s the ultimate attempt to understand not just what reality is, but what it means to
have reality in conscious life.
Sophia [07:33 – 07:46]
Wow. So the philosophical pause button, the epoch actually led to a deeper, more embodied
understanding of reality than if they just tried to solve metaphysics traditionally. It’s a fantastic paradox.
You know
William [07:46 – 08:09]
it is, and that’s why it’s so engaging. It takes that whole mind body problem and goes, hold my beer.My body is already the solution. Sophie, before I let you go, I have to say one thing. What we discussed here in this has many common themes with pragmatism that we talked about.
Physicalism
References:
Transcript
Ethan [00:01 – 00:09]
Okay, let us now look into the philosophy of physicalism. You know the idea that everything, and I
mean everything, is fundamentally physical.
Emma [00:10 – 00:21]
Right. And when you say everything, you’re not just talking about rocks and trees. Right? You’re
talking about our thoughts, our feelings. The fact that I’m feeling kinda happy right now, that’s all
physical.
Ethan [00:21 – 00:38]
Exactly. That is the core metaphysical consideration, the big challenge. It’s a form of what
philosophers call ontological monism, that there’s only one fundamental substance, one kind of stuff,
which is the physical. No mind stuff, no spirit stuff, just matter and energy.
Emma [00:39 – 00:52]
Monism1 got it. So it’s basically saying there’s nothing over and above the physical, which logically
makes a lot of sense if you embrace the scientific naturalistic worldview. Let us first state the nuts and
bolts of physicalism.
Ethan [00:53 – 01:42]
Sure. Physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that everything is fundamentally physical, asserting that
there is nothing over and above the physical, and that all entities, including mental states, supervene
on physical reality. Key tenets include, besides the ontological monism, the causal closure of the
physical world, the principle that every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause, meaning non
physical events cannot cause physical ones, and the idea that science, specifically physics, describes
the ultimate nature of reality. But then you run smack into the mind body problem. Uh huh. The mindbody problem is always the hoop to jump in philosophy. How does a lump of objective gray matter,
your brain, produce this completely subjective first person experience, like what is a thought made of?
Physicalists tried to solve this famously with the identity theory.
Emma [01:42 – 01:48]
Wait, the identity theory? That sounds really simple. Which usually means it’s super complicated.
Ethan [01:49 – 02:02]
It is. But the basic version, type physicalism, was that a type of mental state like pain is, is literally
identical to a type of brain state like C fiber firing. Pain is C fiber firing. They are one and the same
thing.
Emma [02:03 – 02:18]
Wow. Hmm. So every time a human, a dog, or maybe even an alien feels pain, it would have to be
that exact same neurochemical process that feels too rigid. You know, like what if a different biological
structure evolved to feel pain?
Ethan [02:19 – 02:33]
That is dealt with the statement of sufficiency of cause and not necessity. So more than one cause
can result in the same outcome. Yet it does feel too restrictive. That’s where the idea of supervenience
became more popular in non reductive physicalism.
Emma [02:34 – 03:00]
Supervenience. This is the one I always find helpful to explain the idea that mental or higher level
properties like consciousness, society or ethics depend on are determined by physical properties. If
two things are physically identical, they must be identical in all other ways. It’s like the mental
properties are determined by the physical ones, right? You can’t change the mental state without a
corresponding change in the physical state.
Ethan [03:00 – 03:17]
Perfect. Think of it like a computer game’s graphics. The beautiful high level graphics. The mental
supervene on the low level code and hardware. The physical. You can’t change the character’s
appearance without changing the underlying code. But the graphics aren’t identical to the code line by
line.Emma [03:17 – 03:32]
Ooh, that’s a great analogy. The graphics are real. They have their own properties, but they have zero
independence from the hardware. They’re realized by the physical. That also leads to functionalism.
Right, where the mind is like software running on the brain’s hardware.
Ethan [03:33 – 03:52]
Precisely. The functionalists basically said, who cares what the stuff is made of? It’s about what it
does. A mental state is defined by its causal role, its inputs and outputs, not by its chemical
composition. Like a pain state is defined by its input tissue damage and its output wincing, saying,
ouch.
Emma [03:52 – 04:04]
Right? And that makes sense. But we still haven’t touched on the biggest critique, the one that
physicalism really struggles. Qualia, the hard problem of consciousness, what is it like?
Ethan [04:05 – 04:38]
Ah, yes, the explanatory gap. You know, the C fiber. Unmyelinated peripheral nerve fibers that slowly
transmit sensory information, primarily responsible for conducting dull, aching, burning or throbbing
pain, as well as temperature, warmth and itching sensations. Even if we know how the C fibers fire,
and we know how that causes a wince, we still have zero idea why it feels like anything at all. Why is
the redness of a rose that specific experience? For me, that subjective, phenomenal character? That’s
qualia.
Emma [04:38 – 04:49]
Aha. It’s like science gives us all the objective facts about the brain, but it doesn’t give us the feeling of
being me. It’s. And that’s where the famous zombie argument comes in.
