Maverick Philosopher

Global Warming: Some Questions

What can a philosopher say about global warming? The first thing he can and ought to say is that, although not all questions are empirical, at the heart of the global warming debate are a set of empirical questions. These are not questions for philosophers qua philosophers, let alone for political ideologues. For the resolution of these questions we must turn to reputable climatologists whose roster does not sport such names as 'Al Gore,' 'Barbra Streisand,' or 'Ann Coulter.' Unfortunately, the global warming question is one that is readily 'ideologized' and the ideological gas bags of both the Right and the Left have a lot to answer for in this regard.

Some Definitions of 'Global Warming' Examined

Just what is global warming anyway?  On this page  you will find a page of  definitions.  This post will examine some of them.  This is important because one cannot intelligently discuss global warming, or anything else, until one knows exactly what one is talking about. 

 

Now one thing that should be obvious is that a genus cannot be defined in terms of a species thereof. And yet that is precisely what some of the definitions on the linked page do. For example,

An increase in the Earth's temperature caused by human activities, such as burning coal, oil and natural gas.

This fails as a definition of 'global warming' because it is too specific. Not all global warming is anthropogenic (man-made). And even if all global warming were anthropogenic, it is not a matter of definition that this be so. The opposite mistake is committed by the following 'definition':

Also called climate change.

This is too general. All global warming is climate change, but not all climate change is global warming. There is also global cooling. And again, even if, contrary to fact, there never has been in the history of the earth any case of global cooling, this is not a question that ought to be decided at the level of a definition. Here is another defective definition:

the theoretical increase of global temperatures caused by the greenhouse effect.

Theoretical as opposed to what? What is the difference between a theoretical increase and an increase? What does 'theoretical' add?  And why is a cause specified in the definition? Suppose something other than the greenhouse effect is the cause of global warming. Would it not still be global warming? The business of a definition is to isolate the phenomenon in question, to say what it is. The question as to what causes it is logically secondary and does not belong in the definition. Here is a real winner:

Increased levels of gases such as carbon dioxide that trap heat in the earth's lower atmosphere potentially causing global warming.

Where's my logic stick? First, causes should be left out of definitions. Second, global warming can occur without the build-up of gases like carbon dioxide. Third, the weasel word 'potentially.' Fourth, the definition is circular: the definiendum occurs in the definiens. The following definition seems adequate:

Global warming is a term used to describe an increase over time of the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans.

I would delete the pleonastic 'over time.' How could there be an increase that was not 'over time'? More importantly, note the word 'average' which I think is essential to a good definition. The claim that global warming is taking place is not the claim that at every place at or near the surface of the earth the temperature is higher than it was at that place and on that date in the past. Dennis Prager, an AM talk jock whom I respect, seemed to fall into this fallacy recently. He cited a place at which there had been a record low temperature as evidence against global warming. But it is nothing of the sort.  A record low at a particular place  is consistent with a general warming trend.

It should be obvious that an average increase in some quantity need not be steady or ubiquitous. Suppose the average price of a house in some locality has increased over a ten year period from X to Y. This is consistent with (i) some houses losing value, and (ii) the average value being at some times during the period less than X.

The last definition strikes this layman as adequate.  But it leaves wide open the question whther global warming is occurring, and if it is, how fast and from what causes.   But these are empirical questions for the climatologist. 

Liberal Values: Limbaugh Bad, Mao Good

Are we in Cloud Cuckoo Land yet? 

The Risks of Desert Hiking

In a society made litigious by an excess of lawyers, the need for various CYA maneuvers is correspondingly great. One such is the disclaimer. I particularly enjoy the disclaimers found in well-written hiking books. Rare is the hiking book that doesn't have one these days. The following is from Ted Tenny, Goldfield Mountain Hikes, p. 4:

The risks of desert hiking include, but are not limited to: heatstroke, heat exhaustion, heat prostration, heat cramps, sunburn, dehydration, flash floods, drowning, freezing, hypothermia, getting lost, getting stranded after dark, falling, tripping, being stung, clawed or bitten by venomous or non-venomous creatures, being scratched or stuck by thorny plants, being struck by lightning, falling rocks, natural or artificial objects falling from the sky, or a comet colliding with the Earth.

Still up for a hike?

Conservative Activism, the Left's Incomprehension, and the Genetic Fallacy

'Conservative activism' has an oxymoronic ring to it.  Political activism does not come naturally to conservatives, as I point out in The Conservative Disadvantage.  But the times they are a 'changin' and so I concluded that piece by saying that  we now need to become active. "Not in the manner of the leftist who seeks meaning in activism for its own sake, but to defend ourselves and our values so that we can protect the private sphere from the Left's totalitarian encirclement.    The conservative values of liberty and self-reliance and fiscal responsibility are under massive assault by the Obama administration . . . ."

Leftists like to think that they own dissent, a conceit I demolish in Does the Left Own Dissent?  Truth is, they own dissent as little as they own activism.  But libs and leftists simply cannot credit conservative dissent.  They cannot take seriously what conservatives say, but must dismiss and psychologize.

Case in point, Michael Tomasky's Something New on the Mall.  To Tomasky's credit, he does not employ the derisive 'tea-bagger' epithet.  By the way, lefties ought to understand that they don't have proprietary rights in derision any more than they do in dissent.  So I suggest that if a leftist calls you a tea-bagger, return the compliment by calling him a scum-bagger.  A taste of his own medicine may do him some good, if not now, then later after he has grown up.

What struck me about Tomasky's lengthy piece is that there is not a hint of an admission that any of the points brought up by the conservative protesters have any merit.  Nor is there any attempt to rebut these points.  Instead we get a lengthy explanation of "how astroturfing works."  The derisive 'astroturf' is supposed to suggest that the protests are not genuine 'grass roots' expressions of populist  opposition to, among other things, fiscal recklessness, but have been artificially created and orchestrated by powerful 'corporate' interests:

This conservative protest movement, though, has three powerful forces supporting it: bottomless amounts of corporate money; an ideologically dedicated press, radio, and cable television apparatus eager to tout its existence; and elected officials who are willing to embrace it publicly and whose votes in support of the movement's positions can be absolutely relied upon.

