The following statements in boldface are taken verbatim from Dennis Prager's Are You a Liberal? I comment briefly on each in turn. Mirabile dictu, it turns out I am not a liberal! I could make of each of these items a separate post. (And you hope I won't.) I don't want to hear anyone complain that I am not arguing my points. I argue plenty elsewhere on this site. In any case, that is not my present purpose.
Author: Bill Vallicella
Ayn Rand on Abortion
The following quotations from Rand can be found here, together with references.
An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).
Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?
If Ayn Rand weren't so popular among adolescents of all ages, if she were an unknown as opposed to a well-known hack, I wouldn't be wasting time refuting this nonsense. But she is very influential, so it is worthwhile exposing her incoherence. If you complain that my tone is harsh and disrespectful, my reply will be that it is no more harsh and disrespectful than hers is: read the quotations on the page to which I have linked. He who is strident and polemical will receive stridency and polemic in return. You reap what you sow.
In the first paragraph above Rand equates the unborn with the not-yet living. This implies that a third trimester fetus is not living. What is it then? Dead? Or is it perhaps neither living nor dead like an inanimate artifact? Obviously, a human fetus is a living biologically human individual. Obviously, one cannot arbitrarily exclude the pre-natal from the class of the living — unless one is a hack or an ideologue.
Let me expand on this just a bit. One cannot answer philosophical questions by terminological fiat, by arbitrarily rigging your terminology in such a way that the answer you want falls out of the rigging. Would that Rand and her followers understood this. My post Peikoff on the Supernatural carefully exposes another egregious example of the shabby trick of answering philosophical questions by terminological fiat.
Now consider the enthymematic argument of the first two sentences of the first paragraph above. Made explicit, it goes like this. (1) Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. (2) An embryo is a potential being. Therefore, (3) An embryo has no rights.
A being is anything that is or exists. So if x is a merely potential being, then of course it cannot have any rights. A merely potential being is either nothing or next-to-nothing. But a human embryo is not a merely potential being; it is an actual human (not canine, not lupine, not bovine, . . .) embryo. Indeed it is an actual biologically human member of the species homo sapiens. That is a plain fact of biology. So the second premise is spectacularly false.
If Rand were to say something intelligent, she would have to argue like this:
(1*) Rights do not pertain to potential persons, only to actual persons. (2*) An embryo is a potential person. Therefore, (3) An embyo has no rights. Unlike Rand's argument, this argument is worth discussing. But it is not the argument Rand gives. I have countered it elsewhere. See Abortion category.
The second paragraph quoted above is as sophomoric as the first — if that's not an insult to sophomores. It is a clumsy gesture in the direction of what is often called the Woman's Body Argument. Follow the link for the refutation.
From the Mail: Bryan Magee on Kant and the Theistic Proofs
Dear Dr. Vallicella,
I am of the understanding that one of your post-graduate degrees focussed on Kant. With your knowledge of said philosopher I wonder if I might trouble you to answer a few questions for me?
These questions pertain to Kant's criticism's of the cosmological argument for God's existence. I know that this argument comes in three basic forms: Leibnizian, Thomistic, and Kalam. Did Kant direct criticism to all three versions? Brian Magee has stated, "The fact simply is that Kant has demolished the traditional 'proofs' of God." (Confessions of A Philosopher, p.198) Many other credentialed philosophers make similar claims. In your view, is Magee's strident assertion justified? Do any of Kant's criticism's of the cosmological argument still have force today, or are you of the opinion that the work of recent philosophers has blunted the arguments of the Prussian?
Of course, I don't expect you to provide any counter-arguments to Kant. I am merely curious as to your take on the questions I have asked and I am quite happy for your answer to be brief. Thank you for your time.
Regards,
Stephen Lewin
Dear Mr. Lewin,
Thank you for writing and for reminding me of that delightful book by Bryan Magee. Unfortunately, the sentence you quote I do not find on p. 198. But on p. 156, we read that Kant's philosophy ". . . demolishes many of the most important religious and theological claims . . . ." On the same page Magee bestows upon Kant the highest praise. He is "the supreme understander of the problem of human experience," "the supreme clarifier," and "the supreme liberator." For Magee, Manny is the man!
A little farther down on the same page we find your quotation: "The fact simply is that Kant has demolished the traditional 'proofs' of God."
