Author: Bill Vallicella

Esse Intentionale and Esse Naturale: Notes on Geach on Aquinas on Intentionality

A theory of intentionality ought to explain how the objective reference or object-directedness of our thoughts is possible.  Suppose I am thinking about a cat, a particular cat of my acquaintance whom I have named 'Max Black.'  How are we to understand the relation between the mental act of my thinking, which is a transient datable event in my mental life, and its object, namely the cat I am thinking of?  What makes my thinking of Max a thinking of Max?

Here is what Peter Geach has to say, glossing Aquinas:

What makes a sensation or thought of an X to be of an X is that it is an individual occurrence of that very form or nature which occurs in X — it is thus that our mind 'reaches right up to the reality'; what makes it to be a sensation or thought of an X rather than an actual X or an actual X-ness is that X-ness here occurs in the special way called esse intentionale and not in the 'ordinary' way called esse naturale.  This solution resolves the difficulty.  It shows how being of an X is not a relation in which the thought or sensation stands, but is simply what the thought or sensation is . . . .(Three Philosophers, Cornell UP, 1961, p. 95) 

Geach But what the devil does that  mean?  Allow me to explain.  The main point here is that ofness or aboutness is not a relation between a mental act and its object.  Thus intentionality is not a relation that relates my thinking of Max and Max.  My thinking of Max just is the mental occurrence of the very same form or nature — felinity — which occurs physically in Max.  Max is a hylomorphic compound, a compound of form and (signate) matter.  Old Max himself, fleas and all, is of course not in my mind.  It is his form that is in my mind.  But if felinity informs my mind, why isn't my mind a cat?  Here is where the distinction between esse intentionale and esse naturale comes in.  One and the same form — felinity — exists in two different modes.  Its mode of being in my mind is esse intentionale while its mode of being in Max is esse naturale.

Because my thought of Max just is the intentional occurrence of the same form or nature that occurs naturally in Max, there is no problem about how my thought reaches Max.  One could call this an identity theory of intentionality. 

What if Max were, unbeknownst to me, to cease to exist while I was thinking about him?  My thinking would be unaffected: it would still be about Max in exactly the way it was about him before.  The Thomist theory would account for this by saying that while the form occurs with esse intentionale in my mind, it does not occur outside my mind with esse reale.

That in a nutshell is the Thomist theory of intentionality.  There is more to it of course, and it is open to some very serious objections.  These will be discussed tomorrow perhaps.

A Reply to “Ockham’s Nominalism”

The following is a response to "Ockham's Nominalism"  by our London sparring partner, Edward Ockham.  His words are in black, mine are in blue.  Comments are enabled.

At this stage, I should discuss Peter Lupu’s objections (mostly in the extended comment on Vallicella’s blog here) to the nominalist program.

I should first explain what I think the nominalist program is. I am taking my lead from a principle that William of Ockham neatly formulates in his Summa Logicae book I, chapter 51, where he accuses 'the moderns' of two errors, and says that the root of the second error is “to multiply entities according to the multiplicity of terms and to suppose that every term has something real (quid rei) corresponding to it”. He says grumpily that this is erroneous and leads far away from the truth. ('Radix est multiplicare entia secundum multitudinem terminorum, et quod quilibet terminus habet quid rei; quod tamen abusivum est et a veritate maxime abducens'). See also an early definition of nominalism here.

What does he mean? Well he says that it is an error. He implies it is a common one, by attributing to the moderns and by the fact he mentions it all. Thus he implies that there exist terms which do not have something real corresponding to them.

A net that snags every fish in the sea brings in too large a catch.  The trouble with the above explanation of nominalism is that it will be accepted by almost all philosophers, including plenty who would not identify themselves as nominalists.  For few if any philosophers hold that for each word in a sentence there is a corresponding referent.  Consider

1. Nobody came to the party.

No one will take 'nobody' in (1) as a name.  ("Well, I'm glad to hear that at least one person showed up.  How is Nobody doing these days?")  (1) is easily analyzed so as to remove the apparent reference of 'nobody.'  And the same goes for a long list of other synsemantic or syncategorematical expressions.  Would any philosopher say that in

2. I'm a day late and a dollar short

every word has a referent?  Edward needs to give examples of philosophers who hold that 'nobody' in (1) and 'and' in (2) have referents.  Let us hope he does not weasel out of this challenge.  Since no one assumes that every term has something real corresponding to it, the above definition of 'nominalism' is too broad to be of any use.

If Ockham is correct, the relevant distinction to draw is between queer and straight terms. Straight terms have something real corresponding to them, queer terms don’t. Furthermore, there must at least be some temptation to imagine that queer terms refer to or denote something, otherwise there would be little point in making it.

