Author: Bill Vallicella
Validity, Invalidity, and Contravalidity
If a deductive argument is valid, that does not say much about it: it might still be probatively worthless. Nevertheless, validity is a necessary condition of a deductive argument's being probative. So it is important to have a clear understanding of the notion of validity. An argument is valid if and only if one of its logical forms is such that no argument of that form has true premises and a false conclusion.
No Labels? Label We Must!
This is silly. "Not Right. Not Left. Forward." There are are real differences between Right and Left that cannot be ignored. The positions must be carefully defined — and appropriately labeled. 'No labels' is itself a label — an inept one. Label we must. So we ought to do it carefully and thoughtfully.
I now hand off to Jonah Goldberg.
God, Evil, Matter and Mind: How Both Theists and Materialists Stand Pat in the Face of Objections
It is a simple point of logic that if propositions p and q are both true, then they are logically consistent, though not conversely. So if God exists and Evil exists are both true, then they are logically consistent, whence it follows that it is possible that they be consistent. This is so whether or not anyone is in a position to explain how it is possible that they be consistent. If something is the case, then, by the time-honored principle ab esse ad posse valet illatio, it is possible that it be the case, and one's inability to explain how it is possible that it be the case cannot count as a good reason for thinking that it is not the case.
Example. No one has successfully answered Zeno's Paradoxes of motion. (No, kiddies, Wesley Salmon did not successfully rebut them; the 'calculus solution' is a joke.) But from the fact, if it is a fact, that no one has ever shown HOW motion is possible, it does not follow that motion is not possible.
So if it is the case that God exists and Evil exists are logically consistent, then this is possibly the case, and a theist's inability to explain how God and evil can coexist is not a good reason for him to abandon his theism — or his belief in the existence of objective evil.
The theist is rationally entitled to stand pat in the face of the 'problem of evil' and point to his array of arguments for the existence of God whose cumulative force renders rational his belief that God exists. Of course, he should try to answer the atheist who urges the inconsistency of God exists and Evil exists; but his failure to provide a satisfactory answer is not a reason for him to abandon his theism. A defensible attitude would be: "This is something we theists need to work on."
Atheists and naturalists ought not object to this standing pat since they do the same. What materialist about the mind abandons his materialism in the face of the various arguments (from intentionality, from qualia, from the unity of consciousness, from the psychological relevance of logical laws, etc.) that we anti-materialists marshall?
Does the materialist give in? Hell no, he stands pat, pointing to his array of arguments and considerations in favor of materialism, and when you try to budge him with the irreconcilability of intentionality and materialism, or qualia and materialism, or reason and materialism, or whatever, he replies, "This is something we materialists need to work on." He is liable to start talking, pompously, of his 'research program.' He may even wax quasi-religious with talk of "pinning his hopes on future science" as if — quite absurdly — knowing more and more about the meat within our skulls will finally resolve the outstanding questions. And what does science have to do with hope? There is also something exceedingly curious about hoping that one turns out to be just a material system, a bit of dust in the wind.
"I was so hoping to be proved to be nothing more than a clever land mammal slated for destruction, but, dammit all, there are reasons to think that we are more than animals and have a higher destiny. That sucks!"
Fission and Zygotes
This post adds nuance to what I said earlier. I continue to uphold the Potentiality Principle. I have never seen a good argument against it. But there is a question about when the principle first finds purchase. Certainly not before conception. At conception? Later on? Considerations of 'moral safety' suggest we say 'at conception.' But consider the following argument:
Consider a spatiotemporal (S/T) particular such as an amoeba, or a star, or to take a 'meso-particular,' a drop of water. The drop D, existing at time t1, divides at time t2 (t2 > t1) into two discrete nontouching droplets, E and F. Suppose E and F are 'identical twins.' That is to say, E and F, though numerically distinct, are indiscernible with respect to all monadic properties. The question arises: Does D cease to exist when it divides into E and F? Or does D continue to exist after the division or fission? There are exactly four possibilities.
P1. D ceases to exist at the moment of division. Where there was (at t1) one S/T particular, there are now (at t2) two, but neither of the two is diachronically identical to D.
P2. D does not cease to exist at the moment of division, but survives the division as E. What we have at t2 are two particulars, D = E and a copy or replica F.
P3. D does not cease to exist at the moment of division, but survives as F. What we have at t2 are two particulars, D = F and a copy or replica E.
