Metaphilosophy – Page 17 – Maverick Philosopher

Would Ortega Have Been a Blogger?

Julian Marias on his master, Ortega y Gasset:

Throughout his life he wrote circumstantial, occasional, studies, in which he went straight to the point, to say something, to communicate to the reader — a very particular reader, whose figure gradually changed over the course of time — certain truths, certain warnings, certain very concrete exhortations. To do so he had to put into play the totality of his philosophical thought . . . . (Julian Marias, Jose Ortega y Gasset: Circumstance and Vocation, tr. Lopez-Marillas, University of Oklahoma Press, 1970, p. 235.)

Via Platonica Versus Via Aristotelis

I have spoken more than once of the fruitful tension between Athens (philosophy) and Jerusalem (Biblical revelation). But there is also a tension, and it is also a fruitful one, within Athens. It is depicted, if such a thing can be depicted at all, in Raphael's School of Athens. Take a gander at the close-up below. Plato points up, Aristotle, the younger man, points down. The Forms are, in a manner of speaking, up yonder in a topos ouranos, in a heavenly place; his star pupil would, again in a manner of speaking, bring them down to earth. In a terminology I do not wholly endorse, Plato is an extreme, while Aristotle is a moderate, realist.

The vitality of the West is due, in part, to the fruitful tension between Athens and Jerusalem. And much of the vitality of philosophy derives from the fruitful tension between the Platonic and Aristotelian ways of thinking, not just as regards the problem of universals, but on a wide range of issues.

On Hairsplitting

As a follow-up to Anti-Intellectualism in Conservatives, here is an old post from the Powerblogs site. A surprising number still languish there in cyber-limbo awaiting their turn to be brought back to life.

………………….

The charge of hairsplitting has always been one of the weapons in the arsenal of the anti-intellectual. One root of anti-intellectualism is a churlish hatred of all refinement. Another is laziness. Just as there are slugs who will not stray from their couches without the aid of motorized transport, there are mental slugs who will not engage in what Hegel calls die Anstrengung des Begriffs, the exertion of the concept. Thinking is hard work. One has to be careful, one has to be precise; one has to carve the bird of reality at the joints. It is no surprise that people don't like thinking. It goes against our slothful grain. But surely any serious thinking about any topic issues in the making of distinctions that to the untutored may seem strained and unnecessary.

Consider the question of when it is appropriate to praise a person.

Should we praise a person who has merely done his duty? Should we praise people who feed, clothe, house, and educate their children? Should wives praise their husbands for being faithful, as I once heard Dennis Prager recommend? Of course not. For this is what they ought to do. We ought not praise them for doing such things; we ought to condemn them for not doing them. Praise is due only those actions that are above and beyond the call of duty. Such actions are called supererogatory. So we have a distinction between the obligatory and the supererogatory. The former pertains to those actions that must be done or else left undone, while the latter to those actions that are non-obligatory but such that if they are done they bring moral credit upon their agents.

Is that hairsplitting? Obviously not. We are in the presence of a genuine distinction. One would have to quite obtuse not to discern it. Clarity in moral matters demands the making of this distinction, and plenty of others besides.

A second example. The phrase, 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,' will strike some as containing redundant verbiage. But there are three distinct notions here since one can tell the truth without telling the whole truth, and one can tell the whole truth without telling nothing but the truth. This is not hairsplitting, but the making of necessary distinctions. Necessary for what? Necessary for clarity of thought. Why is that a good thing? Because clarity of thought is required for ethical action and for prudent action.

So what is hairsplitting if this is supposed to be something objectionable? One idea is that it is to make distinctions that correspond to nothing real, distinctions that are merely verbal. The 'distinction' between a glow bug and a fire fly, for example, is merely verbal: there is no distinction in reality. A glow bug just is a firefly. Similarly there is no distinction in reality between a bottle's being half-full and being half-empty. The only possible difference is in the attitude of someone, a drunk perhaps, who is elated at the bottle's being half-full and depressed at its being half-empty.

But this is not what people usually mean by the charge of hairsplitting. What they seem to mean is the drawing of distinctions that don't make a practical difference. But whether a distinction makes a practical difference depends on the context and on one's purposes. A chess player must know when the game is drawn. One way to draw a chess game is by three-fold repetition of position. But there
is a distinction between a consecutive and a nonconsecutive three-fold repetition of position, a distinction many players do not appreciate. When it is explained to them, as it is here some react with hairsplitting!

