Philosophical Pontifications

A Critique of Alison M. Jaggar on Abortion -- A new Scholardarity Article

2012-02-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

I've just posted a new article at Scholardarity.com, A Critique of Alison M. Jaggar on Abortion .

A Primer on Logic Part 3 (A New Scholardarity.com Article)

2011-12-15T18:30:00.000-08:00

I've posted a new article, A Primer on Logic: Part 3, my new Scholardarity piece in which I give a brief introduction to Aristotelian logic. It's the latest entry in my introduction to formal logic.

Also, in case you missed Parts 1 and 2, which respectively cover logical preliminaries and propositional logic, you can check them out here:

Part 1

Part 2

If you have any comments / criticism, by all means share it!

A follow up on "An uncontroversial instance of moral knowledge?"

2011-12-10T01:06:00.000-08:00

In this post I’m going to refine the position I advanced in my previous post, “An uncontroversial instance of moral knowledge?”. In that post I said,

No matter what else one may think about which actions—or types of action—are wrong, one must hold that if someone performs any action which they believe to be wrong they have acted wrongly. And if we know that anything is wrong, we know that doing something which one believes to be wrong is wrong.

This passage is ambiguous: It could be read as saying that if one believes some (particular) action A to be wrong but does A anyway, then A itself is a wrong action. But it could also be read as saying that if one believes some (particular) action A to be wrong but does A anyway then one has acted wrongly, even if A itself is not wrong. Since I wrote this passage a while ago I can’t be sure what exactly I had in mind, although I suspect I wasn’t thinking carefully enough to notice the difference. However, I now think that the second reading is more plausible, because of cases like the following.

Suppose Jones has been raised by parents who are ethical egoists, and has been taught that one should never act to help others unless it is one’s own interest to do so, except in a situation where helping someone else and not helping them would have precisely the same consequences for one’s own well being, in which case it is permissible to help that person and also permissible not to do so. Suppose that one day Jones spies a beggar on the street, and that Jones, moved by pity, gives the beggar some money that he would otherwise have used to buy his lunch. Nevertheless, in spite of his feelings, Jones still believed while he was acting that he shouldn’t help the beggar because in doing so he made himself (mildly) worse off by skipping lunch.

In a case such as this, I find it intuitive to think that Jones’ action of helping the beggar was not wrong, but permissible or perhaps even obligatory. In spite of that, I think it is still at least plausible to hold that Jones did something wrong. For even if an action A is not wrong, it does not follow that in doing A one has not acted wrongly. For instance, by moving one’s finger in a certain way one may thereby also flip a switch and thereby turn the lights on. Similarly, by doing A one may also perform another action—call it ‘e’—namely violating one’s conscience, and it might be that e is wrong because it is always wrong to violate one’s conscience. However good it may have been for Jones to give his lunch money to the beggar, it would have been better still if Jones had thought that by giving away his money he was doing the right thing, or a least a permissible thing.

A Primer on Logic: Part 2 (A New Scholardarity.com Article)

2011-11-23T23:42:00.000-08:00

Check out "A Primer on Logic: Part 2", my new Scholardarity.com article which is essentially a crash-course in propositional logic. It's the latest entry in my introduction to formal logic. (Also available as a PDF.)

Also, in case you missed Part 1, which covers logical preliminaries and vocabulary, you can check it out here. (Also as a PDF.)

If anyone has any comments / criticism, by all means share it!

Quote of the Day: Brand Blanshard on Linguistic Philosophy

2011-09-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

Here is the philosopher Brand Blanshard on "Linguistic Philosophy". Keep in mind that Reason and Analysis, the book this quote was taken from, was first published in 1962.

The linguistic philosophers would rather philosophize in their own manner than talk about philosophy, and their programme cannot be fully appreciated without following them into their discussions of the language we use about time and induction and universals and fact and truth. It would be interesting to do this if there were space for it, which there is not. But I cannot think our main conclusions about this way of philosophizing would be greatly affected by such a review. We should find many fine hairs split into still finer hairs. We should find a virtuosity in ferreting out verbal distinctions, particularly in such masters of the craft as Austin, which would fill any unprejudiced reader with admiring astonishment. We should find many curious details in our use of such words as ‘if’ and ‘can’ and ‘seems’ and ‘ought’ lit up sharply by flashes of light. And yet at the end we should feel strangely unilluminated. Such a prodigal expenditure of power, acuteness and ink, adding up to—what? Disappointingly little in view of the powers that went into it

The reason is not far to seek. Words give the philosopher no compass. The interest in usage is centrifugal and dispersive, and unless guided by something other than itself, dissipates among minutiae, some idle, some important; and mere usage cannot tell it which is which. When philosophers in the past asked themselves What is the nature of knowledge? instead of What are the uses of the verb ‘know’?, they usually did so with a conviction, having nothing to do with language, that some types of knowledge, or some claims to it, were of central importance—the insight of the mathematician, the scientific grasp of natural law, the claim of the mystic or the religious authoritarian. These types or claims were then fastened upon for special examination. The inquiries of the linguistic philosophers have, to be sure, thrown light on these claims. But if so, it is because a way of philosophizing different from their own, disruptive of their own, has not been wholly abandoned. A genuine philosopher can draw nourishment even from what W. E. Hocking has called ‘this new method of milking stones’. ‘If’, ‘can’, ‘know’, ‘true’, are after all key words, and one is bound to derive profit from their study. So our complaint is not that these studies are profitless, but that the profit is so meagre in proportion to the price. There are grains of wheat, many of them indeed, and of high quality, among the chaff. But why should one have to hunt for them in these bushels and bushels and bushels of words about words?

--Brand Blanshard, Reason and Analysis, pp. 380-81, Open Court, Paperback (second printing).

A Dilemma for Dialetheism

2011-08-07T14:51:00.000-07:00

I've just published a revised version of my article "A Dilemma for Dialetheism" on Scholardarity.com, which was originally published in the Spring 2010 edition of the Stanford undergraduate philosophy journal The Dualist (vol. 15). In the article I argue that dialetheists, who believe that some sentences are both true and false, either cannot express the notion that some sentences are not both true and false, or else that their accounts suffer from "revenge" liar paradoxes that not even they can regard as being both true and false. If you like logic and paradoxes as much as I do, please check it out and let me know what you think.

My Review of "The God Delusion"

2011-06-24T22:34:00.000-07:00

Check out my review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion here on Scholardarity.com .

Launching a new website: Scholardarity.com

2011-05-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

A friend and I are launching a new website Scholardarity.com to help out scholars in the humanities.

Our website is still a work in progress and subscriptions are still free. Readers will not need to subscribe. Our motto is “Free to read, but pay to publish!”

Scholardarity, in order to promote solidarity among scholars, is a new site for scholars in the humanities and all students interested in History, Philosophy, and Theology.

It is for all of us who have a degree that hasn’t opened any doors. But all scholars, even with faculty positions are, of course, welcome. So many teachers, graduates, and academics are having trouble finding work or getting articles published. How could scholarly work bring an online income? We are working on that kind of support.

We want to give scholars access to the cutting edge of research in their fields via peer review and criticism. See our Conferences and Societies and consider presenting papers in your field. We want to find ways to help and support students interested in the humanities. Lately we hear that only science, math, and technology are in demand.

Our goal in Scholardarity is to create a community of scholars who help each other and push ahead the frontiers of knowledge for our readers.

Unlike many academic journals, both online and off, our articles will be available for all, free to read. Scholars will subscribe to have the benefits of having their profiles on the site, communicating on the message board, sharing their writing, e-publishing their manuscripts and books, and being able to advertise and sell their work through this site.

Subscribe to Scholardarity

Future Features:

Find new faculty position openings
Advertise your books and writings
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Make unpublished manuscripts available
Receive peer critique and review
Online introductory video lectures for students
Online conferences
Message boards to share ideas and coordinate research projects
Downloadable podcasts and pdfs for e-readers
Intra-site newsletter with editorials, book reviews, and interviews with scholars
E-Publishing…and more!

Causation, God , and the Justification of Induction: Part 2

2011-03-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

[Cross-posted at Reflections on Religion]

I think the argument of Part 1 is a good one, but it does not quite establish its conclusion: While it is highly likely, given IBE, that chance is not the true account of the regularity of the universe, metaphysically necessary causal connections are not the only alternative. Indeed, in some cases they are seemingly not even a possible alternative. For quantum mechanics tells us, on most of its interpretations, that many of the most basic regularities in nature are probabilistic. Unless we’re prepared to posit “probabilistic necessities”—i.e., that it could be necessary that something happens only in a certain percentage of cases—many of the regularities described by quantum mechanics cannot be necessary. So how could we explain them?

If we accept theism, there is a way. God, being all powerful, could surely act in such a manner that certain things happen only with a certain frequency, not all the time. But God, according to theists, is not merely some convenient metaphysical explanatory posit. He is a personal being. While perhaps not having a psychology like ours—God probably doesn’t think discursively, with one thought following after another—He is nevertheless an agent who acts for the sake of ends. Provided that those ends include creating a word that is regular—perhaps because only such worlds are hospitable to life or sentience—it would be extremely probable, or even certain, that such a world would be actual.

Now, if we consider the matter in terms of “epistemic possibility”, there are many “possible Gods”, or “ways God could be”. A great deal of them would have no desire to create worlds that are regular. I don’t know of any good arguments to the effect that such “Gods” couldn’t have existed, so we can’t rule them out a priori. Instead, I think a theist should insist that given our actual evidence we aren’t justified in believing in them, because it is only if we posit a God who desires to create a world that exhibits regularities, albeit probabilistic ones, that we have reason to suspect such a world to be actual. If there is such a God we certainly have a better account than we would have if we thought such regularities were merely “an outrageous run of luck”. So the observed regularities in nature do cry out for explanation, but on this view their probabilistic nature favors a theistic account. Given the constancy of God’s nature and purposes, we are can confidently expect them to persist in the future. The above account, if true, would not constitute an airtight proof that the inductive schema of Part 1 is reliable, but I think it would give us a good (though defeasible) reason to accept it.

But all is not well. In Part 3 I’ll examine a couple objections to this account.

Causation, God , and the Justification of Induction: Part 1

2011-03-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

[Cross-posted at Reflections on Religion]

Brand Blanshard (The Nature of Thought, vol. 2 , Ch. XXXII, “Concrete Necessity and Internal Relations”; Reason and Analysis, Ch. XI, “Necessity in Causation”) and A.C. Ewing (Non-Linguistic Philosophy: Ch. VI, “Causation and Induction”) gave similar arguments for the existence of “logical necessity” in causation. (Given that their views of logic are somewhat unorthodox by the standards of analytic philosophers, I think it would be more accurate and less confusing to talk of metaphysical necessity in causation, which I will do in what follows.) A “rational reconstruction” of their arguments goes something like this: If causal connections are not metaphysically necessary, the fact that similar effects follow upon similar causes, or that there are certain, seemingly exceptionless regularities in nature (which can be expressed in laws of nature) is quite remarkable. If “anything can cause anything”, as Humeans sometimes say, we have a tremendous coincidence, “an outrageous run of luck”, as Blanshard puts it (The Nature of Thought, vol. 2, Ch XXXII, “Concrete Necessity and Internal Relations”, p. 505 of the second edition), comparable to rolling a die and getting a 4 a trillion times in a row. But if causal connections are metaphysically necessary, we have a good explanation for the fact that similar effects follow upon similar causes, or that there are exceptionless regularities in nature: they obtain because they must. If events of type B necessarily follow upon events of type A, any token A event will be followed by a token B event. (Not, of course, that we can perceive this necessity: we could only perceive it if we had some kind of direct insight into the natures of type A events and type B events.) Granting that, it follows that we can justify instances of inductive inference that fit the following schema: Events of type A have always been followed by events of type B, hence, events of type A will always be followed by events of type B.

Our argument for this schema is neither deductive nor inductive: We have not deduced, and neither have we seen through “rational insight”, that it is necessary that type A events will always be followed by type B events based on knowledge of their natures, nor have we concluded that type A events will always be followed by type B events just because they have always been so followed in the past. Our argument is rather this: In certain cases we take ourselves to have established that every observed event of type A has been followed by an observed event of type B. We also note that, since type A events are observed very frequently, it is extremely unlikely (though possible) that their association with type B events is a matter of chance. So there are two alternatives: Either the association is an astronomically improbable coincidence, or there is a necessary connection between them, albeit one that we are not able to discern. Next we consider the principle of Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE): This principle says, very roughly, that if we have multiple hypotheses vying to account for some phenomenon, it is most reasonable to accept the hypothesis which best explains it as being true. And if we think that having any explanation is rationally preferable to having none—assuming we have no evidence which rules out all of the candidate explanations, or which renders them extremely improbable—then IBE tells us that it is always more reasonable to accept an explanatory hypothesis over a non-explanatory one. Since coincidence is no explanation, in the present case IBE counsels us to accept the hypothesis that there is a metaphysically necessary connection between type A events and type B events. Because of this necessary connection, we can conclude that in the future type A events will always be followed by type B events, just as they always have been. So we have justified our inductive schema neither deductively nor inductively, but by IBE.

