Month: September 2009

Is Everything Always Continuously Changing in Every Respect?

Over lunch today the Buddhist claim that all is impermanent came up for discussion.   Let’s see how plausible this claim of impermanence is when interpreted to mean that everything is always continuously changing in every respect. We need to ask four questions. Does everything change? Do the things that change always change? Do the things that always change continuously change? Do the things that change change in every respect?

Continue reading “Is Everything Always Continuously Changing in Every Respect?”

Book Matters

Jackson Gypsy Scholar Horace Jeffery Hodges burrows deep into some borrowed Jackson.

Holbrook Jackson would find this development, a bookless library, nauseating. (Via Joel Hunter)  It is foolish  for a school to discard its books in order to go entirely digital given the fragility of electronic media.   More here.

The Denver Bibliophile e-mailed me today asking me what I think of his blog.  I would have to read more to have a firm opinion, but it looks promising. Pay him a visit.

Mirabile dictu, my visit to The Book Gallery in Mesa this morning  issued in no purchases, but I did drop a few bucks at Bookman's also in Mesa.  Laziness militates against the listing of my acquisitions.

On the Correct Usage of ‘Infers’ and ‘Implies’

Within the space of a few days, I caught two TV pundits and an otherwise competent writer misusing 'infer.' Why do people have such a  difficult time with the distinction between inference and implication?  I will try to explain the matter as simply as I can.

The test to determine whether a use of 'infer' is correct is whether or not the thing said to be inferring is a mind. If it is a mind, then the use is correct; if it is not a mind, then the use is incorrect.  Some examples:

  • The author's citations infer that Serling drew inspiration from a diverse group of authors and philosophers. This use of 'infer' is incorrect because a citation is not a mind, and so cannot engage in any such mental operation as inference. 'Imply' would be correct.
  • Seeing Tom's car in front of Sally's house, Bill inferred that Tom was visiting Sally. Correct. It is correct because the thing doing the inferring, Bill, is an entity capable of the mental operation of drawing a conclusion from one or more premises.
  • Pelosi's 'astroturf' remark inferred that protesters at town hall meetings are organized agitators. Incorrect. A remark is the content of a remarking; it is something that a person says. What a person says is not a mind but a proposition, and a proposition, not being a mind, cannot infer anything. 'Implied' would be correct.
  • Pelosi implied that town hall protesters are organized agitators when she made her 'astroturf' comment. This is a correct use of 'implied.' But note that 'imply' has two main uses. One is the strictly logical use according to which implication is a relation between propositions. The other is the nonlogical use according to which implication is a relation between a person (or a mind) and a proposition. Pelosi implied that the protesters are organized in the sense that she suggested that this is so. In most cases one can substitute 'suggests' for 'implies' when the latter is employed nonlogically.
  • Are you implying that I'm a liar? This is a correct use of 'implying.' The word is being used in the nonlogical sense just explained. One can replace the question salva significatione with 'Are you suggesting that I'm a liar?'
  • Are you inferring that I am a liar? This is also correct inasmuch as the addressee may indeed be inferring that the speaker is a liar. The addressee may be concluding from the speaker's shifty eyes and other 'body language' that he is not telling the truth.
  • What you said infers that I'm a liar. This is incorrect because what a person said cannot engage in any mental operations such as the operation of drawing a conclusion from a premise. 'Implies' would be correct. 'Implies' would then be being used to express a relation between two propositions.

In sum, inference is the mental operation of drawing a conclusion from one or more premises.  Only minds can infer.  So uses of 'infer' and cognates are correct only  in application to minds.  Any use of 'infer' that implies that a nonmind can engage in inference is incorrect.  So the following is incorrect: Any use of 'infer' that infers that a nonmind can engage in inference is incorrect.    Implication in its strictly logical sense in a relation between propositions.  Hence the slogan: Only minds infer; only propositions imply.

Unfortunately for the slogan, the water is muddied by the fact that 'implies' has the two distinct uses lately explained.  So here is a more accurate slogan: Only minds infer; only propositions logically imply, though persons can conversationally imply.

The Use of the Body

There is such a thing as excessive concern with the body's health and excessive fear of its destruction. The body is to be used — and used up. It is your vehicle here below; it is not you.  It is an experience mill, so grind away.  If thinking raises blood pressure, am I going to give up thinking? If reading weakens eyesight, will I give up reading? Physical health is a means, not an ultimate end. A healthy body aids the working out of my intellectual and spiritual salvation. But the point is to work out my intellectual and spiritual salvation.

Analogy. One takes good care of one's writing implements. But the point is to write something. The pencil achieves its end — in both senses of the term — by being used and used up. Similarly with the body and its organs.

So use the body, and use it up. You can't take it with you. But don't misuse it. Use it or lose it, but don't abuse it!

Reasons to Blog

Different bloggers, different reasons.  I see this weblog as

A Boomer and His Experiences

Do you help your neighbor to help your neighbor, or to add the experience of helping your neighbor to your collection of experiences?

From an advertisement: "Ever since we invented the first personal shredder, Fellowes has been dedicated to improving every aspect of the shredding experience."  The shredding experience?  Now we boomers have done all manner of wild and crazy things in quest of experience, but does anyone shred for the experience of it?

A culture of narcissism in which the focus is on the self and his experiences as opposed to the world and its objects.

A Bad Reason for Not Imposing One’s Values on Others

The following argument is sometimes heard. "Because values are relative, it is wrong to impose one's values on others."

