Author: Bill Vallicella
Paradoxes of Illegal Immigration
Philosophers hate a contradiction, but love a paradox. There are paradoxes everywhere, in the precincts of the most abstruse as well as in the precincts of the prosaic. Here are eight paradoxes of illegal immigration suggested to me by Victor Davis Hanson. The titles and formulations are my own. For good measure, I add a ninth, of my own invention.
The Paradox of Profiling. Racial profiling is supposed to be verboten. And yet it is employed by American border guards when they nab and deport thousands of illegal border crossers. Otherwise, how could they pick out illegals from citizens who are merely in the vicinity of the border? How can what is permissible near the border be impermissible far from it in, say, Phoenix? At what distance does permissibility transmogrify into impermissibility? If a border patrolman may profile why may not a highway patrolman? Is legal permissibility within a state indexed to spatiotemporal position and variable with variations in the latter?
The Paradox of Encroachment. The Federal government sues the state of Arizona for upholding Federal immigration law on the ground that it is an encroachment upon Federal jurisdiction. But sanctuary cities flout Federal law by not allowing the enforcement of Federal immigration statutes. Clearly, impeding the enforcement of Federal laws is far worse than duplicating and perhaps interfering with Federal law enforcement efforts. And yet the Feds go after Arizona while ignoring sanctuary cities. Paradoxical, eh?
The Paradox of Blaming the Benefactor. Millions flee Mexico for the U.S. because of the desirability of living and working here and the undesirability of living in a crime-ridden, corrupt, and impoverished country. So what does Mexican president Felipe Calderon do? Why, he criticizes the U.S. even though the U.S. provides to his citizens what he and his government cannot! And what do many Mexicans do? They wave the Mexican flag in a country whose laws they violate and from whose toleration they benefit.
The Paradox of Differential Sovereignty and Variable Border Violability. Apparently, some states are more sovereign than others. The U.S., for some reason, is less sovereign than Mexico, which is highly intolerant of invaders from Central America. Paradoxically, the violability of a border is a function of the countries between which the border falls.
The Paradox of Los Locos Gringos. The gringos are crazy, and racist xenophobes to boot, inasmuch as 70% of them demand border security and support AZ SB 1070. Why then do so many Mexicans want to live among the crazy gringos?
The Paradox of Supporting While Stiffing the Working Stiff. Liberals have traditionally been for the working man. But by being soft on illegal immigration they help drive down the hourly wages of the working poor north of the Rio Grande. (As I have said in other posts, there are liberal arguments against illegal immigration, and here are the makings of one.)
The Paradox of Penalizing the Legal while Tolerating the Illegal. Legal immigrants face hurdles and long waits while illegals are tolerated. But liberals are supposed to be big on fairness. How fair is this?
The Paradox of Subsidizing a Country Whose Citizens Violate our Laws. "America extends housing, food and education subsidies to illegal aliens in need. But Mexico receives more than $20 billion in American remittances a year — its second-highest source of foreign exchange, and almost all of it from its own nationals living in the United States." So the U.S. takes care of illegal aliens from a failed state while subsidizing that state, making it more dependent, and less likely to clean up its act.
The Paradox of the Reconquista. Some Hispanics claim that the Southwest and California were 'stolen' from Mexico by the gringos. Well, suppose that this vast chunk of real estate had not been 'stolen' and now belonged to Mexico. Then it would be as screwed up as the rest of Mexico: as economically indigent, as politically corrupt, as crime-ridden, as drug-infested. Illegal immigrants from southern Mexico would then, in that counterfactual scenario, have farther to travel to get to the U.S., and there would be less of the U.S. for their use and enjoyment. The U.S. would be able to take in fewer of them. They would be worse off. So if Mexico were to re-conquer the lands 'stolen' from it, then it would make itself worse off than it is now. Gaining territory it would lose ground — if I may put paradoxically the Paradox of the Reconquista.
Exercise for the reader: Find more paradoxes!
