Maverick Philosopher

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Is That All There Is?

This strange Peggy Lee number is a candidate for the office of philosophically deepest popular song. If memory serves, it made the charts Stateside in the late 1960's. But it is the sort of song one would have expected to hear in a cabaret in Berlin in the decadent 1920's. 'Ockham' tells me that it is a Leiber and Stoller composition, and indeed it is. Surprising, given the other songs they wrote. It smacks of Weill-Brecht more than of Leiber-Stoller.

Bette Midler's version.

Nihilism was never so pleasantly packaged.

Can Existence Be Ostensively Defined?

Here is a remarkable passage from Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, expanded 2nd ed., p. 41:

Ostensive definitions are usually regarded as applicable only to conceptualized sensations. But they are applicable to axioms as well.  Since axiomatic concepts are identifications of irreducible primaries, the only way to define one is by means of an ostensive definition -- e.g., to define 'existence,' one would have to sweep one's arm around and say: 'I mean this.'

Now that's an interesting suggestion! Let's put it to the test.

The Art of the Aphorism in an Aphorism

A good aphorism is the tip of an iceberg of thought. One gets the point but is spared the proof.

Salvation: Of the Soul or From the Soul?

While in many religions the aim is to save one's soul, in Buddhism the aim is to disembarrass oneself of the conceit that one has one.

How To Look At Things

Look at them as if for the first time -- and the last.

Debate Neither Sophists Nor Dogmatists

One cannot have a profitable discussion with someone who does not care about the truth, nor with someone who believes himself to be in such secure possession of it as to render further investigation unnecessary .

On Forming Societies at Faint Provocation

Paul Brunton, Notebooks II, 154, #56:

I am not enamoured overmuch of this modern habit, which forms a society at faint provocation. A man's own problem stares him alone in the face, and it is not to be solved by any association of men. Every new society we join is a fresh temptation to waste time.

 

Well said. Would Thoreau have joined the Thoreau Society? Merton the Merton Society? Would Groucho Marx have joined a club that would have him as a member, let alone make him the cynosure of its interest?

Seriously, there is something dubious about societies. Were I to read a paper the least bit critical of Thomas Merton at the Merton Society, I would receive a hostile response no matter how good the paper was. I would be taken as attacking their man, someone with whom they identify. In a one-on-one exchange, it is not uncommon for an interlocutor to 'get his back up' if one criticizes, however judiciously, something or someone in whom the interlocutor has invested time and energy. But when there is a bunch of these people reinforcing each other, look out! They close ranks and their critical acumen goes to zero.

Merton, Heidegger, Ayn Rand, and so many others who inspire a following need to have their works discussed critically, and that means: not by followers and not by dismissers, but by the independent. But what happens for the most part is that their works get chewed over lovingly in uncritical enclaves while being ignored or dismissed by those outside the charmed circles. Case in point: the Rand cult.

Four Uses of 'Of' and Non-Intentional Conscious States

The thesis of intentionality can be stated roughly as follows: Every consciousness is a consciousness of something.  I claim that this Brentano thesis is false because of the existence of non-intentional states of consciousness. Peter Lupu understands and agrees but no one else hereabouts does.  So I need to take a few steps back and issue some clarifications.  I begin by distinguishing among four uses of 'of.'  I'll call them the subjective, the objective, the dual, and the appositive.  Once these are on the table one or two impediments to the understanding of my point -- which of course is not original with me --  will have been removed.

On Replying in Kind

Suppose A launches a vicious verbal attack on B. B will be tempted to respond in kind, but ought to give some thought to the point of so doing. For even if B does not escalate the attack, but merely throws back what was thrown at him, the attacker may well feel justified in having made his initial assault. He will be tempted to rationalize his behavior as follows:

 

You see what a worthless fellow B is? How dare he call me names! I'm glad I attacked him; he deserved it. In fact, I attacked him just to expose him, just to show what nastiness he is capable of.

Given the likelihood of such perverse self-justification on A's part, B is wise not to respond at all, but to view matters with Olympian detachment. If B cannot be harmed materially by A's attacks, then he wastes time, energy, and peace of mind by responding to them. What others think of us is of no consequence except insofar as it translates or is likely to translate into actions physically harmful to us. For those who have imbibed and implemented the Stoic wisdom, it is surely true that

Sticks and stones can break my bones
But words can never hurt me.

A prime exception, however, is the politician. Someone whose livelihood and efficacy depend on being favorably perceived must counter assaults and slanders. If he does not, they may stick to him. The politician is a slave to public opinion. Therein lies one of the reasons for the inferiority of the political to the philosophical life, a reason appreciated early on in our tradition by Aristotle and recorded in the Nicomachean Ethics.

The No True Scotsman or No True Atheist Fallacy

In logic, a fallacy is not a false belief but a pattern of reasoning that is both typical and in some way specious. Specious reasoning, by the very etymology of the term, appears correct but is not. Thus a fallacy is not just any old mistake in reasoning, but a recurrent mistake that is seductive. A taxonomy of fallacies is useful insofar as it helps prevent one from seducing oneself and being seduced by others.

Among the so-called informal fallacies is Antony Flew's No True Scotsman. Suppose A says, "No Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge." B replies, "But my uncle Angus puts sugar in his porridge." A responds, "Your Uncle Angus is no true Scotsman!"

