Maverick Philosopher

The Politicization of the American Philosophical Association

Several people have asked me my opinion on the recent petition to the American Philosophical Association regarding alleged discrimination by certain colleges and universities against homosexuals.  At the moment I have nothing to say about either the petition or the counterpetition.  I want to point out that the politicization of the A. P. A. is nothing new and, more importantly, that it is inconsistent with the charter of the A. P. A as a professional organization that it take groups stands on debatable social and political questions.  My reasons are given in the letter to the A. P. A. reproduced below.

Neven Sesardic e-mailed a while back:

I wonder whether there has ever been any reaction to your wonderful letter to the APA about their stand on the war in Iraq. I let my subscription lapse after that.

 

I did receive a very nice supportive letter from Panayot Butchvarov, although it may have been in reference to an earlier letter in which I protested the APA's taking of a group stand against capital punishment. Having lived under Communism, Butchvarov is familiar with the perils of groupthink.

I am glad to hear that Sesardic let his membership lapse. So did I. And I encourage other conservatives and libertarians to ask themselves whether it is really in their best interest to fund Left-leaning organizations. But even liberals should be able to appreciate that professional organizations ought not take group stands on eminently debatable social and political questions. Here is the Iraq letter, published in the Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, vol. 77, no. 2 (Nov., 2003), p. 85.

Dear Editor:

The APA Pacific Division has proposed a resolution to "express our serious doubts about the morality, legality and prudence of a war against Iraq led by the United States." If individual members have doubts, it is their right to express them in their capacity as private citizens. But a collective expression by the APA as a whole, or in any of its Divisions, is clearly inappropriate. The reason should be obvious. The purpose of the APA is "exclusively educational, literary and scientific . . . " as per its constitution. It is therefore in keeping with its charter that the APA provide a framework in which serious discussion of questions concerning pacifism, just war doctrine, etc., can take place. But for the APA to endorse pacifism, or just war theory, or a version of just war theory that rules out preemptive strikes, or to express doubts about the moral justification of a particular war, is clearly in violation of its mandate. This would be as wrong, and indeed as absurd, as if the APA were to adopt an official stance on the mind-body problem, or on any other philosophical problem. If the APA is not prepared to take sides in the debate between, say, John Searle and Daniel Dennett, then it ought not take sides in the debate in foreign policy between, say, William J. Bennett and Noam Chomsky.

But the effort and expense spent on this hopelessly belated resolution are not entirely wasted. The arguments given in favor of the resolution, fallacious as they are, provide excellent fodder for logical analysis, and so may be of some use to teachers of logic. The latter can say to their students: Here is what happens when otherwise intelligent people allow ideological bias to cloud their thinking.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Memorable Instrumentals from the '60s.

Jorma Kaukonen's Embryonic Journey from The Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow LP, 1967.

Bent Fabric, Alley Cat, 1962.

The Village Stompers, Washington Square, 1963.

Kenny Ball, Midnight in Moscow, 1962.

David Rose, The Stripper, 1962.

Acker Bilk, Stranger on the Shore, 1962.

Dick Dale and the Deltones, Misirlou, 1963.  If surf music had a father, Dick Dale was the man.

The Chantays, Pipeline, 1963.  A nice college boy effort, but the definitive version is the Dick Dale and Stevie Ray Vaughan cover.

Floyd Cramer, Last Date, 1960.

Michael Bloomfield, Albert's Shuffle, 1968.  Definitive proof that a white boy can play the blues.

The Lottery Player

The lottery player, unable to think clearly about money, both overvalues and undervalues it.

He overvalues it inasmuch as he thinks that a big win would be a wonderful thing even though it would probably not be, and won't occur in any case for the vast majority of players. There are plenty of examples, some reported here, of people who have been destroyed by a sudden huge windfall. For instance,

The Two-Fold Sense of 'The Actual World'

A correspondent poses the following difficulty:

. . . compare two possible worlds W1 and W2. What makes them different worlds? Their constituent substances and events – that’s how we identify a world. Let’s say that W1 and W2 are distinct possible worlds, and add that A, the actual world, is in fact W1. [. . .] And then we seem to have a problem: It turns out that W1 = A, but W1 ≠ W2. But if we say that A could have been W2, then it seems that W1 could have been W2 – but that’s impossible, given the necessity of identity. What to do, what to do . . . .