The truth of the matter is that there are very few occasions on which the charge of hairsplitting is justly made. On almost all occasions, the accuser is simply advertising his inability to grasp a distinction that the subject-matter requires. He is parading before us his lack of culture and mental acuity and his churlish refusal to be instructed.

Too many conservatives are like this.

On the Dictionary Fallacy

A reader inquires:

I am looking into the dictionary fallacy for an essay, and your blog post is the only thing I could find. Do you happen to know some other sources on the fallacy?

As far as I know, I invented the dictionary fallacy, or rather, I invented the label and provided some preliminary analysis of this typical mistake in reasoning. If anyone knows of something similar in the literature, please shoot me an e-mail.

Jaegwon Kim on Reductionism and Eliminativism

I've been studying Jaegwon Kim's Physicalism, or Something Near Enough (Princeton UP, 2005). Here are some notes and questions.

1. It's clear that mental causation must be saved. If Kim is right that nonreductive physicalism is not viable, then by his lights our only hope of saving mental causation is via "physical reductionism." (159). It is of course easy to see how such reductionism, if true, would save mental causation. Surely my desire for a beer together with my belief that there is beer in the reefer are part of the etiology of my getting out of my chair and heading to the kitchen. If beliefs and desires are physical states, then there is no in-principle difficulty in understanding the etiology of my behavior. Reductionism insures the physical efficacy of the mental. What was a thorny problem on dualist approaches is no problem at all for the physical reductionist.

2. At this point some of us are going to wonder whether reductionism collapses into eliminativism. I tend to think that it does. Kim of course must disagree. His project is to find safe passage between nonreductive physicalism and eliminativism. But first I want to concede something to Kim.

3. Kim rightly points out (160) that we cannot assume that the mental cannot be physical in virtue of the very meaning of 'mental.' We cannot assume that 'mental' means 'nonphysical.' The following argument is not compelling and begs the question against the physicalist:

Beliefs and desires are mental
Whatever is mental is nonphysical
Ergo
Beliefs and desires are not physical.

The physicalist finds nothing incoherent in the notion that what is mental could also be physical. So he will either reject the second premise, or, if he accepts it, deny the first and maintain that beliefs and desires are not mental in the sense in which his opponents think they are. It seems clear, then, that one cannot mount a merely semantic argument against the physicalist based on a preconceived meaning of 'mental.'

4. Is my present state of consciousness real and yet reducible to a pattern of electrical activity in a network of neurons? Can we secure reduction without elimination? Reductionist: there are Fs but what they are are Gs. Eliminativist: There are no Fs. There at least appears to be a difference in these two sorts of claims. Kim claims that "There is an honest difference between elimination and conservative reduction." (160) Phlogiston got eliminated; temperature and heat got reduced. Witches got eliminated; the gene got reduced. The reductionist thinks he can secure or "conserve" the reality of the Fs while reducing them to the Gs. In the present case, the physical reductionist in the philosophy of mind thinks that he can maintain both that mental states are real and that they reduce to physical states.

5. Let's note two obvious logical points. The first is that identity is a symmetrical relation. The second is that reduction is asymmetrical. Thus,

I. Necessarily, for any x, y, if x = y, then y = x.
R. Necessarily, for any x, y, if x reduces to y, then it is not the case that y reduces to x.

It is clear, then, that identity and reduction are not the same relation. And yet if particular a reduces to particular b, then a is nothing other than b, and is therefore identical to b. If you think about it, reduction is a strange and perhaps incoherent notion. For if a reduces to b, a is identical to b, but, since reduction is asymmetrical, b is not identical to a! Reduction is asymmetrical identity. Amd that smacks of radical incoherence. This is what inclines me to say that reduction collapses into elimination. For if a reduces to b, and is therefore identical to b, while b is not identical to a, then it follows that there simply is no a. And so if my present mental state reduces to a pattern of electrical activity in a network of neurons, then my mental state does not exist; all that exists is the electrical activity.

