哲学专业,英语专业毕业论文.doc

hierarchy, form and reality摘要：现代科学对哲学所提供的最重要成就是一种层次的世界观，对世界层次结构的分析将对形而上学和哲学具有明显的意义。夏法尔的论文“是否存在一个基础的层次？” 系统地讨论了基础主义在这方面的工作及其面临的问题，在缺乏论证的情况下最后指出了一条非还原主义的出路，我们可以把每一层都看作是等同的，承认它们都具有“存在共和国中的完全公民权”。本文将为此提供一个论证：将亚里士多德的形式理论应用于世界层次结构的分析，发展出形式实在论，并以此来论证一种本体论的非还原主义以反对原子主义和物理主义；提出一种因果作用的说明以反对副现象论；提出认识论的非还原主义以反对观念原子主义和认识论还原主义。abstract: scientific progress in the 20th century has shown that the structure of the world is hierarchical. a philosophical analysis of the hierarchy will bear obvious significance for metaphysics and philosophy in general. jonathan schaffers paper, is there a fundamental level?, provides a systematic review of the works in the field, the difficulties for various versions of fundamentalism, and the prospect for the third option, i.e., to treat each level as ontologically equal. the purpose of this paper is to provide an argument for the third option, which is missing in schaffers paper. the author will apply aristotles theory of matter and form to the discussion of the hierarchy and develop a form realism, which will grant every level with full citizenship in the republic of being. it is also an argument against ontological and epistemological reductionism.1. introductionthe most significant scientific achievement for philosophy in the 20th century is the general view that the structure of our world is hierarchical. in one direction, astronomers have proved that the remote spiral nebulae are galaxies like our own milky way. thus the universe is one level bigger than the milky way, and consists of galaxies as islands. some day in the future they may discover that there is more than one big bang. in the opposite direction, atomic physicists have shown that, while everything consists of molecules and atoms, the atoms are not atomic. they split the atoms and drilled down all the way through protons, neutrons and electrons, quarks and leptons, . and finally to super strings. although they have no way to prove that a super string has no internal structure, the tendency did lead us to postulate that it is an endless descending. after a long journey in both directions, one thing is for sure: our world is multi-layered, i.e., of a hierarchical structure of multiple levels. an analysis of the hierarchical model of the world definitely bears an obvious significance for metaphysics and for philosophy in general.2. schaffer on fundamentalismjonathan schaffers recent paper on nos, is there a fundamental level?, does a systematic review of the works by philosophers as well as scientists. it provides the context of the problems and the entry point for the research in the field. as the title of the paper suggests, the focus of his attention is on fundamentality. according to schaffer, fundamentalism consists of three theses: 1) the thesis of hierarchy, i.e., the world is hierarchical, stratified into levels; 2) the thesis of fundamentality, i.e., there is a bottom level which is fundamental; 3) the thesis of primacy, i.e., the bottom level is primarily real, other levels are only derivative (schaffer 2003, p498).schaffer leaves the first thesis intact, does not pay much attention to the third thesis, but thinks that the second thesis is the source of problem. therefore, schaffers key question is, “whether science is actually in the process of discovering atoms”, “whether science indicates atomism”, that is, whether the descending is finite or infinite (ibid, p502). from the current state of science, we do not know if quark or super string is the fundamental building block. but the history of science, as schaffer admits, “is a history of finding ever-deeper structure” (ibid p503). whenever we had found a fundamental building block, atoms or quarks for example, soon we always found that they have parts and an internal structure. therefore it shows a tendency or a trajectory that the descending is infinite. however, the tendency or trajectory, like induction, is by no means a logical proof. although i believe that there will never be a complete microphysics, since scientific inquiry will never come to an end, i do agree with schaffer that we should remain agnostic about this issue. with the thesis of fundamentality in doubt, schaffer proposed three options as outlets: 1) that a certain version of fundamentalism can be re-formulated without presupposing fundamentality, that is, a fundamentalism without fundamentality; 2) that there might be evidence for a fundamental something else, such as a fundamental supervenience base, which consists of more than one level; 3) that we treat each level as equal and grant them “a full citizenship in the republic of being”. after a detailed discussion of the options 1 and 2 by examining the four versions of fundamentalism (physicalism, humean idea atomism, epiphenomenalism and atomism), schaffer comes to the conclusion that the option 3 is the most desirable. in the end of his paper, schaffer shows the possible benefit and prospect for the third option. the following quick comments are at our order: 1) schaffer seems to think that only the second thesis of fundamentality is question begging. however, the thesis of primacy is based on the thesis of hierarchy and the thesis of fundamentality. if the thesis of fundamentality does not hold, the thesis of primacy loses its ground. if we cannot identity the fundamental level, no level is primary. 2) if there is an infinite descending in the hierarchy, it will pose a serious problem for fundamentalism; however, if there is indeed a complete microphysics, it does not prove that fundamentalism or reductionism is the only viable option. there might still be a room for non-reductionism, because it does not require an infinite descending. 