Month: August 2017

Faith, Reason, and Edith Stein

Today, August 9th, is the feast day of St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross in the Catholic liturgy.  She is better known to philosophers as the Edith Stein (1891-1942), brilliant Jewish student of and assistant to Edmund Husserl, philosopher, Roman Catholic convert, Carmelite nun, victim of the Holocaust at Auschwitz, and saint of the Roman Catholic church. One best honors a philosopher by re-enacting his thoughts, sympathetically but critically. Herewith, a bit of critical re-enactment.

In the 1920s Stein composed an imaginary dialogue between her two philosophical masters, Husserl and Aquinas. Part of what she has them discussing is the nature of faith.

Even Misfits Find Their ‘Fit’

JoegouldI have a longstanding interest in 'marginal types': the characters, oddballs, misfits, Thoreauvian different-drummers, wildmen, mavericks, weirdos, those who find an adjustment to life, if they find it at all, at the margins, on the fringes of respectability, near the edge of things. Those who were not stamped out as by a cookie cutter, but put their own inimitable stamp on themselves. The creatively maladjusted and marginal who do duty as warnings more often than as exemplars.

Joe Gould, Greenwich Village bohemian, is an example. His story has been told by that master of prose, Joseph Mitchell. 

Gould found his fit and 'made it' as a bum. He was a 'successful' bum. Some aren't cut out for the bum life: they can't 'cut it.' These are the bums manqué. Gould stuck with it till he died of it. He found his own peculiar adjustment to life, his purpose and place, albeit one based on deceiving himself and others about his "Oral History of Our Time," the magnum opus that never existed. 

Gould got through life in his own way. If success is living life in your own way, then Gould was a success.

You say he never amounted to anything? Then why am I writing about him now? Why did Joseph Mitchell devote two long pieces to him? Why was a movie made about him?

You really should read Joseph Mitchell.  As someone who knows what good writing is, I can tell you that he is a master of American English. Get yourself a copy of Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories, Vintage 1993, and enjoy. Why read the contemporary stuff in The New Yorker when you can read Mitchell?

Islam and the (Destruction of the) Arts

Here:

Which brings us back to the arts. Among the things that Islam finds offensive are paintings, statues, mosaics, music, and song. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the razing of the Roman temples and arches in Palmyra are just the most recent in a long line of vandalism that stretches back to Muhammad. According to culture critic Hugh Fitzgerald, “the greatest destruction of art in the history of the world is that wrought by Muslims on the art (architecture, artifacts), sacred and profane, of non-Muslim civilizations.”

Thanks to resurgence of militant Islam we seem to have entered a new era of iconoclasm. And it’s not just the arts that are being attacked, but also the people who patronize them. There have been a number of terror attacks against tourists at the ancient Egyptian Karnak Temple near Luxor. In 2015, gunmen killed 19 people at the Bardo Museum in Tunis. In 2002, 40 to 50 armed Chechen Islamists took 850 hostages during a musical theatre production at Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater. The three-day siege ended with the death of 130 hostages including 17 members of the cast and one-third of the orchestra. More recently, we’ve seen the jihad attack on the Bataclan theatre in Paris which resulted in the death of 130 people, many of whom were also mutilated, and the jihad attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England which left 22 dead.

For all their antipathy to the arts, jihadists have an almost Hitchcockian sense of dramatic locations: the Temple of Karnak, the Bardo Museum, the Dubrovka Theatre, the Bataclan Theatre, the World Trade Center. They haven’t gotten around yet to Mt. Rushmore and the Albert Hall, but it’s quite likely that both are already on some jihadis to-do list. Fortunately, the authorities have discerned the pattern, and have begun to beef up security around museums and monuments. Nowadays, if you want to visit the Louvre or the Rijksmuseuem, you have to tiptoe around police and soldiers carrying automatic weapons. Many artists like to advertise their work as transgressive and even dangerous. That’s becoming literally true, though presumably not in the ways that the artists intended. When you go to a concert or a museum these days, there is indeed a heightened element of danger.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that armed jihadists are the only danger to the arts and music. The other danger comes from Islamic culture itself and from the non-violent spread of that culture into Western societies. The trend has been referred to as “Islamization” and also as “stealth jihad.” For my own part, I prefer the term “cultural jihad” because at this point the advance is far from stealthy. The reason that citizens of the West don’t see the cultural takeover in progress is that they don’t want to see it. And they don’t want to see it because they don’t know what to do about it. Some of those who do see what’s happening think the trend toward Islamic dominance is unstoppable. Here’s economist Peter Smith in Quadrant:

