February 2015 – Page 4 – Maverick Philosopher

Another Double Standard

Perhaps you noticed this too. President Obama refuses to use 'Islamic' in connection with the Islamic State or 'Muslim' in connection with Muslim terrorists. But he has no problem with pinning the deeds of crusaders and inquisitors on Christians. This is a double standard.

Surely, if no true Muslim beheads journalists or crucifies children, then no true Christian commits deeds of equal moral depravity.

A while back Obama made the surprising statement that "ISIL is not Islamic." What was the reasoning behind Obama's statement? Perhaps this:

1. All religions are good.
2. Islam is a religion.
Ergo
3. Islam is good.
4. ISIL is not good.
Ergo
5. ISIL is not Islamic.

But then, by parity of reasoning,

1. All religions are good.
2*. Christianity is a religion.
Ergo
3*. Christianity is good.
4*. The Crusades/Inquisition were not good.
Ergo
5*. The Crusades/Inquisition were not Christian.

But far worse than Obama's double standard is his profound historical ignorance which any number of commentators have exposed, John Hinderaker, for example.

Suggestions on How to Study

This is a revised post from September, 2009. Thanks to V.V. for his interest.

……………….

A great deal could be said on this topic. Here are a few thoughts that may be helpful. Test them against your own experience.

1. Make good use of the morning, which is an excellent time for such activities as reading, writing, study, and meditation. But to put the morning to good use, one must arise early. I get up at 2:00, but you needn't be so monkish. Try arising one or two hours earlier than you presently do. That will provide you with a block of quiet time. Fruitful mornings are of course impossible if one's evenings are spent dissipating. But it is not enough to avoid dissipation. One ought to organize one's evening so as to set oneself up for a fruitful morning's work. Alphonse Gratry makes some excellent suggestions in section V of his "The Sources of Intellectual Light" (1862), the last book of his Logic (trs. Helen and Milton Singer, Open Court, 1944). One of them is, "Set yourself questions in the evening; very often you will find them resolved when you awaken in the morning." (532) Gratry has in mind theoretical problems. His advice is compatible with Schopenhauer's: One should never think about personal problems, money woes, and other such troubles at night and certainly not before bed.

2. Abstain from all mass media dreck in the morning. Read no newspapers. "Read not The Times, read the eternities." (Thoreau) No electronics. No computer use, telephony, TV, e-mail, etc. Just as you wouldn't pollute your body with whisky and cigarettes upon arising, so too you ought not pollute your pristine morning mind with the irritant dust of useless facts, the palaver of groundless opinions, the bad writing of contemporary scribblers, and every manner of distraction. There is time for that stuff later in the day if you must have it. The mornings should be kept free and clear for study that promises long-term profit.

3. Although desultory reading is enjoyable, it is best to have a plan. Pick one or a small number of topics that strike you as interesting and important and focus on them. I distinguish between bed reading and desk reading. Such lighter reading as biography and history can be done in bed, but hard-core materials require a desk and such other accessories as pens of various colors for different sorts of annotations and underlinings, notebooks, a cup of coffee, a pot of coffee . . . .

4. If you read books of lasting value, you ought to study what you read, and if you study, you ought to take notes. And if you take notes, you owe it to yourself to assemble them into some sort of coherent commentary. What is the point of studious reading if not to evaluate critically what you read, assimilating the good while rejecting the bad? The forming of the mind is the name of the game. This won't occur from passive reading, but only by an active engagement with the material. The best way to do this is by writing up your own take on it. Here is where blogging can be useful. Since blog posts are made public, your self-respect will give you an incentive to work at saying something intelligent.

5. An illustration. Right now I have about a half-dozen projects going. One is an article for publication in a professional journal on the philosophy of Milton K. Munitz. What I have been doing very early in the morning is studying and taking notes on four of his books that are relevant to my project. I write these notes and quotations and criticisms into a journal the old-fashioned way. Like I said, no electronics early in the morning. Computer is off and internet connection as well. This eliminates the temptation to check e-mail, follow hyperlinks, and waste time. Later in the day I incorporate these hand-written notes into a long blog post I am writing. When that post is finished and published and I receive some comments, I will then write up the post as a formal article and send it to a journal.

