The claim that empirical sciences like physics provides knowledge of ultimate reality is often said to be “metaphysical” in some sense. Such a description seems to obscure more than clarify the topic.
The Absolute subsists eternally
The above is customarily described as a metaphysical proposition — a pseudo-proposition, under my personal view, but nevertheless we call it “metaphysical.” It presupposes a kind of world and ontology that must be radical or queer to our own, wherein the relations and facts at that world make the proposition true. And it presupposes an “ontological relevancy” axiom which, often with hope, justifies that it has sense at our own world.
In two ways the proposition is “metaphysical,” under the first sense we shall treat, in that it bears a fiat ontology, where its terms have no readily accessible synonym in ordinary idiom, and it contains an agenda: the agenda to introduce a novel concept as being relevant to the way we typically organize our perception (relevancy axiom). It is plain that “the Absolute” is not a common or popular term to ordinary linguistic practice, and whether it resides in a genuine semantic family is highly questionable. The speaker aims to introduce, perhaps, a conceptual gestalt, or a wholly novel concept which is not grounded in the ordinary conceptual scheme (that which roughly maps to the ordinary idiom). Moreover, the term is given an exceptional property of “eternal subsistence” which flies in the face of modern physical knowledge, in and of itself. Certainly no empirical science as we understand it comports to such a property.
Nevertheless, the claim stands in some sense, if not literal sense or “empirical sense.” As said, we customarily describe it as “metaphysical.” It presupposes a kind of world where observation is possible, but such a world is not our own nor is it anything like our own (perhaps because for such a thing to exist, the physical laws would have to be unidentifiable to us). The sense of “meta,” thus, suggests the “other-worldly” or the “supernatural.” We may say this is one sense of “meta”; it may be contrasted with a descriptive sense which “meta” often takes on in analytical discussions.
Now the question is whether statements like
Physics provides knowledge of ultimate reality
is a “metaphysical” claim is just the same way, bearing the “supernatural” sense. McTaggart tackles the claim under the assumption that “meta” has a completely or exhaustively descriptive sense. Thus, the above statement, which I think is better described as anthropological or epistemological, is rendered and treated as “metaphysical.” So assume there is something called “physics,” and it stands in a certain relation to “ultimate reality” — but in the way that we analyzed the manifest metaphysical statement above, or “metaphysical” in the “other-worldly” sense. And this is where I seem to hit a wall. What makes “physics” a non-term for physicists? Is it because it’s “too big,” or does the term always carry with it some stipulation that one is “talking about” the whole cultural phenomenon we call “physics”? To put it crudely, does the mere word persistently opt us out of being able to use it with a “physical backing”?
Another point: Would we say “Physics is boring” or “Physics helps us understand the world” are “metaphysical” statements? Certainly these statements cannot be justified in terms of physical evidence alone, and thus they are “outside” of the domain of physics. But again, are they “metaphysical”? Merely because they satisfy an “aboutness” criterion they gain a “metaphysical” status? This seems like an inappropriate use of the term.
With these points I consciously ignore the second term “ultimate reality.” McTaggart may say that our latter proposition is a metaphysical claim about physics. But just what makes it “metaphysical”? With the term “physics”? Nothing about this term seems “metaphysical” when taken as a mere identification of a collection of human agents and their undertakings.
What of “ultimate reality”? Well, just what is “ultimate reality”? (We may observe this question in two ways: the kind of thing “ultimate reality” is, a question of its category or, more simply, what constitutes it or what are its features, if it exists.) Is it metaphysical in just the same way “the Absolute” is metaphysical, or “god” perhaps, or “miracles”? We may, I think without disagreement, say that it is vague or bogus. It’s a question whether it picks out anything, but is it “metaphysical” on account of its lack of precision? (And thus its lack of clearly and distinctly falling under the scope of physics?)
