strawson, scepticism, and metaphysics

Strawson, scepticism, and metaphysics by

HERBERTHOCHBERG (University of Minnesota)

OBSERVE some physical object. Then, after not observing it for a period, look at it once again. One form of scepticism involves the claim that you do not know, perhaps cannot know, that the physicaI object you observed prior to the period of non-observation is literally one and the same as the object you observed later. Thus, where we do not have continuous observation, the sceptic holds that we cannot be sure of continued identity and, consequently, we cannot be sure of the continuous identity and existence of physical objects. For, knowing that physical objects exist is to know that objects exist continuously whether observed or not.

Strawson purports to refute the sceptic by holding that:

(a) . . . the standard for being sure while meaning what we do mean is set self- contradictorily high, viz. having continuozcs observation where we have non- continuous observation. ([12], p. 34)

(b) He pretends to accept a conceptual scheme, but at the same time quietly rejects one of the conditions of its employment. Thus his doubts are unreal . . . because they amount to the rejection of the whole conceptual scheme within which alone such doubts make sense. ([12], p. 35)

In view of (a) and (b) the sceptic can be seen as offering the “sketch of an alternative scheme,” and not as offering arguments against the scheme we purportedly have. The sceptic is thus classified as a revisionary ~ e t u p ~ y s i c i u n whom “we do not need to follow”

(a) and (b), if cogent, provide us with a basis for rejecting the sceptic’s attempted attack on our ordinary conceptual scheme. Deprived of argument, the sceptic can only propose that we adopt a revised scheme. Proposals, like invitations, need not be refuted, merely declined. Declining the proposal, and others of the same sort,

W21, P. 36).

STRAWSON, SCEPTICISM, AND METAPHYSICS 21

Strawson is free to undertake a program of descriptive metaphysics which “is content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the world” and aims “to lay bare the most general features of our conceptual structure” ([12], p. 9). In so doing the descriptive metaphysician will deal with

. . . categories and concepts which, in their most fundamental character, change not at all . . . and are yet the indispensable core of the conceptual equipment of the most sophisticated human beings. It is with these, their interconnexions, and the structure that they form, that a descriptive metaphysics will be primarily concerned ([12], p. 10).

Strawson’s attack on the sceptic serves to defend the cogency of our ordinary conceptual scheme and, in so doing, to enable him to specify a supposedly cogent way of construing the metaphysician’s task. For, in so far as one rebuts arguments of the revisionary metaphysician in Strawson’s fashion, one discredits the conception of the philosophical enterprise associated with revisionary metaphysics. Similarly, in so far as one can show Strawson’s attack on the sceptic to be as inept as he takes the sceptic’s arguments to be, one raises doubts concerning Strawson’s program of descriptive metaphysics. In the first part of this paper I shall argiie that Strawson’s arguments for (a) and (b) are invalid and that he has not succeeded in forcing the sceptic to simply propose a revised schema. In the second part of the paper I shall consider some implications of my defense of the sceptic for the notions of revisionary and descriptive metaphysics.

I. Scepticism, material objects, and identity

Strawson sets the stage for his argument against the sceptic by holding:

. . . it is essential that we should be able sometimes to identify particulars in the way I have just illustrated. More generally, we must have criteria or methods of identifying a particular encountered on one occasion . . . as rhe same individual as a particular encountered on another occasion . . . ([I 21, p. 31).

In short, we must have “criteria of reidentification” to operate the conceptual scheme we do have. But the “Hume-like” position involves holding that all we have in cases of non-continuous observa-

22 HERBERT HOCHBERG

tion is “different kinds of qualitative identity,” hence we cannot be sure of numerical identity. This leads directly to the characterization and rejection of the “Hume-like” position in the terms of (a) and (b). What this means is that Strawson claims that the “Hume-like” sceptic accepts the concept of numerical identity that we have (perhaps, even, must accept it) and, yet, rejects the criteria for the application of the concept in a given situation. This is where the inconsistency of the sceptic’s position is to be found.

We can see what is wrong with Strawson’s argument by considering an analogous, if imaginary, case. Suppose we consider a measure of length to be defined operationally, as one says, in terms of a certain procedure yielding a specified observable situation:

(Dl) x has length l = d f , if procedurep then observation o.

Assume, next, we carry out the procedure specified by p and observe the situation characterized by 0. Let a sceptic now deny that the object really has or can be known to have length 1. If he adheres to ( D l ) and acknowledges p to have been carried out and o to have been observed, there is indeed something incoherent in his claiming that the object need not “really have” length 1 or that we cannot “really know” that it does. Strawson’s characterization of the “Hume-like” position makes the latter appear to be like that of one who is “sceptical” about our imaginary object having length 1. But such a characterization misrepresents and destroys the sceptic’s position. To see how, consider a different kind of sceptical view about the length of the imaginary object. Such a sceptic challenges, rather than accepts, the use of (Dl) to specify the meaning of “having length 1.” He raises a question about (D,)’s relevance to the questions of the length of the object and our knowledge of such length. Such a sceptic holds that we cannot know that the object has length 1 by carrying out p and observing 0, since we know what it means to have length I , not by (Dl), but in some other way. Hence, it does not follow from an object’s satisfying the concept defined as in (Dl) that it really has length 1. One may find such a claim puzzling or weak, unless it is further specified what is meant by having length I; but the claim is not- self-contradictory or incoherent in the sense of the first “sceptical” claim, where the sceptic accepted ( D l ) and then rejected


its application.’ Strawson argues against the “Hume-like” sceptic by making him appear to be like our imaginary, incoherent sceptic. I am claiming the “Hume-like” sceptic argues in a manner similar to the other, coherent, imaginary sceptic.

