A Plea For Naturalistic Metaphysics Ulrich Steinvorth Full Chapter PDF

A Plea for Naturalistic Metaphysics
Ulrich Steinvorth
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/a-plea-for-naturalistic-metaphysics-ulrich-steinvorth/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
A Plea for Natural Philosophy: And Other Essays

Penelope Maddy
https://ebookmass.com/product/a-plea-for-natural-philosophy-and-
other-essays-penelope-maddy/
The World in the Wavefunction: A Metaphysics for

Quantum Physics Alyssa Ney
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-world-in-the-wavefunction-a-
metaphysics-for-quantum-physics-alyssa-ney/
The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for

Quantum Physics Alyssa Ney
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-world-in-the-wave-function-a-
metaphysics-for-quantum-physics-alyssa-ney/
The Politics of Metaphysics Felipe G. A. Moreira
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-politics-of-metaphysics-felipe-
g-a-moreira/
Kant and the Naturalistic Turn of 18th Century
Philosophy Catherine Wilson
https://ebookmass.com/product/kant-and-the-naturalistic-turn-
of-18th-century-philosophy-catherine-wilson/
Groundwork for a New Kind of African Metaphysics: The

Idea of Predeterministic Historicity Aribiah David
Attoe
https://ebookmass.com/product/groundwork-for-a-new-kind-of-
african-metaphysics-the-idea-of-predeterministic-historicity-
aribiah-david-attoe/
Victims and Plea Negotiations: Overlooked and

Unimpressed 1st ed. Edition Arie Freiberg
https://ebookmass.com/product/victims-and-plea-negotiations-
overlooked-and-unimpressed-1st-ed-edition-arie-freiberg/
Phenomenalism: A Metaphysics of Chance and Experience

1st Edition Michael Pelczar
https://ebookmass.com/product/phenomenalism-a-metaphysics-of-
chance-and-experience-1st-edition-michael-pelczar/
The Primacy of Metaphysics Christopher Peacocke
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-primacy-of-metaphysics-
christopher-peacocke/
A Plea for Naturalistic
Metaphysics
Why Analytic Metaphysics
is Not Enough
Ulrich Steinvorth
A Plea for Naturalistic Metaphysics
Ulrich Steinvorth
A Plea for Naturalistic

Metaphysics
Why Analytic Metaphysics is Not Enough
Ulrich Steinvorth
Department of Philosophy
University of Hamburg
Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
ISBN 978-3-030-72602-7 ISBN 978-3-030-72603-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72603-4
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect
to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Cover pattern © Melisa Hasan
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents
1 Why Naturalistic Metaphysics Is Needed 1
2 The Ontology of Escalation27
3 Practical Conclusions73
Bibliography87
Index93
v
CHAPTER 1
Why Naturalistic Metaphysics Is Needed
Abstract Analytic philosophy started as an anti-metaphysical project, yet

has become a strong advocate of metaphysics. Against appearances, this
development is not inconsistent with its beginnings. But to conform with
the intentions of its founders, analytic metaphysics must become what it is
not yet: synthetic, normative, and naturalistic.
Keywords Analytic philosophy • Metaphysics • Normativity •

Naturalism • Physics • Wittgenstein • Heidegger • Quine • David
Lewis • Popper • Peter Strawson
The Specter of Metaphysics

A specter is haunting the little world of academic philosophers. The spec-
ter Marx saw haunting Europe agitated everyone, splitting humanity into
comrades and class enemies. The current specter puzzles a tiny minority.
It’s metaphysics, declared dead by social scientists, historians, and, a hun-
dred years ago, analytic philosophers. Today, analytic philosophy, domi-
nating the philosophical institutes around the world, is reviving
metaphysics.
Analytic philosophers, such as Wittgenstein, Carnap, and Quine,
boasted a method of dissolving metaphysics. They analyzed language and
logic to liberate philosophers from the snares of misunderstanding their
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
U. Steinvorth, A Plea for Naturalistic Metaphysics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72603-4_1
2 U. STEINVORTH
own thinking. Along with philosophers of science, like Schlick,

Reichenbach, and Popper, they promoted a new rationality that they
found in science and in language not yet ensnared by misunderstandings.
For them, philosophy was not just a theory, if at all, but the beginning of
a more adequate life, more eigentlich or authentic, to use Heidegger’s
term. Wittgenstein said about his ambition, “I am by no means sure that
I should prefer a continuation of my work by others to a change in the way
people live which would make all these words superfluous” (1980: 61).
These words could have been spoken by many of his philosophical con-
temporaries, Heidegger included. But unlike Heidegger, most of the early
analytic philosophers were naturalists. They believed there was no better
source than science from which to learn about reality.
Analytic philosophy was attractive because of its naturalism, even
though Wittgenstein only seemed to be a naturalist. It became still more
attractive owing to its expectation that a philosophically changed life
would be an enlightened way to cope with the social problems that have
plagued societies since Marx’ specter haunted Europe, rather than with
metaphysical pseudo-problems. Early analytic philosophers saw philoso-
phy as a prophylactic against political ideologies, in particular fascism,
which persecuted them in Germany and Austria. This is why they have
been considered, and many of them considered themselves, liberals.
Judged by the vague standards of cultural developments, early analytic
philosophy was a liberal movement in a broad sense and found favor with
more representative liberals of the period, such as the liberal have econo-
mist John Maynard Keynes.
So when analytic philosophy turned to metaphysics, we might expect it
to explicate its own early implicit metaphysics as a naturalistic and liberal
metaphysics. Instead, current analytic metaphysics is indifferent to natu-
ralism and politics. It was progress for analytic philosophy to take up meta-
physics. For if philosophy is the analysis of our concepts, as analytic
philosophy rightly believes, then it cannot avoid analyzing the concept of
being. Such analysis requires it to become ontology, the theory of being
and the main branch of metaphysics. But if it wants also to be true to its
founders, its metaphysics must be naturalistic and liberal.
To explicate a naturalistic and liberal metaphysics is not a homage paid
to early analytic philosophy. It is what our own age with its tormenting
problems requires of philosophy. A century ago, fascism and other forms
of totalitarianism agitated people and peoples; liberalism was righty con-
sidered their opponent, but it did not develop a political program that
made liberalism more than a heap of vague ideas centering around the
1 WHY NATURALISTIC METAPHYSICS IS NEEDED 3
ideas of individual liberty and self-determination and rational or fully

informed majority choices. No wonder that today again, waves of funda-
mentalism and authoritarianism are sweeping the world, and liberals
lament rather than answer.
Political philosophy and other branches of the intellectual life did
respond to this predicament, but not metaphysics. The current dearth of
ideas pertains not to ideas in special areas of our life but to their relation
and ranking. The dearth pertains to all-comprehensive theories that tell us
something about the “meaning of it all”, which is the task of metaphysics.
Current analytic metaphysics neglects it. It is indifferent to the topics that
mattered to the founders of analytic philosophy: science and naturalism,
liberalism, and not least the metaphysical questions that are known to
everyone as the ultimate questions and agitated Russell (as his A Free
Man’s Worship shows) and Wittgenstein.
Disciplines have their own dynamics and development conditions that
explain and to some extent also justify the state they are in and prove criti-
cisms like the following inept. Yet it is also necessary sometimes to com-
pare what a discipline has started with to what it has become. So let’s look
at a representative analytic metaphysical work and compare it to the origi-
nal claims of the discipline of metaphysics. David Lewis’ possible-worlds
theory is generally considered representative of analytic metaphysics.
Lewis (1986) explains the meaning of the modal words “possible”,
“real” or “actual”, and “necessary”, defining them by the concept of a
possible world, once used by Leibniz to compare possible creations for their
value (cp. Sect. “Being, Value, and the Demiurge”). Roughly, what is pos-
sible, Lewis claims, is something that exists in at last one possible world; the
actual is something that exists in the world we happen to inhabit, and the
necessary something that exists in all possible worlds. This explanation
responds to Quine’s claim that there are no modalities. The meaning of
modal words seems to be “intensional”, as the truth of sentences using
them depends on what people think of the facts referred to, rather than on
these facts only. Quine claimed that all words with intensional meanings
can, without loss of meaning, be replaced by words referring only to things
as they exist independently of what human minds think of them, by
“extensional” meanings. By his possible-worlds theory Lewis, a student of
Quine’s, on the one hand, confirmed Quine’s claim, as his theory has
modal words have only extensional meanings. On the other hand, he
offers what Quine did not, an explanation how words that seem to take
4 U. STEINVORTH
account of how people think of things can seem to have intensional

meanings.
Lewis’ response to Quine became a model for analytic metaphysics.
Students and critics of Quine argued how Quine’s (1960, Ch.VI) “flight
from intension” can be shown either justified or not. The result might
have been a clarification of whether Quine’s rejection of traditional meta-
physics was wrong or right. Instead, both Quine’s and traditional meta-
physical claims have become more obscure than ever. Lewis’ possible-worlds
theory exemplifies the new obscurity. Lewis defines modalities by the con-
cept of a possible world and the meaning of “true in no, some, and all
worlds”. We are to understand the modalities by understanding a possible
world. To defend this claim, he says a possible world is as real as our world,
our world being a possible world we happen to be in.
This claim is dizzying, as the possible world becomes a real world, only
one that we may happen not to inhabit. But a world we happen not to
inhabit is not a possible world; it’s an imaginary world at best. If we didn’t
already know the meaning of “possible”, we wouldn’t understand the
meaning of Lewis’ “possible world”. Lewis’ reduction of the meaning of
the modal terms to the concept of a possible world doesn’t work. If we
take a possible world for real, it loses its meaning.
True, philosophical constructs can be obscure and yet agitate philoso-
phers for millennia; Plato’s ideas are an example. They are moral and
mathematical concepts such as valor and circle, which, as nothing in expe-
rience perfectly conforms to them, are claimed to exist in a sphere beyond
experience where we have seen them before our birth. They are no less
obscure than Lewis’ possible world. So why blame possible worlds for
obscurity? Because the obscurity of Lewis’ possible worlds remains non-
committal, a glass bead game, while Plato’s ideas entailed moral, aesthetic,
and metaphysical norms that can be used to confirm or falsify their
acceptance.
True, Lewis’ idea of possible worlds supported (and probably was
inspired by) the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics by Hugh
Everett (1957) and other physicists. Everett assumed that all possible out-
comes of quantum measurements are realized in a world parallel to our
world, though entirely disconnected from it. Because of this disconnec-
tion, Everett’s assumption is unfalsifiable and violates the falsifiability con-
dition that scientific theories are supposed to meet. To be fair, Everett
links physics to traditions that considered falsifiability of scientific theories
less important than their power of explanation. But reference to parallel
universes to explain the problems of quantum measurement doesn’t seem
to be a powerful explanation. Like Lewis, Everett provokes the question

“So what? What depends on whether your theory is true or false?”
True again, Lewis’ and Everett’s possible worlds fit in with the parallel
worlds that feed science fiction and esoteric literature. By their very obscu-
rity, they contribute to the pleasures of imagination. They support some-
thing to occupy our phantasy, but lack consequences relevant for reality.
They support occupations that distract us from reality. They meet the cri-
teria for being opium for the intelligent, but allow the intelligent to believe
they think about the essence of reality. They take the aloofness of analytic
metaphysics for sublimity rather than irrelevance.
There are other astonishing things in current analytic metaphysics, such
as its size (more seems to be written than can be read), a differentiation
into ever more detailed sub-problems, and a sophistication that goes along
with a fragmentation of metaphysics into small fields known only by a
small number. Papers and books by contemporary analytic philosophers
such as Kit Fine, Theodore Sider, and Kris McDaniel, whom I will follow
in some of my own claims and arguments, captivate the reader by their
intelligence. Yet they leave the reader with the question, So what?
Analytic metaphysicians will tell the frustrated non-philosopher that in
physics and the other sciences, too, non-experts can’t understand the
experts. But they badly ignore the difference between science and philoso-
phy. Science is tested by its improbable predictions, the truth of which can
be checked by the non-experts; philosophy lacks such tests. It can prove
what it is worth only by convincing the non-experts that its constructs are
worth considering. Many, if not most, analytic metaphysicians recognize
that their discipline is threatened by irrelevance. For in their introductions
to metaphysics, they try to convince non-experts of its importance. But
even then, as we’ll see, they are deaf to the ordinary expectation that meta-
physics tells us something about what to do in this world.
One important reason for this deafness is analytic philosophy’s analytic
method of tackling problems. Its recipe is to split a problem up into as
many separable parts as possible and to tackle them one by one. Sub-
problems are easier to solve than the more comprehensive problems that
worry us. But on the one hand, as we’ll see, analytic metaphysics doesn’t
apply its recipe to the ultimate question of the meaning of the world that
metaphysics consists in. On the other hand, it ignores the possibility that
the more comprehensive problem remains unsolved after we have solved
its sub-problems. Analytic metaphysics can prove its worth only by its rel-
evance to the metaphysical problems familiar to non-philosophers. Yet it is
6 U. STEINVORTH
very rare that an analytic metaphysician mentions a problem that would be

called metaphysical outside philosophy. Analytic metaphysics is like a book
on digestion that doesn’t mention what digestion ends in.
Non-philosophers may shrug their shoulders at a development in a cor-
ner of the academic world that has always struck them as obscure and
aloof. But the very quality that appears as obscurity to non-philosophers
attracts the young and bright and distracts them from less non-committal
questions. By what seemed ugliness to his critics, Socrates attracted the
young and bright Athenians. Yet he changed his students in a committal
way, so much that he was sentenced to death. No analytic metaphysician
runs this risk.
Remarkably, the anti-metaphysics of early analytic philosophy had the
same effect as the aloofness of current analytic metaphysics. It didn’t stop
fascism and other forms of totalitarianism. Yet totalitarian movements
attract because they offer metaphysical answers. To counter them, we need
rational metaphysics, rather than anti-metaphysics that forbids plain meta-
physical answers or aloof metaphysics that despises them. We need an
explicitly liberal or non-totalitarian metaphysics.
This essay aims to outline the metaphysics that early analytic philosophy
implies. It is to show what is needed to improve rather than to abolish
analytic metaphysics. Current analytic philosophy, including its metaphysi-
cal branch, lives on the reputation of its founders for their love of clarity,
science, and political liberalism. Current analytic metaphysics squanders
this heritage. This essay alone will not reform analytic metaphysics, let
alone prevent another Hitler or bin Laden from finding followers ready to
murder. But it can contribute to moving analytic philosophy back to its
liberal and naturalistic heritage.
This heritage boasts a long tradition that starts with Leucippus and
Democritus, but I’ll not hark back to their arguments (surveyed by
Papineau 2020). Rather, I start with the beginnings of analytic philosophy
to see how its two pillars—the analysis of logic and language and modeling
rationality on science—led unexpectedly to the renaissance, or the reve-
nant, of metaphysics. This can show us what is required today of an explic-
itly naturalistic and liberal metaphysics.
Analytic Philosophy’s Manifesto