On Potential and Actual Infinity
Some remarks of Peter Lupu in an earlier thread suggest that he does not understand the notions of potential and actual infinity. Peter writes:
(ii) An acorn has the potential to become an oak tree. But the acorn has this potential only because there are actual oak trees . . . . If for some reason oak trees could not exist, then an acorn cannot be said to have the potential to become an oak tree. Similarly, if the proponent of syllogism S1 thinks that actual infinity is ruled out by some conceptual, logical, or metaphysical necessity, then he is committed to hold that there cannot be a potential infinity either. Thus, in order for something to have the potential to be such-and-such, it is required that it is at least possible for actual such-and-such to exist.
This is a very fruitful misunderstanding! For it allows us to clarify the different senses of 'potential' and 'actual' as applied to the analysis of change and to the topic of infinity. First of all, Peter is completely correct in what he says in the first two sentences of the above quotation. The essence of what he is saying may be distilled in the following principle
If actual Fs are impossible, then potential Fs are also impossible.
But this irreproachable principle is misapplied if 'F' is instantiated by 'infinity.' If an actual infinity is impossible, it does not follow that a potential infinity is impossible. For when we say that a series, say, is potentially infinite we precisely mean to exclude its being actually infinite. A potentially infinite series is not one that has the power or potency to develop over time into an actually infinite series, the way a properly planted acorn develops into an oak tree. On the contrary, it is a series which, no matter how much time elapses, is never completed. An actually infinite series, by contrast, is complete at every instant.
Consider the natural numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, . . . n, n +1, . . . ). If these numbers form a set, call it N, then N will of course be actually infinite. A set is a single, definite object, a one-over-many, distinct from each of its members and from all of them. N must be actually infinite because there is no greatest natural number, and because N contains all the natural numbers.
It is worth noting, as I have noted before, that 'actually infinite set' is a pleonastic expression. It suffices to say 'infinite set.' This is because the phrase 'potentially infinite set' is nonsense. It is nonsense because a set is a definite object whose definiteness derives from its having exactly the members it has. In the case of the natural numbers, if they form a set, then that set will have a transfinite cardinality. Cantor refers to that cardinality as aleph-zero or aleph-nought.
But surely it is not obvious that the natural numbers form a set. Suppose they don't. Then the natural number series, though infinite, will be merely potentially infinite. What 'potentially infinite' means in this case is that one can go on adding endlessly without ever reaching an upper bound of the series. No matter how large the number counted up to, one can add 1 to reach a still higher number. The numbers are thus created by the counting, not labeled by the counting. The numbers are not 'out there' waiting to be counted; they are created by the counting. In that sense, their infinity is merely potential. But if the naturals are an actual infinity, then they are not created but labeled.
Or consider a line segment. One can divide it repeatedly and in principle 'infinitely.' But if one does so is one creating divisions or recognizing divisions that exist already? If the former, then the infinity of divisions is merely potential; if the latter, it is actual.
Peter seems worried by the fact that no human or nonhuman adding machine can enumerate all of the natural numbers. But this is no problem at all. If there is an actual infinity of natural numbers, then it is obvious that a complete enumeration is impossible: the first transfinite ordinal omega has aleph-nought predecessors. If there is only a potential infinity of naturals, then as many enumerations have taken place, that is the last number created.
Peter seems not to be taking seriously the notion of potential infinity by simply assuming that the naturals must form an infinite set. He doesn't take it seriously because he confuses the use of 'potential' in the context of an analysis of change, where change is the reduction of potency to act, with the use of 'potential' in discussions of infinity.
But now I'm having second thoughts. I want to say that from the fact that a line segment is infinitely divisible, it does not follow that it is actually divided into continuum-many points. But what about the number of possible dividings? If that is a finite number, one that reflects the ability of some divider, then how can the segment be infinitely divisible? But if the number of possible dividings is a transfinite number, then it seems we have re-introduced an actual infinity, namely, an actual infinity of possible dividings. In other words, infinite divisibility seems to require an actual infinity of possible dividings. Or does it?
