Author: Bill Vallicella

The Story of Oh: the Terrible Price of a Korean Defection

By Richard Fernandez (HT: Bill Keezer):

The BBC tells the melancholy story of Oh Kil-nam, a South Korean man who, convinced by his Marxist education that North Korea was a worker’s paradise, decided to defect there with his wife and two children in 1986. Oh, who had just completed his PhD in Germany in Marxist economics and who “had been active in left-wing groups” had no reason to doubt the beckoning invitation of North Korean officials who promised him free health care and a government job, like certain other people you may know.

He chose poorly.

Aged and broken, Oh now concludes that his “life was ruined by his decision to defect to North Korea. Seventy years old, he still does not know the fate of his wife and daughters – either dead or imprisoned in a labour camp.” His wife, who lacked the benefit of a European education, suspected something was amiss from the first. She was aghast when he told her of his plan to defect.

In Loco Parentis

When parents, teachers, clergy and others in the private sector abdicate authority, the authority of the state takes their place.  Time was when universities were in loco parentis.  No longer.  Now it is the nanny state that is in loco parentis.

Can a Thin Theorist Experience Wonder at Existence?

Existence elicited nausea from Sartre's Roquentin, but wonder from Bryan Magee:

 . . . no matter what it was that existed, it seemed to me extraordinary beyond all wonderment that it should. It was astounding that anything existed at all. Why wasn't there nothing? By all the normal rules of expectation — the least unlikely state of affairs, the most economical solution to all possible problems, the simplest explanation — nothing is what you would have expected there to be. But such was not the case, self-evidently. (Confessions of a Philosopher, p. 13)

We find something similar in Wittgenstein:  Wie erstaunlich, dass ueberhaupt etwas existiert.  "How astonishing that anything at all exists." (Geheime Tagebuecher 1914-1916, p. 82.)

What elicited Magee's and Wittgenstein's wonderment was the self-evident sheer existence of things in general: their being as opposed to their nonbeing. How strange that anything at all exists! Now what could a partisan of the thin conception of Being or existence make of  this wonderment at existence? Or at Sartre's/Roquentin's nausea at existence?  I will try to show that no thin theorist qua thin theorist can accommodate  wonderment/nausea at existence, and that this fact tells against the thin theory.

 

I have already exposited the thin theory ad nauseam, if you will forgive the pun.  So let's simply consider what the head honcho of the thin theorists, Peter van Inwagen, has to say about wonder at existence in "Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment" (in Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, eds. Chalmers et al., Oxford 2009, pp. 472-506) He begins by pointing out (478) that everything we say using 'exists' and its cognates can be said without using 'exists'and its cognates.  'Dragons do not exist' can be put by saying 'Nothing is a dragon,' or 'Everything is not a dragon.'  'God exists' can be put in terms of the equivalent 'It is not the case that everything is not (a) God.' 'I think, therefore I am' is equivalent to 'I think, therefore not everything is not I.'  Here are some further examples of my own.  'An honest politican does not exist' is equivalent to 'No politician is honest.'  'A  sober Irishman does  exist'  is equivalent to 'Some Irishman is sober.'  'An impolite New Yorker does not exist' is equivalent to 'Every New Yorker is polite.'

From examples like these it appears that every sentence containing 'exists' or 'is' (used existentially) or cognates, can be be replaced by an equivalent sentence in which 'exists' or  'is' (used existentially), or cognates does not appear.

Now let's see how this works when it comes to the sentences we use to express our wonder at our own existence or at the existence of things in general.

Suppose I am struck by a sudden sense of my contingency.  I exclaim, 'I might never have existed.'  That is equivalent to 'I might never have been identical to anything' or, as van Inwagen has it, 'it might have been the case that everything was always not I.' (479)

To wonder why there is anything at all is to wonder "why it is not the case that everything is not (identical with) anything." (479)

Now I could mock these amazing contortions whereby van Inwagen tries to hold onto his thin theory, but I won't.  Mockery and derision have a place in polemical writing, as when I am battling the lunkheads of the Left, but they have no place in philosophy proper.  But really, has anyone  ever expressed his wonder at the sheer existence of the world using the sentence I just quoted from PvI?  But of course I need a more substantial objection that this, and I have one.