The founding fathers of analytic philosophy, Wittgenstein, the Vienna
Circle, Quine, and others, believed it is science that tells us what the world
is, that there is no way for philosophy to find out something about the
world that cannot be better found out by science, and that the task of
philosophy is to prove just that: what can be meaningfully said about the
world can be said by science. Their program for philosophy was to show
the impossibility of metaphysics, free the minds from the snares of pseudo-
problems, and set them thinking about real problems.
Wittgenstein explained the anti-metaphysical approach to the world in
the Tractatus (tr. Pears and McGuinness, unless otherwise indicated):
The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say

nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science—i.e.
something that has nothing to do with philosophy—and then, whenever
someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him
that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.
Although it would not be satisfying to the other person—he would not have
the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy—this method would be
the only strictly correct one. (6.53)
This sounds as simple as a manifesto, but there was a proviso, indicated

by the ominous subjunctive “would”, emphasized by the word eigentlich
(translated as “really”), meaning that the manifested program would be
the right method if there wasn’t a thing that prevents the program from
being right at the end of the day. That thing was, for Wittgenstein, that
the demonstration that nothing can be said but the propositions of natural
science is to have a certain effect, namely, to
feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the
problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no
questions left, and this itself is the answer. (6.5)
However, despite his famous conclusion that closes the Tractatus,

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” (Tr. 7, tr. Ogden),
Wittgenstein claimed there is an answer, though not in words, to “the
riddle”. He seems to understand this riddle as comprehending all meta-
physical questions and describes, in words, the allegedly unspeakable
8 U. STEINVORTH
answer to it in the following statements, which precede his description of

the “correct method of philosophy”:
Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is. To view the world sub
specie aeterni is to view it as a whole—a limited whole. Feeling the world as
a limited whole –this is the mystical. When the answer cannot be put into
words, neither can the question be put into words. The riddle does not exist.
If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it … The solu-
tion of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. (Is not
this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that
the sense of life became clear to them have then been unable to say what
constituted that sense?) There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it
is the mystical. (6.44–6.522, tr. corrected)
Let us forget for a while the many objections that this text provokes and
focus on what Wittgenstein here declares to be the right method of phi-
losophy. It is not to demonstrate that metaphysics is nonsense. On the
contrary, it is to show the truth of what he sums up in the term “the mysti-
cal”, referring, it seems, to the belief that there is more in the world than
what we can touch and see. When he says the mystical is that the world is,
he expresses the same wonder that Leibniz (1991: 135) and Heidegger
(1959: 7f) declared the fundamental question of metaphysics: why there
is anything at all rather than nothing.
Wittgenstein describes the mystical with words that have a distinct
meaning. The riddle is why there is anything at all. The higher is anything
beyond the facts science describes. The meaning of the world (6.4) is what
we look for when wondering at the riddle. Wittgenstein describes what we
then look for by the terms of value (6.41), ethics (6.42), the will (6.423),
good and evil will (6.43), death (6.431), eternity (6.4311), immortality
(6.4312), space and time (6.4312), and God (6.432). They refer to ideas
we have when we consider the riddle. But although by these terms
Wittgenstein suggests certain metaphysical views, he differs from tradi-
tional metaphysics by the paradoxical claim that what he says cannot be
said but only shown. He makes it clear nonetheless by the use of words
that he thinks that philosophy is metaphysics, but that it gives its answers
only in making us see something not expressible by words, though he does
use words to point to it.
As he still said in his Philosophical Investigations, his philosophy is to
change our “way of looking at things” (PI §144, Wittgenstein’s italics; cp.
Zettel §461). The change is difficult, but not because “the solution” is dif-
ficult to find. “The difficulty here is: to stop”, to recognize “as the solu-
tion something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it” (Zettel
§314). Although he wants to stop philosophy, which is metaphysics, he
doesn’t see it as opium, but as a medicine that offers relief from false
expectations, and yet is found difficult to stop taking.
We may wonder indeed how the answer to “the riddle”, splitting into
more detailed metaphysical questions that Wittgenstein indicates himself
by the terms meaning of the world, value, good and bad will, God, and
immortality, can show itself. How can we understand that there are no
more questions to ask just by looking differently at the world? Wittgenstein’s
admonition not to talk but to look follows the same distrust of rationality
and hope for revelation shown by Zen Buddhists who use the authority of
the teacher’s cane to make their students see what they want them to see.
No wonder Wittgenstein’s view of metaphysics could attract mystics
and poets. But teachers and students eager to stop the traditional way of
philosophy rightly judged it a relic of belief in revelation. In the mid-
twentieth century, academic philosophy in most philosophical institutes in
the West was dominated by schools that were politically non-committal or,
like Heidegger’s, stained by engagement with fascist politics, or progres-
sive, like some Marxist schools, but lacking the standards of twentieth-
century science and logic. The masters of rejecting metaphysics became
philosophers without a penchant for “the mystical”: Carnap and Quine,
fighting metaphysics with the weapons of logic; Hempel and Popper,
appealing to science. Yet the program uniting analytic philosophy and phi-
losophy of science was the very program that Wittgenstein had described
in a near-manifesto style, to demonstrate that whenever someone wants to
say something metaphysical, they fail to give meaning to certain signs in
their propositions. Philosophy of science clarified the rationality of science
to be applied everywhere, and analytic philosophy clarified how not to talk
nonsense. Only the subjunctive mode of Wittgenstein’s manifesto was
canceled.
The subjunctive-free program allowed metaphysics its renaissance. For
when they constructed their theories of meaning and reference (often
eager to eliminate intensional meanings), analytic philosophers compared
their solutions to former constructions. In virtue of their improved under-
standing of the working of language, they often succeeded in demonstrat-
ing how clever and stimulating past masters were. Metaphysics became
10 U. STEINVORTH
attractive again, not in Wittgenstein’s word-independent form, but in its

word-bound version that trusts our powers of language and argument.
Why then did analytic metaphysics develop into something supporting in
effect political passivism and even obscurantism?
There is a historical reason. Analytic philosophy was shaped by the spe-
cial post-World War I conditions in Central Europe and Britain. After its
transplantation to the US, it lacked the soil it grew in and developed in the
sterile air of scientific value neutrality, growing in size, shrinking in
importance.
Yet this reason could only add to the power of another reason strong on
both sides of the Atlantic. It’s an aversion to discussing the ultimate meta-
physical questions that Wittgenstein talks of as “the riddle”. So much
bullshit has been said on the meaning of life that it has become a sign of
bad taste or unbearable naivety to mention it. Current analytic metaphysi-
cians avoid like the plague speaking out words they do think of. Over their
visceral antagonism to calling by name the problems they tackle, they even
neglect the recipe that defines analytic philosophy, to analyze problems,
separate them into sub-problems more easily solved. Rather, they pick up
isolated problems without connecting them to the problems agitating not
only philosophers.
Let’s here note a difference between how professional philosophers on
the one hand and Wittgenstein and many non-philosophers on the other
use the notion of philosophy. Obviously, the young Wittgenstein of the
Tractatus had a notion of metaphysics that contrasts unfavorably with the
knowledge many contemporary philosophers have of the metaphysics of
past philosophers (and the older Wittgenstein doesn’t seem to differ much
from the young in this respect). Wittgenstein agrees with the common
view that metaphysics is about what are called the ultimate or last ques-
tions: about the fact that there is anything at all and about questions pro-
voked by this fact: about the meaning of life, about a possible creator god,
our role in the world, our will, whether it can change anything in the
word, and whether, if we can, we should, and what then we should aim at.
Moreover, Wittgenstein uses the term philosophy in the sense of meta-
physics, as many non-philosophers do. He tacitly assumes a division of
knowledge about the world, or better of answers to questions about the
world, into science and philosophy, only to argue that the knowledge of
philosophy is the knowledge that there are no answers to be given to
philosophical questions, once all scientific answers have been given. He
uses the notion of metaphysics synonymously with that of philosophy.
Professional philosophers, in contrast, consider metaphysics one of the

many branches of philosophy, such as epistemology, philosophy of science,
moral theory, political philosophy, and aesthetics. As the branches can be
taught, talked and thought about independently of one another, it is more
convenient to follow the professional philosophers rather than Wittgenstein,
and distinguish between philosophy and metaphysics. But we shouldn’t
forget that there is also the ordinary sense of the term in which “philoso-
phy” means pondering the ultimate questions.
Professional philosophers refer to metaphysics as a branch of philoso-
phy that splits again into twigs, such as ontology, the philosophy of being,
generally considered metaphysics’ main twig, and other twigs such as the
philosophy of time, mereology, cosmology and the issue of free will and
determinism. The professional use of the notion of metaphysics has obvi-
ous advantages, since different things are taught and learned at philo-
sophical institutes under the titles of philosophy and metaphysics. So
again, we should follow the professional philosophers rather than
Wittgenstein. But again we should keep in mind the ordinary meaning.
For philosophy cannot, like science, prove its worth by surprising pre-
dictions. It has to convince the non-experts that its constructs are worth
considering. Non-experts will find them worth considering only if they are
relevant for the ultimate questions that also for Wittgenstein are the ques-
tions of metaphysics or philosophy. In contrast, the professional use of the
terms of metaphysics and philosophy tends to put the questions of the
branches and twigs of philosophy center stage and to eclipse the ultimate
questions. This is bad for philosophy, but also for politics, as it leaves the
ultimate questions to the ideologists and fundamentalists, despised by phi-
losophers but attracting the laypeople. If you think ultimate questions are
irrelevant in politics, read the quote from Hitler’s Mein Kampf in Sect.
“Being, Value, and the Demiurge” or think of the metaphysical claims of
current fundamentalist movements.
The Virtues Required of Metaphysics

Analytic philosophy was successful because it split problems up into sub-
problems easier to tackle. Yet to prove its worth, it has to complement its
analysis by synthesis. It has to refer its solutions of the sub-problems back
to the comprehensive problems, in the end to the ultimate questions. The
first requirement for analytic metaphysics is to relate its claims to the meta-
physical questions; it must be synthetic.
12 U. STEINVORTH
Analytic philosophers’ introductions to metaphysics document their

approval of this requirement. They are often brilliant in showing the rel-
evance of metaphysics for non-experts, most often in their beginnings,
when they present the reader with baffling puzzles and draw her into the
subject. Though they tend to review the branches of metaphysics one after
the other, they also look for what they share. Thus, Mumford (2012)
answers chapter for chapter the questions “What is a table?” “What is a
circle?” “Are wholes just sums of parts?” and so on. But in a last chapter
on What is metaphysics, he presents a succinct synthesis that points out
what is common to the different metaphysical subjects and what distin-
guishes them from science. Similarly, McDaniel (2020) reviews metaphys-
ical subjects: classification, properties, parts and wholes, freedom, and
metametaphysics, but also highlights the connections between them, add-
ing synthesis to analysis.
Michael Loux even expressly includes the history of metaphysics in his
Preface to his Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. He declares that
despite “different conceptions” of metaphysics, with “different method-
ologies” and “different subject matters”, developed in the course of its
“long history”, he chose “to follow a very old tradition” and “interprets
metaphysics as the attempt to provide an account of being qua being”,
adding: “On this conception, metaphysics is the most general of all the
disciplines; its aim is to identify the nature and structure of all that there
is” (1998: x, 2017: xi).
In fact, though, just as physics that doesn’t aim to identify the laws of
nature is hardly physics, metaphysics that doesn’t aim “to identify the
nature and structure of all that there is” is hardly metaphysics. Loux is too
modest in his claim on the aim of metaphysics. His modesty indicates he
wants to avoid discussing how far current analytic metaphysics can claim
the title of metaphysics at all, as it rarely shows an interest in identifying
the structure of all there is (McDaniel 2017 does). But such a discussion
would benefit analytic metaphysics, as it would compel it to explicate
its goals.
Current introductions to metaphysics are nonetheless a remarkable
antidote to the fragmentation of metaphysics characteristic of much ana-
lytic metaphysics. Moreover, in addition to these introductions, analytic
philosophy in a broad sense of the term has produced remarkable answers
to the metaphysical questions about the meaning of life (Metz 2013;
Scheffler 2016; Wolf 2012). If we class authors such as G.E. Moore,
Philippa Foot, Tim Scanlon, John Rawls, and Robert Nozick with analytic
philosophy, analytic philosophy has triggered a renaissance of moral and

political philosophy. Also the metaphysical question about the existence of
God has been controversially discussed by authors assignable to analytic
philosophy, such as John Mackie, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne,
and Antony Flew. Analytic philosophers have also excelled in discussing
the descriptive, but normatively relevant issue of free will (Nozick 1981;
Chisholm 1966; Clark 2003; Frankfurt 1988, 1999, and many more
authors).
What nonetheless is missing, is an integration of this normative work
with the ordinary metaphysical questions. Moral, political, religious,
meaning-of-life problems and free will do need a discussion and solution
independently of ontological problems and reflections. Yet it’s not enough
to find answers in the philosophies of morals, politics, religion, and the
meaning of life. We also need a hierarchy of their demands, telling us what
comes first and why, and a distinction between moral and metaphysical
norms and values that will be discussed here. These tasks belong to ontol-
ogy. Analytic metaphysics has failed to tackle this task.
The second point it fails, in addition to its missing the task of synthesis,
is normativity. Metaphysics was not only descriptive but also normative. It
suggested and justified what to do to find meaning in life. Aristotle’s
ontology ascribed to any being an innate telos, an end, that justified the
norm to strive for one’s innate end. Even the naturalism of early analytic
philosophy was normative, as it rejected belief in powers incompatible
with science.
True, it might be impossible for a rational metaphysical theory to claim
anything normative. Any way to get from a description to a norm might
be a naturalistic fallacy, the step from an “is” to an “ought” generally con-
sidered invalid. Yet Aristotle claimed to have found a bridge crossing the
gap between is and ought in the teleology of being. He may be wrong, but
current metaphysics has to be explicit that its problem includes the ques-
tion whether there are norms somehow built into reality. At least, it has to
clarify normative competencies. But disinterest in norms is as much
ingrown in analytic philosophy as its disinterest in synthesis.
Bafflingly, Wittgenstein didn’t take account of the normative aspects of
metaphysical questions at all. He was right to say “that even when all pos-
sible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain
completely untouched”, but embarrassingly wrong when he went on
commenting, “Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is
the answer” (6.5). Of course? Of course there are a lot of questions left
14 U. STEINVORTH
when all possible scientific questions have been answered, all the questions
about what we ought to do in the world, howsoever well described by sci-
ence. “The riddle” includes “the meaning of life”, which, whatever it may
be, is something that includes questions not answerable without norma-
tive premises. That science cannot answer them does not mean there are
no longer questions.
In fact, Wittgenstein’s embarrassing howler that is representative of
analytic philosophy results from an ontology that banned teleology from
nature. It was the conviction that science cannot be teleological plus the
conviction that only science can deliver universally valid claims that made
Wittgenstein and a good many others believe there are no normative ques-
tions to be asked, once science has answered all questions it can answer.
Science cannot deliver norms, but this doesn’t imply that philosophy
can’t. Philosophy might, not because it can draw on methods inaccessible
for science, but because norms deniable only on pain of losing the distinc-
tion between valid and invalid, hence between true and false, prove indis-
pensable for science. Kant called this way of arguing transcendental and
used it for various proofs (Steinvorth 2020, sec.24). There may be more
ways. Yet analytic metaphysics rarely asks the question whether there may
be valid ways to establish universal norms that are not conventions, as it
avoids normativity.
Significantly, Peter Strawson gave his book (1959), which marks the
rehabilitation of metaphysics by analytic philosophy, the subtitle An Essay
in Descriptive Metaphysics. Ordinarily, the term descriptive contrasts with
normative, but Strawson contrasted it with revisionary. The descriptive
metaphysics that he wanted to rehabilitate describes “the actual structure
of our thought about the world”, while “revisionary metaphysics” is “con-
cerned to produce a better structure” (1959: 9). The idea that metaphys-
ics might be concerned with normative issues seems to have been out of
the question for Strawson.
The same applies to Quine. More than Strawson, he claimed to follow
naturalism and to naturalize metaphysics (cp. Hylton and Kemp 2019),
and unlike Strawson, he defended what Strawson called revisionary meta-
physics. But no more than Strawson did he think that a naturalistic meta-
physics must be normative to conform to the metaphysical naturalism of
early analytic philosophy and most scientists.
Amazingly too, Strawson didn’t think of the possibility that metaphys-
ics is not about the structure of our thought, but about the structure of the
world, as we have seen Loux assume as a matter of course, with a long
tradition to back him. True, among analytic philosophers, Kantians such

