Is there a metaphysical view that avoids categorizing the fundamental nature of things?

Question

In other words, is there a metaphysical view that avoids getting entangled in debates over dichotomies such as:

• Physicalism vs. Non-Physicalism
• Naturalism vs. Supernaturalism
• Physical vs. Mental
• Physical vs. Spiritual
• Monism vs. Dualism
• etc.

For instance, when we introduce the concept of the "physical," assuming the definition isn’t too vague, we inevitably create a demarcation criterion that separates aspects of reality deemed "physical" from those that fail to meet this definition.

Similarly, by introducing the concept of the "natural," we establish a dichotomy between what is "natural" and what is "non-natural." In this context, the label "supernatural" refers to a particular type of "non-natural" entity that is, in some sense, "above the natural."

And so on.

Instead of getting bogged down in debates over the categories or labels assigned to aspects of reality, why not focus on simply discovering what is real, irrespective of those labels?

For instance, if something that meets someone's definition of "natural" turns out to be real and something else that meets someone else's definition of "supernatural" also turns out to be real, does it really matter? What ultimately matters is that things that are real are real—regardless of the imperfect labels we come up with to attempt to categorize them.

Is there a metaphysical view focused on understanding reality as it is without relying on predefined categories, labels, or unnecessary conceptual divisions in the fundamental nature of things?

Answer 1

You ask:

Instead of getting bogged down in debates over the categories or labels assigned to aspects of reality, why not focus on simply discovering what is real, irrespective of those labels?

All philosophical discourse relies on natural language, and all natural language expresses an ontology (SEP). Thus, it is not possible to use natural language non-trivially and not use or debate categories. Categories are implicit both in thought and language. For instance, 'real' is both a category that people debate about and use as a label. All words are implicitly categories by their definitions. According to the article Categories (SEP):

Traditionally, following Aristotle, these have been thought of as highest genera of entities (in the widest sense of the term), so that a system of categories undertaken in this realist spirit would ideally provide an inventory of everything there is, thus answering the most basic of metaphysical questions: “What is there?” Skepticism about our ability to discern a unique system of basic categories of ‘reality itself’ has led others to approach category systems not with the aim of cataloging the highest kinds in the world itself, but rather with the aim of elucidating the categories of our conceptual system or language.

You ask:

Is there a metaphysical view focused on understanding reality as it is without relying on predefined categories, labels, or unnecessary conceptual divisions in the fundamental nature of things?

Therefore, no. Categories are an unavoidable aspect of thought, language, and philosophy with the exception of nondualism. Nondualism as I understand primarily from the Zen tradition is about helping to move thought away from natural language. Thus, one does avoid dichotomies, intensions and extensions, definitions, categories, and the like on pain of losing natural language as a means of thought and communication. Certainly, zazen, koan, satori, and other Zen practices and goals are admirable in that they remind us that percept is more fundamental than concept, but philosophy as you are practicing it (on a Q&A site) requires language. You can't have it both ways

Answer 2

why not focus on simply discovering what is real, irrespective of those labels?

This is generally what people are doing. However, when one group of people tends to accept, for example, that "what is real" is based in (what will end up being called) natural rather than (what will end up being called) supernatural, it is helpful to categorize those views together for various purposes: indexing, teaching, talking in broad terms, etc.

The labels come after, and they are merely convenient placeholders; they do not stand in for a precise metaphysical position or argument.

Answer 3

The idea of not coming up with categories and labels and so on seems extremely bizarre. Why in this analytical discipline would we not do what is done in every other such discipline? Imagine if chemists didn't want to know about all sorts of molecular combinations but just wanted "to know reality as it really is!"

And because philosophers are willing to question everything whatsoever, why should we not ask many and varied questions about concepts like truth, meaning, concepts, existence, etc.?

Still, skepticism about category systems is well-supported by historical reason:

Then there seems to be a dual (and justifiable) use of category talk:

... while categories have continued to play a central role in analytic philosophy in the past century, and while some have continued to pursue work on categories in the realist spirit, others have shifted their focus to identifying differences in semantic categories rather than drawing out systems of ontological categories.

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Nominalism in metaphysics can be construed as a sort of anti-theory of categories. Whether a metaphysical nominalist is likelier to be averse to talk of fundamentalia, I'm not sure. There are relatively trivialized theories of metaphysical grounding and fundamentality where everything is fundamental (or nothing is), and offhand it seems (to me) easy to work out nominalism such that if it intersected the concept of being fundamental, it would distribute the application of this concept to every empirical particular without almost any distinction.

Answer 4

Instead of getting bogged down in debates over the categories or labels assigned to aspects of reality, why not focus on simply discovering what is real, irrespective of those labels?

Why not indeed? It sounds like you might be leaning towards Pragmatism, a strand of the Western philosophical tradition that includes Peirce, Dewey, James and Rorty. Figures like Quine and Putnam have been associated with it too.

Very broadly, pragmatists tend to be skeptical about the idea of "fundamental truths". Your dichotomies are mostly about the foundations of natural science, broadly speaking, but a pragmatist would say that scientists don't need a foundational theory. In fact, if you talk to a few you'll find they don't care much about such things and often disagree on them when probed. Yet they get on with doing science while the philosophers squabble in the background.

