TOWARDS A UNIFIED CONCEPT OF REALITY [Originally published in ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 32, No. 1, 1975, pp. 43-49. Steven James Bartlett [ home page: http://www.willamette.edu/~sbartlet ] KEYWORDS: framework relativity, the relativity of facts, complementarity, new rhetoric Abstract This is a study of the relativity of facts in relation to the frameworks of reference in terms of which those facts are established. In this early paper from 1975, intended for a less technical audience, the author proposes an understanding of facts and their associated frameworks in terms of complementarity. This understanding of facts leads to an integrated yet pluralistic concept of reality. In the Addendum, readers will find a partial listing of related publications by the author that extend the research described in this paper. _________________________________ The author has chosen to issue this paper as a free open access publication under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, which allows anyone to distribute this work without changes to its content, provided that both the author and the original URL from which this work was obtained are mentioned, that the contents of this work are not used for commercial purposes or profit, and that this work will not be used without the author's or his executor's permission in derivative works (i.e., you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without such permission). The full legal statement of this license may be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode © Steven James Bartlett, 2018 TOWARDS A UNIFIED CONCEPT OF REALITY STEVEN BARTLETT* It is increasingly less appropriate or useful to speak of a single concept of reality which we generally share. We rather tend to acknowledge the existing heterogeneity of knowledge. Where Ar- istotle's logic possessed lone authority for some twenty centuries, there is now a growing multitude of distinct systems of logic. Eu- clid's geometry has become a special case in a family of divergent geometries. Newtonian mechanics remains no more than a reason- able approximation for the purposes of earth-bound engineers, and must be replaced by quantum theory in the domain of the very small, and by relativity theory in the domain of the very large. Etc. This expanding pluralism has been accommodated in a very natural manner by the "systems-approach", but without an attempt to articulate a unified concept of reality. As a result of the increasing consciousness of pluralism, philo- sophical obituaries for the doctrine of absolute truth have gradually appeared, albeit prematurely. The doctrine does not give up its ghost easily, in spite of the popular tendency both to emphasize conventions and language-games, and generally to relativize in terms of conceptual frameworks. The near-deceased is bitter and ironic: "Without absolute truth, there can be no unified concept of reality." Of course, the terminally ill egotist often posits his own indis- pensabilityand here the malady is a solipsism in which the doctrine believes itself to be the sole true doctrine about truth. To argue with a dying doctrine is a delicate affair, but the truth is that the doctrine is dispensable and, ironically, laying it to rest opens the way to a unified concept of reality. Perelman has observed that rhetoric has been criticized by those "for whom there was but a single truth in every matter." [p. 45]2 This seems to suggest that rhetoric may sanction more than one truth in a single matter. Certainly this view seems to follow once one admits the existence of a plurality of sets of rational first prin- *Visiting Research Fellow, Max-Pianck-lnstitut zur Erforschung der Lebensbe- dingunen der wissenschaftlich-technischen Welt, Starnberg, West Germany. 43 ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 32, No. 1, 1975, pp. 43-49. ETC: A REVIEW OF GENERAL SEMANTICS VOL. XXXII, NO. 1 ciples, where each set provides a framework for an appropriate set of truths relative to it. Perelman's familiarity with formal systems and with variations in judgments from epoch to epoch, and from culture to culture, doubtless provides him with evidence for the existence of such a plurality. Furthermore, it is basic to his concept of rhetoric to "combat uncompromising and irreducible philosoph- ical oppositions presented by all kinds of absolutism . . . ". [p. 150]2 Perelman proposes the notion of the audience-relativity of meanings and usages. (For his remarks on the audience-relativity of rhetoric, see [pp. 121, 138]' and [pp. 7, 14, 19, 21, 39, 54, 6Sff, 72, 110, 134, 507, and passim.]2.) His thesis immediately gives rise to the question whether there is but a single truth for all audiences, or whether there are various truths, each relative to some ideal group of similarly