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posibilismo ontológico — Transcript · YTtoTranscript

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posibilismo ontológico

Heterocronías Feminismos y Epistemologías del Sur · 3,119 words · 16 min read · EN

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Below is the complete, readable transcript of posibilismo ontológico by Heterocronías Feminismos y Epistemologías del Sur on YouTube. Read the full text, copy any part you need, or generate a transcript for any video with our free tool.

Good evening. This video is about the text on ontological possibilism, a text that was written several years ago and which we have included in this bibliography. We already have a concept, which is that of relational ontology, and what that meant—let's remember a little—it was the priority of the relationship over the individual. That is to say,

the relationship came first. In relational ontology, we put the relationship before the individual. One of the consequences we drew from this relational ontology is that there are no essences. What does this mean? That if the individual is a result of a process, then the properties depend on the process and are not given in

the individual from the beginning, but are acquired according to that process. We had seen two ways of conceiving that process: as a conceptual process, which is the case of Cáceres, or as a metaphysical process when we spoke of ontology as a modality of being. Now, these notions will be present in some way, and we are going to take

these notions to a bit of an extreme and work with this idea of ontological possibilism, which is based on an ontology based on... The possibility, yes, and here we're going to have some consequences of this ontology. One of them is determinism; that is, we're no longer going to have determinations through the causes, the six

causal relationships. Another consequence is contingency; there won't be a separation between subject and object, nothing will be considered given, and there will be epistemic indifference. As some general consequences, this ontology is an ontology without substances; it's very close to ontology as a modality of being, which we saw in a previous video, and without essences, as

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we were just saying, without determinisms and without truths. And I want to refer to this last idea now, Tuya's, who is actually the one who inspired this text. He says that the possible is merely a physical mordant that burns any aesthetic or ballistics; that is, the possible burns, let's say, any conception of beauty. And

we're going to say that what it actually burns is any truth we might consider; that is, when we pass any truth through this notion of ontological possibilism, then they begin to not be such truths. In the text, we have a first part where he talks about different Meanings of what is understood by "possible,"

after saying that none of those meanings are useful to us, that is, ontological possibilism doesn't go that way, and then proposing what will be considered ontological possibilism in a certain sense. So, let's take a quick look at that meaning. It is possible that we are going to abandon one of those meanings, the logical sense,

which is taken by authors like Can, for example. He will consider that "possible" and " impossible" are not categories that apply to objects, but rather refer to judgments. That is, "possible" and " impossible" refer to the faculty of knowing. Let's see an example. Suppose we say, "It is possible that it will rain tomorrow." This has to do with it

because these categories are derived precisely from modal judgments. So, we say, "It is possible that it will rain tomorrow." That "possible" doesn't refer to the rain itself, but rather to my degree of certainty, my degree of knowledge regarding what will happen tomorrow with the weather. And so, that is the logical sense: it is

a possibility, like this, a possibility of our knowledge, to a degree of our knowledge. In that sense, we can say that it is an epistemic possibility. Here we are going to delve a little deeper into this notion of epistemic possibility and we are going to take an example given by Yang Hacking, a

philosopher. Let's suppose that a person buys a lottery ticket. Is it possible that they will win? It seems possible that they will win, we don't know yet, and it is probable that they won't win, but they can win, they can win, or it is not possible that they will win. Now, let's suppose that the lottery

where they bought this ticket is a scam and in reality nobody can win. Then here we draw another conclusion: in reality, it was never possible that they could win; the possibility that they could win never existed. So here we have two senses of "possible": it is possible that they will win when, under

normal lottery conditions, it seems possible, yes. But if it is the case of the scam, which we say was never possible, we are saying there is another sense: " impossible." So, "seems possible" is different from "was possible." Well, they are two distinct senses. Therefore, we are seeing that it is not so easy to define what we are going to understand

by "possible." It is an author who, in the text, which is Hacking, distinguishes between "possible" and "probable." So what he is going to say is Many things are possible; for example, a utopia is possible, but in reality, few are probable because for something possible to be probable, there has to be some cause that determines it and

transforms it into something probable. What does this mean? For example, many behaviors are possible, but few are carried out. Those that are carried out have to do with the fact that the possibilities offered by the environment are the ones that are probable. Now, Hacking, continuing to return to this author, Hacking, whom we discussed at the

beginning, brings the idea of possibility and probability closer to home. He says that there are some contexts in which possible and probable can be interchanged. So, for this, he distinguishes two meanings of possible: the possible that and the possible for itself. The possible, which is the sense given to it by logicians, which we have already

