Month: November 2012

More Reasons Not to be a Libertarian: Abortion and Guns

This from the Libertarian Party Platform:

1.4 Abortion

Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.

1.5 Crime and Justice

Government exists to protect the rights of every individual including life, liberty and property. [. . .]

The contradiction fairly jumps off the page.  Government should be kept out of the abortion matter, we are told,  and yet we are also told that government exists to protect the rights of every individual, including the right to life.  This is contradictory.  Consider a third-trimester healthy human fetus.  If it is an individual, then government exists to protect its right to life by (1.5).  But by (1.4) government has no role to play.  Contradiction. 

Will you reply that the fetus is not an individual?  What is it then, a universal?  Will you say it is not a human individual?  What is then, a canine or bovine or lupine individual?  Will you say that the fetus is not alive?  What is it then, dead? Or neither alive nor dead?  Will you say that it is not a biological individual, but a clump of cells or mere human genetic material?  Then the same is true of you, in which case either you have no right to life, or both you and the fetus have a right to life. Will you say that the fetus is guilty of some crime and deserves to die?  What crime is that, pray tell?

Will you say that a woman has a right to do anything she wants with her body?  But the fetus is not her body.  It is a separate body.  Will you say it is a  part of her body?  But it is not a part like a bone or a muscle or an organ is a part. Nor is it a part like hair or mucus or the contents of the GI tract.  Is it a part like a benign or pre-cancerous or cancerous growth?  No.  Granted, the fetus is spatially inside the mother, but that does not suffice to make it a part of her.  I am spatially inside my house, but I am not a part of my house. 

A fetus is a separate biological individual with its own life and its own right to life.  The general prohibition against the killing of innocent human beings cannot be arbitrarily restricted so as to exclude the unborn.  I could go on but I have said enough about this topic in other posts in the Abortion category.

Now consider this:

1.6 Self-Defense

The only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights — life, liberty, and justly acquired property — against aggression. This right inheres in the individual, who may agree to be aided by any other individual or group. We affirm the individual right recognized by the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, and oppose the prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights of self-defense. We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.

This is basically on the right track and vastly superior to what your typical knee-jerk liberal gun-grabber would spout.  Second Amendment rights are very important.  And of course they are individual rights, not collective rights, as even SCOTUS came to appreciate.    But the formulation is objectionable on the ground of extremism.  Look at the last sentence: "We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.

This is just ridiculous.  It implies that felons should be able to purchase guns.  Felons should no more be allowed to buy guns than they should be allowed to vote.  It implies that the sale of guns and ammo to children is permissible.  It implies that there should be no safety laws regulating the manufacture of guns and ammo.  It implies that citizens should be permitted to enter post offices with grenade launchers and machine guns. 

The Danger of Appeasing the Intolerant

What follows is a slightly redacted post from three years ago whose message bears repeating, especially since Barack the Appeaser, Barack the Bower-and-Scraper, has been reelected.

………….

Should we tolerate the intolerant? Should we, in the words of Leszek Kolakowski,

. . . tolerate political or religious movements which are hostile to tolerance and seek to destroy all the mechanisms which protect it, totalitarian movements which aim to impose their own despotic regime? Such movements may not be dangerous as long as they are small; then they can be tolerated. But when they expand and increase in strength, they must be tolerated, for by then they are invincible, and in the end an entire society can fall victim to the worst sort of tyranny. Thus it is that unlimited tolerance turns against itself and destroys the conditions of its own existence. (Freedom, Fame, Lying, and Betrayal, p. 39.)

Read that final sentence again, and again.
 
Kolakowski concludes that "movements which aim to destroy freedom should not be tolerated or granted the protection of law . . . " (Ibid.) and surely he is right about this. Toleration has limits. It does not enjoin suicide.  The U. S. Constitution is not a suicide pact.

And just as we ought not tolerate intolerance, especially the murderous intolerance of radical Muslims, we ought not try to appease the intolerant. Appeasement is never the way to genuine peace. The New York Time's call for Benedict XVI to apologize for quoting the remarks of a Byzantine emperor is
a particularly abject example of appeasement.