But none of that is true of the progressive movement?  Substitute 'progressive movement' for 'conservative protest movement' in the above quotation and the result is actually closer to the truth.  More importantly, attempts by leftists to ferret out the underlying causes and motives of conservative positions border on the genetic fallacy.

The genetic fallacy is committed by those who fail to appreciate that questions about the truth or falsity, or rational acceptability or unacceptability, of a proposition are logically independent of questions about the origin or genesis of someone's believing the proposition.  Whether a proposition is true or false, or posseses some cognate epistemic property, is independent of any role that the believing of said proposition might play in the believer's mental economy. Thus if S's believing that p is comforting to S, it does not follow that p is false, or that S has no good reason for accepting that p. Similarly, if S's believing that p is painful to S, it does not follow that p is true, or that S has a good reason for accepting that p. And if you come to believe that 'Cash for Clunkers' is a policy that is both morally and economically objectionable because of arguments you heard  presented on a conservative talk show, it does not follow from the fact that your believing had that origin that the content of your belief is false or rationally insupportable.

 

From the Mail: On the Truth of Religion

This from a U. K. reader:

In your 'Maverick Philosopher' blog post on Friday 16th October, you address Carlo Strenger's Guardian article 'Atheism: Class is a distraction' and I think you have done the author a disservice.

You rightly point out that the argument "All Religions contradict one another, therefore no religion is correct" is a decidedly poor one. This is not however, what the author is trying to say.

"According to the Pew survey, 85% of humanity is religious in some way, and that's probably a low estimate, since nobody knows the true figures about China. This doesn't mean that religion is true (it can't, because religions contradict each other), but that there are strong cognitive and motivational factors that give religions an evolutionary advantage in the market of ideas. A scientific worldview is cognitively and emotionally more difficult, and hence at a disadvantage."

Strenger's point is not that 'because religions contradict each other, no religion can be true' but that given these contradictions, one cannot use the fact that 85% of the world's population are religious as support for religion's truth. If 85% of the world's population believe that humans cause global warming, that, at least prima facie, provides support for the theory. If however every one of that 85% has a different and non-compatible version of the theory then the fact is meaningless in this regard. Strenger goes on to use this statistic to support his view that religion has an easier time in the 'market of ideas'.

This is a charitable and creative interpretation of Stenger's meaning, and it may well be what he had in mind, though it is not quite what his words say.  In any case,  let's be charitable and construe Stenger's meaning as my U. K. correspondent does.  Accordingly, the fact (assuming it is one) that 85% of  the world's population is religious  does not support the view that religion is true because the various religions contradict one another.

But what is meant by 'religion is true'?  Religion is an abstraction; in concrete reality there are a large number of religions.  'Religion is true' could mean that (a) every religion is true; that (b) some one particular religion is true ;  that (c) some religion or other is true; or that (d) one or more propositions that capture the essence of all religions are true.

Now it is obvious that the fact that 85% of the world's population is religious does not support the view that every religion is true.  But then no reasonable person would suggest such a thing.  So we can exclude (a).  If this is what Stenger has in mind, then he is beating a dead horse.

It is also clear that the fact in question does not support the view that some one particular religion is true, Theravada Buddhism for example.  But then no reasonable person would take it mean such a thing.  So (b) ought to be excluded as well.

Does the fact that 85% of the world's population is religious support the view that some religion or other is true? Well, it might, especially if we take 'some religion or other' to range over both extant (actual) religions and possible religions.   The fact that religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices are widespread in time and space does lend some inductive support to the thesis that some religion or other, a religion yet to be worked out perhaps, is true. 

My last suggestion is that 'Religion is true' could be taken to mean that one or more propositions that capture the essence of all extant religions are true.  I grant that it is not obvious that religions share a common essence.  It may be that the various religions are related by Wittgensteinian 'family resemblances.'  And so it is not clear that there is a set of propositions that all religions worthy of the name  give expression to.  But it is arguable that there is such a set.   The fact that 85% of the world's population is religious would then provide some support for the truth of the propositions  in this set.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Tom Paxton

Continuing in the folkish vein, here is Tom Paxton's best known tune in a 1966 London performance.  The Seekers' version is no slouch either.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Pasta

One of my dinner partners last night chopped up his pasta with a fork.  I registered my disapprobation, and demonstrated the correct technique, but to no good effect.  He complained that doing it right was too much work.  So I had to write him off as unteachable in this particular despite his manifold excellences in virtually every other particular. The incident did, however, put me in mind of an old post from 7 April 2005 which richly deserves reposting.  One cannot say these things too often.

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The following are the Seven Deadly Sins pertaining to the cooking and eating of pasta. Infractions may incur a visit from my New Joisey cousin Vinnie and his pals Smith and Wesson.

1. Using too small of a pot. A capacious pot is essential for the proper cooking of pasta. For most purposes I use an 8 quart pot. When I make my famous lasagne, however, out comes the monster 16 quart job.

2. Insufficient water. Be sure the pot is filled three-quarters full. With a big pot, there is little chance of a boil-over. But in case of the latter, a little olive oil added to the water will quell any uprising.

3. Adding the pasta before the water is boiling. Wifey once broke this rule. I instructed her to add the pasta when the water boiled. She claims she did, and that led to a discussion of the meaning of ‘boiling.’ I hereby lay it down that water is not boiling unless it is ROILING and JUMPING. To put it a bit more scientifically, pure water at sea-level is not boiling until it is at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Since our tap water is pretty good, I use it, not wanting to burden my reverse osmosis purification system.

4. Breaking the pasta before putting it in the pot. This criminal act is particularly repellent to the true connoiseur, and a sure sign of a pasta greenhorn. It defeats the whole purpose of the eating of (long) pasta, a tactile experience that requires the twirling of the strands around the fork, and, therefore, unbroken strands. Deadly sin #4 usually follows upon sin # 1, as drinking upon gambling.