6. Kim wants to have it both ways at once. He wants mental states to be both real and reducible. He wants to avoid both eliminativism and dualism. My claim is that it is impossible to have it both ways. Kim thinks that reduction somehow "conserves" that which is reduced. But how could it? If my desire for a beer is nothing other than a brain state, then then it is a purely physical state and everything mental about it has vanished. If 'two' things are identical, then there is only one thing, and if you insist that that one thing is physical, then it cannot also be mental.

7. My present thinking about a dog is intrinsically intentional, intrinsically object-directed. But no physical state is intrinsically object-directed. So, by the Indiscernibility of Identicals, my present thinking about a dog simply cannot be identical to any brain state, and so cannot reduce to any brain state. Kim of course thinks that intentional properties are functionalizable. I have already argued against that view here. Whatever causal role my thinking about a dog plays in terms of behavioral inputs and outputs, causal role occupancy cannot be make makes my thinking intentional. For it is intentional intrinsically, not in virtue of causal relations.

8. Kim speaks of the functional reducibility of intentional/cognitive properties. But surely it is not properties that need reducing but particular meetal acts. Properties are not conscious of anything. Nor are causal roles. It is the realizers of the roles that are bearers of intentionality, and it simply makes no sense to think of these as purely physical.

9. Once one starts down the reductive road there is no stopping short of eliminativism. The latter, however, is surely a reductio ad absurdum of physicalism as I explain in this post on Rosenberg's eliminativism.

A Crisis in Philosophy? How Not to Avert It

Those who make a living teaching philosophy, or are hoping to make a living teaching philosophy, have reason to be concerned. Enrollments are in decline, and as the University of Nevada (Las Vegas) example shows, whole departments are under threat of elimination. Some speak loosely of a crisis in philosophy. But it is more like a crisis for paid professors of it. And perhaps 'crisis' is overblown. So let's just say that philosophy teachers collectively have a problem, the problem of attracting warm bodies. The fewer the students, the less the need for teachers.

Lee McIntyre addresses the problem in the pages of the The Chronicle of Higher Education. He asks who is to blame for "the growing crisis in philosophy." His answer is that philosophers are. Philosophers have failed to make philosophy relevant to what people care about despite having had ages to do so. Yes, he uses that '60s buzz word, "relevant." So the problem is not caused primarily by hard economic times despite their exacerbating effect; the problem is that philosophers have failed to make philosophy "relevant."

What is to be done? "We must recognize what is unique about philosophy . . . philosophy's historical mission, which is not merely to find the truth, but to use the truth to improve the quality of human life." This is hardly unique to philosophy — think of medical science — but let that pass. We are then told that the goal . . . "should be to help students recognize that philosophy matters. Not just because it will improve their LSAT scores (which it will), but because philosophy has the potential to change the very fabric of who they are as human beings."

Sorry to sound negative, but if there is a "crisis," this high-sounding blather is unlikely to "avert" it. I should think that the primary task of philosophy is to understand human beings before going off half-cocked in pursuit of a radical transformation of their "very fabric."

The theme of 'change' having been sounded, the reader is not surprised to hear McIntyre go off on a liberal-left tangent, identifying critical thinking with the espousal of left wing positions. Here is one example:

Similarly, when a 2009 Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 28 percent of the American public—and an alarming number of their elected representatives in Washington—refuse to believe the overwhelming scientific evidence for the existence of global warming, where is the voice of the philosophical community to right the ship on the norms of good reasoning? Personally, I'm tired of hearing members of Congress who couldn't pass an introductory logic class say that they are "skeptics" about climate change. Refusing to believe something in the face of scientific evidence is not skepticism, it is the height of credulity. How delicious would it be for philosophers to claim public venues to rap their knuckles over that?

This is quite astonishing. We are being told that those who raise questions about global warming such as Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are in violation of "the norms of good reasoning"! Just as lefties think they own dissent, they think they own critical thinking too.

Michael Valle's comment on McIntyre's piece is dead on:

Here's how I read this. "We need to make philosophy more politically active. We need to teach our students that conservative and libertarian ideas are wrong and illogical. We need to spread progressive values and political views to our students. Unless we do this, our discipline will fade into obscurity." Yet this is exactly why our discipline isn't trusted. It's because we are allowing ourselves to become pickled in political correctness and leftwing activism. Until the public knows that it will not get progressive preaching in our philosophy classes, we will not be trusted, and for perfectly good reason.

