February 2009 – Page 2 – Maverick Philosopher

Mardi Gras

I penned the following observation on Mardi Gras 2005 around the time of hurricane Katrina, but even I found it too 'insensitive' for posting at that time. But 'insensitive' is what we conservatives are supposed to be, right? The thought is correct, in any case, and political correctness be damned.

If the good folks down Nawlins* way spent less time letting the good times roll and more on the deferral of gratification, they might be better prepared for nature's little surprises.
_____
*New Orleans

Three Senses of ‘Or’

‘Or’ is a troublesome particle in dire need of regimentation. Besides its two disjunctive meanings, the inclusive and the exclusive, there is also what I call the ‘or’ of identity. The inclusive meaning, corresponding to the Latin vel, is illustrated by ‘He is either morally obtuse or intellectually obtuse.’ This allows that the person in question may be both.

The exclusive meaning, corresponding to the Latin aut, is exemplified by the standard menu inscription, ‘soup or salad,’ which means one or the other, but not both. Logicians view the inclusive ‘or’ as a basic propositional connective. Thus our first example would be symbolized by p v q, where p is the proposition expressed by ‘He is morally obtuse’; q the proposition expressed by ‘He is intellectually obtuse’; with ‘v’ — in honor of vel — standing for inclusive disjunction. Exclusive ‘or’ can now be defined as follows: p aut q =_df p v q & ~(p & q), where the tilde and the ampersand, both propositional connectives, represent negation and conjunction respectively.

A Reading for Schopenhauer’s Birthday

Arthur Schopenhauer was born on this date in 1788. I don't imagine he was given to the celebration of birthdays for reasons that may be gleaned from this YouTube reading by D. E. Wittkower.

It is an accurate and pleasant reading of the whole of "The Vanity of Existence" (from Parerga) with only one insignificant divergence from the English text as presented in The Will to Live: Selected Writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, ed. Richard Taylor, pp. 229-233.

Listening to another read is inferior to careful and meditative reading and re-reading by oneself in solitude with pen and notebook at the ready.

It does little good to listen to philosophy being read or even to read it oneself. One needs to work through a text slowly, pondering, comparing, re-reading, reconstructing and evaluating the arguments, raising objections, imagining possible replies and all of this while animated by a burning need to get to the bottom of some pressing existential question. You must bring to your reading questions if you expect study to be profitable.

If one fails to enter into the dialectic of the problems and issues one will come away with little more than a vague literary impression. But real study is hard work demanding aptitude, time, peace, and quiet, a commodity in short supply in these hyperkinetic and cacaphonous times. Back in the day, old Arthur was much exercised by "the infernal cracking of whips" as he he complained in his classic "On Noise." What would he say today? Could he survive in the contemporary crapstorm of hiphop horseshit kaka-phony?

So turn off that cell phone before I smash it to pieces!

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Harry Chapin, Taxi

A reader complained that I had discontinued Uncle Wild Bill's Saturday Night at the Oldies. (I'm torn between making this a pure, hard-core philosophy site and 'adulterating' the philosophy with bloggity-blog self-indulgent content.) So I'll start it up again. Here is a riveting song by the late Harry Chapin (1942-1981). I heard it the other day on the radio while driving and was reminded what a great writer and performer he was. Excellent live version here. The last verses are particularly moving:

And she walked away in silence,
It's strange, how you never know,
But we'd both gotten what we'd asked for,
Such a long, long time ago.

You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off for the sky.
And here, she's acting happy,
Inside her handsome home.
And me, I'm flying in my taxi,
Taking tips, and getting stoned,
I go flying so high, when I'm stoned.

Consciousness and Existence: Is Every Consciousness a Consciousness of What Exists?

What follows in purple are two quotations (from separate works) from the Ayn Rand Lexicon.

If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness. (FNI, 124)

Directly or indirectly, every phenomenon of consciousness is derived from one’s awareness of the external world. Some object, i.e., some content, is involved in every state of awareness. Extrospection is a process of cognition directed outward—a process of apprehending some existent(s) of the external world. Introspection is a process of cognition directed inward—a process of apprehending one’s own psychological actions in regard to some existent(s) of the external world, such actions as thinking, feeling, reminiscing, etc. It is only in relation to the external world that the various actions of a consciousness can be experienced, grasped, defined or communicated. Awareness is awareness of something. A content-less state of consciousness is a contradiction in terms. (ITOE, 37)

This sort of writing is typical of Rand and Peikoff, et al. It is confused and confusing and will be dismissed out of hand by most philosophers. Yet there may be a solid point here that someone like Harry Binswanger could develop and make persuasive. It is clear from the above passages and others that Rand wants to show that there exist entities that are transcendent of consciousness. Indeed, she wants to show that the denial of such transcendent entities is self-contradictory. But how will she achieve this goal?