The beauty of this is that one has something to show for the hours spent studying. One has a finished product in which one's thoughts are organized and preserved and to which one can refer later.

6. How keep track of a vast amount of resources? A weblog can be useful as an on-line filing cabinet. I also keep a daily journal.

The West Is the Best

But the West is in grave danger. Attacked from without, she is also collapsing from within under the weight of her own decadence. Can we and it survive? The short answer is that, while we are running on fumes, they are rich and voluminous and long-lasting. It will take some time before they and we peter out. So there is still time to take action. Decline is not inevitable. But do we have the will?

Acronyms, Initialisms, and Truncations: Another Look

I suggested earlier that we think of abbreviations as a genus that splits into three coordinate species: acronyms, initialisms, and truncations with the specific differences as follows:

An acronym is a pronounceable word formed from either the initial letters of two or more words, or from contiguous letters of two or more words. For example, 'laser' is a pronounceable word formed from the initial letters of the following words: light, amplification, stimulated, emission, radiation. And Gestapo is a pronounceable word formed from contiguous letters of the following words: geheime, Staats, Polizei.

An initialism is a string of contiguous letters, unpronounceable as a word or else not in use as a word, but pronounceable as a list of letters, formed from the initial letters of two or more words. For example, 'PBS' is an initialism that abbreviates 'Public Broadcasting System.' 'PBS' cannot be pronounced as a word, but it can be pronounced as a series of letters: Pee, Bee, Ess. 'IT' is an initialism that abbreviates "information technology.' In this case 'IT' is pronounceable as a word, but is not in use as a word. You can say, 'Mary works in Eye-Tee,' but not, 'Mary works in IT.' The same goes for 'ASU' which abbreviates 'Arizona State University.'

A truncation is a term formed from a single word by shortening it. 'App,' for example is a truncation of 'application,' and 'ho' is presumably a truncation of 'whore' (in black idiom). 'Auto' is a truncation of 'automobile,' and 'blog' (noun) of 'weblog.'

Malcolm Chisholm in an e-mail comment objects to my taxonomy, claiming that the classification looks like this:

While my scheme probably has defects of which I am not aware, Dr. Chisholm's scheme is open to objection. He tells us that a truncation is "formed by taking the first part of each word." But then 'laser' and Gestapo are truncations, which can't be right. There is no word of which 'laser' is the truncation as there is a word of which 'hood' is the truncation ('neighborhood'). Chisholm also tells us that an acronym is "formed by taking the first letter of each word." But Gestapo and Stasi are not formed by taking the first letter of each word. Stasi is formed from the first three letters of Staat and the first two letters of Sicherheit. (By the way, the Stasi was much worse than the Gestapo, according to Simon Wiesenthal.) And what about 'sonar'? It takes two letters from 'sound' and one each from 'navigation' and 'ranging.'

What's more, I see no point in making acronym superordinate to pronounceable acronym. That strikes me as a distinction without a difference, i.e., a merely verbal distinction. As I see it, 'pronounceable acronym' is a pleonastic expression. But I will irenically grant that there may be no fact of the matter here and that we can slice this bird in equally acceptable ways. Those who classify the initialism 'SBNR' ('spiritual but not religious') — the initialism that got me on this jag in the first place — as an acronym are free to do so. But I prefer not to since every example of an acronym I can think of is pronounceable.

Perhaps I can appeal to parsimony. My scheme is simpler than Chisholm's. His Porphyric tree sports three branchings; mine only two.

But perhaps I am making some mistake here. What is wrong with my taxonomy if anything is wrong with it? But I'm no linguist; I'm merely a philosopher who thinks it wise to attend carefully to ordinary language while avoiding the aberration known as Ordinary Language philosophy.

Feser on Sex

Old Ed pulls no punches. In response to Peter Singer's claim that "sex raises no unique moral issues at all," Feser remarks, "I have long regarded this as one of the most imbecilic things any philosopher has ever said." I agree. Feser goes on to make a number of important points.

The Wages of Political Correctness: A Climate of Fear

This from a graduate student whose paper I posted:

Shortly after you posted my paper, I got an email from a friend who also reads your blog. My friend wondered if this was, all things considered, bad for my chances on the job market. He thinks in this age of Google searches, having my name come up on your blog will be viewed negatively by some hiring committees, given that most are leftists. It is completely absurd to me that someone might chuck my application in the trash just because they see a serious metaphysics post on a blog that defends conservative views some of the time, and I'm quite happy to have my name associated with yours, but I was wondering what you thought.

