Multivariate statistics is a subdivision of statistics encompassing the simultaneous observation and analysis of more than one outcome variable, i.e., multivariate random variables.
Multivariate statistics concerns understanding the different aims and
background of each of the different forms of multivariate analysis, and
how they relate to each other. The practical application of multivariate
statistics to a particular problem may involve several types of
univariate and multivariate analyses in order to understand the
relationships between variables and their relevance to the problem being
studied.
In addition, multivariate statistics is concerned with multivariate probability distributions, in terms of both
how these can be used to represent the distributions of observed data;
how they can be used as part of statistical inference, particularly where several different quantities are of interest to the same analysis.
Certain types of problems involving multivariate data, for example simple linear regression and multiple regression, are not
usually considered to be special cases of multivariate statistics
because the analysis is dealt with by considering the (univariate)
conditional distribution of a single outcome variable given the other
variables.
Multivariate analysis (MVA) is based on the principles
of multivariate statistics. Typically, MVA is used to address situations
where multiple measurements are made on each experimental unit and the
relations among these measurements and their structures are important. A modern, overlapping categorization of MVA includes:
Normal and general multivariate models and distribution theory
The study and measurement of relationships
Probability computations of multidimensional regions
The exploration of data structures and patterns
Multivariate analysis can be complicated by the desire to include
physics-based analysis to calculate the effects of variables for a
hierarchical "system-of-systems". Often, studies that wish to use
multivariate analysis are stalled by the dimensionality of the problem.
These concerns are often eased through the use of surrogate models,
highly accurate approximations of the physics-based code. Since
surrogate models take the form of an equation, they can be evaluated
very quickly. This becomes an enabler for large-scale MVA studies: while
a Monte Carlo simulation
across the design space is difficult with physics-based codes, it
becomes trivial when evaluating surrogate models, which often take the
form of response-surface equations.
Types of analysis
Many different models are used in MVA, each with its own type of analysis:
Multivariate regression attempts to determine a formula that can
describe how elements in a vector of variables respond simultaneously to
changes in others. For linear relations, regression analyses here are
based on forms of the general linear model.
Some suggest that multivariate regression is distinct from
multivariable regression, however, that is debated and not consistently
true across scientific fields.
Principal components analysis
(PCA) creates a new set of orthogonal variables that contain the same
information as the original set. It rotates the axes of variation to
give a new set of orthogonal axes, ordered so that they summarize
decreasing proportions of the variation.
Factor analysis
is similar to PCA but allows the user to extract a specified number of
synthetic variables, fewer than the original set, leaving the remaining
unexplained variation as error. The extracted variables are known as
latent variables or factors; each one may be supposed to account for
covariation in a group of observed variables.
Canonical correlation analysis finds linear relationships among two sets of variables; it is the generalised (i.e. canonical) version of bivariate correlation.
Redundancy analysis (RDA) is similar to canonical correlation
analysis but allows the user to derive a specified number of synthetic
variables from one set of (independent) variables that explain as much
variance as possible in another (independent) set. It is a multivariate
analogue of regression.
Correspondence analysis
(CA), or reciprocal averaging, finds (like PCA) a set of synthetic
variables that summarise the original set. The underlying model assumes
chi-squared dissimilarities among records (cases).
Canonical (or "constrained") correspondence analysis
(CCA) for summarising the joint variation in two sets of variables
(like redundancy analysis); combination of correspondence analysis and
multivariate regression analysis. The underlying model assumes
chi-squared dissimilarities among records (cases).
Multidimensional scaling
comprises various algorithms to determine a set of synthetic variables
that best represent the pairwise distances between records. The original
method is principal coordinates analysis (PCoA; based on PCA).
Discriminant analysis,
or canonical variate analysis, attempts to establish whether a set of
variables can be used to distinguish between two or more groups of
cases.
Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) computes a linear predictor from two sets of normally distributed data to allow for classification of new observations.
Clustering systems
assign objects into groups (called clusters) so that objects (cases)
from the same cluster are more similar to each other than objects from
different clusters.
Recursive partitioning
creates a decision tree that attempts to correctly classify members of
the population based on a dichotomous dependent variable.
Simultaneous equations models involve more than one regression equation, with different dependent variables, estimated together.
Vector autoregression involves simultaneous regressions of various time series variables on their own and each other's lagged values.
Principal response curves
analysis (PRC) is a method based on RDA that allows the user to focus
on treatment effects over time by correcting for changes in control
treatments over time.
Iconography of correlations
consists in replacing a correlation matrix by a diagram where the
“remarkable” correlations are represented by a solid line (positive
correlation), or a dotted line (negative correlation).
Dealing with incomplete data
It is very common that in an experimentally acquired set of data the values of some components of a given data point are missing. Rather than discarding the whole data point, it is common to "fill in" values for the missing components, a process called "imputation".