Think about how you would respond to this before proceeding.

Are There Any Rationally Compelling Arguments for Substantive Theses?

From the mailbag:

Greetings! First, you have a terrific blog, keep up the good work! I'm just an undergrad who is minoring in philosophy, so a lot of your posts are a little over my head, but I try to follow along when I can.

I was just having a quick glance at your post on Russell's Teapot, and one paragraph stuck out to me:

 

"Now it seems to me that both (S) and (W) are plainly false: we have all sorts of reasons for believing that God exists. Here Alvin Plantinga sketches about two dozen theistic arguments. Atheists will not find them compelling, of course, but that is irrelevant. The issue is whether a reasoned case can be made for theism, and the answer is in the affirmative. Belief in God and in Russell's teapot are therefore not on a par since there are no empirical or theoretical reasons for believing in his teapot."

 

I think I have an issue with your statement about atheists not finding theistic arguments compelling to be irrelevant, and all that is important is that, according to you, a reasoned case can be made for theism. So, it sounds to me like you are distinguishing between 2 statements:

 

"Atheists don't find theistic arguments compelling."

 

and

 

"A reasoned case can be made for theism."

 

You accept the former statement, but you say it's irrelevant, because you accept the latter statement. But to me, I find both statements to be essentially synonymous.

 

Thomas Mann on Blogging

Thomas Mann: Diaries 1918-1939 (Abrams, 1982, tr. R & C Winston), p. 194:

I love this process by which each passing day is captured, not only in its impressions, but also, at least by suggestion, its intellectual direction and content as well, less for the purpose of rereading and remembering than for taking stock, reviewing, maintaining awareness, achieving perspective . . . .

Thomas Mann on Politics

From Thomas Mann's journal entry of August 5, 1934:

A cynical egotism, a selfish limitation of concern to one's personal welfare and one's reasonable survival in the face of the headstrong and voluptuous madness of 'history' is amply justified. One is a fool to take politics seriously, to care about it, to sacrifice one's moral and intellectual strength to it. All one can do is survive, and preserve one's personal freedom and dignity.

Onesided, but forgiveably so.  Pertinent to the present.

They Post Infrequently but Well

Jim Ryan and Franklin Mason, the proprietors of Philosoblog and The Philosophical Midwife respectively, are both analytically trained philosophers outside of academe.  Their weblogs are well worth reading.  Explore their archives: the things they write rise above the ephemeral.  I have my differences with both, and they with each other.  But the commonalities run deeper.  On the off-chance they are not acquainted, I'll hazard a cyber-introduction:  Jim, this is Franklin; Franklin, this is Jim.

Proof That Italians Talk with Their Hands

Guglielmo and Francesco discuss Trope Theory in Geneva, December 2008.  Photo courtesy of Francesco Orilia.  More shots here.

Modal Sentences and Truncated Counterfactual Conditionals

Let's think about the following modal sentence:

1. My expository skills could be better than they are.

(1)  is a modal sentence because of the presence in it of the modal word 'could.'  Whether or not you agree with me that (1) is true, you must concede that (1) has a definite meaning understandable by any competent speaker of the English language.  (1) is a bit of ordinary, grammatically correct English: there is nothing extraordinary or 'philosophical' about it.  Not only does (1) have a definite meaning, it has exactly one definite meaning: no question of ambiguity arises.  One cannot say that (1) is meaningless or incoherent or ambiguous.  Compare (1) with the nonmodal

2. My expository skills are better than they are.

(2) is plainly incoherent for reasons that need no belaboring.  And anyone who understands English will instantly discern the difference between (2) and (1).

