Metaphysics, Natural Theology, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

The Nature of Reality and The One and the Many, Part Two

by Dave Seng

We cannot stop at a principle containing separate parts; there must always be a yet higher, a principle above all such diversity. – Plotinus.

In a recent post, I discussed the metaphysical problem of the one and the many. Although this question of reality has largely been forgotten in contemporary philosophical literature, it is very significant and does not seem to go away. After all, the human impulse to make sense of the many different and changing things around us is deep and profound. We can see this drive in almost every human endeavor. Whenever a historian creates a powerful story of the past using a multiplicity of evidence, he or she is confronting the question of the one and the many. When an attorney seeks an action in the court of law and gives diverse reasons or causes for that action, we see the question of the one and the many at work (or the legal question “how ought justice be correctly distributed?” is another form of the same question). The whole point of science is not to leave us with a diverse set of facts but to attempt a singular unified theory that makes the most sense out of those facts. That is why Aristotle devotes the first part of his Physics (a work about the foundation of science and the natural world) to the question of the one and the many. Even the postmodern critical theorist who wants to privilege the diversity of things to the detriment of unity and coherence still provides a narrative of why that is so (for to reject a “metanarrative” or to provide a “metanarrative” of another kind, is still to give a narrative in the attempt to make sense out of things). The question of the one and the many is with us today.

Some scholars think that the question of the one and the many was the original question of philosophy. One of the reasons for this is that it was the central question of the pre-Socratics who handed it over to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the rest of Western intellectual history. As the name suggests, the pre-Socratics were a group of philosophers that lived before Socrates. In fact, this group laid out the basic question that all philosophy and other fields still attempt to answer today. But who are these philosophers?

I can only give a brief overview of the pre-Socratics here. I will provide a list of resources at the end of this post for those who want to explore the topic further. For our purpose, and by way of introduction, I will discuss the important schools and ideas of the pre-Socratics, and in our next post, I will discuss the primary significance of Heraclitus and Parmenides. For now, let us examine the earliest of Western philosophers, Thales.

Thales, the first metaphysician in recorded history, lived around 600 B.C. and came from what is called the Ionian tradition. He lived in the city of Miletus on the western coast of Ionia (now Turkey). Thales and his followers have come to be known as the “Miliesian Monists” due to the fact that as they sought an answer to the question of the one and the many, they emphasized that all reality can be reduced to one basic principle. (Monism is the idea that all reality is in some sense one and unified in its essence or nature.) If all things have an essence or basic nature, they reasoned, so does the cosmos. In Thales’ case, he posited water as the basic essence of reality. It might seem odd that such an ancient thinker has become famous due his idea that water is the essence of reality. However, Thales is among the first thinkers in the Western intellectual tradition to ground his thinking on evidence, examination, common sense perception, and evaluation as authoritative in all matters of belief and conduct, what is now called rationalism. He did not turn to the Greek anthropomorphic gods, goddesses, or other mysterious forces to explain the natural world around him. He was the first to provide an argument based on evidence and reason regarding the natural world. We do not, however, know exactly why he chose water and not some other element. Perhaps he chose water due to the fact that all living things need it to survive, or that it exists in three different states (liquid, gas, solid), or that it is the most plentiful substance on the planet. After all, it is reported that Thales wrote a book about navigating the seas. The important thing to understand at this point is that Thales emphasized unity and “the one” when it came to the question of the one and the many and chose water as the essential nature of reality. Other early monists lived and worked in this tradition as well, such as Anaxemines (550 B. C.), who proposed that air was the basic essence of reality because it is a sort of life-principle, and Heraclitus (500 B. C.), who taught that although reality is always changing, fire was the one element that holds all things together and provides balance and order in the cosmos.

There also were pre-Socratics who emphasized change, the many, and the diversity we see all around us. These thinkers are known as “the Pluralists” because they sought to identify reality with a plurality of substances while maintaining that each particular thing is a Being and one and immutable. Of this school is Empedocles (450 B. C.), who taught that reality is combined of the four elements of earth, fire, water, and air and are held together by the force of Love which combines things, and torn apart by the power of Strife which separates. Among the Pluralists, we find the first atomists, Democritus (425 B. C.) and Leucippus (450 B. C.) who identified reality with an infinite number of indivisible material particles (atoms) moving randomly in space. The Greek word atomos means “uncuttable” or something that is irreducible. These thinkers believed that the universe came about by a mechanical combining or coagulation of an infinite number of atoms.