When I wonder at the sheer existence of things I am not wondering at the fact that everything is identical to something, or  wondering  at its not being the case that everything is not identical with anything.

Why not? Well, the truth of 'Everything is identical to something' presupposes a domain of quantification the members of which are existing items.  Surely what I find wonder-inducing is not the fact that every item x in that presupposed domain is identical to some item y in that very same presupposed domain! That miserable triviality is not what I am wondering at.   I am wondering at the  existence of anything at all including the domain and everything in it.

What I am wondering at is that there is something and not nothing.  How can a Quinean such as PvI express that something exists?  Is 'Something exists' equivalent to 'For some x, x = x'?  No.  Existence is not self-identity.  For x to exist is not for x to be self-identical.  Otherwise, for x not to exist would be for x to be self-diverse — which is absurd.  My possible nonexistence is not my possible self-diversity.

Suppose there is only only one  thing, a, and that I am wondering at the existence of a.  Why is there a and not rather nothing?  Am I wondering at a's self-identity?  Obviously not.  I am wondering at a's sheer existence, that it is 'there,' that it is not nothing, that is it, that it has Being. 

And so I conclude that a thin theorist qua thin theorist cannot experience wonder at the sheer existence of things.  All he can experience wonder at — if you want to call it wonder — is that things presupposed as existing are self-identical — which is surely not all that marvellous.  Of course they are self-identical!  Necessarily if a thing exists, it is self-identical. But existence is not self-identity. If existence were self-identity, then nonexistence would be self-diversity and possble existence would be possible self-diversity. 

Some of us experience wonder at the sheer existence of things.  As old Ludwig puts it, Ich staune dass die Welt existiert!  When I experience this wonder I am not experiencing wonder at the trivial fact that each of the things presupposed as existing is identical to something or  other.  I am wondering at the existence of everything including the presupposed domain of existents.  This then is yet another argument against the thin theory.  The thin theory cannot accommodate wonder at existence, or Sartrean nausea at existence either. 

Existence, Circularity, and Metaphysical Grounding

London Ed must have known by some paranormal means  that I was talking about him over Sunday breakfast with Peter Lupu.  For his post upon return from sunny Greece is about the alleged circularity of the thin conception of existence.  Peter and I were discussing Peter van Inwagen's  "Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment" (in Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, eds. Chalmers et al., Oxford 2009, pp. 472-506.)  Van Inwagen is a Quinean about existence and perhaps the most prominent and formidable of the contemporary thin theorists.  Me, I'm a thick-head: existence is not (identical to) what so-called 'existential' quantification  expresses, and existence comes in modes.  The negations of these convictions I reject as two dogmas of analysis (from the title of a forthcoming paper).

I was lamenting to Peter that I couldn't get London Ed to see my point about circularity.  I now think I understand why Ed doesn't accept it.  It has to do with his not accepting a different notion, that of metaphysical grounding.

Let's start with a Quinean explication of a sentence such as 'Peter exists.'  It goes like this:

1. Peter exists =df for some x, x = Peter.

What does (1) accomplish?  Well, it shows how one can get rid of 'exists' as a first-level predicate, and with it a reason for thinking that existence is a property of individuals.  For it is clear (assuming that there are no nonexistent objects) that the sentences flanking '=df' are equivalent, indeed logically equivalent: there is no possible situation in which  one is true (false) and the other false (true).

Now in one sense of 'circular' I want to concede to Ed that (1) is not circular:  the definiens — the RHS of (1) — does not contain 'exists.'  In other words, (1) is not circular in the way the following are circular:

X is a human being =df x has human parents.
Knowledge is the state one is in when one knows something.
Knowledge is cognition.
A book of pornography is one that contains pornographic material.

