Maverick Philosopher PowerblogsArchive

Life as Chess

Brandon over at Siris quotes T. H. Huxley on life as chess. While you are at Siris, poke around: there is much to feast on.

From the Mail: Leftists and Civility

Dear Dr. Vallicella,

I enjoyed your excellent comment about civility. In a recent entry on his blog, Brian Leiter said that "rightwing liars" and "creationist conmen" should not be treated with civility. See http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/ His remarks are in the last paragraph of the entry "An Excess of Civility."

Best wishes,

David Gordon

Dr. Gordon is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. His biography and links to his articles are available here. As for Brian Leiter, those who are acquainted with his personal attributes will understand why I refuse to link to him.

New Book by Peter Unger

Henry Verheggen tells me that Peter Unger is coming out with a new book, All the Power in the World. According to Henry, "It is an apparently novel defense of a variant of Cartesian dualism." Parts are on-line here in PDF format.

Diversity and Divisiveness

Liberals emphasize the value of diversity, and with some justification. Many types of diversity are good. One thinks of culinary diversity, musical diversity, artistic diversity generally. Biodiversity is good, and so is a diversity of opinions, especially insofar as such diversity makes possible a robustly competitive market place of ideas wherein the best rise to the top. A diversity of testable hypotheses is conducive to scientific progress. And so on.

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But no reasonable person values diversity as such. A maximally diverse neighborhood would include pimps, whores, nuns, drug addicts, Islamo-headchoppers, Hell’s Angels, priests both pedophile and pure, Sufi mystics, bank clerks, insurance salesmen, people who care for their property, people who are big on deferred maintenance . . . . You get the point. Only some sorts of diversity are valuable. Diversity worth having presupposes a principle of unity that controls the diversity. Diversity must be checked and balanced by the competing value of unity, a value with an equal claim on our respect.

For example, one may value a district which is home to a diversity of restaurants (Turkish, Thai, French. . .), but only if they are all good restaurants. A diversity which includes ptomaine joints, greasy spoons, and high-end establishments is not the sort of diversity one values. Or one may value a philosophy department in which a diversity of courses is on offer, but not one in which the diversity extends to the competence levels of the instructors or the preparedness levels of the students. One wants excellent instruction on a diversity of topics – but that is just to say that the value of diversity must be kept in check by the competing value of unity: the instructors are precisely not diverse in respect of their excellence.

Diversity unchecked by the competing value of unity leads to divisiveness. For this reason, one ought not ‘celebrate diversity’ unless on is also willing to ‘celebrate unity.’ And this is precisely what too many liberals and leftists cannot, or will not, comprehend. They unreasonably emphasize diversity at the expense of unity.

Compare the unreasonable overemphasis on diversity with the unreasonable overemphasis on liberty. There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth of late in liberal enclaves over the evil John Ashcroft’s assault on our civil liberties. Liberals make the same mistake here that they make in the case of diversity: they fail to appreciate that liberty and security are competing values each of which requires the other to have the value it has.

If you have followed me this far, then take action. Support English as the official language of the USA and oppose the deleterious idiocy of bilingual education. Celebrate unity and the conditions of its flourishing all the while respecting the competing value of diversity. When libs and lefties spout off on how precious 'diversity' is, balance their claptrap by underscoring the value of unity.

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What Ever Happened to Linda Lovelace?

Her real name was Linda Boreman. The daughter of a New York City cop, she was raised in Yonkers and attended Catholic school where she was known as "Miss Holy Holy" because of her noli me tangere attitude. She died in April of 2002. Read her sad story here.

On Searle: Irreducibility Without Dualism?

As I said earlier, John R. Searle is a great philosophical critic. Armed with muscular prose, common sense, and a surly (Searle-ly?) attitude, he shreds the sophistry of Dennett and Co. But I have never quite understood his own solution to the mind-body problem. Herewith, some notes on one aspect of my difficulties and his.

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The Mystery of Consciousness (1997) ends on this note: "We can, in short, accept irreducibility without accepting dualism." (214) Consciousness is irreducible, but still "a part of the ordinary physical world." How exactly?

Searle sees with crystal clarity that it makes just no bloody sense at all to think that conscious phenomena are reducible to an underlying physical reality in the way that perceived lightning, say, is reducible to an atmospheric electrical discharge. With respect to objective phenomena such as lightning it makes sense to distinguish appearance and reality and to attempt a description of the underlying reality in observer-independent terms. But "where consciousness is concerned, the reality is the appearance." (213)

The esse of a pain, for example, just is its percipi: no sort of logical wedge can be driven between the two. Searle likes to say that mental data have a "first-person ontology." That amounts to saying that pains and the like have a mode of existence radically different from the mode of existence of nonconscious items. Digestion and photosynthesis occur whether or not they are experienced; "but consciousness only exists when it is experienced as such." (213)

But this smacks of dualism, does it not? You have two radically different modes of existence just as in Descartes there is the radical difference between thought and extension. If you know your Descartes, you know that for him 'thought' covers all manner of conscious data, not just thinking in contrast to sensing, imagining, wishing, willing, etc. A res cogitans, a thinking thing, is a conscious (and indeed self-conscious) thing. So we could just as well name the Cartesian modes consciousness and extension. This seems to be close (though of course not identical) to what Searle is getting at: there is first-person (subjective) being and third-person (objective) being: "consciousness has a first-person or subjective ontology and so cannot be reduced to anything that has a third-person or objective ontology" (212) Searle (mis)uses the inflated term 'ontology' where it would be better to use 'being' or 'existence.'

The last quotation explains why Searle is not a materialist: he is not trying to reductively identify something essentially first-personal with something essentially third-personal. So far so good. But then why does he fight shy of being called a dualist? Even if he is not a substance dualist like Descartes, why does he not own up to being a property dualist?

The answer, I am afraid, is that he is in the grip of the ideology of scientific naturalism. In contemporary philosophy of mind, nothing is worse than to get yourself called a dualist. For then you are an unscientific superstitious fellow who believes in spook stuff, ghosts in machines, and worse. Next stop: the Twilight Zone.

Searle is in a tough bind. He appreciates the irreducibility of mind and sees clearly the hopelessness of behaviorism, identity-materialism, and functionalism. But at all costs he must contain his insight into irreducibility and not allow it any spiritual or dualistic significance. Consider this sentence: "Consciousness is a real part of the real world and it cannot be eliminated in favor of, or reduced to, something else." (210)

But what is the real world? Why, the natural world. So what Searle is saying is that consciousness is in the natural world as a "real and intrinsic feature of certain biological systems" but it has a first-person ontology that makes it radically different from everything else in the natural world.

This appears to be a contradiction since the natural world is just the world of the (objective, third-personal) natural sciences. Natural entities have a third-person ontology. So if consciousness is natural, then it too must have a third-person ontology. It is a contradiction to say that consciousness is both natural and has a first-personal ontology.

To avoid contradiction, Searle ought to admit that there is more to reality than nature. But he cannot do this, of course, without abandoning his ideological and scientistic commitment to scientific naturalism.

This comes out very clearly on pp. 118-124 of The Rediscovery of the Mind(1992). There he is concerned to deny that the irreducibility of consciousness has any "deep consequences." Searle writes:

. . . the irreducibility of consciousness is a trivial consequence of the pragmatics of our definitional practices. A trivial result such as this has only trivial consequences. It has no deep metaphysical consequences for the unity of our overall scientific world view. It does not show that consciousness is not part of the ultimate furniture of reality or cannot be a subject of scientific investigation or cannot be brought into our overall physical conception of the universe . . . .

One can see from this that for Searle, the unity of the scientific world view must be preserved at all costs. One can also see that Searle identifies ultimate reality with the physical world which is the subject of scientific investigation. But how can consciousness be irreducible and not threaten the unity of the scientific world view?

Searle's answer is that the irreducibility of consciousness is merely an artifact of a pragmatic decision to carry out reductions in a certain way. "Consciousness fails to be reducible, not because of some mysterious feature, but simply because by definition it falls outside the pattern of reduction that we have chosen to use for pragmatic reasons." (122-123)

This suggests that we might have chosen a different "pattern of reduction," and that, had we done so, consciousness would not have been irreducible. But what could that mean?

It doesn't mean anything! Obviously, consciousness provides the epistemic access to every objective phenomenon which we can then attempt to reduce to a more fundamental reality. Because I am conscious I feel heat which I can then explain in terms of mean molecular kinetic energy. Because I am conscious, I see the lightning before I hear the thunder and can go on to explain why in terms of light waves whose propagation needs no medium unlike sound waves that move throught the air, etc. Because I am conscious, I am aware of a certain freshness in the air after a thunderstorm, a freshness that I then reduce to the presence of ozone, etc.

Searle is right that consciousness is irreducible, but this irreducibility is grounded in the nature of consciousness, in its "first person ontology." This nature is not a trivial consequence of a mere decision on our part as to how we shall conduct reductions.

Once one sees that the fancy footwork on pp. 122-123 of RM is a sham motivated by an ideological commitment to scientific naturalism, one sees that Searle has not avoided dualism. He has failed to provide a satisfying naturalistic solution to the mind-body problem.

There are other problems as well, which I will leave for later.

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Leftists and Civility

The Right has not cornered the market on civility, as witness the aptronymic Michael Savage, not to mention the irrepressible Ann Coulter. I take a dim view of both, and I don't excuse them the way some conservatives do, by saying that they counterbalance the likes of Al Franken. But in my experience, liberals and leftists are worse in the civility department than conservatives. If you don’t agree with me on this, then this post is not for you. To try to prove my assertion to liberals and leftists would be like trying to prove to them that such major media outlets as the New York Times tilt leftward. To achieve either goal, I would have to possess the longevity of a Methuselah, the energy of a Hercules, and the dogged persistence of a Sisyphus – and I still would not succeed.

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So, given that conservatives are more civil than their opponents, why is this the case? That alone is the question. Two things come to mind.



The first is that civility is not conducive to achieving the sorts of ends at which leftists typically aim. Civility is by its very nature conservative: it operates within the status quo and tends to preserve it; leftists, however, are out to shake things up. Eric Alterman of the The Nation, for example, writes, "By insisting on 'keeping things civil,' in polite society, repressive powers may suppress ugly truths about their conduct merely because raising them requires bad manners." According to leftist blogger Thomas Feakins, "there is an 'excess of civility' today in North America."



Why be civil when faced with:

-the creation of "no-go" zones at peaceful demonstrations

-new legislation to stop panhandling on street-corners

-by-laws to crack down on homeless and squeegee kids

-the Patriot Act and other "anti-terror" legislation

-severe cuts to income assistance and services for families and children

-xenophobia at Canadian, Mexican and U.S. borders



Is this civility? In this harsh new world we are putting politeness and decorum above substance. Our attention is focused on how the homeless person smells, as opposed to looking at the issue of affordable housing. (Ibid.)

By the way, note Feakins' egregious misuse of 'xenophobia.' Border control is a legitimate government function. To insist on it is hardly xenophobic. A phobia is an irrational fear, and xenophobia is an irrational fear of foreigners or things foreign. Friendly advice to you leftists: stop misusing words like 'fascist,' 'theocrat' and 'xenophobe' if you want to be taken seriously.



Feakins thinks that the Patriot Act and border control and laws protecting innocent productive citizens from squeegee extortionists are uncivil. I disagree and would argue that they or something like them are necessary for civil society. The main point, however, is that we can debate these issues productively only if we remain civil. Leftists, however, apparently think that they cannot win the debates except by becoming uncivil.



A second, albeit related, point is that conservatives, for whom there is a defeasible presumption in favor of traditional ways of doing things, are more civil due to a natural piety with respect to received modes of human interaction. Civility works, and conservatives are chary about discarding what works. They were brought up to be civil by parents and teacher who were themselves civil, and they see no reason to reject as phony or ‘precious’ something that is conducive to good living. They understand that since we live in a world of appearances, a certain amount of concern with them is reasonable. They also understand that by faking it a bit, one brings oneself actually to feel the emotions that one began by faking. For example, by saying ‘Good Morning’ when I don’t quite feel like it, I contribute to my own perception of the morning as good.



Leftists, however, many of whom are of a rebellious and adolescent cast of mind, have a problem with what they perceive to be phoniness. They are always out to unmask things, to cut through the false consciousness and the bourgeois ideology. Connected with this hatred of phoniness is a keen sensitivity to hypocrisy. So when Bill (William J.) Bennett was caught wasting money on the slot machines in Las Vegas a while back, his opponents on the Left pounced and denounced: "Hypocrite!" they cried.



So pouncing and denouncing, they proved that they do not know what hypocrisy is. Although Mr. Bennett’s behavior was suboptimal, it was neither illegal nor immoral: he’s got the dough to blow if that’s his pleasure. Given his considerable accomplishments, is he not entitled to a bit of R & R?



A hypocrite is not someone who is morally imperfect or who fails to engage in supererogatory acts. Nor is a hypocrite one who preaches high ideals but falls short. Otherwise, we would all be hypocrites. But if everyone is, then no one is. A hypocrite is someone who preaches high ideals but makes no attempt at living up to them. The difference is between failing to do what one believes one ought to do and not even trying to do what one says one ought to do.



Among some liberals and leftists, the obsession with perceived phoniness and perceived hypocrisy seems to stem from an innate hatred of moral judgment, a hatred which itself seems fueled by a confusion of moral judgment with judgmentalism.



So perhaps the answer is this. Leftists are less civil than conservatives because they do not see civility as a value. They don't see it as a value because it is by its very nature conservative of the status quo and smacks of a bourgeois moral ideology that to them is nothing but a sham. Adroit unmaskers and psychologizers that they are, incapable of taking things at face value, they think that none of us who preach civility’s value really believe what we are preaching. It really has to be something else, just as the desire for democracy in Iraq really has to be something else: a desire for economic and military hegemony or a lust to grab oil fields.

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An Inconclusive Argument Against Dualist Interactionism

One can be a substance dualist in the philosophy of mind without being an interactionist. And one can be an interactionist without being a substance dualist. (Exercise for the reader: explain why both assertions are true.)

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But suppose you are a latter-day Cartesian: you are both a substance dualist and an interactionist: you believe that mind and body are distinct (kinds of) substances and you also believe that some mental events cause physical events and some physical events cause mental events. You will be taxed by some with a supposedly insurmountable difficulty: how can there be mind-body and body-mind causation if mind and body are radically different kinds of substance?

There are benighted souls who think this objection is decisive against Cartesian dualism. They are mistaken.

To show that the objection is not decisive it suffices to set forth a theory of causation that would allow mental events to cause physical events (and vice versa) even if a mental event is construed as an irreducibly mental substance's instantiation at a time of a mental property and a physical event is construed as an irreducibly physical substance's instantiation at a time of a physical property.

Well, a regularity theory of causation would do the trick, would it not? Suppose we say that:

Event-token e1 causes event-token e2 if and only if (i) e1 temporally precedes e2, and (ii) e1 and e2 are tokens of event-types E1 and E2 respectively such that every tokening of E1 is followed by a tokening of E2.