3) schaffer only points out the benefits and prospect for the third option, he provides no arguments for it. 4) fundamentalism is a reductionist interpretation of the hierarchical worldview. there might be a non-reductionist interpretation of the hierarchy. that is, we accept the thesis of hierarchy, remain agnostic on the thesis of fundamentality, but deny the thesis of primacy. while schaffer takes fundamentality as the focus of discussion, i think it is the issue of reduction that should be the real focus of discussion. our key question is not whether there is a fundamental level, but the relation between two adjacent levels, namely, the relation is reductive or not. therefore we move our attention from the thesis of fundamentality to the thesis of primacy. the purpose of this paper is to provide an argument for schaffers third option, which is missing in schaffers own paper. firstly i will extrapolate aristotles theory of matter and form in the light of modern sciences, that is, to apply aristotles theory to the discussion of the hierarchy, and develop a form realism, which will grant every level with a full citizenship in the republic of being. this is, at the same time, an argument against physicalism and atomism. secondly i will approach the problem of causation and provide a theory of causation according to form realism, which constitutes an argument against epiphenomenalism. finally i will shift the focus from ontological reductionism to epistemological reductionism and provide an argument against humean idea atomism. 3. a theory of form realismfundamentalism is a well-established tradition in the history of philosophy. it actually dates back to the first greek philosopher, thales. the tradition continued to live on throughout history in the hands of other ionian philosophers, atomists, materialists, reductionists, the advocators of mind-body identity theory, and eliminative materialists. however, there is another tradition, which started almost at the same time and runs parallel to the reductionist or fundamentalist tradition. it is the tradition of pythagoras, plato and aristotle. they paid more attention to immaterial issues such as harmony, relations, structures and forms. both plato and aristotle considered forms, however, platos forms are different from aristotles forms. platos forms are ideal, perfect, universal and ante rem; while aristotles forms are empirical, particular, individual and in re. if plato is an objective idealist; aristotle is more like a non-reductive physicalist in 20th century. as a metaphysical concept, i prefer aristotles form to platos form, since aristotles form is more compatible with the new progress in science, while platos concept of form, as another kind of form realism, runs against the achievements in modern science. it is ironic that modern science develops by breaking away from aristotelian tradition. this is the case at least for galileo, descartes and francis bacon. however, to cure certain symptoms of modern science, we have to come back to aristotle. i believe aristotles metaphysics of matter and form is quite potential. while most philosophers are looking for some kind of fundamental building blocks for the world, aristotles theory explains not just what exists in the world, but why the world is like this. while most philosophers are pursuing a reductionist approach, aristotles form provides a hope for non-reductionism. i would like to start an argument at the middle level in the hierarchy of existence, i.e., the meso-cosmic objects of sensible magnitude. lets take a chair for example. it has two components: the wood beams (matter) and the design of a chair (form). when i bought a chair from ikea, it was hardly a chair. it came as a set of parts tightly packed in a flat box. it is not yet a chair. it was not in the form of a chair. you cannot sit on it. it became a chair only when i finished the assembly. as aristotle points out, matter is the potentiality, form the actuality (aristotle de anima 412a10). the chair is a composite of matter (the wood beams) and form (the structure of the chair) (aristotle metaphysics 1013a25). now the chair is an existence distinct from the existence of a box of wood beams. a chair is not identical to a box of wood beams. the wood beams arranged in certain form become a chair. fundamentalists seem to think that the arrangement is not important. aristotle definitely thought differently.aristotle is absolutely right when he interpreted matter as which in itself is not a this; form as essence, which is that precisely in virtue of which a thing is called a this (aristotle de anima 412a6-9). a chair is a chair, not because it is made of wood beams. since a chair can be made of steel or plastic; we also build a table or a house by wood beams. a chair is a chair because it is in the form of a chair. we can find ample examples for aristotles thesis. the essence of coca-cola is its formula of the secret ingredients, water, salt, and sugar. form differentiates music from noise, water from ice, a diamond from graphite, a nikon fm2 from a leica m6, and a honda accord from a bmw 323i. when the neurons in a brain stop firing, the mind loses its existence. form determines what is what. form is an indispensable component of the reality. form is immaterial but real. if we apply aristotles theory of matter and form to the hierarchy of reality and keep going downward, we will get something unexpected. what is a wood beam? it is made of wood cells. a wood beam is a foot for the chair, because its wood cells are arranged in the form of a foot; a wood beam is an arm for the chair, because its wood cells are in the form of an arm. if we keep going downward further and further, we get the following diagram:diagram: the hierarchy of reality.what implications can we draw from the diagram? on the ladder of the downward analysis, at each level, matter can always be further analyzed into forms and sub-matter. all that remains on the ladder are forms. matter almost resolves into forms, though not completely if we assume that the descending is finite. matter does not vaporize and disappear. it only melts down the