Author: Bill Vallicella

Knowledge as Absolute Impossibility of Mistake

I incline towards Panayot Butchvarov's notion of knowledge as involving the absolute impossibility of mistake. In The Concept of Knowledge (Northwestern  UP, 1970), Butchvarov writes that "an epistemic judgment of the form 'I know that p' can be regarded as having the same content as one of the form 'It is absolutely impossible that I am mistaken in believing that p'." (p. 51)

One way to motivate this view is by seeing it as the solution to a certain lottery puzzle.

Suppose Socrates Jones has just secured a teaching job at Whatsamatta U. for the 2011-2012 academic year. Suppose you ask Jones, "Do you know what you will be doing next year?" He replies, "Yes I know; I'll be teaching philosophy." But Jones doesn't like teaching; he prefers the life of the independent scholar. So he plays the lottery, hoping to win big. If you ask Jones whether he knows he isn't going to win, he of course answers in the negative. He doesn't know that he will win, but he doesn't know that won't either. Jones also knows that if he wins the lottery, then he won't work next year at a job he does not  like.

On the one hand, Jones claims to know what he will be doing next year, but on the other he also claims to know that if he wins the lottery, then he won't be doing what he claims to know he will be
doing. But there is a contradiction here, which can be set forth as follows.

Let 'K' abbreviate 'knows,' 'a' the name of a person, and 'p' and 'q' propositions. We then have:

   1. Kap: Jones knows that he will be teaching philosophy next year.
   2. Ka(q –>~p): Jones knows that if he wins the lottery, then he will
   not be teaching philosophy next year.
   3. ~Ka~q: Jones does not know that he does not win the lottery.
   Therefore
   4. Ka~q: Jones knows that he does not win the lottery. (From 1 and 2)
   But
   5. (3) and (4) are contradictories.
   Therefore
   6. Either (1) or (2) or (3) is false.

Now surely (3) is true, so this leaves (1) and (2). One of these must be rejected to relieve the logical   tension. Isn't it obvious that (1) is the stinker, or that it is more of a stinker that (2)? The inference from (1) and (2) to (4) is an instance of the principle that knowledge is closed under known implication: if you know a proposition and you know that it entails some other proposition, then you know that other proposition. This seems right, doesn't it? So why not make the obvious move of rejecting (1)?

Surely Jones does not KNOW that he will be teaching philosophy next year. How could he KNOW such a thing? The poor guy doesn't even KNOW that he will be alive tomorrow let alone have his wits sufficiently about him to conduct philosophy classes. He doesn't KNOW these things since, if we are serious, knowledge implies the impossibility of mistake, and our man can easily be mistaken about what will happen in the future.

Of course, I realize that there is much more to be said on this topic.  
  

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Implements of Sewing

Wanda Jackson, Silver Threads and Golden Needles (1956).  With less of a country flavor, and more of a folk-rock sound, The Springfields' version is the best to my taste.  Features Dusty Springfield before she went solo and a great guitar solo.  Here's Dusty with her first and main solo hit.  And here's a 1969 Linda Ronstadt version of Silver Threads.

Jackie De Shannon, another '60s cutie, here gives forth with Needles and Pins.  The British group The Searchers provide a competent cover. 

The Notion of a Cumulative Case

 In a comment thread Tony Hanson asked me if I had written a post on cumulative-case arguments.  After some digging, I located one that I had written 24 August 2004.  Here it is for what its worth. 

……………
 
Suppose you have a good reason R1 to do X. Then along comes a second good reason R2 to do X. Does R2 remove the justificatory force of R1? Obviously not. Does R2 leave the justificatory force of R1 unchanged? No again. Clearly, R2 augments the force of R1. Any additional good reasons R3, R4, . . . Rn, would of course only add to the justification for doing X. What we have here is a cumulative case for doing X, a case in which the justificatory force of the good reasons is additive.
 
A thorough discussion would have to distinguish between cumulative case arguments in which each reason is sufficient to justify the action envisaged, and cumulative case arguments in which one or more or all of the reasons are individually insufficient to justify the action envisaged.
 
Suppose each reason in a cumulative case argument is individually sufficient to justify the action envisaged. Then in what sense are the reasons additive? They are additive in that each additional sufficient reason provides an additional fail-safe mechanism. If an agent has many reasons each of which is both good and sufficient for doing X, then, if one of the reasons should turn out to be either bad or insufficient, then the other reasons are available to shoulder the justificatory burden.
 