as Strawson believed to find the structure of the world in the structure of
logic or grammar. But interest in logic can reduce interest in science as the
most important source of information about beings. Sometimes it may
have even supported the philosophical belief in sources of knowledge inac-
cessible to profane scientists.
Hence, we can state a third requirement for a reformed analytic meta-
physics. It should take science seriously as an authority in discovering the
structure of being or the world. Analytic metaphysics should accept the
claims of science, after scrutinizing them for their consistency and coher-
ence. But it should be not only compatible with science and its methods;
it should also look for science as the first source of knowledge about reality
or the being that ontology famously investigates qua being. I call this third
requirement of metaphysics that of being naturalistic.
Most current analytic philosophers do recognize it. The authority of
Quine who insisted that “it is within science itself, and not in some prior
philosophy, that reality is to be identified and described” (1981: 21) kept
analytic metaphysics on the naturalistic track. But analytic metaphysics’
naturalism is insufficient, because it does not even ask whether the being
that science describes can oblige us. It’s all very well that science describes
reality, but the philosophical question is whether and how scientific
descriptions allow normative conclusions. In contrast to most current ana-
lytic metaphysicians, former naturalistic philosophers, as diverse as Hobbes,
Voltaire, and Marx, believed that the facts as explained by science suggest
naturalistically justifiable norms. Analytic metaphysics should follow this
track. It has to understand norms naturalistically, yet has to beware of an
invalid changing from is to ought. Unsurprisingly, this will prove difficult.
To better see what is required of a naturalistic metaphysics, we have to
extend our view from the beginnings of analytic philosophy to the history
of philosophy. Yet to understand the historical questions that shaped
metaphysics, I will start with a look at the metaphysical questions.
Metaphysical Questions and History

The most comprehensive metaphysical question asked by laypeople but
also philosophers like Wittgenstein is about the mere existence of the
world. Existentialists, and perhaps most emphatically Heidegger, have
given prominence to this naked fact that leaves us speechless indeed, the
more we become engrossed in its contemplation. We wonder that there is
16 U. STEINVORTH
anything at all, whatever its properties. Leibniz and Heidegger, as men-

tioned (Sect. “Analytic Philosophy’s Manifesto”), formulated this ques-
tion as Why is there anything at all rather than nothing. Heidegger
considered it the question that founds metaphysics. Probably he implied it
is the question that starts metaphysics and philosophy and to some degree
even science.
Probably Wittgenstein had the same question in mind when he wrote
of “the riddle” and “the mystical”, stating that nothing can be said about
it and that it shows itself when we understand that science can’t answer the
riddle. Nor can any other explanation, Heidegger and Wittgenstein agree;
if we appeal to a god to explain it, then it’s the god’s existence that
becomes unexplainable.
But curiously, analytic philosophers, so apt to split problems to solve
the sub-problems, didn’t apply their recipe to the fundamental metaphysi-
cal question. The baffling fact that there is a world provokes further ques-
tions that may be answerable. The why in the question “Why is there
anything at all?” can be understood in two ways, asking either for causes
or for ends. We can ask either, By what ultimate causes does the world exist
and have the properties it has, or Which ultimate ends does the world and
we ourselves exist for.
The world seems an unanswerable riddle only as long as we stare at the
fact of the world and ask the fundamental metaphysical question.
Contemplating this fact is a state characteristic of religion, producing feel-
ings of awe and dependency, while going on with the why-question and
distinguishing causes from ends corresponds to the rationality of science
and philosophy. Science tackled the causal questions with considerable
success; metaphysics tackled the teleological questions, but without
success.
This result is amazing, as we might have expected the very contrary.
The causes the causal questions ask for have always a preceding cause, so
the causal questions seem never to find an end, while the ends that the
teleological questions ask for do have an end, as the name says. And yet
science rather than metaphysics proved successful.
Against first appearances, the teleological questions did get answers,
which, though competing, have seemed pretty convincing and still orient
our lives, though we don’t notice that we follow competing teleologies
and rather tend to believe we follow moralities. Two answers preoccupied
philosophers and laypeople. The one answer is that our telos is to be happy
or to enjoy pleasure; the other, that our telos is to develop our powers of
reason and to strive for their perfection. They are both plausible. We do
aim at satisfying our desires, which makes us happy for a while, but we also
have abilities that we love using and developing to perfection, not least the
powers of our intelligence and our will. As our ambition for perfection can
spurn happiness, and our aiming at pleasure can lead to neglecting our
intellectual powers, the answers can’t be both true. So people find them-
selves split into hedonists and perfectionists, believers in the rights of crea-
tures to follow the desires they are born with and believers in the duties
taught by the reason we are born with.
There are difficulties of different kinds to decide between the two tele-
ological competitors. First, as noticed already by Ibn Khaldun (1958: vol.
1), societies challenged by a moderately severe climate and nature tend to
promote the ambition for perfection, becoming the home of high civiliza-
tion, while societies favored by Cockaigne conditions tend toward hedo-
nism. Does this mean that the choice between the competitors depends on
social conditions? This isn’t probable as, at least today, we can choose
between societies that promote perfection ambitions and societies that
promote hedonism.
Second, we may guess there is no universally valid choice between the
two and perhaps more candidates for our telos—that there is only an indi-
vidual choice of my telos. Existentialist philosophers argued that there is
only the existential question of what my project is, which cannot be
answered by ordinary logic or reason, but requires an existential decision
(Sartre 1943). However, they also said the decision must be authentic,
meaning it must be true to myself, so it cannot be arbitrary. In any case, as
humans belong to the same species with a common gene pool that imposes
commonalities on us, it is not convincing to propose that there are no
universally valid norms for humans. Existentialism is a response to the
disappointments in science and Enlightenment that started in the second
half of the nineteenth century and flared up in Germany after its defeat in
World War I and in France after its defeat in World War II.
Third and most important, we have to note that the competing claims
on our ends are not moral, as most theorists believed. They answer not the
question of what is morally right, but what ends our nature or being sets
to us. The criterion by which to decide on the rightness of an answer is not
whether we help—as we’ll see, this is the moral criterion—but whether we
find meaning in life. Both the hedonists and the perfectionists claimed to
read off their answers from our nature descriptively rather than norma-
tively. At least, they did so before they met a problem that troubles
18 U. STEINVORTH
philosophy, since modern seventeenth-century physics defeated

Aristotelian physics.
Premodern theorists believed that ends to be read off from nature can
oblige us. They believed nature is something obliging us to follow it,
although we are not forced to follow it. This view is implied still today
when we condemn an action as unnatural or deviant. Teleology describes
nature; nature obliges us to follow it, but we are free not to follow it;
hence, a law of nature is also a norm not to act against it, although we are
able to. In fact, ancient philosophy until Augustine understood as the law
of nature the sum of what today we distinguish as laws of nature and uni-
versally valid norms. The ancient law of nature, which lives on in the law
of peoples, international law and human rights, was not distinguished
from what today are called the laws of nature. And yet they were thought
to function as norms. Modern theory thinks laws and universally valid
norms—norms that are not conventions—cannot be the same. The laws of
nature are inexorable; we are not free not to follow them. What we are free
not to follow, although we ought to, are norms.
How was it possible that premodern theory thought differently?
Aristotelian physics distinguished between celestial and terrestrial spheres
and believed terrestrial things could act against nature and its laws, because
on the earth matter is too stubborn to unexceptionally obey nature (Byrne
1995, 2018: 5). The simplest way to understand how a norm can oblige
us was to understand it as a law of nature that we are not necessitated to
follow. Man, like heavy matter, was thought to sometimes deviate from
the laws, although he ought not to. Aristotle’s physics sounds curious to
modern ears, so much used to modern physics, but it represents the
accepted scientific knowledge of his time.
To give an example of his thinking, here is what Aristotle says about our
planet Earth. In antiquity, intellectuals were proud of knowing it as the
center in the circle of a surrounding sky, which enlightened astronomers
divided into the spheres formed by the orbits of the moon, the two inner
planets, the sun, three outer planets, and the final orbit of the fixed stars.
So Aristotle could teach:
the Earth does not move to any place, even if (the space) were infinite; but
it is held together at the center. And it would rest at the center not because
there is no other place to which it might travel, but because it is not its
nature to move to another place … (Physics 205b)
Our planet stands in the center, Aristotle explains, because the element
earth that it is made of by its nature sinks down to where heavy bodies go,
as far down as possible. In contrast, air and fire, the light elements, rise up
to the celestial spheres. There the stars, made of fire, follow the law of
nature without exception, as the light elements offer no resistance to the
moving and forming power of nature, while the heavy elements do offer
resistance, as we know by the experience that heavy bodies are difficult to
move. Hence, the forming power of nature has a less firm grip on terres-
trial things. Here, exceptions from the law of nature are possible, and
man, like heavy matter, can deviate from the laws, though it’s against
his nature.
Such ideas became impossible when Galileo found evidence that things
in the celestial spheres beyond the moon behave like things in the terres-
trial spheres under the moon. Now laws of nature were conceived as inex-
orable and to differ categorically from norms that we both can and cannot
obey. What then could it mean that we ought to follow a norm, if nothing
compels us? Or can it only mean that someone does compel us by threats?
Modern physics’ inexorable laws entailed more problems that chal-
lenged philosophy and led to its flourishing in the following centuries.
Perhaps the best known is that the laws of modern physics seemed to
prove determinism and to disprove free will. It has agitated philosophy to
this day, but we have to take account of the historical conditions that made
it a problem. Science is known as an enemy of religion; Galileo became its
religion-critical icon. But in its effect on the issue of free will, science was
an ally of religion that saw God’s omnipotence threatened by free will, by
which man can disobey God. Moreover, as ancient theorists before
Augustine didn’t talk of free will, free will could seem a medieval invention
that modern physics scrapped, along with other medieval obscurities.
Both religious and secular theorists could welcome modern science and
its putative determinism. They didn’t even need to fear losing the justifica-
tion for responsibility and punishment. For Hobbes argued that responsi-
bility is the ability of both humans and trainable animals to change their
behavior when threatened with punishment—people are punished not
because their actions are not necessitated but because they are harmful
(Hobbes 1840: 253). It’s a bit awkward, though, to think so. Ordinarily,
we do think that our power to deliberate makes us responsible in a way
children, dogs, and cattle, though trainable, cannot be.
Hobbes’ determinism seemed too cynical to be convincing, but it is the
most consistent response to modern physics’ strict distinction between law
20 U. STEINVORTH
and norm. In fact, Hobbes dropped the idea of norms as something we

can willingly disobey, admitting only inexorable laws that determine us
depending on conditions that we can add to by threatening punishments
on socially unwanted actions. The alternative to this reductionism was to
stick to free will and declare science incompetent to explain human behav-
ior. The majority of philosophers chose this non-reductionist way, but it
was doomed, since science couldn’t be stopped from explaining human
behavior. It was too successful in explaining nature.
Modern physics’ victory over Aristotle put philosophers in a rather per-
sonal dilemma. On the one hand, they found in it a victory of reason over
tradition and superstition; on the other hand, they found the very powers
of reason they admired in Galileo and Newton subjected to the iron laws
of physics. All the feats of reason proved now to have their causes in laws
and antecedent conditions that predetermine whatever happens in the
infinities of the universe, leveling down all differences of genius and virtue
to mere effects of a blind mechanism, with no teleology left that might tell
us what we ought to do. No wonder that when the first enthusiasm over
modern physics was over, Pascal confessed, “The eternal silence of these
infinite spaces frightens me” (2014, fr.206), their silence about norms.
From an ontological point of view, modern physics was particularly
disastrous. In Aristotle’s world, as we’ll see, to be is to be formed by
nature’s order that makes everything strive for its own perfection. In the
modern universe, to be is to be the blind effect of a calculable but incom-
prehensible giant world machine. In fact, every new generation of theo-
rists discovered that science shows reality to be the product of a blind
mechanism and responded with horror, despair, disbelief, sometimes with
pride in man’s power of reason or with the curious satisfaction that man’s
vanity is punished.
Naturalism seemed to have to go Hobbes’ reductionist way. But reduc-
tionism has become rather implausible today, for good reasons. Today, it’s
easier to see that the free will that might seem to seventeenth-century
theorists an obscure invention of the dark ages was the logical result of
reflections that started with Aristotle’s answer to the question whether and
why man is responsible for some of his actions, both punishable and
rewardable. Aristotle justified human responsibility without referring to
free will. He declared us responsible for an action iff (if and only if) we
have deliberated it rather than doing it voluntarily (NE III 1–3). This
seems plausible because when we deliberate, we seem to have a power to
say yes or no to what we deliberate.
The Stoics took account of this power when they distinguished between
having a thought and assenting to it by judging it to be true (in the act of
sunkatathesis), just as did Gottlob Frege when he distinguished between
thought and judgment. Augustine (1887; cp. Steinvorth 2020, ch.8)
declared the power to both assent and reject to be free will. In fact, he only
said that “to will and refuse willing are proper to the will” (“velle et enim
nolle propriae voluntatis est”, 1887, end of Ch. 5), but this was enough to
recognize will as the origin of responsibility and to allow the scholastics to
define free will according to what is called today the principle of alternate
possibilities (Frankfurt 1988). It states that you are responsible for an
action iff you might not have done it (not to do it is the minimum alter-
nate possibility). Thus, the late Spanish Scholastic Molina defined free will
as “the agent that … can act and not act, or act so that it might do the
contrary as well”, adding the comment: “will by its innate liberty can will
or not will or not choose at all” (“illud agens liberum dicitur, quod …
potest agere et non agere, aut ita agere unum, ut contrarium etiam agere
possit; potest voluntas sua innata libertate velle, aut nolle, vel neutrum
elicere actum”, my translations; 1595: 8f).
So there is a development from Aristotle’s grounding responsibility on
deliberation through the Stoics’ assumption of a double power of assent-
ing and rejecting any thought to Augustine’s calling this power free will
and the scholastic definitions of free will as the power to both do and not
to do something. Supposing we can remove objections to using the con-
cept of a power or faculty, as did both the Aristotelians and Cartesians (cp.
Perler 2015), this development constitutes a faultless argument for ascrib-
ing to man a free will that is incompatible with determinism. Yet this argu-
ment met not only with modern physics’ determinism but also with the
idea that free will must also be a perfect will. The power to do and not to
do something was aptly called libertas indifferentiae, the freedom of indif-
ference, or better, of making oneself indifferent to an impulse, a proposal
or a proposition. It was distinguished from perfect will as the highest form
of freedom. This caused new confusion, which we’ll clarify in Sect.
“Self-Determination”.
Moreover, though Augustine admitted that by his ability to both assent
and reject any proposal and proposition, man can disobey any law, he
found arguments that man can nonetheless not reduce God’s omnipo-
tence. Such restrictions burdened the claim that man has free will and
strengthened determinism. Today, as I’ll argue, we can base a non-
reductionist naturalistic understanding of free will on the medieval
22 U. STEINVORTH
conception of free will as the power to do and not to do something. But