Note that in the above we have not invoked the principle of sufficient reason or the idea that every event must have a cause; we are only saying that it is more reasonable to believe in a necessary connection than an astronomical coincidence. Thus the objections that can be raised against them cannot be raised against the present argument.

At this point you might be wondering about IBE. What justifies us in accepting it? Why should we believe that the hypothesis which best explains a phenomenon is the most rationally acceptable one? I think it can be justified, although it can neither be justified deductively, nor inductively, nor by IBE. It cannot be justified deductively because IBE is clearly not a truth of logic or mathematics. It also cannot be justified inductively, at least not by the kind of inductive inference being considered on the present account, because we are trying to use IBE to justify those inductive inferences, and to use them to justify IBE would be circular. Finally, to use IBE to justify itself would also be circular. Instead, I think IBE can be justified “transcendentally”. It is essentially a case of “this or nothing”. If we did not regard better explanations as more rationally acceptable, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to justify anything that goes beyond our beliefs about elementary logic and our immediate perceptual experiences. (For one instance of this problem, see my post on Bertrand Russell's Five Minute hypothesis, God, and abduction. ) This does not refute skepticism, but it does show that anyone who rejects skepticism is entitled to use IBE; or, at the very least, that they cannot consistently criticize those who do use it.

“But how does God figure into all this?”, you might ask. If you want to know, stay tuned for Part 2!

Testing the limits of your imagination...

2011-02-12T15:44:00.000-08:00

…literally.

In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes distinguished between imagination and conception, or between mental images and concepts. Thus he supposed that one can conceive of a chiliagon, a polygon of a thousand sides, although one cannot form a mental image that represents it—none, at any rate, that wouldn’t represent a circle equally well. This shows that imagination has its limits, and that one can conceive of things that one cannot (adequately) imagine.

In order to discern what these limits are, I invite my readers to test the limits of their own imaginations in an experiment based on Descartes’ example. Since it concerns only what you can imagine, you don’t have to resort to a lab—in this case a “thought experiment” and a real experiment coincide!

Now, I’m sure you can imagine a polygon with the least possible number of sides—a triangle. I’d wager that you can also imagine a square, a pentagon, a hexagon… but not a chiliagon. It would thus seem that there is some number n such that you can imagine an n-sided polygon but not an n+1-sided polygon. (Note: For the purposes of this experiment you only count as imagining a polygon if you can imagine the whole thing at once.) Let’s call this n-sided polygon your limit polygon. I have two questions: First, what is the number of sides of your limit polygon? Second, do you notice anything about the phenomenology of your limit polygon? If so, what?

Published!

2010-10-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

One of my papers, "A Dilemma for Dialetheism", has been published in the latest issue of Stanford's undergraduate philosophy journal The Dualist! The paper is a critique of dialetheism, the view that some statements are both true and false; so if you're interested in that sort of thing, by all means go check it out. The published version developed out of a final paper I wrote for a logic course I took at San Francisco State University taught by Bas van Fraassen. Several people helped me out with the paper, but I'd like to thank Bas especially for his help, his time, his many useful comments, and for encouraging me to try to publish it. Thanks also to Kris Kemtrup, Ben Burgis, Justin Tiwald, Alex Hyun, Miguel Balboa, Tyrus Fisher, Asta Sveinsdottir, Graham Priest, J.C. Beall, and to anyone who I may have forgotten. I must apologize to many of them because, although I continued to work on the paper after it was accepted, I did not have the opportunity to submit any revisions before it was published, and so was not able to incorporate many of their suggestions into the published version. Finally, thanks to everyone at The Dualist.

Check out my new blog, Reflections on Religion

2010-10-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start another blog, where I will discuss both religion and the philosophy of religion. Check it out here.

Much ado about Nothing: Robert Spitzer vs. Stephen Hawking on the creation of the Universe

2010-09-22T01:29:00.000-07:00

Edit: Please excuse the weird formatting, I've tried as hard as I can to fix it and nothing seems to work.

(A caveat: I have not read either of Hawking’s or Spitzer’s recent books, so my critique of Spitzer’s argument is based only on his blog post.)

In his blog post “The curious metaphysics of Dr. Stephen Hawking”, Fr. Robert Spitzer offers some criticisms of Stephen Hawking’s recent book The Grand Design. I agree with some of his criticisms, but not with others. First, a point of agreement. Fr. Spitzer addresses the following quote from Hawking’s book:

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”

Fr. Spitzer points out—rightly, in my view—that if the law of gravity is to account for the creation of the universe, it must exist, and hence the creation of the universe is not really “from nothing”. Furthermore, I agree with him when he says,

“[…] these thinkers [i.e., Parmenides and Plato] use the term “nothing” to mean “nothing” (i.e. “that which there is no such thing as”). Nothing should not be thought to be a vacuum or a void (which is dimensional and orientable – where you can have more or less space); and it is certainly not a physical law.”

If we understand the term ‘universe’ broadly, as including physical laws, then indeed we cannot explain why the universe exists by reference to such laws, nor can we use physical laws to explain why there is something rather than nothing, for they must exist in order to explain, and so we would only have explained the existence of “something” by the existence of “something else”.

However, Fr. Spitzer does not merely criticize Hawking’s claim. He also makes the following argument for the thesis that “only nothing can come from nothing”, which he hopes will show that the physical universe must have a transcendent cause:

“But let’s go back to Dr. Hawking’s underlying assumption, namely that there are reasons to think that something came from nothing – namely, reasons for a beginning. How have philosophers and metaphysicians traditionally responded to this question? With what many term the first principle of metaphysics, “From nothing only nothing comes.” If you take nothing literally – that is if one acknowledges that there is no such thing as nothing, then one cannot attribute anything to nothing. One cannot attribute characteristics, actions, powers and so forth to nothing. In this absence of everything, one can only conclude that “only nothing can come from nothing.” What does this mean?

It means that if the physical universe had a beginning (a point at which it came into existence” then prior to that point it was nothing. And if it was nothing then it could not have created itself (because only nothing can come from nothing). So what does that imply? The very reality that Dr. Hawking wants to avoid, namely, a transcendent power which can cause the universe to come into existence.”

Now we have come to the point where I must disagree. If one is committed to the thesis that there is no such thing as nothing, it is of course true that one cannot attribute anything to “it.” But that is not to say that there is some mysterious metaphysical somewhat which we have decided to call ‘nothing’, and which somehow “is” without being a “thing” or without having any attributes. Instead, to say that there is no such thing as nothing is just to say that there is no object which is not the same thing as some object, and/or that there is no object which does not have attributes, where the word ‘object’ applies not only to physical objects, but to everything that exists.

While I doubt that Fr. Spitzer holds the view that “nothing” is a mysterious metaphysical somewhat, the phrasing of the passage I quoted above does suggest it. For he says, “if the physical universe had a beginning (a point at which it came into existence” then prior to that point it was nothing. And if it was nothing then it could not have created itself (because only nothing can come from nothing).” That suggests that there is something that the universe was prior to its beginning—namely “nothing”! But if one rejects the “metaphysical somewhat” conception of “nothing”, one should say, more perspicuously, that prior to the beginning of the universe it was not the case that anything existed. Furthermore, if it was not the case that anything existed, it also was not the case that anything existed which could have created the universe. That being so, it follows straightaway that the universe could not have created itself, there being no universe around to do the creating. If this is what Fr. Spitzer means, then I think he is surely right. But then he has not really shown that “only nothing can come from nothing”, only that the universe could not have created itself from nothing. There remains another possibility which he has not yet foreclosed, which is that the universe had a beginning without being created by anything. We may say that nothing caused the universe to come into existence, not in the sense that its coming-into-existence was caused by a mysterious metaphysical somewhat called ‘nothing’, but rather in the sense that it came into existence without having any cause at all. Fr. Spitzer may have other arguments to show why the universe must have a transcendent cause, and for all I know he may be right that it has one. I only take myself to have shown that the thesis that “only nothing can come from nothing” isn’t going to do the trick.

A response to "How Free is God's Will?"

2010-03-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

Over at Siris, Brandon Watson has posted a response to my post "How Free is God's Will?". He makes some good points--although I don't think they undermine my conclusion--and I expect to post a response of my own soon.

How Free is God's Will?

2010-02-21T08:36:00.000-08:00

One of the main reasons we can have for believing in God is that, If God exists, we have a good explanation for the existence of an orderly and relatively life-friendly universe such as we find ourselves in. But this is only true if God’s will is not completely free. To see why this is so, let us consider two sets of possible worlds: The first is the set of all possible worlds, and the second is the set of all possible worlds where God exists.[1] Now, my question is this: Does God’s nature impose any constraints on which possible worlds He can actualize? Of course, if God exists, it follows that God cannot actualize any possible worlds where He does not exist, and so in this sense the answer to my question is surely “yes”. But are there any constraints besides this? Or is the set of worlds in which God exists, apart from His existence, exactly the same as the set of worlds in which God does not exist? To clarify: Is God’s existence compatible with possible worlds which are disordered, hostile to life, and which perhaps contain no sentient beings at all? If it is, the existence of God cannot explain the order and life-friendliness of the universe because those characteristics are no more likely if God exists than if He doesn’t. But if God’s nature does impose constraints on which worlds God can actualize—constraints which, as above, rule out possible worlds which are too disorderly to accommodate life or sentience of any sort—then there are significant constraints on what God can will, for then God cannot actualize just any possible world. God’s will would not be completely free. This would not mean that God is “forced” to actualize only orderly, life-friendly worlds against His will, but rather that those are the only kinds of worlds God could desire to actualize. The upshot of our considerations is this: On the one hand, if God’s will is completely free, there are no constraints on which worlds God can actualize, and hence God’s existence does not explain the existence of an orderly, life-friendly universe. One of the main reasons we could have for believing that God exists would be undercut. On the other hand, if God’s nature does impose constraints on which worlds He can actualize, there are significant constraints on His free will, which may be considered unorthodox by many theists. Thus, if they wish to uphold the complete freedom of God’s will, they cannot endorse teleological and/or cosmological arguments for God’s existence. For such arguments presuppose that God’s existence would explain the existence of an orderly, life-friendly universe, but we have seen that this would not be so if God’s will were completely free.

[1] I am supposing that God does not exist in all possible worlds (assuming for the sake of argument that He exists). If you disagree, consider two different ways of envisioning the space of all possible worlds: One in which God exists in all, and another in which God exists in none.

On the Relativity of 'Reallys'--A Critique of Strawson on Science and Perception: Part 2

2010-01-25T18:13:00.000-08:00

4. Critique of Relativization

4.1 Is this relativity compatible with realism? I think not. For if realism is true, in cases of veridical perception we perceive things just as they really are. But if Strawson is right, we cannot speak of “the way things really are” independently of some standpoint. What then can it mean to say that there are cases of veridical perception? It can only mean that we perceive things as they really are in a certain standpoint. The question now becomes, “What is it for things to be a certain way in a certain standpoint?”

4.2 Let us elaborate on this a bit. To make things clearer, suppose that instead of saying, e.g., “That mountain is really blue”, we turn ‘really’ into a sentential operator and say: “It is really the case that that mountain is blue.” Now we can ask, for all sentences P, does “It is really the case that P” entail P? If it does—and it certainly seems to—how can divergent property ascriptions in different standpoints not be inconsistent? For then the sentence “It is really the case that that mountain is blue”, asserted in whatever standpoint you please, entails “That mountain is blue.” Thus, if someone asserts “It is not the case that it is really the case that that mountain is blue” in any standpoint, this entails “It is not the case that that mountain is blue”, and that clearly contradicts “That mountain is blue.” And this is problematic for Strawson’s view, for according to his view these seemingly inconsistent sentences could be truly asserted in different standpoints.

4.3 Strawson could reply that there is no trouble here, for we have failed to index our sentences to the different standpoints. Since on his view sentences are only true in a certain standpoint, we should add in indexes to standpoints to make this fact explicit. Thus, instead of plain old “P” we have “P-in-standpoint-S”. So what we can say is that “It is really the case that P-in-standpoint-S” entails “P-in-standpoint-S”, and Strawson would say there is nothing wrong with the latter sentence. For him “P-in-standpoint-S” and “not-P-in-standpoint-R” are not genuinely inconsistent, because P and not-P are indexed to different standpoints. But I think such indexing makes sense only if the indexes make sense. Can we make any sense of a sentence’s being true only in a certain standpoint? I think the answer is “no”, as I will now argue.

4.4 As we have seen, Strawson thinks that divergent ascriptions of properties, when relativized to different standpoints, are not genuinely inconsistent with each other: “The appearance of both volatility and conflict vanishes when we acknowledge the relativity of our reallys” (Strawson p. 107). If that is so, why do ascriptions of properties need to be relativized? For there are statements in different standpoints that do not even seem to contradict each other. I can say, concerning the very same chair, both “That chair is wooden” and “That chair is made of quarks.” These sentences, though they may be relativized to different standpoints, could also be truly asserted in a single standpoint. Yet, if Strawson is right, the sentence “That chair is brown” can be truly asserted in the human perceptual standpoint and the sentence “That chair has no color” can be truly asserted in the scientific standpoint, though presumably they could not be truly asserted in a single standpoint. While Strawson does say (p. 108) that we can combine two standpoints in a single sentence, I think he means that different aspects of the sentence belong to different standpoints, not that the whole sentence does. As I understand Strawson, one can say something like: “Considered from the scientific standpoint, that chair has no color, but considered from the human perceptual standpoint, that chair is brown.” This combines two standpoints in a single sentence. But surely one could not say something like: “Considered from the scientific standpoint, that chair has no color, but considered from the scientific standpoint, that chair is also brown.” So the fact—if it is a fact—that we can combine two standpoints in a single sentence does not entail that we can truly assert inconsistent sentences in a single standpoint.

