An Ontological Argument Against Fatalism

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

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

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.