Is Religious Instruction Child Abuse? Is Religion the Greatest Social Evil?

That religious instruction constitutes child abuse is another theme of contemporary militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins and A. C. Grayling. Consider the competing 'truths' taught by different faith-based schools, e.g. that Jesus is the Son of God, that he is not, etc. Grayling complains that

. . . in schools all over the country these antipathetic 'truths' are being force-fed to different groups of pupils, none of whom is in a position to assess their credibility or worth. This is a serious form of child abuse. It sows the seeds of apartheids capable of resulting, in their logical conclusion, in murder and war, as history sickeningly and ceaselessly proves. There is no greater social evil than religion. It is the cancer in the body of humanity. Human credulity and superstition, and the need for comforting fables, will never be extirpated, so religion will always exist, at least among the uneducated. The only way to manage the dangers it presents is to confine it entirely to the private sphere, and for the public domain to be blind to it in all but one respect: that by law no one's private beliefs should be allowed to cause a nuisance or any injury to anyone else. For whenever and wherever religion manifests itself in the public arena as an organised phenomenon, it is the most Satanic of all things. (A. C. Grayling, Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God, Oxford 2003, 34-35, emphasis added.)

A. C. Grayling and a Stock Move of Militant Atheists

Since A. C. Grayling has surfaced in the ComBox here, it it will be useful for people to see just what sort of fellow he is.  So over the next few days I will reproduce  three or four of my Grayling posts from the old site.

Militant atheist philosopher A. C. Grayling writes,

Religious belief of all kinds shares the same intellectual respectability, evidential base, and rationality as belief in the existence of fairies.

This remark outrages the sensibilities of those who have deep religious convictions and attachments, and they regard it as insulting. But the truth is that everyone takes this attitude about all but one (or a very few) of the gods that have ever been claimed to exist.

No reasonably orthodox Christian believes in Aphrodite or the rest of the Olympian deities, or in Ganesh the Elephant God or the rest of the Hindu pantheon, or in the Japanese emperor, and so endlessly on - and officially (as a matter of Christian orthodoxy) he or she must say that anyone who sincerely believes in such deities is deluded and blasphemously in pursuit of "false gods".

The atheist adds just one more deity to the list of those not believed in; namely, the one remaining on the Christian's or Jew's or Muslim's list.

What Grayling is saying above is often heard from atheists. It is a stock item in their repertoire. But is there an argument here, and if so, what exactly is the argument? The conclusion is clear enough: Religious belief of every sort is irrational, unsupported by evidence, and not intellectually respectable. (One wonders if Grayling has given any thought to the nontheistic religion of Buddhism, but let that pass.) A bold thesis indeed, very significant if true or even if rationally supportable. But what is the argument? Is there an argument?  If there is no argument, then we have gratuitous assertion which can be met with gratuitous counter-assertion.  But our man does seem to be trying to give an argument.  After all, isn't that what philosophers are supposed to do?  Or is Grayling just gassing off?  Let's be charitable and ascribe an argument to him.  It appears to be this:

 

Does the Atheist Deny What the Theist Affirms?

It seems to me that there is a sort of 'disconnect' in theist-atheist debates. It is as if the parties to the dispute are not talking about the same thing. Jim Ryan writes,

The reason I'm an atheist is straightforward. The proposition that there is a god is as unlikely as ghosts, Martians amongst us, and reincarnation. There isn't the slightest evidence for these hypotheses which fly in the face of so much else that we know to be true. So I believe all of them to be false.

This is a fairly standard atheist response. Since I picked up the use of 'boilerplate' in philosophical contexts from Jim, I hope he won't be offended if I refer to the quoted passage as atheist boilerplate. It puts me in mind of Russell's Teapot part of the drift of which is that there is no more reason to believe in God than there is to believe that "between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit . . . ."

The Recent Dennett-Plantinga A. P. A. Debate and the Question of Tone in Philosophy

This just over the transom (interspersed comments in blue by BV):

I regularly follow your blog, and have for a couple of years now. I have considerable respect for you as both a philosopher and a communicator in general - you seem to get curt or impatient at times, but you still manage to be civil even then, and your treatment of arguments in your posts always comes across as fair and in the spirit of trying to best represent the views of those you are discussing.

I mention all this because my question is this. What do you make of exchanges along the lines of what was recently recounted on Prosblogion, between Dennett and Plantinga? I'm not talking about the content in this case, but the tone. Is it really the case that arguments in favor of God/theism in general, and Christianity in particular, are treated with open mockery and derision even in what is supposed to be a professional exchange by a respected philosopher? Is Dennett representative of how naturalists treat theists/Christians in discussion, or is he exceptional?

The ACLU and Mardi Gras

Fat Tuesday, coming as it does the day before Ash Wednesday, derives its very meaning from the beginning of Lent. The idea is to get some serious partying under one's belt just before the forty-day ascetic run-up to Easter. So one might think the ACLU would wish to lodge a protest against a celebration so religious in inspiration. Good (contemptible?) lefties that they are, they are ever crusading against religion. Perhaps 'crusade' (L. crux, crucis) is not the right word suggestive as it is of the cross and Christianity; perhaps 'jihad' would be better especially since many loons of the Left are curiously and conveniently ignorant of the threat of militant Islam and much prefer going after truly dangerous outfits like the Boy Scouts.