4.5 Now, suppose someone utters the sentence “That chair is brown” in a common-sense perceptual context and then utters the sentence “That chair is brown” again, this time in a scientific context. That sentence either has the same meaning in both contexts or a different one, assuming that it is not meaningless in either of them. If it has the same meaning, in cannot be true in one context and false in the other, on pain of contradiction. Thus if “That chair is brown” is true in the human perceptual standpoint it is also true in the scientific standpoint, and so it cannot also be the case that “That chair has no color” is true in the scientific standpoint. Conversely, if “That chair has no color” is true in the scientific standpoint, it is also true in the human perceptual standpoint, assuming it is uttered with the same meaning in a common-sense perceptual context. And if that is so it cannot also be the case that “That chair is brown” is true in the human perceptual standpoint. So if these sentences have the same meaning in both standpoints, they must have the same truth value in each of them, and Strawson’s view falls apart. If they have different meanings in the different standpoints, it is no surprise that each could have a different truth value in different standpoints; for the fact that the same sentence can have different truth values if it is assigned different meanings is a truism, and is something that can hardly resolve the conflict between the standpoints of human perception and science. And that means that Strawson’s account cannot do what it was meant to do.

5. Conclusion

5.1 In conclusion, Strawson’s account simply will not work. If one finds it appealing, I think it is because the notion of relativization to a standpoint has a certain charm, for it gives one the thrill of flirting with a contradiction. But we have seen that ascriptions of properties are either consistent or inconsistent: If they are consistent there is no need to relativize to a standpoint, and if they are not consistent, no relativization can reconcile them. Thus Strawson’s view is contradictory, and for that reason it is consistent neither with realism nor with anything else. Its aim to reconcile science and the common-sense view of perception is certainly praiseworthy, but it remains a noble attempt to do the impossible.

References

Strawson, P.F., “Perception and Its Objects”, in Vision and Mind: Selected Readings in the Philosophy of Perception. Alva Noe and Evan Thompson (eds.). The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts / London, England 2002.

On the Relativity of 'Reallys'--A Critique of Strawson on Science and Perception: Part 1

2010-01-25T17:41:00.000-08:00

As some of you may have noticed, I haven't been blogging much for the last several months. This is due to the fact that I was pretty busy--I was taking five classes-- and also to the fact that I've had what I'll call philosopher's block--the inability to come up with anything new or interesting to say on philosophical subjects. I hope to overcome that soon and start posting (fairly) regularly again. In the meantime, here's one of my papers from a class I took on the philosophy of perception.

1. Introduction

1.1 In his article “Perception and Its Objects”, P. F. Strawson defends a common-sense standpoint on the nature of perception against its scientifically-inspired opponents. In order to do so, he must establish that these standpoints, despite appearances, do not really contradict each other. However, I think that in this case the appearances are not deceiving. First, I explain the apparent conflict between the scientific standpoint and the common-sense human perceptual standpoint. Next, I outline Strawson’s attempt to reconcile the two via the notion of relativization to a standpoint. Finally, I argue that Strawson’s attempt fails because in the end the notion of relativization to a standpoint is incoherent.

2. Opposing Standpoints

2.1 In the last few pages of his article “Perception and Its Objects”, Strawson tries to reconcile two opposing standpoints: the scientific standpoint and the common-sense human perceptual standpoint. According to the first, objects do not possess any properties except those which our best physical theories attribute to them (Strawson, pp. 98-9)[1]. Physical objects do not, for example, have sensible properties such as colors. According to the second, in cases of veridical perception physical objects really do possess the sensible properties they seem to have (Strawson, p. 100 and p. 103), colors being a prominent example. Because perception is direct according to the common-sense standpoint (Strawson, p. 106), colors cannot be properties of perceptual intermediaries such as sense-data. So if there are any cases of veridical color experience, at least some colors must be properties of the external, physical objects of our perception; otherwise all color experience is illusory.

2.2 It would thus seem that we face a dilemma. If the scientific standpoint is correct, we are the victims of a massive amount of perceptual error. If the common-sense standpoint is correct, our best physical theories are radically incomplete, for then there is a large class of properties that they cannot account for, and do not even acknowledge to exist. Yet it seems that one or the other of these views must be right: Either colors are “out there” waiting to be perceived in the external, physical world, or they are not. Is there any way out of this? Can we have our chromatic cake and eat it too?

3. Strawson’s Aim: Reconciliation through Relativization

3.1 Strawson apparently thinks that we can. In order to do so, we must take a cue from the way we talk when we ascribe visual properties to things. For the same thing may look one way to Jones in one circumstance, another way to Smith in the same circumstance, and still another way to Jones in a different circumstance. The same mountains might look red at a certain distance in a certain light and blue at a different distance in a different light (Strawson, pp. 106-7). And the same fabric that looks purple in one light may really be green (Strawson, p. 107). Such property ascriptions are relative to a perceptual point of view that is regarded as standard, and we only recognize the relativity when things deviate from this standard (Strawson, p. 107). Sometimes, though, we can change the standard: “Magnified, the fabric appears as printed with tiny blue and yellow dots. So those are the colors it really is. Does this ascription contradict ‘it’s really green’? No; for the standard has shifted” (Strawson, p. 107). And of course we can also shift the standard back (Strawson, p. 107). Strawson thinks that we can give a similar account of the apparent conflict between the scientific and common-sense standpoints. The difference is that in this case we do not shift from one perceptual viewpoint to another, but from a perceptual viewpoint to a scientific one. Thus ascriptions of color are, for example, true relative to the common-sense human perceptual standpoint, and false relative to the scientific standpoint. As Strawson rightly notes, “This method of reconciling scientific and common-sense realism requires us to recognise a certain relativity in our conception of the real properties of physical objects” (Strawson p. 108).

[1] This and all subsequent page references are to Vision and Mind.

The Devil responds to Pat Robertson's comments about Haiti

2010-01-17T18:29:00.000-08:00

Here.

Another new variant of the liar paradox?

2009-12-24T23:44:00.000-08:00

I've thought of another variant of the liar to add to my collection--I'll leave it to my readers to tell me if someone has already thought of it.

Consider the following statement:

(*): Nothing entails that (*) is true.

Suppose (*) is false. In that case, it is false that nothing entails that (*) is true. So something entails that (*) is true. But if something entails that (*) is true, then (*) is true. But then what (*) says must be the case, and hence it follows that nothing entails that (*) is true. So if (*) is false, it is true both that something entails that (*) is true and that nothing entails that (*) is true, which is a contradiction. (*) must, in consequence, be true. So it is true that noting entails that (*) is true. (*), however, is not only true, it is necessarily true, for its falsity would entail a contradiction. However, if (*) is necessarily true, its truth is entailed by every statement whatever. So if (*) is true, it is true both that nothing entails that (*) is true and that everything entails that (*) is true. This too is a contradiction. So no matter whether (*) is true or false, it must be both true and false.

An uncontroversial instance of moral knowledge?

2009-09-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

Given the pervasive moral disagreements there are (or seem to be) between different people and different societies, one might question the notion that there are any uncontroversial instances of moral knowledge. In opposition to this, I propose that there is at least one instance of moral knowledge that I think most will find uncontroversial. Suppose, as I believe to be the case, that skipping pebbles across a pond is a morally neutral action: it is neither right nor wrong, but merely permissible. Nevertheless, suppose that Sam, for whatever reason, forms the belief that skipping pebbles across a pond is wrong. (Perhaps Sam’s brain has been hit by one too many cosmic rays.) If, in spite of this, Sam skips a pebble across a pond, he has acted wrongly, even though actions of that type are not normally wrong. No matter what else one may think about which actions—or types of action—are wrong, one must hold that if someone performs any action which they believe to be wrong they have acted wrongly. And if we know that anything is wrong, we know that doing something which one believes to be wrong is wrong.

Or so I think. But you may disagree; and if you do, I’m interested to hear where you think I’ve gone wrong.

My stance as a fence-sitting agnostic

2009-06-10T23:05:00.000-07:00

I think of myself as a fence-sitting agnostic. By that I mean that, although I don’t know whether or not God exists, I would very much like to know. Thus I’m far from those agnostics who say that it is impossible for anyone to know whether God exists, and also from those who claim that as a matter of fact no one knows it. I think it’s possible that some people know; all I can claim is that I don’t know myself.

Not only would I very much like to know whether or not God exists, I have a preferred answer: I’d like it to be true that God exists. This is because I think that the world would be a better place if God existed than if He didn’t—and the fact that the world isn’t a better place than it is is one reason I tend to doubt that He does.

I say this in spite of the fact that I’ve given a couple of (what I take to be) plausible arguments that a God of some sort exists, both here and here.

There are two main things that, for now, prevent me from accepting their conclusion: First, I think that whatever force they may have is in all probability defeated by the various arguments from evil. Second, I think that both the Deistic and Theistic conceptions of God face difficult problems. Why, on the Deistic view, would God create the universe and just sit by and watch things happen? Why in particular, would God refrain from making any kind of revelation? (Thomas Aquinas gives some persuasive arguments as to why it would be good for God to propose some things to be believed on faith, which can be found here.)

As an instance of this problem, consider the pervasive moral disagreements there have been between different societies and within a given society at different times. Why wouldn’t God reveal who’s right and who’s wrong, especially on the most important issues? Why, for example, would God allow the institution of slavery to endure for thousands of years without informing us of His disapproval?

On the Theistic view, there is no problem as to why God would not intervene in the course of history or make revelations: He has. The problem I have with theistic views is primarily the content of the alleged revelations. (I will confine my remarks to the Bible, as my knowledge of other sacred texts is not very great.) Of course, if one is an inerrantist who also, for the most part, tries to interpret the Bible as literally as possible, one will run into problems concerning the various contradictions and historical inaccuracies which are to be found in it. Apart from claims of inerrancy, I don’t regard these features of the Bible as being too problematic. Natural science is not without its contradictions (although they are much less frequent than they are in the Bible); it is well known that two of our most well-confirmed theories, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, are inconsistent with each other. One or both must be false, in at least some of their details, but this does not give us any good reason to deny that science is our best, albeit imperfect, means of coming to know the physical universe, still less to reject science in general on the ground that its deliverances aren’t always true.

No, my main problem with the Bible is that in reading it (and especially in reading the Old Testament), one repeatedly comes across passages such as this:

(NIV)Exodus 21: 20:21: “If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, ²¹ but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.”

and this:

(NIV)Samuel 15: 2-3: “This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. ³ Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' ”

and this:

(NAB)Hosea 14:1: “Samaria shall expiate her guilt, for she has rebelled against her God. They shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed to pieces, their expectant mothers shall be ripped open.”

The problem here is not that God has not revealed His will, but that His will as allegedly revealed in the Bible frequently turns out to be immoral.

Thus I face the following trilemma: Either Deism, Theism, or Atheism is true, although I find each of them problematic. I think Deism and Theism both have problems concerning moral issues, and that Theism in addition has problems concerning the historicity and consistency of its sacred texts. Atheism, on the other hand, does not have these problems, but is philosophically unsatisfying to me because it seems incapable of giving a satisfactory explanation of the existence, regularity, and relative life-friendliness of the physical universe. Suspending one’s judgment may be the only reasonable course of action in these circumstances, but when it comes to issues of such importance I would prefer come to a conclusion, as long as there is enough evidence to support it. If anyone thinks they can help me get clearer on these issues, I would greatly appreciate their assistance.

Lewis on Devitt on Ostrich Nominalism

2009-05-19T20:59:00.001-07:00

In his “New Work for a Theory of Universals”[1], David Lewis discusses Michael Devitt’s defense of Ostrich Nominalism in his article “‘Ostrich Nominalism’ or ‘Mirage Realism’?”[2], specifically as a response to the One Over Many argument. Devitt had proposed to paraphrase such sentences as

“a and b have the same property, F-ness”

“a and b are both F”

which itself can be analyzed as

“a is F”

and

“b is F”.

Lewis thinks that this is not satisfactory. He says:

But Devitt has set himself too easy a problem. If we attend to the modest, untransformed One over Many problem, which is no mirage, we will ask about a different analysandum:

a and b have some common property (are somehow of the same type)

in which it is not said what a and b have in common. This less definite analysandum is not covered by what Devitt has said.[3]

I think there is an obvious paraphrase of Lewis’ example which, though not explicitly covered by what Devitt had said, is in perfect harmony with its spirit. Indeed, I think it’s obvious enough that it's probable someone else has already thought of it, which for a while made me hesitant to make this post. Nevertheless, I’m interested to see if others think the paraphrase works, so I’m posting this anyway, even if I can’t claim originality for it. The paraphrase goes like this (where F, G, H, etc., are all the predicates expressible in the language):

((Fa & Fb) v [(Ga &Gb) v (Ha &Hb)])…

Or, in English:

Either a and b are both F or a and b are both G or a and b are both H…

So my question is: Do you think the paraphrase works? And if not, why not?

