arete

Confirmation of Platonic Recollection?

2011-10-28T13:54:00.009-04:00

A recent New York Times article finds that people with no formal training in geometry can answer questions about geometry. The psychologist who performed the study does not attempt to explain why this is the case.

But Plato does. In the Meno dialogue he has Socrates perform a similar experiment, and suggests that all learning is really recollection of what we knew in our disembodied state before birth.

These findings do seem to suggest that we have innate ideas, and the Platonic idea of recollection would certainly explain them. Is this the best explanation? If not, what would be a better one?

Rupert Read on the Absurdity of Time Travel

2011-09-30T13:15:00.006-04:00

Greetings,

To celebrate the 101th post on Arete, it seems appropriate to discuss time travel. After all, if we could travel back in time to view the first post being written, would that not be an exciting event?

This post will largely be responding to a paper by Rupert Read found here. I would highly suggest reading it, although you should be able to get the gist without doing so.

I have several concerns about Read's arguments, and will address them here.

1. He asserts that "there seems no good reason to withhold the term
“time-travel” from healthy, body-renewing sleep, especially perhaps
if it is relatively dreamless. You really can travel to the future. You
can see the future.You can be there. Just by going to bed; just by
living long enough" (Part I, Section 8). I agree with this proposition-- we are, in fact, traveling through time. However, as you'll see, I believe his argument about the "why" is wrong.

2. Read asserts that what "in sleep is missing from time-travel is the essential element of any travel worthy of the name, of tourism and holidaying for instance: the ability, at least, to go there and back again" (Part I, Section 10). This is absolutely incorrect. It would be a radical sort of time travel to go far into the past without a method of return. This may be correct for future-oriented time travel (as the act of sleep would seem to imply), but this fails to account for the novelty of past-oriented time travel.

3. Read establishes a straw man in order to attack past-oriented time travel: he asserts as an axiomatic premise that "you already know that there is no record in the past of you having been there, nor of anyone else from the future, no matter how distant or technologically-sophisticated that future becomes" (Part II, Section 4). There is no need to assume this. Suppose that, in the present, you find clear signs that the time traveler changed nothing; they had already (and always) traveled back in time. Many fictional works, such as 12 Monkeys and Doctor Who, take this as essential.

4. Read asserts that, "in order not to have changed the past, and made it something other than the very thing that you wanted to voyage into, you cannot have had any impact at all, not even one so slight that it evaded all records and notice" (Part II, Section 6). This is a false dichotomy, as explored in my third argument. It's possible to have changed nothing in the past, and yet not evaded notice.

5. Read asserts that "travel back into the past is only possible if the “you” that does the travelling is entirely ethereal. Nonphysical. For the slightest impact upon the past will generate a 'causal loop,' and thus a familiar paradox of time-travel" (Part II, Section 7). The real substance of this paper should have consisted in explaining the "causal loop" and how it results in an absurdity. To hinge arguments upon this assumption is to assume something essential to the outcome.

6. Read's criterion of falsifiability seems to be as follows: "For what was necessary in order for us to be willing to call something “time-travel” (namely, its being meaningful to speak of travel “back into the past”) is just not available. Our relation to the past is necessarily spectatorial, in a doubled sense: We cannot interfere with it, and we cannot even observe it except from a temporal distance" (Part II, Section 15). This unintentionally raises a huge problem for Read. He states that we cannot call travel "time travel" that which we cannot interfere with, unless we can interfere with it directly. However, we cannot directly interfere with the future; we must wait for it to become the present. Thus, we do not travel through time into the future. This directly contradicts Part I, Sections 5-10, and limits the significance of his arguments against future-oriented time travel.

7. Read oversimplifies the complex issue of the indeterminacy of the future: "The past is very largely determinate, fixed, just by virtue of its being past: and “travelling back into it” requires that it not be fixed. The future is to a considerable extent open just by virtue of its being future" (Part III, Section d). This raises a host of issues, problems, and questions; if this is to be treated as an axiomatic assumption, it should be addressed at the outset, and the validity of his findings should noted to be contingent upon it.

So, what do you think? Am I being too hard on Professor Read, or are my critiques legitimate? Thanks for your comments!

This post has been edited to resolve potential formatting issues.

Violence, Justification, and Pain-Sensing Dandelions

2011-09-08T13:41:00.006-04:00

Greetings,

Tonight's Philosophy Society meeting will cover the "Philosophy of Violence", and pose questions about possible justifications for acts of violence, including war. This post will touch on an element of the topic: why does violence need justification?

Princeton University's Wordnet offers three definitions for violence:

1. An act of aggression.
2. The property of being wild or turbulent.
3. A turbulent state resulting in injuries and destruction etc.

If we assume that violence can potentially need ethical justification, I think we should reject the second definition's utility to our discussion, as properties necessarily do not require ethical justification (feel free to disagree with this, or call for an argument, in the comments). We might, therefore, consolidate the definition into the following:

"An act or state of aggression that results in injuries and/or destruction".

Per this definition, we can expound a bit on the nature of violence:

1. Violence requires an aggressor-- there cannot be aggression without an aggressor. Thus, it is incorrect to speak of violence where there is no aggressor to be found.

2. An act is not violent unless it has certain consequences (injuries and/or destruction). Thus, it is incorrect to describe an entity as violent (video games, movies, et cetera) as violent, unless they themselves actually cause (rather than merely depict violence.

So, working from this definition, let's talk about justification. When we say that an action needs ethical justification, we implicitly argue that it should be taken to be ethically improper unless a sufficient argument can be made to the contrary. It's not enough to say that ethical justification is required for potentially (ethically) bad actions. Moriarty need give no justification for mowing his lawn, even though it is a potentially (ethically) bad action-- if, for instance, he were cutting his lawn to cause pain to the Pain-Sensing Dandelions that he believe live in it. If, however, you knew for a fact that Moriarty's goal was to cause pain to the Pain-Sensing Dandelions (a great evil, indeed; poor dandelions!), he would most certainly need an ethical justification to mow he lawn.

So, then: if violence needs (ethical) justification, it must be supposed to be by default an ethically bad action or state. Why, however, need violence be considered as such? Consider: if Moriarty were to spray a nerve-numbing concoction upon the Pain-Sensing Dandelions that prevented them from feeling pain, it would still (by definition) be an act of violence to chop them into tiny bits and pieces. The action would still be performed by an aggressor (Moriarty still hates and desires the genocide of Pain-Sensing Dandelions), and it would cause injury or destruction. However, is it unethical?

I don't think we would say so-- but then, this is an absurd example. You may find it outlandish. Let me resort to one that's a bit more easy to follow.

Let's say that you discover an army of ants living outside your home. It is not harming you, and they aren't violating any laws I am aware of, but you nevertheless wish them exterminated. You commit an act of violence by killing as many of them as possible with insecticides. Would this act of violence require ethical justification? I anticipate you would say, absolutely not!

This should be sufficient, I believe, to show that violence in and of itself is not an ethically inappropriate state or action. To say that Moriarty performed an act of violence is not sufficient to say that Moriarty must justify his action.

Therefore, I challenge those who attach ethical judgments to claims about violence: what is sufficient to make an act of violence one that requires ethical justification? Violence in and of itself is clearly not sufficient; therefore, there must be an external element that makes it need justification. If that is the case, why should this external element not be evaluated for its own sake, not with regard to its relation to violence?

Philosophy and Football at Berry

2011-08-27T16:06:00.002-04:00

Berry's football team has never lost a game!

If you took my Critical Thinking class, you may remember that Aristotle and most modern logicians disagree on whether it's true that Berry's football team has never lost a game. Aristotle thinks it's false because there is no such thing as a Berry College football team, but the moderns think it's true because there is no such thing as a Berry College football team that has lost a game.

But the important question is: Should Berry change all this by getting a football team? I think Plato suggests a good way to frame the discussion, so in this post I'll try to pose the question of a Berry College football team his way. Note that I'm not out to answer the question here; I'll leave that to you!

Plato's Republic presents the theory that the soul has three parts. The first part, the rational part, desires wisdom, knowledge, and justice. The second part, called thumos, desires honor and victory. The third part, the appetitive part, desires physical pleasure. In order for us to have a good life, the rational part of the soul must make an alliance with thumos in order to keep the appetitive part from getting out of hand. For example, thumos must be persuaded that it is honorable to seek wisdom and dishonorable to live solely for physical pleasures.

In other words, a properly ordered soul is one that doesn't seek victory for its own sake; it seeks to honor wisdom and knowledge and justice and to see them victorious.

What does this have to do with football? Like rugby, the only team sport I ever played, football is a struggle resulting in a victory for some and a loss for others. It is a field on which thumos asserts itself.

But we aren't supposed to fight for the sake of victory. We are supposed to fight for the victory of something, specifically something noble. For example, I think the movie Remember the Titans handles football very well, because the struggle on the football field symbolizes the struggle for racial justice. The football player's or fan's passion for victory becomes a passion for the victory of justice.

So here is the Platonic question I wish to pose: Would a football team at Berry encourage a love of struggle and victory for its own sake, or a love of struggle and victory for the sake of something noble?

To elaborate just a little. At Berry College several appropriately noble things are already present: knowledge, the love of wisdom, a respect for our cultural and religious heritage. Would a football team here distract us from these noble things, or would football encourage a stronger school spirit and a stronger love for these noble things, which are after all the main reason we're here?

My philosophy movies

2011-08-27T16:03:00.001-04:00

In case anyone is interested, I made two Socrates cartoons and one Boethius cartoon, available here.

Philosophical problem solved by neuroscientists

2011-04-26T08:43:00.005-04:00

According to an article appearing today in the New York Times, the Molyneux problem has been answered by neuroscientists. What's the Molyneux problem? It's a question first posed by an Irish politician and scientist, William Molyneux. His question concerns what would happen if a blind person were suddenly given the ability to see. Presented with two objects, a sphere and a cube, would the blind person be able to tell which was which just by looking? He already had tactile experience of these objects. Is that experience sufficient to allow him to make the distinction on the basis of visual perception? Locke famously said that the blind man would not. The recent finding vindicates Locke. Five children from northern India who had been blind from birth but whose vision was restored through surgery were not able to match objects they had touched with one they had seen, they did no better than would be expected if they were just guessing.

This result raised broader questions. Does it show that the Molyneux problem was not a philosophical problem to begin with? Can a philosophical problem be answered empirically? Maybe some can and some can't. What implications, if any, should we draw, then, for the nature of philosophy and philosophical problems?

So you want to be an analytic philosopher...

2010-12-07T21:02:00.003-05:00

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7635213/

Enjoy!

Primordial Assumptions and Non-Falsifiable Objections

2010-12-02T10:39:00.007-05:00

Greetings,

It is common to make several assumptions when discussing philosophical matters-- whether one's interest is ontological, epistemological, formally logical, or some other field, primordial assumptions are a key underlying element. These assumptions are fundamental to our experience of the world, and thus tend not to be challenged further unless they are the specific matter of inquiry, because to do so would drastically shift the inquiry and possibly send a skeptic down a "rabbit hole" (as I call them) where an unceasing flurry of questions, each causing another question, that result in a completely unproductive endeavor with all participants exhausted and discouraged. Examples I have seen fellow discussants perform in conversations include challenging the law of noncontradiction, denying the legitimacy of free will, and proposing that everything "is a dream" while discussing other topics. It is, of course, completely legitimate to discuss these issues when they are the focus or topic of conversation. However, when one discusses an argument for the existence of God or the nature of animal ethics, challenging a core assumption by claiming that everything is just a dream seems both counterproductive and, perhaps, ad hoc, as the claims tend not to be considered legitimate outside of the specific conversation. I would pay money to see what would happen if you commit perjury by stating that you didn't see a crime, and later deny that you committed perjury by asserting that the law of noncontradiction is illegitimate.

On the other hand, we want our arguments to be falsifiable, and thus to be able to deal with objections. If I argue that humans do not have ethical obligations to animals because animals do not have free will, but I imply that humans do have ethical obligations to each other (because they have free will), it seems relevant to bring the question of fatalism into the picture. And yet, here we seem to have a quandary: if free will does not exist, we cannot concede the argument as being valid or invalid on the basis of the validity of the argument (rather, one was compelled to evaluate the argument in the matter one evaluated it, regardless of the ontological validity of the argument). As such, we lose our capacity to evaluate the argument. It would seem that the individual who challenges free will thus cannot meet the standard of falsifiability-- their argument cannot be falsified if there is no free will, because there is no one to falsify it. However, the fatalism objection seems both coherent and relevant. A topic can become controversial when it is not falsifiable; how much more difficult a topic becomes when one of its most coherent objections is not falsifiable!

What tactic should we take when we a legitimate topic has a non-falsifiable objection thrust at it? Do we deny the legitimacy of the objection, or treat it with all seriousness? Do we disregard it as sophistry, or do we attempt to account for it? It's a topic of both practical and theoretical interest to me, and I look forward to your feedback.

EDIT: On a completely unrelated note, here's a rather disturbing document you should probably see, about one of our favorite meeting locations...
http://ga.state.gegov.com/_templates/87/Food/_report_full.cfm?fsimID=1441174&domainID=87&rtype=food

On Communication and Definitions

2010-11-17T09:20:00.005-05:00

In the comments of the post called, "Philosophy of Religion" and "Theology": What's the Difference?, r.j.marvin and I have been having an interesting conversation on communication. A concern was expressed: when individuals engage in dialogue, can they rationally discuss topics where the definitions of major points of contention are unclear? For example, assume that an atheist, a Calvinist, and a Muslim were engaged in a dialogue about God. The atheist remarks that the idea of God is internally contradictory, due to the nature of omnipotence and omni-benevolence. The Calvinist remarks that God has mysteries that cannot be explained, such as the nature of the trinity, but is not internally contradictory. The Muslim remarks that the idea of God is not internally contradictory and, while mysterious, has no apparent contradictions. It seems like all three of these discussants have different definitions of God. Can they, thus, rationally discuss the topic?

First, I will argue why they can. Second, I will defend against reasons why they allegedly could not by addressing the initial quandary.

If it were true that individuals can maintain distinct definitions of words without the possibility of harmonization, definitions would be meaningless and devoid of substance, because they would not have any references. Imagine if I defined "Quarorglewoggle" as "Gltheltic-giborglewoggle". If you asked me to define "Gltheltic-jiborglejiggle", I would continue using nonsense words with no real-world references, and would eventually come back to "Quarorglewoggle". We would thus not be able to have any legitimate knowledge of what is being communicated. In other words, if the skeptical concern is legitimate, we would not have legitimate understanding of the references of others' words. Since we do have legitimate understanding of the references of others' words (given that you are reading this), it is not the case that the skeptical concern is true (and, thus, the skeptical concern is false), at least about some words.

"Some words", however, is very different from "all words" (there's a puzzle for you). Could there exist a word that, through the method I outlined above, can be circularly defined in nonsensical terms? Yes-- consider "quarorglewoggle". Here's my question: we have the word "quarorglewoggle". Is there actually a reference of the word? In other words, we can imagine "quarorglewoggle" (the word); can the speaker imagine quarorglewoggle (the reference of the word)? If not, they are either deceiving their fellow discussant (but we're assuming that they're acting in good faith, so this isn't an issue), or there is actually something that the word refers to. There exist many properties that, as we have already established, are not nonsensical (in that they can be meaningfully defined). Each of these properties either do or do not relate to the definition of the word. For example, if I defined the "best flavor of icecream" as "that particular taste of ice cream that is most pleasing to the taster", the property of being "Cherry-Vanilla" does not relate to the definition of the word-- merely the instantiation (the carrying-out) of the definition.

Back to our initial quandary. If a Calvinist claims that the definition of God, via the Trinity, is mysterious but not contradictory, we should tell him/her that they are mistaken. The Trinity is no more a part of the definition of God than Cherry-Vanilla is part of the definition of the best flavor of ice-cream; it's part of the instantiation. The Muslim's claim is coherent. The Atheist's claim, that the definition of God entails a contradiction (omni-benevolence and omnipotence) sets us up for a great topic that could be discussed, but makes the same mistake as a Calvinist. The Greek gods were certainly not omnibenevolent, nor were they omnipotent, and yet they are still referred to as gods. The Atheist concern is with a specific instantiation of the definition of God, not with the definition of God itself.

In conclusion, we must be careful when we distinguish between definitions and instantiations of definitions. There are no true contradictions in reality (assertion on my part, feel free to challenge it), and thus no definition will be contradictory. Instantiations of definitions, however, may be. The definition of "contradiction" is not contradictory, but all instantiations of "contradictions" are, necessarily, contradictory.

Make sense? Share your thoughts, comments, and arguments below. I look forward to your feedback!

"Philosophy of Religion" and "Theology": What's the Difference?

2010-10-29T10:53:00.004-04:00

Greetings,

Your experience might differ, but I find that those with a passion for philosophy (including the philosophy of religion) tend not to share a passion for theology, and vice versa. This has sparked a question in my mind: what is the difference between "philosophy of religion" and "theology"? In this post, propose a theory that hopefully gives us a satisfactory answer. I propose that, in order to understand the difference between "philosophy of religion" and "theology", you ought to accept the following:

1. "Philosophy of Religion" and "Theology" both refer to logically consistent inquiries, which usually take the form of arguments.

2. The subject of the inquiries of both "Philosophy of Religion" and "Theology" is the same: divinity. This is, presumably, a subset of the supernatural.

3. As the subject of both inquiries is the same, the differentiating factor must lie in the form of the inquiry itself.

4. Inquiries can only prove the veracity of their conclusions if the negation of the conclusion yields a contradiction.

5. The only truths philosophy has available are those which are tautologically true-- that is, true by nature of their logical form. The proposition, (a) or [not (a)], is true by nature of its form. Yes, this seems to entail classical logic, although the truth is that it need not. Roll with me, here.

6. Theology has all philosophical truths available to it (that is, theology does not embrace contradictory claims).

7. The truthfulness of premises in a philosophical argument can only be evaluated in terms of their internal/external logical consistency.

8. Here's where the difference lies: Theological claims can also form inquiries where the truthfulness of a premise is not determined simply by logical consistency.

By now, you're saying... "Zach, this is too much. Break it down for me". To quote Dale Cooper... "Okay."

1. All arguments that are sound in the philosophy of religion are sound in theology.
2. Not all arguments that are sound in theology are sound in the philosophy of religion.

Example of a Philosophical Argument
1. Either God exists or he does not.
2. If God exists in possibility, he exists in necessity.
3. It's possible that God exists.
4. Thus, God exists necessarily.

This argument may not be sound, but it can be understood and evaluated in philosophical terms. An individual might critique the second or third premise, but his critique would be grounded in logic.

Example of a Theological Argument
1. Either humans are predestined or they are to be held responsible.
2. God holds humans responsible.
3. God does what he ought to do.
4. Thus, humans are not predestined.

Philosophically, this is not an interesting argument. Premises 2 and 3 are determined to be true or false depending on adherence to religious principles, not logical necessity. However, this argument can be converted into a philosophical argument...

Example of a Philosophical Argument
1, Either humans are predestined or they are to be held responsible
2. Thus, if [God exists] and [God holds humans responsible] and [God does what he ought to do], then humans are not predestined.

This is actually philosophically interesting-- it doesn't presuppose the existence of God, but is concerned with logical entailment if he does exist (and other premises follow).

In conclusion, all truths determined through the philosophy of religion are true according to theological inquiry as well, as theology has all the tools of philosophy of religion available. However, not all truths revealed by theological inquiries are true in accordance with the philosophy of religion. It may be possible to convert these to philosophical claims, but the inquiry loses some of its impact.

Thoughts/comments/suggestions/criticisms will be much appreciated!

Stuck with Virtue Conference

2010-10-22T17:54:00.006-04:00

Thursday, November 4 and Friday, November 5 Berry will host the first of a three-part conference series entitled “Stuck with Virtue.” This initial conference will include 7 distinct presentations, featuring over two dozen of the country’s leading experts in the fields of philosophy, political science, biology, genetics, sociology, and theology.

ALL 7 PRESENTATIONS ARE CE CREDIT APPROVED!!

Working from the premise that human beings are by nature stuck with virtue, the conference series broadly seeks to identify the scholarly, educational, and civic framework in which an intellectually serious and humanly satisfying new science of virtue could reasonably hope to unfold and develop. To a great degree, our contemporary ideas about the grounds and substance of human virtue can be traced back to the thought of three modern thinkers: Rene Descartes, John Locke, and Charles Darwin. The conference series thus incorporates each of their contributions in light of the contemporary body of knowledge we have gained from recent work in the sciences, philosophy, and theology, with presentations from the experts leading the work and discussions today. Accordingly, the Stuck with Virtue Conference Series, integrating the best thought of the past and the present, directly responds to one of the enduring challenges of the virtuous life itself, namely, the need to understand the relation between who we are, what we have been given, and the concrete circumstances in which we presently find ourselves.

Visit www.stuckwithvirtue.com for more information.

Conference Schedule:

Thursday, November 4, 2010
11:00 Lecture (Evans Auditorium): On Descartes
(Dr. Papazian will be a respondent!)
2:00 Panel (Evans Auditorium): Walker Percy on Science and the Soul
4:00 Lecture (Evans Auditorium): On Darwin
**7:00 Lecture (Ford Dining Hall): On Locke (with dinner)

Friday, November 5, 2010
9:00 Panel (Evans Auditorium): Being More Cartesian than Descartes
10:30 Panel (Evans Auditorium): Tom Wolfe, Technology, and Greatness
**12:30 Lecture (Krannert Ballroom): On Science, Virtue, and the Birth of Modernity (with lunch)

**Please contact me directly for information about obtaining an invitation to either or both of these lectures! It would be great if you all can come to all of these events, but if you haven't signed up with Dr. Lawler for the two lectures with food yet, let me know so that I can tell him to add you!!

Challenges for Locke's Idea of Property Rights

2010-10-20T09:01:00.005-04:00

Greetings,

In John Locke's Second Treatise, he argues for a certain conception of property rights and ethical ownership. You can read a relevant chapter of his work by clicking here. While there are several strong reasons to accept what Locke proposes, those who would do so ought to be able to deal with a few issues that may generate tension. That's not to say that these issues are insurmountable, per se, but rather than a coherent Lockean ought to be able to respond to them. I will try to mention a few possible issues below. Feel free to argue for your position or simply list your thoughts in the comments.

1. Assume that a corporation, Acme Co., has an employee, Moriarty, who is hired to cut down a tree that would potentially be in the way of the anvil plant that they are planning to construct. This land has never been claimed, and no one contests Moriarty's-- or, by extension, Acme's-- presence. Moriarty cuts down the wood. Per Locke, who owns the wood? Is Locke right?

2. Assume that Acme has entered into the music business. They hire a musician, Moriarty II, to produce music for them. A college student, Jack Sherman, downloads this music without the consent of Acme-- although, with the consent of Moriarty II. Per Locke, did Jack steal Acme's intellectual property? Did he steal Moriarty II's intellectual property? Is there such thing as intellectual property? Is Locke right?

3. Assume that Acme has generated a computer that strings together every possible combination of musical notes and lyrics-- and also strings together every possible combination of sequences of musical notes and lyrics, up to 45 minutes in length. It has an entire continent filled with speakers, stacked high to the sky, and each speaker plays a combination. Per Locke, does Acme thus own every song up to 45 minutes in length that had not been created before the computer did its work?

4. Assume that Acme has created biological life-- and it looks like a human, has the genetic composition of a human, and seems to age like a human. It was not contested that Acme owned the base materials it generated the biological lifeform, which it calls Moriarty IV, from. Per Locke, does it own that human? Is Locke right?

5. Assume that, while on the job, an employee, Moriarty V, dies. Acme immediately uses his body for lunchroom cafeteria meat. His relatives protest. Per Locke, did Acme have the right to Moriarty's body? Is Locke right?

Seven Motivations for Philosophizing

2010-10-06T08:42:00.003-04:00

Greetings,

I suspect that there are a vast multitude of reasons for the study and/or practice of philosophy. I thought it would be interesting to survey a few of the different approaches. In the comments, feel free to address any/all you would care to, as well as suggest additional motivations that I may have missed.

