Metaphilosophy – Page 12 – Maverick Philosopher

Genuine Inquiry and Two Forms of Pseudo-Inquiry: Sham Reasoning and Fake Reasoning

In Philosophers Who Compartmentalize and Those Who Don't, I drew a distinction between

1. Philosophical inquiry pursued in order to support (defend and rationally justify) an antecedently held thesis or worldview whose source is extraphilosophical

and

2. Philosophical inquiry pursued in order to support (by generating) a thesis or worldview that is not antecedently held but arrived at by philosophical inquiry.

But we need to nuance this a bit inasmuch as (1) conflates the distinction between

1a. Philosophical inquiry pursued in order to support (defend and rationally justify) an antecedently held thesis or worldview whose source is extraphilosophical, a thesis or worldview that will continue to be maintained whether or not the defensive and justificatory operations are successful

and

1b. Philosophical inquiry pursued in order to support (defend and rationally justify) an antecedently held thesis or worldview whose source is extraphilosophical, a thesis or worldview that will continue to be maintained only if the defensive and justificatory operations are successful.

Alvin Plantinga may serve as an example of (1a). I think it is fair to say that his commitment to his Dutch Reformed Christian worldview is such that he would continue to adhere to it whether or not his technical philosophical work is judged successful in defending and rationally justifying it. For a classical example of (1a), we may turn to Thomas Aquinas. His commitment to the doctrine of the Incarnation does not depend on the success of his attempt at showing the doctrine to be rationally acceptable. (Don't confuse rational acceptability with rational provability. The Incarnation cannot of course be rationally demonstrated.) Had his amanuensis Reginald convinced him that his defensive strategy in terms of reduplicatives was a non-starter, Thomas would not have suspended his acceptance of the doctrine in question; he would have looked for a defense immune to objections.

There are of course atheists and materialists who also exemplify (1a). Suppose a typical materialist about the mind proffers a theory that attempts to account for qualia and intentionality in purely naturalistic terms, and I succeed in showing him that his theory is untenable. Will he then reject his materialism about the mind or suspend judgment with respect to it? Of course not. He will 'go back to the drawing board' and try to develop a naturalistic theory immune to my objections.

The same thing goes on in the sciences. There are climate scientists who are committed to the thesis that anthropogenic global warming is taking place. They then look for evidence to buttress this conviction.

According to Susan Haack, following C. S. Peirce, the four examples above (which are mine, not hers) are examples of pseudo-inquiry:

The distinguishing feature of genuine inquiry is that what the inquirer wants is to find the truth of some question. [. . .] The distinguishing feature of pseudo-inquiry is that what the 'inquirer' wants is not to discover the truth of some question but to make a case for some proposition determined in advance. (Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate, University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 8)

Haack, again following Peirce, distinguishes within pseudo-inquiry sham inquiry and sham reasoning from fake inquiry and fake reasoning. You engage in sham reasoning when you make "a case for the truth of some proposition your commitment to which is already evidence- and argument-proof." (8) Characteristic of the sham 'inquirer' is a "prior and unbudgeable commitment to the proposition for which he tries to make a case." (9)

There are also those who are indifferent to the truth-value of the thesis they urge, but argue for it anyway to make a name for themselves and advance their careers. Their reasoning is not sham but fake. The sham reasoner is committed to the truth of the thesis he urges; the fake reasoner isn't: he is a bullshitter in Harry Frankfurt's sense. I will not be concerned with fake inquiry in this post.

The question I need to decide is, first of all, whether every case of (1a) is sham inquiry. And the answer to that is No. That consciousness exists, for example, is something I know to be true, and indeed from an extraphilosophical source, namely, introspection or inner sense. Those who claim that consciousness is an illusion are frightfully mistaken. I would be within my epistemic rights in simply dismissing their absurd claim as a bit of sophistry. But suppose I give an argument why consciousness cannot be an illusion. Such an argument would not count as sham reasoning despite my mind's being made up before I start my arguing, despite my "prior and unbudgeable commitment to the proposition" for which I argue.

Nothing is more evident that that consciousness, in my own case at least, exists. Consider a somewhat different case, that of other minds, other consciousnesses. Other minds are not given in the way my own mind is given (to me). Yet when I converse with a fellow human being, and succeed in communicating with him more or less satisfactorily, I am unshakably convinced that I am in the presence of an other mind: I KNOW that my interlocutor is an other mind. And in the case of my cats, despite the fact that our communication does not rise to a very high level, I am unbudgingly convinced that they too are subjects of consciousness, other minds. As a philosopher I want to know how it is that I have knowledge of other minds; I seek a justification of my belief in them. Whether I come up with a decent justification or not, I hold fast to my belief. I want to know how knowledge of other minds is possible, but I would never take my inability to demonstrate possibility as entailing that the knowledge in question is not actual. The reasoning I engage in is genuine, not sham, despite the fact that there is no way I am going to abandon my conviction.

Suppose an eliminative materialist claims that there are no beliefs or desires. I might simply dismiss his foolish assertion or I might argue against it. If I do the latter, my reasoning is surely not sham despite my prior and unbudgeable commitment to my thesis.

Suppose David Lewis comes along and asserts that unrealized possibilities are physical objects. I know that that is false. Suppose a student doesn't see right off the bat that the claim is false and demands an argument. I supply one. Is my reasoning sham because there is no chance that I will change my view? I don't think so.

Suppose someone denies the law of noncontradiction . . . .

There is no need to multiply examples: not every case of (1a) is sham inquiry. Those who claim that consciousness is an illusion or that there are no beliefs and desires can, and perhaps ought to be, simply dismissed as sophists or bullshitters. "Never argue with a sophist!" is a good maxim. But deniers of God, the soul, the divinity of Christ, and the like cannot be simply dismissed as sophists or bullshitters.

So now we come to the hard cases, the interesting cases.

Consider the unshakable belief held by some that there is what William James calls an "unseen order." (Varieties of Religious Exerience, p. 53) Some of those who have this belief claim to have glimpsed the unseen order via mystical experience. They claim that it lies beyond the senses, outer and inner, and that is also lies beyond what discursive reason can grasp. And yet they reason about it, not to prove its existence, but to show how it, though suprarational, is yet rationally acceptable. Is their reasoning sham because they will hold to their conviction whether or not they succeed in showing that the conviction is rationally acceptable?

I don't think so. Seeing is believing, and mystical experience is a kind of seeing. Why trust abstract reasoning over direct experience? If you found a way out of Plato's Cave, then you know there is a way out, and all the abstract reasoning of all the benighted troglodytes counts for nothing at all in the teeth of that experience of liberation. But rather than pursue a discussion of mystical experience, let's think about (propositional) revelation.

Consider Aquinas again. There are things he thinks he can rationally demonstrate such as the existence of God. And there are things such as the Incarnation he thinks cannot be rationally demonstrated, but can be known to be true on the basis of revelation as mediated by the church's teaching authority. But while not provable (rationally demonstrable), the Incarnation is rationally acceptable. Or so Thomas argues. Is either sort of reasoning sham given that Aquinas would not abandon belief in God or in the Incarnation even if his reasoning in either case was shown to be faulty? Russell would say yes:

There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. (Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy, Simon and Schuster, p. 463)

It is easy to see that Haack is a sort of philosophical granddaughter of Russell at least on this point.

In correspondence Dennis Monokroussos points out that "Anthony Kenny had a nice quip in reply to the Russell quotation. On page 2 of his edited work, Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays (London, 1969) (cited in Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 19), he says that the remark “comes oddly from a philosopher who took three hundred and sixty dense pages to offer a proof that 1 + 1 = 2.”

Exactly right. This is yet another proof that not every instance of (1a) above is an instance of sham reasoning or sham inquiry.