P4. D does not cease to exist at the moment of division, but survives as the mereological sum of E and F.
If these are the only possibilities, then it seems the most reasonable course is to opt for (P1): D fails to surivive its splitting at t2. For what non-arbitrary reason could one have to prefer (P2) over (P3) or vice versa? If there were a reason to say that D becomes E, that same reason would also justify saying that D becomes F — which implies that the 'reason' is no reason at all. (Bear in mind the stipulation that E and F are indiscernible.) Both (P2) and (P3), then, are nonstarters. This leaves (P4). But (P4) amounts to saying that D survives as both E and F. And that is absurd. How could one thing become two things? This leaves us with (P1): D ceases to exist at the moment of division.
This is a general result applicable to any S/T particular, no matter how small, no matter how large.
I was once an adolescent, and I was once an infant. But was I once a unicellular zygote? If zygotic division is like the water drop division described above, then, although I once had a zygote as a precursor, that zygote was not me. For that zygote ceased to exist, whereas I still exist.
And if the right to life is grounded — as I would like to ground it — in the potentiality of some one biological individual to develop into what is clearly a rights-possessor, then that biological individual came into existence sometime after conception. This implies that the right to life cannot be ascribed to the conceptus, i.e., the product of the union of the sperm and egg cells at fertilization.
On Bukowski
Some write because they like the idea of being a writer. It's romantic or 'cool' or something. Others write to say something that they need to express. Most combine these motivations. The better the writer, the stronger the need to express something that not just needs expression for the psychic health of the writer, but that is worthy of expression.
Charles Bukowski wrote from genuine need. (See so you want to be a writer?) It was his therapy. He could not have believed in the early days of his scribbling that he would ever be able to make a living from it. But from what I have read of him so far, what he wrote is not worth reading except in the way that his writing was worth doing for him. What do I mean?
His writing was self-therapeutic; our reading is motivated by something like the pathologist's interest. We read him to learn about diseases of the mind and spirit.
Am I being fair? Fair enough for a blog post.
Silenian and Epicurean Sources of “Death is Not an Evil”
Clarity will be served if we distinguish the specifically Epicurean reason for thinking death not an evil from another reason which is actually anti-Epicurean. I'll start with the second reason.
A. Death is not an evil because it removes us from a condition which on balance is not good, a condition which on balance is worse than nonexistence. This is the wisdom of Silenus, reported by Sophocles (Oedipus at Colonus, ll. 1244 ff.) and quoted by Nietzsche in The Birth ofTragedy, section 3:
There is an ancient story that King Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, without capturing him. When Silenus at last fell into his hands, the king asked what was the best and most desirable of all things for man. Fixed and immovable, the demigod said not a word, till at last, urged by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and broke out into these words: "O wretched ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is — to die soon."
B. Death is not an evil for the one who dies because when death is, one is not, and when one is, death is not. My being dead is not an evil state of affairs because there is no such state of affairs (STOA) as my being dead. Since there is no such STOA, there is no bearer of the property of being evil. If this property has a bearer it cannot be an individual or a property but must be a STOA.
And so the Epicurean line is consistent with life affirmation. The Epicurean is not saying that being dead is good and being alive evil; he is saying that being dead is not evil because axiologically neutral. The Epicurean is therefore also committed to saying that being dead is not a good.
The first reason is axiological, the second ontological. The Silenian pessimist renders a negative value verdict on life as a whole: it's no good, better never to have been born, with second best being to die young. By contrast, the Epicurean's point is that the ontology of the situation makes it impossible for death to be an evil for the one who has died.
This reinforces my earlier conclusion that there is nothing nihilistic about the Epicurean position.
Can One Give Up Smoking by Smoking?
By smoking a generic brand, perhaps? Or a meta-brand, were there such a thing? As little is it true that one can give up philosophy by philosophizing. And yet some try.
People to Avoid
Avoid the unhappy, the negative, the envious and resentful. Associate with the happy to be happy.
The Dead and the Nonexistent: Meinong Contra Epicurus
Are there nonexistent objects in the sense in which Meinong thought there are? One reason to think so derives from the problem of reference to the dead. The problem can be displayed as an aporetic tetrad:
1. A dead person no longer exists.
2. What no longer exists does not exist at all.
3. What does not exist at all cannot be referred to or enter as a constituent into a state of affairs.
4. Some dead persons can be referred to and can enter as constituents into states of affairs. (For example, 'John Lennon' in 'John Lennon is dead' refers to John Lennon, who is a constituent of the state of affairs, John Lennon's being dead.)