Apply this to the Iraq war. One reason for going to war was the widely shared belief that Saddam had WMDs. Another was that he was a known sponsor of Palestinian Arab terrorists and a reasonably surmised sponsor of other terrorists. (On the second point, see Stephen F. Hayes, The Connection: How al-Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America, Harper Collins, 2004) A third was humanitarian: the liberation of the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator and his sons. A fourth was to enforce unanimous U.N. resolutions that this august body did not have the cojones to enforce itself. A fifth was to end the ongoing hostilities, e.g., Iraqi attacks on coalition warplanes. Even if no one of these reasons is sufficient to justify the invasion, the five taken together arguably provide good and sufficient reason for the action.
 
The strategy of ‘Divide and Conquer’ cannot be used against a cumulative case argument. Suppose Jack has several reasons for marrying Jill: she’s nubile and pretty, moneyed and witty; they are physically and psychologically compatible; they share the same values; she has beautiful eyes, and there is beauty at the opposite pole of her being as well. So Jack has nine good reasons. It simply won’t do to point out that each of them, taken singly, is insufficient to justify the marriage. A good reason is not the same as a sufficient reason. A good reason can be either sufficient or insufficient. What then are examples of bad reasons? A bad reason would be her having a police record, or her having a doctorate in biology when her doctorate is in mathematics.
 
The point is that several good, but individually insufficient, reasons can add up to a good and sufficient reason. If so, then ‘Divide and Conquer’ is a fallacious form of refutation. But that is what many leftists do when they oppose the Iraq war. Suppose that the cumulative case consists of R1, R2, and R3, each of which is insufficient by itself to justify doing X. The ‘Divide and Conquer’ objector wrongly infers ‘no reason’ from ‘insufficient reason.’ Thus he thinks that if R1 is insufficient, then R1 is no reason, and similarly for R2 and R3. He then concludes: no reason + no reason + no reason = no reason. He fails to appreciate the additivity of individually insufficient but good reasons, just as the typical poor person fails to appreciate the additivity of the small amounts of money he throws away on cigarettes, lottery tickets, and overpriced convenience store items.
For example, if a conservative gives liberation of the Iraqi people as a reason for the invasion, the leftie is likely to object: "But then why don’t we liberate the North Koreans?" This is an asinine response since it it is based on a failure to appreciate that the liberation reason is only one part of a cumulative case, not to mention the fact that an attempted liberation of the North Koreans could easily lead to nuclear war. Granting that liberating the Iraqi people is an insufficient reason for the war, it does not follow that it is no reason at all. It is a good reason which, though insufficient taken by itself, is part of a cumulative case which amounts to a good and sufficient reason for the war.
Another mistake that leftists make is to confuse a reason with a motive. They do this when they say that a proffered reason is not the real reason. A reason is a motive when it plays a motivating role within the psychic economy of an agent. Suppose Jack has available to him an objectively good reason R for marrying Jill. But Jack is not consciously or subconsciously aware of R. Obviously, R can play no role in the etiology of his envisaged action. Yet R remains an objectively good reason for performing the act in question. A good reason need not be a motivating reason, and a motivating reason need not be a good reason. The expression ‘real reason’ should be avoided because it is ambiguous as between good reason and motivating reason.
 
Suppose Bush II’s sole motive for invading Iraq was to avenge Saddam’s assasination attempt on his father, Bush I. Even on this wildly counterfactual assumption, there were good reasons for the invasion. For an action to be justified, all that is required is that there be objectively good reasons for the action; it is not necessary that the agent’s motives be objectively good reasons. Even if an agent is not justified in doing X – because he is either not aware of or motivated by the good reasons for doing X – the act itself (the act-type itself) can have justification. Our man Jack, for example, may be driven to marry Jill by his lust and nothing besides; but this does not entail that his marrying her lacks justification. Jack’s father might say to him: "Son, you made the right decision, but for the wrong reason." The rightness of the decision is due to the availability of good reasons even if horny Jack did not avail himself of them.

At this point an objector might maintain that what I am calling good reasons are simply ex post facto rationalizations.But a rationalization after the fact is not the same as a good reason that plays no motivating role in bringing about the fact. For a rationalization is a bad reason. Suppose Ali physically assaults Benjamin because Benjamin is a Jew and Ali believes that Jews are the "sons of pigs and monkeys." After the fact, A explains his behavior by saying that B insulted him. Suppose B did insult A. A is rationalizing after the fact as opposed to giving a good reason after the fact. B’s insulting of A did not give A a good reason for initiating physical violence against B.