One should not miss the double-standard in play. The Pope is held to a very high standard: he must not employ any words, not even in oratio obliqua, that could be perceived as offensive by any Muslim who might be hanging around a theology conference in Germany, words uttered in a talk that is only tangentially about Islam, but Muslims can say anything they want about Jews and Christians no matter how vile. The tolerant must tiptoe around the rabidly intolerant lest they give offense.

Has there been a NYT editorial censuring Ahmadinejad for his repeated calls for the destruction of the sovereign state of Israel?

Guns and Punitive Taxation

Seldom Seen Slim points us to the latest anti-gun outrage: 

The Cook County Board of Commissioners on Friday handily approved the county's 2013 budget, complete with some $40 million worth of new taxes on the sales of guns and cigarettes.

[. . .]

A previously proposed "violence tax" of a nickel per bullet sold in the county has been scrapped, though a new $25-per-tax component of the anti-violence measure remains. The gun tax will go into effect on April 1.

This is a perfect example of how leftists use the power of the state to violate law-abiding citizens.  The 'reasoning' is that since guns cause gun violence, guns sales should be subject to an additional 'violence' tax.  Of course, the premise is false, but that won't bother a  liberal whose central concern is not to talk sense or speak the truth but to feel good about himself.  And anyway, Cook County needs money, so why not invent a new tax?  Their power to tax you any way they  like justifies their taxing you any way they like.  Might makes right. 

But not only is the premise false, the reasoning is specious.  If guns can be taxed on the ground that they cause death and destruction, so can automobiles.  So why not tax car buyers?    Why single out gun buyers?  The answer, of course,  is that they couldn't get away with the latter, but they can with the former, since gun buyers are are smaller and weaker and 'politically incorrect' group.  Same reason they go after smokers with punitive taxes.

What we really need is a tax on liberals.  Every time a liberal says something stupid or contributes  to cultural pollution or undermines common sense, he must pay a stiff fine.  Think of all the revenue that would generate.

On Suing Gun Manufacturers

Suppose I sell you my car, transferring title to you in a manner in that accords with all the relevant statutes. It is a good-faith  transaction and I have no reason to suspect you of harboring any  criminal intent. But later you use the car I sold you to mow down  children on a school yard, or to violate the Mann Act, or to commit  some other crime. Can I be held morally responsible for your wrongdoing? Of course not. No doubt, had I not sold you that particular car, that particular criminal event would not have occurred: as a philosopher might put it, the event is individuated by its constituents, one of them being the car I sold you. But that does not show that I am responsible for your crime. I am no more  responsible than the owner of the gas station who sold you the fuel for your spree.

Suppose I open a cheesecake emporium, and you decide to make cheesecake your main dietary item. Am I responsible for your ensuing  health difficulties? Of course not. Being a nice guy, I will most likely warn you that a diet consisting chiefly of cheesecake is contraindicated. But in the end, the responsibility for your ill health lies with you.

The same goes for tobacco products, cheeseburgers, and so on down the line. The responsibility for your drunk driving resides with you, not with auto manufacturers or distilleries. Is this hard to understand?  Not unless you are morally obtuse or a liberal, terms that in the end may be coextensive.

The principle extends to gun manufacturers and retailers. They have their legal responsibilities, of course. They are sometimes the legitimate targets of product liability suits.  But once a weapon has been  legally purchased or otherwise acquired, the owner alone is responsible for any crimes he commits using it.

But many liberals don't see it this way. What they cannot achieve through gun control  legislation, they hope to achieve through frivolous lawsuits.  The haven't had much success recently.  Good.  But the fact that they try shows how bereft of common sense and basic decency they are.

There is no wisdom on the Left.

It’s the Welfare State, Stupid

When one reads a piece by Robert Samuleson, one feels oneself in the presence of a clear, penetrating, and honest intellect:

By all means, let's avoid the "fiscal cliff": the $500 billion in tax increases and federal spending cuts scheduled for early 2013 that, if they occurred, might trigger a recession. But let's recognize that we still need to bring the budget into long-term balance. This can't be done only by higher taxes on the rich, which seem inevitable. Nor can it be done by deep cuts in defense and domestic "discretionary" programs (from highways to schools), which are already happening. It requires controlling the welfare state. In 2011, "payments for individuals," including health care, constituted 65 percent of federal spending, up from 21 percent in 1955. That's the welfare state.

