Sex and Plato

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

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

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