It is certainly false to say that, in general, it is unphilosophical or special pleading or an abuse of reason to seek arguments for a proposition antecedently accepted, a proposition the continuing acceptance of which does not depend on whether or not good arguments for it can be produced. But if we are to be charitable to Lord Russell we should read his assertion as restricted to propositions, theological and otherwise, that are manifestly controversial. So restricted, Russell's asseveration cannot be easily counterexampled, which is not to say that it is obviously true.

Thus I cannot simply cite the Incarnation doctrine and announce that we know this from revelation and are justified in accepting it whether or not we are able to show that it is rationally acceptable. For if it really is logically impossible then it cannot be true. If you say that it is actually true, hence possibly true whether or not we can explain how it is possible for it to be true, then you beg the question by assuming that it is actually true despite the opponent's arguments that it is logically contradictory.

It looks to be a stand-off.

One can imagine a Thomist giving the following speech.

My reasoning in defense of the Incarnation and other such doctrines as the Trinity is not sham despite the fact that I am irrevocably committed to these doctrines. It is a question of faith seeking understanding. I am trying to understand what I accept as true, analogously as Russell tried to understand in terms of logic and set theory what he accepted as true in mathematics. I am not trying to decide whether what I accept is true since I know it it to be true via an extraphilosophical source of knowledge. I am trying to understand how it could be true. I am trying to integrate faith with reason in a manner analogous to the way Russell sought to integrate arithmetic and logic. One can reason to find out new truths, but one can also reason, and reason legitimately, to penetrate intellectually truths one already possesses, truths the ongoing acceptance of which does not depend on one's penetrating them intellectually.

What then does the Russell-Haack objection amount to? It appears to amount to a rejection of certain extraphilosophical sources of knowledge/truth such as mystical experience, authority, and revelation. I have shown that Russell and his epigones cannot reject every extraphilosophical source of knowledge, else they would have to reject inner and outer sense. Can they prove that there cannot be any such thing as divine revelation? And if they cannot prove that, then their rejection of the possibility is arbitrary. If they say that any putative divine revelation has to validate itself by our lights, in our terms, to our logic, then that is just to reject divine revelation.

It looks to be a stand-off, then. Russell and his epigones are within their rights to remain within the sphere of immanence and not admit as true or real anything that cannot be certified or validated within that sphere by the satisfaction of the criteria human reason imposes. And their opponents are free to make the opposite decision: to open themselves to a source of insight ab extra.

Philosophy, Pride, and Humility

Philosophy can fuel intellectual pride. And it manifestly does in far too many of its practitioners. But pursued far enough and deep enough it may lead to insight into the infirmity of reason, an insight one salutary benefit of which is intellectual humility. Our patron saint was known for his knowing nescience, his learned ignorance. It was that which made Socrates wise.

Philosophers Who Compartmentalize and Those Who Don’t

For many philosophers, their technical philosophical work bears little or no relation to the implicit or explicit set of action-guiding beliefs and values that constitutes their worldview. Saul Kripke, for example, is an observant Jew who keeps the Sabbath and rejects naturalism and materialism. But you would never know it from his technical work which has no direct relevance to the Big Questions. (Possible qualification: the business about the necessity of identity discussed in Naming and Necessity allows for a Cartesian-style argument for mind-body dualism. See here.)

So I would characterize Kripke as a compartmentalizer. (My use of this term does not have a pejorative connotation, at least not yet.) His work in philosophy occupies one of his mental compartments while his religious convictions and practices occupy another with little or no influence of the one on the other. It is not that his technical work is inconsistent with his religious worldview; my point is that the two are largely irrelevant to each other. No doubt some of Kripke's examples 'betray' his religious upbringing — e.g., the fascinating bit about Moloch as a misvocalization of the Hebrew 'melech' in Reference and Existence, p. 70 ff. et passim – but his technical work, or at least his published technical work, is not a means to either the articulation or the rational justification of his worldview.

You may appreciate my point if you compare Kripke with Alvin Plantinga. He too is a religious man and a theist, an anti-naturalist, and an anti-materialist. But all of Plantinga's books that I am aware of contribute directly to the articulation and defense of his theistic worldview. He is out to explain and justify theistic belief and turn aside such objections to it as the ever-popular arguments from evil. This is clear from the titles of God and Other Minds, God, Freedom, and Evil, Does God Have a Nature. But it is also clear from Nature of Necessity the penultimate chapter of which treats of God, evil, and freedom, and the ultimate chapter of which is about God and necessity. The same is true of his two volumes on warrant one of which includes a critique of naturalism, not to mention his last book, Where the Conflict Really Lies.

The late David M. Armstrong is an interesting case. While he respects religion and is not a militant naturalist or atheist, his technical work articulates and defends his thoroughly naturalist worldview, where naturalism is the thesis that all that exists is the space-time world and its contents. The naturalist worldview comes first for Armstrong, both temporally and logically, and sets the agenda for the technical investigations of particulars, universals, states of affairs, classes, numbers, causation, laws of nature, dispositions, modality, mind, and so on. Broadly characterized, the agenda is to show how everything, including what appear to be 'abstract objects,' can be accounted for naturalistically using only those resources supplied by the natural world, without recourse to anything nonnatural or supernatural.

For Plantinga, by contrast, it is his theistic worldview that comes first both temporally and logically and sets the agenda for his technical work.

And then there is an acquaintance of mine who attends Greek Orthodox services on Sunday but during working hours is something close to a logical positivist.

This suggests a three-fold classification. There are philosophers whose

A. Technical work is consistent with but does not support their worldview;

B. Technical work is consistent with and does support their worldview;

C. Technical work is inconsistent with and hence does not support their worldview.

I will assume that (C) is an unacceptable form of compartmentalization, but I won't try to explain why in this post. Brevity is the soul of blog. This leaves (B) and (C).

Now it has always seemed obvious to me that (B) is to be preferred over (A). But do I have an argument? But first I should try to make my thesis more precise. To that end, a few more distinctions and observations.

I distinguish philosophy-as-inquiry from philosophy-as-worldview. (And you should too.) Roughly, a worldview is a more or less comprehensive system of more or less precisely articulated action-guiding beliefs and values. (Transfinite cardinal arithmetic is not a worldview: you can't 'take it to the streets.') Obviously, there are many philosophies in this sense, and therefore no such thing as philosophy in this sense. There is the philosophy of your crazy uncle who has an opinion about everything, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, the philosophy of Kant, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Observe also that a philosophy in the sense of a worldview need not be arrived at by rational inquiry. Philosophy-as-inquiry, by contrast is rational inquiry by definition. To put it paradoxically, there needn't be anything philosophical about a philosophy. I trust my meaning is clear.

Note too that philosophy-as-inquiry need not result in a worldview. It can end aporetically, at an impasse, the way a number of the Platonic dialogs do, in Socratic nescience, even if the intention was to arrive at a worldview. And sometimes even the intention is lacking: there are philosophers who are content to devote their professional hours to some such narrow topic as counterfactual conditionals or epistemic closure principles, or anaphora. They can be said to engage in hyperspecialization. There are also those less extreme specialists who are concerned with ethics or epistemology but give no thought to the metaphysical presuppositions of either.

We should also distinguish between engaging in philosophy-as-inquiry in order to arrive at a worldview versus engaging in philosophy-as-inquiry in order to shore up or defend a worldview that one antecedently accepts. This is the difference between one who seeks the truth by philosophical means, a truth he does not possess, and one who possesses or thinks he possesses the truth or most of the truth and employs philosophical means to the end of defending and securing and promoting the truth that he already has and has received from some extraphilosophical source such as revelation or religious/mystical experience. The latter could be called philosophy-as-inquiry in the service of apologetics, 'apologetics' broadly construed.

It should now be evident that (B) conflates two ideas that need to be split apart. There are philosophers whose

B1. Technical work is consistent with and supports an antecedently held worldview whose source is extraphilosophical and whose source is not philosophy-as-inquiry;

B2. Technical work is consistent with and supports a worldview the source of which is philosophy-as-inquiry.

