Maverick Philosopher

The Mighty Tetrad: Money, Power, Sex, and Recognition

Money, power, sex, and recognition form the Mighty Tetrad of human motivators, the chief goads to action here below. But none of the four is evil or the root of all evil. People thoughtlessly and falsely repeat, time and again, that money is the root of all evil. Why not say that about power, sex, and recognition? The sober truth is that no member of the Mighty Tetrad is evil or the root of all evil. Each is ambiguous: a good liable to perversion.

One might wonder about recognition especially as it shades off into fame, and beyond that, into empty celebrity. Is it really good? Surely a modicum of recognition by certain of one's fellows is necessary for human happiness. To that extent, recognition is good. But a little suffices, and more is not better.  To be famous would be horrible, after the initial rush wore off.  And it might even get you killed by some crazy, as witness the case of John Lennon.

Consider this quartet of claims:

1. Money is the root of all evil.
2. Love of money is the root of all evil.
3. Inordinate love of money is the root of all evil.
4. Inordinate love of money is the root of some evil.

It is easy to see that each of (1)-(3) is false, and that (4) alone is true. Money is an abstract form of wealth and wealth is obviously good. How can something good be the root of all evil? It is not even the  root of some evil. It makes more sense to say that the love of money is the root of all evil. But this too is plainly mistaken. Since money is good, a certain ‘love’ or desire of it is both wise and morally legitimate. It is the inordinate love of money that bears some connection to evil. But to all evil? Surely some of the evil in the world derives from such other sources as the inordinate love of power, sex, and fame. Therefore, the most we can say with a show of plausibility is that the inordinate love of money is at the root of some evil.

An inordinate love is an excessive love, a love unhinged and unbalanced. One form of excess consists in taking for an end in itself what can only be viewed as a means. Thus the miser’s mistake is in taking money to be an end in itself when it can only be a means.

Generalizing the opening quartet yields:

A. X is the root of all evil.
B. Love of X is the root of all evil.
C. Inordinate love of X is the root of all evil.
D. Inordinate love of X is the root of some evil.

I claim that whatever one plugs in for ‘X’ — whether it be money, property, progeny, power, influence, sex, fame, knowledge, alcohol, tobacco, firearms — results in a pattern of three falsehoods and one truth. You may verify this for yourself. Or else present me with a counterexample.

One conclusion I draw is that evil has no one root. So one should not speak of the root of evil. Evil has many roots corresponding to our many inordinate loves. Since there is no one root of all evil, the eradication of evil is no simple matter. Or if there is a single root, it lies not in things desired, but in the disordered human heart. Only metanoia, a change of heart/mind, could eradicate evil, assuming evil can be uprooted.

Foreign Policy Incoherence

Melanie Philips, Humpty in Toytown and the Arab Boomerang.

Causes of Death of Philosophers

Here. For example, Rescher died of incoherence while Spinoza died of substance abuse. Miguel de Unamuno expired from a tragic loss of sense. Plantinga perished of necessity, and Augustine by a Hippo. As you can see, some are nasty and one needn't be dead to have a cause of death assigned. Last I checked, Professor Rescher was still happily scribbling away. And that reminds me of a joke.

A student goes to visit Professor Rescher. Secretary informs her that the good doctor is not available because he is writing a book. Student replies, "I'll wait."

'He's His Father's Son': More on Tautologies That Ain't

Riding my bike the other afternoon, it occurred to me that 'He's his father's son' is yet another example of a phenomenon I have noted before, namely, a broadly tautological form of words which is standardly employed to express a decidedly nontautological proposition.  Taken literally, in accordance with sentence meaning (as opposed to speaker's meaning) our example expresses something that cannot be false.  For how could a man fail to be his father's son?  As opposed to what?  His father's daughter?  But that is not what speakers typically mean when they utter the sentence in question.  They mean something that could be reasonably questioned, something like:  He is like his father in significant ways.

I suppose the underlying phenomenon is the divergence, on some occasions, of sentence meaning from speaker's meaning.  Sentence meaning is the meaning a sentence has as part of the language system, English in our case.  Sentence meaning is at the level of sentence types.  Speaker's meaning comes in when a sentence type is tokened on a given occasion (whether in speech or writing, etc.).  by a speaker.  One then must consider what the speaker intended, and how he was using his words.

Consider 'beer is beer.'  Outside of a logic or metaphysics class no one would use this form of words to illustrate the Law of Identity.  The meaning is that all beer is the same.  For an extended discussion of this example, see my When is a Tautology Not a Tautology?  But what about 'Men are men and women are women'?  As Seldom Seen Slim pointed out to me, this does not express a conjunction of two formal identity claims.

Remember "Let Reagan be Reagan"?  Was there need for a special allowance that Reagan remain self-identical?  Was there any danger that he might suddenly become numerically self-diverse? 

Find more examples.

One Root of Leftist Intolerance of Religion

Religions make a totalitarian claim, and the Left, being totalitarian, cannot abide competitors.

Bill Bennett on Radical Islam

Here.   One wonders, though, how much effect the avuncular calm and understated reasonableness of a Bill Bennett can have in the face of Islamist fanaticism.

Bennett mentions Choudhury.  You can get a taste of him starting at 8:14 here.  Brace yourself.   

Blue States Losing Population

Many are voting with their feet against liberal policies.  Even the liberal NYT takes note.

Philosophy, Religion, Mysticism, and Wisdom

Dennis E. Bradford sent me three comments via e-mail on my recent Butchvarov post.  I omit the first and the third which are more technical in nature, and which I may address in later posts.    Bradford writes,

Second, and this separates me from Butch, Larry [Blackman], and you, I reject your assumption concerning the narrowness of philosophy.  You mention a conceptual impasse that is “insoluble on the plane of the discursive intellect, which of course is where philosophy must operate.”  I object to the “of course.”  To be a philosopher is to be a lover of wisdom and who says that our only access to wisdom is via the discursive intellect?   In fact, I deny that.  As far as I can tell, the Buddha was the greatest philosopher and the wisest human who ever lived, and his view was that limiting our examination only to the domain of the discursive intellect prevents one from becoming wise.

Actually, I don't disagree with this comment.  It is a matter of terminology, of how we should use the word 'philosophy.'  For me there are at least four ways to the Absolute, philosophy, religion, mysticism, and morality.  This post provides rough sketches of how I view the first three.  I end by suggesting that the pursuit of wisdom involves all three 'postures.'  (Compare the physical postures in the three pictures below.)

 

Philosophy

Philosophy is not fundamentally a set of views but an activity whereby a questing individual, driven by a need to know the truth, applies discursive reason to the data of life in an attempt to arrive at the ultimate truth about them. Discursive reason is reason insofar as it articulates itself in concepts, judgments, arguments, and systems of argument. As the etymology of the term suggests (L. currere, to run), discursive reason is roundabout rather than direct -- as intuitive reason would be if there is such a thing. Discursive reason gets at its object indirectly via concepts, judgments, and arguments. This feature of discursive reason makes for objectivity and communicability; but it exacts a price, and the price must be paid in the coin of loss of concreteness. Thus the oft-heard complaint about the abstractness of philosophy is not entirely without merit.

Note that I define philosophy in terms of the activity of discursive reason: any route to the truth that does not make use of this ‘faculty’ is simply not philosophy. You may take this as a stipulation if you like, but it is of course more than this, grounded as it is in historical facts. if you want to know what philosophy is, read Plato.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson says somewhere, "Philosophy is Plato, and Plato philosophy."  (I quote from memory!)  And there is this from  Keith's blog. 

The nearest thing to a safe definition of the word "philosophy", if we wish to include all that has been and will be correctly so called, is that it means the activity of Plato in his dialogues and every activity that has arisen or will arise out of that.

(Richard Robinson, "Is Psychical Research Relevant to Philosophy?" The Aristotelian Society, supplementary volume 24 [1950]: 189-206, at 192.)

This is in line with my masthead motto which alludes to the famous observation of Alfred North Whitehead:

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.  I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings.  I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.  [. . .] Thus in one sense by stating my belief that the train of thought in these lectures is Platonic, I am doing no more than expressing the hope that it falls within the European tradition. (Process and Reality, Corrected Edition, The Free Press, 1978, p. 39)

Discursivity, then, is essential to philosophy as a matter of definition, a definition that is not merely stipulative but grounded in a possibility of our nature that was best realized in Plato and what he gave rise to.

Thus Jesus of Nazareth was not a philosopher, pace George Bush. If you insist that he was, then I will challenge you to show me the arguments whereby he established such dicta as "I and the Father are one," etc. I will demand the premises whence he arrived at this ‘conclusion.’ Argument and counterargument before the tribunal of reason are the sine qua non of philosophy, its veritable lifeblood. The truth is that Jesus gave no arguments, made no conjectures, refuted no competing theories. There is no dialectic in the Gospels such as we find in the Platonic dialogues. This is not an objection to Jesus’ life and message, but simply an underscoring of the fact that he was not a  philosopher. (But I have a nagging sense that Dallas Willard says something to the contrary somewhere.)  Believing himself to be one with the Father, Jesus of course believed himself to be one with the ultimate truth. Clearly, no such person is a mere philo-sopher, etymologically, a lover of wisdom; he is rather (one who makes a claim to being) a possessor of it. The love of the philosopher, as Plato’s Symposium made clear, is erothetic love, a love predicated on lack; it is not agapic love, love predicated on plenitude. The philosopher is an indigent fellow, grubbing his way forward bit by bit as best he can, by applying discursive reason to the data of experience. God is no philosopher, thank God!

Agreeing with Bradford that a philosopher is a lover of wisdom, I yet insist that he is a lover and pursuer of wisdom by dialectical means, assuming we are going to use 'philosopher' strictly.  This use of terms does not rule out other routes to wisdom, routes that may prove more efficacious.

Indeed, since philosophy examines everything, including itself  (its goals, its methods, its claim to cognitivity), philosophy must also examine whether it is perhaps an inferior route to truth or no route to truth at all!

Religion

Religion (from L. religere, to bind) is not fundamentally a collection of rites, rituals, and dogmas, but an activity whereby a questing individual, driven by a need to live in the truth, as opposed to know it objectively in propositional guise, seeks to establish a personal bond with the Absolute. Whereas philosophy operates with concepts, judgments, arguments and theories, religion proceeds by way of faith, trust, devotion, and love. It is bhaktic rather than jnanic, devotional rather than discriminative.  The philosophical project, predicated on the autonomy of reason, is one of relentless and thus endless inquiry in which nothing is immune from examination before the reason’s bench. But the engine of inquiry is doubt, which sets philosophy at odds with religion with its appeal to revealed truth.  If the occupational hazard of the philospher is a life-inhibiting scepticism, the corresponding hazard for the religionist is a dogmatic certainty that can easily turn murderous. For a relatively recent example, consider the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie. (This is why such zealots of the New Atheism as Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, Grayling, et al. are not completely mistaken.)

The philosopher objects to the religionist: "You believe things for which you have no proof!" The religionist replies to the philosopher: "You sew without a knot in your thread!" I am not engaging in Zen mondo, but alluding to Kierkegaard’s point that to philosophize without dogma is like sewing without a knot in one’s thread. The philosopher will of course reply that to philosophize with dogma is not to philosophize at all. Here we glimpse one form of the conflict beween philosophy and religion as routes to the Absolute. If the philosopher fails to attain the Absolute because discursive reason dissolves in scepticism, the religionist often attains what can only be called a pseudo-Absolute, an idol.

The reader must of course take these schematic  remarks cum grano salis. It would be simple-minded to think that cold impersonal reason (philosophy) stands in simple and stark confrontation to warm personal love (religion). For philosophy is itself a form of love –- erothetic love -- of the Absolute, and without the inspiring fervor of this longing love, the philosopher would not submit himself to the rigorous logical discipline, the mental asceticism, without which serious philosophy is impossible. (I speak of real philosophers, of course, and not mere paid professors of it.) Good philosophy is necessarily technical, often mind-numbingly so. (The reader may verify that the converse of this proposition does not hold.) Only a lover of truth will put up with what Hegel called die Anstrengung des Begriffs, the exertion of the concept. On the other hand, religious sentiments and practices occur in a context of beliefs that are formulated and defended in rational terms, including those beliefs that cannot be known by unaided reason but are vouchsafed to us by revelation. So in pursuit of taxonomy we must not fall into crude compartmentalization. The philosopher has his devotions and the religionist has his reasonings.