5. Overcooking the pasta. Pasta must never be overcooked. It is to be prepared al dente. That’s Italian for to the tooth, meaning that the pasta should put up a bit of resistance to the tooth that bites into it. The pleasure of pasta consumption is largely tactile: the stuff by its lonesome does not have much taste.

6. Failing to properly drain the pasta before the addition of sauce. The result of this is a disgusting dilution of the sauce. Proper drainage requires the proper tool, the collander. Invest in a good one made of stainless steel. Plastic is for wimps. And if you try to drain pasta using the pot top, then you mark yourself as a bonehead of the first magnitude and may scald yourself in the process.

7. Chopping pasta on the plate. When I see people do this, I am tempted to make like al-Zarqawi and engage in an Islamo-fascist act. Let’s say you are eating capellini, ‘angel hair.’ (This is the quickest cooking of the long pastas.) There it is on the large white plate, richly sauced, anointed with a bit of extra virgin olive oil -- why buy any other kind? -- besprinkled with fresh hand-grated Romano, (not something out of a cardboard cylinder), artistically set off with a small amount of finely chopped parsley, and awaiting your attention. It is a thing of beauty. So what does a bonehead do? He starts chopping it up.

Learn how to do it right. Take some strands in the fork tines, twirl, and you should end up with a ball of pasta at the end of your fork. Practice makes perfect. Now enjoy the tactile delight along with a glass of Dago red.

If Religions Contradict Each Other, Does it Follow that No Religion is True?

This from a piece in guardian.co.uk:

According to the Pew survey, 85% of humanity is religious in some way, and that's probably a low estimate, since nobody knows the true figures about China. This doesn't mean that religion is true (it can't, because religions contradict each other), but that there are strong cognitive and motivational factors that give religions an evolutionary advantage in the market of ideas. A scientific worldview is cognitively and emotionally more difficult, and hence at a disadvantage.

This passage cries out for logico-philosophical analysis.  One of the claims that the author is making is that religion cannot be true because religions contradict each other.  What this presumably means is that no religion can be true because every religion contradicts every other religion.  If so, we are being offered the following argument:  (1) Every  religion contradicts every other other religion; therefore, (2) no religion is true.  I grant the premise arguendo.    In any case, it is plausible.  To supply an example, Christians affirm what both Jews and Muslims deny, namely, that Jesus of Nazareth is God incarnate.  So there is no question but that some religions contradict other religions in respect of some doctrinal propositions.  (But it is also true that some religions agree with other religions in respect of some doctrinal propositions.  For example, the three Abrahamic religions all agree on the proposition that God exists, and on plenty of others.) 

Generalizing, we can say that every religion  contradicts every other religion in the sense that no two religions share all the same central doctrinal commitments.  (I will refine this in a moment.) So even though Christianity  and Islam agree that there is but one God, they disagree on whether this one God is triune. And although Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians agree on much, they disagree on the filioque.  To make this a bit more precise, I suggest the following definition:

Religion R contradicts religion R* =_df there is some central doctrinal proposition p which is affirmed by the adherents of R but denied by the adherents of R* or vice versa.

If this is what we mean by one religion contradicting another, then most religions contradict most other religions.  But consider a religion that affirms the existence of an immortal soul and another that takes no position on this question -- neither affirming nor denying an immortal soul -- on the ground that worrying about this doctrinal point merely distracts one from the unum necessarium, namely, working out one's salvation with diligence.  Assume further that these two religions are otherwise completely alike as to doctrine.  These two religions do not contradict each other by the above definition.

So one may wonder about the truth of (1).  For the sake of argument, however, let's grant it. Our main question is whether (2) follows from (1).  It obviously does not.  Consider Christianity and Islam.  They contradict each other by the definition I just gave.   But it doesn't follow that both are false.  For it could be that one is true and the other false.

Our author has committed an egregious logical blunder.  The logical mistake is not confined to the context of religon.  Suppose you and I disagree on any sort of point at all.  Suppose you affirm that anthropogenic global warming is taking place and I deny it.  It does not follow from our disagreement that we are both wrong.  What follows is that one of us is right and the other wrong.  This follows from the Law of Non-Contradiction according to which, necessarily, one member of a pair of contradictory propositions is true and the other not true.

The rest of the article is equally pisspoor as you may discover for yourself.

Richard Gaskin on the Unity of the Proposition

The following is my contribution to a symposium on Richard Gaskin's The Unity of the Proposition. The symposium, together with Gaskin's replies, is scheduled to  appear in the December 2009 issue of Dialectica.

GASKIN ON THE UNITY OF THE PROPOSITION

William F. Vallicella

While studying Richard Gaskin’s The Unity of the Proposition (Oxford 2008), the word ‘magisterial’came repeatedly to mind. Gaskin’s mastery of the history, literature, and dialectical intricacies of the problem of the unity of the proposition in all its ramifications is in evidence on every page. More than a treatment of a particular problem, Gaskin’s book is a systematic treatise in the philosophy of language organized around a particular but centrally important problem. To my knowledge, it is the most thorough and penetrating discussion of the unity of the proposition ever to appear. The fact that Gaskin’s solution to the unity problem is set within a systematic philosophy of language contributes to the book’s depth and richness, but also makes the task of the critic difficult. In a few pages, the critic cannot properly convey the systematic underpinnings of Gaskin’s formulation of the problem and his solution to it. And when the critic evaluates, he is forced to acknowledge that he is evaluating a solution embedded in a far-flung system whose ideas are mutually reinforcing. His critical points may then appear as ‘dialectical potshots’ if he cannot, as he cannot in a few pages, bring a competing system of mutually reinforcing ideas onto the field. These caveats having been registered, I proceed to sketch Gaskin’s project and raise some questions about his formulation of the unity problem. After conceding that Gaskin has solved the problem as he understands it, I will suggest that the problem lies deeper than he recognizes, and that the linguistic idealism in which he embeds his solution is problematic.

