Perhaps itd be useful to form a taxonomy of metaphysics. Then words could be applied to distinguish between Pi, Harry Potter, causation, souls, gods, dæmons (the old-fashioned, and the Maxwell sort), qualia, axioms, ghosts, randomness, time, symbols, Platos realm, evolution, dreams signs, minds, words, energy, matter and thoughts. Some sort of cladistic system might be interestingly applied. I think, for example, that itd be very useful to understand the different sorts of existence that the following have: - The actor who acts in a contemporary performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream - The play itself - Shakespeare - Bottom before and after transformation - Bottom the ass - Titania - Cobweb - Puck - the Prologue - Wall - Pyramus and Thisbe To me, they all have interestingly different levels of existence or reality. The character in a play, and the character in a play within a play, must, somehow be more or less real, and the character of Thisbe, for example, is more real as Thisbe is an older creation of Ovid than Peter Quince, invented by Shakespeare. The Wall, being an enactment of an inanimate object, is different, metaphysically, from The Prologue, both because its not in the play itself, but the play within a play and because the fictional creation of a conscious wall is a very different invention from the assigning of a personality to the very much more abstract notion of a prologue. Puck, Titania and Cobweb raise questions not only about fairies, but also about the level of reality of a metaphysical creation such as a society of fairies in which theyre imagined to exist, holding different roles - and how Shakespeares fairy realm differs in its reality from the more widely believed realm in which St. Michael, succubi and incubi exist. St. Michael himself has an interesting metaphysical situation, being an angel, an archangel (both of which are mechanical creatures without souls) as well as a saint, saints being, in the main, dead people, albeit sometimes dead real people and sometimes dead mythical people. St. Michael also raises other questions, for some he is the Prince of the Seraphim, for others simply an Archangel. Now, with the sort of reality that hes supposed to inhabit, is there any sense in which the question What exactly is St. Michaels real rank? makes any sense at all, and if there is such a sense, or such senses, whats the difference between them? These questions are not as useless as they may seem. Many people sense a difference in the nature of the reality inhabited by integers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, negative numbers, imaginary numbers and prime numbers - thats different simply from the difference in the mathematical definition of them. A mathematician would be tempted to say that theyre all precisely equal in their level of reality, but can a mathematicians view be trusted as an accurate one in the philosophy of mathematics? [another interesting metaphysical question on the nature of authority, and evidence, as it relates to realms]
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 05:39:40 +0000
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