On this Hume-inspired theory (sans the contiguity condition), causation is just regular succession. If this is the correct theory of causation, then there is nothing problematic about mental events causing physical events, and vice versa.

Of course, if you think that causation must involve the transfer of some physical quantity such as energy or momentum, then of course substance-dualist interactionism is out. But there is nothing in the very idea of substance-dualist interactionism to render it incoherent. It all depends on how causation is understood.

Suppose one adopted a counterfactual analysis along the lines of: c causes e =df had c not occurred, e would not have occurred. There is nothing here to rule out substance-dualist interactionism.

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Are You a Liberal? Take This Test!

I pulled this from Dennis Prager's site. You can catch him in the Phoenix area on AM 960, "The Patriot." (Memo to BV: Write a post explaining the difference, indiscernible to (most? all?) liberals, between patriotism and jingoism.)

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You say you are a liberal.



Do you believe the following?



1. Standards for admissions to universities, fire departments, etc. should be lowered for people of color.

2. Bilingual education for children of immigrants, rather than immersion in English, is good for them and for America.

3. Murderers should never be put to death.

4. During the Cold War, America should have adopted a nuclear arms freeze.

5. Colleges should not allow ROTC programs.

6. It was wrong to wage war against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War.

7. Poor parents should not be allowed to have vouchers to send their children to private schools.

8. It is good that trial lawyers and teachers unions are the two biggest contributors to the Democratic Party.

9. Marriage should be redefined from male-female to any two people.

10. A married couple should not have more of a right to adopt a child than two men or two women.

11. The Boy Scouts should not be allowed to use parks or any other public places and should be prohibited from using churches and synagogues for their meetings.

12. The present high tax rates are good.

13. Speech codes on college campuses are good and American values are bad.

14. The Israelis and Palestinians are morally equivalent.

15. The United Nations is a moral force for good in the world, and therefore America should be subservient to it and such international institutions as a world court.

16. It is good that colleges have dropped hundreds of men's sports teams in order to meet gender-based quotas.

17. No abortions can be labeled immoral.

18. Restaurants should be prohibited by law from allowing customers to choose between a smoking and a non-smoking section.

19. High schools should make condoms available to students and teach them how to use them.

20. Racial profiling for terrorists is wrong -- a white American grandmother should as likely be searched as a Saudi young male.

21. Racism and poverty -- not a lack of fathers and a crisis of values -- are the primary causes of violent crime in the inner city.

22. It is wrong and unconstitutional for students to be told, "God bless you" at their graduation.

23. No culture is morally superior to any other.



Those are all liberal positions. How many of them do you hold?

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Dennett's Dismissal of Dualism

Daniel Dennett is a brilliant and flashy writer, but his brilliance borders on sophistry. (In this regard, he is like Richard Rorty, another writer who knows how to sell books.) As John Searle rightly complains, he is not above "bully[ing] the reader with abusive language and rhetorical questions. . . ." (The Mystery of Consciousness, p. 115) An excellent example of this is the way Dennett dismisses substance dualism in the philosophy of mind:

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Dualism (the view that minds are composed of some nonphysical and utterly mysterious stuff) . . . [has]been relegated to the trash heap of history, along with alchemy and astrology. Unless you are also prepared to declare that the world is flat and the sun is a fiery chariot pulled by winged horses — unless, in other words, your defiance of modern science is quite complete — you won't find any place to stand and fight for these obsolete ideas. (Kinds of Mind, Basic Books, 1996, p. 24)

There is something contemptibly intellectually dishonest about this passage since Dennett must know that it makes a travesty of the dualist's position. Yes, I know he studied under Gilbert Ryle and had phrases like "ghost in the machine" drummed into him at an impressionable age; but he is smart and well-connected and has had plenty of opportunity to be set straight. A substance dualist such as Descartes does not hold that minds are composed of some extraordinarily thin intangible stuff. The dualism is not a dualism of stuff-kinds, real stuff and spooky stuff. 'Substance' in 'substance dualism' does not refer to a special sort of ethereal stuff but to substances in the sense of individuals capable of independent existence whose whole essence consists in acts of thought, perception, imagination, feeling, and the like. Dennett is exploiting the equivocity of 'substance.'

Of course, it is very difficult for the materialistically minded to understand this because they cannot understand how anything could be real that is not material. This incapacity on their part leads them to construe the Cartesian dualist as talking about some sort of rarefied matter, some sort of spook stuff, a kind of immaterial matter if you will.

The incapacity in question also leads Dennett to the preposterous notion that a defender of dualism must stand in complete "defiance of modern science." (Note en passant that Descartes was among the founders of modern science.) But where in modern science is it established that everything that exists is material or physical in nature? Which branch of physics is competent to establish this meta-physical result? Observe the difference between the following two propositions:

1. Nothing in the physical world is in principle insusceptible of natural-scientific study.

2. Nothing is in principle insusceptible of natural-scientific study.

(1) is unobjectionable, but (2) presupposes that everything is physical. But that everything is physical is a metaphysical proposition that is neither entailed by any scientific result, nor presupposed by scientific investigation.

Since Dennett is the exact opposite of stupid, one has to conclude that he is either intellectually dishonest or simply in the grip of an ideology, the ideology of scientific naturalism. He seems to think that the substance dualist, with his supposed postulation of spook stuff, is in some sort of unscientific competition with a scientific approach to the mind. But he can make this blunder only by presupposing something obviously false, namely, that the progress of natural science has shown, or is showing, that everything is at bottom physical in nature.

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Jim Ryan on Consciousness and Zombies

If Dr. Ryan is right, then I am wrong. So I am 'forced' to look into this matter. My comments are in italics.

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Ryan writes:

Consciousness (i.e., all mental states) is just states of the brain, functional states, like software being run, but nevertheless physical like software, rather than non-physical. The program running your web browser right now is physical, and, by the same token, so is the consciousness in your brain. Here's why.

A minor cavil: hardware, and the brain's 'wetware,' are undoubtedly physical, but software? The implementation of a program — the 'running' of it on a machine — is physical, but the software itself is arguably abstract. But I won't pursue this line because it is tangential to my main concern.

If consciousness were non-physical, we could conceive of a physical, human body operating normally, exhibiting the behavioral and brain states of a normal person but being devoid of any consciousness. "Hello," it might say, as it smiled and shook your hand, with the lights on but nobody home. In other words, if consciousness were non-physical, it could be peeled away from the brain in a thought experiment such as this. We could conceive of the brain working its neural net as usual but without any consciousness being generated by its activities. Such a being we could call a "zombie," but it wouldn't be like the zombies in the movies who act sleepy. Ex hypothesi it would act just like you and I.

This is all boilerplate in contemporary philosophy of mind. The problem is the whole field zigs where it should zag. It accepts that zombies are conceivable and then either tries to squirm out of the resultant dualism somehow or just gives up and accepts dualism. But we cannot conceive of zombies.

Jim's main argument is an instance of Modus Tollens:

1. If consciousness were non-physical, then zombies would be conceivable.
2. Zombies are not conceivable.
Therefore
3. Consciousness is physical.

Ryan now supports premise (2):

To conceive of a kind of thing requires that one have an idea of what would count as evidence that there was a thing of that kind. To understand "apple" requires knowing what counts as evidence that there is an apple on the table, for example. But no one has any idea what would count as evidence that someone was a zombie. Look into its eyes, shake the hand, but, try as you might, you have in principle no way of telling that your new acquaintance is a zombie. Does he not cry when hurt? Does he not swoon during courtship? Ex hypothesi he does. So, the concept of "zombie" is meaningless. The word "zombie" is as meaningless as "round square". Therefore, "consciousness is non-physical" is incoherent.

Granted, nothing could count as (objective, third-person) evidence that a person is a zombie. But it is equally true that nothing could count as (objective, third-person) evidence that a person is not a zombie. Therefore, if Ryan infers that the concept zombie is meaningless from the fact that nothing could count as evidence for zombiehood, then he also ought to infer that the concept conscious being is meaningless from the fact that nothing could count as evidence for someone's being a conscious being.

So Ryan's argument is sound if and only if the following parody argument is sound:

1*. If consciousness were physical, then conscious physical beings would be conceivable.
2.* Conscious physical beings are not conceivable.
Therefore
3.* Consciousness is not physical.

This proves that consciousness is nothing more than synapses firing. It is inconceivable that mind and body exist separately.

It proves nothing of the kind since my parody argument completely neutralizes Ryan's argument.

But let's take a step further. Ryan says that nothing could count as evidence that someone is a zombie. Well, I have excellent (subjective, first-person) evidence that I am not a zombie. (I pinch my arm and I feel something.) Since I know that I am not a zombie, it is true that I am not a zombie. Therefore, the proposition I am not a zombie is meaningful. (Meaningfulness is a necessary condition of having a truth-value.) But this proposition cannot be meaningful unless the concept zombie is meaningful. Therefore, the concept zombie is meaningful. The fact that there can be no objective third-person evidence that anyone is not a zombie has no tendency to show that the concept zombie is meaningless.

Another reason to think it meaningful is the fact that solipsism is conceivable. I know that I am conscious, but I have no evidence that the rest of you are. You people who comment on my posts — you could be just a bunch of robots. The Big Ho is just a Big Bot for all I know. It would be interesting to compare Ryan's naturalism with Dennett's. But I'll leave that for later.

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Searle, Dennett, and Zombies

A zombie is a critter that is physically and behaviorally exactly like a human being (or any being that we consider to be conscious) but lacks consciousness. That is a stipulative definition, so don't argue with me about it. Just accept it. I'll use 'zombie' to refer to human zombies and won't worry about cat zombies, etc.

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Cut a zombie open, and you find exactly what you would find were you to cut a human being open. And in terms of linguistic and nonlinguistic behavior, there is no way to tell a human being from a zombie. (So don't think of something sleepy, or drugged, or comatose.) When a zombie sees a tree, what is going on internal to the zombie's brain is a 'visual' computational process, but the zombie lacks what a French philosopher would call interiority. There is no irreducible subjectivity, no qualitative feel to the 'visual' processing; there is nothing it is like for a zombie to see a female zombie or to desire her. (What's it like to be a zombie? There is nothing it is like to be a zombie.)

Surely, zombies are conceivable. To conceive one, start with yourself. You, dear reader, are not a zombie. You have feelings. Right now, perhaps, you feel bored or puzzled by what you are reading. Slap yourself across the face to wake up. You felt something, a stinging sensation. Do it again just to be sure. Now subtract off (in thought) the conscious experiences leaving behind your body, its behavior, its environment and all the causal processes disporting themselves between body and environment. What you are now conceiving is a zombie.

Are we zombies? According to John Searle, Daniel Dennett's view is that we are zombies. (The Mystery of Consciousness, p. 107) Although we may appear to ourselves to have conscious experiences, in reality there are no conscious experiences. We are just extremely complex machines running programs. I believe Searle is right about Dennett. Dennett is a denier of consciousness. Or as I like to say, he is an eliminativist. He does not say that there are conscious experiences and then give an account of what they are; what he does is offer a theory that entails that they don't exist in the first place.

As Searle puts it: "On Dennett's view, there is no consciousness in addition to the computational features, because that is all that consciousness amounts to for him: meme effects of a von Neumann(esque) virtual machine implemented in a parallel architecture." (111)

Dennett's view implies that conscious states are illusory, as illusory as God, the devil, witches and goblins. In reality, there are no conscious states! But as Searle rightly points out, "where consciousness is concerned, the existence of the appearance is the reality." (112)

I'm with Searle on this one. It is just nonsense to think of consciousness as illusory or merely apparent or as somehow hiding a reality that can be described from an objective, third-person point of view. In agreeing with Searle on this point, I by no means endorse his own theory of the mind — which I find to be quite hopeless. To my mind, John Searle's great merit is that of critic. Better than anyone else, he exposes the nonsense rampant in comntemporary philosophy of mind.

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Moral Clarity

It’s a phrase we conservatives like. For some reason, liberals don’t share our enthusiasm. To them it smacks of ‘black-and-white thinking’ or ‘Manicheanism.’ They think we are intolerant because we will not tolerate bad behavior. But do liberals really think that every issue is murky and ‘gray’ and that everything must be tolerated?

Suppose a man wanted to rape Alan Colmes’ wife (assuming he has a wife). Would Colmes say: "You can’t rape her, but you can cop a feel?" Would he work out a compromise? Would he negotiate with the fellow? Would he take the potential rapist’s point of view to have some merit? I doubt it. He would take himself and his wife to be wholly in the right and the potential rapist to be wholly in the wrong. That’s called moral clarity.

To head off a possible misunderstanding, those of us who speak of moral clarity do not mean to imply that they are some people (us) who are wholly good, and other people (them) who are wholly bad. Maybe that is what our opponents intend with the dreaded epithet, ‘Manicheanism.’ But no human being is wholly good or wholly evil. Even James Carvile has his good points, among them, the tenacity of a pit bull. In terms of the above example, the point is merely that Colmes and his wife, in respect of that one action, are wholly in the right while the potential rapist is wholly in the wrong. That is consistent with saying that Colmes and his wife have their vices and the potential rapist his virtues.

Some issues are hard to make out morally speaking. But others are quite clear. To think that all issues are hard to decide looks to be a hasty generalization from the fact that some are. To be opposed to moral clarity as such is idiotic since even liberals have their politically correct things to be morally clear about.

In a conciliatory spirit, let me propose an issue on which both conservatives and liberals ought to be morally clear. Terrorist acts are always and everywhere wrong by their very nature as terrorist acts. The indiscriminate slaughter of noncombatants to achieve a political objective is wrong by its very nature and the supposedly good consequences of such acts cannot be used to justify them.

Can we all agree on that?

The Hyphenated American

One may gather from my surname that I am of Italian extraction. Indeed, that is the case in both paternal and maternal lines: my mother was born near Rome in a place called San Vito Romano, and my paternal grandfather near Verona in the wine region whence comes Valpollicella. Given these facts, some will refer to me as Italian-American.

I myself, however, refer to myself as an American, and reject the hyphenated phrase as a coinage born of confusion and contributing to division. Suppose we reflect on this for a moment.

What could it possibly mean to be an Italian-American? Does it imply dual citizenship? No. Does it imply being bilingual? No. Does it entail being bicultural? No again. My mother was both bilingual and bicultural, but I’m not. To refer to her as Italian-American makes clear and definite sense, but the appellation fits me only very loosely. I am not Italian culturally, linguistically or by citizenship. I am Italian only by extraction.

And that doesn’t make a damn bit of difference, or at least should not make a difference to any rational person. Indeed, I identify myself as a rational being first and foremost, which implies nothing about ‘blood' -- or 'soil' for that matter. Even before I am an American, I am animal metaphysicum and zoon logikon. Of course, I mean this to apply (prescriptively) to everyone, especially those most in need of this message, namely Blacks and Hispanics. For a Black dude born in Philly to refer to himself as African-American borders on the absurd. Does he know Swahili? Can he chase down a gazelle in the wild? Build a thatched hut?

