Primordial Assumptions and Non-Falsifiable Objections

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

BBC: Pick and Choose Your "Fundamental Rights"!

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.

Logic and the Rules of the Internet

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.