There is no need for this bizarre terminological innovation.  We already have 'autosemantic' and 'synsemantic' and equivalents.  Do not multiply terminology beyond necessity!

And let us note that synsemantic terms have useful semantic roles to play despite their not referring to anything.  There is a rather striking difference between 'I will come' and 'I will not come,' a difference that rides on the synsemantic particle 'not' which, as synsemantic, does not refer to anything.

Which brings me to the main point raised by Peter Lupu, who asks “What are ‘queer-entities’ and how do we determine whether a given entity is “queer” or “straight”? There are two parts to his question. In answer to the first, there are no such things as queer entities, if Ockham is right. There are only ‘queer terms’. These, by definition, are terms that don’t refer to or denote anything, and so by implication there are no ‘queer entities’.

In other words, synsemantic terms do not refer.  True by definition.

This is what makes any debate with realists difficult. Realists, namely those who think that queer terms refer, will persist in using the queer terms as if they did refer, and so will ask what kinds of thing are referred to, what is their ‘ontological status’ and so on. Ockhamists will naturally refuse to use these terms as if they referred, and refer the names of the terms instead, typically by using real or scare quotes.

No, realists are not those who think that queer terms refer since no one thinks that queer, i.e., nonreferring terms, refer.  Edward needs to explain the criteria for deciding whether a given term is queer or straight.  Is 'Edward' a queer term?  If not, why not?

[. . .]

That deals with Peter's first question. What are queer entities? We can't say, because there are no such things, just as we can't say what kind of things ghosts are. But we can say what 'queer terms' are. These are terms that are categorical, but which (a) have no reference or denotation and (b) appear, or are believed by many, typically on grounds of reason alone, to have a reference or denotation.

This doesn't advance the discussion at all.  First of all, we are not told what 'categorical' means.  More importantly, we have not been supplied with criteria for distinguishing queer from straight terms, to acquiesce for the nonce in this idiotic terminology. 

Peter’s second point, on how we determine whether given entity is “queer” or “straight”, I will leave for the next post, although clearly the first point applies here also. If the nominalist is right, we cannot ask this question of anything, just as we cannot ask whether a UFO came from Alpha centauri or Betelgeuse. We can only ask whether a given term is queer or straight. More to follow.

This doesn't get us anywhere.  We can ask, of a given term, whether or not it has a referent.  But then we need to be supplied with some method for answering this question.  Consider

3. Wisdom is a virtue.

Presumably, Edward will put 'wisdom' down as queer.  But on what grounds?  Is it because  he just knows (again by what method?) that everything that exists is a particular, and that if 'wisdom' has a referent then it must be a universal?  Or is there something about the word itself that tips him off that it is nonreferring? 

Is he appealing to some paraphrastic method?  Is he suggesting that what (3) expresses can be expressed salva significatione by a sentence containing no term making an apparent reference to a universal?  And in particular, would he accept the following paraphrase:

3*.  If anyone is wise, then he is virtuous?

So far, then, Londonistas 0, Phoenicians 1.

The Consolation of Philosophy

Dear Sir:
I read, or attempt to read, your blog almost every day. Some of your
"technical" analysis and commentaries go right over my head, but I try
to persevere.
Sometimes things click into place - from my point of view. And I found
your recent examination of the question Is Death Evil? very helpful.
Curious though it might seem, my fear of death was reduced (a bit) by
your considerations.
Alex A.
Lincoln
England.

Two Puzzles Anent Brentano’s 1874 Locus Classicus on Intentionality

All contemporary discussion of intentionality traces back to an oft-quoted passage from Franz Brentano's Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint.  First published in 1874 in German, this influential book  had to wait 99 years until it saw the light of day in the Anglosphere.  And in the Anglosphere to go untranslated is to go unread.  Here is the passage: 

Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity.  Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way.  In presentation something is presented, in judgment something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on. (Humanities Press, 1973, ed. McAlister, p. 88)

This passage is not only puzzling in itself, but also puzzling in that it is not clear what it has to do with the discussions of intentionality that it spawned.  I think most philosophers nowadays would agree that something like the following is the thesis of intentionality:

Thesis of Intentionality.  It is characteristic of certain mental states (the intentional states) to refer beyond themselves to items (i) that are not part of the state and (ii) may or may not exist.

Example.  If I am in a state of desire, then a complete description of this mental state must include a specification of what it is that I desire.  One cannot simply desire, or just desire.   At a bare minimum we need to distinguish between the desiring and that which is desired.  As Brentano says above, in desire something is desired. 

