(We can
design Concepts but Categories are such that we have to Accept)
[I am presenting my contributions to theory, philosophical or otherwise, under
the label ‘my contributions’. I would like to get these articles appreciated as
well as critically reviewed by lay-persons & experts too. If convinced I am
ready to modify my positions acknowledging the critics.]
Perplexities,
which can not be blamed upon ignorance, which persist in spite of knowledge,
constitute the proper subject-matter of philosophy. Philosophy studies the
nature of such perplexities & possible human attitudes that can be taken
towards them. A coherent configuration of such attitudes forms a view of life.
Various views of life compete with each other in the arena of philosophy, on
the issues of better or worse coherence, on the correct & wrong reading of
the nature of perplexities & whether a perplexity is genuinely
philosophical or not.
Common people in
any case do have views of life, but in a rather amorphous, unstable, scattered
way. Competing views in the ‘philosophical arena’ offer more crystalline,
stable & articulated options. No view emerges as a permanent winner &
in the final analysis philosophical choice remains personal, though hopefully, with
well clarified criteria & internal consistency.
Human consensus
increases, if the
participants of debate over any contended issue have taken steps towards their
individual integrity. Primary ethic of genuine debate is, “If I allow myself a
type of move in my justification, I ought to allow the same to my opponent”.
Debate ensues because there are differences. Differences however can not
generate a constructive debate unless those who differ in some respect, also at
the same time, agree in some other respect. It is the ‘commonly agreed upon’
that constitutes the basis on which differences can be hopefully resolved.
In any
negotiations it is the particular situation in which the negotiators find
themselves that provides the common ground. Philosophical debates can not be
left to any particular situation. Commonly held positions in philosophy must be
such that anyone can not (honestly) deny & is convinced not due to any
external pressure or interest but due to his/her inner source of ‘axiomatic
intuitions’ which emerge in any human individual.
How can I dare to
claim that there are ‘axiomatic intuitions’ available to any human
individual in a way identical to any other human individual?
Establishing
‘categories’ or ‘dimensionalities’ by self-answering questions
Are there any
basic categories or dimensionalities that human beings simply can not avoid or deny?
If we are in a position to answer this question affirmatively, we can hope
to get hold of a least common denominator, so to speak.
Do we have
something opposite of the perplexities (that can not be univocally answered)? Let
us start from the other end of the spectrum. There are in a sense
‘self-answering questions’. These are the questions that are raised about the
very dimensionalities from which they emerge. They can not be properly ‘raised’
because they presuppose their answers. In a sense they are
un-ask-able! A list is given below.
“What is difference?” For example uses grammatically an interrogative pronoun
“what”. There are differences between “this” & “that” & therefore there
can exist an interrogative pronoun “what”.
Existence of
“what” presupposes existence of ‘difference’. Difference therefore can not
be defined in some other terms than difference itself. Usually a definition
having the same definiens (defining terms) as its definendum (term to be
defined) is flawed one. In other words, ‘difference is difference’ is a blatant
tautology. Yet it has to be accepted in order to say anything meaningful at
all. Because there are differences, we have to ask “what is ‘this’ (rather than
‘that’)?” We can answer ‘what’ in some terms because there are similarities!
Thus ‘difference & similarity’ becomes a necessary philosophical category
or philosophical dimensionality.
‘Space’ (which is in its own way three
dimensional but spatially alone!) is but one of them. A list of such
self-answering & hence un-ask-able questions is given below
1)
What
is difference? What is Similarity? Why items belong to types/classes? Why an
item belonging to a sub-type automatically belongs to super-type too?
2)
Due to
what, there is causation? What for there is purposefulness? What was the
original cause? What is the final purpose?
3)
Where
is space? How much big it is? How much smallest it can be? When to call it
point & when to call it an occupier of a little space? Why space is
retractable (at least in principle)?
4)
When
did the time start? Why time goes on of its own & at a constant rate? When
is it going to end? Why time is irreversible? How much small an interval that
can be taken as a moment?
5)
From
which substance, all substances are made up of? It is the set of attributes by
which we can identify any item. Why we have to believe that there are
substances which ‘have’ various attributes.
6)
Why are
inconsistencies disturbing? Why logical self-contradictions are failures of logic?
Why are mere tautologies redundant?
7)
Who is
conscious of the consciousness? What is it, that can never become an object of
consciousness while itself remaining a consciousness?
8)
‘Who’
thinks ‘I exist’?