Pessimistic Thoughts on Political Discourse in America

The following piece was written on 12 April 2006.  I repost it, slightly emended, because events since then have led me to believe that the grounds for pessimism are even stronger now than they were before.  It is becoming increasingly clear that conservatives and liberals/leftists live on 'different planets.'  And it is becoming increasingly clear which planet bears the name 'Reality.'  A return to federalism may help mitigate tensions, as I suggest here.  But that is not likely to happen.

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A few nights ago on C-Span I listened to a talk by Mark Crispin Miller given at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). His theme was that of a book he had authored alleging that the 2004 election was stolen by the Republicans and how democracy is dead in the USA. Not having read Crispin's book, I cannot comment on it. But I will offer a few remarks on his talk.

Miller, a tenured professor at New York University, is obviously intelligent and highly articulate and entertaining to listen to, his mannerisms and delivery reminiscent of Woody Allen. He takes himself to be a defender of the values of the Enlightenment. But then so do I. So here is the beginning of a 'disconnect.' From my point of view, Miller is an extremist motivated by the standard Leftist fear of, and hostility toward, religion. (Miller's NYU colleague, Thomas Nagel, owns up to his fear of religion, as I document here.) Miller's hostility was betrayed a dozen or so times during his speech by mocking turns of phrase. But of course he doesn't see himself as an extremist but as a sober defender of values he feels are threatened by Christian Reconstructionism, also know as  Dominion Theology.

Obama Fails To Win Nobel Prize in Economics

Here.

Continental Philosophy Criticized: Levinas

Another example of Continental obscurity in my ongoing series comes from a philosopher I mainly respect, Emmanuel Levinas. The following passage is from Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo, tr. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985, p. 106). It first appeared in French in 1982. It goes without saying that the numerals in brackets are my interpolation.

[1] The "invisible God" is not to be understood as God invisible to the senses, but as [2] God non-thematizable in thought and nonetheless as [3] non-indifferent to the thought which is not thematization, and [4] probably not even an intentionality.

Got that?  I will go through this passage bit by bit to show you what is wrong with this sort of writing and thinking.

Ad 1. To be properly formulated, this first clause must contain a word like ‘merely’ right after ‘understood.’ God is obviously invisible to the senses, and a formulation that suggests that he is not is inept. This sort of mistake is often made. For example, if what you want to say is that religion is not merely matter a matter of doctrine (because it is a matter of practice as well), then don’t say: Religion is not a matter of doctrine. For if you say the latter, then you say something that is just plain false.

Ad 2. We are being told that God is non-thematizable in thought. In plain English: God cannot be a theme or topic or object of thought. I am very sympathetic to this idea if what is intended is that God cannot be reduced to a mere object of thought whose being is exhausted by his objecthood. But since we are talking about God right now, there is some sense or other in which God is an object of thought. In some sense, we are thematizing God; we are thematizing him as a being whose being surpasses his thematicity.

You will note that I am now starting to write like a Continental philosopher. I know the idiom and can break into it when it suits me. I know their typical moves, althought they wouldn’t say ‘move’ inasmuch as that suggests something rigorous and logical like chess -- and we can’t have that. The point, however, is that there is a problem here, and Levinas and Co. don’t do enough -- or much of anything -- to bring it into the open. The problem is to explain how we can think correctly of God as nonthematizable in thought if God has this very property. Or at least that is one aspect of the problem.

Ad 3. We are being told that there is a non-thematizing or non-objectifying mode of thinking and that God is non-indifferent to this mode of thinking. But what does ‘non-indifferent’ mean? Does it mean not different, so that the non-objectifying thinking of God just is God? Or does it perhaps mean that God cares about this mode of thinking? Who knows? And that’s the problem. Levinas takes no pains to be clear about what he means.  And the context does not help.

Ad 4. Finally, we are informed that the non-objectifying mode of thinking is "probably not even an intentionality." ‘Intentionality’ is a philosopher’s term of art for the peculiar of-ness, aboutness, or directedness of (some) mental states to their objects. So what Levinas is saying is that the non-objectifying mode of thinking lacks aboutness. But then what is it? Something like a mute sensory state, a pain, for example? Clearly, there is some sense in which a non-objectifying mode of thinking about God is about God – and about nothing else. This sense needs clarification.

To sum up. I am not trying to ‘refute’ Levinas.  I like him and agree with some of his ideas in Totality and Infinity, his critique of Heidegger for example.  I am not charging him with incoherence or self–contradiction above. What I am objecting to is the lack of time and energy spent on clarification, and on setting forth clearly the problems and questions implied by his ideas. Brentano, Husserl, and the early Sartre were clear-headed thinkers. After that, the early standards go by the board.

 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Three Greenwich Village Folkies

Remember Dave van Ronk?  I haven't heard his version of "Cocaine" in maybe 45 years.  Enjoy it before it is pulled.  Last Saturday I reminded you of Fred Neil.  Here is another delightful tune of his, I've Got a Secret.  Based loosely on Elizabeth Cotten's  Shake Sugaree.  And then there was a young cat who named himself after a Welsh poet, a callow youth who in his early days played guitar and harmonica much better than in later days and sang better too as you can hear in his versions of Cocaine and Rocks and Gravel.  But the Zeitgeist chose the unlikely Jewish kid from Hibbing, Minnesota as its avatar, and you know the rest of the story

Milton Munitz on Boundless Existence, Cosmic Spirituality, and the Meaning of Life

The last book Milton K Munitz published before his death in 1995 is entitled Does Life Have a Meaning? (Prometheus, 1993).  It is a fitting capstone to his distinguished career and exemplifies the traits for which I admire him: he is clear and precise like a good analytic philosopher, but he evinces the spiritual depth conspicuous by its absence in most analysts.  Philosophy for him was not a mere academic game: he grappled with ultimates.  Herewith, some notes toward a summary and critique of Munitz's position on the meaning-of-life question.  I will also draw upon his penultimate book, The Question of Reality (Princeton 1990), as well as Existence and Logic (NYU Press, 1974)  and The Mystery of Existence (NYU Press, 1974).  These titles will be abbreviated by 'LM,' ' QR,'  'EL,' and 'ME,'  respectively.  Words and phrases enclosed in double quotation marks are quotations from Munitz; otherwise I use single 'quotation' marks.

