Jeffrey Grupp

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Introduction: Anti-metaphysics and attacks against metaphysical realism, analytic metaphysics

Topics:  Conceptualism       Atomism         

Eastern philosophy       Ancient philosophy       Philosophy and Film

My research in metaphysical realism and analytic metaphysics consists mainly in attacks on analytic metaphysics. My reason for this is a result of the fact that I am a mereological nihilist, a blob theorist, an atomist (philosophic atomist), and a specific sort of conceptualist (see below). The variety  atomism I argue for is similar to the traditional atomism of some of the ancient Greek and ancient Buddhist atomistic philosophers, but with a few more details that some of the Greeks and Buddhists apparently overlooked (or if they did not overlook them, the details did not survive through the centuries). Atomism and metaphysical realism are opposed to one another for the following reasons.

     Atomists typically hold that the world of colors and surfaces that humans experience is not the way nature is. Rather, the surfaces and colors are the product of the arrangements and/or activities of atoms, where these arrangements and/or activities give rise to the appearance of a world of surfaces and colors, but where in fact that world does not exist. Metaphysical realists, on the other hand, typically hold that the world of surface and color is the way the world actually is, and they also often hold that the world humans (believe that they) experience is largely how nature really is. In other words, what we see in our ordinary empirical experience is what really exists. If metaphysical realism is weakened, then there is reason to hold that atomism is the correct position. This is one aspect of my work in metaphysical realism.

Conceptualism is the philosophical position that the properties humans experience in reality in their ordinary empirical experience in their daily life (which are in general properties of surface, solidity, color, and motion) exist only in the mind.

   My research in philosophy leads to a variety of conceptualism that is in line with both quantum physics and Indian Buddhism. Regarding Buddhist conceptualism, Stcherbatsky, writes that the Buddhist position on reality is that reality is a “double reality, [where there are] the ultimate reality of things by themselves and the constructed reality (i.e., unreality) of empirical things.”[1]

Atomism is the philosophic position that all of reality is composed of one sort of basic building block or particle: an absolute, irreducible, partless (has no parts), uncuttable building block, called a philosophic atom. (For additional information, see my page on Buddhist philosophic atomism.)

There are two ways in which the word "atom" is used: (1) to describe the atoms that scientists discuss, and (2) those that philosophers discuss. Atomism is traditionally associated with the latter, where philosophers have argued that the basic building blocks of reality, and which make up absolutely anything that exists, are incredibly tiny objects that do not have physical parts, cannot be split, divided or cut, and which are either point-sized (sizeless) or they have a tiny size. Those that have a tiny size are called Democritean atoms. The ancient Islamic philosophers, ancient Indian philosophers, and the ancient Greeks were all competent atomist philosophers. Many philosophers in those traditions that follow the ancients (e.g. Hobbes and Kant in the Western tradition, etc.) have done further work in atomism. My work follows in the footsteps of all the atomist traditions, in order to find which appears to be the strongest position. But my research in atomism is concerned with both ancient and contemporary atomism. (Many contemporary philosophers also call atoms simples, but since the theories of these philosophers involve some differences with traditional atomism (such as the rejection of mereological nihilism), and since my research is more in line with traditional atomism, I use the word 'atom' for my research.)

The primary difference between the atomism of the Western [i.e., Greek] theories of atomism and the Indian Buddhists [i.e., Dharmakirti and others] is that the analytic Buddhist theories of atomism involve momentary (instantaneous) atoms that flash in and out of existence

My work in atomism also attacks anti-atomism (aka, infinite divisibility, or "the gunk theory"), where it is held that any object that exists has parts, and thus there are no atoms. The only way philosophers have been able to describe how there can be parts and wholes, is by inventing the concept of metaphysical relations between them (for further information on this, click this link: Grupp paper on Brahman, forthcoming at JICPR.). But if such relations are found to be nonexistent, then parts and wholes cannot exist. This is what I find is apparently the case in four of my articles: (1) my recent article on mereological nihilism in Axiomathes, (2) my two recent articles in the Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, and (3) in my forthcoming article in Sorites.

The tradition of atomism leads to the position that only atoms exist, and there are no composite objects (objects with parts), which would mean that human bodies, clouds, planets, and whatnot all do not exist. This consequence of atomism was openly discussed by atomists such as Democritus, Hobbes, and perhaps even Kant (there is a debate over whether or not Kant was an atomist) among others, and it is also called mereological nihilism or metaphysical nihilism. In contemporary philosophy, atomism is not as popular as it has been in past times, because, as mentioned, most contemporary philosophers are not willing to argue that only atoms exist, wherein there are not any things like trees and etc.

Click here for preliminary information, click this link: Philosophy of Brahman.

Notes:

[1] Stcherbatsky, F. Th. 1962 (1930). Buddhist Logic. Volume 1. New York: Dover. Page 143. Stcherbatsky discusses this in a very interesting passage where he compares Buddhism to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Many have drawn similarities between some Europeans, such as Hume and Kant, and the Indian Buddhists.