Mysticism

Turning now to mysticism, we may define it as the activity whereby a questing individual, driven by a need for direct contact with the Absolute, disgusted with verbiage and abstraction as well as with mere belief and empty rites and rituals, seeks to know the Absolute immediately, which is to say, neither philosophically through the mediation of concepts, judgments and arguments, nor religiously through the mediation of faith, trust, devotion, and adherence to tradition. The mystic does not want to know about the Absolute, that it exists, what its properties are, how it is related to the relative plane, etc.; nor does he want merely to believe or trust in it. He does not want knowledge by description, but knowledge by acquaintance. Nor is he willing, like the religionist, to postpone his enjoyment of it. He wants it, he wants it whole, and he wants it now. He wants to verify its existence for himself here and now in the most direct way possible: by intuiting it. ‘Intuition’ is a terminus technicus: it refers to direct cognitive access to an object or state of affairs. You should think of the the Latin intuitus as used by Descartes, and the German Anschauung as used by Kant. The intuition in question is of course not sensible but intellectual. Thus the mystical ‘faculty’ is that of intellectual intuition. The possibility of intellektuelle Anschauung was of course famously denied by Kant.

 Wisdom

The ultimate goal for a human being is wisdom which could be characterized as knowledge of, and participation in, the saving truth.  One who attains this goal is a sage.  No philosopher is a sage, by definition.  For a philosopher, as a lover (seeker) of wisdom, is not a possessor of it.  One does not seek what one possesses.  The philosopher's love is eros, love predicated on lack.    At most, the philosopher is a would-be sage, one for whom philosophy (as characterized above) is a means to the end of becoming a sage.  If a philosopher attains the Goal, then he ceases to be a philosopher.  If a philosopher gets a Glimpse of the Goal, in that moment he ceases to be a philosopher, but then, after having lost the Glimpse (which is what usually happens) he is back to being as philosopher again.

At this point a difficult question arises.  Is philosophy a means to sagehood, or a distraction from it?  I grant that the ultimate Goal cannot be located on the discursive plane.  What one ultimately wants is not an empty conceptual knowledge but a fulfilled knowledge.  Some say that when a philosopher seeks God, he attains only a 'God of the philosophers,' an abstraction.  (See my Pascal and Buber on the God of the Philosophers.)  The kernel of truth in this is that discursive operations typically do not bring one beyond the plane of discursivity.  One thought leads to another, and another, and another . . . and never to the Thinker 'behind' them or the divine Other. 

And so one might decide that philosophy is useless -- "not worth an hour's trouble" as Pascal once said -- and that one ought  either to follow the path of religion or that of mysticism.  That is not my view, for reasons I will need a separate post to explain.

For now I will say only this.  Philosophy is not enough.  It needs supplementation by the other paths mentioned.    Analogy.  You go to a restaurant to eat, not to study the menu.  But reading the menu is a means to the end of ordering and enjoying the meal.  Philosophy is like reading the menu; eating is like attaining the Goal. 

But it is also the case that religion and mysticism require the discipline of philosophy.  There is a lot to be said on these topics, and it will be the philosopher who will do the saying.  The integration of the faculties falls to philosophy, and an integrated life is what we aspire to, is it not?  We seek to avoid the onesidedness of the philosopher, but also the onesidedness of the mystic, of the religionist, of the moralist, not to mention the onesidedness of  the moneygrubber, the physical fitness fanatic, etc.

Dale Tuggy Avoids D. Z. Phillips

In the fourth of a series posts on the evolution of his views on the Trinity, Dale Tuggy reports on his time at the Claremont Graduate School.  About D. Z. Phillips, he says the following:

D.Z. Phillips I avoided. I’d read real epistemology (Chisholm, Plantinga, etc.) and was always unimpressed with the later-Wittgenstein approach, especially to the epistemology of religion. Anyway, I heard it all repeatedly from some of my fellow students, who also said that every Phillips class was basically the same line over and over. I never could identify with the quasi-conversion stories some of them related about reading Wittgenstein’s On Certainty.

It looks as if Dale and I are in agreement when it comes to the philosophy of religion of the late Wittgenstein. See my The Question of the Reality of God:  Wittgensteinian Fideism No Answer.

I hope Dale comes to Tucson again this summer to visit his in-laws.  Peter, Mike and I met him in Florence where we visited a Greek orthodox monastery.  An excellent discussion ensued.  We hope to see him again. 

In Defense of Eclecticism

From an English reader:

The extraordinary eclecticism of the Maverick Philosopher blog has struck me with unusual force just recently. This diversity of interest  is what keeps me reading - though sometimes I stare at your commentaries in ignorant awe.

I'll never get up to speed with many of your discussions, and give up on some of them. I've wondered how many of your readers are capable of understanding at whatever level you choose to communicate.

Although the kind reader praises my eclecticism, his comment provides me an occasion to mount a defense of it.

I've had people ask me why I don't just stick to one thing, philosophy, or, more narrowly, my areas of expertise in philosophy.  Some like my philosophy posts but cannot abide my politics.  And given the overwhelming preponderance of liberals and leftists in academe, my outspoken conservatism not only reduces my readership but also injures my credibility among many.  I am aware of that, and I accept it.  Leftists, being the bigots that many of them are, cannot take seriously anything a conservative says.  But conservatives ought nevertheless  to exercise their free speech rights and exercise them fearlessly, standing up for what believe to be right.  Surely, if liberals are serious about diversity, they will want a diversity of ideas discussed!  Or is it only racial and sex diversity that concern them? 

I should add that I do not hold it against any young conservative person trying to make his way in a world that is becoming ever more dangerously polarized that he hide his social and political views.  It is easy for a tenured individual, or one like me who has established himself in independence, to criticize those who hide behind pseudonyms.   I hesitate to criticize, not being exposed to the dangers they are exposed to.  That being said, I hate pseudonyms.  Do you have something to say?  Say it like a man (or a woman) in your own name.  Pseudonyms are for wimps and cyberpunks, generally speaking.  I am reminded of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signatory to the Declaration of Independence.  He signed his name 'Charles Carroll of Carrollton' which leaves little doubt  about his identity. There is such a thing as civil courage.

My weblog is not about just one thing because my life is not about just one thing.  As wretched as politics is, one ought to stand up for what's right and do one's bit to promote enlightenment.  Too many philosophers abdicate, retreating into their academic specialties. (Cf. The Abdication of Philosophy: Philosophy and the Public Good,  ed. Freeman, Open Court, 1976)  Not that I am sanguine about what people like me can do.  But philosophers can contribute modestly to the clarification of issues and arguments and the debunking of various sorts of nonsense.  Besides, the pleasures of analysis and commentary are not inconsiderable.

"But why the polemical tone?"

I say polemics has no place in philosophy.  But it does have a place in politics.  Political discourse is unavoidably polemical. The zoon politikon must needs be a zoon polemikon. ‘Polemical’ is from the Greek polemos, war, strife. According to Heraclitus of Ephesus, strife is the father of all: polemos panton men pater esti . . . (Fr. 53) I don't know about the 'all,' but strife  is certainly at the root of politics.  Politics is polemical because it is a form of warfare: the point is to defeat the opponent and remove him from power, whether or not one can rationally persuade him of what one takes to be the truth. It is practical rather than theoretical in that the aim is to implement what one takes to be the truth rather than contemplate it.  'What one takes to be the truth': that is the problem in a nutshell.  Conservatives and leftists disagree fundamentally and nonnegotiably.  We won't be able to achieve much if anything by way of convincing each other; but we will clarify our differences thereby coming to understand ourselves and our opponents better.  And we may even find a bit of common ground.

"OK, you've explained the admixture of politics.  But you talk about such a wide range of philosophical topics.  Isn't there something unprofessional about that?  Surely you are not an expert with respect to every topic you address!"   

There is no good philosophy without a certain amount of specialization and 'technique.'  Not all technical pilosophy is good, but most good philosophy is technical.  Too many outsiders wrongly dismiss technical philosophy as logic-chopping and hairsplitting.  That being understood, however, specialization can quickly lead to overspecialization and a concomitant loss of focus on the ultimate issues that brought one to philosophy in the first place, or ought to have brought one to philosophy in the first place.  There is something absurd about someone who calls himself a philosopher and yet devotes most of his energy to the investigation of anaphora or epistemic closure principles.  There is nothing wrong with immersing oneself in arcana: to each his own.  But don't call it philosophy if burrowing in some scholarly cubbyhole becomes your be-all and end-all.

Study EVERYTHING, join nothing.

Every Generation Faces a Barbarian Threat in its Own Children

David Horowitz, Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey (Touchstone 1997), p. 3:

Irving Kristol, who had second thoughts before me, has observed that every generation faces a barbarian threat in its own children, who need to be civilized. This is the perennial challenge: to teach our young the conditions of being human, of managing life's tasks in a world that is (and must remain) forever imperfect. The refusal to come to terms with this reality is the heart of the radical impulse and accounts for its destructiveness, and thus for much of the bloody history of our age.

Does Potential Infinity Presuppose Actual Infinity?

Returning to a discussion we were having back in August of 2010, I want to see if I can get Peter Lupu to agree with me on one point:  It is not obvious or compellingly arguable (arguable in a 'knock-down' way) that there are infinite sets.  Given my aporetic concerns, which Peter thoroughly understands, I will be satisfied if I can convince him that the italicized sentence is true, and therefore that the thesis that the infinite in mathematics is potential only is respectable and defensible and has never been shown definitively to be false. Let us start with a datanic claim that no one can reasonably deny:

1. There are infinitely many natural numbers.

If anyone were to deny (1) I would show him the door.  For anyone who denied (1) would show by his denial that he did not grasp the sense of 'natural number.'  The question, however, is whether from (1) we can validly infer

2. There is a set of natural numbers.

If there is such a set, then of course it is an infinite set, an actually infinite set.  (Talk of potentially infinite sets is nonsense as I have argued in previous posts.)  So, if the inference from (1) to (2) is valid, we have a knock-down proof of actual infinity.  For if there are infinite sets then there are actual infinities, completed infinities. 

Now I claim that it is obvious that (2) does not follow from (1).  For it might be that the naturals do not form a set.  A set is a one-over-many, a definite single object distinct from each of its members and from all of them.  It should be obvious, then, that from the fact that there ARE many Fs it does not straightaway follow that there IS a single thing comprising these many Fs.  This is especially clear in the case of infinitely many Fs.

But from Logic 101 we know that an invalid argument can have a true conclusion.  So, despite the fact that (2) does not follow from (1), it might still be the case that (2) is true.  I might be challenged to say what (1) could mean if it does not entail (2).  Well, I can say that  however many numbers we have counted, we can count more.  If we have counted up to n, we can add 1 and arrive at n + 1.  The procedure is obviously indefinitely iterable.  That means: there is no definite n such one can perform the procedure only n times.  One can perform it indefinitely many times.  Accordingly, 'infinitely many' behaves differently than 'finitely many.'  If something can be done only finitely many times, then there is some finite n such that n is the number of times the thing can be done.  But 'infinitely many' does not require us to say that that there is some definite transfinite cardinal which is the number of times a thing that can be done infinitely many times can be done.  For 'infinitely many' can be construed to mean: indefinitely many.

On this approach, the naturals do not form a single complete object, the set N, but are such that their infinity is an endless task.  The German language allows a cute way of putting this:  Die Zahlen sind nicht gegeben, sondern aufgegeben.  In Aristotelian terms, the infinity of the naturals is potential not actual.  But if you find these words confusing, as Peter does, they can be avoided.  A wise man never gets hung up on words.

Now if I understood him aright, one of Peter's objections is that the approach I am sketching implies that there is a last number, one than which there is no greater.  But it has no such implication.  For the very sense of 'natural number' rules out there being a last number, and this sense is  understood by all parties to the dispute. There cannot be a last number precisely because of the very meaning of 'number.'  Every natural number is such that it has an immediate successor.  But from this it does not follow that there is a set of natural numbers.  For 'has an immediate successor' needn't be taken to mean that each number has now a successor; it can be taken to mean that each number at which we have arrived by computation is such that an immediate successor can be computed by adding 1.

But Peter has a stronger objection, one that I admit  has force.  His objection in nuce is that potential infinity presupposes actual infinity.  Peter points out that my explanation of what it means to say that the naturals are potentially infinite makes use of words like 'can.'  Thus above I said, "however many numbers we have counted, we can count more."  This 'can' refers either to the abilities of men or machines or else it refers to abstract possibilities of counting not tied to the powers of men or machines.

Consider the second idea, the more challenging of the two.  Suppose the universe ceases to exist at a time t right after some huge but finite n has been computed.  Now n cannot be the last number for the simple reason that there cannot be a last number.  This 'cannot' is grounded in the very sense of 'natural number.'  So it must be possible that 1 be added to n to generate its successor.  And it must be possible that 1 be added to n + 1 to generate its successor, and so on.  So Peter could say to me, "Look, you have gotten rid of an actual infinity of numbers but at the expense of introducing an actual infinity of unrealized possibilities of adding 1: the possibility P1 of adding 1 to n; the possibility P2 of adding 1 to n + 1, etc."