The following, whether correct or incorrect,  are not circular definitions in the above sense:

Knowledge is justified true belief.
Justice is whatever is advantageous to the stronger.
A circle is a locus a points in the same plane equidistant to some common point.

(1) is clearly not circular in the manner of the above examples: the definiendum is not repeated in the definiens.  So in what sense is (1) circular? (1) is true iff the following is true

1a. Peter exists =df for some existing x, x = Peter.

(1a), however, is plainly circular.  After all, (1) is  not equivalent to

1b. Peter exists =df for some x, whether existent or nonexistent, x = Peter.

For if (1) were equivalent to (1b), then (1) would be false.

One response I anticipate Ed making is to say that there is no difference between 'x' and 'existing x': whatever is a value of the one is a value of the other, and vice versa.  If so, then perhaps (1a) collapses into (1) and there is no circularity in the sense in which the examples above are circular.

I would insist, however, that (1) is circular in a different and deeper  sense.  A presupposition of (1)'s truth is that the domain of quantification — the domain over which the variable 'x' ranges — is a domain of existents.  Therefore, if I want  to know what it is for x to exist, you have not given me any insight by telling me that for x to exist is for x to be identical to something that exists.  For of course x is identical to something that exists, namely x!

Suppose we distinguish between semantic and metaphysical circularity.  I am willing to concede that (1) is not semantically circular.  But I do maintain that (1) is metaphysically circular: its truth presupposes that the domain of quantification is a domain of existing items.  To put it another way, the truth of (1) has an ontological or metaphysical ground, namely the existence of the items over which we quantify.

Consider a domain consisting of just three items: Peter, Paul, and Mary. Peter exists iff one of these items is identical to Peter.  Paul exists iff one of these items is identical to Paul.  Mary exists iff one of these items is identical to Mary.  Perfectly true and perfectly trivial.  Although we learn something necessarily true about Peter, about Paul, and about Mary, we do not learn what it is for Peter or Paul or Mary to exist in the first place. 

I want to know that is is for Peter (who stands in here for any individual) to exist. You tell me that for Peter to exist is for Peter to be identical to something.  But in giving this true but trivial answer you have helped yourself to the existence of the thing to which Peter is identical.  You have evaded my question by assuming that we are just given existing individuals.

What form could an answer take?  One answer is that the existence of the items in the domain of quantification is a brute fact and thus inexplicable.  To exist is just to be there inexplicably.  That would at least be an honest answer as opposed to the silly triviality that to exist is to be identical to something.  A radically different answer is to say that for a concrete contingent ndividual to exist is for it to be a divine creation.  Both the brute fact answer and the theistic answer are consistent with Quine's triviality.

Getting back to London Ed, why doesn't he accept my circularity objection to the thin theory?  He doesn't accept it because he is operating with an exclusively semantic notion of circularity which remains at the level of sentences and does not descend to the level of the truth-makers (ontological grounds) of sentences.  (In earlier discussions it became clear that Ed has no clue as to what a truth-maker is supposed to be.) The thin theory, as expressed in (1), however, is not obviously semantically circular: 'exists' is not found on the RHS. All one finds there is a quantifier, a variable bound by the quantifier, the identity sign, and a name that functions in this context as an arbitrary constant.  My claim, however, is that (1) is metaphysically or ontologically circular.  This notion is one that Ed does not understand.

Metaphysical grounding, one of whose forms is truth-making, is for Ed a wholly unintelligible notion.  For Peter and me, however, it is an intelligible notion .  Here I think we can locate the ultimate root of our disagreement.

What say you, gentlemen?

Political Action and the Principle of Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien

Attributed to Voltaire. "The best is the enemy of the good."

Meditation on this truth may help conservatives contain their revulsion at their lousy choices. Obama, who has proven that he is a disaster for the country, got in in part because of conservatives who could not abide McCain.  And he may stay in office in part because of disgusted conservatives who fail to heed Voltaire's principle.