Important probability distributions
There is a set of probability distributions used in multivariate analyses that play a similar role to the corresponding set of distributions that are used in univariate analysis when the normal distribution is appropriate to a dataset. These multivariate distributions are:
MVA was formerly discussed solely in the context of statistical
theories, due to the size and complexity of underlying datasets and its
high computational consumption. With the dramatic growth of
computational power, MVA now plays an increasingly important role in
data analysis and has wide application in Omics fields.
Overdetermination occurs when a single-observed effect is
determined by multiple causes, any one of which alone would be
conceivably sufficient to account for ("determine") the effect. The term
"overdetermination" (German: Überdeterminierung) was used by Sigmund Freud as a key concept in his psychoanalysis, and later by Louis Althusser.
In the philosophy of science,
the concept of overdetermination has been used to describe a situation
in which there are more causes present than are necessary to cause an
effect. Overdetermination here is in contrast to underdetermination, when the number or strength of causes is insufficient.
Freud and psychoanalysis
Freud wrote in The Interpretation of Dreams
that many features of dreams were usually "overdetermined," in that
they were caused by multiple factors in the life of the dreamer, from
the "residue of the day" (superficial memories of recent life) to deeply
repressed traumas and unconscious wishes, these being "potent
thoughts". Freud favored interpretations which accounted for such
features not only once, but many times, in the context of various levels
and complexes of the dreamer's psyche.
The concept was later borrowed for a variety of other realms of thought.
Freud taught us that a dream may
mean a dozen different things; he has persuaded us that some symbols
are, as he says, 'over-determined' and mean many different selections
from among their causes. This theorem goes further, and regards all
discourse – outside the technicalities of science – as over-determined,
as having multiplicity of meaning.
Althusser and structuralist Marxism
The Marxist philosopherLouis Althusser imported the concept into Marxist political theory in an influential essay, "Contradiction and overdetermination." Drawing from both Freud and Mao Zedong,
Althusser used the idea of overdetermination as a way of thinking about
the multiple, often opposed, forces active at once in any political
situation, without falling into an overly simple idea of these forces
being simply "contradictory." Brewster, in Althusser et al.'s Reading Capital defines overdetermination as such:
"Althusser uses [overdetermination] to describe the
effects of the contradictions in each practice constituting the social
formation on the social formation as a whole, and hence back on each
practice and each contradiction, defining the pattern of dominance and
subordination, antagonism and non-antagonism of the contradictions in
the structure in dominance at any given historical moment. More
precisely, the overdetermination of a contradiction is the reflection in
it of its conditions of existence within the complex whole, that is, of
the other contradictions in the complex whole, in other words its
uneven development."
An instance of a popular riot calling for revolution could exemplify
overdetermination. The event has to it, in capitalist culture, an
over-application (determination) of agitation. The determinant
contradictions (the reasons for popular revolt) are not addressed and so
their great mass is "displaced" onto the singular event.
In analytic philosophy
In contemporary analytic philosophy an event or state of affairs is said to be overdetermined if it has two or more distinct, sufficient causes.
In philosophy of mind, the famous case of overdetermination is called
mental-physical causal overdetermination. If we accept that a mental
state (M) is realized by a physical state (P). And M can cause another
mental state (M*) or another physical state (P*). Then, nomologically
speaking, P can cause M* or P* too. In this way, M* or P* is both
determined by M and P. In other words, both M* and P* are
overdetermined. Since either M or P is sufficient for M* or P*, the
problem of mental-physical causal overdetermination is the causal
redundancy.
Whereas there may unproblematically be recognised many different necessary
conditions of the event's occurrence, no two distinct events may lay
claim to be sufficient conditions, since this would lead to
overdetermination. A much used example is that of firing squads,
the members of which simultaneously firing at and 'killing' their
targets. Apparently, no one member can be said to have caused the
victims' deaths, since they would have been killed anyway. Another
example is that Billy and Suzy each throw a rock through a window, and
either rock alone could have shattered the window. In this case, similar
to the example of firing squads, Billy and Suzy together shatter
the window and the result is not overdetermined. Or, we can say, even
if these two examples are a kind of overdetermination, this kind of
overdetermination is benign.
There are many problems of overdetermination. First,
overdetermination is problematic in particular from the viewpoint of a
standard counterfactual
understanding of causation, according to which an event is the cause of
another event if and only if the latter would not have occurred, had
the former not occurred. In order to employ this formula to actual
complex situations, implicit or explicit conditions need to be accepted
to be circumstantial, since the list of counterfactually acceptable
causes would otherwise be impractically long (e.g. the Earth's continued
existence could be said to be the (necessary) cause of one drinking
one's coffee). Unless a circumstance-clause is included, the putative
cause to which one wishes to draw attention could never be considered
sufficient, and hence not comply with the counterfactual analysis.