Tolerant societies in these politically correct times have no feasible way of countering intolerance when it is practiced and preached by a minority religion ready to claim victimhood at the drop of a hat. I entertained the thought that it could, but it can’t be done.

Whether or not the trend is irreversible remains to be seen, but the trend has not been toward assimilation (as so many had hoped), but toward cultural conquest. And as Islamization continues, it will have a profound effect on the arts. Because where Islamic beliefs and laws advance, the arts retreat.

It’s not just a matter of hostility to the arts, but indifference to them. Although some Muslim immigrants to Europe will acquire a taste for Chopin and Renoir, most will ignore the symphony halls and the art museums altogether. As the population continues to shift in the favor of Islam, those museums that manage to stay open will have to emphasize non-representational Islamic art and put the Renoirs in cold storage. As for the concert halls, many will die a slow death. Mark Steyn puts it this way:

When the demography changes, there will be no concert halls. Artists who take a multicultural view should be aware of this. Count the number of covered women in London’s West End. In Birmingham, where I went to high school, you have a provincial symphony orchestra in a Muslim city—I’m not sure it will survive. All art, all popular culture is endangered by Islam, because there’s no room for it.

Although Birmingham won’t be a Muslim majority city for another twenty years or so, Steyn is right about the general trend. And he’s right about the unawareness of “artists who take a multicultural view.” Those in the arts community who blindly celebrate diversity constitute, in effect, a fifth column that facilitates the invasion of Western society by an anti-arts culture.

One has to wonder if they really love the arts or if they are more in love with the idea of being thought exceedingly tolerant and open-minded. People who love something are usually willing to fight to defend it. But there’s scant evidence that the arts community will fight to preserve the culture they have inherited.

There are exceptions, of course. The aforementioned Mark Steyn is one of them. By profession, Steyn is a music critic who specializes in writing about composers of popular music such as Cole Porter, Jule Styne, and Dorothy Fields. Yet shortly after 9/11 Steyn branched out to political and cultural criticism with a particular emphasis on criticism of Islam and the lackluster Western response to its inroads. Why the foray into politics? As Steyn puts it, “The point of politics is to free up time for what really matters”—which in his case is music.

Another counter–jihadist who would rather be doing something else is Ned May. He is the director of Gates of Vienna, a website devoted to discussing the dangers of Islamization, both in America and Europe. Writing under the pen name Baron Bodissey, May produces a daily supply of knowledgeable and well-crafted columns. Yet his real passions are landscape painting and music. In a piece about Bach’s choral prelude, “O Lamn Gottes unschuldig,” he writes “[Bach’s music] is one of the principal motives behind my choice to continue the struggle against the Great Jihad. The music of J.S. Bach represents the apotheosis of the human spirit, and will remain such even as the civilization that created it turns to dust.”

He continues: “There is no ideology in this [the music]… But ideology may well destroy it. Just as there are no longer any Buddhas at Bamiyan … there may come a day when all the pipes lay strewn across the paving stones of a shattered building, with no more fingers to race across the keyboards nor feet to tap the pedals. That is one of the main reasons why I do what I do: so that this shall not pass from the face of the earth.”