What the “Hume-like” sceptic holds, or should hold, is that we have the concepts of numerical difference and identity, but they are not understood in terms of a definition or specification of meaning involving qualitative identity or any other criteria. Rather, numerical difference, or numerical identity, is a primitive concept, or, if we speak of words, we deal with an undefined relational predicate. Conse- quently, we need not specify criteria to know what we mean by “different” and “identical”. In fact, there are some traditional and strong arguments to the effect that we not only need not, but that we cannot define such a predicate (cf. [l], [ 5 ] , [9], [ll]). The sceptic can then be understood to make the following claim. No criteria we specify are such that from the fulfillment of the criteria it follows that an object, a,, observed at time t is numerically identical with an object, a2, observed at a later time, t+n, when between t and t+n there has been a period where the object was not observed. (One could, in fact, maintain a stronger version of the sceptic’s claim by holding that q ’ s being numerically identical with a2 would not follow even if there were to be “continuous observation”, so long as the latter phrase is understood in terms of observing an object and not in terms of observing one and the same object. Such a point we need not pursue for our purposes.) Assuming that we have a primitive concept of numerical identity (or difference) the sceptic is clearly correct. Moreover, in the case of such a concept, he is not at all in the purportedly weak or puzzling position of our previous imagiiary sceptic who made such a claim about the concept of length For, there are two philosophical patterns supporting the

Such a form of scepticism need nut be paradoxical, if the sceptic holds that we can not really know whether p has been carried out or whether the condition described by u occurs. But considering such a gambit here overly complicates matters. However, I will touch on it later.

I say “purportedly” since the problems surrounding “operational definitions” and dispositional properties are involved and those questions bring up several controver- sial themes.

24 HERBERT HOCHBERG

claim about numerical diversity or identity. First, as we noted above, there are traditional and, perhaps, valid arguments purporting to show that numerical difference, or identity, must be taken as a primitive concept. Second, within a rather strict criterion for what can be taken to be a primitive concept, i.e. a Russellian-type principle of acquaintance, one may well hold that numerical diversity qualifies as a primitive concept. Even if one wishes to contest such a claim, i.e. the claim that numerical diversity may cogently be held to be a primitive concept, he must still acknowledge that if it is so taken the sceptic is correct. This means that Strawson must argue that we do not or cannot have such a primitive concept. This he does not do explicitly or directly. Rather, his argument begins by assuming that we specify criteria, the ordinary ones, for “reidentification” of material objects, since, otherwise, we do not accept the scheme we have. But this simply means that Strawson has failed to distinguish the different kinds of scepticism that we have distinguished. It is one thing to suggest that the sceptic inconsistently accepts and rejects what amounts to a definition of ‘numerical identity’. It is a second thing to suggest that such a sceptic obstinately rejects the “criterion” we have and, hence, “our conceptual scheme.” It is a third, and quite different, thing to take the sceptic to claim that we have a concept of numerical identity for which Strawson’s criteria do not provide an adequate “analysis,” in that it is logically possible that the criteria can be fulfilled and the identity not hold. Strawson either fails to recognize the third view or mistakenly identifies it with the first or second. He consequently holds the sceptic to be either inconsistent, if he adopts the first gambit, or irascible, if he takes the second way and simply proposes an alternative scheme, without offering cogent arguments against the ordinary scheme he rejects. By recognizing only the two alternatives, Strawson saves himself the classical difficulties facing those arguing with the sceptic, as characterized above. But, by so doing, Strawson fails to do what he set out to do: to rid us of the classical “Hume-like” form of scepticism about identity and material objects. The sceptic is indeed claiming that “we do not know what we think we know” or that “we do not really mean what we think we mean,” and his claim has not been affected by Strawson’s purported refutation.


The sceptic’s argument, as I have characterized it, is not tied to the claim that numerical identity (or diversity) is a primitive concept. Suppose one offers an analysis of identity, along lines associated with the names of Russell and Leibniz, so that

(O2) X = Y = d / . c f ) ( f x - f i )

provides a definition of ‘=’ and amounts, as some would put it, to defining “numerical identity” in terms of “conceptual identity”. Does this affect Strawson’s argument with the sceptic? If the sceptic accepts (D,) and acknowledges, in the situation discussed above, that a , and a, satisfy the condition specified in the definition of (0,). then he would indeed be inconsistent if he denied that ‘a , = a,’ holds. But, again, to so interpret the sceptic’s view is to transform the argument against him into an empty and pointless bit of rhetoric. The sceptic who accepts (D,) would claim that he is questioning whether ‘cf)cfal -fa,)’ holds in such a case. To see what is involved, take as one of the properties being at place s at time t . Let a , have such a property, which we will indicate by the predicate ‘P,,,’. Thus, we let a, be the object we observe at place s at time t . Let a, be the object we observe at place s at time t f n , and let us use the predicate ‘P,,,+.’ to stand for the property of being at that place at that time. We then use ‘a,’ and ‘a,’ as mere labels for an observed object, and we know that both ‘P,, t(al)’ and ‘P,,,+,,(a,)’ hold. Do we then know that ‘P,,,(aZ)’ and ‘Ps,,+ ,,(a,)’ hold? Let F,, F,, . . ., F,, be the “other” descriptive properties of the object(s)-as exhaustive a set as we like, except for characterizing location at times. What the sceptic is claiming is that

(1) Fl(4 8L Fz(a1) tk . . . & Ffl(a1) & PS,&l) & F,(a2) & Fz(a2) & . ’ . Fn(a2) & P,J+ fl(a2)

does not imply either

or

and, hence, we do not know, on the basis of knowing that (I) holds,

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that ‘cf)(fa, -fa2)’ holds. Thus, granting (D2) , we do not know, on the basis of (I), that ‘a, =a2’ holds.