Mardi Gras

I penned the following observation on Mardi Gras 2005 around the time of hurricane Katrina, but even I found it too 'insensitive' for posting at that time. But 'insensitive' is what we conservatives are supposed to be, right? The thought is correct, in any case, and political correctness be damned.

If the good folks down Nawlins* way spent less time letting the good times roll and more on the deferral of gratification, they might be better prepared for nature's little surprises.
_____
*New Orleans

Three Senses of 'Or'

‘Or’ is a troublesome particle in dire need of regimentation. Besides its two disjunctive meanings, the inclusive and the exclusive, there is also what I call the ‘or’ of identity. The inclusive meaning, corresponding to the Latin vel, is illustrated by ‘He is either morally obtuse or intellectually obtuse.’ This allows that the person in question may be both.

 

The exclusive meaning, corresponding to the Latin aut, is exemplified by the standard menu inscription, ‘soup or salad,’ which means one or the other, but not both. Logicians view the inclusive ‘or’ as a basic propositional connective. Thus our first example would be symbolized by p v q, where p is the proposition expressed by ‘He is morally obtuse’; q the proposition expressed by ‘He is intellectually obtuse’; with ‘v’ -- in honor of vel -- standing for inclusive disjunction. Exclusive ‘or’ can now be defined as follows: p aut q =_df p v q & ~(p & q), where the tilde and the ampersand, both propositional connectives, represent negation and conjunction respectively.

How is ‘or’ functioning in this sentence: ‘Philosophers of a realist bent posit facts or states of affairs as truth-makers.’ Clearly, no disjunction is being conveyed. The idea is that facts just are states of affairs, or that ‘fact’ and ‘state of affairs’ are being used interchangeably. Indeed, the preceding sentence exemplifies a use of ‘or’ that does not express a disjunction. Hence, ‘or’ of identity. Such uses of ‘or’ can be replaced by ‘i.e.,’ id est.

Why is this important? Well, it is important if your aim to is write and think with precision and self-awareness. If that is not your aim, then it ought to be.

Volition and Modality (Peter Lupu)

 This is a guest post by Peter Lupu. Minor editing by BV.

1) In One Fallacy of Objectivism (henceforth, OFO) I gave an argument that a distinction Objectivists insist upon between “metaphysical” or natural-facts vs. volitional-facts logically presupposes the traditional modal distinction between contingent vs. necessary -- a logical presupposition they vehemently deny. Three kinds of objections were presented against my argument. The first kind challenged my argument by questioning the sense in which the distinction between natural vs. volitional facts logically presupposes the modal distinction. The second kind of objection alleges that since the contingent and the possible are the offspring of human volitional action, they cannot possibly exist antecedently to and independently from the sphere of human volition. The third kind of objection maintains that a certain Objectivist theory about concept acquisition and concept formation refutes my argument. I shall ignore here objections that belong to this last category because they deserve a separate treatment. So I shall focus exclusively on the first two objections.

A Reading for Schopenhauer's Birthday

Arthur Schopenhauer was born on this date in 1788.  I don't imagine he was given to the celebration of birthdays for reasons that may be gleaned from this YouTube reading by D. E. Wittkower.

It is an accurate and pleasant reading of the whole of "The Vanity of Existence" (from Parerga) with only one insignificant divergence from the English text as presented in The Will to Live: Selected Writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, ed. Richard Taylor, pp. 229-233.

Listening to another read is inferior to careful and meditative reading and re-reading by oneself in solitude with pen and notebook at the ready.

It does little good to listen to philosophy being read or even to read it oneself. One needs to work through a text slowly, pondering, comparing, re-reading, reconstructing and evaluating the arguments, raising objections, imagining possible replies and all of this while animated by a burning need to get to the bottom of some pressing existential question.  You must bring to your reading questions if you expect study to be profitable.

If one fails to enter into the dialectic of the problems and issues one will come away with little more than a vague literary impression. But real study is hard work demanding aptitude, time, peace, and quiet, a commodity in short supply in these hyperkinetic and cacaphonous times.  Back in the day, old Arthur was much exercised by "the infernal cracking of whips" as he he complained in his classic "On Noise."  What would he say today?  Could he survive in the contemporary crapstorm of  hiphop horseshit kaka-phony?

So turn off that cell phone before I smash it to pieces!

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Harry Chapin, Taxi

 A reader complained that I had discontinued Uncle Wild Bill's Saturday Night at the Oldies. (I'm torn between making this a pure, hard-core philosophy site and 'adulterating' the philosophy with  bloggity-blog self-indulgent content.) So I'll start it up again.  Here is a riveting  song by the late Harry Chapin (1942-1981). I heard it the other day on the radio while driving and was reminded what a great writer and performer he was.  Excellent live version here. The last verses are particularly moving:

And she walked away in silence,
It's strange, how you never know,
But we'd both gotten what we'd asked for,
Such a long, long time ago.

You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off for the sky.
And here, she's acting happy,
Inside her handsome home.
And me, I'm flying in my taxi,
Taking tips, and getting stoned,
I go flying so high, when I'm stoned.