Despite the plausibility of each member, the above quartet is logically inconsistent. The first three propositions entail the negation of the fourth. Indeed, any three entail the negation of the remaining one. Now (1) and (4) count as data due to their obviousness. They are 'datanic' as opposed to 'theoretical' like the other two. Therefore, to relieve the logical tension we must either reject (2) or reject (3).
To reject (2) is to reject Presentism according to which only temporally present items exist. One could hold that both past and present items (tenselessly) exist, or that past, present, and future items (tenselessly) exist. Such anti-presentist theories break the two-way link between existence and temporal presentness: what is temporally present exists, but what exists need not be temporally present.
But another option is to reject (3). One could adopt the view of Alexius von Meinong according to which there are items that stand jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein, "beyond being and nonbeing." These items have no being whatsoever. Meinong's examples include the golden mountain (a possible object) and the round square (an impossible object). His doctrine was misunderstood by Russell and generations of those influenced by him. The doctrine is not that nonexistent objects have a mode of being weaker than existence, but that they have no being whatsoever. And yet they are not nothing! They are not nothing inasmuch as we can refer to them and predicate properties of them. They are definite items of thought possessing Sosein but no Sein, but are not mere accusatives of thought. A strange view, admittedly, and I do not accept it. (See my A Paradigm Theory of Existence, Kluwer 2002, pp. 38-42.) But distinguished philosophers have and do: Butchvarov, Castaneda, T. Parsons, Routley/Sylvan, et al.)
So Meinongianism is a theoretical option. The Meinongian line gives us a way to answer Epicurus. For Epicurus death is not an evil because when we are, death is not, and when death is, we are not. The point is that at no time is there a subject possessing the property of being dead. When I am alive, I am not dead. And when I am dead, I do not exist. It is not just that when I am dead I no longer presently exist, but that I do not exist at all. (Presentism seems part and parcel of the Epicurean position.) And because I do not exist at all when I am dead, I cannot have properties. (Anti-Meinongianism is also part and parcel of the Epicurean position: existence is a necessary condition of property-possession.) But then I cannot, when dead, have the property of being dead, in which case there is no state of affairs of my being dead. And that gives us a deep ontological reason for denying that death is an evil: if there is no state of affairs of my being dead, then there is nothing to possess the property of being evil. (Note that it is not the property of being dead that is evil, or me the individual, but the putative state of affairs of my being dead.)
As I read Epicurus, his position on death, namely, that being dead is not an evil for the one who is dead, requires both Presentism and Anti-Meinongianism. If that is right, then one can answer Epicurus either by rejecting Presentism or by accepting Meinongianism.
Anti-Presentism breaks the two-way link between existence and temporal presentness, while Meinongianism breaks the two-way link between existence and property-possession. The anti-presentist faces the challenge of giving a coherent account of tenseless existence, while the Meinongian owes us an explanation of how there can be items which actually have properties while having no being whatsoever. Epicureanism maintains both links but flies in the face of the powerful intuition that death is an evil.
A good solution eludes us. And so once again we end up in good old Platonic fashion up against the wall of an aporia.
Conservative and Libertarian Deists
If you are on Facebook, this page by Mike Valle may be of interest.
Reasons for Halting Muslim Immigration
Here.
Potentiality, Abortion, Contraception
This interesting missive just over the transom. My responses in blue.
I have been pondering your application of the Potentiality Principle to the question of abortion. It is undoubtedly the case that a one year old child has the potential to become an adult possessing rights-conferring properties. It is also undoubtedly the case, for much the same reasons, that a foetus in the third trimester of pregnancy possesses that same potential. However, as we move back along the chain of causality from childhood to birth to pregnancy and before, at some point we no longer have a potential person.
I agree that at some point we no longer have a potential person. Neither a sperm cell by itself, nor an unfertilized egg cell by itself, nor the unjoined pair of the two is a potential person. See 'Probative Overkill' Objections to the Potentiality Principle. This post refutes the notion that one committed to the Potentiality Principle is also committed to the notion that spermatazoa and unfertilized ova and various set-theoretical constructions of same are also potential persons.