Compare Samuelson to the  leftist ideologue, Paul Krugman:

It’s not just the fact that the deficit scolds have been wrong about everything so far. Recent events have also demonstrated clearly what was already apparent to careful observers: the deficit-scold movement was never really about the deficit. Instead, it was about using deficit fears to shred the social safety net.

From Samuelson, we learn something.  We get facts, figures, cogent arguments. From Krugman, we get an ad hominem attack.    The fiscal hawks, we are in effect told, are motivated by a dastardly desire to "shred the social safety net," not by any objective economic considerations.  Krugman impugns their motives while ignoring their arguments.

I am not opposed to the impugning of motives in all cases.  It is legitimate to do so when the other side has no arguments or has transparently worthless ones.  In earlier posts I impugned the motives of those who oppose photo ID at polling places, but only after I carefully argued for such ID procedures and refuted the flimsy 'arguments' of the oppostion.   

Go read the two articles in question and decide for yourself who is talking sense.   

Robert Reich on the New American Civil War

Robert Reich bemoans the New American Civil War as he calls it:

I know families in which close relatives are no longer speaking. A dating service says Democrats won’t even consider going out with Republicans, and vice-versa. My email and twitter feeds contain messages from strangers I wouldn’t share with my granddaughter.

What’s going on? Yes, we’re divided over issues like the size of government and whether women should have control over their bodies. But these aren’t exactly new debates. [. . .] And we’ve had bigger disagreements in the past – over the Vietnam War, civil rights, communist witch hunts – that didn’t rip us apart like this.

Part of the reason that there is a 'civil war' is because of people like Reich and their inability to fairly present the issues that divide us. 

He mentions the abortion issue.  It is not about whether women should have control over their bodies.  Of course they should. It is about whether the fetus growing inside a woman is a part of her body in a sense of 'part' that would permit her to dispose of it the way she would dispose of unwanted fat through liposuction.  Reich is not unintelligent: he is capable of understanding the issue.  But he  is intellectually dishonest:  he does not present the issue objectively and fairly.  He distorts it  like the typical leftist ideologue he is.  (See here for my refutation of the 'woman's body' argument.)

He does the very same thing with his talk of "communist witch hunts."  That phrase implies that there was no communist infiltration of the U. S. government.  But that was precisely the question. The phrase he employs is a question-begging epithet.  Why?  Well, there are no witches.  So if you call something a witch hunt then you are implying that it is a hunt for something that doesn't exist.  There is also the implication that the people conducting this search have some ulterior motive such as the desire to suppress all dissent.

The same goes for the phrase 'Red Scare' beloved of the Left.  The phrase implies that there was no threat to our gvernment posed by communists. But again that was the very question, a question that is begged by the use of the phrase 'Red Scare.'   As a matter of fact, it was not a mere scare, but a real threat. So  'Red Threat' is the proper phrase.  After all, we now know that the Rosenbergs were Soviet spies and that Alger Hiss was a communist.

My point is that Reich is not intellectually honest.  He understands the issues but he refuses to present them objectively and fairly.  He is nothing but a leftist ideologue.  And notice the tone of his piece.  It begins with a gratuitous smear against Sarah Palin.

The piece ends with Reich's playing of the race card.  So typical.

So while bemoaning the 'new American civil war,' he fuels it by his own contemptible behavior.

Why We are Headed for a Fiscal Cliff

A short video.  It explains the difference between discretionary and mandatory spending and why not even mandatory spending is covered by tax revenues.  Mandatory spending comprises the entitlements and the interest on the national debt.  A balanced budget is not possible given the way the government is currently structured.  A re-design is needed.  It must begin by a posing of the question: What is the proper role of government?