constituted individuals. Although Perelman apparently wishes to avoid any form of ab- solutism, he does speak of "the universal audience" in terms of "that invariant faculty, present in every normally constituted human being, which is reason." [p. 127]' (Of course, what must be qualified as normally invariant is an odd "invariant" indeed!) Perelman remarks: When a stick is partly immersed in water, it seems curved when one looks at it and straight when one touches it, but in reality it cannot be both curved and straight. While appearances can be opposed to each other, reality is coherent: the effect of determining reality is to dissociate those appearances that are deceptive from those that correspond to reality . .. (B)ecause of their incompatibility, appearances cannot be accepted together ... (p.416)2 This concept of reason functions as a norm to eliminate or smooth out incompatibilities in "appearance" by distinguishing data to be retained as significant from data to be rejected as misleading. Such a norm opposes, in an absolutist fashion, the simultaneous truth of both terms of an opposition. The stick "cannot be both curved and straight." Nevertheless, in fact what we see is curved, and in fact what we touch is straight, yet also in fact, Perelman says, the stick really is not bent at all. So we soon encounter the need for a good under- standing of what a fact is . . . . Before any thesis can be argued, some set of criteria of sound argumentation and some set of facts judged to be relevant must be accepted explicitly or implicitly in advance. Indeed, it seems to be fairly clear that in the selection of "relevant facts" certain of the 44 MARCH 1 975 TOWARDS A UNIFIED CONCEPT OF REALITY basic postulates of reasoning are already involved. In this sense, a fact bears witness to some fundamental postulates a function of which it is recognized to be a fact. In other words, a proposition can be claimed to assert a fact only ill relation to some set of norms or standards which are ordinarily agreed upon within a given frame- work of reasoning. It follows that it must be in relation to such norms or standards that the concept of fact is best described. We say that what a true proposition asserts is a fact. A propo- sition which is confirmed, provisionally or otherwise, is asserted to be true. (On presumed versus observed facts, see [p. 74]2.) Thus, "any truth enunciates a fact." [p. 69]2 A fact is not only what a true proposition asserts but it is also what a false proposition denies. Facts are themselves neither true nor false, but they render asser- tions true or false. (For a related treatment of the concept of fact, see [pp. 177-281]3 and [pp. 8Sff]•.) What makes a proposition true or false is expressed via asser- tions, denials, beliefs, etc. Thus, what makes it possible to identify a fact is a framework in terms of which relations can be established between an individual (who asserts, denies, . . . , a given proposi- tion) and the world of things with which the individual is acquaint- ed. In short, a pragmatical framework (one which, strictly speaking, coordinates persons, meanings, and events) is necessary in order that candidates for facts may be specified and become subject to methods of confirmation. A framework adopted for the identification of facts defines the factually real in terms of the criteria which it may presuppose for discriminating between significant and misleading data. When we claim that any assessment of the truth of an assertion must take account of the context in which it is made, we adopt a point of view which is "framework-sympathetic". We realize that an exam- ination of the context in which a proposition is asserted will fre- quently reveal the framework and presupposed standards for the recognition of facts, in relation to which coordinations between persons, intended meanings, and identifiable events are to be un- derstood. A concrete description of such a pragmatical framework determines the ideal audience, to recall Perelman's language, rela- tive to which a set of propositions is acceptable as true. It is an easy step, then, to extend Perelman's notion of audience-relativity and audience-pluralism, to a recognition of the relativity of facts to the ideal representation of a particular framework by an audience. It is an immediate consequence of this framework-sympathy 45 ETC: A REVIEW OF GENERAL SEMANTICS VOL. XXXII, NO. 1 that what is factual in relation to one framework may not be factual in relation to another. It is in this sense that relative to one frame- work for the identification of facts, the visual one, the stick is bent, whereas relative to a second framework, the tactile one, the stick is straight. (A similar example may be had in the contrasting facts ascertained about the nature of light by means of two different experimental apparatuses: one indicates light to be a particle-phe- nomenon, the other that light is a wave-phenomenon.) It is tempting to ask how this can be when only one and the same stick (or physical phenomenon) is in question. But such a question is of the "How often do you beat your wife?"