As they are willing to fight to preserve the music they love, Steyn and May deserve to be thought of as genuine music lovers. I’m not so sure that the same can be said for those artists who rush to defend every diversity under the sun, but have little regard for the culture that produced Bach, Beethoven, and Cole Porter. Are they in love with art or are they more in love with a currently fashionable but ultimately destructive ideology about cultural diversity—one that will spell the death of art and music?

Are Any Substantive Philosophical Propositions Epistemically Certain?

I asked our Czech colleague Lukáš Novák for examples of philosophical propositions that he considers to be not only true, but knowable with certainty. He provided this list:

a) God exists.
b) There are substances.
c) There are some necessary truths, even some de re necessary truths.
d) Human cognition is capable of truth and certainty.
e) There are no contradictions in reality.

In this entry I will discuss only the first example.

Is it certain that God exists?

My position is that it is true that God exists, but not certain that God exists. How can a proposition be true but not certain? Logically prior question: What is certainty?

We first distinguish  epistemic from psychological certainty. If S is epistemically certain that p, then S knows that p. But if S is psychologically certain that p, i.e., thoroughly convinced that p, it does not follow that S knows that p.  For people are convinced of falsehoods, and one cannot know a falsehood, let alone be epistemically certain of it. There was the case not long ago of the benighted soul who was convinced that Hillary Clinton was running a child-abuse ring out of a pizzeria. He was certain of it! This shows that we must distinguish subjective or psychological certainty from objective or epistemic certainty.  Epistemic certainty alone concerns us.

But what is epistemic certainty?

BV with Novotny (my right) and Novak (my left)On one approach, a proposition is epistemically certain just in case it is indubitable.   By indubitability I don't mean a psychological inability to doubt, but a property of some propositions. For example, the proposition I exist has the property of being such that no subject S who entertains and understands this proposition can doubt its truth.  There are any number of propositions about one's state of mind at a given time that are epistemically certain to the subject of these states.  Examples: I seem to see a tree (but not: I see a tree); I seem to recall first meeting her on a April 2014 (but not: I recall meeting her on 1 April 2014).

The facts about one's mental life are a rich source or epistemic certainties. But there is also a class of truths of reason that are epistemically certain, for example propositions true ex vi terminorum, e.g., every effect has a cause, and formal-logical truths such as a proposition and its negation cannot both be true, etc.

God exists, by contrast with the members of the two classes just mentioned, is not indubitable.  One can easily doubt it. Atheists go so far as to deny it. So if epistemic certainty is defined in terms of indubitability, then God exists is not epistemically certain.

We also note that God exists  does not record a fact about anyone's mental life, nor is it true ex vi terminorum. So it belongs to neither class of the epistemically certain.

At this point one might respond that God exists, while not indubitable by itself, is indubitable as the conclusion of an argument. Well, suppose you give a valid deductive argument for the proposition that God exists. The conclusion will be epistemically certain only if each premise of the argument is epistemically certain.  But is there such an argument?

I don't believe there is. I am, however, quite willing to change my view if someone could present one. Indeed I would positively love to be refuted on this point. After all, I have already announced that I believe it is true that God exists; if it is absolutely epistemically certain, then all the better!  To get a feel for the problem, consider the Kalam argument

1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause;

2) The universe began to exist; Therefore:

3) The universe has a cause. (And this all men call God.)

This is a valid deductive argument and the premises are highly plausible. What's more, they may well be true. But they are not both certain.  Is (1) epistemically certain? No. Its negation, Something begins to exist without a cause, is not a formal-logical contradiction. Nor is (1) an analytic or conceptual truth.

If an argument is presented for (1), then I will show that the premises of that argument are not, all of them, certain.

Patrick Toner tells me that the "modal ontological argument [is] compelling," and that we can "know God and the soul with certainty through the use of natural human reason." (emphasis added) In Is the Modal Ontological Argument Compelling?, however, I return a negative answer by showing that the crucial possibility premise is not certain.

An impressive argument, no doubt, but not rationally compelling or such as to deliver epistemically certain insight into the truth of its conclusion.  The same goes for another powerful argument, From the Laws of Logic to the Existence of God.