Still More on the Ground Zero Mosque
Dorothy Rabinowitz, Liberal Piety and the Memory of 9/11:
In the plan for an Islamic center and mosque some 15 stories high to be built near Ground Zero, the full force of politically correct piety is on display along with the usual unyielding assault on all dissenters. The project has aroused intense opposition from New Yorkers and Americans across the country. It has also elicited remarkable streams of oratory from New York's political leaders, including Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
"What are we all about if not religious freedom?" a fiery Mr. Cuomo asked early in this drama. Mr. Cuomo, running for governor, has since had less to say.
Messrs. Cuomo and Bloomberg need to be reminded that one cannot derive a 'freedom of unlimited construction' from freedom of religion. Yes, we Americans are for freedom of religion. It is enshrined in our Constitution in the very first clause of the very first Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Those Muslims who are U. S. citizens enjoy the right to the free exercise of their religion. But that is not to say that they can do anything anywhere or build anything anywhere. Or do they have special rights and privileges not granted to Jews and Christians and Buddhists? Is one of these rights the right to offend with impunity the majority of the citizens of a country that is the most tolerant that has ever existed? Correct me if I am wrong, but would the Islamic Republic of Iran tolerate the building of a huge synagogue in Teheran? Is there perhaps a double-standard here?
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser—devout Muslim, physician, former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy—says there is every reason to investigate the center's funding under the circumstances. Of the mosque so near the site of the 9/11 attacks, he notes "It will certainly be seen as a victory for political Islam."
Exactly right. You are very naive if you assume that being conciliatory toward a person or group of persons will in every case cause that person or group to be conciliatory in return. Not so! There are people who take conciliation and tolerance and respect for diversity as signs of weakness. These people are only emboldened in their aggressiveness by your broadmindedness. It is therefore folly to be too conciliatory. Jasser is right: a mosque near Ground Zero will be taken as a victory for political Islam. It will embolden Islamists worldwide. It may even contribute to there being more Islamo-terrorist attacks in the U.S. and in the West generally.
One of the problems with liberals is their diversity fetish. It is on clear display in Thomas Friedman's recent NYT commentary on the GZM debate. He thinks that blocking construction amounts to resistance to diversity! A slap in the face of openness and inclusion! What liberals like him can't understand is that diversity, though admittedly a value, is not an absolute value: there are competing values.
It looks as if the mosque will be built. Well, if it helps defeat the Left in Novermber, then it will have served a worthwhile purpose.
More on the Ground Zero Mosque
This from a long-time reader:
As a follower of your blog—in all its iterations throughout the years—I have a tremendous amount of respect for your opinions, philosophical and otherwise. Yet in your recent post on the Cordoba House building plan—apparently now called park51–I found myself disagreeing with you on several points of your discussion. When I have had this discussion with others—namely my parents and grandparents, all of whom share your opposition to the plan—I found little more than shrill arguing going on. I recognize that intelligent and thoughtful people exist on both sides of this, and I want to understand the rational arguments available to both, not just the blustering rhetoric being bantered [bandied] about. Hopefully in discussion with you I can find a more rationally driven discussion than I found elsewhere.
I'll give it my best shot.
Collective Inconsistency and Plural Predication
We often say things like
1. The propositions p, q, r are inconsistent.
Suppose, to keep things simple, that each of the three propositions is self-consistent. It will then be false that each proposition is self-inconsistent. (1), then, is a plural predication that cannot be given a distributive paraphrase. What (1) says is that the three propositions are collectively inconsistent. This suggests to many of us that there must be some one single entity that is the bearer of the inconsistency. For if the inconsistency does not attach distributively to each of p, q, and r, then it attaches to something distinct from them of which they are members. But what could that be?
If you say that it is the set {p, q, r} that is inconsistent, then the response will be that a set is not the sort of entity that can be either consistent or inconsistent. Note that it is not helpful to say
A set is consistent (inconsistent) iff its members are consistent (inconsistent).
For that leaves us with the problem of the proper parsing of the right-hand side, which is the problem with which we started.
And the same goes for the mereological sum (p + q + r). A sum or fusion is not the sort of entity that can be either consistent or inconsistent.