1. Edification
Those whose motivation is edification believe that philosophy can provide a sort of sustenance, whether for the mind or soul. They pursue it in hopes of an upbuilding, a strengthening, and/or and endowing that stems from their studies. An example of one who believes philosophy to be edifiying is Kierkegaard (who argued that Hegel, for example, was an excellent professor of philosophy but a poor philosopher, because there was no edification through his system).

2. To Discover Truth
Those whose motivation is to discover truth believe that, to quote Muldur from the X-Files (rock on), "the truth is out there". Whether metaphysics or ontology, they believe that arguments can-- in truth-- be sound, as opposed to merely valid, for there are concrete propositions that have a definite truth-value. It is possible to pursue edification but not truth, as I would argue that Nietzsche did. It is possible to pursue truth but not edification, as I believe Hegel did. An example of one who pursued philosophy to study truth is Hegel.

3. To affect policy/habits, and/or to better society.
Those whose motivation is to affect policy/habits, and/or to better society, believe that philosophical study and work can have tangible benefits. They believe that people can be served, and tangible, positive results brought forth, from such pursuits. It is possible to have this motivation but not pursue edification, such as those who disavow the soul but argue that agents can still be held accountable for their actions. Aristotle is an example of a philosophy with this motivation, and his primary concern was to affect social ethics through habituation.

4. To create "truth".
Those whose motivation is to create truth believe that "truthfulness" is intrinsically tied to perception, and one can actually modify the truthfulness of a statement by adjusting the perception of that statement. According to those who pursue philosophy to create "truth", humans define what does and does not have value and what that value/those values is/are. I believe that Foucault and Derrida are examples of philosophers with this motivation, although I only have a basic knowledge of them both.

5. Because it is interesting.
Those whose motivation is to study systems believe that philosophy is worth pursuing because it is interesting, regardless of whether or not it is edifying, a method of revealing truth, or et cetera. Some may pursue systematism, such as analytical logicians, while others may abstractly consider broad metaphysical issues. I might include Lewis Carroll in this category, although I'm sure that will be controversial (both his inclusion as a philosopher and the claim about his primary motivation).

6. To earn income.
Haha... I kid!

Seriously, though, there is money to be made via philosophy. Ranging from research into formal logic yielding jobs in IT to professorship, it's not a bad way to make a living. That being said, it's probably not the most efficient method of earning an income, but it could certainly be a secondary method. Unless you're someone like Saul Kripke, in which case you could probably focus on this and do quite well for yourself.

7. To have something to do.
Honestly, I believe that some people engage in philosophy because it keeps them from being bored. This does not mean that they find it interesting, but it can be used as a tool to abstract themselves away from reality and have one more habit to get through life. Call me crazy, but I have a secret (well, secret no more) hunch that Wittgenstein might fall into this camp. Feel free to reject that association, if you see fit.

An [Ontological?] Argument for Free Will

2010-09-24T14:42:00.003-04:00

Greetings,

I'm going to present to you an argument that human beings have free will. I have not seen this argument composed elsewhere, but if you uncover a similar argument from another source, I'd love to hear about it.

Here's how it will work. There are three "sets" of arguments. The first set has 5 premises, and should yield "C1"-- conclusion 1. The second set has 3 premises, and shoudl yielf "C2"-- conclusion 2. C1 and C2 should form an additional argument to yield C3. If you think my argument is wrong, it would be great for you to either attack one of the premises or argue that one of the conclusions do not follow from its respective premises. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

SET 1:
1. Either human beings can freely will or they cannot freely will.
2. If human beings cannot freely will, they either cannot will or they can will without freedom.
3. Human beings can will.
4. If a human being can freely will, we say that such a human being has "free will".
5. If a human being cannot will with freedom, we say that the human being is subject to "determinism".
C1: THUS, human beings either have free will or they are subject to determinism.

SET 2:
1. If human beings are subject to determinism, they perform the actions they perform but do not do so freely.
2. If one performs an action but does not do so freely, they do so because they were compelled.
3. If an entity is compelled to perform the action of evaluating an argument, they did so because they were compelled, regardless of beliefs about the validity of the argument.
C2: THUS, if an entity evaluates this argument to establish its validity, one was not compelled.

SET 3:
C1. Human beings either have free will or they are subject to determinism.
C2. If an entity evaluates this argument to establish its validity, one was not compelled.
C3: THUS, if an entity evaluates this argument to establish its validity, it did so with free will.

So, now we have C3: "If an entity evaluates this argument to establish its validity, it did so with free will". It's a conditional, and I'm fine with that. Let me ask you: did you evaluate my arguments to determine their validity? According to C3, if you cannot, you cannot reject arguments for free will. If you can, you have free will.

What are your thoughts? Is there a problem? Is it convincing, or do you find it lacking in some regard?

Naming Infinity

2010-09-13T20:38:00.007-04:00

That's the title of a book by Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor that I finished reading recently. It may be one of the most unusual books I've read, as it focuses on two topics--the mathematics of the infinite and heresy in the Eastern Orthodox Church--that are not typically associated with each other. The story is fascinating and covers the origins of set theory and its early development at the start of the 20th century by French mathematicians. According to the authors, the tendency in France toward positivism and Cartesianism contributed to a bias among French mathematicians against theories that could not be connected to physics. Accordingly, French mathematicians became reluctant to pursue the study of the transfinite. Russia, with its mystical orientation, and particularly what became the Moscow School of Mathematics were a more fertile ground for research in this area. Especially interesting is the role played by Pavel Florensky, a Russian Orthodox monk and mathematician. Florensky represents the link between the Moscow mathematicians, several of them faithful churchgoers, and an obscure sect, the Name Worshippers, within the Russian church. While the authors do not get into the details of the theology of the Name Worshippers, it becomes clear that their beliefs had an effect on the mathematical work of Florensky and perhaps the other Moscow mathematicians. After the revolution and with the growing oppression of the Soviet regime, the overt Christianity that informed these mathematicians' outlooks had to go underground. The exception was the fearless Florensky, who continued to wear his clerical robe even in the presence of leading communists like Trotsky. Florensky ended up in prison camps where he was tortured and eventually killed. The stories and personal travails of many of the other mathematicians are also sad and poignant. But in the midst of totalitarianism, a spirit of faith and mysticism continued to color the Moscow school even in the darkest periods.

The authors are right to conclude modestly that religion does not change mathematics. A Christian mathematician should come to the same conclusions as a positivist mathematician. But the spiritual and philosophical spirit that characterizes a culture can allow ideas to develop that may otherwise be neglected or overlooked. It seems that in this case, at least, it was religion rather than rationalism that proved a more fertile ground for the growth of scientific ideas.

Traversing the Maze of Free Will

2010-08-24T09:13:00.003-04:00

Arete's Editor-in-Chief, Andrea Lowry, sent me a link to an article by professor Galen Strawson of Reading University. Written for the New York Times, the article can be read by clicking here. It argues that one cannot be "ultimately responsible" for what one does, and that any actions will be "determined... by your genetic inheritance and previous experience." Bold statements, to be sure. He offers two arguments, the latter "expanded" from the former. Let's look at the former first:

(1) You do what you do — in the circumstances in which you find yourself—because of the way you then are.

(2) So if you’re going to be ultimately responsible for what you do, you’re going to have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are — at least in certain mental respects.

(3) But you can’t be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all.

(4) So you can’t be ultimately responsible for what you do.

Is his argument sound? It seems to have problems-- for example, the first premise begs the question, because it assumes that you do what you do because of "the way you are", which implicitly denies any sort of volition-- and responsibility, presumably, requires volition. I don't want to spend too much time on this argument, because Strawson seems to desire us to consider it in light of his expanded argument:

(a) It’s undeniable that the way you are initially is a result of your genetic inheritance and early experience.

(b) It’s undeniable that these are things for which you can’t be held to be in any way responsible (morally or otherwise).

(c) But you can’t at any later stage of life hope to acquire true or ultimate moral responsibility for the way you are by trying to change the way you already are as a result of genetic inheritance and previous experience.

(d) Why not? Because both the particular ways in which you try to change yourself, and the amount of success you have when trying to change yourself, will be determined by how you already are as a result of your genetic inheritance and previous experience.

(e) And any further changes that you may become able to bring about after you have brought about certain initial changes will in turn be determined, via the initial changes, by your genetic inheritance and previous experience.

I believe that Strawson errs in several of his premises. First, premise (a)-- that it is "undeniable that the way you are initially is a result of your genetic inheritance and early experience"-- is actually contradictory. The way you are initially (meaning, at the earliest moment of personhood) cannot result from earlier experience, which he said it does. Strawson might wish to make the conjunction apply only to post-initial status, but the premise loses its power, and it is clearly false that a person is how they are initially as a result of genetic inheritance (for example, because two individuals with the same genetic inheritance might not act the same way). The premise fails.

Premise (d) asserts that "both the particular ways in which you try to change yourself, and the amount of success you have when trying to change yourself, will be determined by how you already are as a result of your genetic inheritance and previous experience", but this to a large degree what needs to be proved. Strawson has constructed an elaborate format to beg the question, which is hidden behind a series of arguments whose foundation is problematic (the first premise). Of course, if Strawson had his way, his mistake would be seen as a result of experience and genetic inheritance. Personally, though, I think he should have known better.

Back to Business

2010-08-20T15:37:00.003-04:00

Monday August 23rd is the start of classes again at Berry College. We've been dormant on the blog for the summer, but with the beginning of the new semester it's time to get back to business.

One debt that I have to discharge now is to note the passing since my last post of one of my intellectual heroes, the great Martin Gardner (1914-2010). It is hard to describe the man in one word, but perhaps "polymath" is most appropriate. I wrote a post on his 95th birthday and discussed the influence that he had on me. A University of Chicago philosophy major, Gardner became the mathematics columnist for Scientific American and wrote prolifically on topics that included but also reached far beyond science, math, and philosophy. I especially appreciated his efforts to expose the frauds who founded and promoted various pseudo-scientific movements. Gardner was a much needed defender of reason and careful thinking. All should be grateful for his long and productive life.

Coffee Confessions

2010-04-13T01:11:00.001-04:00

Kind readers,

If you’ll allow, let me divulge a tad about my life. No, I will not bore you with some trivial private gossip or pent up angst and frustration about the woes of life or anything of that sort, but I would like to call your attention and get your reactions to a problem I’m dealing with: I can barely type the words, but I, regrettably, have lost my taste for coffee, and it is a sad, cold world without the brew.

This revelation will probably be better placed within the proper context. I was bred to drink this stuff. My parents are big coffee drinkers, and I was literally raised with the aroma of coffee abundant in the air and loved that smell, I’ve been told, as a very young child and have never stopped. In fact, at age four I pestered my parents so much one fateful day for a taste of their coffee that they allowed me to have a sip, thinking that, like a normal child, I would be utterly repulsed by the bitter taste (there’s never any added sugar or sweeteners in our coffee!) and give up on the drink till I got older. Well, I was not a very normal child. (Insert your own joke here about me still not being normal if you like!) To their surprise, or maybe dismay, I loved the coffee, and they were then somewhat forced to keep allowing me to have sips every now and then. When visiting either friends of my parents or my own friends’ parents as an elementary-aged child, I would often shock adults who’d ask what beverage I’d like (them expecting me to say Coke or juice) with the reply of coffee, and they’d undoubtedly proceed to question the kind of parents I had! And so began my love affair with the, to me, ineffably tasty drink.

You see, coffee for me was not about a caffeine-induced rush; in fact, it was no sort of stimulant at all, as it normally is for people. Instead of a jilting morning wake-up, coffee affected me in the reverse fashion: actually making me quite relaxed and much more focused, which is very useful as a student! But something terrible has happened! About three and a half weeks ago until this present day, my beloved coffee has not loved me back in return. It does not give those same fulfilling feelings nor taste as appealing, and the focus it once provided is gone, along with my longing for it.

I do not want the coffee any longer, but I want to want it.

In philosophy, this is known as a second-order desire: the desire to desire. This is the same feeling as the self-loathing drug addict who wants to refrain from his habit but cannot, or the unwilling antisocial person who desires to want companionship but does not actually posses that want – simply, their will is to want something other than that which they really want. A couple terms used above to describe these scenarios, “unwilling” and “the will,” are interesting here. What is it that is doing the willing and unwilling? What part of you wants and what doesn’t want?

For me, it is my mind that wants, but my body that does not. A certain event in my brain may be altered in some way to have a different effect, causing this lack of desire. But what was it that was doing the willing in the first place? Not, apparently, my mind or will. I had this craving that was brought on by something I didn’t will (though it was a bodily reaction of mine), and so it was out of my control and brought upon me. But this was far from a negative thing. Apart from just the satiation of the particular thirst, satisfying a longing of any sort, even an imposed craving, can be a great pleasure in and of itself. But now I’ve been “freed” from this craving, and yet am unsatisfied! Some will say that this is crazy: you had this thirst that you did not will and now that you’re liberated from it, you want it again? But it was not I, really, who willed the removal of the craving – again, something happened apart from my own willing to put me in this situation! I am no more free now if I did not will the abrupt cessation in the same way that I did not will the original craving.

It is strange to talk in this fashion for it is truly me – my will, maybe my mind? – who is doing the desiring and the desiring of the desire, but it is also me – my body, either in stomach or just in the brain – who is controlling it all. Perhaps willpower is not as powerful as we’d like. It seems odd that I at the same time both want and don’t want (and want to want and don’t want to want, ad infinitum), but that is the nature of the situation. As much fulfillment there is (or, was) from the coffee for what it did for me, and also the satisfying of the craving itself, am I yet irrational in my second-order desire? Ought I crave the craving, or be content coffee-need-less?

Hail to the Chief (A Charge to Philosophers)

2010-03-26T09:10:00.006-04:00

Officer elections were held last night, and I am pleased to say that the club is left in very capable hands; this is one of the first years where I feel that every officer is fully capable, responsible, and has a passion for what we do. Congratulations to those elected! Even though it's time for me to retire from my position as Editor-in-Chief (due in no small part to my upcoming graduation), I might continue to post on occasion as a Guest Writer; we shall see what happens.

At any rate, Andrea Lowry, Arete's new Editor-in-Chief, has been a poster for quite some time, and will do a great job running the blog. I'm sure that she will handle things very well, continue to innovate, and perhaps even recruit some new writers and commenters into the mix. Hopefully some of the new officers will even consider posting a bit!

So, thanks for reading my posts throughout the months. I've come a long way from those first few posts, and even managed to create a few that I am genuinely proud of.

I would challenge you, dear reader, to be active! Take charge! Write something, post something, comment on something. Your investment bears a causal relationship to your return, and the responsibility you assume bears a direct correlation with your investment. If you're not active in the club, come check out a meeting! If you're not an officer, but have some ideas, talk to an officer and see if you can get something started! And, if you've been blessed with the opportunity to be an officer, make the most of it-- I can assure you that, if you work hard and maintain a passion for what you do, it can be one of the most rewarding experiences throughout your entire college experience.

I humbly say that I have been blessed with many opportunities, and for them I am grateful. However, I firmly believe that I have pursued them, as best I could, to the furthest ends possible, and I do believe that I have made a long-term impact on the club, its members, and even myself. I'm sad that my time as President has drawn to a close, but I am proud of how I used the time I was given. New officers, don't stand by the sidelines; act! Take control! Use this time creatively and forcefully, because it is incredible how quickly it goes. Philosophia Religioque-- now the Berry Philosophical Society-- is a club, but it has the potential to subjectively be much more if you live up to it. I would dare say that we have done things of importance, of significance, and, odd as this may sound for some, there is contained within the potential for edification, and for glory.

It has been a glorious year indeed!

Please note that, unless otherwise indicated by Andrea, this post is ineligible for the Arete contest.

Happy News

2010-03-22T16:27:00.002-04:00

Some good news for philosophers!

Based on a recent study by psychologist Matthias Mehl, happier people tend to spend more time engaging in deep conversations and not very much on small talk. According to a New York Times article, Mehl proposes that the reason is two-fold: most of us enjoy social interaction and talking in general, and we also crave to find or unlock a sense of purpose or meaning in our lives. So by discussing with a partner questions like, “What does it all mean? Where did we come from? What is the best way to live a good life? Do I matter?” we satisfy a longing for connection with that other person, and also, in Mehl’s words, “manage to impose meaning on an otherwise pretty chaotic world.”

So it seems that perhaps you may be a happier person by discussing (or questioning) happiness itself –– or, in fact, its opposite: any “deep” topic will do. (This would make even the existentialists giddy in their angst!)

BBC: Pick and Choose Your "Fundamental Rights"!

2010-03-10T09:44:00.006-05:00

The BBC recently commissioned an "international polling firm" called GlobeScan to determine various public opinions on the internet and internet access. There were 27,973 participants across 26 countries, a sizable amount of which (14,306) had internet access at the time of taking the poll. For the report as it was made available to the public, please click the following link, noting that it will bring up a PDF file:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/08_03_10_BBC_internet_poll.pdf

Of particular interest to me are the responses to the following proposition: "Access to the Internet Should Be a Fundamental Right of All People." 50% of respondents strongly agreed, 29% somewhat agreed, 9% somewhat disagreed, 6% strongly disagreed, and 6% did not know or did not respond.

The normative nature of this question-- "should", rather than "is", seems odd to me, particularly concerning what is commonly meant by "fundamental". The US Supreme Court, in Roe v Wade (410 US 113) defined a "Fundamental Right" as a right that is "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" (see Section VIII for the source of the quote). Clearly, however, internet access did not exist at times when ordered liberty existed, and thus it is not implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. Even if it were the case, however, that internet access was a fundamental right (implicit in the concept of ordered liberty), I'm going to side with Kant and argue that "should" implies that it's possible that something may or may not be manifested. If I tell you that you should go to class, that implies the possibility of you not going to class. If a scientist states that a test should work, the implication is that the test might not work, given certain contingencies. I would not, however, state that the sum of two and two should be four; I would state that it is equivalent to four.

If this is correct, then one ought not (read: should not) claim that one should do something if that something is fundamental, because fundamental means implicit-- it is already contained within. If free speech is a fundamental human right, the question of whether or not it is one is moot. If internet access is implicit in the idea of ordered liberty, it is analytically contained within the idea-- even if one has not discovered it-- and there is no question of whether it should be. By analogy, one does not debate whether the sum of two and two ought to be equivalent to four; while one might debate whether the sum of two and two is equivalent to four, whether it ought to be is a moot question, because we are speaking analytically, in the context of a predetermined system. In the case of rights, the system is ordered liberty, according to the USSC. One might debate whether this system ought to be followed, but if one accepts the system, one by extension accepts that which is implicit in the system. Being implicitly contained follows from the system, and one cannot pick and choose what follows; if I choose the system of classical logic, I am stuck with [(not a) or (a)] being tautologically true. I can reject classical logic, but, if I do not, I cannot reject that which is implicitly contained, and thus the "should" question here is meaningless.

In conclusion, the pollsters ought to have asked if internet access is a fundamental right, not whether it should be. While it seems intellectually untenable to hold it as such, that sort of move seems far less problematic than the question of whether it should be one.

Philosophy: Rescuing Bad Theology

2010-02-22T10:42:00.004-05:00

On occasion, the tools that philosophy provides can be useful outside its normal practices; it can be not only intellectually satisfying, but edifying and far-reaching. Such an occasion arose this Sunday when a pastor at a church I attend (who has a Ph.D., by the way) made a very controversial claim: that Jesus made two inconsistent claims. He asserted that the following were inconsistent:

1. Whoever is not against us is for us (Mark 9:40)
2. He who is not with me is against me (Matthew 12:30)

The entire sermon was preached off the premise that these two were inconsistent; however, it struck me as incorrect, so I got to work. Let's simplify these things down a bit...

Let's call, "gender-neutral he who is against us", A, and "gender-neutral he who is for us/with us" F. We can simplify these premises to:

1. Whoever is not A is F.
2. Whoever is not F is A.
3. Not F and A at the same time.

Number 3 is a hidden premise here (but a noncontroversial one)that one cannot be A and F at the same time. Before get into the nitty gritty of how these are consistent, let's do one last bout of simplification. Let's call "negation", "not", and etcetera ~, like so:

1. If ~A then F
2. If ~F then A
3. ~(A and F)

Make sense? Good. Now let's show how they're consistent. With Premise 1, there are two possibilities: ~A is false (therefore A, Premise 1a) or F is true (Premise 1b). With Premise 2, there are two possibilities: ~F is false (therefore F, Premise 2a) or A is true (Premise 2b). So, we have four possible combinations of true values:

4. A (Premise 1a) and F (Premise 2a)
5. F (Premise 1b) and F (Premise 2a)
6. A (Premise 1a) and A (Premise 2b)
7. F (Premise 1b) and A (Premise 2b)

We are left with 4, 5, and 6 as consistent interpretations, but we still have to apply the hidden third premise: ~(A ^ F). It states that A and F cannot be true at the same time-- so, in each of those premises, either A is false or F is false (since they both can't be true at the same time).

4. A, F, and either [~A, contradiction] or [~F, contradiction]
5. F, F, and either [~A] or [~F, contradiction]
6. A, A, and either [~A, contradiction] or [~F]
7. F, A, and either [~A, contradiction] or [~F, contradiction]

What are we left with?

5. A is false, F is true
6. A is true, F is false.

Both of those are consistent. Lo and behold-- it is not inconsistent to say, "he who is not with us is against us" and "he who is not against us is with us"! I'm afraid to say that the pastor, here, built his argument on sand, and it took neither rain nor flood nor wind for it to fall down. I didn't tell him about the claims being consistent, but I certainly thought about it. At any rate, did the logic look sound? Anything confusing or need clarification? Disagree with my argument-- whether I properly assigned notation and whatnot?

The Immorality of Commonsensical Marriage

2010-02-08T16:16:00.002-05:00

(v1.3, with updates)

It's a return to Kierkegaard's Either/Or for this post, where we talk about marriage and pragmatism. For various and sundry caveats on my arguments concerning Kierkegaard's work, please check out my post here. Let me know if you need any clarification on source materials. It's going to be quite a challenge to consolidate about 85 pages of argument, but I'll do my best. Let's see how this works.

Let's assume you are married and I asked you: "why did you marry"? Kierkegaard's character, Judge William, argues-- quite well, I think-- that "it is always an insult to a girl to want to marry her for any other reason than that one loves her" (EOII 67). While he notes that there is "a multiplicity of altogether puny objectives, because they are not even laughable... for example, marrying for money, or out of jealousy, or because of the prospects, because there the prospect that she will soon die... I do not care to bring up all such things" (EOII, 80). However, he does explicitly address some more commonly given reasons.

~If you responded that you married "in order to contribute to the propagation of the human race", your response might be "both a very objective and a very natural reason", and yet it misses the point-- "such a marriage is just as unnatural as it is arbitrary" and there is no question that a man who marries a woman to "contribute to the propagation of the human race" has married for the wrong reasons (EOII 64).

~Judge William also argues it would be wrong to marry "to acquire a home" (EOII 70), to have people around so one is not bored and devoid of contact with others. If he "has become bored at home, has taken a trip abroad and become bored, has come again and is bored", he might long for marriage "for the sake of company" (ibid). Such a person "feels the emptiness of everything around him-- nobody is waiting for him when he is gone" (ibid). The Judge replies that "I have not married in order to have a home, but I have a home, and this is a great blessing" (EOII, 74). Such a person "always pleads that there is no one who is waiting for them, no one who welcomes them, etc.", but this reveals that "they actually have a home only when they think of being outside it" (EOII, 75)-- that is, one has encountered the "pain, sadness, and humiliation" or being "a stranger and alien in the world" (EOII, 77). Such a person "could not stand to see you wife... in dishabille [a state of debilitation], unless this costume were finery designed to please you" (EOII, 78), indicative of an underlying problem: "you will always be a stranger and an alien" (ibid). You would be regarded as "a welcome guest... you would be inexhaustible in attentiveness, inventive in all ways of delighting the family... it would be very lovely, would it not" (ibid). However, in the end, "no matter how proud you are, there is a humiliation here", because you would still be "alone in one's boat, alone with one's sorrow, alone with one's despair-- which one is cowardly enough to prefer to keep rather than submit to the pain of healing" (EOII, 77).

