Maverick Philosopher

Dershowitz Contra Leiter

Here

'Hylemorphic' or 'Hylomorphic'?

Here is a question for those of you  who champion the linguistic innovation, 'hylemorphic.'  Will you also write 'morphelogical' and 'morphelogy'?  If not, why not?

'Morphology' is superior to 'morphelogy' in point of euphony.  For the same reason, 'hylomorphic' is superior to 'hylemorphic.'

But even if you disagree with my last point, you still have to explain why you don't apply your principle consistently.

Why don't you write and say 'morphelogy,' 'epistemelogy,' 'gelogy' (instead of 'geology'), etc.?

We linguistic conservatives are not opposed to change, but we are opposed to unnecessary changes.  "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Addendum (8 April 2014)

Patrick Toner writes:

Loved your post on the spelling of hylemorphism.  I must disagree on the charge that the 'e' spelling is a novelty.  I say this without any firsthand evidence.  But Gideon Manning has a paper that covers the appearance of the term.  According to him it showed up in English in 1888.  By 1907, at least, there is an 'e' spelling of the term, in the translation of some scholastic volume into English.  (DeWulf, maybe?)  So both spellings go back almost all the way to the origin of the term in English.  Manning himself uses the o spelling, but claims both are legitimate. 

I make or imply essentially three claims in my post.  The first is that the use of 'hylemorphism' is an innovation.  I now see thanks to Toner that this claim is mistaken.  So I withdraw it.  The second claim is that 'hylomorphism' is superior to 'hylemorphism' in point of eupohony.  I stick by this claim, though I admit it is somewhat subjective: one man's euphony is, if not another man's cacophany, then at least the other's non-euphony.  The third claim is that the fans of 'hylemorphism' and cognates do not apply their principle consistently.  For as far as I know they do not go on to say and write 'epistemelogy,' etc. 

Here is a fourth point.  Although the use of 'hylemorphism' and cognates is not wrong, and is not an absolute innovation (as Manning documents), it does diverge from the more common use at the present time.  So what is the point of this relative innovation? 

Am I missing something?

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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Los Angeles Bands

Buffalo Springfield, Blue Bird.  Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing. (Features a time signature change.)

Dick Dale and the Deltones, Misirlou.  Before Clapton, before Bloomfield, my first guitar hero.  "King of the Surf Guitar."  Pipeline (with Stevie Ray Vaughan).  Nitro (with So Cal scenes).  Let's Go Trippin', 1961.  The first surf instrumental?

Beach Boys, Don't Worry Baby 

Little Feat, Willin'

Los Lobos, La Bamba

Doors, Riders on the Storm.  L. A. Woman

Byrds, Chimes of Freedom.  Dylan's greatest anthem?

Eagles, Life in the Fast Lane.  Take It Easy.  Standin' on the corner in Winslow, Arizona/Such a fine sight to see/ A girl my Lord in a flat bed Ford/Slowin' down to take a look at me.

 

 

Infinite Regresses: Vicious and Benign

A reader asks: 

   Are all infinite regresses (regressions?) vicious? Why the pejorative
   label? Of the many things I don't understand, this must be near the
   top of my list, and it's an ignorance that dates back to my undergrad
   Intro to Philosophy days. When I first read the Thomistic cosmological
   proofs, I found myself wondering why Aquinas had such trouble
   countenancing the possibility that, as the lady says, "it's turtles
   all the way down."

   Without a first, there can't be a second... so what? It doesn't follow
   that there must be a first element to a series. What makes a
   temporally infinite series (of moments, causes/effects, etc.)
   impossible?

No, not all infinite regresses are vicious. Some are, if not 'virtuous,' at least innocuous or benign. The term 'benign' is standardly used. The truth regress is an example of a benign infinite regress. Let p be any true proposition. And let 'T' stand for the operator 'It is true that ( ).' Clearly, p entails T(p). For example, *Snow is white* entails *It is true that snow is white.*  The operation is iterable. So T(p) entails T(T(p)). And so on, ad infinitum or ad indefinitum if you  prefer. The resulting infinite series is  unproblematic. Whether you call this a progression or a regression, it doesn't cause any conceptual trouble.  Nor does it matter whether you think that infinity is potential only, or hold to actual infinities.  Either way, the truth regress is a nice clear example of an infinite regress that is benign.

