Maverick Philosopher

Half-Way Fregeanism About Existence: Questions for Van Inwagen

 In section 53 of The Foundations of Arithmetic, Gottlob Frege famously maintains that

. . . existence is analogous to number.  Affirmation of existence is in fact nothing but denial of the number nought.  Because existence is a property of concepts the ontological argument for the existence of God breaks down. (65)

Frege is here advancing a double-barreled thesis that splits into two sub-theses.

ST1. Existence is analogous to number.

ST2. Existence is a property (Eigenschaft) of concepts and not of objects.

In the background is the sharp distinction between property (Eigenschaft) and mark (Merkmal).  Three-sided is a mark of the concept triangle, but not a property of this concept; being instantiated is a property of this concept but not a mark of it.  The Cartesian-Kantian ontological argument "from mere concepts" (aus lauter Begriffen), according to Frege, runs aground because existence cannot be a mark of any concept, but only a property of some concepts.  And so one cannot validly argue from the concept of God to the existence of God.

Existence as a property of concepts is the property of being instantiated.  We can therefore call the Fregean account of existence an instantiation account.  A concept is instantiated just in case it has one or more instances.  So on a Fregean reading, 'Cats exist' says that the concept cat is instantiated.  This seems to imply, and was taken by Frege and Russell to imply that 'Cats exist' is not about cats, but about a non-cat, a concept or propositional function, and what it says about this concept or propositional function is not that it (singularly) exists, but that it is instantiated!  (Frege: "has something falling under it"; Russell: "is sometimes true.") A whiff of paradox? Or more than just a whiff?

The paradox, in brief, is that 'Cats exist' which one might naively take to be about cats, is in reality about a non-cat, a concept or propositional function. 

Accordingly, as Russell in effect states, 'Cats exist' is in the same logical boat with 'Cats are numerous.' Now Mungojerrie is a cat; but no one will infer that Mungojerrie is numerous. That would be the fallacy of division. On the Fressellian view, one who infers that Mungojerrie exists commits the same fallacy.  'Exist(s)' is not an admissible first-level predicate.

My concern in this entry is the logical relation between the above two sub-theses.  Does the first entail the second or are they logically independent?  There is a clear sense in which (ST1) is true. 

Necessarily, if horses exist, then the number of horses is not zero, and vice versa.  So 'Horses exist' is logically equivalent to 'The number of horses is not zero.'  This is wholly unproblematic for those of us who agree that there are no Meinongian nonexistent objects.  But note that, in general, equivalences, even logical equivalences, do not sanction reductions or identifications.  So it remains an open question whether one can take the further step of reducing existence to instantiation, or of identifying existence with instantiation, or even of eliminating existence in favor of instantiation. Equivalence, reduction, elimination: those are all different.  But I make this point only to move on.

(ST1), then, is unproblematically true if understood as expressing the following logical equivalence: 'Necessarily Fs exist iff the number of Fs is not zero.'  My question is whether (ST1) entails (ST2).  Peter van Inwagen in effect denies the entailment by denying that the 'the number of . . . is not zero' is a predicate of concepts:

I would say that, on a given occasion of its use, it predicates of certain things that they number more than zero.  Thus, if one says, 'The number of horses is not zero,' one predicates of horses that they number more than zero.  'The number of . . . is not zero' is thus what some philosophers have called a 'variably polyadic' predicate.  But so are many predicates that can hardly be regarded as predicates of concepts.  The predicates 'are ungulates' and 'have an interesting evolutionary history,' for example, are variably polyadic predicates.  When one says, 'Horses are ungulates' or 'Horses have an interesting evolutionary history' one is obviously making a statement about horses and not about the concept horse.  ("Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment," pp. 483-484)

It is this passage that I am having a hard time understanding.   It is of course clear what van Inwagen is trying to show, namely, that the Fregean sub-theses are logically independent and that one can affirm the first without being committed to the second.  One can hold that existence is denial of the number zero without  holding that existence is a property of concepts.  One can go half-way with Frege without going  all the way.

But I am having trouble with the claim that the predicate 'the number of . . . is not zero' is  'variably polyadic' and the examples van Inwagen employs.  'Robbed a bank together' is an example of a variably polyadic predicate.  It is polyadic because it expresses a relation, that of robbing,  and it is variably polyadic because it expresses a family of relations having different numbers of arguments.  For example, Bonnie and Clyde robbed a bank together, but so did Ma Barker and her two boys, Patti Hearst and three members of the ill-starred Symbionese Liberation Army, and so on.  (Example from Chris Swoyer and Francesco Orilia.) 

Now when I say that the number of horses is not zero, what am I talking about? It is plausible to say that I am talking about horses, not about the concept horse. (Recall the whiff of paradox, supra.)  What I don't understand are van Inwagen's examples of variably polyadic predicates.  Consider 'are ungulates.'  If an ungulate is just a mammal with hooves, then I fail to see how 'are ungulates' is polyadic, let alone variably polyadic.  I do understand that some hooved animals have one hoof per foot, some two hooves per foot, and so on, which implies variability in the number of hooves that hooved animals have. What I don't understand is the polyadicity. It seems to me that 'Are hooved mammals' is monadic.

The other example is 'Horses have an interesting evolutionary history.'  This sentence is clearly not about the concept horse. But it is not about any individual horse either.  Consider Harry the horse.  Harry has a history.  He was born in a certain place, grew up, was bought and sold, etc. and then died at a certain age.  He went through all sorts of changes.  But Harry didn't evolve, and so he had no evolutionary history.  No individual evolves; populations evolve:

Evolutionary change is based on changes in the genetic makeup of populations over time. Populations, not individual organisms, evolve. Changes in an individual over the course of its lifetime may be developmental(e.g., a male bird growing more colorful plumage as it reaches sexual maturity) or may be caused by how the environment affects an organism (e.g., a bird losing feathers because it is infected with many parasites); however, these shifts are not caused by changes in its genes. While it would be handy if there were a way for environmental changes to cause adaptive changes in our genes — who wouldn't want a gene for malaria resistance to come along with a vacation to Mozambique? — evolution just doesn't work that way. New gene variants (i.e., alleles) are produced by random mutation, and over the course of many generations, natural selection may favor advantageous variants, causing them to become more common in the population.

'Horses have an interesting evolutionary history,' then, is neither about the concept horse nor about any individual horse.  The predicate in this sentence appears to be non-distributive or collective.  It is like the predicate in 'Horses have been domesticated for millenia.'  That is certainly not about the concept horse.  No concept can be ridden or made to carry a load.  But it is also not about any individual horse.  Not even the Methuselah of horses, whoever he might be, has been around for millenia.

As I understand it,  predicate F is distributive just in case it is analytic that whenever some things are F, then each is F.  Thus a distributive predicate is one the very meaning of which dictates that if it applies to some things, then it applies to each of them.  'Blue' is an example.  If some things are blue, then each of them is blue.

If a predicate is not distributive, then it is non-distributive (collective).  If some Occupy-X nimrods or Antifa thugs have the building surrounded, it does not follow that each such nimrod or thug has the building surrounded.  If some students moved a grand piano into my living room, it does not follow that each student did.  If bald eagles are becoming extinct, it does not follow that each bald eagle is becoming extinct.  Individual animals die, but no individual animal ever becomes extinct. If the students come from many different countries, it does not follow that each comes from many different countries.  If horses have an interesting evolutionary history, it does not follow that each horse has an interesting evolutionary history.

My problem is that I don't understand why van Inwagen gives the 'Horses have an interesting evolutionary history' example -- which is a collective predication -- when he is committed to saying that each horse exists.  His view , I take it, is that 'exist(s)' is a first-level distributive predicate.  'Has an interesting evolutionary history,' however, is a first-level non-distributive predicate.  Or is it PvI's view that 'exist(s)' is a first-level non-distributive predicate?

Either I don't understand van Inwagen's position due to some defect in me, or it is incoherent.  I incline toward the latter.  He is trying to show that (ST1) does not entail (ST2).  He does this by giving examples of predicates that are first-level, i.e., apply to objects, but are variably polyadic as he claims 'the number of . . . is not zero' is variably polyadic.  But the only clear example he gives is a predicate that is non-distributive, namely 'has an interesting evolutionary history.'  'Horses exist,' however, cannot be non-distributive.  If some horses exist, then each of them exists.  And if each of them exists, then 'exists' is monadic, not polyadic, let alone variably polyadic.

The Left's Attack on Merit

I regularly speak of the destructive Left. There is no exaggeration in that.  Whether they intend it or not, leftists promote policies that are destructive.  They attack merit, for example, bizarrely considering it to be 'racist.' 

For example, there is the case of New York Mayor, Bill de Blasio, who has proposed to do away with Stuyvesant High School's entrance exam. Why is it 'racist'?  Well, Asians do better than anyone else, better than whites who do better that Hispanics, who do better than blacks.  Here is the composition of the incoming class:

Asian — 613
White — 151
Hispanic — 27
Black — 10

There is no proportional representation! A lack of diversity! And therefore it's 'racist'!

But seriously now, how can it be racist if it is true? Answer me that one.

Full Disclosure: I am not now and never have been Asian. (And I am on record as denying the possibility of race change.) If Asians are better at math than whites, that's just the way it is.  We conservatives respect reality, a reality that is no social construction but lies beyond all of our talk with its mewling and pining, wishing and whining.  We conservatives stand our ground, that ground being the terra firma of antecedent reality, to cop a beautiful line from Richard M. Weaver (1910-1963):

It is my contention that a conservative is a realist, who believes that there is a structure of reality independent of his own will and desire. He believes that there is a creation which was here before him, which exists now not just by his sufferance, and which will be here after he is gone. This structure consists not merely of the great physical world but also of many laws, principles, and regulations which control human behavior. Though this reality is independent of the individual, it is not hostile to him. It is in fact amenable by him in many ways, but it cannot be changed radically and arbitrarily. This is the cardinal point. The conservative holds that man in this world cannot make his will his law without any regard to limits and to the fixed nature of things . . . . The conservative I therefore see as standing on the terra firma of antecedent reality; having accepted some things as given, lasting and good, he is in a position to use his effort where effort will produce solid results. (Quoted from Fred Douglas Young, Richard M. Weaver 1910-1963, University of Missouri Press, 1995, pp. 144-145.)

It ought to be self-evident that we ought to promote excellence, but it is not self-evident to destructive leftists. I do not say that diversity is no value at all. But in this case it ought to be obvious that merit trumps diversity. 