Marathons Reduce Car Crash Deaths

It makes the news when a runner drops dead during a marathon, but it is not news when a motorist dies in a crash.  This contributes to the illusion that marathoning is dangerous when it is not, compared to other things we do on a daily basis such as pilot metallic behemoths at 70 miles per hour over roads crammed with coffee-drinking, hamburger-munching, map-reading, cell-phone yacking, text-messaging, makeup-applying, substance-abusing, radio-tuning, CD-grabbing, and yes (I've seen it from my high SUV perch) masturbating motorists.  According to this source:

Heart stoppage killed 26 marathoners during races in the U.S. over the past 30 years, but Donald A. Redelmeier, M.D., and J. Ari Greenwald, of the University of Toronto, found 46 fewer motor vehicle fatalities than expected while the races were underway.

"For each person who died from sudden cardiac death, we estimated a ratio of almost two lives saved from fatal crashes that would otherwise have occurred," they wrote in the Dec. 22 issue of the BMJ.

So when I race I not only maintain my fitness, prove that the strenuous life is best by test, battle the hebetude of the flesh, contribute (via entry fees) to worthy causes, celebrate life, commune with my fellow mortals in a manner that rubs our noses in our mortality and frailty, and what all else -- I also help reduce car crash deaths!

My Cat, My Companion

One can see the Latin panis, bread, lurking within 'companion.' A companion, then, is one with whom one breaks bread or shares a meal. In this root sense, my cat Caissa is undeniably my companion. For after she has enjoyed her Fancy Feast repast, she is by my side eyeing my linguine in clam sauce or sauteed scallops. Gastronomically at least, nothing is too good for her. I acquiesce in her demands. But that is the extent of my humanization of her. She has acquired the human vices of gluttony and sloth but none of the human virtues.

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.

Word of the Day: Inconcinnity

My elite readers no doubt know this word, but I learned it just today. It means lack of suitability or congruity: INELEGANCE.  'Concinnity' is also a word.  From the Latin concinnitas, from concinnus, skillfully put together, it means: harmony and often elegance of design especially of literary style in adaptation of parts to a whole or to each other. (Webster's New Collegiate, 1977, p. 234.)

Never allow a word to escape your comprehension.  If you encounter a word you don't know, write it down and look it up.  Keep a list of words and definitions in a notebook  you regularly consult.  It might be an online notebook like this one.  Having written this post, 'inconcinnity' is a word I am not likely to forget.  For there is nothing I write on this weblog that I do not reread, with pleasure, many times.

Dave Gudeman on Modality and 'Antifactuals'

Long-time contributor Dave Gudeman coins the term 'antifactual' and then asks:

So, what are the truth conditions of an antifactual such as

(A) While the tree in my yard boasts 17,243 leaves at time t, it could have boasted 17,244 leaves at time t.

Here are some candidates:

(1) if the history of the tree had been different then ...
(2) if the laws of physics had been different then ...
(3) there exists a set of propositions S that were true at times before t such that, had each member of S been false, then given the truth of the various laws of physics and biology, an omniscient being could infer [could have inferred] that the number of leaves would be 17,244 at time t.
(4) there exists a set of propositions S that were true at times before t such that, had each member of S been false, then given the truth of the various laws of physics and biology, I can infer [could have inferred] by my normal power of reasoning and prediction that the number of leaves would be 17,244 at time t.

The problem with all of these candidates is that I don't think you can really know that any of them is true, but Peter, Bill et al. seem to be committed to the proposition that humans can know the truth of antifactuals. I can't come up with anything that humans could know the truth of short of the fact that (A) is not ruled out by mathematics or logic. But I've already discussed the problems with that interpretation. [In the portion of Dave's comments that I haven't quoted.] So that's what I mean when I say that I suspect that antifactuals, when used in a philosophical sense as Peter, Bill, et al use them are incoherent. I cannot figure out what the truth conditions of such propositions are. I can come up with several candidates, but none of them seems to be consistent with the usage and with what Peter, Bill, et al have said about modal propositions.

A Cantorian Argument Why Possible Worlds Cannot be Maximally Consistent Sets of Propositions

In a recent comment, Peter Lupu bids us construe possible worlds as maximally consistent sets of propositions.  If this is right, then the actual world, which is of course one of the possible worlds,  is the maximally consistent set of true propositions.  But Cantor's Theorem implies that there cannot be a set of all true propositions. Therefore, Cantor's theorem implies that possible worlds cannot be maximally consistent sets of propositions.