~Similarly, marriage for happiness or for sensuousness is problematic because it "seeks momentary satisfaction" (EOII, 20), and it causes one to think "that one can probably stand living together for some time, but it wants to keep an escape open if a happier choice comes along. It makes marriage into a civil arrangement; one needs only to inform the proper authority that this marriage is over and a new one has been contracted" (EOII, 22). This view of romantic love and marriage asserts, "I do not ask for so much, I am satisfied with less; far be it from me to demand that you go on loving me forever if you will just love me in the moment I desire it" (EOII, 21).

A person who "marries for this and that" reason is acting inappropriately; "commonsensical calculating" cannot determine whether two individuals ought to marry (EOII, 60). One might say that they have good intentions, but "the goodness of his [or her] objective [meaning, intention] is of no use, for the mistake is precisely that he had an objective" (EOII, 60). He asserts that "nothing else ever belongs to marriage but marriage's own 'why', which is infinite" (EOII, 58), for it is "sensuous but also spiritual, free but also necessary, absolute in itself and also within itself points beyond itself" (EOII, 57). Marriage's teleology (for the sake of simplicity, its destiny or goal) is in itself, internally.

What justifies, then, getting married, if not common sense rationality? Judge William (Kierkegaard's character, here) does not dispute the presence of many "hows"-- "how they are going to manage, how they are going to take care of the children" (EOII, 58) and etcetera. However, while he does not discredit these or downplay their importance, they are insufficient for justifying a marriage. He claims that "marriage can [justly] be undertaken with only one intention, whereby it is just as ethical as aesthetic, but this intention is immanent" (EOII, 66). The inwardness required by marital love has as its first principle" frankness, uprightness, openness on the largest scale possible", and "secretiveness here is its death" (EOII, 96). This is the first principle of love (ibid), and also the "life principle in marriage" (EOII, 106). A marriage is not justified by the "whats" of how well one can procreate, or be happy, or have a home. Rather, a marriage is justified for a man (and for his wife, if the appropriate pronouns are switched) when he says, "The primary question is not one of where I am going to find the money and at what percent but first and foremost is of my love, whether I have kept a pure and faithful covenant of love with her to whom I am united" (EOII, 113). Such a person "has the proper conception of who he is and what he can do, and only marriage gives the historical faithfulness that is every bit as beautiful as the knightly kind" (ibid). One who is in a justified marriage has an eternal love-- "the married man has not killed time but has rescued it and preserved it in eternity.... he solves the great riddle, to live in eternity and yet to hear the cabinet clock strike in such a way that its striking does not shorten but lengthens its eternity" (EOII, 126).

I want to close with a quote from the conclusion of the essay from which these sources are from-- "On the Aesthetic Validity of Marriage". He states, "Accept now, in well-prepared anticipation what is here offered to you as well tested. If you find it far too trivial to satisfy you, then see if it is not possible to prepare yourself better, see if you have not forgotten some precautionary measure" (EOII, 139). This topic is more difficult than romantic love to depict artistically or even through arguments, but "let your consolation be, as it is mine, that we are not to [merely] read about or listen to or look at what is the highest and the most beautiful in life, but are, if you please, to live it" (EOII, 126).

Some pre-SPC Thoughts on Value

2010-02-04T16:43:00.006-05:00

Just to get the proverbial ball rolling, here is a little bit on the nature of “value” for your consideration. If you like this and totally agree, or hate it and want to argue, or if it even sparks the merest passing interest, I invite you, dear reader, to join Philosophia Religioque one week from now, next Thursday night, February 11 for the Student Philosophy Colloquium!
So just to be fun, I want to present something perhaps extreme here. Many may think that, if presented the questions “What is ‘value’? What makes something ‘valuable’?” an answer like, “I think the concept of value is purely subjective,” would be a little controversial to say, that most people really believe and put great stock in, say, the value of their savings account. That to say that it is just a figment of your imagination, and that money is just green paper, would be a novel concept –– maybe not for us educated folk, but the others out there, wouldn’t they have some qualm with the notion that all value is subjective? I do not believe that it is necessarily the case. I think there are not a large amount of people who truly believe otherwise. Most will work within the system in any case, but relatively few have deluded themselves into thinking the numbers comprising their brokerage account translate into “real,” objectively quantifiable value. In our long and glorified American tradition, individualism and liberty (and plurality) of thought and belief is nothing new to us. Personalization, distinctiveness, and independence is common to our very nature. It is not surprising then that we think that “value” is as subjective a notion as religion, truth, and beauty, etc. It is not surprising for one to consider that “value” is what I make of it, or what society makes of it. “Man is the measure of all things” and we can say what is valuable and how much; it is also common to hear something analogous to a quote from Hamlet: “There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.” There is nothing valuable but thinking makes it so; value is in the eye of the beholder. Opinions make up the value of an object–– it’s all subjective.
Well, I want to shy away from that, for I think it’s much more exciting to do something less common and widely accepted. Instead of going the “value is objective” route, however, I will argue that “value” is non-existent, and hopefully you’ll see how this is different from it’s being considered subjective. Saying the proposition that “value is purely subjective” is not enough; I would deny inherent value entirely. That phrase itself, “inherent value,” doesn’t, in my opinion, even make sense. Nothing is valuable in and of itself –– there is nothing intrinsic to something called “value” that would exist in the fabric or quintessence of the thing. If we think of everything as having a platonic form, what is essential to that form, what is its essence, has nothing to do with some quantifiable “value.” That is completely apart from an object, like the form of a bottle of water, or from a concept, like the form of justice. “Value” is an empty idea that doesn’t really refer to anything. It is not something revealed or recognized, because it is not there to begin with.
This is different than saying that value is subjective, that we assign a value to some thing, or person, or idea, or action based on context and circumstance, based on its scarcity or our wants or needs. When we’re thirsty and then drink some water, someone might say that the water was very “valuable” to me then, because I was thirsty and I needed it. And because it was valued that specific amount at that specific time, but will surely not be the same for someone who is not thirsty, or even to you after your thirst is satisfied, value must be subjective or relative. And indeed we could say that even people could have a sort of quantifiable value – You value your best friend more than a complete stranger. What you mean is that you value what they mean to you, what they do for you and your life, and how they’ve influenced you or provided for you. People can make us happy, make life a better place, and some, will mean more than others. Does that mean that, because your value is subjective to my feelings or proximity to you, that you, maybe my enemy, as a person actually have less value based on my perception, that your value has more to do with others than with you yourself?
Making “value” subjective is like putting everything on a scale or, better, on a number line, so that it is a continuous measurement that could be positive, negative, or zero. I could say that, to me, this apple is z amount, whereas the color blue is this, and playing a game of tennis is that. But I cannot conceive of things having this idea of “value,” so that even if z amount is zero, it still by some strange way “has” this strange thing called “value.” In what way does it “have” it? Value is instead better thought of as nonexistent and neutral, which is not to say a numerical zero. There is again no thing we call “value” in the essence of something; it is just used in such a way in our language as to give the appearance that all things in space and time, and including space and time (“time is money,” right?), “have” it and that we can assign it to objects, actions, and ideas, like some other adjective like “dark,” “big,” or “just.” It is used as to give the appearance of what is in reality nonexistent, but still, this is a useful illusion we use. We can make normative claims as to what should be valued, and to what extent. It may be a needed term for society to function expediently and well, within a single society itself or in relation to others.
If a car x is worth a cost y to me, we’re using the idea of “value” primarily in reference to a monetary number, but can keep in mind the worth of transportation or good feelings of independence and whatnot, too, and add that in the calculation. What does that ultimate price represent? Maybe a sum of cash. And what is that? I’m no economist, but I guess money is supposed to be representative of other, concrete precious things. And what are they? A bar of gold is so valued not because of its color or use as a paper weight, but for its scarcity on the earth. It is rare; and so is each individual person, so we say they’re “invaluable.” But let’s say we really bought into the idea that gold was very valuable. Well, just for a quaint example, for believers of the Christian faith, in heaven gold is the new asphalt, that’s what the streets are paved with. And you can ask Midas or Silas Marner (major cool points to you if you actually know that allusion) what the real “value” of gold is. It seems an endless series of “valuables” to quantify everything: from an object to a person’s opinion to dollar sign to an amount of gold or some other resource to… what?
There is, ultimately, nothing inherent in something that makes it valuable. The idea of “value” does not refer to anything in existence that is anything more than an appearance we assign to things, actions, ideas, and people in our language and thought. If I am in some other universe where I experience the essence of a thing, and I do not see it per say, so that it is not beautiful or ugly, and I do not have any sense of feeling, so that it is not pleasant or painful, there just is the essence of the object by itself without any other use or context for it, there would simple not be a “value” that I’d experience (or give it), because value does not exist. If you were to experience a tree, say, in its essential form, apart from your own senses, and I asked you, “What is the inherent darkness of the tree?” You couldn’t answer. So too do things lack some notion of “inherent value,” if I asked you the “value” of that tree, because it does not exist. There is neither darkness nor value to it. That sole essence of an object does not even have a “value” of zero, but no value whatsoever.
What do you think? If this has been at all enjoyable or thought-provoking, I invite you to let those thoughts marinate for the next week, and then come and join us for the SPC on Thursday, February 11. Hope to see you!

Be Good for Goodness’ Sake?

2010-01-30T21:49:00.004-05:00

I’m sentenced to death. Let’s say it’s because of a terminal disease and there’s the certainty that I’ll suffer a miserable, agonizing, slow demise. I’ve done nothing great in my life. I won’t leave behind any piece of me except what others’ memories may tell; no great writings, inventions, ideas; no children or spouse whose lives I’ve touched. As I’m lying on my deathbed, with my final, piercing gasps of breath, my life might, as the cliché goes, “flash before my eyes.” Will I be comforted by the thoughts of what I’ve done, or be sorry for all I haven’t? My reputation means nothing to the “me” there is once I’m buried. There’s little condolence to think that, if I’ve been good enough, at least my funeral will be well-attended and some people might be sad for a while. On occasion, they’ll say they miss me. Maybe even think back to the good times we had, or, if I’d been an especially important figure, write about me. And so what? What is bitter-sweet nostalgia, or fame and glory, or anything, to me in the end?
When your body goes into the earth, and they speak of you as such, as your “remains,” what of you really remains –– is your “self” as dead as your flesh? There’s your memory, belonging to others, the fading, abstract “remains,” and then also your body, the also fading, but slightly more concrete “remains.” The graveyard is piled high with those who were once important, and not; those who were loved and loved in return, and those who weren’t and didn’t; the virtuous, and the not. All come to the same fate. We leave behind on a stone slab a few scribbles to differentiate us from the countless others: our name and two dates separated by a line. A mere line! Maybe just a dash, really. And that’s our whole life, our existence, and experiences, summed up between two numbers.
What if that didn’t have to be the end of the story? What if we could pass on and then hear, “but wait, there’s more!” Maybe we have an eternal soul, and maybe there’s an afterlife after all. Would knowing that influence our actions on this earth? Does one act more virtuously or less if he believes there is life beyond this one, and should he? Little is certain in life, but dying is. While I’m not advocating becoming death-obsessed, I think we must wryly accept death as a fact of life, and only then can we master the art of living well. If we believe that death is the final end, that there is nothing beyond this life, what is the effect on our ethics?
We can never know that there is going to be more, but what we can know, and maybe the only thing, is that we exist (what existence is and what it is to “know” are tricky things in epistemology, but that’s not for this post). The only thing we’re assured is the present, and the knowledge that what we have in this present will not last. Actions reflect who we are, so do they become more important in light of an eternity, or less?
I’m tempted to say that I’m less virtuous if I believe there’s nothing beyond this life. Being a goody-two-shoes or actually doing great and worthy things means being admired, loved, and respected for a while. There is the possibility of “living on” by example though history, but that seems like weak incentive to me to sacrifice the only life I’m assured if it means constantly doing things I don’t want to do and aren’t in my immediate self-interest. I’m less likely to adhere to societal constructs if it’s better for me that I don’t and I know that my actions don’t, in the end, mean anything more than what they can do for me individually, in the here and now. Retaining liberty by staying out of jail is worth ensuring, of course, but anything beyond that is up for grabs. Actions, and life, ultimately become all that’s important; they also become completely unimportant too. All that I do is really all that matters, and that idea leads to some not so happy places if we want. I can strive to do my best, or to do anything else really, and it has no supreme meaning for me as a person with a soul if it really only has earthly meaning for me as an individual product of society.
We can say that. However, if we think there’s nothing more, no Supreme Reality or Ultimate Existence, or eternal damnation or eternal life, we could also choose another way. We can take it that, if this is it, our actions and character is all that much more important for their finality. We can choose to make our lives, instead of insignificant, meaningful and momentous, and cherish our short time, and seek to be and to do good, for there will be no second chance. To say, I know that this is all I have so I will make the most of it. I will choose to be happy knowing that I only have one shot at this life business, and that I did with it all that I could, even if there’s nothing more.
If, instead, there is an afterlife, and/or we do have eternal souls, this too would influence our course of actions, and there’s a world of interesting possibilities for that, but I’ll stop here for now. And, well, if there is life beyond this one, all I can say is that I hope there are the following things: Music, Love, and, of course, Baseball (but without the Yankees). So what do you think: Would the belief that there is no Great Beyond be a positive encouragement or a detriment to the common good, morality, and ethics?

Sherlock Holmes: Not a Detective?

2010-01-29T13:19:00.004-05:00

Imagine that an evil sophist named Moriarty came and asked you the following question:

"I've heard that Sherlock Holmes was not a dentist; is it true that he was, instead, a detective?"

You are then faced with a conundrum. On the one hand, we would tend to say that Sherlock Holmes was not a dentist; he was a detective. However, if we affirm that Sherlock Holmes was a detective, we also affirm that Sherlock Holmes "was"-- that is, there was actually a "Sherlock Holmes". If his name refers only to the character of Sherlock Holmes, the position is not salvaged, because the "character" of Sherlock Holmes was not a detective; only those who actually exist can be detectives (so, Santa Claus is not a detective any more than he is a philanthropist), and as the "character" of Sherlock Holmes is not a real person-- merely a literary device-- he cannot be a detective.

One might attempt to salvage Holmes' professional status by adding a modifier: "[In the context of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories], Sherlock Holmes was a detective". While this seems a clever solution, it might not be sufficient to overcome the problem of reference. In the story, "The Sign of the Four", Sherlock Holmes "is" a detective. What does "Sherlock Holmes" refer to? Is it a detective? Yes, that seems to be the case. So, then, what does the modifier, [In the context of a story], actually mean?

It's an interesting question, in part because we assume that the context of a story is, generally, not a subset of our own context. If this were not the case, works of fiction whose context directly contradicted our own context would be problematic; a world where witches can fly on broomsticks would be false, as opposed to merely fictional. And it should be prima facie obvious that our world is not a subset of a fictitious world. Therefore, the context of a story is not a subset of the real-world context, and vice versa.

However, if Sherlock Holmes was a detective in the context of a story, and that context isn't a subset of our own, we return to Moriarty's challenge: "I've heard that Sherlock Holmes was not a dentist; is it true that he was, instead, a detective?"

We would, then, be forced to respond to Moriarty by stating: "No, Sherlock Holmes was not a detective; neither Sherlock Holmes, nor the character of Sherlock Holmes, exists. However, in the context of the stories, Sherlock Holmes was a detective, and existed. This context, however, does not posit any actual existence of Sherlock Holmes, which would suggest that he was therefore not a detective".

Boo hiss, Moriarty. You've presented us with a conundrum, and it seems rational to assume that we must deny Mr. Holmes' professional credentials, even as a character. Do you agree? Disagree? Think there's a flaw in the problem or in the argument? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Graphic Novel Pseudo-Review: Logicomix

2010-01-15T09:16:00.006-05:00

Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth was written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou. It tells about part of the life, ideas, and effects of Bertrand Russell and some of his writings, particularly Principia Mathematica. Common themes that are dealt with include the relation between logicians and madness (and whether there is a causal connection between the two), the arrogance of ignorance about mathematics, and the futility of systematic philosophy.

I call this a pseudo-review because it is not a legitimate review in any meaningful sense. I have only read one other graphic novel before (Bone, which, though it is phenomenal, is quite different in terms of content and intent from Logicomix), so don't know much about the medium. I haven't read a biography of Russell, either, so I can't confirm the historical accuracy of the work. Clearly, I am unqualified to write an actual review... so, what qualifies me to write a pseudo-review?

Well, I have some exposure to logic, meta-logic, and the Russell Paradox (and a few other issues the book raises). I have a strong interest in the topics, and a desire to learn more. I was sparked by the book to do some more research and learn a bit about his life and the lives of those around him. And, perhaps just as important, I appreciate good books.

This was a pretty good book. The reader is told, to some degree, why he or she should care about Russell's life, given a reasonable setting for his life story to be told, and treated to a clever mix of wit and wisdom. I'm led to believe that it is not entirely historically accurate, but then, it doesn't claim to be-- it's fairly explicit about its status as a storytelling device first and foremost. The narrative was fairly gripping and, although mostly predictable in content, was more or less unpredictable in execution. The reader knows at the outset that Russell shall find his way at the end of the book to a certain status, because he is introduced as bearing that status, but the path to get there is communicated vibrantly and through pretty great storytelling.

There are a few problems, however. In my opinion, this is not a work for readers unfamiliar with logic and/or modern analytic philosophy. If you did not have a background in logic or computer science, you would...

1. Be unable to identify figures, such as Wittgenstein and Frege, with respect to their actual significance; they would likely appear as mere caricatures.

2. Be unclear about some of the actual arguments-- for example, while the authors admirably attempt to explain the effects of set theory on infinite sets with the classic hotel-room example, I myself was confused-- and I knew how it worked! If a reader without prior exposure to infinite sets, much less set theory, read the explanation, I'm fairly confident that they would likely be more perplexed by the end than they were at the beginning. I may be incorrect, though.

3. Be uncertain why Russell matters. [SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD! TREAD LIGHTLY!] The authors seem fairly dismissive about Russell to me, and reduce him in the end to being a Subjective-Responsibility-Drone. While he's presented as having done a great job of tearing down mathematics, we're lead to believe that he was unable to add anything new to the conversation (Principia Mathematica was moot when it was published, as the story goes), and we're not lead to believe, at least as far as I gathered from my initial reading, that he had any longlasting positive contribution to philosophy.

Additionally, the madness/logic debate is tossed around a bit, but not very convincingly argued-- there's some promising moments throughout the work, but don't expect any masterful resolution or innovative views on the issue.

However, don't let me discourage you; despite its problems, Logicomix is a great work, and I really did enjoy it! I read the entire thing during a single, several-hour sitting at a fast food restaurant, and really enjoyed it. If nothing else, it taught me a little about Russell's life and sparked my interest to do more research outside of the book.

Plus, it was an enjoyable book. And that's saying something, too.

Allah©

2010-01-07T09:56:00.013-05:00

An unusual legal dispute has emerged in Malaysia recently about whether non-Muslims may use the word "Allah" to refer to God. The Malaysian government contends that the word is strictly Islamic and may only be used by Muslims, not by the minority religious communities of Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus in the country. The government argues that use of "Allah" in non-Muslim publications will confuse Muslims and presumably make them more likely to convert to other religions. A Catholic publication challenged this prohibition and the Malaysian High Court has ruled in favor of the publication. "Allah" is the English transliteration of the Arabic word for God, and both Christian and Jewish speakers of Arabic generally use it to refer to "their" God. The term entered into the Malay language with the arrival of Arab traders and one report I read claimed that there is no other recognized word in Malay for God. Some people contend that Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship the same God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But that's not so clear. What are the identity conditions that can be used to determine that my God is the same as your God? For example, most Christians think that God consists of three persons and that one of the persons is the Son of God. Muslims generally consider these beliefs to be both polytheistic and unacceptably anthropomorphic. If there is such radical disagreement about the nature of God, would it not make more sense to say that Christian and Muslims worship two different beings? Neither being might exist for all we know! In any event, maybe it would make sense to reserve "Allah" for the Muslim God (except that Christian Arabs may protest that they were using the word first).

Kierkegaard on the Self

2009-12-10T14:29:00.002-05:00

Greetings,

Well, it's time to talk about Kierkegaard's ontology of the self. What is a person? What is the reference of the word "I"? Once again, we are going to be referencing The Sickness Unto Death. Let's actually start with the first line in Part One.

"A human being is spirit" (XI 127). So far, so good: If [Human] Then [Spirit]. "But what is spirit? Spirit is the self". Sounds like begging the question, eh? What is the "self"?

"The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or it is the relation's relating itself to itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation's relating itself to itself" (ibid).

Sounds a little more convoluted; let's see if we can make some sense of that. So, in a human, there is a relation. I'll talk in a minute about what the relation itself is, but, for now, just remember that there exists a relation X. If that relation is capable of self-awareness or apperception, and actually does so, it has a spirit and a self. Thus, the following conditions are necessary (and are probably, although not necessarily, sufficient) for having a "self":

1. They must possess relationship X (which, once again, will be defined below).
2. They must actively apperceive X.

Kant's account of pure apperception is likely what Kierkegaard had in mind, here. Consider, for the sake of simplicity, apperception to be self-knowledge. If ([Zach possesses relationship X] AND [Zach apperceives X]), Then [Zach has a self/spirit].

What is relationship X? The relationship is a "synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity" (ibid). Consider my discussion of freedom (possibility) and necessity from my last post on Kierkegaard. Mere animals do not possess the synthesis of any of those; they exist through pure necessity, finitude, and temporal elements. They lack the necessary relationship to be spirit. Even if they apperceive themselves, they are entities with minds-- which perhaps ought to be respected-- but are not actually selves/spirits, in the technical sense.

There's all sorts of places that the discussion could go from here, but I wanted to start out with a small step. That only touched on the first five-ish sentences of the work, but it's not a bad thing, necessarily, to isolate a fundamental argument and work from there. Hopefully, my post on necessity/possibility will help to dispel fears of question-begging about the nature of the relationship; the other two forms, eternal/temporal and infinite/finite, are also dealt with and, depending on what people are interested in, I'd be glad to post about whatever there's a desire for.

Why We Shouldn't Give Christmas Gifts

2009-12-09T11:57:00.003-05:00

Here's a very interesting interview with the author of Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays.

There are several good points of discussion for you to think about this Christmas season. While you hurry around the winter wonderland with all the hustle and bustle of buying bountiful gifts, roasting chestnuts on an open fire, dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh, and giving all the necessary tidings of comfort and joy, consider how you're buying the love and good favor of others to stave off your need of companionship and affirmation as a good (or somewhat decent) friend or family member...
Or maybe not!

~ Merry Christmas

Kierkegaard on Necessity, Possibility, and Despair

2009-12-04T13:02:00.006-05:00

In The Sickness Unto Death, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard argued at length about despair, the self, and "sin". He argues that humans have "the task of becoming itself in freedom," and both "possibility and necessity are equally essential to becoming" (XI 148). If a person has one but not the other, that individual is in despair. What is meant by these words, and how do they relate?

The necessity of the self refers to what the self already is; the possibility of the self refers to the task one has of becoming oneself. Necessity serves as "the constraint in relation to possibility" (ibid). So, one ought to become oneself(possibility), but one ought not disregard who they already are (necessity). For now, I'm not going to talk about what "the self" actually is; rather, let's talk about what happens if one has an overabundance of possibility or necessity in one's life.

If humans were radically free (as the existentialists, a group I would probably choose not to associate Kierkegaard too closely with), and humans were all possibility with no necessity, "the self becomes an abstract possibility; it flounders in possibility until exhausted but neither moves from the place where it is nor arrives anywhere" (XI 149). This results in possibility seeming "greater and greater to the self; more and more it becomes possible because nothing seems actual. Eventually everything seems possible, but this is exactly the point at which the abyss swallows up the self". After awhile, possibilities "follow one another in such rapid succession that it seems as if everything were possible, and this is exactly the final moment, the point at which the individual himself becomes a mirage" (ibid).