What say you, Professor Novak?  Can you show me that I am wrong? I would be much obliged if you could.

Related articles
Disagreement in Philosophy: Notes on Jiří Fuchs

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Los Angeles Bands

Buffalo Springfield, Blue Bird.  Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing. (Features a time signature change.)

Dick Dale and the Deltones, Misirlou.  Before Clapton, before Bloomfield, my first guitar hero.   "King of the Surf Guitar."  Pipeline (with Stevie Ray Vaughan).  Nitro (with So Cal scenes).  Let's Go Trippin', 1961.  Not a drug reference. Pre-LSD. The first surf instrumental?

Beach Boys, Don't Worry Baby 

Little Feat, Willin'

Los Lobos, La Bamba

Doors, Riders on the Storm.  L. A. Woman

Byrds, Chimes of Freedom.  Dylan's greatest anthem?

Eagles, Life in the Fast Lane.  Take it Easy.

Standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona/Such a fine sight to see/ It's a girl my Lord in a flat bed Ford/Slowin' down to take a look at me.

Winslow Arizona

 

Rational Argument and the Questioning of Motives

London Ed writes,

. . . my main concern is how rational argument is deflected by questions of motive. Douglas Murray makes the point very well. Consider the proposition ‘Sharia law discriminates against women’. A rational response to this claim would be to investigate the nature of Sharia law, then to settle on a definition of ‘discriminate’, and then finally decide whether Sharia law does or does not fit that definition. This process is aimed at establishing the truth or falsity of the proposition in question. That by definition is rational debate.

Well of course. Who could disagree? The problem, however, is that rational debate does not resolve the main issues that divide us. Argument, even when conducted civilly and in accordance with all the proper canons, is of very limited value. Or can you think of a hot-button issue that has been resolved by rational debate?

But there is another form of response which sidesteps this completely, by questioning the motive of the person making the claim. Since it involves criticism of Sharia and hence of Muslims, the reason for making it must be racism or Islamophobia or whatnot. Note this does not involve any question of truth or falsity. Perhaps the opponent believes it too. No matter. The mere fact of making it [criticism of Sharia] means you are an Islamophobe, and must be shouted down, banned from the country, not allowed a platform etc.

London EdEd and I of course agree that it is in general wrong in a debate to divert attention from the content of a claim to the motives of the one making it.  The content of a claim is either true or false, either supported or unsupported by evidence, etc.  These properties of the propositional content of the claim are logically independent of anyone's psychology, in particular, the one who makes the claim. For example, here we read that in the U. S. most people with sickle cell disease are of African ancestry.  Clearly, the truth value of that proposition is logically independent of whether or not the person making the claim loves blacks, hates them, wants them all sent back to Africa, etc.  And of course there is nothing 'racist' about pointing out a racial fact like this.

But what I have just said in agreement with Ed is little more than the sort of philosophical boilerplate acceptable to all of us 'competent practioners.'  But it doesn't get us very far.

Here is a much more interesting question: 

Is it ever right to question or impugn motives in a debate?

I say it is sometimes right and sometimes rational. There are those here in the United States who oppose a photo ID requirement at polling places. They claim it 'disenfrachises' certain classes of voters, that it amounts to 'voter suppression.' But of course it does no such thing, and there is not one good argument against photo ID requirements.

The willful and widespread misuse of 'disenfranchise' is by itself a clear indication that the motives of those who misuse the word are unsavory. 

I won't go through these anti-photo ID arguments one more time. But if they are all bad, as I argue that they are, then I have every right to 'psychologize' my ideological enemy and impugn his motives. And that is exactly what I do. More than once I have claimed that leftists oppose photo ID requirements because they want to make the polling places safe for voter fraud. Plain and simple, their motive is to encourage voter fraud. They are out to win any way they can, and in their minds the glorious end justifies the dishonest means. Radicals needn't be inconvenienced by the demands of bourgeois morality. They've read their Alinsky.

