Bill Vallicella – Page 794 – Maverick Philosopher

Are There Any Rationally Compelling Arguments for Substantive Theses?

From the mailbag:

Greetings! First, you have a terrific blog, keep up the good work! I'm just an undergrad who is minoring in philosophy, so a lot of your posts are a little over my head, but I try to follow along when I can.

I was just having a quick glance at your post on Russell's Teapot, and one paragraph stuck out to me:

"Now it seems to me that both (S) and (W) are plainly false: we have all sorts of reasons for believing that God exists. Here Alvin Plantinga sketches about two dozen theistic arguments. Atheists will not find them compelling, of course, but that is irrelevant. The issue is whether a reasoned case can be made for theism, and the answer is in the affirmative. Belief in God and in Russell's teapot are therefore not on a par since there are no empirical or theoretical reasons for believing in his teapot."

I think I have an issue with your statement about atheists not finding theistic arguments compelling to be irrelevant, and all that is important is that, according to you, a reasoned case can be made for theism. So, it sounds to me like you are distinguishing between 2 statements:

"Atheists don't find theistic arguments compelling."

and

"A reasoned case can be made for theism."

You accept the former statement, but you say it's irrelevant, because you accept the latter statement. But to me, I find both statements to be essentially synonymous.

Continue reading “Are There Any Rationally Compelling Arguments for Substantive Theses?”

Thomas Mann on Blogging

Thomas Mann: Diaries 1918-1939 (Abrams, 1982, tr. R & C Winston), p. 194:

I love this process by which each passing day is captured, not only in its impressions, but also, at least by suggestion, its intellectual direction and content as well, less for the purpose of rereading and remembering than for taking stock, reviewing, maintaining awareness, achieving perspective . . . .

Thomas Mann on Politics

From Thomas Mann's journal entry of August 5, 1934:

A cynical egotism, a selfish limitation of concern to one's personal welfare and one's reasonable survival in the face of the headstrong and voluptuous madness of 'history' is amply justified. One is a fool to take politics seriously, to care about it, to sacrifice one's moral and intellectual strength to it. All one can do is survive, and preserve one's personal freedom and dignity.

Onesided, but forgiveably so. Pertinent to the present.

They Post Infrequently but Well

Jim Ryan and Franklin Mason, the proprietors of Philosoblog and The Philosophical Midwife respectively, are both analytically trained philosophers outside of academe. Their weblogs are well worth reading. Explore their archives: the things they write rise above the ephemeral. I have my differences with both, and they with each other. But the commonalities run deeper. On the off-chance they are not acquainted, I'll hazard a cyber-introduction: Jim, this is Franklin; Franklin, this is Jim.

Proof That Italians Talk with Their Hands

Guglielmo and Francesco discuss Trope Theory in Geneva, December 2008. Photo courtesy of Francesco Orilia. More shots here.

Marathons Reduce Car Crash Deaths

It makes the news when a runner drops dead during a marathon, but it is not news when a motorist dies in a crash. This contributes to the illusion that marathoning is dangerous when it is not, compared to other things we do on a daily basis such as pilot metallic behemoths at 70 miles per hour over roads crammed with coffee-drinking, hamburger-munching, map-reading, cell-phone yacking, text-messaging, makeup-applying, substance-abusing, radio-tuning, CD-grabbing, and yes (I've seen it from my high SUV perch) masturbating motorists. According to this source:

Heart stoppage killed 26 marathoners during races in the U.S. over the past 30 years, but Donald A. Redelmeier, M.D., and J. Ari Greenwald, of the University of Toronto, found 46 fewer motor vehicle fatalities than expected while the races were underway.

"For each person who died from sudden cardiac death, we estimated a ratio of almost two lives saved from fatal crashes that would otherwise have occurred," they wrote in the Dec. 22 issue of the BMJ.

So when I race I not only maintain my fitness, prove that the strenuous life is best by test, battle the hebetude of the flesh, contribute (via entry fees) to worthy causes, celebrate life, commune with my fellow mortals in a manner that rubs our noses in our mortality and frailty, and what all else — I also help reduce car crash deaths!