Second, overdetermination is problematic in that we do not know how to
explain where the extra causation "comes from" and "goes". This makes
overdetermination mysterious.
In economics and game theory, a participant is considered to have superrationality (or renormalized rationality) if they have perfect rationality (and thus maximize their utility)
but assume that all other players are superrational too and that a
superrational individual will always come up with the same strategy as
any other superrational thinker when facing the same problem. Applying
this definition, a superrational player playing against a superrational
opponent in a prisoner's dilemma will cooperate while a rationally self-interested player would defect.
This decision rule is not a mainstream model within the game theory and was suggested by Douglas Hofstadter in his article, series, and book Metamagical Themas as an alternative type of rational decision making different from the widely accepted game-theoretic
one. Hofstadter provided this definition: "Superrational thinkers, by
recursive definition, include in their calculations the fact that they
are in a group of superrational thinkers."
This is equivalent to reasoning as if everyone in the group obeys
Kant's categorical imperative: "one should take those actions and only
those actions that one would advocate all others take as well."
Unlike the supposed "reciprocating human", the superrational thinker will not always play the equilibrium that maximizes the total social utility and is thus not a philanthropist.
Prisoner's dilemma
The
idea of superrationality is that two logical thinkers analyzing the
same problem will think of the same correct answer. For example, if two
people are both good at math and both have been given the same
complicated problem to do, both will get the same right answer. In math,
knowing that the two answers are going to be the same doesn't change
the value of the problem, but in the game theory, knowing that the
answer will be the same might change the answer itself.
The prisoner's dilemma
is usually framed in terms of jail sentences for criminals, but it can
be stated equally well with cash prizes instead. Two players are each
given the choice to cooperate (C) or to defect (D). The players choose
without knowing what the other is going to do. If both cooperate, each
will get $100. If they both defect, they each get $1. If one cooperates
and the other defects, then the defecting player gets $200, while the
cooperating player gets nothing.
The four outcomes and the payoff to each player are listed below.
Player B cooperates
Player B defects
Player A cooperates
Both get $100
Player A: $0 Player B: $200
Player A defects
Player A: $200 Player B: $0
Both get $1
One valid way for the players to reason is as follows:
Assuming the other player defects, if I cooperate I get nothing and if I defect I get a dollar.
Assuming the other player cooperates, I get $100 if I cooperate and $200 if I defect.
So whatever the other player does, my payoff is increased by defecting, if only by one dollar.
The conclusion is that the rational thing to do is to defect. This
type of reasoning defines game-theoretic rationality and two
game-theoretic rational players playing this game both defect and
receive a dollar each.
Superrationality is an alternative method of reasoning. First, it
is assumed that the answer to a symmetric problem will be the same for
all the superrational players. Thus the sameness is taken into account before
knowing what the strategy will be. The strategy is found by maximizing
the payoff to each player, assuming that they all use the same strategy.
Since the superrational player knows that the other superrational
player will do the same thing, whatever that might be, there are only
two choices for two superrational players. Both will cooperate or both
will defect depending on the value of the superrational answer. Thus the
two superrational players will both cooperate since this answer
maximizes their payoff. Two superrational players playing this game will
each walk away with $100.
Note that a superrational player playing against a game-theoretic
rational player will defect, since the strategy only assumes that the
superrational players will agree. A
superrational player playing against a player of uncertain
superrationality will sometimes defect and sometimes cooperate, based on
the probability of the other player being superrational.
Although standard game theory assumes common knowledge of
rationality, it does so in a different way. The game-theoretic analysis
maximizes payoffs by allowing each player to change strategies
independently of the others, even though in the end, it assumes that the
answer in a symmetric game will be the same for all. This is the
definition of a game-theoretic Nash equilibrium,
which defines a stable strategy as one where no player can improve the
payoffs by unilaterally changing course. The superrational equilibrium
in a symmetric game is one where all the players' strategies are forced
to be the same before the maximization step. (There is no agreed-upon
extension of the concept of superrationality to asymmetric games.)
Some argue that superrationality implies a kind of magical thinking
in which each player supposes that their decision to cooperate will
cause the other player to cooperate, even though there is no
communication. Hofstadter points out that the concept of "choice"
doesn't apply when the player's goal is to figure something out, and
that the decision does not cause the other player to cooperate, but
rather the same logic leads to the same answer independent of
communication or cause and effect. This debate is over whether it is
reasonable for human beings to act in a superrational manner, not over
what superrationality means, and is similar to arguments about whether
it is reasonable for humans to act in a 'rational' manner, as described
by game theory (wherein they can figure out what other players will or
have done by asking themselves, what would I do if I was them, and
applying backward induction and iterated elimination of dominated strategies).
