Muni's PlayInadequate World Hypotheses: Animism & Mysticism
Stephen Pepper identifies these two as “inadequate” because they lack the cognitive power to account for all evidence without becoming either too vague or too exclusive.
1. Animism
- Root Metaphor: The Person / Human Spirit.
- Core Logic: Explains natural events through human-like traits (will, intention, soul). “The wind blows because it wants to move.”
- Why it Fails (Precision): It is highly flexible but lacks precision. You can invent a “spirit” or “will” for any event, making the hypothesis “irrefutable” in a way that provides no actual predictive or structural depth. It collapses into common sense or “poetic” description.
2. Mysticism
- Root Metaphor: Love / The Intense Experience.
- Core Logic: Truth is found in a single, unified, overwhelming emotional or spiritual experience.
- Why it Fails (Scope): It lacks scope. To maintain the “purity” of the mystical experience, it must reject the vast majority of physical and logical data as “unreal” or “illusion.” It cannot account for the “dull” facts of everyday life (like gravity or logic) without dismissing them.
4 World Hypotheses
Based on Stephen Pepper’s World Hypotheses (1942), these are the four relatively adequate “root metaphors” we use to understand the world.
1. Formism
- Root Metaphor: Similarity (two things looking alike).
- Truth Criterion: Correspondence.
- Focus: Categorization and classification. The world is a collection of distinct types and patterns.
2. Mechanism
- Root Metaphor: The Machine.
- Truth Criterion: Causal adjustment.
- Focus: Cause and effect. The world is composed of discrete parts interacting in predictable, law-governed ways.
3. Contextualism
- Root Metaphor: The Historic Event (an act in its context).
- Truth Criterion: Successful working (pragmatism).
- Focus: Change and novelty. Reality is an ongoing, dynamic process where meaning is tied to specific situations.
4. Organicism
- Root Metaphor: Integration / Growth.
- Truth Criterion: Coherence.
- Focus: Holistic systems. Fragments are seen as parts of an evolving, organic whole that moves toward a final state of integration.