Aporetics – Page 9 – Maverick Philosopher

The Aporetics of Singular Sentences

I should issue a partial retraction. I wrote earlier,"The TFL representation of singular sentences as quantified sentences does not capture their logical form, and this is an inadequacy of TFL, and a point in favor of MPL." ('TFL' is short for 'traditional formal logic'; 'MPL' for 'modern predicate logic with identity.' )

The animadversions of Edward the Nominalist have made me see that my assertion is by no means obvious, and may in the end be just a dogma of analytic philosophy which has prevailed because endlessly repeated and rarely questioned. Consider again this obviously valid argument:

1. Pittacus is a good man
2. Pittacus is a wise man
—–
3. Some wise man is a good man.

The traditional syllogistic renders the argument as follows:

Every Pittacus is a wise man
Some Pittacus is a good man
—–
Some wise man is a good man.

This has the form:

Every P is a W
Some P is a G
—–
Some W is a G.

This form is easily shown to be valid by the application of the syllogistic rules.

In my earlier post I then repeated a stock objection which I got from Peter Geach:

But is it logically acceptable to attach a quantifier to a singular term? How could a proper name have a sign of logical quantity prefixed to it? 'Pittacus' denotes or names exactly one individual. 'Every Pittacus' denotes the very same individual. So we should expect 'Every Pittacus is wise' and 'Pittacus is wise' to exhibit the same logical behavior. But they behave differently under negation.

The negation of 'Pittacus is wise' is 'Pittacus is not wise.' So, given that 'Pittacus' and 'every Pittacus' denote the same individual, we should expect that the negation of 'Every Pittacus is wise' will be 'Every Pittacus is not wise.' But that is not the negation (contradictory) of 'Every Pittacus is wise'; it is its contrary. So 'Pittacus is wise' and 'Every Pittacus is wise' behave differently under negation, which shows that their logical form is different.

My objection, in nuce, was that 'Pittacus is wise' and 'Pittacus is not wise' are contradictories, not contraries, while 'Every Pittacus is wise' and 'Every Pittacus is not wise' ('No Pittacus is wise') are contraries. Therefore, TFL does not capture or render perspicuous the logical form of 'Pittacus is wise.'

To this, Edward plausibly objected:

As I have argued here before, ‘Pittacus is wise’ and ‘Pittacus is not wise’ are in fact contraries. For the first implies that someone (Pittacus) is wise. The second implies that someone (Pittacus again) is not wise. Both imply the existence of Pittacus (or at least – to silence impudent quibblers – that someone is Pittacus). Thus they are contraries. Both are false when no one is Pittacus.

I now concede that this is a very good point. A little later Edward writes,

The thing is, you really have a problem otherwise. If 'Socrates is wise' and 'Socrates is not wise' are contradictories, and if 'Socrates is not wise' implies 'someone (Socrates) is not wise', as standard MPC holds, you are committed to the thesis that the sentence is not meaningful when Socrates ceases to exist (or if he never existed because Plato made him up). Which (on my definition) is Direct Reference.

So you have this horrible choice: Direct reference or Traditional Logic.

But must we choose? Consider 'Vulcan is uninhabited.' Why can't I, without jettisoning any of the characteristic tenets of MPL, just say that this sentence, though it appears singular is really general because 'Vulcan' is not a logically proper name but a definite description in disguise? Accordingly, what the sentence says is that a certain concept — the concept planet between Mercury and the Sun — has as a Fregean mark (Merkmal) the concept uninhabited.

Now consider the pair 'Socrates is dead' – 'Socrates is not dead.' Are these contraries or contradictories? If contraries, then they can both be false. Arguably, they are both false since Socrates does not exist, given that presentism is true. Since both are false, both are meaningful. But then 'Socrates ' has meaning despite its not referring to anything. So 'Socrates' has something like a Fregean sense. But what on earth could this be, given that 'Socrates' unlike 'Vulcan' names an individual that existed, and so has a nonqualitative thisnsess incommunicable to any other individual?

If, on the other hand, the meaning of 'Socrates' is its referent, then, given that presentism is true and Socrates does not exist, there is no referent in which case both sentences are meaningless.

So once again we are in deep aporetic trouble. The proper name of a past individual cannot have a reference-determining sense. This is because any such sense would have to be a Plantingian haecceity-property, and I have already shown that these cannot exist. But if we say that 'Socrates' does not have a reference-determining sense but refers directly in such a way as to require Socrates to exist if 'Socrates' is to have meaning, then, given presentism, 'Socrates' and the sentence of which it is a part is meaningless.

Bad to Die Young but Not Bad to Die? An Aporetic Dyad

Herewith, a rumination on death with Epicurus as presiding shade. The following two propositions are both logically inconsistent and yet very plausible:

1. Being dead is not an evil for anyone at any time.

2. Being dead at a young age is an evil for some.

Obviously, the limbs of the dyad cannot both be true. Each entails the negation of the other. And yet each limb lays serious claim to our acceptance.

(1) is rendered credible by Epicurean reasoning along the following lines. It is reasonably maintained that bodily death is annihilation of the self or person. Now in the absence of a person, there is nothing to possess properties, experiential or not, such as being conscious, being dead, being nonexistent, etc. We are assuming that a person's corpse cannot be the subject of the putative state of being dead. When I am dead and thus nonexistent my corpse will continue to exist for a time. (Assuming my end doesn't come in the form of 'vaporization.') But I am not my corpse. My being dead is not my corpse's being dead, for it is not dead: only what was once alive can properly be said to be dead, and my corpse is never alive. I am dead, if I am, not my corpse. So my corpse cannot be the subject of the putative state of my being dead. And anyway my being dead will obtain at future times when my corpse will not exist. So for this reason too my corpse cannot be the subject of the putative state of my being dead.