Ethan [04:49 – 04:53]
Oh, the philosophical zombies. Not the Romero kind, thankfully.
Emma [04:54 – 05:10]
No, no, the conceivability argument. The idea that it is conceivable that a being could be physically
and functionally identical to a human. Same atom, same brain state, same behavior, but completely
lack any conscious experience. A zombie with no inner life?Ethan [05:11 – 05:23]
No way. If that’s conceivable, it means that consciousness, or qualia more, must be something over
and above the physical. It breaks the nothing over above claim. That’s the challenge physicalism has
to answer.
Emma [05:24 – 05:40]
Maybe if and when we find such a zombie hasn’t happened yet. And so physicalism is on safe
grounds. Though if the mind truly supervenes on the physical, then how is it that we can imagine the
zombies? And if that wasn’t enough, you have the radical eliminative physicalism.
Ethan [05:41 – 05:55]
Oh, this one is fun because it’s so extreme. Eliminative physicalism just says you’re all wrong. Those
mental states you talk about, they don’t actually exist. Like there are no such things as beliefs or
desires or pain as we currently understand them.
Emma [05:56 – 06:06]
Wait, so when I say I believe that coffee is delicious, they’re saying there’s no belief? That sentence is
just a poorly phrased description of specific neural activities?
Ethan [06:06 – 06:24]
Precisely. They argue that our common sense understanding of the mind, what they call folk
psychology, is, is a fundamentally flawed false theory. Just like people used to believe in phlogiston.
Once neuroscience progresses enough, we will eliminate the mental terms and only talk about brain
processes.
Emma [06:25 – 06:26]
Wow, that’s a massive claim.
Ethan [06:27 – 06:40]
Let us loop back to the other big problem for defining what is physical. As physics evolves, quantum
mechanics, fields, information theory, the definition of what counts as physical is constantly shifting.
You know.Emma [06:40 – 07:02]
Uh huh. Like what if the equations describe structural relational properties of matter, but there’s an
intrinsic character, a metaphysical essence that’s not just structural. Some philosophers even suggest
that to save physicalism from the hard problem, we might have to embrace something like
panpsychism, that consciousness is a fundamental tiny property of all matter.
Ethan [07:02 – 07:24]
Ooh. Turning physicalism into a kind of strawsian non materialist physicalism. That’s a huge shift from
the traditional reductive view. It just shows that while physicalism is the dominant view in science, it
upholds the causal closure of the physical meaning. Every physical effect has a physical cause. The
debate about consciousness is forcing it to evolve constantly,
Emma [07:24 – 07:44]
totally. It’s the ultimate everything is connected philosophy. But people opposed to physicalism do not
agree with the notion that physicalism explains our inner subjective experiences, emotions, thoughts
and consciousness by asserting that they are in their entirety, the result of physical processes within
the brain.
Ethan [07:45 – 07:50]
Exactly. A deep dive into the very nature of existence. What a mind bender.
Emma [07:51 – 07:52]
What a ride.
Empiricism
References:
Transcript
Noah [00:01 – 00:14]
You know, I’ve been thinking about this idea of empiricism and it’s very foundational to how we even
approach knowledge. Right. Like at its core it’s this view that true justification, true knowledge only
comes from sensory experience and empirical evidence.
James [00:15 – 00:37]
Uh. Uh-huh. Huh. Exactly. It’s like saying I’m not going to believe it until I’ve seen, touched, tasted, or
measured it. It’s that rejection of the idea that pure logical reasoning is the only path, because, frankly,
we’re flawed. You know, we have these cognitive biases and limitations that lead to errors of judgment.
So relying on what we can sense is supposed here to be more reliable.
Noah [00:38 – 00:52]
Right? And that’s why it’s always put up against rationalism. Rationalism says, hey, some knowledge
is innate. It’s a priori and can be reasoned out. But the empiricists are like, nope, it’s all a posteriori. It
has to come after the experience. Sounds kinda right.
James [00:52 – 01:10]
Yeah. And that’s where the whole tabula rasa concept comes in, which is just fascinating. The whole
blank slate thing coined by Locke, saying the human mind is literally blank at birth. No preloaded data
set or software, everything you know is written onto that slate through later experience.
Noah [01:11 – 01:24]
Yes, a blank slate. That’s such a powerful visual. So all those childhood experiences, the taste of a
lemon, the feeling of the sun, that’s what builds the whole castle of our mind, not some innate
blueprint.James [01:25 – 01:36]
Precisely. And you can trace this back historically to the 17th and 18th centuries with people like
Locke, of course, and Hobbes, Spinoza, Berkeley, and the absolute mic drop king, David Hume.
Noah [01:36 – 01:43]
Oh, Hume, that quote you shared, the one about throwing books into the fire. I mean, talk about
ruthless.
James [01:44 – 02:04]
Yeah, the one about divinity or school metaphysics. Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning
quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of fact or
existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
Whew. That is a major commitment.