Brentano Unfortunately, the word 'something' will cause some people to stumble including some esteemed members of the Commenter Corps.  They will get it into their heads that a concrete episode of desire cannot exist unless there also exists, independently of the desire, something that is desired.  But this cannot be what is meant.  For if Poindexter desires a perpetuum mobile, he is just as much in a state of desire as his pal Percy who desires Poindexter's sloop, despite the fact that there is and can be no perpetuum mobile, while there is Poindexter's sloop.  And as for wanting a sloop, it could be that Percy wants a sloop without wanting any sloop that (presently) exists: he wants a sloop that satisfies a description that no sloop in existence satisfies.  Or a woman wants a baby.  She doesn't want to adopt or kidnap an existing baby; she wants to 'bring a baby into the world.'  Obviously, her longing is for something that does not presently exist, and indeed for something that does not exist at all if what does not yet exist does not exist.

In  cases like these , the states of desire refer beyond themselves to items that are (i) not part of the states and that (ii) do not exist.  After all, someone who wants a sloop does not want a mental state, or any part of a mental state, or anything immanent to a mental state, or anything whose existence depends on the existence of a mental state.  Wanting a sloop, by its very intentional structure, intends something which, if it exists, exists independently of any mental state.  And note that from the fact that there is nothing that satisfies the sloop-desire it does not follow that the desire is directed to an immanent object.

It is also important to realize that the reference beyond itself of mental acts is an intrinsic (nonrelational) feature of these acts: what makes my thought of Las Vegas precisely a thought of Las Vegas is not the obtaining of a relation between me (or my mental state) and the city of Las Vegas.  For suppose I am thinking of Las Vegas, and while I am thinking of it God does to it what he is said to have done to Sodom and Gomorrah.  Would my thinking of Las Vegas be in any way affected as to its own inner nature?  No.  The act of thinking and its content are what they are whether or not the external object exists.

Part of the thesis of intentionality , then, is that certain mental states are intrinsically such as to point beyond themselves to items that may or may not exist.  Intrinsically, because the object-directedness is not parasitic upon the actual existence of the external object.  But can one find the thesis of intentionality as I have spelled it out  in the above passage? 

No, and that is our first puzzle. It is puzzling that the 1874 'charter' has little to do with what subsequently flew under the flag 'intentionality.'  Two points:

a. Although Brentano speaks of "reference to an object,"  he makes it clear that this object is an immanent object, one contained in the mental phenomenon or act.  As such, the object is indistinguishable from a mental content.  And then there is the talk of "the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object."  'Inexistence' does not mean nonexistence but existence-in (inesse).  The idea is that the object exists in the act and not independently of the act.  But then the object is a mere content, and the notion of a reference beyond the mental state to something transcendent of it is lost.

b. It is also striking that in the 1874 passage  there is no mention of the crucial feature of intentionality that is always mentioned in later discussions of it, namely, that the items to which intentional states refer  may or may not exist, or may or may not obtain (in the case of states of affairs).  For example, if Loughner believes that the earth is flat, then his mental state is directed toward a state of affairs which, if it obtains, is a state of affairs involving the earth and nothing mental.  But neither the obtaining nor the nonobtaining of this state of affairs follows from Loughner's being in the belief-state.

It seems as if for the Brentano of 1874 intentionality is something wholly internal to the mental phenomenon, a relation that connects the act with its content, but does not point beyond the content to the external world.  "If every mental phenomenon includes as object something within itself," then every intentional object exists in the mode: existence-in.  I am therefore inclined to agree with Tim Crane:  "Brentano’s original 1874 doctrine of intentional inexistence has nothing to do with the problem of how we can think about things that do not exist."

Of course, in the later Brentano intentionality is tied to the latter problem.  On Crane's analysis, Brentano simply changed his  mind after 1874.  I see it slightly differently:  the later view is implicit in the 1874 passage but cannot emerge clearly because of Brentano's adherence to Scholastic conceptuality.  But this is a contested exegetical point.

The second puzzle concerns an apparent misunderstanding by Brentano of the Scholastic doctrine of esse intentionale.  This is puzzling because Brentano was steeped in Aristotle and the Scholastics due to his priestly formation, not to mention his doctoral work under Trendelenburg.

In the passage quoted Brentano identifies intentional inexistence with mental inexistence, which implies that below the level of mind there is no esse intentionale.  But this is not Scholastic doctrine.  For an explanation of this, see Gyula Klima.  We will come back to this.

 

Is Death Evil?

So is death evil or not?  What is my answer?  The answer depends on metaphysics.