There is, then, no subject of being dead if death is annihilation. Since there is no subject, there is, strictly speaking, no state of my being dead. A state is a state of something in the state, and in this case nothing is in the state. It follows that the 'state' of my being dead cannot be an evil state. There is no such state, so it can't be evil — or good, or anything. It furthermore follows that being dead cannot rationally be feared — or looked forward to either. 'I'll be glad when I'm dead 'makes as little sense given the cogency of the Epicurean reasoning as 'I'll be sad when I'm dead' or Warren Zevon's 'I'll sleep when I'm dead.'

Support for (2) has its source in a widely-accepted intuition. Suppose a happy, healthy, well-situated 20 year old full of life and promise dies suddenly and painlessly in a freak accident. Almost all will agree that in cases like this being dead (which we distinguish from both the process and the event of dying) is an evil, and therefore neither good nor axiologically neutral. It is an evil for the person who is dead whether or not it is an evil for anyone else. It is an evil because it deprives him of all the intrinsic goods he would have enjoyed had he not met an untimely end.

It is not quite the same for the 90 year old. One cannot be deprived of the impossible (as a matter of conceptual necessity), and the older one gets the closer the approach to the nomologically impossible. (I assume that there is some age — 150? — at which it become nomologically impossible for what could reasonably count as a human being to continue to live.) So one cannot employ the same reasoning in the two cases. If we say that the being dead of the 20 year old is bad because it deprives him of future goods, we cannot give the same reason for the badness ( if it is badness) of the being dead of the 90 year old. Someone who lives a life that is on balance happy and healthy and productive and then dies of natural causes at 90 or 100 is arguably not deprived of anything by his being dead.

The problem, then, is that (1) and (2) cannot both be true, yet each is plausible.

The Ought-to-Be and the Ought-to-Do and the Aporetics of “Be Ye Perfect”

Is there any justification for talk of the ought-to-be in cases where they are not cases of the ought-to-do?

Let's begin by noting that if I ought to do X (pay my debts, feed my kids, keep my hands off my neighbor's wife, etc.) then my doing X ought to be. For example, given that I ought to pay my debts, then my paying a certain debt on a certain date is a state of affairs that ought to be, ought to exist, ought to obtain. So it is not as if the ought-to-do and the ought-to-be form disjoint classes. For every act X that an agent A ought to do, there is a state of affairs, A's doing X, that ought to be, and a state of affairs, A's failing to do X, that ought not be. The ought-to-do, therefore, is a case of the ought-to-be.

My question, however, is whether there are states of affairs that ought to be even in situations in which there are no moral agents with power sufficient to bring them about, and states of affairs that ought not be even in situations in which there are no moral agents with power sufficient to prevent them. In other words, are there non-agential oughts? Does it make sense, and is it true, to say things like 'There ought to be fewer diseases than there are' or 'There ought to be no natural disasters' or 'There ought to be morally perfect people'? Or consider

1. I ought to be a better man that I am, indeed, I ought to be morally perfect.

(1) expresses an axiological requirement but (arguably) not a moral obligation because it is simply not in my power to perfect myself, nor is it in any finite person's power or any group of finite person's power to perfect me. Now consider the following aporetic triad:

1. I ought to be morally perfect or at least better than I am in ways over which I have no control.

2. I lack the power to be what I ought to be, and this impotence is due to no specific fault of my own. (My impotence is 'original,' part and parcel of the 'fallen' human condition, not derived from any particular act or act-omission of mine.)

3. 'Ought' implies 'Can': one can be obliged to do X only if one has an effective choice as to whether to do X.

The triad is inconsistent in that (1) & (3) entails ~(2). Indeed, any two limbs, taken together, entail the negation of the remaining one. How can the inconsistency be removed?

A. One solution is simply to deny (1) by claiming that there is no sense of 'ought' in which one ought to be morally perfect or better than one is in ways over which one has no control. This strikes me as counterintuitive. For there does seems to me to be some sense in which I ought to be perfect. I feel the force of the NT verse, "Be ye perfect as your heavenly father is perfect." I have the strong intuition that I ought to be, if not perfect, at least better in respects where I simply lack the power to bring about the improvement.

B. A second solution is to distinguish between agential and non-agential oughts. We can then maintain (1) as true by maintaining that the 'ought' in (1) is non-agential and expresses an axiological requirement as opposed to a moral obligation. So interpreted, (1) is consistent with (2) and (3).

We can then transform the above triad into an argument:

4. (1)-(3) are all true.
5. (1)-(3) would not all be true if there were no distinction between agential and non-agential oughts.
Therefore
6. There is a distinction between agential and non-agential oughts.

C. A third solution is to maintain the truth of (1)-(3) while also maintaining that all oughts are agential. But then how avoid inconsistency? One might maintain that, when restricted to my own resources, I lack the power to do what I ought to do; yet I am morally obliged to perfect myself; and since 'ought' implies 'can,' the power that I need must be supplied in part from a Source external to myself. "And this all men call God." So God exists!

In short, the inconsistency is avoided by bringing God into the picture as one who supplies individuals with the supplemental power to do what they are morally obliged to do when that power is insufficient from their own resources. This gives rise to an argument for the existence of an external source of moral assistance:

7. I am morally obliged (ought) to do things that I cannot do on my own.
8. 'Ought' implies 'can'.
Therefore

9. I can do things that I cannot do on my own.
Therefore
10. There is an external source of moral assistance that makes up the difference between what I can do on my own and what I cannot.

