Maverick Philosopher

Stupor Bowl Sunday Refused, Yet Again

Herewith, my annual Stupor Bowl Sunday post, supplemented with a properly curmudgeonly quotation from Edward 'Cactus Ed' Abbey for your reading enjoyment. Things were bad last year: the damn thing transpired in Phoenix. Luckily, it was far from where I dwell safe and snug in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains.  This year the game is far away, but the Arizona Cardinals are in contention.  Funny name, 'Cardinals.'  What does football have to do with little birdies?  Will I sneak a peek this year?  Maybe.  But I won't be able to take more than a few minutes of it.  In any case, here is last year's post.  I am tempted to add a rant about the misuse of taxpayer money for the construction of stadiums that are used only by some, but that can wait for next year.

******************

I won't be watching the game. I don't even know which teams are playing. Undoubtedly there is more to football than I comprehend. But the games are nasty, brutish, but not short, and I know all I need to know about the implements of shaving.

As for the buxom wenches who strut their stuff during the half-time show, the less I stoke the fire below the better.

I am no fan of spectator sports in general. We have too many sports spectators and too many overpaid professional louts. I preach the People's Sports, despite the leftish ring of that.

Remove your sorry tail from the couch of sloth and start a softball league with your friends and neighbors. Play volley ball whether in a pool or on dry land. Engage your fellow paisani in a game of bocce. (But don't call it bocce ball. Do you call tennis tennis ball?)

Or take the Thoreauvian high road, leave the People behind, and sally forth solo into the wild. As Henry said, "A man sits as many risks as he runs." Old Henry puts me in mind of Cactus Ed, the Thoreau of the American Southwest.

In Vox Clamantis in Deserto Edward Abbey has it right:

Football is a game for trained apes. That, in fact, is what most of the players are — retarded gorillas wearing helmets and uniforms. The only thing more debased is the surrounding mob of drunken monkeys howling the gorillas on.

Epistemic/Doxastic Possibility

Recent forays into the metaphysics and epistemology of modality require us to be quite clear about the senses  of 'possible,'  necessary,'  and the other modal words in play.  In the contexts mentioned, these words are not being used epistemically or doxastically. 

Is Joan in her office? If I ask you, you might reply, "It's possible." Or if I ask you, "Is Zorn's Lemma logically independent of the Axiom of Choice" you might reply, "It's possible." We need to clarify these uses of 'possible.'

The second example illustrates how a state of affairs can be epistemically possible but not really possible. If subject S has a limited knowledge of set theory, then it will be possible 'for all S knows' that the lemma and the axiom be independent. But as a matter of fact, they are provably equivalent. So in this case what is epistemically possible is really impossible.

 

Examples like this can be generated ad libitum.  Can a set T have a proper subset that is the same size (same cardinality) as T?  Many will say, "It's impossible."  But that response reflects their ignorance of Cantorian set theory.  Accordingly, their use of 'impossible' is epistemic.  It is impossible for all they know, but possible nonetheless.  It's possible because it's actual.

In the case of Joan, it may be possible 'for all you know' that she is in her office. But it will be really impossible if she died on her way to work. But suppose she didn't die, and suppose she is on campus near her office but the only thing preventing her from being in her office is her aversion to the place. Then, it will be epistemically possible for you that Joan be in her office, but also really possible that she be there.

So what do we mean by epistemic possibility?   The examples suggest that epistemic possibilities are possibilities parasitic upon ignorance.  I propose the following definition for discussion and possible refutation:

State of affairs X is epistemically/doxastically possible for subject S =df X is logically consistent with what S knows/believes.

My earlier talk about possibilities is to be understood as talk about real, not epistemic/doxastic, possibilities.  I don't deny that there are outstanding puzzles about real (i.e., mind-independent)possibilities, what they are and how they are known.  But the negative point that they are not to be confused with epistemic or doxastic possibilities is a step in the right direction.