Consciousness and Existence: Is Every Consciousness a Consciousness of What Exists?

What follows in purple are two quotations (from separate works) from the Ayn Rand Lexicon. 

If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness. (FNI, 124)

Directly or indirectly, every phenomenon of consciousness is derived from one’s awareness of the external world. Some object, i.e., some content, is involved in every state of awareness. Extrospection is a process of cognition directed outward—a process of apprehending some existent(s) of the external world. Introspection is a process of cognition directed inward—a process of apprehending one’s own psychological actions in regard to some existent(s) of the external world, such actions as thinking, feeling, reminiscing, etc. It is only in relation to the external world that the various actions of a consciousness can be experienced, grasped, defined or communicated. Awareness is awareness of something. A content-less state of consciousness is a contradiction in terms. (ITOE, 37)

This sort of writing is typical of Rand and Peikoff, et al.  It is confused and confusing and will be dismissed out of hand by most philosophers.  Yet there may be a solid point here that someone like Harry Binswanger could develop and make persuasive. It is clear from the above passages and others that Rand wants to show that there exist entities that are transcendent of consciousness.  Indeed, she wants to show that the denial of such transcendent entities is self-contradictory.  But how will she achieve this goal?

Searle on Non-Intentional Mental States

Herewith, a quotation from John Searle that supports my contention that there are non-intentional mental states:

Now clearly, not all our mental states are in this way directed or Intentional. For example, if I have a pain, ache, tickle, or itch, such conscious states are not in that sense directed at anything; they are not 'about' anything, in the way that our beliefs, fears, etc. must in some sense be about something. ("What is an Intentional State?" in Dreyfus, ed. Husserl, Intentionality and Cognitive Science, p. 259.)

 

Searle writes 'Intentional' rather than 'intentional' to underscore the fact that 'intention' as philosophers use it is a terminus technicus wider in meaning than 'intention' as when one says, for example, 'Her intention is to retire in Florida.' My intending to run a half-marathon in May is an instance of Intentionality, but so is my noting that the sun is setting -- despite the fact that Old Sol's habits don't fall within the purview of my will. I Intend the sun's setting, but I don't intend it. Get it? Now that the point has been made, I will drop the capital 'I.'

Further Modal Concepts: Consistency, Inconsistency, Contradictoriness, and Entailment

I argued earlier that the validity of argument forms is a modal concept.  But the same goes for consistency, inconsistency, contradictoriness, and entailment.  Here are some definitions. 'Poss' abbreviates 'It is broadly-logically possible that ___.' 'Nec' abbreviates 'It is broadly-logically necessary that ___.' '~' and '&' are the familiar truth-functional connectives. 'BL' abbreviates 'broadly logically.'

D1. A pair of propositions p, q is BL-consistent =_df Poss(p & q).

Clearly, any two true propositions are consistent. (By 'consistent' I mean consistent with each other.  If I mean self-consistent, I'll say that.)   But there is more to consistency that this.  It is a modal notion.  Consistency cannot be defined in terms of what is actually the case.  One must also consider what could have been the case.  As long as p, q are contingent, they are consistent regardless of their truth-values. If both are true, they are consistent.  If both are false, they are consistent.  If one is true and the other false, or vice versa, they are consistent.

D2. A pair of propositions, p, q, are BL-inconsistent =_df ~Poss(p & q).

D3. A pair of propositions p, q are BL-contradictory =_df ~Poss(p & q) & ~Poss (~p & ~q).

Note the difference between inconsistency and the stronger notion of contradictoriness.  If two propositions are inconsistent, then they logically cannot both be true.  If two propositions are contradictory, then they are inconsistent but also such that their negations logically cannot be true.

Example. All men are rich and No men are rich are inconsistent in that they cannot both be true.  But they are not contradictory since their negations (Some men are not rich, Some men are rich) are both true.  All men are rich and Some men are not rich are contradictory.  Some men are rich, Some men are not rich are neither inconsistent nor contradictory.

D4. P entails q =_df ~Poss(p & ~q).

Entailment, also called strict implication,  is the necessitation of material implication.  If '-->' stands for the material conditional, then the right hand side of (D4) can be put as follows: Nec (p --> q).

(Alethic) modal logic's task is to provide criteria for the evaluation of arguments whose validity or lack thereof depends crucially on such words as 'possibly' and 'necessarily.'  But if I am right, many indispensable concepts of nonmodal logic (e.g., standard first-order predicate logic with identity) are modal concepts. 

 

 

The Difference Between Possibility and Contingency

Over lunch yesterday, Peter Lupu questioned my assertion that possibility and contingency are not the same.  What chutzpah! So let me now try to prove to him that they are indeed not the same, though they are of course related.  To put the point as simply and directly as I can, possibility and contingency are not the same because every necessary proposition is possible, but no necessary proposition is contingent.  Perhaps this requires a bit of explanation.

We first divide all propositions into two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive groups, the noncontingent and the contingent.  The first group subdivides into two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive subgroups, the necessary and the impossible.  A proposition is necessary (impossible) just in case it is true in every (no) possible world.  A proposition is possible just in case it is true in some possible worlds.  It follows that if proposition p is necessary, then p is possible, but not conversely.