I want you people to realize that if you vote for Democrats you are voting for this sort of Bozo de Blasio insanity, and a lot of other insanity to boot.  But is it really insanity? Or is it worse?

I am toying with what I will call the Leftist Trilemma: leftists are either stupid/insane or ignorant/uneducated or willfully evil.

But I may be missing a fourth possibility. 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: September Songs

But first the absolute best version of Dylan's From a Buick Six just to get your blood up. But now that Gary U. S. Bond is in the house, here is Twist, Twist, Senora with a trio of 1940s dancing girls. New Orleans, live, with Jeff Beck.

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

September ends.  A transitional month leading from hot August to glorious October, Kerouac month in the MavPhil 'liturgy.'

Dinah Washington, September in the Rain

Rod Stewart, Maggie May. "Wake up Maggie, I think I got something to say to you/It's late September and I really should be back at school."

Carole King, It Might as Well Rain Until September

Frank Sinatra, September of My Years

George Shearing, September in the Rain

Walter Huston, September Song 

This from a London reader:

Thanks for linking to the George Shearing ‘September’. I had forgotten he grew up in London (in Battersea, just down the road from me). I love the Bird-like flights on the piano. Indeed I think he wrote ‘Lullaby of Birdland’. Another Londoner is Helen Shapiro who does a great version of ‘It might as well rain until September’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De0_zZ7qQDA. Great alto voice, never made it in the US as far as I know. 

I was first hipped to Shearing by Kerouac who referred to him in On the Road.  I too love the 'Bird'-like flights on the piano. The allusion is to Charley 'Bird' Parker, also beloved of Kerouac.  (Kerouac month hereabouts starts Monday.) Helen Shapiro is new to me, thanks. She does a great job with the Carole King composition.  Believe it or not, King's version is a demo. That's one hell of a demo. A YouTuber points out that Shapiro was not part of the 1964 'British Invasion.'  I wonder why.

UPDATE (9/30).

Jim Soriano recommends Try to Remember -- which I had forgotten.

UPDATE (10/2)

Mark Anderson introduces me to Big Star, September Gurls. Nice clangy, jangling guitar work reminiscent of the Byrds and some Beatle cuts.  Wikipedia article.  Which Beatle cuts?

Well, Rain is one, And Your Bird Can Sing is another.  Wow! I forgot how good these songs are.

Dennis Prager: The Charges Against Kavanaugh Should be Ignored

This piece by Dennis Prager is sure to outrage the Left.  Prager takes a step back and uncovers an assumption that almost everyone else is making. The assumption is that IF the young Kavanaugh had groped Dr. Ford in the manner she describes, THEN that would be good grounds for non-confirmation.

But is the assumption true?

Suppose it could be shown that Brett Kavanaugh, 36 years ago, did to Christine Blasey Ford what she claims he did. That cannot be shown, of course, due to a lack of evidence, but just suppose.  (And if there is no evidence, then it is absurd to call for an FBI investigation. What would they investigate?) How does a youthful peccadillo nullify the rest of an impeccable life and distinguished career?  To believe that it does one would have to assume the following:

a) What a middle-age adult did in high school is all we need to need to know to evaluate an individual’s character — even when his entire adult life has been impeccable.

b) No matter how good and moral a life one has led for ten, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years, it is nullified by a sin committed as teenager.

Prager then comments: 

No decent — or rational — society has ever believed such nihilistic nonsense.

Now let ME take a further step back. 

What is this whole controversy really and fundamentally about? Is it about Kavanaugh's moral fitness to serve on the Supreme Court?

Obviously not. It is not about his moral fitness, but about his failure to meet an ideological litmus test.  The Left cannot abide the thought of an originalist/textualist taking over the Justice Anthony Kennedy SCOTUS swing slot. For with Kavanaugh the conservatives would have the upper hand. This also explains why Gorsuch, the Scalia replacement, was confirmed with relative ease.

Suppose Kavanaugh were a leftist who believed in an 'open' or 'living' constitution. Would the DEMS be troubled by the baseless allegation, 36 years after the alleged 'fact,' of a youthful bit of bad behavior?  Of course not! They would be protesting with the same sorts of arguments now being used by Republicans.

So let's all try to be honest for a change. What is really going here is an important  battle in the war for the soul of America. Will we allow her to be "fundamentally transformed" by the Left or will we preserve her as she was founded to be?

To achieve the latter, the Constitution must be honored and applied in its original meaning.  Kavanaugh's is not the originalism of original intent of the Founders, but the originalism of original public meaning. 

As for Christine Blasey Ford, she is being used as tool by the Dems for their ideological purpose.  

My Opinion of Lindsey Graham Up a Notch!

Here is something I wrote about Senator Graham on 31 March 2016:

To understand liberals you must understand that theirs is a mind-set according to which a  conservative is a bigot, one who reflexively and irrationally hates anyone different than he is.  This is why conservatives who insist on securing the borders are routinely labelled 'xenophobes' by liberals and by some stupid 'conservatives' as well, an example being that  foolish RINO Lindsey Graham who applied the epithet to Donald Trump when the latter quite reasonably proposed a moratorium on Muslim immigration into the U.S. 

And here is what I wrote on 30 June 2016:

If you refuse to vote for Donald Trump because he is in several ways a loathsome individual, then I pronounce you a fool in point of the political.  You don't understand that politics is a practical struggle, not a gentlemanly conversation.  It is not about perfection or ideological purity or choosing the Good over the Bad.  It's about better or worse in the ugly concrete circumstances in which we presently find ourselves.

The argument of George Will and others of the 'bow-tie brigade' is patently lame, as lame as can be.  They will do what they can to stop Trump the vulgarian know-nothing.   In so doing they support Hillary.  When this is pointed out, the response is that  after four years of Hillary, we will elect a 'true' conservative to the White House.

This ignores the fact that after four years of Hillary it may be too late.  Four more years of illegal immigration from the south; four more years of largely unvetted Muslim immigration, including Syrian refugees; four more years of erosion of First and Second Amendment rights; four years in which Hillary can make 2-5 Supreme Court appointments; four more years of attacks on civil society, the buffer space between the individual and the state apparatus;  four more years of sanctuary cities and the flouting of the rule of law; four more years of assaults on the likes of the Little Sisters of the Poor and others who stand in the way of the pro-abortion agenda; and more.

Here is another question for George and Bill Kristol and the rest of the bow-tie boys: who will be your candidate? David French? Lindsey Graham?  Jeb!?

But Senator Graham has found his cojones!  His performance yesterday in defense of Judge Kavanaugh was magnificent. He is coming to learn that politics in the age of post-consensus politics is not a gentlemanly debate conducted under an umbrella of shared principles according to the Marquess of Queensberry rules, but a bare-knuckled slug fest against vicious and destructive swine who are out to subvert the Constitution, upend the rule of law and violate every norm of decency and common sense. 

No quarter to them!

The Enmity Potential of Thought

A meditation on Carl Schmitt. 

Carl Schmitt on Compassion

Here at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

Democrats as Tribal Termites

Mendocino Joe writes,

Wow, I cannot believe what I am seeing in our country these days.

 

I think your blog post about the Left hating because they need a bogey man after winning the civil rights battle is way too kind. I think we are seeing, in the Left these days, radical Evil from the pit.  We are watching people who are unmoored from any traditional religion or morality, completely unmoored. It is very scary to me. 

 

A lot will depend on what happens today and the days following. If the Republicans cave, and Kavanaugh is quashed, then all hell might break loose.

 

The Democrats are now undeniably a hard-Left party. And as my old friend says, they are "unmoored from any traditional religion or morality."  To change the metaphor, they are termites working to undermine the foundations of our magnificent Anglo-American system of law.

 

A bedrock principle thereof is the presumption of innocence.  One is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The presumption of innocence puts the burden of proof where it belongs, on the accuser, not the accused. Contrary to what some leftist senators are now saying, this is a principle of morality that is antecedent to the positive law. Its application extends therefore beyond the positive law, criminal and civil.

 

But the Dems are leftists out for power any way they can get it. For them the end justifies the means no matter how shabby or absurd.  They ought to be denounced for the termites they are, or, to change the metaphor once more, the scum that they are. 

 

They are termites because they undermine the foundations of American greatness. But why tribal?  Because they vote as a bloc, walking the walking and talking the talk that their tribal leaders have drilled into them. Like good successor-commies, they toe the Party line and submit to Party discipline. There is not a maverick among them. They all will vote to oppose Kavanaugh's nomination.

 

Additional commentary. (HT: Bill Keezer)

 

Angelo Codevilla, Cowardly Republicans Grant a False Premise

 

Scott McKay, The Palpable Existential Danger Among Us

 

Mark Steyn, Hearing the Women, Then and Now

 

An Impending Shooting Civil War?

 

Victor Davis Hanson, Are We on the Verge of Civil War?

 

There follows an excerpt from the fourth hyperlinked item supra.  Would it not be great if there were Republicans who had the civil courage to say the following? (Emphases in original)

 

Let me be clear on this -- if you're bitter that there was no President Pantsuit that's fine.  Losses can be bitter, especially when you really think you should have won.  But no matter what you think by the rules of the contest Hillary lost to Trump -- period.

But if you go beyond being bitter, start up hashtags like "#Resist" and then put that into action both inside and outside the government to disregard and disrupt the results of a valid electoral process you are not only violating the law you are inciting a shooting civil war.

This sort of activity by people inside the government is treading right to if not over the line of insurrection.  The use of government force for unlawful purpose, intentionally, meets the definition; it is an attempt to overthrow the law of the United States by corrupting the monopoly on deadly force that the government has and directing it unlawfully against certain people for political purposes.  This is not a "petty offense"; it is a direct assault on and attempt to overthrow the result of a lawful elective process and according to the above link it's still going on today.

If you're aggrieved by an election's results you have every right to print up a sign and go picket on a public street or other public place.  You can take out all the political advertisements you wish and make your best effort to get a different result the next time around.  But you do not have the right to enter into a restaurant where someone is eating dinner, which is private property, and assault said person because they happen to be a member of that political party.  That is a violation of the law in that it constitutes assault and is begging for an immediate outbreak of violence in response.

Read the whole thing. It's very good.