And if he wants me to treat him as an individual, as a unique person with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereunto, and to judge him by the content of his character rather than by the color of his skin, why does he identify himself with a group? Why does he try to secure advantages in virtue of this group-membership while at the same time demanding to be treated as an individual? One cannot have it both ways. To be an individual is precisely not to be a mere member of a group or a mere instance of a type. And to be a mere member of a group is precisely not to be an individual.

In Being and Nothingness, Sartre distinguishes between transcendence and facticity and identifies one form of bad faith as a person’s attempted identification of himself with an element of his facticity, such as race. But that is what the hyphenators and the Balkanizers and the identity-politicians want us to do: to identify ourselves in terms extraneous to our true being.

Russell Kirk on Immigration

An article by W. Wesley McDonald.

Neoconservatives on the Role of the State

Irving Kristol in a recent article:

This leads to the issue of the role of the state. Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services. But they are impatient with the Hayekian notion that we are on "the road to serfdom." Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable. Because they tend to be more interested in history than economics or sociology, they know that the 19th-century idea, so neatly propounded by Herbert Spencer in his "The Man Versus the State," was a historical eccentricity. People have always preferred strong government to weak government, although they certainly have no liking for anything that smacks of overly intrusive government. Neocons feel at home in today's America to a degree that more traditional conservatives do not. Though they find much to be critical about, they tend to seek intellectual guidance in the democratic wisdom of Tocqueville, rather than in the Tory nostalgia of, say, Russell Kirk.

Four Kinds of Ontological Argument

The essence of ontological argumentation is the inferential move from the concept/essence of F to the existence/nonexistence of F. We are all familiar with ontological arguments for the existence of God. They have been a staple of philosophy of religion discussions from Anselm to Plantinga. But there is nothing in the nature of ontological argumentation to require that God be the subject matter, or that the argument conclude to the existence of something. There are nontheistic ontological arguments as well as ontological disproofs. Thus there are four possible combinations.

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1. Ontological Disproofs of Nondivine Items. Some people think that conceptual analysis is irrelevant to questions of real existence: what exists and what does not must be determined empirically. But this is not the case. By sheer analysis of the concept round square I can know, and know a priori, that there cannot exist a round square. Round squares and the like can be ruled out on conceptual grounds alone. Even if nothing can be ruled in by conceptual analysis, surely some things can be ruled out. By sheer thinking one can know something, albeit something negative, about reality.

2. Ontological Disproofs of God. Nothing could count as God that did not have the property of aseity, or in plain Anglo-Saxon, from-iself-ness. The concept of God is the concept of something that by its very nature cannot be dependent on anything else for its nature or existence, and this holds whether or not anything in reality instantiates the concept. This is equivalent to the assertion that God exists necessarily if he exists at all. But if everything that exists exists contingently, as philosophers of an empiricist bent are likely to maintain, then we have the makings of an ontological disproof of God. In a 1948 Mind article, J. N. Findlay gave essentially the following argument:

a. God cannot be thought of as existing contingently.
b. Everything that exists can only be thought of as existing contingently.
Therefore
c. God does not exist.

This ontological disproof of God turns Anselm on his head while retaining the Anselmian insight that God is “that than which no greater can be conceived.” Precisely because God is maximally great, supremely perfect, id quo maius cogitari non posse, he cannot exist. For if everything that exists exists contingently, then nothing exists necessarily. Necessary existence, however, is a divine perfection. Ergo, God does not exist.

The trouble with Findlay’s 1948 argument, an argument that the older and wiser Findlay renounced, is that premise (b) is by no means obviously true, even if we replace ‘everything’ with ‘every concrete thing.’ Indeed, I believe that (b) is demonstrably false. But the argument for this belongs elsewhere. Here my task is a mere typology of ontological arguments.

3. Ontological Proofs of God. Here is an example. God, by definition is ens perfectissimum, a maximally perfect being. Now a maximally perfect being cannot be modally contingent, but must be modally noncontingent: it must be either impossible (existent in no possible world) or necessary (existent in every possible world). But surely it is possible that there be a maximally perfect being. (There is at least one possible world in which God exists.) Therefore, God exists in every possible world, whence it follows that he exists in the actual world.

Simplified version: if God is possible, then God is actual. God is possible, therefore God is actual.

The problem, of course, is to give good reason for thinking that God is possible. The fact that one can conceive of God without contradiction does not establish that God is possible. Conceivability (thinkability) without contradiction is no sure guide to real, extramental, possiblility.

4. Ontological Proofs of Nondivine Items. Can one establish, by conceptual analysis alone, that something exists even if one cannot establish, by this means, that God exists?

Consider the concept true proposition. This concept is either instantiated, or it is not. If it is not instantiated, then it is true that it is not instantiated, which implies that the concept true proposition IS instantiated. If, on the other hand, the concept in question is instantiated, then of course it is instantiated. Therefore, necessarily, the concept true proposition is instantiated, and there necessarily exists at least one truth, namely, the truth that the concept true proposition is instantiated.

This is a valid ontological argument for the existence of at least one truth using only the concept true proposition, the law of excluded middle, and the unproblematic principle that, for any proposition p, p entails that p is true. By 'proposition' here I simply mean whatever can be appropriately characterized as either true or false. That there are propositions in this innocuous sense cannot be reasonably denied.

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The Trouble with Continental Philosophy #2

Today’s example of objectionable Continental verbiage is taken from Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy (tr. H. Tomlinson, 1983, first appeared in French in 1962). Before I begin, I want to say that this is a book worth reading. I read it fifteen years ago, and am re-reading parts of it now. A sympathetic reader will garner some insights and suggestions from it despite the Continental slovenliness.

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On p. 2, we find:

[1] Genealogy means both the value of origin and the origin of values. [2] Genealogy is as opposed to absolute values as it is to relative or utilitarian ones. [3] Genealogy signifies the differential element of values from which their value itself derives. [4] Genealogy thus means origin or birth, but also difference or distance in the origin. [5] Genealogy means nobility and baseness, nobility and vulgarity, nobility and decadence in the origin. (Numbers in brackets my interpolation.)

Ad 1. Notice the superficially clever transposition, "value of origin and origin of values." That’s typically French. The attempt to achieve a clever or showy style drives the thought. The French writer aims at literary effect first, and worries whether a coherent thought has been expressed only later, if at all. (Are there exceptions to this? Of course.) It is true that Nietzschean genealogy is concerned to uncover the origin of values. But the origin of values, as Deleuze himself says on the preceding page, is in acts of evaluation which "are not values but ways of being, modes of existence, of those who judge and evaluate..." (p. 1) So the phrase "value of origin" comes close to contradicting Deleuze’s own point on the preceding page. But whether there is a contradiction or not, there is unclarity. In philosophy, however, "clarity is courtesy" as Ortega y Gasset says somewhere. And you will notice how these writers never give concrete examples or show how any of this is supposed to work in detail.

Ad 2. It is clear that genealogy is opposed to absolute values. But in his concern to be ‘radical’ and to say something ‘shocking,’ Deleuze exaggerates and says something that is incoherent, namely, that genealogy is opposed to relative values. This is false: if values derive from acts of evaluation that are modes of existence of the evaluators, and as such expressive of the nobility or baseness, health or sickness, etc., of these evaluators, then it is obvious that values are precisely relative to these evaluating beings. The equating of relative with utilitarian values is deeply obscure, probably confused, and the context doesn’t help.

Ad 3. This is not particularly clear, but one can figure out what is meant, namely, that the difference between ascending and descending life, between noble and base modes of existence, etc., determines which values are posited.

Ad 4. The way these French writers use ‘means’ and ‘signifies’ is annoying and sloppy, but one sees what Deleuze is getting at. Strictly speaking, however, there is nothing in the meaning of ‘genealogy’ to require any particular theory of genealogical derivation such as Nietzsche’s.

Ad 5. What a miserable sentence! Strictly speaking, ‘genealogy’ means no such thing. I often get the impression with French philosophers that they cannot decide whether they want to be philosophers or literary writers. Unable to commit themselves one way or the other, they evolve an unholy and sloppy blend of verbiage that teases and frustrates more than it enlightens. There are exceptions of course such as Descartes and Sartre.

If I could pull Deleuze up out of his grave by his lapels, I would say to him: Be clear! Say something definite! Give an argument with discernible premises and conclusion! Stop your silly-ass posturing and name dropping! Say something that can be evaluated as either true or false! But of course, these literary poseurs do not believe in truth. Their truth is that there is no truth . . .

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Is Your City Stupid?

Overzealous exercise brought me to the chiropractor's office where, while waiting for his ministrations, I took a gander at the February 2005 Men's Health. Therein, an article ranking cities as to stupidity, the measure of stupidity being the paucity of bachelor's degrees per capita. Here is a sample of the article's data, starting with the smartest and ending with the dumbest:



1. Minneapolis A+

2. Boston A+

3. Denver A+

4. St. Paul MN A+

5. Seattle A+

6. Sann Francisco A+

.

.

.

40. Phoenix C+

67. Mesa AZ C-

75. Scottsdale D+ (!?)

98. Las Vegas F

101. Fort Wayne IN F (Dead last).

The Hitch on PoMo

In connection with yesterday's example of bullshitting in the French manner, see this review by Christopher Hitchens of The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Hat tip: Keith Burgess-Jackson.

The Trouble with Continental Philosophy #1

I hereby begin a series of posts highlighting various examples of objectionable Continental verbiage. Today’s example is not the worst but lies ready to hand, so I start with it. I don’t criticize the Continentals because I am an ‘analyst’; one of the reasons the Maverick Philosopher is so-called is because he is neither. The ‘analysts’ have their own typical failings which will come under fire later. A pox on both houses!

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Alain Badiou’s Manifesto for Philosophy (tr. N. Madarasz, SUNY Press, 1996) begins like this:

The dominant philosophical traditions of the century agree that philosophy, as a discipline, is no longer really what it used to be. It must be said that Carnap’s critique of metaphysics as nonsense is very different from Heidegger’s announcement of the supersession of metaphysics. It is also very different from the Marxist dream of a concrete realization of philosophy. Very different as well from what Freud ferrets out as illusion, indeed paranoia, from speculative systematicity. But the fact remains that German hermeneutics like Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophy, revolutionary Marxism and psychoanalytical interpretation concur to declare the ‘end’ of a millenial regime of thought. No further question of imagining a philosophia perrenis perpetuating itself. (27)

Although I have skimmed the whole of Badiou’s book, this opening paragraph really is enough to return the book to the library. Part of what he is saying is that "Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy" has declared the end of philosophy. This is simply false. It may be true for Richard Rorty, but Rorty does not represent analytic philosophy. It is true that Rorty rejects the existence of perrenial philosophical problems, but this is not true of many or even most analytic philosophers.

When a book starts off with a grotesque falsehood, why continue reading? But if one does continue reading, one quickly finds oneself immersed in the usual Continental mishmash of persons and themes: Lacoue-Labarthe, Lyotard, Lacan, Deleuze, Gadamer, Celan, Derrida, Genet, Heidegger and the Jews and the Nazis, Kolyma and Auschwitz, Plato... And all of this on one page! (28) What’s the point of all this name dropping? Are you a literary scribbler or a philosopher? Are you at a cocktail party or in your study?

Here is what I would say to Badiou et al. Define your terms. Make an assertion and defend it. Tell us what your thesis is. Say something definite. Try to be clear. Philosophy is hard enough even when one is clear. Avoid name dropping, that mark of the pseudo-intellectual. Go easy on the rhetorical questions. If you ever find something definite to say, employ the indicative mood.

One can re-read a page of this stuff half a dozen times and still not know what is being said or where the discussion is going. And I say this as someone who has read practically all of Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Gadamer, a shit-load of Derrida (who, according to John Searle, gives bullshit a bad name) and plenty of others besides.

This Badiou book seems to have all the typical French faults: the confusion of philosophy with a kind of Begriffsdichtung (conceptual poetry) in which practically anything can be associated with anything else; the historicist confusion of a theory’s being accepted or in favor with its being true (but cf. p. 140); the excessive use of rhetorical questions.

As an example of the latter: "What in fact did Heidegger do other than presume that the ‘firm resolve’ of the German people as embodied by the Nazis was transitive to his thinking as a professor and hermeneutician?" (29) Rewrite that interrogative as a declarative and it still won’t make much sense. Declarative nonsense doesn't suddenly become sense when translated into the interrogative.

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From the Mail: Philosophy Outside Academe

Dear Dr. Vallicella,

I've been lurking (as fellow philosopher at a Philosophy Meetup group called it) around your web site and blogs recently. I have definitely come to the conclusion that you are a kindred spirit of sorts. I especially found your insights into what you call "religionism" [see here, sec. 3] to describe some less developed thoughts of my own on the subject.

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I will tell you little about myself, highlighting my philosophical studies to make it brief. I completed my baccalaureate at UC Riverside in 1998. I did do some research on Husserl's philosophy with Dr. Pierre Keller, that culminated in a Senior Thesis critiquing Wilfrid Sellars' Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man. I also have a friendship with Dallas Willard, who is still a mentor to me philosophical and spiritually. He encouraged my interest in Husserl and my move to finish my BA at Riverside (I started my undergraduate studies at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California).

I am attempting to determine the answer to a question. I'm not asking you to answer it, but I am asking if you might help me find the answer. Is it possible for someone who has chosen to not pursue advanced degrees in philosophy to actually develop the same or close to the same acumen as someone such as you? Currently, I make my living in the software field working as a programmer and analyst for a small software company. I am currently working on an attempt to start my own business in that software as well.

However, in the midst of these other endeavors, I still love philosophy. I miss the reading and discussion of my college years. I have attempted to participate in local philosophy groups or meetups, but the conversations there are really almost never open. Objective truth is torpedoed from the beginning of the discussion. Everyone just has a position to defend and I generally leave feeling, "Philosophy is stupid." Obviously, that is just a feeling and not an actual attitude or belief I have. I believe in the philosophical life. Might you be willing to guide me in some readings of philosophers throughout history? Help me find the major gaps in my understanding? Help keep me accountable to myself?

I know this is a long email and probably a little strange. Any response would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Samuel Sellars

Dear Mr. Sellars,

Your surname is auspicious! I take it you are no relation of Wilfrid or of his father Roy Wood Sellars, who also made a name for himself in philosophy.

You ask whether it is possible to develop a degree of acumen similar to mine without pursuing advanced degrees in philosophy. I would say that it is if you have enough natural aptitude and are extremely dedicated and hard-working. My view is that all education is in the end self-education: universities and their degree programs merely provide a framework within which one pursues one's education — or else fails to pursue it. But that may be too generous. Universities and their degree programs merely provide a framework within which one pursues a credential. Someone sufficiently self-reliant and independent can often do better outside academe especially nowadays with the decline of the universities.