Now let us suppose that Bush II’s sole motive for ordering the Iraq invasion was his desire to deprive Saddam of the WMDs that he, Bush, believed Saddam to possess. Suppose, plausibly, that the belief is false. In that case, Bush II’s motivating reason was not an objectively good reason – based as it was on a false belief – but it could still count as a subjectively good reason in this sense: he had a reason that was a good reason based on the information he had available to him at the time of the decision. I would then argue that the other reasons, which are objectively good, bear the justificatory burden.

An astonishing number of people, some of them intelligent, believe that the motivating reason for the Iraq invasion was the desire to secure access to Iraqi oil. But if that was the motivating reason, it is was a very bad reason since (i) the oil was flowing; (ii) starting a war with an opponent believed to have WMDs and known to have ignited oil wells in the past is clearly a stupid way to secure access to Iraqi oil; (iii) the projected cost of the war would be scarcely offset by the value of the oil secured; and (iv) deposing Saddam and his sons was not at all necessary to insure the flow of oil. I would argue that since this oil reason is so obviously bad, it is not reasonable to impute it to Bush and his advisers as the motivating reason for the invasion.

To sum up. The case for invading Iraq was a cumulative case. A cumulative case cannot be refuted by ‘Divide and Conquer.’ A good reason need not be a sufficient reason. A reason is not the same as a motive: there can be objectively good reasons for an action even if the agent of the action is not motivated by any of these reasons. To find good reasons after the fact is not to engage in ex post facto rationalization. This is because a rationalization is the providing of a bad reason.  But of course, liberals and leftists are so blinded by their passionate hatred of Bush II, that patient analysis of the foregoing sort will be lost on them.

 

The Bigger the Government, the More to Fight Over: The NPR Case

An excellent illustration of this truth is the current brouhaha over the defunding of National Public Radio (NPR).  Why is time and money being wasted debating this?  The short answer is that government has assumed a function that is obviously inessential to it and arguably illegitimate.  If government stuck to its essential tasks, one of which is obviously not public broadcasting, then we wouldn't be having this debate which is not only unproductive,  but also distractive from truly pressing issues such as 'entitlement' reform.  (A curious coinage, wouldn't you say?  As if prosperous oldsters who, having had a lifetime to accumulate substantial net worth in a relatively stable political and economic environment, are entitled to  intergenerational wealth transfer payments even in excess of what they have contributed  plus a reasonable return.)

The quality of the NPR debate in the House of Representatives was truly depressing.  (I have watched a good portion of it on C-SPAN — which is not supported by Federal dollars and is as objective as an media outlet  gets.)  It's as if the participants live on different planets.  One expects liberals and their opponents (both conservatives and libertarians) to disagree about the  role of government.  But they can't even agree on the 'green eyeshade' issue.  A sensible Republican gets upon and explains how the defunding of NPR will save taxpayers' dollars.  Then a Dem rises to flatly deny that there will be any savings. 

Liberals and conservatives  will argue until doomsday about the size, scope, and legitimate functions of government.  Those arguments are unavoidable and intractable due to profound axiological and philosophical differences.  But one would have thought that agreement could be reached about simple economic facts.  A husband and a wife might argue over whether the tax rebate should be spent on upgraded carpeting or on security doors.  That would be par for the course.  But if they argue about the size of the rebate or about whether or not cancelling their subscription to cable TV will save them x dollars per month,then they are in deep trouble and headed for divorce court.

The Dems are either lying or engaging in some other less blatant form of prevarication when they claim that defunding NPR will not affect the Federal budget deficit.

The liberal case is exceedingly weak, an indication being the rhetorical tricks and distortions liberals sink to.  For example, Representative Louise Slaughter claimed that the Republicans are out to "destroy" NPR.  See here at :34.  That's an outright lie. Or is she so stupid as not to know that defunding a program which its own officers admit does not need Federal funding is not to destroy it?  Contemptible.  Another Dem claimed that the Republicans are ought to"silence" NPR.  Another outright lie.

By the way, here is where civility meets a limit. One is under no obligation to be polite to a liar.

But Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee takes the cake.  She claimed that defunding NPR is an affront to the First Amendment.  How stupid can a liberal be?  Apparently she thinks that the First Amendment protects a government-funded propaganda arm of the Left from the people when it is the other way around:  the First Amendment protects the speech rights of the people against the government.

Of course, no liberal will admit his bias, either out of mendacity, or more likely, because he is simply incapable of seeing it. For a typical liberal, his view of the world is the world.  Hence liberals are mostly incapable of  seeing that NPR pushes a liberal-left point of view.  The problem, again, is not that they have that point of view, but that they feel justified in using taxpayers' dollars to promote it.  Part of the problem is that they do not understand how anyone could reasonably disagree with them. 

The bigger the government, the more to fight over.  Do you like pointless bickering?  Then support an ever-expanding state.

For more on NPR, see here  and here. 

Can the Chariot Take Us to the Land of No Self?

An abbreviated version of the following paper was published under the same title in The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy, vol. 9, ed. Stephen Voss (Ankara, Turkey), 2006, pp. 29-33.

……………….

According to Buddhist ontology, every (samsaric) being  is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and devoid of self-nature.  Anicca, dukkha,  anatta: these are the famous three marks (tilakkhana) upon which the whole of Buddhism rests.  I would like to consider a well-known Buddhist argument for the third of these marks, that of anatta, an argument one could call ‘The Chariot.’  The argument aims to show that no (samsaric) being is a self, or has self-nature, or is a substance.  My thesis will be that, successful as this argument may be when applied to things other than ourselves, it fails when applied to ourselves.

Continue reading “Can the Chariot Take Us to the Land of No Self?”

God, Probability, and Noncontingent Propositions

Matt Hart comments:

. . . most of what we conceive is possible. So if we say that

1) In 80% of the cases, if 'Conceivably, p' then 'Possibly, p'
2) Conceivably, God exists
Ergo,
3) Pr(Possibly, God exists) = 80%
4) If 'Possibly, God exists' then 'necessarily, God exists'
Ergo,
5) Pr(Necessarily, God exists) = 80%,

we seem to get by.

I had made the point that conceivability does not entail possibility.  Hart agrees with that, but seems to think that conceivability is nondemonstrative evidence of possibility.  Accordingly, our ability to conceive (without contradiction) that p gives us good reason to believe that p is possible.

What is puzzling to me is how a noncontingent proposition can be assigned a probability less than 1.  A noncontingent proposition is one that is either necessary or impossible.  Now all of the following are noncontingent: 

God exists
Necessarily, God exists
Possibly, God exists
God does not exist
Necessarily, God does not exist
Possibly, God does not exist.

I am making the Anselmian assumption that God (the ens perfectissimum, that than which no greater can be conceived, etc.) is a noncontingent being.  I am also assuming that our modal logic is S5.  The characteristic S5 axiom states that Poss p –> Nec Poss p.  S5 includes S4, the characteristic axiom of which is Nec p –> Nec Nec p.  What these axioms say, taken together, is that what's possible and necessary does not vary from possible world to possible world. 

Now Possibly, God exists, if true, is necessarily true, and if false, necessarily false.  (By the characteristic S5 axiom.)  So what could it mean that the probability of Possibly, God exists is .8?  I would have thought that the probability is either 1 or 0.  the same goes for Necessarily, God exists. How  can this proposition have a probability of .8?  Must it not be either 1 or 0?

Now I am a fair and balanced guy, as everyone knows.  So I will deploy the same reasoning against the atheist who cites the evils of our world as nondemonstrative evidence of the nonexistence of God.  I don't know what it means to say that it is unlikely that God exists given the kinds and quantities of evil in our world.  Either God exists necessarily or he is impossible (necessarily nonexistent).  How can you raise the probability  of a necessary truth?  Suppose some hitherto unknown genocide comes to light, thereby adding to the catalog of known evils.  Would that strengthen the case against the existence of God?  How could it?

To see my point consider the noncontingent propositions of mathematics.  They are all of them necessarily true if true.  So *7 + 5 = 12* is necessarily true and *7 + 5 = 11* is necessarily false.  Empirical evidence is irrelevant here.  I cannot raise the probability of the first proposition by adding 7 knives and 5 forks to come up with 12 utensils.  I do not come to know the truth of the first proposition by induction from empirical cases of adding.  It would also be folly to attempt to disconfirm the second proposition by empirical means.