-type:it is excessively free in its presuppositions. It supposes that the two sets of facts refer, in fact, to the same thing. Sameness has always been philosophically slippery, and common sense yearns for the same stick. The result has been to smooth out the bothersome hetero- geneity by an appeal to a higher-order framework capable of ab- sorbing the different facts (I limit myself to "facts" since we are now beyond "appearances"). This leads to the tolerant synthesis: real stickwhich can be both seen ("as if" bent when partly un- derwater, "as if" (?) straight when wholly in the air) and touched (normally straight). This move in itself is unobjectionable: we have merely developed a less simple understanding of sticks, water, and air, and feel assured in the precise vocabulary of refraction. But the move to a higher-order framework is accompanied by an exhi- bition of ontological snobbery: After all, the genuinely real stick concerns us, and not the misleading visual image. (The near-de- ceased raises himself on an elbow and smiles.) But we are too hasty. The absolutist here neglects his facts: The stick which is visually perceived is really seen to be curved. That is a fact. In the interests of a unitary conception of reality, we have permitted ourselves to reject as misleading any factual variation- aberrationfrom a norm. Refraction theory provides a framework in which a set of facts may be interpreted. What is at issue is a theorya system of interpretationand not a dogma of revel- ation. It is worthwhile noting how a theory succeeds in speaking of "the same thing"be it a stick or a photonfrom different points of view. A stick or quantum event is identified as a function of the operations employed to study it. Refraction provides such an identification procedure by describing, for example, how what we see is a function of the medium through which light passes. 46 MARCH 1975 TOWARDS A UNIFIED CONCEPT OF REALITY The theory of refraction makes it possible to coordinate the bent stick that is seen with the straight stick that is touched, and to con- sider both to refer to the same object functionally defined by the theory. From the standpoint of a theory adhering to the principle of non-contradiction, a proposition and its negation cannot both be true. In this sense, only one of the two propositions, 'the stick which is visually perceived is curved' and 'the stick which is visually perceived is not curved' may be considered to be true. However, a proposition and its negation may both be confirmed in certain theories. But, as is always the case, attention must be paid to the contexts in which the propositions are ascertained. If each assertion is true relative to a different context of reference, then the facts asserted by the two propositions are called complementary facts. Facts asserted by contradictory propositions are complemen- tary provided that each assertion is true relative to a distinct con- text of reference. Consequently, contradictory propositions which have been confirmed in relation to different modes of observation can be regarded as asserting a complementarity of the facts they refer to. ( In relation to distinct experimental contexts of reference, the complementarity of predicates ascribable to light- 'is corpus- cular'/'is not corpuscular'has been observed.) If it can be granted that there are numerous, distinct systems equipped to ascertain facts, formulate true propositions expressing these, and hence reach "objectively valid results", then we must also accept the fact this view brings to our attention: that there is a plurality of sometimes divergent facts, and that the relations be- tween certain of these facts will be relations of complementarity. Perelman has argued that "revision [of an axiom) cannot be effected by an argument developed within the system to which the axiom belongs." [p. 105)2 Since Perelman is ambiguous in his ap- parent acceptance of the doctrine of absolute truth, it is difficult to be sure to what extent adherence to a view of the complemen- tarity of facts diverges from the concept of rhetoric he proposes. It seems likely that some divergence is implied by Perelman's ref- erence to "the problem that is raised by the incompatibility of appearances." [p. 419)2 Several questions come to mind: Is there in fact an incompatibility of appearances? If there is, what is the nature of the incompatibility? Could it become problematic? If in- deed it can, would a concept of reality which bases itself upon the doctrine of absolute