And since you have found the modern-day equivalent of lense-grinding, there is no need for any advanced credential as a necessary (but not sufficient!) condition of obtaining a teaching position. I've always thought that Spinoza's way was the best: one completely divorces philosophy from money-making, pursuing the former as it ought to be pursued, for its own sake. (At one point, Spinoza was offered a prestigious post at the University of Heidelberg, but in the interest of his intellectual independence, turned down the offer.) The academic world is filled with people who, if they couldn't fill their belly from philosophy, would drop it like a hot potato and go into real estate. As Schopenhauer would say, they don't live for philosophy but from it.

The life of the independent scholar is easier than it used to be given the vast resources of the World Wide Web. Of course, you have to learn to pick your way through the garbage and find your way to the worthwhile sites.

One resource I would recomend is Ronald Gross, Independent Scholar's Handbook. You may find this inspiring as well as informative.

The Web also allows one to overcome the isolation that the independent philosopher must face. Gradually, one builds up a circle of correspondents who may help you focus and develop your thoughts.

What you need to do is write, write, write about topics that interest you while soliciting comments and criticisms from competent individuals. And if you write, you owe it to yourself to publish, first in the lesser venues, but eventually in the best print journals.

To make more specific suggestions, I would have to know what your exact interests are. Find a topic that strikes you as enormously important and then try to become an expert on it, reading everything available, but evaluating what you read and trying to formulate your own view.

Good luck on your quest!

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Of Books and Men

A book is a man at his best. Who knows what Plato was like in the flesh? Maybe he suffered from halitosis. Perhaps he was unbearably domineering. But in his books I have him at my beck and call, for instruction, uplift, or just to keep the pre-Socratics from improperly fraternizing with Aristotle.



Each book on my shelves is a window, a window opening out upon a world. From Aristotle to Zubiri, window after window, world upon world . . .

Two Pillars of Paleoliberalism and a Question for the Anarchist

'Liberalism' and 'liberal' have become dirty words -- mainly due to the bad behavior of liberals themselves during the past 45 or so years -- so to preserve neutrality I'll use the terms 'paleoliberalism' and 'paleoliberal.' Just so that there is no confusion, 'paleo' and 'neo' are Latin for 'old' and 'new' respectively. Nothing more and nothing less. 'Neo' is not code for 'Jew.' Anyone who thinks that or promotes that silly idea ought to have the logic stick applied to his head -- figuratively speaking of course.

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One pillar of paleoliberalism is a robust concern for individual liberty, for freedom of thought, speech, religion, political action and the like, the right to pursue the good life as one sees it in freedom from government interference, and so on. The other pillar is an equally robust concern for equality in more than a merely formal or procedural sense. Formal senses of equality include equality of opportunity, equality of treatment, equality before the law. Substantive senses include equality of outcome, equality of condition, equality of political power, social status, and wealth.



The paleoliberal is thus both a libertarian and an egalitarian. These tendencies, however, pull in opposite directions: liberty and substantive equality are values or ideals in tension with each other. For there is nothing natural about equality: life is hierarchical and the natural state is one of inequality. You name the parameter and I'll show you how people are unequal in respect of it. People in general are not equal morally, intellectually, physically, or in any way. Making free use of their talents they acquire more or less knowledge, wisdom, virtue, status, power, wealth, and other goods. Some vastly outstrip others by making good use of their talent and good fortune. Admittedly, they don't deserve their talent and good fortune, but it does not follow that they are not entitled to them and their fruits. (Lack of desert does not entail lack of entitlement: I didn't do anything to deserve my excellent eyesight, but I am entitled to it and what I can get by its legitimate use.)



The point is that the promotion of substantive equality involves curtailment of individual liberty. This in turn requires an equalizing agency with coercive power, the State, which employs such means as progressive taxation and other forms of mandatory withholding of income in order to provide a social minimum via government mandated retirement programs, medical programs, and the like.



For the paleoliberal, the State is morally justified and the justification presumably must invoke the value of substantive equality and general welfare, values that ought to be promoted but cannot be promoted without a State. But since the paleoliberal also values individual liberty, his commitment will be to a limited State.



Given this sketch, how can we characterize the anarchist? He is someone who admits and indeed cherishes the value of individual liberty, so much so that he cannot tolerate any abridgment of it. The anarchist thus denies the moral justifiability of the State. For it is inscribed into the very essence of the State that it have the power to coerce and violate its subjects. Does it follow that the anarchist denies the value of moving toward substantive equality in respect of such goods as wealth, power, and status? Or does he recognize the value of equality, or at least some movement in its direction, but deny that it can be achieved legitimately by the State's coercive means?



How would our resident anarchist, Tony Flood, answer this question?



And how would Tony reply to the following sketch of an argument in justification of a limited State. (I am not endorsing this argument, merely presenting it for consideration.)



1. An increase in substantive equality is a choice-worthy end, one that ought to be pursued.

2. The only means to the end of an increase in substantive equality is via the exercise of state power.

3. To will the end is to will the means.

Therefore

4. Coercive state power is justified.



Will Flood reject (1) or (2) or both?

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Anti-Spyware for Windows XP

Here is an article about and a link to a free Microsoft download that I have just installed. It found some trojan horses and other nasty stuff on my machine. Hat tip: Tony Flood.



Does anyone have any horror stories to relate, about browser hijackings and the like?

What is the State?

Is there any distinction to be drawn between the government and the state? Not that I can see. So I will use these terms interchangeably until someone gives me a good reason to do otherwise.

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Now it is surely nonsense to maintain that the government is us. I also cannot understand why many people liken the state to a club or cooperative venture which charges dues to its members for services rendered. If the state is a club, then taxes are dues. But this comparison obscures the crucial fact that dues are paid voluntarily while taxes are coerced.

Having indicated two things the state is not, what is it positively? Murray Rothbard's answer builds on the work of Franz Oppenheimer:

The great German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer pointed out that there are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth; one, the above way of production and exchange, he called the "economic means." The other way is simpler in that it does not require productivity; it is the way of seizure of another's goods or services by the use of force and violence. This is the method of one-sided confiscation, of theft of the property of others. This is the method which Oppenheimer termed "the political means" to wealth.

[. . .]

We are now in a position to answer more fully the question: what is the State? The State, in the words of Oppenheimer, is the "organization of the political means"; it is the systematization of the predatory process over a given territory.[4] For crime, at best, is sporadic and uncertain; the parasitism is ephemeral, and the coercive, parasitic lifeline may be cut off at any time by the resistance of the victims. The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property; it renders certain, secure, and relatively "peaceful" the lifeline of the parasitic caste in society.

In sum, for Oppenheimer and Rothbard, the state is a vehicle of predation, a system of organized theft of private property for the benefit of a parasitic caste.

Now one thing ought to be clear: it is an essential characteristic of any state that it have the power (via institutional as opposed to personal means) to coerce and violate those under its control. Taxation, imprisonment, execution, are among the ways in which the state coerces its subjects and violates their liberty.

Once this is understood, one is in a position to appreciate the fundamental problem of normative political theory, namely, the problem of accounting for the difference between a criminal organization such as the Mafia and the state. If a mafioso extorts money from me, he does me an injustice. But if he forces me to feed my kids, he also does wrong in that he has no legitimate authority over me. So even if the state does nothing unjust (according to your favorite moral code), that does not suffice to show the moral difference between the state and a criminal outfit. For the problem remains as to what gives the state the right to demand and enforce just behavior on the part of its subjects. Whence the legitimacy of the state's power?

It seems that there are two ways to approach the fundamental problem of normative political theory. On the first way, one simply takes it to be the case that there is a moral difference between states and crime syndicates and then construes the philosophical task to be one of justifying or explaining the difference. In Kantian language: given that the moral difference is actual, how is it possible? What are the conditions of its possibility?

The second way of approaching the funadamental problem is by dismissing it as pseudo-problem. Since there is no moral difference between a criminal outfit and a state, there cannot be any justification of the difference. If I understand Rothbard, he is taking the second tack. The state does systematically what the criminal does sporadically. Rothbard's characterization of the state implies that it can have no moral justification.

What, if anything, is wrong with Rothbard's view?

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Money, Power, and Equality

J. R. Lucas, "Against Equality" in Justice and Equality, ed. Bedau (Prentice-Hall, 1971), pp. 148-149 (emphasis added):

Since men value power and prestige as much as the possession of wealth---indeed, these three `goods' cannot be completely separated---it is foolish to seek to establish an equality of wealth on egalitarian grounds. It is foolish first because it will not result in what egalitarians really want. It is foolish also because if we do not let men compete for money, they will compete all the more for power; and whereas the possession of wealth by another man does not hurt me, unless I am made vulnerable by envy, the possession of power by another is inherently dangerous; and furthermore if we are to maintain a strict equality of wealth we need a much greater apparatus of state to secure it and therefore a much greater inequality of power. Better have bloated plutocrats than omnipotent bureaucrats.

This is a penetrating passage from a penetrating essay. Lucas is in effect pointing out a paradox at the heart of the egalitarian position. If the egalitarian wants to equalize wealth, perhaps via a scheme of income redistribution, then he will need to make use of state power to do it: the wealthy will not voluntarily disembarrass themselves of their wealth. But state power is of necessity concentrated in the hands of a few, those who run the government, whose power is vastly greater than, and hence unequal to, the power of the governed.

The paradox, then, is that the enforcing of equality of wealth requires inequality of power. But, as Lucas points out, the powerful are much more dangerous to us than the wealthy. Your being wealthy takes away nothing from me, whereas your being powerful poses a potential threat to me.

Merton on Marilyn

Thomas Merton, Journal (IV, 240):

. . .the death was as much a symbol as the bomb – symbol of uselessness and of tragedy, of misused humanity.

He’s right of course: Monroe’s was a life wasted on glamour, sexiness, and frivolity. She stands as a lovely warning: Make good use of your human incarnation! Be in the flesh, but not of the flesh.

Merton and Materialism

In his Journal (III, 238), Thomas Merton complains about materialistic America and "The overwhelming welter of meaningless objects, goods, activities. . ." but nonetheless returns to his monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky laden down with "a pile of paper-back books, the New Republic, Dissent, and even, with shame, Time...."



But look, Tom, without capitalism, none of this would be available, none of the trash, but also none of the good stuff: no freedom to inquire, to read anything and everything, to publish and enjoy a readership, to make a fool of yourself, or to pursue enlightenment in your beautiful monastery, healthy and well-fed, free of grinding poverty.



And let's not forget, Tom, that the quietism of the monk and scholar, magnificent though it may be, presupposes the activism of all those materialistic hustlers and schleppers out there who keep the economy humming along. Your monastery, for example, takes in revenue through the sale of fine cheeses, not to mention the sale of your countless books -- how would this be possible without a healthy free market?



And then there is the stable political order without which you might be wasting away in a gulag rather than contemplating the mystery of the Trinity or writing about Buddhism. That stable political order depends on the willingness of warrior types to fight and die in its defense. Peace is a wonderful thing, but pacifism an absurdity since the securing of peace requires preparation for war.

An ICC First: Draw by Simultaneous Flag Fall

As of a minute ago, I have played 8,496 blitz (5-min) games at the Internet Chess Club, the premier site on the Web for playing chess. But it was my first draw due to clocks running out at the same instant.

Of Blogs and Comments Once More

Indi³ is a group weblog out of India each member of which is an Indian with his or her own blog. This post, by Amit Varma, make some points with which I agree. For example,

Now, there have been some comments made about how blogs should have comments enabled, and can’t be called “blogs” if they are not. I find those arguments ludicrous. The blogosphere is not a socialist or a statist space where a central politburo will decide on what is a blog and what isn’t, and everyone must conform. It runs, as I articulated in my post, “The libertarian internet”, like a perfectly functioning free market. Instapundit and Boing Boing are perhaps the most popular blogs on the net, and therefore the ones that bring value to the most readers – and they don’t have comments.

That's right. I would add only that the problems caused by enabling Comments can be solved in the main by using Comment Moderation software. So the question is not: to enable or not to enable. There is a middle path: grant commenting privileges only to those who pass an initial screening.

My latest definition of 'weblog' is here.

Varma goes on to say that he does not consider hyperlinks necessary to a weblog. Well, if he means that a given post or even a series of posts need not contain hyperlinks, then I agree. But a 'weblog' bare of all hyperlinks I would not consider a weblog for reasons already given. (Ibid.)

Should Mangan Dumb Down His Weblog?

Dennis Mangan reports about certain people who consider his blogospheric offerings over their heads. I find their reaction incomprehensible, and I don't mean this as an insult to Dennis. I don't mean to suggest that he is serving up pablum. His is a very interesting and informative weblog with plenty of meat or the vegetarian equivalent thereof. (Suggestion from Mama Gucci: Buy the firmest tofu you can find, freeze it, thaw it, and finally fry it in olive oil under moderately high heat. You will get something that approximates meat.)



But there is nothing particularly taxing about Mangan's posts. His 'meat' is eminently digestible. See for yourself.

Does a Whole Reduce to its Parts?

Alan Cook asked me what was wrong with being a reductionist about inanimate objects such as chariots. His query was in regard to my draft, "Against Buddhist Reductionism." It is time to begin a response.

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Suppose I have a parcel of land P. I divide P into two subparcels of equal size, A and B. Thus P is a whole having exactly two proper parts, A and B. I put the two subparcels on the market for 100 K each. Mr. MoneyBags comes along and offers to buy my land. I agree, and he hands me 200 K from his bag.

"Not so fast, friend," say I. "You owe me twice that: 100 for A, 100 for B, and 200 for P, making a grand total of 400 K."

This sounds absurd because, since P is composed of A and B and nothing else, P is not a third entity 'in addition to' or 'over and above' or 'above and beyond' the sum A + B. Similarly, Milinda's chariot is not something 'in addition to' its parts. Furthermore, a smoking pipe is not something in addition to bowl and stem: when I clean my pipe, there aren't three things to clean: bowl, stem, and pipe. One more example. Suppose I buy a sixpack of beer. I have bought either one item or six items. If the express checkout line is for six items or fewer and I refuse to use that lane on the ground that I am purchasing seven items, then I am a very strange bird indeed.

So should we conclude that P = A + B? Should we embrace reductionism, the view that a whole is identical to its parts? If a whole is not something in addition to its parts, is it then identical to its parts?

But this seems equally mistaken. P is one; A and B are two. How can one thing be identical to two things? The puzzle can be put syntactically. In the open sentence, 'x is identical to y,' 'x' and 'y' must both be singular terms. How can one be singular and the other plural?

P is not something in addition to A + B. P is also not identical to A + B. We seem to be affirming both limbs of a contradiction. We seem to be affirming that P is not something in addition to A + B, but also that P is something in addition to A + B.

Unless one believes that some contradictions are true, then this contradiction needs to be removed. How?