The objection is not compelling.  For I can maintain that the unrealized possibilities P1, P2, . . . Pn, . . . all 'telescope,' i.e., collapse into one generic possibility of adding 1.  P1 is the possibility of adding 1 to n and P2 is the possibility of adding 1 to the last number computed just before the universe ceases to exist.

What I'm proposing is that  'Every natural number has an immediate successor'  is true solely in virtue of the sense or meaning of  'natural number.'  Its being true does not require that there be, stored up in Plato's Heaven, a completed actual infinity of naturals, a set of same.  Since I have decidedly Platonic sympathies, I would welcome a refutation of this proposal.

Keep the Lights On!

Celebrate Human Achievement Hour 2011 from 8:30 PM to 9:30 PM today.

The Christian 'Anatta Doctrine' of Lorenzo Scupoli

Buddhism and Christianity both enjoin self-denial. But Buddhism is more radical in that it connects self-denial with denial of the very existence of the self, whereas Christianity in its orthodox versions   presupposes the existence of the self: Christian self-purification falls short of self-elimination. Nevertheless, there are points of comparison between the 'No Self' doctrine of Buddhism and the   Christian doctrine of the self.

In his Combattimento Spirituale (1589), Lorenzo Scupoli writes:

     You my mind, are not mine: you were given me by God. Neither are
     the powers active within me -- will, with its energy -- mine. Nor
     does my feeling, my ability to enjoy life and all my surroundings
     belong to me. My body with all its functions and requirements,
     which determine our physical well-being, is not mine either....And
     I myself belong not to me, but to God. (Unseen Warfare, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1995, p.   172)

Apart from the references to God, this meditation of Scupoli, of which the above is merely an excerpt, bears a striking resemblance to the one contained in the Anattalakkhana Sutta. Buddha there examines each of the khandas, body, feeling, perception, etc., and concludes with respect to each of them that "This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am." In Scupoli we encounter virtually the   same litany: body, feeling, mind . . . of all of which it is true that "This is not mine, etc." Of course, nothing depends on the exact taxonomy of personality-constituents. The point is that however one classifies the constituents of personality, no one of them, nor any combination of them, is veridically identifiable as one's very self. I say 'veridically,' since we do as a matter of fact (falsely) identify   ourselves with all manner of item both within us (feelings, memories, etc.) and without us (property, progeny, etc.) But these false self-identifications are part of what our ignorance/sinfullness consists in.

Thus Scupoli (who I take to be a representative Christian, and who is of interest here only as such) and Buddha agree with respect to the (negative) thesis that nothing in one's experience is veridically identifiable as one's very self. Thus nothing that we ordinarily take to be ourselves (our bodies, our thoughts, feelings, memories, etc.)  can in truth be one's self. But there is also similarity in their reasoning. One way Buddha reasons is as follows. If x (body, feeling, perception, etc.) were my very self, or were something that belonged to me, then I would have complete control over x. But it is evident that no x is such that I have complete control over x. Therefore, no x is either my self or anything that belongs to me. This could be called the 'complete control' argument. Scupoli has something similar:
     Let us remember that we can boast only of something which is a
     direct result of our own will and is done by us independently of
     anything else. But look how our actions proceed. How do they begin?
     Certain circumstances come together and lead to one action or
     another; or a thought comes to our mind to do something, and we do
     it. But the concurrence of circumstances does not come from us;
     nor, obviously, is the thought to do something our own; somebody
     suggests it. Thus, in such cases, the origin or birth of the
     thought to do something cannot or should not be an object of
     self-praise. Yet how many actions are of this kind? If we examine
     them conscientiously, we shall find that they almost all start in
     this way. So we have nothing to boast of. (174)

This passage suggests the following argument: One cannot justifiably take pride in anything (an action, a physical or mental attribute, etc.) unless one originates it 'independently of anything else.' But   nothing is such that one originates it in sublime independence of all else. Therefore, one cannot justifiably take pride in anything.

But does this amount to an argument against the self? It does, given the Buddhist assumption, crucial to the reasoning in the Anattalakkhana Sutta, that a self is an entity that has complete control over itself. Such a self could justifiably take pride in its actions and attributes. For it would be their fons et origo. So if one cannot justifiably take pride in any of one's actions or attributes, then one is not a self. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins  precisely because the proud person arrogates to himself a status he lacks, namely, the status of being a self in the sense in which this term is employed in the Anattalakkhana Sutta.

In sum, both Buddha and Scupoli are claiming that no one of us is a self for the reason than no one of us is in complete control of any of his actions or attributes. No one of the things which one normally takes to be oneself or to belong to oneself (e.g., one's body, habits, brave decisions, brilliant insights, etc.) is such that one has originated it autonomously and independently.

The main difference between Buddha and Scupoli, of course, is that the latter maintains that God gives us what we do not have under our control. Thus for Scupoli, what we do not have from ourselves, we have from another, and so have. But for Buddha, what we do not have from ourselves, we do not have at all.

"I Swear, If You Existed, I'd Divorce You."

If the recipient of this insult had been a philosophy professor instead of a mere history  professor, he might have responded as follows.  "Darling, by the Existence Symmetry of Relations, if a relation R holds, then either all of its relata exist or none of them do. Now one cannot divorce a person to whom one is not married.  So you and I stand in the marital relation.  It follows that if I don't exist, then you don't either."

'Celebrating' the First Anniversary of ObamaCare

There is a caucus of GOP physicians in the House of Representatives.  Here they reflect on ObamaCare's first year.  It's good that there are M.D.s in the Congress.  Negatively, physicians are not lawyers.  Positively, they are scientifically trained without being mere theoreticians: they diagnose, they cut, they sew.  They are the plumbers and the auto mechanics of the human body.  They grapple at close quarters with recalcitrant matter.  They don't just talk, write, and argue.  Not that the latter aren't important; they are.  But balance is also important.

We need more doctors, engineers, and businessmen in government -- and fewer lawyers.  And a few working stiffs, too.  There are truck drivers and pipe fitters who could do the job.  How can a government top-heavy with lawyers be representative of the folks?

Overextended Abroad, Collapsing Within

I fear for my country.  Will it go the way of the Roman Empire?  With a 14 trillion dollar national debt, we are in dire fiscal straits.  So what does Obama the Irresponsible do?  He works to socialize medicine here while expending more blood and treasure over there.  The man is a disaster.  His domestic and foreign policies are incoherent.  Here.

Scientistic Nonsense in the NYT Sunday Book Review

The review begins:

The universe, the 18th-century mathematician and philosopher Jean Le Rond d’Alembert said, “would only be one fact and one great truth for whoever knew how to embrace it from a single point of view.” James Gleick has such a perspective, and signals it in the first word of the title of his new book, “The Information,” using the definite article we usually reserve for totalities like the universe, the ether — and the Internet. Information, he argues, is more than just the contents of our overflowing libraries and Web servers. It is “the blood and the fuel, the vital principle” of the world. Human consciousness, society, life on earth, the cosmos — it’s bits all the way down.

At his point I stopped reading.  A bit is a binary digit.  So my love for my wife is binary digits all the way down?  That's nonsense, and beneath refutation.  An appropriate response would be, "Get out of here, and take your scientistic Unsinn with you."  A more charitable response: "Please come into my office and lie down on the couch.  We need to talk."  Some need therapy, not refutation.

See the Scientism category for rather more patient unmaskings of this sort of rubbish.

Richard Feynman on How Science is Like Chess

An excellent analogy.  (HT: Ron Brinegar) But every analogy limps.  There is no such thing as a perfect analogy.  A perfect analogy would be an identity, and  one cannot (usefully) compare a thing to itself.  So, after enjoying Feynman's fine analogy, you should ask yourself what the points of disanalogy are.

Blackman Versus Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Modes of Existence

(UPDATE: 23 March.  Butchvarov sent me some comments via e-mail the main ones of  which I insert in the text in red.)

This post assumes familiarity with Panayot Butchvarov's "protometaphysics," as he calls it.  But I will begin by sketching the distinction between objects and entities.  Then I will present an objection that occurred to me and Larry Lee Blackman independently.  That will be followed by a response that Butchvarov could make to the objection.  Finally, I will try to show that Blackman's objection, despite his disclaimers, commits him to a doctrine of modes of existence, but that this is not the bad thing he thinks it is.  This post ties in with our earlier explorations of the modes-of-existence doctrine which is dogmatically denied by a majority of analytic philosophers.  (These earlier posts are collected in the Existence category.)  There is also an obvious tie-in with earlier posts on Intentionality.

I. Entities and Objects

Entities exist while objects may or may not exist. Some objects exist and some do not. When one imagines Santa Claus or hallucinates a pink rat, an object appears, an object that doesn’t exist. When one perceives his hand, an object appears too, one that exists. The difference between an object that exists and one that does not is explicated by Butchvarov in terms of indefinite identifiability: An object exists if and only if it is indefinitely identifiable with other objects. The domain of objects is logically prior to the domain of entities. The application of the concepts of identity and existence to the domain of objects results in a "conceptual transition" from the domain of objects to the domain of entities or existents. (BQB 39) The concepts of identity and existence sort objects into the existent and the nonexistent. Identity and existence are therefore classificatory concepts.  Of the two concepts, identity is the more basic since existence is explicable in terms of it.  The identity in question is material as opposed to formal identity, the kind affirmed in true, informative identity statements like 'The morning star is the evening star.'  But although identity and existence are genuine concepts, they are only concepts: there is nothing in the world that corresponds to them.

Butchvarov’s Meinongian commitment to nonexistent objects is a direct consequence of his Sartrean view of consciousness as exhausting itself in its objects. For on this view consciousness harbors no representations or other intermediary contents that could serve as surrogate objects when we think about what does not exist. Imagination of a mermaid is not consciousness of a mental image or other content of consciousness but precisely consciousness of a mermaid. Consciousness of a mermaid is just as outer-directed and revelatory of a material item as consciousness of a dolphin. But mermaids do not exist. Therefore, some objects do not exist. To take intentionality at phenomenological face-value, as Butchvarov does, is to accept nonexistent objects. Phenomenologically, consciousness is just the revealing of objects, only some of which are indefinitely identifiable. (THIS SECTION STATES MY VIEWS BETTER THAN I HAVE EVER DONE  MYSELF!)

II. An Objection

There is a strong temptation to suppose that if there are nonexistent objects, as Meinongians maintain, then they must have some ontological status despite their not existing.  After all, they are not nothing.   And so one might suppose that they must have the status of merely intentional objects.  By 'merely intentional object' I mean an accusative of consciousness that does not exist in reality but does exist as, and only as, an accusative of consciousness.  (We will have to ask whether one who accepts merely intentional objects must also accept modes of existence.)  (I AM UNEASY ABOUT YOUR USE OF ‘ACCUSATIVE.’ IT IS A GRAMMATICAL TERM. WHAT YOU MEAN BY IT IS ‘OBJECT,’ BUT THEN YOUR PHRASE “MERELY INTENTIONAL OBJECTS” JUST MEANS “OBJECTS THAT DO NOT EXIST BUT SOMEONE IS CONSCIOUS OF THEM.) But for Butchvarov, the class of nonexistent objects does not have the same extension as that of merely intentional objects.   For he tells us that there is "no contradiction in supposing that there are objects that are not perceived, or imagined, or thought by anyone." (BQB 62, quoted in Larry Lee Blackman, "Mind as Intentionality Alone," Metaphysica, vol. 3, no. 2 December 2002,p. 45)  If there are such nonexistent objects, then of course it cannot be true that x is a nonexistent object iff x is a merely intentional object.

Furthermore, what I am calling merely intentional objects are mind-dependent: they exist as, and only as, accusatives of mind.  No mind, no merely intentional objects.  But Butchvarov's nonexistent objects are neither mind-dependent nor mind-independent, whether logically or causally.  Only what exists is either mind-dependent or mind-independent.  It follows that none of his nonexistent objects are what I am calling merely intentional objects. 

Blackman's worry, and mine too, is expressed by Blackman when he writes, "He [Butchvarov] denies that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent, but in an obvious sense they are, since, in a world without minds, there would be no perceivings of golden mountains, no imaginings of centaurs, etc." (Blackman, 55)  Now Butchvarov denies on phenomenological grounds that there are individual mental subjects and mental acts as well.  So Butchvarov might respond that of course there are no imaginings of centaurs, if imaginings are mental acts.  So we need to put Blackman's objection more precisely.  The objection needn't presuppose that there are individual minds or mental acts.  The essence of the objection is that in a world without mind (consciousness)  there are no perceptual or imaginal objects.  (THIS IS AMBIGUOUS, THOUGH THE FAULT IS MINE BECAUSE I USE ‘PERCEPTUAL’ AND ‘IMAGINAL’ FOR THE NONRELATIONAL PROPERTIES IN QUESTION. BUT THEY ARE EXPLICITLY INTENDED TO EXCLUDE REFERENCE TO A CONSCIOUSNESS.) Denying as he does that there are minds and mental acts,  Butchvarov must deny that imagining, perceiving, remembering, etc. are types of mental acts or properties of mental acts.  Act-differences are displaced onto the object as monadic (nonrelational) properties of objects. Thus it is a nonrelational, and hence intrinsic, property of centaurs that they are imaginal objects.  This being understood, Blackman's objection can be put by saying that in a world without consciousness there would be no perceptual or imaginal or memorial objects, and that therefore, in a world without consciousness, there would be no such nonexistent objects.  Blackman is of course assuming that there could be a world without consciousness.  If Butchvarov were to claim that there could not be, then his theory of objects would have idealism as a consequence.