This philosophical question will  be neither seriously posed by the people in power, nor answered. And so it is is to be expected that we will go off the cliff.  I am talking about the ultimate cliff, not the one coming in early 2013 when  $500 billion in tax increases and federal spending cuts are scheduled to kick in.

So you might think that Romney's loss is of no real consequence.  It just doesn't matter who presides over the collapse.  But if you are headed for a cliff and certain death, would you rather be mounted on a nimble Obama jackass or a plodding Romney elephant?  In the long run we're dead.  But later is better than sooner.  There is more time to prepare.

And there is more time for the owl of Minerva to ascend and survey the passing scene until she too must pass away.

John W. Carlson’s Words of Wisdom: A Philosophical Dictionary for the Perennial Tradition

Dear Bill (if I may), 

I came across your interesting 2009 post on "The Dictionary Fallacy," and I would like to follow up.

I wonder whether you are aware of my recent work, Words of Wisdom: A Philosophical Dictionary for the Perennial Tradition (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012).  Attached are the publisher's notice, plus an interview I did with the blog called "Catholic World Report."  My own thinking about dictionaries — and specifically philosophical dictionaries — can be gathered from the interview, as well as from the Introduction to my volume, which can be accessed as the "Excerpt" highlighted near bottom of p. 1 of the UNDP announcement. 

I would be pleased to see you mention Words of Wisdom on "Maverick Philosopher," and to learn what you think about my project. 

Best wishes from a philosopher who can't seem to get himself to retire,

John W. (Jack) Carlson
Professor of Philosophy
Creighton University
Omaha, Neb. 68142

Dear Professor Carlson,

I am pleased to announce your book on my weblog which, at the moment, is experiencing  traffic of over 2000 page views per day.  So I should be able to snag a few readers for your work.

I read the The Catholic World Report interview and I find myself in complete agreement with much of what you say. For example, I wholly agree with the following:

CWR:  Let’s begin with a Big Picture question: what is the state of philosophy today? I ask because philosophy today seems to be dismissed often by certain self-appointed critics. For example, the physicist (and atheist) Lawrence Krauss, author of A Universe from Nothing, said in an interview with The Atlantic that philosophy no longer has “content,” indeed, that“philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, ‘Those that can’t do, teach, and those that can’t teach, teach gym.’” Why this sort of antagonism toward philosophy?

Dr. Carlson:So Krauss in a single sentence denigrates both philosophy and gymnasium. May we begin by remarking that Plato—who thought highly of both—would not be impressed? 

Your question, of course, is a good one.  A response to it requires noting salient features of Western intellectual culture, as well as key concerns of philosophers in the recent past. Over the last century and a half, our culture has come to be dominated by the natural or empirical sciences and technological advances made possible by their means. It thus is not surprising that there has arisen in various quarters a view that can be characterized as “scientism”—i.e., one according to which all legitimate cognitive pursuits should follow the methods of the modern sciences. Now, somewhat ironically, this view is not itself a scientific one. Rather, it can be recognized as essentially philosophical; that is, it expresses a general account of the nature and limits of human knowledge. But if it indeed is philosophical, we might well ask on what basis scientism is to be recommended.  Does this view adequately reflect the variety of ways in which reality can be known? To say the least, it is not obvious that the answer to this question is “Yes.”

Lawrence Krauss is one of a large number  (along wth Jerry Coyne, Stephen Hawking, et al.) of preternaturally ignorant scientists whose arrogance stands in inverse relation to their ignorance of what is outside their specialties.  They know nothing of philosophy and yet 'pontificate' (if I may be permitted the use of this term in the presence of a Catholic) in a manner most sophomoric.  Their education has been completely lopsided: they have no appreciation of the West and its traditions and so no appreciation of how natural science arose. 

I criticize Krauss's scientistic nonsense in a number of posts showing  him the same sort of contempt that he displays towards his superiors.  These posts can be found here. His book is so bad it takes the breath away.  If you haven't read it, you should, to get a sense of the lack of humanistic culture among too many contemporary scientists. 

What you say about scientism is exactly right.  I have made similar points over the years, but it seems one can never get the points through the thick skulls of the science-idolaters.

