Category: Human Predicament

Fred Sommers Abandons Whitehead and Metaphysics for Logic

Fred Sommers, The Logic of Natural Language (Oxford, 1982), p. xii:

My interest in Ryle's 'category mistakes' turned me away from the study of Whitehead's metaphysical writings (on which I had written a doctoral thesis at Columbia University) to the study of problems that could be arranged for possible solution.

The suggestion is that the problems of logic, but not those of metaphysics, can be "arranged for possible solution." Although I sympathize with Sommers' sentiment, he must surely have noticed that his attempt to rehabilitate pre-Fregean logical theory issues in results that are controversial, and perhaps just as controversial as the claims of metaphysicians. Or do all his colleagues in logic agree with him?

If by 'pulling in our horns' and confining ourselves to problems of language and logic we were able to attain sure and incontrovertible results, then there might well be justification for setting metaphysics aside and working on problems amenable to solution. But if it turns out that logical, linguistic, phenomenological, epistemological and all other such preliminary inquiries arrive at results that are also widely and vigorously contested, then the advantage of 'pulling in our horns' is lost and we may as well concentrate on the questions that really matter, which are most assuredly not questions of logic and language — fascinating as these may be.

Sommers' is a rich and fascinating book. But, at the end of the day, how important is it to prove that the inference embedded in 'Some girl is loved by every boy so every boy loves a girl' really is capturable, pace the dogmatic partisans of modern predicate logic, by a refurbished traditional term logic? (See pp. 144-145) As one draws one's last breath, which is more salutary: to be worried about a silly bagatelle such as the one just mentioned, or to be contemplating God and the soul?

 

Mardi Gras

I penned the following observation on Mardi Gras 2005 around the time of hurricane Katrina, but even I found it too 'insensitive' for posting at that time. But 'insensitive' is what we conservatives are supposed to be, right? The thought is correct, in any case, and political correctness be damned.

If the good folks down Nawlins* way spent less time letting the good times roll and more on the deferral of gratification, they might be better prepared for nature's little surprises.
_____
*New Orleans

Leon Trotsky, Gabe Kaplan, and Today’s Road Race

I was in Tempe, Arizona a while back for a book fix. At the coffee bar in the Border's Bookstore, the thirty-something counterman remarked that I look like Gabe Kaplan, an observation seconded by some bystanders. Having no idea who Gabe Kaplan is, I commented that some people think I look like Leon Trotsky — which comment elicited a puzzled expression. Turned out the 'tender had never heard of Trotsky. So I asked, "Ever hear of Vladimir Lenin?" That too drew a blank. It wasn't until I worked my way back to Karl Marx that a glimmer of recognition emerged. I tried the experiment on his twenty-something female co-worker. Same result.

Trotsky, Schmotsky. Lenin, Lennon.

Borders is just around the corner from Arizona State University. Draw your own conclusion.

During today's Lost Dutchman Half-Marathon, a woman who looked to be a bit older than me pulled alongside and remarked that I resemble her Salt River kayak instructor.  I mentioned that some think I resemble Leon Trotsky.  She said she didn' know who he was.  Turning to her companion, she asked if she knew who Trotsky was.  She didn't either.  Calling to mind the earlier Tempe experience, I didn't bother to explain.  I ran on with George Santayana's "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" in my head.  (I cannot vouch for the accuracy of that quotation.  I have a number of Santayana's works in my library, but not the The Life of Reason.)

On Forever Putting One’s Tool Kit in Order

I had friends in graduate school who belonged to the class of those we jokingly referred to as graduate student emeriti. They were the perpetual students who were "not hung up on completion," to borrow a memorable line from William Hurt's character Nick in The Big Chill (1983). Free of the discipline of undergraduate school, they took incompletes in their courses and then spent years completing them. Some never completed them. Others finished their course work and actually wrote dissertations and won the degree — some fifteen years after they started. They supported themselves with adjunct teaching and odd jobs, loans and parental hand-outs.

One fellow in particular sticks in my mind. I’ll call him Mel. Mel never finished and dropped out of sight. With Mel, the problem was three-fold: unrealistically high standards, performance anxiety, and an obsession with the board game Go. His performance anxiety manifested itself mainly as an obsessive fixation on getting his tool box in order. What I mean is that he felt he could not get down to the business of writing any good philosophy until all his tools were in place. So he had to have a complete library stocked with all the classics, in the original languages. He once unloaded a copy of Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony on me on the ground that it was in English, when he wanted to read everything in its original language. Many an hour did he spend on foreign languages. But to do philosophy, one has to be able to think correctly, so logic was also on his agenda. Time was spent acquiring an impressive logic library, and somewhat less time on actually reading his acquisitions.

‘Madoff’ as Quasi-Aptronym

Unless you live in a cave you will by now have heard of Bernard Madoff and his Ponzi-scheme.  Interesting name he bears, quasi-aptronymic: he made off with his investors' money. The wealthy fools who lost everything have in part themselves to blame: they allowed their good sense to be suborned by greed and ill-placed trust.  Diversification is such a simple concept.  But it is not a matter of the intellectual grasp of a simple concept.  It is a moral matter. Appetites unruled will suborn the sharpest head.  Our financial and political and social decline is rooted in moral decline.

Having It Both Ways

Karl Kraus, Beim Wort Genommen, p. 194:

Wenn einer sich wie ein Vieh benommen hat, sagt er: Man ist doch nur ein Mensch! Wenn er aber wie ein Vieh behandelt wird, sagt er: Man ist doch auch ein Mensch!

A person who has behaved in a beastly manner excuses himself by saying, "I am only human!" But when he is treated in a beastly manner, he protests, "I too am a human being!" (trans. BV)

In Sartrean terms, we invoke either our facticity or our transcendence depending on which serves us better at the moment. Well, our nature is metaphysically dual; we may as well get some use out of that fact.

Dust in the Wind

We are little more than organized dust in the wind. And yet we feel ourselves superior to the universe! In a sense, we are right: we know the universe; it is our object. We know it, but it doesn’t know us. It can crush us, but it cannot know us.

On Socializing

To socialize, one must accommodate oneself to the mentality of the group. One must conform, fit in, be a ‘regular guy,’ and above all avoid serious conversation! But no independent spirit, no true individual, can tolerate this sort of self-denial unless it is absolutely forced on him. Ganz man selbst sein, kann man nur wenn man allein ist! (Schopenhauer) “You can only be entirely yourself when you are alone.” “Whosoever would be a man must be a nonconformist.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) In another place, Emerson tells that he does not visit the homes of his relatives because he does not like to be alone. I salute you, Waldo!

Perils of Praise

We do not like to be praised if: the praiser is beneath us; what is praised in us is something insignificant or common; the praise is felt to be insincere, perhaps by having an ulterior motive; the praise is mistaken in that we lack the excellence attributed to us. Particularly galling is to be praised for something insignificant while one’s actual virtues go unappreciated. So be careful in your bestowal of praise: take care that you do not offend the one you hope to flatter.