Summary

I have sketched two arguments which need closer scrutiny. The one based on the (B) response to the triad gives some, though not a conclusive, reason for accepting a distinction between agential and non-agential oughts.

Self-Reference and Individual Concepts

The following can happen. You see yourself but without self-recognition. You see yourself, but not as yourself. Suppose you walk into a room which unbeknownst to you has a mirror covering the far wall. You are slightly alarmed to see a wild-haired man with his fly open approaching you. You are looking at yourself but you don't know it. (The lighting is bad, you've had a few drinks . . . .) You think to yourself

1. That man has his fly open!
but not
2. I have my fly open!

Now these propositions — assuming they are propositions — are obviously different. For one thing, they have different behavioral consequences. I can believe the first without taking action with respect to my fly, or any fly. (I'm certainly not going to go near the other guy's fly.) But if I believe the second I will most assuredly button my fly, or pull up my zipper.

So it seems clear that (1) and (2) are different propositions. I can believe one without believing the other. But how can this be given the plain fact that 'that man' and 'I' refer to the same man? Both propositions predicate the same property of the same subject. So what makes them distinct propositions?

I know what your knee-jerk response will be. You will say that, while 'I' and 'that man' have the same referent, they differ in sense just like 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus.' Just as one can believe that Hesperus is F without believing that Phosphorus is F despite the identity of the two, one can believe that (1) without believing that (2) despite the fact that the subject terms are coreferential.

The trouble with this response is that it requires special 'I'-senses, and indeed a different one for each user of the first-person singular pronoun. These go together with special 'I'-propositions which are a species of indexical proposition. When I believe that I am F, I refer to myself via a special Fregean sense which has the following property: it is necessarily a mode of presentation of me alone. We can also think of this 'I'-sense as an individual concept or haecceity-concept. It is a concept such that, if it is instantiated, it is instantiated (i) by me, (ii) by nothing distinct from me, (iii) and by the same person in every possible world in which it is instantiated.

But what on earth (or on Twin Earth) could this concept be, and how could I grasp it? The concept has to 'pin me down' in every possible world in which I exist. It has to capture my very thisness, or, in Latin, my haecceitas. But a better Latin word is ipseitas, ipseity, selfhood, my being a self, this one and no other. In plain old Anglo-Saxon it is the concept of me-ness, the concept of being me.

The theory, then, is that my awareness that

3. I am that man!

consists in my awareness that the concept expressed by 'I' and the concept expressed by 'that man' are instantiated by one and the same individual. But this theory is no good because, even if my use of 'I' expresses an haecceity-concept, that is not a concept I can grasp or understand. Maybe God can grasp my haecceity, but I surely can't. Individuum ineffabile est said the Scholastics, echoing Aristotle. No finite mind can 'eff' the ineffable. The individual in his individuality, in his very haecceity and ipseity, is ineffable.

Self-reference is not routed though sense, however things may stand with respect to other-reference. When I refer to myself using the first-person singular pronoun, I do not refer to myself via a Fregean sense.

So here is the problem expressed as an aporetic pentad:

a. (1) and (2) express different Fregean propositions.
b. If two Fregean propositions are different, then they must differ in a constituent.
c. The difference can only reside in a difference in subject constituents.
d. The subject constituent of (2) is ineffable.
e. No sense (mode of presentation) or humanly-graspable concept can be ineffable.

This pentad is inconsistent: (a)-(d), taken together, entail the negation of (e). The only limb that has a chance of being false is (a). One could say that (1) and (2), though clearly different, are not different by expressing different Fregean propositions. But then what would our positive theory have to be?

Mental Acts Versus Mental Actions: Sellars and Bergmann

I have been assuming that there are mental acts and that there are mental actions and that they must not be confused. It's high time for a bit of exfoliation. Suppose I note that the front door of an elderly neighbor's house has been left ajar. That noting is a mental act, but it is not an action. I didn't do anything to bring about that mental state; I didn't decide to put myself in the state in question; I just happened to see that the door has been left ajar. There is nothing active or spontaneous about the noting; it is by contrast passive and receptive. But now suppose I deliberate about whether I should walk onto the man's property and either shut the door or inform him that it is ajar. Suppose he is a cranky old S.O.B. with an equally irascible old dog. I might decide that it's better to mind my own business and "let sleeping dogs lie." The deliberating is a mental action. So, assuming that there are mental acts and assuming that there are mental actions, it seems as clear as anything that they are different.

Why then are mental acts called acts if they are not actions? It is because they are occurrent rather than dispositional. Not everything mental is occurrent. For example, you believe that every number has a successor even when you are dead drunk or dreamlessly asleep. This is not an occurrent believing. Indeed, you have beliefs that have never occurred to you. Surely you believe that no coyote has ever communicated with a bobcat by cellphone, although I will lay money on the proposition that you have never thought of this before. You believe the proposition expressed by the italicized clause in that you are disposed to assent to it if the question comes up. So in that sense you do believe that no coyote, etc.

Mental acts are so-called, therefore, because they are actual or occurrent as opposed to potential or dispositional. My noting that the old man's door has been left ajar is an occurrent perceptual taking that is not in the control of my will. As Wilfrid Sellars points out,

It is nonsense to speak of taking something to be the case 'on purpose.' Taking is an act in the Aristotelian sense of 'actuality' rather than in the specialized practical sense which refers to conduct. A taking may be, on occasion, an element of a scrutinizing — which latter is indeed an action in the practical sense. To take another example, one may decide to do a certain action, but it is logical nonsense to speak of deciding to will to do it; yet volitions, of course, are mental acts. (Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes, Humanities Press, 1968, p. 74.)