Probabilistic strategies
For simplicity, the foregoing account of superrationality ignored mixed strategies:
the possibility that the best choice could be to flip a coin, or more
generally to choose different outcomes with some probability. In the prisoner's dilemma,
it is superrational to cooperate with probability 1 even when mixed
strategies are admitted, because the average payoff when one player
cooperates and the other defects are the same as when both cooperate and
so defecting increases the risk of both defecting, which decreases the
expected payout. But in some cases, the superrational strategy is mixed.
For example, if the payoffs in are as follows:
CC – $100/$100
CD – $0/$1,000,000
DC – $1,000,000/$0
DD – $1/$1
So that defecting has a huge reward, the superrational strategy is
defecting with a probability of 499,900/999,899 or a little over
49.995%. As the reward increases to infinity, the probability only
approaches 1/2 further, and the losses for adopting the simpler strategy
of 1/2 (which are already minimal) approach 0. In a less extreme
example, if the payoff for one cooperator and one defector was $400 and
$0, respectively, the superrational mixed strategy world be defecting
with probability 100/299 or about 1/3.
In similar situations with more players, using a randomising
device can be essential. One example discussed by Hofstadter is the platonia dilemma:
an eccentric trillionaire contacts 20 people, and tells them that if
one and only one of them send him or her a telegram (assumed to cost
nothing) by noon the next day, that person will receive a billion
dollars. If they receive more than one telegram or none at all, no one
will get any money, and communication between players is forbidden. In
this situation, the superrational thing to do (if it is known that all
20 are superrational) is to send a telegram with probability p=1/20—that
is, each recipient essentially rolls a 20-sided die and only sends a telegram if it comes up "1". This maximizes the probability that exactly one telegram is received.
Notice though that this is not the solution in the conventional
game-theoretical analysis. Twenty game-theoretically rational players
would each send in telegrams and therefore receive nothing. This is
because sending telegrams is the dominant strategy;
if an individual player sends telegrams they have a chance of receiving
money, but if they send no telegrams they cannot get anything. (If all
telegrams were guaranteed to arrive, they would only send one, and no
one would expect to get any money).
The question of whether to cooperate in a one-shot Prisoner's
Dilemma in some circumstances has also come up in the decision theory
literature sparked by Newcomb's problem. Causal decision theory suggests that superrationality is irrational, while evidential decision theory
endorses lines of reasoning similar to superrationality and recommends
cooperation in a Prisoner's Dilemma against a similar opponent.
Program equilibrium has been proposed as a mechanistic model of superrationality.
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions of material things. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes (such as the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system), without which they cannot exist. Materialism directly contrasts with idealism, according to which consciousness is the fundamental substance of nature.
Materialism is closely related to physicalism—the
view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Philosophical
physicalism has evolved from materialism with the theories of the
physical sciences to incorporate more sophisticated notions of
physicality than mere ordinary matter (e.g. spacetime, physical energies and forces, and exotic matter). Thus, some prefer the term physicalism to materialism, while others use the terms as if they were synonymous.
Philosophies traditionally opposed or largely historically
unreconciled to the scientific theories of materialism or physicalism
include idealism, pluralism, dualism, panpsychism, and other forms of monism. Epicureanism is a philosophy of materialism from classical antiquity that was a major forerunner of modern science. Though ostensibly a deist, Epicurus affirmed the literal existence of the Greek gods
in either some type of celestial "heaven" cognate from which they ruled
the Universe (if not on a literal Mount Olympus), and his philosophy
promulgated atomism, while Platonism taught roughly the opposite, despite Plato's teaching of Zeus as God.
Overview
In 1748, French doctor and philosopher La Mettrie espouses a materialistic definition of the human soul in L'Homme Machine.
Despite the large number of philosophical schools and their nuances, all philosophies are said to fall into one of two primary categories, defined in contrast to each other: idealism and materialism.
The basic proposition of these two categories pertains to the nature of
reality: the primary difference between them is how they answer two
fundamental questions—what reality consists of, and how it originated.
To idealists, spirit or mind or the objects of mind (ideas) are
primary, and matter secondary. To materialists, matter is primary, and
mind or spirit or ideas are secondary—the product of matter acting upon
matter.
The materialist view is perhaps best understood in its opposition
to the doctrines of immaterial substance applied to the mind
historically by René Descartes;
by itself, materialism says nothing about how material substance should
be characterized. In practice, it is frequently assimilated to one
variety of physicalism or another.
Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of other scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, and the spacetime continuum; some philosophers, such as Mary Midgley, suggest that the concept of "matter" is elusive and poorly defined.
Materialism is often associated with reductionism,
according to which the objects or phenomena individuated at one level
of description, if they are genuine, must be explicable in terms of the
objects or phenomena at some other level of description—typically, at a
more reduced level.