Galileo’s and Newton’s scientific successes shattered the medieval concep-
tual system so much that philosophers responded by proposing new con-
ceptual systems.
Responses to Modern Science

Until the twentieth century, there seemed to be only two rationally accept-
able responses to the successful explanation of the processes under and
beyond the moon: Hobbes’ unrestricted determinism or Descartes’ dual-
ism. The deterministic solution was widespread among British seven-
teenth- and eighteenth-century empiricists such as Hobbes, Locke, and
Hume, although they considered it compatible with belief in a god or a
divine principle. Divinity was abolished by French and German eigh-
teenth- and nineteenth-century materialistic determinists. Scientists them-
selves were not always fond of determinism. Newton considered
“mechanical” causes compatible with final causes and with free will
(Gabbey 2016: 426, 437ff).
Determinism agrees with Aristotelian ontology in assuming there is
only one being, the being of individual material things, but disagrees by
explaining mental phenomena such as consciousness, thinking, and the
will as “epiphenomena”, such as the squeaking of brakes that in distinc-
tion from the sound waves have no effect. Epiphenomenalism, however,
though living on in Quine’s flight from intension, is not very convincing,
as we are so often moved, it seems, by a thought, and cry in pain and joy,
apparently caused by a feeling.
Contemporary determinists tend not to deny free will to man, but to
declare it compatible with determinism. Nothing is changed in our prac-
tice, they argue, if we assume that what we consider to be free-willed is
determined, as our predetermination acts through our deliberations and
arbitrary choices. However, such compatibilism implies that we cannot
declutch our actions from predetermination by free will. Yet the definition
of free will generally accepted today requires it to conform to the principle
of alternate possibilities, that we might not have done what we did if we
did it with free will. This definition admits only a “will-libertarian” con-
cept of free will.
Dualism as a response to modern science is Descartes’ invention. To
keep the ordinary belief that man by his reason and will can achieve things
animals cannot, Descartes thought it necessary to assume another kind of
being, the substance of mind or consciousness, in addition to the sub-

stance of bodies. Cartesians claimed that the substance of mind is imme-
diately and perfectly known to us and has the powers of reason and will,
while bodies are known by consciousness and their motions predictable by
the laws of nature and their antecedent conditions that reason discovers.
Without Descartes’ dualism, ontology might have remained the title of
Aristotle’s investigation of being qua being in the book called Metaphysics
(registered in ancient libraries as the book that came after his Physics,
though we can understand the meta also as “about” rather than “after”).
Descartes’ dualism challenged reflection about what distinguishes being
into body and mind. Descartes’ problem is to explain how body and mind
can interact. Cartesians, but not Descartes, said they can’t, contradicting
the experience that affecting our body affects our mind and decisions of
our mind move our body.
Kant hoped to eschew the problem by distinguishing between unknow-
able things themselves (unrecognizable in their substance) and appear-
ances investigated by science. But this distinction raises the question of
how we can know there is real being behind the apparent being, which is
as unanswerable as how Descartes’ two substances can interact. So Kant
didn’t succeed in making the world as presented by modern physics more
comprehensible.
Descartes’ dualism and its Kantian variety found followers in ontologi-
cal pluralisms. Heidegger, as McDaniel (2017) reads him, distinguished
being into more substances, Dasein, being-there, our own being;
Zuhandensein, the being of things we use in our ordinary behavior;
Vorhandensein, the being of things science investigates, and perhaps some
more ways of being, that of living things and that of institutions. However,
such pluralism still faces Descartes’ problem: how do the substances
interact?
Heidegger, though, can also be read as claiming that Dasein is the only
thing that has being, while the rest depends on its being, just as Aristotle’s
nine categories depend on the first category of individual things (cp. Sect.
“Teleology”). In this case, Heidegger would swap Descartes’ problem for
the problem of idealism, how nature and its things can depend on mind,
which rather seems to be a product of nature (cp. Steinvorth 2020,
sec. 20).
The analytic metaphysician McDaniel is nonetheless attracted to onto-
logical pluralism. He even pleads by the title of his book (2017) for a
“fragmentation of being”. Yet while Descartes, Kant and also Heidegger
24 U. STEINVORTH
introduced their splitting of being to save human free will, limiting prede-
termination to the being of body, appearances, and Vorhandensein,
McDaniel argues that his claims about “persistence over time” allow us to
ascribe free will to man “if we accept the Kantian picture in which things
in themselves are fundamentally non-spatiotemporal” (2017: 193). Like
Lewis’ metaphysics, also McDaniel’s is non-committal. It allows this or
that “if we accept” this or that. What then is his fragmentation good for?
He obscures the world rather than making it more comprehensible.
Ontological monism escapes the problems of dualist and pluralist ontol-
ogies. I’ll claim it is defensible as a non-reductionist naturalism possible,
since science developed in cybernetics a new means to conceive causality.
Cybernetics conceives agent causality as self-regulation and allows under-
standing free will as a form of causality by which an organism can cause
actions that are no longer determined by any predetermination. If free will
is what makes us responsible, and this is what it was introduced for, it must
cause the action we are responsible for.
Cybernetics allows us to assume with Aristotle that all being is of the
same substance. How then can we account for the differences between
things as different as stones that lack consciousness, animals that are goal-
directed, and humans who have minds? Aristotle required theorists to look
for science to account both for what is common and what distinguishes
things; analytic metaphysicians agree. Aristotle, though, found in science
the proof that nature forms all beings to their own perfection. In contrast,
to us, science can show a nature that evolved from undifferentiated states
to life and intelligence with creatures distinguished by different, though
again evolving forms of self-regulation. This fact of nature allows us to
think that to be is to be self-regulated, but more or less self-regulated.
Thus, I assume a gradation of being, that things are more or less. This
contradicts the intuition that something is or is not, tertium non datur.
No wonder, as McDaniel remarks, “Perhaps no view is more despised by
analytic metaphysicians than that there are gradations of being”. The idea
that “some things exist more than others” rather than existing “to the
same degree” (2017: 195) is anathema to analytic philosophy. But analytic
philosophy did favor naturalism, which commits to modeling being on
what science tells us about the world. And what physical cosmology and
Darwinian biology say is that there is an evolution of things with increas-
ing differentiation that made things more easy to distinguish, hence more
of an identifiable thing. But for a thing to be, it must be identifiable (“no
entity without identity”, as famously Quine assumed, cp. 1960: §24),
although its identity criteria may be more or less clear. So whether or not
there is a tertium, things do seem to be more or less identifiable.
Anyway, analytic philosophy has become so open to metaphysics that
even its anathema on the idea of gradable being has faded. McDaniel
makes use of it, arguing “that a sufficient condition for being fully real is
instantiating a perfectly natural property or relation” (194). Yet, whatever
a perfectly natural property or relation is, McDaniel does not follow the
evolutionist idea that allows us to say that the being of a molecule consti-
tutes is more than that an atom. Nor do those philosophers who ascribe to
present things a higher degree of being than to past and future things. By
contrast I’ll argue that nature presents us with a gradation of self-regulation
that we should understand as a gradation of being.
* * *
So far I have sketched the requirements that metaphysics has to meet

today. It has to be synthetic, normative, and naturalistic, but non-
reductionist. In the following chapter, I’ll outline such a metaphysics, the
ontology of escalation.
Bibliography
Augustine. 1887. A Treatise on Grace and Will. In From Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, ser.1, ed. P. Schaff, vol. 5. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing.
Byrne, Christopher. 1995. Prime Matter and Actuality. Journal of the History of
Philosophy 33 (2): 197–224.
———. 2018. Aristotle’s Science of Matter and Motion. Toronto: University of
Toronto Pr.
Chisholm, Roderick. 1966. Freedom and Action. In Freedom and Determinism,
ed. K. Lehrer, 11–44. Random House: New York.
Clark, Randolph. 2003. Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Everett, Hugh. 1957. Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics. Reviews
of Modern Physics. 29 (3): 454–462.
Frankfurt, Harry. 1988. The Importance of What We Care About. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
———. 1999. Necessity, Volition, and Love. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gabbey, Alan. 2016. Newton, Active Powers, and the Mechanical Philosophy. In
The Cambridge Companion to Newton, ed. R. Iliffe and G.E. Smith, 421–453.
Cambridge: Cambridge.
26 U. STEINVORTH
Heidegger, Martin. 1959. Introduction to Metaphysics. New Haven: Yale UP.

Hobbes, Thomas. 1840. Of Liberty and Necessity. In English Works, ed.
Molesworth, vol. 4. London: Bohn.
Hylton, Peter, and Gary Kemp. 2019. Quine. In Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
Ibn Khaldun. 1958. The Muqaddimah. An Introduction to History. Princeton
University Pr.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1991. The Monadology. Tr. Nicholas Rescher.
University of Pittsburgh Pr.
Lewis, David. 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell.
Loux, Michael. 1998. Metaphysics. A Contemporary Introduction. New York:
Routledge. 4th ed. with Thomas Crisp New York: Routledge. 2017.
McDaniel, Kris. 2017. The Fragmentation of Being. Oxford: Oxford UP.
———. 2020. This Is Metaphysics. Hoboken: Wiley.
Metz, Thaddeus. 2013. Meaning in Life. An Analytic Study. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Molina, Ludovicus de. 1595. Liberi Arbitrii cum Gratiae Donis, Divina
Praescientia, Providentia, Praedestinatione, et Reprobatione, Concordia.
Antwerp: Trognaesius.
Mumford, Stephen M. 2012. Metaphysics. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP.
Nozick, Robert. 1981. Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.
Papineau, David. 2020. Naturalism. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Pascal, Blaise. 2014. Pensées. Ed. Brunschwicg and Trans. W.F. Trotter, Updated.
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/pascal/blaise/p27pe/contents.html.
Perler, Dominik, ed. 2015. The Faculties. A History. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Quine, W.V.O. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Pr.
———. 1981. Theories and Things. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.
Sartre, Jean Paul. 1943. L’être et le néant. Paris: Gallimard; Being and Nothingness.
New York: Philosophical Library, 1956.
Scheffler, Samuel. 2016. Death and the Afterlife. New York: Oxford UP.
Steinvorth, Ulrich. 2020. A Secular Absolute. How Philosophy Discovered
Authenticity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Strawson, Peter. 1959. Individuals. An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London:
Routledge.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1980. Culture and Value. Ed. G.H. von Wright and Trans.
Peter Winch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wolf, Susan. 2012. Meaning in Life and Why It Matters. Princeton: Princeton UP.
CHAPTER 2
The Ontology of Escalation
Abstract The synthetic, normative, and naturalistic metaphysics of ana-

lytic philosophy hinges on an ontology that lays bare the property com-
mon to all being and yet differing in the infinitely many different things.
Such property is self-regulation, easily recognizable in organisms, but
lacking, it seems, in dead things. Cybernetics, however, permits us to con-
ceive even dead things as a zero grade of self-regulation and confirms a
claim implied by identifying being with self-regulation: that there can be
more or less of self-regulation, hence of being. Self-regulation attains its
highest degree among the things we know in the human species in the
form of free will. Despite its prima facie improbability, analytic ontology
proves an ontology of gradable being, an ontology of escalation.
Analytic ontology of escalation agrees with a couple of claims of
Aristotle and the scholastics, although it rejects their physics and is unre-
strictedly naturalistic. In addition to cybernetics, contemporary psychol-
ogy and brain theory prove to confirm the ontology of escalation. With
recourse to Leibniz’ (“demiurgic”) idea of measuring the goodness of a
world by the number of possibilities opened up by the world, the common
property of being, self-regulation, can be shown to be not only gradable
but also more or less good. Thus, analytic ontology proves not only to be
synthetic and naturalistic, but also to be normative. Moreover, it clarifies
in which sense we can find a teleology in natural evolution.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 27

Switzerland AG 2021
U. Steinvorth, A Plea for Naturalistic Metaphysics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72603-4_2
28 U. STEINVORTH
Keywords Ontology • Escalation • Self-regulation • Self-determination