My main thesis is that (B2) is superior to (A), but I also incline to the view that (B1) is superior to (A). But for now I set aside (B1).

But why is (B2) superior to (A)? I am not saying that there is anything wrong with satisfying a purely theoretical interest either by (i) hyperspecializing and concentrating on one or a few narrow topics, or (ii) specializing as in the case of Kripke by working on a fairly wide range of topics. What I want to say is that there is something better than either of (i) or (ii).

My thesis: Since philosophy is a search for the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, one is not true to the spirit of philosophy in the full and normative sense of the word if one is content to theorize about minutiae that in the end have no 'existential' relevance where 'existential' is to be taken in the sense of Kierkegaard, Jaspers, et. al, and their distinguished predecessors, Socrates, Augustine, Pascal, et al. One's own existence, fate, moral responsibility, and existential meaning are surely part of the ultimate matters; so to abstract from these matters by pursuing a purely theoretical interest is, if not logically absurd, then existentially absurd. In philosophy one cannot leave oneself out and be objective in the way the sciences must leave out the subject and be objective.

Of course I am not a narrow existentialist who rejects technical philosophy.

What I am maintaining is that one ought not compartmentalize: one's technical work ought to subserve a higher end, the articulation and defense of a comprehensive view of things. As Wilfrid Sellars says, "It is . . . the 'eye on the whole' which distinguishes the philosophical enterprise." (SPR 3) "The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term." (SPR 1) But I am saying more than this, and words like 'view' and 'worldview' don't quite convey it since philosophy as I 'view' it ought not be purely theoretical. Somehow, oner's theory and one's Existenz need to achieve unity.

I still haven't made my thesis all that clear, but it is perhaps clear enough.

One argument for my thesis is that specialization gets us nowhere. It is notorious that philosophers have not convinced one another and that progress in philosophy has not occurred. And the best and brightest have been at it for going on three thousand years. That progress will occur in future is therefore the shakiest of inductions. Given that shakiness, it is existentially if not logically absurd to lose oneself in, say, the technical labyrinth of the philosophy of language, as fascinating as it is. Who on his deathbed will care whether reference is routed through sense or is direct? The following may help clarify my meaning.

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?

Kripke’s Misrepresentation of Meinong

In "Vacuous Names and Fictional Entities" (in Philosophical Troubles, Oxford UP, 2011, pp. 52-74) Saul Kripke distances himself from the following view that he ascribes to Alexius Meinong:

Many people have gotten confused about these matters because they have said, 'Surely there are fictional characters who fictionally do such-and-such things; but fictional characters don't exist; therefore some view like Meinong's with a first-class existence and a second-class existence, or a broad existence and a narrow existence, must be the case'.²³ This is not what I am saying here. (p. 64)

Footnote 23 reads as follows:

At any rate, this is how Meinong is characterized by Russell in 'On Denoting'. I confess that I have never read Meinong and I don't know whether the characterization is accurate. It should be remembered that Meinong is a philosopher whom Russell (at least originally) respected; the characterization is unlikely to be a caricature.

But it is a caricature and at this late date it is well known to be a caricature. What is astonishing about all this is that Kripke had 38 years to learn a few basic facts about Meinong's views from the time he read (or talked) his paper in March of 1973 to its publication in 2011 in Philosophical Troubles. But instead he chose to repeat Russell's caricature of Meinong in his 2011 publication. Here is what Kripke could have quickly learned about Meinong's views from a conversation with a well-informed colleague or by reading a competent article:

Some objects exist and some do not. Thus horses exist while unicorns do not. Among the objects that do not exist, some subsist and some do not. Subsistents include properties, mathematical objects and states of affairs. Thus there are two modes of being, existence and subsistence. Spatiotemporal items exist while ideal/abstract objects subsist.

Now what is distinctive about Meinong is his surprising claim that some objects neither exist nor subsist. The objects that neither exist nor subsist are those that have no being at all. Examples of such objects are the round square, the golden mountain, and purely fictional objects. These items have properties — actually not possibly — but they have no being. They are ausserseiend. Aussersein, however, is not a third mode of being.

Meinong's fundamental idea, whether right or wrong, coherent or incoherent, is that there are subjects of true predications that have no being whatsoever. Thus an item can have a nature, a Sosein, without having being, wihout Sein. This is the characteristic Meinongian principle of the independence of Sosein from Sein.

Kripke's mistake is to ascribe to Meinong the view that purely fictional items are subsistents when for Meinong they have no being whatsoever. He repeats Russell's mistake of conflating the ausserseiend with the subsistent.

The cavalier attitude displayed by Kripke in the above footnote is not uncommon among analytic philosophers. They think one can philosophize responsibly without bothering to attend carefully to what great thinkers of the tradition have actually maintained while at the same time dropping their names: Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Brentano, Meinong. For each of these I could given an example of a thesis attributed to them that has little or nothing to do with what they actually maintained.

Does the cavalier attitude of most analytic philosophers to the history of philosophy matter? In particular, does it matter that Kripke and plenty of others continue to ignore and misrepresent Meinong? And are not embarrassed to confess their ignorance? This depends on how one views philosophy in relation to its history.

At this point I refer the reader to a somewhat rambling, but provocative, essay by the late Dallas Willard, Who Needs Brentano? The Wasteland of Philosophy Without its Past.

God Doesn’t Philosophize

He doesn't need to. We need to. But our neediness goes together with our inability to make any progress at it. A double defect: need and inability. The truth we need we cannot acquire by our own efforts. It is this fact that motivates some philosophers to consider the possibility of divine revelation. They can raise the question of revelation without quitting Athens. See Blondel.

A Paraphrastic Approach to Fictional Sentences

Here is a dyad for your delectation:

1. There are no purely fictional characters.

2. There are some purely fictional characters, e.g., Sherlock Holmes.

(1) looks to be an analytic truth: by definition, what is purely fictional is not, i.e., does not exist. But (2) also seems to be true. And yet they cannot both be true if 'are' has the same sense in both sentences.

London Ed is against "messing about with the copula" as he puts it. Thus he is opposed to making a distinction between two senses of 'are' in alleviation of our dyad's apparent inconsistency. Is there another way to solve the problem?

One way is to look for ontologically noncommittal paraphrases of those sentences that appear to commit us to fictional items. Roderick Chisholm has some suggestions for us. Consider the sentence

3. There is no detective who is as famous as Holmes.

Chisholm's paraphrase:

To say that there is no detective who is as famous as Holmes is to compare two numbers. (1) The first is the number of people who interpret Holmes as the name of a detective; and (2) the second is the number of people who interpret some name other than Holmes as the name of a detective. The comparative statement tells us that the first number is larger than the second. (A Realistic Theory of Categories, CUP 1996, pp. 122-123.)

Boiled down, we have

3P. The number of people of who take 'Holmes' to be the name of a detective is greater than the number of people who take some name other than 'Holmes' to be the name of a detective.

Very clever. Off the top of my head, (3P) looks to be an adequate paraphrase that does not commit us to the existence of a fictional entity. But if the paraphrastic method is to work, it must work against every example. Just one recalcitrant example counts as a "spanner in the works." What about this example of mine:

4. Obama is a worse liar than Pinocchio.

Perhaps we can paraphrase away the reference to Pinocchio with

4P. The traits we know Obama to possess are more indicative of mendacity than the traits we attribute to the character named 'Pinocchio.'

Questions for London Ed (and anyone else who is following this):

a. Do you endorse this paraphrastic approach? If not, why not?

b. Van Inwagen says things that imply that he thinks that the paraphrastic approach does not work. Why does he say this? Does he have examples of sentences that cannot be treated by this approach?