The problem can be set forth as an aporetic triad:

1. Only what exists is either mind-dependent or mind-independent. (MY POINT IS THAT CAUSAL RELATIONS HOLD ONLY BETWEEN EXISTENT OBJECTS. IF THERE IS AN EXISTENT SUCH AS MIND, THEN DEPENDENCE ON IT WOULD BE SUCH A RELATION.)

2. There are objects that do not exist.
3. Both the distinction between objects and entities, and the related distinction between existent and nonexistent objects, are  mind-involving in the sense that in a world without mind these distinctions would not obtain. (THE TERM ‘MIND’ HERE IS AMBIGUOUS. IF IT MEANS ‘CONSCIOUSNESS’ THEN MIND IS NOT THE SORT OF THING ON WHICH ANYTHING CAN DEPEND OR NOT DEPEND.)

The limbs of this triad are individually plausible but jointly inconsistent.  For example, (1) and (2) taken together entail the negation of (3).  Indeed, any two limbs, taken together, entail the negation of the remaining one.  Since Butch is committed to both (1) and (2), he will solve the problem by denying (3).  Unfortunately, (3) is at least as plausible as (1) and (2).  Blackman, if I have understood him, will go further and say that (3) is more plausible than (1).  Accordingly, Blackman will solve the problem by denying (1). 

There is of course the possibility that the inconsistent triad is a genuine aporia, a conceptual impasse, and thus insoluble on the plane of the discursive intellect, which of course is where philosophy must operate.  I can't prove that it is a genuine aporia, but all three limbs, though jointly inconsistent, make a strong claim on our acceptance.  It is therefore not unreasonable to hold that we have no rational ground to prefer the rejection of one limb rather than another.  Of course, there is no way to stop people from being dogmatic.  Thus some will quickly reject (2) while ignoring the phenomenological and dialectical considerations Butch adduces in support of it.

My point, then is that Butchvarov's position, which requires the acceptance of (1) and (2), and the rejection of (3), is not compelling and is rationally rejectable.   

III.  A Possible Butchvarov Response

Suppose we reject (1) as I am inclined to do.  We would then be maintaining that an item can be mind-dependent without existing in reality. ('Exist' when used without qualification just means 'exist in reality.')  An imagined centaur would then exist-in consciousness without existing in reality.  And so we would have to distinguish between two distinct modes of existence, existence simpliciter (existence in reality) and intentional existence (existence in consciousness as a mere intentional object).  A scholastic philosopher would speak of esse reale and esse intentionale.  At this point Butch would probably object by saying that talk of modes of existence involves an intolerable equivocation on 'exists.'  If one adheres strictly to the univocity of 'exists' and cognates, then one cannot sensibly speak of modes of existence (as opposed to categories of existent).  So one can imagine Butchvarov arguing:  (a) To reject (1) is to embrace a doctrine of modes of existence which entails the  thesis that 'exist(s)' is equivocal.  (b) But this equivocity thesis is unacceptable.  So (c) (1) ought to be accepted.  (d) Given the phenomenological evidence for nonexistent objects, (3) ought to be rejected.  On the equivocity of 'exist(s)' see the work by the Butchvarov student, Dennis E. Bradford, The Concept of Existence: A Study of Nonexistent Particulars (University Press of America, 1980), pp. 37 ff.

IV.  Blackman's Attempt to Avoid Equivocity

Blackman agrees with me that in a world without mind there are no nonexistent objects.  But Blackman doesn't agree with me that holding this commits him to modes of existence:  ". . . to assert that gargoyles exist as the objects of our awarenesses is not to employ the term 'exists' equivocally, as Butchvarov might allege." (Blackman, 55)  Why not?

To say that gargoyles exist as the objects of my imaginings and that penguins exist as the the objects of my (veridical) perceptions is no more to use the term 'exists' equivocally than it is to to claim that the word 'exists' is used equivocally in the locutions, 'I exist as a father' and 'I exist as a husband.'  In neither case are we supposing different 'modes' of existence. (Ibid.)

The comparison is faulty.  I grant that there is no equivocation on 'exists' as between 'I exist as a father' and 'I exist as a husband.'  The first is equivalent to 'I exist and I am a father' while the second is equivalent to 'I exist and I am a husband.'   No equivocation!  But then  'Gargoyles exist as the objects of my imaginings' is equivalent to 'Gargoyles exist and gargoyles are objects of my imaginings' and 'Penguins exist as the objects of my (veridical) perceptions' is equivalent to 'Penguins exist and penguins are the objects of my (veridical) perceptions.'  Here there is equivocation! From this one can see that the comparison is flawed.  For while it is true that penguins exist and are the objects of my (veridical) perceptions, it is false that gargoyles exist and are the objects of my imaginings when 'exists' is employed univocally.  Penguins exist but gargoyles do not.

Blackman is trying to have it both ways: he is trying avoid the doctrine of modes of existence (modes of being) while maintaining that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent.  But this is impossible.  If nonexistent objects are mind-dependent, then they must exist in some way or mode.  This is because ontological dependence/independence obtains only between items that have some mode of existence.  An item that has no being or existence whatsoever cannot be said to be independent or dependent on mind or on anything else.  This is the core insight embodied in (1).  On the other hand, if there are no modes of being or existence,  then nonexistent objects cannot be said to be mind-dependent.

Although Blackman is on very solid ground in claiming that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent, he falls into incoherence because of his adherence to the analytic dogma that there cannot be modes of existence.  Further proof of the incoherence is in evidence when Blackman states that  "We might say that nonexistent objects, like the existent ones, belong to something larger called 'reality,' but the claim that nonexistent objects are in a sense 'real' is innocuous, as long as it understood that their 'reality' consists merely in their being the (strictly mental) intentions of certain awarenesses. (55-56)  It seems to me that the first independent clause in this sentence contradicts the second.  If reality is common to existent and nonexistent objects, then surely the reality of an object (whether existent or nonexistent) cannot consist in its being the strictly mental intention (i.e., intentum, intentional object) of certain awarenesses.

I claim that the widespread analytic view that there cannot be modes of existence is but a dogma.  In earlier posts collected in the Existence category I try to show that typical arguments against the doctrine fail and that there is a way between the horns of univocity and sheer equivocity of the river bank/financial bank sort (which I grant is intolerable).  If I am right about this, the insights of both Blackman and Butchvarov can be accommodated.  Blackman is right to insist that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent.  And Butchvarov is right to think that only what exists can stand in relations of dependence or independence.  But Butchvarov is wrong to think that only what exists in reality exists.  What exists in the mode of esse intentionale also exists but not in reality, only in consciousness.

Knowledge as Absolute Impossibility of Mistake

I incline towards Panayot Butchvarov's notion of knowledge as involving the absolute impossibility of mistake. In The Concept of Knowledge (Northwestern  UP, 1970), Butchvarov writes that "an epistemic judgment of the form 'I know that p' can be regarded as having the same content as one of the form 'It is absolutely impossible that I am mistaken in believing that p'." (p. 51)

One way to motivate this view is by seeing it as the solution to a certain lottery puzzle.

Suppose Socrates Jones has just secured a teaching job at Whatsamatta U. for the 2011-2012 academic year. Suppose you ask Jones, "Do you know what you will be doing next year?" He replies, "Yes I know; I'll be teaching philosophy." But Jones doesn't like teaching; he prefers the life of the independent scholar. So he plays the lottery, hoping to win big. If you ask Jones whether he knows he isn't going to win, he of course answers in the negative. He doesn't know that he will win, but he doesn't know that won't either. Jones also knows that if he wins the lottery, then he won't work next year at a job he does not  like.

On the one hand, Jones claims to know what he will be doing next year, but on the other he also claims to know that if he wins the lottery, then he won't be doing what he claims to know he will be
doing. But there is a contradiction here, which can be set forth as follows.

Let 'K' abbreviate 'knows,' 'a' the name of a person, and 'p' and 'q' propositions. We then have:

   1. Kap: Jones knows that he will be teaching philosophy next year.
   2. Ka(q -->~p): Jones knows that if he wins the lottery, then he will
   not be teaching philosophy next year.
   3. ~Ka~q: Jones does not know that he does not win the lottery.
   Therefore
   4. Ka~q: Jones knows that he does not win the lottery. (From 1 and 2)
   But
   5. (3) and (4) are contradictories.
   Therefore
   6. Either (1) or (2) or (3) is false.

Now surely (3) is true, so this leaves (1) and (2). One of these must be rejected to relieve the logical   tension. Isn't it obvious that (1) is the stinker, or that it is more of a stinker that (2)? The inference from (1) and (2) to (4) is an instance of the principle that knowledge is closed under known implication: if you know a proposition and you know that it entails some other proposition, then you know that other proposition. This seems right, doesn't it? So why not make the obvious move of rejecting (1)?

Surely Jones does not KNOW that he will be teaching philosophy next year. How could he KNOW such a thing? The poor guy doesn't even KNOW that he will be alive tomorrow let alone have his wits sufficiently about him to conduct philosophy classes. He doesn't KNOW these things since, if we are serious, knowledge implies the impossibility of mistake, and our man can easily be mistaken about what will happen in the future.

Of course, I realize that there is much more to be said on this topic.  
  

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Implements of Sewing

Wanda Jackson, Silver Threads and Golden Needles (1956).  With less of a country flavor, and more of a folk-rock sound, The Springfields' version is the best to my taste.  Features Dusty Springfield before she went solo and a great guitar solo.  Here's Dusty with her first and main solo hit.  And here's a 1969 Linda Ronstadt version of Silver Threads.

Jackie De Shannon, another '60s cutie, here gives forth with Needles and Pins.  The British group The Searchers provide a competent cover. 

The Notion of a Cumulative Case

 In a comment thread Tony Hanson asked me if I had written a post on cumulative-case arguments.  After some digging, I located one that I had written 24 August 2004.  Here it is for what its worth. 

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

 

Suppose you have a good reason R1 to do X. Then along comes a second good reason R2 to do X. Does R2 remove the justificatory force of R1? Obviously not. Does R2 leave the justificatory force of R1 unchanged? No again. Clearly, R2 augments the force of R1. Any additional good reasons R3, R4, . . . Rn, would of course only add to the justification for doing X. What we have here is a cumulative case for doing X, a case in which the justificatory force of the good reasons is additive.

 

A thorough discussion would have to distinguish between cumulative case arguments in which each reason is sufficient to justify the action envisaged, and cumulative case arguments in which one or more or all of the reasons are individually insufficient to justify the action envisaged.

 

Suppose each reason in a cumulative case argument is individually sufficient to justify the action envisaged. Then in what sense are the reasons additive? They are additive in that each additional sufficient reason provides an additional fail-safe mechanism. If an agent has many reasons each of which is both good and sufficient for doing X, then, if one of the reasons should turn out to be either bad or insufficient, then the other reasons are available to shoulder the justificatory burden.

 

Apply this to the Iraq war. One reason for going to war was the widely shared belief that Saddam had WMDs. Another was that he was a known sponsor of Palestinian Arab terrorists and a reasonably surmised sponsor of other terrorists. (On the second point, see Stephen F. Hayes, The Connection: How al-Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America, Harper Collins, 2004) A third was humanitarian: the liberation of the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator and his sons. A fourth was to enforce unanimous U.N. resolutions that this august body did not have the cojones to enforce itself. A fifth was to end the ongoing hostilities, e.g., Iraqi attacks on coalition warplanes. Even if no one of these reasons is sufficient to justify the invasion, the five taken together arguably provide good and sufficient reason for the action.

 

The strategy of ‘Divide and Conquer’ cannot be used against a cumulative case argument. Suppose Jack has several reasons for marrying Jill: she’s nubile and pretty, moneyed and witty; they are physically and psychologically compatible; they share the same values; she has beautiful eyes, and there is beauty at the opposite pole of her being as well. So Jack has nine good reasons. It simply won’t do to point out that each of them, taken singly, is insufficient to justify the marriage. A good reason is not the same as a sufficient reason. A good reason can be either sufficient or insufficient. What then are examples of bad reasons? A bad reason would be her having a police record, or her having a doctorate in biology when her doctorate is in mathematics.