What about the conjunction p & q & r? A conjunction of propositions is itself a proposition. (A set of propositions is not itself a proposition.) This seems to do the trick. We can parse (1) as
2. The conjunctive proposition p & q & r is (self)-inconsistent.
In this way we avoid construing (1) as an irreducibly plural predication. For we now have a single entity that can serve as the logical subject of the predicate ' . . . is/are inconsistent.' We can avoid saying, at least in this case, something that strikes me as only marginally intelligible, namely, that there are irreducible monadic non-distributive predicates. My problem with irreducibly plural predication is that I don't know what it means to say of some things that they are F if that doesn't mean one of the following: (i) each of the things is F; (ii) there is a single 'collective entity' that is F; or (iii) the predicate 'is F' is really relational.
One could conceivably object that in the move from (1) to (2) I have 'changed the subject.' (1) predicates inconsistency of some propositions, while (2) predicates (self)-inconsistency of a single conjunctive proposition. Does this amount to a changing of thr subject? Does (2) say something different about something different?
Against Politically Correct Atheism
If contemporary Christianity and contemporary Islam are judged by their fruits, which is more conducive to human flourishing, or, if you think nothing good comes from religion, which is less conducive to human misery? I hope you are clearheaded and unprejudiced enough to see that the religion of 'peace' is far worse than Christianity, at least at present, if you think both are bad.
So why do so many contemporary atheists employ a double-standard? Why is the full measure of their energy and vitriol reserved for Christianity? Why the politically correct tip-toe dance around Islam? Is it fear? Is it like cops who go after jaywalkers to avoid confronting gangbangers? Is it because most atheists are leftists and leftists are bred-in-the-bone PC-ers?
Check out this diatribe against politically correct atheism by Pat Condell.
Sets and the Number of Objects: An Antilogism
Commenter Jan, the Polish physicist, gave me the idea for the following post.
An antilogism is an aporetic triad, an array of exactly three propositions which are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent. For every antilogism, there are three corresponding syllogisms, where a syllogism is a deductive argument with exactly two premises and one conclusion. Here is the antilogism I want to discuss:
1. Possibly, the number of objects is finite.
2. Necessarily, if sets exist, then the number of objects is not finite.
3. Sets exist.
The modality at issue is 'broadly logical' and sets are to be understood in the context of standard (ZFC) set theory. 'Object' here just means entity. An entity is anything that is. (Latin ens, after all, is the present participle of the infinitive esse, to be.)
Corresponding to the above antilogism, there are three syllogisms. The first, call it S1, argues from the conjunction of (1) and (2) to the negation of (3). The second, call it S2, argues from the conjunction of (2) and (3) to the negation of (1). The third, call it S3, argues from (1) and (3) to the negation of (2).
Note that each syllogism is valid, and that the validity of each reflects the logical inconsistency of the the antilogism. Note also that for every antilogism there are three corresponding syllogisms, and for every syllogism there is one corresponding antilogism. A third thing to note is that S3 is uninteresting inasmuch as it is surely unsound. It is unsound because (2) is unproblematically true.
This narrows the field to S1 which argues to the nonexistence of (mathematical) sets and S2 which argues to the impossibility of the number of objects (entities) being finite. Our question is which of these two syllogisms we should accept. Obviously, both are valid, but both cannot be sound. Do we have good reason to prefer one over the other?
Here are our choices. We can say that there is no good reason to prefer S1 over S2 and vice versa; that there is good reason to prefer S1 over S2; or that there is good reason to prefer S2 over S1.
Being an aporetician, I incline toward the first option. Peter Lupu, being less of an aporetician and more of dogmatist, favors the third option. Thus he thinks that the antilogism is best solved by rejecting (1). Peter writes:
(a) If there are infinitely many numbers, then (1) is false. Are there infinitely many numbers? Very few would deny this. How could they, for then they would have to reject most of mathematics. [. . .]
To keep it simple, let's confine ourselves to the natural numbers and the mathematics of natural numbers. (The naturals are the positive integers including 0.) If there are infinitely many naturals, then there are infinitely many objects. If so, then presumably this is necessarily so, whence it follows that (1) is false.