Since we know that there are necessary propositions, and since we know that every necessary proposition is a possible proposition, we know that there are necessary propositions which are possible.  But we also know that no necessary proposition is contingent.  It follows that we know that there are possible propositions that are not contingent.  It follows that the extension of 'possible proposition' is different from the extension of 'contingent proposition.'  This suffices to show that possibility and contingency are not the same.  Here are some definitions.  I have included definitions not fomulated  in the imagery of possible worlds for those who are 'spooked' by his imagery.

A proposition p is possible =_df there is a possible world in which p is true.

A proposition p is possible  =_df it is not necessary that p be false.

A proposition p is contingent =_df there is a possible world in which p is true and there is a possible world in which p is false.

A proposition p is contingent =_df p is both possibly true and possibly false.

Example.  No color is a sound is possible but not contingent.  There is a possible world in which it is true, but no possible world in which it is false.  Tom's favorite shirt is red is contingent.  There is a possible world in which it is true and a possible world in which it is false.

UPDATE (21 February): David Brightly provides a very useful map of the modal terrain in the Comments.

 

Are There Non-Intentional Mental States?

The thesis of this post is that there are non-intentional mental states. To establish this thesis all I need is one good example. So consider the felt pain that ensues when I plunge my hand into extremely hot water. This felt pain or phenomenal pain is a conscious mental state. But it does not exhibit intentionality. If this is right, then there are mental states that are non-intentional. Of course, it all depends on what exactly is meant by 'intentionality.' Here is how I understand it.

The Cartesian Dream Argument and an Austinian Contrast Argument

J. L. Austin, in a footnote to p. 49 of Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford, 1962), writes of ". . . the absurdity of Descartes' toying with the notion that the whole of our experience might be a dream." In the main text, there is a sort of argument for this alleged absurdity. The argument may be set forth as follows:

Contrast Arguments

One of the weapons in the arsenal of Ordinary Language and other philosophers is the contrast argument. Such arguments are used to show the meaninglessness of certain terms, typically, the terms we metaphysicians like to bandy about. One type of contrast argument has the form:

1. If a term T is meaningful, then there are items to which T does not apply.
2. There are no items to which T does not apply.
Ergo
3. T is not meaningful.

This Running Life: Sheehan Remembered

You cannot convey to the nonrunner the romance of the road any more than you can bring a spiritual slug to savor the exquisite joys of philosophy and chess.  But if you are a runner you should be able to appreciate the following passage from On Running, pp. 166-167.  George Sheehan (1918-1993) has been dead for some time now and it pains me that he is pretty much forgotten.  He was one of the pioneers along with Jim Fixx and Kenneth Cooper. The young runners I query haven't heard of him, and an old guy I talked to the other day at the starting line hadn't either.  Sic transit gloria mundi.  Here's the passage:

One of the beautiful things about running is that age has no penalties.  The runner lives in an eternal present.  The passage of time does not alter his daily self-discovery, his struggles and his sufferings, his pains and his pleasures. The decline of his ability does not interfere with the constant interchange between him, his solitude, and the world and everyone around him.  And neither of these happenings prevents him from challenging himself to the ultimate limit, putting himself in jeopardy, courting crisis, risking catastrophe.

Because he refuses to look back, the runner remains ageless.  That is his secret, that and the fact that his pursuit of running is in obedience to, in Ellen Glasgow's phrase, "a permanent and self-renewing inner compulsion."

In my 50s, I am aware of all this.  Like all runners, I live in the present.  I am not interested in the way we were.  The past is already incorporated in me.  There is no use returning to it.  I live for the day.  Running gives me self-expression, a way of finding out who I am and who I will be.  It makes me intimate with pain.  I know the feeling of too little oxygen, of too much lactic acid.  I have, always within reach, the opportunity to test my absolute barriers, to search out the borders set up by straining muscles and a failing brain.

 

Phantom Runners

I took up running almost 35 years ago in the summer of 1974 in that romantic hub of running, Boston on the Charles, the Athens of America, where Hopkinton is Marathon and the road to Athens traverses Heartbreak Hill. It was a great time and place to be alive, young, studying philosophy, and running down the road. ‘Boston Billy’ Rodgers was in his prime; I lived a couple of blocks from the Boston Marathon course, and my training runs took me around the Chestnut Hill reservoir and past Rodger’s running center at Cleveland Circle. I actually ran abreast of Rodgers once on Commonwealth Avenue. He was headed for the Boston College track, racing flats in his hands, to run intervals. (I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out how I could possibly have been abreast of a marathoner who won Boston one year running at a blistering 4:54 min/mile pace. No, he didn't overtake me, and of course I didn't overtake him.)

Ruminations After a Road Race; Philippians 4:13

The following was written 19 February 2006.  This year I did better, achieving a personal best for this course, completing it in 2:23.  That's nothing to crow about, but without us rank-and-file pavement pounders, the real runners would not shine in all their glory.

..................