The Ramsey Problem and the Problem of the Intrinsically Unpropertied Particular

Here at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

The Parable of the Tree and the House: A Warning Against the Folly of Envy

Here at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

More on the Hate-Filled Left

Jacques comments on yesterday's Shelby Steele entry:

Shelby Steele is clearly right about the Left's need for hate objects (as a source of power) but I think he is wrong to say this is "a death rattle".  Or at least I'm skeptical.  We've already been through so many phases of this same dynamic, and it hasn't yet killed the Left or even slowed it down.  On the contrary, it seems to me that as their stories of evil Republicans and evil white men (etc) become ever more absurd the fanaticism and power of Leftists grows.  For example, the Tawana Brawley story was utterly absurd even at the time.  Any reasonable person would have regarded the story as highly dubious, even before all the decisive evidence of lies was available.  And yet the absurdity of the story--even its demonstrable falsity--didn't do anything to convince Leftists that their campaign against "white supremacists" was mistaken.  As far as I can tell the absurdity of the story did nothing to harm Al Sharpton's career.  Similarly, it was obviously absurd to believe that Trayvon Martin was a victim of white racism, or a white supremacist, or whatever.  There was, at the very least, enough evidence from the very beginning for any reasonable person to suspend judgment--to doubt that Trayvon was just an innocent little child victim, to doubt that George Zimmerman had any racial motivation, etc.  But that also did nothing to stop the Left, and seems on the contrary to have emboldened them in their endless campaign against "racism" and "racists". 

I agree. Trayvon Martin was no victim of white racism. He was no Emmett Till. The boy brought about his own death. If Martin had been taught, or rather had learned, to control himself he would most likely be alive today.  But he wasn't or didn't.  He blew his cool when questioned about his trespassing in a gated community on a rainy night.  He was no child on the way to the candy store. By all appearances he was up to no good. He punched a man in the face and broke his nose, then jumped on him, pinned him down, did the 'ground and pound' and told him that he was going to die that night.  So, naturally, the man defended himself against the deadly attack with deadly force.  What Zimmerman did was both morally and legally permissible.  If some strapping youth is pounding your head into the pavement, you are about to suffer "grave bodily harm" if not death.  What we have here is clearly a case of self-defense. The verdict of acquittal for Zimmerman was clearly correct.  Only a blind ideologue could fail to understand this. 

Does race enter into this?  In one way it does. But not in the way leftists think say. Blacks as a group have a rather more emotional nature than whites as a group.  (If you deny this, you have never lived in a black neighborhood or worked with blacks, as I have.)  Martin's lack of self-control got him killed.  He couldn't keep a lid on his mindless hatred of the "creepy-assed cracker." White-on-black racism did not enter into it at all. So, while self-control is important for all, the early inculcation of self-control is even more important for blacks. I suspect Shelby Steele would agree.

And I think this is true of almost all their hate objects.  Remember when Ronald Reagan was supposed to be a neo-Nazi, a right-wing dictator, a woman-hater...?  Wasn't it obvious in the '80s that these ideas were false, indeed preposterous?  Or the idea that Richard Nixon was some kind of uniquely vile criminal--as opposed to Ted Kennedy, for example, or JFK or Bill Clinton?  Or the idea that Mitt Romney--Mitt Romney, that pathetic liberal squish--was some kind of hard-right authoritarian bent on destroying women and minorities?  Or what about the utterly absurd idea of "white privilege" or "microaggression" or "transgenderism"?  These things are demonstrably false or simply incoherent, but it only took a few years for all of them to be nailed down as the central principles of a new moral code that no one in human history had ever even imagined.  

Of course you are right about all of this.

In all of these cases, and a zillion others, the Left's hatred was totally divorced from any kind of realistic adult assessment of reality.  And yet it has never made any difference.  It's never set them back significantly, and instead what generally happens is that their deranged absurd demonstrably false narrative ends up being entrenched as the only mainstream reasonable opinion within a few years at most. 

 So I'd propose an additional hypothesis to explain this phenomenon:

The absurdity of the story is part of its appeal.  Leftists derive self-esteem from their (supposed) ability to understand problems that regular people can't understand, and their (supposed) deep concern for victims.  It makes them feel intellectually and morally superior to regular people, and they are addicted to that high.  The more seemingly absurd the theory, the more brilliant and sensitive and complicated you must be in order to really 'get' it--and, of course, the more it will repel the dumb rednecks and normies, who don't get it and can't be in the club.  And this in turn strengthens them as a mass movement.  They control the institutions and media, so they're able to reach an ever-growing audience of new people who also want to feel good about themselves, superior to the hated white male conservative Other.  By contrast, a more rational and realistic assessment of the world offers little to these people--no special social status and opportunities for preening and validation, no sense of being exalted above the dumb masses.

What needs explaining is the uncontrolled, largely inarticulate, animal rage of the Left. (e.g., Robert de Niro: Fuck Trump!) Steele's hypothesis is that the Left is raging because it is losing its power and moral authority due to  the drying up of sources of legitimate moral indignation. The civil wrongs were righted. And so leftists have traded in righteous anger for mindless hatred. In order to hold on to its power the Left is inventing bogus sources of moral outrage.

Jacques speak of an "additional hypothesis," but is he trying to explain the same phenomenon, the Left's hyperbolic rage?  Or a different phenomenon, the need leftists have to feel superior to Hillary's "deplorables"?

It looks like the explananda are different and so are the explanantia.  The rage and the need to feel superior, on the one hand, and the the lust for power and the concoction of pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook, on the other.

Finally, if this line of thought is reasonable, it makes me wonder whether Steele is perhaps being a bit naive about the Left's track record.  Did the Left really "rescue America" from "the great menace of racism"?  Is the story since the 60s really one of "the greatest moral evolutions ever"?  I suspect that this whole hallowed narrative might be not so different, ultimately, from the Left's current stories about Trayvon and Michael Brown "the gentle giant", or this ridiculous thing about Judge Kavanaugh's high school sins.  Maybe they've been telling absurd lies all along--just as they lied about the USSR, for example.  Maybe "racism" in the past was a far more ambiguous phenomenon--not something that needed to be simply eradicated using essentially totalitarian methods, but something that needed to be moderated, understood in its context and judged more realistically.  Take lynching, for example, one of their favorite mythologies.  Who was being lynched, and why?  Lots of blacks, but lots of whites too.  Maybe the reason was mainly that blacks were committing a disproportionate number of murders and rapes.  Maybe the reality of lynching was about as complex and ambiguous as the reality of so-called "racial profiling".  And the same goes for their other narratives--about women, immigrants, sex and so on.  I would expect that in 50 years people will have been trained to believe in the "great menace" of "heterosexism" or "microaggressions" or "hate speech" on the internet.  Maybe they've always been crazy.

"Lots of blacks, but lots of whites too."  Here I need some references.  Lot of whites were lynched? By whom?

It is true that blacks are disproportionately more criminally prone than whites. (And since it is true, this statement cannot be dismissed as racist.  A statement whose subject matter is race is not eo ipso a racist statement.)  I hope Jacques is not suggesting that the extra-judicial lynching of blacks was justified by their disproportionate engaging in rape and murder.

I differ from Jacques in that I hold that the original Civil Rights movement was basically on the right track, and that Steele, while he exaggerates, is right to point this out. We should not conflate that movement with the insane leftism of the present day.

Why the Left is Consumed with Hate

Shelby Steele offers a compelling explanation.

In the '60s, the Left acquired its power and moral authority when it fought the good fight against racism and segregation and for civil rights.  Those battles were fought and they were won. But power is intoxicating and those who came into it in those years of ferment desired to hold on to it and expand it.  The power proved to be not only intoxicating but corrupting.  Nothing new, of course: power tends to corrupt, absolute power . . . . You know the Lord Acton riff.

To maintain their power, leftists needed to find additional sources of menace to the nation's moral legitimacy.  Steele (emphases added):

The greater the menace to the nation’s moral legitimacy, the more power redounded to the left. And the ’60s handed the left a laundry list of menaces to be defeated. If racism was necessarily at the top of the list, it was quickly followed by a litany of bigotries ending in “ism” and “phobia.”

The left had important achievements. It did rescue America from an unsustainable moral illegitimacy. It also established the great menace of racism as America’s most intolerable disgrace. But the left’s success has plunged it into its greatest crisis since the ’60s. The Achilles’ heel of the left has been its dependence on menace for power. Think of all the things it can ask for in the name of fighting menaces like “systemic racism” and “structural inequality.” But what happens when the evils that menace us begin to fade, and then keep fading?

It is undeniable that America has achieved since the ’60s one of the greatest moral evolutions ever. That is a profound problem for the left, whose existence is threatened by the diminishment of racial oppression. The left’s unspoken terror is that racism is no longer menacing enough to support its own power. The great crisis for the left today—the source of its angst and hatefulness—is its own encroaching obsolescence. Today the left looks to be slowly dying from lack of racial menace. 

[. . .]

Today’s left lacks worthy menaces to fight. It is driven to find a replacement for racism, some sweeping historical wrongdoing that morally empowers those who oppose it. (Climate change?) Failing this, only hatred is left.

Hatred is a transformative power. It can make the innocuous into the menacing. So it has become a weapon of choice. The left has used hate to transform President Trump into a symbol of the new racism, not a flawed president but a systemic evil. And he must be opposed as one opposes racism, with a scorched-earth absolutism.

[. . .]

Yet the left is still stalked by obsolescence. There is simply not enough menace to service its demands for power. The voices that speak for the left have never been less convincing. It is hard for people to see the menace that drives millionaire football players to kneel before the flag. And then there is the failure of virtually every program the left has ever espoused—welfare, public housing, school busing, affirmative action, diversity programs, and so on.

For the American left today, the indulgence in hate is a death rattle.

It's Rich

The National Review has an editorial in support of Judge Kavanaugh. What's rich, however, is that the same cruise-ship conservatives refused their support to Donald Trump the conditio sine qua non of both the Gorsuch and the Kavanaugh nominations. Jeb! would not  have beaten Hillary. 

Republicans Underestimate the Thuggery of Democrats

Andrew C. McCarthy:

Democrats are willing to use any tactics to block conservatives from the Supreme Court and seat their own ideologues. The question is not “Fair or unfair?” It’s “Will it work?” Republicans always seem flat-footed in response because they underestimate how far Democrats are willing to go to win, how willing they are to destroy people’s reputations if that’s what it takes. Republicans keep thinking it’s 1987 and the Bork debacle was the worst of it; in reality, we’re 30 years on, and the Bork debacle was just the beginning of it.