Might it be better to change the post and title a little so it doesn't mention my full name? If it is indeed true that some departments would not hire me because of this post, there is a significant part of me that doesn't want to work with such people anyway, but then there is another part of me that loves teaching philosophy enough that I'd be willing to try to put up with such people, at least for a while. I don't know. I'm not terribly worried about it at this moment, since I won't be on the job market until fall of 2016.

I did remove the author's name out of concern for his prospects. I suspect his friend has a better understanding of how bad things have become than he does. The universities have become leftist seminaries. The few exceptions prove the rule. And where there are leftists there is political correctness and the party line. Anyone who refuses to toe it, anyone who thinks independently and critically and speaks out against leftist excesses and outright inanities runs a serious career risk. But even if one does not speak out, and is only tenuously associated with a website that publishes some conservative material, one is at risk.

I've made mine, so I can afford to speak the truth. A little courage is involved, but not much. I cannot recommend that people who are young or starting out take career-destroying risks. And I ought not expose them to danger. Never underestimate how vicious and vindictive leftists can be. The case of Brian Leiter is very instructive. Details of some of his recent antics here.

And don't ever underestimate the lengths of lunacy to which lefties will go. Recent example: CUNY. Morris Raphael Cohen must be rolling over in his grave.

UPDATE: Another philosophy graduate student refers us to Students Object to Job Candidate for Offensive Views. It begins:

Graduate students in a philosophy department somewhere in the English-speaking world did some online sleuthing about a job candidate for a position in their department, and learned that the candidate seems to hold views they find offensive. In particular, they found reports (including alleged quotes) that the candidate had expressed in online fora the view that homosexual acts and premarital sex are immoral.

It is a good thing Immanuel Kant did not apply to this department. He holds that "Every form of sexual indulgence, except in marriage, is a misuse of sexuality and so a crimen carnis." (Lectures on Ethics, tr. Infield, Hackett, p. 169.)

Victor Hugo on “Not by Bread Alone”

Elliot sends this for our delectation:

Intellectual and moral growth is not less indispensable than material amelioration. Knowledge is a viaticum; thought is of primary necessity; truth is nourishment as well as wheat. A reason, by fasting from knowledge and wisdom, becomes puny. Let us lament as over stomachs, over minds which do not eat. If there is anything more poignant than a body agonizing for want of bread, it is a soul which is dying of hunger for light. (Les Miserables)

Philosophy Bakes No Bread, but Man does not Live by Bread Alone

This from a reader:

I wanted to bring to your attention a passage I came across in Nicholas Rescher’s Philosophical Standardism (Pittsburgh, 1994):

“The old saying is perfectly true: Philosophy bakes no bread. But it is also no less true that we do not live by bread alone. The physical side of our nature that impels us to eat, drink, and be merry is just one of its sides. Homo sapiens requires nourishment for the mind as urgently as nourishment for the body. We seek knowledge not only because we wish, but because we must. The need for information, for knowledge to nourish the mind, is ever bit as critical as the need for food to nourish the body.” (p. 67)

I was struck by what I believed was the distinctively Vallicellan retort, “But it is also no less true that we do not live by bread alone.” I’m curious: Is this a well-known retort among philosophers? If not, did you get that from Rescher, he from you, or is this just an instance of great minds thinking alike?

None of the above. Here is what I wrote in 2012:

To the philistine's "Philosophy bakes no bread" you should not respond "Yes it does," for such responses are patently lame. You should say, "Man does not live by bread alone," or "Not everything is pursued as a means to something else," or "A university is not a trade school." You should not acquiesce in the philistine's values and assumptions, but go on the attack and question his values and assumptions. Put him on the spot. Play the Socratic gadfly. If a philistine wants to know how much you got paid for writing an article for a professional journal, say, "Do you really think that only what one is paid to do is worth doing?"

I wouldn't say that the not-by-bread-alone retort is standard among philosophers, especially not now when Christianity is on the wane and one cannot assume that philosophers have read the New Testament. Professor Rescher, of course, knows the verse at Matthew 4:4.