I fail to see, however, why there MUST be infinitely many naturals. I am of course not denying the obvious: for any n one can add 1 to arrive at n + 1. With a sidelong glance in the direction of Anselm of Canterbury: there is no n that fits the description 'that than which no greater can be computed.' In plain English: there is no greatest natural number. But this triviality does not require that all of the results of possible acts of +1 computation actually be 'out there' in Plato's heaven. When I drive along a road, I come upon milemarkers that are already out there before I come upon them. But why must we think of that natural number series like this? I don't bring the road and its milemarkers into being by driving. But what is to stop us from viewing the natural number series along Brouwerian (intuitionistic) lines? One can still maintain that the series is infinite, but the infinity is potential not actual or completed. Peter's first argument, as it stands, is not compelling. (Compare: Everyone will agree that every line segment is infinitely divisible. But it does not follow that every line segment is infinitely divided.)
(b) If propositions exist, then there are infinitely many propositions. Are there propositions? Kosher-nominalists obviously will have to deny that propositions exist. Sentences do not express propositions. But, then, what do they express?
I am on friendly terms with Fregean (not Russellian) propositions myself. And I grant that it is very plausible to say that if there is one proposition then there is an actual infinity of them. Consider for example the proposition *p* expressed by 'Peter has a passion for philosophy.' *P* entails *It is true that p* which entails *It is true that it is true that p,* and so on infinitely. But again, why can't this be a potential infinity?
The following three claims are consistent: (i) Declarative sentences express propositions; (ii)Propositions are abstract; (iii) Propositions are man-made. Karl Popper's World 3 is a world of abstracta. It is a bit like Frege's Third Reich (as I call it), except that the denizens of World 3 are man-made.
I am agreeing with Peter and against the illustrious William that there are (Fregean) propositions, understood as the senses of context-free declarative sentences. I simply do not understand how a declarative sentence-token could be a vehicle of a truth-value. But why can't I say that propositions are mental constructs? (This diverges from Frege, of course.)
(c) Are there sentence types? A nominalist will have to deny the existence of sentence types. But, then, it is difficult to see how any linguistic analysis can be done.
Peter may be conflating two separate questions. The first is whether there are any abstract objects, sentence types for example. The second is whether there is an actual infinitity of them. He neeeds the latter claim as a countrerexample of (1). So again I ask: why couldn't there be a finite number of abstract objects: a finite number of sets, propositions, numbers, sentence types, etc. This would make sense if items of this sort were Popperian World 3 items.
I conclude that, so far, there is no knock-down refutation of (1). But there is also no knock-down refutation of (3) either, as Peter will be eager to concede. So I suggest that the rational course is to view my (or my and Jan's) antilogism as a genuine intellectual knot that so far has not been definitively solved.
Thinking About Nothing
Suppose I try to think the counterfactual state of affairs of there being nothing, nothing at all. Can I succeed in thinking pure nothingness? Is this thought thinkable? And if it is, does it show that it is possible that there be nothing at all? If yes, then (i) it is contingent that anything exists, and (ii) everything that exists exists contingently, which implies that both of the following are false:
1. Necessarily, something exists. Nec(Ex)(x exists)
2. Something necessarily exists. (Ex)Nec(x exists).
(1) and (2) are not the same proposition: (2) entails (1) but not conversely.
Phylogenetically, this topic goes back to Parmenides of Elea. Ontogenetically, it goes back to what was probably my first philosophical thought when I was about eight or so years old. (Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny!) I had been taught that God created everything distinct from himself. One day, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, I thought: "Well, suppose God never created anything. Then only God would exist. And if God didn't exist, then there would be nothing at all." At this my head began to swim and I felt a strange wonder that I cannot quite recapture, although the memory remains strong 50 years later. The unutterably strange thought that there might never have been anything at all — is this thought truly thinkable or does it cancel itself in the very attempt to think it?
