Author: Bill Vallicella

Merry Scroogemas!

Scrooge In this season especially we ought to find a kind word to say about the much maligned Ebeneezer Scrooge. Here's mine: Without Scrooge, the sexually prolific  Cratchit wouldn't have a job and be able to support his brood!  This thought is developed by Michael Levin in In Defense of Scrooge.

And is there not something preternaturally knuckleheaded about the calls from some liberals that  the presentation of Dicken's masterpiece be banned? They ought to consider that there is more anti-Capitalism in it than Christianity — an irony that no doubt escapes their shallow pates. 

Minimalist and Maximalist Modes of Holiday Impersonality

'Tis the season for the letter carriers of the world to groan under their useless burdens of impersonal greetings.

Impersonality in the minimalist style may take the form of a store-bought card with a pre-fabricated message to which is appended an embossed name. A step up from this is a handwritten name. Slightly better still is the nowadays common family picture with handwritten name but no message.

The maximalist style is far worse. Now we are in for a lengthy litany of the manifold accomplishments of the sender and his family which litany may run to a page or two of single-spaced text.

One size fits all.  No attempt to address any one person as a person.

"It's humbug, I tell you, humbug!"

When Is an Identification an Elimination, and When Not? Idealism and Eliminativism not in the Same Logical Boat

A reader, recently deployed to Afghanistan, finds time to raise an objection that I will put in my own words to make it as forceful as possible:

You endorsed William Lycan's Moorean refutation of eliminative materialism, but then you criticized him for thinking that Moorean appeals to common sense are also effective against  standard idealist claims such as Berkeley's thesis that the objects of ordinary outer perception are clusters of ideas.  You maintained that there is a crucial difference between the characteristic claims of eliminativists (e.g., that there are no beliefs, desires, intentions, pleasures, pains, etc.) and the characteristic claims of idealists (e.g., Berkeley's thesis just mentioned, McTaggart's thesis of the unreality of time, Bradley's of the unreality of relations.)  The difference is that between denying the existence of some plain datum, and giving an account of a plain datum, an account which presupposes, and so does not deny, the datum in question.  In effect, you insisted on a distinction between identifying Xs as Ys, and denying the existence of Xs.  Thus, you think that there is an important difference between identifying  pains with brain states, and denying that there are pains; and identifying stones and physical objects generally with collections of ideas in the mind of God and denying that there are physical objects.  But in other posts you have claimed that there are identifications which collapse into eliminations.  I seem to recall your saying that to identify God with an unconscious anthropomorphic projection, in the manner of Ludwig Feuerbach, amounts to a denial of the existence of God, as opposed to a specification of what God is.  Similarly, 'Santa Claus is a fictional character' does not tell us  what Santa Claus is; it denies his very existence.

Now why couldn't Lycan argue that this is exactly what is going on in the idealist case?  Why couldn't he say that to identify stones and such with clusters of ideas in the mind of God is to deny the existence of stones?  Just as God by his very nature (whether or not this nature is exemplifed) could not be an anthropomorphic projection, so too, stones by their very nature as physical objects could not be clusters of ideas, not even clusters of divine ideas.

It seems you owe us an account of why the reduction of physical objects to clusters of ideas is not an identification that collapses into an elimination.  If you cannot explain why it does not so collapse, then Lycan and Co. will be justifed in deploying their Moorean strategy against both EM-ists and idealists.  They could argue, first, that idealism is eliminationism about common sense data, and then appeal to common sense to reject the elimination.

Continue reading “When Is an Identification an Elimination, and When Not? Idealism and Eliminativism not in the Same Logical Boat”

Greco on Stroud on Moore on the External World with a Shot at Stove

John Greco (How to Reid Moore) finds Barry Stroud's interpretation of G. E. Moore's proof of an external world implausible:

According to him [Stroud], the question as to whether we know anything about the external world can be taken in an internal or an external sense. In the internal sense, the question can be answered from “within” one’s current knowledge —- hence one can answer it by pointing out some things that one knows, such as that here is a hand. In the external sense, however, the question is put in a “detached” and “philosophical” way.

If we have the feeling that Moore nevertheless fails to answer the philosophical question about our knowledge of external things, as we do, it is because we understand that question as requiring a certain withdrawal or detachment from the whole body of our knowledge of the world. We recognize that when I ask in that detached philosophical way whether I know that there are external things, I am not supposed to be allowed to appeal to other things I think I know about external things in order to help me settle the question.5

According to Stroud, Moore’s proof is a perfectly good one in response to the internal question, but fails miserably in response to the external or “philosophical” question. In fact, Stroud argues, Moore’s failure to respond to the philosophical question is so obvious that it cries out for an explanation — hence Malcolm’s and Ambroses’s ordinary language interpretations. Stroud offers a different explanation for Moore’s failure to address the philosophical question: “He [i.e. Moore] resists, or more probably does not even feel, the pressure towards the philosophical project as it is understood by the philosophers he discusses.”6 Or again, “we are left with the conclusion that Moore really did not understand the philosopher’s assertions in any way other than the everyday ‘internal’ way he seems to have understood them.”7 The problem with this interpretation, of course, is that it makes Moore out to be an idiot. Is it really possible that Moore, the great Cambridge philosopher, did not understand that other philosophers were raising a philosophical question? (bolding added)

Continue reading “Greco on Stroud on Moore on the External World with a Shot at Stove”

Can One See that One is Not a Brain-in-a-Vat?