This morning I had occasion once again to verify the proposition that the strenuous life is best by test, but also the proposition that I am not much of a runner: it took me 2:26 to jog through the 13.1 mile Lost Dutchman half-marathon course. But we do the best we can with what we've got, and given my age, modest training base, and paucity of fast-twitch fibers, I am more than satisfied. I have never regretted any road race, hike, backpacking trip, or indeed any Jamesian 'strenuosity' whether physical, mental, moral, or spiritual. We are simply not made for sloth but for exertion, with Hegel's Anstrengung des Begriffs as important as any. Whatever the reason, experience teaches that we are most happy when active, or better, when actuating our powers, including our powers of contemplative repose.

Retortion and Non-Contradiction in Aristotle, Metaphysics, Gamma 3, 4

Retortion is the philosophical procedure whereby one seeks to establish a thesis by uncovering a performative inconsistency in anyone who attempts to deny it. It is something like that benign form of ad hominem in which person A points out to person B that some proposition p that B maintains is inconsistent with some other proposition q that B maintains. "How can you maintain that p when your acceptance of p is logically ruled out by your acceptance of q? You are contradicting yourself!" This objection is to the man, or rather, to the man's doxastic system; it has no tendency to show that p is false. It shows merely that not all of B's beliefs can be true. But if the homo in question is Everyman, or every mind, then the objection gains in interest. Suppose there is a proposition that it is impossible for anyone (any rational agent) to deny; the question arises whether the undeniability or ineluctability of this proposition is a reason to consider it to be true. Does undeniability establish objective truth? Consider

Leon Trotsky, Gabe Kaplan, and Today's Road Race

I was in Tempe, Arizona a while back for a book fix. At the coffee bar in the Border's Bookstore, the thirty-something counterman remarked that I look like Gabe Kaplan, an observation seconded by some bystanders. Having no idea who Gabe Kaplan is, I commented that some people think I look like Leon Trotsky -- which comment elicited a puzzled expression. Turned out the 'tender had never heard of Trotsky. So I asked, "Ever hear of Vladimir Lenin?" That too drew a blank. It wasn't until I worked my way back to Karl Marx that a glimmer of recognition emerged. I tried the experiment on his twenty-something female co-worker. Same result.

Trotsky, Schmotsky. Lenin, Lennon.

Borders is just around the corner from Arizona State University. Draw your own conclusion.

During today's Lost Dutchman Half-Marathon, a woman who looked to be a bit older than me pulled alongside and remarked that I resemble her Salt River kayak instructor.  I mentioned that some think I resemble Leon Trotsky.  She said she didn' know who he was.  Turning to her companion, she asked if she knew who Trotsky was.  She didn't either.  Calling to mind the earlier Tempe experience, I didn't bother to explain.  I ran on with George Santayana's "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" in my head.  (I cannot vouch for the accuracy of that quotation.  I have a number of Santayana's works in my library, but not the The Life of Reason.)

Maverick Philosopher Makes The Times Online 100 Best Blogs List

A tip of the hat to Dave Lull for pointing me to A guide to the 100 best blogs - part I.  Maverick Philosopher makes the cut.  See page 5.  Excerpt:

Two good philosophy blogs make the point that this is a subject made for bloggery. Philosophy is arguing, and arguing is what bloggers and their readers do best — or at least a lot, in an obsessive-compulsive sort of way. Both are highly recommended if you fancy stepping out into an intellectual blizzard with, occasionally, real snow.

I will resist the temptation to comment except to thank Bryan Appleyard for his article and also the MP Commenter Corps.  Without them this site would be much less interesting. I have a half-marathon to run today, but later I hope to respond to at least some of the recent comments.

 

 

Validity as a Modal Concept and a Modal Argument for the Nonexistence of God

'Modally Challenged' comments:

I've run into this argument on several occasions and while the author(s) insist theists will accept the premises, it's more the validity I'd appreciate your take on.

1) If God is possible, then God is a necessary being.
2) If God is a necessary being, then unjustified evil is impossible.
3) Unjustified evil is possible.
Therefore, God is not possible.

In this post I explain the distinction between validity and soundness, explain why validity is a modal concept, and then use this fact to show that the modal distinction between the necessary and the contingent applies outside the sphere of human volition, contrary to what followers of Ayn Rand maintain.  Finally, I demonstrate the validity of the above atheist argument.

Necessity and Contingency Within the Sphere Not Affected by Human Volition

Harry Binswanger asks: ". . . within the sphere not affected by human volition (the "metaphysically given") what are the grounds for asserting a difference between necessity and contingency? Aren't all the events that proceed in accordance with physical law in the same boat?"

This is large topic with several aspects.  This post concentrates just one of them.

Wittgenstein, On Certainty #348: 'I am Here'

Ludwig Wittgenstein writes:

. . . the words 'I am here' have a meaning only in certain contexts, and not when I say them to someone who is sitting in front of me and sees me clearly, -- and not because they are superfluous, but because their meaning is not determined by the situation, yet stands in need of such determination.

Part of what LW is saying in this entry is that the meaning of an expression is determined by its use in a given context. In a slogan: meaning is use.

Putting My Contingency Into English: Are There Legitimate Non-Epistemic Uses of 'Might'?