Non-reductive materialism explicitly rejects this notion,
taking the material constitution of all particulars to be consistent
with the existence of real objects, properties or phenomena not
explicable in the terms canonically used for the basic material
constituents. Jerry Fodor
held this view, according to which empirical laws and explanations in
"special sciences" like psychology or geology are invisible from the
perspective of basic physics.
Materialism developed, possibly independently, in several geographically separated regions of Eurasia during what Karl Jaspers termed the Axial Age (c. 800–200 BC).
In ancient Indian philosophy, materialism developed around 600 BC with the works of Ajita Kesakambali, Payasi, Kanada and the proponents of the Cārvāka school of philosophy. Kanada became one of the early proponents of atomism. The Nyaya–Vaisesika
school (c. 600–100 BC) developed one of the earliest forms of atomism
(although their proofs of God and their positing that consciousness was
not material precludes labelling them as materialists). Buddhist atomism and the Jaina school continued the atomic tradition.
Ancient Greekatomists like Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus prefigure later materialists. The Latin poem De Rerum Natura by Lucretius (99 – c. 55 BC) reflects the mechanistic
philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus. According to this view, all that
exists is matter and void, and all phenomena result from different
motions and conglomerations of base material particles called atoms (literally "indivisibles"). De Rerum Natura
provides mechanistic explanations for phenomena such as erosion,
evaporation, wind, and sound. Famous principles like "nothing can touch
body but body" first appeared in Lucretius's work. Democritus and
Epicurus did not espouse a monist ontology, instead espousing the
ontological separation of matter and space (i.e. that space is "another
kind" of being).
Early Common Era
Wang Chong (27 – c. 100 AD) was a Chinese thinker of the early Common Era said to be a materialist. Later Indian materialist Jayaraashi Bhatta (6th century) in his work Tattvopaplavasimha (The Upsetting of All Principles) refuted the Nyāya Sūtra epistemology. The materialistic Cārvāka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1400; when Madhavacharya compiled Sarva-darśana-samgraha (A Digest of All Philosophies) in the 14th century, he had no Cārvāka (or Lokāyata) text to quote from or refer to.
The materialist conception of
history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to
support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things
produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society
that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed
and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is
produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From
this point of view, the final causes of all social changes and political
revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in men's better
insights into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of
production and exchange. They are to be sought, not in the philosophy,
but in the economics of each particular epoch.
— Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Scientific and Utopian (1880)
A more naturalist-oriented materialist school of thought that developed in the mid-19th century was German materialism, which included Ludwig Büchner (1824–1899), the Dutch-born Jacob Moleschott (1822–1893), and Carl Vogt (1817–1895), even though they had different views on core issues such as the evolution and the origins of life.
Scientific materialism is often synonymous with, and has typically been described as, a reductive materialism. In the early 21st century, Paul and Patricia Churchland advocated a radically contrasting position (at least in regard to certain hypotheses): eliminative materialism.
Eliminative materialism holds that some mental phenomena simply do not
exist at all, and that talk of such phenomena reflects a spurious "folk psychology" and introspection illusion.
A materialist of this variety might believe that a concept like
"belief" has no basis in fact (e.g. the way folk science speaks of
demon-caused illnesses).
With reductive materialism at one end of a continuum (our theories will reduce to facts) and eliminative materialism at the other (certain theories will need to be eliminated in light of new facts), revisionary materialism is somewhere in the middle.
Contemporary continental philosopherGilles Deleuze has attempted to rework and strengthen classical materialist ideas. Contemporary theorists such as Manuel DeLanda, working with this reinvigorated materialism, have come to be classified as new materialists. New materialism
has become its own subfield, with courses on it at major universities,
as well as numerous conferences, edited collections and monographs
devoted to it.
Jane Bennett's 2010 book Vibrant Matter has been particularly instrumental in bringing theories of monist ontology and vitalism back into a critical theoretical fold dominated by poststructuralist theories of language and discourse. Scholars such as Mel Y. Chen
and Zakiyyah Iman Jackson have critiqued this body of new materialist
literature for neglecting to consider the materiality of race and gender
in particular.
Métis scholar Zoe Todd, as well as Mohawk (Bear Clan, Six Nations) and Anishinaabe scholar Vanessa Watts, query the colonial orientation of the race for a "new" materialism.
Watts in particular describes the tendency to regard matter as a
subject of feminist or philosophical care as a tendency too invested in
the reanimation of a Eurocentric tradition of inquiry at the expense of an Indigenous ethic of responsibility.
Other scholars, such as Helene Vosters, echo their concerns and have
questioned whether there is anything particularly "new" about "new
materialism", as Indigenous and other animist ontologies have attested to what might be called the "vibrancy of matter" for centuries. Others, such as Thomas Nail, have critiqued "vitalist" versions of new materialism for depoliticizing "flat ontology" and being ahistorical.