referred to, and the possible for which he calls a sense that moralists would use. The possible, which is precisely the sense in which it can be substituted for probable, that is, it is interchangeable. Possible would mean the same as probable, whereas possible for is different from probable. Let's look at some examples. Suppose I say, "It is possible that I will

go to the movies tomorrow." If that is possible, you can say it's possible that it can be replaced by probable. It's probable that I'll go to the movies tomorrow. If it's possible that I'll win the lottery, if the lottery is better, I can also replace it with probable. It's probable that I'll win the lottery with the

ticket I buy. So this "it's possible that" or "it's probable that" means what we were just saying about the logical or epistemic meaning. I'm not sure if I'll win the lottery. I'm not sure if I'm going to the movies. I'm not sure. This is a measure of my knowledge or my ignorance. If it's possible

that I'll go to the movies, I don't know yet. So in this sense we can talk about a possible winner. If it's a probable winner, a possible spy. It's probable that such a person is a spy. A possible case of coronavirus. So those are the possible ones that can be replaced by probable and that have this

logical meaning as a measure of my knowledge or my ignorance. On the other hand, the example of "possible" can no longer be replaced by probable. If there we can talk, for example, of this is a possible route to go to Córdoba, this is a possible person for the vacant position, and so we can't talk about or

replace with probables and it doesn't make sense to say a The probable route to Córdoba, if it doesn't have the same direction there, we can't exchange them. He considered two meanings for the term probability, seeing this relationship between possible and probable. For example, he said that there were two meanings of probability: one as a

degree of confirmation and another as relative frequency. As a degree of confirmation, it is the logical sense, and as relative frequency, it is a statistical sense. In the logical sense, which Hakim calls precisely the epistemic interpretation, here we have again what I pointed out a while ago: it is a degree of knowledge. This

logical sense does not refer to things or objects but to statements; it has to do with properties of propositions. That is why this epistemic sense, the statistical sense, has to do with a physical interpretation. It is an empirical statement that tells us something about nature: the frequency with which an earthquake occurs, the frequency with which

cases of coronavirus occur, etc. These are data, let's say, of events that happen in nature, from phenomena that occur in nature. So there we have an epistemic interpretation, which is related to this logical sense that we have been talking about, and this physical, statistical interpretation, where that frequency is a property of the objects. And that

property of objects can be like temperature, for example. Let's move on to another author who also talks about the possible: Sartre, in a completely different vein. Sartre also distinguishes two senses. Here we see one linked to subjectivity and another linked to the ontological structure of reality. Let's look at the examples Sartre himself gives.

Suppose Sartre says, "It is possible that Peter is dead." Yes, that is a subjective sense, which means that I don't know if it's true that Peter is dead. And this is the same as the sense of the epistemological interpretation, which is the sense that Can gave it, which is the logical sense that we have been

pointing out. This statement, " It is possible that Peter is dead," doesn't actually refer to Peter, but to my knowledge about how he is. So, it is, as Sartre said, a calculation of our ignorance. And this is precisely what the scientific view reduces the possible to: a calculation of our ignorance. The ontological structure of reality is completely

different. The possibility is always of a being. Yes, notice that here it is. When we talk about ontological structures in reality, we are closer. Regarding the register as a modality of being, which we discussed in a previous text, possibility is always inherent in being, yes, but in this case, it is not a physical property

as we saw in Hakim's physical interpretation. Rather, it dares to say that the possible actually comes to things from human reality. It is the human being who, in some way, projects their own possibility onto things. This presupposes the human, then, but not in an epistemic way, but rather as a degree of knowledge of that human being. It

presupposes the human being ontologically. Human reality always consists of a choice about its being because this is precisely Sartre's human ontology. This idea is that we are always making choices about our being; that is, we are a single being, constantly making choices about our being. Therefore, we are always in that state of the possible. So,

our 'possibility' is precisely what we pass on to things; it is the possible that we grant to things. It always refers to what we are, what we are, precisely in that state of constant choice. This text was inspired by Tussam, which we will see how it uses to lead us here. [Music] And precisely he's going to say that the laws

of science, the laws of physics, of psychology, of forgiveness, of chemistry, etc., are changeable laws. Yes, so what we have here is that possibilism, in this ontological sense closest to Sartre's ontological structure of reality or modality of being, takes a physical, human, biological, etc., system to the extreme of its possibilities. We had seen

relational ontology. Let's think now that these relationships, where relationships produce individuals, that these relationships are possible combinations, and if we take these possible combinations to an extreme, then the laws are no longer possible in the sense that they don't describe regularities, a stable world, because that world is always in constant motion, in