John Greco, How to Reid Moore:

So how does one know that one is not a brain in a vat, or that one is not deceived by an evil demon? Moore and Reid are for the most part silent on this issue. But a natural extension of their view is that one knows it by perceiving it. In other words, I know that I am not a brain in a vat because I can see that I am not. [. . .] Just as I can perceive that some animal is not a dog, one might think, I can perceive that I am not a brain in a vat. (21)

Really?

Continue reading “Can One See that One is Not a Brain-in-a-Vat?”

Of Berkeley’s Stones and the Eliminativist’s Beliefs

I lately endorsed William Lycan's Moorean refutation of eliminative materialism (EM). But I disagreed with Lycan on one point.  Lycan thinks that Moorean arguments refute Bradley and McTaggart and that there is no essential difference between the characteristic claims of the British Idealists and the characteristic claims of eliminativists in the philosophy of mind: both deny what common sense must affirm.  I believe he is  wrong about this, and I will now try to show why.  It seems that there are three main positions on this issue.  To have some handy labels, I will call them R, L, and V.

R.  Just as Berkeley cannot be refuted by kicking a stone, the eliminativist cannot be refuted in any simple Moorean manner.  Idealist and eliminativist claims are in the same logical boat, a boat that cannot be sunk by Moorean torpedoes.

L. British and other idealists can be refuted in Moorean ways, and so can eliminativists in the philosophy of mind.  Idealist and eliminativist claims are in the same logical boat, a boat that is exposed to Moorean attack.

V. The 'same logical boat' assumption made by R and V must be rejected. There is a crucial difference between what eliminativists are doing  and what idealists are doing.  The idealist does not deny the existence of physical objects, or time, or relations.  Berkeley, for example, does not deny the existence of stones and other meso-particulars.  He offers a theory of their ontological constitution.  His question is not whether they are, but what they are.  His answer, roughly, is that stones and trees and the like are bundles or collections of ideas.  Thus he gives an immaterialist account of ordinary particulars.  They exist all right, but their status is mind-dependent, the ultimate mind in question being God's. 

The eliminativist, however, flatly denies the existence of mental items such as pains, desires, and beliefs.  It should be obvious, then, that there is an important difference between what idealists do and what eliminativists do.  Idealist accounts are not existence-denying, but they do have an ontologically demoting upshot.  If physical object are mind-dependent in the Berkeleyan manner, then they cannot exist in themselves, but only in relation to another, God, who exists in himself.  Idealism thus reduces the being-status of  physical objects from what it would be on a realist approach.  The eliminativist, by contrast,  is not engaged in ontological demotion, but in flat-out denial.  He does not say of beliefs that they are mind-dependent, or mere appearances, or less than ultimately real; what he says is that they don't exist at all.  If the eliminativist said that mental items exist as appearances he would be giving up the game. A pain, e.g., is such that to be = to appear.  If you admit the appearance of a mental event such as a pain, you admit its reality.

Whatever the objections that can be lodged against Berkeleyan idealism, it cannot be refuted by kicking a stone.  But eliminative materialism can be refuted by simply noting that one desires a beer.  Moorean arguments are worthless when deployed against the positions of the great idealists, and this for the reason that the prosaic Moore simply did not understand what they were arguing.  But when someone denies a plain datum, then he does run up against common sense in an objectionable way.

‘Merry Xmas’

When I was eight years old or so and first took note of the phrase 'Merry Xmas,' my piety was offended by what I took to be the removal of 'Christ' from 'Christmas' only to be replaced by the universally recognized symbol for an unknown quantity, 'X.' But it wasn't long before I realized that the 'X' was merely a font-challenged typesetter's attempt at rendering the Greek Chi, an ancient abbreviation for 'Christ.' There is therefore nothing at all offensive in the expression 'Xmas.' Year after year, however, certain ignorant Christians who are old enough to know better make the mistake that I made when I was eight and corrected when I was ten. See here.

It just now occurs to me that 'Xmas' may be susceptible of a quasi-Tillichian reading.  Paul Tillich is famous for his benighted definition of 'God' as 'whatever is one's ultimate concern.' Well, take the 'X' in 'Xmas' as a variable the values of which are whatever one wants to celebrate at this time of year. So for some, 'Xmas' will amount to Solsticemas, for burglars Swagmas, for materialists Lootmas, for gluttons Foodmas, for inebriates Hoochmas, and for ACLU extremists Antichristianitymas.

Eliminative Materialism and Belief: Another Wrinkle

I've made it clear that I think eliminative materialism (EM) is a "lunatic philosophy of mind" to borrow a phrase from A. W. Collins.  Peter Lupu basically agrees though he may not care to put the point in such an intemperate way.  What follows is an excerpt from a recent e-mail of his.  Since I want to be fair to EM-ists, I want to suggest a way they may be able to counter the following objection Peter raises.

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You’re So Vain, You Prob’ly Think This Post is About You

But it isn't! Permit me to explain.