Strawson is claiming, in effect, that the sceptic must accept (I), or even something weaker, as a “criterion” for (11) and (111) and, hence, as a criterion for identqying a , with a,. But why must he? It is no argument to hold that if he does not then he does not accept our ordinary conceptual scheme, since that is simply to offer the tautology that if the sceptic does not accept our ordinary conceptual scheme then he does not accept our ordinary conceptual scheme. Nor can one reasonably hold that the acceptance of such a criterion is a presupposition for raising the sceptic’s question, since the question is about such a criterion, given that we have the concept of identity specified in (D2). Strawson, to be concise, illegitimately seeks to substitute the criterion, whereby one goes from (I) to (11) and (111), for the definition of identity in (D2). In the case where the sceptic takes the concept of numerical identity to be primitive, Strawson, equally illegitimately, stipulates that for the concept to be viable the sceptic must accept the move from (I) to (11) and (111) as a result of the criterion for the application of the concept. If one allows Strawson such a move, he can indeed block the sceptic’s question. But he should only be allowed such a move if he can justify it. Once we raise the question of justification, we can see what is behind Strawson’s attack on scepticism. Not surprisingly, it is a variant of the old attack on philosophical questions and assertions as not satisfying a verification criterion of meaning. Strawson is holding that unless we have criteria for affirming identity in some cases like the one under discussion, we do not have a viable concept of identity. Like the proponent of operational definitions for concepts like “length”, he is holding that unless we have a criterion that allows us to go from claims like (I) to claims like (11) and (111) in some cases, we cannot meaningfully attribute or deny identity.

Now I say that a condition of our having this conceptual scheme is the unquestioning acceptance of particular-identity in at least some cases of non-continuous observation . . . But the condition of having such a system is precisely the condition that there should be satisfiable and commonly satisfied criteria for the identity of at least some items in one sub-system with some items in the other ([12], p. 35).


Now it may appear from the above passage that Strawson is merely holding that the sceptic does not have or share the conceptual scheme he questions. But, recall that in this connection Strawson holds that one must have or share such a conceptual scheme in order to raise the sceptic’s doubts. By holding that the sceptic does not have such a scheme in that he “rejects one of the conditions of its employment” he is claiming that the sceptic’s doubts make no sense.

So, naturally enough, the alternative to doubt which he offers us is the suggestion that we do not really, or should not really, have the conceptual scheme that we do have; tha! we do not really, or should not really, mean what we think we mean, what we d o mean. But this alternati\/e is absurd (U21, p. 35).

Thus, Strawson is employing two arguments. One is the argument we have been considering, to the effect that the sceptic is inconsistent. Defending such a line requires that one hold that the sceptic’s concept of identity, which allows for the possibility of any “two” objects, in a case like that of a, a‘nd a,, not being “really” identical or not being known to be identical, is absurd or problematic. Some- times Strawson appears to support this claim by holding that the sceptic’s concept of identity is not the ordinary concept of identity, in that the sceptic does not accept the criteria for application of the ordinary concept. This, as I trust we have seen, is not an argument but merely a rejection of the sceptic’s problem. Sometimes, however, Strawson appears to be arguing, along lines popularized by Ryle and the latter’s case of a coufitry where all money is counterfeit, that in so far as the sceptic allows for all cases of non-continuous observation to involve false ascriptions of identity, the sceptic has a meaningless concept of identity. But, such an argument is no more of an argument than the first, in that one merely stipulates, albeit implicitly, a criterion of meaning that simply rules out the sceptic’s use of a term like ‘identity’. This is why one characteristically defends such a stipulation by discussing supposedly analogous cases of different concepts in ordinary use-Ryle’s case of “counterfeit money”-and attempting to show the uselessness, in the ordinary contexts of speech, of the attempt to parallel the sceptic’s usage of his terms in such situations. In so doing, one completes the vicious circle, since all one does is show that the sceptic does not accept commonly held criteria for 3 - Theoria I -3 1976

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establishing that a, is identical with a2. We can see this to be the case if we consider why one should claim that unless we are willing to acknowledge some cases where identity holds of non-continuously observed objects we do not have a viable notion of identity. Surely, Strawson cannot require that a property be exemplified in order to be an acceptable property. One might hold, via a Russellian type Principle of Acquaintance, that we may be said to know the meaning of a primitive predicate only if we are acquainted with instances of the property that it indicates, or that a primitive predicate is acceptable only if it stands for an instantiated property. Hence, if ‘numerical difference’ is taken as such a primitive predicate and if one adheres to such an interpretation principle, then he would hold that he is acquainted with a case of numerical di./ersity or, at least, that there is such a case. Conceivably, Strawson may be implicitly appealing to such a theme in connection with numerical identity. To know what it is to be numerically identical in a case of non-continuous observation is to know of some case of such identity. Note, however, that to use such a theme one has to take the concept indicated by the italicized phrase rather than simply take the concept of numerical identity; since the sceptic can acknowledge an instance of numerical identity in the case of an observed object, say a,. Thus one rules out the sceptic’s taking numerical identity, simpliciter, to be the relevant concept. In any case it would be ironic to have a philosopher of Strawson’s stripe appeal to a Russellian Principle of Acquaintance in his argument against the sceptic.