You ask whether Magee's confident claim is justified. No, but first a comment on 'demolishes' as it occurs in the above quotations. Magee uses it in connection both with claims and with arguments. But to demolish a claim is not the same as to demolish an argument. Presumably, to demolish a claim such as the claim that God exists would be to show that it is obviously false because ruled out on broadly logical grounds, or else ruled out on the ground that it is inconsistent with some well-known empirical fact or set of empirical facts. Clearly, Kant does not demolish the claim that God exists in this sense of 'demolish.' Ditto for the claim that the soul is a simple substance. Nor is it his intention to demolish these claims. At most he shows them to be unknowable or unprovable. And he thinks that is a salutary thing to have shown. "I have found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith," Kant famously remarks in the preface to the 2nd edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (Bxxx). I suggest that Magee is being sloppy when he speaks of demolishing theological claims. He may be confusing 'show to be false' with 'show to be unknowable or unprovable.' I receommend a careful reading of the 1787 preface as a counterbalance to Magee's Kant interpretation as der Alles-Zermalmer, the all-pulverizer.
Now what would it be to demolish an argument? To demolish an argument is to expose a clear mistake in it such as a formal fallacy or a plainly false premise. I believe that Kant demolished the ontological argument "from mere concepts" which is essentially Descartes' Meditation V ontological argument. Kant did this by isolating a presupposition of the argument which is plainly false, namely, the proposition that some concepts are such that, by sheer analysis of their content, one can show that they are instantiated. Surely Kant is right that no concept, not even the concept of God, includes existence. Interestingly, Aquinas would agree with this.
But there are modal versions of the ontological argument that are immune to the Kantian critique. See my "Has the Ontological Argument Been Refuted?" Religious Studies 29 (1993), pp. 97-110. As for the cosmological argument, Kant thinks that it depends on the ontological argument and collapses with it. This is an intricate matter that I cannot go into now. If you are interested, see my article, "Does the Cosmological Argument Depend on the Ontological?" Faith and Philosophy, vol. 17, no. 4 (October 2000), pp. 441-458.
Another idea of Kant's is that there cannot be a First Cause because the category of causality has no cognitive employment beyond the realm of phenomena. Schopenhauer borrows this notion and pushes it for all its worth. Relevant here is my post, On the Very Idea of a Cause of Existence: Schopenhauer on the Cosmological Argument. But it cannot be said that either Kant or Schopenhauer demolished the cosmological argument because their critiques rest on their own questionable metaphysical systems.
And as you suggest above, there are Kalam and Thomist versions of the CA that Kant doesn't even consider. Kant's knowledge of the history of philosophy was meager and the metaphysics he criticized was that of the Wolffian school which derives from Leibniz.
Finally, I refer you to my article, "From Facts to God: An Onto-Cosmological Argument," International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 48 (2000), pp. 157-181.
The Knot at the End of the Thread
To philosophize without dogma is like sewing without a knot at the end of the thread. (Kierkegaard) But to philosophize with dogma is not to philosophize at all.
Unreasonable Disappointment
I cannot be reasonably disappointed if I fail to achieve what was never in my power to achieve.
The Realist Speaks
Most people are basically decent. Just don't put them under too much moral pressure.
Ubi Amor, Ibi Oculus
They say that love is blind. But if love blinds, is it love? Or is it rather infatuation? "Where there is love, there is sight." I found this fine Latin aphorism in Josef Pieper, Death and Immortality (Herder and Herder, 1969, p. 21). The translation is mine. Pieper credits Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences 3 d. 35, I, 21. Pieper adds that "The dictum comes from Richard of St. Victor." (Pieper, p. 133, n. 29.)
Only to the eye of love is the ipseity and haecceity of the beloved revealed, and only the eye of love can descry the true nature and true horror of death. That is my gloss on the aphorism and its context. I should arrange a confrontation between Pieper and Epicurus who Pieper views as a sophist. (p. 29)
Know Thyself!
"OK," says the Buddhist, "But what's to know?"
Terror Attack at Moscow’s Main Airport
NYT account here. "Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, said the attack was probably carried out by a male suicide bomber, and that authorities were trying to identify him."
Was he a Confucian perhaps, a Buddhist, or a Christian? The Gray Lady provides no clue. Maybe he was a generic faith-based bomber. After all, everyone knows that all religions are equal and so equally likely to inspire terrorist acts.
Jack LaLanne Dead at 96
An inspiration. Brother Jackass will carry you over many a pons asinorum for many a year if properly fueled and disciplined. Reform your diet and set aside two to three hours per day for vigorous exercise. Lalanne swam an hour a day and lifted weights for two. Right up until the end. And he always 'went to failure' doing his reps until he could do no more.
Bill Muehlenberg’s Culture Watch
I happened upon this site today, and it looks good based on the one article I read, Shariah and Democracy. You decide.
Thilo Sarrazin and Muslim Integration
A friend gave me a copy of Thilo Sarrazin, Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab (Germany Does Away With Itself), but I haven't had time to read it. So I found this summary of some of Sarrazin's points useful. I cannot vouch for its accuracy.