 

 

Adding Insult to Injury

That we are formed and malformed by our environments from birth on is bad enough. It is made worse by those who want to see us as nothing but products of environment. These reductionists of course make an exception in their own cases. It is as if they say to us: "We are able to discern truth, but you are not. What we say expresses our insight, but what you say only expresses your conditioning."  That is the injustice of the psychologizer.

Coraggio

One can always get through one day to the next — except for one day. And one will get through that one too.

First Impressions

You will find it difficult to undo the damage of a bad first impression. One must realize that too many people base lasting judgments on them. This is folly of course, but it may be even worse folly to attempt to disembarrass  them of their folly. The world runs on appearances, a fact made worse by the pseudo-authority of first appearances. One eventually learns that this world of seeming not only really is a world of seeming but is necessarily one. One learns to deal with it and abandons the attempt to find plenary reality where it can exist only fitfully and in fragments.

The Ubiquity of Ego

It is because of ego that one man speaks. It is because of ego that another refuses to listen. It is because of ego that a third seeks to overcome his ego. And let's not overlook the ego of the one who makes these observations.

Why Are Conservatives So Mean?

Here.

Can Philosophy be Taught?

In one sense a philosophy is a set of conclusions, systematically set forth, on ultimate matters. To appreciate the conclusions, however, one must appreciate the arguments and counterarguments the sifting of which first led the philosopher to the conclusions. But to understand the arguments and counterarguments one must understand the issues and problems that they revolve around. Appreciation of the issues and problems, in turn, is rooted in wonder  the presupposition of which is a contemplative detachment from the taken-for-granted.

And so we must distinguish: doctrines, arguments, problems, wonder.  Philosophy as the study of the doctrines of the philosophers is philosophy in its most superficial sense.  Studying that, one is not studying philosophy, but philosophies, and them in their most external form.  Philosophy as the grappling with the arguments whose conclusions  are the doctrines is closer to the real thing.  Philosophy as the exfoliation and penetration of the problems themselves, under suspension of the need to solve them at all costs, is closer still to philosophy's throbbing heart.   This is philosophy as aporetics.  But without wonder there can be no appreciation of problems, let alone solutions.  Thus we have it on the excellent authority of both Plato and Aristotle that philosophy begins in wonder.

Upshot? Teaching philosophy is well-nigh impossible. One can of course teach the lore of the philosophers, but that is not what philosophy is in its vital essence.  And although argumentative and logical skills are impartable to the moderately intelligent, the aporetic sense, the feel for a philosophical problem, is not readily imparted regardless of the intelligence of the student. A fortiori, the wonder at the source of the aporetic sense is a gift of the gods, and nothing a mere mortal teacher can dispense.

So I propose to go Kant one better. Somewhere deep in the bowels of   The Critique of Pure Reason,  he remarks that "Philosophy cannot be taught, we can at most learn to philosophize." I say that neither philosophy as doctrinal system nor the art of philosophizing can be taught. For there is no one extant doctrinal system called philosophy, and neither the aporetic sense nor the wonder at its root can be taught.   As I used to say in my teaching days, "Philosophy cannot be a mass consumption item." Logic perhaps, philosophy no.

Or to paraphrase a remark I once heard Hans-Georg Gadamer make, "Just as there are the musical and the unmusical, there are the philosophical and the unphilosophical."  One cannot teach music to the unmusical or philosophy to the unphilosophical.  The muse of philosophy must have visited you; otherwise you are out of luck.

Too Old to Learn?

This just over the transom from a reader in Virginia: 

I stumbled across your blog a year or two ago, and since then I've periodically dropped in to see what's going on.  I enjoy what I understand of your material but, to be honest, I find much of it quite difficult to follow.  I think the main problem is that, having never studied philosophy formally, I simply haven't developed sufficient fluency in the vocabulary and methods of thinking required by the discipline.  (At the risk of sounding arrogant, I'm certain I possess the native intelligence to grasp at least the basics.)  With less than a year to go until my fortieth birthday it may be a little late to start learning, but, for reasons that I won't get into unless you really want to know, I'd like to try.  With that said, could you (and would you) suggest one or two books by way of introductory reading?

You are not even forty and you consider yourself too old for study?  Nonsense.  Nietzsche says somewhere that at thirty a man is yet a child when it comes to matters of high culture.  Well, to employ a trendy manner of speaking, forty is the new thirty.  Actually, fifty is the new thirty.  It is a good bet that you have another forty years ahead of you.  It is never too late to be learning new things.  The mind declines much more slowly than the body and its decline is much more easy to offset by preventative measures.  See Studiousness as Prophylaxis Against the Debilities of Old Age.  It is also worth noting that the waning of one's libido is conducive to the sort of peace of mind that makes study a pure delight.

 

As for your native intelligence, I too am certain that you possess enough of it to grasp the basics.  This is obvious from your letter which is flawlessly written and a model of clarity. Never start with the assumption that any subject matter is beyond your understanding.  Always start with the opposite assumption and let experience teach you your limits.  She will not fail to do so!

 

You say that you find much of what I write on this weblog hard to follow.  That is only to be expected when the post is of a technical nature as many of my posts are, or when I simply presuppose even in non-technical posts that the reader has read Aristotle, Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre, Quine . . . . 

 

You would like me to recommend one or two introductory books.  I cannot think of anything I could wholeheartedly recommend in good conscience, but the following are worth a look:  Bryan Magee, Confessions of a Philosopher, and Jay F. Rosenberg, The Practice of Philosophy.  Mr. Google will be glad to assist you in locating copies.  These books will give you some idea of what philosophy is about, even though I cannot endorse their particular slants or emphases.