Another line of thought may be involved. Consider Ryle’s case of counterfeit money. The concept of counterfeit money may be said to presuppose the concept of legitimate money, where the latter is not simply understood as non-counterfeit. To put it another way, we may specify counterfeit in terms of non-legitimate, but not vice-versa. Thus, to say that a concept CD presupposes a concept Y can be taken as meaning not only that if we have the concept CD we have the concept Y (in the sense that both belong to a framework of concepts) but that Y cannot be specified as not-@, or, more generally, ‘Y’ cannot be defined in terms of ‘0’. But, this does not imply that if there are CD’s there are also Y’s. Having the concept of counterfeit money may be said to imply having the concept of legitimate money, but this does


not imply, in turn, that if there are instances of counterfeit money there are instances of legitimate money. Such a simple error may be involved in the rejection of the sceptic, but it is more likely that a less simple mistake is involved.

One may have the idea that to have criteria for determining if we have an instance of a property precludes the possibility of holding that the property cannot be known to obtain in all cases. Thus, it may be viable to hold that there can be a country that, in fact, only has counterfeit money. What is not viable is to hold that we could never know that any coin was in fact legitimate, assuming some normal procedure for producing legitimate coins. This would be like the case of a “sceptic” who acknowledged (DJ but held that we could never know that an object was measured according to p and observed to be as described in 0. But the “Hume-like” sceptic, as I have characterized him, is not of this sort. He holds that we do not have criteria for the case of numerical identity: that the ordinary criteria are not sufficient to guarantee numerical identity. He is not accepting such criteria and denying that we can know that they apply in any given case. Moreover, even if we characterize the sceptic as denying that we can know the criteria apply, the Ryle-type argument does not refute him. In the case of the counterfeit money, we can imagine the sceptic to be one who either (1) accepts the notion that a coin is legitimate if made in a certain manner, but denies that we can ever know that any given coin was really so made; or, (2) accepts what the first sceptic does and .also agrees that we can know that a given coin was in fact so made, but nevertheless denies that we know such a coin to be legitimate; or, (3) denies that being made in the specified manner guarantees legitimacy. (2) is incoherent, but ( 1 ) and (3) are not; though in the case of counterfeit money both (1) and (3) are as “eccentric” as (2), for they involve rejecting common criteria or a commonly accepted concept. In so far as Ryle and Strawson point this out they are quite correct. But pointing this out neither shows the sceptic of (1) or (3) to be inconsistent nor does it refute him. It does admittedly show that the sceptic would be useless as a police inspector or as a monetary expert, but sceptics are not concerned with detection of counterfeits in any “ordinary context.” Distinguish- ing (1) from (3) helps us to see why pointing to examples from the

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ordinary context, like that of counterfeit money, are irrelevant for dealing with the sceptic. In so far as such a sceptic adopts a pattern like (3) for concepts like numerical identity, he is not holding such a form of scepticism for all concepts. It may indeed be pointless, perhaps absurd, to hold that we have a concept of legitimate coinage independent of all ordinary criteria for determining legitimacy, but this does not imply that such a view is pointless or absurd with respect to the concept of numerical identity. Moreover, the sceptic who takes the line of (1) with respect to the counterfeit case would probably base his claim, ultimately, on worries about knowledge of numerical identity: how do we know it is the same coin throughout a certain time span? In so far as a sceptic takes a line like (l), all Ryle can do is point out that such a sceptic does not accept evidence we commonly accept and poke fun a t him for being “different”. But this only means that the sceptic does not really have the concept he purports to have if we stipulate that it means that. The crucial point, when all the clever analogies are exhausted, is the viability of the sceptic’s claim to have a concept of numerical identity or diversity as basic while rejecting the standard criteria for determining identity in the disputed cases. Nothing Strawson or Ryle has said weakens the sceptic’s case understood in that way. Strawson, I conclude, has failed to block the sceptic’s question in that he does not offer an argument. He merely rejects the sceptic’s question in a way that has the appearance of an argument. Rejecting the sceptic’s question, he no longer need look upon the task of metaphysics to include an attempt to respond to that question. Rather, having defended the ordinary conceptual scheme from such attack, and implicitly from all similar attacks, one can take the metaphysician’s task to be the uncovering of the structure of the defensible conceptual scheme that we do in fact have.

There is one feature of Strawson’s dispute with the sceptic that I have only indirectly considered, as it is both familiar and relatively trivial. A standard dismissal of a more general form of scepticism is to note that enipiricul propositions like “The man who killed Jones also killed Smith” and “There is a chair in the room” are possibly false in the sense that they are not logical truths. Being possibly false, they are not “certain.” Not being certain, they may be said not to


to be “known for certain,” if we wish to use “known” in such a manner. Hence, the sceptic concludes that such propositions cannot be known to be true since they cannot be known with certainty. It is simple to counter such scepticism by pointing out that the sceptic merely asserts that empirical truths are not logical truths or, to put it more contentiously, all the sceptic really says is that propositions which are not logical truths are not logical truths. There is an echo of this dismissal of the sceptic in Strawson’s claim that the sceptic’s standard is “self-contradictorily high, viz., having continuous observation where we have non-continuous observation.” Thus, the sceptic would be stipulating that to know that an object observed at t is the same as an object observed at t+n is to observe it continuously between t and t+n. To say, in a case where we do not have continuous observation, that we do not know that the object is the same is merely to say that we have not had continuous observation in a case where we have not had continuous observation. To reduce the sceptic’s claim to such an empty pronouncement may be justified in some cases, but it overlooks the features of the issue that we have discussed. So considered, the sceptic is simply construed as offering an esoteric use of “know”. He is doing more than that.