• Free will • Cybernetics • Dual process theory • Consciousness •
Evolution • The demiurge • Teleology • Aristotle • Descartes • Leibniz
• Kant • Benjamin Libet • Keith Stanovich • Ernst Mayr •
Richard Dawkins
Self-Regulation in Animals
In the first half of this chapter (Sects. “Self-Regulation in Animals”, “Self-
Determination”, “To Be Is to Be Self-Regulated”, “Consciousness and
Abilities”, “Self-Determination and Dual Process Theory”), I’ll outline
the metaphysics that is to meet the requirements listed in the first chapter.
In the second half (Sects. “How Do I Find What Suits Me”, “The Moral
and the Metaphysical”, “Teleology”, “Being, Value, and the Demiurge”),
I’ll focus on its normative aspects.
I claimed naturalism can be non-reductionist because cybernetics allows
us to conceive causality in an organism as self-regulation. Cybernetics ana-
lyzes computer processes as chains of causes and effects that serve the goal
set for the computer by the programmer. This analysis proves applicable to
organic processes. But as there is no programmer setting the organism its
goal, the organism is self-regulating. How is this possible?
Current chemists and biologists agree with the conjecture, proposed by
Alexander Oparin and J.B.S. Haldane in the 1920s independently of one
another, that macromolecular carbon compounds developed under natu-
ral conditions into living cells. The macromolecules had an unstable com-
position that caused them to assimilate matter or energy from their
environment. Assimilation is the turning point that separates the dead
from the living. It changes a body that is only acted on into a body that
also acts on its environment to assimilate what it needs to keep its compo-
sition. The change consists in the macromolecule becoming self-related
and self-regulating, and goal-directed or teleological.
The change is a leap forward in evolution, because it changes the func-
tion of the causes that act on the molecule. The molecule takes what acts
on it as signals, as indicating a relevance for its needs or goals, just as a
computer takes what acts on it as signals or triggers that cause changes
conditioned by its built-in program. The organism proves conceivable as a
processor of information relevant for its built-in goal of assimilating from
its environment what suits its program or composition.
2 THE ONTOLOGY OF ESCALATION 29
Cybernetics conceives computers as systems that respond to inputs

causing an output via intermediate effects or feedbacks. The feedbacks
turn the causes into signals informing the computer about what finally to
produce as output. Organisms can be modeled on the same scheme.
Among the many forces that act on a macromolecule-becoming-alive,
some trigger the effect of a motion toward absorbing the matter imping-
ing on it. If the matter proves non-absorbable, this result can cause another
motion toward absorbing something next to the object first tried for
absorption. The first cause triggers a series of effects, all of which consist
of attempts to absorb what the macromolecule by its chemical composi-
tion needs to assimilate. The chain of causes and effects turns into the
processing of an input for an output that the system is constructed for.
The intermediate effects function as feedbacks by which the system checks
the input for its relevance to its goal. In cybernetic systems, causality
becomes teleology.
The simplest cybernetic systems are mechanic, such as a water closet.
For cybernetics, a water closet is a system consisting of a water container,
of water inflow, and of a stopper that responds to the input by swimming
on the water, until when it reaches a certain water line, it causes the final
output of stopping the inflow. The state of the stopper swimming on the
water functions as a constant flow of information relevant to the goal. The
chain of causality starting with the input of water inflow and ending in the
output of stopping the inflow is broken by a chain of intermediate feed-
backs. The feedbacks are not the cyberneticist’s arbitrary constructs, as the
stopper swimming on the water exists to inform the system about its built-
in goal.
What distinguishes the water closet from a macromolecule is that its
goal has been set by man. Despite this difference, conceiving a chain of
causes and effects as a cybernetic system has three implications. We ascribe
to the system self-regulation, self-distinction, and selfhood. Self-regulation
means that the system doesn’t need the intervention of forces outside
itself to regulate it. Self-distinction means that by its self-regulation, the
system distinguishes itself as a system from its surroundings by its self-
regulation. Selfhood means that a system by its taking causes as signals
changes from a passive object of causal forces into an agent processing
input via feedbacks into output.
True, ascribing a self to a water closet sounds like a joke. Patrick Suppes
(1994: 458), though, is “prepared to say that in a weak sense a thermostat
exhibits voluntary motion”, and a thermostat is a cybernetic system as
30 U. STEINVORTH
simple as a water closet. In any case, we can assign even a water closet a self
in the sense that the human mechanic construing it arranges parts of a
system so that it pursues a goal. If we ask what exactly in the arrangement
pursues the goal, the important answer is that it is no particular part, but
the system, which we call in more developed organisms the self.
Cybernetics cannot explain how an organism can have a goal; this is
something for biology and chemistry to explain. But it can show that
whenever causes are acting on a system that takes them as signals, then a
self and other phenomena of the mind arise, and that they arise as proper-
ties of the whole system rather than as something locatable in a place. Take
a protozoon as an example. The stimuli that impinge on whatever in it is
sensitive to impingements are its input; its actions are its output. The
inputs are processed by feedbacks, check-ups by which the protozoon
makes sure that the input is relevant to its goals. The possible outputs this
system is constructed for are no longer only the two actions of admitting
and stopping water or heat inflow, but a broad range of motions that we
can understand as assimilating, attacking, incorporating, eating, and mat-
ing, and another broad range of motions understandable as avoiding, flee-
ing, and disliking something.
Although all actions of the protozoon are predetermined by the laws of
nature plus the antecedent conditions of the existence of the protozoon,
the system that a protozoon constitutes is so complicated that we cannot
predict how an individual protozoon will move at a given time and place.
When we observe a protozoon under a microscope, we are amazed by its
inventive and flexible responses. To ascribe a self to it is no longer a joke.
But as little as for the water closet can we locate a self in some part of the
protozoon. The self is the self-regulating system.
Considering the behavior of animals that we ordinarily grade higher in
evolution than protozoa, the panoply of output as well as the sensitivity to
input and the system of feedbacks by which input is processed becomes
increasingly complicated, and our inclination to ascribe a self to them
becomes correspondingly stronger. Most dog owners are convinced their
dog has a self. And again, the dog’s self is not locatable. As his brain is a
center to control the processing of the input into output, we may want to
identify his brain with his self. But the dog’s self arises in the way he acts,
no less than the protozoon’s self arises in its acts. Its brain is neither its self
nor its self’s seat.
Is there a difference between animals and humans in their self-
regulation? The panoply of both our sensitivity and our actions is broader
and the feedbacks in our processing more complicated than those of
animals. But in addition, perhaps as a condition to cope with this greater

complexity, we have an ability probably no animal is endowed with. We
cannot only stop our impulses, by a capacity shared with animals such as
dogs and rats and even amoebae. We can also change the preferences,
inclinations and algorithms by which we respond to stimuli. A rat can stop
his impulse to eat a lure if he remembers a similar food that killed another
rat, just as we can if we remember some threat to eating a delicacy. Yet
even the cleverest animal, as far as we know, cannot arbitrarily change its
preference for avoiding death (or its preference for the life of its pup),
while man can.
Whether it is in virtue of our propositional language that allows us to
describe what is not the case and to deny any proposition, or in virtue of
our complex brain, we can propose to ourselves, in thought and language,
any thinkable goal and any criterion by which to respond to a stimulus, as
well as their negation. If we feel unable to put our will into practice, we
can ask a shrink to train us to overcome our inhibitions. Hence, cybernet-
ics offers us a way to show that man has a kind of self-regulation that
bestows free will on him. For the generally accepted definition of free will
is that it’s a power to both do and not do an action (cp. Sect. “Responses
to Modern Science”). Let’s check this result.
Self-Determination
We didn’t need cybernetics to find an argument for ascribing free will to
us. Already ancient Stoics ascribed to humans the power of assenting and
rejecting any thought “as the special human prerogative which makes our
actions ‘up to us’” (Sorabji 1996: 318), the prerogative that Augustine
seems to have been the first to conceive as free will (cp. Sect. “Metaphysical
Questions and History” and Frede 2011). But cybernetics offers us a
model for self-regulation, self-determination, free will, and the self that
demonstrates how self-determination arises as a kind of causal
determination.
Let’s conceive ourselves as a cybernetic system S that processes its input
so as to admit as its output only output op that meets the self-regulating
conditions SR:
(i) op has been deliberated, that is, its pros and cons have been
weighed by S,
(ii) op may be rejected by S, even if S finds more pros than cons for op,
32 U. STEINVORTH
(iii) op conforms to S’s ambition to pursue only self-chosen actions

and goals.
We know condition (i) from our own deliberations, but we can ascribe
deliberation also to a computer that subjects a possible output to tests.
How are we to understand (ii)? It is met by a computer that has checked
a command x and found it admissible, and yet doesn’t admit x, but pro-
cesses x through a random number generator and admits x only if a num-
ber assigned to admittance is generated. The computer’s behavior would
become unpredictable, but we wouldn’t assign him free will, not only
because we wouldn’t assign him a will at all—in the end, it’s only an
automat—but also because the intermediate random process seems to
make the output similar to the erratic will of Hume’s lunatics (1978: 404).
To model free will, then, it seems we have to add condition (iii) to (i)
and (ii). To confirm this conjecture, think of a defiant child who opposes
her parents’ requests because they are theirs rather than her own. She has
the power of rejecting any proposal and any possible output, as even when
she knows that her parents’ proposals have more pros than cons, she can
refuse them. As long as she chooses actions just because they are the con-
trary of what her parents tell her, she doesn’t meet condition (iii), as her
action is only defiant and not self-chosen.
So to be self-chosen or self-determined (I’ll not distinguish between
these two terms), an action must conform to the agent’s self or nature.
But if it conforms to the agent, isn’t it then predetermined by the agent’s
self or nature rather than free-willed? Faced with this question, we may
hark back to a scholastic distinction between free will in the sense of
(1) libertas indifferentiae, the freedom of being indifferent to the

options we have or to make oneself indifferent to them, which we
may also call arbitrary will, and
(2) perfect liberty, when we know what to choose, though therefore
don’t lose free will.
Arbitrary will can be defined by (i) plus (ii) above in SR, because it pre-
supposes the ability of deliberation, given by (i), and the ability to decide
differently from how one does decide, given by (ii). As (ii) meets the
accepted definition of free will as the power to act differently from how one
does act, arbitrary will is free will, making its agent responsible. In fact,
Augustine thought so, but other authors argue that arbitrary will is
haphazard or predetermined by unknown causes and cannot be free will.

But as by arbitrary will we meet condition (ii), we declutch by arbitrary will
a decision from predetermination. So the defiant child who does not know
her self has an arbitrary will, and therefore free will and responsibility, if she
also meets the condition of being able to deliberate. So we should claim:
(FW) S has free will iff it meets conditions (i) and (ii) in SR.
But doesn’t our claim (FW) imply that a computer using a random
number generator has free will? It doesn’t, because computers have nei-
ther free will nor responsibility, as long as they have no will, or desire or
drive or interest of their own, which is a precondition or having free will.
Rather, computers follow a program written by a human or another intel-
ligent animal that has will. To take account this objection, we replace FW by
(FW*) S has free will iff it (a) meets conditions (i) and (ii) in SR and (b) has
a will or drive of its own.
Although FW* defines free will, it also shows that free will is a property
of our intelligence, the special property of our power of deliberation to be
able at any time to reject a deliberation and restart it. We can oppose free
will to reason, as by free will we can flout the work of reason in delibera-
tion. But free will can oppose reason only because our deliberation is
always revisable and correctible. Revisability and with it arbitrary will
belong to our rationality.
The next question is whether condition (iii) of SR makes a decision
meeting conditions (i) and (ii) again predetermined. To explicate the pos-
sible predetermination by one’s self, let’s replace (iii) by
(iii*) op conforms to S’s self or nature.
If an agent meets (iii*), her self-regulation becomes self-determination;

she chooses not just what she might as well not have chosen, but chooses
what is a determination by herself. When Frankfurt (1988, 1999) claims
that we are self-determined if we follow a “volitional necessity”, which
“limits the will”, his conception of self-determination corresponds to
(iii*). For “volitional necessity” is “grounded in the person’s own nature”.
As it is a necessity, Frankfurt argues we are predetermined. Yet he also says
that “since the necessity is grounded in the person’s own nature, the free-
dom of the person’s will is not impaired” and suggests that being
34 U. STEINVORTH
predetermined by our own nature is not only self-determination but also

perfect freedom (1999: 80f).
Similar to Frankfurt, Descartes, in his Fourth Meditation, argued that
the libertas indifferentiae (or arbitrary will) is the lowest degree of free-
dom, because I’m indifferent to how I decide. The highest grade of free-
dom, he says, is perfect will, when reason pushes me in an unambiguous
direction. So Descartes’ perfect will corresponds to Frankfurt’s volitional
necessity. But unlike Frankfurt, Descartes presumes that if my will is per-
fect, still I might reject it, as my power of rejecting any proposition is not
canceled when I follow my self (cp. Steinvorth 2020: 60f). To give a
famous example, when Luther refused to recant his writings, saying, “Here
I stand. I can do no other”, Descartes and Frankfurt agree that Luther
used his perfect freedom, but unlike Frankfurt Descartes insists that
Luther might still have done other in virtue of his free will.
Who is right, Frankfurt or Descartes? Once an agent has acquired an
arbitrary will defined by (i) and (ii), will she lose this power when she
decides in conformity to herself? True, whenever she decides conforming
to herself, she is determined by herself. Yet she would be predetermined
only if by being determined by herself she lost her arbitrary will. But her
arbitrary will belongs to her nature, as the listing of the conditions in SR
illustrates. Nor is her decision erratic like that of Hume’s lunatics, as she
meets condition (i) of deliberating the pros and cons of an action and is
responsible for the decision.
Similar to Descartes, Hegel (PR §§5–7) defined will (and mind) as the
“unity” of the two “moments” of “indeterminacy” and “determination”.
The first moment corresponds to condition (ii) in SR, the second to con-
dition (iii*). Hegel went on to describe “self-determination” as a state of
“determinacy” in which we do “not feel determined”, “but willingly limit
ourselves … knowing ourselves in this limitation as ourselves” (PR §7
Add.). The limitation corresponds to Frankfurt’s volitional necessity, but
like Descartes, Hegel assumes the “indeterminacy” of free or arbitrary will
is not lost when we limit ourselves in self-determination.
I conclude that man has the powers of free will and self-determination.
Yet our understanding what it means for humans to meet condition (iii*)
is still insufficient. We should also know how we can be sure that our will
is perfect, or self-determined, or a volitional necessity. Experience tells us
that what seems perfect liberty today can be chains tomorrow. How to
prevent such disappointment? This question, though, does not pertain to
the question of whether we have free will. Whenever I may be
self-
determined, my choice according to FW* doesn’t disable me to
declutch an action from predetermination. The question pertains to the
criteria I have to use to be sure enough that I am self-determined rather
than just believe I am. I’ll turn to this question in Sect. “How Do I Find
What Suits Me”.
Thus far, I have argued that all living beings are self-regulated and that
there is an increase of self-regulation in the evolution of biological species.
Yet I aim at a claim hardly acceptable for analytic philosophers: that the
increase of self-regulation comprehends all beings, including dead ones.
To Be Is to Be Self-Regulated
Cybernetics conceives self-regulation as processing input into output via
feedbacks checking whether the output conforms to a goal built in the
system. Can we conceive the behavior of inanimate things as a similar pro-
cessing system? It’s by feedbacks that a causal chain of causes and effects
becomes goal-directed or teleological. As dead things are not goal directed,
we can’t expect their behavior to be conceivable as mediated by feedbacks,
except when we have arranged them so as to pursue a goal we have set
them, as in computers and WCs.
Yet all dead things have a passive power of being receptive to a force,
say gravity, and exert themselves a force, a power of spontaneity. When
they are acted on by a force, they respond by exerting a force. There is
input and output and a mediation between them also in dead bodies,
though without the feedbacks that change causality into teleology. This is
noempty claim, as it implies that any being is acting on, and acted on by,
another one. So we can conceive dead body behavior as a zero grade of
self-regulation, as mediating a power of receptivity with a power of spon-
taneity with zero intermediate responses that might change causality into
teleology. So all things, dead or alive, are self-regulated, though to differ-
ent degrees, starting with the zero grade in dead things, which means zero
feedbacks, becoming increasingly numerous and complicated with the
evolution of natural species and reaching the form of free or arbitrary will
that declutches actions from predetermination, and the non-predetermined
self-regulation by a being’s own nature that is self-determination.
Inclusion of dead things in the self-regulation that distinguishes living
things makes living things the model by which to understand being. As
dead matter is what living things are made of and dead matter becomes
alive in appropriate conditions, modeling dead things on living things fits
the potential of dead things. True, we think that as living things are made
36 U. STEINVORTH
of matter and physics describes matter without referring to self-regulation,