I learned this in terrorism cases. Radical left-wing attorneys, who style themselves “political lawyers,” try to turn the proceedings into a zoo, chaos being the weapon of those for whom the rules assure defeat. Either the judge takes control of the courtroom with a firm hand, enforces the rules, and penalizes the antics, or there are interminable delays, baseless smears, and general bedlam.

That's right. Take control and muzzle or remove the transgressive punks.  I'll leave it to you to ponder whether these people are fellow citizens or domestic enemies out to destroy our system of government which enshrines such principles as the presumption of innocence.

Obama Won

Victor Davis Hanson:

By traditional metrics, Barack Obama’s presidency was mostly a failure.

[. . .]

Yet in terms of culture, Obama clearly won.

“White Privilege” Goes Mainstream

He institutionalized radical cultural shifts by creating entirely new rubrics of privileging race and gender. The old idea of due process and the rule of law were subordinated to identity politics, whether in matters of sanctuary cities and non-enforcement of immigration law or campus charges of sexual assault. The larger culture made the necessary adjustments and followed suit.

Related:

Some Questions About White Privilege

What is White Supremacy?

More on Whether Non-Whites Can be Racist

John Hick's Religious Ambiguity Thesis

Here at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Dion DiMucci

The guy has amazing staying power, and in his 70s he still looks and sounds damn good in live performances.  Here he is in 2004 singing I Wonder Why.

How can an old man still sing a heart-felt Teenager in Love?  Because some of us old men still have young yearning hearts.

In an interview he said something like, "You need to marry a girl who will take you to heaven."  Good advice; men need no assistance moving in the opposite direction. 

Every red-blooded American male of a certain age can relate to his signature number, The Wanderer, which rose to the number #2 slot in 1961. Wikipedia:

Dion said of "The Wanderer":^[2]

At its roots, it's more than meets the eye. "The Wanderer" is black music filtered through an Italian neighborhood that comes out with an attitude. It's my perception of a lot of songs like "I'm A Man" by Bo Diddley or "Hoochie Coochie Man" by Muddy Waters. But you know, "The Wanderer" is really a sad song. A lot of guys don't understand that. Bruce Springsteen was the only guy who accurately expressed what that song was about. It's "I roam from town to town and go through life without a care, I'm as happy as a clown with my two fists of iron, but I'm going nowhere." In the Fifties, you didn't get that dark. It sounds like a lot of fun but it's about going nowhere.

The song may be superficial in its nonchalant machismo, but the man is not.  He managed to negotiate the snares of stardom and wander back to the faith of his childhood via a Protestant detour thanks mainly to his religious experiences:

I was the first rock and roll artist signed to Columbia Records and naturally, expectations ran high. No expense was spared and no excuses accepted. This was the big time. I was getting $100,000 a year guaranteed — whether I sold a record or not. “Ruby Baby” and “Donna the Primadonna” were a great down payment: they went Top 5.

Still, even with that success, I was at an all time mental and spiritual bottom. Out of depression, we moved to Miami, looking for a fresh start. There, I would have the surprise of my life: I got to see God work through my father-in-law, Jack. Jack helped fan into flames the gift of God that was in me through the laying on of hands at my confirmation. I said a prayer one night there in Jack’s home: “God I need your help.” I was delivered from the obsession to drink and drug; it was just lifted off me like a weight. On that day, April 1, 1968, I became aware of God’s power, even before I became aware of His reality.

I entered a spiritual-based 12-step program and grew in these disciplines. Six months later, at the age of 28, I released one of the biggest records of my career — “Abraham, Martin and John.” It became an anthem.

But my biggest moment was to come. On December 14, 1979, I went out jogging, like I did every morning. It was a time when I could be alone with my thoughts — thinking about the past, thinking about the future. There was a lot going on in me then, a mid-life crisis, or something. My emotions were everywhere. In the middle of that confusion, all I could pray was “God, it would be nice to be closer to you.” That’s all it took.

I was flooded with white light. It was everywhere, inside me, outside me — everywhere. At that moment, things were different between me and God. He’d broken down the wall. Ahead of me, I saw a man with His arms outstretched. “I love you,” He said. “Don’t you know that? I’m your friend. I laid down My life for you. I’m here for you now.” I looked behind me, because I knew I’d left something behind on that road. Some part of me that I no longer wanted. Let the road have it; I didn’t need it anymore.

God changed my life that morning, and things have never been the same.

Rest of the story here.  Here he is not with the Belmonts but with some female back-up singers in a tune from 1960 that is ignored by the oldies stations.  I heard it from the radio of a  '56 Ford when I was ten and I loved it.  My mother hated it.

Recently, Dion has been digging back into the roots of rock and roll. 

If I had Possession over Judgment Day. Robert Johnson did it first in 1936.  A Clapton version.

Who Do You Love

Nadine

UPDATE 9/22.  Vito Caiati writes,

I loved your post on Dion, who grew up in the same neighborhood, the Belmont Avenue section of the Bronx, and parish, Our Lady of Mount Carmel (I was born next door to the church), as me. When I was entering my teens, he was already a success, and my girl cousins were crazy about him.  He was sometimes spotted driving some sporty car, which was enough to send them into ecstasy.  Many of my male cousins shared his early views on religion: "Catholicism seemed suited for old women and sissies. Real men didn’t need it." I was an oddity, since I took it so seriously.  His story of finding faith is moving. He ended up in a good place.

And now we know why the Belmonts we so-called.

As for religion, I am always surprised at how readily and uncritically people accept the superficially plausible view that religion continues to exist only because of old ladies, children, sissies, and the crafty priests who get hold of gullible children and stuff their heads with superstitious lore in order to keep afloat their organizational hustle.

I am reminded of Jesse Ventura who some years ago offered that "Religion is for the weak."  Many took umbrage and contradicted him.  

But of course he was right. Religion is for the weak. Ventura merely failed to note the obvious: we are all weak and need help that we cannot provide for ourselves.

I develop the thought in Is Religion for the Weak?

France Goes Totalitarian

Leftists are scum. Here's Rod on Marine Le Pen:

Absolutely: Solidarity with Marine Le Pen! You do not have to agree with her politics to be revolted by what the French state is trying to do to her, and why. Even Jean-Luc Melenchon, the far-left French politician, is defending her here. Le Pen posted documentary evidence of actual ISIS atrocities, in an attempt to demonstrate that there is no comparison between ISIS and her political party. So now, in France, simply posting images of actual, real-life events may be evidence of criminal insanity. (emphasis added)

Do you not see where this is going? Do you not see why it must be stopped cold?

The Soviet Union used to declare dissidents criminally insane and imprison them in psychiatric units. And now the same sort of thing is manifesting in the West, by those who want to preserve liberalism at all costs. Those who challenge the regime, even with facts and images, will be taken to court and forced to submit to tests to prove that they are not criminally insane.

A breathtaking irony: the French state is doing this to silence those who criticize barbarians who would destroy liberalism.

It 's coming to our shores. Mark my words. Is that an alarmist thing to say? I sincerely hope so! But just look at the behavior of our own leftist scum in the Democrat Party. They are now hard at work undermining the presumption of innocence, a bedrock principle of Anglo-American law and morality.

More Grist for the Moral Mill

If you tell one lie, are you a liar? I should think not. A liar is one who habitually lies. Otherwise, we would all be liars and the term 'liar' would perish from lack of contrast.

If you have been seriously drunk a time or two, are you a drunkard? I should think not. A drunkard is one who habitually gets drunk. Otherwise we would damn near all be drunkards, and the term 'drunkard' would perish from lack of contrast.

This rumination is iterable across thief, lecher, glutton and other terms of moral disapprobation.

But if a man commits murder just one time, we call him a murderer and we feel justified in so doing. We would find it ridiculous were he to complain, "I shot man in Reno just to watch him die, but I am no murderer; a murderer is  one who regularly and habitually does the deed."

How about rape? Does one rape a rapist make?  I think we would say yes.

So what is the difference between murder and rape and the other cases? The gravity of the crimes would seem to be one factor and the relative rarity another.

More grist for the mill.

It is not easy to think clearly and deeply about moral questions. Few even try.

Evening and Morning

The quality of the first will affect the quality of the second. An evening of drinking and dancing  is no preparation for a morning of thinking and trancing.

Related: Suggestions on How to Study

God, Simplicity, Freedom, and Two Senses of 'Contingency'

Fr. Aidan Kimel wants me to comment on his recent series of posts about divine simplicity, freedom, and the contingency of creation. In the third of his entries, he provides the following quotation:

As Matthew Levering puts it: “God could be God without creatures, and so his willing of creatures cannot have the absolute necessity that his willing of himself has” (Engaging the Doctrine of Creation, p. 103). That is the fact of the case, as it were. Granted the making of the world by a simple, immutable, and eternal Deity, we have no choice but to accept the apparent aporia:

Indeed, there is no ‘moment’ in God’s eternity in which he does not will all that he wills; there is no God ‘prior’ to God’s will to create. In this sense, God can be said to will necessarily everything that he wills. The potency or possibility stems not from God’s will, but from the contingent nature of the finite things willed; they do not and cannot determine the divine will. (Levering, p. 103)

The problem is to understand how the following  propositions can all be true:

1) There is no absolute necessity that God create: "God could be God without creatures."

2) God created (better: ongoingly creates and sustains) the universe we inhabit.

3) God, being simple or metaphysically incomposite, is devoid of potency-act composition and unexercised powers: God is pure act.

4) The universe we inhabit, and indeed any universe God creates, is modally contingent: it does not exist of metaphysical necessity.

The problem, in brief, is to understand how a universe that is the product of a divine act of willing that is necessary (given God's simplicity) can yet be contingent. Levering's answer does not help at all. In fact, he seems to be confusing two senses of contingency when he says that "the contingent nature of the finite things willed" does not determine the divine will.  That's right, it doesn't and for the simple reason that the finite things willed depend entirely on the divine will and are in this sense contingent upon the divine will; but this is not the relevant sense of 'contingency.' Let me explain.

In the modal sense, a contingent item is one that is possible to be and possible not to be, as Aquinas says somewhere. In 'possible worlds' jargon, x is modally contingent =_df x exists in some but not all metaphysically (broadly logically) possible worlds.  