1. If we are natural beings only, nothing but complex physical systems, continuous with the rest of nature and susceptible in principle of complete explanation by physics and biology, then I cannot see how death in general could be accounted evil.  The premature death of some is perhaps evil on the ground that death deprives the decedent of what he might otherwise have enjoyed.  The happy and healthy 20 year old who is cut down by a stray bullet arguably suffers a loss, not one that he can experience, but a loss nonetheless.  (One can suffer a loss merely by being the subject of it without actually experiencing it.)  There is of course a residual technical puzzle about how a person who no longer exists can be the subject of loss, but for present purposes I won't worry further about this.

My main point is that it cannot be maintained on naturalistic principles that death in general is evil for humans.  For suppose a person lives a productive life of 90 or so years, a life which on balance has been satisfying to the person and enriching to those who have come in contact with him.  What is evil about the death of such a person?  And if death is not evil for such a person, then the philosophical question whether death in general is evil must be answered in the negative.  Here are some further considerations:

a.  It is a conceptual truth that one cannot be deprived of the impossible.  Now healthy productive living after a certain age is nomologically impossible.  So a person who dies at a ripe old age of 90 or 100 is not being deprived of anything by dying.  (Adjust the numbers upwards if you care to.)  At the point at which further living become nomologically impossible, one cannot be said to be deprived by death of a good.  Of course, the old person may want  to live on a another year or decade, but that is irrelevant.

b. Death removes from the decedent  the goods of life but also removes the evils, which are not inconsiderable.  I will spare the reader a litany of the miseries and horrors of this life.  If he opens his eyes he will quickly become apprised of them.  (But don't generalize from your own favorable experience: readers of this blog are members of an elite cadre of well-placed and fortunate individuals.)

c.  Even if being dead involves a loss for the decedent after a long and satisfying life, there cannot on naturalistic principles be any experiencing of this loss by the decedent, so how big a deal could it be?  Suppose your will stipulates that on your death $100, 000 of your estate shall go to Oxfam. Your executrix blows the whole wad at Nordstrom's.  It is arguable though not perfectly clear that you have been violated — but you'll be able to 'live' with it, right?  Others can say that you were wronged.  But what could that be to you who no longer exists?

On this naturalistic way of thinking, then, death cannot in general be an evil for humans.  At most, the premature death of some individuals is evil.  But even this is not clear because of the problem of 'the subject of loss/deprivation.' 

But how do you know that naturalism is true?  That you believe it with great conviction cuts no ice.  As Nietzsche says, in his typically exaggerated and febrile way, "Convictions are the greatest enemies of truth."  Can you prove naturalism?  If you try, you will soon entangle yourself in a thicket of thorny metaphysical questions from which you will not escape unbloodied. You cannot prove it.  I guarantee it.

2.  How then could death be evil?  Here is one way.  Suppose there is the possibility of personal survival of bodily death (with divine assistance) and the possibility of further intellectual, moral, and spiritual development in fellowship with others who have survived and in fellowship with God.  Now if some such version of theism is true, and if one dies and becomes nothing — the possibility of survival not having been realized either because the person in question refuses the divine offer or is judged unworthy of it — then one will have been deprived of a great good.  One will have missed out on the beatitude for which we have been created.  So death (annihilation) would be a very great evil on this scheme, an incomparably greater evil than the evil of death on a naturalistic scheme, assuming it could be said to be evil on a naturalistic scheme.  (You will have noticed that 'the problem of the subject' arises on both schemes.) 

As I see it, death is evil because it deprives us of what some of us feel is our 'birthright' as spiritual beings: continued intellectual, moral, and spiritual progress.  We cannot quite believe that we are nothing more than complex physical systems no more worthy of continuance than trees and swamps and clouds.  We feel it to be absurd that the progress we have made individually but also collectively will be simply obliterated, that our questions will go unanswered, our hopes dashed, that the thirsting after justice will go unslaked.  We are not reconciled to the notion that there will be no redemption, that there will be no answer to or recompense for the terrible crimes that have been inflicted on the innocent.  As easy as it is to be reconciled to the death of others viewed objectively, it is difficult to be reconciled to the utter annihilation of those we love.  If death is annihilation, then this life is absurd, a big seductive joke, and we are the butt of it.

Think of the great questions that have tormented the best minds for millenia.  Does it not strike you as a perfectly absurd arrangement that one day these questions will just cease with the last human being and go unanswered forever?  All that painstaking inquiry and no answer, not even the answer that the questions posed were meaningless and unanswerable!