11. Metaphysics: descriptive, revisionary, and analytical

One can come to both a better understanding of Strawson’s conception of descriptive metaphysics and a clearer picture of its defects by comparing it to an earlier and somewhat similar approach to philosophical issues. Moore held that there were

. . . certain views about the nature of the Universe, which . . . are so universally held that they may, I think, fairly be called the views of Common Sense. . . . Common Sense . . . has, 1 think, very definite views to the effect that certain kinds of things certainly are in the Universe, and as to some of the ways in which these kinds of things are related to one another . . .

To begin with, then, it seems to me we certainly believe that there are in the Universe enormous numbers of material objects ([lo], p. 2).

Moreover, regarding the Common Sense belief about material objects, Moore says, in language simpler but nevertheless similar to Straw- son’s.

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. . . it has, so far as we know, remained the same. So far as we know, men have believed this almost as long as they have believed anything: they have always believed in the existence of a great many material objects ([lo], p. 3).

In addition to material objects, Common Sense also believes that

. . . there are also a very great number of mental acts or acts of Consciousness. But Common Sense has also, I think, certain very definite views as to the way

in which these two kinds of things are related to one another ([lo], p. 4).

Moore proceeds to discuss certain features of our beliefs regarding material objects and acts of consciousness and, in so doing, engages in descriptive metaphysics, or conceptual analysis of our concepts of “consciousness” and “material object”. In his discussion he says a number of the things that Strawson also says, and he mentions one further feature of Common Sense:

We believe that we do really know all these things that I have mentioned. We know that there are and have been in the Universe the two kinds of things. . . . We know that many material objects exist when we are not conscious of them. . . . And moreover we believe that we know an immense number of details about particular material objects . . . ([lo], p.12).

Like Strawson, Moore is concerned to defend our ordinary conceptual scheme, characterized as the beliefs of Common Sense, against attack from traditional philosophers, including, in particular, sceptics. Moore uses our understanding the beliefs of Common Sense in certain ways to reject purported philosophical analyses that appar- ently conflict with those beliefs.

But now, I ask, is this, in fact, what you believe, when you believe you are travelling in a train? Do you not, in fact, believe that there really are wheels on which your carriage is running at the moment, and couplings between the carriages? That these things really exist, at the moment, even though nobody is seeing either them themselves, nor any appearances of them? ... This first theory, as to our knowledge of material objects, does, I think, plainly give an utterly false account of what we d o believe in ordinary life . . . so soon as you realise what it means in particular instances like that of the train . . . it seems to me to lose all its plausibility ([lo], p. 135).

Thus, our common belief that material objects are quite different from things like sensations provides a basis for rejecting an analysis, which takes material objects to be “constructions” from or out of sensations, as being without any plausibility. A purported philo-


sophical analysis of a concept, such as that of a material object, will be suitable only if it f i t s with our common beliefs about material objects. Just what it means for an analysis to,fit with our Common Sense beliefs or our ordinary conceptual scheme poses a problem, though it would appear that for both Moore and Strawson a philosophical claim may not contradict our ordinary beliefs. Whatever one may mean by ,fitting, a minimal condition will involve not contradicting, though one will have to say more about the sense of ‘contradict’ here.

It appears that Moore allows for two sorts of philosophical endeavor. First, we elaborate the structure of our inter-connected Common Sense beliefs about material objects, consciousness, experience, space, time, etc. Second, we seek an “analysis” of such concepts which f i t s with the elaboration we arrive at; a philosophical “analysis” is rejected in so far as it does not so jibe. The elaboration of the structure of our common beliefs seems to be much the same sort of thing that Strawson has in mind in speaking of descriptive metaphysics. But, what then is involved in philosophical analysis? I said above that it “appears” as if Moore allows for the two kinds of activity, irrespective of just what we mean by the second, because he sometimes writes as if he means no more by a philosophical analysis than the elaboration of the role of a concept, in what Strawson calls our conceptual scheme. Thus, his sense of ‘analysis’ would amount of Strawson’s use of ‘descriptive’ and there would be not two, but one kind of legitimate philosophical activity.

For by knowing what they mean is often meant not merely understanding sentences in which they occur, but being able to analyze them, or knowing certain truths about them-knowing, for instance, exactly how the notions which they convey are related to or distinguished from other notions. We may, therefore, know quite well, in one sense, what a word means, while at the same time, in another sense, we may not know what it means. We may be quite familiar with the notion it conveys . . . although ... we are quite unable to define it ([lo], p. 205).

But, while Moore seems to sometimes construe analysis in a way that will eventually give rise to the ordinary language tradition from which Strawson stems, he takes analysis in other ways as well. In his well known rejection of purported analyses of the concept good,

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along hedonistic as well as other lines, Moore held that good was an unanalyzable concept. What his argument amounted to was the claim that no analysis of the concept in terms of other concepts, i.e., taking it to be a complex concept in the sense in which white horse may be taken to be a complex concept with respect to the simpler concepts white and horse, or identifying it with a concept such as pleasure, would fit with certain ordinary features of our concept of goodness. That, for example, one could always conceive of the possibility that something was an instance of the concepts employed in the purported analysis and yet was not good, or vice versa, would be one such feature. Given this feature no analysis is feasible and hence we may conclude that goodness is ~nanalyzable .~ This conclusion we might take to be the result of a philosophical analysis which was not simply confined to describing features of our ordinary concept of goodness. Just as Strawson does more than elaborate our ordinary conceptual scheme when he claims that the sceptic’s arguments involve the sceptic in an inconsistency. It is in virtue of a descriptive account that one attempts to rebut any purported analysis of goodness and the sceptic’s attack, but one does more than describe relationships among ordinary concepts when he comes to such conclusions.