One challenge to the conventional concept of matter as tangible "stuff" came with the rise of field physics in the 19th century. Relativity
shows that matter and energy (including the spatially distributed
energy of fields) are interchangeable. This enables the ontological view
that energy is prima materia and matter is one of its forms. In contrast, the Standard Model of particle physics uses quantum field theory to describe all interactions. On this view it could be said that fields are prima materia and the energy is a property of the field.
According to the dominant cosmological model, the Lambda-CDM model,
less than 5% of the universe's energy density is made up of the
"matter" the Standard Model describes, and most of the universe is
composed of dark matter and dark energy, with little agreement among scientists about what these are made of.
With the advent of quantum physics, some scientists believed the
concept of matter had merely changed, while others believed the
conventional position could no longer be maintained. Werner Heisenberg
said: "The ontology of materialism rested upon the illusion that the
kind of existence, the direct 'actuality' of the world around us, can be
extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation, however, is
impossible...atoms are not things."
The concept of matter has changed in response to new scientific
discoveries. Thus materialism has no definite content independent of the
particular theory of matter on which it is based. According to Noam Chomsky, any property can be considered material, if one defines matter such that it has that property.
George Stack distinguishes between materialism and physicalism:
In
the twentieth century, physicalism has emerged out of positivism.
Physicalism restricts meaningful statements to physical bodies or
processes that are verifiable or in principle verifiable. It is an
empirical hypothesis that is subject to revision and, hence, lacks the
dogmatic stance of classical materialism. Herbert Feigl
defended physicalism in the United States and consistently held that
mental states are brain states and that mental terms have the same
referent as physical terms. The twentieth century has witnessed many
materialist theories of the mental, and much debate surrounding them.
But not all conceptions of physicalism are tied to verificationist
theories of meaning or direct realist accounts of perception. Rather,
physicalists believe that no "element of reality" is missing from the
mathematical formalism of our best description of the world.
"Materialist" physicalists also believe that the formalism describes
fields of insentience. In other words, the intrinsic nature of the
physical is non-experiential.
Most Hindus and transcendentalists regard all matter as an illusion, or maya, blinding humans from the truth. Transcendental experiences like the perception of Brahman are considered to destroy the illusion.
Criticism and alternatives
From contemporary physicists
Rudolf Peierls, a physicist who played a major role in the Manhattan Project, rejected materialism: "The premise that you can describe in terms of physics the whole function of a human being... including knowledge and consciousness, is untenable. There is still something missing."
Erwin Schrödinger
said, "Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For
consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in
terms of anything else."
Werner Heisenberg wrote: "The ontology
of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the
direct 'actuality' of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the
atomic range. This extrapolation, however, is impossible... Atoms are not things."
Then came our Quantum theory, which
totally transformed our image of matter. The old assumption that the
microscopic world of atoms was simply a scaled-down version of the
everyday world had to be abandoned. Newton's deterministic machine was
replaced by a shadowy and paradoxical conjunction of waves and
particles, governed by the laws of chance, rather than the rigid rules
of causality. An extension of the quantum theory goes beyond even this;
it paints a picture in which solid matter dissolves away, to be replaced
by weird excitations and vibrations of invisible field energy.
Quantum physics undermines materialism because it reveals that matter
has far less "substance" than we might believe. But another development
goes even further by demolishing Newton's image of matter as inert
lumps. This development is the theory of chaos, which has recently
gained widespread attention.
— Paul Davies and John Gribbin, The Matter Myth, Chapter 1: "The Death of Materialism"
Digital physics
The objections of Davies and Gribbin are shared by proponents of digital physics, who view information rather than matter as fundamental. The physicist and proponent of digital physics John Archibald Wheeler wrote, "all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." Some founders of quantum theory, such as Max Planck, shared their objections. He wrote:
As a man who has devoted his whole
life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can
tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no
matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a
force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this
most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind
this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind
is the matrix of all matter.
— Max Planck, Das Wesen der Materie (1944)
James Jeans
concurred with Planck, saying, "The Universe begins to look more like a
great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be
an accidental intruder into the realm of matter."
During the 20th century, several other philosophers also offered
specific criticisms related to the fundamental concepts underlying
scientific materialism. Among them was the Australian scholar Colin Murray Turbayne, who in his The Myth of Metaphor
analyzes the limitations associated with several metaphors routinely
incorporated as literal constructs in the "mechanistic" explanations of
the universe first outlined by Isaac Newton and Descartes's mind-body dualism,
such as "substance" and "substratum", which according to Turbayne have
little if any meaning. He further argues that such physicalist theories
of the universe generally rely upon mechanistic metaphors drawn through
the use of deductive logic for the synthesis of their respective
hypotheses.