My earlier meditation was to the effect that the thought cancels itself by issuing in contradiction. (And so I concluded that necessarily there is something, an interesting metaphysical result arrived at by pure thought.) To put it as simply as possible, and avoiding the patois of 'possible worlds': If there were nothing, then it would be a fact that there is nothing. And so there would be something, namely, that very fact. After all, that fact has a definite content and can't be nothing. But this is not quite convincing because, on the other hand, if there were truly nothing, then there wouldn't be this fact either.
On the one hand, nothingness is the determinate 'state' of there being nothing at all. Determinate, because it excludes there being something. (Spinoza: Omnis determinatio est negatio.) On the other hand, nothingness is the nonbeing of absolutely everything, including this putative 'state.' That is about as pithy a formulation of the puzzle as I can come up with.
Here is a puzzle of a similar structure. If there were no truths, then it would be true that there are no truths, which implies that there is at least one truth. The thought that there are no truths refutes itself. Hence, necessarily, there is at least one truth. On the other hand, if there 'truly' were no truths, then there would be no truth that there are no truths. We cannot deny that there are truths without presupposing that there are truths; but this does not prove the necessity of truths apart from us. Or so the objection goes.
How can we decide between these two plausible lines of argumentation?
But let me put it a third way so we get the full flavor of the problem. This is the way things are: Things exist. If nothing else, these very thoughts about being and nonbeing exist. If nothing existed, would that then be the way things are? If yes, then there is something, namely, the way things are. Or should we say that, if nothing existed, then there would be no way things are, no truth, no maximal state of affairs? In that case, no determinate 'possibility' would be actual were nothing to exist.
The last sentence may provide a clue to solving the problem. If no determinate possibility would be actual were nothing to exist, then the thought of there being nothing at all lacks determinate content. It follows that the thought that there is nothing at all is unthinkable. We may say, 'There might have been nothing at all,' but we can attach no definite thought to those words. So talking, we literally don't know what we are talking about. We are merely mouthing words. Because it is unthinkable that there be nothing at all, it is impossible, and so it is necessary that there be something.
Parmenides vindicatus est.
My conclusion is equivalent to the thesis that there is no such 'thing' as indeterminate nonbeing. Nonbeing is determinate: it is always and necessarily the nonbeing of something. For example, the nonbeing of Pierre, the nonbeing of the cafe, the nonbeing of Paris . . . the nonbeing of the Earth . . . the nonbeing of the physical universe . . . the nonbeing of everything that exists. Nonbeing, accordingly, is defined by its exclusion of what exists.
The nonbeing of everything that exists is not on an ontological par with everything that exists. The former is parasitic on the latter, as precisely the nonbeing of the latter. Being and Nothing are not equal but opposite: Nothing is derivative from Being as the negation of Being. Hegel got off on the wrong foot at the beginning of his Wissenschaft der Logik. And Heidegger, who also maintained that Being and Nothing are the same — though in a different sense than that intended by Hegel — was also out to lunch, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor.
If this is right, then nonbeing is not a source out of which what is comes or came. Accordingly, a sentence like 'The cosmos emerged from the womb of nonbeing,' whatever poetic value it might have, is literally meaningless: there is no nonbeing from which anything can emerge.
Being is. Nonbeing is not.
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Mimi Fariña
Let's not forget Joan Baez's sister, Mimi (1945-2001). Interestingly, the girls' father is the noted physicist Albert Baez (1912-2007). I remember a physics teacher in high school showing us an instructional film made by one Albert Baez. We were surprised to hear that he was Joan's father. We hadn't heard of him, but we sure had heard of her. This was around 1965.
Joan and Mimi sing a lovely version of Donovan's "Catch the Wind." Speaking of Donovan, here he and Joan collaborate on another unforgettable 'sixties tune, "Colours." Finally, Mimi, her husband Richard, and Pete Seeger in Pack Up Your Sorrows.