I could cite many more examples but one suffices to nail down the general point, which is: it is sometimes right and rational to question motives and indeed, to impute evil motives in explanation of the transparently flimsy arguments our enemies sometimes give, arguments which are mere smokescreens that make a mockery of rational discussion.

So it appears that Ed and I disagree. Surprise!  His claim, if I understand it, is that it is never morally right and rational to question motives in a debate.  My claim is that it sometimes is. 

UPDATE 8/6: Malcolm Pollack responds,

Just read your post on motives. You wrapped it up with:

His claim, if I understand it, is that it is never morally right and rational to question motives in a debate.  My claim is that it sometimes is. 

It seems to me that the thing hinges on that phrase "in a debate". What's a "debate"? In principle it is a joint, rational inquiry, the purpose of which is to arrive at the truth. In that situation, then I'd agree with Ed.

But what we find ourselves dealing with in the social, political, and academic arena these days is rarely "debate", even though it pretends to be ("we need to have a national conversation about [insert left-wing hobby-horse here]"); it's a zero-sum war of conquest. (This is why accusations of inconsistency or hypocrisy, such as pointing out the Left's own widespread racism, so completely miss the point; their consistent principle is always simply that the other side is the enemy, and will be attacked.)

So when we aren't actually having a "debate" at all, then of course I'd agree with you. The key, then, is to be able to tell the difference.

……………..

Thanks, Malcolm. And in that situation I would agree with Ed too. But if we use 'debate' for what actually passes for debate, then I agree with me — and you.

I sense that your parenthetical remark is directed against me, given certain things I have said in the past, which is fine: you and I share enough common ground to make rational discussion possible and perhaps even fruitful.  But your remark may need some refinement. Suppose we distinguish two classes of leftist opponents.

Class 1. These are the ones you are referring to. They operate from the commie/Alinksyite playbook. They have one guiding principle which they apply consistently: do whatever it takes to win; the other side is the enemy; attack them and give no quarter.  Thus they will invoke our principles and values against us when it is convenient and conducive to their ends, even though they have no respect for these 'bourgeois' principles and values. For example, they will invoke free speech rights to get themselves heard, but shout down their opponents.

A naive guy like me comes along, who hasn't fully fathomed the depravity of the leftist mind, and protests their hypocrisy, their deployment of a double standard, the inconsistency of their application of the principle of free speech. And then you point out to me that I am "completely missing the point."  My mistake, I suppose, is to assume that leftists share our values, including aversion to hypocrisy and inconsistency in application of standards.

Have I understood your point, Malcolm?  

But it may be a bit more complicated since not all leftists are of the same stripe.  There are also those who belong to:

Class 2. These are the ones that really are hypocrites and deployers of double standards.  They are the ones that fall into inconsistency in the application of a principle such as that of free speech even while accepting the principle. So I can't have "completely missed the point" if there really are people in Class 2 and I point out their hypocrisy and deployment of double standards.

In sum, your parenthetical remark needs the nuancing that I have just provided. 

Let me know if you would like me to open the Combox to allow a reply.

The Conservative ‘Resistance’ is Futile

David Gelernter is tops.  Excerpt:

I’d love for him [Trump] to be a more eloquent, elegant speaker. But if I had to choose between deeds and delivery, it wouldn’t be hard. Many conservative intellectuals insist that Mr. Trump’s wrong policies are what they dislike. So what if he has restarted the large pipeline projects, scrapped many statist regulations, appointed a fine cabinet and a first-rate Supreme Court justice, asked NATO countries to pay what they owe, re-established solid relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia, signaled an inclination to use troops in Afghanistan to win and not merely cover our retreat, led us out of the Paris climate accord, plans to increase military spending (granted, not enough), is trying to get rid of ObamaCare to the extent possible, proposed to lower taxes significantly and revamp immigration policy and enforcement? What has he done lately?