 

The point is that several good, but individually insufficient, reasons can add up to a good and sufficient reason. If so, then ‘Divide and Conquer’ is a fallacious form of refutation. But that is what many leftists do when they oppose the Iraq war. Suppose that the cumulative case consists of R1, R2, and R3, each of which is insufficient by itself to justify doing X. The ‘Divide and Conquer’ objector wrongly infers ‘no reason’ from ‘insufficient reason.’ Thus he thinks that if R1 is insufficient, then R1 is no reason, and similarly for R2 and R3. He then concludes: no reason + no reason + no reason = no reason. He fails to appreciate the additivity of individually insufficient but good reasons, just as the typical poor person fails to appreciate the additivity of the small amounts of money he throws away on cigarettes, lottery tickets, and overpriced convenience store items.

For example, if a conservative gives liberation of the Iraqi people as a reason for the invasion, the leftie is likely to object: "But then why don’t we liberate the North Koreans?" This is an asinine response since it it is based on a failure to appreciate that the liberation reason is only one part of a cumulative case, not to mention the fact that an attempted liberation of the North Koreans could easily lead to nuclear war. Granting that liberating the Iraqi people is an insufficient reason for the war, it does not follow that it is no reason at all. It is a good reason which, though insufficient taken by itself, is part of a cumulative case which amounts to a good and sufficient reason for the war.

Another mistake that leftists make is to confuse a reason with a motive. They do this when they say that a proffered reason is not the real reason. A reason is a motive when it plays a motivating role within the psychic economy of an agent. Suppose Jack has available to him an objectively good reason R for marrying Jill. But Jack is not consciously or subconsciously aware of R. Obviously, R can play no role in the etiology of his envisaged action. Yet R remains an objectively good reason for performing the act in question. A good reason need not be a motivating reason, and a motivating reason need not be a good reason. The expression ‘real reason’ should be avoided because it is ambiguous as between good reason and motivating reason.

 

Suppose Bush II’s sole motive for invading Iraq was to avenge Saddam’s assasination attempt on his father, Bush I. Even on this wildly counterfactual assumption, there were good reasons for the invasion. For an action to be justified, all that is required is that there be objectively good reasons for the action; it is not necessary that the agent’s motives be objectively good reasons. Even if an agent is not justified in doing X – because he is either not aware of or motivated by the good reasons for doing X – the act itself (the act-type itself) can have justification. Our man Jack, for example, may be driven to marry Jill by his lust and nothing besides; but this does not entail that his marrying her lacks justification. Jack’s father might say to him: "Son, you made the right decision, but for the wrong reason." The rightness of the decision is due to the availability of good reasons even if horny Jack did not avail himself of them.

At this point an objector might maintain that what I am calling good reasons are simply ex post facto rationalizations.But a rationalization after the fact is not the same as a good reason that plays no motivating role in bringing about the fact. For a rationalization is a bad reason. Suppose Ali physically assaults Benjamin because Benjamin is a Jew and Ali believes that Jews are the "sons of pigs and monkeys." After the fact, A explains his behavior by saying that B insulted him. Suppose B did insult A. A is rationalizing after the fact as opposed to giving a good reason after the fact. B’s insulting of A did not give A a good reason for initiating physical violence against B.

Now let us suppose that Bush II’s sole motive for ordering the Iraq invasion was his desire to deprive Saddam of the WMDs that he, Bush, believed Saddam to possess. Suppose, plausibly, that the belief is false. In that case, Bush II’s motivating reason was not an objectively good reason – based as it was on a false belief – but it could still count as a subjectively good reason in this sense: he had a reason that was a good reason based on the information he had available to him at the time of the decision. I would then argue that the other reasons, which are objectively good, bear the justificatory burden.

An astonishing number of people, some of them intelligent, believe that the motivating reason for the Iraq invasion was the desire to secure access to Iraqi oil. But if that was the motivating reason, it is was a very bad reason since (i) the oil was flowing; (ii) starting a war with an opponent believed to have WMDs and known to have ignited oil wells in the past is clearly a stupid way to secure access to Iraqi oil; (iii) the projected cost of the war would be scarcely offset by the value of the oil secured; and (iv) deposing Saddam and his sons was not at all necessary to insure the flow of oil. I would argue that since this oil reason is so obviously bad, it is not reasonable to impute it to Bush and his advisers as the motivating reason for the invasion.

To sum up. The case for invading Iraq was a cumulative case. A cumulative case cannot be refuted by ‘Divide and Conquer.’ A good reason need not be a sufficient reason. A reason is not the same as a motive: there can be objectively good reasons for an action even if the agent of the action is not motivated by any of these reasons. To find good reasons after the fact is not to engage in ex post facto rationalization. This is because a rationalization is the providing of a bad reason.  But of course, liberals and leftists are so blinded by their passionate hatred of Bush II, that patient analysis of the foregoing sort will be lost on them.

 

The Bigger the Government, the More to Fight Over: The NPR Case

An excellent illustration of this truth is the current brouhaha over the defunding of National Public Radio (NPR).  Why is time and money being wasted debating this?  The short answer is that government has assumed a function that is obviously inessential to it and arguably illegitimate.  If government stuck to its essential tasks, one of which is obviously not public broadcasting, then we wouldn't be having this debate which is not only unproductive,  but also distractive from truly pressing issues such as 'entitlement' reform.  (A curious coinage, wouldn't you say?  As if prosperous oldsters who, having had a lifetime to accumulate substantial net worth in a relatively stable political and economic environment, are entitled to  intergenerational wealth transfer payments even in excess of what they have contributed  plus a reasonable return.)

The quality of the NPR debate in the House of Representatives was truly depressing.  (I have watched a good portion of it on C-SPAN -- which is not supported by Federal dollars and is as objective as an media outlet  gets.)  It's as if the participants live on different planets.  One expects liberals and their opponents (both conservatives and libertarians) to disagree about the  role of government.  But they can't even agree on the 'green eyeshade' issue.  A sensible Republican gets upon and explains how the defunding of NPR will save taxpayers' dollars.  Then a Dem rises to flatly deny that there will be any savings. 

Liberals and conservatives  will argue until doomsday about the size, scope, and legitimate functions of government.  Those arguments are unavoidable and intractable due to profound axiological and philosophical differences.  But one would have thought that agreement could be reached about simple economic facts.  A husband and a wife might argue over whether the tax rebate should be spent on upgraded carpeting or on security doors.  That would be par for the course.  But if they argue about the size of the rebate or about whether or not cancelling their subscription to cable TV will save them x dollars per month,then they are in deep trouble and headed for divorce court.

The Dems are either lying or engaging in some other less blatant form of prevarication when they claim that defunding NPR will not affect the Federal budget deficit.

The liberal case is exceedingly weak, an indication being the rhetorical tricks and distortions liberals sink to.  For example, Representative Louise Slaughter claimed that the Republicans are out to "destroy" NPR.  See here at :34.  That's an outright lie. Or is she so stupid as not to know that defunding a program which its own officers admit does not need Federal funding is not to destroy it?  Contemptible.  Another Dem claimed that the Republicans are ought to"silence" NPR.  Another outright lie.

By the way, here is where civility meets a limit. One is under no obligation to be polite to a liar.

But Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee takes the cake.  She claimed that defunding NPR is an affront to the First Amendment.  How stupid can a liberal be?  Apparently she thinks that the First Amendment protects a government-funded propaganda arm of the Left from the people when it is the other way around:  the First Amendment protects the speech rights of the people against the government.

Of course, no liberal will admit his bias, either out of mendacity, or more likely, because he is simply incapable of seeing it. For a typical liberal, his view of the world is the world.  Hence liberals are mostly incapable of  seeing that NPR pushes a liberal-left point of view.  The problem, again, is not that they have that point of view, but that they feel justified in using taxpayers' dollars to promote it.  Part of the problem is that they do not understand how anyone could reasonably disagree with them. 

The bigger the government, the more to fight over.  Do you like pointless bickering?  Then support an ever-expanding state.

For more on NPR, see here  and here. 

Can the Chariot Take Us to the Land of No Self?

An abbreviated version of the following paper was published under the same title in The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy, vol. 9, ed. Stephen Voss (Ankara, Turkey), 2006, pp. 29-33.

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

According to Buddhist ontology, every (samsaric) being  is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and devoid of self-nature.  Anicca, dukkha,  anatta: these are the famous three marks (tilakkhana) upon which the whole of Buddhism rests.  I would like to consider a well-known Buddhist argument for the third of these marks, that of anatta, an argument one could call ‘The Chariot.’  The argument aims to show that no (samsaric) being is a self, or has self-nature, or is a substance.  My thesis will be that, successful as this argument may be when applied to things other than ourselves, it fails when applied to ourselves.

God, Probability, and Noncontingent Propositions

Matt Hart comments:

. . . most of what we conceive is possible. So if we say that

1) In 80% of the cases, if 'Conceivably, p' then 'Possibly, p'
2) Conceivably, God exists
Ergo,
3) Pr(Possibly, God exists) = 80%
4) If 'Possibly, God exists' then 'necessarily, God exists'
Ergo,
5) Pr(Necessarily, God exists) = 80%,

we seem to get by.

I had made the point that conceivability does not entail possibility.  Hart agrees with that, but seems to think that conceivability is nondemonstrative evidence of possibility.  Accordingly, our ability to conceive (without contradiction) that p gives us good reason to believe that p is possible.

What is puzzling to me is how a noncontingent proposition can be assigned a probability less than 1.  A noncontingent proposition is one that is either necessary or impossible.  Now all of the following are noncontingent: 

God exists
Necessarily, God exists
Possibly, God exists
God does not exist
Necessarily, God does not exist
Possibly, God does not exist.

I am making the Anselmian assumption that God (the ens perfectissimum, that than which no greater can be conceived, etc.) is a noncontingent being.  I am also assuming that our modal logic is S5.  The characteristic S5 axiom states that Poss p --> Nec Poss p.  S5 includes S4, the characteristic axiom of which is Nec p --> Nec Nec p.  What these axioms say, taken together, is that what's possible and necessary does not vary from possible world to possible world. 

Now Possibly, God exists, if true, is necessarily true, and if false, necessarily false.  (By the characteristic S5 axiom.)  So what could it mean that the probability of Possibly, God exists is .8?  I would have thought that the probability is either 1 or 0.  the same goes for Necessarily, God exists. How  can this proposition have a probability of .8?  Must it not be either 1 or 0?

Now I am a fair and balanced guy, as everyone knows.  So I will deploy the same reasoning against the atheist who cites the evils of our world as nondemonstrative evidence of the nonexistence of God.  I don't know what it means to say that it is unlikely that God exists given the kinds and quantities of evil in our world.  Either God exists necessarily or he is impossible (necessarily nonexistent).  How can you raise the probability  of a necessary truth?  Suppose some hitherto unknown genocide comes to light, thereby adding to the catalog of known evils.  Would that strengthen the case against the existence of God?  How could it?

To see my point consider the noncontingent propositions of mathematics.  They are all of them necessarily true if true.  So *7 + 5 = 12* is necessarily true and *7 + 5 = 11* is necessarily false.  Empirical evidence is irrelevant here.  I cannot raise the probability of the first proposition by adding 7 knives and 5 forks to come up with 12 utensils.  I do not come to know the truth of the first proposition by induction from empirical cases of adding.  It would also be folly to attempt to disconfirm the second proposition by empirical means.

If I can't know that 7 + 5 = 12 by induction from empirical cases, how can I know that possibly, God exists by induction from empirical cases of conceiving?  The problem concerns not only induction, but how one can know by induction a necessary proposition.  Similarly, how can I know that God does not exist by induction from empirical cases of evil?

Of course, *God exists* is not a mathematical proposition.  But it is a noncontingent proposition, which is all I need for my argument.

Finally, consider this.  I can conceive the existence of God but I can also conceive the nonexistence of God.  So plug 'God does not exist' into Matt's argument above.  The result is that probability of the necessary nonexistence of God is .8!

My conclusion:  (a) Conceivability does not entail possibility; (b) in the case of noncontingent propositions, conceivability does not count as nondemonstrative evidence of possibility.

The Ought-to-Be and the Ought-to-Do and the Aporetics of "Be Ye Perfect"

Is there any justification for talk of the ought-to-be in cases where they are not cases of the ought-to-do?

Let's begin by noting that if I ought to do X (pay my debts, feed my kids, keep my hands off my neighbor's wife, etc.) then my doing X ought to be. For example, given that I ought to pay my debts, then my paying a certain debt on a certain date is a state of affairs that ought to be, ought to exist, ought to obtain. So it is not as if the ought-to-do and the ought-to-be form disjoint classes. For every act X that an agent A ought to do, there is a state of affairs, A's doing X, that ought to be, and a state of affairs, A's failing to do X, that ought not be. The ought-to-do, therefore, is a  case of the   ought-to-be.