A Problem With the Multiple Relations Approach to Plural Predication
Consider
1. Sam and Dave are meeting together.
2. Al, Bill, and Carl are meeting together.
3. Some people are meeting together.
Obviously, neither (1) nor (2) can be decomposed into a conjunction of singular predications. Thus (2) cannot be analyzed as 'Al is meeting together & Bill is meeting together & Carl is meeting together.' So it is natural to try to analyze (1) and (2) using relational predicates. (1) becomes
1R. Meeting(Sam, Dave) In symbols: Msd
But if 'meeting' is a dyadic (two-place) predicate, then we should expect (2) to give way to
2R. Mab & Mbc & Mac.
Unfortunately, (2R) is true in circumstances in which (2) is false. Suppose there are three separate meetings. Then (2R) is true and (2) false. To get around this difficulty, we can introduce a triadic relation M* which yields as analysans of (2):
2R*. M*abc.
But then we need a tetradic relation should Diana come to the meeting. And so on, with the result that 'meeting together' picks out a family of relations of different polyadicities. But what's wrong with that? Well, note that (1) and (2) each entail (3) by Existential Generalization in the presence of the auxiliary premise 'Al, Bill, Carl, Dave, and Sam are people.'
But then we are going to have difficulty explaining the validity of the two instances of Existential Generalization. For the one instance features a dyadic meeting relation and the other a triadic. If two different relations are involved, then what is the logical form of (3) — Some people are meeting together — which is the common conclusion of both instances of Existential Generalization? If 'meeting together picks out a family of relations of different 'adicities, then (3) has no one definite logical form.
Does this convince you that the multiple relations approach is unworkable?
REFERENCE: Thomas McKay, Plural Predication (Oxford 2006), pp. 19-21.
Hitch Lives
Irreducibly Plural Predication: ‘They are Surrounding the Building’
Let's think about the perfectly ordinary and obviously intelligible sentence,
1. They are surrounding the building.
I borrow the example from Thomas McKay, Plural Predication (Oxford 2006), p. 29. They could be demonstrators. And unless some of them have very long arms, there is no way that any one of them could satisfy the predicate, 'is surrounding the building.' So it is obvious that (1) cannot be analyzed in terms of 'Al is surrounding the building & Bill is surrounding the building & Carl is surrounding the building & . . . .' It cannot be analyzed in the way one could analyze 'They are demonstrators.' The latter is susceptible of a distributive reading; (1) is not. For example, 'Al is a demonstrator & Bill is a demonstrator & Carl is a demonstrator & . . . .' So although 'They are demonstrators' is a plural predication, it is not an irreducibly plural predication. It reduces to a conjunction of singular predications.
Continue reading “Irreducibly Plural Predication: ‘They are Surrounding the Building’”
We Philosophize Best With Friends
Aristotle says that somewhere, but I forgot where. In any case, it is true as I verified once again yesterday in Tempe, where I met up with Steven Nemes, Mike Valle, Peter Lupu and his student Scott. Before joining them I stopped at the library where I borrowed Thomas McKay's Plural Predication and Douglas Hyde's I Believed.
The conversation went on for about five hours from 2 to 7. The 19 year old Nemes has made a fairly thorough study of my book on existence (see here for links to the ten posts he has written about it) and we discussed some topics from the book. He really understands me, and has a keen eye for problems potential and actual. I jokingly call Nemes my nemesis. We also discussed free will and Biblical inerrancy. Steven floated some interesting ideas that he then today began to work out in this post.
It occurred to me today that Peter and I, sitting and smoking out in front of the Churchill cigar emporium, did a good job of instantiating the role of Sidewalk Socrates, a role Peter learned from his friend and teacher, Sidney Morgenbesser. "There are people who have a passion for discourse, who are addicted to debate, who live in a world of constant conversation, and Morgenbesser was among the purest examples of the type." The description fits Peter as well. But I chided Peter for being a 'corrupter of youth' when he offered Steven cigarettes.
Richard Taylor on Goodness: Critical Remarks
Richard Taylor, Good and Evil: A New Direction (Prometheus 1984), p. 134:
Goodness . . . is simply the satisfaction of needs and desires . . . the fulfillment of purposes. The greatest good for any individual can accordingly be nothing but the total satisfaction of his needs,
whatever these may be.
There seems to be a tension in this passage, between the first sentence and the second, and I want to see if I can bring it into the open.