9)
Why I
am not alone & why there are others? Why I owe anything to others & why
others owe anything to me? Why I am responsible for my actions?
10)
Why
promises are to be kept? & conventions to be followed? Why there should be
any ‘should rules’? Why one should abide by them?
11)
Why
happiness is sought & suffering is avoided? Why does everybody strive for
achieving whatever?
12)
Why
living is necessarily having value contrasts in
terms of, like-dislike,
well-being-ill-being, Pro-Anti, Eu-Mal, good-bad, & so on?
13)
Do we
‘deserve’ our fortunes & misfortunes?
14)
Why we
simply can not consider the choices made by us as ‘fully caused’ without
inserting ‘us’ as decisive causes?
15)
Why I
am ‘the unique one’ whom I happen to be?
16)
As
particularity increases the number of generalizations conjunctively describing
it also increases. As uniqueness will require infinite generalizations it will
be un-describable. How we still believe that there is uniqueness, without
trying to catch it in as many generalizations as possible?
17)
Why I
have to suppose that others have a consciousness similar to mine although I can
not have a direct access to it or incumbency of it?
18)
Why
naming can be arbitrary? Why grammar can not be arbitrary? How can signs
represent, some things that are other than themselves? Even though they are not
present (or even can not be present ostentatiously).
19)
Why
wholes have some properties, which can not be attributed to their parts? Are
there any parts, which are not wholes, in there own turn? (i.e. do not have
further parts)
20)
What
makes some features of an item essential to it & some other features as
just accompanying ones? Are essences autonomous or depending upon the
‘relevance’ of such item to us?
21)
How
can we get fully convinced of some (non-tautological) truths without judging a
single case as verification or refutation? How is it that from such truths we
can deduce some other truths which are verifiable or falsifiable?
22)
Why
there are no algorithms for creative plunges?
23)
If
individual consciousness ceases when body is destroyed, how we can say that
there is a persistent structure of Human-Consciousness, irrespective of
whatever contents the various individual-consciousnesses may have?
This list is not
exhaustive. It is an attempt to demonstrate that there is a peculiar type of
questions which presuppose an answer in the question itself & still they
are not tautologies or contradictions. Such questions can not be ‘answered’ in
external terms. However they themselves are the answers of a very
pertinent question, viz. “why philosophy is required at all?
By constructing
such type of questions we can grasp the categories/dimensionalities. Questions
referring to self-same category are for establishing that category.
Furthermore if
we try to construct questions going across the categories we generate outright
nonsense. ‘When is Time?’
is un-ask-able question because it is self-answering. On the contrary a
question ‘Where is Time?’ is outrageous! Appling ‘where’ to time is a category
mistake. It is like saying, “I heard a blue sound.” “It occupied a heavier
volume.” & so on. ‘Cause of all causes’
is at least an arbitrary ending of an infinite regress on some line.
But ‘unconscious volition’
is a logical-contradiction whereas ‘unconscious urge’ is not. Similarly
“where is consciousness?” is a profound category mistake. It presumes
consciousness to be an occupier of Space as a ‘thing’ which is a legitimate
occupier of space. This mistake has lead to supposing ‘soul’ as a substance (Dravya).
As we go on grasping categories,
we can also identify category mistakes in which some philosophers might be
indulging in.
An exercise
similar to the one that we are engaging now was called ‘transcendental
deduction’ by Kant. However the term transcendental is easily susceptible to be
meant as ‘supra-realmic’ (PaarLoukik). Therefore I opted for ‘categorial
contemplation’ as a safe term.
It is via
unanswerable questions that we reach undeniable truths of Human Existence
A concept can
subsume whatever is denoted by it. We can choose to use a concept or not to use
it or reformulate it. Categories have to be used whether we want it or not. Categories
subsume aspects of existence that are neither avoidable nor inter-reducible.
However they are not unrelated to each other simply because they are
dimensionalities of same existence.
With philosophy it is not wrong to speculate about nature of man & universe... but it actually ascertain limitation of ‘all philosophical arena’ when we say “.... in the final analysis philosophical choice remains personal, though hopefully, with well clarified criteria & internal consistency “. With Clarified & internally consistence philosophical views coupled two major option 1) person lost in thought & do fantasizing what he hold 2) person becomes thoughtless, both lead to inductive reasoning.So for philosophy to reword Feynman “is as useful to science as ornithology is to birds”. Is it also one reason why scientist like Hawking when wrote that philosophy is 'dead' ?
ReplyDelete