There is a certain sort of secular humanist who fools himself with dreams of human progress toward a 'better world' in which a sort of secular redemption will be achieved.  But this is pure illusion and pure evasion.  It is nothing but feel-good claptrap.  On a naturalistic scheme there can be no redemption for the billions who have been the victims of terrible injustice.  Be a naturalist if you must, but don't fool yourself with humanistic fantasies.  There is no secular substitute for the redemption that only God could bring about.  Be an honest naturalist, a nihilist naturalist.

But of course what I have just said in exfoliation of the sense some of us have of being more than complex physical systems, a sense of having a higher destiny, proves nothing and can be easily rebutted: Death is not an evil because none of what some feel is their birthright as imago Dei is really possible.  It is just pious claptrap born of dissatisfaction with the way things are.  One may feel that it is 'a rotten deal' and 'a bad arrangement' that one must die and be annihilated just when one is starting to make real progress toward understanding and enlightenment and happiness.  But that feeling is just a quirk of some (malcontent) natures: it doesn't prove anything.

3.  So once again we end up in good old Platonic fashion, aporetically, at an impasse.  There is simply no solution to the problem of whether death is evil without a solution to the underlying metaphysical question in philosophical anthropology:  What is man?  (The fourth of Kant's famous questions after: What can I know? What ought I do?  What can I hope for?)  And to the question What is man? there is no answer that can withstand the scrutiny of, and receive the endorsement of, all able practioners.

That is not to say that there is no correct answer.  It is to say that, even if there is, one cannot know it to be correct.  And if one cannot know it to be correct, then it is not an answer in any serious sense of the term.

So I arrive once again at the following long-held conviction.  In the final analysis one must DECIDE what one will believe and how one will live.  There is no evading one's doxastic and practical freedom and responsibility.  When it comes to the ultimate questions one must decide what is true and how one will live.  No one can help you, not even God.  For supposing God, or a divine emmisary, to appear to you right now, you would still have to decide that  it was indeed God or a being from God who was appearing to you; and you would still have to decide whether or not to credit his revelation.  What if the divine intermediary told you to murder your innocent son?  What would you say?  If you were rational your would say, "Get the hell out of here; by commanding me to do what is plainly immoral you prove that you are an illusion."  Or maybe you would decide to accept the veridicality of the experience.  Either way you would be deciding.  (See Abraham and Isaac category and Doxastic Voluntarism category)

The decision as to what to believe and how to live is of course not whimsical or thoughtless or quick or light-hearted.  It must be made with all due doxastic vigilance and fear and trembling, but there is no getting around the need for decision.  But what if you refuse to decide and simply acquiesce in something imposed from without?  Then that too is a decision on your part.

 

How Much Value Do You Attach to This Life?

It is the hour of death.  You are informed by an utterly reliable source that you have exactly two options.  You can either accept death and with it utter annihilation of the self, or you can repeat your life with every last detail the same.  But if every last detail is to be the same, and you decide to sign up for another round on the wheel of becoming, you realize that you are signing up for an infinity of rounds.

So which will it be?  Has your life been so valuable that you would be willing to repeat it, and indeed repeat it endlessly? 

The Tucson Massacre: Paul Krugman et al. Continue to Get Pounded

And rightly so:

Roger Kimball: 

Loughner’s pistol was probably still warm when Krugman wheeled into print in an effort to make political capital out of the tragedy.  “Assassination Attempt in Arizona” should join that rogues’ gallery of disgusting Times stories that wallow in the gutter of political innuendo and mendacity even as they preen themselves on their exhibition of holier-than-thou virtue.

The folks at Powerline instantly got to the crux of the matter with The Contemptible Krugman, noting that he was among the first to “seek political advantage from mass murder.” Krugman’s column, they show, belongs to the Lillian Hellman species of utterance as described by Mary McCarthy: everything he wrote is a lie, including “and” and “the.” “We don’t have proof yet that this was political,” Krugman begins,  “but the odds are that it was.”

Charles Krauthammer:

Not only is there no evidence that Loughner was impelled to violence by any of those upon whom Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times, the Tucson sheriff and other rabid partisans are fixated. There is no evidence that he was responding to anything, political or otherwise, outside of his own head.

[. . .]

. . . fighting and warfare are the most routine of political metaphors. And for obvious reasons. Historically speaking, all democratic politics is a sublimation of the ancient route to power – military conquest. That's why the language persists. That's why we say without any self-consciousness such things as "battleground states" or "targeting" opponents. Indeed, the very word for an electoral contest – "campaign" – is an appropriation from warfare.

See also John Hayward, The Climate of Krugman.  And don't miss Pat Buchanan, Poisonous Politics.