I have an entire category devoted to scientism.  My definition of the term is contained in What is Scientism?

So I salute you and your book, and look forward to reading it.

Yours in the love of philosophy,

Bill Vallicella

P. S. Retiring may be like marrying.  Wait too long and you'll never do it.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: ‘End’ Songs

Skeeter Davis, The End of the World

Traveling Wilburys, End of the Line

Floyd Cramer, Last Date. Skeeter Davis' version.

Bob Dylan, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.  Dont' like Dylan's voice? Try Joan Baez's angel-throated version.

Roy Orbison, It's Over

Beatles, The End

George Harrison, All Things Must Pass

Bob Dylan, Not Dark Yet (but It's Getting There). 

The Doors, The End.  "The West is the best."

Bonus tracks:

Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.  This'll grow on you if you give it a chance.

This one goes out to General Petraeus:  Bob Seger, The Fire Down Below.  In its grip, they'll throw it all away.

Stanislav Sousedik’s “Towards a Thomistic Theory of Predication”

Enough of politics, back to some hard-core technical philosophy.  If nothing else, the latter offers exquisite escapist pleasures not unlike those of chess. Of course I don't believe that technical philosophy is escapist; my point is a conditional one: if it is, its pleasures suffice to justify it as a form of recuperation from  this all-too-oppressive world of 'reality.'  It's what I call a 'fall-back position.'

I have been commissioned to review the collection of which the above-captioned article is a part.  The collection is entitled Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic (Ontos Verlag 2012) and includes contributions by Peter van Inwagen, Michael Loux, E. J. Lowe, and several others.  My review article will address such topics as predication, truth-makers, bare particulars, and the advantages and liabilities of constituent ontology.  I plan a series of posts in which I dig deep into some of the articles in this impressive collection.

Stanislav Sousedik argues for an "identity theory of predication" according to which a predicative sentence such as 'Peter is a man' expresses an identity of some sort between the referent of the subject 'Peter' and the referent of the predicate 'man.'  Now to someone schooled in modern predicate logic (MPL) such an identity  theory will appear wrongheaded from the outset.  For we learned at Uncle Gottlob's knee to distinguish between the 'is' of identity ('Peter is Peter') and the 'is' of predication ('Peter is a man').

But let's give the Thomist theory a chance.  Sousedik, who is well aware of Frege's distinction, presents an argument for the identity in some sense of subject and predicate.  He begins by making the point that in the declarative 'Peter is a man' and the vocative 'Peter, come here!' the individual spoken about is (or can be) the same as the individual addressed.  But common terms such as 'man' can also be used to address a person.  Instead of saying,  'Peter, come here!' one can say 'Man, come here!'  And so we get an argument that I will put as follows:

1. Both 'Peter' and 'man' can be used to refer to the same individual. Therefore

2. A common term can be used to refer to an individual.  But

3. Common terms also refer to traits of individuals.  Therefore

4. The traits must be identical in some sense to the individuals.  E.g., the referent of 'Peter' must be in some sense identical to the referent of 'man.'

But in what sense are they identical?  Where Frege distinguishes between predication and identity, Sousedik distinguishes between weak and strong identity. 'Peter is Peter' expresses strong identity while 'Peter is a man' expresses weak identity.  "Strong identity is reflexive, symmetric, and transitive, weak identity has none of these formal properties." (254)  It thus appears that strong identity is the same as what modern analytic philosophers call (numerical) identity.  It is clear that 'Peter is a man' cannot be taken to express strong identity. But what is weak identity?

S. is a constituent ontologist.  He holds that ordinary substances such as Peter have what he calls "metaphysical parts."  Whereas Peter's left leg is a physical part of him, his traits are metaphysical parts of him.  Thus the referents of the common terms 'man,' 'animal,' living thing,' etc. are all metaphysical parts of Peter.  Clearly, these are different traits of Peter.  But are they really distinct in Peter?  S. says that they are not: they are really identical in Peter and only "virtually distinct" in him.  The phrase is defined as follows.