Another example Sellars cites is drawing a conclusion from premises. That is a mental action, but there are mental acts involved in this will-driven thinking process. One is the 'seeing' that the conclusion follows from the premises. It cannot be said that I decide to accept a conclusion that I 'see' follows from certain other propositions. The will is not involved. The 'seeing' is a mental act, but not a mental action.

Gustav Bergmann says essentially the same thing. "An act is not an activity and an activity is not an act." (Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong, University of Wisconsin Press, 1967, p. 153.) He says that this was crystal clear to Brentano and Meinong, but that in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition 'act' carries an implication of activity. "In the Aristotlelian-Thomistic account . . . an act of perceiving is the 'abstracting' of a substantial form; and an 'abstracting' is an activity." (Ibid.)

Very interesting. It sounds right to me, though I wonder if all Thomists would agree. Not being a Thomist, I incline to the later view. So as I use 'mental act' a mental act is not a mental action or activity. This is of course consistent, as already indicated, with its being the issue of certain mental actions.

A deeper and more important question is whether there are mental acts at all. Their existence is not obvious — or is it? Wittgenstein appears to have denied the existence of mental acts. Bergmann believes he did, while Geach believes he did not. There is also the related but distinct question whether mental acts require a subject distinct from the act which remains numerically the same over time. But is even a momentary subject needed? Why couldn't awareness be totally subjectless, a "wind blowing towards objects" in the Sartrean image? Butchvarov takes a line similar to Sartre's.

Clearly, there has to be some distinction between conscious intentionality and its objects. That's a rock-bottom datum upon which "our spade is turned" to borrow a phrase from old Ludwig. But why must consciousness be articulated into discrete acts? Why believe in acts at all? What are the phenomenological and dialectical considerations that speak in their favor?

Future posts will tackle all these questions as we plunge deeper into the aporetics of mind and bang into one impasse after another. It should prove to be a humbling experience.

The Aporetics of the Intentional Object, Part I

Here is a puzzle that may be thought to motivate a distinction between intentional and real objects, a distinction that turns out to be problematic indeed.

Puzzle. One cannot think without thinking of something, but if one is thinking of something, it does not follow that something is such that one is thinking of it.

Example. Tom is thinking of the fountain of youth. So he is thinking of something. But there is no fountain of youth. So from the fact that Tom is thinking of the fountain of youth, it does not follow that something is such that Tom is thinking of it.

The puzzle expressed as an aporetic dyad:

1. One cannot think without thinking of something.
2. If one is thinking of something, it does not follow that something is such that one is thinking of it.

Both limbs make a strong claim on our acceptance. The first is utterly datanic. The second, though exceedingly plausible, and indeed true as far as I can see, is not datanic. It is reasonably denied by Meinong and the Meinongians. For if some items have no being at all, and if the fountain of youth counts as a beingless item (as it does for Meinong & Co.), and if Tom is thinking of the fountain of youth, then it does follow that something is such that Tom is thinking of it. This shows that our puzzle rests on a presupposition which ought to be added to our dyad so as to sire the following aporetic triad or antilogism:

1. One cannot think without thinking of something.
2. If one is thinking of something, it does not follow that something is such that one is thinking of it.
3. There are no beingless items.

Though the limbs are individually plausible, they appear collectively inconsistent. If they really are inconsistent, then we face a genuine aporia, an intellectual impasse: we have three propositions each of which we have excellent reason to think is true, but which cannot all be true on pain of logical contradiction.

There is at least the appearance of contradiction. For if Tom is thinking of a mermaid, and there are no mermaids, then Tom is both thinking of something and not thinking of something. Tom's thought has an object and it does not have an object. It has an object because no one can think without thinking of something. It does not have an object because there are no mermaids. So we have at least an apparent contradiction.

To dispel the appearance of contradiction, one could make a distinction. So let us distinguish the intentional object from the real object and see what happens. Every intentional state is a directedness to an object, and the intentional object is simply that to which the intentional state is directed precisely as it is intended in the mental act with all and only the properties it is intended as having. So when Tom thinks of a mermaid, a mermaid is his intentional object. For it is that to which his thought is directed. But there is no 'corresponding' real object because there are no mermaids in reality. Accordingly, 'Tom's thought has an object and it does not have an object' is only apparently a contradiction since what it boils down to is 'Tom's thought has an intentional object but it does not have a real object' — which is not a contradiction.

Unfortunately, this solution brings with it its own difficulties. In this post I will mention just one.

The putative solution says that if I am thinking about Pegasus or Atlantis or the fountain of youth, my thinking has an intentional object, but that there is no corresponding real object. But what if I am thinking of Peter, who exists? In this case the theory will have to maintain that there is a real object corresponding to the intentional object. It will have to maintain this because every intentional state has an intentional object. The theory, then, says that when we intend the nonexistent, there is only an intentional object. But when we intend the existent, there is both an intentional object and a corresponding real object. There is a decisive objection to this theory.

Clearly, if I am thinking about Peter, I am thinking about him and not about some surrogate intentional object, immanent to the mental act, which somehow mediates between the act and Peter himself. The mental act terminates at Peter and not at an intentional object. Intentionality, after all, is that feature of mental states whereby they refer beyond themselves to items that are neither parts of the mental act nor existentially dependent on the mental act. Clearly, it is intrinsic to the intentionality of my thinking of Peter that my thinking intends something that exists whether or not I am thinking of it.

This objection puts paid to the notion that intentionality relates a mind (or a state of a mind) to a merely intentional object which functions as an epistemic intermediary or epistemic surrogate. This scheme fails to accommodate the fact that intentionality by its very nature involves a transcending of the mind and its contents towards the transcendent. Suppose I am thinking about a mountain. Whether it exists or not, what I intend is (i) something whose nature is physical and not mental; and (ii) something that exists whether or not I am thinking about it.

