Musings on Matter

Posted on October 5, 2009
Filed Under Derrida, Peirce, Philosophy, Science | 5 Comments

Vallicella’s post on matter and Working Note’s post on Derrida and matter have had me thinking today. (When not working) Of course both materialism and naturalism have long been problematic terms — often more clearly defined in terms of what the author using them opposes. Merely tying the term “matter” to physics seems insufficient even if it does suggest a direction of thought. Clearly the way one used to be able to define matter ended with the rise of modern physics. Defining it in terms of atoms or extension is incorrect. The fact that we have nothing remotely like a “grand unified theory of physics” suggests we don’t really have a solid idea what we mean by matter. (Pun intended)

Derrida’s thoughts on matter, even if often misunderstood (and angrily misrepresented) amongst analytic philosophers is quite interesting. Contrary to many claims I don’t think Derrida in the least denies matter. Indeed the way I read Derrida matter is ultimately his main concern. I think, for reasons I won’t go into, that Derrida’s notion of différance ends up heading towards Aristotle’s old notion of prime matter which itself is a complex and problematic topic.

Within Derrida we end up with denials and affirmations which culminate in a position one might reduce to the claim that “it’s more complex than it first appears.” Matter becomes a matter of presence and absence and tied quite complexly to substance.

I recognize though that talking Derrida is difficult even when talking to people who’ve read him let alone everyone else. So let me instead turn to Peirce.

Peirce has most of the entities we concern ourselves with existing in a kind of halfway point between pure substance and pure ideality. Pure substance is the total and absolute end (telos) to signs. Yet because of the very nature of continuity in Peirce’s though this simply doesn’t happen in a normal fashion.

In terms of thought all we deal with are what Peirce terms generals. Further these generals aren’t universals in the normal sense but are always undergoing evolution as they determine new signs. Signs, as Peirce puts it, grow. Matter, as thought in the 19th century view, isn’t a general but is this end point of the evolution of signs. It is something we never directly encounter. Likewise the ideal, the ideal ultimate source or origin, is also never encountered. We are in the middle world between pure presence and pure absence. To be a general then is to simultaneously be an entity that is somewhat absent (yet to be determined) and somewhat present (already determined).

Now I hope I’ve not lost you despite all the Derridean language. Returning to Vallicella’s points, it seems to me that he objects (correctly) to finding the mental in these absolute substances that some physicalists still appeal to. (As if rhetorically not wanting to leave the 19th century materialism) Of course many materials seem close enough to the 19th century ideals of material to allow such language. After all a table seems quite concrete and determined as do neurons. Peirce, however, while acknowledging this would say that our thoughts of tables are of generals. Likewise our mental terms are likely generals. So long as they are true not because of what any finite group of thinkers thinks about them then they represent a kind of natural kind of the real. They are mind-independent true descriptions. But, and this is key, descriptions of generalities in the universe. Not direct references to absolutely determined natural concrete entities. (He doesn’t deny there are such things nor that we can reference them, just that when we think or speak it is more complex)

Given all this the problem of the mind-body divide is the problem of generals. To speak of a particular concrete universal or substance is to stop talking about a general. Yet if our talk is all of generals, any attempt to do this is doomed to error. So the problem of reducing the mental to the physical is really the problem that we can speak of the physical in absolute terms. Likewise the problem of Cartesianism and many other immaterial views of mind is the idea that we can talk about mind as a concrete rather than as a general.

Related posts:

  1. “Substances all the Way Down”
  2. Derrida and Universals
  3. Some Quick Thoughts on Derrida and Plotinus
  4. Peirce on Universals
  5. Intuitionist Mathematics and Physics
  6. Peirce and Things

Comments

5 Responses to “Musings on Matter”

To add, I intentionally avoided the central point of Vallicella’s argument which is a definition in terms of causality. That’s partially because I find causality inherently problematic. Not for Humean reasons. More because of physics. In physics one can use a system (the Newtonian form of mechanics) in which we have nicely defined objects, collisions and much else. Causality makes a lot of sense in such a scheme. Then I remember the day when I learned the Hamiltonian form of mechanics and suddenly all the nice little ideas about mechanics went out the window. You have an evolution of the system (and in quantum mechanics we end up with the evolution of the wave function when doing the equivalent of the Hamiltonian).

This isn’t to say one way of thinking about classical mechanics is more right than an other. Just that ever since then the traditional terms we tend to think about matter in terms of seemed like just one choice among other equivalences. And the other alternatives seemed to offer radically different ways about thinking through matter.

I much prefer the Peircean approach which talks about how one sign determines an other sign. This is similar to causality but has various important differences – it is far more general in its scope for instance than mere causality. I’d also note that the switch from concrete/abstract + causality as in Vallicella’s argument to a discussion in terms of signs avoids many of the problems he sees. And of course if we talk about generals (signs) then we don’t have the problem of the mind/matter divide. Since in terms of signs there’s no problem talking about how my thought of the door and the desire to be there determine my walking to the door.

Not direct references to absolutely determined natural concrete entities

From what I understand, Aristotle didn’t believe this either. One might say that this idea is now ~2400 some odd years out of date, at least if taken to apply to all universals.

As I see it if there is any form of indeterminism in the world, new universals are being formed all of the time. I don’t see how most universals are anything more than patterns or ideas of patterns that are or can be instantiated more than once.

On the other hand, if the world is strictly deterministic (and energy conserving), Plato was essentially right – there really are no new universals, all have existed since the very beginning and will never change. What I want to know is why non-creatio ex nihilo determinists don’t regard evolution as practical evidence that the world is not strictly deterministic, either that or concede that Plato was right after all.

Funny, you say this – and believe me, I know where you’re coming from. But I sometimes feel like it’s one of the best kept secrets that when people talk about “matter” – or “the physical world” – just what they mean by that isn’t obvious.

In fact, I think “materialism”/”physicalism” and “naturalism” being problematic terms is a topic that is not nearly discussed enough.

Sorry for the delay. I’ve been in LA on business.

I agree. I think in the 19th century it was pretty clear what we meant by matter: stuff with extension. Now in the 21st century where most of the ideas are gone it’s harder to say. Still, I think one can still extend the 19th century view of matter as that which has as properties some sort of position.

Mark, by determined I don’t mean causal determinism but more the idea of properties as complete. It seems to me that one can accept causal indeterminism yet think that universals are always truly complete. So let’s say I adopt Newtonianism with the added notion of “swerve” picked up from the Epicureans. That is matter in motion has the tendency to not exactly follow its path. I don’t see how that would change universals in the least. I think the idea that generals grow or evolve is pretty profound, although it can be read back into some versions of neoPlatonism. Yet most of the movement in this direction came directly out of philosophers reacting to Darwin.

I think the idea that generals grow or evolve is pretty profound, although it can be read back into some versions of neoPlatonism

I agree. It think it is obvious that most generals do evolve in some sense. However, here, like Ockham, I don’t think that most generals are “things”. Or in other words, “generals” per se don’t evolve, because most do not independently exist at all. Like Aristotle said, they subsist in matter, and when the last instance goes away, no more general, except in conceptual terms.

So if a general appears to evolve what we are really getting is a new general, just as if a concept evolves one is really witnessing the advent of a new concept.

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