truth resolve the problem satisfactorily? The 47 ETC: A REVIEW OF GENERAL SEMANTICS VOL. XXXII, NO. 1 foregoing discussion should be able to throw some light on these questions. I have suggested that when we speak of appearances as oppos- ed to reality we frequently and mistakenly believe the reports of our senses to be i'n conflict and to require the kind of smoothing out which the application of a reality-standard is intended to pro- vide. In fact, these reports are usually not in "conflict"; often, they yield a recognition of complementary facts. (We should need to stray far from "normal psychology" to find an example of this kind of conflict. I should have, e.g., to see the stick as at once bent and not bent. For the sake of simplicity, I have omitted any discussion of this dimension of time: If I see the stick now as bent and later in time as not bent, there is "conflict" between the two observa- tions only provided absolutist reality-norms intervene. These would suggest that the two visual perceptions are of one and the same thingthat if the conditions of observations have not changed, then I am likely to have erred in judging that the stick I first saw was actually bent, etc.) If we are persuaded to accept this view of complementarity, it is because we see that propositions asserting facts become incom- patible only if they are ascertained from the standpoint of the same frame of reference, only if they are assessed in terms of the same standards of confirmation. If the propositions in question occur in essentially dissimilar contexts of reference, it will be illegitimate to place them on the same footing and to judge them with the same criteria. Thus, the question whether facts are incompatible or com- plementary will turn on whether the facts are ascertained in the same context, or in essentially different contexts. It follows, then, that incompatibility between facts becomes problematic either when they are illegitimately treated by neglecting the dissimilarity of the contexts of reference relative to which they were ascertained, or when they are found to conflict in the same context. And, as I have tried to suggest, a doctrine of absolute truth is entirely unsatisfactory once a plurality of essentially dissimilar frameworks of reference is admitted. It is therefore my contention that (1) there is frequently no need to discriminate against certain facts because of apparent incompat- ibility, (2) to do so is often illegitimate since (3) there is in fact a plurality of what I have, with deliberate vagueness, variously called rational first principles, criteria of sound argumentation, basic pos- tulates of reasoning, or reality-criteria. 48 MARCH 1975 TOWARDS A UNIFIED CONCEPT OF REALITY It is fortunate that theoretical developments have brought with them an unsettling pluralism. As variety is compounded, the desire to smooth out or to reject factual heterogeneity shows itself to be stubbornly and blindly dogmatic. There are many points of view, and many facts, perhaps not all of which can be accommodated within the compass of a single theoretical interpretation. But this does not imply that a unified concept of reality is impossible or unrealistic. We can dispense with the idea that unification is pos- sible only at the expense of difference, and consider the sense in which complementarity can accommodate heterogeneity on the terms proferred by this new form of synthetic understanding. REFERENCES 1. Perelman, Ch. The Idea of Justice and the Problem of Argument. Trans. by John Petrie. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, 1963. 2. Perelman, Ch. and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Trans. by John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver. University of Notre Dame Press, 1969. 3. Russell, Bertrand. The Philosophy of Logical Atomism. Reprinted in Logic and Knowledge. Ed. R. C. Marsh. Macmillan: London, 1956. 4. Weitz, Morris. The Unity of Russell's Philosophy. In The Philosophy of Ber- trand Russell. Ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. Harper and Row: New York, 1963. 49 OTHER PUBLICATIONS BY THE AUTHOR RELATED TO THE TOPIC OF THIS PAPER A freely downloadable collection of publications by the author, including many of the publications listed here, is available from the university research website: http://www.willamette.edu/~sbartlet. BOOKS AND MONOGRAPHS 1. A Relativistic Theory of Phenomenological Constitution: A Self-Referential, Transcendental Approach to Conceptual Pathology. (Vol. I: French; Vol. II: English. Doctoral dissertation, Université de Paris, 1970.) Available from PhilPapers: https://philpapers.org/rec/BARART-7. 2. Metalogic of Reference: A Study in the Foundations of Possibility, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, 1975. A research monograph that formulates the author's approach to epistemology through the use of self-referential argumentation and self-validating proofs. 