I will stop here and pose the following questions to Alan Cook and to whomever else is interested. First, do you agree that a whole is not something in addition to its parts? Do you agree that a whole is not identical to its parts? Do you agree that these views are logical contradictories of each other? Do you agree that contradictions are never true of reality and must be removed? How do you remove the contradiction?

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Milinda's Questions

Alan Cook is closing up shop over at The Gadfly's Buzz and transferring blogging operations to Milinda's Questions. More important than the change in name and in web host is a shift in focus away from politics and toward Buddhism, meditation, philosophy of mind and related topics. It is all explained here.



I look forward to discussions with him on topics of mutual interest.

The Ostrich Realist's Rejection of Truth-Making Rejected

Bo Meinertsen writes (via e-mail):

I wrote to you in the summer of 2003 regarding Bradley's regress. At that point I was writing up my Ph.D. on facts at Leeds, which I submitted 30 Sept. (degree awarded 19 Jan.). Anyway, a chapter was on truth-makers, where, among other things, I critisized the 'minimalism' of Julian Dodd, though not at any great length. You said you'd written a paper on this topic. As I'm looking at the matter again, I'd be really grateful if you'd send me a copy of this paper.

You write at an opportune time, Bo. I have just uploaded a draft on Trope Theory and Bradley's Regress which would undoubtedly be improved by your comments. Perhaps you could take a look at it. Imagine that you are a referee for a top analytic journal and then pronounce your opinion on publishability.

As for Julian Dodd's minimalism, I think what I said was that a section of my book, A Paradigm Theory of Existence (Kluwer, 2002), is devoted to this topic. What follows is Chapter VI, Section 5 of PTE. I'd love to hear your comments on it, and I hope it is helpful to you.

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We have been arguing that (i) the truth-maker principle is sound; (ii) only facts can be truth-makers; therefore, (iii) facts exist. But this argument can be run in reverse: Since there are no facts, and since only facts can be truth-makers, the truth-maker principle is unsound. This is essentially the line taken by Julian Dodd. Our ‘fact’ is short for ‘concrete fact.’ But Dodd uses ‘fact’ as interchangeable with ‘true proposition.’ To avoid confusion, we will employ ‘state of affairs’ for the duration of this section. A state of affairs is a concrete fact.

As I read him, Dodd’s critique of the very idea of truth-making consists of two main claims. The first is that, even if there are both particulars and universals, and even if particulars instantiate universals, we are not forced to countenance states of affairs. Thus if a exists and F-ness exists, and a instantiates F-ness, it does not follow that there is in addition the state of affairs, a’s being F. A similar sentiment is expressed by David Lewis: “If I were committed to universals myself, I would be an Ostrich Realist: I would think it was just true, without benefit of truth-makers, that a particular instantiates a universal.” Dodd’s second claim is that states of affairs are such seriously problematic entities that no theory that invokes them has any right to our attention.

As for the first claim, Dodd will presumably admit that there is a difference between the sum a + F-ness and a’s instantiating F-ness. This is something to which all must agree. If a exists and F-ness exists, it does not follow that a instantiates F-ness. So there is a difference between a + F-ness and a’s instantiating F-ness. But this is just a brute difference, Dodd seems to be saying, not a difference that needs to be explained by positing a third sort of entity, a state of affairs, in addition to a and F-ness. Even if the truth that a is F ontologically commits us to a and to F-ness, it does not commit us to anything in the world that connects a and F-ness. The ‘is’ in ‘a is F’ has no ontological correlate. Thus we are not committed to an instantiation relation or to a nonrelational tie of instantiation. And not being committed to any such connector, we are not committed to the state of affairs a’s being F assuming that this is the product of instantiation’s connecting of a and F-ness. To this one might respond that it is not instantiation that ties a to F-ness, but the state of affairs itself, and that we can dispense with instantiation (and perhaps must dispense with it in the face of Bradley’s regress). But this will not satisfy Dodd either, since he refuses to admit that we need anything in the world to connect a and F-ness. In the world there is at most a and F-ness, but there is nothing in the world that corresponds to the truth that a is F. Truth does not require an ontological ground. Not only is there nothing corresponding to the copula ‘is,’ there is nothing corresponding to the whole sentence, ‘a is F.’

But if nothing in the world connects a and F-ness when a instantiates F- ness, then what is the difference between a’s instantiating F-ness and a’s not instantiating F-ness? What does the difference consist in? Presumably, Dodd must say that there is a difference, but that it does not consist in anything. This however simply begs the question against the truth-maker principle. For truth- makers are introduced precisely to satisfy the felt need for an explanation of the difference in question. Dodd hasn’t succeeded in refuting the truth-maker principle; all he has done so far is to reject it.

Pointing this out, we of course do not succeed in refuting the Ostrich Realist; we merely highlight the deep conflict of intuitions at the root of the disagreement. The realist about truth cannot shake the sense that truth requires an ontological ground, a sense simply unshared by an Ostrich such as Dodd. With respect to Dodd’s first claim, then, the upshot appears to be a standoff.

We now examine Dodd’s second claim which is essentially that the positing of states of affairs cannot serve as an adequate explanation of how particulars instantiate universals. Whereas Dodd’s first claim is that we have been given no compelling reason to posit states of affairs, his second claim is that nothing is explained even if we do posit them. This is a much more serious objection. If sound, it would appear to refute the truth-maker project.

Given that a instantiates F-ness, Dodd will say that this instantiation is just a brute datum. The truth-maker theorist, however, cannot rest content with this. He feels that there must be something in the world that explains this instantiation of a universal by a particular. So he posits a state of affairs in which a and F-ness are brought together. He posits a state of affairs which just is a’s instantiating of F-ness. For Dodd, however, this is a bogus explanation.

Dodd’s argument is not entirely clear, but it perhaps amounts to something like the following dilemma. Either (L1) states of affairs are composed of constituents that are ontologically more basic than states of affairs, or (L2) states of affairs are ontologically primary, and their constituents are mere abstractions from them. (L1) faces Bradley’s regress and the unity problem, something we will discuss in great detail in the following chapter. Given that a and F-ness are contingently connected, what connects them? The instantiation relation? But how can adding a further constituent establish unity of constituents? Dodd’s point is that if states of affairs face the unity problem – the problem of explaining how they differ from a mere set or sum of constituents – then invoking states of affairs can do nothing to explain how a particular instantiates a universal. It is essentially the same problem all over again. If it is unclear how a particular instantiates a universal, then this cannot be clarified by positing an entity, a state of affairs, concerning the constituents of which it is unclear how they form a unity. In other words, if you say that the difference between a + F- ness and a’s instantiating F-ness is the difference between two items and the same two items connected within a state of affairs, this explanation succeeds only if it is clear how the two items – a and F-ness – are connected within the state of affairs. Since the latter is not clear, to invoke states of affairs to explain propositional truth is to give a bogus explanation.

This throws us onto the other horn of the dilemma, (L2), according to which states of affairs are ontologically basic, and their constituents are mere abstractions from them. This would appear to avoid the unity problem. If a and F-ness are mere abstractions from a primary unity, a’s being F, then there is presumably no problem about what holds them together. But then how could the positing of a state of affairs so conceived explain or ground propositional truth? The truth that a is F is contingent; hence the togetherness of a and F-ness in a’s being F must be contingent. This however leads us straight back to the unity problem which arises because of the contingency of the togetherness of a and F- ness. Since a and F-ness can exist without forming a unity, they cannot be mere abstractions from some ontological primary unity: they are the ontological atoms, the ‘building blocks,’ out of which states of affairs are constructed. States of affairs must therefore be ontologically dependent on the items that contingently form their constituents. It is not states of affairs, but their constituents, that are ontologically basic.

Although Dodd is on to a very serious problem for states of affairs theorists, a problem to be more thoroughly discussed in the next chapter, he has given us no good reason to abandon truth-making and truth-makers. We noted above that his first claim merely begs the question against the truth-maker theorist. Standing pat on our realist intuitions, we are within our epistemic rights in taking the truth-maker principle to show that there must be truth-making states of affairs. And the fact that the ‘compositional’ and ‘noncompositional’ conceptions of states of affairs alluded to in (L1) and (L2) above are faulty does not by a long shot prove that there is no explanatorily adequate conception of states of affairs. For there could be a third conception of states of affairs. Working out this third conception is a task for the following chapter.

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Some Aphorisms of Otto Weininger

Otto Weininger, Ueber die Letzten Dinge (Wien und Leipzig: Wilhelm Braumueller Verlag, Neunte Auflage, 1930), pp. 65-72. Translations by BV.

Grundzug alles Menschlichen: Suchen nach Realitaet. Wo die Realitaet gesucht and gefunden wird, das begruendet alle Unterschiede zwischen den Menschen.

The quest for reality is a fundamental characteristic of human beings. Where reality is sought and found, however, explains all differences among them.

Der gute Aphoristiker muss hassen koennen.

The good aphorist must be able to hate.

Der Transzendentalismus ist identich mit dem Gedanken, dass es nur eine Seele gibt, und dass die Individuation Schein ist. Hier widerspricht der Monadologische Charakter der kanstischen Ethik schnurgerade der "Kritik der reinen Vernunft."

Transcendentalism is identical with the thought that there is only one soul, and that a plurality of souls is an illusion. Here the monadological character of Kant's ethics straightaway contradicts the Critique of Pure Reason.

A fruitful thought, though roughly expressed. But what do you want for an aphorism? The idea is that there is a tension between the Critique of Practical Reason, which presupposes the thinkability, if not the knowability, of a plurality of metaphysically (and thus transcendently) real noumenal selves capable of acting freely, and the Critique of Pure Reason in which the subject of experience and phenomenal knowledge is a mere transcendental (not transcendent) subject, a consciousness in general (Bewusstsein ueberhaupt to use a phrase later made famous by neo-Kantians) that is neither mine nor yours but common to us all. It is a crude approximation, however, to refer to this transcendental subject as a soul, as Weininger does. This aphorism would have made a good motto for my doctoral dissertation, which deals with similar problems.

Having It Both Ways

Karl Kraus, Beim Wort Genommen, S. 194:

Wenn einer sich wie ein Vieh benommen hat, sagt er: Man ist doch nur ein Mensch! Wenn er aber wie ein Vieh behandelt wird, sagt er: Man ist doch auch ein Mensch!

A person who has behaved in a beastly manner excuses himself by saying, "I am only human!" But when he is treated in a beastly manner, he protests, "I too am a human being!" (tr. BV)

In Sartrean terms, we invoke either our facticity or our transcendence depending on which serves us better at the moment. Well, our nature is metaphysically dual; we may as well get some use out of that fact.

What is Language? Tool, Enabler, Dominatrix?

I have spoken before, romantically no doubt, of the mother tongue as our alma mater, our dear mother to whom we owe honor. Matrix of our thoughts, she is deeper and higher than our thoughts, their sacred Enabler.

So I was pleased this morning to come across a similar, albeit more trenchant, observation in Karl Kraus' Beim Wort Genommen, SS. 134-135:

Ich beherrsche die Sprache nicht; aber die Sprache beherrscht mich vollkommen. Sie ist mir nicht die Dienerin meiner Gedanken. Ich lebe in einer Verbindung mit ihr, aus der ich Gedanken empfange, und sie kann mit mir machen, was sie will. Ich pariere ihr aufs Wort. Denn aus dem Wort springt mir der junge Gedanke entgegen und formt rueckwirkend die Sprache, die ihn schuf. Solche Gnade der Gedankentraechtigkeit zwingt auf die Knie und macht allen Aufwand zitternder Sorgfalt zur Pflicht. Die Sprache ist eine Herrin der Gedanken, und wer das Verhaeltnis umzukehren vermag, dem macht sie sich im Hause nuetzlich, aber sie sperrt ihm der Schoss.

I do not dominate language; she dominates me completely. She is not the servant of my thoughts. I live in a relation with her from which I receive thoughts, and she can do with me what she will. I follow her orders. For from the word the fresh thought springs, forming retroactively the language that created it. The grace of language, pregnant with thought, forces me to my knees and makes a duty of my expenditure of trembling conscientiousness. Language is a mistress of thought. To anyone who would reverse the relationship, she makes herself useful but denies access to her womb.

I might have translated Herrin as dominatrix if I wanted to accentuate the masochistic tone of the passage. 'Mistress' is obviously to be read as the female counterpart of 'master.' What's next, translations from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch?

Call for Comments: Trope Theory Meets Bradley's Regress

Trope Theory Meets Bradley’s Regress

Version 1.0. Comments appreciated.

One of the perennial tasks of ontology is that of analyzing a thing’s having of properties. That things have properties is a datum consistent with different theories as to what properties are, what the things are that have the properties, and how best the having is to be understood. Any theory will have to provide a three-fold answer to this three-fold question. In so doing, it must show how the elements it distinguishes fit together to form the unified phenomenon of a thing having properties. Analysis is not enough for understanding; synthesis is also needed to show how the elements separated out by analysis form a unity. One of the criteria of adequacy for any theory is whether or not it can avoid the threat to unity known as Bradley’s regress.

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This paper argues that trope theory cannot pass the Bradley test. In particular, what it argues is that (i) trope theory requires a compresence relation to account for the difference between a unified thing and its disparate property-constituents; (ii) the compresence relation is external and therefore open to Bradleyan challenge; (iii) the various attempts to defuse Bradley’s regress are unsuccessful; hence, (iv) Bradley’s vicious infinite regress is unavoidable and trope theory in its current versions is untenable.

An Outline of Trope Theory

In terms of our opening question about properties, the things that have them, and the having, we can say that trope theory is a one-category ontology that assays properties as tropes, the things that have properties as bundles of tropes, and a thing’s having of properties as compresence of tropes where the relation of compresence is itself a trope, albeit a rather special one. Commitment to a one-category ontology is part of what is here meant by ‘trope theory’; so any theory that countenances irreducible nontropes, whether universals, or bare substrata, or whatever, in addition to tropes will not count as trope theory. Thus a theory that has tropes inhering in substrata is not a trope theory in the strict sense here in play. The same holds for a theory that construes compresence as a universal relation. Favoring this strict reading of ‘trope theory’ is the fact that this reading is in the spirit of such seminal contributors to the theory as D. C. Williams and Keith Campbell.

Trope theory includes a realistic theory of properties, one that eschews both conceptualism and nominalism. Its theory of properties is a theory according to which properties are independent of language and mind. Now it is clear that a theory could be a realist in this sense without implying that properties are universals. A universal is a repeatable entity, one that is repeated in each of the things that exemplifies it. By contrast, a particular is an unrepeatable entity, one about which it would make no sense to say that it is repeated.

Consider a red tomato. Is the redness of this tomato a repeatable (multiply exemplifiable) entity, or is it as unrepeatable as the tomato itself? This is a question that cannot be answered phenomenologically, but only dialectically. That is, the phenomenology of the situation is consistent both with the theory that what one sees when one sees an expanse of red in a particular location is an (immanent) universal and with the theory that what one sees is a particular. The answer to the question is therefore a matter of theory and argument. In this sense, it is a matter of ‘dialectic.’