 

But you really cannot learn philosophy by reading about it or attending lectures.  You have to do it.  It is an activity first and foremost, not a body of doctrine there to be learned.   You have to have one or more burning questions that torment you, and then you have to try to work out (in writing!) your own answers to those questions as best you can, all the while consulting what others have said about them.

 

The Past as Burden

The past is a burden one is free to put down -- if others will let us. In this regard as in others, the less fame the better. Others like to keep us in the past, safely categorized, pinned to our deeds. To their ossifying gaze, we are what we were, a fixed essence rather than a project. If I rightly recall, Hegel summed up the Aristotelian to ti en einai and the scholastic quod quid erat esse in the phrase, Wesen ist was gewesen ist: essence is what was. But Dasein, said Heidegger, is essentially futural. And that despite all Geworfenheit, thrownness.  Sound is the existentialist insight that man  is a project.

Each day is new, but we make it old with our thoughts and habits. We drag the past along with us like a penal chain. But every day is a beginning. Some say: "of the rest of your life." But that formulation is too retrospective: it evaluates the present and the future by the standard of the past, as time that remains. Better to say: "Each day begins a new life." Of course, it cannot be all that new, but no matter. Let the continuities take care of themselves, seek the novelty in the moment.

There are possibilities yet unexplored in this present which is not merely a boundary between past and future, but a source of the new. 

The Demise of the Dollar

An important article by Robert Fisk in the The Independent.  (HT: Seldom Seen Slim)

Frugal bastards like me, who live according to the old virtues, play by the rules, are totally debt-free, save and invest, exercise 'due diligence' across the board -- we are now going to get the shaft through no fault of our own.  What's a poor philosopher to do as his stash of cash threatens to transmogrify into a pile of trash?  Three simple suggestions:

1. Buy gold and other precious metals.  But gold is at an all-time high of $1038.65 a troy ounce, and you know what they say about buying high.  Gold is extremely volatile and has no intrinsic value.  Nor does it have any growth potential like stocks.  Because the world's gold supply increases very slowly, its exchange value is mainly driven by demand.  But the demand is perception-driven, so be careful.  Still, gold is and always has been the money of last resort, money for when the crap hits the fan, and thereafter.

2. Stockpile nonperishable goods, including those you don't use yourself.  What you don't need or want can be used later on for barter.  While prices are low and the dollar still has purchasing power, lay in a supply of clothes and footwear, tools, mountain bikes and musical instruments, wine and liquor, canned food and dry staples such as rice and beans, guns and ammunition, and so on.

3. Make repairs and improvements on your domicile.

Yet More Evidence of a Lack of Common Sense Among Democrats

It is hard to believe, but then again, given how preternaturally stupid and politically correct Dems are, maybe it is not so hard to believe:  a significant number of these jokers oppose photo ID when it comes to applying for Medicare and Medicaid benefits!  Here is John Fund, Making the World Safe for Medicaid Fraud:

Americans expect to show a photo ID when they board a plane, enter many office buildings, cash a check or even rent a video -- but rarely in voting or applying for government benefits such as Medicaid. Many Democrats seem to view asking citizens for proof of identity as an invasion of privacy -- though what's really being protected is the right to commit identity fraud.

Exhibit A is Tuesday's 13 to 10 party-line vote in the Senate Finance Committee rejecting a proposal to require that immigrants prove their identity when signing up for federal health care programs. [. . .]

This shows that the Dems are not serious about health care reform.  If they were serious they would begin by solving pressing and solvable problems such as the fraud and waste in existing programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.  But they refuse to take the simplest steps toward this end.

Misplaced Moral Enthusiasm and Mel Gibson

The L. A. Times reports that Mel Gibson's 2006 drunk driving conviction has been expunged.  Here is what I wrote about the case at the time (1 August 2006): 

What's worse: Driving while legally drunk at 87 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone, or making stupid anti-Semitic remarks? The former, obviously. And yet a big stink is being made about Gibson's drunken rant. I call this misplaced moral enthusiasm. Calling a Jew a bad name won't kill him, but running him over in your speeding 2006 Lexus LS 430 will.

On the one hand, offensive words that no reasonable person could take seriously; on the other hand, a deed that could get people killed. Here is what Gibson said: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," and, addressing the arresting officer, "Are you a Jew?"

Now compare Gibson with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who repeatedly has called for the destruction of the State of Israel. Ahmadinejad's is speech that incites unspeakable violence, unlike Gibson's drunken rant which is no threat to anyone. So let's forget about Gibson, and concentrate on real threats.

The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care

This entire book, by Sally C. Pipes, is available here in pdf format.

Findlay Contra Wittgenstein

John Niemeyer Findlay, The Transcendence of the Cave  (Allen & Unwin, 1967), p. 212: 

We must find a fulcrum outside of this world if we are to lift the heavy load of puzzles which weighs on us in this world, and no therapy can hope to heal us if we are unwilling to be transported, even hypothetically, to the world’s point of unity.

Feeble Stuff

Another motto for this weblog:

What I am writing here may be feeble stuff; well, then I am just not capable of bringing the big, important thing to light. But hidden in these feeble remarks are great prospects. (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 65)

Epictetus Advises Imelda Marcos

Epictetus, Enchiridion, tr. E. Carter, XXXIX:

The body is to everyone the measure of the possessions proper for it, as the foot is of the shoe. If, therefore, you stop at this, you will keep the measure; but if you move beyond it, you must necessarily be carried forward, as down a precipice; as in the case of a shoe, if you go beyond its fitness to the foot, it comes first to be gilded, then purple, and then studded with jewels. For to that which once exceeds a due measure, there is no bound.

Indeed, as one may observe here.

How Sartre Saw the USA

Jean-Paul Sartre's "Americans and Their Myths" appeared in The Nation in the issue of 18 October, 1947. The article concludes:

The anguish of the American confronted with Americanism is an ambivalent anguish; as if he were asking, "Am I American enough?" and at the same time, "How can I escape from Americanism?" In America a man's simultaneous answers to these two questions make him what he is, and each man must find his own answers.