Science is a thing people do in the world, not a theory; a good critical understanding of it is likely to come from social theory or anthropology. An appraisal of whether a scientific programme is successful or not will look at what it has managed to achieve, not the intellectual purity of its "foundations".

Pragmatism has a close relationship with Relativism. William James, for example, once defined truth as "what is good in the way of belief" -- that is, something is true if believing it helps you get things done in the world, and that status can change over time. For many, it follows that there is no point arguing over truth and falsehood independent of what a proposition is being asserted for. This has been the locus of much of the controversy over pragmatism.

Pragmatist claims are attractive and compelling, especially since they promise to wipe away philosophical debates that have been going on for millennia without real progress. But the same claims seem to lead inevitably into an almost nihilistic refusal to believe in anything except the right of whoever is stronger. If you're attracted to pragmatism, the challenge becomes how not to collapse into cynicism or despair.

Answer 5

Amateur philosopher here. This is only a partial answer, and in some ways a frame challenge, meant to address this particular part of the original post:

Instead of getting bogged down in debates over the categories or labels assigned to aspects of reality, why not focus on simply discovering what is real, irrespective of those labels?

Because ontology (what are the essential, necessary, and sufficient characteristics of classes) is interesting. Many people who work in the field of ontology don't think of it as getting "bogged down." If nothing else, it has practical consequences in creating computer models of reality. (Which is close to what I do in my current job.) Labels are useful. I would have a hard time finding what I need in big box stores or the grocery store without the aisle headings.

I think an equally valid question might be: Why restrict philosophy to just distinguishing real from non-real? There isn't room for anything else?

For instance, if something that meets someone's definition of "natural" turns out to be real and something else that meets someone else's definition of "supernatural" also turns out to be real, does it really matter?

This may be a little tangential (or maybe excessively specialized) but James Cimino addressed this somewhat in his 1998 paper "Desiderata for Controlled Medical Vocabularies in the Twenty-First Century." (Don't take the word "vocabulary" too literally. That's medical informatics jargon that includes ontologies.) At the expense of oversimplifying, his point is that ontologies are bound to change as we learn more. We need to accept that, take it as growth and a good thing, and have ontologies that can be updated gracefully.

Part of the problem with labels is that one thing may fall under several different categories. (Do I find swamp cooler supplies in roofing, heating and air, or plumbing?) But that's only a problem when humans (1) use categories that are not mutually-exclusive; and (2) insist of cataloging something in a single category. Cimino addresses this too. Reality allows for multiple lineages, so our ontologies need to allow for that too. Deciding where to draw those boundaries in the most accurate and useful ways is one of the things that makes ontology interesting.

Answer 6

To call for a philosophical view, which understands reality as it is, seems to me hopelessly naïve.

1. At least since Kant’s Critique of Pure reason we could make ourself familiar with the insight that we humans do not have direct access to reality - the things in themselves - and we can study the arguments which support this view.

2. But I agree with the OP’s complaint that current philosophical debates are overloaden with a bunch of artificial classifications and terminology.

   Examples are several articles in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and subsequently also many discussions in this blog. They often construct sophisticated distinctions and ramifications between classifications which at best should serve to establish an order in the domain of concepts.

3. The important tools to formulate arguments are well-cut philosophical concepts. These are the tools for philosophical work, not the secondary labels.

Answer 7

At least under my view of physicalism and naturalism, those could somewhat be argued to be what you're looking for.

Under physicalism, there isn't any predefined categories, labels, or unnecessary conceptual divisions. There is only the physical. "Physical" is the label we use for all the things that are real / exists.

We use that label in that way, because a lot of people are talking about all these things which they put under the "non-physical" label, and none of those things seem to be real (and their "non-physical" label seems to be poorly defined).

It's less a predefined category, and more a conclusion about which things are real.

We don't know what the fundamental nature of things are. We don't know what categories of things exist. We don't know if the preceding sentences are even coherent. Physicalism is perfectly in line with that, by not drawing unjustified categorical distinctions. All things are grouped into the same "type" that is "physical".

It's also worth noting: "understanding reality as it is" without worrying about "the fundamental nature of things"... that's science, in a nutshell (even if science is not a "metaphysical view"). When we do science, we model behaviour on every level. Behaviour is all we are able to observe. The fundamental nature of things doesn't really matter, as long as they behave according to our models (sometimes we use the same model for all sorts of things, because they all happen to match some behaviour, even though they're made of very different stuff, as far as we can tell, e.g. consider fluid dynamics which has a range of applications from fluids all the way up to astronomical objects).

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If something typically labelled under "non-physical" is shown to be real, then physicalists may head in different directions: either labelling that thing as "physical" or rejecting physicalism. The label isn't that important - what's important is whether any given truth claim is justified or unjustified.

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See also: my answer to What is the definition of "physical"? Is that definition clear enough to make a distinction between physical and non-physical?

Answer 8

I believe there is no good definition and sound theory behind the philosophical understanding of the metaphysical, other than that it is something, in very generic terms, opposite to physicalism. Physicalism as well, does not have a big names in philosophy, building its theoretical foundation. Physicalism is the popular view, while metaphysical is something opposite to it.

Answer 9

Metaphysical nihilism Eleatic Monism