I didn't get the retort from Rescher: Philosophical Standardism is not a book of his that I have read. The retort occurred to me independently as I am sure it has occurred independently to many of a certain age and upbringing.

And of course Rescher did not get the line from me since his book was published in 1994 long before the blogosphere.

And it is not a case of great minds thinking alike since neither of our minds are great. It is more like above-average minds thinking alike, though I concede his to be more above-average than mine.

Is there anyone in philosophy more prolific than Rescher? Here is a list of just his books. Forty years ago I heard the joke about the Nicholas Rescher Book-of-the-Month Club. And he is still happily scribbling away. Here is another Rescher joke:

A student goes to visit Professor Rescher. Secretary informs her that the good doctor is not available because he is writing a book. Student replies, "I'll wait."

Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, and Hypocrisy

Apparently, Paul does not understand the concept of hypocrisy.

After Jeb Bush admitted to smoking marijuana during his prep school days, Rand Paul called him a hypocrite on the ground that he now opposes what he once did.

But this accusation shows a failure on Paul's part to grasp the concept of hypocrisy. An adequate definition must allow for moral change. One who did not attempt to live up to the ideals he now espouses ought not be called a hypocrite; the term 'hypocrite' applies to one who does not attempt to live up to the ideals he now espouses.

See my category Hypocrisy for more on this philosophically juicy theme.

Nothing is Written in Stone

The curiosity to the left, sent to me without commentary by the inscrutable and seldom seen Seldom Seen Slim, raises a number of deep and fascinating questions.

The sentence to the left can be read either literally or metaphorically. My analysis in this entry is concerned with a literal reading only.

1. If nothing is written in stone, then no sentence is written in stone. But the sentence to the left is written in stone. Therefore, it is not the case that nothing is written in stone. Therefore, the sentence to the left, if true, is false. And if it is false, then of course it is false. (Our sentence is not like the Liar sentence which, if true is false, and if false is true.) Therefore, whether the stone sentence is true or false, it is false. Therefore, it is necessarily false, and its negation — 'Something is written in stone' — is necessarily true. (Bivalence is assumed.)

But this is paradoxical! For while it is the case that the sentence is false it could have been true. For it is possible that nothing ever have been written in stone. Therefore, it is not the case that the sentence in question is necessarily false. Something has gone wrong with my analysis. What has gone wrong, I think, is that I have failed to observe a distinction I myself have drawn in earlier entries between propositional self-refutation and performative self-refutation.

2. Consider 'There are no true propositions.' This is a proposition and it is either true or false. If true, then false. And if false, then false. So necessarily false. This is a clear example of propositional self-refutation. The proposition refutes itself by itself. No human act or performance comes into the picture. 'There are no assertions' is quite different. This is either true or false. And we know it is false as a matter of contingent fact. But it is not self-refuting because if it were true it would not follow that it is false. It does not refute itself by itself. For if it were true that there are no assertions, then it would be true that there are no assertions. (Compare: if it were true that that there are no true propositions, then it would be false that there are no true propositions.)

All we can say is that 'There are no assertions,' while it can be asserted, cannot be asserted with truth. For the performance of assertion falsifies it. We thus speak here of performative inconsistency or performative self-refutation. The truth of 'There are no assertions,' if it is true, is assertively inexpressible. It is impossible that I, or anyone, assert, with truth, that there are no assertions; but it it does not follow that it is impossible that there be no assertions.

'I do not exist' is another example of performative self-refutation. I cannot assert, with truth, that I do not exist. For I cannot make the assertion without existing. Indeed, I can't even think the thought *I do not exist* without existing. But the impossibility of my thinking this thought does not entail the necessity of my existence. Necessarily, if I think, then I exist. But the necessity of the consequence does not transfer to the consequent. Both of the following are true and thus logically consistent: I cannot think without existing; I exist contingently. I cannot use the Cartesian cogito to show that I am a necessary being. (Nor can you.)

And similarly with 'Nothing is written in stone' inscribed in stone. The 'performance' of inscribing in stone falsifies the sentence while 'verifying' its negation: if I inscribe in stone 'Something is written in stone,' I provide a concrete instance of the existentially general sentence. (Am I punning on 'concrete'?)