So some infinite regresses are benign.

Setting aside the lady and her turtles, suppose, contrary to current cosmology, that the universe has an infinite past, and that each phase of the universe is caused by an earlier phase. Suppose further that there is nothing problematic in the notion of an actual (as opposed to potential) infinity, and that there is a good answer to the question of how, given the actual infinity of the past, we ever arrived at the present moment. Granting all that, the infinite regress of causes is benign.

But note that one cannot explain why the universe exists by saying that it always existed. For even if there is no time at which it did not exist, there remains the question why it exists at all. The universe is contingent: it might not have existed. So even if it exists at every time with earlier phases causing later phases,  that does not explain why it exists at all.

To say that the universe always existed is to say that it has no temporal beginning, no temporally first cause. But this gives no  answer to the question why this temporally beginningless universe exists in the first place. 

Here is where the theist invokes God. God is the ontologically, not temporally,  first cause.  Now if Mill asks, "But what causes God?" the answer is that God is a necessary being. If God were a contingent being, then a vicious infinite regress would arise. For one cannot get an ultimate  explanation of U if one invokes a contingent G. And if there were an  infinite regress of Gs, the whole series would be without ultimate explanation.  Thts is true whether the regress is potentially infinite or actually infinite.

If we compare the truth regress with the regress just mentioned, we can perhaps see what makes the latter vicious.  The viciousness consists in the failure to satisfy the need for an explanation.  P if and only it is true that p.  No one will take either side of this biconditional as explaining the other.  But explanation comes in when you ask why the universe U exists.  If you say that U exists because G caused it to exist, then you can reasonably ask: what caused G?  The classical answer is that G is causa sui, i.e., a necessary being.  The buck stops here.  If, on the other hand, you say that G is contingent, then it cannot be causa sui, in which case the regress is up and running.  Because the explanatory demand cannot be satisfied by embarking upon the regress, the regress is said to be vicious.

To answer the reader's  question, there is perhaps nothing vicious about a temporally infinite regress of empirical causes. But that gives us no explanation of why a temporally infinite universe exists in the first place.

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On Infinitely Regressive Explanations of the Universe's Existence

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Causation, Existence, and the Modified Leibniz Question

The Terms of Our Surrender

This Douthat essay is especially relevant in the wake of Mozilla CEO Eich's resignation.

Is Divine Simplicity Compatible with Creaturely Freedom?

I pose a problem, offer without endorsing a solution, and then evaluate Paul Manata's objection to the solution.

Suppose a creaturely agent freely performs an action A.  He files his tax return, say, by the April 15th deadline.  Suppose that the freedom involved is not the compatibilist "freedom of the turnspit" (to borrow Kant's derisive phrase) but the robust freedom that implies both that the agent is the unsourced source of the action and that the agent could have done otherwise.  The performance of A makes true a number of contingent propositions, all of them known by God in his omniscience.  Now if S knows that p, and p is contingent, then S's knowing that p is an accidental (as opposed to essential) property of S.  If God is omniscient, then he knows every (non-indexical) truth, including every contingent truth. It seems to follow that God has at least as many accidental properties as there are contingent truths.  Surely some of these are not properties with which God could be identical, as the simplicity doctrine  requires. 

Consider  the property of  knowing that Tom freely files his tax return on April 14th, 2014.  Assuming that Tom actually performs the action in question, this property is an intrinsic  property contingently had by God.  (A property can be intrinsic without being accidental.)  If God were identical to this property, then he could not be a se.  For if God were identical to the property, then God would be dependent on something -- Tom's libertarianly free action -- that is external to God and beyond his control.  Now anything that compromises the divine aseity will compromise the divine simplicity, the latter being an entailment of  the former.  So it seems that an omniscient God cannot be simple if there are free creaturely agents.

 The problem is expressible as an aporetic triad:

1. Every free agent is a libertarianly-free (L-free) agent.

2. God is ontologically simple (where simplicity is an entailment of aseity and vice versa).

3. There are contingent items of divine all-knowledge that do not (wholly) depend on divine creation, but do (partially) depend on creaturely freedom.