That's exactly right. Contempt for philosophy, and for the humanities generally, on the part of the public is in large part do to the political correctness that infects humanities departments. Tax payers realize that there is no free and open inquiry going on in these venues, no balanced examination of the whole spectrum of opinion on issues, that what is going on is indoctrination.

To sum up. There is no crisis in philosophy. It is alive and well and will continue, funded or unfunded, enrollments up, enrollments down, praised or maligned, suppressed or supported, as it has for 20 centuries in the West and even longer in the East. It will bury its undertakers. At most, those who fill their bellies from it face lean times. Some will no longer be able to fill their bellies from it. Then we will see how seriously they take it and whether they really believe their own rhetoric. We will then discover whether they live for it or only from it.

The problem is not that philosophers are insufficiently engaged in 'progressive' agitation and indoctrination. The problem is due to the fact that times are tough, economically speaking, and that the cost-to-value ratio of a college education has become outrageously unfavorable. It is just plain stupid to incur massive debt to earn a degree in a subject that has no market value.

Nor is the problem that philosophy is not "relevant" to the issues of the day. The purpose of a university education is to elevate people, to give them perspective, to challenge them with difficult texts and ideas. Concern for "relevance" leads to the erosion of standards. As I used to say to my students: I am not going to make philosophy relevant to you; I am going to make you relevant to philosophy.

References

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2011/04/philosophy-under-attack-at-the-university-of-nevada-las-vegas.html

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2011/10/should-one-stoop-to-a-defense-of-philosophy-or-the-humanities.html

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2009/08/does-the-left-own-dissent.html

http://chronicle.com/article/Making-Philosophy-Matter-or/130029/

The Strangeness of the Ordinary

By nature, the philosopher is attuned to the strangeness of the ordinary. By experience, he encounters the hostility of those who don't want to hear about it. "What's the problem?" they ask querulously. I had a colleague who sneeringly dismissed Milton Munitz's The Mystery of Existence by its title alone. He bristled at the word 'mystery.'

There is a certain sort of prosaic, work-a-day mind that thinks that all is clear or can be made clear in short order. Overreacting to the mystery-monger, he goes to the opposite extreme. Recoiling from the portentousness of a Heidegger, he may adopt the silly stance of a Paul Edwards.

Being? Existence? What's the big deal? Existence is just a propositional function's being sometimes true!

For details and polemic, see Paul Edwards' Heidegger's Confusions: A Two-Fold Ripoff.

Justifying ‘No Problem of Philosophy is Soluble’

Earlier, I presented the following antilogism:

1. All genuine problems are soluble.
2. No problem of philosophy is soluble.
3. Some problems of philosophy are genuine.

I claimed that "(2) is a good induction based on two and one half millenia of philosophical experience." The inductive inference, which I am claiming is good, is not merely from 'No problem has been solved' to 'No problem will be solved'; but from the former to the modal 'No problem can be solved.' From a deductive point of view, this is of course doubly invalid. I use 'valid' and 'invalid' only in connection with deductive arguments. No inductive argument is valid. No news there.

Peter Lupu's objection, which he elaborated as best he could after I stuffed him with L-tryptophan-rich turkey and fixin's, was along the following lines. If the problems of philosophy are insoluble, then so is the problem of induction. This is the problem of justifying induction, of showing it to be rational. So if all the problems are insoluble, then we cannot ever know that inductive inference is rational. But if we cannot ever know this, then we cannot ever know that the inductive inference to (2) is rational. Peter concludes that this is fatal to my metaphilosophical argument which proceeds from (2) and (3) to the negation of (1). What he is maintaining, I believe, is that my argument is not rationally acceptable, contrary to what I stated, because (2) is not rationally acceptable.

Perhaps Peter's objection can be given the following sharper formulation.

(2) is either true or false. If (2) is true, then (2) is not rationally justifiable, hence not rationally acceptable, in which case the argument one of whose premises it is is not rationally acceptable. If, on the other hand, (2) is false, then the argument is unsound. So my metaphilosophical argument is either rationally unacceptable or unsound. Ouch!

I concede that my position implies that we cannot know that the inductive inference to (2) is rationally justified. But it might be rationally justified nonetheless. Induction can be a rational procedure even if we cannot know that it is or prove that it is. Induction is not the same as the problem of induction. If I am right, the latter is insoluble. But surely failure to solve the problem of induction does not show that induction is not rationally justified. Peter seems to be assuming the following principle:

If S comes to believe that p on the basis of some cognitive procedure CP, then S is rationally justified in believing that p on the basis of CP only if S has solved all the philosophical problems pertaining to CP.