No matter which school of thought these pre-Socratic philosophers came from, it can now be understood why they are considered the first metaphysicians and cosmologists due to their investigation of nature and their desire to find a unifying reason or cause for the universe.

Things get really interesting when we come to Parmenides and Heraclitus. It has been said that all of Western philosophy is just a series of footnotes to Plato and Aristotle. (Dr. Mortimer Adler once joked that it was Aristotle who wrote the footnotes.) Nonetheless, the metaphor might be more complete to say that all of philosophy is a series of footnotes to Parmenides and Heraclitus because of the foundational questions they raised about reality. The discussion between Parmenides and Heraclitus is so important that it will be the topic of my next post. For now, it is important to know that the problem of the one and many can also be understood as what philosophers call Being and Becoming, universal and particular, appearance and reality, unity and diversity.

Science still struggles to maintain a balance between these concepts (and we will talk more about that in future posts). For now, just one quick example of this tension between the one and the many can be seen in “chaos theory” and similar fashionable theories we see today. When scientists say things like chaos is an agent of order or that there is a thing called “sensitive chaos” they are really violating the law of noncontradiction and speaking nonsense. If chaos were to be an organizing process of a whole, or a creative agent, it would not be chaos. It is really a reformulation of the problem of the one and the many. If the one is many, it is not one. If reality is one, it is not many. The problem persists and it was the pre-Socratics who first pointed out this metaphysical situation. In additional posts, we will explore how Plato and Aristotle attempted to solve this problem (through the discovery of form or essence) and we will learn that how we answer this problem will affect how one does science and ultimately shapes our world view.

To dig deeper into the pre-Socratics, explore these resources:

Jonathon Barnes. The Presocratic Philosophers. Revised ed. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982

James N. Jordan. Western Philosophy: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987.

John Burnet. Early Greek Philosophy. Fourth Ed. Macmillan Publishing Co., 1930. (One of the best standard treatments of the pre-Socratics, although from a positivist perspective. Excellent selected fragments and commentary.)

Fredrick Copleston. A History of Philosophy. Baltimore: Newman Press, Vol. 1.

Metaphysics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

The Nature of Reality and The One and The Many, Part One

by Dave Seng

“The most practical and important thing about a man, is still his view of the universe.” – G. K. Chesterton

It is important to think about our most basic ideas, conceptions, and assumptions. After all, our foundational principles and ideas shape and inform what we think and how we act towards many other things in life. It is even more important to think about the first things of all reality. How we decide these questions will determine how and what we think about other things. For example, someone thinks that all reality is really mass and energy in motion, then it will be easy to understand where they fall on moral issues regarding the beginning and ending of life. On the other hand, if one believes in a supernatural or incorporeal reality then we know what he or she thinks in a variety of other things. Our most commonplace expressions of political policy, ethical decisions, and our understanding of the natural world such as change, cause, mass and energy, reflect assumptions about our basic ideas of the universe and our place in it. As G. K. Chesterton explained, “The most practical and important thing about a man, is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but still more important to know the enemy’s philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.”1 Everyone, whether we realize it or not holds basic ideas—a philosophy—regarding humankind’s curiosity about itself and the universe of which he or she is a part. I’m convinced that the most important questions in life are metaphysical in nature. All the important questions we can explore are, in the final analysis, a result of what we think about the nature of reality.

This is just as true today as it was for a collection of philosophers who lived in the ancient world known as the pre-Socratics. I will explain who the pre-Socratics were and what they believed in an upcoming post. For now, it is enough to know that the pre-Socratics were the world’s first metaphysicians and in one way or another shaped the field of philosophy ever since. This post will focus on their influence and seek to explain why their primary question—the problem of the one and the many—is a significant difficulty for us today. I will post an essay or two to explain how different pre-Socratic philosophers answered the question. Then, we will discover how nearly every philosopher from Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Augustine through Aquinas, Kant and Hegel and even postmodern and critical theorists today still struggle with the question of the one and the many and its relevance for us in our current intellectual and cultural climate. First, however, let’s examine the classical problem of the one and the many and why it is still important.

What is this problem of the one and the many? Philosopher Ed Miller articulates the problem this way: The problem of the one and the many is “the problem of identifying the ultimate reality (the One) that underlies all things (the Many) and of explaining the relation between them or how the Many derives from the One”.2 It is a problem because logically the many can not be one (or it would not be many) and the one can not be many (or it would not be one). According to the law of noncontradiction, the one cannot be many at the same time and in the relationship.