What is missing in a life lived in pure possibility, without necessity or actuality playing a vital role? It is "the power to obey, to submit to the necessity in one's life, to what may be called one's limitations. Therefore, the tragedy is not that such a self did not amount to something in the world; no, the tragedy is that he did not become aware of himself, aware that the self he is is a very definite something and thus the necessary" (ibid). Through this, one loses oneself. There are multiple manifestations of this sort of imbalance, but Kierkegaard identifies the two primary ones as desiring/craving and the melancholy-imaginary. The former involves one chasing possibilities at the expense of who he is, of his necessity. The latter involves one anxiously pursuing a single possibility at a time until he has been led so far away from himself that his is a victim of the anxiety he employed.

The second possibility, that necessity belongs to the self but possibility no longer does, has two possible instantiations: "everything has become necessary" or "everything has become trivial" (XI 152). The former option is held by determinists and fatalists, who Kierkegaard compares with King Midas: he "starved to death because all his food was changed to gold" (ibid). He argues that, "if there is nothing but necessity, man is essentially as inarticulate as the animals" (XI 153). One cannot input or shape themselves, one is as one is, and thus one despairs.

If one has an overabundance of necessity in accordance with the second option, wherein "everything becomes trivial", then one has a "philistine-bourgeois mentality" (ibid). Such a person "lacks every qualification of spirit and is completely wrapped up in probability, within which possibility [which cannot be altogether exterminated] finds its small corner" (ibid). He or she "lives within a certain trivial compendium of experiences as to how things go, what is possible, what usually happens" (ibid). If imagination does not "raise him higher than the miasma of probability", giving him hope and fear, "the philistine-bourgeois mentality thinks that it controls possibility, that it has tricked this prodigious elasticity into the trap or madhouse of probability" (XI 154).

Kierkegaard notes the consequences of each element of the imbalance: "the person who gets lost in possibility soars high with the boldness of despair; he for whom everything becomes necessity overstrains himself in life and is crushed in despair; but the philistine-bourgeois mentality spiritlessly triumphs".

The conclusion? Embrace necessity; you are who you are. You have limits. Know what makes you yourself, and know yourself fully. However, know also who you are (this implies a goal or end for your person), and acknowledge, through hope, faith, and fear, that you can become as you ought to become.

Sex and Plato

2009-11-30T18:53:00.008-05:00

The November 30 issue of the New Yorker has an interesting article about the case of Caster Semenya, the phenomenal South African runner who won the 800 meter title at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. Semenya's victory has since been overshadowed by a controversy over the runner's identity. Semenya competed in the women's race but there are many who claim that she is not a woman. She possesses many of the features normally associated with males. As a result Semenya has been subject to humiliating scrutiny and examination in an attempt to verify her sex. Add to the mix racial and class issues (Semenya is black and from one of the poorest regions of South Africa) and we have the makings of a very complicated and sensitive story.

The New Yorker article poses some questions about philosophy and the metaphysics of sex categorization as well. Dr. Alice Dreger, a bioethcs professor at Northwestern University, is quoted as saying that there is no solution to the question of what the difference is between a man and a woman: "Science is making it more difficult [to solve], because it ends up showing us how much blending there is and how many nuances, and it becomes impossible to point to one thing, or even a set of things, and say that's what it means to be male." And Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, who teaches biology at Brown University, is reported to say "there are philosophers of science who argue that when scientists make categories in the natural world--shapes, species--they are simply making a list of things that exist: natural kinds. It's a scientist as discoverer. The phrase that people use is 'cutting nature at its joint.' There are other people, myself included, who think that, almost always, what we're doing in biology is creating categories that work pretty well for certain things that we want to do with them. But there is no joint."

The metaphor of carving at the joints comes from Plato's Phaedrus, and raises the specter of Platonic realism. On the allegedly Platonic view, biologists and other scientists are discovering categories like "male" and "female" or "mammal" and "virus." The contrasting view, often called "nominalism" says that the categories are created by humans based on their own interests and needs. A pragmatic view of this sort is defended in the American philosopher W.V. Quine's paper "Natural Kinds."

While recognizing that a brief quotation in a magazine intended for a lay audience cannot capture the nuances of Fausto-Sterling's thought, I nevertheless feel compelled to point out that the dichotomy drawn in the article oversimplifies matters. First, the existence of "problem cases" of people who are difficult to categorize by sex does not entail that the concept of maleness or femaleness is a human creation. Among the responses available to the realist are epistemicism (our inability to categorize is the result of our own cognitive limitations) and anti-dualism (there is at least a third category of "intersexual" people). But also Fausto-Sterling seems to set up a false dichotomy. It is doubtless true that people categorize according to their needs and interests. It does not follow that the resulting categories are more like inventions than discovered features of reality.

Neverthless, the case of Caster Semenya raises important issues about the nature of identity and scientific understanding. Philosophers of science are well placed to contribute constructively to the discussion of these issues.

Ontological Arguments for the Existence of God: Overview

2009-11-17T11:54:00.002-05:00

Greetings,

With the topic of Monday's meeting turning to ontological arguments for the existence of God, I though it would be helpful to provide a little bit of background and explain what is meant by such arguments. I'll number the things I say in case people want to address or take issue with specific parts. As always, if I got something wrong, please let me know.

What Is an Ontological Argument for God's Existence?
1. Such arguments seek to show one of two things: either that God necessarily exists, or it is impossible that God does not exist (which is slightly different, but often sufficient to establish that God exists).
2. "Ontology" refers to "being" or "existence". Such arguments do not necessarily need to show that one knows God exists or believes in God; this is an "Ontological" argument, not an "Epistemological" argument.
3. Ontological arguments are, when argued correctly, deductively valid. This means that, in all possible outcomes, if the premises are true, then the conclusion (the existence of God) is necessarily true. There is no possible way that the premises could all be true at the same time and yet the conclusion be false. Thus, to attack an ontological argument you must deny one of the premises. Part of the goal is to make the premises as noncontroversial as possible, which strengthens the argument.

What Are Some Historical Examples of Ontological Arguments?*
1. Dr. Papazian has actually done what I believe is some fairly novel research on Diogenes of Babylon's ontological argument. This is not typically considered the earliest ontological argument, and I know relatively little about it, but it certainly deserves mentioning. If Dr. Papazian wants to share a bit, I'll certainly edit this point.
2. The earliest commonly-accepted ontological argument was given by St. Anselm in Proslogion. His argument was one of "reductio ad absurdum"-- that is, one would derive a contradiction if God does not exist; thus, God exists.
3. Descartes took the next major leap forward; I believe that he put forward three ontological arguments in his Meditations on First Philosophy. It's been awhile, but I'm fairly certain that he did not argue that it is is impossible that God not exist; he actually argued for the "positive" existence of God.
4. Leibniz thought that Descartes did a good job, but failed to show that the idea of a being with all possible perfections (i.e. God) was necessarily non-contradictory. He didn't establish any new ontological arguments, but he thought that he filled in a whole in Descartes' arguments.

And, after Leibniz, things go in all sorts of different directions.

Who Attacked Ontological Arguments?
1. Hume thought that he could negate the possibility of an ontological argument by asserting that a priori truths are necessarily trivial/analytic. As ontological arguments depend on a priori truths, they were therefore trivial and did not tell anything new about reality.
2. Kant had a particularly scathing critique of ontological arguments. He asserted that existence is not a predicate, not a "simple property" as Leibniz might have stated. I'm actually going to leave that alone for now-- to explain it would be another whole blog post. However, as far as I'm aware, his is the only objection to ontological arguments which is universally accepted to be problematic for ontological arguments by philosophers, even if it might be surmountable.

So, there you go. Interested? Shoot me (Zach Sherwin) an email and come to the meeting on Monday evening at a local restaurant! I can send you details, if you're interested. Lastly, if you want to read my own rendition of the ontological argument, check out my post here.

Have a great day!

*Please note that I am no expert on any philosophical subject, and do not claim any sort of authoritative knowledge. I wouldn't cite this post in a paper, if I were you. I'm sure that my posts are filled with minor errors and oversights. If there's anything blatant or particularly malicious in nature, let me know and I'll do my best to resolve it. Thanks!

Hobbes in Hebrew

2009-11-16T10:08:00.003-05:00

Interesting discussion at the New York Times website about the recent publication of the first complete translation of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan into Hebrew.

Who Says Philosophy is Useless?

2009-11-15T17:37:00.002-05:00

My favorite part of newspapers are the obituaries. It is, of course, sad to read about deaths, but at the same time one learns about the accomplishments of lives that otherwise do not make the news. Such was my experience this morning when I read the obituary of Dr. Amir Pnueli, a professor of computer science at New York University. Born in Israel in 1941, Dr. Pnueli was a pioneer in the field of temporal logic, the branch of logic that studies inferences that involve propositions that change their truth values over time. Dr. Pnueli was interested in solving a very practical problem: as computers have become more complex, it has also become harder to verify that the calculations that the programs are performing were correct. To solve this problem, Dr. Pnueli drew on the work of a twentieth-century philosopher and logician, Arthur Prior. Prior was the founder of what at the time was called tense logic, though Prior was interested in using the logic to answer philosophical questions about free will and the metaphysics of time. But Dr. Pnueli realized that Prior's system can be applied to solve the problems facing computer scientists. He published his results first in a 1977 paper and his work earned him the prestigious Turing Award in 1996. As Kenneth Chang, the New York Times obituary writer, notes, "chip makers now use software employing temporal logic to verify that millions of transistors are calculating as designed, and programmers use temporal logic to minimize the number of bugs in their software." So your reading of this blog ultimately depends on work that a philosopher did in the middle of the last century.

I extend my condolences to Dr. Pnueli's family and colleagues. Perhaps an appropriate tribute will be for me to answer the question, "What is philosophy good for?" with his name.

Logic and the Rules of the Internet

2009-11-13T10:55:00.003-05:00

Greetings,

While there not, of course, official rules of the internet, there exists a set of unofficial rules; not all of them originated on the internet, but many are constantly referenced. I'm not going to post the full list here-- not all of them are likely to be appropriate for a blog post-- but some of them are at least mildly philosophically interesting.

The first rule we'll look at is the Danth's Law. This law states, "if you have to insist that you've won an internet argument, you've probably lost badly.” In other words, if it is not obvious and noncontroversial that you have proven your point, and yet you state that you have proven your point, the odds are good that you have already shown the weakness of your argument, and are past the point of no return. If the validity of your argument is not obvious from the argument itself, it is invalid; if your argument's form and content is insufficient to have achieved validity, asserting that it is valid will make it necessarily invalid.

Certain rules are numbered, due to their longstanding solidarity with message-board subculture, such as "Rule 14": "Do not argue with trolls-- it means they win". A "troll" is one who posts intentionally inflammatory material and/or responses, often ignoring basic logical principles such as validity, coherency, and relevancy. No logical argument, no matter how carefully constructed, can be valid if one denies the basic axioms of the logical system one works in. Trolls, who often make fallacious arguments such as Reductio ad Hitlerum (described below), do not hold the philosophical motivations of the pursuit of truth or even coherency; rather, they seek either to win or to create a reaction. Thus, do not engage in a philosophical debate with one who does not act in good faith; you won't be productive, and will probably just end up frustrated.

Another rule is Godwin's Law, originally stated by Mike Godwin in 1990, which claims that, "as a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." The reason? Across the internet, people are less personally accountable for their statements, and thus are less likely to concede to their opponents' arguments. Thus, a universal absolute is difficult to find. While individuals certainly exist who, online, would deny that the Nazis were in fact "evil", it is one of the few relatively non-controversial premises in an online argument. Therefore, it is likely to be used when there is no common ground.

A closely related rule was actually stated by Leo Strauss in the 1950's, which is Reductio ad Hitlerum, which argues that, "If Hitler liked P, then P is bad, because the Nazi's were bad", or, "If Nazis liked P, then P is bad, because the Nazis were bad." This actually seems to be a problem with the "is" function-- the "is of identity" versus the "is of predication. "Bachelors are unmarried men" is an example of the "is of identity"-- A is the same as B. "Nazi's are bad", however, is the "is of predication"-- B is merely a property of A. The Reductio ad Hitlerum argument states, [Nazis=Bad], [Nazis=(One who likes P)], therefore [(One who likes P)=Bad]. The arguer is mistaking the "is of predication" to be the "is of predication" (and vice versa). Some philosophical training on the differences between the two should be sufficient to show why such arguments are fallacious.

I want to credit an excellent article by the Telegraph for compiling many of these "laws", as well as several others I did not talk about. If you're interested, definitely worth a read. As well, a simple search for "rules of the internet" will yield a fairly solid list, with some minor variations depending on whose list it is.

Freedom is Not Free

2009-11-07T23:33:00.003-05:00

Thus far this semester, we have written a couple posts that have made a few cracks in the surface of the free will/ fatalism debate. The first post was Zach Sherwin’s Ontological Argument Against Fatalism, and then a few weeks ago I presented Chrysippus’ views on Free Will and Responsibility. While we’ve by no stretch been exhaustive here of course, perhaps we’ve piqued your interest a bit with what we have covered. If so, I’d like to continue the discussion here with something that’s been rattling around in my brain for a while, so let’s ensue on a separate and all-new branch with an aspect of the quandary that’s yet to be mentioned.

Throughout the rest of the post, I’ll refer to God – for the sake of argument and of brevity for this blog, assume I mean the traditional Judeo-Christian God. Here’s the question: Is human free will incompatible with God? If humans have complete free will, meaning that they have real freedom in choice and action all the time, then God would necessarily not interfere with human will. But does it follow that God then can’t influence free will? Even if we say, he could but he chooses not to, does his ability there, even as just an option, mean freedom is somehow diminished? In the ultimate and complete free will scenario, would God’s mere ability to alter, influence, or affect our decisions mean that, really, we’re only as free as long as he allows, that freedom is more dependent, then shadowy and illusory, than we think it is? Humans then have freedom when God chooses not to exercise his ability, meaning that he could, at his choosing, decide to step in and affect human free will as soon as he wants to. He is all-powerful, so of course God has every ability to affect (and remove) free will; even if he has decided not to do so, especially in respect to human choice in salvation, he, in theory, could, right?

This poses problems for some – they would say that we then cannot have free will at all. Consider their argument: At that moment when we say God can affect human free will, it no longer exists. More deductively: If there exists the possibility that humans have free will – that what and how humans choose or decide is not able to be influenced, altered, or changed by God – then God can’t affect human free will. But God is all-powerful, so he can affect free will. Therefore, free will is incompatible with God and his omnipotence.

But is this necessarily true? Isn’t it sufficient that he doesn’t routinely affect free will, even though he can? I would argue that their claim assumes too much. Free will isn’t necessarily defined as only holding true if God can’t affect free will. He may have chosen not to, to preserve free will and free choice, to let human beings choose what they will, including sin and salvation. But God is still omnipotent; he could interfere and may and may have, or he may not. In any case, the mere fact that he can affect free will doesn’t mean it necessarily cannot exist. Here I’m not arguing for or against free will per say, or addressing free choice in terms of salvation in the Calvinism v. Arminianism predestination realm (though this does bear worthy and interesting implications in apologetics), but I’ve attempted to prove that at least the one claim above that’s put forward by some is too weak to be accepted, being flawed by definition, and that it does not conclusively or deductively prove free will’s incompatibility with God’s sovereignty.

So there you have part three of this semester’s posts on fatalism and free will. Whether this is all really for naught, you may be the judge (if you can). Perhaps this is truly a “timeless” dilemma, one flawed from before its beginning. But give us your thoughts, if you so choose.

Kiekegaard, Art, and the Aesthete

2009-11-04T15:51:00.002-05:00

Greetings,

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher and, perhaps, theologian from the 19th century. I'm going to present a view of art contained in one of his works, "Either/Or". While this view may or may not actually represent Kierkegaard's own view, it is interesting in its own right, and I believe that it can stand on its own, regardless of whether or not its author would actually endorse such a position. Note that, using the Hongs' translation, what I refer to here shall occur within pages 47 and 134. I would cite everything, but I'll be using so many references that it would plague readability; however, I can back up any specifics as requested. So, here goes.

One can refer to the form of art and the subject of art, and neither of these should be overemphasized (as is often done, be believes). Furthermore, the form can permeate the subject matter, and the subject matter can permeate the form. Aesthetically, for a work to be a classic, the form of work must be the same as the subject of that work. What does this mean? When we talk about a work of art, we can talk about its form (such as that of a poem) and its subject (not only the content of the poem, but what is actually communicated about in the poem). In order for a work to be a "classic" its form must be the same as its subject. As an example, Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" is pointed to. The subject matter of "Don Giovanni" is an individual who lives as if his spirit existed in a state of pure immediacy, which is the form of the music-- the movement of the spirit through immediacy, as music cannot be abstracted outside of the performance or the moment it is heard/imagined/etcetera (entailing immediacy), and yet it serves as a language, which qualifies it in the realm of spirit.

Another distinction made in this work is the relationship between media (the plural of "medium") and ideas. The more abstract an idea is, the more impoverished it becomes. However, such abstraction is inversely correlated with the likelihood of its being repeated. One might talk of abstraction and concreteness as opposites. Keeping in mind the distinction between media and ideas, in some forms of art, the medium has a high degree of abstraction but a high concreteness in terms of idea, such as in architecture. Homer's use of a concrete idea (history) and a concrete form/medium (natural language) thus created an epic (considering the coherency between the two) that could often be repeated (due to the use of a concrete medium and a concrete idea).

According to this account, sculpture, architecture, painting, and music have abstract media (with sculpture being the most abstract), whereas language is the most concrete of media. Mozart, with "Don Giovanni", managed to find a subject matter that was as abstract as his medium, allowing him to generate an epic.

One can thus speak of the "theme proper" of a medium; for an abstract medium one's "theme proper" is an abstract idea, and one's work cannot be truly great-- cannot be a "classic"-- unless one's medium correlates to one's idea in terms of abstraction/concreteness. Sculpture, the most abstract medium, would thus be inadequate for creating a truly great work about language, the most concrete idea.

So, what do you think? Is there merit to this account? Immediately apparent problems? There's obviously a bit more to it, but hopefully this'll work as an introductory post.

The Paradox of the Unexpected Hanging, Part II

2009-11-03T09:06:00.002-05:00

Zach and Anonymous commented on my last post on the paradox of the unexpected hanging. While their thinking is interesting, I doubt that they are on the right track toward a solution. Let me present an alternative version of the paradox (also drawn from Martin Gardner's article) and challenge them to see if their attempt at a solution applies to this form.

So a man is presented with ten boxes, each one numbered and all empty except for one, which contains an egg. He is told to open each box in sequence. He is also told that he will not know before opening the box that contains the egg that it contains the egg. So once again, the same reasoning applies. The egg cannot be in box 10 because if the man opens box 9 without having discovered the egg, he will know that it is in box 10. Elimination of the other boxes proceeds as before.

Maybe this less sinister and more basic formulation of the paradox will help in their search for a solution.

Why study Philosophy?

2009-10-31T13:53:00.005-04:00

Hello to everyone, and for all the new visitors, welcome to Areté! If this is your first time on the site and you’re interested in entering our fabulous cash-and-prizes-for-comments contest, this is an excellent post to start out with if you wish (see the details for the contest here). Don’t worry if you feel philosophically uneducated – we value and encourage the input of all you philosophers out there! So here’s a nice, accessible introductory sort of topic for everyone.

My friend and I were enjoying a meal yesterday in Valhalla, and began to discuss the inevitable stresses that come along with course registration time. What follows is the paraphrased transcript of our conversation. When asking about the classes she had signed up for, she made the comment that she got “stuck with a philosophy class.”
Why ever would she choose that phrase?
“Philosophy is just a big waste of time. You won’t ever really use it. I don’t know why you or anyone would want to think about that kind of stuff and just end up wasting your life,” she replied.
Ok, I responded, but if I were to ask you what wouldn’t be “wasting your life,” what kind of living you think is best, can you really be sure you are right? “The uncontemplated life is not worth living,” said Socrates. How can you stand living your life without really pausing to consider the best way to live it? You only have one shot in this game of life, and the risk of blowing it, or of living for a lie or in futility, is just too high to take. You agree that you want to be happy, but are you sure you know what happiness is – do you know that the kind of happy you want is really for the best kind? In philosophy, your quest is to find the best way to live and the best way of being happy; instead of blindly feeling around in the dark on a path you haven’t clearly seen and aren’t sure of the destination, philosophy can offer some light to live by.
“But what if you’re just wasting all this time for nothing? What if you never find the truth or whatever and let your whole life slip away while you’re reading what a bunch of dead people wrote? Why should I care what Plato said? I know he’s a pretty smart guy, but what if he’s wrong? Even if I live and do things without knowing it’s the best way, at least I’m still living, while you will just waste your entire life and never come up with an answer. Or what if you find the truth and it’s depressing? What if there is no point? I’d rather just live without thinking about it too hard, and be happy.”
Well, there is that possibility that the contemplative life will not make you happy. But it’s a chance you have to take. It’s better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, said John Stuart Mill. You may not be happy as you’d normally think it, but that is only part of the whole truth of it. Your dissatisfaction is a better life than the carefree pig. Can the pig really be happy?
“Yes, pigs are happy. And they don’t think about the things we do. That’s how we should live.”
Pigs don’t think about things at all. They can’t be happy; content, probably, but not happy. Only we can ever really be happy. Let me tell you about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. (**Click on the link to read the story I told her about.) They’re content in the cave, all their needs are provided for, but you wouldn’t say you’d want to live like that. They’re not happy and can’t be, while living by the distortive, man-made fire (representing man-made, artificial knowledge).
Once dragged out into the Sunlight (that is, divinely-created, transcendent knowledge of the whole world outside of their little cave), they can think, and see for real, and know, and live and be happy.
“Ok fine. Here’s my life philosophy: I don’t want to think all the time about everything about life. I just want to be happy, and I don’t mean just little happiness. Like, I mean, lasting happiness. Not just, I don’t know, sort of happy now, but in a more lasting way. Real happiness.”
That’s actually what Aristotle says about happiness – or for the Greeks, eudaimonia or flourishing. That’s exactly the kind of happiness I think we all want, but you have to make you live the right way to get it! So you see, even you agree with Aristotle about something about life.

**** So what are your thoughts about philosophy? A big “waste of time” or is it the only way to live? Or maybe something in between, an enjoyable diversion to talk about at the coffee shop? Does it give us the answers to questions about life, or just more unanswerable questions? Is it even possible not to philosophize? (Consider Aristotle: "If you ought to philosophize you ought to philosophize; and if you ought not to philosophize you ought to philosophize: therefore, in any case you ought to philosophize. For if philosophy exists, we certainly ought to philosophize, since it exists; and if it does not exist, in that case too we ought to inquire why philosophy does not exist – and by inquiring we philosophize; for inquiry is the cause of philosophy.")

Write Comments, Win Prizes!

2009-10-30T15:30:00.004-04:00

Greetings,

From now on, currently enrolled Berry students are eligible for chances to win prizes-- including cash, gift cards, and more-- by commenting on posts on this very blog! Please read below for a full list of rules and regulations. You are welcome to post here or email me at zach.sherwin@vikings.berry.edu with any questions or comments.

Areté Contest Rules and Regulations

Revised as of October 30, 2009

1. The Areté Staff, which includes the Editor-in-Chief, Staff Writers, and Faculty Advisor, reserves the right to edit, change, or remove these rules at any time without prior notice. The Areté Staff also reserves the right to add rules without prior notice. These rules and regulations do not limit the scope of the rights and powers reserved by the Areté Staff except as insofar as explicitly stated.

2. Although anyone is welcome to comment, only currently enrolled Berry students are eligible to win prizes.

3. In order for your comment to count as an entry the following conditions must be met. These conditions are necessary, but are not necessarily sufficient, and further conditions may apply as needed.

~~~a. Your full name, as it appears in the Berry Email System must appear at the end of your content. Before any prizes are awarded, we shall confirm the identity of the potential recipient via email.