Taylor plausibly maintains that nothing is good or evil in itself or intrinsically. If a thing is good, it is good only relative to a being who wants, needs, or desires it. If a thing is evil, it is evil only relative to a being who shuns it or is averse to it. In a world in which there are no conative/desiderative beings, nothing is good or evil. This is plausible, is it not?
Imagine a world in which there is nothing but inanimate objects and processes, a world in which nothing is alive, willing, striving, wanting, needing, desiring. In such a world nothing would be either good or evil. A sun in a lifeless world goes supernova incinerating a nearby planet. A disaster? Hardly. Just another value-neutral event. A rearrangement of particles and fields. But if our sun went supernova, that would be a calamity beyond compare — but only for us and any other caring observers hanging around.
Taylor's point is, first, that sentences of the form 'X is good (evil)' are elliptical for sentences of the form 'X is good for Y.' To say that X is good (evil) but X is not good (evil) for some Y would then be like saying that Tom is married but there is no one to whom Tom is married. Taylor's point, second, is that these axiological predicates can be cashed out in naturalistic terms. Thus,
D1. X is good for Y =df X satisfies Y's actual wants (needs, desires)
D2. X is evil for Y =df X frustrates Y's actual wants (needs, desires).
It is clear that good and evil are not being made relative to what anyone says or opines, but to certain hard facts about the wants, needs, and desires of living beings. That we need water to live is an objective fact about us, a fact independent of what anyone says or believes. Water cannot have value except for beings who need or want it; but that it does have value for such beings is an objective fact.
Taylor's view implies that there is no standard of good and evil apart from the actual wants, needs, desires, and aversions of conative/desiderative beings. Goodness consists in satisfaction, evil in frustration. But satisfaction and frustration can exist only if there are indigent beings such as ourselves. It follows that nothing that satisfies a desire or fulfills a need or want can be bad. (p. 126) It also follows that no desire or purpose is either good or evil. (p. 136) For if good and evil emerge only upon the satisfaction or frustration of desires and purposes, then the desires and purposes themselves cannot be either good or evil. The rapist's desire to 'have his way' with his victim, qua desire, is not evil, and the satisfaction of desire via the commission of rape is not evil, but good, precisely because it satisfies desire! (Glance back at the above definitions.)
We now have a reason to toss Taylor's book out the window. But I want to point out a rather more subtle difficulty with his theory.
If goodness is relational in the manner explained, how can there be talk of the greatest good of an individual? Glance back at the quotation. Taylor tells us that the greatest good for an individual is nothing but the total satisfaction of his needs. This is a higher-order state of affairs distinct from a ground-level state of affairs such as the satisfaction of the desire for water by a cool drink. What need does this greatest good satisfy?
Suppose I satisfy all my needs, wants and desires. How can this higher-order state of satisfaction be called good if a thing is good only in relation to a needy being? There would have to be a higher-order need or want, a need or want for total satisfaction, and the goodness of the first-order satisfaction would have to consist in the satisfaction of this higher-order need. But this leads to a vicious infinite regress.
Taylor should say about the satisfaction of desire what he says about desire, namely, that it is neither good nor evil. Consider the desire to drink a beer. By Taylor's lights, drinking a beer is intrinsically neither good nor evil. It is good only insofar as it satisfies some desiderative being's desire. Thus the goodness of drinking a beer is nothing other than the satisfaction of the desire to drink beer. The desire itself, however, is neither good nor evil, and the same goes for the satisfaction or frustration of this desire.
My critical point is that Taylor is using 'good' in two senses, one relative, the other absolute, when his own theory entitles him to use it only in the relative sense. By his theory, a good X is a satisfactory X: one that satisfies some desiderative/indigent being's need, want, desire, for X. But then desire can't be said to be good or evil, as Taylor himself realizes on p. 136. Similarly, the satisfaction of desire cannot be said to be good or evil. Otherwise, the satisfaction of desire would have to be relative to a higher-order desire. Hence Taylor is not entitled to speak of the "greatest good for any individual" as he does in the passage quoted.