[1] As reprinted in Properties (Oxford Readings in Philosophy), edited by D. H. Mellor and Alex Oliver. Oxford University Press, 1997.

[2] Reprinted in the same volume as in the above footnote.

[3] See p. 201 of Properties (Oxford Readings in Philosophy).

What do philosophers agree on? A philosophical poll

2009-03-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

At first glance, it is remarkably difficult to get philosophers to agree on anything—or so it seems to me. But is it really? I’d like to get your opinion on the subject, via this informal poll. On what philosophical issues do you think a majority of philosophers agree? Just name, or describe—briefly—the relevant issue, and what position you think the majority of philosophers take on it.

There are two things to keep in mind:

First, I don’t mean to restrict this poll to the opinions of contemporary philosophers—if the majority of philosophers throughout history have taken the same position on some issue, I count that agreement as the majority view, even if a majority of contemporary philosophers reject it.

Second, I’d like to include what I will call “Moorean agreements”; things that, based on your experience, a majority of philosophers believe or assume in practice even if some of them claim to reject it while doing philosophy. (I think the belief that people are, in general, morally responsible for their behavior is an example of a Moorean agreement.) Of course, it can be hard to determine what philosophers—or anyone, for that matter—“really believe” about some issue, so when it comes to establishing what the majority view is on some philosophical issue I regard (purported) examples of Moorean agreements as being less conclusive than examples of what philosophers have explicitly claimed to believe. Still, it will be interesting to see how much agreement there is on what the Moorean agreements are!

And that’s it. I anxiously await your contributions. ^_^

A problem for consequentialism

2009-03-12T20:09:00.000-07:00

I think one of the main problems with utilitarian theories is that they do not attribute any value to moral agents or moral patients as such. Their experiences might be valuable, as might the satisfaction of their desires, but moral agents and moral patients themselves are of no value at all. (From this point on, I will use the term “moral subjects” to refer to both moral agents and moral patients.) So if, for example, I kill Smith and somehow create a new individual whose well being is the same as Smith’s was, this state of affairs is, intrinsically, neither better nor worse than how things would be if I had left Smith alone. But this seems wrong. To borrow a term from W.D. Ross, it is our prima facie duty not to kill people, and this is so even if killing someone has no impact on the total amount of utility in the universe as a whole. Because utilitarian theories cannot discriminate between actions which result in the same overall amount of utility in the world, they are blind to the fact that one such action can be permissible while another such action is prohibited.

Consequentialists, more generally, could try to remedy this problem by assigning intrinsic value to moral subjects in themselves, apart from any value their experiences might have, and take this into account in their moral deliberations. After all, consequentialism in general requires that we try to maximize the good, but is silent on which things are good. But I doubt that consequentialists can acknowledge the intrinsic value of moral subjects without giving up on consequentialism or else failing to do justice to what we normally mean when we say that moral subjects are intrinsically valuable. In order to have a genuinely consequentialist theory, consequentialists would have to treat the value of a moral subject as being comparable with other sorts of value, such as happiness, or well being in general. But then we are faced with essentially the same problem we encountered above: Suppose Smith himself is worth 11 units of goodness (utiles), while his well being is worth 10 utiles, so that the total value of Smith’s life is 21 utiles. Why can I not kill Smith, provided that I also create 21 utiles through some other means to make up for the loss? If I do this by creating a new person, they would presumably be worth just as much as Smith was; so as long as their well being is also worth 10 utiles we have a life which is worth exactly the same as Smith’s. All the same, it is still wrong to kill Smith, even if I create a new person to “make up for it”. So a consequentialist theory has again given us the wrong result, even though we augmented it so that it assigns intrinsic value to Smith himself and takes this value into account in determining one’s permissible courses of action. What has gone wrong?

The problem is not that we have assigned Smith too little value—all persons are equally valuable, and so just as valuable as Smith is, and given this we can always concoct a new scenario in which we create enough utiles to make up for murdering Smith. This is so even if one thinks that moral subjects are of infinite value. And that view is problematic on its own: If moral subjects are infinitely valuable, one moral subject is worth just as much as a million. But if forced to chose, one surely ought to save a million rather than one.

If there is any hope for the idea that moral subjects are intrinsically valuable, I think it must lie in something like Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which says that moral subjects ought always to be treated as ends in themselves, and never merely as a means. One of the problems with the above lines of reasoning is that we have taken the term “intrinsic value” at face value and have falsely assimilated the value of persons to the value of sub-personal things like happiness or well being. Moral subjects are not merely valuable, but unique and irreplaceable. Instead of saying that moral subjects are intrinsically valuable, it would be better to say that moral subjects have moral dignity, and that this is something which cannot be measured in the same way that the value of happiness or well being can. Perhaps it cannot be measured at all. What is certain is that we cannot hold that moral subjects may be replaced by other beings whose lives have “equal value”, for a being which has moral dignity is by that very fact one which ought not to be disposed of, even if they are replaced by another being who also has moral dignity. Neither may we use moral subjects as a mere means to improve the general welfare. It might still be true, in general, that we may save the many rather than the few, but it will only be permissible for us to do so if the circumstances which force this choice on us are not of our own making.

Are options the same as alternative possibilities?

2009-02-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

When it comes to theorizing about choice, should we distinguish between having multiple options and having alternative possibilities of action?

Suppose a deterministic agent takes a multiple choice test. Consider a specific choice between a, b, c, and d. Suppose further that the agent chooses c. Did the agent have multiple options? It seems so; after all, can't they be clearly seen to be printed on the test? All the agent has to do is circle one! This is, I think, importantly different from a case in which there is only one candidate answer, say a, printed on the test. In neither of these cases is there a possibility of the agent choosing anything other than what they actually choose, because the agent is deterministic. But in spite of that, it seems to me that cases are not on a par; there is something present in the former which is absent in the latter, and this something has implications concerning the agent's freedom (or lack thereof) in choosing as they do.

From this somewhat deflationary perspective, the fact that more than one choice is given for an agent's consideration or that more than one choice influences an agent's course of deliberation is of itself sufficient for their having multiple, genuine options. (Having alternative possibilities of action might also be sufficient for having multiple, genuine options, but on this view it is not necessary.) If that's so, determinism is compatible with an agent's having multiple options, even though they couldn't do otherwise. The question is then whether an agent's having multiple options--along with such background conditions as being rational and knowing the difference between right and wrong--is sufficient for having free will or moral responsibility. I'm interested to see if you think it is sufficient, and if not, what more is required.

A new variant of the liar paradox?

2009-01-31T09:10:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I thought of the following variant of the liar paradox. I won't pretend that this post advances our understanding of the liar in any way, I'm just wondering if anyone else has thought of it before.

Consider the following statement:

(1) If there are elephants, then (1) is false.

If there were no elephants this statement would not be problematic. But there are. So let's assume that (1) is true. Given that there are elephants and that (1) is true, it follows by Modus Ponens that the consequent of (1) is true, and hence that (1) is false. So if (1) is true, and there are elephants, then (1) is false.

Let's now assume that (1) is false, granting once more that there are elephants. If (1) is false, the falsity of the consequent of (1), and hence (1) itself, cannot follow from the fact that there elephants. On this supposition (1) and its consequent are false, to be sure, but their falsity must not be entailed by the fact that there are elephants. But if the fact that there are elephants does not entail the falsity of the consequent of (1), and hence (1) itself, it must be possible for there to be elephants while they are both true. But we have already seen that if (1) is true, and there are elephants, then (1) is false. Thus it is not possible for there to be elephants while (1) and the consequent of (1) are both true. So the fact that there are elephants does entail the falsity of (1) and its consequent. But then what (1) says is true: If there are elephants, it must be false! Hence if (1) is false, it is also true.

Consequently, if there are elephants and (1) is true then (1) is false, and if there are elephants and (1) is false then (1) is true. Unless we're prepared to deny the existence of elephants, we have a paradox.

Does moral realism entail moral verificationism?

2008-12-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

First, I would like to restrict this discussion to duties or responsibilities, as opposed to good or bad states of affairs, for it seems plausible to me that states of affairs may be good or bad even if no one has a duty to bring them about or prevent their occurrence. For the purposes of this post, then, I will understand moral realism as the thesis that people really do have duties to each other.

Consider the following principle:

(1) Necessarily, if someone has a duty to do something, it is possible for them to find out or discover that they have a duty to do it.

(I say ‘find out or discover’ instead of ‘know’ to rule out externalist analyses of knowledge. This is because I think one can know one has a duty in an externalist sense even if one is unable to “tell from the inside” whether one has it. In my view this sort of knowledge of one’s duties is as good as none, for one cannot act on the basis of it.)

I think (1) is highly plausible. To see why I think so, consider what things would be like if (1) were false: If (1) were false, it would be possible for you to have a duty to do something and nevertheless not have even the slightest suspicion that this was so. And if, furthermore, you did not fulfill that duty, you would be morally responsible for violating it. Of course you would be completely ignorant of this—and so would everyone else, otherwise it would be possible for them to show you that you were in fact responsible (assuming the same evidence is available to all). No matter what you or anyone else did, you could never come any closer to discovering your duties than making a lucky guess.

I find this result intolerable, and I suspect many would agree. If the intuition supporting my view is correct, one’s duties must, in principle, be discoverable by one. From this it follows that moral skepticism—the idea that one could have duties that one could not discover one had—is incoherent; there cannot be any such thing as an undiscoverable duty. The only available options, then, are a form of moral verificationism and a form of moral nihilism: Either one has duties which are such that it is possible for one to find out that one has them, or one has no duties at all. So moral realism, understood as the thesis that people really do have duties to each other, entails that moral verificationism is true.

God, Explanation and Conditional Decrees

2008-11-23T00:47:00.000-08:00

I think one of the deepest questions philosophy can ask is why nature exhibits the order and regularity it does, and one of the most fundamental divisions among philosophers is between those who think it capable of explanation and those who do not. In western philosophy, one of the most common explanations proposed in answer to this question has been that our world is the product of some kind of design or creative intention, usually on the part of some spiritual beings, such as the gods or God. In this post I want to (somewhat briefly) explore the theistic version of this answer.

If there is indeed a God Who is roughly that of traditional theism—that is, an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent (etc.) being—it would seem that we have, on the face of it, a good explanation for the existence of an ordered, law-governed, and relatively life-friendly universe such as we find ourselves in. As an omnibenevolent being, God would plausibly have the desire to create other, in some respects similar beings with whom God could share God’s love. And as an omniscient and omnipotent being, God would certainly have the knowledge of how to create them and the power to do so. But we must be careful here. For what sort of explanation could one offer for God’s infinitely many creative decisions? As Hume pointed out long ago in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, it would seem no good to explain the order and regularity of the created world by appealing to a mirror image of that world in the Divine Mind, when this image is itself without explanation. Perhaps the answer is that God’s nature dictates that every world which God could create has some minimal amount of order. (I think Duns Scotus believed something like this, but unfortunately I have not yet found a reference.) If so, we would have an explanation for the fact that the universe is ordered without having an explanation for the particular order it has.

We can flesh out the above solution to this problem in terms of the notion of a conditional decree, my term for something which is nicely spelled out by Alexander Pruss in his post “Creation, Aseity, and Providence” over at the Prosblogion. Basically, conditional decrees are of the form “If p then q, and if not-p then r”, where God both permits p to be true and permits not-p to be true, leaving the outcome to chance. If this is so, God could accommodate libertarian free will by willing conditionals of the form “If Scott freely chooses A then x will follow, and if Scott freely chooses B then y will follow, and if Scott freely chooses C then z will follow…” In this way God can plan “for all possible contingencies”, as Pruss puts it, so that even though certain matters are left to chance—such as Scott’s choice between A, B, and C—something which God wants will occur in any case.

If this account of God’s creative plan is correct, we might suppose that God makes the same decrees, both conditional and unconditional, in all possible worlds where God exists. Thus God could decree unconditionally that some contingent things exist, that some of them are to be conscious and intelligent (etc.), while leaving their exact nature unspecified. God could then use conditional decrees to cover all the matters that are left unsettled by God’s unconditional decrees. On this supposition we do not have to explain how it comes about that God wills one thing when God might have willed something different, while at the same time holding that the existence of God is compatible with a wide variety of different possible worlds. We also wouldn’t have to worry about God’s decrees depending on God’s foreknowledge of what will actually happen. Thus God’s will—that is, the totality of God’s decrees—supervenes on God’s nature, for God’s nature does not vary from world to world. God’s will constrains reality without determining it in every detail, though nothing occurs without God’s permission. Thomas Aquinas once said that it does not follow from the fact that certain things change that God’s will changes, only that God wills that things should change (Summa Theologiae (A.k.a. Summa Theologica), Prima Pars, Question 19, Article 7). In much the same spirit, we can say that from the fact that certain things happen differently in different possible worlds, it does not follow that God’s will differs in different possible worlds, only that God wills that certain things should happen differently in different ones.

Rethinking the limits of dialetheism

2008-11-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

In a previous post I tried to undercut one of the main motivations for believing in dialetheism by giving the following argument:

Consider for a moment (2):

(2) This statement has the same truth value as “0 = 1”.