Moore held, at times, that propositions and facts exist. One may reasonably suggest that he held that certain features of our ordinary beliefs were such that to accept such beliefs implied acknowledging propositions, facts, universals, etc. In reaching such a conclusion one does not merely elaborate features of our ordinary conceptual scheme but argues that certain claims are implied by it or are implicit in it. Just what it means for such claims to be implied by ordinary beliefs, or implicit in their acceptance, is problematic. To spell it out involves, in effect, spelling out a further sense of “philosophical analysis,” as offering arguments for such claims certainly seems to be a traditional form of philosophical activity. Moreover, in so doing, one is not merely pointing out that we use concepts like “there are” and “proposition” in such a way that we commonly

There are other aspects of Moore’s argument that relate it more closely to the senses of analysis we shall discuss just below. See [6].


hold that there are propositions. Nor is one simply concluding that since we say that people utter, and believe, certain propositions and as we employ a framework of logic, whereby if a specific thing is of a certain kind we may conclude that there is something of that kind, it trivially follows that there are propositions. Furthermore, in holding that there were such things as facts Moore was concerned with their “analysis” in the sense of asking what the constituents of facts were and what the structure or logical form of a fact was. He was especially concerned with such a question with regard to the facts that provided the basis for the truth of claims like “Jones believes that p”; and his concern about the existence of propositions had to do with whether or not one could analyze such facts without holding that propositions were to be included in one’s ontological inventory. Along such lines Moore was also concerned with the classical problem of universals and held, at one time, that a particular object could be analyzed as a complex of universal concepts (see [6]). In so doing he offered an analysis of our concept of an object in terms of notions, universal concept and complex of concepts, that do not appear to be part of our ordinary conceptual apparatus or scheme. Moreover, it is not at all clear how Common Sense can arbitrate in such matters, unless one holds that since we do not ordinarily say such things or, for that matter, even understand, in an ordinary context, what they mean, it follows that such statements are pointless or meaningless. What Moore seemed to have in mind was the idea, once again, that certain of our ordinary beliefs, such as that different objects have the same property, must be taken to imply such a view and that alternative views, such as that universal concepts do not exist, are not compatible or do not f i t with our ordinary beliefs. It seems that when a philosopher holds that material objects are really constructs from sensations he runs directly afoul of our beliefs regarding material objects. But, when a philosopher holds that objects are complexes of universals, he does not do so in that Common Sense neither affirms nor denies such a claim. Yet, though our ordinary beliefs neither directly affirm nor deny such a claim, one may hold that a number of our common beliefs can be affirmed and held to cohere only on the condition that we accept such a claim. But, again, what is it to speak of ‘implication’, or to hold that common beliefs “can be affirmed”

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on “condition”, in such matters? Moreover, a further problem arises. Does not the sceptic also claim that certain beliefs or knowledge about experience, and the process of having experiences, imply that we cannot know things about material objects that we claim to know or that we commonly believe we do know? That is, is he not pointing out that there are inconsistencies implied by or involved in our ordinary conceptual scheme? And, if so, how can we dismiss him by pointing out that he rejects certain beliefs of Common Sense or specific criteria for the application of ordinary concepts? To think of philosophical analysis in terms of uncovering implications of our ordinary conceptual scheme thus appears to provide an opening for the kind of revisionary metaphysics that Moore and Strawson seek to reject. As we saw in part I, Strawson escapes from the sceptic by a question-begging stipulation. Similarly, Moore’s taking philosophical analysis in the different ways he does makes his rejection of certain philosophical gambits, like the one we considered above, appear to involve an arbitrary appeal to Common Sense or ordinary belief. The situation can be clarified, even resolved, by making some appropriate distinctions.

Let us acknowledge that there are the common sense beliefs and concepts of which Moore speaks and whose structure Strawson seeks to “describe”. This is not to claim that the notion of a commonsensical belief, or a belief belonging to our ordinary conceptual scheme, is as clear-cut as some might think. Specifying such beliefs, in short, is not matter of simple reporting. Be that as it may, let us also recognize a number of alternative philosophical positions which seek to analyze such beliefs, and the concepts they employ, without, for the moment, specifying the sense of ‘analysis’ involved. Let us further acknowledge that such analyses must, in some sense, f i t with such beliefs: with the elaboration of structure that the descriptive metaphysician seeks to provide. How are we to understand the notion of “revisionary metaphysics” given such acknowledgments? There are, I think, two ways to understand the notion of revisionary mefaphysics and distinguishing them will help to clarify the related concepts of analysis and fitting with ordinary beliefs, as well as the sense in which ordinary beliefs may be said to imply or to contradict philosophical claims.