Divine Simplicity, the Formal Distinction, and the Real Distinction

If I understand Duns Scotus on the divine simplicity, his view in one sentence is that the divine attributes are really identical in God but formally distinct. (Cf. Richard Cross, Duns Scotus on God, Ashgate 2005, p. 111) I can understand this if I can understand the formal distinction (distinctio formalis) and how it differs from the real distinction (distinctio realis). This will be the cynosure of my interest in this post.

There appear to be two ways of construing 'real distinction.' On the first construal, the real distinction is plainly different from the formal distinction. On a second construal, it is not so clear what the difference is. I have no worked-out view. In this entry I am merely trying to understand the difference between these two sorts of distinction and how they bear upon the divine simplicity, though I will not say anything more about the latter in this installment.

First Construal of 'Real Distinction'

On the first construal, the real distinction is to be understood in terms of separability. But 'separable' has several senses. Here are my definitions of the relevant senses. I am not trying to exposit Thomas or any scholastic. I am merely trying to get to the truth of the matter.

D1. Individuals x, y are mutually separable =_df it is broadly logically possible that x exist without y, and y exist without x.

Example. The separability of my eyeglasses and my head is mutual: each can (in a number of different senses of 'can' including the broadly logical sense) exist without the other. This distinction is called real because it has a basis in extramental and extralinguistic reality. It is not a merely verbal distinction like that between 'eyeglasses' and 'spectacles.'

D2. Properties F, G are mutually separable =_df it is broadly logically possible that F be instantiated by x without G being instantiated by x, and vice versa.

Example. Socrates is both seated and speaking. But he is possibly such as to be the one without the other, and the other without the one. He can sit without speaking, and speak without sitting. The properties of being seated and speaking, though co-instantiated by Socrates, are mutually separable. Of course, this does not imply that these properties can exist uninstantiated.

D3. Individuals x, y are unilaterally separable =_df it is broadly logically possible that one of the pair x, y exist without the other, but not the other without the one.

Example. A (primary) substance S and one of its accidents A. Both are individuals, unrepeatables. But while A cannot exist without S, S can exist without A. Second example. Consider a fetus prior to viability. It is not an accident of the mother, but a substance in its own right. Yet it cannot exist apart from the mother, while the mother can exist apart from it. So what we seem to have here are two individuals that are unilaterally separable.

D4. Properties F, G are unilaterally separable =_df it is broadly logically possible that one of the pair F, G be instantiated by x without the other being instantiated, but not the other without the one.

Example. Suppose Socrates is on his feet, running. His being on his feet and his running are unilaterally separable in that he can be on his feet wthout running, but he cannot be running without being on his feet.

D5. Items (whether individuals or properties) I, J are weakly separable =_df I, J are either mutually separable or unilaterally separable.

On the first construal of 'real distinction,' it comes to this:

D6. Items (whether individuals or properties), I, J are really distinct =_df I, J are weakly separable.

My impression is that when Scotists speak of the real distinction they mean something identical to or very close to my (D6). Real distinctness is weak separability. Two items, whether individuals or properties, are really distinct if and only if they are either mutually separable or unilaterally separable. According to Alan B. Wolter ("The Formal Distinction" in John Duns Scotus, 1265-1965, eds. Ryan and Bonansea, CUA Press, 1965, pp. 45-60),

In the works of Aquinas, for example, the term ['real distinction'] seems to have two basically different meanings, only one of which corresponds to the usage of Scotus, Ockham, or Suarez. For the latter, the real distinction is that which exists between individuals, be they substances or some individual accident or property. It invariably implies the possibility of separating one really distinct thing from another to the extent that one of the two at least may exist apart from the other. (p. 46)

Second Construal of 'Real Distinction'

On a Thomist view, my essence and my existence are not really distinct on the first construal of 'real distinction' because they are mutually inseparable: neither can be without the other. This strikes me as entirely reasonable. My individual essence is nothing without existence, and there are no cases of pure existence. I am not now and never have been an existence-less essence, nor a bit of essence-less existence. And yet Thomists refer to the distinction between (indvidual) essence and existence in finite concrete individuals as a real distinction. So 'real distinction' must have a second basic meaning, one that does not require that really distinct items be either mutually or unilaterally separable. What is this second basic meaning? And how does it differ from the Scotistic formal distinction?

Seeking an answer to the first question, I turn to Feser's manual where, on p. 74, we read:

But separability is not the only mark of a real distinction. Another is contrariety of the concepts under which things fall . . . . For example, being material and being immaterial obviously exclude one another, so that there must be a real distinction between a material thing and an immaterial thing. A third mark sometimes suggested is efficient causality . . . .

In this passage, Feser seems to be saying that there is one disinction called the real distinction, but that it has more than one mark. He does not appear to be maintaining that 'real distinction' has two different meanings, one that requires separability and another that does not. On the next page, however, Feser makes a distinction between a "real physical distinction" and a "real metaphysical distinction" where the former requires separability but the latter does not. He goes on to say that for Scotus and Suarez a necessary condition of any real distinction in created things is that the items distinguished be separable: "a distinction is real only when it entails separability." (75)

The Formal Distinction

I asked: "What is the second basic meaning of 'real distinction'?" The answer I glean from Feser is that the second meaning is real metaphysical distinction, a distinction that does not require separability. Now for my second question: How does this real metaphysical distinction differ from the formal distinction? According to Cross, "the formal distinction is the kind of distinction that obtains between (inseparable) properties on the assumption that nominalism about properties is false." (108) Feser describes it as a third and intermediate kind of disinction that is neither logical nor real. (75) Both what Cross and Feser say comport well with my understanding of the formal distinction.

Consider the distinction between a man's animality and his rationality. They are clearly distinct because there are animals that are not rational, and there are rational beings that are not animals. It is also clear that the distinction is not purely logical: the distinction is not generated by our thinking or speaking, but has a basis in extramental and extralinguistic reality. Is it then a real distinction? Not if such a distinction entails separability. For it is not broadly logically possible that the rationality of Socrates exist without his animality, or his animality without his rationality. Anything that is both animal and rational is essentially both animal and rational. (Whereas it is not the case that anything that is both sitting and speaking is essentially both sitting and speaking.) So the Scotist, for whom the reality of a real distinction entails separability, says that what we have here is a formal distinction, a distinction between two 'formalities,' animality and rationality, that are really inseparable but formally distinct.

My second question, again, is this: How does the real metaphysical distinction differ from the formal distinction? In both cases, the distinction is not purely logical, i.e., a mere distinctio rationis. So in both cases the distinction has a basis in reality. Further, in both cases there is no separability of the terms of the distinction. Socrates cannot be rational without being an animal, and he cannot be an animal without being rational. Similarly, he cannot exist without having an essence, and he cannot have an essence without existing.

So what is the difference between the real metaphysical distinction (that Feser distinguishes from the real physical distinction) and the formal distinction? If I understand Feser, his view is that the formal distinction collapses into the virtual distinction, which is a logical distinction, hence not a real distinction, whereas the real metaphysical distinction is a real distinction despite its not requiring separability. But what is the virtual distinction?

The Virtual Distinction

Feser tells us that a logical distinction is virtual "when it has some foundation in reality." (73) A virtual distinction is a logical distinction that is more than a merely verbal distinction. He gives the example of a man's nature which, despite its being one thing, can be viewed under two aspects, the aspect of rationality and the aspect of animality. The distinction between the two aspects is not real but virtual. The virtual distinction thus appears to be identical to the formal distinction.

Accordingly, the difference between the real metaphysical distinction and the formal distinction is that the first is real despite its not entailing separability while the second is logical despite having a foundation in reality. I hope I will be forgiven for not discerning a genuine difference between these two kinds of distinction. Feser suggests that the difference may only be a matter of emphasis, with the Thomist emphasizing the logical side of the virtual/formal distinction and the Scotist emphasizing the real side. (76)

Should we then irenically conclude that the metaphysical real distinction of the Thomists (or, to be cautious, of Feser the Thomist) is the same as the formal distinction of (some of) the Scotists?

