Towards an ontology of experience. Methodological reflections

Karin Verelst

Resumen


This paper attempts to throw some new light on the profligate globalization of the scientific and technological practices of present-day capitalist society by reckoning the specific ontology encoded in their procedures by means of which they operate. It is shown that the separating intervention in reality proper to these procedures, cognitive and empirical, can be traced back to the principles of the logical system underlying them since European Antiquity.  This logical system allows for the generation of worldviews that, although at variance amongst themselves, share a fundamental feature: the separation between subject and object, between statical and dynamical, between man and world. The practices arising from such an externalized relation to the world then again amount to the imposition of an ontology upon reality that is not fit to it. In a subsequent movement, the argument leads to the question whether traces of a another intrinsical relation between man and world can be found, based on a different ontology. It is argued that such traces can indeed be found. Cases studied concern an example from within European culture itself, viz. the philosophy of L. Wittgenstein, and from another cultural realm, cq., the Chinese classical tradition. In a concluding paragraph the conditions for, and an outline of, a possible interrelation between the different ontologically marked approaches to our world are sketched.

 

Key words: Ontology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, logic, epistemology, cultural sciences, mythology, anthropology, methodology,Wittgenstein.

 


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Referencias


The ideas developed in this article were presented for the first time at the 7thISSEI-Conference, Approaching a New Millenium. Lessons from the Past, Prospects for the Future, Bergen, Norway, Workshop IV, 14-18 August 2000.

L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951, J. Klagge and A. Nordmann (eds.), Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis & Cambridge, 1993, p. 192.

Fundamenten van de exacte wetenschappen (Foundations of the Exact Sciences), Department of Mathematics, and Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).

The most recent example of the first point of view is the book by F. Fukuyama,The End of History and the Last Man, Penguin Books, London, 1992. The second one has been eloquently expressed by G. Debord: “Le mouvement réel qui supprime les conditions existantes gouverne la société à partir de la victoire de la bourgeoisie dans l’économie, et visiblement depuis la traduction politique de cette victoire. Le développement des forces productives a fait éclater les anciens rapports de production, et tout ordre statique tombe en poussière. Tout ce qui était absolu devient historique.” La Société du spectacle, Gallimard, Paris, 1992, § 73.

On the level of society, see J.- F. Lyotard, La condition postmoderne. Rapport sur le savoir, Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1979. For individual self-consciousness: R. Barglow, The Crisis of the Self in the Age of Information, Routledge, London and New York, 1994.

B. Appleyard, Understanding the Present. Science and the Soul of Modern Man, Doubleday, NY, etc., 1994.

Verelst, K., “On the ontology realized in technological world-reconstruction”,Dialogue and Universalism, Vol. XI, 3/2001.

M. Heidegger, Basic Questions of Philosophy. Selected “Problems” of “Logic”, Indiana University Press, Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1994, p. 49.

I owe the realization of the importance of the “preparation procedure”involved in experimental observation to the work of and discussions with professor C. Piron, Université de Genève. The inextricable link between “logical predicability” and “experimental accessibility” of the properties of a system under observation became clear to me in the same way. This does not imply, of course, that Prof. Piron would agree with the views here expressed. For the “Geneva School” approach to QM, see C. Piron, Mechanique quantique. Bases et applications, Presses polythechniques et universitaires romandes, Lausanne, 1990-1998.

D.J. Moore, “On state spaces and property lattices”, Stud. Hist. Phil. Mod. Phys., Vol. 30, N$1, pp. 61-83, 1999.

In classical mechanics, the evolution of a system is expressed by the equationsof motion, while its state is described in phase space. The “orthodox” formalism provides for the description of states in Hilbert space. The evolution of a system from state to state is described by the deterministic Schrödingerequation. However, another mechanism of change also occurs, the probabilistic “collapse of the wave-function” as the result of an effectuated measurement, which cannot be described by the Schrödinger-equation. This situation is what in quantum mechanics is known as the “Measurement Problem”. The dynamical behavior of physical systems in QM thus remains open to numerous conflicting interpretations. Recently, interesting results regarding this problem, both conceptually and formally, have been attained within the framework of the so-called “operational approach” to QM, elaborated in the context of the Geneva School; see B. Coecke, D.J. Moore and A. Wilce, (Eds.), Current Research in Operational Quantum Logic: Algebras, Categories and Languages, Fundamental Theories of Physics 111, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.

M. Heidegger, o.c., p. 48.

Undoubtedly for Aristotle. On the relational logic implicit in Platonic Participation Theory, see H. N. Castaneda, “Plato’s theory of relations” in Exact Philosophy, Mario Bunge ed., D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, 1973.

A theme also at the heart of Indian philosophy. The Vedantic formula issatyasya satyam, “the reality of the real”, Bhrad-aranyaka Upanishad II, I. Cited and commented in S. Radhakrishnan, The principal Upanishads, HarperCollins Publishers India, New Delhi, 1953-1994, p. 55.