The pre-Socratic philosophers were perplexed by the question of reality. They were puzzled by the nature of existence and what it means to exist in a world of change, contingency, and finitude. Yet somehow something holds this world together in unity. How do all things relate to one reality? Not everything is pure chaos. Finite things have unity or oneness. At the same time, all of reality (Being) seems to be coherent, ordered, and rationally discernible. Could it be there is an underlying reality that is revealed in the many things around us? If so, how is this underlying reality related to or connected to the individual things we encounter every day?

The fundamental issue is, coming from the fact of existence (Being), what do all things have in common? It seemed to the pre-Socratics that behind the vast multiplicity of things that make up the universe, there is some principle of unity, the very insight that is embodied in our word universe, which means “combined into one”.3

This quest to find unity out of diversity demonstrates the human impulse to seek an explanation for things. Generally speaking, the best explanation is the one that is simple, unified, and rationally coherent—what philosophers call the principle of simplicity. This principle states that one explanation is preferred over another by virtue of its employment of fewer and/or simpler factors. In philosophy, science, and everyday life, we tend to accept the simplest explanation that makes the most reasonable sense out of the given facts. We take unity as a principle of explanation because it unites, integrates, and encompasses that which is known. We do not like needlessly complex answers to questions. Complex answers certainly can be found for complex questions but the principle of simplicity explains why a single simpler answer that incorporates and makes sense out of a diversity of facts is often preferred. As we shall see in upcoming posts, the pre-Socratics may seem to be naive and unscientific, but their quest for an account for the unity from the many and what it means to provide an explanation for something is not at all unreasonable or irrelevant. 

The question of the one and the many shapes how we think about a variety of things. It is not an abstract problem strictly for the amusement of philosophers. In history of Western thought, the basic themes of being and becoming, the intelligible (mental and conscious) and sensible, the definite and infinite, same and other, particular and universal, and existence and nothingness all relate to the question of what reality is and how the many diverse things that exist relate to it. These themes point to the relationship everything takes part in and the underlying reality that makes things one, in other words, the unity of Being. The question of the one and the many may take on different names but in various ways, the inquiry is the same.

We can see how the issue works out today. Physicists have been concerned with the divisibility or indivisibility of matter and the strange behavior of sub-atomic particles for a long time. Why is it that physics is fairly regular and ordered at the macro level but not at the quantum level? Nevertheless, something unites the two. This is what John Boslough was getting at when he wrote, “Only by reconciling the two seemingly irreconcilable areas of physics can theorists hope to find a unified field theory that will explain the workings of the entire universe”. In some ways, the question of the one and many has become more relevant today than it was for the pre-Socratics. The quest, however, to find an underlying reality which unites everything else remains. How is it that time keeps moving forward when sensible particular things stop? What keeps time continuous? Time seems to be divisible yet there is an underlying unity to it. This is a question of the one and the many. In the realm of politics, one might ask, does the individual exist for the benefit of the state or the state for the individual? If so, in what way? How should the state be united for the common life of the many? What unites a community into a state? During the founding of America, the Federalists solved this problem with the slogan, e pluribus unum, “from the many, one”. But what happens when unity breaks down? These are important existential questions that will affect everyone at one time or another.

In the following posts, I hope to explore the ramifications of important metaphysical questions that center around the problem of the one and the many. We’ll discover how physics is applied metaphysics, social science is applied metaphysics and why Kant was right when he argued for a metaphysical foundation for ethical decisions.

We will continue to explore the question of the one and the many. For now, I hope that we can see that we all have been influenced and impacted by this most practical and metaphysical question of reality.

[Note, some of my readers have indicated that my posts are conceptually difficult for them. I apologize. I have tried to write at the beginning and intermediate levels but I know I often fail. In light of this, I have created a philosophical glossary to help out. In the meantime, I will still try to explain things more carefully because philosophy is important for all human flourishing.]

1G. K. Chesterton, Heretics (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1905) P. 15.

2Ed Miller, Questions that Matter, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1996) P. 59.

3Daniel Sullivan, An Introduction to Philosophy: Perennial Principles of the Classical Realist Tradition, (Tan Books, 2009), P. 12.

Logic, Metaphysics, Philosophy

Logic: The Art of Reason

by Dave Seng

Socrates famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living. It could equally be said that the unexamined idea is not worth having. How can one know, however, whether or not an idea is worth having or if one should accept it as true? Logic is the tool philosophers (and everyone, really) use to discern good ideas from bad ones and true statements from false ones.