Assume (2) is false. If so, it must have a different truth value than “0 = 1”, for what (2) says is that they have the same value. Since “0 = 1” is false, (2), if it has a different value, must be true. But if (2) is true, it has the same truth value as “0 = 1”, for that they have the same truth value is precisely what (2) says. Now if (2) is true, and it has the same truth value as “0 = 1”, then “0 = 1” must also be true, and hence we can conclude that 0 = 1!

We cannot give (2) a dialetheic treatment—holding that it is both true and false— for we can substitute any falsehood we like for “0 = 1” and use the paradox to show it must be true as well as false. We would then end up with trivialism—the view everything is both true and false! Since (2) cannot be solved by dialetheic means, it must have a different, consistent solution.

I now think this argument doesn’t work. A dialetheist can simply say that (2) is both true and false while “0 = 1” is false only, because it is the statements’ conjoint falsity which accounts for the truth of (2), and not their conjoint truth. After all, it would appear that any statement of the form “p has the same truth value as q”, where q is both true and false, is itself both true and false, but surely this does not entail that p is both true and false. For example, one can easily generate statements of this form by substituting a Liar statement for q and an arbitrary statement for p, but as long as one rejects explosion—the principle that contradictions entail everything—this gives us no reason at all to think that p must also be both true and false. It may have taken me a year, but at least I caught my own mistake. :-P

Is there more to life than being happy?

2008-10-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

Suppose there are two men, Bob and Rob, whose mental lives are exactly similar. Both are very happy throughout the majority of their lives. There is, however, an important difference between them: Bob lives in the real world, while Rob lives alone in the Matrix, never to discover his predicament. None of Rob's family and friends are real.* His love is directed towards people who don't exist, and his accomplishments are appreciated by no one. No one shares in his joys or comforts him in his times of sorrow. Now, my question is this: would you rather live a life like Bob's or a life like Rob's? If you would rather live a life like Bob's, your choice cannot be based on any subjective difference between Bob and Rob, for they are exactly alike when it comes to their thoughts and feelings. So if you prefer a life like Bob's you want more for yourself than just being happy. What this “more” is is hard to characterize. Personally, I think it involves the notion that sharing one's life with others is intrinsically good, and that sharing one’s life in this way is something which is not desirable for the sake of any effect it has on our subjective well-being. But what primarily interests me here is what the reader has to say.

*I will stipulate that the simulations Rob encounters are not conscious. If one thinks such simulations must be conscious, imagine an equivalent scenario with a Cartesian demon running the show instead.

A note on God and unsurpassable worlds

2008-07-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

Let us say that a possible world is unsurpassable if there is no possible world which is better than it. (This allows for the epistemic possibility that there may be more than one unsurpassable world, as opposed to the term “best” which is commonly understood to presuppose uniqueness.) Now, suppose for the sake of argument that (roughly) the God of traditional theism—an incorporeal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent (etc.) being—exists. The question I want to examine is this: If God is infinitely good, not just in the sense of being omnibenevolent but also in the sense that God is of infinite value, is every possible world in which God exists an unsurpassable world? The answer depends on what we take into account in assessing the value of possible worlds. I see at least two ways of carrying out such an evaluation.

On the first way, we ignore any weight that might be assigned to the goodness of individuals and simply regard one possible world as being better than another if and only if the set of all good things which exist in the latter is a proper subset of the set of all good things which exist in the former. In this sense a possible world which contains God and one sentient being is—assuming all sentient beings possess at least some value--better than a world which contains God alone (not counting necessarily existent abstracta), and this is so quite irrespectively of the fact that God is infinitely good. It seems to me that there is no unsurpassable world in this sense, for given any possible world w_x there is always another world w_y such that the set of all good things which exist in w_x is a proper subset of the set of all good things which exist in w_y. On this view possible worlds can only be ranked according to their goodness, one cannot say how much better one world is than another.

According to the second way one should take into account not only the number of instances of goodness but also, so to speak, their intensity. For when we say that God is infinitely good we do not (or should not) mean that God has aleph-null (or some other transfinite cardinal) units of goodness, but rather that God’s goodness is “infinitely intense” or “unsurpassably intense”. We might characterize this by saying that in our moral considerations God’s goodness ought to be given an infinite and/or unsurpassable weight. Given that God’s goodness is infinitely or unsurpassably intense in all possible worlds where God exists, it appears that taking the “intensity” of something's goodness into account in determining the value of possible worlds yields the result that all possible worlds where God exists are unsurpassable.

So it seems that if God exists either none of the worlds which God can actualize are unsurpassable or that all of them are, and in neither case is there a unique "best" world that God can actualize. The interesting question is then, if that’s so, does it follow that God must choose a world to actualize at random?

Against Hacker on the Justifiability of Grammar

2008-07-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Over at Methods of Projection, in the comments section of a post about Wittgenstein on meaningfulness and language games, N. N. posted the following arguments by P. M. S. Hacker, which attempt to show that the rules of grammar cannot be justified:

Justifying grammar by reference to the facts leads to an infinite regress. Any attempt to justify grammatical rules by reference to how things are in reality must employ a language in giving that justification. The form of words that purports to justify a rule of grammar must itself have a grammar. If it has the same grammar as that which it purports to justify, the justification begs the question. If it has a different grammar, then (a) it determines different concepts and so cannot be about the same thing, hence is irrelevant; and (b) that grammar too will stand in need of justification. So any attempt at grounding grammar is reality will launch us upon an infinite regress of justifications.
[...]
No description of reality can justify grammar. Any attempt to justify grammar by reference to reality must take the form of a grammatically licit description of how things are. Such a description is given by a proposition with a sense. Consequently its negation too must make sense, for the negation of a proposition with sense, which describes how things are, is itself a proposition with sense. But for such a proposition to justify a grammatical rule which delimits the sense of sentences and excludes nonsensical forms of words, the negation of the justifying description would have to be nonsense, not a falsehood. This has two corollaries, both of which were discussed by Wittgenstein.
(a) If it were possible to justify grammatical rules by reference to reality, those rules would be superfluous. One cannot say that a grammatical rule is made necessary by certain properties of things: e.g. the rule that excludes the words 'transparent white' or 'flashing black' cannot be justified by saying that white is not transparent or that black is not radiant. For if one could say this, then it would make sense, even though it would be false, to say that this white glass is transparent or that the traffic lights flashed black. But then the grammatical rule would be superfluous, since what it does is precisely to exclude such forms of words as nonsense.
(b) Any justification of grammar by reference to reality requires the possibility of describing a reality that would not justifify that grammar. A justifcation of our grammar by reference to reality should, it seems, take the form of saying that since reality is thus-and-so, the rules of grammar must be such-and-such. But one must then also be able to say that if reality were otherwise, then the rules of grammar would have to be different. However, one cannot sensibly say how reality would have to be in order for a different grammar to be justified. For in order to describe such a different reality, one would have to use the very combinations of words which our existing grammar excludes, i.e. one would have to talk nonsense. But if something counts as nonsense in the grammar which is to be justified, it cannot at the same time pass for sense in the grammar of the propositions purporting to justify it.

To this I responded as follows:

Hi n.n.,

I disagree with Hacker's arguments for the unjustifiability of grammar for the following reasons: First, it seems to me his regress argument works, if it works at all, only if we take sentences as the ultimate bearers of truth. If one believes in abstract propositions, as I'm inclined to do, one can hold that the justifications one gives for the grammar of some language, being abstract propositions which may be expressed in several languages each with a different grammar, don't have a grammar in the required sense. I'm sure Hacker would reject the existence of such propositions, but he would need to give some independent argument for doing so. Second, and more importantly, it seems to me that his arguments about nonsensicality vs. falsehood are self-referentially incoherent. Let us take, for example, the statement "No description of reality can justify grammar." Hacker takes this to be true. If it is true it certainly makes sense, but if it makes sense then (according to Hacker) so must its negation, namely "Some description of reality can justify grammar"; and if it makes sense Hacker can't rule it out a priori. On the other hand, if "Some description of reality can justify grammar" is nonsense, then (by Hacker's lights) so is the statement "No description of reality can justify grammar." Thus it appears that the conclusion Hacker wishes to establish is either false or nonsensical. Where does that leave us? One might think these considerations show that there are some statements which are meaningful but necessarily false. Personally, I think this is probably the correct conclusion. But there's another option which is often overlooked-- one could say that some meaningful statements simply don't have a meaningful negation at all.

The rest of the discussion is also quite interesting, so if you have the time by all means go check it out.

In Defense of Private Language: Part 2

2008-06-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

Kripke’s theory of naming—though he refuses to call it that—is a reaction against the views of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. They had thought that the reference of a name is determined by a description which is associated with it in the mind of a speaker. Thus the reference of a name such as 'Aristotle' may be determined by a description such as “the most famous student of Plato.” Kripke makes several criticisms of this kind of account of names, which I cannot go into here. The important thing is the positive view that Kripke develops in response to it.

If the Frege-Russell view is wrong, how does it come about that people are able to use names to refer to objects? On Kripke’s theory, names are simply labels that we tag objects with. They can pick out their referents directly, without a need for any mediating description. In place of a description, Kripke envisions a causal chain stretching from current utterances of a given name all the way back to an initial “baptism” of its bearer. (Naming and Necessity, pp. 96-97) During a typical baptism a person will attend or point to an object which causally affects them in some way—perhaps by the light it reflects—and pronounce a word which, in the right circumstances[1], becomes the object’s name. Others hear the baptizer utter this name and come to use it themselves. Still others hear it from them and come to use it as well, etc. In this way the name can be passed on to an ever increasing number of speakers. So long as they intend to use the name to refer to the same thing the original baptizer used it to refer to, they too can use it to refer to that thing, even if they have never encountered it and know next to nothing about it. Indeed, they can successfully use the name to refer to it when most of their beliefs about it are false. These results are a great strength of Kripke’s theory, and one would do well to remember them, for they are crucial to understanding how the Private Language Argument goes wrong.

If Kripke’s account of naming is correct, we may say either that names refer but have no meaning, or that the meaning of a name just is its bearer. Either way, Wittgenstein’s view is in trouble, for the Private Language Argument rests on the assumption that names do have a kind of meaning, in the form of a rule which governs their correct application. Consider this excerpt from section 258 of PI : “A definition surely serves to establish the meaning of a sign.—Well, that is done precisely by the concentrating of my attention; for in this way I impress on myself the connexion between the sign and the sensation.—But “I impress it on myself” can only mean: this process brings it about that I remember the connexion right in the future. But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness.” (PI p. 92) But it is doubtful that such a conception of meaning applies to the sort of expressions being considered here. What, for instance, would the rule for the correct use of the name ‘Aristotle’ be? Would it be “Apply the name ‘Aristotle’ to Aristotle and nothing else”? If one does not already “understand” the name ‘Aristotle’ this rule is useless, and if one does understand it the rule is entirely superfluous. Note also how Wittgenstein quickly passes from saying that a definition[2] establishes the meaning of a sign to saying that one impresses a connection on oneself through an act of attention. The connection between a sign and a sensation is a relation of reference, and if one thinks of reference as Kripke does it will sound very odd to talk of “impressing” such a relation on oneself or of “remembering” it. What could it mean, on a view like Kripke’s, to impress on oneself the connection between the name ‘Aristotle’ and the man to whom it refers? For Kripke this connection is constituted by a certain series of causal relations, and it exists whether I remember it or not.

The truth is that, to use the name ‘Aristotle’ meaningfully—or “referentially,” if we hold names to be meaningless—one need only stand in certain causal relations to Aristotle and intend to use the name to refer to the same thing as those from whom one got it. Whether one also has certain beliefs about Aristotle, undertakes to “use” the name ‘Aristotle’ in a certain way, or is able to “remember” the referential link between the name and its bearer will not affect the meaning or reference of the name. Apart from this there is no criterion for its correct use. Names can be used significantly because they stand in certain relations to something in the world, not because of any rules we supply to govern their application. The same, I contend, goes for the terms of a private language.

In opposition to Wittgenstein, I propose the following Kripke-inspired picture of the meaningfulness of sensation words. Suppose I am a private linguist who wants to record occurrences of a private sensation—a toothache, for instance—in a calendar of the sort Wittgenstein mentions in section 258 of PI. On having the toothache I go over to the calendar and inscribe the sign ‘T’. Since I am trying to keep track of the recurrence of this sensation, I am evidently using ‘T’ a general term, not as a name for that particular toothache. The term ‘T’ is, when used in this way, a natural kind term. To establish its reference I simply attend to my toothache and think something like “Let this kind of pain be called ‘T’,” just as I can attend to a particular kind of substance and say “Let this kind of metal be called ‘gold’.” In order to establish a relation between my sign ‘T’ and this kind of pain I need not impress on myself any connection or give myself any rule for its use, for terms which are introduced in this way either have their referent as their meaning or have no meaning at all. The baptism itself is all that is needed for me to use the sign significantly. Once the reference of ‘T’ has been established, I can use the sign in the future to refer to the same class of pains simply by intending to use it in the same way I originally did, even if the initial baptism has long since been forgotten and I now apply the term ‘T’ (incorrectly) to pains which are not toothaches. The reference is passed on to my future selves much as the reference of proper names such as ‘Aristotle’ is passed on to subsequent speakers. Moreover, if others should stumble across my calendar they can also use the sign ‘T’ to refer to my toothaches, even if they have no means of discovering what ‘T’ stands for.