Essence and Existence Again

I am afraid that matters are much messier. Suppose you agree that essence and existence in Socrates are neither mutually nor unilaterally separable. Suppose you also agree that Socrates is a contingent being: he exists (speaking tenselessly) but there is no broadly logical necessity that he exist. The second supposition implies that Socates does not exist just by virtue of his essence: his existence does not follow from his nature. Nor is his existence identical to his essence or nature, as it is in the ontologically simple God. So they must be distinct in reality. But — and here comes trouble — this real distinction in Socrates as between his essence and his existence cannot be a distinction between inseparable aspects. Animality and rationality are inseparable aspects of Socrates' nature; but essence and existence cannot be inseparable aspects of him. If they were inseparable, then Socrates would exist by his every nature or essence. This seems to imply that the metaphysical real distinction is not the same as the formal distinction. For the metaphysical real distinction between essence and existence requires separability of essence and existence in creatures.

Aporetic Conclusion

It looks like we are in a pickle. We got to the conclusion that the real metaphysical distinction is the same as the formal distinction. But now we see that they cannot be the same. Some may not 'relish' it, but the 'pickle' can be savored as an aporetic polyad:

1. Socrates is a metaphysically contingent being.

2. Metaphysical contingency entails weak separability (as defined above) of essence and existence.

3. Nothing is such that its essence and existence are weakly separable.

The triad is logically inconsistent.

Solution by (1)-denial. One cannot of course maintain that Socrates is metaphysically necessary. But one could deny the presupposition upon which (1) rests, namely, the constituent-ontological assumption that Socrates is compounded of essence and existence. On a relation ontology, essence-existence composition makes no sense.

Solution by (2)-denial. One could try to show that contingency has an explanation that does not require weak separability of essence and existence.

Solution by (3)-denial. One could argue that the individual essence of Socrates can be wthout being exemplified along the lines of Plantinga's haecceity properties.

Each of these putative solutions brings trouble of its own.

Peter Unger on Bertrand Russell on the Value of Philosophy

This from a reader:

In one portion of Grace Boey's interview of Peter Unger, Unger discusses what Russell had to say about the value of philosophy, and I was a bit taken aback because that particular quotation by Russell resonates with me a lot, and Unger's swift dismissal of it as garbage left me almost wounded.

What Unger appears to be saying is that claims about the value of philosophy are either quasi-mystical nonsense, or these are claims which can be empirically tested, and therefore should not be assumed a priori. We can only say philosophy has value if we take a bunch of philosophy students, measure parameters such as their dogmatism, creativity, rationality etc at the start and then at the end when they graduate, see if learning philosophy has improved these parameters, and whether this improvement is more than the graduates of other subjects like psychology and literature. Only then we can say that there is value in studying philosophy.

Your thoughts appreciated.

This is what Unger says:

This quote is from a small book that Bertrand Russell wrote, from 1912, which is still used as a textbook today: a little book called The Problems of Philosophy. He talks here about the value of philosophy:

Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves. Because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all that because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

The second part, after the ‘above all’ seems like complete nonsense. What the heck does all that mean? It’s mystical nonsense, no? This from one of the two founders of modern logic, second only to Gottlob Frege in laying down the foundations of symbolic and mathematical logic.

Let’s go to the first part, before the ‘above all’. He says that these questions, and not questions about, say, chemistry, or ornothology, enlarge your conception of what is possible. I hardly even know what that means. But he goes on and says things which are less hard to understand, like, it enriches your intellectual imagination. And a second thing it does, which I take to be distinct, is it diminishes your dogmatic assurance.

These are things that can be tested for, as I said before! Whether it’s a treatment effect, or a selection effect. There are tests for how creative people are, or how dogmatic they are. You test them, at the end, the day after they graduate. And you see whether this is true.

Bertrand Russell never even bothers to think about whether, or what, these things might have to do with any test you can give to human people, or what’s going on. It’s so full of nonsense, the guy was always full of nonsense. He read up on relativity theory, but you would think he would think of some psychological testing that had some bearing on the smoke he was blowing. He never gave it a thought.

BV: In dismissing mysticism as nonsense, Unger merely advertises his own ignorance and spiritual vacancy and falls to the tabloid level of an Ayn Rand who displays no more understanding of mysticism than he does. Mysticism is a vast field of ancient yet ongoing human experience and endeavor and one that earlier American philosophers such as Josiah Royce, William James, and William Ernest Hocking, to mention just three philosophers of high distinction, took very seriously indeed. See, respectively, The World and the Individual, First Series, 1899, lectures II, IV, and V; The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902, lectures XVI and XVII; Types of Philosophy, 1929, chapters 30, 31, 32, 33. It is worth noting that all three luminaries were professors at Harvard University.

In those days Harvard was still far from the over-specialization and hyper-professionalization of philosophy that breeds people like Peter Unger, who though "terribly" clever — to use one of his favorite adjectives –appear to view philosophy as a highly rarefied academic game without roots in, or anything to say about, one's life as an "existing individual" (phrase from Kierkegaard, but I am thinking of all the existentialists, as well as Augustine, Pascal, the Stoics, the ancient Skeptics, and indeed all philosophers from Plato to Aquinas to Kant and beyond for whom philosophy has something to do with the search for wisdom).

The institutionalization of philosophy in the 20th century, though not without some benefits, has led to the following. Empty gamesmanship without existential anchorage. Hypertrophy of the critical and analytic faculty with concomitant atrophy of the intuitive faculty. Philistinic dismissal of whole realms of human experience and endeavor. Technicality and specialization taken to absurd lengths not justified by any actual results. (If extreme specialization and narrowing of focus led to consensus among competent practioners, then that might count as a justification for the specialization. But it hasn't and it doesn't. See here.)

Bertrand Russell, you will recall, published a collection of essays in October 1910 that in the second edition of December 1917 were given the title Mysticism and Logic. The lead essay, "Mysticism and Logic," which originally appeared in the Hibbert Journal of July 1914, displays a serious engagement with what Unger the philistine dismisses as "complete nonsense." What Russell writes about mysticism is penetrating enough to suggest that he may have had some mystical experiences of his own. In the end Russell rejects the four main tenets that he takes as definitive of mysticism, but his rejection is reasoned and respectful. He grants that "there is an element of wisdom to be learned from the mystical way of feeling, which does not seem to be attainable in any other way." (p. 11)

But of course that essay dates from the days of our grandfathers and great grandfathers. Times have changed, and in philosophy not for the better. The analytic philosophy that Russell did so much to promote has become sterile and ingrown and largely irrelevant to the wider culture. There are of course exceptions, Thomas Nagel being one of them.

There is a lot more to be said. But for now I will simply oppose to Unger's nauseating view the following quotations:

The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man. (William James, Pragmatism, Harvard UP, 1975, p. 56)

Maximae res, cum parvis quaeruntur, magnos eos solent efficere.

Matters of the greatest importance, when they are investigated by little men, tend to make those men great. (Augustine, Contra Academicos 1. 2. 6.)

See here for a different critical response to Unger.

Can One Copulate One’s Way to Chastity? Notes on Wittgenstein and Unger

Grace Boey interviews Peter Unger about his new book Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy. Excerpt:

In a way, all I’m doing is detailing things that were already said aphoristically by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations. I read it twice over in the sixties, pretty soon after it came out, when I was an undergraduate. I believed it all — well, sort of. I knew, but I didn’t want to know, and so it just went on. And basically what Philosophical Investigations says is that when you’re doing philosophy, you’re not going to find out anything. You find out some trivial things, you’ll be under the delusion that you’re doing a great deal, but what you should do is stop and do something more productive.

But you didn’t stop.

Neither did Wittgenstein. He kept scribbling away! What stopped him from doing that was terminal cancer. Only cancer had that desired effect. But it also had some other undesired effects — namely, ending his life. (Laughter)

There's something paradoxical about Wittgenstein's behavior and Unger's too.