Turbayne observes that modern man has become victimized by the
metaphors underlying these hypotheses, which have been unintentionally
interpreted as examples of literal truth despite their limitations.
Varieties of idealism
Arguments for idealism, such as those of Hegel and Berkeley, often take the form of an argument against materialism; indeed, Berkeley's idealism was called immaterialism. Now, matter can be argued to be redundant, as in bundle theory, and mind-independent properties can, in turn, be reduced to subjective percepts.
Berkeley gives an example of the latter by pointing out that it is
impossible to gather direct evidence of matter, as there is no direct
experience of matter; all that is experienced is perception, whether
internal or external. As such, matter's existence can only be inferred
from the apparent (perceived) stability of perceptions; it finds
absolutely no evidence in direct experience.
If matter and energy are seen as necessary to explain the physical world, but incapable of explaining mind, dualism results. Emergence, holism and process philosophy seek to ameliorate the perceived shortcomings of traditional (especially mechanistic) materialism without abandoning materialism entirely.
Materialism as methodology
Some critics object to materialism as part of an overly skeptical, narrow or reductivist approach to theorizing, rather than to the ontological claim that matter is the only substance. Particle physicist and Anglican theologianJohn Polkinghorne objects to what he calls promissory materialism—claims that materialistic science will eventually succeed in explaining phenomena it has not so far been able to explain. Polkinghorne prefers "dual-aspect monism" to materialism.
Some scientific materialists have been criticized for failing to provide clear definitions of matter, leaving the term materialism without any definite meaning. Noam Chomsky
states that since the concept of matter may be affected by new
scientific discoveries, as has happened in the past, scientific
materialists are being dogmatic in assuming the opposite.
A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy
of refuting an argument different from the one actually under
discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".
The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having
refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert
replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw
man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a
straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition. Straw man arguments have been used throughout history in polemical debate, particularly regarding highly charged emotional subjects.
Straw man tactics in the United Kingdom may also be known as an Aunt Sally, after a pub game of the same name, where patrons throw sticks or battens at a post to knock off a skittle balanced on top.
Overview
The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:
Person 1 asserts proposition X.
Person 2 argues against a superficially similar proposition Y, falsely, as if an argument against Y were an argument against X.
This reasoning is a fallacy of relevance: it fails to address the proposition in question by misrepresenting the opposing position.
For example:
Quoting an opponent's words out of context—i.e., choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's intentions (see fallacy of quoting out of context).
Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then denying that person's arguments—thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.
Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
Exaggerating (sometimes grossly) an opponent's argument, then attacking this exaggerated version.
Contemporary revisions
In
2006, Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin expanded the application and use
of the straw man fallacy beyond that of previous rhetorical scholars,
arguing that the straw man fallacy can take two forms: the original form
that misrepresents the opponent's position, which they call the representative form; and a new form they call the selection form.
The selection form focuses on a partial and weaker (and easier to
refute) representation of the opponent's position. Then the easier
refutation of this weaker position is claimed to refute the opponent's
complete position. They point out the similarity of the selection form
to the fallacy of hasty generalization,
in which the refutation of an opposing position that is weaker than the
opponent's is claimed as a refutation of all opposing arguments.
Because they have found significantly increased use of the selection
form in modern political argumentation, they view its identification as
an important new tool for the improvement of public discourse.
Aikin and Casey expanded on this model in 2010, introducing a third form. Referring to the "representative form" as the classic straw man, and the "selection form" as the weak man, the third form is called the hollow man.
A hollow man argument is one that is a complete fabrication, where both
the viewpoint and the opponent expressing it do not in fact exist, or
at the very least the arguer has never encountered them. Such arguments
frequently take the form of vague phrasing such as "some say," "someone
out there thinks" or similar weasel words, or it might attribute a non-existent argument to a broad movement in general, rather than an individual or organization.
A variation on the selection form, or "weak man" argument, that combines with an ad hominem and fallacy of composition is nut picking, a neologism coined by Kevin Drum. A combination of "nut" (i.e., insane person) and "cherry picking",
as well as a play on the word "nitpicking," nut picking refers to
intentionally seeking out extremely fringe, non-representative
statements from or members of an opposing group and parading these as
evidence of that entire group's incompetence or irrationality.
Steelmanning
A steel man argument (or steelmanning)
is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice
of addressing the strongest form of the other person's argument, even if
it is not the one they presented. Creating the strongest form of the
opponent's argument may involve removing flawed assumptions that could
be easily refuted or developing the strongest points which counter one's
own position, as "we know our belief's real weak points". This may lead
to improvements on one's own positions where they are incorrect or
incomplete. Developing counters to these strongest arguments an opponent
might bring results in producing an even stronger argument for one's
own position.
