Purpose might be put higher in the hierarchy because we want to perform actions that make a meaningful difference...
The concept of purpose certainly seems powerful enough to make it viable as one atop the hierarchy, but again the questions could arise: Why is it meaning that should be asked of actions? Why is what lasts longer more important than what doesn't? How is it that transience defeats meaning? I am not sure that these have simple answers. And it doesn't look like anything within such a hierarchy will tell you whether the same questions arise within a different hierarchy, or within a non-hierarchical set of concepts. That is, if you were using a hierarchy that placed identity (say) at the top, would the same paradox of purpose arise?
That might be part of the reason, though it doesn't seem, at the face of it, that animals would be spared. If they can think about the metaphysics of the concepts, they can also rearrange things in the wrong way; and if they can't, then they are forced to use the arrangement provided in some manner.
I assume that they can't, but that does not mean that they are forced to use some arrangement; rather, I would say that animals are able to not have a metaphysics. This relates to one of the points of my original post, which is that a hierarchy of concepts can reduce a human being to something less than animal. Human beings, by their social nature, are forced to use some arrangement of concepts, and if they have the misfortune to have the wrong arrangement -- say, one which renders thought incoherent, saps motivation, creates indelible paradoxes, induces despair, or constrains the imagination -- then they are not, in general, free to seek another arrangement. A creature more free than a human being would be able to, like an animal, do without a metaphysics, as a first step in experimenting with a new metaphysics... rather than being reduced by that metaphysics into some subset of what is animal.
In the latter case, how do we know that the metaphysical priorities of the animal is arranged correctly?
As far as I know, they have no such priorities, which is what makes them interesting from the standpoint of weighing different arrangements of concepts. To wholly experiment with metaphysics, to wholly adopt a new hierarchy and/or set of concepts, I think one would first have to pass through such an animal state.
Re: Purpose
The concept of purpose certainly seems powerful enough to make it viable as one atop the hierarchy, but again the questions could arise: Why is it meaning that should be asked of actions? Why is what lasts longer more important than what doesn't? How is it that transience defeats meaning? I am not sure that these have simple answers. And it doesn't look like anything within such a hierarchy will tell you whether the same questions arise within a different hierarchy, or within a non-hierarchical set of concepts. That is, if you were using a hierarchy that placed identity (say) at the top, would the same paradox of purpose arise?
That might be part of the reason, though it doesn't seem, at the face of it, that animals would be spared. If they can think about the metaphysics of the concepts, they can also rearrange things in the wrong way; and if they can't, then they are forced to use the arrangement provided in some manner.
I assume that they can't, but that does not mean that they are forced to use some arrangement; rather, I would say that animals are able to not have a metaphysics. This relates to one of the points of my original post, which is that a hierarchy of concepts can reduce a human being to something less than animal. Human beings, by their social nature, are forced to use some arrangement of concepts, and if they have the misfortune to have the wrong arrangement -- say, one which renders thought incoherent, saps motivation, creates indelible paradoxes, induces despair, or constrains the imagination -- then they are not, in general, free to seek another arrangement. A creature more free than a human being would be able to, like an animal, do without a metaphysics, as a first step in experimenting with a new metaphysics... rather than being reduced by that metaphysics into some subset of what is animal.
In the latter case, how do we know that the metaphysical priorities of the animal is arranged correctly?
As far as I know, they have no such priorities, which is what makes them interesting from the standpoint of weighing different arrangements of concepts. To wholly experiment with metaphysics, to wholly adopt a new hierarchy and/or set of concepts, I think one would first have to pass through such an animal state.