We have seen that if the Private Language Argument is sound, sensation words must have publicly accessible criteria for their correct application in order to be meaningful. If there is no such thing as a criterion for the correct use of words of this kind, Wittgenstein’s argument falls apart. The upshot of the foregoing considerations is that if Kripke’s theory of naming is right the notion of a private language may be intelligible after all, in which case it is Wittgenstein himself who has fallen victim to a conceptual confusion.

Bibliography

Kripke, Saul A. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 1980.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations, 3^rd Edition. Trans. G.E.M.

Anscombe. Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1958.

[1] These circumstances may include such background conditions as that the object does not already have a name or that the baptizer is authorized to name this object.

[2] By which he means ostensive definition, as is made clear earlier in section 258.

In Defense of Private Language: Part 1

2008-06-11T15:35:00.000-07:00

(The following is my final paper for the Philosophy of Language course I took last semester, lightly edited to improve grammar and clarity. I've also divided it into two parts so you don't have to read the whole thing in one sitting.)

Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (henceforth PI) is a deep and important book, densely packed with thought experiments and many insightful observations. One of the most significant themes running through this work can be found in a chain of related aphorisms containing Wittgenstein’s ruminations on the possibility of a private language—a language whose terms are intelligible only to its speaker. Collectively known as the Private Language Argument, they are designed to show that the notion of a private language is incoherent. This argument, if sound, would be of lasting significance to philosophy, for it has the potential to overthrow some deep-seated intuitions about the mind. In what follows I shall attempt to show that, even if such a language is impossible, the Private Language Argument does not give us a good reason for thinking it is.

The main thrust of Wittgenstein’s arguments concerning the possibility of a private language seems to be that a would-be private linguist has no means of telling whether they are using a sign which purportedly picks out one of their private sensations correctly or not. For a private linguist to use a sign for one of their sensations meaningfully there must be a distinction between correct and incorrect usage. But what could this distinction consist in for a term of a private language? Not in its agreement or disagreement with how the term is used by others in the private linguist’s community, for by hypothesis the meaning of the term is not determined by and cannot be inferred from anything that is publicly observable, including the private linguist’s behavior. Nor can its correctness consist in its conformity with the private linguist’s judgments regarding whether they are having the same sensation or a different one, for then the distinction between correct and incorrect usage would evaporate. For what we are after here are not merely the conditions under which, as a matter of fact, the term is correctly or incorrectly used, but rather what it is for the term to be used correctly or incorrectly. The issue at stake in the Private Language Argument is not the skeptical one of whether, given that there are private sensations, we can be sure that for the most part we are applying our sensation words to them correctly. The issue is instead whether talk of such things as private sensations is meaningful at all. So when Wittgenstein demands criteria for the correct use of words, what he wants is simply some means of distinguishing correct from incorrect use; how often our use is correct is immaterial. Now, if the criterion for the correct use of a term in a private language is its accordance with the judgments of the private linguist, it will be nonsense to speak of any possibility of error. As Wittgenstein puts it, “One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can’t talk about ‘right’.” (Section 258; PI. p. 92) Yet if the correct or incorrect application of the term is established neither by public use nor private judgment, what else could establish it? I think there is another possibility, but we must critically examine Wittgenstein’s account of meaning as use, and its relation to naming, in order to see what it is.

On Wittgenstein’s view, the meaning of a term is its use in the language of which it is a part (PI section 43, pp. 20-21). It must be noted that Wittgenstein is not asserting the rather trivial thesis that a term—if one could even call it a term—would not be meaningful if no one ever spoke it or wrote it down or in any way employed it in communication. Nor is he maintaining the equally trivial thesis that a term’s meaning depends on the particular way it is used, so that it would have meant something different if it had been used differently. These theses are true of course, but Wittgenstein is making the far stronger claim that the meaning of a term consists in the way it is used to shape behavior, and in its role or utility in our lives.

Wittgenstein distinguishes the meaning of a name from the bearer of a name. (See PI sections 39-44, pp. 19-21.) The bearer of a name is the individual to whom it refers, while the meaning of a name is the set of rules which determine whether or not a name has been correctly applied to this individual. Wittgenstein thinks that the bearers of proper names have little to do with their names’ meaning because a proper name can be meaningful even when its bearer has ceased to exist. According to Wittgenstein, naming is preparatory for actual use. Names can refer to things, but they can do so only in the context of a language game: “Naming is so far not a move in the language-game—any more than putting a piece in its place on the board is a move in chess. We may say: nothing has so far been done, when a thing has been named. It has not even got a name except in the language game.” (PI section 49, p. 24) For Wittgenstein, then, naming—and hence reference—play but a minor role in the mechanics of language.

Given the account of meaning and reference sketched above, it is easy to understand why Wittgenstein, in attacking the notion of a private language, focuses his arguments on the notion of a “private ostensive definition”—on how the connection between the private linguist’s sign and the private linguist’s sensation is set up. In section 244 of PI Wittgenstein asks, “How do words refer to sensations?—There doesn't seem to be any problem here; don't we talk about sensations every day, and give them names? But how is the connexion between the name and the thing named set up? This question is the same as: how does a human being learn the meaning of the names of sensations?—of the word “pain” for example.” (PI p. 89) Notice that Wittgenstein here identifies the question of how sensation words come to refer with that of how one learns their meaning. It is this identification—a conflation, in my view—which vitiates the Private Language Argument. To see why, we must contrast Wittgenstein’s view of naming with that of Saul Kripke in Naming and Necessity.

Best posts that never got any comments

2008-05-29T22:54:00.000-07:00

Well, finals are finally over and the summer break is here, which means--barring any laziness or procrastination on my part--that I'm going to start posting again soon on a somewhat regular basis. In the meantime, feel free to check out what are, in my opinion, the best of my posts that (so far) have never gotten any responses:

Sense Data and the Determinacy of Perception

Term Gaps: An Alternative to Term Limits

Relativity and Dualism

Cosmological Arguments and Abduction

The Case of the Self-Conscious Calvinist

Necessary Existence, Truthmakers, and Modal Solipsism

A follow up on Necessary Existence

A Presentation on Culture and Values

I hope you'll find them interesting. Have a great summer everyone!

Deflating Debates over Essential Properties

2008-03-07T17:34:00.001-08:00

Suppose we have a debate as to the essential properties of something, or over whether some x is really an F. For example, let’s say there's a dispute between an epistemic internalist and an epistemic externalist as to what knowledge or justification essentially is. It seems to me that we can avoid debates such as this in the following way: Instead of arguing over whether knowledge requires accessibility or not, or whether a belief’s being the product of reliable cognitive faculties is sufficient to justify it or not, we could simply coin terms such as “knowledge_e” and “knowledge_i”, or “justification_e” and “justification_i”. Then we could say that knowledge_i requires accessibility but knowledge_e does not. And we could say, similarly, that being the product of reliable cognitive faculties is sufficient for justification_e but not for justification_i. So long as each of these notions is consistent, there is no a priori obstacle to their all having instances. We might, of course, be able to find evidence or devise arguments to show that, as a matter of fact, either knowledge_e or knowledge_i or both do not exist. And then again, we might not. What I want to know is why we should think there is some other thing, knowledge simpliciter, concerning which we are unsure of its essential properties. If there is no reason for supposing there is such a thing, we risk only the loss of much fruitless debate if we eliminate it from our ontology.

Does every proposition have a negation?

2008-02-14T19:55:00.000-08:00

Some philosophers have held—as Wittgenstein seems to in the Tractatus—that if some (apparent) statement is meaningless then so is its “negation”, and conversely that if the negation of a statement is meaningful then the negated statement must be meaningful too. Thus some have held that, since statements such as “It is not the case that Jones is identical to himself” are (so they think) obviously meaningless, then “Jones is identical to himself” is likewise meaningless. On the other hand, some have supposed that since statements such as “Jones is identical to himself” are (so they think) obviously meaningful, then so is “It is not the case that Jones is identical to himself”; it’s just that the latter is necessarily false. What has never been questioned, so far as I know, is that every meaningful statement has a negation. I think one might reasonably maintain something like the following: Suppose you think the meaning of a declarative sentence is the proposition it expresses. In that case you could say that while a given declarative sentence, say “Jones is identical to himself”, expresses a proposition, the sentence which results from prefixing a negation operator to it, say “It is not the case that Jones is identical to himself”, expresses no proposition. One could thus maintain that there are necessary truths but no necessary falsehoods. I think many would see this as beneficial, since if we could grasp the meaning of a necessarily false statement—that is, if we could understand full well what things would be like if it were true—what would we mean by calling it necessarily false or impossible? On the other hand, since we would still believe in necessarily true propositions, we could (at least potentially) accept the existence of a priori knowledge. We could also avoid a major pitfall of theories which reject (apparently) necessary truths as pseudo-propositions, namely, that on such theories a statement like “Every genuine statement has its truth value contingently” would seem not have its truth value contingently.

Such, I think, are the merits of this view. But what do you think? Is this view tenable, or does it suffer from problems comparable to those of the rival views discussed above? I have my suspicions, but for now I’m just interested in your own opinion.

Dialetheism and Hume's Principle

2008-01-18T18:08:00.000-08:00

Suppose the dialetheic treatment of the logical and / or semantic paradoxes is correct; in particular, that sentences of the liar family express propositions which are both true and false. Then consider the following list, which I will call List A:

(1) All whales are mammals.

(2) Nothing can escape a black hole.

(3) (3) is not true.

How many statements on List A are true? Well, both (1) and (2) are true, and under our assumption of dialetheism so is (3). Since these statements are all distinct from each other, it follows that there are three true statements on the list. But (3) is also false, so what it says is not true; hence it is also true that there are only two true statements on the list. So the number of true statements on List A is both two and three. By a parity of reasoning, we can conclude that the number of false statements on the list is both zero and one.

What if we bring Hume’s Principle to bear on this case? According to Hume’s Principle, the number of F’s equals the number of G’s if and only if there is a one-to-one correspondence between them. Suppose, now, that Jones has three books on his coffee table, which we will call Book A, Book B and Book C. Is the number of books on Jones’ coffee table the same as the number of true statements on List A? Invoking Hume’s principle tells us that the number of books is the same as the number of true statements if and only if each book can be paired off with exactly one true statement and vice versa. Can this be done? On the assumption of dialetheism, the answer is “Yes and no”: Book A can be paired off with (1) and Book B with (2), but can Book C be paired with (3)? Insofar as (3) is merely a statement Book C can indeed be paired with it. But in being paired with (3), is Book C paired with a true statement? Since (3) is both true and false, it follows that Book C both is and is not paired with a true statement. Because of this, while it is true that Book A, Book B and Book C are each paired with a different true statement in List A, it is also false that they are thus paired. Hence, if Hume’s Principle holds, we get the result that the number of books on Jones’ table both does and does not equal the number of true statements on List A. What follows from this? If the number of books on the table is three, and the number of books on the table both does and does not equal the number of true statements on List A, shouldn’t it follow that three does not equal three? After all, if there are three books on the table and the number of true statements on List A equals this, there must be three true statements on List A. If the number of true statements on List A is also not equal to three, how can it fail to hold that three, which does in fact number the true statements, is not equal to three? Now, as equality does not depend upon context, if three is not equal to three in this case, it is not equal to three in any case, and I take it that this would be a Very Bad Thing. However, a dialetheist need not embrace this result. Even though, on Hume’s Principle, the number of books on the table is both equal and not equal to three, it does not follow that “the number of books on the table” picks out some one thing that is not equal to itself. Instead, the dialetheist should hold that the phrases “the number of books on the table” and “the number of true statements on List A” are really descriptions which falsely presuppose uniqueness because they contain the definite article ‘the’. In truth, what’s going on here is that there is more than one number which exhaustively numbers the true statements on List A, and this in no way entails that there is some one number which is unequal to itself. All that follows is that the numbers involved are not equal to each other. Yet it remains true that there both is and is not a one-to-one mapping from the books on Jones’ table to the true statements on List A. From this, I think dialetheists should conclude that the number of F’s can be different from the number of G’s even if there is a one-to-one mapping between them, and can be the same even if there is not. They should hold that Hume’s Principle, in dialetheic contexts, is a biconditional which fails in both directions, and as such cannot be used to provide a criterion of identity for numbers.

On an Attempted Refutation of Leibniz's Law

2007-12-30T23:29:00.000-08:00

At Inconsistent Thoughts, Colin Caret has a post which links to a post of Brian Rabern's over at armchair investigations which challenges Leibniz's Law. In case you're not familiar with it, Leibniz's Law states that if x is identical to y then x and y have all their properties in common. Brian's argument is intriguing, but as he suggests there is a premise in the argument which can plausibly be denied. I'm not sure if this is what he had in mind, but I posted my own diagnosis of what goes wrong with the argument in a comment on Colin's post, which I will reproduce here:

Hi Colin,

I think that attempted refutation you linked to is confusing (at least, it confuses me) because it expresses the property G (i.e., "if x had quotes around its last word, then x would have been true") counterfactually and then asks us to evaluate the truth of the statements A and B respectively in those counterfactual circumstances, without specifying clearly whether the letters refer to the sentences as they actually are or as they are in the counterfactual circumstances we are considering. The cruicial part of the proof is the following:

"A is not such that if it had quotes around its last word it would have been true (since if A had quotes around its last word its last word would have been “obscene” not ‘obscene’). Hence, ~G(B). But B is such that if it had quotes around its last word it would have been true (since if B had quotes around its last word it would have rightly said of A that its last word is ‘obscene’)."