Ludwig Wittgenstein had no respect for academic philosophy and he steered his students away from academic careers. For example, he advised Norman Malcolm to become a rancher, a piece of advice Malcolm wisely ignored. And yet it stung his vanity to find his ideas recycled and discussed in the philosophy journals. Wittgenstein felt that when the academic hacks weren't plagiarizing his ideas they were misrepresenting them.

The paradox is that his writing can speak only to professional philosophers, the very people he despised. Ordinary folk, even educated ordinary folk, find the stuff he wrote gibberish. When people ask me what of Wittgenstein they should read, I tell them to read first a good biography like that of Ray Monk, and then, if they are still interested, read the aphorisms and observations contained in Culture and Value (Vermischte Bemerkungen).

Only professional philosophers take seriously the puzzles that Wittgenstein was concerned to dissolve in his later work. And only a professional philosopher will be exercised by the meta-problem of the origin and status of philosophical problems. So we have the paradox of a man who wrote for an audience he despised.

"There is less of a paradox that you think. Wittgenstein was writing mainly for himself; his was a therapeutic conception of philosophy. His writing was a form of self-therapy. He was tormented by the problems. His writing was mainly in exorcism of his demons."

This connects with the fly and fly bottle remark in the Philosophical Investigations and a second paradox.

Why does the bug need to be shown the way out? Pop the cork and he's gone.

Why did Wittgenstein feel the need to philosophize his way out of philosophy? He should have known that metaphilosophy and anti-philosophy are just more philosophy with all that that entails: inconclusiveness, endlessness, a labyrinth of distinctions and epicycles, objections and replies . . . . He should have just walked away from it.

If the room is too smoky, there is no necessity that you remain within it. You are free to go, the door is unlocked. This figure's from Epictetus and he had the quitting of life in view. But the same holds for the quitting of philosophy. Just do it, if that's what you want. It can be done.

What cannot be done, however, is to justify one's exit. (That would be like copulating your way to chastity.) For any justification proffered, perforce and willy-nilly, will be just more philosophy. You cannot have it both ways. You either walk away or stay.

Peter Unger, too, seems to want to copulate his way to chastity. Early on, as an undergraduate under the spell of Wittgenstein, he sensed that philosophy leads nowhere. But that didn't stop him from scribbling book after book. (His second-to-the-last, All the Power in the World, is a stomping tome fat enough to kill a cat.) Now Unger is an old man and he still cannot stop. For his latest — which I just today ordered via Amazon Prime — is just more of the same, just more philosophy. You cannot elude the seductive grasp of fair Philosophia by writing metaphilosophy or anti-philosophy. That will just entangle you in her outer garments when you ought to be penetrating toward her unmentionables. For again, the meta- and anti-stuff is just more of the same. Why does Unger suppose that his empty ideas are worthier than anyone else's?

I am quite sure that Unger will end up just another illustration of the first of Etienne Gilson's "laws of philosophical experience," namely, "Philosophy always buries its undertakers." (The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Scribners, 1937, p. 306)

After I read Unger's book, I will probably have more to say. I suspect much of his and others' disenchantment with analytic philosophy is due to the hyperprofessionalization, over-specialization, and science-aping that took off like a rocket, for a number of different reasons, in the 20th century. That, together with the decoupling of philosophy from any sort of spiritual quest or search for wisdom. What good is philosophy so decoupled? What good is it if it does not conduce to living well or wisely, or does not point beyond itself to revelation or enlightenment or at least ataraxia? Philosophy is not itself a science, as should be abundantly clear by now, and it cannot aspire ever to tread the "sure path of science" (Kant). If it pulls in its horns and tries to play handmaiden to the sciences, it consigns itself to irrelevance. How many working scientists read philosophy of science?

The Unger interview is here. (HT: Awais Aftab)

Update (6/17): Unger's new book arrived today, just one day after I ordered it via Amazon Prime. That's what I call service! Of course, if the federal government controlled book distribution, I would have received it in half a day and at half the price.

Today's mail also brought me Peter van Inwagen's latest, Existence, a collection of recent essays. I will be reviewing it for Studia Neoaristotelica.

In a way, all I’m doing is detailing things that were already said aphoristically by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations. I read it twice over in the sixties, pretty soon after it came out, when I was an undergraduate. I believed it all — well, sort of. I knew, but I didn’t want to know, and so it just went on. And basically what Philosophical Investigations says is that when you’re doing philosophy, you’re not going to find out anything. You find out some trivial things, you’ll be under the delusion that you’re doing a great deal, but what you should do is stop and do something more productive.

But you didn’t stop.

Neither did Wittgenstein. He kept scribbling away! What stopped him from doing that was terminal cancer. Only cancer had that desired effect. But it also had some other undesired effects — namely, ending his life. (Laughter)

– See more at: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/06/philosophy-is-a-bunch-of-empty-ideas-interview-with-peter-unger.html#sthash.TKAGeGmN.dpuf

But you didn’t stop.

– See more at: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/06/philosophy-is-a-bunch-of-empty-ideas-interview-with-peter-unger.html#sthash.TKAGeGmN.dpuf

But you didn’t stop.

– See more at: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/06/philosophy-is-a-bunch-of-empty-ideas-interview-with-peter-unger.html#sthash.TKAGeGmN.dpuf

Philosophy as Hobby, as Career, as Vocation

An e-mail from a few years back with no name attached:

[Brian] Leiter fancies himself a gatekeeper to the realm of academic philosophy. You gotta love the professional gossip that seeps through his blog – Ned Block got an offer from Harvard but turned it down, here's the latest coming out of the Eastern APA, or noting, yesterday, that Ted Honderich consulted him during the publication of the new Oxford Companion to Philosophy. And look at the way Leiter prides himself on knowing the goings on at each school and each professor. . . what a status-obsessed elitist (I believe those are your words). No wonder this guy publishes the PGR. Others of us enjoy doing philosophy, most of the time, but here is a man who loves *being* a philosopher, all of the time.

Permit me a quibble. I would not describe a man like Brian Leiter who is a status-obsessed elitist and a careerist philosophy professor as someone who IS a philosopher. Socrates and Spinoza ARE philosophers. They and many others truly lived the philosophical life as opposed to merely doing philosophy for their enjoyment, or using it as a means to advance themselves socially and economically. For them it was a noble enterprise, a vocation in the root sense of the word (L. vocare) and not a career. Spinoza, for example, in 1673 declined an offer of a post at the prestigious University of Heidelberg in order to preserve his independence. He lived for philosophy, not from it, supporting himself by grinding optical lenses.

Philosophy Always Resurrects Its Dead

First posted 8 February 2011. Time for a re-run.

Etienne Gilson famously remarked that "Philosophy always buries its undertakers." That is the first of his "laws of philosophical experience." (The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Scribners, 1937, p. 306) As a metaphilosophical pronunciamento it is hard to beat. It is equally true that philosophy always resurrects its dead. Let that be my first law. The history of natural science is littered with corpses, none of which is an actual or potential Lazarus. Not so in philosophy.

None of the classical problems has ever been demonstrated to be a pseudoproblem pace Wittgenstein, Carnap and such epigoni as Morris Lazerowitz; none of the major theories proposed in solution of them has ever been refuted once and for all; no school of thought has been finally discredited.

Thomism, to take an example, was once largely confined to the academic backwaters of Catholic colleges where sleepy Jesuits taught the ancient lore from dusty scholastic manuals to bored jocks. (I am not being entirely fair, but fair enough for a blog post.) But in the last twenty years an increasing number of sharp analytic heads have penetrated the scholastic arcana and have been serving up some fairly rigorous forward-looking stuff that engages with contemporary analytic work in a way that was simply beyond the abilities of (most) of the sleepy Jesuits and old-time scholastics.