therefore matter as described by physics should be the model by which to
understand being. Yet this model doesn’t take account of the potential of
matter to become alive in appropriate conditions and therefore should
cede to a model that does.
We can extend self-regulation also beyond man’s self-regulation, con-
firming that not only all known but also all imaginable beings can be
understood as more or less self-regulated. Super-human intelligent agents
would be superior to humans in their intellectual and volitional powers,
and therefore could become independent of predetermination where we
cannot. But this would make them no more able to declutch themselves
from all predetermination than we are. As long as they are products of
nature or creations of a god, they too remain predetermined by the fact
that they exist, whether or not they wanted to. Only if they could decide
whether they wanted to exist at all would they be what theologians called
a causa sui, a cause or reason of its own existence (cp. Spiering 2011;
Boehm 2014, Ch.4).
A being that has the power to decide whether to exist is paradoxical and
hard if not impossible to think of, as it would have to exist in order to
decide. But we do think of a self-determination that includes even the
choice of one’s existence. It would differ from our determination by free
will just as this differs from animal self-regulation. The idea of a causa sui
and implicitly that of increasing self-regulation proves its fittingness to
model all being by another fact in the history of ideas. There is the legend
that some angels rebel against God because they envied him his being
causa sui (cp. Steinvorth 2020, sec.22). It shows that people did think of
beings as more or less self-regulated and value them the more, the more
self-regulated they are.
When we think and value in this way, we imply a normative ontology, a
theory of what it means to be. To mark by what it differs from other
ontologies, I call it the ontology of escalation, as it claims that being and
its value is increasable in what it consists in, in self-regulation.
This ontology shares a controversial claim with Aristotle’s ontology.
The being that I claim is increasable self-regulation is the being of indi-
vidual things or bodies, such as an atom, protozoon, or animal. Aristotle
(cp. Sect. “Teleology”) called such beings substances; I call them basic
beings to avoid association with the two substances of body and mind that
Descartes speaks of (Loux 2008: 3 calls them basic subjects). But why
should we assume there are basic individuals? Why not assume, as basic,
properties or forces? Isn’t this more elegant and convincing anyway, as

what we indeed know about the world are properties and forces?
Perhaps we can drop in microphysics and macrophysics the idea that
there must be something that has the properties, but we cannot in the
world we live in. Though Hume (1978: 252), Lichtenberg (1991: 412),
and Nietzsche (1980: vol.11: 639f, 1989: 45) suggested that we ourselves
are just experiences and not the things we ordinarily think we are, we can-
not consistently think of us as substance-less bundles of ideas. When we
think of ourselves as doing something, we don’t think there is an experi-
ence of our acting; we think we act. We cannot even think of an experience
we have without thinking that we have it. Similarly, we cannot think of
what we experience of other people without thinking it is them or their
selves who act and experience. The same applies to animals. In the same
way, we think of what we know of bodies as their properties, rather than
as properties without bodies. We think there can be no Cheshire cat’s grin
without a Cheshire cat.
In the wake of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that the structure of a lan-
guage determines the speakers’ world view, the grammar of Indo-European
languages was suspected to be the cause of our assumption that things
underlie powers and properties. Yet it’s more probable that we think this
way because we are living beings who can decide whether and how to use
our powers. We know ourselves as active and passive things rather than
mere experiences. Aristotle’s ontology of substances results not from prej-
udice but from our being living things, which is itself a property of
the world.
But why should we think that to be is to be self-regulated rather than,
say, to have a body or powers and properties or to be caused or, to take up
Quine’s famous claim, that to be is the value of a variable (cp. Quine
1953: 13f, 15)?
To start with the Quinean candidate, being can be the property of any-
thing we can quantify over—classes, numbers, and properties. In contrast,
Aristotle set ontology the task to ask whether there is something, to use
his words (in Ross’ translation), “of which everything else is predicated,
while it is itself not predicated of anything else” (kath’ hou ta alla legetai,
ekeino de auto meketi kat’ allou, Metaphysics Z 1028b36). To ask this ques-
tion is a task naturalists must not quit. Naturalists believe that many of the
things that can be quantified over, such as numbers and relations, exist
only in a secondary sense of “exist” or “be”, that they are only because of
things, such as atoms and animals, that have “primary” being. As a
38 U. STEINVORTH
naturalist, Quine stuck to this task, but Quinean ontology doesn’t, depriv-
ing ontology of the very dimension that makes it interesting for
naturalists.
As to the claims that to be is to have a body, or is to be caused, or is to
have some quality or power, they do fit in with what science says about
nature. But they are also implied by the claim that to be is to be more or
less self-regulated, while they don’t imply this claim. So the claim that to
be is to be more or less self-regulated is more informative and can be more
easily falsified, hence is preferable.
Consciousness and Abilities

I return to my definitions of self-determination and free will in Sect. “Self-
Determination”. I claim they provide a non-reductionist naturalistic meta-
physics. But they don’t refer to consciousness. If they don’t refer to
consciousness, let alone explain it, don’t they miss something crucially
important for free will and other mental phenomena? Isn’t the ontology I
propose reductionist after all? I claim it’s not; rather, reference to con-
sciousness to understand free will and other mental phenomena misses
what is important in them.
Benjamin Libet (1985) showed that fragments of seconds before we
make a decision, there are changes in our brain that are best interpreted as
unconscious preparations of our conscious decisions. Doesn’t this prove
that all our decisions are predetermined by unconscious neuronal events
rather than determined by our self? Libet presupposed that “a free will
process implies that one could be held consciously responsible for one’s
choice to act or not to act” and that “We do not hold people responsible
for actions performed unconsciously, without the possibility of conscious
control” (1999: 52; 9). As his experiments prove all conscious acts to be
prepared by unconscious processes, he concluded that we lack free will
and therefore cannot be responsible.
He relied on a tacit premise for his conclusion. He presupposed that
the unconscious preparations of actions he discovered are the actions for
which we are made responsible. This premise is false. The actions for
which we are made responsible are actions that we are able to make con-
scious. The unconscious preparations can never be conscious indeed, but
they are no actions. A naturalist will recognize that all our actions are
prepared by unconscious neuronal processes (Papineau 1993: 12), but
should not infer that therefore, our actions cannot be responsible.
Already Aristotle taught that responsibility starts with our power of
deliberation; as animals and children lack it, they are not responsible. For
an act to be a deliberation it need not be conscious, but it must be possible

for it to become conscious; there is no responsibility unless the action we
are made responsible for can become conscious. Nonetheless, it’s not con-
sciousness that makes us responsible, for children and animals can perform
actions consciously and yet don’t become responsible for them; it’s our
ability to deliberate that makes us responsible, for deliberation is under-
stood to stop the deliberated action, hence to imply the power of choosing
to do as well as not to do the deliberated action.
So if a conscious action is unconsciously prepared, this preparation
doesn’t prevent us from making us responsible. It does prevent us if after
its beginning we could not turn our attention to it and could not con-
sciously decide to stop it. Libet admits this point himself when he says, “We
do not hold people responsible for actions performed unconsciously, with-
out the possibility of conscious control” (1999: 9). Yet he errs in his impli-
cation that there is no possibility of conscious control of a process after its
start with unconscious neuronal changes. If the process can become con-
scious and can be stopped, then it becomes an action we are responsible for.
Of such a kind were the processes in Libet’s own experiments. The test
subjects were able to stop their actions that their neurons had prepared.
Their stopping them would again need neuronal preparations, but they
would be commanded by their decision, made possible when an impulse
becomes conscious, to stop the impulse that becomes conscious. This abil-
ity of stopping a process that we can be aware of makes us responsible for
it. Libet is right that “a free will process implies that one could be held
consciously responsible for one’s choice to act or not to act” (1999: 52);
decisions we cannot make conscious cannot be free-willed. But he is wrong
to imply that since all our actions have unconscious preparations, we
therefore cannot deliberate upon the actions and make them conscious.
In the idealist and Cartesian tradition, the self is what makes us respon-
sible, but it is necessarily conscious. Probably because he followed this
tradition, Libet implied that since all our actions have unconscious prepa-
rations, we therefore cannot deliberate upon them and make them con-
scious. To counter this tradition, the cognitive scientist Neil Levy, though
rightly insisting with Libet that “consciousness of at least some of the facts
that give our actions or omissions their moral significance is a necessary
condition of moral responsibility” (2014: vii), continues to explain:
Consciousness is necessary for direct moral responsibility, I claim, not

because of what it is, but because of what it does. The contents that consti-
tute our identity are broadly distributed in the mind, and the vast majority
40 U. STEINVORTH
of these contents are at any one time nonconscious. Consciousness is a tiny,

and very frequently unrepresentative, portion of our mental life, but con-
sciousness enables the distributed mechanisms that constitute agents to play
a coordinated and coherent role in agency. (2014: ix)
Levy’s crucial sentence is that “consciousness enables the distributed

mechanisms that constitute agents to play a coordinated and coherent role
in agency”. When he says consciousness is necessary because of what it
does, he can be misunderstood. We are responsible for omissions that we
never become conscious of, if we might have thought of them. Think of
forgetting to switch off the stove that sets a vacation house on fire after
your departure; you are responsible for the fire, whether or not you ever
have thought of your omission. Consciousness is necessary because it
enables us to exert the checking of a possible or initiated action or omis-
sion, but having the ability is enough to make us responsible.
Traditional materialism or naturalism opposed the idealist tradition by
declaring consciousness an epiphenomenon that lacks any causality of its
own. In the naturalistic view implied by Levy and cognitive science,
although Levy calls consciousness epiphenomenal (2014: 16), it is not.
For as Levy says himself, it “enables the distributed mechanisms that con-
stitute agents” (2014: ix).
How it can enable brain processes to “constitute agents” is something
that cognitive science doesn’t explain. Maybe we’ll have to take this amaz-
ing power of consciousness as a brute fact. In any case, what makes us
responsible is not consciousness itself, but the abilities to use conscious-
ness in a way inaccessible to animals. These abilities are the powers of
deliberation and arbitrary will, as defined by conditions (i) and (ii) of SR
in Sect. “Self-Determination”. They can be exerted without conscious-
ness, although to make us responsible it must be possible for us to exert
them consciously.
That consciousness is necessary for some abilities to be exerted made
researchers interested in consciousness rather than in the condition that
enable animals and humans to achieve amazing feats. Behaviorism, which
cast out consciousness, was a sound antidote to a misleading interest.
Behaviorists discovered behavior’s dependence on abilities and patterns of
reinforcement. But curiously they didn’t draw the most important conclu-
sion from their discoveries: that by an adequate training, humans can
achieve even the feat of declutching some actions from predetermination.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Stachelbeerbüschen, wo sie sehr viel Schaden anrichten. Sie haben
nur sechs wirkliche Beine und vier Bauchfüße am Ende ihres
Körpers und bewegen sich in sonderbarer Weise vorwärts. Sie
halten sich mit ihren Vorderbeinen an dem Zweige fest und ziehen
ihre Bauchfüße an sich heran, bis ihr Körper eine Schleife in der Luft
bildet. Dann lassen die Vorderbeine los und ihr Kopfende erhebt sich
in die Luft ähnlich, wie ein Elefant seinen Rüssel hebt, und dann
streckt sich ihr Körper vorwärts am Zweige.
1. Bauchfüße der
Raupe.
2. Gegliederte
Beine.
Da eine Raupe fortwährend frißt, so wird durch den wachsenden
Körper die Haut so straff, daß eine Zeit kommt, wo sie keine
Nahrung mehr aufnehmen kann. Dann hält sie sich einige Stunden
ruhig und bläst ihre Ringe auf. Die Haut platzt, und die Raupe kriecht
heraus, mit einer neuen, weichen Haut bekleidet, die sich unter der
alten gebildet hat. Diese ist dehnbar, und bald frißt die Raupe
ebenso lustig darauf los wie vorher.
Die Raupe wiederholt dies ungefähr fünfmal in ihrem
Raupenleben; dann hört sie mit Fressen auf und bleibt einige Tage
unbeweglich. Ihre Färbung verbleicht, und wenn nun ihre Haut platzt
und abgestreift wird, so sind unter einer neuen weichen nun schon
alle Teile des Schmetterlings zu sehen, obwohl noch weich und
unvollkommen. Bald sickert eine Art von Gummi heraus. Dieser
verhärtet in der Haut und schützt dadurch den Körper während der
Entwicklung.
Jetzt heißt das Wesen Puppe. Diese sieht in der Tat wie eine
zerknitterte Puppe aus mit ihren zusammengebogenen Beinen und
dem über diesen niedergebogenen Kopfe unter der harten Haut. Die
Puppe eines Tagfalters ist gewöhnlich oben breit und unten schmal
und hat Erhöhungen und Stacheln (vergl. bunte Tafel I. 3). Aber die
Puppen der Schwärmer sind mehr eiförmig und glatt (vergl. bunte
Tafel II. 3). Spinner hüllen ihre Puppen gewöhnlich in einen seidigen
Sack oder Kokon ein, aber die Tagfalter lassen die ihrigen nackt und
befestigen sie an einem Zweige oder an einem Grashalm mit einem
seidigen Faden (vergl. bunte Tafel I. 5).
Die Raupe der Schwärmer wühlt sich in den Erdboden ein und
liegt als Puppe in einem Loche, das sie vorher mit Seidenfäden
ausgepolstert hat. Nach ungefähr sieben Monaten, oder oft auch
später, arbeitet sich die Puppe an die Oberfläche hinauf, der
Schmetterling bricht durch die Hülle und kriecht heraus.
Sammle einige Raupen mit den Pflanzen, auf denen du sie findest. Füttere sie
und beobachte ihre Verwandlungen.
Lektion 3.
Bekannte Dämmerungs- und
Nachtfalter.
Schmetterlinge tun uns nach dem Auskriechen keinen Schaden
mehr. Sie breiten ihre Flügel aus, fliegen umher und saugen den
Honig aus den Blumen. Die starken Freßwerkzeuge der Raupe sind
verschwunden und federartige Lippen nehmen deren Stelle ein. Ihre
Unterkiefer sind sehr lang geworden und in eine lange Röhre
zusammengerollt (S. 18), die einem zierlichen Elefantenrüssel
ähnlich sieht. Wenn das Insekt den Rüssel nicht gebraucht, ist dieser
unter seiner Lippe aufgerollt, aber wenn es den Honig in den Blüten
erreichen will, rollt es den Rüssel auf und steckt ihn in die Blüten.
Am frühen Morgen oder am Abend im August kann man den
Ligusterschwärmer (siehe bunte Tafel II. 1) mit seinen rötlichbraunen
Vorderflügeln und den schönen rosigen, schwarz gestreiften
Hinterflügeln sehen, wie er seinen Kopf in die Geißblattblüten in der
Hecke steckt. Oder der große Taubenschwanz flattert im
Sonnenschein über ein Blumenbeet im Garten oder saugt Honig aus
den tiefen Blüten der Nelken und Natterzunge. Ihr könnt ihn teils an
dem summenden Geräusch erkennen, das er mit seinen Flügeln
verursacht, und teils daran, daß er sich nicht auf den Blumen
niederläßt, sondern im Fliegen Honig saugt.
Dann ist da der Totenkopf, der größte deutsche Schwärmer, der
seinen sonderbaren Namen von der gelben Zeichnung auf dem
Rücken seiner Brust hat, die wie ein Totenschädel aussieht. Er hat
braune Vorderflügel und gelbe Hinterflügel mit dunkeln
Querbändern, die Fühler und der Rüssel sind sehr kurz. Man kann
ihn finden, wenn man nach Sonnenuntergang im Herbste an den
Hecken sucht; er schwärmt daran entlang und ist durchaus nicht so
selten, wie man glaubt; aber er fliegt nur am Abend.
Kopf eines
Schmetterlings. e. Großes
Auge. l. Fühler. p.
Saugrüssel.
Wenn man einen dieser großen Schwärmer fängt, so wird man
überrascht sein zu sehen, wie verschieden er von der Raupe ist, aus
der er sich entwickelt hat. Die sechs Beine an den drei Ringen der
Brust sind noch da, aber über ihnen stehen vier prächtige Flügel. Sie
bestehen aus einer feinen durchscheinenden Haut und sind über
und über mit Schuppen bedeckt, die wie Dachziegel geordnet sind.
Wie sorgfältig man auch immer einen Schwärmer oder einen
Tagschmetterling fängt, es wird immer ein feiner Staub an den
Fingern zurückbleiben. Jedes Teilchen dieses Staubes ist eine fein
gefärbte Schuppe, und diese geben dem Schwärmer seine schönen
Farben. Die Schmetterlinge werden Lepidoptera genannt, und
dieses Wort bedeutet „Schuppenflügler“. Die Raupe hat sechs kleine
Augen, so winzig, daß wir sie nicht bemerken. Der Schwärmer hat
diese auch noch, aber er hat nebenbei zwei prachtvolle, kugelartig
hervorgewölbte Augen (e, siehe Abbildung) an beiden Seiten des
Kopfes. Sie bestehen aus hunderten von kleinen Einzelaugen, so
daß der Schwärmer nach allen Seiten hinsehen kann, obgleich er
die Augen nicht bewegt. Die Augen des Totenkopfschwärmers
glänzen selbst in der dunklen Nacht wie rote Lichterchen.
Der Körper des Falters besteht aus drei Teilen. Sein Hinterleib ist
eiförmig zugespitzt, seine breite Brust trägt die Beine und die Flügel,
und am Kopfe befinden sich die großen Augen (e), die Fühler und
der Saugrüssel (s. Abb. S. 18). Die Fühler oder Antennen sind breit
in der Mitte, spitz am Ende und meist fein gesägt oder gekämmt.
Daran kann man Dämmerungs- und Nachtfalter von Tagfaltern
unterscheiden. Denn die Fühler der Tagfalter sind fast immer rund,
am Ende keulenartig verdickt und ganz glatt.
Ein anderer Unterschied zwischen ihnen ist der, daß bei den
Tagfaltern die Flügel in der Ruhe aufrecht stehen, so daß ihre
oberen Enden sich berühren, während sie bei den Schwärmern flach
an dem Rücken liegen, wie das Dach eines Hauses auf den Mauern
ruht.
1, 1 a. Fühler von Tagfaltern. 2.