I agree with the conclusion that A does not exemplify G. For if A had had quotes around its last word, it would have looked like this: 'The last word of A is 'obscene'.' and in those circumstances its last word is indeed ''obscene'' and not 'obscene'. But note that this is because when we evaluate the truth of A in those circumstances, we are taking A to refer to itself as it is in those counterfactual circumstances, not how it actually is. For as A actually is its last word *is* 'obscene', and if we evaluated A in the counterfactual scenario as referring to itself as it actually is (i.e., as 'The last word of A is obscene') then it would have been true, since it would have referred to itself as it is in our possible world and not the possible world in which its truth is evaluated. However, I think that B also does not exemplify G. For B, to recall, says 'The last word of A is obscene.' Now if B exemplifies G, it would have been true if it had quotes around its last word, in which case it would have looked like this: 'The last word of A is 'obscene'.' But if it had said that it would not have been true, for in those counterfactual circumstances A would, as above, have looked like this: 'The last word of A is 'obscene'.', and so in those circumstances A's last word would have been ''obscene'' and not 'obscene'.

Does this solution make sense to you, or am I still confused?

So what do you think? Is my diagnosis correct? Or is there some other way the argument goes wrong?

Quote of the Day: Russell on Leibniz on the Problem of Evil

2007-12-01T23:37:00.000-08:00

This post over at Brain Hammer reminded me of the following quote from Russell:

Leibniz’s solution of the problem of evil, like most of his other popular doctrines, is logically possible, but not very convincing. A Manichaean might retort that this is the worst of all possible worlds, in which the good things that exist serve only to heighten the evils. The world, he might say, was created by a wicked demiurge, who allowed free will, which is good, in order to make sure of sin, which is bad, and of which the evil outweighs the good of free will. The demiurge, he might continue, created some virtuous men, in order that they might be punished by the wicked; for the punishment of the virtuous is so great an evil that it makes the world worse than if no good men existed. I am not advocating this opinion, which I consider fantastic; I am only saying that it is no more fantastic than Leibniz’s theory. People wish to think the universe good, and will be lenient to bad arguments proving that it is so, while bad arguments proving that it is bad are closely scanned. In fact, of course, the world is partly good and partly bad, and no “problem of evil” arises unless this obvious fact is denied.
--Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, Simon & Schuster (1972), p. 590

Personally, I think the problem of evil may well be soluble, but I seriously doubt that Leibniz's "Best of all Possible Worlds" solution makes the cut.

A Presentation on Culture and Values

2007-11-29T21:09:00.000-08:00

The following is the text of a presentation on culture and values I gave earlier today to the Inter Club Council at Diablo Valley College. I'm posting it here because I think makes the important metaethical point that inter-cultural dialogue concerning ethical matters makes little sense unless we assume values are objective.

Hi, my name is Jason, and the subject of my presentation is culture and values, specifically as they pertain to the relations between people of different cultures. But before we can see how they are related, we must first know what they are. Speaking roughly, a culture is a collection of customs, beliefs, and attitudes which are shared by a community and passed down largely intact from generation to generation. Values are similar in that they also include beliefs and attitudes, yet they differ in that they might either be confined to a single person or never passed down. Values could exist without culture, but the converse is not true, and hence they can be personal in a way that culture cannot. Culture and values are closely related insofar as they share a normative aspect. To say that something is normative means that it concerns not just what is the case, but also what should be the case. One can believe many things about what is, such as that grass is green or that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but only beliefs about what should be count as values. Our values can encompass anything we treasure, hope for, or regard as ideal. They are important because they are the principles we use to guide our thought and behavior. They determine not only what we do, but also who we are. The identity of a person or a culture is largely defined by the set of values they accept. This is especially true for cultures because every culture must have a set of behaviors it regards as permissible and another that it regards as taboo. Cultures need rules to determine who is part of the “in group” and who is part of the “out group”, otherwise there would be nothing to distinguish one culture from another. Whether or not one counts as part of a culture depends on whether or not one abides by these rules.

Now that we have some understanding of what culture and values are, we can ask ourselves what we should think about circumstances where the customs, beliefs, and attitudes of one culture conflict with those of another. In today’s ever shrinking world we are increasingly likely to encounter people of other cultures whose values are different from our own, and the question of how we should respond becomes increasingly more significant. In my opinion, the two main stances you can take are what I will call multiculturalism and cultural relativism. Though you might suppose these to be the same, I will argue that they are actually incompatible. Broadly speaking, I would say that multiculturalism is the idea that no single culture should be dominant because different cultures are valuable in their own right, and each has something positive to contribute to society. The presence of diverse perspectives and traditions promotes solidarity and mutual understanding, which helps prevent a society from becoming narrow-minded and intolerant. I would say that cultural relativism, by contrast, is the idea that no culture or cultural practice is inherently better than any other. It stands in opposition to objectivism, which holds that at least in some cases one culture’s practice can be better or worse than another’s. I think cultural relativism is accepted by many because they believe it subverts the claims that nations with imperialistic ambitions have often used to justify the subjugation of foreign peoples. Such nations have typically held their actions are justified because their culture is somehow superior to others, perhaps because they are more intelligent, more technologically advanced, or because they alone enjoy the favor of the gods or God. Whatever the reason, their actions are no less appalling. Cultural relativism seems attractive because it promises to do away with such rationalizations. If no culture is better than any other, none can use their alleged superiority as a pretext to oppress another. Yet I think those who embrace cultural relativism fail to see that their view entails they are in no position to condemn imperialistic societies. After all, these societies have a culture too, it just happens to be imperialistic! What’s to stop a member of such a society from saying that their actions are justified after all because imperialism is a part of their culture? Their culture might not be better than any other, but it is also no worse. So who are we to criticize them? If we reject objectivism because of the bad behavior it can be used to justify, we should reject cultural relativism for precisely the same reason.

However, I don’t think objectivism necessarily has the bad consequences its opponents attribute to it, so long as we distinguish it from a superficially similar position which I will call cultural chauvinism. Objectivism requires only that some cultural practices are better or worse than others, and is quite compatible with one culture’s being better than another in some respects and worse in others. Cultural chauvinism, on the other hand, is the belief that your own cultural practices are the better ones. This distinction is important because objectivism allows, as chauvinism does not, for the possibility that your way of doing things may be the one that could use some improvement. Objectivism thus supports the values of reflection and self-doubt, and through them an openness to the ideas of others. All of these are essential if one wants to live in a truly multicultural society where people of different cultures can effectively communicate with and learn from each other. Chauvinism and relativism leave no room for these virtues, the first because it refuses to consider the worth of another culture’s perspective, and the second because it holds that the members of each culture need only look within their own minds to find the truth. These perspectives would also seem to make the notion of moral progress an impossibility, for the value of a cultural practice would be just as relative to a time as it was to a place. Are we really prepared to say that the abolition of slavery, the institution of women’s suffrage, and the success civil rights movement reflect nothing more than a change of cultural taste? On neither of these views is there any need for different cultures to learn from each other. So contrary to what you might expect, I think that it is only on a presumption of objectivism that learning from other cultures makes sense. Once we realize that we each possess but a small fragment of the truth we will be motivated to engage people of other cultures in an earnest dialogue. In that event those of each culture can modify their views in light of the others’ experience to the improvement of all.

New Blog on Dialetheism

2007-11-26T00:05:00.000-08:00

I think Dialetheism--the belief that there are true contradictions--is one of the most interesting positions to emerge in recent philosophy. If you think so too, check out Ben Burgis' new blog (Blog&~Blog).

Some Difficulties Concerning the Atonement

2007-11-16T23:48:00.000-08:00

One of the central doctrines of Christianity is the Atonement, which in a broad sense concerns how humans, with their sinful nature, are reconciled to God. The Atonement thus fundamentally involves the forgiveness of sins. One problem, then, is why Jesus’ crucifixion and death occur given that they are unnecessary for the forgiveness of sins: God, who is both omnipotent and the subject offended against by sins, could easily have forgiven sins without requiring any such sacrifice. A more specific problem that I have, and one that is in my view more important, is that the purpose of the Atonement stands in conflict with the means God is supposed to have chosen to carry it out. In order for the Atonement to occur as it “should”, it seems necessary that some people sin. For if God deems it appropriate for Jesus to endure suffering and death, who is to inflict this on him? Why would God require that someone—such as Judas Iscariot—commit such a horrible sin in order to bring God’s plan to fruition? This worry is especially troublesome because the purpose of the Atonement is to forgive sin. Taking the above example, one may reply that God did not, as I imply, force Judas to do what he did; Judas betrayed Jesus of his own free will.[1] Yet if no one was under any compulsion to bring about Jesus’ death on the cross, it is possible that none should have done so. But what then? If everyone had “done the right thing”, so that no one betrayed or tried to harm Jesus, would Jesus have caused himself to endure suffering and death? If the answer is no—and it seems to me overwhelmingly probable that it would be—would God then choose some other means of forgiving sins? I think so, but then we again face the problem of why God would not have chosen a means of Atonement that did not involve the commission of sin in the first place.

In conclusion, the doctrine of the Atonement is not without its problems. While these difficulties may not be insurmountable, I think they are worth taking seriously.

[1] For the sake of argument, I am assuming that free will is incompatible with determinism.

Berkeley and Brain Damage

2007-11-15T00:13:00.000-08:00

When I first read Berkeley’s Principles and Three Dialogues some years ago, I remember being intrigued by the way Berkeley’s brand of idealism promises to dissolve the mind-body problem. Unlike the forms of dualism proposed by Descartes and Locke, there is no problem of how the mental and physical realms could interact: They don’t, because the physical realm does not exist! Yet one may wonder, as I did, whether in solving the problem of interaction we generate a new problem to take its place. For if the brain is really a family of sense impressions, it appears curious that there should be such a thing, and why damage to it should have any effect on a person’s mental functioning. In Berkeley’s system all ‘ideas’ are passive by nature, and by themselves incapable of producing anything new or causing a change in anything that already exists. In actuality ideas are mere signs which tell us what follows what; it is God who is the true cause of our ideas, the ideas themselves being simply occasions for God’s actions. That being so, couldn’t God have left the mind “floating”, without anything physical[1] to anchor it? I used to think this was a powerful objection to Berkeley’s theory, but now I think that a Berkelian could counter it, at least if they follow Berkeley himself in accepting the existence of God. On the view I am considering, ideas may signify not only other ideas, and even other people’s thoughts and emotions, but the very principles according to which they feel and think. For someone who takes this sort of position, a brain is really a mind’s way of representing another mind. As the mind’s image, the brain would have to be organized so as to display the mind’s structure, which includes all the relationships between its various capacities and functions. Concerning the objection as to why there should be any such image of the mind, and more importantly, why damage to it results in the impairment of mental functions or even death, a theistic Berkelian can give a cogent reply. They could point out that, if there were no such image, or if damage to it did not result in the impairment of mental functions, a person’s mind would be invulnerable, and the person seemingly immortal. If the philosopher who makes the objection is both a physical realist[2] and a theist, a theistic Berkelian can reply that for whatever reasons the physical realist may suppose God had for wanting the mind to be vulnerable, and people subject to death, a follower of Berkeley can suppose that God wanted the mind to be vulnerable, and people subject to death, for precisely the same reasons[3]. This is because an omnipotent being such as God could easily have made the brain, as the physical realist conceives it, to be impervious to damage, either through the institution of natural laws which differ from the actual ones, or through the use of miracles (such as immediately re-growing neurons which have been damaged by a bullet to the head). So I think we can conclude that a theistic Berkelian has no special difficulty in accounting for why the brain (and hence the mind) should be vulnerable; any objection concerning the reasons God may have had for allowing damage to the brain (and hence the mind) is an objection against theism in general. Of course, the dispute over whether theism is tenable is interesting in its own right, as the existence (or otherwise) of God is perhaps the most important issue in philosophy. But that is a topic for another post.

[1] “Physical”, that is, in the sense of being a part of that system of ideas which includes houses and trees and stones, not in the sense that it has a material substratum or could exist unperceived.

[2] I use the term “physical realist” to contrast with “physicalist”. Physical realists believe that at least the physical world exists, physicalists that at most the physical world exists.

[3] If the theists in question are Christians, these reasons may include the Fall, God’s plan for soul-making, and doubtless many others.

Points and Platonism

2007-10-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

In this post I want to discuss the ontological status of points and its significance for semantic arguments for Platonism. No, not geometrical points; the points I’m talking about are the ones you gain or lose in playing certain kinds of games (including sports).