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Searle on Non-Intentional Mental States

Herewith, a quotation from John Searle that supports my contention that there are non-intentional mental states:

Now clearly, not all our mental states are in this way directed or Intentional. For example, if I have a pain, ache, tickle, or itch, such conscious states are not in that sense directed at anything; they are not 'about' anything, in the way that our beliefs, fears, etc. must in some sense be about something. ("What is an Intentional State?" in Dreyfus, ed. Husserl, Intentionality and Cognitive Science, p. 259.)

Searle writes 'Intentional' rather than 'intentional' to underscore the fact that 'intention' as philosophers use it is a terminus technicus wider in meaning than 'intention' as when one says, for example, 'Her intention is to retire in Florida.' My intending to run a half-marathon in May is an instance of Intentionality, but so is my noting that the sun is setting — despite the fact that Old Sol's habits don't fall within the purview of my will. I Intend the sun's setting, but I don't intend it. Get it? Now that the point has been made, I will drop the capital 'I.'

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Further Modal Concepts: Consistency, Inconsistency, Contradictoriness, and Entailment

I argued earlier that the validity of argument forms is a modal concept. But the same goes for consistency, inconsistency, contradictoriness, and entailment. Here are some definitions. 'Poss' abbreviates 'It is broadly-logically possible that ___.' 'Nec' abbreviates 'It is broadly-logically necessary that ___.' '~' and '&' are the familiar truth-functional connectives. 'BL' abbreviates 'broadly logically.'

D1. A pair of propositions p, q is BL-consistent =_df Poss(p & q).

Clearly, any two true propositions are consistent. (By 'consistent' I mean consistent with each other. If I mean self-consistent, I'll say that.) But there is more to consistency that this. It is a modal notion. Consistency cannot be defined in terms of what is actually the case. One must also consider what could have been the case. As long as p, q are contingent, they are consistent regardless of their truth-values. If both are true, they are consistent. If both are false, they are consistent. If one is true and the other false, or vice versa, they are consistent.

D2. A pair of propositions, p, q, are BL-inconsistent =_df ~Poss(p & q).

D3. A pair of propositions p, q are BL-contradictory =_df ~Poss(p & q) & ~Poss (~p & ~q).

Note the difference between inconsistency and the stronger notion of contradictoriness. If two propositions are inconsistent, then they logically cannot both be true. If two propositions are contradictory, then they are inconsistent but also such that their negations logically cannot be true.

Example. All men are rich and No men are rich are inconsistent in that they cannot both be true. But they are not contradictory since their negations (Some men are not rich, Some men are rich) are both true. All men are rich and Some men are not rich are contradictory. Some men are rich, Some men are not rich are neither inconsistent nor contradictory.

D4. P entails q =_df~Poss(p & ~q).

Entailment, also called strict implication, is the necessitation of material implication. If '–>' stands for the material conditional, then the right hand side of (D4) can be put as follows: Nec (p –> q).

(Alethic) modal logic's task is to provide criteria for the evaluation of arguments whose validity or lack thereof depends crucially on such words as 'possibly' and 'necessarily.' But if I am right, many indispensable concepts of nonmodal logic (e.g., standard first-order predicate logic with identity) are modal concepts.

The Difference Between Possibility and Contingency

Over lunch yesterday, Peter Lupu questioned my assertion that possibility and contingency are not the same. What chutzpah! So let me now try to prove to him that they are indeed not the same, though they are of course related. To put the point as simply and directly as I can, possibility and contingency are not the same because every necessary proposition is possible, but no necessary proposition is contingent. Perhaps this requires a bit of explanation.

We first divide all propositions into two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive groups, the noncontingent and the contingent. The first group subdivides into two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive subgroups, the necessary and the impossible. A proposition is necessary (impossible) just in case it is true in every (no) possible world. A proposition is possible just in case it is true in some possible worlds. It follows that if proposition p is necessary, then p is possible, but not conversely.

Since we know that there are necessary propositions, and since we know that every necessary proposition is a possible proposition, we know that there are necessary propositions which are possible. But we also know that no necessary proposition is contingent. It follows that we know that there are possible propositions that are not contingent. It follows that the extension of 'possible proposition' is different from the extension of 'contingent proposition.' This suffices to show that possibility and contingency are not the same. Here are some definitions. I have included definitions not fomulated in the imagery of possible worlds for those who are 'spooked' by his imagery.

A proposition p is possible =_df there is a possible world in which p is true.

A proposition p is possible =_df it is not necessary that p be false.

A proposition p is contingent =_df there is a possible world in which p is true and there is a possible world in which p is false.

A proposition p is contingent =_df p is both possibly true and possibly false.