The point I just made is that when I think of Peter, it is Peter himself that my thought reaches: my thought does not terminate at a merely intentional object, immanent to the act, which merely stands for or goes proxy for or represents Peter. This point is well-nigh datanic. If you don't understand it, you don't understand intentionality. One will be tempted to accommodate this point by saying that when one thinks of what exists, the IO = the RO. But this can't be right either. For the intentional object is always an incomplete object, a fact that reflects the finitude of the human mind. But Peter in reality is a complete object. Now identity is governed by the Indiscernibility of Identicals which states, roughly, that if x = y, then x and y share all properties. But the IO and the RO do not share all properties: The IO is indeterminate with respect to some properties while the RO is wholly determinate. Therefore, the IO is never identical to the RO.

So the point I made cannot be accommodated by saying that the IO = the RO in the case when one thinks of the existent.

Where does this leave us? I argued that our initial puzzle codified first as a dyad and then as a triad motivates a distinction between intentional and real objects. The distinction was introduced in alleviation of inconsistency. But then we noted a serious difficulty with the distinction. But if the distinction cannot be upheld, how do we solve the aporetic triad? It looks as if the distinction is one we need to make, but cannot make.

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.

The Twardowski-Meinong-Grossmann Solution to the Problem of Intentionality

Perhaps the central problem to which the phenomenon of intentionality gives rise can be set forth in terms of an aporetic triad:

1. We sometimes think about the nonexistent.
2. Intentionality is a relation between thinker and object of thought.
3. Every relation R is such that, if R obtains,then all its relata exist.

The datanic first limb is nonnegotiable, a 'Moorean fact.' The other two limbs, being more theoretical, can be denied if one is willing to pay the price. But something has to give since they cannot all be true.

Brentano denied (2) with unpalatable consequences to be explored in a separate post. Why not accept (2), deny (3) and admit that there are abnormal relations, relations that connect existents with nonexistents?

Consider the round square, that well-worn example that goes back at least to Bernard Bolzano. Since there is no such thing, and cannot be, one will be tempted to say that the round square is an idea (presentation, Vorstellung) without an object. That is what Bolzano maintained using that very example of rundes Viereck. (Theory of Science, pp. 88-89) In section 5 of Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen (1894), Kasimir Twardowski criticizes Bolzano's position.

Twardowski distinguishes among the following: there is the expression 'the round square.' Then there is the mental act, the act of presentation (Vorstellungsact) that transpires in someone who uses the expression with understanding. Corresponding to the act is a content (Inhalt) which constitutes the meaning of the expression. But there is also a fourth item, that to which the expression refers, the round square itself, that which combines logically incompatible properties and whose existence one denies as soon as one advances from the presentation round square to a judgment about it. (Cf. the Brentanian theses that judgments are founded upon presentations, and that every judgment is existential, involving the acceptance or rejection of a presentation.)

This of course sticks in the craw. One hesitates to admit that there is something outside the mind to which 'round square' refers, something that has the property of nonexistence. It smacks of a contradiction. Clearly, 'There exists an x such that x does not exist' IS a contradiction, but this is not what a Meinongian will say.

Note that Twardowski has a couple of powerful reasons for not identifying the round square and its colleagues with mental contents. The first is that contents exist while nonexistent objects don't. So the round square cannot be identified with the content expressed by 'the round square.' The second reason is that we ascribe to the round square attributes that not only cannot be ascribed to the corresponding content, but are logically incompatible to boot. Thus no content is round and no content is square and of course no content is both round and square. Since contents exist, they cannot have contradictory properties.

These arguments, spelled out a bit perhaps, show that mental contents cannot go proxy for nonexistent items, whether merely possible like the celebrated golden mountain or impossible like the round square. One could extend the argument to cover abstract objects which are not mental contents or in any way mind-dependent. They too are unsuited to go proxy for nonexistents. For (1) abstracta exist while nonexistents do not, and (2) the properties of nonexistent concreta cannot be attributed to abstracta. Thus a flying horse is an animal, a golden mountain is a mountain, and a round square is round. But no abstract object is an animal or a mountain or round.

When I think about the round square or the golden mountain (in whatever psychological mode) the object of my thought is neither a mental content nor an abstract object. What is it then? Why, it is the round square or the golden mountain! As bizarre as this sounds, it makes a certain amount of sense. If I want to climb the golden mountain, I want to climb a physical prominence, not a mental content or an abstractum.

The position under examination, then, is not only that every mental act has a content, but that every mental act has an object as well. But not all of these objects exist. One obvious advantage of this approach is that it allows us to hold onto (2) of our opening triad in full generality: in every case, intentionality relates a thinker through a content to a transcendent object, and not to some surrogate object, either!

Why is this a good thing? Well, if intentionality is relational only in some cases, the veridical cases, then it cannot be essential to mental acts to be of an object: whether or not an act actually has an object will depend on contingent facts in the world beyond the mind. For Brentano, all mental acts are intentional by their very nature as mental. The Twardowski-Meinong approach upholds this.

But the price is very steep: one must accept that there are items that actually instantiate properties (not merely possibly instantiate them), and that these items nevertheless do not exist, or indeed, as on Meinong's actual view, have any mode of being at all. This is his famous doctrine of the Aussersein des reinen Gegenstandes, the 'extrabeing of the pure object.' Thus the golden mountain is actually golden and actually a mountain despite having no being whatsoever. It is a pure Sosein utterly devoid of Sein.

