KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA32 (Muller)

Response 13 (to C32 by Timo Järvilehto)

CONCEPTS, COMMUNITY, AND ONTOLOGY
by Herbert FJ Müller
30 April 2001, posted 22 May 2001

[1]
Timo Järvilehto's comment ('Concepts and Community') shows that our positions agree in several respects, not in some others. He also raises some important issues in the question of the mind-brain relationship, to which I will answer in the following.

[2]
First, a disclaimer : I do not 'represent constructivism' <2>. For one, this movement has been shaped for several decades, and I have only recently become aware of it. Because for me the impossibility of mind-independently pre-assembled mental structures (MIR) is a central consideration, it struck me that the basic assumption of constructivism - i.e., that mental (mind-and-world) structures are built inside experience - is very sensible, more so than many other points of view. However, secondly, some of the constructivist theorists have tended to abandon their own conviction after a while, and to fall back into some kind of pre-fabricated-inside-or-outside-structure belief, which I think is better avoided.

[3]
This pattern seems to continue a historical trend. Thinkers have struggled with MIR since antiquity, and this still continues, except in views which do not object to static MIR, and which are thus overtly ontologically oriented. For others a typical pattern emerges : after initial doubt (of any mind-independently pre-structured reality and truth) the investigators discover a reason to stop doubting, and return to MIR-belief. This has been so in a number of the developments I am aware of (see my TA24). Sometimes the doubt is only half-hearted from the start. It seems to me that the doubt has a key function and should be maintained, though stability of thought must be achieved as well (for instance with the help of working metaphysics).

[4]
For these and related reasons I will only talk about my own view, which is that : mental structures are built within experience, from no given structures (zero-derivation, 0-D), and that : we use the structures as-if they were mind-independent, while simultaneously acknowledging that this is a technique, a working fiction, or scaffolding, or asymptotic structure (as-if-MIR, working metaphysics, working ontology, etc.). Absolutes are thus not possible.

[5]
TJ writes <1> that he agrees with me : in my critique of mind-independent reality (MIR), and secondly that subjective experience ('consciousness') cannot be objectified or reduced, for instance to brain physiology. Further, he approves <3> of my statement that 'the brain comes from thinking', rather than vice versa (TA32 [2, and 50ff]).

[6]
But TJ also endorses static ontology (see <5>, and his agreement with Kirchoff's 'ontology of being'). Static ontology arises from the fact that word-meanings (and thus word-concepts) transcend momentary ongoing experience. To some this suggests the presence of a realm of entities which transcend our experience and are thus mind-independently pre-assembled. Acceptance of static ontology is identical with MIR-belief, and thus TJ's anti-MIR stance is ambiguous. This point is crucial in my opinion, because mind-independently pre-fabricated reality is not possible; if reality were mind-independent it would also be mind-inaccessible, as Plato already said. TJ's position should therefore be further clarified; as it reads now, it seems to follow the above-mentioned historical ambiguity pattern.

[7]
For instance, this might shed some light on TJ's statement <2> that I 'absolutize subjective experience'. Such an interpretation is only possible if TJ uses a static ontological (MIR) basis, as required for belief in absolutes. As I see it, subjective experience is the entrance to any knowledge (indeed the only one available), it is what we are faced with : an unstructured starting background, not a pre-formed entity which could possibly be seen as absolute.

[8]
He further suggests that physicalism is my 'enemy' <2>, which is not correct. I use working physicalism all the time, like everyone else, I see it as a specialization within a working-ontology (or as-if-MIR, 0-D) view. A problem is on the other hand that in the naïve version of physicalism (or of realism, or in any other static-ontology-based view) the 'working' aspect is ignored. Thus the crucial difference between 0-D and any kind of static-ontologically founded view is precisely the use of working versus static ontology (or naïve MIR-belief). Static ontology interferes with an understanding of the mind-brain relation and must be avoided if one wants to proceed.

[9]
'But does this mean that the reality is only our construct within the subjective experience ?'<4>. 'Only' seems to refer to the absence of static MIR (if not, please clarify). A paper on social constructivism will come up for discussion in KJF in the next months, where this question will be central. Let me just say for now that one should distinguish ('operationally' if you like) between structuring experience and physical construction. The two are closely related but not identical. That one structures the world does not mean one makes it in a physical sense - although one can do that to some extent. It seems that this difference is neglected in some of the discussion on social as well as epistemological construction.

[10]
That we structure all experience does thus not imply that the world is only our fiction <5>, in the following sense. Firstly, we structure within the constraints of experience. If the structures don’t work out the construction is not viable. You cannot ordinarily conceptualize an ant as an elephant without getting into problems (perhaps a poet could get away with it, and with much more in fact, and why not). Secondly, reality results from assigning belief to mental structures. There is no reality, truth, nor knowledge without such belief, but belief alone is not enough; the structures must be validated in use, and this may in turn produce a change of belief. And further, realities and truths are fixations (in principle always temporary, even if life-long), and knowledge of reality and truth can thereby provide some stability. So far, the theory of molecules, of atoms and of particles is useful, one can even see some of them. But 'seeing is believing' is misleading, you see what you know, and you know what you believe.

[11]
Concepts have a social dimension <6> - but all concepts were once made by some individual within his experience, then transmitted to others, and either rejected or accepted and used by them. In both these senses (generation and use) social construction is impossible without individual construct-building and -use, while on the other hand individual construction is possible without social acceptance - just consider what happens in the KJF. Although others contribute greatly to our repertoire of mental structures, we are not subjects because of others <4>; such an opinion would turn things upside down.

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Herbert FJ Muller