 

Seventeen-Syllable Sketches

Be

Between phony formality
And false familiarity
Be.

Pulp, p. 152

Aim low
Don't try
To sleep in your own bed at night
Is success enough.

Bukowski

Too degraded
To be called effete
His droppings were poems
Nonetheless

Meat Wheel 

Meat wheel rolling
Ever voiding
Hopes of mortals
Moiling
In the Void.

Maker of Gravemakers

Born to die
Lupine Road
1922
Wolf to girls
Who make graves.

Forgetful Troglodyte

The bridge bum forgot
The shirt he stole
Which I found
And wore to Geneva.

Animation

You are alive!
So not just body.
Mystery of animation!

Universalia ante rem

Same shape
Different size.
Two Tabasco bottles
On the window sill.

 

Egyptian Muslims Serve as Human Shields at Coptic Christmas Mass

As things currently stand, Islam is uniquely violent among the world religions and a major threat to Western civilization. That is not to say that all or even most Muslims are violent or evil people.  It is to say that Islam is an ideological superstructure wherein acts of unspeakable violence can be easily legitimated.  To mention but one example, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for the destruction of the state of Israel while in frenzied pursuit of the means thereto.  Where do you think he gets his ideas?  Why don't Western statesmen make similar demands for the destruction of foreign states?

Islam in the 21st century can be usefully compared to Communism in the 20th.  Many intelligent, idealistic, and morally decent people were drawn to Communism in the last century because they believed that in the wake of war and economic depression it was the only way forward for humanity.  Whittaker Chambers and Douglas Hyde are two who come readily to mind.  (See Communism category.)  These decent people, who eventually saw the light, were sucked into a demonic ideology. 

There are many decent Muslims.  Perhaps there is hope that they can begin to reform and enlighten Islam from within.   Here are examples.

 

The Arizona Shooting

Here is excellent commentary from Victor Davis Hanson to offset the leftist scumbaggery emanating from Paul Krugman and his ilk with his irresponsible and vile talk of a Climate of Hate.  How preternaturally moronic our leftist pals who cannot distinguish conservative dissent from hate!  You see, leftists think they own dissent, a bizarre conceit I thoroughly demolish in Does the Left Own Dissent?

Yes, we conservatives have targeted you leftists.  That's a metaphorical way of talking.  It is evidence of your appeal to the double standard that you have no beef with Obama's "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."

And here are some observations by Jared Lee Loughner's philosophy teacher.  Apparently, logic didn't do him any good.  Loughner, I mean.  The Slate writer, by the way,  is clueless when it comes to logic.  He writes, "A syllogism is a form of argument in which a conclusion is inferred from a set of premises."

Exercise for the reader: explain why that is worthless as a definition of 'syllogism.'

 

Keith Parsons Update

Apparently, Keith Parsons' decision to abandon the philosophy of religion has garnered a lot of attention.  Here is my commentary from last September.

Update 1/13:  My man Peter Lupu leaves a comment at  Secular Outpost.  And Ed Feser rips into Parsons here, once again substantiating  my playful reading of his name as an acronym: Filosophical Erudition Sans Excessive Restraint.

A Routley/Sylvan Argument for the Utter Nonexistence of Past Individuals

Many of us are inclined to say that purely past individuals (James Dean, Scollay Square, my cat Zeno, anything that existed but does not exist now), though past, yet exist.  Of course, they don't presently exist.  But why should only what presently exists, exist? Why should that which loses the temporal property of presentness fall into an abyss of nonbeing?  Surely that is not obvious. Presentism may be true, but it is not obviously true.  Nor is it a position favored by common sense as some contemporary writers seem to think.  Let me sketch a couple of anti-presentist considerations.  I will not present them rigorously and I do not claim that they are absolutely compelling.

Purely past individuals are part of the actual world inasmuch as they are not merely possible.  And what is actual exists.  So purely past individuals exist (tenselessly).  Or will you say that when Dean ceased to presently exist he underwent a transformation from an actual being to a merely possible one?  How then would you distinguish between past merely possible beings and past actual beings?  As far as I know Dean did not have any children.  Suppose that is true.  Still, he might have had a child.  In the past, that was a possibility, though it is not a possibility now.  Surely there is a difference between a past possible individual such as Dean's child and an actual past individual such as Dean.  Dean was; his child never was.

Moreover, we refer to past individuals and we say true things about them. 'James Dean died in a car crash in 1955.' 'Dean's fame is mainly posthumous.' 'Scollay Square was located in Boston.' The subject terms of these sentences not only did refer to something, they do refer to something, something that exists, though not at present.  Furthermore, whatever has properties exists. Dean has properties, ergo Dean exists. That is not to say that he presently exists, but if he didn't exist in any sense, how could he have properties?  So a case can be made for the reality or existence of past individuals.

