269 Foundations?

This item is abstract and probably superfluous. It discusses what may be called philosophical shadow boxing.

There has been a tenacious urge in philosophy, since Plato, to claim access to ‘reality’ behind ‘appearances’, in the form of primal, autonomous, distinct, fixed, universal, context-independent items of cognition (ideas, categories, sense data, perceptions), that we can ‘see’, self-evident to the prepared mind, which provide certain, objective foundations for knowledge. Knowledge secure on foundational rocks.

The knowing ‘subject’ stood loose from ‘objects’ in the world, and was supposed to view them objectively from outside that world. Some truths are fundamental, lying there to be contemplated. With Kant, the pretension of knowing the world ‘as it is’ was dropped, but the separate subject remained, viewing the world according to fixed, universal categories (of time, space and causality).

In 20^th century philosophy these forms of ‘foundationalism’ have been challenged and rejected. The knowing subject is no longer seen as separate, autonomous, given, but as constituted by acting in the world. Concepts and meanings arise and develop in relation to each other, in discourse and action. There are no independent foundational elements.

The philosopher Quine said that meanings form a ‘seamless web’ of connections. As Wittgenstein said that they constitute a ‘language game’. De Saussure said that ‘a word means what other words do not’. So, we always discuss things in terms of other things, in relation to them or in contrast with hem, in some context of action in the world. For any critical discussion some things are taken for granted, now this, then that. What first is seen as a basis is later subjected to scrutiny. As Neurath said: language is a boat that we repair while staying afloat in it.

As a result, meanings are always metaphorical, with one thing being seen in terms of another, never literal, corresponding to some given rock bottom of reality. Words with supposedly literal meanings are just hardened metaphors.

In this blog I have gone along with these views. Yet, in discussing language and meaning I maintain notions of ‘reference’ or ‘denotation’, and in science and practical conduct ‘showing things’. How can that be? Is this consistent? Or is it double speak?

To define ‘cat’ we point to the animal. In supporting claims or arguments we point to ‘facts’. As I argued earlier (in item 264 in his blog), we support arguments by showing that they ‘work’, logically, empirically and practically. To do away with this would be to do away with science, debate, and rationality in general. Life would not be viable if it made no sense to say ‘this is a cat, and it is mine’.

The point now is this. Our referring and showing evidence are intentional, not actual. What we show is pragmatic and context-dependent, and does not, or should not, carry the claim of objective, indubitable knowledge. We may find out that the cat is not mine but yours, and just looks very much like mine, and that makes sense because it makes sense to assign identity to the animal. 

All acts, including speech acts, are based on assumptions that we cannot, at that moment, question and that are tacitly taken for granted. We are mostly not even aware of underlying assumptions. They yield a basis but not an indubitable foundation of claims. We intend to refer and show, but it is up for grabs in discourse and novel experience. We need opposition from others, and novel experience, to show up our assumptions and question them.

As I have been arguing in this blog, knowledge and judgement yield ‘imperfection on the move’. ‘I am right’ should not mean ‘I have access to objective truth’, but ‘I have good arguments: they work’. What we show is not underlying essences but practices.