Bob attacked a non-existing argument: "Taking a hot
shower is beneficial." Because such an argument is false, Alice might
start believing that she is wrong because what Bob said was clearly
true. Her actual argument, however, was not disproved, because she did not say anything about the temperature.
Alice: I didn't mean taking a hot shower.
Alice noticed the fallacy and defended her claim.
Straw man arguments often arise in public debates such as a (hypothetical) prohibition debate:
A: We should relax the laws on beer.
B: No, any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate gratification.
The original proposal was to relax laws on beer. Person B has
misrepresented this proposal to imply "unrestricted access" to
intoxicants. It is a logical fallacy because Person A never advocated
allowing said unrestricted access.
In a 1977 appeal of a U.S. bank robbery conviction, a prosecuting attorney said in his oral argument:
I submit to you that if you can't
take this evidence and find these defendants guilty on this evidence
then we might as well open all the banks and say, "Come on and get the
money, boys," because we'll never be able to convict them.
This was a straw man designed to alarm the appellate judges; the
chance that the precedent set by one case would literally make it
impossible to convict any bank robbers is remote.
An example often given of a straw man is U.S. president Richard Nixon's 1952 "Checkers speech".
When campaigning for vice president in 1952, Nixon was accused of
having illegally appropriated $18,000 in campaign funds for his personal
use. In a televised response, based on Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fala speech, he spoke about another gift, a dog he had been given by a supporter:
It was a little cocker spaniel dog,
in a crate he had sent all the way from Texas, black and white,
spotted, and our little girl Tricia,
six years old, named it Checkers. And, you know, the kids, like all
kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say this right now, that,
regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it.
This was a straw man response; his critics had never criticized the
dog as a gift or suggested he return it. This argument was successful at
distracting many people from the funds and portraying his critics as
nitpicking and heartless. Nixon received an outpouring of public
support and remained on the ticket. He and Eisenhower were later
elected.
Whereas, the writings of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, promoted the justification of racism, and his books On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man postulate a hierarchy of superior and inferior races. . . .
Therefore, be it resolved that the legislature of Louisiana does hereby deplore all instances and all ideologies of racism,
does hereby reject the core concepts of Darwinist ideology that certain
races and classes of humans are inherently superior to others, and does
hereby condemn the extent to which these philosophies have been used to
justify and approve racist practices.
Tindale comments that "the portrait painted of Darwinian ideology is a
caricature, one not borne out by any objective survey of the works
cited." The fact that similar misrepresentations of Darwinian thinking
have been used to justify and approve racist practices is besides the
point: the position that the legislation is attacking and dismissing is a
straw man. In subsequent debate, this error was recognized, and the
eventual bill omitted all mention of Darwin and Darwinist ideology. Darwin passionately opposed slavery and worked to intellectually confront the notions of "scientific racism" that were used to justify it.
Etymology
As a fallacy, the identification and name of straw man arguments are of relatively recent date, although Aristotle makes remarks that suggest a similar concern; Douglas N. Walton identified "the first inclusion of it we can find in a textbook as an informal fallacy" in Stuart Chase's Guides to Straight Thinking from 1956 (p. 40). By contrast, Hamblin's classic text Fallacies (1970) neither mentions it as a distinct type, nor even as a historical term.
The term's origins are a matter of debate, though the usage of the term in rhetoric suggests a human figure made of straw that is easy to knock down or destroy—such as a military training dummy, scarecrow, or effigy. A common but false etymology
is that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in
their shoe to signal their willingness to be a false witness. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the term "man of straw" can be traced back to 1620 as "an easily refuted imaginary opponent in an argument."
Related usage
Reverend William Harrison, in A Description of England
(1577), complained that when men lived in houses of willow they were
men of oak, but now they lived in houses of oak and had become men of
willow and "a great manie altogither of straw, which is a sore alteration [i.e. a sad change]." The phrase men of straw appears to refer to pampered softness and a lack of character, rather than the modern meaning.
Respondeo, id genus disputandi omnibus familiare esse,
qui contra Lutherum scribunt, ut hoc asserant quod impugnant, aut
fingant quod impugnent.
(I answer that this kind of discussion is familiar to all who write against Luther, so they can assert (or: plant, literally: sow) what they attack, or pretend what they attack.)
Luther's Latin text does not use the phrase "man of straw". This is
used in a widespread early 20th century English translation of his work,
the Philadelphia Edition
My answer is, that this sort of argument is common to
all those who write against Luther. They assert the very things they
assail, or they set up a man of straw whom they may attack.
In the quote, he responds to arguments of the Roman Catholic Church
and clergy attempting to delegitimize his criticisms, specifically on
the correct way to serve the Eucharist.
The church claimed Martin Luther is arguing against serving the
Eucharist according to one type of serving practice; Martin Luther
states he never asserted that in his criticisms towards them and in fact
they themselves are making this argument.
