Maverick Philosopher

On Diachronic or 'Emersonian' Consistency

Yesterday I said I was opposed to ". . . misquotation, misattribution, the retailing of unsourced quotations, the passing off of unchecked second-hand quotations, and sense-altering context suppression."  An example of the last-mentioned follows. 

Here is a famous passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance" rarely quoted in full:

 A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and
divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. (Ziff, 183)  

People routinely rip the initial clause of this passage out of its context and take Emerson to be attacking logical consistency.  Or else they quote only the first sentence, or the first two sentences.  An example by  someone who really ought to know better is provided by Robert Fogelin in his book, Walking the Tightrope of Reason (Oxford UP, 2001).  Chapter One, "Why Obey the Laws of Logic?," has among its mottoes (p. 14) the first two sentences of the Emerson quotation above.  The other three mottoes, from Whitman, Nietzsche, and Aristotle, are plainly about logical consistency.

 It should be clear to anyone who reads the entire passage quoted above in the context of Emerson's essay that Emerson’s dictum has nothing to do with logical consistency and everything to do with consistency of beliefs over time. The consistency in question is diachronic rather than synchronic. A “little mind” is “foolishly consistent” if it refuses to change its beliefs when change is needed due to changing circumstances, further experience, or clearer thinking. It should be clear that if I believe that p at time t, but believe that ~p at later time t*, then there is no time at which I hold logically inconsistent beliefs. Doxastic alteration, like alteration in general, is noncontradictory for the simple reason that properties which are contradictory when taken in abstracto are had at different times. My coffee changes from hot to non-hot, and thus has contradictory attributes when we abstract from the time of their instantiation. But since the coffee instantiates them at different times, there is no contradiction such as would cause us to join Parmenides in denying the reality of the changeful world.

Belief change is just a special case of this. Suppose a politician changes her position for some good reason. There is not only nothing wrong with this, it shows an admirable openness. She goes from believing in a progressive tax scheme to believing in a flat tax, say. Surely there is no logical contradiction involved, and for two reasons.

First, the property of believing that a progressive tax is warranted is not the contradictory, but merely the contrary, of the property of believing that a flat tax is warranted. (They cannot both be instantiated at the same time, but it is possible that neither be instantiated.) Second, the properties are had at different times. A logical contradiction ensues only when one simultaneously maintains both that p and that ~p.

Emerson’s sound point, then, is that one should not make a fetish out of doxastic stasis: there is nothing wrong with being ‘inconsistent’ in the sense of changing one’s beliefs when circumstances change and as one gains in experience and insight. But this is not to say that one should adopt the antics of the flibbertigibbet.   Relative stability of views over time is an indicator of character.

Before leaving this topic, let's consider what Walt Whitman has to say in the penultimate section 51 of “Song of Myself” in Leaves of Grass:

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Here it appears that Whitman is thumbing his nose at logical consistency. If so, the Emersonic and Whitmanic dicta ought not be confused.   But confuse them is precisely what Fogelin does when he places the Emerson and Whitman quotations cheek-by-jowl on p. 14 of his book.

Nick Gillespie on Why Youth Favor Obama and Conservatism's Contradictions

Support for Obama among 18-29 year olds exceeds that of any other age cohort.  Reason Magazine's Nick Gillespie argues that Obama is in the process of "screwing them big time."  Gillespie is right.   What caught my eye, however, was Gillespie's  explanation of why conservatives fail to get the youth vote:

I'd argue that what makes "the conservative message"  resonate less among younger people is its, well, conservatism on things such as war, alternative lifestlyes, [sic] drug legalization, and immigration. Younger people are less hung up on the sorts of things that really twist conservatives' knickers. And young people then assume that many of the other things that conservatives espouse - such as generally free markets and open trade - are similarly warped. That conservatives are so inconsistent with their basic message - We want smaller government...except when we're talking about immigrants, the gays, and the ability to kill people overseas! - doesn't help matters, either. Most people surely don't prize consistency as much as libertarians do, but the obvious contradictions at the heart of conservative philosophy are off-putting to anyone with the smallest taste for consistency.

As a philosopher, logical consistency looms large for me.  And so you will get my attention 'big time' if you can lay out for me "the obvious contradictions at the heart of conservative philosophy."  But if they are obvious, then presumably all you need to do is draw my attention to them.

Unfortunately, public intellectuals, not being logically trained as most philosophers are, have an egregiously spongy notion of what a contradiction is.  This is true of even very good public intellectuals such as Nat Hentoff and Nick Gillespie.  (Hentoff, for whom I have a very high degree of respect, thinks one is being inconsistent if one is pro-life and yet supports capital punishment.  He is demonstrably wrong.)