~~~b. The comment must be at least 125 words in length.

~~~c. The comment must be “on topic”—that is, the topic of the comment must clearly relate, to a significant degree as determined by the Areté Staff, to the topic of the original post.

~~~d. No ad hominem attacks are allowed. Comments may contain attacks upon an argument or a position, but the actual commenter or poster may not be personally attacked.

4. Points, Entries, and Awards

~~~a. An entrant may earn exactly one “Point” per comment per topic. For any given topic, no more than one “Point” may be earned.

~~~b. Points shall be converted to “Entries” when they meet the requirements outlined below.

~~~~~~i. Points shall be converted to Entries on the basis of the Fibonacci Numbers, excluding “0” and the initial occurrence of “1”.

~~~~~~ii. Thus, the first Entry will be earned after one Point. The second Entry shall be earned after two Points. The third Entry shall be earned after three Points. The fourth entry will be earned after five Points. The sixth entry will be earned after eight points. And so forth.

~~~c. Each Entry shall be considered a chance to win a prize. Points shall be reset at the end of each prize cycle, as determined by the Areté Staff.

~~~d. Comments shall only be eligible for earning Points if posted within two weeks of the post date of the Topic, and if the Topic was originally posted within the current “prize cycle”, determined by the Areté Staff, but typically one month.

5. The Areté Staff reserves the right to exclude any comment from being counted as a “Point”.

6. Areté Staff Members may only receive prizes if the monthly prize allocation is not completely distributed to non-Staff members.

The Paradox of the Unexpected Hanging

2009-10-28T21:58:00.002-04:00

You have been sentenced to death by hanging. The judge who condemns you to this fate informs you that your execution will satisfy two conditions. First it will take place some time in the early morning on one of the days of the following work week. Second you will not know which day you will die until the executioner appears in your jail cell to lead you to the gallows. You will be surprised. There does not appear to be any reason to think that your hanging cannot take place just as the judge has ordered. But a seemingly plausible argument leads to the conclusion that the judge's conditions are unrealizable.

In my last post I celebrated the birthday of Martin Gardner. Continuing in this theme, I now recount a paradox discussed by Gardner in one of his columns (and reprinted in his book The Unexpected Hanging).

Your execution must take place no later than Friday. Suppose you make it to Thursday afternoon. You now know that you will be executed on Friday, violating the second of the judge's pronouncements. So you cannot be executed on Friday. Now suppose you make it to Wednesday afternoon. Since Friday has been eliminated, you know on Wednesday that you will be executed on Thursday, again violating the surprise condition. So Thursday is out. The same reasoning will rule out Wednesday as well. Continue this line of reasoning until you have eliminated Monday. Therefore on no day of the week can you be surprised by the hangman.

As with all logical paradoxes, seemingly impeccable reasoning leads to a conclusion that is clearly at odds with reality. For having been convinced by your reasoning that you will not be executed, you are understandably surprised when the hangman arrives on Wednesday morning to carry out the orders of the judge.

So I leave it to you to resolve this paradox with the words of Bertrand Russell, who urged those who think about logic "to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible, since these serve much the same purpose as is served by experiments in physical science."

The Log Lady

2009-10-26T15:28:00.004-04:00

On a less scholarly note, my favorite television show is Lynch's and Frost's masterpiece, Twin Peaks. There's all sorts of really interesting issues raised in the show, and one enigmatic character-- the "Log Lady"-- has some particularly interesting things to say. Consider, as she notes in Episode 10 (of season 2), "Coma":

"Letters are symbols. They are building blocks of words which form our languages. Languages help us communicate. Even with complicated languages used by intelligent people, misunderstanding is a common occurrence."

"We write things down sometimes - letters, words - hoping they will serve us and those with whom we wish to communicate. Letters and words, calling out for understanding."

She continues exploring this topic in Episode 11, "The Man Behind Glass": "Miscommunication sometimes leads to arguments, and arguments sometimes lead to fights. Anger is usually present in arguments and fights. Anger is an emotion, usually classified as a negative emotion. Negative emotions can cause severe problems in our environment and to the health of our body.

"Happiness, usually classified as a positive emotion, can bring good health to our body, and spread positive vibrations into our environment. Sometimes when we are ill, we are not on our best behavior. By ill, I mean any of the following: physically ill, emotionally ill, mentally ill, and/or spiritually ill."

So, let's consider her argument. I'll enclose her arguments in [brackets] rather than "quotes" because I'll paraphrase some. [Letters are symbols which are the building blocks of words]. So far so good. All words are built from letters (although not necessarily exclusively from letters). What is interesting, she notes, is that [letters are symbols]-- and we all know what the symbols signify; I have not met another English speaker who could express a different idea of the letter "a" from my own. Words are composed of letters (and other characters, but which serve similar functions as symbols). However, even though words are composed purely of universally (in the context of a language) accepted characters, miscommunication occurs; this implies that either individuals really disagree on what letters are references of, or that a word is greater than the sum of its characters.

We explicitly use [letters and words to call out for understanding], and this is their explicit purpose. However, [miscommunication is a common occurrence]. Now, she says, consider: sometimes, [miscommunication leads to arguments] (which seems reasonable to me), and [arguments sometimes lead to fights] (which also seems coherent). Additionally, [in both arguments and fights, anger-- which is usually classified as a negative emotion-- is usually present]. By "negative emotion", the "Log Lady" refers to [that which can cause severe problems in our environment and to the health of our body]. This can be understood as that which is not a "positive emotion", an emotion that [can bring good health to our body, and spread positive vibrations into our environment].

So, then, letters are symbols which, when used in words to communicate, usually (being "a common occurrence") end in miscommunication. Miscommunication tends to end in negative emotions, which [can cause severe problems in our environment and to the health of our body]. There is a definite implication here that letters themselves can actually cause negative emotions. What does she suggest as a resolution,

In Episode 15, "Lonely Souls", she argues, "Balance is the key. Balance is the key to many things. Do we understand balance? The word 'balance' has seven letters. Seven is difficult to balance, but not impossible if we are able to divide. There are, of course, the pros and cons of division."

So, then, it would seem that one can overcome the problems of miscommunication through "balance", but there is the epistemological problem of whether one actually understands it, because such an understanding requires division of the primordial references of experience. If one is willing to take a primordial element-- whether a letter in a word or an experience in a memory-- and cut it apart in order to study it, there are problems. She explores this too, in Episode 22, "Double Play": "A death mask is almost an intrusion on a beautiful memory. And yet, who could throw away the casting of a loved one? Who would not want to study it longingly, as the distant freight train blows its mournful tone?" On the one hand, if one one does not seek balance in communication, one risks miscommunication, which can yield negative emotions with detrimental effects. However, if one seeks balance, one finds situations where balancing requires division, and one must decide whether analytical study-- whether of a word such as "balance" or an experience such as the loss of a loved one-- will merit the end result.

The conclusion? As stated in the final episode, Episode 29, "Beyond Life and Death", one finds at the end of this puzzle "...an ending. Where there was once one, there are now two. Or were there always two? What is a reflection? A chance to see two? When there are chances for reflections, there can always be two - or more. Only when we are everywhere will there be just one."

When one takes a word, an experience, or a television show, one can either approach it holistically and take the chance of miscommunication, or divide that which is not naturally divided. Such a division means that, [where there was once one, there are now two]. However, [where there are chances for reflections, there exist chances for division], and one can only avoid such a division if one's approach is completely consistent in its indivisibility can one avoid absolute division. In essence: either approach a situation holistically, or be prepared to encounter a situation where "There is as much space outside the human, proportionately, as inside" (The Log Lady, Episode 9, "Arbitrary Law").

Sorry, quite a bit of talking there. Whether there is anything of significance-- or even philosophical consideration-- is certainly up for debate. I think there's some really interesting issues raised, though. And you should certainly watch Twin Peaks when you have the chance. Unfortunately, the Pilot Episode is only available on the newest version, the "Definitive Gold Box Edition", due to a licensing issue they had, but I can assure you that it's worth picking up, renting, or finding online if you have the chance.

Chrysippus on Free Will and Responsibility

2009-10-25T10:42:00.003-04:00

While reading this morning, I came across a passage in my book that I think relates well to our discussion on fatalism earlier this semester and also to the topic for tomorrow night: free will and addiction, and the ethical responsibilities for self-harming actions. The author starts by detailing the beliefs of the Stoics concerning the free will, or for them, the lack of it, possessed by human beings – except for the sage, but that’s a different topic. As the author puts it, for the Stoics, events of nature and human events are “parts of the universal casual nexus which is fate, providence or God, and so…predetermined.” Their critics attacked this viewpoint by claiming that if everything were predetermined, there would be no responsibility or good deeds able to be praised or bad deeds to be condemned, just as we were conjecturing about the existence of morality in a fatalistic world in one of our prior club meetings. Yet Chrysippus, one of the most eminent of the Stoics, argued for the compatibility of fatalism and responsibility in 2 ways. First, even if our actions are really predetermined reactions to external influences or impressions, they are still our own reactions. Chrysippus writes:

“Although it is the case that all things are constrained and bound together by fate through a certain necessary and primary principle, yet the way in which the natures of our minds themselves are subject to fate depends on their own individual quality. For if they have been fashioned through nature originally in a healthy and expedient way, they pass on all that force, which assails them from outside through fate, in a more placid and pliant manner. If, however, they are harsh and ignorant and uncultured, and if they are pressed on by little or no necessity from an impulse they hurl themselves into constant crimes and error. And that this very thing should come about in this way is a result of that natural and necessary sequence which is called fate. For it is, as it were, fated and a consequence of their type itself, that bad natures should not lack crimes and errors. It is just as if you throw a cylindrical stone across a region of ground which is sloping and steep; you were the cause and beginning of headlong fall for it, but soon it rolls headlong, not because you are now bringing that about, but because that is how its fashion and the capacity for rolling in its shape are. Just so the rule and principle and necessity of fate sets kinds and beginnings of causes in motion, but the impulses of our minds and deliberations, and our actions themselves, are governed by each person’s own will and by the natures of our minds.” (Gellius, Attic Nights 7.2.7-11 = LS 62D)

So, we may wonder, if it is our developed natures, which have been predetermined before our birth, (that is the reason for our throwing the stone from the hill) which cause our reaction to outside influences, and the reaction is ours (we do the throwing) – can it still be our responsibility for the event or its outcome? If we blame what we have been predisposed to, our natures that have been given to us, but it is still we who (must) react in a certain way, how much responsibility is ours? For Monday’s talk, is an addiction, presumably something of nature, our responsibility or only reactions to external forces?

The second part of Chrysippus’ argument for responsibility and fatalism is that our actions (or reactions) do make a difference, even though predetermined. The author explains: “To say that certain things are fated to happen does not mean that they are fated to happen regardless of what anyone does beforehand, but rather that certain outcomes and the actions which are necessary to bring them about are ‘co-fated’ with one another.”

This seems quite the paradox, then. It may be clarified as the author shows if we think about an example from the Greek tragedy Oedipus. It would be complete nonsense to say that Oedipus’ father would have had a child whether he slept with a woman or not. Yet he chose to take that risk even after being warned by the oracle that his son would kill him. He wouldn’t have chosen otherwise, but it was still his choice; it is his responsibility, even if the action (or reaction) was predetermined.

What do we think of this argument? Coherent and conclusive? Confusing and lacking?

An Attempt at Defining "Art"

2009-10-21T11:29:00.002-04:00

Greetings,

On Monday, Philosophia Religioque met and discussed the philosophy of music. One relevant topic that came up was the definition of "art", and what demarcates it from other content. While I am not yet 100% convinced that my definition is necessarily right, I proposed that "art", properly understood, is intentional indirect communication. I'll start by explaining what is meant by those terms, and then get into some of the issues that can be derived from this definition.

At its core level, art is a kind of communication; in fact, I would consider art to fall under the genus of communication. Merriam Webster states that communication is "an act or instance of transmitting". If a painting could only communicate through its visual imagery, and there existed an invisible painting (which I do believe can be understood in concept, even if it's unlikely that one will ever exist), that painting would not be art, because it would be incapable of communication. However, I believe that many things in life qualify as "communications"; thus, this is a broad element, on which I will not say too much more at the moment.

If art is a kind of communication, what kind it? Well, I argue that art is necessarily intentional communication. What is intentional is the communication itself. Say, for example, that I look at the computer monitor in front of me and note its subtly sloping angles, well-rounded curves, and bi-colored palette. While it is true that the monitor might communicate to me a poignant message about the nature of the human condition/experience, such a communication would not have been the intention of the monitor manufacturer, and thus that communication would have been insufficient for the monitor to be considered "art" (although I am not necessarily excluding the possibility of other communications, of course). Even bad art-- whether angsty teenage poetry or annoying pop songs-- serves as intentional communication.

However, while a communication must be intentional to be art, intention is insufficient. For example, if I tell you in a monotone voice, "go outside", that is an intentional communication, and yet is not art (I would argue, and would believe to be non-controversial). This is because that which is communicated through art is necessarily indirect; while direct communication can exist in art, that which transforms an intentional communication into art is its indirectness. In film, for example, certain movies are clearly direct intentional communication, and are thus not understood to be art, while certain movies are very intentional communications-- and yet the communication is entirely indirect, such as in Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (which you really should watch). As this example hopefully illustrates, direct communication is necessarily not art, whereas indirect communication can be art if it is intentional.

Some interesting things result from this. First, a painting itself would not be art; rather, the communication-- the experience, perhaps, or maybe the performance-- would be the art. This would be in coherence with my understanding of nominalist theory. Additionally, I think that early cave paintings would not be considered art, unless they were doing more than sheer direct illustration. Lastly, good analytic philosophy would necessarily not be art (if I understand correctly), because I think that it attempts to be as direct as possible, whereas continental philosophy-- such as the works of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche-- has the potential for actually being art and philosophy at the same time, as some of their philosophical contributions are intentional, yet indirect.

Happy 95th Birthday to Martin Gardner

2009-10-19T22:37:00.005-04:00

I would like to dedicate my blog post to someone who has had an enormous influence on my choice of career. On Wednesday Martin Gardner, the former Scientific American columnist and prolific author, turns 95. I was probably in the 6th grade when I was first exposed to Gardner's writing. At the time I had no idea what philosophy was or that there were grown-up people who actually made a living as philosophers. But I was fascinated by math even when I found it difficult, and I was especially impressed by Gardner's popular writings on math and logic. I remember picking up a book with the odd title The Unexpected Hanging at a bookstore in New York. Opening it, I discovered a collection of essays drawn from Gardner's column on recreational mathematics. The first chapter was devoted to a famous paradox involving a man condemned to hang but without knowing on which day of the week his execution would take place. Gardner wrote clearly and intelligently about what was to me a highly complex and convoluted topic. I was hooked and the path that would lead me eventually to logic began.

After that first encounter, I became a passionate fan, reading as many of Gardner's books as I could get my hands on. I had found an author who shared my interests: not only logic but science and pseudo-science, Alice in Wonderland, cryptography, computers that can learn to play games, magic, and the fourth dimension. It wasn't until much later that I learned that Gardner majored in philosophy at the University of Chicago, a student of Rudolph Carnap, one of the founders of analytic philosophy.

I was happy to see a birthday tribute to Gardner in today's New York Times. I wish him a very happy 95th and many, many more.

Self-Interest Rightly Understood

2009-10-17T15:32:00.002-04:00

This is a pretty contentious topic, and I will confess that the view to follow is probably not a “politically correct” opinion. Nowadays this admittedly is not the most popular view to argue for, but I hope to stir up some good debate, especially with those who disagree.

The issue here is that of the obligation to uphold certain positive rights, and in particular for this post, the right to be free from hunger; perhaps it does not even warrant the title “right,” but giving it that higher station helps the opponent and, in good faith, I will give them the best argument they can muster. On a Google search, including quotation marks, the “right to be free from hunger" yields 573,000 results, and similarly, the “right to food” gets 642,000 hits. By clicking on any of these links, your heart will undoubtedly be moved by the pictures of terribly skinny children and touching appeals to save the world from starvation. Resources are scarce there, but very abundant for you here. So give a small donation and do your part to help out a little. Have a heart; it’s your duty as a human being – you owe it to those less fortunate than yourself.

And they are absolutely right in this regard. Do not yet misunderstand me: starvation is bad, and giving to charity is good. I’m not advocating complete solipsistic selfishness. Where the argument fails is after all of that. In the more extreme realms, some people and organizations out to do good call for the upholding of the right to be free from hunger by redistributing wealth, especially in the wealthy United States. The problem is that this makes the free choice of giving however much to who or what an individual decides and takes that liberty from them, now forcing whoever has an excess to share the wealth with those who have a deficit. Opponents may argue that force (or bribery with tax breaks, for that matter) is needed, for otherwise most people would not logically choose to part with their earnings. How cynical a view of humanity this is indeed! I do not believe altruism to be so foreign and unnatural an idea to many people. Though there is merit to the idea that people will give more when encouraged, governmental force is not the right way, either by our own country’s taxation or by even more remote demands placed upon the country as a whole by global organizations like the UN. (What is the right way, you may be asking? I’ll leave that for you to decide, or perhaps address it in a later post)

The extremists like to say that all lives are equal, that I’m not any more valuable or worthy to eat and have prosperity than someone over in Africa just because I was born here. We can’t really be about justice and equality if we think otherwise, right? We’re all equally deserving of the goods that any person or nature produce; it’s a small world and we’re all the same after all. I do not believe that all the do-gooders are really wishing for such total equality out of great desires of personal self-sacrifice or good will. Some (I’ll call them the Lip-Service Extremists) say such magnanimous things, self-deprecating and diminishing themselves by denying their extra-special worth. In their better-than-thou way, Lip-Service Extremists want to argue that, of course, I’m awesome, and you’re awesome, and everyone else in the whole world is just equally awesome human beings, aren’t we great? Because we’re all so awesome, we should not deny material things to those just as awesome as us. We’re not just accidents living between two abysses; we are capable of doing good for all humanity and we can have a wonderful utopia where everyone is worth the same and no one will be too wealthy and no one will starve or be bothered by thinking about pesky things like the rights to property and prosperity. But, really, our Lip-Service Extremists want to feel important themselves. By claiming that everyone is significant, they’re claiming that they too are significant. The more value they give all others, the more they attribute greater and greater worth to the whole human species, including more value for themselves. By saying that he is just as worthy as I am to live in equal prosperity, you’re implying that you yourself are really something special. Yet extreme equality does nothing to bolster the value of humanity as a whole. Quite the opposite, in fact, all redistributing the wealth does is work to equally devalue the individual. The irreducible, irreplaceable individual is not really unique anymore, he is no longer irreplaceable; his worth is no longer dependent on what he does or who he is.

People are not equal. You are (presumably) a better, more valuable human than, say, your average serial killer. It is simply a detrimental lie to revert to equalizing, and thus devaluing, everyone (Orwellians will attest to this). Your worth doesn’t depend on making another or all others equally awesome! There is, in fact, quite a contradiction with the very notion of equal awesomeness. You can still be important, caring, and unique without valuing all others as equally deserving of all things. Your worth is not contingent on anyone else, and you shouldn’t make it so – such dependence only works to devalue the distinctiveness of your individuality.

Zach on Value: A Justification of Ticket Scalpers

2009-10-07T16:31:00.002-04:00

Greetings,

I'd like to present a theory on value; let me know what you think. I'll call it "Zach's Theory of Value"; someone else has most likely come up with it first, and as soon as someone points out who it was, I'll gladly note that in this topic. As far as I know, the work is original, but who knows-- I might have heard it in passing one day and forgot my source.

I argue that all value is subjective, and most value is subjectively relative. Let's stay with the simple, primary element for now, subjectively relative value. Rather than give a definitional or axiomatic argument, I'll argue by example.

Say that there are two parties: Band X and the Groupie. For now, assume that Band X directly sells the tickets; while in actuality the process is much more complex, the complexity can be accounted for by this system. For Band X, a ticket is worth, say, $30; considering their time and their investment(s), that's about the price point per ticket where it's worthwhile to them to have the concert. For the Groupie, a ticket is worth $75; they love Band X, and it's absolutely worth 10 hours of work to go hear the band. If Band X sells the ticket for $50, Band X gains $20 in subjective value (they sold a $30 ticket for $50), while the Groupie gained $25 in subjective value (they acquired a $75 ticket for $50).

Say that a ticket scalper decides to get in the fray. He purchases all the tickets from Band X for $50; thus, Band X acquires $20 in subjective value (they sold a $30 ticket for $50). The ticket scalper then sells the tickets to Groupies, for whom the tickets are worth $75, at $60 a pop. The ticket scalper gains subjective value (they sold a ticket that they paid $50 for at a $60 price point), and the Groupies gain subjective value (they gain a ticket that's worth $75 to them for $60).

I'm arguing that mutually beneficial voluntary free market transactions, such as the ones I described, generally result in the net creation of subjective value. The first transaction, without the ticket scalper, netted $45 of subjective value-- $25 for the Groupie and $20 for the Band. The second transaction, with the ticket scalper, netted $45 in value as well-- $20 for the Band, $10 for the Scalper, and $15 for the Groupie.

Therefore, transactions are capable of generating subjective value. Adding middlemen to the mix, such as ticket scalpers, redistributes that subjective value, but it does not actually decrease the subjective value generated.

There's all sorts of fun implications from this argument, and several places where we could go, but I'd like to start with that, and perhaps go further if there's interest in the issue. Thoughts?

Happiness and the Heart of Darkness

2009-10-03T22:00:00.008-04:00

I’d like to begin with the following quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics describing why humans need happiness: “Clearly there must be some such end since everything cannot be a means to something else since then there would be nothing for which we ultimately do anything, and everything would be pointless.” (*Note: Taken from a photocopied excerpt of Book 1 read in a former class – I could not find the translator or page number.) For Aristotle, “happiness” was more analogous to the idea of excellence, something achieved with intent, with purpose and habit – a lifelong way of living. The final four words from that quote always jump out at me – everything would be pointless if there were no happiness? Life, then, is inextricably bound to this idea of happiness, which explains the restlessness of our souls. But what happens if we never achieve this happiness? Is the mere journey towards it enough, or without the achievement, is life simply “pointless”?

There are some who argue that happiness is really an unachievable ideal, but zealously and tirelessly pursued anyway – this is the view of humanity that is illustrated in Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece, The Heart of Darkness. In the novel, the narrator Marlowe discovers knowledge about humanity that he would rather have kept locked away, far out of reach. In his exploration into the wild hearts of men, he discovers humanity to be, ultimately, hopelessly depraved. Without the societal constructs of law, religion, accountability, community, and guilt, men revert to their innate, bestial inclinations. It presents a very Hobbesian state of nature where life is merely nasty, brutish, and short. The “savages” are completely unalterable from their bestiality. However noble the attempts to convert, all attempts are futile. One line, in fact, from one “civilized” man to another, is that they need to “exterminate the brutes!” which is ironic when Marlowe later realizes that all are as equally brutish as the “savages” to whom he refers; there really is no “them” versus “us.” Though even with this being the true state, most people cannot handle the weight of such knowledge. Most people choose to live in the comfort of artificial light, either due to obliviousness or denial, and go on with their ultimately pointless lives.

Marlowe goes on the journey to see what knowledge he hopes Kurtz (discussed later on) can reveal to him, supernatural knowledge about the meaning of life that no one else can possess. It turns out to be very different knowledge than he expected. In the beginning of the journey, he catches glimpses of this unpleasant truth himself, but decides to submerge himself in mediocre tasks to keep his mind occupied elsewhere instead. (Compare this to why most humans fill their lives with innumerable meaningless tasks.) He ultimately discovers that there is no real light outside of the impenetrable darkness, only artificial, society-created light. Kurtz was the most devoutly religious, idealistic, moral, promising, etc. young man who became the most successful manager for the British ivory company; and he died as the most corrupt savage imaginable. If he can fall from the “light” to his natural, innate, brutish human character, no one is safe. As Kurtz lay dying, Marlowe realizes the purposeless that can become of a wasted life, and as he returns to London, he sees that the “civilized world” is filled with hypocrites who pretend not to know better, and are satisfied. This is especially embodied in the character of the Intended, Kurtz’s fiancé, who represents the bulk of humanity living in society. She is hopeful, incessantly and wishfully romantic, and completely naïve, yet somehow content. In the end Marlowe decides to lie to her about the true nature of Kurtz to keep her in this illusory, idyllic world, and keep her from knowing the truth; he decides it is better for society to carry on in their fictitious bustling lives. Only a few really come to grips with the truth – the nihilistic void in their hearts. Ought he have shared his knowledge of the true light that is, really, utter darkness, or was he right to keep the people content?