Fühler von Schwärmern, fein
gesägt oder gekämmt (2 a).
Zu den häufig vorkommenden Schmetterlingen, die man finden

kann, gehört der Weidenholzbohrer. Er hat einen kurzen Körper und
graubraun, verschwommen weißgrau gezeichnete Flügel mit
dunklen Wellenlinien. Man findet ihn auf Weiden und Pappeln. Er
fliegt nicht viel umher, denn er hat keinen Rüssel und nimmt
während seines kurzen Schmetterlingslebens keine Nahrung zu
sich. Er sucht nur eine Stelle, wo er seine Eier ablegen kann, aus
denen eine nackte rote Raupe auskriecht. Diese Raupe bohrt sich in
einen Baumzweig und lebt dort Jahre lang, indem sie sich von
seinem Holze nährt.
Viele Schwärmerraupen leben im Innern von Baumstämmen und
Zweigen. Wenn man an einem heißen Sommertage die
Johannisbeersträucher überblickt, wird man zuweilen einen
hübschen kleinen Schwärmer finden mit schlankem, schwarzgelben
Körper, dünnen Beinen, langen Fühlern und klaren, durchsichtigen
Flügeln; er sieht ganz anders aus wie die meisten Schmetterlinge.
Dies ist der Johannisbeer-Glasflügler (vergleiche bunte Tafel II. 5),
der nur am Rande seiner Flügel Schuppen hat. Er sieht gewissen
Wespen sehr ähnlich. Dieser Glasflügler legt seine Eier in die
Zweige der Johannisbeerbüsche, und seine kleine gelbe Raupe, die
eine dunkle Linie auf dem Rücken hat, frißt sich in das Mark der
Zweige hinein. Man sollte immer die toten oder verdorrten Zweige
von den Johannisbeerbüschen entfernen, aus Furcht, daß vielleicht
diese Raupen darin sitzen könnten.
Ein anderer Schwärmer, den man im hellen Sonnenschein
umherfliegen sehen kann, ist von dunkelblau-grüner Farbe mit sechs
roten Flecken auf den Flügeln. Es ist das Blutströpfchen oder
Widderchen (s. Abb. S. 21), dessen Kokons man im Mai an den
langen Grashalmen der Wiese befestigt finden kann. Im August ist
der Schmetterling ausgekrochen und fliegt von Blume zu Blume.
Tafel II
1. Ligusterschwärmer. 2. Raupe. 3. Puppe. 4. Brauner

Bär. 5. Glasflügler.
Auch einen Spinner werdet ihr wahrscheinlich gerne kennen
lernen, weil seine Raupe sich zu einer Kugel zusammenballt, wenn
man sie aufnimmt. Sie frißt gern vom Salat und
Stachelbeersträuchern, und wenn sie sich verpuppen will, beißt sie
ihre langen Haare ab und verwebt sie in den Kokon. Wenn der
Spinner auskriecht, läuft er abends über die Blumenbeete und fliegt
nicht sehr hoch. Er ist allgemein als Bärenspinner oder brauner Bär
bekannt (vergleiche bunte Tafel II. 4) und ist der größte Spinner, den
wir haben. Seine Vorderflügel sind hellgelb mit welligen
dunkelbraunen Streifen. Die Hinterflügel sind hellrot und
schwarzblau gefleckt. Die Brust hat ein hellrotes Band und sein
Hinterleib ist scharlachrot mit schwarzen Querstreifen. Wenn man
die Bärenraupe im frühen Sommer findet, sie in einem Kasten, der
mit Draht vergittert ist, hält und fleißig mit Taubnesseln füttert, so
kann man die Puppe und den prächtigen Bärenspinner daraus
entstehen sehen.
Blutströpfchen oder Widderchen mit Raupe und

Kokon.
Versuche einen Schwärmer, einen Glasflügler, einen Bärenspinner und die
Puppe eines Ligusterschwärmers zu finden. Fange so viele Raupen und Puppen
wie möglich und nimm immer etwas von der Pflanze mit, wovon sie sich nähren.
Lektion 4.
Bekannte Tagfalter.
Es gibt lange nicht so viele Tagfalter wie Schwärmer, Glasflügler,
Eulen usw. Aber da die letzteren meist in der Dämmerung oder
abends fliegen, kennen wir die Tagfalter, die sich im hellen
Sonnenschein umhertummeln, am besten. Ihre Raupen sind nicht so
schädlich im Garten wie die der anderen Schmetterlinge, mit
Ausnahme von der des Kohlweißlings, über den wir im dritten Buche
gesprochen haben.
Es ist sehr unterhaltend, im Frühling und im frühen Sommer die
Raupen der gewöhnlichen Schmetterlinge zu sammeln und sie in
einem Kasten zu halten, über den ein Stück grober Musselin
gespannt ist, so daß man sie beobachten kann, bis die
Schmetterlinge auskriechen.
Auf diese Weise wird man ihre Farben viel besser zu sehen
bekommen, als wenn man sie fängt, da ihre Flügel nicht vom Wind
und Regen beschädigt werden wie sonst oft beim Auskriechen. Und
man braucht sie nicht zu töten. Nachdem man sie betrachtet hat,
kann man sie frei lassen, damit sie den Sonnenschein genießen.
Es ist sonderbar, daß so viele Schmetterlinge ihre Eier auf die
Blätter der Brennessel legen. Der Grund ist vielleicht der, daß Kühe
und Schafe diese Pflanzen nicht fressen, und die Eier auf ihnen also
sicher sind. Das Tagpfauenauge, der kleine Fuchs und der Admiral
legen alle ihre Eier auf Nesseln. Dort findet man also ihre Puppen,
und ich will euch erzählen, wie man sie unterscheiden kann.
Die Eier des Pfauenauges sind in Klümpchen unter die
Nesselblätter geklebt, und im Juni kann man die kleinen schwarzen,
weißpunktierten Raupen finden, wie sie in Gruppen an den Blättern
fressen. Früh im Juli wird jede von ihnen eine kleine, seidige Wulst
unter ein Blatt gesponnen haben, an welchem die merkwürdige
steife Puppe mit dem Kopfe nach unten hängt; sie sieht aus wie eine
bräunliche glänzende Muschel (vergleiche bunte Tafel I. 3).
Wenn man Raupe oder Puppe mit nach Hause nimmt, so wird
man gegen Ende Juli einen prächtigen Schmetterling auskriechen
sehen. Die Hinterflügel sind braun, die Vorderflügel rot und blau, und
auf jedem der vier Flügel befindet sich ein großer glänzender Fleck,
der aussieht wie die Augen in den Schwanzfedern des Pfaues. Der
Körper ist ganz dunkel gefärbt, die Fühler am Kopfe sind lang und
dünn und an den Enden keulenförmig verdickt. Wenn aber der
Schmetterling seine Flügel schließt (siehe bunte Tafel I. 1 a), so sind
alle die glänzenden Farben verborgen, und er unterscheidet sich
infolge der graubraunen Außenseite kaum von seiner Umgebung, so
daß die Vögel ihn während der Ruhe nicht leicht sehen können.
Wenn ihr aber aus Versehen einmal eine andere Puppe von den
Nesseln mit nach Hause bringt, so wird euch ein ganz anderer
Schmetterling überraschen. Seine Flügel sind am Rande stark
eingekerbt; sie sind samtschwarz mit roter Binde und weißen
Flecken mit blauem Rande. Es ist der Admiral, dessen Puppe auch
unter den Blättern der Brennnessel hängt. Ihr werdet euch nicht
irren, wenn ihr die Raupe findet, denn sie ist nicht schwarz wie die
des Tagpfauenauges, sondern grünlichgelb oder braunrot mit einer
Reihe halbmondförmiger Flecke an jeder Seite und mit gelben
ästigen Dornen. Sie nährt sich von Nesselblättern, die sie mit
seidigen Fäden um sich befestigt. Ihr müßt euch nun merken, daß
aus diesen Raupen ein Admiral wird.
An einer anderen Stelle findet ihr vielleicht ein Bündel von
Nesselblättern, die mit Seide zusammengewebt sind, und in deren
Innern eine Menge Raupen sitzen. Sie sind mit kurzen Dornen
besetzt und haben einen schwarzen Leib mit gelben Streifen und
Punkten. Aus ihren Puppen wird der kleine Fuchs auskriechen.
1. Fuchs fliegend, 2. ruhend, 3. Puppe.
Die sicherste Art und Weise, diese drei Raupen gut kennen zu
lernen, ist die, daß man sie alle mit nach Hause nimmt und dort
aufbewahrt, bis die Schmetterlinge auskriechen. Dann wird man
viele kleine Unterschiede bemerken, die hier nicht alle aufgezählt
werden können.
Auf Disteln findet man eine andere Raupe, die sich in die Blätter
einspinnt, und deren Puppe aschgrau, braun oder gelblich und mit
mehreren Goldpunkten und Dornen besetzt ist. Aus ihr wird ein
rotbrauner Schmetterling auskriechen, der Distelfalter. In manchen
Jahren gibt es nur wenige von dieser Art, während sie in anderen
Jahren sehr zahlreich ist.
Wir gehen nun an einer anderen Stelle auf die Suche, nämlich
unter dem Kreuzdorn und Faulbaum am Flußufer, entweder im
Vorfrühling oder gegen Ende Juli, da der nachbenannte
Schmetterling zwei Flugzeiten hat.
Man muß unter den kleinen Zweigen nach einer hübschen,
grünen, rotgefleckten Puppe suchen, die einer gerippten Muschel
ähnlich sieht. Sie hängt wagerecht an einem feinen Seidenfaden
(vergleiche bunte Tafel I. 5). Achte darauf, wie klug die Raupe ihn
befestigt hat, so daß das schwere breite Ende dem langen, dünnen
das Gleichgewicht hält. Dann schneide den Zweig ab und nimm ihn
mit nach Hause. Aus der Puppe wird der Zitronenfalter auskriechen,
dessen hellgelbe Flügel vier rote Flecke haben (Tafel I. 4). Ihr werdet
ihn sehr gut kennen, denn er ist gewöhnlich der erste Schmetterling,
der im Frühling fliegt.
Nun wollen wir einmal tief unten auf den Pflanzen, die auf
Wiesen wachsen, suchen. Es sind weiße oder lila Blumen, deren
Blumenkronblätter in der Form eines Kreuzes stehen. Sie heißen
Schaumkraut und Bitterkresse. Wenn man unter ihren Blättern sucht,
so findet man oft eine sehr sonderbare Puppe (siehe bunte Tafel I.
7), die an beiden Seiten zugespitzt und wie ein Boot geformt ist. Aus
ihr wird der Aurorafalter auskommen, der breite orangerote Flecke
an den Spitzen der weißen Vorderflügel hat. Dieser Schmetterling ist
sehr bunt, wenn er fliegt, aber wenn er sich niederläßt (siehe bunte
Tafel I. 8) und seine Flügel aufrecht stellt, kann er kaum auf den
Blättern der Pflanzen, aus deren Blüten er Honig saugt, gesehen
werden.
Ein anderer gewöhnlicher Schmetterling ist der Heufalter oder
das Wiesenvögelchen (vergl. bunte Tafel I. 9), das man an einem
schönen Tage im Juni oder September finden kann, wie es den
Honig aus dem Heidekraute saugt. Die grüne Raupe nährt sich von
weichen Grasarten, und der hübsche kleine Schmetterling ist
gelbbraun mit runden Augenflecken.
Ihr wißt also nun, wie man nach Raupen, Puppen und
Schmetterlingen suchen muß, und könnt das übrige dabei selbst
lernen. Überall wo Ackerveilchen und Hundsveilchen wachsen, kann
man die dornige Raupe der hübschen Perlmutterfalter finden.
Bläulinge findet man vorzugsweise auf Kalkboden, doch ist der
gemeine Bläuling fast überall zu Hause, und man kann ihn häufig in
der Gesellschaft der kleinen dunkelbraunen Bläulinge antreffen,
deren dunkel glänzende Flügel zwischen den hübschen Bläulingen
lebhaft auffallen.
Wo man auch immer einen fliegenden Schmetterling sieht, sollte
man versuchen, ihm zu folgen, bis er sich niederläßt; denn eine der
lehrreichsten Beobachtungen, die man bei allen Schmetterlingen
machen kann, ist die, wie die untere Färbung der Flügel ihnen hilft,
sich zu verbergen, wenn sie ruhen, während die Farben der
Oberseite hell und bunt sind.
Suche Raupen und Puppen und beobachte sie. Merke dir die Pflanze, von der
sich die Raupe nährt. Vergleiche die Unterseite der Flügel mit den Pflanzen,
worauf sie sich niederlassen.
Lektion 5.
Schädliche Käfer.
Alle lebenden Geschöpfe müssen nach Nahrung jagen, und
Insekten fressen sehr viel im Verhältnis zu ihrer Größe. Sie fressen
am meisten als Larven, aber einige, wie der Maikäfer und Sandkäfer,
fressen fast ebensoviel, wenn sie voll entwickelt sind und Flügel
haben.
Es gibt pflanzenfressende Käfer und Käfer, die sich von anderen
Insekten und Tieren nähren. Im ganzen gibt es mehr als 3000
Käferarten in Deutschland. Es ist deshalb nötig zu wissen, was für
eine Art von Nahrung der Käfer zu sich nimmt, denn einige sind
nützlich für Feld und Garten, andere tun den Ernten großen
Schaden.
Einer der bösartigsten ist der Maikäfer. Ihr kennt ihn sehr gut,
wenn er euch am Abend umsummt oder euch ins Gesicht fliegt. Aber
vielleicht kennt ihr ihn nicht als Larve, wenn er drei oder vier Jahre
lang unter der Erde lebt und die Wurzeln von Gras, Korn und
Gemüsen frißt. Sobald man sieht, daß Pflanzen in Feld und Garten
gelb und kränklich aussehen und die Blätter hängen lassen, obwohl
der Boden feucht ist, so ist es sehr wahrscheinlich, daß eine Larve
unten an den Wurzeln sitzt, und diese Larve kann sehr wohl die
eines Maikäfers sein.
Grabt die Pflanze aus, und ihr werdet ein häßliches Geschöpf
finden (vergl. bunte Tafel III. 3), wie eine sehr große Made und fast
so dick wie euer kleiner Finger mit gelblich-braunem Kopfe und sehr
starken Kiefern. Sie hat sechs lange Beine mit fünf Gelenken, die an
den Ringen hinter dem Kopfe wachsen, und ist so vollgefressen, daß
sie kaum kriechen kann. Der letzte Ring ist viel größer als die
anderen und sehr dick angeschwollen, und man kann die
Atemlöcher an den Seiten sehr gut beobachten, weil der Körper so
durch die Nahrung ausgedehnt ist. Ihr wißt, daß die Larve nicht
durch den Mund atmet, und so kann sie fortwährend weiterfressen.
Wenn ihr sie nicht gestört hättet, so würde sie von Pflanze zu
Pflanze durch das ganze Feld gekrochen sein und hätte drei Jahre
lang nichts getan als gefressen. Im Winter wühlt sie sich tiefer in den
Erdboden, um sich während der Kälte warm zu halten.
Im Herbst des dritten Jahres endlich krümmt sie sich zusammen
und hört fast acht Monate lang mit Fressen auf. Wenn man zu dieser
Zeit einen Engerling findet, so kann man die Teile des wirklichen
Maikäfers unter der durchsichtigen Haut liegen sehen. In den letzten
Monaten ist es dann ein voll entwickelter, schlafender Maikäfer.
Wenn dann der Mai kommt, kriecht er aus der Erde hervor und
fliegt in die Bäume, deren Blätter er ebenso gierig frißt, wie er vorher
ihre Wurzeln fraß, als er noch eine Larve war. Dies ist die richtige
Zeit, ihn zu fangen und zu töten, denn er lebt nur ungefähr vier
Wochen lang, und während dieser Zeit legt das Weibchen die Eier,
aus denen die Larven auskriechen.
Man ist überrascht, wenn man den Unterschied sieht, der
zwischen dem Käfer und der unter dem Erdboden lebenden weißen
Larve besteht. Es ist nun ein fliegendes Insekt daraus geworden,
ungefähr 2,2 cm lang, mit braunen hornigen Flügeldecken, die ein
Paar durchsichtiger, häutiger Flügel bedecken. Der Hinterleib endet
in einer feinen Spitze; an dem Kopfe trägt er zwei Fühler, die in
einem zierlichen Fächer enden, der beim Männchen aus 7 langen,
beim Weibchen aus 6 kurzen Blättchen besteht.
Tafel III
Schädliche Käfer.
1. Männlicher, 2. weiblicher Maikäfer. 3. Engerling. 4.
Puppe. 5. Schnell- oder Springkäfer.
Diese Blättchen sind beim männlichen Käfer (siehe bunte Tafel

