On the Same Topic Again

The next installment of the never-ending argument:

“additionally, if it is true that empirical properties have inherent meaning, then it is not true that metaphysical theories cannot be tested by empirical measurement. The argument runs in circles: You assert that metaphysical theories are not empirical, and then you use this to further assert that the opposite theory is self-refuting, because it cannot be tested empirically, which is due to the first assertion. So your whole argument amounts to just a plain denial of the other guy’s axiom.”

Not so. You are mistaking my conclusion for my axiom here. I take it as an axiom that the word “empirical” means “depending upon experience or observation alone.” Observation involves the five senses and what can be deduced from them. I take it as granted that no observation can support anything other than contingent and conditional truths.

Example: we can say the sun rose yesterday, but to say the sun will rise tomorrow, whatever else it may be, is not an empirically proven truth. It is not an absolute statement, true under all times, conditions, places circumstances. It requires no great imagination to picture a tide locked world of the remote future when rotation has stopped, and the sun will not rise. Such a counter-factual is possible.

Metaphysical statements are those which concern the subject matter of first principles necessary to other disciplines, such as the first principles of physics or epistemology. This is the definition: whether there are any members of the set or no remains to be seen.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.