It sounds like projection to me. Anguish? Ambivalence? Had I been able to drag Jean-Paul's sorrily citified Parisian ass away from his cafes, Gauloises, and Stalinist comrades and through the Superstition Mountains in June — well, perhaps the univocity of rock and sun and the reality of a world that is not man-made but also not a featureless surd-like en soi would have cured his anguished ambiguity.

Serious Conversation

It is best avoided with ordinary folk. Serious conversation about matters beyond the mundane demands effort and people resent being made to work. Besides, ordinary folk do not 'believe in conversation' the way some philosophers do. They don't believe that truth can be attained by dialectical means. They might not believe in truth at all, or in its value. Or they may have the notion that 'truth is relative.' Thoughtlessly, many dismiss all thought with 'It's all relative.' So if you try to engage them on a serious topic, they may interpret your overture as an initial move in an ego game whereby you are trying to dominate them, even if that is the farthest thing from your mind. Not believing in truth, they believe in power, and interpret everything as a power ploy and a power play. And this goes double if, like me, you are intense of mien. For your seriousness will appear either threatening or comical to those for whom nothing matters except life's surfaces.

A good maxim, then:  Among regular guys be a regular guy.

The Body's Graffiti

Tattoos are the graffiti of the human body. And just as the graffiti 'artist' defaces property public and private, the tattoo 'artist' defaces the human body, torturing the skin with needles and injecting it with ugly dyes. When I see yet another tattooed, pierced, tackle-box head, I wonder what this phenomenon means. Some thoughts of Theodore Dalrymple are worth pondering:

First, it [tattooing] was aesthetically worse than worthless. Tattoos were always kitsch, implying not only the absence of taste but the presence of dishonest emotion.

Second, the vogue represented a desperate (and rather sad) attempt on a mass scale to achieve individuality and character by means of mere adornment, which implied both intellectual vacuity and unhealthy self-absorption.

And third, it represented mass downward cultural and social aspiration, since everyone understood that tattooing had a traditional association with low social class and, above all, with aggression and criminality. It was, in effect, a visible symbol of the greatest, though totally ersatz, virtue of our time: an inclusive unwillingness to make judgments of morality or value.

On Mental Properties and the Subject of Experience

From a U. K. reader:

I'm currently reading up on my substance dualism for a philosophy of mind course, and thought I'd pose a question to you. I heartily agree with your frequent calls to eschew the parody of dualism as positing a kind of soul-stuff, but given this, I wonder how you think of the ontological status of mental properties. Most physicalists claim that such properties inhere in a physical substance, but if we avoid talk of substance in preference of a subject (as you have, in my opinion rightly, done  in the past) how are these mental properties a) grounded (to avoid a Humean bundle view) and b) ontologically possible. I remember you suggesting that say, the property of being odd was not based on a material substance, as it was associated with a non-material number. But presumably both properties and subjects (however these are related) are concreta. And I find it hard to see how that method works for them.

1. The reader asks about the ontological status of mental properties and how they are related to the items that instantiate them. First some examples.  If I say 'I am feeling anxious,' I self-ascribe the non-intentional mental property of feeling anxious.  If I say, 'I see a coyote,' I self-ascribe the intentional mental property of seeing a coyote. If I say, 'I weigh 180 lbs.,' I self-ascribe the physical property of weighing 180 lbs.  Properties in general can be defined in terms of instantiation: properties are instantiable entities. Thus:

P is a property =_df P is possibly such that it is instantiated.

Not all entities are instantiable: neither Socrates nor his singleton are instantiable. I assume that properties are universals where universals are repeatable entities and particulars are not.  That properties are universals  is of course controversial and will be denied by trope theorists.  To maintain that properties are universals is to reject that form of nominalism according to which everything that exists is a particular.  I also reject the form of nominalism according to which properties are linguistic in nature.  What's more, I reject the conceptualist theory that properties are mental in nature.  Thus I tend to think that both physical and mental  properties are universals that can exist uninstantiated, and whose existence  is independent of the existence of any (finite) mind.  Mental properties are not 'in the mind' if what this means is that mental properties exist only as accusatives of mental acts.  Nor do mental properties require for their existence the existence of any (finite) minds.

I should also say something about 'abstract' and 'concrete' inasmuch as my reader speaks of concreta. ('Concreta' is the plural of 'concretum' the latter referring to any concrete item.)  I suggest the following definition:

X is concrete (abstract)  =_df  X is (is not) causally active/passive.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Fred Neil

Remember Fred Neil?  One of the  luminaries of the '60s folk scene,  he didn't do much musically thereafter.  Neil is probably best remembered  for having penned 'Everybody's Talkin' which was made famous by Harry Nilsson as the theme of Midnight Cowboy.  Here is Neil's version. 

Another of my Fred Neil favorites is "Other Side of  This Life."  Here is Peter, Paul, and Mary's version.

And it's been a long long time since I last enjoyed The Bag I'm In. 

The reclusive Neil died in 2001 at the age of 64.  Biography here.

Why Are Actors and Actresses Held in Such Low Esteem?

According to an August 4, 2009 Harris poll, the most prestigious occupation is that of firefighter, while near the bottom of the ranking falls that of actor.  62% of the Americans polled voted for firefighters while only 15% voted for actors.  At the very bottom of the ranking, however, were realtors, who garnered a measly 5% of the vote.

I don't understand why acting should be held in such low esteem.  After all, acting is is not easy to do well, and most of those likely to be polled are familiar with only the very best.  Good acting is not only difficult, but also very enriching to all our lives.  Consider Martin Landau's work in Woody Allen's masterpiece Crimes and Misdemeanors or Meryl Streep's performance in Sophie's Choice. Those are great movies and the actors in such movies make a profound contribution to the quality of our lives.   This is not to deny that most movies are worthless and that many great actors such as Robert De Niro waste their talents on worthless roles in worthless movies. 