The life we live is the only one we are given, so obviously we want to make it the very best that we can. We all constantly strive to accomplish: we set plans, make goals, and see them through. There seems to be a constant unrest within our very core telling us to keep trying to improve, not to settle, not to grow too complacent. We want to be something more than what we are now, and to have more than we now have. We seem to be continually discontent. Our human condition drives this; we know our own finitude and knowledge of death can motivate us. We are incessantly driven towards “the better.” Maybe this is a little hubristic, our thinking we can really change things and that we are somehow perfectible. Yet no matter how many things we accumulate or tasks we accomplish, there seems to be some residual feeling of incompleteness, an enduring sense of emptiness, a longing for more, and the bitter sting of idividualistic isolationism. As Conrad writes, “We live as we dream – alone;” and again I’ll ask, when happiness seems unreachable, is life just “pointless”? Maybe all of this working, all the busyness with which we fill our lives is in an attempt to divert this sense of nihilism. If I keep working and attaining, all will not be for naught – I will matter.

Philosophical Good Faith (Or, Boo, Hiss, Moriarty!)

2009-09-30T16:16:00.001-04:00

As I tend to do, I’d like to make an argument that I am not necessarily ready to stand by; rather, I’ll throw it out there, and see if it sticks. I’m going to argue that “good faith” is necessary to genuine philosophical dialogue; without “good faith”, genuine philosophical dialogue cannot occur, and there is a direct correlation between the degree of good faith in such a discussion and the value of that discussion itself.

First, I’ll help to define some terms. I choose the word “dialogue” rather than lecture to indicate the method of direct communication between multiple parties, with the intent of communication between the two of them. Let’s leave “philosophical” ambiguous, but state that the goal should be that the dialogue be productive for both individuals, without getting too into what is meant by that (as the meaning of “philosophical” is another post in and of itself). Genuine means that the intentions of the individuals participating are explicitly and directly communicated or understood; there is not a hidden meaning or purpose behind the discussion.

What, then, to make of “good faith”? I’ll introduce the concept as follows: “good faith” refers to the state in which an argument is presented. In order for a state to be considered one of “good faith”, it is necessary (although not necessarily sufficient) that the individual in said state maintain the following three properties: absolute earnestness, justified belief, and coherence between one’s argument, one’s method of communication, and one’s intention. Let’s see if I can expand on those a bit, and how examples hold up.

By “absolute earnestness,” I mean that an individual’s argument must be communicated with conviction, and be willing to affirm that conviction’s relation to the argument. If there are contingencies attached to the conviction, they must be communicated, or else “absolute earnestness” shall not be attained, and an individual shall not be acting in a state of good faith. As an example, assume that I am engaged in what I intend to be a genuine philosophical dialogue with Moriarty, and assume that he proposes, “Atoms do not exist”, to be a justified belief (he might offer rational arguments for this position), and his argument might be internally and externally coherent. However, if his argument is made simply to frustrate his fellow dialoguer, rather than promote investigation and/or edification, his argument is not made in good faith; his argument lacks absolute earnestness. If he were truly acting in good faith, he would work to help either himself or his colleague (or both) reach a productive or edifying philosophical end, rather than simply trying to win an argument. Moriarty, unfortunately, tends not to act in absolute earnestness; he brings in unusual and jarring argument for the sake of confusing or perplexing his fellow philosopher, and doesn’t really intend to serve a philosophical cause with his arguments. Boo, hiss, Moriarty!

By “justified belief”, I mean that one must argue from a standpoint of belief, and that belief cannot be purely arbitrary. First, assume I say, “Murder is necessarily good”; if one stated that and did not believe it, they should not assume it as a premise for an argument. However, imagine that one stated, “Suppose that murder were necessarily good”, “What if murder is necessarily good”, or, “Wouldn’t that entail murder being necessarily good?” Such claims are interrogative, not declarative; they are not stating beliefs, but rather using contra-positives to help explore another’s (hopefully justified) belief. Justification refers to a degree of sufficiency with respect to reasons that one has a belief. Just because Moriarty argues that “Corporations are evil, because they want profit” is justified does not mean that said belief is sufficient (boo, hiss, Moriarty!). What determines sufficiency for justification would be a topic of another post; for now, hopefully my point is clear enough. At any rate, assume that I am dialoguing with Moriarty about whether a true practitioner of Nietzsche’s philosophy would necessarily believe in the existence of God. If Moriarty argued that “Nietzsche proved that God is dead, so God necessarily once existed”, his belief (let’s assume that he actually believes it) would not be justified; even a most basic understanding of Nietzsche’s point with that statement would explicitly affirm that Moriarty missed the point. Moriarty would not have been acting in good faith, because he was citing a vital argument (which he believed to be representative of Nietzsche’s philosophical arguments on the subject) that he did not even have a basic understanding of. Thus, his belief was not justified; he was not acting in coherence with philosophical good faith.

Lastly, good faith requires “coherence between one’s argument, one’s method of communication, and one’s intention”. Since there’s a lot of interplay here, I’ll try to be brief. Suppose that one is trying to communicate a philosophical argument, but doing so at gunpoint. There would not be coherence between the individual’s argument (which was philosophical in nature) and one’s method of communication (which is violent, forceful, and antithetical to the consent and understanding of the gunpointee). One would be acting in good faith if they were arguing, “Give me your money”, and had someone at gunpoint; this element of good faith would be satisfied, even though it might be an immoral act. Similarly, if intends to have a philosophically productive/edifying conversation, and yet their argument or their method of communication were quarrelsome and belligerent, they would not be acting in good faith. Moriarty might try those sort of things, but to him we say, boo, hiss.

So, there you have it. I could go on longer, but it’s a long blog post, already. Zach’s argument for what good faith is. I did not have time to actually argue why it’s necessary, but hopefully the necessity should be implicit in the arguments. If not, it’ll make for a good follow-up post…

The Apostasy of Smerdyakov

2009-09-25T12:54:00.000-04:00

Greetings,

Although my free–reading time has been severely limited due to the standard semester business, I’ve nevertheless found time to continue reading Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Aside from having the coolest name I’ve ever read (say it aloud a few times and bask in its greatness), Dostoevsky has a pretty interesting way of structuring his character development… I’m not convinced yet that the book deserves the accolades it has received, but it’s at least keeping me reading, which means I might be swayed, eventually.

In Book Three, Chapter VII (“The Controversy”), a character named Smerdyakov argues that, if one takes the Bible to be axiomatically true, it would not be a sin for an individual to renounce his faith if faced with torture or, perhaps, even death. Even though the character is largely trying to provoke others into anger with the argument, the argument itself is interesting, and I’d like to see how well you all think it works. I’m going to spell it out in as straightforward manner as possible. The edition I’m using the reference this is the 1976 Constance Garnett translation, revised and edited by Ralph E. Matlaw. I shall be referring to the tortured individual as “I” in this argument, because that is how Smerdyakov chose to argue.

1. The instant I say to a potential tormentor, “No, I’m not a Christian, and I curse my true God”, I am immediately cursed and “cut off” from the Holy Church (116)
2. However, one need not speak their apostasy; when I think it, before I had actually said it, I am already “cut off”—“accursed”. (116)
3. At the moment I become accursed, I become exactly like a heathen, and my christening is taken off me. (117)
4. If I’ve ceased becoming a Christian, I have told no lie to the enemy when they asked whether or not I was a Christian, as I had already lost my salvation before speaking. (117)
5. If I’m no longer a Christian, then I can’t renounce Christ, for I have nothing to renounce that belongs to me. (117)
6. It is said in Scripture that, if you have faith, even as a mustard seed, and tell a mountain to move into the sea, it would instantly do so. (118)
7. If a torturer tells me to convert, and I tell a mountain to move and crush the tormentor, and it does not do so, my faith wasn’t even that of a mustard seed, and thus I wouldn’t have been able to get to heaven, anyways. (119)

The intended result? If an individual is told to either renounce their religion or be tortured, and they proclaim that they will not be tortured because of x [x could be any saving act, such as the moving of a mountain], x will happen if their faith is real. If their faith is not real, one thinks that they are not saved, and thus cannot renounce their faith, because they have nothing to renounce. Thus, it is not a sin to commit apostasy (to renounce one’s faith) under the threat of torture, because one has nothing to renounce.

Thoughts? Is his argument good, and does it prove what he thinks it proves? Is it simply a word game, or is there something there?

Humorous v. Serious Language: Can Opposites Attract?

2009-09-21T23:02:00.003-04:00

For those of you who were able to attend Dr. Sands’ lecture last Thursday – “Lincoln’s Serious Use of Humor” – I bet you got as much joy out of it as I did. I would here like to qualify, however, what some may have mistakenly taken from his presentation and conclusions – or rather, more preferable to say, complement those arguments.

Political rhetoric is like no other. There exists in all of us some strangely excitable passions that can be played upon and provoked, shaking us awake from our state of dormancy and general malaise, and orators and politicians assuredly know all the best ways to do this. There is, of course, philosophical inquires to be made about how rhetoricians ought to persuade, and the responsibilities entailed by both speaker and audience member, and so on, but those are not the topics right now. Here I’d like to focus on the important Dynamic Duo of humorous and serious language, and their efficacy on the masses.

Comedy has an unquestionably universal prevalence in our society, and especially in politics. Remember back to the popularity of late night talk shows in the 2008 elections, what, with Tina Fey’s impersonations of Sarah Palin, the nightly infotainment of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, and all the other sensational political sources like tabloids and satirical cartoon caricatures. Just look at the ratio of comedies on television as opposed to intellectual shows (whatever those may actually be). Even the unabashedly bawdy two-thousand-year-old political jokes of Aristophanes still get chuckles. This obsession with all political things humorous may not be the very best way to inspire citizens towards betterment, and it certainly poses a severe problem to those earnestly wanting to reform society without a punch line. Do we really want our political leaders to be endlessly amusing, always eager to put a smile our face? Most would agree that we want people of the best sort, with genuine, upstanding moral characters, with eloquence and dignity, and with the citizens’ and the society’s best interests at heart. Not too many comedians are described in this way, for humor can tend to bring out the worst in people, yet the politician-comedian who delights the masses is able to win over the bemused crowd with ease.

You may argue that because humor is so effective a tool, why am I condemning it? It is natural, after all, to like things that make us happy, and humor does that! Let’s look at Lincoln for a response to this. He was a statesman incomparable, and cleverly weaved humor, irony, and satire in his life to the advantage of his political career, and his name is not denounced! Yet as president, when he gave speeches and effectively spoke to all the people of the nation and pervasively to us as well, the humor gave way to a more somber tone, often resembling beautiful, poetic prose rather than humorous or more pleasing language. And it is this, rather than his use of humor, that actually moved people the most and when it counted. Rather than a pursuit of persuading a crowd to vote for him, Lincoln was here calling for a cathartic change in the very souls of the American public, and knew that serious language was the correct way to go.

For those who take the time to listen to the less “exciting” speeches and texts of politics, and who study their arguments and meaning, they will be far more affected and on a much deeper level than by any other way of speech. Audiences can be swayed by satire, humorous exaggerations, or funny anecdotes, but it is far more likely that they will enjoy it, laugh a little, and then forget it. Dramas, after all, and tragedies are not nearly so pleasurable to endure at times as comedies, for the former often aim to show us what’s worst about ourselves, and what needs to change. Audiences more inclined to the comedies, however (and that could very well be argued to mean the majority of Americans today!), would also be far more prone to a paralyzed, lazy mind, and less likely to study the “boring” political arguments that deserve more than a casual glance. It must be held that an appeal to intellect, by politicians or others, calls the audience to think and live at an altogether higher level. Instead of having our orators vie with each other for the most laughs, leaders should want to inspire greatness and a betterment of the citizenry through appeals to the higher faculties of man. Dr. Sands’ (and Lincoln’s) aim was ultimately to praise humor and its effectiveness, but only when tempered by serious language as well. Humor does not get a free ride just because we like it, but it must be used rightly. The best use of language must be a good mixture of both humorous and serious language, so shoot for that mean.

Mathematical Truth

2009-09-18T22:32:00.003-04:00

As Zach notes below, the topic for the meeting on Monday is the ontology and epistemology of mathematics, and the reading is an influential paper by the Princeton philosopher of mathematics Paul Benacerraf.

Here's some background that will help in understanding Benacerraf's argument. First, the ontology of mathematics is concerned with the nature of the objects that mathematicians study. For example, what are numbers? Do they exist independent of the human mind or are they creations of the mind? The epistemology of mathematics concerns how we come to have mathematical knowledge. Benacerraf's main point is that those theories of math that give a good explanation of how mathematical statements like "2+2=4" connect with the objects they are about fail to account for how we know about them. And those theories that explain how we know math do poorly in accounting for how statements about math can be true.

One influential philosophy of math is platonism. Platonists hold that numbers are real. They are non-physical entities that exist in a separate realm. Platonism explains well why "There exists one even prime number" is true. It's because quite literally there does exist a prime number that is even, namely, 2, just as the existence of a cat lying on a mat makes it true that "There is a cat on the mat." Problem is that it's really hard to give an explanation of how the human mind can come to know about things like numbers, which (unlike cats), cannot be perceived by our senses. The best that the platonist can do is to posit the existence of some kind of mysterious "intuition" that gives us access to the realm of numbers.

On the other hand, formalists or combinatorialists, as Benacerraf refers to them, reject platonism and argue that mathematical statements are true if they can proved from more basic statements. To be true is simply to be provable using certain rules. Formalism explains how we know that 2+2=4 (because it can be proved from basic statements known as the axioms of Peano arithmetic, which define our concept of natural numbers), but it requires denying that "2+2=4" is true in the same way that propositions like "A cat is on the mat" are true. In essence, if truth is about some correspondence between a statement and the world, there is no such correspondence between mathematical statements and the world for the formalist.

So we are left with a dilemma. Or maybe not. Perhaps the problem with Benacerraf's argument is that he has a deficient theory of knowledge. He assumes that knowledge involves some physical, causal relation between the object of knowledge and the knower. But is that true? That's one question among many that we can discuss on Monday.

Coming Up: Ontology and Epistemology of Mathematics!

2009-09-18T14:08:00.002-04:00

Greetings,

The study of mathematics raises all sorts of philosophical questions, some of which we will be discussing at the next Philosophy Club meeting, Monday, September 21 at 8:00pm. It should be a lot of fun! If you need location information, send me an email, and I'll give you the relevant info.

Zach's Ontology of Truth

2009-09-15T08:28:00.014-04:00

Greetings once again, everyone,

Last night's meeting on the philosophical implications of the governmental censorship of obscenity was evocative, edgy, and yet hopefully still both fun and educational.

After the meeting, a few of us hung out and discussed something I had been pondering for some time, but had not actually written out until earlier that day: my proposed ontology of truth. For those who don't know, "ontology" refers to the science or study of the nature of existence. This is not an ontological argument for truth; rather, it is an attempt at classifying what I believe are actual kinds of truths.

Let the predicate "P" refer to "...Coheres with...", so that "Pxy" refers to "x coheres with y".
Let the predicate "S" refer to "...Is a statement", so that "Sx" refers to "x is a statement".
For "Objective Truths", let "T" refer to the one-place predicate, "...Is true", so that "Tx" refers to "x is true".
For "Subjective Truths", let "T" refer to the two-place predicate, "...Is true for...", so that "Txy" refers to "x is true for y".
In these propositions, "x" refers to statements that individuals make, and this test seeks to show whether a statement "x" is.
In these propositions, "y" can be interpreted different ways, depending on your approach to various epistemological issues. I personally find it easiest to think of "y" as a paradigm, as Kuhn considered it. If you have issues with Kuhn's summation of paradigms, think of "y" as a worldview or a summation of perceptions of sorts.
In these propositions, "z" refers to a a subject. "Txz" would thus mean that "x is true for z".

That should hopefully do it. If anyone has a hard time reading the image or interpreting the notation, let me know, and I'm happy to help.

At any rate, here's the gist. Note that the examples I provide are not meant to be insightful and provocative insomuch as they are meant to be noncontroversial. The difficult questions can come later.
For x to be an Objectively Absolute truth, it must correspond to all y paradigms that correspond with reality. If there exists a y paradigm that corresponds with reality, but x does not correspond with this y paradigm, x is not an Objectively Absolute truth. Most (if not all) mathematical axioms, such as that the successor of zero does not equal zero, would fall under this category.

For x to be an Objectively Relative truth, it must correspond to at least one y paradigm that corresponds with reality. If there exists a y paradigm that corresponds with reality, but x does not correspond with this y paradigm, this is not a problem, because this truth is relative. There are possible worlds, perhaps, where paradigm y does not correspond with reality; nevertheless, y corresponds to some reality, so x is true, at least in an Objectively Relative sense. As an example of an Objectively Relative truth, consider the statement, "the universe is constantly expanding".

For x to be a Subjectively Absolute truth, it must correspond to all y paradigms that correspond to reality, and there must exist a subject such that x is true for that subject. These truths require a subject in order for them to be true. For example, consider, "I ought not do that which is wrong". Such a statement requires the existence of a subject, an "I", in order for it to be possibly true. If there does not exist a z such that, for z, this x statement is true for z, x is not true at all.

For x to be a Subjectively Relative truth, it must correspond to at least one y paradigm that corresponds with reality and there must exist a subject such that x is true for that subject. As an example of a Subjectively Relative truth, consider, "Ice cream is my favorite cold desert". This statement corresponds with a y paradigm-- my current one-- that also corresponds with reality. However, at a future point, that y might no longer correspond with reality; I might pick a different cold desert as my favorite. Thus, truths under this category are Subjectively Relative, as opposed to Subjectively Absolute.

Thoughts/comments/suggestions? Criticisms? Applause? Disgust? Hunger for ice cream? Thanks for your comments!

Obscenity as Abstraction

2009-09-11T17:13:00.003-04:00

In Jacobellis v. Ohio, US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart claimed that, while he could not concretely define "obscenity", stating, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [obscenity]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it..."

[Source: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=378&invol=184]

I'm going to argue that this is, in fact, a wise move, although I shall warn you up front that my argument is weak and not the result of much in-depth research and whatnot. Consider, if I stated that an item is necessarily obscene if and only if it has Property P-- or, alternatively, an item is necessarily not obscene if and only if it lacks Property P-- it would be likely that, given the rapid development in communication technology, ways could be found to avoid a work's clear possession of Property P. To concretely define what Property P is, one would be concretely defining obscenity; however, while examples of obscenity might be concrete, new forms might arise, and Property P might prove insufficient to capture a future definition of obscenity. In fact, I believe that an understanding of obscenity necessarily requires a context-- it is subjective, and obscenity cannot be sufficiently understood outside the context it is portrayed in-- thus entailing that obscenity be understood subjectively rather than objectively.

One might object that this makes obscenity relative; after all, two individuals might disagree on whether a work is obscene. However, while contradiction is necessarily a valid attack on arguments in the sphere of objectivity, I argue that such is not the case in the sphere of subjectivity. If I said, "Jeremy Soule's orchestration of Terra is the most beautiful", I might be subjectively right; you might favor Nobuo Uematsu's rendition, and it would be a lie for you to claim any other work as the greatest. Such beliefs are not relative-- they are held by absolute standards; the standards are internal to the individual, however,-- subjective-- as opposed to corresponding with an external law or principle, objectivity. Obscenity is similar.

Thoughts?

Galileo, why’d you have to do it?

2009-09-08T13:04:00.004-04:00

How heliocentrism radically “rocked the world” as we knew it...

Imagine yourself as living when the Earth was the center of it all. It is a time before telescopes and the preciseness demanded by empirical science. A time when explanation was ruled by theory and philosophy, and when we truly believed in a rising and setting sun. Our senses, after all, confirm a geocentric design – we can see the stars moving about us, and it certainly doesn’t feel as if the Earth is moving. For those who desired more than just senses and observation, we have Ptolemy’s complex system of circles that explain the motion of the planets and stars, while still beautifully keeping us in the middle of everything, and he did so using more than theory, but with the meticulous, objective disciplines of math, physics, and astronomy.

How comforting is it to think that the Resplendent Heavens circle about and surround my planet! What purpose and significance it gives for humanity and my individual existence, too! We see that from that perspective, the movements and changes in the ethos would be scrutinized in a way that is most alien to us. For them, the planets and stars directly concern themselves with humanity, perhaps even they are the forces or gods which impact my life – studying the movements of the cosmos could be of life-or-death significance, showing the favor or displeasure of the Fates. I may see the stars and planets as heavenly bodies, or as mysterious beacons of ethereal light, constant and glorious. Even if I don’t think they have a supernatural power over my life, and it’s all I can do to stare and say, “How I wonder what you are…”, I know that they are there, every night, moving about my planet far away in a celestial sphere. The stars are something permanent and enduring even if I’m cursed to a temporal existence; at least there is something that will last. Maybe they are simply there to be admired, here for no other purpose than to exist and to be something beautiful to look up at; perhaps they are just here for pleasure – humanity’s pleasure and my pleasure. Doesn’t that make me feel important!

Then enters Copernicus to knock the first hole in this view and Galileo with his telescope after him to perfect the heliocentric conjectures, and eureka! Goodbye to the Earth-centered universe. Did the cosmos suddenly become less or more knowable? The inscrutable galaxy can now be explained scientifically rather than philosophically. It is more comforting perhaps for some to have a more rational universe, one not just about superstitions or myths. For others, however, like the hypothetical person we imagined ourselves to be at the outset of this post, it destroyed long-held, comforting assurances, leaving in its wake a more mechanized, huge, impersonal galaxy, one that neither needs nor notices the human race. And so too the deistic view of God was popularized. Now we realize that Earth’s place in the galaxy is rather irrelevant. As we knocked it from its throne in the middle of all, so too demotes the value of the human race; so ends the Ancient and Romantic ages of thoughts, and our infatuatory love affair with ourselves; there is no more “sunny” picture of individual worth. Galileo brought to some a caustic, acerbically sobering explanation for a galaxy that is now vast and dark, and empty and scary. The stars do not “look down upon us”; they do not care in any singular way about humanity, and they certainly are not meant to be wished upon – a truly “stellar” poem with this theme is Robert Frost’s “Choose Something Like a Star.”

Isn’t it a funny coincidence that “geocentrism” can easily be misspelled to get “egocentrism”?

An Ontological Argument Against Fatalism

2009-09-01T08:33:00.009-04:00

Greetings, once again,

We had an excellent meeting at the Landmark Diner last night; thanks to everyone who showed up! With seven people, our first "Technical Meeting" was a smash success, and I for one got to enjoy a cup of coffee and a nice piece of baklava while waiting.

Our topic for the evening was "fatalism", as it is covered in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The encyclopedia defines fatalism as "the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do", which certainly made for an interesting discussion. After much dialogue, our group came to the conclusion that either fatalism is necessarily true or it is necessarily false, and that, if it is necessarily true, morality/normative claims are necessarily false. I can comment more on how we came to that conclusion if someone desire, but I would instead like to devote some space to developing an argument against fatalism-- my ontological argument against fatalism-- which we had some time to explore at the meeting.

Consider,

"U" refers to "In the understanding". Therefore, "Ux" would mean that "x exists in the understanding". Phrased another way, "I am not only capable of understanding the concept of x, but actually possess an understanding of it".

"f" refers to "freedom".

