Author: Bill Vallicella

Rigor and Cognitivity

Some say philosophy lacks rigor.  Well, some does, but the best doesn't.  People who bemoan a lack of rigor in philosophy are typically unacquainted with its best authors.  The problem with philosophy is not lack of rigor but lack of cognitivity.  The lack of cognitivity, however, does not detract from philosophy's value.  Is there no value in the Socratic docta ignorantia?

Could a Universe of Contingent Beings be Necessary?

If everything in the universe is contingent, does it follow that the universe is contingent?  No it doesn't, and to think otherwise would be to commit the fallacy of composition.  If the parts of a whole have a certain property, it does not follow that the whole has that property.  But it is a simple point of logic that a proposition's not following from another is consistent with the proposition's being true.

And so while one cannot straightaway infer the contingency of the universe from the contingency of its parts, it is nevertheless true that the universe is contingent.  Or so I shall argue.

The folowing tripartition is mutually exclusive and mutually exhaustive:   necessary, impossible, contingent.  A necessary (impossible, contingent) being is one that exists in all (none, some but not all) possible worlds.  I will assume an understanding of possible worlds talk.  See my Modal Matters category for details.

Our question is whether the universe U, all of whose members are contingent, is itself contingent.  I say it is, and argue as follows.

1. Necessarily, if U has no members, then U does not exist. (This is because U is just the totality of its members: it is not something in addition to them.  If U has three members, a, b, and c, then U is just those three members taken collectively: it is not a fourth thing distinct from each of the members.  U depends for its existence on the existence of its members.)

2. There is a possible world w in which there are no concrete contingent beings.  (One can support this premise with a subtraction argument.  If a world having n members is possible, then surely a world having  n-1 members is possible.  For example, take the actual world, which is one of the possible worlds, and substract me from it.  Surely the result, though  sadly impoverished,  is a possible world.  Subtract London Ed from the result.  That too is a possible world.   Iterate the subtraction procedure until you arrive at a world with n minus n ( = 0) concrete contingent members.   One could also support the premise with a conceivability argument.  It is surely conceivable that there be no concrete contingent beings.  This does not entail, but is arguably evidence for, the proposition that it is possible that there be no concrete contingent beings.)

Therefore

3. W is a world in which U has no members.  (This follows from (2) given that U is the totality of concrete contingent beings.)

Therefore

4. W is a world in which U does not exist. (From (1) and (3))

Therefore

5. U is a contingent being.  (This follows from (4) and the definition of 'contingent being.')

Therefore

6. The totality of contingent beings is itself contingent, hence not necessary.

What is the relevance of this to cosmological arguments?  If the universe is necessary, then one cannot sensibly ask why it exists.  What must exist has the ground of its existence in itself.  So, by showing that the universe is not necessary, one removes an obstacle to cosmological argumentation.

Now since my metaphilosophy holds that nothing of real importance  can be strictly proven in philosophy, the above argument – which deals with a matter of real importance — does not strictly prove its conclusion. But it renders the conclusion rationally acceptable, which is all that we can hope for, and is enough.

Michelle Malkin on Racial Code Words

Here are her recent additions to the list.   By the logic of the Left, cosmologists are racists because they study, among other things, black holes.

The willful stupidity of liberals is evidenced by the umbrage they take at the apt description of Obama as the food stamp president:

At the dawn of the modern federal food stamp program, one in 50 Americans was enrolled. This year, one in seven Americans is on the food stamp rolls. The majority of them are white. Obama’s loosening of eligibility requirements combined with the stagnant economy fueled the rise in dependency. “Food stamp president” is pithy shorthand for the very real entitlement explosion.

Democrats fumed when former GOP candidate Newt Gingrich bestowed the title on Obama and decried its purportedly racist implications. But who are the racists? As Gingrich scolded the aforementioned race troll Chris Matthews last week: “Why do you assume food stamp refers to blacks? What kind of racist thinking do you have? You’re being a racist because you assume they’re black!” Time to find a new code word.

You have to ask yourself whether you want a culture of dependency or a culture of self-reliance.  What is so offensive about Obama and his ilk is their undermining of such traditional American values as self-reliance.

And as I said yesterday, many of these same liberals such as the "race troll' Chris Mathews got where they did in life precisely because of such virtues as self-reliance.  And yet they refuse to promote them and pass them on.  It shows the contempt they have for their clients such as blacks who keep them in power.