Ignoring Gillespie's invective and hyperbole, his point seems to be that the following propositions are logically inconsistent:

1. The legitimate functions of government are limited.

2. Among the the legitimate functions of government are national defense, securing of the borders, and preservation of traditional marriage's privileged position.

Now it should be obvious that these propositions are logically consistent: they can both be true.  They are not logical contradictories of each other.

It is therefore foolish for Gillespie to accuse conservatives of inconsistency.  And to speak of obvious inconsistency is doubly foolish.  What he needs to do is argue that the governmental functions that conservatives deem necessary and legitimate are neither.  This will require a good deal of substantive argumentation and not a cheap accusation of  'inconsistency.' For example, he can mount an economic argument for open borders.  I wish him the best of luck with that. He will need it.

Curiously, Gillespie's own reasoning can be used against him.  Suppose an anarchist comes along.  Using Gillespie's own form of reasoning, he could argue that Gillespie the libertarian is being inconsistent.  For he wants smaller government . . . except when it comes to the protection of life, liberty, and property (the Lockean triad, I call it).    Then he wants coercive government to do its thing and come down hard on the malefactors.  He's inconsistent!  If he were consistent in his desire for limited government, he would favor no government.  His libertarianism would then collapse into anarchism.

So by his own understanding of consistency, Gillespie is not being consistent.  The same reasoning that he uses against conservatives can be used against him.  The reasoning is of course invalid in both applications.  It is invalid against the libertarian and equally so against the conservative.

But I like his black leather jacket schtick.    It is always a pleasure to see him on the O'Reilly Factor. 

Related articles

'The Wrong Side of History'

A Prime Instance of Political Correctness: The Blackballing of Nat Hentoff

Nick Gillespie: Will Obama Tell Young People How Much He's Screwing Them?

On the Obvious

As Hilary Putnam once said, "It ain't obvious what's obvious." Or as I like to say, "One man's datum is another man's theory."

But is it obvious that it ain't obvious what's obvious? 

It looks as if we have a little self-referential puzzle going here.  Does the Hilarian dictum apply to itself?  An absence of the particular quantifier may be read as a tacit endorsement of the universal quantifier.  Now if it is never obvious what is obvious, then we have self-reference and the Hilarian dictum by its own say-so is not obvious.

Is there a logical problem here?  I don't think so.  With no breach of logical consistency one can maintain that it is never obvious what is obvious, as long as one does not exempt one's very thesis.   In this case the self-referentiality issues not in self-refutation but in self-vitiation.  The Hilarian dictum is a self-weakening thesis.  Over the years I have given many examples of this.  (But I am now too lazy to dig them out of my vast archives.)

There is no logical problem, but there is a factual problem.  Surely some propositions are obviously true. Having toked on a good cigar in its end game, when a cigar is at its most nasty and rasty, I am am feeling mighty fine long about now.  My feeling of elation, just as such, taken in its phenomenological quiddity, under epoche of all transcendent positings -- this quale is obvious if anything is.

So let us modify the Hilarian dictum to bring it in line with the truth.

In philosophy, appeals to what is obvious, or self-evident, or plain to gesundes Menschenverstand, et cetera und so weiter are usually unavailing for purposes of convincing one's interlocutor. 

And yet we must take some things as given and non-negotiable.  Welcome to the human epistemic  predicament. 

Collective Inconsistency and Plural Predication

We often say things like

1. The propositions p, q, r are inconsistent.

Suppose, to keep things simple, that each of the three propositions is self-consistent.  It will then be false that each proposition is self-inconsistent. (1), then, is a plural predication that cannot be given a distributive paraphrase.  What (1) says is that the three propositions are collectively inconsistent.  This suggests to many of us  that there must be some one single entity that is the bearer of the inconsistency.  For if the inconsistency does not attach distributively to each of p, q, and r, then it attaches to something distinct from them of which they are members.  But what could that be?

If you say that it is the set {p, q, r} that is inconsistent, then the response will be that a set is not the sort of entity that can be either consistent or inconsistent.  Note that it is not helpful to say

A set is consistent (inconsistent) iff its members are consistent (inconsistent).

For that leaves us with the problem of the proper parsing of the right-hand side, which is the problem with which we started.

And the same goes for the mereological sum (p + q + r).  A sum or fusion is not the sort of entity that can be either consistent or inconsistent.