(Def. 1)  Between x, y there is a virtual  distinction iff (i) x, y are really identical; (ii) x can become an object of some cognitive act Φ without y being the object  of the same act Φ . . . . (251)

For example, humanity and animality in Peter are really identical but virtually distinct in that humanity can be the intentional object of a cognitive act without animality being the object of the same act.  I can focus my mental glance so to speak on Peter's humanity while leaving out of consideration his animality even though he is essentially both a man and an animal and even though animality is included within humanity. 

The idea, then, is that Peter has metaphysical parts (MPs) and that these items are really identical in Peter but virtually distinct, where the virtual distinctness of any two MPs is tied to the possibility of one of them being the object of a cognitive act without the other being the object of the same act.

Is S. suggesting that virtual distinctness is wholly mind generated?   I don't think so.  For he speaks of a potential distinction of MPs in concrete reality, a distinction that becomes actual when the understanding grasps them as distinct.  (253) And so I take the possibility mentioned in clause (ii) of the above definition to be grounded not only in the mind's power to objectify and abstract but also in a real potentiality in the MPs in substances like Peter.

One might be tempted to think of weak identity as a part-whole relation.  Thus one might be tempted to say that 'Peter' refers to Peter and 'man' to a property taken in the abstract that is predicable not only of Peter but of other human beings as well.  'Peter is a man' would then say that this abstract property is a metaphysical part of Peter.  But this is not Sousedik's or any Thomist's view.  For S. is committed to the idea that "Every empirical individual and every part or trait of it is particular." (251)  It follows that no metaphysical part of any concrete individual is a universal.  Hence no MP is an abstract property.  So weak identity is not a part-whole relation.

What is it then?

First of all, weak identity is a relation that connects a concrete individual such as Peter to a property taken abstractly.  But in what sense is Peter identical to humanity taken abstractly?   In this sense:  the humanity-in-Peter and the humanity-in-the-mind have a common constituent, namely, humanity taken absolutely as common nature or natura absoluta or natura secundum se.  (254)  What makes weak identity identity is the common constituent shared by the really existing humanity in Peter and the intentionally existing  humanity in the mind of a person who judges that Peter is human.

So if we ask in what sense the referent of 'Peter' is identical to the referent of 'man,' the answer is that they are identical in virtue of the fact that Peter has a proper metaphysical part that shares a constituent with the objective concept referred to by 'man.'  Sousedik calls this common constituent the "absolute subject."  In our example, it is human nature taken absolutely in abstraction from its real existence in Peter and from its merely intentional existence in the mind.

Critical Observations

I am deeply sympathetic to Sousedik's constituent-ontological approach, his view that existence is a first-level 'property,' and the related view that there are modes of existence. (253)  But one of the difficulties I  have with S.'s  identity theory of predication is that it relies on common natures, and I find it difficult to make sense of them as I already spelled out in a previous post.    Common natures are neither one nor many, neither universal nor particular.  Humanity is many in things but one in the mind.  Hence taken absolutely it is neither one nor many.  It is this absolute feature that allows it be the common constituent in humanity-in-Peter and humanity-in-the-mind.  And as we just saw, without this common constituent there can be no talk of an identity between Peter and humanity.  The (weak) identity 'rides on' the common constituent, the natura absoluta.  Likewise, humanity is particular in particular human beings but universal in the mind (and only in the mind).  Hence taken absolutely it is neither particular nor universal. 

But it also follows that the common nature is, in itself and taken absolutely, neither really existent nor intentionally existent.  It enjoys neither esse naturale (esse reale) nor esse intentionale.  Consequently it has no being (existence) at all. This is not to say that it is nonexistent.  It is to say that it is jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein to borrow a phrase from Alexius von Meinong, "beyond being and nonbeing." 

The difficulty is to understand how there could be a plurality of distinct items that are neither universal nor particular, neither one nor many, neither existent nor nonexistent.  Note that there has to be a plurality of them: humanity taken absolutely is distinct from animality taken absolutely, etc.  And what is the nature of this distinctness?  It cannot be mind-generated.  This is because common natures are logically and ontologically prior to mind and matter as that which mediates between them. They are not virtually distinct.  Are they then really distinct?  That can't be right either since they lack esse reale.