Suppose a Platonist argues as follows:

Let’s say that John has ten points in a game. Surely, then, these points must exist: Nothing is true of the non-existent, so if John really has ten points, there must be ten points which John has. Or consider the statement: “John is two points ahead of Fred”. This seems to assert a relation between the number of points John has and the number of points Fred has. If one thing stands in a relation to another they both must exist, so if “John is two points ahead of Fred” is true there must be points which each of them has. “And if one holds that points don’t exist,” the Platonist might add, “who should be the one to tell poor John and Fred that they both lose because they have no points?”

What is one to think of such reasoning? I have chosen this example because it resembles the sort of semantic arguments Platonists often use in other domains, in particular semantic arguments for properties and mathematical objects. In this case, however, the nature of the objects posited is particularly problematic. First, it seems difficult to conceive what these points would be: Besides trivially essential properties—properties such as being identical to itself, which are shared by everything that exists—and those such as being a point belonging to John, what properties would points have? This might not be so bad in itself, for there are more respectable abstract objects--sets, for example--which also seem to have no properties besides the kind mentioned above and those attributed to them by set theory. But one can ask more troubling questions. For example, if John loses a point and Fred gains one, is the point John lost the same point as the one Fred gained, or a different one? If questions of identity and difference make no sense for points, I think that is a good (though arguably not indefeasible) reason for rejecting such entities. But the plight of points is worse yet: Suppose John and Fred are playing a game where, so the rules prescribe, it is possible to have a negative number of points. We can imagine that they are playing a board game where you roll dice and move your piece the indicated number of spaces, and in which landing on a penalty box costs a player five points even when the number of points they have is less than five. The player who has the most points after twenty moves have been made wins. So, for example, if John has -25 points and Fred has -10 after twenty moves, Fred wins the game. Should the Platonist conclude from this example that, since points really exist, it is possible to have a negative number of something? Or should they say instead that, since there can’t be a negative number of anything, this game is somehow illegitimate?

As with other abstract objects, there are also epistemological problems with accepting the existence of points. If points are independently existing entities, how can we be sure we really gain or lose them in the manner the rules of the game prescribe? Could it be that, if the rules of the game say that move m is worth five points, one might only gain three points on executing move m because of some ontological glitch? For Humeans who reject necessary connections between distinct existences, it should appear suspicious that anything could guarantee that something we do causes us to stand in some contingent (or “external”) relation to independently existing abstracta.

If one finds the prospect of answering these bizarre questions distasteful, one will want to find some way of rejecting points while retaining the ability to make sense of our game-related talk and behavior. One might seek a nominalistic paraphrase of statements ostensibly about points, or perhaps try to give a Wittgensteinian account in which our talk of points is treated as moves in a language-game which is practically indispensable to our keeping score. Whatever one says here, I think it is clear that the semantic argument for points faces serious difficulties. If it can’t be made to work here, why should it fare any better with respect to other kinds of abstract objects? I wouldn’t say that other sorts of abstract objects can’t exist—on the contrary, I think some do. But if they do, it seems to me, we need far better arguments for believing in them.

A Limitation on Dialetheism

2007-09-20T01:18:00.000-07:00

First, I should acknowledge my indebtedness to Greg Littmann and Keith Simmons, whose essay “A Critique of Dialetheism” was the inspiration for this post.[1]

Dialetheism, for those not in the know, is the thesis that that some contradictions are true. It is platitudinous that some of the things people say are true and others false—and some, dialetheists add, are both true and false. At first sight, this is an odd yet intriguing view. But why believe it?

Dialetheism is usually motivated by considerations involving logical and semantic paradoxes, most famously by the Liar paradox. One of the most basic versions of the Liar is (1):

(1) This statement is false.

Is (1) true? If it is, then what it says is the case, and since what (1) says that it’s false, it’s false. But if (1) is false, then what it says is not the case, and since (1) says that it is false, it is false that it is false, and hence (1) is true. So if (1) is true, it’s false, and if it’s false, it’s true. Contradiction.

There are various things one could say at this point, but the important thing is what the dialetheist says, and what the dialetheist says is that (1) is both true and false. There are many things which can be said in favor of this view, some of them very compelling. There are also many things which can be said against it that are equally compelling. My aim, however, is not to argue either that dialetheism must be accepted or rejected as a matter of principle, but rather to show that the dialetheic treatment of logical and semantic paradoxes cannot be extended to all versions of the Liar. Consider for a moment (2):

(2) This statement has the same truth value as “0 = 1”.

Assume (2) is false. If so, it must have a different truth value than “0 = 1”, for what (2) says is that they have the same value. Since “0 = 1” is false, (2), if it has a different value, must be true. But if (2) is true, it has the same truth value as “0 = 1”, for that they have the same truth value is precisely what (2) says. Now if (2) is true, and it has the same truth value as “0 = 1”, then “0 = 1” must also be true, and hence we can conclude that 0 = 1 ![2]

We cannot give (2) a dialetheic treatment—holding that it is both true and false— for we can substitute any falsehood we like for “0 = 1” and use the paradox to show it must be true as well as false. We would then end up with trivialism—the view everything is both true and false! Since (2) cannot be solved by dialetheic means, it must have a different, consistent solution. There are many avenues we could pursue, such as tweaking the T-schema, holding that (2) expresses no proposition, adopting some form of the theory of types, etc. , but the point is that at least one of them must be successful. Granting this, why can’t we solve more traditional variants of the Liar in the same way? Dialetheism might still be true—in some attenuated epistemic sense of “might”—but even so it is not a perfectly general solution to all Liar-like paradoxes. If other kinds of Liar statements can be given the same treatment as (2), whatever that may be, dialetheism loses much of its motivation. If other reasons can be found for believing in true contradictions, well and good—but so long as consistent solutions are on the table, I think they ought to be preferred.

[1] “A Critique of Dialetheism”, in The Law of Non-Contradiction: New Philosophical Essays, Oxford University Press 2006. In particular I was inspired by their sentence (Z):

(Z) has the same complete and correct evaluation as the sentence ‘1+1=3’.

(Z) can be found in footnote 26 on page 333 (Paperback version).

[2]If we had started out by assuming (2) is true, we could have reached the same conclusion in half the time.

Where I Stand

2007-09-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

I got this idea from this post of Alan Rhoda's at Analyzer, who got it from a post of Johnny-Dee's at Fides Quaerens Intellectum, who in turn got it from a post of Andrew Bailey's at Ratiocination. The object is to list your current stances on issues in those areas of philosophy that interest you. If you're a philosophy blogger and you're reading this, consider yourself tagged. :-D

Here's mine:

Metaphysics:

Constitution is not identity: One thing can’t literally be identical to many.

Eternalism: The past, present, and future all exist. The “passage of time” is an illusion.

Ersatz modal realism: There are no pure possibilia. There are other possible worlds, but they are non-concrete; most likely they are sets of propositions or maximal states of affairs.

Anti -Humeanism: There are necessary connections between at least some distinct existences.

Platonism: There are universals answering to at least some predicates and/or concepts, though probably not to all. There are also some other kinds of abstract objects, such as propositions and states of affairs.

Anti-substrativism: There are no such things as prime matter, bare substrata, or thin particulars.

Color subjectivism: The sky is blue, grass is green, and lemons are yellow... yeah right!

Epistemology:

A means-end orientation: I feel that epistemology should primarily try to settle disputes between different parties concerning what we ought to believe or are justified in believing.

Internalism: A corollary of the above. Insofar as externalist analyses of knowledge and justification appeal to facts or processes to which we have no access, they are useless for resolving disputes over what we are justified in believing.

A very minimal Foundationalism: Justification has to start somewhere. One's justification derives from properly basic beliefs, but what is properly basic for one person may not be properly basic for another. There is also no reason to assume that properly basic beliefs must be self-evident or immune to revision.

Philosophy of Mind:

Phenomenal content internalism: Phenomena such as Churchland's Chimerical Colors show that, at least in some cases, experiences can have qualia and/or phenomenal contents that answer to nothing in "the external world"; and we can't be related, causally or otherwise, to things that aren't there. Personally, I think the case generalizes to other sorts of experience as well.

Indirect realism: Even assuming there are no such things as sense data or similar items, we still don't "directly perceive" external objects. This fits in nicely with phenomenal content internalism.

First person fallibilism: Things might not seem how they seem to seem.

Ethics:

Moral Realism: At least some moral judgments express true propositions.

Moral Objectivism: For any given morally evaluable situation, there is a right and a wrong response or set of responses, and whether a given response is right or wrong does not, in general, depend on whether people think it is right or wrong.

Non-consequentialism: Morality isn't about maximizing utility, the satisfaction of preferences, the amount intrinsic goodness in the world, or indeed anything. People have duties to each other which in some cases forbid one from bringing about the "greater good."

Style and Method:

Style: I try to write clearly and precisely, but as Brand Blanshard showed, these qualities are not the exclusive property of the Analytic tradition.

Method: Systematic—I have a broad range of interests and try to find connections between disparate areas of philosophy.

Philosophers I admire: Brand Blanshard, A.C. Ewing, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, W. V. O. Quine, David Hume, George Berkeley, Alvin Plantinga, Graham Priest, and Patricia Churchland.

What I sound like

2007-09-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

This is a recording made last year of me giving a presentation on Eternalism to the philosophy club at Diablo Valley College in California.

If you're a philosophy blogger and you have a recording of your own voice, I invite you to spread the meme and post your recording on your own blog.

Some Thoughts on Theories of Truth

2007-08-10T03:31:00.000-07:00

In studying philosophy, one of the more perplexing things one finds (if you’re anything like me) is that there are a multiplicity of “theories of truth”. How can there be any room for disagreement here? In examining different “theories of truth”, one might think that such theories are beset with a problem similar to that of the “paradox of analysis”. The paradox of analysis, to recall, is that a purported “analysis” of an expression e is either synonymous with e or not. If it is the analysis is unenlightening, and if it is not the analysis cannot be correct. Similarly, one might think, if there really are rival “theories of truth” we can evaluate a given theory of truth according to its own account of truth or according to a rival one: If its own, it will trivially be vindicated (assuming it is consistent), if another, it will be trivially refuted. Now, if a “theory of truth” is merely a proposed definition of the word ‘truth’ or the predicate ‘is true’ there is no problem, for people are free to define their terms as they please. But this is not an adequate account of what goes on in debates over such theories (at least, it is not an adequate account of what the various disputants think is going on.) Firstly, if the disputants thought of themselves as offering (stipulative) definitions, their arguments would center mainly on which definition was the most pragmatically useful (and for which purposes). In general, however, they do not. Instead, most of the parties to these debates seem to view their opponents as offering genuinely incompatible accounts. Secondly, the accounts which are offered are called theories, and this implies that the accounts all have a common subject matter which they variously attempt to characterize in a way that is accurate, or, in other words, true. These are theories of a special sort: Whereas most theories attempt to characterize the truth concerning some mundane subject, theories of truth aim to characterize the truth concerning nature of truth itself.

This enterprise has an air of paradox about it: After all, one might think, to ask about “the nature of truth” is to ask “Which theory of truth is true?”, and unless we know the answer we can make no sense of the question. That would be too quick, however. Knowledge is not an all-or-nothing affair; it may very well be that we know enough about something in order to identify it without knowing everything there is to know about it. The proponents of the various “theories of truth” can maintain that all the rival theories can be compared, and thus legitimately be called theories of truth (as opposed to theories of correspondence, or theories of coherence, or theories of warranted assertability…) because there is a neutral core conception of truth which is common to all. The T-schema (“True (p) <--> p”) would seem well suited to play such a role. One could then fix the reference of “truth” as being whatever property it is that satisfies the T-schema.

If a correspondence theorist, a coherence theorist, and a warranted assertability theorist can all agree that truth satisfies the T-schema, what exactly is it that the theories would have in common? Should we hold, for example, that while all the theorists accept the T-schema, they each interpret it differently? If so, the question arises of what it is that is interpreted differently. Clearly it is not a meaning that is interpreted differently, for though one can grasp or fail to grasp a meaning, interpretation is a matter of assigning a meaning to something, such as a sound wave or a series of ink blotches. One cannot assign a meaning to another meaning. On this view, since the T-schema is ‘interpreted differently’ by the different theorists, it must be viewed syntactically, as a sequence of characters and nothing more. If the theorists simply assign different meanings to this schema, that no more makes their theories have something substantive in common than the fact that “burro” means donkey in Spanish and butter in Italian makes butter and donkeys have something substantive in common. In order for the different theories of truth to have something in common, then, it is not enough to accept the T-schema regarded syntactically. They must also assign it the same meaning. Consequently, their disagreement can only regard theses which are superadded to the schema to produce richer notions of truth.

Once this is granted, we can ask whether these various “rich” notions of truth are mutually consistent. For all that has been said, there may be many properties which satisfy the T-schema, each accurately characterized by its own “theory of truth”. The truth theories would then have something in common without being in competition. We can call this position “alethic pluralism”. On the other hand, those who wish to “keep the debate alive” have three basic options that I can see: The first option is to argue that there is only one property which satisfies the T-schema. The second option is to say that while there are multiple, mutually inconsistent theories of truth, they have something other than the T-schema in common. The third option is to “go deflationary” and insist that the T-schema is all there is to truth. We may as well call this the “null theory” of truth, for while on this view there are true sentences or statements, there is really no such thing as “truth itself”. Whatever the case may be, I hope that the different stances one can take are a little clearer than they were before.