Each limb of the above triad has a strong, though not irresistible, claim on a classical theist's acceptance.   As for (1), if God is L-free, as he must be on classical theism, then it is reasonable to maintain that every free agent is L-free.  For if  'could have done otherwise' is an essential ingredient in the analysis of 'Agent A freely performs action X,' then it is highly plausible to maintain that this is so whether the agent is God or Socrates.  Otherwise, 'free' will means something different in the two cases.  Furthermore, if man is made in the image and likeness of God, then surely part of what this means is that man is a spiritual being who is libertarianly free just as God is.  If a man is a deterministic system, then one wonders in what sense man is in the image of God. 

As for (2), some reasons were given earlier for  thinking that a theism that understands itself must uphold God's ontological simplicity inasmuch as it is implied by the divine aseity. 

An example of (3) is Oswald's shooting of Kennedy.   The act was freely performed by Oswald, and the proposition that records it is a contingent truth known by God in his omniscience.

But although each of (1)-(3) is plausibly maintained and is typically maintained by theists who uphold the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS), they cannot all be true.  Therein resides the problem.  Any two limbs imply the negation of the third.  Thus:  (1) & (3) --> ~(2); (1) & (2) --> ~(3); (2) & (3) --> ~(1). 

To illustrate, let us consider how (1) and (3), taken together, entail the negation of (2).  Being omniscient, God knows that Oswald freely chose to kill Kennedy.   But Oswald's L-freedom precludes us from saying that God's knowledge of this contingent fact depends solely on the divine will.  For it also depends on Oswald's L-free authorship of his evil deed, an authorship that God cannot prevent or override once he has created L-free agents.  But this is inconsistent with the divine aseity.  For to say that God is a se is to say that God is not dependent on anything distinct from himself for his existence or intrinsic properties.   But God has the property of being such that he knows that Oswald freely chose to kill Kennedy, and his having this property depends on something outside of God's control, namely, Oswald's L-free choice.  In this way the divine aseity is compromised, and with it the divine simplicity.

It seems, then, that our aporetic triad is an inconsistent triad.  The problem it represents can be solved by denying either (1) or (2) or (3).  Since (3) cannot be plausibly denied, this leaves (1) and (2).  Some will deny the divine simplicity.  But an upholder of the divine simplicity has the option of denying (1) and maintaining that, while God is L-free, creaturely agents are free only in a compatibilist sense.  If creaturely agents are C-free, but not L-free, then Oswald could not have done otherwise, and it is possible for the upholder of divine simplicity to say that that Oswald's C-free choice is no more a threat to the divine aseity than the fact that God knows the contingent truth that creaturely agents exist.  The latter is not a threat to the divine aseity because the existence of creaturely agents derives from God in a way that Oswald's L-free choice does not derive from God. 

The proposal, then, is that we abandon (1) and maintain instead that only God is L-free, creatures being all of them C-free.  And this despite the reasons adduced for accepting (1), reasons that are admittedly not absolutely compelling.  But Paul Manata, in an e-mail, raises an objection to the proposed solution:

I was wondering what you think about this argument that such a solution might not be possible. It goes like this:

Libertarian free will = Incompatibilism + someone is free (does a free action)

Compatibilism = determinism is true in some world w, and someone is free (does a free action) in w.

Incompatibilism = there does not exist a world, w, where determinism is true in w and someone is free (does a free act) in w.

With this quick set up, we can see that compatibilism and incompatibilism contradict each other (the former is scoped by '<>' and the later scoped by '~<>').

 

Thus, to affirm both <>(S is free in some w and determinism is true in w) and ~<>(S is free in some w and determinism is true in w) is not possible. But that is what the solution affirms, i.e., it affirms incompatibilism by affirming that God has LFW and it affirms compatibilism by affirming we have compatibilism freedom.

 

This was quick and there's more to say, but that's the gist of the idea. Thoughts?

 

The essence of Manata's criticism is that the above proposal issues in a contradiction inasmuch as it implies that incompatibilism and compatibilism are consistent, when they are obviously inconsistent.  For if God is L-free, then, given that God is a necessary being, God is L-free in every world, whence it follows (given Manata's definition of libertarian free will) that incompatibilism is true in every world.  But this is inconsistent with the claim that there is a world (such as the actual world) in which compatibilism is true.