Heraclitus: “riverfragment” DK 49a: ποταµοιϕ τοιϕ αυτοιϕ εµβαινοµεν τε και ουκ εµβαινοµεν ειµεντε και ουκ ειµεν : “In the same rivers we step and we don’t, we are and we aren’t.” Diels, H., Kranz, W., Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, erster Band, p. 161, Weidmann, Dublin, Zürich, 1971. Parmenides: το εον εστ⊄, “The Being is,” cited and commented by K. Riezler, Parmenides, Text, übersetzung, Einführung und Interpretation, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt a. M., 1970, p. 45.

Compare on their predecessors Plato, in the Theaethetus, the Parmenides, and The Sophist, with Aristotle in the Metaphysics, Book A, III-VI.

G. Günther, Cybernetic Ontology and Transjunctional Operations. BCL publication 68. Photomechanically reproduced from Self-organizing Systems, 1962, Yovits, Jacobi and Goldstein Eds., Washington D.C., Spartan Books, 1962, pp. 313-392.

Elaborated in more detail in, K. Verelst and B. Coecke, “Early Greek thoughtand new perspectives for the interpretation of quantum mechanics: Preliminaries for an ontological approach”, in: C. Cornelis, S. Smets and J. -P. Van Bendegem, Metadebates. The Blue Book of Einstein Meets Magritte, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, etc., 1999, p. 163 sq.

“Two great warring traditions regarding consistency originated in the daysof the Presocratics at the very dawn of philosophy. The one, going back to Heraclitus, insists that the world is not a consistent system and that, accordingly, coherent knowledge of it cannot be attained by man. (...) The second tradition, going back to Parmenides, holds that the world is a consistent system and that knowledge of it must correspondingly be coherent as well, so that all contradictions must be eschewed.” N. Rescher, and R. Brandon, The Logic of Inconsistency. A Study in Non-Standard Possible-World Semantics and Ontology, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1980, Introduction.

For a contribution to the debate on Newton’s historical sources starting fromthis perspective, see: De Smet, R., Verelst, K., “Newton’s Scholium Generale. The Platonic and Stoic legacy: Philo, Justus Lipsius and the Cambridge Platonists,” History of Science, xxxix (2001).

K. Verelst, “Ontology...” (see ftn. 7).

K. Verelst, “Some remarks on the relation between the microcosmical andmacrocosmical instantiations of the mythological World-Axis,” in: Moreva, L., International Readings on Theory, History and Philosophy of Culture, vol. 7: Symbols, Images and Stereotypes of Contemporary Culture, Eidos/Unesco, St. Petersburg, 2000, pp. 326-337.

In his De Docta Ignorantia, capitula IV, XIII-XV. For Cusanus’s works, see the Editio princeps established by E. Hoffmann and R. Klibansky (eds.), In Aedibus Felicis Meiner, Lipsiae, 1932.

I explicitly hold that the ontology instantiated by these principles informs all logical systems, also contemporary ‘merely formal’ ones, since it resides in their procedures, not in the assertions regarding them. And as Epstein commented: “Every logician in the end divides propositions into those which are acceptable and those which are not”, R. L. Epstein, The Semantic Foundations of Logic, Vol. I, Kluwer academic publishers, Dordrecht, 1990, introduction.

“The world is all that is the case”. L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Translation by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness and with an introduction by Bertrand Russell, F. R. S., London, 1961-1963, §1.

“The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts.”Tractatus, §1; “A proposition is a picture of reality.” § 4.01; “A proposition must restrict to two alternatives: yes or no.” § 4.023.

“Conversation flows on, the application and interpretation of words, andonly in its course (flow, K.V.) do words have their meaning.” L. Wittgenstein, Zettel, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1967, 135.

“Only in the stream of thought and life do words have meaning.” Zettel, 173.

L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions, note lectures on “Private experience” and “Sense Data”, p. 255.

“Propositions show the logical form of reality.” Tractatus, § 4.121; “What can be shown, cannot be said.” § 4.1212.

B. McGuinness, Wittgenstein. A life. I. Young Ludwig, Penguin Books, 1990, p.199.

“Knowledge is not translated when it is expressed. The words are not a translation of something else that was there before they were.” Zettel, 191.

“We must patiently examine how this sentence is supposed to be applied,what things look like round about it. Then its sense will come to light.” Zettel, 272.

“Yes, my work has broadened out from the foundations of logic to the essenceof the world.” Diary-entry, 2th august 1916, cited in McGuiness, p. 245.

“unconcealedness”, the “truth” of grasping the essence, according to Heidegger, o.c., p. 86.

“The word ’I’ does not designate a person”, Notes for PE & SD, p. 228.

See also Tractatus 5.6-5.634.

Notes for PE & SD, pp. 255, 257.

Notes for PE & SD, pp. 259, 255.

“Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed outstrictly, coincides with pure realism.” Tractatus § 5.64.