My Cat, My Companion

One can see the Latin panis, bread, lurking within 'companion.' A companion, then, is one with whom one breaks bread or shares a meal. In this root sense, my cat Caissa is undeniably my companion. For after she has enjoyed her Fancy Feast repast, she is by my side eyeing my linguine in clam sauce or sauteed scallops. Gastronomically at least, nothing is too good for her. I acquiesce in her demands. But that is the extent of my humanization of her. She has acquired the human vices of gluttony and sloth but none of the human virtues.

Why Be Consistent? Three Types of Consistency

A reader inquires:

This idea of the necessity to be consistent seems to be the logician's "absolute," as though being inconsistent was the most painful accusation one could endure. [. . .] What rule of life says that one must be absolutely consistent in how one evaluates truth? It is good to argue from first principles but it can also lead one down a rat hole.

Before we can discuss whether one ought to be consistent, we need to know which type of consistency is at issue. There are at least three types of consistency that people often confuse and that need to be kept distinct. I'll call them 'logical,' 'pragmatic,' and 'diachronic.' But it doesn't matter how we label them as long as we keep them separate.

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Word of the Day: Inconcinnity

My elite readers no doubt know this word, but I learned it just today. It means lack of suitability or congruity: INELEGANCE. 'Concinnity' is also a word. From the Latin concinnitas, from concinnus, skillfully put together, it means: harmony and often elegance of design especially of literary style in adaptation of parts to a whole or to each other. (Webster's New Collegiate, 1977, p. 234.)

Never allow a word to escape your comprehension. If you encounter a word you don't know, write it down and look it up. Keep a list of words and definitions in a notebook you regularly consult. It might be an online notebook like this one. Having written this post, 'inconcinnity' is a word I am not likely to forget. For there is nothing I write on this weblog that I do not reread, with pleasure, many times.

Dave Gudeman on Modality and ‘Antifactuals’

Long-time contributor Dave Gudeman coins the term 'antifactual' and then asks:

So, what are the truth conditions of an antifactual such as

(A) While the tree in my yard boasts 17,243 leaves at time t, it could have boasted 17,244 leaves at time t.

Here are some candidates:

(1) if the history of the tree had been different then …
(2) if the laws of physics had been different then …
(3) there exists a set of propositions S that were true at times before t such that, had each member of S been false, then given the truth of the various laws of physics and biology, an omniscient being could infer [could have inferred] that the number of leaves would be 17,244 at time t.
(4) there exists a set of propositions S that were true at times before t such that, had each member of S been false, then given the truth of the various laws of physics and biology, I can infer [could have inferred] by my normal power of reasoning and prediction that the number of leaves would be 17,244 at time t.

The problem with all of these candidates is that I don't think you can really know that any of them is true, but Peter, Bill et al. seem to be committed to the proposition that humans can know the truth of antifactuals. I can't come up with anything that humans could know the truth of short of the fact that (A) is not ruled out by mathematics or logic. But I've already discussed the problems with that interpretation. [In the portion of Dave's comments that I haven't quoted.] So that's what I mean when I say that I suspect that antifactuals, when used in a philosophical sense as Peter, Bill, et al use them are incoherent. I cannot figure out what the truth conditions of such propositions are. I can come up with several candidates, but none of them seems to be consistent with the usage and with what Peter, Bill, et al have said about modal propositions.

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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Is That All There Is?

This strange Peggy Lee number is a candidate for the office of philosophically deepest popular song. If memory serves, it made the charts Stateside in the late 1960's. But it is the sort of song one would have expected to hear in a cabaret in Berlin in the decadent 1920's. 'Ockham' tells me that it is a Leiber and Stoller composition, and indeed it is. Surprising, given the other songs they wrote. It smacks of Weill-Brecht more than of Leiber-Stoller.

Bette Midler's version.

Nihilism was never so pleasantly packaged.

Can Existence Be Ostensively Defined?

Here is a remarkable passage from Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, expanded 2nd ed., p. 41:

Ostensive definitions are usually regarded as applicable only to conceptualized sensations. But they are applicable to axioms as well. Since axiomatic concepts are identifications of irreducible primaries, the only way to define one is by means of an ostensive definition — e.g., to define 'existence,' one would have to sweep one's arm around and say: 'I mean this.'

Now that's an interesting suggestion! Let's put it to the test.

Continue reading “Can Existence Be Ostensively Defined?”