Life-Death Asymmetry: An Aporetic Triad
Let us consider a person whose life is going well, and who has a reasonable expectation that it will continue to go well in the near term at least. For such a person
1. A longer being-alive is better than a shorter being-alive.
2. A longer being-dead is not worse than a shorter being-dead. (Equivalently: A shorter being-dead is not better than a longer being-dead.
3. If a longer being F is better than a shorter being F, then a shorter being non-F is better than a longer being non-F.
I claim that each limb of the triad has a strong claim on our acceptance. And yet they cannot all be true: (1) and (3) taken together entail the negation of (2). Indeed, the conjunction of any two limbs entails the negation of the remaining one. To solve the problem, then, one of the limbs must be rejected. But which one? Each is exceedingly plausible.
Consider (1). Surely a longer life is better than a shorter one assuming that (i) one's life is on balance good, and (ii) one has a reasonable expectation that the future will be like the past at least for the near future. Suppose you are young, healthy, and happy. It is obvious that five more years of youth, health, and happiness is better than dying tomorrow. (In these discussions, unless otherwise stated, the assumption is the Epicurean one that that bodily death is annihilation of the self or person — an assumption that is by no means obvous.)
From discussions with Peter Lupu, I gather that he would grant (1) even without the two assumptions. He digs being alive and consciousness whether or not the contents of his life/consciousness are good or evil: just being alive/conscious is for him a good thing. My life affirmation doesn't go quite that far. Whereas his life affirmation is unconditional, mine is conditional upon the contents of my experience.
Now consider (2). John Lennon has been dead for 30 years. Is it worse for him now than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago? Does it get worse year by year? I mean for him alone, not for Yoko Ono or anyone else. Intuitively, no. Ceteris paribus, the longer we live the better; but it is not the case that the longer we are dead, the worse. (Note that the second independent clause needs no ceteris paribus qualification.)
John F. Kennedy has been dead longer than Richard M. Nixon. But Kennedy is no worse off than Nixon in precise point of being dead. (2), then, seems intuitively evident.
As for (3), it too seems intuitively evident. If being respected (treated fairly, loved, provided with food, etc.) for a longer time is better than being respected (treated fairly, etc.) for a shorter time — and surely it is — then being disrespected (treated unfairly, etc.) for a shorter time is better than being disrespected for a longer time. And so if being-alive longer is better than being-alive shorter, then being non-alive shorter is better than being non-alive longer — in contradiction to (2).
One solution would be to reject (2), not by affirming its negation, but by maintaining that neither it nor its negation are either true or false. If there is no subject of being dead, as presumably there is not assuming that death is anihilation, then one cannot answer the question whether it is worse to be dead for a longer time than for a shorter.
Again we are brought back to the 'problem of the subject.'
Being Dead and Being Nonexistent, or: How to Cease to Exist without Dying
In general, being dead and being nonexistent are not the same 'property' for an obvious reason: only that which was once alive can properly be said to be dead, and not everything was once alive. Nevertheless, it might be thought that, for living things, to be is to be alive, and not to be is to be dead. But I think this Aristotelian view can be shown to be mistaken.
1. A human person cannot become dead except by dying.
2. But a human person can become nonexistent without dying in at least four ways.
2a. The first way is by entering into irreversible coma. Given that consciousness is an essential attribute of persons, a person who enters into irreversible coma ceases to exist. But the person's body remains alive. Therefore, a human person can cease to exist without dying.
2b. The second way is by fission. Suppose one human person A enters a Person Splitter and exits two physically and behaviorally and psychologically indiscernible persons, B and C. B is not C. So A is not B and A is not C. What happened to A? A ceased to exist. But A didn't die. Far from the life in A ceasing, the life in A doubled! So human person A became nonexistent without dying.
2c. The third way is by fusion. Two dudes enter the Person Splicer from the east and exit to the west one dude. The entrants have ceased to exist without dying.
2d. The fourth way is theological. Everything other than God depends on God for its very existence at every moment of its existence. If God were to 'pull the plug' ontologically speaking on the entire universe of contingent beings, then at that instant all human persons would cease to exist without dying. They would not suffer the process or the event of dying but would enter nonexistence nonetheless. Because they had not died, they could not be properly said to be dead.
Therefore, pace the Peripatetic,
3. Being dead and being nonexistent are not the same — not even for living things.
(Time consumed in composing this post: 40 minutes. )