If it hasn't happened already, some liberal will now besmirch the beautiful word 'self-reliance' as racial code.  There is just no level of scumbaggery to which a leftist will not descend.

Preach What You Practice!

Liberals who have amounted to something in life through advanced study, hard work, deferral of   gratification, self-control, accepting responsibility for their actions and the rest of the old-fashioned virtues are often strangely  hesitant to preach these conservative virtues to those most in need of them. These liberals  live Right and garner the benefits, but think Left. They do not make excuses for themselves, but they do for others. And what has worked for them they do not think will work for others. Their attitude is curiously condescending.  If we conservatives used 'racist' as loosely and irresponsibly as they do, we might even tag their attitude 'racist.'

It is not enough to practice what you preach; you must also preach what you practice.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: September Songs

September again.  A lovely transitional month leading from hot August to glorious October.

Lotte Lenya sings Kurt Weill, September Song.  A Liberace-Jack Benny spoof.

Dinah Washington, September in the Rain

The Tempos, See You in September

Carole King, It Might as Well Rain Until September

Antonio Vivaldi, "The Four Seasons," Autumn.  Newcomers to classical music — some will say 'real music' — are well-advised to start with Vivaldi and with Pachelbel's Canon in D major.

Clint Eastwood Speaks Truth to Power at the RNC

There were some fabulous but conventional speeches at the Republican National Convention.  The best were by Condoleeza Rice, Paul Ryan, and Marco Rubio.  But the performance that may prove to be the most effective in securing votes, not to mention rankling liberals, was that of Clint Eastwood.

Here is this  aging superstar who introduces himself self-deprecatingly as a "movie tradesman" with hair slightly out of place sporting what the late Paul Fussell referred to in his hilarious 1983 Class as a "prole gap," a class indicator often displayed by working class types on the rare and uncomfortable occasions when they don a suit. (“Here, the collar of the jacket separates itself from the collar of the shirt and backs off and up an inch or so:  the effect is that of a man coming apart.") Eastwood looked like he had blown in from a session with cronies  at a bar and grill.

He then launches into a 'conversation' with a chair whose absent occupant is none other than Barack Obama.  The dialogue is rambling and in places incoherent, but funny as hell.  Here it is in full, for your enjoyment.

An actor in an ill-fitting suit addresses an empty suit, a man as vacant as the chair he does not occupy.

The money quote and standing ovation come at 8:54: "You, we, own this country."  Here, in the guise of a regular guy, Eastwood speaks truth to power, to use that darling phrase of leftists, a phrase they (absurdly) continue to deploy even when they possess power. Eastwood continued with, "Politicians are employees of ours" and "When somebody does not do the job, we've got to let them go."

Was the person who shouted out "Make my day!" a plant?  Plant or not, the Eastwood performance ended on an appropriate "Dirty Harry" note. Dirty Harry, after all, cut through bullshit and did not suffer punks gladly.

Deterrence Will Not Work Against Iran

Charles Krauthammer gives three reasons:

(1) The nature of the regime.

Did the Soviet Union in its 70 years ever deploy a suicide bomber? For Iran, as for other jihadists, suicide bombing is routine. Hence the trail of self-immolation, from the 1983 Marine barracks attack in Beirut to the Bulgaria bombing of July 2012.  Iran’s clerical regime rules in the name of a fundamentalist religion for whom the hereafter offers the ultimate rewards. For Soviet communists — thoroughly, militantly atheistic — such thinking was an opiate-laced fairy tale.

For all its global aspirations, the Soviet Union was intensely nationalist. The Islamic Republic sees itself as an instrument of its own brand of Shiite millenarianism — the messianic return of the “hidden Imam.”

It’s one thing to live in a state of mutual assured destruction with Stalin or Brezhnev, leaders of a philosophically materialist, historically grounded, deeply here-and-now regime. It’s quite another to be in a situation of mutual destruction with apocalyptic clerics who believe in the imminent advent of the Mahdi, the supremacy of the afterlife and holy war as the ultimate avenue to achieving it.

The classic formulation comes from Tehran’s fellow (and rival Sunni) jihadist al-Qaeda: “You love life and we love death.” Try deterring that.

(2) The nature of the grievance.