My question, however, is whether there are states of affairs that ought to be even in situations in which there are no moral agents with power sufficient to bring them about, and states of affairs that ought not be even in situations in which there are no moral agents with power sufficient to prevent them. In other words, are there non-agential oughts? Does it make sense, and is it true, to say things like 'There ought to be fewer diseases than there are' or 'There ought to be no natural disasters' or 'There ought to be morally perfect people'? Or consider

1. I ought to be a better man that I am, indeed, I ought to be morally perfect.

(1) expresses an axiological requirement but (arguably) not a moral obligation because it is simply not in my power to perfect myself, nor is it in any finite person's power or any group of finite person's   power to perfect me. Now consider the following aporetic triad: 

1. I ought to be morally perfect or at least better than I am in ways over which I have no control.

2. I lack the power to be what I ought to be, and this impotence is due to no specific fault of my own. (My impotence is 'original,' part  and parcel of the 'fallen' human condition, not derived from any   particular act or act-omission of mine.)

3. 'Ought' implies 'Can': one can be obliged to do X only if one has an effective choice as to whether to do X.

The triad is inconsistent in that (1) & (3) entails ~(2). Indeed, any two limbs, taken together, entail the negation of the remaining one.  How can the inconsistency be removed?

 A. One solution is simply to deny (1) by claiming that there is no sense of 'ought' in which one ought to be morally perfect or better than one is in ways over which one has no control.  This strikes me as counterintuitive. For there does seems to me to be some sense in which I ought to be perfect. I feel the force of the NT verse, "Be ye perfect as your heavenly father is perfect." I have the strong intuition that I ought to be, if not perfect, at least better in respects where I simply lack the power to bring about the improvement.

B. A second solution is to distinguish between agential and non-agential oughts. We can then maintain (1) as true by maintaining that the 'ought' in (1) is non-agential and expresses an axiological   requirement as opposed to a moral obligation. So interpreted, (1) is  consistent with (2) and (3).

We can then transform the above triad into an argument:

4. (1)-(3) are all true.
5. (1)-(3) would not all be true if there were no distinction between agential and non-agential oughts.
   Therefore
6. There is a distinction between agential and non-agential oughts.

C. A third solution is to maintain the truth of (1)-(3) while also maintaining that all oughts are agential. But then how avoid inconsistency? One might maintain that, when restricted to my own resources, I lack the power to do what I ought to do; yet I am morally  obliged to perfect myself; and since 'ought' implies 'can,' the power  that I need must be supplied in part from a Source external to myself.  "And this all men call God."  So God exists!

In short, the inconsistency is avoided by bringing God into the picture as one who supplies individuals with the supplemental power to do what they are morally obliged to do when that power is insufficient from their own resources. This gives rise to an argument for the existence of an external source of moral assistance:

7. I am morally obliged (ought)  to do things that I cannot do on my own.
8. 'Ought' implies 'can'.
Therefore

9. I can do things that I cannot do on my own.
   Therefore
10. There is an external source of moral assistance that makes up the difference between what I can do on my own and what I cannot.

Summary

I have sketched two arguments which need closer scrutiny. The one based on the (B) response to the triad gives some, though not a  conclusive, reason for accepting a distinction between agential and   non-agential oughts.

"The Tit of the State": Krauthammer Versus NPR's Totenberg

Here.  "If the product is so superior, why does it have to live on the tit of the State?"

One answer is that the booboisie  of these United States is too backward and benighted to appreciate the high level of NPR programming.  The rubes of fly-over country are too much enamoured of wrestling, tractor pulls, and reality shows, and, to be blunt, too stupid and lazy to take in superior product.

Being something of an elitist myself, I am sympathetic to this answer.  The problem for me is twofold.  NPR is run by lefties for lefties.  That in itself is not a problem.  But it is a most serious problem when part of the funding comes from the taxpayer.  But lefties, blind to their own bias, don't see the problem.  Very simply, it is wrong to take money by force from people and then use it to promote causes that those people find offensive or worse when the causes have nothing to do with the legitimate functions of government.  Planned Parenthood and abortion.  NEA and "Piss Christ."  Get it?

Second, we are in fiscal crisis.  If we can't remove NPR from the "tit of the State," from the milky mammaries of massive Mama Obama government, what outfit can we remove from said mammaries? If we can't zero out  NPR how are we going to cut back on the 'entitlement' programs such as Social Security?

Don't get me wrong.  I like "Car Talk" despite the paucity of automotive advice and the excess of joking around.  I even like the PBS "Keeping Up Appearances" in small doses.  But if frivolous flab like this can't be excised, what can?

 

Obama's Social Security Fraud

My man Krauthammer nails it again:

The new line from the White House is: no need to fix it [SS] because there is no problem. As Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew wrote in USA Today just a few weeks ago, the trust fund is solvent until 2037. Therefore, Social Security is now off the table in debt-reduction talks.

This claim is a breathtaking fraud.

Gratuitous Evil and Begging the Question: Does LAFE Beg the Question?

What is it for an argument to beg the question? I suggest that an argument begs the question if it is impossible to know one of the premises to be true without knowing that the conclusion is true. The simplest question-begging arguments are of the form

p
---
p.

Clearly, every argument of this form is valid, and some arguments of this form are sound. It follows that an argument can be sound and yet probatively worthless. In plain English, no argument of the above form proves its conclusion in the sense of giving a 'consumer' of the argument any reason to accept the conclusion; it rather presupposes its conclusion. One cannot know the premise to be true without knowing that the conclusion is true.

Now consider a richer example: (P1) We are creatures; (P2) There is no creature without a creator; therefore, (C) A creator exists. This argument begs the question in that it is impossible to know that (P1) is true without knowing that (C) is true. For only if I know that a creator exists can I know that I am a creature. The argument is not probative because it presupposes in (P1) what it needs to prove. (Of course, I am assuming that one is not equivocating on 'creature' and that one is using it in the sense in which it must be used for (P2) to be true; if one is equivocating, then naturally the argument is worthless for this reason.)

Now it might occur to someone to wonder whether logical arguments from evil for the nonexistence of God also beg the question. Is there anything to this notion?

Logical arguments from evil start with a fact, the fact of evil. No doubt evils exist. But for evils to prove the nonexistence of the omni-qualified God of traditional Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, these evils must be gratuitous. A gratuitous evil is one that cannot be reconciled with the existence of the omni-qualified God, for example, an evil that God has no morally sufficient reason to permit, or an evil that God cannot prevent because it is the deed of a free agent. A gratuitous evil, then, is one the existence of which is logically inconsistent with the existence of God conceived in the traditional way.

Granted, evils exist. But only gratuitous evils are inconsistent with the existence of God. Only they pose a problem for the existence of an all-good God. Consider the pain of a just punishment, the pain of imprisonment, say, that convinces a miscreant, an armed robber for example, to reform his life. (Few penal punishments are truly rehabilitating, but certainly some are.) The pain of punishment is evil. But in my example, it is necessary for the achievement of a greater good. Thus the evil in question is not gratuitous.

How do we know that there are gratuitous evils? To know this, we would have to know that God does not exist. Thus we would have to know the conclusion of the LAFE to be true in order to know that its key premise -- Gratuitous evils exist -- is true. But this is the very definition of begging the question.

Therefore, it seems that LAFE begs the question. To appreciate my point, compare:

1. If there are gratuitous evils, then God does not exist.

2. If creatures exist, then a creator exists.

Both of these propositions are analytically true. So if one knows that there are gratuitous evils, then one knows that God does not exist. Likewise, if one knows that creatures exist, or that the physical universe is a creation, then one one knows that a creator exists. But how does one know either of these things? Suppose I witness a brutal and unprovoked physical assault on a human being by another human being. Witnessing this, I witness an evil. But by what mark do I recognize the gratuitousness of the evil? By no empirical mark since what I observe is consistent both with the assault's being gratuitously evil and with its being nongratuitously evil.

Something similar holds for (2). How do I know that what I see, mountains and valleys, cacti and sky is creation or created nature as opposed to uncreated nature? By what mark do I know that nature has the status of having been created? By no mark.

Return to the brutal assault. Imagine it to be perpetrated against a loved one. Atheists will naturally take such crimes as 'proof' that there is no God. But it is no more 'proof' than the existence and order of nature is 'proof' of an intelligent creator. Both athetist and theist interpret the data in the light of a worldview that precedes the data and is imposed upon them. Each can fit the data into his scheme. But fitting data into a scheme is not the same as data proving a scheme. Thus the brutal assault fits the atheist's scheme but does not prove it, and the existence and order of nature fits the theist's scheme but does not prove it.

So here is my challenge to Peter and others: explain how LAFE does not beg the question against the theist.

Does God Exist Because He Ought to Exist?

Steven, Peter, et al.:  This paper has been languishing  on my hard drive for some time.  Comments appreciated. 

Abstract.  Modal ontological arguments for the existence of God require a possibility premise to the effect that a maximally perfect being is possible. Admitting the possibility of such a being may appear to be a minimal concession, but it is not given that the admission, together with the uncontroversial premise that a necessary being is one whose possibility entails its actuality, straightaway entails the actual existence of a maximally perfect being. The suspicion thus arises that the modal ontological argument begs the question at its possibility premise. So various philosophers, including J. N. Findlay, A.C. Ewing, John Leslie and Carl Kordig have attempted to support the possibility premise by broadly deontic considerations concerning what ought-to-be, where this ought-to-be subsists independently of the powers of any agent. The basic idea is that God, conceived as a maximally perfect being, is possible because (i) he ought to exist, and (ii) whatever ought to exist is possible. The basic idea is that the non-agential oughtness or axiological requiredness of the divine existence certifies the possibility and in turn the actuality of the divine existence. The overall argument could be described as a broadly deontic God proof along modal ontological lines. This article sets forth and defends the argument before explaining why it is not ultimately compelling.

Summer's Here

The morning's hike was in short pants and the afternoon's coffee was over ice.  Summer's here.  Snowbirds soon to depart.  Desert rats set to rejoice.

Is the Difference Between a Fact and Its Constituents a Brute Difference?

Note to Steven Nemes:  Tell me if you find this totally clear, and if not, point out what is unclear.  Tell me whether you accept my overall argument.

The day before yesterday in conversation Steven Nemes presented a challenge  I am not sure I can meet.  I have maintained (in my book, in published articles, and in these pages) that the difference between a fact and its constituents cannot be a brute difference and must therefore have a ground or explanation.  But what exactly is my reasoning?

Consider a simple atomic fact of the form, a's being F.  This fact has two primary constituents, the individual a, and the monadic property F-ness, which a possesses contingently.  But surely there is more to the fact than these two primary constituents, and for at least two reasons.  I'll  mention just one, which I consider decisive:  the constituents can exist without the fact  existing.  The individual and the property could each exist without the former exemplifying the second.  This is so even if we assume that there are no propertyless individuals and no unexemplified properties.  Consider a world W which includes the facts Ga and Fb.  In W, a is propertied and F-ness is exemplified; hence there is no bar to saying that both exist in W.  But Fa does not exist in W.  So a fact is more than its primary constituents because they can exist without it existing.

A fact is not its constituents, but those constituents unified in a particular way.  Now if you try to secure fact-unity by introducing  one or more secondary constituents such  an exemplification relation, then you will ignite Bradley's regress.  For if the constituents include a, F-ness, and EX, then you still have the problem of their unity since the three can exist without constituting a fact.

So I take it as established that a fact is more than its constituents and therefore different from its constituents.  A fact is different from any one of its constituents, and also from all of them taken collectively, as a mereological sum, say.    The question is:  What is the ontological ground of the difference?  What is it that makes them different?  That they are different is plain.  I want to know what makes them different.  It won't do to say that one is a fact while the other is not since that simply underscores that they are different.  I'm on the hunt for a difference-maker.

To feel the force of the question consider what makes two different sets different.  If S1 and S2 are different sets, then it is reasonable to ask what makes them different, and one would presumably not accept the answer that they are just different, that the difference is a brute difference.  Let S1 be my singleton and S2 the set consisting of me and Nemes.  It would not do to say that they are just different.  We need a difference-maker.  In this case it is easy to specify: Nemes.  He is what makes S1 different from S2.  Both sets contain me, but only one contains him.  Generalizing, we can say that for sets at least,

DM. No difference without a difference-maker.

So I could argue that the difference between a fact and (the sum of) its constituents cannot be a brute difference because (i) there is no difference without a difference-maker and (ii) facts, sets, and sums, being complexes, are relevantly similar.  (I needn't hold that the numerical difference of two simples needs a difference-maker.) But why accept (DM) in full generality as applying to all types of wholes and parts?  Perhaps the principle, while applying to sets, does not apply to facts and their constituents.  How do I answer the person who argues that the difference is brute, a factum brutum, and that therefore (DM), taken in full generality, is false?  As we say in the trade, one man's modus ponens is another's modus tollens.