In the dependency sense, x is dependently contingent =_df there is  some y such that (i) x is not identical to y; (ii) necessarily, if x exists, then y exists; (iii) y is in some sense the ground or source of x's existence. 

It is important to see that an item can be (a) modally contingent without being dependently contingent, and (b) dependently contingent without being modally contingent.

Ad (a). If the universe is a brute fact, as Russell (in effect) stated in his famous BBC debate with Copleston, then the universe exists, exists modally contingently, but has no cause or explanation of its existence.  If the universe is a brute fact, then of course it does not depend on God for its existence.  Its existence is a factum brutum without cause or explanation. It is contingent, but not contingent upon anything. It is modally but not dependently contingent.

Ad (b). Not all necessary beings are "created equal."  That is because one of them, God, is not created at all. The others are creatures, at least for Aquinas. (A creature is anything that is created by God.) The number 7 serves as an example, as does the proposition that 7 is prime.  That proposition is a necessary being. (If it weren't it could not be necessarily true.)  But it has its necessity "from another," namely, from God, whereas God has his necessity "from himself."  The doctor angelicus himself makes this distinction.

These so-called 'abstract objects' -- not the best terminology but the going terminology -- are creatures, and, insofar forth, dependent on God, and therefore contingent upon God, and therefore (by my above definition), dependently contingent. They are dependently contingent but modally necessary. 

Now let's apply the distinction to our problem. The problem, again, is this: How can the product of a necessary creating be contingent? One might think to solve the problem as follows.  God necessarily creates, but what he creates is nonetheless contingent because  what he creates is wholly dependent on God for its existence at every moment. But this is no solution because it involves an equivocation on 'contingent.'

The problem is: How can the product of a modally necessary creating be modally contingent? 

Think of it this way. (I assume that the reader is en rapport with 'possible worlds' talk.) If God is simple, and he creates U in one world, then he creates U in all worlds. But then U exists in every world, in which case U is necessary. But U is contingent, hence not necessary. Therefore, either God does not exist or God is not simple, or U is not a divine creation.  

Fr. Kimel wanted me to comment on his posts. One comment is that they are top-heavy with quotations.  Quote less, argue and analyze more.

Now I would like the good padre to tell me whether he agrees with me.  I think he just might inasmuch as he speaks of an aporia.  We have good reasons to believe that God is simple, and we have good reasons to believe that the created universe is modally contingent. Suppose both propositions are true. Then they must be logically consistent.  But we cannot understand how they could both be true. So what do we do?

One way out is to jettison the divine simplicity. (But then we end having to say that God is a being among beings and neither I nor Kimel will countenance that, and for good reasons.) A second way is by denying that the created universe is contingent, either by maintaining that it is necessary or by denying that there is any real modality, that all (non-deontic) modality is epistemic.  The second way leads to a load of difficulties.

A third way is by arguing that there is no inconsistency. But I have argued that there is both above and in other recent posts dealing with the dreaded 'modal collapse.'  And it seems to me that my argumentation is cogent.

Well suppose it is. And suppose that the relevant propositions are all true. There is yet another way out. We can go mysterian.  The problem is a genuine aporia. It is insoluble by us. God is simple; he freely created our universe; it is modally contingent.  How is this possible? The answer is beyond our ken. It is a mystery.

Now if Fr. Kimel is maintaining something like this, then we agree.

Corrigendum (9/25). A reader points out, correctly, that in the above graphic the gentleman on the left is not Fr. Copleston, but A. J. Ayer.

McCarthy Understands Support for Trump

Andrew C. McCarthy:

President Trump says a lot of things that are not true and says a lot of other things that are foolish and unsavory. But his supporters are drawn to him, in large part, because he is willing to get into the muck with Democrats, fight them on their own demagogic terms — especially on things he cares about, like his nominees. They are tired of Republicans’ being caught flat-footed, continually underestimating how low Democrats are willing to go, how much they are willing to destroy reputations, institutions, and traditions in order to win. 

Quite right. Trump won in 2016 because he showed that he has the courage to battle the destructive hard-Left Dems with their own weapons, something that a milque-toast pol like Jeb! Bush could not bring himself to do because his mommy taught him that he must always behave in a gentlemanly and civil manner even when one's opponents represent an existential threat.

Is Graduate School Really That Bad?

100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School is now at reason  #98.  Despite its unrelenting negativity, prospective applicants  to graduate programs will find the site  useful.  I cannot criticize it for being negative since that is its implied purpose: to compile 100 reasons not to go.  But there is something whiny and wimpy about it.

Suppose you are paid to spend five years, from age 22 to age 27, studying in depth a subject you love and have an aptitude for in the idyllic environs of a college campus.  You have been give tuition remission and a stipend on which to live.  You really enjoy reading, writing, thinking, and studying more than anything else.   You have good sense and avoid the folly of assuming debt in the form of student loans.  You live within your very modest means and have the character to resist the siren songs of a society bent on crazy consumption.   You understand that a little monkishness never hurt anyone, and might even do your soul some good.

You spend five years enjoying all the perquisites of academic life: a beautiful environment, stimulating people, library privileges, an office, a flexible work schedule, and the like.  At age 27 you are granted the Ph.D.  But there are few jobs, and you knew that all along.  You make a serious attempt at securing a position in your field but fail.  So you go on to something else either with or without some further training.

Have you wasted your time?  Not by my lights.  Hell, you've been paid to do what you love doing!  What's to piss and moan about?  You have been granted a glorious extension of your relatively carefree collegiate years.  Five more years of being a student, sans souci, in some exciting place like Boston.  Five more years of contact with age- and class-appropriate members of the opposite sex and thus five more years of opportunity to find a suitable mate.  (But if you marry and have kids while a grad student, then you are a fool.  Generally speaking, of course.) 

Of course, if your goal in life is to pile up as much loot as possible in the shortest possible time, then stay away from (most) graduate programs.  But if the life of the mind is your thing, go for it!  What's to kvetch about? Are you washed up at 27 or 28 because you couldn't land a tenure-track position?  You have until about age 40 to make it in America. 

In the interests of full disclosure, however, I should say that I was one of the lucky ones. I spent five years in graduate school and received my Ph.D. at age 28. In the same year I accepted a tenure-track appointment and six years later I had tenure at age 34.

For more on this and cognate topics, see my Academia category.

Why the Catholic Church is Breaking Apart

Jonathan V. Last. Essential reading.

Society of Christian Philosophers Succumbs to Political Correctness

The following taken verbatim from Appeared-to-Blogly.

SCP: 1978-2018

Filed under: Philosophy — camcintosh @ 5:09 pm 

Well, the Society of Christian Philosophers had a good run, celebrating its 40^th anniversary at a vegan-catered conference this past weekend. Like the American Philosophical Association, the SCP is a shell of its former self, having been soul-sucked by political activists on the left. Compare Alvin Plantinga’s vision of nearly 40 years ago, as detailed in his “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” to the SCP’s vision today as summarized by one of the conference organizers:

The future is about teaching philosophy better, engaging in community outreach, rethinking “the cannon”, willing to think about mental illness, seeking to be compassionate and caring, promoting diversity and inclusion, and working to be less white. And it includes children.

This vision, relayed in typical Orwellian code, could just as well be that of any other progressive, secular organization’s. Hence, the Society of Christian Philosophers can no longer be said to exist as a distinctively Christian or philosophical organization. Its acronym should henceforth be understood to stand for the Society of “Christian” Progressives. I’m sure Uncle Al and Sr. Swinburne are proud of this bold, counter-cultural direction.

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

BV comments: rethinking "the cannon"? I'd like to take  a cannon to the numbskull who wrote the above statement. The word, of course, is 'canon.'

 

Related: Swinburne Dust Up at Society for Christian Philosophers (26 September 2016)

Chelsea Chucklehead the Orwellian

According to Chelsea Clinton, who is self-avowedly "deeply religious," to stem the slaughter of the pre-natal would be "unchristian." But of course one cannot expect the child of Bill and Hillary to have a functioning moral compass. 

Mockery and derision are essential weapons in modern political warfare for the simple reason that our enemies, bereft of moral sense, cannot, most of them, be engaged on the plane of reason. We do well to turn their Alinskyite tactics against them. 

But if there are a few lefties still in possession of a modicum of moral sense, I offer the following argument, sincerely meant and free of invective.

Suppose I want to convince you of something. I must use premises that you accept. For if I argue from premises that you do not accept, you will reject my argument no matter how rigorous and cogent my reasoning.

So how can we get through to those liberals who are willing to listen? Not by invoking any Bible-based or theological premises. And not by deploying the sorts of non-theological but intellectually demanding arguments found in my Abortion category. The demands are simply too great for most people in this dumbed-down age.

Liberals support inclusivity and non-discrimination. Although contemporary liberals abuse these notions, as I have documented time and again, the notions possess a sound core and can be deployed sensibly. To take one example, there is simply no defensible basis for discrimination against women and blacks when it comes to voting. The reforms in this area were liberal reforms, and liberals can be proud of them. A sound conservatism, by the way, takes on board the genuine achievements of old-time liberals.

Another admirable feature of liberals is that they speak for the poor, the weak, the voiceless. That this is often twisted into the knee-jerk defense of every underdog just in virtue of his being an underdog, as if weakness confers moral superiority, is no argument against the admirableness of the feature when reasonably deployed.

So say this to the decent liberals: If you prize inclusivity, then include unborn human beings. If you oppose discrimination, why discriminate against them? If you speak for the poor, the weak, and the voiceless, why do you not speak for them?

 

Is Talk of 'Possible Worlds' Wholly Dispensable?

I made a bold claim earlier:

If I am right, the patois of possible worlds is a dispensable manner of speaking: we can make every [modal] point we want to make without engaging in possible worlds talk.  What I just said is not perfectly obvious and there may be counterexamples. 

Here is a candidate counterexample that I borrow from Barbara Vetter, 'Can' Without Possible Worlds, 22:

(CC) Someone can see us.

This is an alethically or as Vetter would say "dynamically" modal statement. It is modal but not expressive of either epistemic or deontic modality. Interestingly, (CC) is susceptible of being read either de re or de dicto:

(DR) There is a person who can see us.

(DD) It is possible that someone see us.

(DR) commits us to an actual person who is able to see us.  (DD) does not. The first entails the second, but the second does not entail the first. So the two readings are non-equivalent.  Suppose that no actual person can see us. Suppose, that is, that no actual person has both the ability to see us and is positioned in such a way that he can exercise his ability. Even so, it is  'surely' possible that there be such a person. There could have been a person, distinct from every actual person, who sees us. 

