March 2009 – Page 5 – Maverick Philosopher

Marathons Reduce Car Crash Deaths

It makes the news when a runner drops dead during a marathon, but it is not news when a motorist dies in a crash. This contributes to the illusion that marathoning is dangerous when it is not, compared to other things we do on a daily basis such as pilot metallic behemoths at 70 miles per hour over roads crammed with coffee-drinking, hamburger-munching, map-reading, cell-phone yacking, text-messaging, makeup-applying, substance-abusing, radio-tuning, CD-grabbing, and yes (I've seen it from my high SUV perch) masturbating motorists. According to this source:

Heart stoppage killed 26 marathoners during races in the U.S. over the past 30 years, but Donald A. Redelmeier, M.D., and J. Ari Greenwald, of the University of Toronto, found 46 fewer motor vehicle fatalities than expected while the races were underway.

"For each person who died from sudden cardiac death, we estimated a ratio of almost two lives saved from fatal crashes that would otherwise have occurred," they wrote in the Dec. 22 issue of the BMJ.

So when I race I not only maintain my fitness, prove that the strenuous life is best by test, battle the hebetude of the flesh, contribute (via entry fees) to worthy causes, celebrate life, commune with my fellow mortals in a manner that rubs our noses in our mortality and frailty, and what all else — I also help reduce car crash deaths!

My Cat, My Companion

One can see the Latin panis, bread, lurking within 'companion.' A companion, then, is one with whom one breaks bread or shares a meal. In this root sense, my cat Caissa is undeniably my companion. For after she has enjoyed her Fancy Feast repast, she is by my side eyeing my linguine in clam sauce or sauteed scallops. Gastronomically at least, nothing is too good for her. I acquiesce in her demands. But that is the extent of my humanization of her. She has acquired the human vices of gluttony and sloth but none of the human virtues.

Why Be Consistent? Three Types of Consistency

A reader inquires:

This idea of the necessity to be consistent seems to be the logician's "absolute," as though being inconsistent was the most painful accusation one could endure. [. . .] What rule of life says that one must be absolutely consistent in how one evaluates truth? It is good to argue from first principles but it can also lead one down a rat hole.

Before we can discuss whether one ought to be consistent, we need to know which type of consistency is at issue. There are at least three types of consistency that people often confuse and that need to be kept distinct. I'll call them 'logical,' 'pragmatic,' and 'diachronic.' But it doesn't matter how we label them as long as we keep them separate.

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Word of the Day: Inconcinnity

My elite readers no doubt know this word, but I learned it just today. It means lack of suitability or congruity: INELEGANCE. 'Concinnity' is also a word. From the Latin concinnitas, from concinnus, skillfully put together, it means: harmony and often elegance of design especially of literary style in adaptation of parts to a whole or to each other. (Webster's New Collegiate, 1977, p. 234.)

Never allow a word to escape your comprehension. If you encounter a word you don't know, write it down and look it up. Keep a list of words and definitions in a notebook you regularly consult. It might be an online notebook like this one. Having written this post, 'inconcinnity' is a word I am not likely to forget. For there is nothing I write on this weblog that I do not reread, with pleasure, many times.

Dave Gudeman on Modality and ‘Antifactuals’

Long-time contributor Dave Gudeman coins the term 'antifactual' and then asks:

So, what are the truth conditions of an antifactual such as

(A) While the tree in my yard boasts 17,243 leaves at time t, it could have boasted 17,244 leaves at time t.

Here are some candidates:

(1) if the history of the tree had been different then …
(2) if the laws of physics had been different then …
(3) there exists a set of propositions S that were true at times before t such that, had each member of S been false, then given the truth of the various laws of physics and biology, an omniscient being could infer [could have inferred] that the number of leaves would be 17,244 at time t.
(4) there exists a set of propositions S that were true at times before t such that, had each member of S been false, then given the truth of the various laws of physics and biology, I can infer [could have inferred] by my normal power of reasoning and prediction that the number of leaves would be 17,244 at time t.

The problem with all of these candidates is that I don't think you can really know that any of them is true, but Peter, Bill et al. seem to be committed to the proposition that humans can know the truth of antifactuals. I can't come up with anything that humans could know the truth of short of the fact that (A) is not ruled out by mathematics or logic. But I've already discussed the problems with that interpretation. [In the portion of Dave's comments that I haven't quoted.] So that's what I mean when I say that I suspect that antifactuals, when used in a philosophical sense as Peter, Bill, et al use them are incoherent. I cannot figure out what the truth conditions of such propositions are. I can come up with several candidates, but none of them seems to be consistent with the usage and with what Peter, Bill, et al have said about modal propositions.

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