Politics is a practical business. It is always about the lesser of evils, except when it is about the least of evils. It is not about being ideologically pure. It is about accomplishing something in a concrete situation in which holding out for the best is tantamount to acquiescing in the bad. Political choices are forced options in roughly William James' sense: he who abstains chooses willy-nilly. Not choosing the better amounts to a choice of the worse.

Don't let the best or the better become the enemy of the good.  Try to achieve something achievable.  Don't pine after the unattainable.  Impossible dreams are for liberals, not reality-anchored conservatives.  It did not surprise me when I learned that Ted Kennedy's favorite song was The Impossible Dream.  Figures!

Related post: Can What is Impossible to Achieve be an Ideal for us? 

Journal Notes on Ed Abbey from May 1997

Ed_abbey_tvI purchased Edward Abbey’s posthumous collection of journal extracts entitled Confessions of a Barbarian (ed. Petersen, Little, Brown & Co., 1994) in April of 1997. Here are some journal jottings inspired by it.

From the notebooks of Paul Brunton to the journals of Ed Abbey – from one world to another. Each of us inhabits his own world. You're damned lucked if in a lifetime you meet two or three kindred souls who can enter, even if only a few steps, into one's own world.  The common world in which we meet with many is but the lowest common denominator of our private spheres of meaning.

Abbey bears the marks of an undisciplined man, undisciplined in mind and in body. A slovenly reasoner, a self-indulger.

Paul Brunton, Ed Abbey, Whittaker Chambers, Gustav Bergmann . . . mysticism, nature, politics, ontology . . . . The wild diversity of human interests and commitments.  It never ceases to fascinate and astonish me.

Ed Abbey: a romantic, the makings of a quester, but swamped by his sensuality. Held down by the weight of the flesh. The religious urge peeps out here and there in his journals, but his crudity is ever-ready to stifle any upward aspirations.

Abbey: the sex monkey rode him hard night and day. But did he want to throw him off? Hell no! Augustine wanted to be chaste, but not right away. Abbey did not want to be chaste. Can an incontinent man gain any true and balanced insight into the world and life? Lust, like pride, dims the eyes of the mind, and eventually blinds them.

The sex monkey in tandem with the booze monkey, a tag team tough to beat.

Which is more manly, to battle one’s sensuality like Augustine, or to wallow in it like Abbey? Is it cock and balls that make the man? Clothes? Social status? Money? Political power?  Big truck? (Abbey: "The bigger the truck the smaller the penis.") Or is it that weak little Funklein, the fragile germ of divine lght that we carry within?

The crudity of Abbey, the elevation of Thoreau.

Abbey: a tremendous sensitivity to the beauties of nature and music, but larded over with an abysmal
crudity. Half-educated, self-indulgent, willful. But he knows it, and a tiny part of him wants to do something about it, but he can’t. His base soul is too strong for his noble soul. Goethe’s Faust complained, “Zwei Seelen, ach, wohnen in meiner Brust, und der einer will sich von den anderen trennen!” Abbey could have made the same complaint about two incompatible souls in one breast.

Abbey: proud of his sensuality, his big dick, his five children whom he thinks are just darlings while meanwhile holding that others should not be allowed to procreate. A misanthrope – but not when it comes to himself, his family, and his friends. A tribalist of sorts.

The battle between the noble and the base. In Ed Abbey, the base usually wins.

Ed Abbey made a false god of nature. There is no god but Nature, and Abbey is her prophet.

As for his writing, I'll take it over the social phenomenology of suburban hank-panky served up by East Coast  establishmentarians such as John Cheever and John Updike.

This Life

We sometimes speak of this life.  For example, some assert that this life is all there is.  The ability to thematize and question the whole of life may not prove, but it does suggest, that we are more than beings confined to this life.  Even the average schlep, enmired in the mundane, his fledgling metaphysical organs numbed by the the onslaught of quotidiana, will at some point, when the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" pay him a visit, exclaim, "What the hell is this life all about?"

To Flout and to Flaunt

Why do people have such trouble with this distinction?  One flouts the law.  One does not flaunt it.  Correct:  'She flaunted her naked breats thereby flouting the law.'  Incorrect: 'She flouted her naked breasts thereby flaunting the law.'