Gilbert Ryle once predicted with absurd confidence, "Gegenstandstheorie . . . is dead, buried, and not going to be resurrected." (Quoted in G. Priest, Towards Non-Being, Oxford, 2005, p. vi, n. 1.) Ryle was wrong, dead wrong, and shown to be wrong just a few years after his cocky prediction. Variations on Meinong's Theory of Objects flourish like never before due to the efforts of such brilliant philosophers as Butchvarov, Castaneda, Lambert, Parsons, Priest, Routley/Sylvan, and Zalta, just to mention those that come first to mind. And the Rylean cockiness has had an ironic upshot: his logical behaviorism is temporarily dead while Meinongianism thrives. But Ryle too will be raised if my parallel law of philosophical experience — Philosophy always resurrects its dead — holds.

It may be worth noting that if philosophy resurrects its dead then it can be expected to raise the anti-philosophical (and therefore philosophical) positions of philosophy's would-be undertakers. Philosophy, she's a wily bitch: you can't outflank her and she always ends up on top.

How Much Time for Philosophy? Part II

Dear Bill,

Thanks for that post!

Here are my two simple comments:

How much time should one spend on philosophy? "A good chunk of the day," you say; assuming that one is above all else interested in truth (about ultimate issues) and/or in the Absolute. But should one be interested in either of these? That's a philosophical problem. And I guess that in your view philosophy can't settle it: philosophically, it is as reasonable to be interested as not to be.

Even assuming that kind of interest, why do philosophy a good chunk of the day? Once one has toiled through the central apories of philosophy, something like glancing at their concise list may be sufficient. I mean sufficient for what you want from philosophy: intellectual humility and appreciation of the question what, if anything, lies beyond the limits of the discursive intellect and how one may gain access to it.

Best,

Dear V.,

Thank you for your comments which are both penetrating and very useful to me.

Response 1. Philosophers (the real ones, not mere academic functionaries) seek the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters. I take it we agree on that. But should one seek the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters? You rightly point out that whether one should or shouldn't (or neither) is itself a philosophical problem. And you also clearly see that if the problems of philosophy are insoluble, then this particular problem is insoluble. And if it is insoluble, then philosophy is no more reasonable to pursue than to eschew.

Well, I accept the consequence. But it is reasonable to pursue philosophy, and that suffices to justify my pursuit of it. And who knows? Perhaps I will definitively solve one or more philosophical problems to the satisfaction of all competent practioners. You understand that I do not claim to know (with certainty) that the insolubility thesis is true. My claim is merely that it is a reasonable conjecture based on some two and a half millenia of philosophical experience. It is reasonable to conjecture that no problem has ever been solved by us because no problem is soluble by us. I expect the future to be like the past. (But then so did Russell's chicken who expected to be fed on the day the farmer wrung his neck.)

Response 2. Let's assume that the pursuit of philosophy is reasonable and worthwhile for some of us as an end in itself (and not because we are paid to do it, or teach it.) But why continue with it day after day for many hours each day? As you put it so well, why does it not suffice to glance from time to time at a concise list of the central apories to gain the promised benefits of intellectual humility and the motivation to look beyond philosophy for routes to truth?

There are several considerations.

1. There is the sheer intellectual pleasure that people like us derive from thinking and writing about the problems of philosophy. The strangeness of the ordinary entrances us and we find disciplined wondering about it deeply satisfying. We humans like doing well what we have the power to do, and those of us who like thinking and writing and entering into dialog with the like-minded are made happy by these pursuits even if solutions are out of the reach of mortals. What Siegbert Tarrasch said of chess is also true of philosophy, "Like love, like music, it has the power to make men happy."

2. Then there is the humanizing effect of the study of the great problems. Bear in mind that for me the problems are genuine and deep and some of them are of great human importance. They are not artifacts of non-workaday uses of language, nor are they sired by erroneous empirical assumptions or remediable logical errors. I firmly reject their Wittgensteinian and 'Wittgenfreudian' dismissal, or any other sort of anti-philosophical dismissal or denigration. (Morris Lazerowitz was a 'Wittgenfreudian,' or, if you prefer, 'Freudensteinian.') So it is deeply humanizing to wrestle with the problems of philosophy. We are brought face to face with our predicament in this life. To change the metaphor, we are driven deep into it.

3. It is also important to grapple with the problems of philosophy and plumb their depths so that we can mount effective critiques against the scientistic junk solutions that are constantly being put forth in once good but now crappy publications such as Scientific American and peddled by sophists and philosophical know-nothings like Lawrence Krauss.

4. Since it is not the case that all solutions are equally good or equally bad, it is useful to know which are better and which worse. Even if the mind-body problem is ultimately insoluble, some 'solutions' can be known to be either worthless or highly unlikely to be true. Eliminative materialism is a prime candidate for the office of nonsense theory.

5. Since the insolubility thesis as I intend it is put forth tentatively and non-dogmatically, it must be continually tested. This is done by trying to solve the problems. The insolubility thesis is not an excuse for intellectual laziness.

6. But perhaps the most important point is that philosophy, pursued in the manner of the radical aporetician, can itself be a spiritual practice. This is a large topic, and brevity is the soul of blog; so I'll content myself with a brief indication.

The insolubilia of Western philosophy, if insoluble they are, could be likened to the koans of the Zen Buddhists. The point of working on a koan is to precipitate a break-through to satori or kensho by a transcending of the discursive intellect.

If you said to the Zen man that he is wasting his time puzzling over insoluble koans, he would reply that you are missing the point. "The point is not to solve them, but to break on through to the other side, to open the doors of perception beyond the discursive to the nondual."

Are Problems in Applied Ethics Insoluble?

Long-time Pakistani reader A. A. presents me with a nice challenging question:

You hold the view that the central problems of philosophy are insoluble. I assume that also includes central questions of ethics and meta-ethics, such as the existence of objective moral values. What implication does this have, however, for the more peripheral and applied problems of ethics, such as the moral status of abortion? Does it imply that they are also essentially insoluble?

Consistency demands that I drive to the end of the road. So yes, my metaphilosophical thesis implies that the moral problem of abortion, for example, is insoluble. Does the fact that I must, on pain of inconsistency, draw this conclusion amount to an objection to my metaphilosophy? Let's see.

One objection might run as follows. "If you are a solubility skeptic, then you can't take a position for or against the morality of abortion. But you yourself have argued over many posts against the moral permissibility of abortion. You do take a position. Therefore, at the end of the day you are not a solubility skeptic."

I don't think this objection need cause me any trouble. For it is consistent with what I maintain that I also maintain that some arguments on a topic are better than others, and that some are good enough to win our tentative assent, an assent sufficient to justify action in support of our causes. One can be a solubility skeptic and also maintain that some arguments are very bad and bare of probative force. Consider the Woman's Body Argument:

1. The fetus is a part of a woman's body.
2. A woman has the right to do whatever she wants with any part of her body.
Therefore
3. A woman has the right to do whatever she wants with the fetus, including having it killed.

This is clearly a very bad argument, involving as it does an equivocation on the term 'part.' For an analysis in depth, see here.

The Potentiality Argument, however, is a good argument. It is not open to any obvious refutation, despite what some people erroneously think. But it is not an absolutely compelling argument. For one thing, its underlying nomenclature and conceptuality is broadly Aristotelian: there is talk of potency and act, substance and accident, and so on. The broadly Aristotelian metaphysical framework, though defensible and ably defended by many, is however not without its difficulties, some of which are explored in my Aristotle category. These age-old difficulties bleed into the Potentiality Argument, rendering it less than absolutely rationally compelling.

Any argument in applied ethics will rest on normative-ethical and meta-ethical presuppositions, with these in turn resting on metaphysical presuppositions. Starting at the periphery with the problems of applied ethics we are ineluctably drawn toward the center where the core problems live. For example, any discussion about the morality of abortion will lead to questions about rights and duties, the nature of persons, identity over time, the nature of change, and many others besides. The insolubility of the core problems extends to the peripheral problems. But this does not prevent us from taking definite rationally defensible stands on such issues as abortion.