But if values are relative, and among my values is the value of instructing others in the right way to live, then surely I am justified in imposing my values on others. What better justification could I have? If values are relative, then there is simply no objective basis for a critique or rejection of the values I happen to hold.  For it to be wrong for me to impose my values, value-imposition would have to be a nonrelative disvalue. But this is precisely what is ruled out by the premise 'values are relative.'

Either values are relative or they are not.  If they are relative then no one can be faulted for living in accordance with his values even if among his values is the value of  imposing one's values on others.  If, on the other hand, values are not relative, then one will be in a position to condemn some forms of value-imposition.  The second alternative, however, is not available to one who affirms the relativity of all values.

Persons who give the above argument are trying to have it both ways at once, and in so doing fall into self-contradiction.  They want the supposed benefits of believing that values are relative — such benefits as toleration — while at the same time committing themselves to the contradictory proposition that some values are not relative by their condemnation of value-imposition.

One sees from this how difficult it is for relativists to be consistent. A consistent relativist cannot make any such pronouncement as that it is wrong to impose one's values on others; all he can say is that from within his value-scheme it is wrong to impose one's values on others. But then he allows the possibility that there others for whom value-imposition is the right thing to do.

On ‘Political’ and ‘Partisan’

People often use 'political' when they should use 'partisan.' A man appeared on C-Span some months ago whose name and the name of whose organization I have forgotten. The man headed an outfit promoting a strict interpretation of the U.S. constitution. Throughout his talk he repeated the remark that his organization was not political, not political, not political!

Nonsense, I say. What could be more political than questions about constitutions and their interpretation, and organizations that promote a particular style of constitutional interpretation? What the man wanted to say was that his outfit was not partisan, not affiliated with any particular political party such as the Republican Party, or the Democrat Party.

'Political' is not a dirty word. How could it be when the human being, by nature, is zoon politikon, a political animal? Aristotle, who appreciated the latter point, also appreciated that the political life cannot be the highest life. That honor goes to the theoretical life. The vita activa subserves the vita contemplativa.

From the Mail Pouch: Of Comments and Liberal Bias

A regular reader writes:

First, I've been enjoying your blog greatly since you disabled comments. Thank you for daring to do that. (I say dare because nowadays comments are all the rage, and are used as traffic boosters – usually to the detriment of a site.)

I knew my traffic would take a nose dive were I to disallow comments, but I don't blog for mere traffic.  Back in January and February, when I was discussing the ideas of Ayn Rand with comments allowed, there were days when my page view count was up around 2000.  Right now I am averaging about 670 page views per day.  The high numbers in January and February were in part due to the subject matter: Rand's ideas fascinate  adolescents of all ages.  But the quality of comments was so bad that it gave me yet another  reason to shut them off.

Second, a question. I know you're a philosophy professor who openly identifies as conservative. Is it your experience that universities are typically liberal-biased? As in, they intend to promote liberal views, indoctrinate students into liberal ideas, etc.

That is indeed my experience, but, quite apart from my experience, it is a fact that cannot be denied.  Conservatives are in the minority especially in the humanities and social sciences.  For example,  in the 2004 election, one survey showed that 87.6% of the social sciences professors queried voted for Kerry, while only 6.2% voted for Bush.  In the humanities, the numbers were 83.7% for Kerry and 15% for Bush.  

Third – assuming your answer to the previous is yes, even a qualified yes – do you think there is any moral difficulty with sending a child, particularly one who isn't intellectually prepared to defend him/herself from such indoctrination, to a university?

Curious of your views as a (seemingly rare) conservative philosopher.

Two quick points.  First, not all colleges and universities exhibit the same degree of liberal bias, and of course there are a few schools with the opposite bias.  So whether there is a moral problem or not will depend on where you send your child.  Second, much depends on the subject in which the student intends to major.  There is little or no liberal bias in the schools of business, engineering, and medicine.  Mathematics, computer science, physics and chemistry are also not amenable to ideological deformation.  (Of course, this won't prevent a liberal professor of these subjects  from airing his political and social views in the classroom.) But with the life sciences ideology begins to find a foothold.  (Would a Dawkins-type biology professor be able to keep his mouth shut about religion or be objective about global warming or race and IQ questions?)  When we get to the social sciences and humanities, however, we enter leftist-occupied territory.

Inappropriate Niceness

Most of us prefer nice people to surly pricks. And no doubt we should all try to be nicer to our world-mates. But there is such a thing as inappropriate niceness.

I am following at a safe distance the motorist in front of me. Then said motorist brakes for a jaywalker, not to avoid hitting him, but to allow him to cross. The jaywalker is violating the law; why aid and abet his lawbreaking? Why be nice to someone who shows no respect for the rules of the road? Why risk causing an accident? These are some questions the inappropriately nice should ask themselves.

In Praise of the Useless

Morris R. Cohen, A Preface to Logic (Dover, 1977, originally published in 1944), p. 186, emphasis added:

It would certainly be absurd to suppose that the appreciation of art should justify itself by practical applications. If the vision of beauty is its own excuse for being, why should not the vision of truth be so regarded? Indeed is it not true that all useful things acquire their value because they minister to things which are not useful, but are ends in themselves? Utility is not the end of life but a means to good living, of which the exercise of our diverse energies is the substance.

Or as I like to say, the worldly hustle is for the sake of contemplative repose, it being well understood that such repose can be quite active, an "exercise of our diverse energies," but for non-utilitarian ends.