One may take the revisionary metaphysician, in the case we have been concerned with, to deny that physical objects, as we ordinarily understand that notion, are literally the same over a period of time and, hence, that physical objects, as ordinarily conceived, do not exist, in the ordinary senses of exist and same. He then literally denies that one can occupy the same chair for breakfast and dinner, return to the same house, and drive the same car day after day. So interpreted, he is open to the kind of refutation by example that Moore excelled in and which, in effect, Strawson ultimately appeals to. One can so interpret him but one need not do so, irrespective of how some traditional empiricists may have understood, or thought they understood, what they were claiming. One gets a far more interesting and illuminating sense of metaphysical views if we interpret him in a different way. Let such a metaphysician acknowledge, along with Strawson and Moore, that we may correctly say that the chair now occupied is one and the same as the chair purchased the year before. But, let him point out that this is so in so far as we speak in the contexts we are ordinarily accustomed to, and not in the context of a philosophical dispute about perception, substance, etc. Strawson is quite right in holding that there are conditions governing our use of terms like ‘same’ and ‘identical’ in such everyday contexts. But the metaphysician raises a question that involves the use of such terms in a far from everyday context. He raises a question as to how to treat the notion of a material object so that one can respond cogently to certain dialectical puzzles that are raised about knowledge, experience, existence, etc. Such puzzles, and responses to them, provide another context for concepts like material object and identical. Thus, the concept of material object belonging to the one context is not the same concept employed in the other. In holding that a material object is really a class of phenomenal entities, the revisionary metaphysician, so interpreted, is not denying that we literally see the same object from time to time or that we may retain the things we purchase; just as he is not claiming that i t is appropriate to shop for a class of sensations rather than a chair. Rather, claims made in and concepts belonging to the ordinary context are mapped against claims and concepts of a quite extra-ordinary context wherein one proposes and defends

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metaphysical analyses. To propose a metaphysical analysis is to offer a set of interrelated concepts and claims that may be coordinated to the concepts and claims of our ordinary conceptual scheme. Hence, the ordinary claim that we see the same material object from time to time is coordinated to the claim that two phenomenal entities are members of a class which is, in turn, the representative of the ordinary physical object in ,the philosopher’s scheme. So taken, the-ordinary true claim is coordinated to one taken to be true in the extra-ordinary context. Alternatively, one may seek to map such ordinary claims and concepts onto claims involving the concept of a material substance or continuant rather than a class of phenomenal entities. On such an alternative view or “analysis” one not only acknowledges that the chair is literally the same, as spoken about in the ordinary context, but is represented in such a way in the extra- ordinary context that the object of perception is held to be numerically identical, as spoken about in the latter context, when it is perceived at different times. The crucial point, though, is that the ordinary concept of a material object is no more to be identified with the materialist’s concept of a continuous physical object, as used in the extra-ordinary context, than it is to be identified with the phenomena- list’s concept of a material object as a certain kind of class of phenomenal objects. Both views employ concepts and claims that belong to a rather special context from which they partially derive their “meaning”. The philosophical disagreement between them is confined to such an extraordinary context, and it is, no more appropriate for a representative of the one view to applaud my claim that the chair I now sit on was purchased last year than it is for the other to challenge it. Both, as a minimal requirement, must fit their respective views to the elaborated detail of the ordinary context. As we noted, both do in that, on the basis of the sketch mentioned above, both views would map an ordinary truth onto a truth of the metaphysical context. It does appear, however, that one philosopher seems to reproduce the ordinary context more literally by holding that what is seen, as reconstrued in the philosophical context, is literally one and the same from time to time. He does not literally reproduce the ordinary claim not only in that his notion of a material substance is not the same as our ordinary concept of a physical


object but in that his use of ‘same’ as it belongs to the extra-ordinary context is not, if I may so put it, the same as our ordinary use of the term. Yet, there is a point to the claim that one metaphysical view is closer to the ordinary context, even if it does not literally reproduce that context. We can specify what that point is as follows.

The elaboration of the ordinary context we may well call descriptive and metaphysical. Descripfive in that it specifies the use of and, hence, structural relationships among ordinary concepts. Metaphysical, not in that it is such an elaboration, but in that such an elaboration is a pre-condition for the fitting of purported metaphysical analyses to our ordinary conceptual scheme. The construction of such a conceptual framework to fit with, rather than to replace, our ordinary conceptual scheme, and in terms of which we can handle, rather than dismiss, the classical puzzles, we may characterize as “analytical metaphysics”. Some purported analyses will appear to retain, more literally, certain features of our ordinary conceptual scheme, such as the view adhering to continous material substances. The appearance is somewhat misleading. Let us forget the point regarding the difference in the concepts of object and identical as they belong to the different contexts and consider the following statements,

(0) The object observed at t is identical with the object observed at t+n.

(P,) The object observed at t is identical with the object observed at t +n.

(PJ The percept experienceh at t and the percept experienced at t+n belong to the same object-class.

to represent the ordinary claim and the two philosophical construals of such a claim. It is an oversimplification to hold that the proponent of ( P J proposes a view that does not fit with the ordinary scheme’s (0) since, by ( P J , we deny that the observed object at t and t+n is one and the same. The view behind (P2) involves distinguishing different senses of ‘observe’. There is the sense of ‘observe’ whereby one speaks of the objects of what Moore calls direct acquaintance as being observed or experienced. There is a second sense whereby one may speak of the material object to which such a percept is attached (or to which it belongs) as being observed in that one

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observes, in the first sense, a related phenomenal entity. Hence, even on the view which advocates (PJ, one can hold:

(P2’) The material object observed (in the second sense) at t is identical with the material object observed at t+n.