So why should acting be held in low esteem?  But perhaps it is not acting but actors who are held in low esteem.  Perhaps it is not actors qua actors who are held in low esteem, but the people who act.  What I am suggesting, as a possible explanation of the fact of acting's low rating relative to other professions, is that the people polled conflate actors qua actors with the people who are actors, and project their dislike for these people onto their occupational role.

And why should the people likely to be polled dislike the people who are actors?  Because they are most of them flaming liberals who maintain views that are deeply offensive to ordinary Americans.  To take an example from a while back, Mike Farrell defended the the vicious murderer 'Tookie' Williams.  A very recent example is provided by that profound intellect, Janeane Garofalo, who maintains that the 'tea-baggers,' led by Limbaugh, are a white power movement motivated by 'racism.'  Read the the whole of her screed to get a sense of the level of lunacy to which HollyWeird liberals are ever inclined to succumb.  I shall not sully my site by quoting it.

Should one take polls seriously?  I rather doubt it.  Much depends on how exactly the questions are formulated.  The Harris 'result' that acting is held in low esteem may reflect only the low esteem in which average Americans hold the people who fill the occupational role.

Atheist Baggini: The New Atheist Movement is Destructive

Here.

rundangerously

An interesting blog I came across while looking up some Kerouac images.  From the masthead: "pain or love or danger makes you real again. ... the dharma bums."  By a soi-disant obsessive runner with a strong interest in the Beat Generation.  May also be a chess player and a conservative as images in his sidebar suggest.  A good source of running links.

How Can You Be Clever in a Meatgrinder?

 It's October again, my favorite month, and Kerouac month in my personal literary liturgy.  Here is Kerouac on the road, not in a '49 Hudson with Neal Cassady, but in a bus  with his mother:

Who are men that they can insult men? Who are these people who wear pants and dresses and sneer? What am I talking about? I'm talking about human helplessness and unbelievable loneliness in the darkness of birth and death and asking "What is there to laugh about in that?" "How can you be clever in a meatgrinder?" "Who makes fun of misery?" There's my mother a hunk of flesh that didnt ask to be born, sleeping restlessly, dreaming hopefully, beside her son who didnt ask to be born, thinking desperately, praying hopelessly, in a bouncing earthly vehicle going from nowhere to nowhere, all in the night, worst of all for that matter all in noonday glare of bestial Gulf Coast roads — Where is the rock that will sustain us? Why are we here? What kind of crazy college would feature a seminar where people talk about hopelessness forever?

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), Desolation Angels, 1960, p. 339.

Compare Mexico City Blues, 1959, 211th Chorus:

The wheel of the quivering meat conception . . .
. . . I wish I was free of that slaving meat wheel
and safe in heaven dead.

Of the Beat triumvirate, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, "sweet gone Jack" alone really moves me, and the quotations above I find to be among the most moving in all his writings.

Topical Insanity

There is temporary insanity as when a middle-aged man buys a Harley on which to ride though his midlife crisis, wisely selling the bike after the crisis subsides. But my theme is topical insanity, that species of temporary insanity that can occur when certain topics are brought to one’s attention. Someone so afflicted loses the ability to think clearly about the topic in question for the period of time that the topic is before his mind.

Try this. The next time you are at a liberal gathering, a faculty party, say, calmly state that you agree with the National Rifle Association’s position on gun control. Now observe the idiocies to flow freely from liberal mouths. Enjoy as they splutter and fulminate unto apoplexy.

Some will say that the NRA is opposed to gun control. False, everyone is for gun control, i.e., gun control legislation; the only question being its nature and scope. Nobody worth mentioning wants no laws relating to the acquisition and use of firearms. Everyone worth mentioning wants reasonable laws that are enforceable and enforced.

Others will say that guns have only one purpose, to kill people. A liberal favorite, but spectacularly false for all that, and quickly counterexampled: (i) Guns can be used to save lives both by police and by ordinary citizens; (ii) Guns can be used to hunt and defend against nonhuman critters; (iii) Guns can be used for sporting purposes to shoot at nonsentient targets; (iv) Guns can be collected without ever being fired; (v) Guns can be used to deter crime without being fired; merely ‘showing steel’ is a marvellous deterrent. Indeed, display of a weapon is not even necessary: a miscreant who merely suspects that his target is armed, or that others in the vicinity are, may be deterred. Despite liberal mythology, criminals are not for the most part irrational and their crimes are not for the most part senseless. In terms of short-term means-ends rationality, it is quite reasonable and sensible to rob places where money is to be found -- Willy Sutton recommends banks -- and kill witnesses to the crime.

Still others will maintain that gun ownership has no effect on crime rates. False, see the work of John Lott.

Here then we have an example of topical insanity, an example of a topic that completely unhinges otherwise sane people.  There are plenty of other examples.  Capital punishment is one, religion is another.  A. C. "Gasbag" Grayling, for example, sometimes comes across as extremely intelligent and judicious.  But when it comes to religion he degenerates into the worst form of barroom bullshitter.  See my earlier post. 

State and Local Gun Laws and the Fourteenth Amendment

SCOTUS is set to decide whether or not state and local gun laws violate Second Amendment rights. Suppose your city disallows the possession of handguns.  Then the local law would be in at least apparent conflict with the Second Amendment which has recently been recognized by SCOTUS as granting an individual (as opposed to collective) right to keep and bear arms.  Now it strikes me that the Fourteenth Amendment resolves the matter.  In Section One we read, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property , without due process of law . . . ." 

If we interpret 'privileges' to cover rights, then the right to keep and bear arms falls under the first clause.  Accordingly, the citizen's constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms cannot be nullified by any state or local law.  And if we interpret 'liberty' in the second clause to cover the liberty to defend oneself with appropriate means against a deadly attack, then the second clause too rules out any state or local abridgement of the right to keep and bear arms. 

So what's to discuss? [He said with a grin.]