A Memorable Weekend 40 Years Ago This Weekend
We have it on good authority that the unexamined life is not worth living. The same goes for the unrecorded and the unremembered life. So I pause to remember my best pal (at the time) and my best gal (at the time) and the trip we took in my 1963 Karmann Ghia convertible up the California coast to my favorite city (at the time). Van Morrison, Brown-Eyed Girl. Thelonious Monk, 'Round Midnight. Scott MacKenzie, San Francisco. While I was with the girl, Tom, fellow Kerouac aficionado and memory babe, stumbled upon a Monk gig, dug him and met his wife. Tom tells me that his remembrances of things past play like movies in his head. Me, I have to keep a journal.
My Intentionality Aporia ‘Ockhamized’
Edward of London proposes the following triad
O1. The proposition ‘Bill is looking for a nonexistent thing’ can be true even when there are no nonexistent things.
O2. The proposition ‘Bill is looking for a nonexistent thing’ expresses a relation between two things.
O3. Every relation is such that if it obtains, all of its relata exist.
as a nominalistic equivalent to my
W1. We sometimes think about the nonexistent.
W2. Intentionality is a relation between thinker and object of thought.
W3. Every relation R is such that, if R obtains,then all its relata exist.
Edward imposes the following contraint on aporetic polyads: "The essence of an aporetic polyad is that any proper subset of statements (including the singleton set) should be consistent on its own, and only the whole set being inconsistent." I accept this constraint. It implies that nothing can count as an aporetic polyad if one of its limbs is self-contradictory.
My definition runs as follows. An aporetic polyad is a set S of n self-consistent propositions (n>1) such that (i) any n-1 members of S, taken in conjunction, entail the negation of the remaining member; (ii) each member of S has a strong claim on our acceptance. Edward's constraint follows from this definition. For if any member is self-inconsistent, then it cannot have a strong claim, or any claim, on our acceptance.
If I understand Edward, he is urging two points. His first point is that my formulation of the triad is inept because (W1), unlike (O1), is self-contradictory. If this charge sticks, then my formulation does not count as an aporetic polyad by my own definition. His second point is that his version of the triad has a straightforward and obvious solution: reject (O2).
Reply to the First Point. There is nothing self-contradictory about 'We sometimes think of the nonexistent.' As I made clear earlier, this is a datanic, not a theoretical, claim. On this score it contrasts with the other two limbs. It is meant to record an obvious fact that everyone ought to grant instantly. Because the fact is obvious it is obviously self-consistent. So if Edward denies (W1), then it is not profitable to to continue a discussion with him.
All I can do at this point is speculate as to why Edward fails to get the point. I suppose what he is doing is reading a theory into (W1), a theory he considers self-contradictory. But (W1) simply records a pre-theoretical fact and is neutral with respect to such theories as Meinong's Theory of Objects. Suppose I am imagining a winged horse. If so, then it would be false to say that I am imagining nothing. One cannot simply imagine, or just imagine. It follows that I am imagining something. We are still at the level of data. I have said nothing controversial. One moves beyond data to theory if one interprets my imagining something that does not exist as my standing in a relation to a Meinongian nonexistent object. That is a highly controversial but possible theory, and it is not self-contradictory contrary to what Edward implies. But whether or not it is self-contradictory, the main point for now is that
1. BV is imagining a winged horse
Is neutral as between the following theory-laden interpretations
2. BV (or a mental act of his) stands in a dyadic relation to a Meinongian nonexistent object.
and
3. BV is imagining winged-horse-ly.
The crucial datum is that one cannot just imagine, or simply imagine. We express this by saying that to imagine is to imagine something. But 'imagine something' needn't be read relationally; it could be read adverbially. Accordingly, to imagine Peter (who exists) is to imagine Peter-ly, and to imagine Polonious (who does not exist) is to imagine Polonious-ly. I am not forced by the crucial datum to say that imagining involves a relation between subject and object; I can say that the 'object' reduces to an adverbial modification of my imagining.
So even if the relational reading of (1) were self-contradictory — which it isn't – one is not bound to interpret (1) relationally. Now (1) is just an example of (W1). So the same goes for (W1). (W1) is obviously true. He who denies it is either perverse or confused.
Reply to the Second Point. One can of course solve Edward's triad by denying (O2). But the real question is whether one can easily deny the distinct proposition (W2). I say no. For one thing, the alternatives to saying that intentionality is a relation are not at all appetizing. All three of the limbs of my triad lay claim to our acceptance, and none can be easily rejected – but they cannot all be true. That is why there is a problem.
Intentionality in Locks and Keys?
