[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Ham Priday]

Hi Lanz (Scott mentioned) --


I spotted your question to Scott asking for a definition of "physicalism"
which he answered with Rory's definition and a quote from Wikipedia.

Richard Rorty is a favorite of this group.  He's a 75-year-old American
liberal who is considered an "analytical" philosopher but has recently
turned to the teaching of literature.  Wikipedia says this about him: "Rorty
is currently a professor of comparative literature and philosophy at
Stanford University.  It seems reasonable to believe that the shift from the
discipline of philosophy to literature reflects his later position that
philosophy is really itself just a form of literature."

Since I have used the term "physicalism" at least once in my postings,
mainly because I know it is recognized by DMB, Scott and Arlo, let me quote
from what I think is a superior source, Dagobert Runes' "Dictionary of
Philosophy"....

"Physicalism: the thesis, developed within Scientific Empiricism, that every
descriptive term in the language of science (in the widest sense, including
social science) is connected with terms designating observable properties of
things.  This connection is of such a kind that a sentence applying the term
in question is intersubjectively confirmable by observations."

Essentially, Physicalism is another name for Semiotics -- the theory that we
know things only by the "signs" (or words) we use to identify them.  While
physicalists are materialists, and semioticists do not reject material
reality, both maintain that its forms, properties and functions can only be
known descriptively (semantically), and that the truth of any proposition
can be no more than what the terms (designators) call up in the mind as
referents.  This reduces philosophy to a "word game" or literary form in
which the participants are only capable of relating words to each other,
thus denying the validity of what you or I might call a philosophical
'concept'.

At least, this is my interpretation after reviewing several sources.
Although one may infer a degree of physicalism in the writings of Prisig,
I'm inclined to regard the MoQ as an existentialist philosophy in which
Quality has been substituted for Being (matter) as the fundamental reality.
The problem, of course, is that with only experience posited as the source
of this reality, everything must be accepted as it appears, including the
dimensions of time and space, the physical laws of causation, and the
biological evolution of man.

By the way, Lanz, when are we going to see your dissertation on how
government control of economics has prevented a philosophical renaissance in
the postmodern era (re: your post of 3/10)?

Best regards,
Ham