If I can't know that 7 + 5 = 12 by induction from empirical cases, how can I know that possibly, God exists by induction from empirical cases of conceiving?  The problem concerns not only induction, but how one can know by induction a necessary proposition.  Similarly, how can I know that God does not exist by induction from empirical cases of evil?

Of course, *God exists* is not a mathematical proposition.  But it is a noncontingent proposition, which is all I need for my argument.

Finally, consider this.  I can conceive the existence of God but I can also conceive the nonexistence of God.  So plug 'God does not exist' into Matt's argument above.  The result is that probability of the necessary nonexistence of God is .8!

My conclusion:  (a) Conceivability does not entail possibility; (b) in the case of noncontingent propositions, conceivability does not count as nondemonstrative evidence of possibility.

The Ought-to-Be and the Ought-to-Do and the Aporetics of “Be Ye Perfect”

Is there any justification for talk of the ought-to-be in cases where they are not cases of the ought-to-do?

Let's begin by noting that if I ought to do X (pay my debts, feed my kids, keep my hands off my neighbor's wife, etc.) then my doing X ought to be. For example, given that I ought to pay my debts, then my paying a certain debt on a certain date is a state of affairs that ought to be, ought to exist, ought to obtain. So it is not as if the ought-to-do and the ought-to-be form disjoint classes. For every act X that an agent A ought to do, there is a state of affairs, A's doing X, that ought to be, and a state of affairs, A's failing to do X, that ought not be. The ought-to-do, therefore, is a  case of the   ought-to-be.

My question, however, is whether there are states of affairs that ought to be even in situations in which there are no moral agents with power sufficient to bring them about, and states of affairs that ought not be even in situations in which there are no moral agents with power sufficient to prevent them. In other words, are there non-agential oughts? Does it make sense, and is it true, to say things like 'There ought to be fewer diseases than there are' or 'There ought to be no natural disasters' or 'There ought to be morally perfect people'? Or consider

1. I ought to be a better man that I am, indeed, I ought to be morally perfect.

(1) expresses an axiological requirement but (arguably) not a moral obligation because it is simply not in my power to perfect myself, nor is it in any finite person's power or any group of finite person's   power to perfect me. Now consider the following aporetic triad: 

1. I ought to be morally perfect or at least better than I am in ways over which I have no control.

2. I lack the power to be what I ought to be, and this impotence is due to no specific fault of my own. (My impotence is 'original,' part  and parcel of the 'fallen' human condition, not derived from any   particular act or act-omission of mine.)

3. 'Ought' implies 'Can': one can be obliged to do X only if one has an effective choice as to whether to do X.

The triad is inconsistent in that (1) & (3) entails ~(2). Indeed, any two limbs, taken together, entail the negation of the remaining one.  How can the inconsistency be removed?

 A. One solution is simply to deny (1) by claiming that there is no sense of 'ought' in which one ought to be morally perfect or better than one is in ways over which one has no control.  This strikes me as counterintuitive. For there does seems to me to be some sense in which I ought to be perfect. I feel the force of the NT verse, "Be ye perfect as your heavenly father is perfect." I have the strong intuition that I ought to be, if not perfect, at least better in respects where I simply lack the power to bring about the improvement.

B. A second solution is to distinguish between agential and non-agential oughts. We can then maintain (1) as true by maintaining that the 'ought' in (1) is non-agential and expresses an axiological   requirement as opposed to a moral obligation. So interpreted, (1) is  consistent with (2) and (3).

We can then transform the above triad into an argument:

4. (1)-(3) are all true.
5. (1)-(3) would not all be true if there were no distinction between agential and non-agential oughts.
   Therefore
6. There is a distinction between agential and non-agential oughts.

C. A third solution is to maintain the truth of (1)-(3) while also maintaining that all oughts are agential. But then how avoid inconsistency? One might maintain that, when restricted to my own resources, I lack the power to do what I ought to do; yet I am morally  obliged to perfect myself; and since 'ought' implies 'can,' the power  that I need must be supplied in part from a Source external to myself.  "And this all men call God."  So God exists!