The mind-body problem divides into several interconnected subproblems. One concerns the relation of consciousness to its material substratum in the brain and central nervous system. A second concerns the aboutness or intentionality of (some) conscious states. A third problem is how a physical organism can be subject to the norms of rationality: How does an abstract argument-pattern such as Modus Tollens 'find purchase in' and 'govern' the transitions from one brain state to another? A fourth subproblem has to do with mental causation. Obviously, mental states are causally efficacious in bringing about physical states and other mental states. My desire for another cup of java is part of the causal chain that eventuates in the physical process of ingesting caffeine. Note also that knowledge of the physical world would presumably not be possible unless physical states could enter into the etiology of mental states. (I say 'presumably' because my formulation begs the question against idealism. And don't let anyone tell you that idealism is not a live option! The fact that it is not much discussed these days doesn't mean anything. Academic philosophers can be as fashion-conscious as teenage girls, and as worried about how they appear; idealism is currently not discussed in the more fashionable salons.)
Divide and conquer is one approach to any complex problem: separate out the subproblems and try to solve them separately. For example, separate the 'qualia' problem — which is part of the first subproblem mentioned — from the intentionality problem.
It might be that there is nothing specifically mental about intentionality at all. Perhaps intentionality is to be found in nature and in artifacts below the level of mind. If so, it may be possible to understand intentionality at the level of mind by working up to it 'from below.' It may be possible to build a 'gradualist bridge' from mindless intentionality to minded intentionality. One might then come to understand how intentionality in us has 'evolved.'
Now one very serious question is whether intentionality can be prised apart from consciousness and treated separately. This is a question Colin McGinn raises with great skill. It deserves a separate post. In this post, however, I will examine a passage from Daniel Dennett in which our man, having separated the qualia and intentionality problems, tries to get from mindless intentionality to the minded variety. The passage is from Kinds of Mind, p. 35:
Intentionality in the philosophical sense is just aboutness. [. . .] A lock and key exhibit the crudest form of intentionality; so do the opioid receptors in brain cells — receptors that are designed to accept the endorphin molecules that nature has been providing in brains for millions of years. [. . .] This lock-and-key variety of crude aboutness is the basic design element out of which nature has fashioned the fancier sorts of subsystems that may more deservedly be called representation systems, so we will have to to analyze the aboutness of these representations in terms of the (quasi?) aboutness of locks-and-keys in any case.
If I am thinking about Jude Acers, my thought is about him: he is not about my thinking. Generalizing, we can say that intentionality is an asymmetrical relation: if X stands in the intentional relation to Y, then Y does not stand in the intentional relation to X. (Brentano rightly pointed out long ago that intentionality is not a relation, strictly speaking, but ein Relativliches, something relation-like; but this nuance does not harm my point.)
Now in Dennett's example, is the lock about the key or the key about the lock? Well, there is a sense in which each is about the other. By studying the key, I can infer something about the lock, and by studying the lock I can infer something about the key. Each provides information about the other, and to a locksmith, a great deal of information.
There are many cases like this. Animal droppings on the trail provide information about what manner of critter has been by recently. Bear scat 'means' bears have been around. One sort of footprint 'indicates' that a coyote has passed by, another sort a mountain lion. The paw of a coyote provides information about the type of print it would leave if it were to leave a print, and a footprint provides information about the design of the paw. (Here 'design' just means pattern.)
So in the coyote case as in the lock and key case we have symmetrical aboutness: lock is about key, and key about lock; paw is about footprint, print is about paw. Or consider a compass needle. It is about magnetic North in the sense that one can infer where magnetic North is from the direction in which the the needle is pointing. But equally, one can infer from the location of magnetic North where a properly functioning compass needle will point.
The symmetry of this sort of aboutness — call it aboutness1 — gives us excellent reason to distinguish it from intentionality, or aboutness2, which is asymmetrical.
From this one can see that Dennett is completely mistaken in his claim that lock-and-key aboutness is a "form of intentionality." It is not a form of intentionality, and to think that it is is to confuse the the two senses of 'aboutness' lately distinguished. Dennett himself seems to be aware of this since at the end of the passage quoted he shifts his ground and speaks of "quasi-aboutness." This fudge is very telling. No doubt there is some likeness as between lock-and-key aboutness and intentional aboutness, but that proves nothing since everything is like everything else in some respect.
The point is that one gains no insight at all into how intentionality emerges — if it does emerge — by having it compared with locks and keys. Note also that to infer something about the lock from the key presupposes genuine intentionality on the part of the locksmith.
To sum up. To build his gradualist bridge, Dennett looks for a form of primitive intentionality below the level of mind or consciousness. He thinks he has found it in his lock and key example. But what I have just shown is that the symmetrical aboutness in the lock and key case is not, and cannot be, a form or type or species of intentionality — which is asymmetrical. The former merely resembles the genuine article. But if A resembles B, it does not follow that A is a form of B. A decoy duck resembles a duck but is not type of duck.