It seems to beg the queston to claim that the term is “metaphysical” merely because of its fuzzy nature, but what demands that it refer to something “outside” of the realm of physics? Is there a lack of physical evidence for something called “ultimate reality”? It seems that that there’s no such thing as physical evidence for such a thing. We may wish to say “There could never be physical evidence for ‘ultimate reality.’” But why? It’s not obvious to me that such a thing could or could not exist for the same class of reasons which comport to the status of “god,” miracles, etc. There is physical evidence which at least makes plausible the disbelief in miracles, but there’s no such thing as physical evidence either affirmative or negating to any belief on the status of “ultimate reality.” Would “ultimate reality” not be a basic term which picks out some thing on which physical evidence is parasitic? How is “the Absolute” anything like this? Well, if we treat of various monisms, “the Absolute” would be synonymous than “ultimate reality” itself. I struggle to see how the latter proposition is “metaphysical” and not just “about” physics. We could say, then, that physics cannot speak to the proposition simply because physics cannot be in the business of talking about itself. It is not sufficiently generic, like algebra, in its methods, to describe itself.
There is a clear divide, I think, between statements which count as metaphysical on account of “domain exclusion” and, quite differently, on account of identifying “phenomena” contra the physical laws as we understand them.
One sharp contrast that we may bring in is that nothing readily answers to “the Absolute,” whereas “Physics” can roughly pick out, say, “the total sum of professionally acting physicists, etc.” It should be clear here that we have a dilemma as to which sense the latter statement is or could be metaphysical. It is not obvious that it is “metaphysical” in the way the former statement is, as it isn’t patently absurd, with respect to the ordinary conceptual scheme, but at the same time is it the case that being able to “roughly” provide entities, which answer to the latter claim’s terms, justifies its not counting as “metaphysical” in the other-worldly sense? That is, is it because we can wrap our minds, as it were, around the claim that it earns a “metaphysical descriptive” status?
Aristotle rendered “metaphysics” as “after the physics,” and we take liberties to understand this as “about the physics,” “above the physics” — and today we classify anything supernatural, occult, mysterious or counter to common sensibilities as “metaphysical.” It’s unfortunate that such a crucial term can be so diversely strung out and used. And this is centrally my concern here. It seems that anyone who takes the latter statement to be “metaphysical” in the sense that its terms stand “above” the physical, anyone who does this must so to give a descriptive attempt to its terms. What is physics? And why does it “stand above” physical investigation (observation)? If taken in the sense that one is merely talking about what physicists engage in on a daily basis its clear that no sin against a logical positivist’s sensibility has been committed.
But is talk about physics in the abstract a tip of the hat to the metaphysical? Is ultimate reality an itinerant and aberrant abstraction, or is it something incorporeal and without measurement? In which sense should we take it under such a discussion? Must we take it under both senses?
It is my belief the latter proposition is one whose expression in popular or even obscure scientific literature would be incredibly difficult to find, along with any sufficient cousin. It is without doubt a peculiar thing to say, and it largely has no place, being as general as it is, in “rigorous” scientific discourse. Almost no one would utter it or write it save for a metaphysician, to be sure. But the lack of presence in the scientific literature, or the observation that it is not a “claim of” physics, does not entail that it is “supernatural,” whatever this amount to. My point is a subtle one, as we describe “physics” as having some domain and other discourses their own, we tend to think of anything “outside” said domain as being “supernatural.” Now, of course, American politics is “outside” of the domain of physics in one sense, though not the “supernatural” one, despite the pagentry, reification, and other-worldly charisma and sway of then and now historic figures. But to speak plainly, we don’t think of religious discourse, American politics, legal studies, etc as counting as “supernatural” or “metaphysical” on grounds of their falling outside of the “province” of physics. (Which incites a question that I often find irredeemably inane: Can we “reduce” X to physics, where X is, well, “religion,” “legal systems,” etc. Perhaps it isn’t quite so “irredeemable,” but the question often arises with very little scope, precision. At its core, however, and I am pretty heavy-handed about this, I believe it is no more and no less than a conceptual blunder.) They’re simply not about the subject; moreover, and as a brief justification for my own interpretation of the latter proposition, anthropological or epistemological claims about scientific discourse are not “metaphysical” in the “other-worldly” sense. We may call them “non-physical,” which is what I think McTaggart likely meant.
The concepts of “domain” and “province” become fuzzy here since, on McTaggart’s view, it seems that all statements “about” physics are metaphysical, as if talking “about physics” and talking “about the Absolute” amount to the same kind of judgment.