Do you think that the arguments for and against every substantive philosophical thesis are equipollent [equal in force], or do you think only that we can never be certain about the truth of the theses? In some of your posts, you suggest that you think the former (e.g. here); but in others, you suggest that you think we can determine some theses as more likely true than others. I'm fairly sure that you hold the former, but I thought I should make sure.
D1. An argument for a thesis T cancels out an argument for the negation of T just in case both arguments are equally plausible, or not far from equally plausible, to the producers(s)/consumers(s) of the arguments, assuming that these individuals are 'competent practitioners.'
Plausibility is relative to an arguer and his audience, if any. With respect to propositions, plausibility is not the same as truth. A plausible proposition needn't be true, and a true proposition needn't be plausible. With respect to arguments, plausibility is neither validity nor soundness as these are standardly defined. Validity and soundness are absolute, like truth herself. Plausibility is relative. There cannot be sound arguments both for a thesis and its negation. For if there is a sound argument for T, then T is true. And if there is a sound argument for ~T, then ~T is true. This is logical fallout from the standard definition of 'sound' according to which a sound argument is one that is deductive, valid, and has only true premises. If there are sound arguments for both a thesis T and its negation ~T, then (T & ~T) is true which violates the Law of Non-Contradiction. Therefore, there cannot be sound arguments for a thesis and its negation.
So I am envisaging situations in which argument and counter-argument are equally plausible or nearly so but only one is sound. Equally plausible to whom? It could be one and the same philosopher. Preston, for example, finds the arguments for and against a regularity theory of causation equally plausible. For him the arguments cancel out and he ends up in a state of doxastic equipoise with respect to the issue. From there he might go on to suspend judgment on the question, or he might investigate further. A third option for one who ends up in doxastic equipoise is to leap to one side or the other. Suppose, after canvassing the arguments for and against the existence of God, or those for and against the immortality of the soul, you find that the cumulative case for and the cumulative case against are equally plausible. You might leap to one side for prudential or pragmatic reasons. You would have no theoretical reason for the leap, but also no theoretical reason against the leap. But the leap might nonetheless be prudentially rational and the refusal to leap prudentially irrational.
Or the plausibility could be to a group of philosophers. Suppose the group has ten members, with five finding the arguments for more plausible than the arguments against, and five taking the opposite stance. I will then say that argument and counter-argument are equally plausible to the group. As I set up the example, none of the members of this group are in a state of doxastic equipoise. But I will make bold to claim that each of them ought to be, assuming that each of them is a competent practitioner. This claim is controversial, and needs defending, but I must move on.
A competent practitioner is not the same as an epistemic peer. A number of individuals may be epistemic peers, but all incompetent. I won't try for a crisp definition of 'competent practitioner,' but if one is a competent practitioner, then he is a sincere truth seeker, not a quibbler or a sophist; he knows logic and the empirical disciplines that bear upon the arguments he is discussing; he is familiar with the relevant literature; he embodies the relevant intellectual virtues, and so on.
The answer to the reader's question will depend on what counts as a substantive or seriously philosophical thesis (SPT). Such theses cannot be denials or affirmations of Moorean facts. Such a fact is roughly a deliverance of common sense. STPs are not at the level of data, but at the level of theory. The distinction between data and theory is not sharply drawn. Border disputes are possible. The theoretical bleeds into the datanic and vice versa. Theories are data-driven, but some data are theory-laden. But I don't believe one can get on without the data-theory distinction.
For example, it is a Moorean fact that some things no longer exist. This cannot be reasonably disputed. Affirm the datum or deny it, you are not (yet) doing philosophy. That Boston's Scollay Square no longer exists is not a philosophical claim, but a proto-philosophical or pre-analytic datum. But if you maintain that what no longer exists does not exist at all, then you go beyond the given to affirm a controversial philosophical thesis known as presentism. Roughly, this is the thesis that, with respect to items in time, only what exists at present exists, period. (It implies that the Wholly No Longer and the Wholly Not Yet are realms of nonexistence.) This is hardly common sense despite what some presentists claim. If Scollay Square is now nothing at all, then how could it be the object of veridical memories and the subject of true predications? A predicate cannot be true of an item unless the item exists.