Example. No color is a sound is possible but not contingent. There is a possible world in which it is true, but no possible world in which it is false. Tom's favorite shirt is red is contingent. There is a possible world in which it is true and a possible world in which it is false.

UPDATE (21 February): David Brightly provides a very useful map of the modal terrain in the Comments.

Are There Non-Intentional Mental States?

The thesis of this post is that there are non-intentional mental states. To establish this thesis all I need is one good example. So consider the felt pain that ensues when I plunge my hand into extremely hot water. This felt pain or phenomenal pain is a conscious mental state. But it does not exhibit intentionality. If this is right, then there are mental states that are non-intentional. Of course, it all depends on what exactly is meant by 'intentionality.' Here is how I understand it.

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The Cartesian Dream Argument and an Austinian Contrast Argument

J. L. Austin, in a footnote to p. 49 of Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford, 1962), writes of ". . . the absurdity of Descartes' toying with the notion that the whole of our experience might be a dream." In the main text, there is a sort of argument for this alleged absurdity. The argument may be set forth as follows:

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Contrast Arguments

One of the weapons in the arsenal of Ordinary Language and other philosophers is the contrast argument. Such arguments are used to show the meaninglessness of certain terms, typically, the terms we metaphysicians like to bandy about. One type of contrast argument has the form:

1. If a term T is meaningful, then there are items to which T does not apply.
2. There are no items to which T does not apply.
Ergo
3. T is not meaningful.

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This Running Life: Sheehan Remembered

You cannot convey to the nonrunner the romance of the road any more than you can bring a spiritual slug to savor the exquisite joys of philosophy and chess. But if you are a runner you should be able to appreciate the following passage from On Running, pp. 166-167. George Sheehan (1918-1993) has been dead for some time now and it pains me that he is pretty much forgotten. He was one of the pioneers along with Jim Fixx and Kenneth Cooper. The young runners I query haven't heard of him, and an old guy I talked to the other day at the starting line hadn't either. Sic transit gloria mundi. Here's the passage:

One of the beautiful things about running is that age has no penalties. The runner lives in an eternal present. The passage of time does not alter his daily self-discovery, his struggles and his sufferings, his pains and his pleasures. The decline of his ability does not interfere with the constant interchange between him, his solitude, and the world and everyone around him. And neither of these happenings prevents him from challenging himself to the ultimate limit, putting himself in jeopardy, courting crisis, risking catastrophe.

Because he refuses to look back, the runner remains ageless. That is his secret, that and the fact that his pursuit of running is in obedience to, in Ellen Glasgow's phrase, "a permanent and self-renewing inner compulsion."

In my 50s, I am aware of all this. Like all runners, I live in the present. I am not interested in the way we were. The past is already incorporated in me. There is no use returning to it. I live for the day. Running gives me self-expression, a way of finding out who I am and who I will be. It makes me intimate with pain. I know the feeling of too little oxygen, of too much lactic acid. I have, always within reach, the opportunity to test my absolute barriers, to search out the borders set up by straining muscles and a failing brain.

Phantom Runners

I took up running almost 35 years ago in the summer of 1974 in that romantic hub of running, Boston on the Charles, the Athens of America, where Hopkinton is Marathon and the road to Athens traverses Heartbreak Hill. It was a great time and place to be alive, young, studying philosophy, and running down the road. ‘Boston Billy’ Rodgers was in his prime; I lived a couple of blocks from the Boston Marathon course, and my training runs took me around the Chestnut Hill reservoir and past Rodger’s running center at Cleveland Circle. I actually ran abreast of Rodgers once on Commonwealth Avenue. He was headed for the Boston College track, racing flats in his hands, to run intervals. (I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out how I could possibly have been abreast of a marathoner who won Boston one year running at a blistering 4:54 min/mile pace. No, he didn't overtake me, and of course I didn't overtake him.)

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Ruminations After a Road Race; Philippians 4:13

The following was written 19 February 2006. This year I did better, achieving a personal best for this course, completing it in 2:23. That's nothing to crow about, but without us rank-and-file pavement pounders, the real runners would not shine in all their glory.

………………

This morning I had occasion once again to verify the proposition that the strenuous life is best by test, but also the proposition that I am not much of a runner: it took me 2:26 to jog through the 13.1 mile Lost Dutchman half-marathon course. But we do the best we can with what we've got, and given my age, modest training base, and paucity of fast-twitch fibers, I am more than satisfied. I have never regretted any road race, hike, backpacking trip, or indeed any Jamesian 'strenuosity' whether physical, mental, moral, or spiritual. We are simply not made for sloth but for exertion, with Hegel's Anstrengung des Begriffs as important as any. Whatever the reason, experience teaches that we are most happy when active, or better, when actuating our powers, including our powers of contemplative repose.

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