For the trope theorist, properties are particulars; hence the redness of this tomato is as particular as the tomato itself. Yet there is an obvious distinction between this redness and this tomato: there is more to the tomato than redness, there is ripeness, spheroidness, etc. This distinction is captured in trope theory by saying that, whereas the redness is an abstract particular, the tomato is a concrete particular. This is an etymologically correct use of ‘abstract’: when we focus on the redness of our tomato, we ‘abstract from’ the rest of its features, features without which it cannot be a concrete tomato. Talk of tropes being abstract, however, is not to be taken to imply that they are products of mental acts of abstraction. Rather, as ultimate ontological building blocks, as the alphabet of being (D. C. Williams), their existence is ontologically prior to such acts. Note also that talk of the abstractness of tropes is not to be taken to imply that they are located in a realm apart from the spatiotemporal. A redness trope is quite obviously a spatially and temporally locatable item. It is this particular redness of this particular tomato right here in front of me.

A trope, then, is an abstract particular. It is a particular in that it is unrepeatable. It is abstract in that it is only a (proper) ontological part of a concrete thing. But there are abstract particulars that are not tropes. A state of affairs such as Tom’s being red is abstract because Tom has many other properties besides redness; it is also a particular because it is unrepeatable. The same is true of the Fregean proposition Tom is red. This proposition is particular because unrepeatable; it is abstract because it is only part of the truth about Tom. (It is also abstract in the currently irrelevant sense of being nonspatiotemporal.) To distinguish tropes from states of affairs and Fregean propositions, we must say that tropes, unlike the former, are ontologically simple. A state of affairs is a complex: at a bare minimum, it consists of a thin particular and an immanent universal, and perhaps also a nexus of exemplification to tie the particular to the universal. Something analogous holds for Fregean propositions. A trope, however, exhibits no such internal ontological structure. It follows that one cannot ‘factor’ a trope into its particularity and its quality, or its thisness and its suchness. To accept tropes is to accept entities in which there is an indissoluble unity of thisness and suchness. This of course is a problematic idea. The focus of this article, however, is on problems surrounding compresence, not on problems having to do with tropes as such.

A trope, then, is an ontologically simple abstract particular. But we should also add that tropes, as befits their building block status, are ontologically independent: they do not depend for their existence on other entities. In particular, they are ontologically independent of the concrete wholes of which they are the abstract parts. If the trope constituents of a concrete particular C depended for their existence on the existence of C, that would be as absurd as the supposition that the stones out of which a wall is composed depend for their existence on the wall.

It follows that a trope should not be confused with a property-instance, where the latter is the result of an ontologically irreducible thick particular’s exemplifying of an ontologically irreducible transcendent universal. So defined, a property-instance obviously depends for its existence on a thick particular, a transcendent universal, and perhaps also an exemplification relation. Nor should a trope be confused with an Aristotelian accident that inheres in a substance. Tropes are in no need of a substratum for their existence. To think otherwise is to needlessly extend the scope of ‘trope,’ thereby misusing the term. Bear in mind that trope theory is a one-category ontology: it aims to explain everything in terms of tropes and nothing else. If you like, you can take that as a stipulation as to the meaning of ‘trope theory.’

It should also be observed that a trope’s simplicity is consistent with spatial and temporal extension. (Maurin, p. 15) The redness of a tomato is extended in space; the cacophany of a piece of discordant music is extended in time. Moreland considers this problematic, and it may well be; but my focus here is not on the very idea of a trope so much as it is on the logically subsequent question of compresence. Note also that the simplicity of a trope does not entail that it cannot have properties, but it does entail that any properties it has cannot be (proper) ontological constituents of it. How a trope, a simple entity, can have properties is not a question that need concern us here.

The Compresence Relation

If properties are tropes, then how are we to translate our ordinary talk of a property’s belonging to a thing? What is this belonging? We cannot say of a trope that it is instantiated, since tropes are particulars (unrepeatables) and no particular can be instantiated. Only universals can be instantiated. Nor can we say that tropes inhere in substrata: there are no substrata on trope theory strictly construed. Frege’s talk of objects falling under concepts is also out of place, as is any talk of subsumption. On trope theory, properties of a thing are assimilated to its parts -- albeit ontological parts. What we have to say is that trope T is a property of something if and only if T is co-occurrent with, or compresent with, sufficiently many other tropes to form a concrete particular. Whereas instantiation (exemplification) and inherence are both asymmetrical, compresence is symmetrical. If a property is instantiated by a particular, then the particular is not instantiated by the property. But if one trope is compresent with another, then the other is compresent with the one. Within trope theory, then, ordinary language talk of things having properties is analyzed in terms of the symmetrical relation of compresence. It is easy to see that compresence is also transitive and partially reflexive. If T1 is compresent with T2, and T2 with T3, then T1 is compresent with T3. And if T1 is compresent with T2, then T1 is compresent with itself.

It is clear that one cannot get by without a relation of compresence. There is obviously a difference between a bundle B of tropes and those same tropes unbundled. This difference cannot be a brute fact; it requires an ontological ground. This ground is the relation of compresence. Compresence is the ontic glue that holds B’s constituents together, thereby distinguishing B from a mere collection of disconnected elements. Compresence is what makes of a sum of tropes a unified thing.

There is also this to consider. Even if no trope is unbundled, it doesn’t follow that each trope is bundled to every other one. If that were the case, there would be only one maximal bundle, only one concrete particular. Since there is a plurality of concrete particulars, there is need of an equivalence relation to partition the class of bundled tropes into equivalence classes. This relation is compresence. Accordingly, compresence serves both a unifying and a diversifying function. It unifies tropes into bundles, but into diverse bundles so that not every bundled trope is bundled with every other one.

Now given that trope theory is a one-category ontology, an ontology according to which everything is either a trope or a construction from tropes, it follows that the relation of compresence cannot be a universal. The fundamental role that compresence plays would also seem to dictate that it cannot be a construction from tropes. Compresence must therefore itself be a trope. To be exact, compresence as it occurs in reality must be parcelled out among many tropes, many compresence-relations, each of which is an instance or case of compresence. Clearly, the compresence-relation C1 in bundle B1 that connects T1 and T2 is numerically distinct from the compresence-relation C2 in B2 that connects T3 and T4. By ‘bundle’ here, I mean a maximally consistent bundle (a maxi-bundle) which is identical to a concrete particular such as a tomato. There are at least as many compresence-relations as there are maxi-bundles.

Of course, there may be many more compresence-relations than there are concrete particulars. Suppose compresence is dyadic, or two-termed. Then if T1, T2, and T3 are all compresent in the same maxi-bundle B, then there will be at least two C-relations in B, one that connects T1 to T2, and one to connect T2 to T3. Presumably, given the transitivity of the C-relation, it will logically follow that T1 is compresent with T3 thus obviating the need in reality for a third C-relation to connect T1 to T3. That is, the compresence of T1 with T3 will supervene upon T1's compresence with T2 and T2's compresence with T3. Similarly, given that T1 is compresent with T2, T1 is compresent with itself. But there is obviously no need for a separate C-relation to tie T1 to itself: T1's compresence with itself supervenes upon T1's compresence with T2. But these special considerations are not germane to the main thrust of this article. Nothing hinges on how many compresence-relations there are.

Compresence Must Be an External Relation

Whether C is dyadic or polyadic, it seems clear that it cannot be an internal relation. But there are at least two construal of ‘internal relation.’ One sort of internality is what we may call A- internality in honor of Armstrong:

Two or more particulars are internally related if and only if there exist properties of the particulars which logically necessitate that the relation holds. (USR II, 85)

To put it another way, an A-internal relation is one that supervenes upon, or is founded in, monadic properties of its relata. To illustrate A-internality, let R1 and R2 be two red objects, two red balls say, or two distinct redness tropes. R1 and R2 stand in the same color as relation. This relation, however, is internal in that the relatedness in question is logically guaranteed by each item’s being what it is: there is no need for a tertium quid, a third item, to relate them, whether this be a universal relation or a relational trope. In a case like this there is a relatedness without a relation as ground of the relatedness; there is connectedness without a connector. There are just the two items with their monadic properties and nothing ‘between’ them. Because there is no connector, no question can arise as to what connects the connector to what it connects: Bradley’s regress can get no purchase.

Now, could compresence be an internal relation in this sense? Suppose redness trope R1 is compresent with sweetness trope S1. If compresence is an A- internal relation, then R1's being what it is and S1's being what it is would logically suffice for their being compresent. But surely R1's being a case of redness, and S1's being a case of sweetness furnish no ontological ground of their being present with each other in the same trope-bundle any more than a cat’s being furry, and a mat’s being flat, logically suffice for the cat’s being on the mat. Therefore, compresence cannot be an A-internal relation. It cannot be founded in, or supervene upon, the monadic properties of its relata. Could it be a B-internal relation?

A B-internal relation, so named in honor of Bradley and Blanshard, is one whose relata could not have existed apart from each other and the relation that relates them. This is clearly a much stronger sense of ‘internal relation.’ Consider again the red balls. In every possible world in which both exist, and both are red, they stand in the same color as relation. But this does not entail that the balls require each other to exist. There are possible worlds in which one ball exists but the other doesn’t, and vice versa.

Now if compresence cannot be an A-internal relation, then a fortiori it cannot be a B-internal relation. Compresence is a relation that is external to its terms. As such, compresence is an entity in its own right, an addition to being and not an “ontological free lunch” to borrow a phrase from Armstrong. Given the existence of distinct tropes R and S, it does not follow that their compresence is given. There is a difference between a trope-bundle and its constituent tropes taken collectively. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Presence + presence does not equal compresence. Something more is required, a dab of ontological glue. Compare the case of the two redness tropes. The relational fact of R1's being the same color as R2 is identical to a conjunction of monadic facts, namely, the conjunction R1 is red & R2 is red. This conjunction ‘automatically’ exists when its conjuncts exist. A trope bundle, however, does not ‘automatically’ exist when its constituent tropes exist.

The difference between a trope-bundle and its constituent tropes taken collectively requires an ontological ground. But adding a special compresence-trope C to connect ordinary tropes R and S will not do the trick: there is still the difference between the bundle C(R, S) and the mere sum, C + R + S, or the set {C, R, S}.

Bradley’s Regress

At this point Bradley’s regress rears its churlish head. For if C connects R and S, what connects C to R and to S? This question is unavoidable once it is appreciated that C is an external relation, a relation external to its terms, and therefore an entity in its own right, an addition to being rather than an ontological free lunch. If an additional triadic connector C* is posited to connect C to R and to S, then a regress ensues that is clearly vicious. For the same question can be asked about C*. A similar vicious regress arises if we stick with dyadic connectors throughout. Then C* connects R1 to C, C** connects C to S1, C*** connects R1 to C*, ad infinitum.

There is nothing to the idea that this regress is benign; it is self-evidently vicious. For if C connects R and S, but can do only if a further entity connects C to R and to S, then we are in the presence of a vicious regress.

The natural response to the Bradleyan threat to unity is to deny that C needs any intermediaries to connect it to what it connects. The natural move is to accuse Bradley of failing to appreciate that the business of a relation is to relate. Relations, we will be told, are not inert ontological ingredients, but perfom a relating function. Relations as they occur in reality are participial rather than substantival: they are relating relations, connecting connectors, and it is only by an illicit process of hypostatization that we take them to be inert entities that need to be connected to what they connect. Since relations in concrete reality are relatings, relations relate directly. As Grossman puts it, “Relations are the glue of the world.” Exploiting the metaphor, we add that relations are a glue that does not require superglue (superduperglue. . .) to glue together what they glue together. This holds whether we take relations to be universals, as Grossmann does, or particulars, as the trope theorist does.

Anna-Sofia Maurin adopts this natural response to the Bradleyan threat. But since she has already (rightly) convinced herself that compresence is external to its terms, and thus an entity in its own right, she tries to accommodate the relating character of compresence by importing into the compresence-relation its relata. As she says, “the relation of compresence is external to the tropes it relates, but, simultaneously, the related tropes are internal to the relation of compresence.” (164) This means that a compresence-trope, “given that it exists, relate[s] exactly the entities it does in fact relate.”

This is to say that a compresence-trope (C-trope) cannot exist without relating tropes, and indeed, without relating the very tropes it in fact relates. The existing of a C-trope just is its relating. This implies that C-tropes cannot exist unbundled, and indeed, cannot exist apart from the very bundles into which they enter. Of course, it is this very feature that blocks the Bradleyan regress. If C is exhausted by its connecting of R and S, then C just is the connecting of R and S rather than something that needs to be connected to them. But this is difficult to square with Maurin’s claim that compresence is external to its terms. For if C is external to R and S, then C is an entity in its own right, one whose existence does not depend on the existence of R and S, let alone on the relating of R and S.

Thus a contradiction emerges. If R and S are internal to C, then C cannot exist except as the relating of R and S. But if C is external to R and S, as that which grounds their contingent connection, then C can exist apart from relating R and S.

One might try to avoid this contradiction by saying that R and S are internal to C only in the sense that if C relates R and S, then C does so directly. On this weaker claim, C can exist without relating R and S, but cannot be compresent without relating R and S. Thus C is not exhausted by its actual relating of R and S, but is merely such that, if it relates R and S, then it relates them and only them directly. This would allow C to be external to R and S, while also assuring that no Bradley-type regress could arise.

But if this is what Maurin means to assert, then a different problem arises, namely, that we are left with no explanation of the difference between the mere collection R + C + S and the same tropes actually bundled. If C is compresent, it is compresent with R and S and connects them directly, without intermediaries, and thus without igniting a Bradley-style regress. This conditional assertion merely assures us that no regress arises if we can get past the first hurdle, which is C’s connecting of R and S. But how can we render intelligible to ourselves C’s actual connecting of R and S? For if C is external to R and S, and thus an entity in its own right, then the mere sum R + C + S will fall short of the bundle C(R, S). Obviously, C cannot be the ground of the difference between these two complexes since C occurs in both of them. If you say that C in the bundle is a relating relation, as opposed to an inert ingredient, then you will have to explain how C gets related to R and S.

There are only three possibilities. (1) If C is related by another trope or tropes to R and S, then Mr. Bradley’s regress is up and running. (2) But if C relates itself to R and S, then one is ascribing to C a magical power that something as insubstantial as a trope could not possibly possess. (3) If, finally, one says that it is just a brute fact that C in the bundle connects R and S while C in the sum does not, then one gives up the analytic game. If one can appeal to a brute fact here, why not earlier? Why not say that properties, particulars, and property-possession are brute facts incapable of any ontological analysis? Why not say that things have properties and that is the end of it? Besides, is it not a contradiction to say that two complexes differ while sharing all constituents? It may be that two simples can just differ, but how could two complexes just differ when they do not differ in a constituent?