So (DD) is a true alethically modal statement whose truth is not grounded in, or made true by, a power or ability of any actual item.

(DD) would thus appear to be a counterexample to Vetter's "potentiality semantics" according to which "all dynamic modality is de re . . . ." (22)  It seems that (DD) expresses a 'free-floating' possibility, one not grounded in any actual concrete thing's power or potentiality. If so, then 'possible worlds' talk might not be wholly dispensable.  

One response to the putative counterexample is rejectionist: Vetter toys with  simply rejecting (DD) as a statement of dynamic modality by suggesting that it is really an example of epistemic possibility (23).

I fail to see, however, how (DD) could be construed as epistemic.  The idea is not that, for all we know, someone can see us, but that it is really possible, apart from our knowledge and ignorance, that there be someone who can see us.  In the actual world, no one can see us now. But 'surely' there is a possible world, very much like the actual world, in which someone can see us now.  If there is this possibility, it is real, not epistemic. 

But there is another line of rejection that Vetter does not clearly distinguish from the first.  And that is simply to say that her topic is dynamic modality, the sort of real modality that we encounter in actual changing things, and not real modality in general.   'Dynamic' is from the Greek dynamis which in Latin is potentia, whence our 'potency' and 'potentiality.' The second way of rejection, then, is to dismiss (DD) as simply off-topic.

But then her thesis is less interesting: it is not the thesis that all alethic modality is de re, but that only the modality of actual concrete things subject to change is de re.  If this is her thesis, then it seems we need possible worlds to accommodate such de dicto possibilities as (DD). 

Will Science Put Religion Out of Business? A Preliminary Tilt at Transhumanism

Here at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

More Proof that 'Progressives' are Morally Obtuse

Re: Twitter's Content Blockage:

Some examples of this supposedly offensive content include pictures of children developing in the womb and even simple ultrasound images of babies — like the ones that expectant parents hang on their refrigerator doors. 

Twitter's actions suggest it’s OK for Planned Parenthood to tweet that a woman has a right to an abortion, but when I tweet and try to promote that a baby has a right to life, Twitter considers that inflammatory. 

Twitter's actions suggest it's fine for Planned Parenthood to tweet that taxpayers who don’t want to fund the nation’s largest abortion chain are "extremists," but when I tweet that there are alternative options to Planned Parenthood, Twitter calls that an offensive violation of policy.

And you are still a Democrat?  Please be aware of what you are voting for when you vote Democrat.

Kavanaugh is in Like Flynn

And what little credibility the Dems had left is out like Stout. (G. F. Stout?)

Here:

Opponents of Kavanaugh lost the fight when they lost their marbles. His foes on the Senate Judiciary Committee and allied activists ensured that opponents to the nomination appear to be a pack of wild cranks. 

[. . .]

Not only did the outbursts seem uncivil and destructive of Senate decorum, they may have violated federal criminal laws — including 40 U.S.C. 5104 — against disrupting congressional proceedings. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), instead of criticizing the criminal bedlam, called it “the noise of democracy.”

There's that word 'democracy' again! The chuckleheads need to define it or drop it. What do the Dems mean? Mob rule? The rejection of all procedural rules? The treating of the Constitution as if it were a tabula rasa?

Do Dicky Durbin and his ilk think the word has a talismanic power? Please do tell us what you mean, Dicky. 

Then Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) made his contribution.  With great fanfare, Booker announced his “Spartacus moment,” daring to disclose committee confidential documents that revealed Kavanaugh’s opinions about racial profiling. Of course, breaking rules appeals to the disruptive gang in the gallery, so Booker’s play seemed well-designed.

Yet, in execution, Booker’s plan was a disaster for Kavanaugh foes. Not only did Kavanaugh not support racial profiling, the documents were not subject to committee confidential restraints in the first place.

And then there is an important point I make in a very fine entry that I warmly recommend for your perusal, namely, that there is no such thing as racial profiling.

Swamp-Feverish Bill Kristol Plans Run Against Trump

The neocon knucklehead thinks he has a chance against Trump in 2020. He's delusional. 

The Mueller Assault on a Duly-Elected President

Roger Kimball:

Stepping back and looking at Mueller’s campaign against the President as a whole, it is clear that Mueller’s activities are meant primarily to intimidate, pressure, and co-opt associates of Donald Trump in order to convince them to bear witness against him.

As I have observed many times, I believe this is part of the biggest political scandal in US history. It involves the mobilisation of deep state actors in the Obama administration and the weaponisation of the FBI and other parts of the Department of Justice.

As Lee Smith noted in a superb summary of the case so far in RealClear Investigations, this sprawling campaign had two phases, an offensive phase to discredit Trump and help elect Hillary Clinton during the campaign of 2016 and then the ongoing defensive phase, which is intended to discredit the Congressional investigation into criminal misconduct by people in the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, and the FBI.

And you are still a Democrat?

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Cats

Before we get on to tonight's feature presentation, a little tribute to John McCain. Here he is in Bomb Iran. But the old neocon needs a history lesson. The Regents did it first, in 1961, before the Beach Boys covered it in '65. The Regents in their dotage, live. "I tried Peggy Sue, but I knew she wouldn't do."

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

Loving Spoonful, Nashville Cats, 1966. They's playin' since they's babies.

Harry Chapin, Cat's in the Cradle. For you fathers out there. Bond with your son when he's five. Wait till he's 50 and he won't give you the time of day. Harry Chapin was a major talent who died young.  Here is his great Taxi. We Boomers are damned lucky to have the greatest popular music soundtrack.

What Happened to Harry Chapin?

Tokens, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, 1961 

Bent Fabric, Alley Cat, 1962. Bent fabric can be said to have a kink  in it. Therefore,

Kinks, Phenomenal Cat

Tom Jones, What's New Pussycat? 1965. 

Norma Tanega, Walkin' My Cat Named 'Dog.' The queen of the one-hit wonders?

Mongo Santamaria, El Pussycat. If you remember this one, I'll buy you a pussyhat and a watermelon. While we have Mongo Santamaria cued up, here is his rather better-known Watermelon Man, muchachos.

Buck Owens, Tiger by the tail. This one goes out to Kathy P.

Stray Cats, Stray Cat Strut

Sue Thompson, Paper Tiger, 1965. This one's for Barack "Red Line" Obama.

Elton John, Honky Cat, 1972

Robert Petway, Catfish Blues, 1941.  An influential song in the history of the blues.  

Rooftop Singers, Tom Cat.  From those far-off and fabulous hootenanny days. 

UPDATE (9/16). 

Mendocino Joe wisely recommends Ring-Tail Tom.

UPDATE (9/17),

Monterey Tom, displaying good taste, as usual, reminds me of Laura Nyro's Tom Cat Goodbye.

'Nonconsensual Choking'

I was struck by a curious expression I found in a recent NYRB piece:

I faced criminal charges including hair-pulling, hitting during intimacy in one instance, and—the most serious allegation—nonconsensual choking while making out with a woman on a date in 2002.

As opposed to what? Consensual choking? So if you are on a date and the girl consents to being choked, then it is morally acceptable? And what sort of girl wants to be choked? Next stop: erotic asphyxiation. Why not, if it is consensual? You might even try mutual erotic asphyxiation. That might not end well, however. David Carradine's auto-erotic adventure in auto-asphyxiation in a Bangkok hotel room proved to be his last.

From another source, I gather that the hitting mentioned in the quotation is punching a girl in the head against her will. So if she wants to be punched in the head,  there is nothing wrong with it?

I'd say we are living in sick times if the consent of the done to is sufficient for the moral acceptability of the doer's deed. 

I'll leave it to you to work out why.

Related entry: Real Enough to Debase, but not to Satisfy

UPDATE (9/16)

A reader expands our vocabulary of depravity with a link to donkey punch. Not for the easily shocked. But I think it is important to look human wretchedness hard in the face and realize what becomes of morality when it is untethered from a transcendent anchor. This is what is happening in the RCC under Bergoglio the Termite. 

A Letter from Ronald Reagan to his Dying Father-in-Law

Here:

Loyal Davis, Reagan’s father-in-law and a pioneering neurosurgeon, was just days away from death.

Something else worried Reagan: The dying man was, by most definitions of the word, an atheist.

“I have never been able to subscribe to the divinity of Jesus Christ nor his virgin birth. I don’t believe in his resurrection, or a heaven or hell as places,” Davis once wrote. “If we are remembered and discussed with pleasure and happiness after death, this is our heavenly reward.”

Reagan, on the other hand, believed everyone would face a day of judgment, and that Davis’s was near. So the most powerful man in the world put everything else aside, took pen in hand and set out on an urgent mission — to rescue one soul.

This provides further insight into why the Left so hated Reagan: he was a man of faith.

I can't help but point out that what Loyal Davis says about "our heavenly reward" is disgusting nonsense. Why disgusting? Because it twists words to mean what they can't mean.  There is nothing heavenly or rewarding about being the merely intentional object of a few flickering and intermittent memories of a few mortals soon to bite the dust themselves.

Memo to atheists: if you are a hard-assed naturalist, hoe the row to the bitter end and issue no claptrap about a heavenly reward. Man up, accept the consequences of your doctrine, and show some respect for the English language.

Corruptio Optimi Pessima

The corruption of the best is the worst.

The evidence mounts. An Irish correspondent sends use here.

Following the dark revelations of the McCarrick scandal, former seminary formator, Father David Marsden, decided it was time to go public on the real reason he resigned from Maynooth and why he remains deeply concerned about the presence of a powerful gay subculture in the national seminary.

The Role of Concupiscence in the Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church

The role of concupiscence in dimming our spiritual sight has long been recognized by many, among them, such luminaries as Plato, Augustine, and Blaise Pascal:

There are some who see clearly that man has no other enemy but concupiscence, which turns him away from God. (Pensées, Krailsheimer #269, p. 110)

Has anyone pointed out that this is the real root of the rot in the Roman church? The depth of the corruption is hard to fathom, both in the sense of understand and in the sense of measure the depth of. R. R. Reno reports: 

From 1990 until 2010, I taught at a Jesuit University and was privy to insider gossip. The Irish philosopher William Desmond recounted some of his experiences as a young scholar visiting Fordham in the 1970s. The main debate in the Jesuit dining room concerned whether or not sodomy constituted a violation of the vow of celibacy. Some priests took the line that celibacy concerns the conjugal act, not sterile sex between men. A friend who spent time as a Jesuit novice during that slouching decade told me that novice masters regarded homo­sexual relations as healthy, even necessary for proper priestly formation. Sometimes the novice masters insisted that they be the agents of this “formation.”

