February 2009 – Page 3 – Maverick Philosopher

Retortion and Non-Contradiction in Aristotle, Metaphysics, Gamma 3, 4

Retortion is the philosophical procedure whereby one seeks to establish a thesis by uncovering a performative inconsistency in anyone who attempts to deny it. It is something like that benign form of ad hominem in which person A points out to person B that some proposition p that B maintains is inconsistent with some other proposition q that B maintains. "How can you maintain that p when your acceptance of p is logically ruled out by your acceptance of q? You are contradicting yourself!" This objection is to the man, or rather, to the man's doxastic system; it has no tendency to show that p is false. It shows merely that not all of B's beliefs can be true. But if the homo in question is Everyman, or every mind, then the objection gains in interest. Suppose there is a proposition that it is impossible for anyone (any rational agent) to deny; the question arises whether the undeniability or ineluctability of this proposition is a reason to consider it to be true. Does undeniability establish objective truth? Consider

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Leon Trotsky, Gabe Kaplan, and Today’s Road Race

I was in Tempe, Arizona a while back for a book fix. At the coffee bar in the Border's Bookstore, the thirty-something counterman remarked that I look like Gabe Kaplan, an observation seconded by some bystanders. Having no idea who Gabe Kaplan is, I commented that some people think I look like Leon Trotsky — which comment elicited a puzzled expression. Turned out the 'tender had never heard of Trotsky. So I asked, "Ever hear of Vladimir Lenin?" That too drew a blank. It wasn't until I worked my way back to Karl Marx that a glimmer of recognition emerged. I tried the experiment on his twenty-something female co-worker. Same result.

Trotsky, Schmotsky. Lenin, Lennon.

Borders is just around the corner from Arizona State University. Draw your own conclusion.

During today's Lost Dutchman Half-Marathon, a woman who looked to be a bit older than me pulled alongside and remarked that I resemble her Salt River kayak instructor. I mentioned that some think I resemble Leon Trotsky. She said she didn' know who he was. Turning to her companion, she asked if she knew who Trotsky was. She didn't either. Calling to mind the earlier Tempe experience, I didn't bother to explain. I ran on with George Santayana's "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" in my head. (I cannot vouch for the accuracy of that quotation. I have a number of Santayana's works in my library, but not the The Life of Reason.)

Maverick Philosopher Makes The Times Online 100 Best Blogs List

A tip of the hat to Dave Lull for pointing me to A guide to the 100 best blogs – part I. Maverick Philosopher makes the cut. See page 5. Excerpt:

Two good philosophy blogs make the point that this is a subject made for bloggery. Philosophy is arguing, and arguing is what bloggers and their readers do best — or at least a lot, in an obsessive-compulsive sort of way. Both are highly recommended if you fancy stepping out into an intellectual blizzard with, occasionally, real snow.

I will resist the temptation to comment except to thank Bryan Appleyard for his article and also the MP Commenter Corps. Without them this site would be much less interesting. I have a half-marathon to run today, but later I hope to respond to at least some of the recent comments.

Wittgenstein, On Certainty #348: ‘I am Here’

Ludwig Wittgenstein writes:

. . . the words 'I am here' have a meaning only in certain contexts, and not when I say them to someone who is sitting in front of me and sees me clearly, — and not because they are superfluous, but because their meaning is not determined by the situation, yet stands in need of such determination.

Part of what LW is saying in this entry is that the meaning of an expression is determined by its use in a given context. In a slogan: meaning is use.

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Why Do I Delete Comments?

Why do I delete comments? It is not because the commenter disagrees with what I say. In Epistemic/Doxastic Possibility I floated a definition that commenter Andrew Bailey refuted. He blew it clean out of the water. I acknowledged the refutation as soon as I became aware of it and proposed a different definition. Bailey refuted that one too. The discussion proceeded from there with what I hope was mutual benefit. Bailey's was an example of a good comment.

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Philosophy and Livelihood: Build a Slave!

One reader asks:

How does an independent scholar get bread and butter on the table?

Another inquires:

How could one make a living in philosophy and the humanities besides being a professor?

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A Reader Wants to be a Professional Philosopher

From a reader's e-mail: "Now, I want to be a professional philosopher, period! It's not as if I kind of want to, or happened to be thinking about it."

My young correspondent does not tell me what he means by 'professional philosopher,' or why he wants to attend graduate school, so I'll begin by making a distinction. In one sense of the term, a professional is one who makes a living from his line of work. Now it is a fact of life that one can make a living in a line of work without being particularly good at it. There are plenty of examples in the field of education of people who are incomptetent both as teachers and as scholars. Although these people manage to get paid for what they do, they are amateurs in point of competence. In a second sense of the term, a professional is one has achieved a certain high standard of performance in his line of work. This of course is no guarantee that one will be able to make a living from it. Now if a person persists in his line of work without remuneration, there is a clear sense, etymologically based, in which he is an amateur: he does what he does for the love of it. But this is consistent with his being a professional in point of competence. There are quite a few historical examples. Spinoza and Schopenhauer were professional philosophers in point of competence but not in point of filling their bellies from it. Employing a Schopenhauerian turn of phrase, both lived for philosophy not from it.

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Thinking of Graduate School in the Humanities?

This piece from The Chronicle of Higher Education is something you should read. People should know what they are in for. But if ideas are your passion, and you have talent, and you are willing to take risks and perhaps later on have to retool for the modern-day equivalent of lense-grinding, then go for it! (Hat tip: Victor Reppert.)

Message From Butchvarov

Bill, great web site! The address of mine should be corrected. It's
http://myweb.uiowa.edu/butchvar/
No "www" in it.

Best,
Butch

Make Luft Not War

An excellent saying for chess players and Luftmenschen alike. Especially apropos for those of us who are both.

Peikoff on the Supernatural

Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Meridian 1993, p. 31:

"Supernatural," etymologically, means that which is above or beyond nature. "Nature," in turn denotes existence viewed friom a certain perspective. Nature is existence regarded as a system of interconnected entities governed by law; it is the universe of entities acting and interacting in accordance with their identities. What then is a "super-nature"? It would have to be a form of existence beyond existence; a thing beyond entities; a something beyond identity.

The idea of the "supernatural" is an assault on everything man knows about reality. It is a contradiction of every essential of a rational metaphysics. It represents a rejection of the basic axioms of philosophy . . . .

Is this a good argument? That alone is the question.

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