In short, the inconsistency is avoided by bringing God into the picture as one who supplies individuals with the supplemental power to do what they are morally obliged to do when that power is insufficient from their own resources. This gives rise to an argument for the existence of an external source of moral assistance:

7. I am morally obliged (ought)  to do things that I cannot do on my own.
8. 'Ought' implies 'can'.
Therefore

9. I can do things that I cannot do on my own.
   Therefore
10. There is an external source of moral assistance that makes up the difference between what I can do on my own and what I cannot.

Summary

I have sketched two arguments which need closer scrutiny. The one based on the (B) response to the triad gives some, though not a  conclusive, reason for accepting a distinction between agential and   non-agential oughts.

“The Tit of the State”: Krauthammer Versus NPR’s Totenberg

Here.  "If the product is so superior, why does it have to live on the tit of the State?"

One answer is that the booboisie  of these United States is too backward and benighted to appreciate the high level of NPR programming.  The rubes of fly-over country are too much enamoured of wrestling, tractor pulls, and reality shows, and, to be blunt, too stupid and lazy to take in superior product.

Being something of an elitist myself, I am sympathetic to this answer.  The problem for me is twofold.  NPR is run by lefties for lefties.  That in itself is not a problem.  But it is a most serious problem when part of the funding comes from the taxpayer.  But lefties, blind to their own bias, don't see the problem.  Very simply, it is wrong to take money by force from people and then use it to promote causes that those people find offensive or worse when the causes have nothing to do with the legitimate functions of government.  Planned Parenthood and abortion.  NEA and "Piss Christ."  Get it?

Second, we are in fiscal crisis.  If we can't remove NPR from the "tit of the State," from the milky mammaries of massive Mama Obama government, what outfit can we remove from said mammaries? If we can't zero out  NPR how are we going to cut back on the 'entitlement' programs such as Social Security?

Don't get me wrong.  I like "Car Talk" despite the paucity of automotive advice and the excess of joking around.  I even like the PBS "Keeping Up Appearances" in small doses.  But if frivolous flab like this can't be excised, what can?

 

Gratuitous Evil and Begging the Question: Does LAFE Beg the Question?

What is it for an argument to beg the question? I suggest that an argument begs the question if it is impossible to know one of the premises to be true without knowing that the conclusion is true. The simplest question-begging arguments are of the form

p
—
p.

Clearly, every argument of this form is valid, and some arguments of this form are sound. It follows that an argument can be sound and yet probatively worthless. In plain English, no argument of the above form proves its conclusion in the sense of giving a 'consumer' of the argument any reason to accept the conclusion; it rather presupposes its conclusion. One cannot know the premise to be true without knowing that the conclusion is true.

Now consider a richer example: (P1) We are creatures; (P2) There is no creature without a creator; therefore, (C) A creator exists. This argument begs the question in that it is impossible to know that (P1) is true without knowing that (C) is true. For only if I know that a creator exists can I know that I am a creature. The argument is not probative because it presupposes in (P1) what it needs to prove. (Of course, I am assuming that one is not equivocating on 'creature' and that one is using it in the sense in which it must be used for (P2) to be true; if one is equivocating, then naturally the argument is worthless for this reason.)

Does God Exist Because He Ought to Exist?

Steven, Peter, et al.:  This paper has been languishing  on my hard drive for some time.  Comments appreciated. 

Abstract.  Modal ontological arguments for the existence of God require a possibility premise to the effect that a maximally perfect being is possible. Admitting the possibility of such a being may appear to be a minimal concession, but it is not given that the admission, together with the uncontroversial premise that a necessary being is one whose possibility entails its actuality, straightaway entails the actual existence of a maximally perfect being. The suspicion thus arises that the modal ontological argument begs the question at its possibility premise. So various philosophers, including J. N. Findlay, A.C. Ewing, John Leslie and Carl Kordig have attempted to support the possibility premise by broadly deontic considerations concerning what ought-to-be, where this ought-to-be subsists independently of the powers of any agent. The basic idea is that God, conceived as a maximally perfect being, is possible because (i) he ought to exist, and (ii) whatever ought to exist is possible. The basic idea is that the non-agential oughtness or axiological requiredness of the divine existence certifies the possibility and in turn the actuality of the divine existence. The overall argument could be described as a broadly deontic God proof along modal ontological lines. This article sets forth and defends the argument before explaining why it is not ultimately compelling.

Continue reading “Does God Exist Because He Ought to Exist?”

Is the Difference Between a Fact and Its Constituents a Brute Difference?

Note to Steven Nemes:  Tell me if you find this totally clear, and if not, point out what is unclear.  Tell me whether you accept my overall argument.