"a" refers to "fatalism"

"<>", my best attempt at an ASCII diamond, means "logically possible". <>Ux means that "It is logically possible that x exists in the understanding"

"[]", my best attempt at an ASCII square, means "necessarily". []Ux means that "x necessarily exists in the understanding".

"~" refers to negation. ~a means "not fatalism"-- that is, if "fatalism" is true, then "not fatalism" is false, and vice versa.

"<->" refers to a biconditional, "...if and only if...". "a <-> f" means, "a is true if and only if f is true".

Lastly, "->" refers to a conditional, "if...then" statement. "a->f" means, "if a is true, then f is true".

So, on to the argument.

1. Uf
2. Uf -> <>f
3. ~([]a <-> <>f)
Thus, 4. ~a

I'll break it down.

1. "I understand the idea of freedom". While not necessarily obvious, I believe that a charitable proponent of fatalism might grant this premise. Nevertheless, it could certainly be attacked. I think it fair and in good faith, though, as a starting place.

2. "If I understand the idea of freedom, there exists the logical possibility that freedom exists". Regardless of whether fatalism actually is necessarily true, I can imagine a world wherein freedom exists, and there is nothing necessarily contradictory about this world; therefore, it is logically possible, even if not in actuality.

3. "It is not the case that 'fatalism is necessarily true' and 'freedom possibly is true' can both be true at the same time". If fatalism is true, it is not possible that humans are free, by sheer definition. The mere possibility of freedom negates fatalism in its most basic form.

4. Thus, "Fatalism is not true".

What do you all think? There's further argument I could make, but I'd love to read some comments. Thanks!

My Philosophical Family Tree

2009-08-15T13:32:00.004-04:00

I recently discovered The Philosophy Family Tree on the web, put together by Professor Josh Dever of the University of Texas, and was pleased to find my own family tree there. I have some distinguished ancestors. But first, perhaps, some explanation is in order. The tree charts intellectual ancestry--my `father' is my Ph.D. dissertation adviser, the distinguished philosopher of science Paul Humphreys of the University of Virginia, and my `grandfather' is his dissertation adviser at Stanford, Patrick Suppes. The tree traces my line all the way back to someone by the name of Gottfried Leibniz, my `great-to-the-tenth-power-grandfather'. A later ancestor was Immanuel Kant as well as the American philosopher Josiah Royce and the Czech-born American philosopher of science Ernest Nagel.

The Dreams of Madmen

2009-04-19T19:08:00.005-04:00

It is unusual for me to have time to read just for fun this late in the semester. But I was happy to have a couple of free hours this afternoon to read a short, beautifully written novel, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, by the physicist Janna Levin.

Being a student of logic and analytic philosophy, I was of course very eager to read this book as it moves back and forth between the lives of the great logician Kurt Godel and the mathematician and computer pioneer Alan Turing, mixing fact and fiction, though Levin's account remains very faithful to the lives of these two tormented and tortured men. Along the way we read about encounters with other notable figures of 20th century thought, among them Moritz Schlick, the dominant figure of the Vienna Circle or logical positivists, who was murdered by a deranged student with Nazi sympathies, Oskar Morgenstern, one of the founders of game theory, and, of course, Ludwig Wittgenstein, perhaps the greatest philosopher of the last century. The discussion between Wittgenstein and Turing during a Cambridge seminar is both fascinating and frustrating, as is the overall contrast between the deterministic Turing and the mystically-minded Godel, who sees his Incompleteness Proof as a decisive refutation of many of the trends in 20th century philosophy. The final chapters on the decline and death of the two are harrowing, especially the vivid portrayal of what amounts to torture of Turing by the British authorities seeking to chemically suppress his homosexuality. It was Turing's work that led to the breaking of the German Enigma code during the Second World War, an important contributing cause to the defeat of the Nazis. It is nothing less than a tragedy that Turing was treated after the war not as a hero but a criminal.

In sum, I recommend Levin's book to anyone even remotely interested in 20th century philosophy.

Zach's Ontological Argument in Predicate Logic

2009-03-31T23:53:00.002-04:00

Greetings,

It has been quite some time since my last post, due in part to my attending an investment conference called R.I.S.E. in Dayton, Ohio. While there, I found myself attending a 2-hour panel on corporate governance... not the most exciting material, particularly for a philosophy student. However, I had plenty of time to fiddle around with one of my most favorite arguments: the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God.

As an undergraduate in philosophy, it often seems like logic is like a board game without a board—I know the rules, but want a scenario to try my hand with them. So far, the only “board” I’ve learned of that can be played for hours at a time is the Ontological Argument, which is fairly controversial on several grounds. It’s a fun game to play because it’s a challenges to establish a valid argument with true noncontroversial premises, but seems like something where I can consistently make progress.

So, at the conference, here is what I originally came up with:

Where P = …Is the perfection of…, H = …Has the property…, a= A being with all possible perfections, u= The property of existence in the understanding, and r= The property of existence in reality.

The basic argument is that if x is a perfection of existence in the understanding, a being with all perfections and with existence in the understanding must also possess x. As existence in reality is the perfection of existence in the understanding, and a being with all perfections exists in the understanding, a being with all perfections therefore necessarily exists in reality.

This appeared logically valid to me, but I was not satisfied. Premise 1 appears non-controversial to me—if a being has all perfections and has a property, it must therefore have the perfection of that property. However, Premise 2 and Premise 3 seemed more controversial—that the property of existing in reality is more perfect than the property of existing in the understanding (Premise 2), and that a being with all possible perfections exists in the understanding (Premise 3). Thus, I decided to see if I could find non-controversial ways to express these premises.

After playing around with the possibilities, I came up with this argument for Premise 3:

Where H = …Has the property…, A= Can be rationally debated, u= The property of existing in the understanding, and a=A being with all possible perfections.

The basic argument here is that, if any given x does not exist in the understanding, one cannot rationally debate it—for example, if unicorns do not exist in my understanding, then I cannot debate about unicorns. I feel that this should be fairly non-controversial, and thus should make the argument a bit more generally acceptable.

Therefore, my new version of the Ontological Argument (for those who challenge Hau) is:

Where P = …Is the perfection of…, H = …Has the property…, A= Can be rationally debated, a= A being with all possible perfections, u= The property of existence in the understanding, and r= The property of existence in reality.

However, I feel that the new fourth premise—Pru—is still fairly controversial, and wanted to see if I could express it in a less controversial manner. After a bit more exploration (and with the corporate governance panel drawing to a close), I came up with this:

Where P = …Is the purest possible positive property of…, H = …Has the property…, I=…Is a…, n= Perfection, p=Property, …N=Can have a…, u= The property of existence in the understanding, and r= The property of necessary existence in reality.

This is arguing that there’s nothing that exists that is the perfection of existence in the understanding and is not the property of necessary existence in reality. Now, if existence is a property and the property of necessary existence in reality is not the perfection of existence in understanding, then either there exists something that is more perfect existence than necessary existence or existence cannot have a perfection (but not both of these at the same time). As existence can have a perfection, and existence is a property, necessary existence in reality must necessarily be the perfection of existence in understanding.

Plugging this into the original equation would look like this:

Where P = …Is the purest possible positive property of…, H = …Has the property…, I=…Is a…, n= Perfection, p=Property, …N=Can have a…, a= A being with all purest possible positive properties, A= Can be rationally debated, u= The property of existence in the understanding, and r= The property of necessary existence in reality.

So, there you go: Zach’s version of the Ontological Argument in Predicate Logic, plus further argument on Hau and Pru. Also, you may notice that Iep could just as well be left out… I’m trying to anticipate Kant, though. Once I understand his argument better, it’s structured so I should be able to respond and easily plug it in.

Thoughts/comments/suggestions? Think it’s full of crap, think it’s invalid and I missed something, or think there’s a mistaken premise? Impressed with my leet formatting skills on a blog post? Looking forward to any/all comments!

Kierkegaard: Number 10!

2009-03-31T09:16:00.003-04:00

Greetings,

Well, just got my PC up and running after frying the motherboard about a month ago... and, a poll on the Leiter Reports with 600 votes found Kierkegaard to be the 10th most important philosopher of the last 200 years!

Ironically enough, Kiekegaard would probably disprove... he's been voted to be important by the anonymous masses in a mass media style of publication... but then again, he was also a fan of irony, so I suppose that's acceptable.

Oh, and I'll have another post up soon with significant content... however, it's long and holds some images which I'll have to format once I'm out of class, so I can't guarantee what time today it'll be up.

My Favorite Books

2009-03-28T14:00:00.005-04:00

Ben Bell has been insisting that I list my favorite books on Facebook. I will do that but I thought I would give them here first so that I can explain briefly their significance for me. In truth I have chosen ten books that are not only favorites but which have had a significant place in my intellectual formation. They have made me what I am.

1. Plato, The Republic. The greatest philosophy book ever. It has everything.
2. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Perhaps the most profound books ever written for a child. The annotated version by Martin Gardner is a delight.
3. Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. It got me first fascinated by what I'm fascinated by. Though I don't share Russell's views on religion or ethics, he is my model for clarity in thought and writing. A second place goes to his History of Western Philosophy. Not serious historical scholarship but a good place to start.
4. Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions. Very stimulating, lots of fun.
5. Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies. My first book on the philosophy of science, though I didn't know it at the time. Chapters on assorted cranks, including flat earthers, anti-Einsteinians, and dowsers.
6. Michel de Montaigne, Essays. The inventor of the essay and one of the most entertaining writers ever.
7. George Gamow, One, Two, Three...Infinity. My father gave me this book written by an eminent physicist when I was about 10. The first chapter, which was my first exposure to Georg Cantor's work on the infinite, simply blew my mind.
8. Edwin Abbott, Flatland. An intriguing combination of science fiction and social satire. It made me question my beliefs about reality at an early age and sent me along the path of philosophy. A version annotated by the mathematician Ian Stewart was published a few years ago.
9. Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten. A memoir of the famed neurologist's childhood that doubles as a book on chemistry. Really good.
10. Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon. Yes, it's a dictionary! But it is also a comprehensive record of the language and literature of a great civilization. Liddell was Alice's father (see number 2 above).

The Liberal Arts and Belief in God

2009-03-20T10:03:00.006-04:00

In my last two posts I discussed the relation of philosophy to the humanities and the liberal arts. I would like to complete my thoughts on these topics by presenting a hypothesis that I have been considering for some time. I am not at all sure if it is correct, so I am eager to receive any responses.

I have settled on an understanding of the liberal arts as any kind of study that is pursued for the intrinsic value of its object. I have presented mathematics as the liberal art par excellence because one's concern at least in pure mathematics is simply with the structures and patterns that one is studying without an immediate interest in the applications that any results about these structures may have. The same holds in the case of the "disinterested" study of the natural sciences, where the sheer beauty and complexity of the world is sufficient motive and reward for the scientist's efforts.

Yet this notion that the world is worthy of study for its own sake entails that there is an intrinsic goodness and value to the world. Absent that, one has no adequate justification of the liberal arts. For if all values are impositions on reality by humans based on their interests and purposes, there is no sense to disinterested study but only to knowledge that advances the interests of man. Hence a narrow, pragmatic focus on the value of education.

Now belief in the intrinsic goodness of the world has usually, though not always, depended on a belief in a benevolent creator-god. I don't mean to suggest that secular scientists and scholars do not have a sense of awe and wonder that is in many ways similar to a religious approach to nature. Nor do I ignore the existence of theists who have no place for the liberal arts. But it does seem to me that one can more readily argue for the liberal arts within a certain theistic framework than from without. So perhaps the present decline in the liberal arts is itself a symptom of a crisis of faith?

Is Philosophy a Liberal Art?

2009-03-13T13:41:00.004-04:00

In my previous post, I asked whether philosophy belongs to the humanities. That question is difficult to answer unless one has a clear set of criteria that make a subject a humanistic. But I am more certain about what a liberal art is. And philosophy, as it is normally practiced, is certainly a liberal art.

My principal objection is that many people identify the humanities with the liberal arts. But this is neither historically nor conceptually defensible. The earliest formulation of the liberal arts mainly included what we now would call mathematics (which is usually not considered part of the humanities). But even today math is clearly a liberal art. For I understand the liberal arts to be those disciplines that may be studied simply to enrich one's life rather than to provide a training for a particular profession or occupation.

As an amateur mathematician (with the emphasis on "amateur") I have never used what I've learned in real analysis or abstract algebra to earn my livelihood. But I simply delight in their study! I am a happier person for understanding the fundamental theorem of calculus. And I think I'm a better philosopher for it too.

Now to be sure, math can be used for very practical ends. But that does not make it an illiberal art. For it can and very often is studied simply for its sheer beauty and depth. Philosophy, perhaps, is not so useful, and its charm resides principally in its power to enrich. But the study of both subjects embodies the ideal of a liberal arts education. As does the study of history, language, physics, economics, political science among many others.

So let the humanities die if they must! They seem to be a recent development in human history. But the ancient and hoary liberal arts--may they live on forever.

Positive Science, Negative Theology

2009-03-10T15:44:00.003-04:00

Last night's talk, “Positive Science / Negative Theology,” by former Berry physics professor and current Emory theology student appealed to a broad audience.

Dr. Wallace argued something to this effect: Science is at its best when making positive claims. For example, platypuses lay eggs, the earth is (generally) spherical, and that wavelength equals wavespeed divided by frequency.

Theology, however, is best served when making negative “claims”, although “claims” is perhaps not the correct word. Negative experiences, in accordance with the apophatic tradition, edifies true religious experiences, according to Dr. Wallace. For example, experiences of “emptying” or of realizing one’s insignificance would appear to fall under the status of apophasis. While much could be said about apophasis, I'll leave that to subsequent posts. Instead I want to take up the positive/negative distinction between theology and science.

Dr. Wallace originally claimed that proper science is positive and proper theology is negative. It was unclear whether or not “negative science” could even exist, and positive theology—such as ontological proofs for God—are not edifying as is negative theology. However, Dr. Wallace also argued that, by science, he meant a vast collection of facts—but facts ought really to be interpreted as very well educated opinions, that might not correspond to actual reality and might end up being wrong. While the intention of science is to tell us what is, it can only do so through telling us what it definitely is not (for example, that Aristotelian physics fails, or that Newtonian physics are irrelevant to objects moving at speeds comparable to that of light).

Let us then, make this distinction: Science is positive in its intention but negative in its method. Science cannot tell us that all platypuses lay eggs or that wavelength equals wavespeed divided by frequency; rather, it can tell us that this has been the case for all observable phenomena, and we see no logical basis for assuming that these trends will not apply universally. However, what it can absolutely do is determine when things are inadequate (such as Aristotelian physics), and narrow down the choices accordingly. Perhaps Popperian, but nevertheless seems consistent.

Now, in terms of negative theology, Dr. Wallace argued that one should approach God negatively—at least, through a negative method. However, the intention of theology is to know and form a relationship with God; it does not have a negative relationship to God in intention, or else one may as well watch television for hours, since you’ll have just as much negative knowledge about God.

So, science has positive intentions and negative methods. Theology has positive intentions and negative methods. Therefore, positive science and negative theology don’t refer to the same thing—one refers to intention, while the other refers to method.

What are the implications of this?
Is the positive/negative dichotomy right?
Is there a third option here—not merely a gradient scale, but an actual third option?

Is Philosophy Part of the Humanities?

2009-03-06T18:06:00.007-05:00

I've been reading a number of articles recently that discuss the fate of the humanities. A couple of days ago someone put a copy of a New York Times article "In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth" in my box. And the literary critic Stanley Fish has posted several comments on the same site on the topic of the value of a humanities education. His entry on the "Last Professor" discusses the book with that title by Frank Donaghue, who argues that the humanities don't so much face a crisis but rather are already on their deathbed as the university becomes driven by purely practical concerns. "...all fields deemed impractical, such as philosophy, art history, and history will henceforth face a constant danger of being deemed unnecessary" writes Donoghue, according to Fish. Fish himself notes wistfully that he was lucky to get into the humanities business when things were still good, but otherwise seems to think Donoghue's pessimistic prognosis is correct.

I am not by inclination pessimistic. I also tend to think that the present is not that different from the past, and that in some sense the humanities have been dying and coming back to life (sometimes in new forms) as long as they have been around. What may appear to us as imminent demise may just be another stage in development.

But I'm not so interested in all that. I'm more interested in the question of whether philosophy is one of the humanities. I'm not so sure it is. According to Berry's general education classification, it is, but that is just a result of an arbitrary bureaucratic classification. Certainly it would be hard to make the case that the kind of philosophy I do has much in common with the other disciplines lumped together as humanities. I suppose that the humanities are concerned with the study of humanity. But my current research interest in philosophical logic is not principally (or, at all, for that matter) concerned with humans. And many sciences (biology, economics, political science) not usually considered humanities study humans. So such a characterization of the humanities as the study of humans is not very helpful.

There must be a special method or approach that distinguishes the humanities from other disciplines. But there again I think that much of philosophy would fail to be humanistic. Except for the more historical/literary approaches to philosophy, a lot of philosophy, especially the analytic sort, resembles more in its approach the formal methods of mathematics and linguistics than what usually goes on in literature or history departments.

So help me out here. What makes a discipline humanistic? And does philosophy as a whole (as opposed to just some forms of philosophy) count as humanistic?

Coffee and Philosophy: Brewing the “Good Stuff”

2009-03-03T15:45:00.002-05:00

Greetings,
Coffee is everywhere—from cheap office brewers to a pricey cup at Starbucks, it is a phenomena that persists in many forms and fashions. Of course, there are many methods of brewing coffee; one person might the boldness of coffee brewed from a French Press, while another prefers the simplicity of an auto-drip. Still, others care less about the taste than about the convenience, and are content with a $2.00 cup from Starbucks. An interesting analogy can be drawn if one compares the methods of brewing coffee with the methods of “brewing” philosophy, that, whether you know about your tastes in coffee or philosophy (or both), might spark some interest in your mind.

One way of brewing coffee is the Percolator. This is the device one sees in generic Western movies, a simple pot with a filter inside that one heats over an open stove or fire. This generally makes a poor pot of coffee, but requires no electricity, and can generate vast quantities of the drink. It’s extremely hard to know when it’s time to pull it off the heat, and is unlikely to make something tasty—but it’s useful for excursions and low-budget western movies.

Percolators are a method similar to amateur philosophy, such as that from much of the blogosphere and from those who enjoy talking about intellectual matters, but who have never read or studied philosophy in their life. People often make fun of those who expound their views as “philosophies”, cheap knockoffs of the real thing as they all, but nevertheless enjoy it for cheap entertainment value. The people who resort to this generally don’t know that something better exists—or don’t have the intellectual bravery to live someplace with electricity (interpret that as you wish).

The Auto-Drip is another method of brewing coffee. By this method, hot water automatically drenches ground coffee beans from a small reserve tank. There exists a lot of variety among auto-drip makers—options can include everything from pre-programmed brewing to single-cup brewing to brewing for large amounts of people. Those who want can brew a cheap cup in a minute from pre-packaged grounds, while others might carefully grind their own beans, take care not to let the coffee burn, and produce a wonderful cup of coffee.

Similar to the auto-drip in philosophy is the mainstream historical material. After all, who hasn’t heard that the Greeks taught moderation, the medieval philosophers tried to prove that God exists, or that Nietzsche argued that God is dead (and we have killed him)? Of course, for those who are willing to take the time and study the material, they’ll find a lot more depth—the Greeks were about more than moderation, the medieval philosophers made some intriguing points on human nature (Augustine, anyone?), and even Nietzsche’s ravings on a dead God might have more subtlety than meets the eye. In fact, those who are willing to take the time, do the work to grind the beans, and make sure that the pot doesn’t burn may find themselves with a genuinely delicious, distinctive cup of Joe—or of existentialism, whichever’s your cup of tea… eh, enough with the silly puns; back to the analogies.

The French Press is the method of brewing coffee for the connoisseur, involving labor and time, as well as attention to detail. It’s important not to grind the beans too finely, not to pour too much water in, and let the coffee steep before you sift the grinds out via a screen. However, those “in the know” will tell you that, if you’re looking for the best, this is where it’s at. It’s not accessible to many people, and takes a good deal of time and energy, but the payout—if you can make it—is certainly worth it.

The French Press loosely corresponds to genuine philosophic study. This generally involves, for those who choose to partake, a lot of time, effort, and mental energy. One must carefully read sources in their original language to catch their true meaning. One must analyze the criticism of peers and, a harder critic, one’s own scrutiny. One must be willing to dedicate hours of difficult, intellectual exercise that needs to always be aware of itself. Essentially, this will allow one to enjoy coffee—or philosophy—in its purest form, and find the most long-lasting pleasure. You may still be able to enjoy the lesser forms, such as the auto-drip, but you’ll know what you’re missing, and won’t be able to consider it with quite the merit that you perhaps once did.

The $2.00 Cup of Starbucks is suave, sexy, and unbearable without large doses of sugar, cream, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. It boost your feelings of self worth—I’ve seen people who’ve filled old Starbucks cups with coffee from an auto-drip just so others can see them drink from it. However, if you really take the time to stop and think about what you’re drinking, you’re going to be disappointed; you wasted your money on a $2 cheap of burned coffee, so best to pretend like you don’t see its flaws and wait until you have something better to drink
I couldn’t possibly imagine what this could emulate in philosophy… do as you will with that.

Lastly, there are many more methods of brewing or making coffee, such as espresso machines and vacuum pots. However, they tend to be a bit less common, and I’m not familiar with them enough to comment.

At any rate, I hope you enjoyed the article. I’m personally an auto-drip kind of guy; I’d like to get into the French Press one day, but I’m not ready for it yet, and will wait until I have the knowledge to use it properly. What about you?

In Response to S. Dietz's Comment on Falsifiability

2009-02-24T15:32:00.005-05:00

The following addresses a reader's concerns with my argument found in my argument on Falsifiability in Wilson's Biological Ethics. I would highly recommend reading the original before reading my additional comments. However, given that the questions posed were of significant concern with regards to the clarity and validity of my original post, I decided that they merited an additional new topic. If the powers that be decide otherwise, feel free to transfer this to a comment in the original post.

S. Dietz,

Thanks for your comments; they are much appreciated! If you don't mind, I'll try to address them as best I can...

I feel that the thesis of your essay hinges on the idea that because it is impossible to find something to falsify the argument then the argument is not falsifiable.

What you stated is, to a certain degree, accurate. However, I'm not merely saying that it is impossible to find something to falsify, but that the theory is capable of being justified, regardless of any attempt at falsification-- it is too subjective to be scientific.

If you are arguing that because his theory is scientifically based that it needs to be falsifiable, I need you to tell me if you are basing this on scientific testability standards or on logical soundness.

Indeed, you summarized it quite nicely; I am, in fact, arguing that science ought to be falsifiable, and that, given that he claims that everything (literally, including arts, ethics, religion, and etcetera) can be explained through biological science, his theory ought to hold to the rigorous standards of science. I believe that I argued why this is the case by providing the example of astrology, which is not a science, as it is not falsifiable. By “falsifiable” I refer specifically to logical falsifiability; a statement is logically falsifiable if, to quote Theo Kupiers in “General Philosophy of Science” on page 518, if there is “at least one conceivable observation contradicting it”. So, “unicorns exist” is falsifiable, because there at least one conceivable observation where there are no unicorns in the universe. However, I would argue that “2+2=4” is not falsifiable (one cannot conceive a world where it is false), so though it is true, it is not scientific. Wilson tried to argue that science can establish ethics, but tried to argue that the science is unscientific (unfalsifiable), therefore establishing a contradiction, meaning that it is necessarily false.

At least, that was the gist of my argument, best as I could make it.

Other than that, however, I think it was very well written. I especially value the parsimony of your essay, because some papers I have had to read just went on and on and on...

Much appreciated; thanks so much!

Problems with Temporality

2009-02-24T11:52:00.001-05:00

Tricia, I beat you to my post, as you can see below.

Have a great day!

God is the Ultimate Alpha Male

2009-02-24T11:48:00.002-05:00

Stay tuned for a thought-provoking piece from staff writer, Zach Sherwin, on last night's meeting of the minds. The first gathering of its kind of profs from philosophy, religion, anthropology, and biology all talking about Science, Ethics, and E.O Wilson (among other strongly and slightly related topics) was a great success.