Can I show that there is a logical contradiction in maintaining that facts and their constituents just differ?  That was my strategy in the book on existence.  The strategy is to argue that without an external ground of unity -- an external unifer -- one lands in a contradiction, or rather cannot avoid a contradiction.  That the unifier, if there is one, must be external as opposed to internal is established by showing that otherwise a vicious infinite regress ensues of the Bradley-type.  I cover this ground in my book and in articles in mind-numbing detail; I cannot go over it again here.  But I will refer the reader to my 2010 Dialectica article  which discusses a fascinating proposal according to which unity is constituted by an internal infinite, but nonvicious, regress.  But for now I assume that the unifier, if there is one, must be external.  If there is one, then the difference between a fact and its constituents cannot be brute.  But why must there be a unifier?

Consider this aporetic triad:

1. Facts exist.
2. A fact is its constituents taken collectively.
3. A fact is not its constituents taken collectively.

What I want to argue is that facts exist, but that they are contradictory structures in the absence of an external unifier that removes the contradiction.  Since Nemes agrees with me about (1), I assume it for present purposes.  (The justification is via the truth-maker argument).

Note that (2) and (3) are logical contradictories, and yet each exerts a strong claim on our acceptance.  I have already argued for (3).  But (2) is also exceedingly plausible.  For if you  analyze a fact, what will you uncover?  Its constituents and nothing besides.  The unity of the constituents whereby it is a fact as opposed to a nonfact like a mereological sum eludes analysis.  The unity cannot be isolated or located within the fact.  For to locate it within the fact you would have to find it as one of the constituents.  And that you cannot do.

Note also that unity is not perceivable or in any way empirically detectable.  Consider a simple Bergmann-style or 'Iowa' example, a red round spot.  The redness and the roundness are perceivable, and the spot is perceivable.  But the spot's being red and round is not perceivable.  The existence of a fact is the unity of its constituents.  So what I am claiming is equivalent to claiming that existence is not perceivable, which seems right: existence is not an empirical feature like redness and roundness.

So when we consider a fact by itself, there seems to be nothing more to it than its constituents.

Each limb of the triad has  a strong claim on our acceptance, but they cannot all be true as formulated.  The contradiction can be removed if we ascend to a higher point of view and posit an external unifier.  What does that mean? 

Well, suppose there is a unifier U external to the fact and thus not identifiable with one or more of its primary or secondary constituents.  Suppose U brings together the constituents in the fact-making way.  U would then be the sought-for ground of the fact's unity.  The difference between a fact and its constituents could then be explained by saying that  the difference is due to U's 'activity':  U operates on the constituents to produce the fact.  Our original triad can then be replaced by the following all of whose limbs can be true:

1. Facts exist
2*. A fact, considered analytically, is its constituents taken collectively.
3.  A fact is not its constituents taken collectively.

This triad is consistent.  The limbs can all be true.  And I think we have excellent reason to say that each IS true.  The truthmaker argument vouches for (1).  (2*) looks to be true by definition.  The argumentation I gave for (3) above strikes me as well-night irresistible.

But if you accept the limbs of the modified triad, then you must accept that there is something external to facts which functions as their unifier.  Difficult questions about what U is and about whether U is unique and the same for all facts remain; but that U exists is 'fallout' from the modified triad.  For if each limb is true, then a fact's being more than its constituents can be accounted for only by appeal to an external unifier.

But how exactly does this show that the difference between a fact and its constituents is not a brute difference?   The move from the original to the modified triad is motivated by the laudable desire to avoid contradiction.  So my argument boils down to this:  If the difference is brute, then we get a logical contradiction. So the difference is not brute. 

But it all depends on whether or not there are facts.  If facts can be reasonably denied, then my reasoning to a unifer can be reasonably rejected.  But that's a whole other can of worms: the truthmaker argument.

Analytically considered, a fact is just its constituents.  But holistically considered it is not.  Unity eludes analysis, and yet without unities there would be nothing to analyze!  Analytic understanding operates under the aegis of two distinctions: whole/part, and complex/simple.  Analysis generates insight by reducing wholes to their parts, and complex parts to simpler and simpler parts, and possibly right down to ultimate simples (assuming that complexity does not extend 'all the way down.')  But analysis is a onesided epistemic procedure.  For again, without unities there would be nothing to analyze. To understand the being-unified of a unity therefore requires that we ascend to a  point of view external to the unity under analysis. 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Baez Sings Dylan

Can't abide the sound of Dylan's voice?  Then give a listen to some angel-throated Joan Baez renditions.  North Country Blues.  Boots of Spanish Leather.    Daddy, You've Been On My Mind.  It's All Over Now Baby Blue.  Forever Young.

'Practical' and Religious Attitudes Toward Philosophy

Philosophy is unserious to the onesidedly worldly and 'practical' because it bakes no bread. To which the best response is: "Man does not live by bread alone." 

To the onesidedly religious, philosophy is unserious because it begets pride and does not lead unto salvation. "Not worth an hour's trouble," said Pascal with Descartes in his sights. Both types, the worldly and the religious, dismiss philosophy as 'mere theory' and 'empty speculation' but for opposite reasons. 

Strangely enough, both types make use of it when it suits their purposes. Each justifies his own position philosophically. How else could he justify it? Assertions and arguments about philosophy are philosophical assertions and arguments -- and it cannot be otherwise. Such assertions and arguments cannot come from below philosophy, nor can they come from above it: metaphilosophy is a branch of philosophy.

Blaise Pascal wrote a big fat book of Pensées -- and a magnificent book it was. But why did he bother if philosophy is not worth an hour's trouble? Because he made an exception in his own case: his philosophy, he felt, was different! Well, all philosophers feel that way. All feel themselves to be questing for the truth as for something precious, even when they, like Nietzsche, say things that imply that there is no truth. None feel themselves to be engaged in 'empty speculation' or 'mental masturbation' or 'meaningless abstraction.'

One of the curious things about fair Philosophia is that you cannot outflank her, and you cannot shake her off. She outflanks all would-be outflankers. Ultimate dominatrix that she is, she always ends up on top. So you'd better learn to live with her and her acolytes.

Not Brute Enough

There is the fear that one is not brute enough, not animal enough for this brutal world, a world in which nobility, refinement, kindness, objectivity, reasonableness, impersonal pursuit of truth and justice are perceived as weakness, and brute force, tribalism, onesidedness, and blind loyalty to one's own are admired.

Of Kripke, Kuhn, and the "Ashtray Variant" of the Argumentum Ad Baculum

Very interesting in what it says about human nature.  (HT: Peter Lupu)

Muslim Groups Fomenting Hysteria over Rep. Pete King Hearings

Brace yourself for the crapload of liberal-left blather sure to inundate us  over the 'McCarthyism' of the Pete King investigation.  Hats off to Pete King, a true profile in courage, who stands up to militant Islam and its liberal-left enablers.  Here is Steven Emerson, an expert commentator on these matters (emphasis added):

The line of attack is now familiar: If King (R-L.I.) were truly interested in violent extremism, his hearings would focus on a wide range of groups that wreak havoc on America, including neo-Nazis and others; by focusing solely on Muslim extremism, the argument goes, he is betraying his bias.

This is utterly ridiculous. Our organization, the Investigative Project on Terrorism, recently did an analysis of all terrorism convictions based on statistics released by the Justice Department. These stats show that more than 80% of all convictions tied to international terrorist groups and homegrown terrorism since 9/11 involve defendants driven by a radical Islamist agenda. Though Muslims represent less than 1% of the American population, they constitute defendants in 186 of the 228 cases the Justice Department lists.

The figures confirm that there is a disproportionate problem of Islamic militancy and terrorism among the American Muslim population.

Read it all!  And political correctness be damned. 

Univocity, Equivocity, and the MOB Doctrine

Here is another argument that may be banging around in the back of the heads of those who are hostile to the doctrine that there are modes of being, the MOB doctrine to give it a name:

1. If there are modes of existence, then 'exist(s)' is not univocal.
2. If 'exist(s)' is not univocal, then it is equivocal.
3. If 'exists(s)' is equivocal, then existents are partitioned into separate and unrelatable domains.
4. It is not the case that existents are partitioned into separate and unrelatable domains.
Ergo
5. There are no modes of existence.

I believe that this argument can be fairly imputed to Quentin Gibson. (See The Existence Principle, Kluwer 1998, p. 26 et passim) Of course, the above is my reconstruction; he is nowhere near as clear as I am being. 

The argument is seductive but unsound.  (2) is false: if a term is not univocal it does not follow that it is equivocal in the sense of 'equivocal' needed to make (3) true.   I believe I have already demonstrated this.  'Exists(s)' is not univocal as between

6. Jewish philosophers exist
and
7. Kripke exists.

But it doesn't follow from this lack of univocity that we have sheer equivocity of the river bank /financial bank sort.  (6) makes an instantiation claim while (7) doesn't.  'Exist' in (6) is a second-level predicate while in (7) 'exists' is a first-level predicate.  So the predicate is used to say different things of different things.  In (6) being-instantiated, but not singular existence,  is being predicated of the concept Jewish philosopher.  In (7) singular exsistence, but not being-instantiated, is being predicated of Kripke.

And yet there is a systematic connection between the two sentences and the two senses of 'exist(s).'  If a first-level concept 'exists,' i.e., is instantiated, then it is instantiated by an individual that exists.  And if an individual exists, then there is some concept it instantiates.

Call this equivocity if you like, but it is not the sort of equivocity that has the unacceptable consequence that is recorded in the consequent of (3).  It doesn't lead to a partitioning of existents into separate and unrelatable domains.

Or take the substance/accident case.  Substances exist and accidents exist.  If so, they exist in different ways.  Or so say I.  Accidents exist-in substances while substances do not.  Does 'exist(s)' have two different senses as applied to substances and accidents?  Yes, but they are connected senses.  So it doesn't follow from this lack of univocity that substances and accidents belong in separate and unrelatable domains.  Quite the contrary!  It is precisely because they exist in different ways that we can render intelligible how they are related.

We are drifting in the direction of the old analogia entis.  I can feel it.

National Public Radio Needs Your Support!

If you like NPR programming, as I like some of  it, write them a check!  Just don't demand that they receive taxpayer support.  At least not now.  We are in fiscal crisis, and budgetary cuts must be made.  If such inessentials as NPR, PBS, NEH and NEA cannot be defunded, where will the cuts be made?  Think about it.  If these small allocations cannot be zeroed out or placed on moratorium, how are we going to tackle entitlement reform?

So one good reason to defund NPR is that we cannot afford it.

Some think that a refusal of sponsorship amounts to censorship.  But that is stupidity pure and simple and duly refuted here.

But even if we could afford it, NPR in its present configuration should not receive Federal support.  And this for the simple reason that it is plainly a propaganda arm of the Left.  Now that should be obvious to anyone who has been following current events, including the firing of Juan Williams, the exposure and sacking of the two Schillers, etc.  If you deny the Leftward tilt of NPR in its present incarnation, then you are delusional and not worth talking to.  So let's assume that you are sane and admit the bias.  The next question is whether you think it is morally right that tax dollars be used to push points of view that most of us in this conservative land find objectionable.  I say that it it is not morally right that you take my money by force and then use it for a purpose that is not only inessential and unconnected to the necessary functions of government, but also violates my beliefs.

Perhaps, if NPR were balanced like C-SPAN, it could be tolerated in times of plenty.  But we are not in times of plenty and it is not balanced.

So that is my second reason for defunding NPR. 

Note that a reasonable liberal could accept my two reasons.  I am not arguing that government must not engage in any projects other than those that are strictly essential such as those connected to the protection of life, liberty, and property (the Lockean triad).  I leave that question open for the space of this post.  I am arguing that present facts dictate that defunding NPR is something we ought to do. 

I love Garrison Keillor and his "Prarie Home Companion" and tune in whenever I can.  "Guy Noir" is one of my favorite bits.  So I hope NPR stays on the air -- on its own fiscal steam.  Hell, if they wean themselves from the  mammaries of massive Mama Obama Government I may even send them a check myself!  And the same goes for PBS. 

Sponsorship and Censorship

Lefties often conflate lack of sponsorship with censorship when it suits them. It is not that they are too dense to grasp the distinction, but that they willfully ignore it for their ideological purposes. If a government agency refuses to sponsor your art project, it does not follow that you are being censored. To censor is to suppress. But there is nothing suppressive about a refusal to fund.

If you are a serious artist, you will find a way to satisfy your muse. On the other hand, if you expect to dip into the public trough, be prepared to find some strings attached to your grant. Don't expect the tax dollars of truck drivers and waitresses to subsidize your violation of their beliefs.