I exist now.  But my nonexistence now is possible. ('Now' picks out the same time in both of its occurrences.) 'Possible' in my second sentence is not intended epistemically.  Surely it would be absurd were I to say, 'My nonexistence now is possible for all I know' or 'My nonexistence now is not ruled out by what I now know or believe.'  If I am certain of anything, I am certain that I exist, and that rules out my present nonexistence. So in the second sentence above 'possible' is to be taken non-epistemically.  The metaphysical point is that I am a contingent being.  But how put this into ordinary English?

Why Do I Delete Comments?

Why do I delete comments? It is not because the commenter disagrees with what I say.  In Epistemic/Doxastic Possibility I floated a definition that commenter Andrew Bailey refuted. He blew it clean out of the water.  I acknowledged the refutation as soon as I became aware of it and proposed a different definition.  Bailey refuted that one too. The discussion proceeded from there with what I hope was mutual benefit.  Bailey's was an example of a good comment.

Philosophy and Livelihood: Build a Slave!

One reader asks:

How does an independent scholar get bread and butter on the table?

Another inquires:

How could one make a living in philosophy and the humanities besides being a professor?

A Reader Wants to be a Professional Philosopher

From a reader's e-mail: "Now, I want to be a professional philosopher, period! It's not as if I kind of want to, or happened to be thinking about it."

My young correspondent does not tell me what he means by 'professional philosopher,' or why he wants to attend graduate school, so I'll begin by making a distinction. In one sense of the term, a professional is one who makes a living from his line of work. Now it is a fact of life that one can make a living in a line of work without being particularly good at it. There are plenty of examples in the field of education of people who are incomptetent both as teachers and as scholars. Although these people manage to get paid for what they do, they are amateurs in point of competence. In a second sense of the term, a professional is one has achieved a certain high standard of performance in his line of work. This of course is no guarantee that one will be able to make a living from it. Now if a person persists in his line of work without remuneration, there is a clear sense, etymologically based, in which he is an amateur: he does what he does for the love of it. But this is consistent with his being a professional in point of competence. There are quite a few historical examples. Spinoza and Schopenhauer were professional philosophers in point of competence but not in point of filling their bellies from it. Employing a Schopenhauerian turn of phrase, both lived for philosophy not from it.

Thinking of Graduate School in the Humanities?

This piece from The Chronicle of Higher Education is something you should read. People should know what they are in for.  But if ideas are your passion, and you have talent, and you are willing to take risks and perhaps later on have to retool for the modern-day equivalent of lense-grinding, then go for it!  (Hat tip: Victor Reppert.)

Message From Butchvarov

 Bill, great web site! The address of mine should be corrected. It's
http://myweb.uiowa.edu/butchvar/
No "www" in it.

Best,
Butch

Make Luft Not War

An excellent saying for chess players and Luftmenschen alike.  Especially apropos for those of us who are both.

Peikoff on the Supernatural

Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Meridian 1993, p. 31:

"Supernatural," etymologically, means that which is above or beyond nature.  "Nature," in turn denotes existence viewed friom a certain perspective. Nature is existence regarded as a system of interconnected entities governed by law; it is the universe of entities acting and interacting in accordance with their identities.  What then is a "super-nature"?  It would have to be a form of existence beyond existence; a thing beyond entities; a something beyond identity.

The idea of the "supernatural" is an assault on everything man knows about reality.  It is a contradiction of every essential of a rational metaphysics.  It represents a rejection of the basic axioms of philosophy . . . .

Is this a good argument? That alone is the question.

One Fallacy of Objectivism

The following comment is by Peter Lupu. It deserves to be brought up from the nether reaches of the ComBox to the top of the page. Minor editing and highlighting in red by BV.

One Fallacy of Objectivism

1) Objectivists seem to hold two theses:

Thesis A: There is a fundamental conceptual distinction everyone does or ought to accept between “metaphysical facts” vs. “volitional or man-made facts”; for the sake of brevity of exposition I shall occasionally refer to this distinction as the ‘Randian distinction’.

Thesis B: The content of the traditional philosophical distinction between contingent vs. necessary facts is either reducible to the Randian distinction or to the extent it is not so reducible it is conceptually incoherent, superfluous, or cannot be clearly demarcated; for the sake of brevity I shall occasionally refer to the distinction between contingent (and possible) vs. necessary facts as the ‘Modal distinction’.

Modalities of Sin

Horace Jeffery Hodges asked me to comment on his post Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom.  Inasmuch as such commentary would require exegetical skills I do not possess, not to mention time I do not have -- I am under the gun to finish an article for The Monist -- I shall have to beg off.  Perhaps others can join in the discussion at Jeff's place.  But given my longstanding interest in matters modal, I was intrigued by the following quotation from Thomas Boston, courtesy of David C. Innes:

State of Innocence - posse peccare (able to sin)
State of Sin - non posse non peccare (not able not to sin)
State of Grace - posse non peccare (able not to sin)
State of Glory - non posse peccare (not able to sin)

Imaginable, Conceivable, Possible: How Justify Modal Beliefs?

As I use them, 'imaginable' and 'conceivable'  mean the following. Bear in mind that there is an element of stipulation and regimentation in what I am about to say.  Bear in mind also that the following thoughts are tentative and exploratory, not to mention fragmentary.  The topics are difficult and in any case this is only a weblog, a sort of online notebook.