III. 1) sehr hübsch und viel größer als beim Weibchen (siehe bunte
Tafel III. 2), und daran kann man das letztere erkennen. Man muß
die Weibchen fangen und töten, wenn man seine Ernte retten will,
und die barmherzigste Art, dies zu tun, ist, sie in kochendes Wasser
zu werfen. Ein halb zertretener Käfer lebt oft noch lange aber das
kochende Wasser tötet ihn augenblicklich.
Die Maikäfer ruhen bei Tage auf den von ihnen bevorzugten
Bäumen, und wenn man ein Tuch darunter ausbreitet und die
Zweige schüttelt, so kann man eine Menge fangen. Landleute
suchen durch verschiedene Mittel auch die Larve in der Erde zu
töten.
Eine andere sehr schädliche Larve ist die der Schnellkäfer, die
auch Schmiede genannt werden (vergl. bunte Tafel III. 5). Alle Kinder
kennen diese kleinen Käfer, obwohl sie vielleicht ihre Namen nicht
wissen. Sie sind schmal und flach, ungefähr 1–2 cm lang und haben
sehr kurze Beine. Einer der gewöhnlichsten, der Saatschnellkäfer, ist
10 mm lang, schwarzbraun und grau behaart. Knaben legen die
Schnellkäfer gern auf den Rücken, denn sie schnellen sich dann mit
Hilfe eines Bruststachels unter knipsendem Geräusch kräftig in die
Höhe und kommen beim Herunterfallen meist auf die Beine.
Manchmal fallen sie wieder auf den Rücken, dann ruhen sie sich
etwas aus und springen wieder.
Die Larven dieser unterhaltenden kleinen Geschöpfe sind sehr
schädlich. Wir kennen sie unter dem Namen Drahtwürmer. Wenn
man eine solche Larve aufmerksam betrachtet, so wird man sehen,
daß sie kein Wurm ist, sondern die sechs Beine an den Leibesringen
hinter dem Kopfe hat; daran erkennt man, daß sie die Larve eines
Insektes ist. Drahtwürmer nähren sich von den Wurzeln der meisten
Pflanzen. Sie sind lang und dünn wie ein Stück Draht; ihre Farbe ist
meistens gelblichrot, und sie haben eine sehr zähe Haut.
Der Schnellkäfer legt seine Eier zwischen Pflanzenwurzeln, und
wenn der Drahtwurm ausgekrochen ist, frißt er oft fünf Jahre lang,
ehe er sich in einen Käfer verwandelt. Daher müssen Schnellkäfer
vernichtet und Salz und Kalk auf die Erde gestreut werden, um sie
zu töten.
1. Gefleckter Erbsenkäfer. 2. Gestreifter Erbsenkäfer. 3.
Bohnenkäfer. 4. Apfelblütenstecher.
Unglücklicherweise sind auch die hübschen kleinen Rüsselkäfer
sehr schädlich. Wir lasen in Buch I von dem Haselnußbohrer, und
fast jede Pflanze und jeder Baum hat irgend einen Rüsselkäfer, der
sie angreift. Da ist der Apfelblütenstecher (4), der im April ein Loch in
die Knospe der Apfelblüte sticht, der Erbsenkäfer (1 u. 2), der
Bohnenkäfer (3) und viele andere. Sie alle beginnen ihr Leben als
kleine, weiche Larven mit keinen wirklichen Füßen; sie haben nur
Bauchfüße, d. h. ungegliederte Fleischzapfen mit borstiger Sohle,
einen hornartigen Kopf und scharfe Kiefer.
Man kann den vollendeten Rüsselkäfer an dem auffälligen
Rüssel erkennen, der manchmal lang, manchmal breit ist. Es sind
hübsche kleine Geschöpfe mit oft glänzenden Flügeln, die wie
Juwelen funkeln, und hellen Augen; aber als Larven zerstören sie
überall Blumen, Früchte und Schößlinge.
Zu den merkwürdigsten Käfern gehören die Zweigabstecher. Sie
haben lange Rüssel und sehr scharfe Kinnbacken, und ihre Füße
haben unten borstige Polster mit scharfen Klauen, so daß sie sich an
glatten Stämmen und Zweigen festhalten können. An Pappeln kann
man im Sommer einen hübschen Zweigabstecher finden mit
goldglänzenden, grünen Flügeln, den Pappelblattstecher, und an
Obstbäumen und Weinstöcken trifft man sicher einen stahlblauen
Stecher an, der auch Rebenstecher genannt wird und seine Eier in
ihre Schößlinge legt.
Wenn das Weibchen des Zweigabstechers Eier legen will, bohrt
es ein Loch in einen jungen Schößling mit seinem Rüssel und preßt
ein Ei hinein. Hat es nun auf diese Weise mehrere gelegt, so fängt
es an, den Schößling mit den scharfen Kinnbacken abzubeißen.
Dazu braucht es oft einige Wochen, und wenn ihr den
herabhängenden Zweig abbrecht und ihn verbrennt, so werdet ihr
die Larven vernichten. Wenn dieser aber zuletzt nur noch an einer
Faser hängt, drückt das Weibchen ihn ganz hinunter, so daß er sich
loslöst und auf den Boden fällt. Hier frißt dann die Larve ungestört,
wenn sie ausgekrochen ist.
Versuche Maikäfer zu finden — Männchen, Weibchen und Larve. Suche einen
Schmied und einen Drahtwurm. Sammle so viele Rüsselkäfer wie möglich, ebenso
Zweige, Blumen und Früchte, in denen Larven sitzen.
Lektion 6.
Nützliche Käfer.
Wir sind oft gezwungen, Käfer zu vernichten, wenn sie so
zahlreich sind, daß sie unsere Ernten zerstören; da ist es angenehm
zu wissen, daß es andere gibt, die uns so viel Gutes tun, daß wir
nicht gegen sie ins Feld zu ziehen brauchen.
Die Sandlaufkäfer (vergl. bunte Tafel IV. 1) z. B. sind sehr
hungrige Geschöpfe. Da sie sich von anderen Insekten nähren,
vernichten sie die Maikäferlarven, Drahtwürmer und Raupen und
retten so unsere Pflanzen. Sie sind nicht sehr groß (unser
gewöhnlicher Sandlaufkäfer ist nicht mehr als etwa 1½ cm lang),
aber ihre langen schlanken Beine sind sehr kräftig, und sie können
sehr schnell fliegen.
Auf trocknen, sandigen Feldern und Äckern kann man im
Sommer eine Menge von ihnen in der warmen Sonne umherlaufen
sehen. Ihre Flügeldecken sind von einem schönen, glänzenden Grün
mit einem kupferfarbigen Scheine und mit weißen oder gelblichen
Flecken geziert. Sie laufen sehr behend und so schnell, daß man es
sehr schwer finden wird, einen zu fangen. Gerade wenn man denkt,
daß man den Käfer hat, hebt er plötzlich die Flügeldecken, entfaltet
die zarten durchscheinenden Flügel und ist fort, ehe man es denkt.

A Plea For Naturalistic Metaphysics Ulrich Steinvorth Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Plea For Naturalistic Metaphysics Ulrich Steinvorth Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Plea for Naturalistic Metaphysics

A Plea for Natural Philosophy: And Other Essays

The World in the Wavefunction: A Metaphysics for

The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for

The Politics of Metaphysics Felipe G. A. Moreira

Groundwork for a New Kind of African Metaphysics: The

Victims and Plea Negotiations: Overlooked and

Phenomenalism: A Metaphysics of Chance and Experience

The Primacy of Metaphysics Christopher Peacocke

A Plea for Naturalistic

ISBN 978-3-030-72602-7 ISBN 978-3-030-72603-4 (eBook)

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

Cover pattern © Melisa Hasan

1 Why Naturalistic Metaphysics Is Needed 1

2 The Ontology of Escalation27

Why Naturalistic Metaphysics Is Needed

Abstract Analytic philosophy started as an anti-metaphysical project, yet

Keywords Analytic philosophy • Metaphysics • Normativity •

The Specter of Metaphysics

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

own thinking. Along with philosophers of science, like Schlick,

ideas of individual liberty and self-determination and rational or fully

account of how people think of things can seem to have intensional

to be a powerful explanation. Like Lewis, Everett provokes the question

very rare that an analytic metaphysician mentions a problem that would be

Analytic Philosophy’s Manifesto

The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say

This sounds as simple as a manifesto, but there was a proviso, indicated

However, despite his famous conclusion that closes the Tractatus,

answer to it in the following statements, which precede his description of

attractive again, not in Wittgenstein’s word-independent form, but in its

Professional philosophers, in contrast, consider metaphysics one of the

The Virtues Required of Metaphysics

Analytic philosophers’ introductions to metaphysics document their

philosophy, analytic philosophy has triggered a renaissance of moral and

tradition to back him. True, among analytic philosophers, Kantians such

Metaphysical Questions and History

anything at all, whatever its properties. Leibniz and Heidegger, as men-

philosophy, since modern seventeenth-century physics defeated

and norm. In fact, Hobbes dropped the idea of norms as something we

conception of free will as the power to do and not to do something. But

Responses to Modern Science

being, the substance of mind or consciousness, in addition to the sub-

So far I have sketched the requirements that metaphysics has to meet

Heidegger, Martin. 1959. Introduction to Metaphysics. New Haven: Yale UP.

The Ontology of Escalation

Abstract The synthetic, normative, and naturalistic metaphysics of ana-

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 27

Keywords Ontology • Escalation • Self-regulation • Self-determination

Cybernetics conceives computers as systems that respond to inputs

animals. But in addition, perhaps as a condition to cope with this greater

(iii) op conforms to S’s ambition to pursue only self-chosen actions

(1) libertas indifferentiae, the freedom of being indifferent to the

haphazard or predetermined by unknown causes and cannot be free will.

(iii*) op conforms to S’s self or nature.

If an agent meets (iii*), her self-regulation becomes self-determination;

predetermined by our own nature is not only self-determination but also

of matter and physics describes matter without referring to self-regulation,

properties or forces? Isn’t this more elegant and convincing anyway, as

Consciousness and Abilities

an act to be a deliberation it need not be conscious, but it must be possible

Consciousness is necessary for direct moral responsibility, I claim, not

of these contents are at any one time nonconscious. Consciousness is a tiny,

1 Why Naturalistic Metaphysics Is Needed 1

2 The Ontology of Escalation27