And how can these common or absolute natures fail to be, each of them, one, as opposed to neither one nor many?  The theory posits a plurality of items distinct among themselves.  But if each is an item, then each is one.  An item that is neither one nor many is no item at all.

There is also this consideration.  Why are common natures more acceptable than really existent universals as constituents of ordinary particulars such as Peter?    The Thomists allow universals only if they have merely intentional existence, existence 'in' or rather for a mind.  "Intentional existence belongs to entities which exist only in dependence upon the fact that they are objects of our understanding." (253)  They insist that, as S. puts it,  "Every empirical individual and every part or trait of it is particular." (251)  S. calls the latter an observation, but it is not really a datum, but a bit of theory.  It is a datum that 'man' is predicable of many different individuals.  And it is a datum that Peter is the subject of plenty of essential predicates other than 'man.'  But it is not a clear datum that Peter is particular 'all the way through.'  That smacks of a theory or a proto-theory, not that it is not eminently reasonable.

One might 'assay' (to use G. Bergmann's term) an ordinary particular as a complex consisting of a thin or 'bare'  particular instantiating universals.  This has its own difficulties, of course, but why should a theory that posits common natures be preferrable to one that doesn't but posits really existent universals instead?  Either way problems will arise.

The main problem in a nutshell is that it is incoherent to maintain that some items are such that they have no being whatsoever.  'Some items are such that they have no being whatsoever' is not a formal-logical contradiction, pace van Inwagen, but it is incoherent nonetheless.  Or so it seems to me. 

Long-Time MavPhil Commenter, Robert V. Koepp, Passes Away at 60

I was saddened to hear from Malcolm Pollack just now that Bob Koepp, who commented extensively at both our sites, died on 29 February of this year.  Ever the gentleman, Bob contributed to the discussions at the old Powerblogs site and here at the Typepad incarnation of MavPhil.  He had an M. A. in philosophy and studied under Wilfrid Sellars.  He was such a mild-mannered  man that I sometimes wondered if my more acerbic asseverations offended him.  His comments are here.  Bob will be remembered.  My condolences to his family and friends.  As the obituary below says,  for Bob, "the questions mattered more than the answers."  He exemplified the philosophical spirit.

On a lighter note, I once made mention of Maynard G. Krebs, the Bob Denver beatnik character from the 1959-1963 sitcom, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.  Koepp remarked  that back then he thought Krebs the quintessence of cool. 


Koepp, BobKoepp, Robert V. Our beloved Bob, age 60, of St. Paul, passed away on February 29. He was diagnosed just three months earlier with lung cancer, which he faced with admirable strength, caring above all for the comfort of those he loved. He is mourned by mother Helen (Rohe) Koepp of Hutchinson, siblings Reinhard of Tarpon Springs, FL; Ken (Jan) of Hot Springs Village, AR; Karen of Minneapolis; Marla (Bob) Lichtsinn of Fountain Valley, CA; Vern (Cindy) of Rush City; Irene (Dave) Schwartz of Litchfield; Marty of Minneapolis; Aaron (Laury) of Fort Collins, CO; Esther of Eagan; and Joanne (Randy) Fischer of Wausau, WI, as well as other dear relatives and friends. He was predeceased by father Reinhard W. Koepp and grandparents Herman and Augusta Koepp and Walter and Anna Rohe.

Bob, whose abiding wish was for racial equality, believed deeply in loving God and your neighbor. He grew up in Brownton, was a lifelong student of philosophy of science, ethics and bioethics (Gustavus, U Pitt, U of M), and coordinated oncology research at Children's Hospital, Minneapolis. Bob also loved nature and fishing, helping family members with jobs and projects of all kinds, especially woodworking, and music, especially Bach. He was astoundingly bright, and for him, in life or in energetic dialogue, the questions mattered more than the answers. He was selfless, generous and exemplary in so many ways, and he will be dearly missed. A memorial gathering is being planned. Remember him by supporting racial equality or nature organizations, or by doing a random act of kindness.

                                                Published in Star Tribune on March 4, 2012