To imagine X is to form a mental image of X.   To imagine a two-headed cat is to form a mental image of (more cautiously: as of) a two-headed cat.  To say that X is imaginable is to say that someone has the ability to imagine it. To envisage is to visually imagine. Not all imagining is visual.

To conceive X is to think X. To say that X is conceivable is to say that someone can think it, that is, has the ability to make it an object of thought. Trading Latin for good old Anglo-Saxon, conceivability is thinkability. Therefore, a round square is conceivable in that I now have it as an object of my thought, hence someone can have it as an object of his thought. If you balk at this, then you are probably confusing conceivability with conceivability without contradiction. Admittedly, round squares are contradictory objects. Still, one can think them. They are therefore thinkable or conceivable.  If you weren't able to think of the round square you would not be able to judge that there cannot be a round square.

Till Eulenspiegel and Heraclitus

What do Till Eulenspiegel and Heraclitus have in common? I thought about them near the end of a recent hike. I am an uphill specialist. I love the upgrade, the pull, gravity's testing of legs and lungs, the depth of breath, the honest sweat. The downclimb is less to my liking. Fearing a fall, I am too cautious to go with the flow.

So my mind turned to Till Eulenspiegel, described by Theodor Reik as follows:

German folklore tells many tales of the peculiar behavior of the foolish yet clever lad Till Eulenspiegel. This rogue used to feel dejected on his wanderings whenever he walked downhill striding easily, but he seemed very cheerful when he had to climb uphill laboriously. His explanation of his behavior was that in going downhill he could not help thinking of the effort and toil involved in climbing the next hill. While engaged in the toil of climbing he anticipated and enjoyed in his imagination the approach of his downhill stroll.

The "foolish yet clever lad" put me in mind of Heraclitus the Obscure of Ephesus. Philosophically considered, it matters not at all whether one is climbing or descending. "The way up and the way down are the same." (Fragment 60) The interdependence of opposites is a rich and fascinating topic.  We shall have more to say about it later.

Feser on Vallicella on Rand

I just discovered this post at Edward Feser's weblog.  Excerpt:

Bill also evaluates Rand’s argument to the effect that “to grasp the axiom that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence.” He sees in this an inadvertent echo of modal Spinozism, and not implausibly. But to me it is even more reminiscent of the even more extreme metaphysics of Parmenides . . . .

The  Parmenides connection is very interesting.  When I asked Harry Binswanger why he thinks that the existence of nature is logically necessary, he replied,

Well, the first part is axiomatic: "existence exists." What makes that logically necessary? The fact that "existence doesn't exist" is a contradiction. "What is, is; what is not, is not" Parmenides wisely said.

Ernst Haeckel said that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, that the development of the individual recapitulates the development of the species.  Whether or not this is true in biology, it is often true  with amateur philosophers: these members of the Philo-phylum have a tendency to 'reinvent the wheel' while at the same time failing to appreciate the defects of their primitive reinvented 'wheel.'

Now you might want to dismiss what I just wrote as a cheapshot, but you will see that it is not if you study what I say here and here and here.  There is no 'Rand-bashing' here, contra what some opine; there is the careful and critical examination of ideas.  That is part of what philosophy is.

Back to Parmenides: Binswanger's Defense of Rand's Block Universe

In response to Harry Binswanger, I wrote:

My diagnosis of our disagreement is as follows. You think that what is causally necessitated (e.g. the lunar craters) is broadly-logically necessary (BL-necessary) whereas I think that what is causally necessitated is broadly-logically contingent. Because you think that what is causally necessitated is BL-necessary, you naturally think that my having my hat on is not causally necessitated. If I've understood you correctly, you do not deny that there are BL-contingent events, an example being my freely choosing to put on my hat. What you deny is that there are any BL-contingent events in nature (the realm of the non-man-made).

Your scheme makes sense if (i) time is [metrically] infinite in the past direction; (ii) nature always existed; (iii) nature exists of BL-necessity (also known in the trade as metaphysical necessity) and nothing about nature is BL-contingent. On these assumptions, every event is BL-necessary. Add to that the assumption that every event in nature is causally determined, and we get the extensional equivalence of the causally necessitated and the BL-necessary. Man-made facts, which you grant are BL-contingent, are not causally necessitated because, for you, X is causally necessitated if and only if X is BL-necessary.

If the foregoing expresses your view, then I think I have isolated the source of our disagreement: we disagree over (iii). I see no reason to accept it. Do you have an argument?

Binswanger responded:

Your "diagnosis" is correct in spirit. I have quarrels over formulation, but there's no need to discuss them here. So we disagree about (iii): the existence of nature is logically necessary and nothing about nature is logically contingent.

You ask for an argument for that. Well, the first part is axiomatic: "existence exists." What makes that logically necessary? The fact that "existence doesn't exist" is a contradiction. "What is, is; what is not, is not" Parmenides wisely said.

The second part is non-axiomatic, and derives from causality. Objectivism holds that causality is the application of the law of identity to action. Things do what they do because they are what they are. For the fragile to act as non-fragile would be the same kind of contradiction as for glass to be not glass. This view of causality rejects the Humean event-to-event idea of causation (which actually originated with Telesio, I believe). We go back to the pre-Renaissance (broadly Greek) view of causation as a relation between entities and their actions.