Free Will

You say it is a life-enhancing illusion?
Perhaps it is
From a point of view not ours.
From ours
It has all the reality it needs
For all it needs to do is enhance life.

And that it does.
Disagree?
Then see
If you can live your life
On automatic pilot.

Good luck with that.

(If you crave something more substantial, poke around in my Free Will category.)

John Gardner on Mickelsson’s Ghosts

John Gardner describes his novel, Mickelsson's Ghosts:

The novel is about a famous philosopher who, midway through his career, suddenly finds himself (as Dante did) lost. He feels he has failed his wife and family (the wife has left him), feels he has betrayed his earlier promise and the values of his Wisconsin Lutheran background, has lost interest in his students and has ceased to care about philosophical questions, has lost faith and hope in democracy (and owes a large sum of money to the IRS), scorns the university where he teaches and the unsophisticated town in which it is situated, and has good reason to believe he is losing his mind. He cuts himself off fom his university community by buying a huge rotting house in the country, which turns out to be haunted (if he can trust his wits), and he finds himself up to the neck in evils he never before dreamt of — middle-of-the-night dumpings of poisonous wastes, witchcraft, backwoods prostitution, a mysterious string of murders, and more. (John Gardner, On Becoming a Novelist, Harper and Row, 1983, p. 141.)

 On Becoming a Novelist is an excellent book, just unbelievably good. And the above described novel ain't no slouch either. But Gardner, being a damned fool, got himself killed in a motorcycle accident at the tender age of 49. A serious loss to American letters.

John Gardner's card

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Woody Guthrie & Sons: Arlo, Adnopoz, Zimmerman

Tomorrow being Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday, tonight we revisit some of his tunes and some of those he influenced.  First a wry number from the man himself: Philadelphia Lawyer. A tale of an East Coast lawyer, a Hollywood maid, and a gun-totin' Reno cowhand name of Wild Bill, with "ten notches carved on his gun."  "Now tonight back in old Pennsylvania/Amongst her beautiful pines/There's one less Philadelphia lawyer/In old Philadelphia tonight."

Percy's Song, written by Bob Dylan, is well-performed by Guthrie's son, Arlo.  It is in the Guthrie tradition of left-leaning social protest.  A mean judge metes out an unjust sentence.  Arlo's City of New Orleans is a classic slice of Americana, and a great song, right up there with Don McLean's American Pie and Woody's This Land is Your Land. There is a element of silly socialist utopianism in the latter, but also something genuine and worthwhile.

Lacking as it does the proper American cowboy resonance, 'Elliot Charles Adnopoz' was ditched by its bearer who came to call himself 'Ramblin' Jack Elliot.'  Born in 1931 in Brooklyn to Jewish parents who wanted him to become a doctor, young Adnopoz rebelled, ran away, and became a protege of Woody Guthrie.  If it weren't for Ramblin' Jack, Guthrie would be nowhere near as well-known as he is today. 

Pretty Boy Floyd.  "As through this life you ramble, as through this life you roam/You'll never see an outlaw drive a family from their home."  No?  An example of the knee-jerk tendency of lefties invariably to  take the side of the underdog regardless of whether right or wrong.  It's as if weakness justifies. 

Ramblin' Jack does a haunting version of Dylan's Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.  It grows on you. Give it a chance.  Cigarettes and Whisky and Wild Woman.  Soul of a Man. Dylan's unforgettable,  Don't Think Twice.

And now the bard himself,the most distinguished Jewish  'son' of Woody Guthrie, who absorbed a hundred influences and made something new, Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota.  Song to Woody.  It Take a Lot to Laugh.  Video of Dylan's meeting with Guthrie as the latter lay dying of Huntington's Chorea in a New Jersey hospital.  I Shall Be Released.  Rollin' and Tumblin.'  Not Dark Yet.  "Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear/It's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there."

Finally, one more from Woody.  Hard Travelin.