How Much Time Should be Spent on Philosophy?

Our Czech friend Vlastimil Vohanka writes,

You blogged that doing philosophy has great value in itself; even if philosophy is aporetic. But how often, or how long per day or month, should one devote to it? Doing philosophy seems (to me at least) to have diminishing returns, if philosophy is aporetic. Or has your experience been different?

My approach to philosophy could be called radically aporetic. Thus I hold not only that philosophy is best approached aporetically, via its problems, but also that its central problems are insoluble. Thus I tend, tentatively and on the basis of inductive evidence, to the view that the central problems of philosophy, while genuine and thus not amenable to Wittgensteinian or other dissolution, are true aporiai, impasses. It is clear that one could take a broadly aporetic approach without subscribing to the insolubility thesis. But I go 'whole hog.' Hence radically aporetic.

I won't explain this any further, having done so elsewhere, but proceed to V.'s question.

I take our friend to be asking the following. How much time ought one devote to philosophy if philosophy is its problems and they are insoluble? But there is a deeper and logically prior question lurking in the background: Why do philosophy at all if its problems are insoluble? What good is philosophy aporetically pursued?

1. It is good in that it conduces to intellectual humility, to an appreciation of our actual predicament in this life, which is one of profound ignorance concerning what would be most worth knowing if we could know it. The aporetic philosopher is a Socratic philosopher, one who knows what he knows and knows what he does not know. The aporetic philosopher is a debunker of epistemic pretense. One sort of epistemic pretense is that of the positive scientists who, succumbing to the temptation to wax philosophical, overstep the bounds of their competence, proposing bogus solutions to philosophical problems, and making incoherent assertions. They often philosophize without knowing it, and they do it incompetently, without self-awareness and self-criticism. I have given many examples of this in these pages. Thus philosophy as I conceive it is an important antidote to scientism. Scientism is an enemy of the humanities and I am a defender of the humanities.

There is also the threat emanating from political ideologies such as communism and leftism and Islamism and their various offshoots. The critique of these and other pernicious worldviews is a task for philosophy. And who is better suited for debunking operations than the aporetician?

2. Beyond its important debunking use, philosophy aporetically pursued has a spiritual point and purpose. If there are indeed absolutely insoluble problems, they mark the boundary of the discursive intellect and point beyond it. Immersion in philosophical problems brings the discursive mind to an appreciation of its limits and raises the question of what, if anything, lies beyond the limits and how one may gain access to it.

I take the old-fashioned view that the ultimate purpose of human life, a purpose to which all others must be subordinated, is to search for, and if possible, participate in the Absolute. There are several approaches to the Absolute, the main ones being philosophy, religion, and mysticism.

The radical aporetician in philosophy goes as far as he can with philosophy, but hits a dead-end, and is intellectually hnest enough to admit that he is at his wit's end. This motivates him to explore other paths to the Absolute, paths via faith/revelation and mystical intuition. The denigration of the latter by most contemporary philosophers merely shows how spiritually benighted and shallow they are, how historically uniformed, and in some cases, how willfully stupid.

But once a philosopher always a philosopher. So the radical aporetician does not cease philosophizing while exploring the other paths; he uses philosophy to chasten the excess of those other paths. And so he denigrates reason as little as he denigrates faith/revelation and mystical intuition. He merely assigns to reason its proper place.

Now to V.'s actual question. How much time for philosophy? A good chunk of every day. Just how much depending on the particular circumstances of one's particular life. But time must also be set aside for prayer and meditation, the reading of the great scriptures, and other religious/ mystical practices.

For one ought to be a truth-seeker above else. But if one is serious about seeking truth, then one cannot thoughtlessly assume that the only access to ultimate truth is via philosophy. A person who refuses to explore other paths is like the churchmen who refused to look through Galileo's telescope. They 'knew' that Aristotle had 'proven' the 'quintessential' perfection of celestial bodies, a perfection that would disallow any such 'blemishes' as craters. So they refused to look and see.

One of my correspondents is a retired philosophy of professor and a Buddhist. He maintains that one ought to spend as much time meditating as one spends on philosophy. So if one philosophizes for five hours per day, then one ought to meditate for five hours per day! A hard saying indeed!

On the Use and Abuse of Occam’s Razor

I am not historian enough to pronounce upon the relation of what is standardly called Occam's Razor to the writings of the 14th century William of Ockham. The different spellings of his name will serve as a reminder to be careful about reading contemporary concerns into the works of philosophers long dead. Setting aside historical concerns, Occam's Razor is standardly taken to be a principle of theoretical economy or parsimony that states:

OR. Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.

It is sometimes formulated in Latin: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. The principle is presumably to be interpreted qualitatively rather than quantitatively, thus:

OR*. Do not multiply TYPES of entity beyond necessity.

It is not individual entities that are not to be multiplied, but types or kinds or categories of entity. To illustrate. Some criticized David Lewis' extreme modal realism on the ground that it proliferates concreta: there are not only all the actual concreta , there are all those merely possible ones as well. He responded quite plausibly to the proliferation charge by pointing out that the Razor applies to categories of entity, not individual entities, and that category-wise his ontology is sparse indeed.

'Multiply' is a picturesque way of saying posit. (Obviously, there are as many categories of entity as there are, and one cannot cause them to 'multiply.') And let's not forget the crucial qualification: beyond necessity. That means: beyond what is needed for purposes of adequate explanation of the data that are to be explained. Hence:

OR** Do not posit types of entity in excess of what is needed for purposes of explanation.

So the principle enjoins us to refrain from positing more types of entity than we need to explain the phenomena that need to be explained. It is obvious that (OR**) does not tell us to prefer theory T1 over theory T2 if T1 posits fewer types of entity than T2. What it tells us is to prefer T1 over T2 if T1 posits fewer types of entity AND accounts adequately for all the data. So there is a trade-off between positing and accounting.

Our old pal London Ed sometimes seems to be unaware of this. He seems to think that simply brandishing the Razor suffices to refute a theory. Together with this he sometimes displays a tendency to think that whole categories of entity can be as it were shamed out of existence by labeling them 'queer.' I picked up that word from him. A nice, arch, donnish epithet. But that is just name-calling, a tactic best left to ideologues.

What is offensive about Razor brandishing is the apparent ignorance on the part of some brandishers of the fact that we all agree that one ought not posit types of entity in excess of the needs of explanation. What we don't agree on, however, is whether or not a given class of entities is needed for explanatory purposes. That is where the interesting questions and the real disagreements lie.

The Razor is a purely methodological principle. It does not dictate any particular ontology. Taken as such, and apart from its association with the nominalist Ockham, it does not favor nominalism (the view that everything is a particular) over realism (the view that there are both particulars and universals). It does not favor any ontology over any other.

Nor does it rule out so-called 'abstract objects' such as Fregean propositions. I gave an argument a while back (1 August 2010 to be precise) to the conclusion that there cannot, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, be nothing at all, that there must be at least one abstract object, a proposition. A fellow philosopher commented on that post, Thinking about Nothing, and made the objection that I was multipying entities. But again, the salient question is whether the entity-positing is necessary for explanatory purposes. If my argument was a good one, then it was. One cannot refute such an argument simply by claiming that it introduces a type of entity that is less familiar than one's favorite types.

To sum up. Philosophy is in large part, though not entirely, an explanatory enterprise. As such it ought to proceed according to the methodological principle formulated above as (OR**). This principle is not controversial. Hence it should not be presented to one's opponents as if it were controversial and denied by them. Nor is it a principle that takes sides on the substantive questions of ontology.

What I am objecting to is the idea is that by earnest asseverations of a wholly uncontroversial methodological principle one actually advances the substantive debate. After all, no one enjoins that we multiply entities beyond necessity.