What about the conjunction p & q & r?  A conjunction of propositions is itself a proposition.  (A set of propositions is not itself a proposition.) This seems to do the trick. We can parse (1) as

2. The conjunctive proposition p & q & r is (self)-inconsistent.

In this way we avoid construing (1) as an irreducibly plural predication.  For we now have a single entity that can serve as the logical subject of the predicate ' . . . is/are inconsistent.'  We can avoid saying, at least in this case, something that strikes me as only marginally intelligible, namely, that there are irreducible monadic non-distributive predicates.  My problem with irreducibly plural predication is that I don't know what it means to say of some things that they are F if that doesn't mean one of the following: (i) each of the things is F; (ii) there is a single 'collective entity' that is F; or (iii) the predicate 'is F'  is really relational. 

One could conceivably object that in the move from (1) to (2) I have 'changed the subject.'  (1) predicates inconsistency of some propositions, while (2) predicates (self)-inconsistency of a single conjunctive proposition.  Does this amount to a changing of thr subject?  Does (2) say something different about something different?

Five Grades of Self-Referential Inconsistency: Towards a Taxonomy

Some sentences, whether or not they are about other things, are about themselves. They refer to themselves. Hence we say they are 'self-referential.' The phenomenon of sentential self-referentiality is sometimes benign. One example is 'This sentence is true.' Another  is 'Every proposition is either true or false.' Of interest here are the more or less malignant forms of self-reference. One example is the so-called Liar sentence:

1. This sentence is false.

If (1) is true, then it is false, and if false, then true. This is an example of an antinomy. In pursuit of a taxonomy, we might call this Grade I of self-referential inconsistency. Grade I, then, is the class
of self-referentially inconsistent sentences that issue in antinomies.

There are other self-referential sentences that are not antinomies, but imply their own necessary falsehood. These are such that, if true, then false, and if false, then false, and are therefore necessarily false. For example,

2. All generalizations are false.

If (2) is true, then, since (2) is itself a generalization, (2) is false. But its falsity does not imply its truth. So, if false, then false. Assuming Bivalence, it follows that (2) is necessarily false, whence it follows that its negation -- Some generalizations are true  -- is necessarily true, and moreover an instance of itself. A second example might be

3. There are no truths.

If (3) is true, then it is false. And if false, then false. So, (3) is necessarily false, whence it follows that its negation -- There are truths -- is necessarily true.

Examples (2) and (3) belong to Grade II in my tentative taxonomy. These are self-referential sentences that entail their own necessary falsehood. Grade III comprises those self-referential sentences that are such that if true, then neither true nor false, and if false, then false. For example,

4. There are no truth-bearers.

If (4) is true, then, since (4) is a truth-bearer, (4) is neither true nor false. But if false, then false. If we define the cognitively meaningful as that which is either true or false, then (4) is either cognitively meaningless or false. A more interesting example that seems to belong in Grade III is the Verifiability Principle of the Logical Positivists:

5. Every cognitively meaningful sentence is either analytic or empirically verifiable in principle.

If (5) is supposed to be cognitively (as opposed to emotionally) meaningful, and thus not a mere linguistic recommendation or pure stipulation, then it applies to itself. So if (5) is true, then (5) --
which is clearly neither analytic nor verifiable -- is meaningless. So, if true, then meaningless, and if false, then false. Therefore, either meaningless or false. Not good!

Grade IV comprises those self-referential sentences that can be described as self-vitiating (self-weakening) though they are not strictly self-refuting. For example,

6. All truths are relative.

If (6) is true, then (6) is relative, i.e., relatively true. It is not the case that if (6) is true, then (6) is false. So (6) is not self-refuting. Nevertheless, (6) is self-vitiating in that it relativizes and thus weakens itself: if true, it cannot be absolutely true; it can only be relatively true. It is therefore a mistake, one often made, to say that he who affirms (6) contradicts himself.  He does not.  He would contradict himself only if he maintained that it is nonrelatively true that all truths are relative.  But no sophisticated relativist would say such a thing.  Other examples which seem to fall into the category of the self-vitiating:

7. Every statement is subject to revision. (Quine)
8. Every theory reflects class interests. (Marxism)
9. All theory is ideology. (Marxism)
10. Nothing can be known.
11. Nothing is known.
12. Nothing is certain.
13. All truth is historical.
14. All is opinion.

What is wrong with self-vitiating propositions? What does their weakness consist in? Consider (8). If (8) is true, then the theory that every theory reflects class interests itself reflects class interests. Suppose (8) reflects the class interests of the proletariat. Then what is that to me, who am not a proletarian? What is it to anyone who is not a proletarian? If (8) is true only for you and those with your interests, and your interests are not my interests, then I have been given no reason to modify my views.  The trouble with (7)-(14) and their ilk is that they make a claim on our rational attention, on our common rational interest, while undercutting that very claim.