ladder, with some residues: electrons and quarks or super strings, assuming they are not penetrable. if we think that only matter is real, then what exist in the world are nothing but electrons and quarks or super strings. the whole world is nothing but the arrangement or properties of electrons and quarks. if forms are not real, only matter matters, we can refuse to pay the bills for electricity, telephone, internet service, etc., since nothing material flows into my house from those services. music would be the same thing as noise. software piracy would be perfectly legal, since we only duplicate the magnetic patterns on our own floppy disc. it does not sound right. it runs against most of our intuitions. only by admitting the reality of forms, and looking upward, can we get the existence of everything in the world. if form is real, then a chair is not identical to a box of wood beams, because a chair is the wood beams plus something extra, i.e., the form of a chair. the reality of forms as something extra also explains why in a system is more than the totality of its parts. addition: some people may say that two things are different, partly because they have different matter. the difference in matter is not a real difference, since the difference in matter at one level is still the difference in form at a lower level. form is the sole reason that determines what is what. if a chair is not identical to a box of wood beams, what is the relationship between them? to name the relationship, we may employ the term supervenience. this is a popular term in current philosophy. leibniz is the first philosopher who began to use the term supervenire in his latin text concerning his doctrine of relations. in the 1920s and the 1930s it was used by british emergentists as a stylish variant of “emergence” in their doctrine of emergent evolution, meaning a non-reductive relation. in 1952 it was introduced by r.m. hare into ethics to describe the “non-reductive” relation between moral property and descriptive property. in 1970, donald davidson used the term to describe the “non-reductive” relation between mental property and physical property. most of them employ the term in the sense of non-reductive relation, which conforms to the common sense meaning in the oxford english dictionary, that is, to come on or occur as something additional or extraneous after something else. however, kim in his criticism of davidson argues that supervenience is a reductive relation. though i am not on the side of reductionism, i do think that kim has made a contribution to the concept of supervenience. in order to avoid the ambiguity in the discussion of supervenience, kim clearly defines it as a mereological relation (kim 1998, p15). the only problem is that, supervenience defined as a mereological relation may no longer be suitable to describe the relation between the mental and the physical. for a typical mereological relation, both relata are physical. a typical mereological ascending wont give rise to the emergence of the mental. if we insist that the relation between the mental and the physical is a special kind of mereological relation, then we have to spell out the uniqueness in that special kind. why for most merelogical relation the two relata are both physical, but for that special kind, one relatum is physical, the other is mental. obviously the mere notion of “mereological relation” cannot explain the difference between the mental and the physical, why something has both mental and physical properties while some other thing only has physical properties. if a choice has to be made, here is mine. i will employ “supervenience” solely for the relation between a chair and its parts. “emergence” is the dynamic process for the creation of supervenient; “supervenience” is the static relation between the supervenient and the subvenient after the process of emergence. supervenience is naturally a mereological relation according to the etymological meaning of the term. since i have argued that a chair is not identical to its parts, supervenience is a non-reductive relation. this choice thus combines two elements of the term, “non-reductive” and “mereological”. therefore, supervenience is a non-reductive mereological relation. we have to choose another term to describe the relation between the mental and the physical. if we apply the term supervenience to describe the relation, the chair is the supervenient; the pile of wood beams is the subvenient. the chair supervenes on the pile of wood beams. several levels down the ladder, an atom supervenes on protons, neutrons and electrons. several levels up the ladder, a university supervenes on its departments. since a chair is not identical to a box of wood beams, the relation between the two relata is not reductive. the chair is located somewhat higher on the ladder than its wood beams. it has one more extra real component, the form. however, can we say that the supervenient is a stronger existence than its subvenient since the supervenient has form as one more real component? if we admitted this, then electrons and quarks would have the weakest existence. any particle physicist will definitely say no to the conclusion. fundamentalists (atomists and physicalists) think that fundamental level is the only thing real, or at least more real than upper levels. if that were the case, then milky way and spiral nebulae would have the weakest existence or would not exist at all. this is obviously wrong. therefore, i would say that supervenient and subvenient are equally real. the hierarchy as a whole is the totality of the reality. each level is one layer of the reality.4. how causation happens?epiphenomenalism in philosophy of mind is the theory that the physical has a causal effect on the mental, but not vice versa. epiphenomenalism as presented by schaffer in the context of metaphysics has a slightly different version, that is, all causal powe