The Soviet quarrel with America was ideological. Iran’s quarrel with Israel is existential. The Soviets never proclaimed a desire to annihilate the American people. For Iran, the very existence of a Jewish state on Muslim land is a crime, an abomination, a cancer with which no negotiation, no coexistence, no accommodation is possible.

(3) The nature of the target.

America is a nation of 300 million; Israel, 8 million. America is a continental nation; Israel, a speck on the map, at one point eight miles wide. Israel is a “one-bomb country.” Its territory is so tiny, its population so concentrated that, as Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has famously said, “Application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.” A tiny nuclear arsenal would do the job.

In U.S.-Soviet deterrence, both sides knew that a nuclear war would destroy them mutually. The mullahs have thought the unthinkable to a different conclusion. They know about the Israeli arsenal. They also know, as Rafsanjani said, that in any exchange Israel would be destroyed instantly and forever, whereas the ummah — the Muslim world of 1.8 billion people whose redemption is the ultimate purpose of the Iranian revolution — would survive damaged but almost entirely intact.

Montaigne on Why Language Matters

Allan J. writes,

You often speak of the importance of using language responsibly, i.e. not like a librul.
So I thought you would enjoy this:

“Our understanding is conducted solely by means of the word: anyone who falsifies it betrays public society. It is the only tool by which we communicate our wishes and our thoughts; it is our soul’s interpreter: if we lack that, we can no longer hold together; we can no longer know each other. When words deceive us, it breaks all intercourse and loosens the bonds of our polity.” – Montaigne

Montaigne's point is mine.  Language matters.  It deserves respect as the vehicle and enabler of our thoughts and — to change the metaphor — the common currency for the exchange of ideas.  To tamper with the accepted meanings of words in order  to secure argumentative or political advantage is a form of cheating.  Wittgenstein likened languages to games.  But games have rules, and we cannot tolerate those who change the rules mid-game.  We must demand of our opponents that they use language responsibly, and engage us on the common terrain of accepted usage.

The violation of accepted usage is a common ploy of contemporary liberals.  Some examples: 

Minimal ID requirements are said to disenfranchise certain classes of voters.  The common sense requirements amount to voter suppression.  They are described absurdly as an onerous barrier to voting."
Onerous?  Barrier?  In Pennsylvania a photo ID can be had free of charge.  In Arizona it costs a paltry $12 and is good for 12 years.  If you are 65 or older, or on SS disability, it is free.

People who insist on the rule of law with respect to immigation are called xenophobic.  And then there are the cheaply-fabricated  neologistic  '-phobe' compounds.  One who rationally articulates a principled position against same-sex marriage is dismissed as homophobic.  One who draws attention to the threat of radical Islam is denounced as Islamophobic.

The sheer stupidity of these mendacious coinages ought to disgust anyone who can think straight.  A phobia is an irrational fear.  But the proponents of traditional marriage have no fear of homosexuals or their practices, let alone an irrational fear of them.  And those alive to the threat of radical Islam may be said to fear it, but the fear is rational.

Liberals can't seem to distinguish dissent from hate.  So they think that if you dissent from liberal positions, then you hate liberals.  How stupid can a liberal be?  "You disagree with liberal ideas, therefore you are a hater!"   Even worse: "You differ with a black liberal's ideas, therefore you are a hater and a racist!"

'Unilateral.'  John Nichols of the The Nation appeared on the hard-Left show, "Democracy Now," on the morning of 2 September 2004. Like many libs and lefties, he misused 'unilateral' to mean 'without United Nations   support.' In this sense, coalition operations against Saddam Hussein's regime were 'unilateral' despite the the fact that said operations were precisely those of a coalition of some thirty countries.  The same willful mistake was made by his boss Victor Navasky on 17 July 2005 while being
interviewed by David Frum on C-Span 2.

There are plenty more examples, e.g., 'white Hispanic.'   When Republicans had control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, Dems whined about a 'one-party system.'  Exercise for the reader: find more examples of liberal misuse of language.

Ron Radosh on Woody Guthrie at 100

A very good piece that ends like this:

Poor Woody Guthrie. He never expected to see the day when the newsmen, the photographers, the media as a whole would proclaim singers like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Morello, and Ry Cooder geniuses because they are leftists, and although like all good millionaires and billionaires, they use their money as Bruce Springsteen does — to buy homes all over the world and race horses for his daughter to compete with. If Woody was alive, he at least would be honest, and would have squandered his money and given it to the CPUSA.