In sum, Maurin faces a dilemma. Either C cannot exist without relating R and S, in which case C cannot be external to R and S, as Maurin has cogently argued that it must be. Or C can exist without relating R and S, in which case it cannot provide the ontological ground of the difference between the sum R + C + S and the bundle C(R, S).

Coda: The Problem of the Unity of a Thing

Trope theory is a species of constituent ontology: it analyzes ordinary particulars into ontological constituents, tropes. But an ordinary particular is a unity as much as it is a plurality of constituents. What Bradley’s regress shows, however, is that unity cannot be isolated by analysis: it cannot be grounded in a special constituent such as a compresence-trope. Something must function as unifier, but it cannot be anything internal to an ordinary particular. And of course, the unifier cannot be the ordinary particular itself. So unless sense can be made of the idea that the unifier of an ordinary particular’s ontological constituents is something external to it, constituent ontology here suffers shipwreck. You could say it suffers shipwreck on the reef of unity.

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Throw the Moneychangers Out of the Temple!

I have railed in these pages against the Left's anti-religious bias, their shameless misuse of words like 'theocracy,' and other of their excesses. But this is just as bad and equally deserves condemnation. Hat tip: Michael Gilleland.

A Question for Proponents of Universal Health Care

First an observation, then the question.

Food, shelter, and clothing are more fundamental, more important, than health care in that one can get along for substantial periods of time without health care but one cannot survive for long without food, shelter, and clothing. Given this plain fact, why don’t the proponents of ‘free’ universal health care demand ‘free’ food, shelter, and clothing? In other words, if a citizen, just in virtue of being a citizen, has a right to health care, why doesn’t the same citizen have the right to what is more fundamental, namely, food, shelter, and clothing?

This question suggests two arguments, a conservative modus tollens and a socialist modus ponens:

If there is a right to health care, then there is a right to food, shelter, and clothing.
There is no right to food, shelter, and clothing.
Therefore, there is no right to health care.

If there is a right to health care, then there is a right to food, shelter, and clothing.
There is a right to health care.
Therefore, there is a right to food, shelter, and clothing.

Given that the first premise in both arguments is true, why isn’t the conclusion of the socialist argument a reductio ad absurdum of its second premise?

A government big enough and powerful enough to provide one with ‘free’ health care will be in an excellent position to demand ‘appropriate’ behavior from its citizens – and to enforce its demand. Suppose you enjoy risky sports such as motorcycling, hang-gliding, mountain-climbing and the like. A government that pays for the treatment of your injuries can easily decide, on economic grounds alone, to forbid such activites ‘for your own good.’ The same goes for a range of other ‘behaviors’ including eating, drinking, and smoking habits.

The situation is analogous to living with one’s parents. It is entirely appropriate for parents to say to a child: ‘As long as you live under our roof, eat at our table, and we pay the bills, then you must abide by our rules. When you are on your own, you may do as you please.’ The difference, of course, is that it is relatively easy to move out on one’s own, but difficult to forsake one’s homeland.

Karl Kraus on the Art of the Aphorism

Beim Wort Genommen, S. 132:

Einen Aphorismus zu schreiben, wenn man es kann, ist oft schwer. Viel leichter ist es, einen Aphorismus zu schreiben, wenn mann es nicht kann.

It is often difficult to write an aphorism, even for those with the ability. It is much easier when one lacks the ability. (tr. BV)

Karl Kraus on Blogging

Beim Wort Genommen, S. 124:

Warum schreibt mancher? Weil er nicht genug Charakter hat, nicht zu schreiben.

Why do many write? Because they don't have enough character not to write. (tr. BV)

Karl Kraus on the Two Kinds of Writers

Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Beim Wort Genommen (Muenchen: Koesel Verlag, 1955), S. 111:

Es gibt zwei Arten von Schriftstellern. Solche, die es sind, und solche die es nicht sind. Bei den ersten gehoeren Inhalt und Form zusammen wie Seele und Leib, bei den zweiten passen Inhalt und Form zusammen wie Leib und Kleid.

There are two kinds of writers, those who are and those who aren't. With the first, content and form belong together like soul and body; with the second, content and form fit together like body and clothing. (tr. BV)

Pack it In/Pack it Out

A while back I made a steep ascent to a lonely saddle above Carney Springs in the Superstition Wilderness. On the way up I passed a couple of hikers who were headed down. Topping out at the saddle, I saw that they had left their mark: orange peels lay upon a rock for all to see.



I imagined a little conversation with the offenders touching upon several points, to wit, (i) whether the weight of orange peels is less than, equal to, or greater than the weight of the corresponding orange; (ii) whether citrus trees and their fruits are part of the flora indigenous to the Superstition Wilderness; (iii) whether orange peels are among the dietary needs of javelinas, bobcats, mountain lions, and Sonoran white tail deer; (iv) whether trash inspires others to leave trash; (v) whether the offenders would leave orange peels to decompose on their living room floor; (vi) whether concern for other wilderness users is any part of their moral scheme.

Intentionality: An Embarrassment to Naturalism

I am an anti-naturalist: I don’t believe that all phenomena can be explained naturalistically or physicalistically. This is not because I am a theist. It is rather the other way around: one of the reasons I am a theist is because I cannot accept naturalism. (Of course, one can reject naturalism without adopting theism.) I would prefer naturalism to theism on the ground of theoretical economy if it could be made to work.

Unfortunately, there is just too much that naturalism cannot explain. For one thing, it cannot explain why anything contingent exists in the first place. I would argue further that it cannot explain what existence is, or truth, or causation. It also cannot explain the phenomena of consciousness, self-consciousness, conscience. Among the latter we find the phenomenon of intentionality. What follows is an unpublished draft which examines and rejects one attempt to argue that intentionality is unproblematically viewable as a natural phenomenon.

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IS THERE INTENTIONALITY IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD?

CRITICAL REMARKS ON DRETSKE

‘Intentionality’ is the philosophical term of art for that property of (some) mental states whereby they are (non-derivatively) of, or about, or directed to, an object. The state of perceiving, for example is necessarily object-directed. One cannot just perceive; if one perceives, then one perceives something. The same goes for intending (in the narrow sense), believing, imagining, recollecting, wishing, willing, desiring, loving, hating, judging, knowing, etc. Such mental states refer beyond themselves to objects that may or may not exist, or, in the case of propositional accusatives, may or may not be true. Thus Bush’s belief that Saddam possessed WMDs is the belief it is, and has the aboutness it has, whether or not the proposition the belief is about is true or false.

Franz Brentano took intentionality to be the criterion whereby physical and mental phenomena are distinguished. For Brentano, (i) all mental phenomena are intentional, (ii) all intentional phenomena are mental, and (iii) no mental phenomenon is physical. (Franz Brentano, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt (1874), Bk. II, Ch. 1.) But we are now living in naturalistic times. The widespread conviction that physicalism or materialism or naturalism in some version or other just must be true has made it seem important to 'naturalize' intentionality, to show how intentional phenomena such as beliefs and desires can be explained physicalistically. For if they cannot be so explained, if they cannot be identified with physical phenomena, how can they be real? As Jerry Fodor puts it, "If aboutness is real, it must be really something else." (Jerry A. Fodor, Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987), p. 97) This is Fodor’s paradoxical way of saying that there is a problem about explaining how intentionality — the ‘unnatural’ property of reference to what need not exist or be true — can be real given that only natural items are real.

This concern gives rise to what may be called the 'naturalization project,' the attempt to show that intentional phenomena are either identical to or supervenient upon physical phenomena. Others do not see much of a problem here. Fred Dretske, for example, holds that "there is no need to naturalize intentionality" since "It is already a familiar part of our physical world." (Fred Dretske, "If You Can't Make One, You Don't Know How It Works," Midwest Studies in Philosophy XIX, eds. French, et al. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), p. 471.) He means original, not derived or borrowed intentionality of the kind found in words and maps. A map, for example, is about a portion of terrain. But the map’s aboutness is not intrinsic to it, but borrowed from us, who interpret the map as about the terrain. Our interpreting, however, and our comparing of map and terrain, are presumably instances of original intentionality. Dretske's view, then, is that there is original or intrinsic intentionality in natural systems below the level of mind. Not only are mental intentional phenomena really physical, but there are nonmental intentional phenomena. If Dretske is right, we should not be puzzled by mental intentional phenomena, nor should we take them as posing any threat to a thoroughgoing naturalism.

Dretske invites us to consider a compass the needle of which normally (i.e., when it is functioning properly and is used correctly) points to magnetic (as opposed to geographic) North. Dretske holds that this pointing or indicating is a case of original intentionality: the compass’ “being a reliable indicator does not itself depend on us." (Ibid., p. 471.) It is unlike a map which gets its intentionality from us. So far, so good.

But what makes the needle's pointing to magnetic North an intentional phenomenon? Note that Dretske's claim is not that the needle's behavior is in some metaphorical or 'as-if' sense intentional, but that it is genuinely intentional. Now one mark of intentionality is aspectuality. "Anything exhibiting this mark is about something else under an aspect." (Ibid.) The idea is a familiar one. To be aware (whether in perception, imagination, memory...) of something x is to be aware of it as something F. Necessarily, awareness is always awareness of something as something. Furthermore, even if every F is a G, I can be aware of x as F without being aware of x as G. Indeed, this is so even if necessarily (whether metaphysically or nomologically) every F is a G. Thus I can be aware of a moving object as a cat, without being aware of it as spatially extended, as an animal, as a mammal, as an animal that cools itself by panting as opposed to sweating, as my cat, as the same cat I saw an hour ago, etc. Dretske sees the same structure in compass needles:

Compass needles are about geographical regions or directions under one aspect (as, say, the direction of the pole) and not others (as the habitat of polar bears). This is the same way our thoughts are about a place under one aspect (as where I was born) but not another (as where you were born). (Ibid.)

Dretske's argument seems to be this:

a. Anything that is about objects under some aspects but not others in the way our thoughts are is an intentional state.

b. Compass states are about objects under some aspects but not others in the way our thoughts are.

Therefore

c. Compass states are intentional states.

This strikes me as a breathtakingly bad argument the badness of which should be evident from my (deductively valid) reconstruction. First of all, to say that the needle is 'about' the polar region as magnetic North is just to say that its pointing in that direction is caused by the magnetic properties of the polar region. What else could 'about' mean here? It is obvious that the needle is not conscious of magnetic North, or of anything else. A compass needle cannot intend or mean anything, any more than a pile of bear scat can intend or mean anything. Of course, one can say such things as, 'This fresh bear scat means that a bear was in the vicinity recently,' but this use of 'means' expresses derivative intentionality, intentionality of the kind which presupposes the original intentionality of minds. And to say that the compass needle's pointing is not 'about' the polar region as bear-inhabited is just to say that its pointing in that direction is not caused by the 'ursine' properties of the polar region, even though the 'ursine' and magnetic properties are coexemplified. Premise (b), then, is simply and strikingly false.

It is widely accepted that causation is always causation in respect of specific properties. Thus a knife cuts through tendons in virtue of its sharpness and not in virtue of its being two feet long, but fits into the drawer in virtue of its being two feet long but not in virtue of its sharpness. The properties may even be necessarily coextensive. Triangularity and trilaterality are necessarily coextensive properties: there is no possible world in which one but not the other is exemplified. Nevertheless, it is in virtue of the triangularity, but not the trilaterality, of a piece of metal that I have three bloody points on the palm of my hand.

What Dretske is doing in the quoted passage, then, is assimilating the aspectuality of intentionality to the 'aspectuality' of causation:

INTENTIONALITY: if x is about y, then x is about y under some aspect F, and x can be about y under F without being about y under G even if necessarily every F is a G.

CAUSATION: if x is caused by y, then x is caused by y in virtue of some property F of y, and x can be caused by y in virtue of F without being caused by y in virtue of G of y even if necessarily every F is a G.

No doubt there is an interesting structural analogy between the aspectuality of intentionality and the 'aspectuality' of causation. But does this analogy warrant saying that the compass needle is about a place in the same way (Dretske's words) that our thoughts are about a place? I would think not. First of all, to use ‘about’ and ‘of’ in connection with the pointing of compass needles is a misuse of terms, or at best a misleading idiosyncrasy. There may be as-ness in the compass example, but there is no of-ness. Genuine intentionality involves both as-ness and of-ness. Second, even if we acquiesce in Dretske's terminological mischief, a compass needle is not 'about' or 'of' a place the way consciousness is — on pain of an egregious equivocation. Consciousness presents its object, makes or lets it appear, which is something it could not do apart from consciousness; the needle does not present its 'object,' nor does it make or let it appear. Strictly speaking, the needle's pointing does not have an object; it has a cause. Nor does the needle present its 'object' under an 'aspect.' One cannot speak literally of aspects here, because nothing is appearing to the needle or to the compass. ‘Aspect’ by its very etymology (ad-spectare) is a mind-involving term. What we have here again is terminological inflation. Furthermore, the needle's pointing to magnetic North is a purely physical, publicly observable, pointing. In this sense, consciousness does not 'point' to its object; it is rather the presentation of its object. I cannot examine your states of consciousness to see what they are about the way I can examine compass needles, weather vanes, etc. to see what they are pointing at. And I do not examine my own states of consciousness to see what they are about. I may examine a state of my body such as a skin rash to inquire about its underlying cause, but I never examine my conscious experiences to see what they are of or about. Experiences are not signs of their objects. Husserl refuted this 'sign-theory' of consciousness long ago. (Cf. Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations vol. II, trans. J. N. Findlay (New York: The Humanities Press, 1970), pp. 593-596.)

Thus it is only by equivocating on such key words as 'about' and 'aspect' that Dretske can come to ascribe original intentionality to compass needles, clouds, smoke, tree rings, and the like. But he may be committing another mistake, namely, that of inferring that if something is not a case of derived intentionality, then it must be a case of original intentionality. For there is the possibility that it is a case of what Searle calls ‘as-if’ intentionality, which of course is not intentionality at all. A good example is a thermostat which, as we say, ‘senses’ a change in room temperature. Such talk is harmless in everyday life but misleading to some philosophers. Clearly, the thermostat does not literally sense anything; it is not conscious of a change in temperature. ‘Sensors’ in general, whether electrical, mechanical, electromagnetic, photoelectric, etc., do not literally sense anything. Sentience is a mode of consciousness, and no such contraption as a thermostat is conscious. Or do you want to say that a chocolate bar melting in a hot car literally feels the heat? Yet thermostats behave as if they sense a change in temperature; it is as if they possess intentional states. The same holds for the pointing of the compass needle. From the fact that this is not a case of derived intentionality, it does not follow that it is a case of original intentionality. What follows is that it is not a case of intentionality at all, but merely behaves as if it were a case of intentionality. As Colin McGinn puts it, "When we think we are conceiving of content in the absence of consciousness we are really treating a system as if it were conscious, while simultaneously denying that this is what we are up to."(Colin McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1991), p. 33. McGinn does not endorse this view.)