Some, like van Inwagen, think that Meinong's theory of objects is obviously self-contradictory. I don't believe this is right, for reasons detailed here. Even so, I find Meinong's theory incoherent. 'Some items have no being at all' is not a formal contradiction. Still, I cannot get a mental grip on the notion of an item that actually has properties, but is wholly beingless.

In addition, one must accept that there are genuine relations that connect existents to nonexistents.

The price is too steep to pay. The Twardowski-Meinong-Grossmann solution is just as problematic as the original problem.

REFERENCE: Reinhardt Grossmann, The Categorial Structure of the World, Indiana UP, 1983, p. 197 ff.

On Reference: An Aporetic Septad

We can divide the following seven propositions into two groups, a datanic triad and a theoretical tetrad. The members of the datanic triad are just given — hence 'datanic' — and so are not up for grabs, whence it follows that to relieve ourselves of the ensuing contradiction we must reject one of the members of the theoretical tetrad. The funs starts when we ponder which one to reject. But first you must appreciate that the septad is indeed inconsistent.

   D1. Sam believes that Cicero is a philosopher.
   D2. Cicero is Tully.
   D3. It is not the case that Sam believes that Tully is a philosopher.

   T1. 'Cicero' and 'Tully' have the same denotation (are coreferential)
   in all of their occurrences in the datanic sentences, both in the
   direct speech and indirect speech positions.
   T2. 'Is' in (D2) expresses strict, numerical identity where this has
   the usual properties of reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity, and the
   necessity of identity (if x = y, then necessarily, x = y).
   T3. Cicero has the property of being believed by Sam to be a
   philosopher.
   T4. If x = y, then whatever is true of x is true of y, and vice versa.
   (Indiscernibility of Identicals)

Now, do you see that this septad is pregnant with contradiction? By (T3), Cicero has a certain property, the property of being believed by Sam to be a philosopher. Therefore, given the truth of (T1) and (T4), Tully has that same property. But this implies the negation of (D3).

To remove the contradiction, we must reject one of the T-propositions. The D-propositions express the data of the problem. Obviously, they can't be rejected. Of course, nothing hinges on the particular example. There are countless examples of the same form. Someone could believe that 3 is one of the square roots of 9 without believing that one of the square roots of 9 is a prime number, even though 3 is a prime number.

The Fregean solution is to reject (T1). In (D1), 'Cicero' refers to its customary sense, not its customary referent, while in (D2), 'Cicero' refers to its customary referent. This implies that the antecedent of (T4) remains unsatisfied so that one cannot conclude that Tully has the property of being believed by Sam to be a philosopher.

A different solution, one proposed by Hector-Neri Castaneda, is achieved by rejecting (T2) while upholding the rest of the T-propositions. The rough idea is that 'Cicero' in all its occurrences refers to a 'thin' object, an ontological guise, a sort of ontological part of ordinary infinitely-propertied particulars. This ontological guise is not strictly identical to the ontological guise denoted by 'Tully,' but the two are "consubstantiated" in Castaneda's jargon.

This consubstantiation is a type of contingent sameness. Since Cicero and Tully are not strictly identical, but merely consubstantiated, the fact that Cicero has the property of being believed by Sam to be a philosopher does not entail that Tully has this property. So the contradiction does not arise. (Cf. The Phenomeno-Logic of the I, pp. 183-186)

Both solutions invoke what our friend 'Ockham' calls 'queer entities' using 'queer' in the good old-fashioned way. The Fregean solution requires those abstract entities called senses and the Castanedan solution posits ontological guises. Can 'Ockham' solve the problem while satisfying all his nominalistic scruples?

Can a man in a straight-jacket do the tango?

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.

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.'

Can I Stand Unflinchingly for Convictions that I Accept as Only Relatively Valid?

Isaiah Berlin's great essay "Two Concepts of Liberty" concludes as follows:

'To realise the relative validity of one's convictions', said an admirable writer of our time, ' and yet stand for them unflinchingly, is what distinguishes a civilised man from a barbarian.' To demand more than this is perhaps a deep and incurable metaphysical need; but to allow it to determine one's practice is a symptom of an equally deep, and more dangerous, moral and political immaturity. (Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford 1969, p. 172.)

A marginalium of mine from 1994 reads, "If I think my convictions merely relatively valid, how can I stand for them unflinchingly? Even if this is psychologically possible, it seems to be something we ought not do."

To expand upon my 1994 thought. The liberty of the individual to be free from coercion and obstruction — "negative liberty (freedom)" in Berlin's terminology — obviously comes into conflict with other things we deem valuable such as equality, security, and public order.

Consider how liberty and security are related. Liberty worth having is liberty within a context of security, and security is security worth having only if it makes possible a robust exercise of liberty. For example, my liberty to leave my house at any time of the day or night is worth very little if the probability is high that I will be accosted by muggers and other unsavory types when I step out my door. The security of a police state would prevent that but at a cost too high to pay.

So liberty and security, though both values, are competing values. Does one rank higher than the other such that we ought to prefer one to the other? In a concrete situation in which they come into conflict, one must choose. Consider for example a sobriety checkpoint on New Year's Eve when by custom booze intake is high. Such checkpoints involve a clear violation of the (negative) liberty of the individual, and yet they are arguably justifiable in the interests of security and public order.

Now suppose you have a conservative and a libertarian. In conflict situations, the conservative tends to rank security over liberty, while the libertarian does the opposite. They both agree that the values in play are indeed values, but they differ as to their prioritization. Suppose further something that seems obviously true, namely, that this value difference that divides them cannot be objectively resolved to the satisfaction of both parties by appeal to any empirical fact or by any reasoning or by any combination of the two.