The day before yesterday in conversation Steven Nemes presented a challenge  I am not sure I can meet.  I have maintained (in my book, in published articles, and in these pages) that the difference between a fact and its constituents cannot be a brute difference and must therefore have a ground or explanation.  But what exactly is my reasoning?

Consider a simple atomic fact of the form, a's being F.  This fact has two primary constituents, the individual a, and the monadic property F-ness, which a possesses contingently.  But surely there is more to the fact than these two primary constituents, and for at least two reasons.  I'll  mention just one, which I consider decisive:  the constituents can exist without the fact  existing.  The individual and the property could each exist without the former exemplifying the second.  This is so even if we assume that there are no propertyless individuals and no unexemplified properties.  Consider a world W which includes the facts Ga and Fb.  In W, a is propertied and F-ness is exemplified; hence there is no bar to saying that both exist in W.  But Fa does not exist in W.  So a fact is more than its primary constituents because they can exist without it existing.

A fact is not its constituents, but those constituents unified in a particular way.  Now if you try to secure fact-unity by introducing  one or more secondary constituents such  an exemplification relation, then you will ignite Bradley's regress.  For if the constituents include a, F-ness, and EX, then you still have the problem of their unity since the three can exist without constituting a fact.

So I take it as established that a fact is more than its constituents and therefore different from its constituents.  A fact is different from any one of its constituents, and also from all of them taken collectively, as a mereological sum, say.    The question is:  What is the ontological ground of the difference?  What is it that makes them different?  That they are different is plain.  I want to know what makes them different.  It won't do to say that one is a fact while the other is not since that simply underscores that they are different.  I'm on the hunt for a difference-maker.

To feel the force of the question consider what makes two different sets different.  If S1 and S2 are different sets, then it is reasonable to ask what makes them different, and one would presumably not accept the answer that they are just different, that the difference is a brute difference.  Let S1 be my singleton and S2 the set consisting of me and Nemes.  It would not do to say that they are just different.  We need a difference-maker.  In this case it is easy to specify: Nemes.  He is what makes S1 different from S2.  Both sets contain me, but only one contains him.  Generalizing, we can say that for sets at least,

DM. No difference without a difference-maker.

So I could argue that the difference between a fact and (the sum of) its constituents cannot be a brute difference because (i) there is no difference without a difference-maker and (ii) facts, sets, and sums, being complexes, are relevantly similar.  (I needn't hold that the numerical difference of two simples needs a difference-maker.) But why accept (DM) in full generality as applying to all types of wholes and parts?  Perhaps the principle, while applying to sets, does not apply to facts and their constituents.  How do I answer the person who argues that the difference is brute, a factum brutum, and that therefore (DM), taken in full generality, is false?  As we say in the trade, one man's modus ponens is another's modus tollens.

Can I show that there is a logical contradiction in maintaining that facts and their constituents just differ?  That was my strategy in the book on existence.  The strategy is to argue that without an external ground of unity — an external unifer — one lands in a contradiction, or rather cannot avoid a contradiction.  That the unifier, if there is one, must be external as opposed to internal is established by showing that otherwise a vicious infinite regress ensues of the Bradley-type.  I cover this ground in my book and in articles in mind-numbing detail; I cannot go over it again here.  But I will refer the reader to my 2010 Dialectica article  which discusses a fascinating proposal according to which unity is constituted by an internal infinite, but nonvicious, regress.  But for now I assume that the unifier, if there is one, must be external.  If there is one, then the difference between a fact and its constituents cannot be brute.  But why must there be a unifier?

Consider this aporetic triad:

1. Facts exist.
2. A fact is its constituents taken collectively.
3. A fact is not its constituents taken collectively.

What I want to argue is that facts exist, but that they are contradictory structures in the absence of an external unifier that removes the contradiction.  Since Nemes agrees with me about (1), I assume it for present purposes.  (The justification is via the truth-maker argument).

Note that (2) and (3) are logical contradictories, and yet each exerts a strong claim on our acceptance.  I have already argued for (3).  But (2) is also exceedingly plausible.  For if you  analyze a fact, what will you uncover?  Its constituents and nothing besides.  The unity of the constituents whereby it is a fact as opposed to a nonfact like a mereological sum eludes analysis.  The unity cannot be isolated or located within the fact.  For to locate it within the fact you would have to find it as one of the constituents.  And that you cannot do.

