Announcing My Apostasy …

[Kenny]

… from Platonism. I finally have to admit it to myself and the world. Over the last couple of years, my belief in abstracta just solely eroded as I encountered skeptical arguments (mostly from fictionalists) against them.

At first, I was reluctant to give up my belief in such entities as the number 2, the letter w, and other former sponsors of Sesame Street. But in time, I came to accept the new found freedom from excessive ontological commitment that comes with embracing a thoroughgoing concretism.

In fact, it’s not just a thoroughgoing concretism that I embrace. Currently, the only things in my ontology (my list of things I believe there are) are concrete particular substances – things like trees, human persons, God, angels, carburetors, etc., but not events and not abstracta. I do not believe in such entities as thoughts, colors, shapes, wars, weddings, fights, games, theologyweb, etc.

Nevertheless, I do believe that talking and reasoning as if there are such things is often useful (even indispensible) and that it often tracks the truth. But the truths it tracks are ultimately truths about concrete substances, not about the other sorts of entities that it (on the surface) appears to be about. I believe that we can give an account of such talk according to which it can be regarded as part of a useful fiction, one that encodes a number of important truths about the world of concrete substances, truths that it would be difficult (maybe even impossible) for us to get at without employing it.

So, for workaday philosophy, science and ordinary business, we can go on talking and reasoning as if there are numbers, properties, events, etc. In fact, you’ll notice that in a few places above, I talked as if there were such things as abstract entities (e.g. I spoke of there being certain kinds of “truths” and “fictions”). Talking that way is unavoidable (or at least very difficult to avoid , and it’s not really worth trying). But, at the end of the day, we don’t need to worry ourselves about what sorts of things abstract objects or events are. There aren’t any (or, at least, we have no good reason to believe there are any).

The above represents my current views. My views on this matter have tended to fluctuate, but they’ve begun to stabilize. They’ve stabilized enough, in fact, that I am preparing to defend this sort of view in a dissertation.

So, there you have it, the announcement of my apostasy. (If you’re thinking there were no arguments for any of these positions in the above, you’re right – it was just an announcement after all).

[lao tzu]

Heretic.

[Teluog]

I just want to know why bacon exists.

[Kenny]

I just want to know why bacon exists.

Because this is the best of all possible worlds, duh.

[phaedrus]

So you're saying you don't believe in objective morality. Cool.

[Speed Donkey]

I still believe in bacon

[phaedrus]

Bacon is not an abstract so that's ok.

[Speed Donkey]

Bacon is not an abstract so that's ok.

I still believe in it though

[Kenny]

So you're saying you don't believe in objective morality. Cool.

No, I’m not saying that. As far as I can tell, that issue is independent of this one.

It is true that I believe that, strictly speaking, there are no moral facts. But it’s also true that I believe that, strictly speaking, there are no scientific facts and there are no historical facts. Yet, I also believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, that light travels much faster than sound, and that it is objectively wrong to torture babies for fun.

I don’t know why so many people think that belief in objective moral truth hinges on some kind of Platonism in a way that belief in objective scientific truth or belief in objective historical truth does not.

I think that the ontological claim that I am making when I say that, strictly speaking, there are no such things as facts is consistent with the claim that the metaethicist makes when she says that there are objective moral facts – in the same way that I think that my claim that strictly speaking, there are no such things as numbers is consistent with the physicist’s claim that the ratio of an object’s gravitational mass to its inertial mass is equal to 1.

The metaethicist and the physicist in these cases simply isn’t engaged in the sort of high level ontological disputes that I’m engaged in. They are simply talking and reasoning as if there are abstract entities in order to say something (not about those entities, but about the concrete world) that would be very difficult to say otherwise. And I think what they manage to say in both cases is true. We might paraphrase what they say by prefixing their statements with ‘Doubts about the existence of abstract entities aside …’ or ‘Supposing there are abstract entities such as numbers, properties and propositions …’ or something along those lines.

[Kenny]

I still believe in it though

Bacon exists and it is yummy. Therefore, compositional nihilism is false. I wholeheartedly endorse both the informal validity and the soundness of this argument.

[Kenny]

Heretic.

Next week I’m heading over to the mathematics department to deliver the sad news. “There are no numbers after all. You’ve all been wasting your time.”

[seer]

It is true that I believe that, strictly speaking, there are no moral facts. But it’s also true that I believe that, strictly speaking, there are no scientific facts and there are no historical facts. Yet, I also believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, that light travels much faster than sound, and that it is objectively wrong to torture babies for fun.

Kenny, perhaps you could school me here. How is Caesar crossing the Rubicon not a historical fact? If it is not an historial event, then what exactly is it?

[Kenny]

Kenny, perhaps you could school me here. How is Caesar crossing the Rubicon not a historical fact? If it is not an historial event, then what exactly is it?

There is no such thing as that. But Ceaser did cross the Rubicon. When I say that Ceaser crossed the Rubicon, i'm just talking about Ceaser and the Rubicon. I'm not taling about an event or a state of affairs, just concrete substances.

[Sparko]

… from Platonism. I finally have to admit it to myself and the world. Over the last couple of years, my belief in abstracta just solely eroded as I encountered skeptical arguments (mostly from fictionalists) against them.

At first, I was reluctant to give up my belief in such entities as the number 2, the letter w, and other former sponsors of Sesame Street. But in time, I came to accept the new found freedom from excessive ontological commitment that comes with embracing a thoroughgoing concretism.

In fact, it’s not just a thoroughgoing concretism that I embrace. Currently, the only things in my ontology (my list of things I believe there are) are concrete particular substances – things like trees, human persons, God, angels, carburetors, etc., but not events and not abstracta. I do not believe in such entities as thoughts, colors, shapes, wars, weddings, fights, games, theologyweb, etc.

Nevertheless, I do believe that talking and reasoning as if there are such things is often useful (even indispensible) and that it often tracks the truth. But the truths it tracks are ultimately truths about concrete substances, not about the other sorts of entities that it (on the surface) appears to be about. I believe that we can give an account of such talk according to which it can be regarded as part of a useful fiction, one that encodes a number of important truths about the world of concrete substances, truths that it would be difficult (maybe even impossible) for us to get at without employing it.

So, for workaday philosophy, science and ordinary business, we can go on talking and reasoning as if there are numbers, properties, events, etc. In fact, you’ll notice that in a few places above, I talked as if there were such things as abstract entities (e.g. I spoke of there being certain kinds of “truths” and “fictions”). Talking that way is unavoidable (or at least very difficult to avoid , and it’s not really worth trying). But, at the end of the day, we don’t need to worry ourselves about what sorts of things abstract objects or events are. There aren’t any (or, at least, we have no good reason to believe there are any).

The above represents my current views. My views on this matter have tended to fluctuate, but they’ve begun to stabilize. They’ve stabilized enough, in fact, that I am preparing to defend this sort of view in a dissertation.

So, there you have it, the announcement of my apostasy. (If you’re thinking there were no arguments for any of these positions in the above, you’re right – it was just an announcement after all).

I totally agree with you Kenny!!! Therefore I can't believe in your post since it represents your nonexistent thoughts and ideas posted on the nonexistent theologyweb. But then I can't believe in my own post here either, so maybe they just cancel out.

[lao tzu]

Next week I’m heading over to the mathematics department to deliver the sad news. “There are no numbers after all. You’ve all been wasting your time.”

Prepare to defend yourself. We're loading up on cream pi's.