It is often said that logic is the primary tool of the philosopher. But why has it been given such a status? Why has logic been called the “key” to philosophizing? In our last post, we discovered that one way philosophy is different from other fields is its development and utilization of logic, or more simply, the art of correct reasoning. This essay will not go into all the ways reasoning can go wrong, such as formal and informal fallacies. I’ll post some good texts that will help one out with those below. Instead, we will examine why one might want to reason correctly to begin with.

Philosophy sets itself apart from other fields because it starts with the basic assumptions of correct reasoning. Everyone uses these basic laws of thought without even realizing it or having special training in philosophy. There are three basic laws of correct reasoning and self-evident features of all reality. They are:

1. The Law of Noncontradiction: Nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.

2. The Law of Excluded Middle: Something either is or is not.

3. The Law of Identity: Something is what it is.

It is important to realize that these laws are absolutely necessary for any coherent thought or communication of any kind. Without these laws, communication would collapse into incoherence and chaos. Furthermore, notice that these laws have both metaphysical and epistemological ramifications. They are metaphysical in nature because they indicate what can or can not be. They lay out the basic foundation (what Aristotle calls “first-principles”) or starting points for understanding anything that is. As for epistemology (how we know what we know), these laws show us what can or can not be true. A statement can not be both true and false at the same time and in the same respect. A cat is what it is (the Law of Identity). When reasoning correctly, it is always important to keep in mind that truth is what corresponds to reality. It is impossible to reject one of these laws and write a coherent sentence. Note that the qualifying phrase for the Law of Noncontradiction, “at the same time and in the same respect” is significant. A chair could be red or yellow at different times but it can not both be and not be (anything) at the same time and in the same respect—it can not be four-legged and not four-legged at the same time.

It is important to realize that these laws demand no other foundation or principles in order to be true because they are the first and most basic laws of reason. No further proof is needed for their acceptance. Not everything needs to be proved to be true. Aristotle called these the “first principles” of all reality and logic. In fact, it was the Law of Noncontradiction that Aristotle was speaking of when he said that it was the mark of an uneducated person not to realize that some things cannot be proved, otherwise nothing could be proved. According to Aristotle,

“Some, indeed, demand to have the law proved, but this is because they lack education; for it shows lack of education not to know of what we should require proof, and of what we should not. For it is quite impossible that everything should have a proof; the process would go on to infinity, so that there would be no proof” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1006a).

These three laws are simply “anchors” or foundational “first principles” for all human communication and reasoning. Without them, we would simply fall into intellectual confusion and disarray. It really should not worry anyone that these principles are not provable. The principles and axioms of geometry are not demonstrable but it would be impossible to write a geometric proof without them. In the final analysis, all our basic rules of thought and logic have a metaphysical cast to them.

There are two aspects to correct reasoning. Existence (Being) itself is the touchstone for human thought and experience. We learn crucial things about the world through our senses. After all, our senses allow us to experience external reality. Through the repeated data our senses provide to the mind, we learn the essential character of things. Take, for example, the conductivity of gold. By empirical observation, we find that gold is an excellent metal for conducting electricity. We can correctly conclude that one of the essential properties (what Aristotle would call potencies) of gold is to be an electrical conductor. The process of exploring reality and drawing conclusions from sense experience is called induction. Induction is reasoning which attempts to reach a conclusion concerning all the members of a class after inspection of only some of them. If we notice that all the crows we have come across are black, it is valid to conclude that the next one we see will be black. If we plant an acorn, and nothing prohibits it from growing, it is reasonable to think an oak tree will grow. Induction is an empirical process. Induction, however, does not mean we can know and understand things with absolute certainty. It is simply a process that allows for predicting things to a very high degree of probability and provides the basis for the common sense understanding that barring impurities, gold will conduct electricity and if properly cared for, an oak tree will grow from an acorn.

Induction helps us to know the essence of things and speaks to the fact that we do not have to examine every single member of a class in order to come to a valid conclusion. We know that when we discover something it has an essential nature. We do not have to examine every single human to find out that humans are mortal. Similarly, we understand that humans have rational cognitive abilities, an essential feature of being human, but it is not necessary to interview every human in order to discover this feature of humanity. This process is called abstraction. Through empirical observation, humans discover features and properties of the particular class of the thing being examined and detect the essential nature of that thing. The essence of a thing is simply that which makes something the kind of thing it is. In the case of humans, we learn that mortality and rationality (among others) are essential universal features of what it means to be human.