 

This is a worthy and thought-provoking objection but perhaps it can be side-stepped if we  bear the following points in mind.  God is a supernatural agent.  As such, he is no part of the natural order.  He is rather the transcendent creator of that order.  Not being part of the natural order, he is not subject to nature's determinism if nature is deterministic.  Nor is God subject to nature's indeterminism if nature is indeterministic.  It follows that God's freedom is neither compatible with determinism nor incompatible with determinism.  Since God is transcendent of nature, the alternative does not arise for him.  Only creaturely freedom faces this alternative. 

 

Given the foregoing, we may define LFW as follows:

 

An agent X is libertarianly free =df X is the agent-cause of some of its actions.

 

This definition is neutral as between supernatural and natural agents.  Now suppose nature is deterministic and every creaturely agent is subject to this determinism.  Then the only way a creature could be free would be in the compatibilist sense.

 

The claim that free creatures are C-free seems logically consistent with the claim that God alone is L-free.

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Word of the Day: 'Yob'

I am now reading Juliet Macur's page-turner of a portrait of Lance Armstrong, entitled Cycle of Lies.  I found a review at The Guardian, and this sentence:

The picture of Armstrong that emerges from Neal's testimony is not a flattering one: he starts out a yob and his behaviour only degenerates.

Here is a definition of 'yob':

A thugish young male.

Sid Vicious was a yob...but, you know, people change...they get older, wiser...they mature...Sid's no longer a yob; he's dead.

'Yob' is British slang, whether it is exclusively British I don't know.  I first encountered the word today.  Some confidently assert that it is an example of 'back slang,' it being 'boy' spelled backwards.  Plausible.  Spelled backwards but presumably not pronounced backwards.  I'd guess it is pronounced like 'job.'

 

Maxim: Look up and memorize every unfamiliar word and phrase.  I am regularly appalled at the miserably impoverished vocabularies of most people.

 

Laying about are all these free tools of thought and expression, and people are too lazy to pick them up.

 

Language matters.

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Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong by Juliet Macur, book review

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A Local Call

George Bush, Queen Elizabeth, and Putin all die and go to hell.

While there, they spy a red phone and ask what the phone is for. The devil tells them it is for calling back to Earth. Putin asks to call Russia and talks for 5 minutes. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is a million dollars, so Putin writes him a check.

Next Queen Elizabeth calls England and talks for 30 minutes. When she is finished the devil informs her that the cost is 6 million dollars, so she writes him a check.

Finally George Bush gets his turn and talks for 4 hours. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is $5.00. When Putin hears this he goes ballistic and asks the devil why Bush got to call the USA so cheaply. The devil smiles and replies, "Since Obama took over, the country has gone to hell, so it's a local call."

(HT: Bill Keezer, source unknown, but see below.)

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Schopenhauer: Causa Prima and Causa Sui as Contradictiones in Adjecto

Schopenhauer, Über die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde (1813), sec. 20: 

. . . causa prima ist, eben so gut wie causa sui, eine contradictio in adjecto, obschon der erstere Ausdruck viel häufiger gebraucht wird, als der letztere, und auch mit ganz ernsthafter, sogar feierlicher Miene ausgesprochen zu werden pflegt, ja Manche, insonderheit Englische Reverends, recht erbaulich die Augen verdrehn, wenn sie, mit Emphase und Rührung, the first cause, — diese contradictio in adjecto, — aussprechen. Sie wissen es: eine erste Ursache ist gerade und genau so undenkbar, wie die Stelle, wo der Raum ein Ende hat, oder der Augenblick, da die Zeit einen Anfang nahm. Denn jede Ursache ist eine Veränderung, bei der man nach der ihr vorhergegangenen Veränderung, durch die sie herbeigeführt worden, notwendig fragen muß, und so in infinitum, in infinitum!

I quote this passage in German because I do not have the English at hand, but also because the pessimist's German is very beautiful and very clear, and closer to English than any other philosophical German I have ever read.

Schopenhauer's claim is that a first cause (causa prima) is unthinkable (undenkbar) because every cause is an alteration (Veränderung) which follows upon a preceding alteration. For if every cause is an alteration that follows upon a preceding alteration, then the series of causes is infinite in the past direction, and there is no temporally first cause.