Routley But this morning I stumbled upon an interesting argument from Richard Routley, who later in life came to call himself Sylvan. (Presumably because of an attraction to forests and jungles and an aversion to desert landscapes.) In any case, after beginning p. 361 of  Meinong's Jungle and Beyond (Ridgeview 1980) with some question-begging sophistry that I won't bother to expose, he uncorks an interesting argument on the other side of the question, one that that stokes my aporetic fire:

Purely past and purely future items are, like merely possible items, not (now) determinate in all extensional respects: hence (applying the results of 1.19) they do not exist.  Compare the items Aristotle and Polonious, and remember Peirce's question as to how long before Polonious died had he had a hair cut and Russell's as to the baldness of the present king of France.  Well, is Aristotle bald now?If he is, how long has he been bald? If not, how long since he had a hair cut and how long is his hair? Since Aristotle has ceased to exist, it is false that Aristotle is now bald and false that he is not now bald . . . . Thus Aristotle is indeterminate in respect of the extensional property of (present) baldness. Hence he does not exist now; hence he does not exist.

The argument is short and snappy:

1. For any x, if x exists, then x is now determinate in all extensional respects.
2. It is not the case that purely past individuals are  now determinate in all extensional respects.
Therefore
3. It is not the case that purely past individuals exist.

The argument is valid but why should we accept (1)?  I have no problem with the following two cognate principles which I warmly embrace:

1*. For any x, if x now exists, then x is now determinate in all extensional respects.

1**. For any x, if x exists, then x is determinate in all extensional respects.

But I see no reason to accept the question-begging (1).  After all, Aristotle, unlike Polonious, exists, but Aristotle — if (2) is to be believed — is not now determinate in respect of baldness or the opposite.

Suppose, however, that we accept (1).  Why should we also accept (2)?  Presumably because it is not now the case that Aristotle is either bald or not bald. But this far from clear.  During his life, Aristotle either counted as bald or as not bald.  Suppose he counted as bald.  Then I say that Aristotle exists (tenselessly) and is (tenselessly) bald.  So he is now determinate in respect of baldness or its opposite.  He is tenselessly bald and so is now tenselessly bald.

What Routley has done in the above passage and surrounding text is merely beg the question in favor of presentism.  He has given us no non-question-begging reason to accept it.

The Giffords Assassination Attempt: Now the Blather Begins

Shooting Stuns Nation screamed the headline of this morning's Arizona Republic.  Brace yourself for the crapload of liberal-left blather that has already begun to descend upon us in the wake of this terrible event.  Perhaps later I will weigh in on this, but for now I refer you to Jack Shafer, In Defense of Inflamed Rhetoric and Byron York, Journalists Urged Caution After Ft. Hood, Now Race to Blaim Palin for Arizona Shootings.

Report from Pakistan

As things stand at present, Islam is uniquely violent among the world religions and a major threat to Western civilization.  (And its own 'civilization,' such as it is, ought to be judged by its rotten and poisonous fruits.)  To make matters worse, radical Islam has found plenty of useful idiots on the Left to lend them witting and unwitting aid and comfort.  But blinded as they are by their political correctness, one cannot expect these useful idots to be moved by such evidence as is presented in the following report from a courageous Pakistani correspondent:
 
Dear Bill,
 
As you have expressed concern about Islam in the past before on your blog, I thought I should inform you about these developments in Pakistan.  A few days ago, the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by his own security guard, because he had dared to criticize the "blasphemy law" in Pakistan, a law that is held sacred by the fundamentalist Muslims. The worrisome thing is that the whole country went into celebration at this murder and this murder was widely praised and justified. You can read about these reactions here, which have also upset me gravely:
I think these reactions have very significant things to say, and something that the West must be made aware of.
I have expressed my concerns in this blog post:
I would appreciate if you could mention something about this incident and the reactions on your blog. Islam is fast becoming a threat to humanity.  Just a humble request.
 
Regards,
Awais Aftab

The Twardowski-Meinong-Grossmann Solution to the Problem of Intentionality

Perhaps the central problem to which the phenomenon of intentionality gives rise can be set forth in terms of an aporetic triad:

1. We sometimes think about the nonexistent.
2. Intentionality is a relation between thinker and object of thought.
3. Every relation R is such that, if R obtains,then all its relata exist.