3. Conceptual Therapy: An Introduction to Framework-relative Epistemology, Studies in Theory and Behavior, Saint Louis, 1983. An introductory text that gives students applied exercises in thinking using the author's approach to epistemology in terms of selfreferential argumentation and self-validating proofs. 4. Self-Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity, edited with Peter Suber, Martinus Nijhoff, 1987; now published by Springer Science. The first of two collections (see #5 below), consisting of invited papers by leading contemporary authors, to be published in the new area of research, the general theory of reflexivity, pioneered by the author. 5. Reflexivity: A Source Book in Self-Reference, Elsevier Science Publishers, 1992. The second collection, consisting of classical papers by leading contributors of the twentieth century, published in the new area of research, the general theory of reflexivity. 6. The Pathology of Man: A Study of Human Evil, published in 2005 by behavioral science publisher Charles C. Thomas, is the first comprehensive scholarly study of the psychology and epistemology of human aggression and destructiveness. The study includes original research by the author, such as a detailed description of the phenomenology of hatred and the psychology of human stupidity, and an extension and elaboration of the author's earlier published work dealing with the epistemology of human thought disorders (Part III). 7. Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health: The Need to Look Elsewhere for Standards of Good Psychological Health. Praeger, 2011. The first book-length scholarly critique of the widespread and unexamined presumption that psychological normality should be employed as a standard for good mental health. Contains some discussion related to framework-relativity. 8. The Species Problem and its Logic: Inescapable Ambiguity and Framework-relativity. (Research monograph, 2015) Available from arXiv.org (http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.01589), in England from CogPrints (http://cogprints.org/9956/), in France from the Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe's HAL (https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01196519), and in from U.S. by PhilSci (http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/11655/ ). 9. Horizons of Possibility and Meaning: The Metalogic of Reference. Book in progress. ARTICLES 10. "Self-Reference, Phenomenology, and Philosophy of Science," Methodology and Science, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1980, 143-167. 11. "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning," Synthèse, Vol. 52, 1982, 267282. 12. "Philosophy as Conceptual Therapy," Educational Resources Information Center, National Institute of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, May, 1983, Document #ED 224 402. 13. "Hoisted by Their Own Petards: Philosophical Positions that Self-Destruct," Argumentation, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1988, 69-80. 14. "Roots of Human Resistance to Animal Rights: Psychological and Conceptual Blocks," Animal Law (law review of the Northwestern School of Law, Lewis and Clark College), Vol. 8, 2002, pp. 143-76. The first comprehensive legal study of the psychological and epistemological foundations of human resistance to the compassionate treatment of animals. Contains an application of the author's selfreferential argumentation to human conceptual blocks that stand in the way of the recognition of animal rights. 15. "Roots of Human Resistance to Animal Rights: Psychological and Conceptual Blocks," electronically re-published October, 2002, by the Michigan State University's Detroit College of Law, Animal Law Web Center, and maintained on an ongoing basis. http://www.animallaw.info/articles/arussbartlett2002.htm 16. Also available in German: "Wurzeln menschlichen Widerstands gegen Tierrechte: Psychologische und konceptuelle Blockaden," German translation of the preceding paper by Gita Y. Arani-May. Electronically published on the following websites in September, 2003: http://www.tierrechts.net/Animal_Law_Roots_of_Human_Resistance_to_Animal_Rights.pdf http://www.veganswines.de/Animal_Law/ http://animallaw.info/articles/arussbartlett2002.htm 17. Also available in Portuguese: "Raízes da resistência humana aos direitos dos animais: Bloqueios psicológicos e conceituais," published in Brazilian Animal Rights Review (Revista Brasileira de Direito Animal), Vol. 2(3), July/December, 2007 [actually appeared in 2008], pp. 17-66. 18. "Paratheism: A Proof that God neither Exists nor Does Not Exist." 2016. Available from PhilPapers: https://philpapers.org/rec/BARPAP-20.