[lit-ideas] Re: Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation

From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 19:01:41 +0100 (BST)
A week and a half ago I wrote this response in the above thread (which explains 
for example why, logically, from one set of initial conditions, A, nothing may 
be inferred as to another set of "initial conditions", B) only to be met by a 
barrage of silence and the comparative analytical spaghetti of sharia law. I do 
not ask much, a simple "Popper is of course correct" would do. From the whole 
list please.
 
Donal
London

From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, 28 August 2011, 2:05
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Necessity is not an established fact, but an 
interpretation



--- On Sun, 28/8/11, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:


>From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
>Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Necessity is not an established fact, but an 
>interpretation
>To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Date: Sunday, 28 August, 2011, 0:18
>
>
>On 8/27/11 4:12 PM, Robert Paul wrote: 
>Donal wrote
>>
>>...
>>
>>Cannot "necessity" be both a fact [e.g. it is the case that there is a 
>>universal law such that "All Xs are Ys"] and also an interpretation [i.e. we 
>>interpret, or theorise, the correlation between X and Y as one of 
>>'necessity', as opposed to contingency]. If neither excludes the other, then 
>>the fact 'necessity' can be regarded as an interpretative device does not 
>>exclude it being also regarded as a fact, and indeed being a fact. When we 
>>ask whether interpreting a relation in terms of 'necessity' is correct, we 
>>are asking whether it is true that such a relation holds, and if it is true 
>>it holds then it is a fact that there is such a relation. 
>>I don't know what it would mean for necessity to be a fact or not be a fact. 
>>I'd always thought that 'necessity,' and questions about its use arose when 
>>one was confronted with expressions like, 'the conclusion of a valid argument 
>>follows necessarily (i.e., it doesn't just happen to follow) from its 
>>premises,' or "'x is is identical with x' is necessarily true." Facts usually 
>>hide in 'that clauses' (where they really do no work, e.g. 'It is a fact that 
>>the earth has two magnetic poles,' just means 'The earth has two magnetic 
>>poles.' If I were asked to give some examples of facts, I'd give examples 
>>like the foregoing, along with the fact that if I touch my nose with my right 
>>index finger, my right elbow will be bent. If someone replies she didn't mean 
>>facts that so-and-so, but just plain unadorned facts,
>>I wouldn't understand what she meant.
>>
>>Donal gives this account:
>>
>>
>>This leaves open in what way is 'necessity' "established". Taking the 
>>"necessity" in a 'universal law' or, better perhaps, 'universal 
>>generalisation' ['UG']:- such a UG as "All swans are white" cannot be 
>>established by induction though it may, conjecturally and non-inductively, be 
>>falsified by a counter-example such as a black swan. But even if we had 
>>empirical omniscience, so that we could survey the whole universe and observe 
>>that the only colour swans came in was white, this would not be enough to 
>>establish "necessity" in the sense of law: it would not show that a non-white 
>>swan was not a physical possibility. So there is a further sense in which 
>>"necessity" cannot be "established": to assert "necessity" as a relation 
>>between phenomena is to assert something beyond a universal but contingent 
>>link between phenomena - yet what we observe, even if it were the whole 
>>universe, is consistent with any UG that holds being only contingently true. 
>>As far as I can tell, scientific 'laws' are empirical generalizations; they 
>>are not necessary truths or true 'of necessity.' That is, if they're 
>>falsifiable, they can't be true necessariy. My first cousin is so 
>>necessarily, in virtue of our sharing at least one set of grandparents, which 
>>entails that at least at least one of my cousin's parents is a sibling of at 
>>least one of my cousin's parents. Maybe I should
>>draw a diagram... In any event, that Alice is my first cousin is a contingent 
>>fact, but what makes her my first cousin is a relation which would make 
>>anyone who stands in that relation to me,
>>my first cousin. I'm not clear about what an omniscient being's all-knowing 
>>would have to do with the contingency or necessity of things: this being is 
>>said to be empirically omniscient (although
>>it might know a few logical truths), which means, I think, that what it knows 
>>is what happens, what is the case, here and now. Otherwise, we might be 
>>faced, as Medieval theologians were,
>>with the problem of God's knowledge of 'future contingents.' If God, who does 
>>not exist in time, knows everything (and if what he knows cannot be 
>>otherwise) then what we see as the contingency
>>of the future is an illusion. Everything that happens, happens necessarily. 
>>God, who has his whole being at once knows everything at once; his knowing it 
>>makes it true, and necessarily true.
>>
>>So, the omniscient observer sees only time slices in which things are this 
>>way or that way, and its seeing that all swans are black at t, does not make 
>>'All swans are black,' a necessary truth,
>>for at t+1, it may observe a white one. 
>>
>>Donal:
>>
>>Thus Popper rightly claims that the whether there exists even one natural 
>>law, or natural "necessity", is a metaphysical question. It cannot be 
>>"established" empirically. All that can be "established" empirically, and 
>>then only conjecturally and non-inductively, is the non-existence of a 
>>claimed 'natural law' by adducing a falsifying counter-example. There are no 
>>logical relations (necessity being a logical or mathematical notion) between 
>>objects or states of affairs. 'The only possibility is logical possibility; 
>>the only impossibility is
>>logical impossibility.' I'm not clear whether Popper believes this or not.
>>
>>Can we establish the existence of natural laws by metaphysical argument? Not 
>>conclusively, but the balance of the argument favours it as Popper sees 
>>things. In any case, the search for UGs would be fruitful even if their truth 
>>were contingent, for it would still be universal. And so the absence of a 
>>clear metaphysical proof of the existence of any natural laws (which is not a 
>>disproof of their existence), does not affect the rationality of searching 
>>for such invariants.

This argument can be reworked even for 'propensities', that is probabilistic 
relations between phenomena that fall short of necessity.

As to whether the search for some kind of "regularity" is itself a 'necessity' 
of some kind, Popper would affirm for Kantian reasons: without being oriented 
to interpret the world as forming patterns we would be lost. But this does not 
mean we are lost because our world lacks _complete_ regularity; only that it is 
necessary that we search for some
 degree of it and that there appears [contingent or not] to be some degree of 
it. These last three paragraphs are extremely interesting.
>>
>>Robert Paul,
>>somewhere south of Reed College
>>
Follow-Ups:
- [lit-ideas] Re: Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation
  - From: Adriano Palma
- [lit-ideas] as for 'fact'
  - From: Adriano Palma
[lit-ideas] Re: Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation

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