And so 'first cause' is a contradictio in adiecto:  the adjective 'first' contradicts the noun 'cause.' Charitably interpreted, however, Schopenhauer is not making a semantic point about word meanings.  What he really wants to say is that the essence of causation is such as to disallow  both a temporally first cause and a logically/metaphysically first cause. There cannot be a temporally first cause because every cause is an alteration that follows upon a preceding alteration.   And there cannot be a logically/metaphysically first cause for the same reason: if every cause and effect is an alteration in a substance then no substance can be a cause or an effect. Causation is always and everywhere the causation of alterations in existing things by alterations in other existing things; it is never the causation of the existing of things.  For Schopenhauer, as I read him, the ultimate substrates of alterational change lie one and  all outside the causal nexus.  If so, there cannot be a causal explanation of the sheer existence of the world.

Here I impute to Schopenhauer the following argument:

1.  The relata of the causal relation are changes.
2.  Every change is an alteration.
3. Every alteration presupposes a substrate of alteration that does not change in respect of its existence and identity.
4. Some, but not all, substrates of alteration are non-ultimate, where a non-ultimate substrate is one whose coming into existence or passing out of existence is reducible to the alteration of  an already existing substrate or substrates; hence there must be ultimate substrates of alteration.
5. If there are ultimate substrates of alteration, then they do not come into existence or pass away.
6. Because changes occur, there are ultimate substrates of alteration.
7. There are ultimate substrates of change that do not come into existence or pass away, and are thus sempiternal. (5, 6)
8. The existence of these sempiternal substrata are at the basis of all causation.
Therefore
9. The existence of the ultimate substrata of change cannot have a cause, divine or otherwise.
Therefore
10. Cosmological arguments, presupposing as they do that causation of existence makes sense, are one and all unsound.

What can we say in critique of this argument? (2) may be questioned.   If every change is an alteration, then nothing can come into existence except by the alteration of some thing or things already in existence. That implies that there cannot be creation ex nihilo. But then Schopenhauer's argument may be said to beg the question against the theist at line (2) -- unless there is some independent way of supporting (2).

But is creation ex nihilo a change?  In what?  It cannot be a change in some stuff out of which God creates. For then the creation would not be ex nihilo.  God is not a demiurge.  Nor can it be a real change in God if God is unchanging.   One might just say that the creation out of nothing of contingent beings is a change in the way things are.  But this is tricky because this change would appear to have to be an atemporal change. There could be time without change, but how could there be change without time?

Consider the possible worlds in which no contingent beings exist and compare them with C, a world in which contingent beings exist.  Suppose God causes C to be actual.  Suppose further that C  -- like all worlds -- is a maximal Fregean proposition or a maximal Chisholmian state of affairs. Now we have a substrate of exnihilation, namely, the the maximal proposition or state of affairs C.  It is not that C is created, but that C is made actual.  But it is not as if C 'goes' from being unactual to being actual.  'Going' is a transition, and transition takes time, and indeed time as involving temporal becoming.    Given that time is contingent, there is no time at which there are no contingent beings and a later time at which there are.  Divine creation is presumably not in time, but of time and of everything else that is contingent. 

Well, perhaps we could introduce a notion of modal change which would be analogous to temporal change as the latter is construed by B-theorists:

Reality changes just in case it has different properties in different possible worlds.

Reality changes from not containing contingent beings to containing them iff there are possible worlds in which there are, and possible worlds in which there are not, contingent beings.

If every change requires a cause, then presumably the change just mentioned requires a divine cause.

To review the dialectic: if  creatures are effects of a cause, and effects are changes, and every change requires a substrate, then what is the subject or substrate of exhihilation?  What is creatio ex nihilo a change in?  My very tentative suggestion is that it is a change in reality in accordance with the definitions just given. 

 Since the cause of this change cannot itself be a change, (1) must be rejected as well.

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Ten Years Ago on Keith's Blog: A Letter on Chess

I just now happened to click on one of Keith Burgess-Jackson's many Ten Years Ago in This Blog links, having no idea what was on the other end of it, when I pulled up the following:

Dear Keith,

In your post of 3/31/04 1:22:05 PM, you classify chess as an intellectual contest rather than as a sport, which is a physical contest. You seem to be saying that chess (and checkers) are intellectual contests with no physical, hence no sport, dimension. If this is what you are saying, then I disagree.