More on Social Security as Welfare

In an earlier post I pointed out against Robert Samuelson that Social Security (SS), though in ways  like a welfare scheme, is not a welfare scheme.  Others are chiming in with Samuelson:

Social Security is a welfare program masquerading as an insurance program. People may think of it as forced savings, but that isn't how the program really works.

The trust fund and individual account aspects of Social Security are accounting gimmicks. The payroll taxes we pay in are not really saved for our retirements. They are already paying for the benefits of the current retirees. When we retire, if we are very lucky, we will live off the payroll taxes of the poor working stiffs who remain. The trust fund is stuffed with IOUs; the government has already spent the surpluses. Al Gore's lock box has been picked. Millions continue to draw benefits after they've already gotten back everything they paid in plus interest.

The second paragraph is wholly unexceptionable.  But consider the fact that to be eligible for SS benefits, a worker must have completed 40 quarters of employment.  That fact alone suffices to make it literally false that SS is a welfare program.  Add to it the fact that the amount paid out also reflects how long one has been employed and what one's level of compensation has been.  So although it is true that SS is like a welfare program in the ways Samuelson mentions, it is not, strictly  speaking, a welfare scheme.

Language matters.  Precision matters.  And if not here, where?  If you say what you know to be false for rhetorical effect then you undermine your credibility among those who you need to persuade.  Conservatives don't need to persuade conservatives, and they will not be able to persuade leftists.  They must pitch their message to the undecided who, if rational, will be put off by sloppy rhetoric and exaggeration.

I note that W. James Antle, III, the author of the linked article, refers to the SS system as "the liberals' Ponzi scheme."  But of course it is not a Ponzi scheme.  A Ponzi scheme, by definition, is a scheme set up with the intention of defrauding people for the benefit of those running the scheme.  But there is nothing fraudulent about the SS sytem: the intentions behind it are good ones!  The SS system is no doubt in dire need of reform if not outright elimination.  But no good purpose is achieved by calling it a Ponzi scheme.  That's either a lie or an exaggeration.  Not good, either way.  The most you can say is that it is like a Ponzi scheme in being fiscally unsustainable as currently structured.

Conservative exaggeration is politically foolish.  Is it not folly to give ammo to the enemy?  Is it not folly to choose a means (exaggeration and distortion) that is not conducive  to the end (garnering support among the presently uncommitted)?

Equality and Quality

Enforced equality issues in lower quality. 

Liberal-Left Bias Among the Social Psychologists

Here.  Excerpts, with emphases and a couple of comments by MavPhil.

Let's look at the 3 very liberal social sciences: anthropology, sociology, and psychology. These 3 fields have always leaned left, but things really changed in the 1960s. The civil rights struggle, the brutality inflicted upon peaceful marchers, the Viet Nam war, the assassinations of black leaders... Racial injustice in America was overwhelming, highly visible, and for many people, revolting. The generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s was profoundly shaped by these experiences. 

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

"Remember, man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. This warning, from the Catholic liturgy for Ash Wednesday, is based on Genesis 3, 19: In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris.

How real can we and this world be if in a little while we all will be nothing but dust and ashes?

     Our plesance here is all vain glory,
     This fals world is but transitory,
     The flesche is brukle, the Feynd is slee;
     Timor mortis conturbat me.

     No stait in Erd here standis sicker;
     As with the wynd wavis the wicker,
     Wavis this wardlis vanitie;
     Timor mortis conturbat me.

     (William Dunbar c. 1460 -- c. 1520, from "Lament for the Makers.")

     Here lie I by the chancel door;
     They put me here because I was poor.
     The further in, the more you pay,
     But here lie I as snug as they.

     (Devon tombstone.)

     Here lies Piron, a complete nullibiety,
     Not even a Fellow of a Learned Society.

     Alexis Piron, 1689-1773, "My Epitaph"

     Why hoard your maidenhead? There'll not be found
     A lad to love you, girl, under the ground.
     Love's joys are for the quick; but when we're dead
     It's dust and ashes, girl, will go to bed.

     (Asclepiades, fl. 290 B.C., tr. R. A. Furness)

     The world, perhaps, does not see that those who rightly engage in
     philosophy study only death and dying. And, if this be true, it
     would surely be strange for a man all through his life to desire
     only death, and then, when death comes to him, to be vexed at it,
     when it has been his study and his desire for so long.

     Plato, Phaedo, St. 64, tr. F. J. Church

The Foolishness of Envy

You envy me?  What a wretch you must be to feel diminished in your sense of self-worth by comparison to me!  I have something you lack?  Why isn't that compensated for by what you have that I lack?  You feel bad that I have achieved something by my hard work?  Don't you realize that you waste time and energy by comparing yourself to me, time and energy that could be used to improve your own lot?

Do you think you can add one cubit to your stature by tearing me down?  Have you never heard The Parable of the Tree and the House?

You ought to feel bad, not that I do well, but that you are so willfully stupid.  Vices vitiate; they weaken.  You weaken yourself and make yourself even more of a wretch by indulging in envy.

Companion posts:  Envy, Jealousy, Schadenfreude.  Schadenfreude With a Twist

The Great Use of a Life

"The great use of a life is to spend it for something that outlasts it." (William James)

A Divine Activity

Philosophy is a divine activity because only a god has the time and the peace of mind for it. The full-time mortal, embroiled in the flux and shove of material life, is too much in need of guiding convictions to be much of a pursuer of the impersonal truth.

In auspicious circumstances, with the right interlocutors, or embraced in the bliss of solitude, the mortal ascends for a time into the ether of pure thought and becomes for a time a god, a part-time god.

But although philosophy is god-like, God himself has no need for it.  Wisdom itself, in plenary possession of itself, needn't seek itself. It is itself.

De Dicto/De Re

In the course of thinking about the de dicto/de re distinction, I pulled the Oxford Companion to Philosophy from the shelf and read the eponymous entry. After being told that the distinction "seems to have first surfaced explicitly in Abelard," I was then informed that the distinction occurs:

     . . . in two main forms: picking out the difference between a
     sentential operator and a predicate operator, between 'necessarily
     (Fa)' and 'a is (necessarily-F)' on the one hand, and on the other
     as a way of highlighting the scope fallacy in treating necessarily
     (if p then q) as if it were (if p then necessarily-q).

It seems to me that this explanation leaves something to be desired. I have no beef with the notion that the first distinction is an example of a de dicto/de re distinction. To say of a dictum that it is   necessarily true if true is different from saying of a thing (res) that it has a property necessarily. Suppose a exists in some, but not all, possible worlds, and that a is F in every possible world in which it exists. Then a is necessarily F, F in every possible world in which it exists. But since there are possible worlds in which a does not exist, then it will be false that 'a is F' is necessarily true, true
in all possible worlds.  So the de dicto 'Necessarily, a is F' is distinct from the de re 'a is necessarily F.'

So far, so good. But the distinction between

1. Nec (if p then q)

   and

2. If p, then Nec q

is situated entirely on the de dicto plane, the plane of dicta or propositions. The distinction between (1) and (2) is the well-known  distinction between necessitas consequentiae and necessitas consequentiis. To confuse (1) and (2) is to confuse the necessity of the consequence with the necessity of the consequent. Or you could think of the mistake as a scope fallacy: the necessity operator in (1) has wide scope whereas the operator in (2) has narrow scope. But what makes (2) de re? What is the res in question? Consider an example:

3. Necessarily, if a person takes Enalapril, then he takes an ACE inhibitor

does not entail

4. If a person takes Enalapril, then necessarily he takes an ACE  inhibitor.

A second example:

5. Necessarily, if something happens, then something happens

does not entail

6. If something happens, then necessarily something happens.

It can't be that easy to prove fatalism. The point, however, is that the distinction between (5) and (6) does not trade on the distinction between dicta and rei, between propositions and non-propositions: the  distinction is one of the scope of a propositional operator.  Our author thus seems wrongly to assimilate the above scope fallacy to a de dicto/de re confusion.

I conclude that the de dicto/de re distinction is a bit of a terminological mess. And note that it is a mess even when confined to the modal context as demonstrated above. If we try to apply the  distinction univocally across modal, doxastic, temporal, and other  contexts we can expect an even bigger mess. A fit topic for a future  post.

Terminological fluidity is a problem in philosophy.  It always has been and always will be.  For attempts at regimentation and standardization harbor philosophical assumptions and biases -- which are themselves fit fodder for philosophical scrutiny.

Cf. Notes on Philosophical Terminology and its Fluidity

Russellian Propositions and the 'He Himself' Locution

Commenting on an earlier post of mine, Peter Lupu brought up some themes from David Kaplan which were not quite relevant but interesting nonetheless.   In my response I pointed out that Kaplan is committed to Russellian (R) as opposed to Fregean (F) propositions whereas the problem I had posed presupposes that propositions are Fregean.  In this post I will do three things.  I will first explain the difference between R- and F-propositions and give an argument against R-propositions.  Then I will explain the 'he himself' locution which Hector-Neri Castaneda brought to our attention back in the '60s.  Finally, I will explain how the 'he himself' locution is further evidence that propositions cannot be Russellian.  And since propositions cannot be Russellian, they cannot be introduced in solution of the problem I raised in the earlier post.

Russellian Versus Fregean Propositions

1. One issue in the philosophy of language is whether singular terms (including pure indexicals, demonstratives, proper names) refer directly or whether they refer via some descriptive meaning that they encapsulate.  The issue is not whether a word like 'I' -- the first-person singular pronoun used indexically, not the Roman numeral or the first-person pronoun used nonindexically -- has a meaning apart from its reference.  Of course it does.  The meaning of 'I' -- its character in Kaplan's jargon -- is given by the rule that uttered tokens of 'I' refer to the speaker.  The issue is whether the reference of a singular term is routed through its descriptive meaning.  For example, when Tom says 'I' he refers to Tom.  But is Tom's self-reference routed through any descriptive meaning of 'I'? It should be obvious that Tom's use of 'I' does not target Tom specifically in virtue of the Kaplanian content of 'I.'  For that is quite general.  So if there is a sense of 'I' that mediates Tom's self-reference, it will have to be a special 'I'-sense, a special mode of presentation (Frege:  Darstellungsweise). 

Now if there are terms that refer directly, without the mediation of a Fregean sense (Sinn), then the sentences in which such terms occur express Russellian propositions.  R-propositions involve individuals directly rather than indirectly by way of an abstract representative as in F-propositions.  So if 'Tom is tall' expresses an R-proposition, then Tom himself, all 200 lbs of him, is a constituent of the proposition, along with the property that the sentence predicates of him.  Such a proposition could be represented as an ordered pair the first member of which is Tom and the second the property of being tall.  But if the sentence  expresses an F-proposition, then Tom himself is not a constituent of it. Instead, the sense of 'Tom' goes proxy for Tom in the F-proposition.

Suppose t is a directly referential term in a sentence S.  T may or may not have a meaning apart from its reference.  If S expresses a Russellian-Kaplanian proposition, then the meaning of t -- if there is one -- is not a constituent of the propositional content of S:  the constituent of the propositional content of S, corresponding to t, is simply the referent  of t.

2.  That there are propositions I take for granted.  We may introduce them  by saying that they are the bearers of the truth-values.  But this leaves open whether they are Russellian or Fregean.  I think there is a good metaphysical reason for not countenancing R-propositions.

3. The metaphysical reason has to do with false R-propositions.  Given that 'Tom is tall' is true, it doesn't strike me as problematic to say that the world contains, in addition to Tom and the property of being tall, Tom's being tall.  But then  'Tom is short ' is false.  If 'Tom is tall' expresses an R-proposition, then so does 'Tom is short.'  But then the world contains, in addition to Tom and the property of being short, a further entity Tom's being short which has Tom himself as a constituent.  And that does strike me as very problematic.  (And it struck Russell that way too, which is why Russell abandoned Russellian propositions!) For if Tom does not exemplify shortness, then there simply is no such entity as Tom's being short. In other words I have no problem accepting facts such as Tom's being tall assuming that all facts obtain.  But nonobtaining facts such as Tom's being short are a metaphysical monstrosity. 

The 'He Himself' Locution 

4. Castaneda pointed out that one cannot validly move from

1. X judges x to be F
to
2. X judges himself to be F.

(2) entails (1), but (1) does not entail (2).  Unbeknownst to me, a certain document I am inspecting was written by me long ago.  It is possible that I conclude that the author of the document was confused without concluding that I was confused.  (Example adapted from Chisholm.)  In this situation I am an x such that x judges x to be confused, but I am not an x such that x judges himself to be confused.

Given that I am x, there is no distinction between the Russellian proposition which is x's being confused and the one which is my being confused.  For the two R-propositions have the all the same constituents. If propositions are Russellian, then we have to say that 'x judges x to be confused' and 'x judges himself to be confused' express the same proposition.  But obviously they don't.  So propositions aren't Russellian.  Or is that too quick?