From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
Subject: BHA: Re: causal criterion of existence
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 23:28:46 -0500


Hiya Ruth--

> Are you sure that that "if and ONLY if" is accurate?  If so, do you think
> that you could you give me a page citation for it?

I have to be brief, but here's a start: in *Reclaiming Reality*, p 69, RB
describes how science uses two criteria to ascribe reality to something:
perceptibility and causal powers.  Positivism and its relatives make
perception the crux, despite the fact that some phenomena can't be
perceived.  While here RB says that there are two criteria, somewhere (I
think) he pursues the case farther, because perceptions, when they occur,
are themselves the result of the interactions of powerful particulars.  If
an entity doesn't possess powers and susceptibilities of certain sorts,
humans won't be able to sense them.  They may be able to construct
instruments to do the perceiving, but that just pushes the case a step back:
the entity must possess the sort of powers and/or susceptibilities that the
particular instrument can detect (and so forth for indirect detection via
side-effects).  If one postulated the existence of entity without any powers
or susceptibilities whatsoever, there would be no way to ascertain its
existence; and its existence would be meaningless, since the result if it
did *not* exist would be absolutely identical.  (Of course, the *idea* of
such an entity has causal powers, but that's a different issue.)

> (And, re: the negativity thread, are all of the things that DON'T exist
> powerful particulars too?  Or do de-onts have a different "existence"
> criterion than onts?  If so, what is it?  How do you even enumerate all of
> the things that don't exist?!)

Jan's list of negative beings is suggestive, I think, although I'm not
completely sure I accept all of them.  But in general, I suspect that's
right -- de-onts are powerful particulars.  That sounds very odd, but even
though hypothetically speaking there could have been the Void and nothing
but the Void (yes, that issue again!), the fact is that there are positive
entities, and lots of spaces -- and different *kinds* of spaces -- between
them.  Each of these absences has a specific character (and generally
speaking, a relational character I think).  Thus, for example, the vast
distance between a star and a planet has a decided impact on the force of
gravity between them and the requirements if the planet is to maintain an
orbit (both of which are also related to their respective mass), the amount
of light reaching the planet's surface (which is unrelated to mass), the
possibility of eclipses if there are any moons, and so forth.  (The
difficulty of enumerating de-onts might be taken as indicating the primacy
of negativity over positivity, but that doesn't seem like a very solid
argument.)

Hope that makes sense.  T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce



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