This shows that the post-Vatican II church has become a thoroughly corrupt joke that deserves no support from the laity. Or am I being too harsh?

Imagine ordained priests -- not horny freshmen at a supposedly 'Catholic' college -- debating whether or not sodomy is a violation of celibacy. This is not something that can be reasonably debated among those who accept Church teaching.  Here:

The Code of Canon Law requires that “Clerics are obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and therefore are bound to celibacy which is a special gift of God by which sacred ministers can adhere more easily to Christ with an undivided heart and are able to dedicate themselves more freely to the service of God and humanity” (No. 277).

The key word here is 'continence.' Distinguish the following sorts of continence: mental (control of thoughts), emotional (control and custody of the heart), sensory-appetitive (custody of the eyes together with sexual restraint).  One of the main reasons that celibacy is enjoined is because spiritual realities cannot be descried by those enslaved to their lusts. Can you imagine Begoglio talking like this or your parish priest?

Now ask yourself whether the practice of sodomy is an expression of continence.  The question answers itself. Not only is the act a violation of continence, but planning and entertaining the act in thought is also a violation of continence, even if the act is never committed. For either way there is a failure to contain the 'outward flow' even it is merely on the intentional plane.  Cf. MT 5:28: "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (KJV) That holds a fortiori if the object of lust is a man.  As I interpret the teaching, it is not the passing desire that is sinful, but its elaboration in thought, its hospitable entertainment, the scheming of a sodomite like McCarrick, for example, as he plans his seduction of an innocent and trusting boy.

Another form of "sterile sex" would be 'intercourse' with an inflatable doll or (nowadays) a sexbot. Certainly the rectories of the land should be supplied with such dolls and robots since 'intercourse' with them is surely no violation of celibacy.

And then there is that form of "sterile sex" called masturbation. If buggery is part of healthy priestly formation (see first quotation above), then there could be no objection to masturbation which is of course officially condemned, (See Catechism #2352 or, for that matter, something even worse, bestiality. (About which the disgraced former senator from Minnesota, Al Franken, joked.)

I spoke above of what can and cannot be reasonably debated among those who accept Church teaching. Here may lie the nub of the problem. These so-called priests don't accept it. Maybe they did at first, but then they became secularized and the Unseen Order disappeared from view (to put it oxymoronically).  In plain English, God and the soul and the whole soteriological point of the Church became unreal to them. But they didn't have the courage to go out into the world and get a real job. So they 'reformed' the Church in their own corrupt image.   After all, their lifestyle is 'cushy' and you can dress up and parade around -- in a manner to gives new meaning to "don we now our gay apparel" -- and even earn or rather get some respect even if it is only from children, old ladies, and womanish men.  And then there there is that organizational ladder to climb and the power and perquisites that go with it. Hell, you may even get a red hat!

The 'reform' then, takes the form of a secularization, or a temporalization. The Church, which is supposed to mediate between Eternity and Time, analogously as Christ the God-Man mediates between God and Man, is reduced to a purely temporal power or rather a 'hustle' or ecclesial cosa nostra that yet mendaciously continues to promote itself as being true to its tradition with its ultimate anchor in the Eternal. Under Bergoglio the Leftist, the Church of Rome transmogrifies into a sort of environmental protection agency that attacks capitalism (the one economic system that actually works and improves the human lot) and that also advances the cause of 'migrants' no matter how destructive of civilization they might be, a civilization that the Church has built and maintained over the centuries, but is not willing to defend against Muslim iconoclasts and barbarians.

('Migrant' is a marvellously obfuscatory term since it manages to elide two important distinctions at once, the distinction between immigrants and emigrants and the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants.)

To sum up. I am pointing to a fact and offering an explanation, or at least part of one. The fact is that the Church hardly exists any longer as she was founded to be. The explanation is that the inordinate raging of our natural concupiscence which has been with us since the Fall and has been kept in check to some extent has now been unleashed and potentiated by our technology of life-extension, birth control, and world-wide communication.  Our 24-7, narcissistic, chit-chat connectivity is like a Faraday cage shielding us from influences from beyond the human horizon.  But the comparison breaks down: the influences from beyond are benign unlike the electrostatic and electromagnetic signals that threaten our 'devices.'

But the point is clear: our incredible technology leads to a super-secularization that makes it impossible except for a few to take seriously the idea that there could be anything beyond the human horizon. The Unseen Order (James) with the Unseen Warfare (Scupoli) that transpires there is no longer believable by modern man under his secularized, sex-saturated blanket, where with a few keystrokes he can bring before him an endless supply of the most vile pornography imaginable. 

Primum Vivere, Deinde Philosophari

We have it on good authority that the unexamined life is not worth living. But it is equally true that the unlived life is not worth examining.

'Democracy'

Are you becoming as sick of this word as I am?

Fareed Zakaria complains of a threat to democracy -- from the Left. Conservatives, he notes, are regularly denied a platform. If you have been following the news, you know that Stephen K. Bannon is a recent example of one denied.

But how is this assault on the classically liberal values of free speech and open inquiry a threat to 'democracy'?

That's the part I don't get. If you think about the matter for more than ten seconds you should be able to grasp that majority rule is no guarantee of the classically liberal values just mentioned and other such values that I haven't mentioned. The majority could easily decide that free speech and open inquiry are not values, or are values only if their exercise is not perceived as 'hurtful' by any group of highly sensitive people. 

Democracy is consistent with both the upholding and the abolition of classically liberal values.

It follows that the suppression of dissent (whether from the Left or the Right) is not an attack on democracy but an attack on free speech, open debate, and the untrammeled search for truth.

'Democracy' is treated as an honorific by almost all journalists and pundits. But it does not deserve its high honorific status.

In any case, the USA is not a democracy but a constitutional republic.

Suppose it is true, as Zakaria thinks, that President Trump is attacking the free press, and suppose further that he is out to destroy the Fourth Estate.  (This is plainly not the case, but just suppose.) How would that be an attack on democracy given that the man was democratically and duly elected? 

And how democratic is it when unelected Deep State operatives work day and night to undermine his presidency?

(I am beginning to write like a damned journalist what with the one-sentence paragraphs.  But I have got to get my message out to people corrupted by journalese.)

One Reason the Present Matters

The present is the matter of future memories. So live that one's memories will not be regrets.

My Relation to Catholicism

Here at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical.

No Entity Without Identity

Could it be literally true that Trump = Hitler?  Why not?

Lefties might try tampering with the concept of identity. They might advance the notion that identity, although long held by reactionary racists to be a symmetrical relation, is really asymmetrical. Thus, if a = b, then it is not the case that b = a. That would allow them to say that while Trump is Hitler, Hitler is not Trump.

But they can't leave transitivity untouched. After all, David Axelrod recently claimed that Trump is literally (his word) Nero.  Axelrod is no Joe Biden.  Axe knows the difference between the literal and the figurative, unlike Joe Blow. So if Trump = Hitler, and Trump = Nero, then Hitler = Nero, which is a decidedly anachronistic result. Hey hey, ho ho, transitivity has got to go! (Along with Western Civ as recommended by Brother Jesse.)

What about reflexivity?  Is Obama Obama?  Not really. He celebrates diversity even unto self-diversity.  It is precisely his self-diversity as both a white man and a black man that made it possible for him to bring us all together as he did so wonderfully while saving us from the capitalist oppression of the Law of Identity.

So I'm thinking that the Democrat Party needs a Logic Caucus tasked with undoing the racist logic of dead white guys like Aristotle and Frege.

It stands to reason that the Identity Politics of the Dems calls for a radical re-thinking of the very concept of identity.

I hereby nominate Nancy Pelosi, the sharpest knife in the Democrat drawer, to head up the Logic Caucus.

Evergreen State: Get Woke, Go Broke

The leftist seminary is down to 300 new enrollments.  That's good news!

The story broke in June of last year, and your humble correspondent weighed in: The Bret Weinstein-Heather Heying Caper at Evergreen State.

Be Skeptical of Activists' Claims

Here's a tip for you. 

When some activist or advocate makes a claim, be skeptical and run the numbers, especially when the advocate has a vested interest in promoting his cause.  

Do you remember Mitch Snyder the advocate for the homeless who hanged himself in 1990?  I heard him make a wild claim sometime in the '80s to the effect that the number of homeless in the U. S. was three million.  At the time the population of the U.S. was around 220 million.  So I rounded that up to 300 million and divided by three million.  And then I knew that Snyder's claim was bogus, and probably fabricated by Snyder, as was later shown to be the case.  It is simply not credible that one in 100 in the U. S. is a homeless person.

When Snyder admitted to Ted Koppel that he made up his number, advocates for the homeless defended his tactic as "lying for justice."  See here. A nice illustration of the leftist principle that the end justifies the means.  Obama implemented the principle when he  lied some 30 times about the Affordable Care Act .  But let's not go over that again.

Philosophy needs no social justification. But one of the salutary social byproducts of its study and practice is the honing of one's critical thinking skills.  I am assuming that the philosophy in question is broadly analytic and not the crapulous crapola  of such later Continentals as Derrida.

Note to Correspondents

Please don't take it amiss if I fail to respond to your missives or do so in a cursory manner. I must be selective. 

Philosophia longa, vita brevis.

The clock is running, and I have a lot to finish before the flag falls.

Jacques Derrida on 9/11

John Searle famously remarked that Derrida gives bullshit a bad name. Striking indeed is the French penchant for pseudo-literary vaporosity.  

"Something" took place, we have the feeling of not having seen it coming, and certain consequences undeniably follow upon the "thing." But this very thing, the place and meaning of this "event," remains ineffable, like an intuition without concept, like a unicity with no generality on the horizon or with no horizon at all, out of range for a language that admits its powerlessness and so is reduced to pronouncing mechanically a date, repeating it endlessly, as a kind of ritual incantation, a conjuring poem, a journalistic litany or rhetorical refrain that admits to not knowing what it's talking about. We do not in fact know what we are saying or naming in this way: September 11, le 11 septembre, September 11. The brevity of the appellation (September 11, 9/11) stems not only from an economic or rhetorical necessity. The telegram of this metonymy—a name, a number—points out the unqualifiable by recognizing that we do not recognize or even cognize that we do not yet know how to qualify, that we do not know what we are talking about. 