The way in which the view to which (PI) belongs is less revisionary is thus not in that it alone reduplicates (0), but in that it, along with the ordinary context, fails to make a distinction made by the view to which ( P 2 ) belongs. In not making such a distinction one view is, indeed, closer to the ordinary context. But this difference between philosophical analyses hardly constitutes a merit of the view which is “closer” to the ordinary conceptual scheme. If anything, the opposite would be the case. Carried to its extreme, such a requirement of matching the ordinary scheme would reduce what I have called analysis to what Strawson would take to be an elaboration of the ordinary scheme. In a way, then, we have come full circle, since we are back to Strawson’s rejection of the sceptic. In so far as one accepts my rejection of Strawson’s critique of scepticism, he will agree, I trust, that certain differences between the ordinary context and a purported metaphysical analysis must be preserved, if we are to have such analyses at all. For such analyses I will not here offer an argument, except to note that in so far as one may point to weaknesses in purported rejections of such analyses, such as Strawson’s dismissal of scepticism, one offers, in a specific case, just such an argument. To put it another way, one best defends the sort of thing I have called philosophical analysis by defending the activity against specific attacks upon it and by engaging in specific analyses, rather than by undertaking a programmatic “proof’ that such activity is either possible or necessary or has a point.4

In the above discussion of revisionary metaphysics and the fitting of philosophical analyses to the ordinary context, two senses in which one may speak of the ordinary context “implying” a philosophical analysis are involved. One is the sense in which the statements of the analysis, upon the mapping of certain concepts from the ordinary

For some further “defenses” and discussion of philosophical analysis, see [2], [3], “ll, and PI.


scheme onto concepts of the metaphysical context, must be materially equivalent to their correlates in the ordinary scheme. In a second sense, an analysis may be said to be implied if it can be argued that alternative analyses fail, for dialectical reasons formulated and elaborated within the extra-ordinary context of philosophical dispute, while the proposed analysis can be successfully defended against attacks of that kind.5 in neither sense, then, do we deal with a strict sense of the term ‘implication’. However, in the elaboration of the ordinary scheme and in the specification of details of a metaphysical position a strict sense of ‘implication’ will be relevant. Thus, certain philosophical claims will literally imply others, just as certain ordinary beliefs will have logical consequences.

We may conclude, I think, that Strawson’s distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics, when combined with themes implicit in Moore’s early discussions of Common Sense and analysis, may be taken to help clarify the nature of philosophical analysis-given some modifications in both his and Moore’s views. Even if notions like Common Sense, ordinary conceptual scheme, philosophical analysis, and descriptive metaphysics are not exact or spelled out in detail, we have enough of a grasp of them to see that, on the one hand, if one is concerned only to elaborate the ordinary, he merely loses and does not resolve the traditional puzzles; while, on the other hand, if one does not keep his analysis in touch with common sense, he merely spins a web of interconnected, but empty, words. Just as the context of philosophical puzzles and proposed analyses provides meaning, in one sense, for any one concept or claim, the purported jitting of such claims and concepts with the ordinary context provides meaning for the former in another sense. Both are necessary, though not necessarily exhaustive,6 if we are to do justice to both the philosophical tradition and to common sense.

One might take the above discussion of revisionary metaphysics to implicitly acknowledge Strawson’s claim that the sceptic does not employ the ordinary concept of identity and, hence, to accept

There are, then, corresponding senses of ‘contradict’. The role of a principle of acquaintance adds a further dimension to the discussion of

“meaning.” See [7].

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Strawson’s argument. The objection would miss the point. The sceptic rejects the ordinary concept of identity, understood as applying when the everyday sort of criteria are fulfilled, as a satisfactory basis for resolving questions about identity that are not ordinary questions. These questions, being philosophical, do not belong to the ordinary context and, thus, do not arise within the restricted conceptual apparatus of our “ordinary conceptual scheme”. To raise his question, the sceptic questions, rather than accepts, such a scheme. To reject the sceptic on such grounds is trivial. It would not be trivial to show that the sceptic must accept what he purports to reject, as a condition for raising his question. This Strawson fails to do. It would also not be trivial to argue that the sceptic does not have a meaningful notion of numerical identity to contrast with the ordinary concept. (This would be one way of trying to establish that the sceptic must accept the ordinary concept.) But, this too, Strawson, Ryle, and Moore fail to do.

References

[I] BERGMANN, G. Realism. (Madison: University or Wisconsin Press, 1967) [2] HOCHBERG, H. “Explaining facts.” Metuphilosophy, vol. 6 (l975), pp. 277-302. [3] HOCHBERG, H. “Mapping, meaning, and metaphysics.” Midnest studies in

philosophy, vol. 2 (1977), pp. 191-211. [4] HOCHBERG, H. “Metaphysical explanation.” Metuphilosophy, vol. 1 (l970), pp.

139-165. [S] HOCHBERG, H. “Moore and Russell on particulars, relations, and identity.” In

Studies in the philosophy of G . E. Moore, ed. by E. D. Klemke, pp. 155-194. (Chicago: Quadrangle Press, 1969)

[6] HOCHBERG, H. “Moore’s ontology and non-natural properties.” Review of

metaphysics, vol. 15 (1962), pp. 365-395. Reprinted in Studies in thephilosophy of G . E. Moore, ed. by E. D. Klemke, pp. 95-127. (Chicago: Quandrangle Press, 1969)

[7] HOCHBERG, H. “Ontology and acquaintance.” Philo.sophicu/ studies, vol. 00

[8] HOCHBERG, H. “Russell’s reduction of arithmetic to logic.” In Essuys on Bertrand Russell, ed. by E. D. Klemke, pp. 396-415. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970)

[9] MOORE, G. E. “Identity.” Proceedinzs of the Ari.rtotdian society (1900--1901), pp. 103-127.

(1966), pp. 49-55.


[lo] MOORE, G. E. Some main problems of philosophy. (London: Allen and Unwin,

[ I I ] RUSSELL, BERTRAND. “On the relations of universals and particulars.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian society (1911-1912), pp. 1-24.

[12] STRAWSON, P. F. Individuals. (London: Methuen, 1959)

1959)

4 -Theoria 1-3. 1976

strawson, scepticism, and metaphysics

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