Lecture on Flat Ontology and Dualism

Understanding Flat Ontology

• Flat ontology rejects dualism.
• Dualism: Divides reality into two categories:
  1. Internal/Mind: Mental things like consciousness, toothaches, daydreams, meanings of words/signs.
  2. External/Physical: Physical objects, truth makers, mathematical models.
• Dualism manifests in how signs are perceived, with physical signs carrying an internal meaning.

Dualism in Practice

• Metaphor: Dualism creates a world with a "cream" of consciousness over a "dead" substrate.
• Historically: Philosophers like Democritus viewed the substrate as atoms lacking meaning.
• Modern View: Sound waves as vehicles for meaning, akin to physical models carrying information.

Critique of Dualism

• Haidiger's Deworlding: Reductionist dualism simplifies the world to a meaningless substrate.
• Scientific Reductionism: Focuses on practical, relevant aspects like mass and velocity, ignoring qualitative experiences.

The Temptation of Technological Success

• Power of Mathematical Models: Enable prediction, control, and technological advancements.
• Risk: Absorbing reductive dualism into fundamental ontology can ignore normativity and meaning.

The Issue of Normativity

• Lack of Normativity in Science: Scientific models focus on prediction and control, not normativity.
• Human Normativity: Humans live in a normatively structured world, unlike dead, non-normative objects.

The Mind as a Machine

• Danger: Viewing the mind as a machine risks ignoring normativity and intelligibility.
• Forum of Intelligibility: Necessary for forming fundamental ontologies.

Inferentialism and Normativity

• Inferentialism: Meaning is largely normative, governed by inferential norms.
• Sorl's Objective View: Science aims to create beliefs valid from a generic perspective, but avoids an omniscient viewpoint.

Understanding Truth and Objectivity

• Truth Belief: Truth is ultimately about belief and its transformation.
• Objectivity: Means belief free from bias; not a third-person view from nowhere.
• Expert Consensus: Represents shared reliable beliefs, not an omniscient narrator.

Critique of Objective Reality

• Objective Reality as Metaphysical: Often equated to theological/metaphysical concepts.
• Problem: The notion of a pre-articulated hyperphysical reality is as metaphysical as dualism.

Key Takeaways

• Flat ontology challenges dualist perspectives by refusing to separate mind and matter.
• Dualism offers practical power through technological advancements but risks oversimplification of human experience.
• A more holistic view considers normativity and meaning as central to understanding reality.