It seems we need a fifth category. The sentences of Grade V are such that, if they are true then they are, not false, and not self-vitiating, but non-assertible. Consider

15. No statement is negative.

(15) applies to itself and so at first appears to refute itself: if (15) is true, then it is false. And if false, then false; hence necessarily false. But consider a possible world W in which God destroys all negative statements and makes it impossible for anyone to make a negative statement. In W, (15) is true, but non-assertible. (15) does not prove itself to be false; it proves itself to be non-assertible.

Can the same said of

16. All is empty (Buddhism)?

I think not, for reasons supplied here.

Finally, we consider

17. All memory reports are deceptive.

This is subject to the retort that one who asserts (17) must rely on memory, and so must presuppose the reliability of the faculty whose reliability he questions by asserting (17). For if anyone is to be in a position responsibly to affirm (17), to affirm it with a chance of its being true, he must remember that on some occasions he has misremembered. He must remember and remember correctly that some of his memories were merely apparent. It seems obvious, then, that the truth of (17) is inconsistent with its correctly being affirmed as true. If true, it is unaffirmable as true. But this is different from saying that (17), if true, is false. Although (17) is unaffirmable or non-assertible if true, it seems that (17) could be true nonetheless.

A Question About Self-Referential Inconsistency

 From the mail bag:

I’m hoping you can help me with an  annoying question that came up in conversation recently. I’m sure you can answer it much better than me.

Statements are self-refuting when they are included in their own field of reference and fail to conform to their own criteria of validity. Thus ‘there are no truths’ is self-refuting because if it is false, then it is false. But if it is true, then it is false as well because then there would be no truths, including the statement itself. So what about the statement ‘all statements are self-refuting’?

You are right about 'There are no truths.'  If true, then false.  If false, then false.  So  necessarily false.  Therefore, its negation -- 'There are some truths' -- is not just true, but necessarily true.

There is exactly the same pattern with  'All statements are self-refuting.'  If true, then self-refuting and  false.  If false, then  false.  So necessarily false.  Therefore, its negation  -- Some statements are not self-refuting -- is not just true, but necessarily true.

Now an intriguing  question arises.  Are these necessities unconditional, or do they rest upon a condition?  The second necessity appears to be conditional upon the existence of statements and the beings who make them.  Statements don't 'hang in the air'; a statement is the statement of a stater, so that, in a world without rational beings, there are no statements.  'Some statements are not self-refuting,' therefore, is not true in all possible worlds, but only in those worlds in which statements are made.  Given that there are statements, it is necessarily true that some statements are not self-refuting.  But there might not have been any statements.  The existence of statements is contingent.

Now what about 'There are some truths?'  Clearly, this sentence (or rather the proposition it expresses)  is not contingently true, but necessarily true.  But is it true of absolute metaphysical necessity, or does its necessary truth rest on some condition?  Suppose something gives the following little speech:

I see your point.  There have to be truths.  Forif you say that there aren't any, you are saying that it is true that there aren't any, and you thereby contradict yourself.  So there is a sense in which there cannot not be truths.  But all this means is that WE must presuppose truth.  It doesn't mean that there are truths independently of us.  WE cannot help but assume that there are truths.  The existence of truths is a transcendental presupposition of  our kind of thinking. But it does not follow that there are truths of absolute metaphysical necessity.  If we were not to exist, then there would be no truths, not even the truth that we do not exist.

Is the little speech coherent?  The objector is inviting us to consider the possible situation in which beings like us do not exist and no truths either.  The claim that this situation is possible, however, is equivalent to the claim that it is true that this situation is possible.  But, on the transcendental hypothesis in question, the existence of this truth is relative to our existence, which implies that it is not true independently of us that it is possible that beings like us not exist and no truths either. But then it is not really possible that beings like us not exist and no truths either: the possibility exists only relative to our thinking.  So I conclude that the transcendental hypothesis is only apparently coherent, and that 'There are truths' is true of absolute metaphysical necessity.  So it is not just that we cannot deny truth; truth is undeniable an sich.

 

Why Be Consistent? Three Types of Consistency

A reader inquires:

This idea of the necessity to be consistent seems to be the logician's "absolute," as though being inconsistent was the most painful accusation one could endure. [. . .] What rule of life says that one must be absolutely consistent in how one evaluates truth? It is good to argue from first principles but it can also lead one down a rat hole.

Before we can discuss whether one ought to be consistent, we need to know which type of consistency is at issue. There are at least three types of consistency that people often confuse and that need to be kept distinct. I'll call them 'logical,' 'pragmatic,' and 'diachronic.' But it doesn't matter how we label them as long as we keep them separate.