Now here's the question. Given that the two maintain contradictory value-prioritization theses, how can either "stand unflinchingly" for his thesis given that each recognizes that each thesis is true only from his orientation, an orientation which rests crucially on his value-prioritization, a value-prioritization that he has no objective reason to prefer over that of his opponent?

I am suggesting that a truly civilized man, one who fully appreciates this predicament he is in, must give up his unflinchingness. He ought to flinch! After all, his opponent has all the same intellectual and moral virtues as he has –let us assume — is equally capable of reasoning cogently above whatever are the facts, and is equally well apprised of all empirical facts that bear on the issue. Isn't there something "barbaric" about insisting on one's own position assuming that all of these conditions have been met?

I agree with Berlin that it would be "dangerous and immature" to claim absolute truth for convictions that rest on value judgments that cannot be objectvely established. But once we get this far, then unflinchingness must also go by the board: what I recognize as true only from my point of view, I cannot hold in an unflinching manner.

And yet I must act, hold opinions, vote, take a stand, smite my enemies. Suspension of judgment and retreat from the political sphere does not seem to be a viable option — especially not in the face of a bunch of leftist totalitarians who want to so extend the public /political sphere so as to destroy the private. A hell of a bind we are in: we are essentially agents, hence must act, hence must stand fast, be resolute and smite our dangblasted political opponents — all the while realizing that we have no justification for our unflinchingness.

The admirable writer Berlin mentions is Joseph Schumpeter.

A Modal Ontological Argument and an Argument from Evil Compared

After leaving the polling place this morning, I headed out on a sunrise hike over the local hills whereupon the muse of philosophy bestowed upon me some good thoughts. Suppose we compare a modal ontological argument with an argument from evil in respect of the question of evidential support for the key premise in each. This post continues our ruminations on the topic of contingent support for noncontingent propositions.

A Modal Ontological Argument

'GCB' will abbreviate 'greatest conceivable being,' which is a rendering of Anselm of Canterbury's "that than which no greater can be conceived." 'World' abbreviates 'broadly logically possible world.'

1. The concept of the GCB is either instantiated in every world or it is instantiated in no world.

2. The concept of the GCB is instantiated in some world. Therefore:

3. The concept of the GCB is instantiated.

This is a valid argument: it is correct in point of logical form. Nor does it commit any informal fallacy such as petitio principii, as I argue in Religious Studies 29 (1993), pp. 97-110. Note also that this version of the OA does not require the controversial assumption that existence is a first-level property, an assumption that Frege famously rejects and that many read back (with some justification) into Kant. (Frege held that the OA falls with that assumption; he was wrong: the above version is immune to the Kant-Frege objection.)

(1) expresses what I will call Anselm's Insight. He appreciated, presumably for the first time in the history of thought, that a divine being, one worthy of worship, must be noncontingent, i.e., either necessary or impossible. I consider (1) nonnegotiable. If your god is contingent, then your god is not God. There is no god but God. End of discussion. It is premise (2) — the key premise — that ought to raise eyebrows. What it says — translating out of the patois of possible worlds — is that it it possible that the GCB exists.

Whereas conceptual analysis of 'greatest conceivable being' suffices in support of (1), how do we support (2)? Why should we accept it? Some will say that the conceivability of the GCB entails its possibility. But I deny that conceivability entails possibility. I won't argue that now, though I do say something about conceivability here. Suppose you grant me that conceivability does not entail BL-possibility. You might retreat to this claim: It may not entail it, but it is evidence for it: the fact that we can conceive of a state of affairs S is defeasible evidence of S's possibility.

Please note that Possibly the GCB exists — which is logically equivalent to (2) — is necessarily true if true. This is a consequence of the characteristic S5 axiom of modal propositional logic: Poss p –> Nec Poss p. ('Characteristic' in the sense that it is what distinguishes S5 from S4 which is included in S5.) So if the only support for (2) is probabilistic or evidential, then we have the puzzle we encountered earlier: how can there be probabilistic support for a noncontingent proposition? But now the same problem arises on the atheist side.

An Argument From Evil

4. If the concept of the GCB is instantiated, then there are no gratuitous evils.

5. There are some gratuitous evils. Therefore:

6. The concept of the GCB is not instantiated.

This too is a deductive argument, and it is valid. It falls afoul of no informal fallacy. (4), like (1), is nonnegotiable. Deny it, and I show you the door. The key premise, then, the one on which the soundness of the argument rides, is (5). (5) is not obviously true. Even if it is obviously true that there are evils, it is not obviously true that there are gratuitous evils.

In fact, one might argue that the argument begs the question against the theist at line (5). For if there are any gratuitous evils, then by definition of 'gratuitous' God cannot exist. But I won't push this in light of the fact that in print I have resisted the claim that the modal OA begs the question at its key premise, (2) above.

So how do we know that (5) is true? Not by conceptual analysis. If we assume, uncontroversially, that there are some evils, then the following logical equivalence holds:

7. Necessarily, there are some gratuitous evils iff the GCB does not exist.

Left-to-right is obvious: if there are gratuitous evils, ones for which there is no justification, then a being having the standard omni-attributes cannot exist. Right-to-left: if there is no GCB and there are some evils, then there are some gratuitous evils. (On second thought, R-to-L may not hold, but I don't need it anyway.)

Now the RHS, if true, is necessarily true, which implies that the LHS — There are some gratuitious evils — is necessarily true if true.

Can we argue for the LHS =(5)? Perhaps one could argue like this (as one commenter suggested in an earlier thread): If the evils are nongratuitous, then probably we would have conceived of justifying reasons for them. But we cannot conceive of justifying reasons. Therefore, probably there are gratuitous evils.

But now we face our old puzzle: How can the probability of there being gratuitous evils show that there are gratuitous evils given that There are gratuitous evils, if true, is necessarily true?