My point, then, is that our lapidary example is not an example of strictly propositional self-refutation but of performative self-refutation where the performance in question is that of inscribing in stone. But why is this so interesting?

3. One reason is that it raises the question of inexpressible propositions. Interpreted literally, though perhaps not charitably, our stone sentence expresses a proposition that cannot be expressed salva veritate in stone. For if we try to express the proposition by producing an inscription in stone, we produce a sentence token whose existence falsifies the proposition. This holds in every possible world. In no world in which nothing is written in stone can this proposition be expressed in stone.

But the proposition expressed by the stone sentence can be expressed salva veritate in speech. Consider a possible world W in which it is literally true that nothing is written in stone, i.e., a world in which there are no stone inscriptions, in any language, of any declarative sentence. If a person in W assertively utters the sentence 'Nothing is written in stone,' he expresses a proposition true in W.

'There are no sayings' cannot be expressed salva veritate in speech but it can be expressed in stone.

I conclude that there are possibly true propositions which, while they are expressible, are not expressible in all media. The proposition expressed by our stone inscription above is true in some possible worlds but not expressible by stone inscriptions in any possible world.

Note also that there are actually true propositions that cannot be expressed in some media. In the actual world there is no ink that is compounded of the blood of Irishmen, 5W30 motor oil, and the urine of my cat, Max Black. So it is actually true that there is no such ink. This truth, however, cannot be expressed in writing that uses the ink in question.

A really interesting question is whether there are true propositions or possibly true propositions that are inexpressible salva veritate in every medium. I mean inexpressible in principle, not inexpressible due to our finite resources.

Buddhists typically say that all is empty and all is impermanent. Could it be true that all is empty despite the fact that this very thesis must be empty and therefore devoid of a determinate sense and a determinate truth value? Could it be true that all is impermanent despite the fact that this very thesis is impermanent?

The Curiosity of the Heart

If base desire is the heart's curiosity, the need to know is the mind's noble aspiration.

On ‘Stuff’ and ‘Ass’: A Language Rant

Too many people use the word 'stuff' nowadays. I was brought up to believe that it is a piece of slang best avoided in all but the most informal of contexts. So when I hear a good scholar make mention of all the 'stuff' he has published on this topic or that, I wonder how long before he starts using 'crap' instead of 'stuff.' "You know, Bill, I've published a lot of crap on anaphora; I think you'll find it excellent." But why stop with 'crap'? "Professor Zeitlich has published a fine piece of shit in Nous on temporal indexicals. Have you read it?"

If you ask me to read your 'stuff,' I may wonder whether you take it seriously and whether I should. But if you ask me to read your work, then I am more likely to take you seriously and give your work my attention. Why use 'stuff' when 'work' is available? Do you use 'stuff' so as not to appear stuffy? Or because you have a need for acceptance among the unlettered? But why would you want such acceptance? Note that when 'stuff' is used interchangeably with 'work,' the former term does not acquire the seriousness of the latter, but vice versa: 'stuff' retains its low connotation and 'work' drops out. The net result is linguistic decline and an uptick in 'crudification,' to use an ugly word for an ugly thing.

No doubt there is phony formality. But that is no reason to elide the distinction between the informal and the formal. A related topic is phony informality. An example of the latter is false intimacy, as when people people address complete strangers using their first names. This is offensive, because the addresser is seeking to enjoy the advantages of intimacy (e.g., entering into one's trust) without paying the price.

'Ass' is another word gaining a currency that is already excessive. One wonders how far it will go. Will 'ass' become an all-purpose synecdoche? Run your ass off, work your ass to the bone, get your ass out of here . . . ask a girl's father for her ass in marriage? In the expression, 'piece of ass' the reference is not to the buttocks proper, but to an adjoining area. 'Ass' appears subject to a peculiar semantic spread. It can come to mean almost anything, as in 'haul ass,' which means to travel at a high rate of speed. I don't imagine that if one were hauling donkeys one could make very good time. So how on earth did this expression arise? (I had teenage friends who could not refer to a U-Haul trailer except as a U-Haul Ass trailer.)