“When someone says: ’I have a body’, then one could ask him: ’Who presentlyspeaks through this mouth?’” L. Wittgenstein, Werkausgabe Band 8, Surhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1992: Über Gewisßheit, 244, p. 168; compare Tractatus, 5.631, and part V of the analytical table of contents to the Philosophical Remarks, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1975, p. 14-15.

“’It thinks.’ Is this proposition true and ’I think’ false?” Notes for PE & SD, p. 226.

“The world and life are one.” Tractatus, 5.621.

Relevant in this respect is §140 in the Philosophical Remarks: “Time contains the possibility of all the future now. The space of human movement is infinite in the same way as time,” see p. 27.

Which is what Russell actually tried with his ‘sense-data-theory’, on whichWittgenstein vehemently criticized. See R. Monk, Bertrand Russell. The Spirit of Solitude, Vintage, London, 1997, pp. 547-552; p. 584.

DK 2 and 50: του λ γου δ/ ε ντοϕ ξυνου ζωουσιν οι πολλο⊄ ωϕ ιδια ν εχοντεϕ φρ νησιν. ουκ εµου αλλα του λ γου ακουσανταω οµολογ ειω σοφ ν εστιν εν παντα ειωαι. The translation is the one proposed by Kirk et al., in: G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge etc., 1957-1983, p. 187.

DK 93: οαναϕ ου το µαντει ν εστι το εν ∆ελφοιϕ ουτε λεγει ο υτε κρυπτει αλλα σηµαινει. Kirk et al., o.c., p. 209. I was quite a bit surprised to see that McGuinness explicitly makes reference to this in his Wittgenstein biography! McGuinness, o.c., p. 303.

Bruno Snell cites Von Fritz with approval and generalizes his observationson Homeric knowing as an act of seeing: “K. V. Fritz sagt zusammenfassend in seiner Untersuchung über den homerischen Gebrauch von Noos und noein: ‘Ein gewisser Grad von schlußfolgerndem Denken scheint also in den Vorgang (sc. des noein) einzugehen (wenn etwa jemand auf Grund verschiedener beobachtungen “merkt” oder “durchschaut”, daß ein anscheinend freundliches Verhalten schlechte Absichten verbirgt). An keiner einzigen Stelle jedoch wird dieser schlußfolgernde Prozeß selbst angedeutet, vielmehr kommt die Erkenntnis der Wahrheit immer als eine plötzliche Intuition. Die Wahrheit wird “gesehen”.’ Das trifft den wesentlichen Punkt, der im gesamten Bereich des Geistigen und Seelischen gilt.” Our italics. B. Snell, Die Entdeckung des Geistes, Studien zur Entstehung des europaïschen Denkens bei den Griechen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 8th ed., 1975/2000, p. 23.

The link between a Vedantic formulation, the coincidence of Brahman and Atman, and the Heraclitean dictum is made by Radhakrishnan, o.c., p. 77, footnote 3.

Man-ho Kwol and J. O’Brien, The Elements of Feng Shui, Element Books, 1991-1997, p. 11.

E. J. Eitel, Feng Shui. The Science of Sacred Landscape in Old China, Synergetic Press, 1873/1993, p. 6.

R. B. Onians in The Origins of European Thought, not only offers us a brilliant discussion of all its aspects in ancient Greek world-awareness, but also establishes the link to the Upanishads. His book is published at the Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1951/1994. See especially pp. 73-76.

I used the French translation of Needham’s book: J. Needham, La science chinoise et l’Occident, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1973/1991, p. 230.

Eitel, o.c., introduction.

“When I speak of the inner nature of the practice, I mean all the circumstancesunder which it is carried out (...) what one might call the spirit of the festival (...)”, L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions. Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, p. 145.

I attempted to demonstrate the fruitfulness of this approach in my article on the Axis Mundi or World Tree. See footnote 20.

I owe this precious formula to Frank Van Dessel (VUB), in an oral communication.

Eitel, o.c, foreword.

I was inspired by A. Janik and S. Toulmin’s study on Wittgensteins’s Vienna (Simon & Schuster, N.Y., 1973) when formulating this contention, but a blatant confirmation stems from Wittgenstein himself: “The house I build for Gretl is the product of a decidedly sensitive ear and good manners, and expression of a great understanding (of a culture, etc.)”, cited in a recent book by D. Edmonds and J. Eidinow, Wittgenstein’s Poker, Faber and Faber, London, 2001, p. 158. They discuss more examples of the same basic attitude from a perspective different of the one developed here, but relevant nevertheless.

This approach remains commensurable to the concept of ‘element of reality’as introduced by Einstein, and given strong theoretical foundations by Piron and his successors. C. Piron, “Le réalisme en physique quantique: une approch selon Aristote”, in The concept of physical reality. Proceedings of a conference organized by the Interdisciplinary Research Group, University of Athens, I. Zacharopoulos, Athens, 1983, p. 170. See also footnotes 7, 8.


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