Stay tuned on more philosophy & science panels, discussions, and speakers. If you have an idea you'd like to see covered, comment and let us know!

On Falsifiability in Wilson's Biological Ethics

2009-02-24T11:26:00.003-05:00

Greetings,

First, I wish to thank all who were able to attend the Philosophy Club meeting last night; it was a fascinating and genuinely productive meeting concerning E.O. Wilson’s argument that ethics and religion stem from biological roots. I wish to especially thank Dr. and Mrs. Graham from the Biology department, Dr. Knowlton of the Anthropology department, Dr. Mattila from the religion department, and Dr. Papazian, our club sponsor, from the Philosophy department.

One of the concepts discussed at the meeting was the issue of whether or not the argument for biological ethics is falsifiable. I believe that this is an important point to talk about, and merits a bit of fleshing out for further insight into the issues at hand. First, I shall describe at the least (and define at the best) falsifiability, and then argue why falsifiability is distinctively important for Wilson’s argument. Lastly, I shall show why I believe his argument is not falsifiable, and thus philosophically uninteresting at best.

Falsifiability refers to whether there exists any criteria under which an argument can be shown to be false. For an example, the following argument is falsifiable:

1. Where there is fire, there is oxygen.
2. There is oxygen here.
3. Therefore, there is fire here.

This argument is falsifiable if it can be shown that there is oxygen in a place where there is no fire; similarly, one could construct a simple logical argument to show where the fallacy lies (A->B, B, therefore A is not logically valid). Falsifiability is particularly important in relation to the sciences, as a scientific study that is not falsifiable—such as Astrology—would generally be considered pseudoscientific. Similarly, the intelligent design argument that the world was created to look and act as if it was extremely old (I’m leaving this ambiguous on purpose; assume greater than 10,000 years, for the sake of argument), although this is a deception by its creator might be plausible, but is certainly not falsifiable, and thus would not be scientifically interesting.

Wilson attempts to claim that all forms of human ethics can be explained through biological roots. He does not necessarily take the genetic-imperativist stance of Richard Dawkins, but nevertheless contends that every existent given religion, culture, or ethical imperative can be justified biologically. However, this presents a problem: can Wilson’s claim be made falsifiable? Wilson states yes; he argues that, if a religious, cultural, or ethical act cannot be accounted for through biological ethics, then his theory is falsified.

However, I do not buy his argument, and I don’t think the rest of the group did, either. The criteria used to establish whether an argument can be justified under the terms of falsifiability he established seem intentionally and maliciously vague; is it not possible to justify or explain any given action as biological, given enough creativity? This seems strikingly similar to the intelligent design argument mentioned earlier—show something that a creator could not have deceived us about and the argument is false. In fact, this argument might be more falsifiable than Wilson’s, as at least there exist relatively (depending on your philosophical inclinations) certain and stable criteria for establishing deception.

Wilson’s argument, in terms of falsifiability, stands against Occam’s Razor and common sense. I think that his argument may or may not have merit; I am not knowledgeable enough in biology and biohistory to offer an authoritative opinion. What I am certain of, however, is that he failed to establish a system that I personally find convincing, for it seems incapable of holding up to the standards it ought. As his argument is scientifically grounded and grown, and falsifiability is vital to science, falsifiability is essential to the quality of his argument. Given that the argument fails this criteria, it appears far less philosophically interesting than I originally had thought, although the implications from it might nevertheless merit philosophical investigation.

Thoughts/comments/suggestions/feedback? Please comment below, or email me at zsherwin berry.edu. Thanks!

Speaking of temporal...

2008-11-12T12:47:00.002-05:00

Facebook, anyone?

Become a fan of ARETE by clicking here.

Another Productive Collegiate Network Conference

2008-11-11T21:34:00.010-05:00

This past weekend, Tricia Steele and I traveled to Charlotte, NC to take part in yet another Collegiate Network conference. This is the organization that has given the journal a generous printing grant. At this particular event, students from all over the South met to share their experiences concerning the production of independent college publications. The weekend conference consisted of several workshops ranging from "Business Management" to "Ethics." Many tutorials not only offered indispensable advice, but outlined practical ways in which to accomplish the professional goal of publishing independently. To help students visualize this and the potential long-term success that might come about in the discipline of letters, several notable journalistic professionals were enlisted to speak to the student body.

One notable impression was made by Anne Carson Daly who is the Vice President for Academic Affairs from Belmont Abbey College and was a former Director of Policy Communications for Pfizer. Her speech, "What Does it Mean? Why Words Matter," particularly resonated with the philosophically-inclined students in the audience--those who are always eager to engage in discussions regarding the nature of language.

The underlying sentiment of her talk revolved around the activity of language, the concrete meaning that words hold, and the responsibility bestowed upon those who take on the role of distributing knowledge and information. Daly holds that those who choose to do so have a duty to be as transparent as possible as well as being responsible for the ignition of intellectual curiosity.

Working from the Platonic model of the Forms, Daly called her young audience to action: words have meaning behind them that ought to be acknowledged and protected. For her, language is not arbitrary, but vital and rich with meaning. Words point to the best of things and it is with this understanding that we create substance out of this world. As conductors of language we should embrace this role and view our duty as something sacred.

The future of Arete rests upon such philosophical vigor. It is our intention to express the temporal through a philosophical lens. We want people to understand the philosophical workings and implications of all things, no matter how minute they may originally appear. Such a lens gives individuals the tools to work past the immediate trappings of circumstance toward the greater things in life that hold ultimate value. Those are the things that we desire to express and protect. We hope that our ideas are infectious, controversial, and compelling. This aim, coincidentally, could not be possible without the basic understanding of how one word's meaning holds the potential to shape an idea, a movement, a mind, or a soul.

What would Pascal say now?

2008-11-07T07:59:00.000-05:00

An Irish bookmaker is currently running odds of 4 to 1 that God exists.

What to Read During a Deep Recession

2008-10-11T16:40:00.001-04:00

As the economic crisis grows, an article in the New York Times discusses the role of trading in derivatives, those complex financial contracts whose values derive from other transactions, in the current mess. The article blames Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, and his resistance to government regulation of derivative contracts for much of the economic crisis.

While Greenspan was a cheerleader for derivatives, Warren Buffett predicted five years ago that derivatives, which he called "financial weapons of mass destruction," carry dangers that are "potentially lethal."

It is no secret that Greenspan was a friend of Ayn Rand and that he remains an admirer of her "objectivist philosophy." Buffett, by contrast, reads the works of the philosopher Bertrand Russell for fun. Since books no doubt affect one's judgment, I think I'll take Atlas Shrugged off my reading list and spend some time with Russell's Human Knowledge or maybe Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy instead.

ADDENDUM: I should also note that George Soros, another of the foes of derivatives, studied under the philosopher of science Karl Popper at the London School of Economics. I'm noticing a pattern here.

Socrates' Jail Cell

2008-09-23T11:20:00.001-04:00

Yesterday (September 22) the Philosophy Club had a very interesting and lively discussion of Plato's Crito. The Crito is concerned with the question of political obligation and takes place in the prison cell where Socrates awaits execution. Here's a picture of what purports to be Socrates' prison in Athens taken during my visit last summer.

Philosophy in the News

2008-09-23T11:16:00.000-04:00

This article on the growth of interest in philosophy at Auburn University appeared in the New York Times Sunday magazine.

Philosophy is New Hot Major

2008-04-08T14:10:00.000-04:00

Or at least that's what the New York Times reports. Read about it here.

New Officers for Philosophy & Religion Club

2008-04-03T15:41:00.000-04:00

On April 3, four students were elected as the club's officers for 2008-2009. They are:

President: Abbi Butcher
Vice President: Zach Sherwin
Secretary: Will Harper
Tresurer: Tricia Steele

Congratulations to the new officers and to all the nominees for their willingness to serve.

We also would like to thank our outgoing officers who led the club this year and helped to make the spring semester especially successful and active. Most of the current officers will be graduating this semester, so we also wish them well in the future.

The club plans to have one more meeting this semester--a cookout. Date and time TBA.

Politics of Science and Science of Politics

2008-03-24T15:10:00.001-04:00

Berry's 11th Annual Conference on Politics, Religion, Culture and Community begins this Wednesday March 26 and continues to the next day. Details are available here.

Of particular interest, the Wednesday session at 3:30 in the Science Auditorium features Berry philosophy and honors students speaking on science, technology, and the modern world.

Later that evening at 6:00pm also in the Science Auditorium, Professor Patrick Deneen of Georgetown will speak on Virtue, Technology, and Wendell Berry.

All sessions are cultural events.

philosophy and hedge fund management

2008-03-20T15:39:00.000-04:00

We've all heard the jokes about philosophy majors working at McDonald's. But in reality people who study philosophy in college usually have the last laugh. This story about the value of majors provides the details. In addition to pointing out that Stephen Colbert was a philosophy major, the article notes that Ryan Miller attributes part of his success in designing software for a hedge fund to his undergraduate study of Russell, Frege, and Wittgenstein (the holy trinity of analytic philosophy, the form of philosophy that relies heavily on symbolic logic and highly abstract reasoning). Miller says that studying analytic philosophy is a lot like hedge fund management (except for the money).

So maybe that's what went wrong at Bear Stearns. If they had spent more time reading the Tractatus or Principia Mathematica, things may have turned out better for them.

Second Philosophy Club Meeting of the Semester

2008-03-10T10:38:00.000-04:00

Our next meeting will be Wednesday March 12 at 7:00 in Evans 122. The topic is the philosophy of education. Also, we will have elections of new officers: president, vice-president, tresurer, and representative to SGA.

First Philosophy Club Meeting of the Semester

2008-02-18T14:53:00.000-05:00

We will meet on Wednesday evening February 20 at 7:00 in Evans 122. The topic is love and eros. All are welcome.

The Rabbi, the Pope, and C.S. Lewis

2008-01-26T17:16:00.000-05:00

No, this is not a joke! I recently finished reading Pope Benedict XVI's book Jesus of Nazareth. It is an excellent book and I recommend it highly. The most fascinating part for me was the pope's discussion of a book by Rabbi Jacob Neusner, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus. In that book Neusner seeks to explain why, if he had lived in Israel in the time of Jesus, he would not have been one of Jesus' followers. Neusner argues that Jesus is not just another rabbi attempting to reform Judaism and reinterpret the Torah, but is rather rejecting the Torah and its commandments, and attempting to take its place as the center of the Jewish faith. As a Jew loyal to the Torah, Neusner cannot accept Jesus or anyone else who seeks to replace the Torah. Still, Neusner is respectful toward Jesus and even says that he honors him and wishes him well.

Clearly, Benedict was impressed by Neusner's openness to rational engagement with and respect for Jesus. The pope makes the point that Neusner has understood that the Gospel of Matthew (on which Neusner bases his portrayal of Jesus) identifies Jesus with God, and it is only because Jesus saw himself as God that he can make the claims he does about Jewish law. In Benedict's view, Neusner has seen what many modern New Testament scholars and Christian theologians do not see--that interpreting Jesus as a liberal rabbi continuous with the tradition of Judaism rather than a disruption is untenable and even insulting to Jews who reject Jesus.

After reading the pope's book (I don't have Neusner's book yet but will order it soon) I read an interesting critique of Neusner by Rabbi Meir Soloveichik in the January 2008 issue of First Things. Soloveichik faults Neusner for his claim to honor Jesus and wish him well. According to Soloveichik, since Neusner acknowledges that Jesus claimed to be God, he cannot escape C.S. Lewis' famous trilemma from Mere Christianity: a man claiming to be the Son of God must either be the Son of God or a lunatic or the devil. Having rejected the first option, Neusner is stuck honoring and befriending either a madman or Satan, an absurd stance.

But is that right? I must confess (this might be considered heresy around here) I've never been convinced by Lewis' argument. Why is it absurd to respect someone who claims to be divine? Most of the pagan Roman emperors claimed divinity and were worshipped. Many of them, to be sure, were lunatics. But I still admire and respect Marcus Aurelius, who for all his many faults was a serious philosopher with many interesting things to say. If that's acceptable, why can't Neusner or any one else who denies the divinity of Christ nevertheless respect and honor him? So I'm with Neusner and Benedict on this point rather than Soloveichik and Lewis.

A final point: this intellectual encounter between Neusner, Benedict, and Soloveichik is the best interfaith dialogue I have found. Such dialogue tends usually to be burdened by a preordained relativism that prevents genuine debate. Happily that was not the case here.

I'm Back!

2008-01-14T14:11:00.001-05:00

Some of you knew that I was on sabbatical last semester. One of the things that I have to do now that my sabbatical is over is to write a report of what I accomplished. But since Berry College was amazingly generous in giving me time off at full pay for about eight months, I think that it's not enough just to file a report to the administration. I should also let Berry students know what I did, since their tuition money paid for a good deal of my sabbatical.

I did three things during the semester. One of them, my trip to Greece, was the topic of a previous post. It was a great experience, one from which I learned a lot and which I look forward to doing again soon (maybe with some Berry students!)

The other two activities were:

1. Working on a book on Stoic logic. This has become my scholarly obsession the last few years and I needed the time off to make the progress that the book demanded. The ancient Stoics had a highly sophisticated system of logic, one which anticipated in many respects modern symbolic logic. Unfortunately very little of their writings survive, so people like me have to piece together and reconstruct their beliefs from the remaining fragments. My method was to start with those fragments and then to use the tools of modern logic to see what kind of logical system the Stoics would have produced if they were living today and knew of all the advances in logic since the nineteenth century. I made some interesting discoveries, in particular, that the Stoic system of modal logic (the logic of necessity and possibility) is in certain very interesting ways very different from standard modern modal logics. The details are a bit too complex to discuss here but I will be glad to talk about them to anyone who is interested (or you can just wait for the book to come out!).

2. I attended a class for the first time since grad school! I had the great privilege of being a part of Dr. Ron Taylor's Real Analysis class. It was such a pleasure to be a student instead of a professor for a change. And I learned so much not only about mathematics (one of my long-standing passions) but also about teaching. I got many ideas about good teaching from watching Ron, and I am grateful both to him and to my fellow students for putting up with me for the semester. If I had the time, I'd be taking another class this semester too.

Are Christians Evil?

2007-12-04T13:30:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite philosophers is David Lewis. Lewis, who died in 2001, was a professor at Princeton renowned for defending strange and unconventional positions in metaphysics such as his belief that our world is but one of many worlds, all of which are equally real. He exemplified the playful cleverness that I admire in philosophers.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see that the December 2007 issue of the magazine Harper's has an excerpt from an essay entitled "Divine Evil" based on an outline Lewis wrote shortly before his death. The essay has been published in the book Philosophers without Gods (Oxford University Press, 2007).

The excerpt presents an argument that tries to show that most, if not all, of us are evil. It seems to go something like this:

(1) Anyone who admires someone who is evil is evil.
(2) It is evil to torment people for insubordination.
(3) The greater the torment prescribed for insubordination, the greater is the evil of the one prescribing the torment.
(4) God prescribes infinite torment for insubordination.
(5) Therefore, God is the most evil being. (follows from 2, 3, and 4)
(6) Anyone who admires God is evil. (follows from 1 and 5)
(7) All Christians admire God.
(8) Therefore, all Christians are evil. (follows from 6 and 7)
(9) All who admire people who admire evil beings are themselves evil.
(10) Almost everyone admires some Christian.
(11) Almost everyone is evil. (follows from 9 and 10)

Lewis uses the example of Fritz, the nice Nazi who admires Hitler. Clearly, Hitler is evil, and presumably we would judge people who admire Hitler, even if they themselves do not torment anyone, to be evil as well. But Hitler never sent anyone to eternal damnation in hell, so God is even worse than Hitler and anyone who follows God is worse than Fritz.

This argument seems to fail on a number of grounds, but I'll present one possible response right now and leave the rest to you.

Leaving aside universalists (who believe that everyone is saved), most Christians do believe that at least some people are eternally damned. But does that necessarily make God evil? Lewis seems to assume that we should assess the morality of a being based on the quantity or quality of the pain and suffering they inflict or allow. But that ignores the fact that people like Hitler and Stalin are limited in their ability to inflict suffering not by moral considerations but by their practical inability to inflict all the suffering they want to inflict. The question we need to ask is how much would such evil men do if they had the power of God? Compared to them, God is probably amazingly merciful. Any human in God's role would probably be much more petty and vindictive. So perhaps what is admirable about God is that given His infinite power, His mercy is beyond anything that humans are capable of.

Dead Sea Scrolls Lecture on Thursday

2007-11-07T11:56:00.001-05:00

Dr. Sharon Mattila, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Berry, will present a lecture on The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Archaeological Site of Qumran on Thursday November 8 at 7:00pm in the Science Auditorium. Dr. Mattila will discuss the site, the scrolls, and the people responsible for both. Cultural events credit is available. If you'd like to know more about the lecture you can contact Dr. Mattila at smattila@berry.edu.

Interfaith Discussion on Mideast Peace

2007-10-31T15:28:00.000-04:00

The Religion and Philosophy Department together with the Interfaith Council and Evans Speakers Series are hosting a presentation and panel discussion on religious resources for peace in the Middle East on Thursday November 1. The presentation and discussion will be held in Evans Auditorium from 5:00 to 7:00. The main speakers are Dr. Ibrahim Abu-Rabi, Professor of Islamic Studies at Hartford Theological Seminary, and Dr. Samuel Fleischacker, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Philosophy Earns Prize (kind of)

2007-10-26T12:42:00.000-04:00

Philosophy Club Vice President, Charlie Beaucham, took up the challenge by Peer Educators to illustrate his natural high and wound up with the first place ribbon. His depiction of Neitzche's famous words to "Live Dangerously!" has drawn hundreds to the love and lifelong pursuit of philosophy. Administrators were bowled over by requests and have themselves registered for spring classes taught by philosophical giants Papazian, McKenzie, and Kennedy. Many in the Evans school have offered their classrooms in honor of the burgeoning department, leaving palms and offerings at office doors. Bill Wilker, club officer and resident strong man, is not surprised, saying "it was only a matter of time before the campus recognized both the artistic genius of Charlie's profile drawings as well as the utter necessity of philosophy." Many of Wilker's devotees nodded in agreement.

Onlookers will note that the First Place Ribbon appears to spend most of its daytime hours placed on another, less impressive, poster. No philosophy club officers were available for comment about this phenomenon.

Dr. Lawler Receives Weaver Award

2007-10-22T12:43:00.000-04:00

Dr. Peter Augustine Lawler, Dana Professor of Government at Berry, received the 2007 Richard M. Weaver Prize for Scholarly Letters on Friday October 19 from Dr. Robert Preston of Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina.

After the award Dr. Lawler delivered his address on the Crisis of the Self-Evidence of Truth, a powerful critique of the Lockean and Darwinian conceptions of man and a call for the resolution of the crisis of self-evidence through a return to theology.

The distinguished speakers at the two-day conference included Patrick Deneen (Georgetown University), Marc Guerra (Ave Maria University), Mark Henrie (Intercollegiate Studies Institute), Thomas Hibbs (Baylor University), Mary Keys (University of Notre Dame), Daniel Mahoney (Assumption College), and Robert Preston (Belmont Abbey College).

Religion and Philosophy Professors to Speak

2007-10-16T12:01:00.000-04:00

The Mount Berry Church and the Chaplain's Office have been sponsoring a series of talks every Monday night on Christian denominations. The Religion and Philosophy Department will be well represented in the following three weeks.

Dr. David McKenzie will speak on Liberal/Progressive churches on Monday October 22.

I will talk about the Orthodox Church on the following Monday.

Dean Tom Kennedy will speak on the liturgical churches (Anglican/Episcopal and Lutheran) on November 5.

All of the talks are in the Krannert Red Room at 6:00pm.

I don't know how Dr. McKenzie or Dean Kennedy will do their presentations but my plan is to give a very brief overview of Orthodox theology and practice, and the key differences with other Christian traditions. The rest of the time will be for questions and discussion.

Thoughts on Evil

2007-10-13T14:20:00.000-04:00

As Halloween approaches, a philosopher's thoughts turn to evil. The "problem of evil" is one of the most widely discussed philosophical problems. It was a particular obsession of the great German philosopher and mathematician Leibniz. Lately, I've been thinking about Leibniz's work on this problem. Leibniz famously argued that the world is the best of all possible worlds that God could have created, a view that was later ridiculed by Voltaire in his book Candide. But it seems that even in Leibniz's day, several philosophers denied that there is a best of all possible worlds. Instead, they claimed that possible worlds are like numbers, and just as there is no greatest number, so too there is no greatest world.

But in that case what is God to do? Would He just arbitrarily pick a world, say world number 287,184, even though He could have just as easily created world number 287,185, which is greater! This would seem arbitrary and unbecoming of the all-powerful and all-good God. Surely God does not play dice! (Here I am assuming that there are as many possible worlds as real numbers and that the higher-numbered world is better than the lower one. For the sake of simplicity I am assuming that no two worlds are equally good, though, of course, this need not be the case.)

It seems that certain Jesuit theologians in Leibniz's time argued for God's arbirtary choice of this world. This would explain why this world contains so much evil. God had to pick some world to create, and whichever world He chose would be such that there are an infinite number of better worlds.

But it seems to me that if there is an infinite number of worlds God could have created, then there are two other options open to God other than arbitarily choosing one world. He could have chosen not to create any. Of course, He didn't do that. Or He could have created an infinite series of worlds that meet a minimum standard of goodness. Perhaps God created all the worlds in the open interval from 0 to infinity, that is, all the worlds that correspond to the positive real numbers. The negative worlds contain too much evil to be worthy of creation. Our world may be, say, in the neighborhood of 300,000 for all we know. (Some evidence points to our world being irrational, perhaps. [A joke]) In any event, not so great, but containing enough goodness to be creation-worthy.

The upshot of all this is that the significant amount of evil in this world is compatible with the existence of an omnipotent and perfect Being who did create the best worlds that can be created.

Or so I think. What do you think?

[An excellent article on Leibniz that I used in preparing this entry is at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-evil/. ]

Philosophy and Religion in Greece

2007-10-04T11:22:00.001-04:00

I've just returned from two weeks in Greece. Here are some pictures I took that have philosophical and/or religious relevance.

This is the harbor of Pythagoreio on the island of Samos, birthplace of the philosopher, mathematician, and mystic Pythagoras (best known for the Pythagorean theorem).

And here is a statue of the great man in 'downtown' Pythagoreio.

This is the harbor of Patmos, the island on which John wrote the book of Revelation (or 'Apocalypse' in Greek).

And finally, the Parthenon, the temple of Athena, on the Acropolis in Athens.

Philosophy of Law

2007-09-19T08:57:00.001-04:00

We had a tremendous showing at last week's Philosophy of Law discussion. The pizza was piping hot and the conversation was spirited. After an hour of group discussion the event was officially concluded, although many gathered in small groups and continued the conversation.

The questions we explored cycled round and round. What does the history of war reveal about human nature? Is this human nature good? Is it changeable? What makes a just war? Is there ever such a thing as just war? And if all wars are unjust, how else can conflict be resolved? Is this possible given our human nature? And so on and so on.

Four faculty members joined and were a boon to the conversation - Sharon Mattila, Scott Segrest, our Dean (and acting club advisor) Tom Kennedy, and discussion leader Michael Papazian. Following the discussion time, it was suggested that we look into bringing notable pacifist/just war proponent/realist to debate the issue as a campus event. Several names were suggested, and it is our hope as officers to follow through with this goal.

As a first event, this was a tremendous success! It is our hope that every participant felt welcomed to join the discussion and bettered by it. But it is true that sometimes written discourse is needed, so if you have a thought from last Thursday night's discussion that you didn't get to share, or lingering questions or thoughts, reply to this post and keep the conversation going...

-tricia

International Philosophy (Monty Python

2007-09-10T15:18:00.001-04:00

And as far as I'm concerned, Wittgenstein is Germanic enough to count.