Executive Summary of the Wholeness of the World
| Ontological
philosophy is . . . |
|
. . . a new way of doing philosophy. Philosophy aspires to knowledge that is more fundamental than ordinary ways of knowing (such as empirical science and practical reasoning). That requires a special foundation, and philosophers have traditionally used theories about the nature of reason derived from reflection. That is epistemological philosophy, which leads to skepticism. But there is an alternative. It is possible to use empirical ontology as the foundation. We can infer to the simplest set of basic substances that can explain all the most basic aspects of the world. This is what the Pre-Socratics tried to do, though without modern science, they could not make it work as a way of doing philosophy. Now, however, this approach can be used to show that certain propositions are ontologically necessary. That makes them prior to ordinary ways of knowing, not because they are self evident, but because they cannot be denied without giving up the best ontological explanation of the world. And combining them with modern science has profound, far reaching implications. .
. . a new way of doing science.
Ontological philosophy is equally, therefore, a new way
of doing science. To use empirical ontology as a philosophical foundation
is tantamount to recognizing that ontology is a more basic branch of
science than physics. Ontological-cause explanations are more basic
than efficient-cause explanations, and with ontology using the empirical
method, science is no less empirical. But empirical ontology leads to
different beliefs about the basic substances constituting the world,
since the ontology derived from realism about the basic laws in physics
is not the best ontological explanation of the world. A better explanation
of the basic aspects of the world is spatiomaterialism, or the belief
that the world is constituted by both space and matter as substances
enduring though time. Though that entails that space and time are absolute,
it is not incompatible with contemporary physics, for spatiomaterialism
can explain why all its basic laws are true, including both the special
and general theories of relativity, as well as quantum mechanics. For
science, one big payoff of explaining the truth of the basic laws of
physics ontologically is being able to reduce the (true) theories accepted
in all the other branches of science to this new ontologically explained
physics. Ontological philosophy includes, therefore, what might be called
“empirical ontological science.” . . . a way of doing philosophy that works. While epistemological philosophy leads eventually to skepticism, ontological philosophy shows that certain propositions about the world hold necessarily. These ontologically necessary truth are falsifiable (because of their empirical foundation), but they are so complete in the end that ontological philosophy can still claim the certainty expected of Absolute Truth in traditional, epistemological philosophy. A minimally adequate ontology must be able to account for everything in
the world in the sense of showing that it is possible. But ontology
can lead to new beliefs about the world by way of the ontologically
necessary truths it entails. Indeed, this solves the so-called “hard
problem” about consciousness by explaining the possibility of phenomenal
properties. But apart from its implications for contemporary physics,
spatiomaterialism by itself shows little more than the ontological necessity
of beliefs that we already hold (such as mathematics and the principle
of local action). However, since spatiomaterialism can explain the truth
of the basic laws of physics, that is not the end of ontological philosophy.
The combination of spatiomaterialism and contemporary physics entails
truths that are ontologically necessary in the sense that they hold
in every possible spatiomaterial world like our own. Not only do these
implications solve Hume’s problem of induction (by explaining change
as an aspect of substances enduring though time), but since space is
one of the substances constituting the world, they also demonstrate
the necessity of regularities that hold of change in entire regions
of space. Such “global regularities” include the conservation of mass
and energy, the second law of thermodynamics, the principles of mechanics,
and evolutionary change in the direction of natural perfection. The
latter, in addition to explaining the nature of goodness, implies that
evolution proceeds through a series of inevitable stages of gradual
evolution that lead, step by step, up to rational beings like us. The
kinds of organisms that evolve at each stage turn out to be necessary
beings, and the essential nature of rational beings includes a spiritual
aspect which embodies yet further forms of evolution, including cultural
evolution, social evolution (both with stages), and capitalist evolution.
Most of these implications are not currently recognized as true, much
less as necessary. Indeed, so many aspects of the world turn out to
be ontologically necessary in a spatiomaterial world like ours that,
in the end, the completeness of this ontological explanation of the
world, rather than anything being self evident, is what justifies its
claim to certainty. . . . presented in a new way. The argument for these conclusions is presented at www.tWoW.net by using the medium of web pages. A dialogue (“The Inside-Out Encyclopedia”) introduces the “whole diagram,” with labels, which represent the argument of ontological philosophy. By clicking on its boxes, you are taken to sub-diagrams (also with labels) spelling out the relevant section in more detail. One (or two) more clicks brings you to a standard, linear text of the entire argument. The diagrams and labels enable you to grasp the argument as a whole without having to read the entire text, so that you can focus on the parts of the text that seem most crucial to you. Our challenge
Can you show why ontological philosophy does not work? You cannot
simply dismiss it without explaining why it doesn’t work and still call
yourself a philosopher, for that would be to give up the rational pursuit
of truth in favor of relativism and sophistry. If you have objections
to ontological philosophy, bring them to the the webmaster@tWoW.net or to the Listserv discussion
at onto-phil, where we will explain why they are unfounded — or else
show how they can be accommodated by minor modifications of ontological
philosophy that do not affect how it does philosophy or where it leads
in the end. (Join the discussion by sending an email to onto-phil-request@tWoW.net with the body
text: subscribe.) |
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