Induction is a fascinating two-way street. In order to test our inductions, we have to refer back to empirical facts and observation. This reverse engineering process where we return from the level of abstraction and universal essence to the level of the senses is an impart part of induction. This is because being and essence are always combined.

The second way we know things is called deduction. This form of reasoning is also based on the three laws of thought discussed above. Deductive reasoning is based on the self-evident principles of all reality (Being) such as the Law of Noncontradiction. Deduction can start from more complex judgments whose truth has been proved and moves to develop further conclusions from these previously known truths or, at other times, simply resolves complex judgments into more basic principles. With this form of thinking, the conclusion of an argument follows by logical necessity from the premises. In other words, when it comes to deductive reasoning, if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true also. With deductive reasoning, we start with a universal principle (true for everyone everywhere) and reach a particular conclusion (what is true for a particular thing or individual). The famous example is:

All humans are mortal (universal proposition)

Socrates is a human

Therefore, Socrates is mortal (particular proposition, conclusion)

This kind of deductive reasoning is also called syllogistic reasoning meaning to consider certain propositions together. The conclusion of the deductive argument must follow by necessity due to the logical entailment or implication of the propositions.

The art of reasoning is really about the human desire and ability to discover truth. Logic is simply the laws of thought which help us to learn whether or not we have correctly formulated inductions or if we have moved from one syllogistic set of propositions to another accurately. It is, of course, possible to reason from the wrong starting point or be mistaken about the truth of our basic premises. Formal logic is concerned with right reasoning but not always with the truthfulness of our reasoning. It is more important to discover how our reasoning corresponds to reality and is, therefore, true.

Further reading:

John Burbidge. Within Reason: A Guide to Non-Deductive Reasoning. Kenmore, N.Y.: Broadview press, 1990.

Irving M. Copi. Introduction to Logic. Fourteenth ed. Routledge, 2010.

Patrick Hurley. A Concise Introduction to Logic. Twelfth ed. Cengage Learning, 2014

Education, Ethics, Philosophy, Uncategorized

Is Philosophy Everyone’s Business?

by Dave Seng

Mortimer Adler, was correct when he made the statement “philosophy is everyone’s business” because philosophy really is something everyone engages in whether they realize it or not. Have you ever shared your opinion and ideas with someone? Did you present and defend the reasons for those ideas? If so, you have engaged in philosophical reflection. Even without special training, it seems we all have something to say about the proper role of the government in our lives, justice and fairness in our economic system, and whether or not a certain activity or behavior is morally correct.

For example, we might read on a news site of a man in a coma or permanent vegetative state whose family doctor ordered him to be euthanized. We read further that some family members support this decision while others do not. Then, in the comments and posts that inevitably come, controversy rages about whether or not the physician’s action was morally right or wrong. Even if we do not engage in the discussion, we nonetheless form ideas and opinions of our own on the question.

If we look carefully, we begin to notice that those who agree or disagree with the doctor’s action give reasons for their position. When challenged, they give further considerations for the reasons which they think validates their position. Sometimes, we will even see thoughtful people clarify or modify their position when opponents point out inconsistencies or errors of exaggeration which is also an important part of philosophical reflection. Much of philosophy is simply sharpening one’s position through careful and thoughtful dialogue. When people collect themselves around their basic reasons for their position and appeal to their evidence for it, they have begun the process of philosophy. In this case, we see the development of a moral philosophy. Moral philosophy is simply discovering and stating the reasons why an action is right or wrong.

Of course, we know of other controversies. Every day we hear of issues surrounding how we should best educate our children, or what constitutes good or bad art, or what makes a law just? When we engage in these issues, we are immediately developing a philosophy of education, a philosophy of art, or philosophy of law. When it really comes down to it, we all have a philosophy of something. The question arises, however, whether or not our given theory or philosophy is a good one or worthy to be accepted as true. As rational and thoughtful individuals we should always reflect and think about the reasons why we hold something to be true, an idea which Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle believed was the beginning of wisdom (according to classical philosophy, wisdom is the highest human good). Nonetheless, as we question whether or not our philosophical position on something is good or true, we immediately discover the value of logic and the rules for valid thinking which is a topic I will discuss soon in a following post. For now, it is important to understand that just as everyone engages in philosophy, everyone engages in logical reasoning whether or not it is done well. Philosophy is indeed everyone’s business.