Tournament chess, which, like all serious chess, is played with clocks, is extremely demanding physically as well as mentally. Suppose the primary time control is 40 moves in 2 hours, the secondary control is 20 moves in 1 hour, and the tertiary control is 1 hour sudden death. Such a contest could last 8 hours with no adjournment! But even if a game lasts 3-4 hours, the physical demands become considerable. To play well, one must be physically fit and keep oneself supplied with nutrients during the game. Physical training is an essential part of the training regimen for the top players.

So I would say that chess counts as a sport. The Dutch employ the term, Denksport. Besides the sport aspect, it is easily arguable that chess has aspects of an art and a science.

There can be no doubt about it: Chess is the game of kings, and the king of games!

Regards,
Bill Vallicella

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Of 'Blind Review' and Pandora's Box

This is not an April Fool's joke.

Blind review is a standard practice employed by editors of professional journals and organizers of academic conferences.  The editor/organizer removes the name of the author from the manuscript before sending it  to the referee or referees for evaluation.  My present concern is not  whether this is a good practice.  I am concerned with the phrase that describes it and whether or not this phrase can be reasonably found offensive by anyone.  There are those who think that the phrase is offensive and ought to be banned.  Shelley Tremain writes,

For the last few years, I have tried to get the APA [American Philosophical Association] to remove the phrase “blind review” from its publications and website.  The phrase is demeaning to disabled people because it associates blindness with lack of knowledge and implies that blind people cannot be knowers.  Because the phrase is standardly used in philosophy and other academic CFPs [Calls for Papers], it should become recognized as a cause for great concern.  In short, use of the phrase amounts to the circulation of language that discriminates.  Philosophers should want to avoid inflicting harm in this way.

Let's consider these claims seriatim.

1. "The phrase is demeaning to disabled people . . . "  Well, I am a disabled person and the phrase is not demeaning to me.  As a result of a birth defect I hear in only one ear.  And of course there are innumerable people who are disabled in different ways who will not find the phrase demeaning. 

2. " . . . because it associates blindness with lack of knowledge and implies that blind people cannot be knowers."  This is not just false but silly.  No one thinks that blind people cannot be knowers or that knowers cannot be blind.

Besides, it makes no sense to say that a phrase associates anything with anything.  A foolish person who is precisely not thinking, but associating, might associate blindness with ignorance, but so what?  People associate the damndest things.

To point out the obvious:  if the name has been removed from the mansucript, then the referee literally cannot see it. This is not to say that the referee is blind, or blind with respect to the author's name: he could see it if it were there to see.  'Blind review' means that the reviewer is kept in the dark as to the identity of the author.  That's all! 

3. ". . .  it should become recognized as a cause for great concern."  Great concern?  This is a wild exaggeration even if this issue is of some minor concern.  I say, however, that it is of no concern.  No one is demeaned or slighted or insulted or mocked or ridiculed by the use of the phrase in question.

4. ". . . use of the phrase amounts to the circulation of language that discriminates."  One could argue that the practice of blind review discriminates against those who have made a name for themselves.  But that is the only discrimination in the vicinity.  I said at the top that this post is no joke.  What is risible, however, is that anyone would find 'blind review' to be discriminatory against blind people.

5. "Philosophers should want to avoid inflicting harm in this way."  This presupposes that the use of the phrase 'blind review' inflicts harm.  This is just silly.  It would be like arguing that  the use of 'black hole' inflicts harm on black people because its use associates blacks with holes or with hos (whores).

In the early-to-mid '80s I attended an APA session organized by a group that called itself PANDORA: Philosophers Against the Nuclear Destruction of Rational Animals.  One of the weighty topics that came up at this particular meeting was the very name 'Pandora.'  Some argued that the name is sexist on the ground that it might remind someone of Pandora's Box, which of course has nothing to do with the characteristic female orifice, but in so reminding them might be taken as a slighting of that orifice.  ('Box' is crude slang for the orifice in question.)  I pointed out in the meeting that the name is just an acronym, and has nothing to do either with Pandora's Box or the characteristic female orifice.  My comment made no impression on the politically correct there assembled.  Later the outfit renamed itself Concerned Philosophers for Peace ". . . because of sexist and exclusionary aspects of the acronym."  (See here)

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