So go and honor Woody — he was in so many ways a bard of those who were dispossessed and down under in the years of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and in his best works, he echoed their concerns and their lives. In his worst, he became a prisoner of the Communist movement he joined, who forced him to adopt political correctness on behalf of evil causes, and to write songs on their behalf better forgotten.

Remember this if you’re attending any of the concerts coming up. And if Tom Morello sings and I’m there, I’ll remain sitting, won’t applaud, and if you hear someone booing, it might just be me.

Beating the Dead Horse of the Thin Theory Some More

It is obviously true that something exists.  This is not only true, but known with certainty to be true:  I think, therefore I exist, therefore something exists.  That is my Grand Datum, my datanic starting point.  Things exist! 

Now it seems perfectly clear to me that 'Something exists' cannot be translated adequately as 'Something is self-identical' employing just the resources of modern predicate logic (MPL), i.e., first-order predicate logic  with identity.    But it seems perfectly clear to van Inwagen that it can.  See my preceding post on this topic. So one of us is wrong, and if it is me, I'd like to know exactly why.  Let me add that 'Something is self-identical' is the prime candidate for such a thin translation.  If there is a thin translation, this is it.  Van Inwagen comes into the discussion only as a representative of the thin theory, albeit as the 'dean' of the thin theorists.

Consider the following formula in first-order predicate logic with identity that van Inwagen thinks adequately translates 'There are objects' and 'Something exists':

1. (∃x) (x = x).

It seems to me that there is nothing in this formula but syntax: there are no nonlogical expressions, no content expressions, no expressions like 'Socrates' or 'cat' or placeholders for such expressions such as  'a' and 'C.'  The parentheses can be dropped, and van Inwagen writes the formula without them. This leaves us with '∃,' three bound occurrences of the variable 'x,' and the identity sign '=.' 

Now here is my main question:  How can the extralogical and extrasyntactical fact that something exists be a matter of pure logical syntax?  How can this fact be expressed by a string of merely syntactical symbols: '∃,' 'x,' '='?

It is not a logical truth that something exists; it is a matter of extralogical fact.  There's this bloody world out there and it certainly wasn't sired by the laws of logic.  Logically, there might not have been anything at all.  It is true, but logically contingent, that something exists.  Compare (1) with the universal quantification

2. (x)(x =x).

If (1) translates 'Something exists,' then (2) translates 'Everything exists.'  But (2) is a logical truth, and its negation a contradiction.  Since (1) follows from (2), (1) is a logical truth as well.  But (1) is not a logical truth as we have just seen.  We face an aporetic triad:

a. '(x)(x =x)' is logically true.
b. '(∃x) (x = x)' follows from '(x)(x = x).'
c. '(∃x) (x = x)' adequately translates 'Something exists.'

Each limb is plausible, but they cannot all be true.   The truth of any two linbs entails the falsehood of the remaining one. For example, the first two entail that '(∃x) (x = x)' is logically true. But then (c) is false:  One sentence cannot be an adequate translation of a second if the first fails to preserve the modal status of the second.  To repeat myself: 'Something exists' is logically contingent whereas the canonical  translation is logically necessary.

Now which of the limbs shall we reject?  It is obvious to me that the third limb must be rejected, pace van Inwagen.

Now consider 'Everything exists.'  Can it be translated adequately as '(x)(x = x)'?  Obviously not.  The latter is a formal-logical truth. and its negation is a formal-logical contradiction.  But the negation of 'Everything exists' — 'Something does not exist' — is not a formal logical contradiction.  Therefore, 'Everything exists' is not a formal-logical truth.  And because it is not, it cannot be given the canonical translation.

Finally, consider 'Nothing exists.'  This is false, but logically contingent: there is no formal-logical necessity that something exist.  One cannot infer the existence of anything (or at least anything concrete) from the principles of formal logic alone.  The canonical translation of 'Nothing exists,' however — (x)~(x = x)' -  is not contingently false, but logically false.  Therefore, 'Nothing exists' cannot be translated adequately as 'Everything is not self-identical.'

Van Inwagen and his master Quine are simply mistaken when they maintain that existence is what 'existential' quantification expresses.