If, on the other hand, you maintain that what no longer exists does exist, albeit tenselessly, then you are affirming a controversial philosophical thesis known in the trade as eternalism. Eternalism will enable you to explain how a wholly past item can be the object of veridical thoughts and the subject of true predications. But if you try to explain what 'tenseless' means in this context, you will soon entangle yourself in difficulties. Both presentism and eternalism are examples of what I am calling seriously philosophical theses, they cannot both be true, and neither records a Moorean fact.
For a second example, consider the claim that consciousness is an illusion. This is not an SPT, despite its having been urged by philosophers of high repute. It is either beneath refutation or is quickly refuted by a simple argument: illusions presuppose consciousness; ergo, consciousness is not an illusion. There are any number of eliminativist claims that are not SPTs. The claim that there are no claims, for example, 'sounds philosophical' but cannot be taken seriously: it is not an SPT. On the other hand, there are eliminativist claims that are SPTs, for example, the claim that there is no such person as God, or that continuants such as tables and trees do not have temporal parts.
In sum, if you affirm what is obvious or deny what is obvious you are not making a seriously philosophical claim even if what you affirm or deny is highly general and is apt to ignite philosophical controversy when brought into contact with other propositions. For example, if you affirm that some events are earlier than others, you simply a record a datum that no sane person can deny. If, on the other hand, you affirm that everything that people believe is true then you affirm what is datanically false and no object of rational controversy.
I consider all of the following examples of SPTs:
- There are no nonexistent objects.
- There are uninstantiated properties.
- There are no modes of existence.
- The properties of particulars are tropes, not universals.
- God exists.
- The soul is immortal.
- The human will is libertarianly free.
- Each of us is numerically identical to his living body.
- I am not my living body; I merely have a living body.
- Anima forma corporis.
- Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung.
- Laws of nature are just empirical regularities.
- Truths need truth-makers.
- Only facts could serve as truth-makers.
- There are no facts.
- Relations reduce to their monadic foundations.
- There are no properties, only predicates.
- The predicate 'true' serves only as a device for disquotation.
- Social and economic inequalities are justified only if they benefit the worst-off.
There are many more examples, of course. Now what do the above examples have in common? None of them records a Moorean fact. That is, none of them, if true, is obviously true or datanically true. Example. There are two tomatoes on my counter, both ripe, and both (the same shade of) red. That is a given, a datum, not subject to philosophical dispute, certain hyperbolic forms of skepticism aside. But it is not a datum, phenomenological or otherwise, that the redness of the tomatoes is a universal, a repeatable entity, whether a transcendent universal (a one-over-many) or an immanent universal (a one-in-many). For there is an alternative theory according to which the properties of particulars are themselves particulars (unrepeatables). On this theory each tomato has its own redness. Accordingly, there are two rednesses in the example, not one. Both theories explain the data, but they cannot both be true. Phenomenology does not suffice to decide between them; dialectic must be brought in. Once you get the dialectical ball rolling, you will have a hard time stopping it. It will roll down a rabbit hole that opens out into a labyrinth . . . .
Having clarified what I mean by a substantive or serious philosophical thesis, I now state two meta-philosophical theses that I am considering.
The strong thesis is that every SPT is such that the arguments for it and against it cancel out in the sense defined in (D1) above. This implies that no SPT is rationally preferable to its negation. I have my doubts about the strong thesis.
The weak thesis is that a proper subset of SPTs are such that the arguments for and against cancel out. I strongly suspect that the theses that most concern us belong to the proper subset, the hard core of insolubilia.
On the weak thesis, some SPTs will be theoretically-rationally preferable to others.
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