To deny the distinction between intrinsic and 'as-if' intentionality would be to embrace the view that all natural phenomena are intentional. For all natural phenomena have causes, and causation, as noted, is always in respect of properties. But it is surely obvious that not all natural phenomena are intentional in the very same way conscious phenomena are intentional. If they were, absolutely everything would be conscious, which is absurd.

What one could say, perhaps, is that that there are two kinds of intentionality, or two kinds of content. There is unconscious intentionality and there is conscious intentionality. In this way one might hope to avoid the absurd conclusion that every natural phenomenon exhibits conscious intentionality. McGinn speaks in this connection of "two species of content, personal and subpersonal..." He continues:

I doubt that the self-same kind of content possessed by a conscious perceptual experience, say, could be possessed independently of consciousness; such content seems essentially conscious, shot through with subjectivity. This is because of the Janus-faced character of conscious content: it involves presence to the subject, and hence a subjective point of view. Remove the inward-looking face and you remove something integral — what the world seems like to the subject. (Ibid. p. 34)

This is right, and spells the doom of the naturalization project, the attempt to account for such intentional phenomena as beliefs and desires in wholly physicalistic terms. For what it implies is that there can be no third-person, wholly objective, understanding of conscious intentionality. But without an understanding of conscious intentionality, there is no understanding of mind.

But even more fundamentally, could there be two kinds of original intentionality? Is this a coherent proposal? If there are two kinds or species of original intentionality, conscious and unconscious, then there must be a genus of which they are the species. But what could this genus be? We saw, pace Dretske, that the pointing of the compass needle is not about magnetic North in the same sense that a thought is about magnetic North. It is only by equivocating on 'of' and 'about' that one could think otherwise. Thus there is no generic aboutness. If there is no generic aboutness, there can be no kinds or species of aboutness. Clearly, what we must say is that unconscious intentionality is no more a kind of intentionality than artificial leather is a kind of leather. In 'artificial leather,' 'artificial' does not specify, but shifts, the sense of 'leather.' Similarly, 'unconscious' does not specify, but shifts, the sense of 'intentionality.' Unconscious intentionality, then, is as-if intentionality. And McGinn's subpersonal contents are as-if contents.

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Paul Craddick on Left Versus Right

Paul Craddick of Fragmenta Philosophica takes a stab at characterizing the difference here. He does an excellent job especially when compared to Ernest Partridge's characterization. My comments are in italics.

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What is the appropriate or fitting mental-spiritual mode of man?

Left: Rational-Secularism, Scientific Outlook; Anti-clericalism, Irreligiosity.

Right: Reason supplemented or "tempered" by the authority of tradition and religious faith; legitimate scope for - or unavoidability of - sentiment, myth, "prejudice."

This is basically right, except that on the Right there is a serious tension between paleoconservatives and neoconservatives the latter being close in many ways to classical liberals, and on the Left the commitment to the Enlightenment Project is disturbed by the irrationalism of deconstructionists.

There is also the problem of where to fit anarchists and libertarians.

What ought to be the mode or shape of society's relationship to material goods, commodities?

Left: Suspicious of, or downright hostile to, private property -at least in the "means of production." The ideal entails goods being held "in common."

Right: Enthusiasm for - or resignation to - private ownership. Ideal entails goods "held privately for common use."

Well said, except that "held privately for common use" requires explanation.

What are the contours of a Just society, particularly as regards the "status" of individuals vis a vis one another?

Left: virtual reduction of commutative Justice - all Justice? - to distributive justice (or in terms of the mechanisms of distribution; commutative justice becomes a function of distributive Justice). Inequality in distribution is a bedrock social malignancy, which accounts for the unwarranted, differing status of various individuals; the ideal tends towards distributive equality (or opportunity for "equal" consumption). The doctrine of significant inequalities amongst/between men is a screen to preserve privilege (i.e., ideology). Only a radical (i.e., to the root) re-alignment of social factors and forces can repair structural defects which concurrently rigidify inequality and dehumanize man.

Right: men are unequal - this is the cornerstone of commutative justice; a social hierarchy is not in itself objectionable (nay, it's necessary), and at best exemplifies a fitting distribution of honors, privileges, rights and duties, as well as goods. Distributive inequality is regrettable, but not in itself unjust, and is remediable by alms-giving, palliative measures by the state, and/or the longer-term mechanisms of the market.

Right, although a definition of 'commutative justice' would have been nice.

What degree of unity is desirable in the political community?

Left: Collectivism. Right: Community.

Here some explanation is needed. But the main point is correct: conservatives are anti-collectivist, but not anti-communitarian.

What is the fitting scope for the loyalties and allegiances of individuals?

Left: Cosmopolitan/Universal; trans- or inter-nationalist. Right: Local partialities: family, neighborhood, city, Nation-State.

An important point, and one requiring extended discussion.

To which factor(s) ought personal agency be referred, even reduced? Left: social - especially material - conditions. Right: individual/personal accountability, "the wages of sin"; "metaphysical pollution"?

A crucial difference. An atheistic conservative won't speak of 'sin' except figuratively, but will nevertheless maintain that there is in human beings an ineradicable propensity for evil which must be kept in check.

Is there a "trajectory" to human history? What is it?

Left: Progress, Meliorism - Society as perfectible. Cp. Auguste Comte's Epochal divison: Religion - Philosophy - Science.

Right: We have lost our bearings, the present is terrible (cp. Eliot's "Wasteland"), yearning for a Lost Golden Age (The Middle Ages?). For the religious, Eschatology indicates the post-historical nature of any truly "humane" social order.

It is true that the Left subscribes to the perfectibility of man by human effort alone. But I would eliminate or qualify the assertion that conservatives hold that "the present is terrible." That is actually more characteristic of the utopian Left. Nor do conservatives necessarily hanker after a Golden Age; that is true only of some paleoconservatives. Conservatives are progressives of a sort, it is just that progress will come slowly, only up to a point, and in piecemeal and ad hoc fashion.

This is a good characterization of the differences that divide Left and Right. It is neutral as it should be -- unlike Partridge's characterization -- and it makes clear that there are very deep issues here that cannot be easily resolved.

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The Fair Tax Fraud

This article by Laurence Vance is here. Link courtesy of Tony Flood who comments:

A thought: if the imposition of taxes isn't "revenue neutral" for the government why, in order to be taken seriously, must "revenue neutrality" characterize every proposal for tax reform? It reminds me of the claims former slaveowners made for "compensation" for the loss of their property, when it was rather the slaves who deserved compensation.

It goes without saying that my posting of a link does not constitute an endorsement of the linked material. It merely indicates that I think it is worthy of consideration.

How Not to Distinguish Right and Left

Here is how Ernest Partridge distinguishes the Right from the Left. My comments are in italics.

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1. Is society a collection of private individuals or is it a community?

The Right: Society is an aggregate of self-interested individuals. Associations within the society are personal and voluntary. Social progress issues from private, self-interested behavior. Strictly speaking: “there is no such thing as society – there are individuals and there are families.” (Margaret Thatcher). “Good for each, good for all; bad for each, bad for all.”

The Left: Society is a community: “a cooperative venture for mutual advantage [which] makes possible a better life for all than any would have if each were to live solely by his own efforts.” (John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 4) Common goods are achieved through individual constraint and sacrifice. “Good for Each, Bad for all; Bad for each, good for all.”

This may capture the difference between libertarians and liberals/leftists, but many conservatives would not recognize themselves in this characterization. For a conservative, in addition to individuals and families, traditions, and cultural and national unities come into consideration.

2. Cui Bono? Who are the beneficiaries of the policies?

The Right: A “Master Morality” (the term is from Nietzsche). Policies and rules are designed to benefit the wealthy and powerful few who own and control national wealth at the expense of the masses who produce the wealth. For example,: George W. Bush’s 2006 Budget Proposal and his tax “reforms.”

The Left: A Social-Democratic Morality. Policies and rules are designed to result in the greatest good for the greatest number in a regime of “equal justice under law.” Examples: FDR’s “New Deal” and LBJ’s “Great Society.”

This is a hopelessly slanted and tendentious characterization. No contemporary conservative of note would recognize himself in it. Contemporary conservatives of course believe in "equal justice under the law" -- it is just that they don't confuse equality of outcome with equality of opportunity. Both sides want the greatest good of the greatest number. The substantive debate, however, hinges on how this is to be achieved.

3. What is the function of government?

The Right: The function of government is to protect the fundamental rights of life, liberty and property – nothing more. “Government is not the Solution.” (Ronald Reagan, 1981). “Government is the most dangerous institution known to man.” (John Hospers). “Who is best qualified to spend your money? You, or the government?” (George W. Bush).

The Left: Government “of, by, and for the people” is a legitimate surrogate of the people’s interests and a protector of the people’s rights. “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” (Declaration of Independence, 1776). Citizens must constantly be on guard against abuses of office. However, the answer to bad government is better government, not the abolition of government.

This is somewhat better, but still quite bad. Partridge confuses conservatives with libertarians, and possibly with anarchists as well. No conservative calls for the abolition of government. Libertarians don't either, except for those who are indistinguishable from anarchists.

4. What are the justifications for taxation?

The Right (i.e., the Libertarian faction): Taxes for any purpose other than the protection of individual rights to life, liberty and property, are a theft of personal property. (But for the religious right, tax revenue may also be expended to compel private morality).

The Left: Taxes are legitimate dues that we pay for civilized society. (Oliver Wendell Holmes). Taxes can be legitimately levied to support such community goods as education, the arts, national parks, basic research, and physical infrastructure. In general, to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” (Preamble, Constitution of the United States).

Again, Partridge conflates conservatives and libertarians. (There is also the question whether libertarians belong on the Right, although I will leave that for them to decide.) Partridge also needs to tell us how tax dollars are used to compel private morality. But tax dollars are used to violate the moral beliefs of many citizens (NEA funding to take but one example), which is a problem he doesn't mention.

Note also that Partridge makes illict use of the quotation from the Preamble by ripping it from its context and not explaining what the context is. The quoted phrase is not in justification of taxation, but of the Constitution.

5. What is the function of free markets in society?

The Right: Social problems can best be solved through the unconstrained action of free markets. Private initiative and privatization of property produces results superior to government action. (Maslow’s Rule: To a carpenter, all problems can be solved with a hammer. Corollary: To the right, all problems can be solved by the free market).

The Left: Privatization and free markets, while valuable ingredients of society, must not be absolutes. They must be regulated for the common good by agencies of popular government. Unregulated free markets are self-eliminating, for their natural tendency is toward monopolies and the end of competition. Thus the necessity of anti-trust regulation.

Another self-serving caricature. No conservative believes that ALL problems can be solved by the free market. A conservative who holds that some social problems are either solved or prevented from arising by close-knit loving families obviously does not believe that the operation of competitive free markets solves every problem. And except for anarchists, everyone believes that military problems are solved by the military, a branch of the government.

Furthermore, contemporary conservatives are not opposed to reasonable amounts of government regulation. Indeed, this is one of the issues on which they differ from libertarians.

6. Is wealth generated in society from the top down (“trickle down”) or from the bottom-up (“percolate up”)?

The Right: “Trickle-down.” Prosperity results from investment by the wealthy. “The rising tide lifts all boats.” “I never was given a job by a poor man.” (Sen. Phil Gramm).

The Left: Wealth “percolates up” from the labor and innovation of an educated work-force.

Superficial. A sophisticated conservative opts for neither extreme.

7. What is the role of language in society and politics?

The Right: Language is a political weapon, to be “shaped” to the advantage of the ruling elites. "Newspeak" in George Orwell's 1984 shows the way. (See "Newspeak Lives!" and "The Language Trap.")

The Left: Language is the primary (“keystone”) social institution. The distortion of language leads to social disorder, public alienation from politics, and economic inefficiency. In other words, the left takes an authentically “conservative” view of language.

More tendentious, self-serving drivel. The truth is that people on both sides misuse language to forward their agendas. Consider the way leftists typically misuse 'fascist' and 'theocracy.'

8. How are human conduct and society morally evaluated?

The Right: Simple, dualistic view of human nature, morality, society and social problems. (“You are either with us or against us.” G. W. Bush).

The Left: Complex view of human nature, morality, society and social problems. Rules and principles often conflict and must be “bent” to accommodate circumstances. (The Religious Right derides this as “situation ethics” and “moral relativism”).

Another slanted characterization that does nothing to explain what divides the Right from the Left. Suppose I were to say that people on the Left all believe that everything is a matter of mere opinion, that all values are relative, whereas on the Right people attend to the facts of rality and possess moral clarity. That would be no better, because equally self-serving.

9. Political methodology.

The Right: Dogmatic approach to policy. “Top down:” unyielding principles applied to particular circumstances. “Unconfused by the facts.”

The Left: Pragmatic and empirical. “Reality based:” i.e., willing to be “instructed” by the real world. Principles adapted in the face of newly discovered facts and newly invented technology. Policies tried, and if they fail, are revised or even abandoned.

Ditto.

10. Moral perspective.

The Right: Egocentric point of view. Society viewed and evaluated through “the mind’s I.” The interests of the individual are supreme.

The Left: Moral Point of View. Society viewed and evaluated from the perspective of the “ideal observer” of the society as a whole, without advantage accorded any individual unless that advantage works to the benefit of all. (Equal opportunity, blind justice).

More silliness. Both have a moral point of view. Suppose a utilitarian identified his moral doctrine with Morality and then announced that deontologists have no Morality. Partridge's silliness is of that order.

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Former Student Takes the Bull by the Shovel

Bill Marvin, former philosophy M. A. student, and drummer for our band The Transcendental Egomaniacs, writes:

I read your blog on the topic of stuff and ass. It is some good shit. Philosophers used to bullshit about philosophy. Now some philosophize about bullshit. The time must be right. On Bullshit is a best seller. Blog on . . . .

It's been a long time, Bill. There is a line you used to use, and which I always associate with you: "You can't bullshit a bullshitter."

Did you see Harry Frankfurt on 60 Minutes Sunday night? I have been watching 60 Minutes since the 'sixties, and I believe this was the first time I ever saw a philosopher on the show -- or on any mainstream media program for that matter. It takes some serious crapola to get featured on the MSM.

Can one still find "On Bullshit" in its entirety on the 'Net? A correspondent who had featured it on his site told me that he was ordered to remove it on pain of legal action. It's a funny world: when OB was just another on-line philosophy paper, then it was free. Has any real change occurred in it such as to justify charging money for it? No, the change is merely Cambridge. No doubt "On Bullshit" is a fine piece of shit work, but then so are so many other philosophy papers. Is it the title that titillates? I am afraid that in the months ahead many other shovel wielders will be jumping on the band manure wagon.

I recall that you were interested in the philosophy of humor. I have been poking around in this area myself. Here are some preliminary jottings.