Conclusion

We face the same problem with both arguments, the modal OA for the existence of the GCB, and the argument from evil for the nonexistence of the GCB. The key premises in both arguments — (2) and (5) — are necessarily true if true. The only support for them is evidential from contingent facts. But then we are back with our old puzzle: How can contingent evidence support noncontingent propositions?

Neither argument is probative and they appear to cancel each other out. Sextus Empiricus would be proud of me.

Political Aporetics: A Problem with Enforced Equality

This is a sequel to yesterday's post on liberty and (material) equality and their conflict. It should be read first. This post extends the analysis by pointing out a problem for socialists (redistributivists). So consider the following aporetic triad, the first two limbs of which are similar to the first two limbs of yesterday's aporetic tetrad:

1. Justice demands redistribution of wealth from the richer to the poorer., and of other social goods from the haves tothe have-nots. A just society is a fair society, one in which there is a fair or equal distribution of the available social and economic goods such as power and wealth.

2. Redistribution, whether of wealth or of other goods such as power, requires an agency of redistribution which forces, via the coercive power of government, the better off to pay higher taxes, forego benefits, make sacrifices, or in some other way compensate the worse off so that greater material equality is brought about.

3. Any effective redistributive agency must possess and exercise power which is far in excess of the power available to other individual and collective agents in the society: it must be greatly UNEQUAL to the latter in power.

These three propositions are individually plausible, and for the redistributivist, not just plausible but mandatory. (1) defines the redistributivist position, while (2) and (3) he must accept if he wants to implement his scheme of justice. But the propositions are not jointly consistent: they cannot all be true. Any two of them, taken together, entails the negation of the remaining one. Thus (2) and (3), taken in conjunction, entails the negation of (1).

The conservative/libertarian will have no trouble solving the problem. He will reject (1). Justice does NOT demand redistribution; indeed, justice rules it out. The leftist/redistributivist, however, is in a jam. He cannot reject (2) or (3) since these are facts that all must acknowledge. And he must accept (1) since it is definatory of his position.

The redistributivist position thus appears to be internally incoherent. The redistributivist is committed to the acceptance of propositions that cannot all be true. He wants equality, but to enforce it he must embrace inequality

For a concrete historical example, consider Cuba under Fidel Castro. Who has all the money and the power? The people?

Political Aporetics: Liberty Versus Equality

Political disagreement is ultimately rooted in philosophical disagreement. So if the latter is objectively irresolvable, then so is the former. I claim that both are irresolvable due to value differences that cannot be resolved either by appeal to empirical facts or by reasoning. In illustration of my thesis, consider the the values of individual liberty and material (as opposed to formal) equality. I will assume that both are indeed values to which all of us accord respect. Even so, value conflict can arise in the form of a conflict of prioritizations. I value liberty over equality, while Peter, say, values equality over liberty. That difference suffices to put us at serious odds despite the fact that we both value liberty and equality. The conflict over prioritization — our difference as to which trumps which — makes the following aporetic tetrad objectively irresolvable:

1. Justice demands redistribution of wealth from the richer to the poorer. A just society is a fair society, one in which there is a fair distribution of the available social and economic goods.

2. Wealth redistribution requires an agency of redistribution which forces, via the coercive power of government, the better off to pay higher taxes, forego benefits, or in some other way compensate the worse off so that greater material equality is brought about.

3. Coercive redistribution violates the liberty of the individual.

4. It is wrong to violate the liberty of the individual in the way that redistribution requires.

It is easy to see that the limbs of this tetrad, despite the plausibility of each, cannot all be true: the first three, entail the negation of the fourth. Indeed, any three of them entails the negation of the remaining one. To solve the inconsistency problem, one of the propositions must be rejected. But which one? (2) and (3) are uncontroversial and so not candidates for rejection. This leaves (1) and (4).

The conservative/libertarian will reject (1) while the liberal/leftist will reject (4). Each will thus solve the problem — from his own point of view. But surely neither amounts to an objective solution to the problem since the solutions are logically incompatible and both are equally rational and equally consistent with all relevant empirical facts.

Indeed, this is why there is a philosophical problem in the first place. There is nothing illogical about the conservative or liberal positions: neither falls afoul of any logical rule or canon of reasoning. And there is no empirical fact that allows us to decide between the two positions. The difference between the positions is ultimately rooted in a value difference, specifically, a difference concerning the prioritization of liberty and equality. To the conservative, it is self-evident that liberty is such a high value that no consideration of material equality or fairness of distribution could provide any reason to violate the liberty of the individual by, for example, taxing him at a higher rate because he is more economically productive. To the liberal,on the other hand, it is is just self-evident that justice demands redistribution and so a certain amount of coercive taking of what belongs to the productive and a giving of it to the less or non-productive(for example, in the form of food stamps).

Because the doctrinal differences are rooted in a value difference, the doctrinal difference can be objectively resolved only if the value conflict can be objectively resolved. But the latter cannot be, not by any appeal to empirical facts and not by any abstract reasoning. If so, the political dispute regarding liberty and equality is objectively irresolvable.

I conjecture that all of the fundamental political problems are like this. All are at bottom philosophical problems representable by an aporetic polyad consisting of propositions which are individually plausible but not jointly consistent. If so, a certain political pessimism is the upshot. We cannot resolve our political differences by appeal to empirical facts or by abstract reasoning or by the two together. We are stuck with irreconcilable differences rooted in ultimately divergent values.

The question then becomes one of figuring how we can nonetheless continue to live with each other in some semblance of peace despite our irreconcilable differences. Federalism may be part of the answer. See my post Can Federalism Save Us?