constant dynamism, and control over that world is no longer possible. The consequence of this is epistemic indifference. And what does that mean? Since all combinations are possible, then all combinations are equally good because they are possible, and if everything is equally possible, then nothing is better or worse. So here we have a

kind of freedom of indifference; changes don't imply... agents that we assume, nor that human being, not to think, to weave 3, ontology is art, it assumes the human being, if not here, then the combinations are precisely possible combinations because they are taken to the extreme, that is, the possibilities of combinations are infinite, it is taken to the extreme and then

the results of those combinations give us different realities, so here doubt has no meaning because doubt has a value, which means that doubt means that I fear being wrong and not choosing the best, if we have epistemological indifference then doubt lacks meaning, doubt is a mental process that has to do, let's say,

with the fact that we consider that there are things that are better than others, therefore doubt is different from ontological possibilism because ontological possibilism is founded on indifference, so there are no essences, there are also no similarities, how are we going to explain that? If we are going to assume, I have brought an

object here to make an example in the style of Duya, let's see this clock, yes, we have here a dial with the hands of the clock, yes, it is a clock, it serves to tell the time, etc., but it turns out that this clock and this is It's been a long time since it stopped working; I never

got anyone to fix it. But this clock is also a gift from a friend. Yes, so this clock, which is no longer a clock, is that lingering presence of a friend I haven't seen in a long time because she lives in another country. But also, sometimes when I open the window and the papers fly around, when

I want to separate something, I use it like a paper pizza. Now, let's suppose someone has enough weight, someone attacks me, and I want to defend myself and throw it at someone. If, in a state of anger, I throw it against a window, these are different possibilities. What we shouldn't think is that there is something that has

different possibilities. There we would be thinking of similarity because the clock, which is the presence of my friend, or the object, which is the presence of my friend, or the paperweight, or the one that told the time, or the one I threw at someone—if those are not the same clock, if there is no

similarity, there is no something that remains identical and has these different possibilities, but rather they are not possibilities of something, but each possibility is a being. There is a being that is the clock that told the time. At that moment there is another being, the one I threw away, there is another being, the one I

use as a paperweight. If then each possibility is a being, for the object to have these different possibilities, an emptying of meanings is required. So when the emptying is total, when there is no meaning, it doesn't have meaning in itself. And when that emptying, that void of meaning, is total, then everything is possible because for

me to be able to use it as a paperweight and for it to have that being, it is necessary that I empty it of the meanings it previously had. So all the meanings are suppressed. And where do we see this in Tussam? In Tussam, we see it in the moment, in Tussam's gesture,

when in an exhibition he goes to a hardware store and buys a urinal, gives it a name and says, "This is art," and exhibits it as a work of art. And there this idea of the ready lane comes out. Please, in the text, "red email" is systematically misspelled, as I have already done, "mail" as

done. If 20 min Argentina, if that is the term in English, I have done that the ready lane is an object that is already made, that is already... It was handcrafted, and the artist elevates it to the category of a work of art, which is what she did one of the many times, but it was the most famous one

when you take the urinal and say, " This is a work of art." I mean, no, it's not that she intervened or visually altered it; she put it exactly as it was. So, for that to become a work of art, this suppression of all meanings is necessary. So here we see that it is being as a

possibility that has nothing to do with our knowledge; it has nothing to do with it. It is a possibility of being. In Sartre's case, that possibility of being alluded to a lack of being. Yes, so when the human being projects their potential onto the clouds that will transform into rain, it is possible that it will

rain. So those clouds still lack that being; they lack being rain, and the human being takes those clouds to transcend into rain. But that is Sartre's case; it is not the case of the ontological possibilism that we are presenting here, because in reality it is not about a lack of being. Being is

something inexhaustible and is always in the making. Yes, that is precisely the idea. To move from the "is" to the "one hundred," there's a phrase by Octavio Paz that I really like because I relate it a lot to the possible logical amount, and it says that fixity is always momentary. Yes, meaning that there are

moments of fixity, for example, when it was a clock, but that was a moment, no, it wasn't always a clock, it isn't always a clock. Today it's no longer a clock because it doesn't even work anymore. Yes, a paperweight. If today it's the memory of a friend, and maybe tomorrow it's something that a weapon threw away, and so

precisely what Octavio Paz understood is the idea that by understanding precisely the momentary nature of things, one accesses the infinity of possibility. Yes, well, that's the notion I wanted to present to you here, and well, see you in future videos.