For the entire piece, go here.  You are forgiven if you have had enough.

9/11 Seventeen Years Later

The morning of 9/11 was a beautiful, dry Arizona morning.  Back from a hard run, I flipped on the TV while doing some cool-down exercises only to see one of the planes crash into one of the towers. I knew right away what was going on.

I said to my wife, "Well, two good things will come of this: Gary Condit will be out of the news forever, and finally something will be done about our porous southern border."

I was right about the first, but not about the second.

Do you remember Gary Condit, the California congressman?  Succumbing as so many do to the fire down below Condit initiated an extramarital affair with the federal intern, Chandra Levy.  When Levy was found murdered, Condit's link to Levy proved his undoing.  The cable shows were awash with the Condit-Levy affair that summer of 2001.  9/11 put an end to the soap opera.

But it didn't do  much for the security of the southern border. 

We got lucky in November, 2016. Now do your bit to vote down the obstructionsts and defeatists, whether living or dead, legal or not,  this coming November.

Of Trump and The Tempest

Roger Kimball:

I suspect that, come 2024, when President Trump completes his second successful term, Americans will indeed look back, but to the election of Barack Obama and the prospect of a second President Clinton in 2016. They will then wonder how they could have been so misguided as to have elected a naive, anti-American race-hustler like Barack Obama not once but twice, and they will thank their lucky stars that they dodged the bullet of a Hillary Clinton administration, which would have completed the anti-freedom agenda of the deep state and assured generations of economic lassitude and dependency. 

Cohen is correct that Shakespeare is relevant to the Trump administration. But the pertinent play is The Tempest, not Macbeth. In Act II, a few of the shipwrecked men are taking stock of their situation on Prospero’s enchanted island. It soon becomes clear that the island appears very different to different characters:

ADRIAN: The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. 
SEBASTIAN: As if it had lungs and rotten ones. 
ANTONIO: Or as 'twere perfumed by a fen. 
GONZALO: Here is everything advantageous to life. 
ANTONIO: True; save means to live. 
SEBASTIAN: Of that there's none, or little. 
GONZALO: How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green! 
ANTONIO: The ground indeed is tawny. 
SEBASTIAN: With an eye of green in't. 
ANTONIO: He misses not much. 
SEBASTIAN: No; he doth but mistake the truth totally. 

As the play unfolds, it becomes clear that Gonzalo sees the world aright while Antonio and Sebastian are caught in the grip of a fevered delusion.  Their animus and hatred blinded them to reality. The increasingly fanatic and hysterical anti-Trump chorus would do well to reflect on that phenomenon. Their hyperbole has begotten an alarming disconnection from the real world of solid political accomplishment.  The situation is pitiable as well as contemptible. But the malignancy of their vituperation disarms pity before it can even engage. All that is left is contempt, leavened by anger.

Bergoglio the Environmentalist

Image copied from here.

This is one pontiff who has his priorities straight.

Priestly pederasty is no problem; straws in the ocean are the problem!

Is this the last straw? Will Bergoglio the Boneheaded  perhaps be the last pope as the Roman church collapses under the weight of its own decadence or breaks apart in schism?

Could All Paths be Dead Ends?

I wrote:

Reason in the end must confess its own infirmity.  It cannot deliver on its promises. The truth-seeker must explore other avenues.  Religion is one, mysticism is another. 

Vito Caiati responds:

My concern is as follows: While I agree that “reason in the end must confess its own infirmity,” I am troubled by the possibility that religion and mysticism terminate, for many, in their own dead ends. Regarding religious belief, too many sincere seekers, perhaps those not blessed with a religious disposition, the apparent gift of a minority of humanity, end up concluding, to quote Pascal, that  “[J]e suis fait d'une telle sorte que je ne puis croire” (“I am so made that I cannot believe”; Pensées Le livre de Poche, 1991, 464). I realize that there are a variety of theological responses to this declaration, including the debilitating effects of original sin on the human soul and mind, but these attempts merely explain away or rationalize what is for many a painful reality. As for mysticism, its truths, real or supposed, are enjoyed, as you know, by a very tiny fraction of humanity, East and West. 

Given these states of affairs, is it not possible that many (most?) of us are trapped in our ignorance of higher things? That none of the three ways—reason, religion, or mysticism—is a viable alternative? That our fate is tragic and miserable?

I hope that the answer to each of these questions is a negative one, for I continue to search for a way forward.

In The Infirmity of Reason versus the Certitude of Faith, I list the following options, omitting mysticism:

A. Rationalism: Put your trust in reason to deliver truths about ultimates and ignore the considerations of Sextus Empiricus, Nagarjuna, Bayle, Kant, and a host of others that point to the infirmity of reason.

B. Fideism: Put your trust in blind faith. Submit, obey, enslave your reason to what purports to be revealed truth while ignoring the fact that what counts as revealed truth varies from religion to religion, and within a religion from sect to sect.

C. Skepticism: Suspend belief on all issues that transcend the mundane if not all beliefs, period. Don't trouble your head over whether God is or is not tri-personal. Stick to what appears. And don't say, 'The tea is sweet'; say, 'The tea appears sweet.' (If you say that the tea is sweet, you invite contradiction by an irascible table-mate.)

D. Reasoned Faith: Avoiding each of the foregoing options, one formulates one's beliefs carefully and holds them tentatively. One does not abandon them lightly, but neither does one fail to revisit and revise them. Doxastic examination is ongoing at least for the length of one's tenure here below. One exploits the fruitful tension of Athens and Jerusalem, philosophy and religion, reason and faith, playing them off against each other and using each to chasten the other.

I recommend (D). Or are there other options?

Dr. Mark Whitten wrote to remind me that

John Bishop (University of Auckland) has a book , Believing by Faith: An Essay in the Epistemology and Ethics of Religious Faith (OUP, 2007) which is perhaps the best book that I have read on the subject.  He argues for what he calls a ‘supra-evidential fideism’ in which  one is ‘morally entitled’ to “take as true in one’s practical and theoretical deliberations” a claim that lacks  evidence sufficient for  epistemically-justified acceptance or rejection.

It is a developed Jamesian’ approach to the right to believe. He does not allow for beliefs that go contrary to the weight of evidence, thus he rejects Wittgensteinian fideism. One may believe beyond the evidence, but not against the evidence. He holds that one must always respect the canons of rational inquiry and not dismiss them, even in matters of faith. Yet, by the very nature of the faith-issue, they can be transcended with moral entitlement.

Nor does he allow for ‘induced willings-to believe.’  He holds that one who already has an inclination / disposition to believe is morally entitled to do so if the issue is important, forced, and by the nature of the issue cannot be decided upon the basis of ‘rationalist empiricist’ evidential practice.I came across  the book on a list of important books in philosophy of religion on Prosblogion.

I think that it is a type of fideism that combines your categories B and D – fideism and reasoned faith.

Here is the Introduction to Bishop's book.

What should I say to Dr. Caiati?

It might all be a big bloody joke in the end. But we don't know that it is, and there are indications that it is not.  Among the indications and intimations are the deliverances of conscience, and a wide range of paranormal, religious, and mystical experiences. Add to that the explanatory failures of naturalism and the dozens and dozens of arguments that conduct us from undeniable features of this world (its existence, order, beauty, causal structure, contingency, intelligibility, etc.) to a Source beyond it.  None of these arguments is rationally compelling. Cumulatively, they make a strong case, but still not a compelling one. No substantive thesis bearing upon our ultimate concerns can be proven, not even the thesis I have just enunciated. There is simply no rest here below. We are in statu viae.

We are on the road, and any rest is temporary. Up ahead death looms, undeniable and ineluctable. That we will die is certain. But what death is is uncertain and unknown. We don't know what death is because we don't know what we are or who we are. If you think you know, then you are fooling yourself. You are either whistling in the dark or slumbering in some dogmatism, whether scientistic or religious.  That I am is certain; what I am highly uncertain.  That I sense a difference between right and wrong is certain; what this sense reveals, if anything, is highly uncertain.

The human condition is a predicament, and this predicament can be described as a chiaroscuro, a blend of light and dark, clarity and obscurity. I am tempted to quote the great Pascal, "There is light enough for those who want to see, and darkness enough for those who are contrary-minded." But that is not quite what I want to say.  My thought is that there is light enough to justify faith and hope, and darkness enough to justify the opposite.

But we live better by faith and hope and worse by unbelief and despair.  We resolve the matter pragmatically, by deciding and doing. Life as I  see it is a venture and an adventure with no assured outcome. Life is lived well when it is lived as a quest for the Absolute along the various routes of philosophy, religion, mysticism, and morality. 

All genuine religion involves a quest since God must remain largely unknown, and this by his very nature. He must remain latens Deitas in Aquinas' phrase:

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas;
Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit, Quia te contemplans totum deficit.

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore, Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

(tr. Gerard Manley Hopkins.)

But as religion becomes established in the world in the form of churches, sects, and denominations with worldly interests, it becomes less  of a quest and more of a worldly hustle. Dogmatics displaces inquiry, and fund-raising faith. The once alive becomes ossified.  All human institutions are corruptible, and are eventually corrupted.

Mature religion must be more quest than conclusions. It is vastly more a seeking than a finding. More a cleansing of windows and a polishing  of mirrors than a glimpsing. And certainly more a glimpsing than a comfortable resting upon dogmas. When philosophy and religion and mysticism and science are viewed as quests they complement one another. And this despite the tensions among Athens, Jerusalem, Benares, and Alexandria.

The critic of religion wants to pin it down, reducing it to dogmatic contents, so as to attack it where it is weakest. Paradoxically, the atheist 'knows' more about God than the sophisticated theist -- he knows so much that he knows no such thing could exist. He 'knows' the divine nature and knows that it is incompatible with the existence of evil -- to mention one line of attack.  What he 'knows,' of course, is only the concept he himself has fabricated and projected.  Aquinas, by contrast, held that the existence of God is far better known than God's nature -- which remains shrouded in a cloud of unknowing.

The (immature) religionist also wants religion pinned down and dogmatically spelled out for purposes of self-definition, doxastic security, other-exclusion, worldly promotion, and political leverage. This is a reason why reformers like Jesus are met with a cold shoulder -- or worse.