Or consider that to have one's 'ass in a sling' is to be sad or dejected. Here, 'ass' extends even unto a person's mood. Robert Hendrickson (Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, p. 36) suggests that 'ass in a sling' is an extension of 'arm in a sling.' May be, but how does that get us from the buttocks to a mental state? I was disappointed to find a lacuna where Hendrickson should have had an entry on 'haul ass.'

'Ass' seems especially out of place in scholarly journals unless the reference is to some such donkey as Buridan's ass, or some such bridge as the pons asinorum, 'bridge of asses.' The distinguished philosopher Richard M. Gale, in a piece in Philo (Spring-Summer 2003, p. 132) in which he responds to critics, says near the outset that ". . . my aim is not to cover my ass. . . ." Well, I'm glad to hear it, but perhaps he should also tell us that he has no intention of 'sucking up' to his critics either.

In On the Nature and Existence of God (1991), Gale wonders why anyone would "screw around" with the cosmological argument if Kant is right that it depends on the ontological argument. The problem here is not just that 'screw around' is slang, or that it has a sexual connotation, but that it is totally inappropriate in the context of a discussion of the existence/nonexistence of God. The latter is no joking matter, no mere plaything of donnish Spielerei. If God exists, everything is different; ditto if God does not exist. The nonexistence of God is not like the nonexistence of an angry unicorn on the far side of the moon, or the nonexistence of Russell's celestial teapot. As Nietzsche appreciated (Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay, sec. 27), the death of God is the death of truth. But to prove that Nietzsche was right about this would require a long article or a short book. One nice thing about a blog post is that one can just stop when the going gets tough by pleading the inherent constraints of the genre. Which is what I will now do.

Distasteful Slang

I have nothing against slang as such, but there are contexts in which it does not belong. Here is a book by one Fr. Andrew Younan entitled Metaphysics and Natural Theology. One chapter is entitled "Aristotle and the Other Guys." Another "Thomas Aquinas — A Bunch of Stuff." A third "God Stuff."

Disgusting. Either you see why or you don't. I can't argue you out of your low-rent sensibility. In matters of sensibility, argument comes too late.

Residual Political Correctness Among Conservatives

Over at NRO, I found this in an otherwise very good column by Charles C. W. Cooke:

I daresay that if I had been in any of the situations that DeBoer describes, I would have walked happily out of the class. Why? Well, because there is simply nothing to be gained from arguing with people who believe that it is reasonable to treat those who use the word “disabled” as we treat those who use the word “n***er” . . . .

Isn't this precious? Cooke shows that he owns a pair of cojones throughout the column but then he gets queasy when it comes to 'nigger.' Why? Would he similarly tip-toe around 'kike' or 'dago'? I doubt it. It is clear that he is aware of the difference between using a word to refer to something and talking about the word. Philosophers call this the use-mention distinction. Call it whatever you like, but observe it.

True: 'Boston' is disyllabic.
False: Boston is disyllabic.
True: Boston is populous.
False: 'Boston' is populous.

Consider the following sentence

Some blacks refer to other blacks using the word 'nigger.'

The sentence is true. Now of course I do not maintain that a sentence's being true justifies its assertive utterance in every situation. The above sentence, although appropriately asserted in the present context where a serious and important point is being made, would not be appropriately asserted in any number of other easily imagined contexts.

But suppose that you take offense at the above sentence. Well, then, you have taken inappropriate and unjustified offense, and your foolishness offends me! Why is my being objectively offended of less significance than your being merely subjectively offended? Your willful stupidity justifies my mockery and derision. One should not give offense without a good reason. But your taking inappropriate offense is not my problem but yours.

In this regard there is no substitute for sound common sense, a commodity which unfortunately is in short supply on the Left. You can test whether you have sound common sense by whether or not you agree with the boring points I make in such entries as the following:

Of 'Blind Review' and Pandora's Box

Of Black Holes and Political Correctness

The White House Beer Summit

The Left’s Central Delusion

Thomas Sowell points to central planning. I would add that the 'progressive' conviction that people are basically good along with the concomitant conviction that there is no such thing as radical evil is also deeply delusional, and also dangerously delusional.

Sowell also has wise things to say about 'under-representation' and 'over-representation.'

Do libertarians have a central delusion? I should think so. It is the tendency wildly to exaggerate the number of people who know their own long-term best interest. To properly qualify and explain this claim requires a separate entry.