Noah [02:05 – 02:16]
Serious philosophical fire. Right. It really highlights the central role of evidence and observation. And
that’s why empiricism is so fundamental to the scientific method, which, you know, we take for granted
now.
James [02:16 – 02:35]
Oh, absolutely. The scientific method is empiricism in action. All those hypotheses and theories, they
have to be tested against observations of the natural world. They can’t just rest on intuition or a priori
reasoning. It has to be tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification.
Noah [02:35 – 03:01]
Tentative and probabilistic and subject to revision and falsification. That’s a great way to put it. It even
pops up in things like agile development, which is wild. Like the whole idea of scrum making decisions
based on observing reality and then adapting, that’s just applied empiricism. The real life example is
how the law requires evidence to convict culprit. Visual evidence and accumulation of circumstantial
evidence, a verifiable mark left at the crime scene.
James [03:02 – 03:15]
Totally. Yet you know, it does run into some pretty big walls, right? The criticisms are serious. How
does it explain abstract truths like logic or mathematics? That’s where skepticism and the problem ofinduction come in.
Noah [03:16 – 03:27]
The problem of induction, that’s an important one. Like in math, we observe the sun rising every day,
so we induce that it will rise tomorrow. But sensory experience can’t actually prove that universal law,
can it?
James [03:28 – 03:43]
It can’t logically prove it. No, and Hume actually famously admitted that. He said induction isn’t
logically sound, but it’s a custom of the mind, a biological necessity that allows us to function. It’s
pragmatism. We have to assume the sun will rise or we’d never leave the bed.
Noah [03:45 – 04:03]
That’s a very practical defense. But the modern empiricists have other tools, right? They move to
probabilistic justification. Arguing repeated observations provide a high degree of confidence, even if
not absolute proof, using tools like Bayesian inference, which is super technical, but basically just
probability.
James [04:03 – 04:18]
And then you have Karl Popper with the falsification idea, which is genius. Instead of trying to prove a
theory true, which induction can’t do, let’s try to prove it or its opposite false. Science progresses by
testing and corroborating, not by proving.
Noah [04:18 – 04:29]
Exactly. That’s how they answered the induction challenge. And then they addressed the whole innate
ideas problem. Right, like ideas such as God or causality. The rationalists claim they’re innate.
James [04:30 – 04:51]
Yeah, but Locke argued those complex ideas are just composite ideas. Simple mental combinations of
simpler sensory building blocks. Like the idea of substance is just a composite of color, weight,
texture, all sensory properties. Same way. With abstract ideas like God, we see things, feel things,
and assume someone created them. Must be God.
Noah [04:51 – 05:05]
Wow. So they’re saying even those big concepts are built brick by sensory brick. That’s a greatrebuttal, but what about the math and logic stuff? That’s the one I always trip on. A triangle has three
sides. How is that from experience?
James [05:06 – 05:22]
That’s where they recast rationalist truths as analytic statements. They argue that a triangle has three
sides, doesn’t provide new knowledge about the world, it just tells you what the word triangle means.
By definition, it’s certain, but it’s empty certainty.
Noah [05:22 – 05:33]
Empty certainty. I love that phrase. It tells us about the relationships between our own concepts, but
nothing about physical reality. It’s like it’s true, but who cares?
James [05:34 – 05:48]
Well, who cares from an empirical perspective? But I do want to add that empiricism is complementary
to physicalism because it enables it. And speaking of radical conclusions, you have phenomenalism,
right? The extreme version of this.
Noah [05:49 – 06:01]
Oh, phenomenalism. No way. That takes the whole knowledge comes from sensation idea to the limit,
concluding that only sensations or sense data exist. Everything else is just what has been inferred
from that data.
James [06:01 – 06:15]
Yeah, it’s the most radical form. It’s like the chair isn’t a thing. It’s just a collection of visual and tactile
sensations I’m experiencing right now. No external world, just my sensory data. That’s a huge leap.
Noah [06:15 – 06:25]
That’s a massive commitment. And the last piece is how modern empiricism deals with the whole
historical and sociological relativism thing, especially with critics like Kuhn.
James [06:26 – 06:43]
Right. The view that scientific truth is historically and sociologically relative. Modern empiricistsbasically just dig in their heels and try to aim their philosophy of science at matters that go beyond that
relativism. The they’re trying to keep the focus on objective, testable evidence, regardless of the
historical context.
Noah [06:44 – 07:05]
It’s ruthless, but it’s effective. It really does cut down enormous swaths of traditional philosophy,
doesn’t it? Even though it’s changed since the criticisms of Quine, the core idea, knowledge from
experience, remains so central, especially with a renewed interest in mathematics as applied to
philosophical problems. A great example is Friston’s free energy principle. It’s all about the evidence,
man.
James [07:06 – 07:20]
Exactly, the evidence. That’s the lasting takeaway. Whether you’re a blank slate or just using
probability to figure out if the sun will rise or if a certain person committed a specific crime. It’s all
about what your senses tell you in the end.