The datanic first limb is nonnegotiable, a 'Moorean fact.'  The other two limbs, being more theoretical, can be denied if one is willing to pay the price.  But something has to give since they cannot all be true. 

Brentano denied (2) with unpalatable consequences to be explored in a separate post. Why not accept (2), deny (3) and admit that there are abnormal relations, relations that connect existents with nonexistents?      

Consider the round square, that well-worn example that goes back at least to Bernard Bolzano.  Since there is no such thing, and cannot be, one will be tempted to say that the round square is an idea (presentation, Vorstellung) without an object.  That is what  Bolzano maintained using that very example of rundes Viereck.  (Theory of Science, pp. 88-89)  In section 5 of Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen (1894), Kasimir Twardowski criticizes Bolzano's position.

Twardowski Twardowski distinguishes among the following:  there is the expression 'the round square.'  Then there is the mental act, the act of presentation (Vorstellungsact) that transpires in someone who uses the expression with understanding.  Corresponding to the act is a content (Inhalt)  which constitutes the meaning of the expression.  But there is  also a fourth item, that to which the expression refers, the round square itself, that which combines logically incompatible properties and whose existence one denies as soon as one advances from the presentation round square to a judgment about it. (Cf. the Brentanian theses that judgments are founded upon presentations, and that every judgment is existential, involving the acceptance or rejection of a presentation.)

This of course  sticks in the craw.  One hesitates to admit that there is something outside the mind to which 'round square' refers, something that has the property of nonexistence.  It smacks of a contradiction.  Clearly, 'There exists an x such that x does not exist' IS a contradiction, but this is not what a Meinongian will say.

Note that Twardowski has a couple of powerful reasons for not identifying the round square and its colleagues with mental contents.  The first is that contents exist while nonexistent objects don't.  So the round square cannot be identified with the content expressed by 'the round square.'  The second reason is that we ascribe to the round square attributes that not only cannot be ascribed to the corresponding content, but are logically incompatible to boot.  Thus no content is round and no content is square and of course no content is both round and square.  Since contents exist, they cannot have contradictory properties.

These arguments, spelled out a bit perhaps, show that mental contents cannot go proxy for nonexistent items, whether merely possible like the celebrated golden mountain or impossible like the round square.  One could extend the argument to cover abstract objects which are not mental contents or in any way mind-dependent.  They too are unsuited to go proxy for nonexistents.  For (1) abstracta exist while nonexistents do not, and (2)  the properties of nonexistent concreta cannot be attributed to abstracta.  Thus a flying horse is an animal, a golden mountain is a mountain, and a round square is round.  But no abstract object is an animal or a mountain or round.

When I think about the round square or the golden mountain (in whatever psychological mode)  the object of my thought is neither a mental content nor an abstract object.  What is it then?  Why, it is the round square or the golden mountain!  As bizarre as this sounds, it makes a certain amount of sense.  If I want to climb the golden mountain, I want to climb a physical prominence, not a mental content or an abstractum.

The position under examination, then, is not only that every mental act has a content, but that every mental act has an object as well.  But not all of these objects exist.  One obvious advantage of this approach is that it allows us to hold onto (2) of our opening triad in full generality: in every case, intentionality relates a thinker through a content to a transcendent object, and not to some surrogate object, either! 

Why is this a good thing?  Well, if intentionality is relational only in some cases, the veridical cases, then it cannot be essential to mental acts to be of an object:  whether or not an act actually has an object will depend on contingent facts in the world beyond the mind.  For Brentano, all mental acts are intentional by their very nature as mental.  The Twardowski-Meinong approach upholds this.

But the price is very steep: one must accept that there are items that actually instantiate properties (not merely possibly instantiate them), and that these items nevertheless do not exist, or indeed, as on Meinong's actual view, have any mode of being at all.  This is his famous doctrine of the Aussersein des reinen Gegenstandes, the 'extrabeing of the pure object.'  Thus the golden mountain is actually golden and actually a mountain despite having no being whatsoever.  It is a pure Sosein utterly devoid of Sein.

Some, like van Inwagen, think that Meinong's theory of objects is obviously self-contradictory.  I don't believe this is right, for reasons detailed here.  Even so, I find Meinong's theory incoherent.  'Some items have no being at all' is not a formal contradiction.  Still, I cannot get a mental grip on the notion of an item that actually has properties, but is wholly beingless.

In addition, one must accept that there are genuine relations that connect existents to nonexistents. 

The price is too steep to pay.  The Twardowski-Meinong-Grossmann solution is just as problematic as the original problem.

REFERENCE:  Reinhardt Grossmann, The Categorial Structure of the World, Indiana UP, 1983, p. 197 ff.