Note also that unity is not perceivable or in any way empirically detectable.  Consider a simple Bergmann-style or 'Iowa' example, a red round spot.  The redness and the roundness are perceivable, and the spot is perceivable.  But the spot's being red and round is not perceivable.  The existence of a fact is the unity of its constituents.  So what I am claiming is equivalent to claiming that existence is not perceivable, which seems right: existence is not an empirical feature like redness and roundness.

So when we consider a fact by itself, there seems to be nothing more to it than its constituents.

Each limb of the triad has  a strong claim on our acceptance, but they cannot all be true as formulated.  The contradiction can be removed if we ascend to a higher point of view and posit an external unifier.  What does that mean? 

Well, suppose there is a unifier U external to the fact and thus not identifiable with one or more of its primary or secondary constituents.  Suppose U brings together the constituents in the fact-making way.  U would then be the sought-for ground of the fact's unity.  The difference between a fact and its constituents could then be explained by saying that  the difference is due to U's 'activity':  U operates on the constituents to produce the fact.  Our original triad can then be replaced by the following all of whose limbs can be true:

1. Facts exist
2*. A fact, considered analytically, is its constituents taken collectively.
3.  A fact is not its constituents taken collectively.

This triad is consistent.  The limbs can all be true.  And I think we have excellent reason to say that each IS true.  The truthmaker argument vouches for (1).  (2*) looks to be true by definition.  The argumentation I gave for (3) above strikes me as well-night irresistible.

But if you accept the limbs of the modified triad, then you must accept that there is something external to facts which functions as their unifier.  Difficult questions about what U is and about whether U is unique and the same for all facts remain; but that U exists is 'fallout' from the modified triad.  For if each limb is true, then a fact's being more than its constituents can be accounted for only by appeal to an external unifier.

But how exactly does this show that the difference between a fact and its constituents is not a brute difference?   The move from the original to the modified triad is motivated by the laudable desire to avoid contradiction.  So my argument boils down to this:  If the difference is brute, then we get a logical contradiction. So the difference is not brute. 

But it all depends on whether or not there are facts.  If facts can be reasonably denied, then my reasoning to a unifer can be reasonably rejected.  But that's a whole other can of worms: the truthmaker argument.

Analytically considered, a fact is just its constituents.  But holistically considered it is not.  Unity eludes analysis, and yet without unities there would be nothing to analyze!  Analytic understanding operates under the aegis of two distinctions: whole/part, and complex/simple.  Analysis generates insight by reducing wholes to their parts, and complex parts to simpler and simpler parts, and possibly right down to ultimate simples (assuming that complexity does not extend 'all the way down.')  But analysis is a onesided epistemic procedure.  For again, without unities there would be nothing to analyze. To understand the being-unified of a unity therefore requires that we ascend to a  point of view external to the unity under analysis. 

‘Practical’ and Religious Attitudes Toward Philosophy

Philosophy is unserious to the onesidedly worldly and 'practical' because it bakes no bread. To which the best response is: "Man does not live by bread alone." 

To the onesidedly religious, philosophy is unserious because it begets pride and does not lead unto salvation. "Not worth an hour's trouble," said Pascal with Descartes in his sights. Both types, the worldly and the religious, dismiss philosophy as 'mere theory' and 'empty speculation' but for opposite reasons. 

Strangely enough, both types make use of it when it suits their purposes. Each justifies his own position philosophically. How else could he justify it? Assertions and arguments about philosophy are philosophical assertions and arguments — and it cannot be otherwise. Such assertions and arguments cannot come from below philosophy, nor can they come from above it: metaphilosophy is a branch of philosophy.

Blaise Pascal wrote a big fat book of Pensées — and a magnificent book it was. But why did he bother if philosophy is not worth an hour's trouble? Because he made an exception in his own case: his philosophy, he felt, was different! Well, all philosophers feel that way. All feel themselves to be questing for the truth as for something precious, even when they, like Nietzsche, say things that imply that there is no truth. None feel themselves to be engaged in 'empty speculation' or 'mental masturbation' or 'meaningless abstraction.'

One of the curious things about fair Philosophia is that you cannot outflank her, and you cannot shake her off. She outflanks all would-be outflankers. Ultimate dominatrix that she is, she always ends up on top. So you'd better learn to live with her and her acolytes.