I don't see why one must accept the italicized principle. It seems to me that I am rationally justified in believing that Peter is an Other Mind on the basis of my social interaction with him despite my not having solved the problem of Other Minds. It seems to me that I am rationally justified, on the basis of memory, that he ate at my table on Thursday night despite my not having solved all the problems thrown up by memory. And so on.

Are All Genuine Problems Soluble? A Metaphilosophical Antilogism

The old questions are still debated. The problems remain unsolved after millenia: there is no consensus among the competent. But what does interminable debate and lack of consensus show? That philosophical problems are genuine but insoluble or that they are not genuine because insoluble? Or something else?

Our metaphilosophical problem may be cast in the mold of an antilogism:

1. All genuine problems are soluble.
2. No problem of philosophy is soluble.
3. Some problems of philosophy are genuine.

Each limb of this aporetic triad lays serious claim to our acceptance. (1) will strike many as self-evident, especially if soluble means 'soluble eventually' or perhaps 'soluble in principle.' (2) is a good induction based on two and one half millenia of philosophical experience. Or can you point to a central or core problem that has been solved to the satisfaction of all able practioners? Give me an example if you think you have one, and I will blow it clean out of the water. (3) certainly seems to be true, does it not? The main problems of philosophy when carefully and rigorously formulated are as genuine as any problem. And yet the triad's limbs cannot all be true. The first two limbs, taken together, entail the negation of the third. So one of them must be rejected.

Think about this metaproblem. Is it not genuine and important?

For every antilogism there are three corresponding syllogisms, and so our antilogism gives rise to the following three syllogistic arguments:

1. All genuine problems are soluble.
2. No problem of philosophy is soluble.
—–
~3. No problem of philosophy is genuine.

1. All genuine problems are soluble.
3. Some problems of philosophy are genuine.
—–
~2. Some problems of philosophy are soluble.

2. No problem of philosophy is soluble.
3. Some problems of philosophy are genuine.
—–
~1. Some genuine problems are not soluble.

Each of these syllogisms is valid. But only one can be sound. Which one? Is there any rational way to decide? The first syllogism encapsulates the view of the logical positivist Moritz Schlick as expressed in his "The Turning Point in Philosophy." His thesis is that the problems of philosophy are pseudo-problems. But if so, then the metaproblem we have been discussing, which of course is a philosophical problem, is a also a pseudo-problem. But if it is a pseudo-problem, then it has no solution. But it does have a solution for Schlick, one that consists in denying (3). So the Schlick solution is incoherent. On the one hand, he maintains that the problems of philosophy are pseudo-problems. On the other hand, he thinks that the metaproblem of whether philosophical problems are pseudoproblems has a solution. Thus his position leads to a contradiction.

Many will plump for the second syllogism. They will be forgiven for so plumping. They are the optimists who fancy that in the fullness of time solutions will be upon us.

I put my money on the third syllogism. I reject (1), thereby maintaining that some genuine problems are insoluble. Indeed, I want to go further. I want to maintain that all genuine philosophical problems are insoluble. I consider the above metaphilosophical problem to be an example of a genuine but insoluble problem. So I am not claiming that my rejection of (1) solves the metaphilosophical problem. If I made that claim then I would be contradicting myself. I would be claiming that philosophical problems are insoluble but that the metaproblem (which is a philosophical problem) is soluble. So what am I saying?

Perhaps what I am saying is that I have no compelling reason to prefer the third syllogism to the other two, but that my preferring of the third is rationally acceptable, rationally supportable, and may well lay bare the truth of the matter.

On Philosophical ‘Trash-Talk’

Peter Lupu left the following comment which deserves to be separately posted. I supplement Peter's thoughts with a quotation from Mary Midgley and some commentary.

In philosophical discourse the phrase "I do not understand" when stated about a philosophical position can mean either

(i) this position is so obscure that there is nothing in it to understand; or

(ii) this position is subject to several obvious objections (which I need not spell out) and therefore I fail to see how anyone can hold and/or propose it; or

(iii) this position is so difficult, abstract, and/or complex that I am unable to wrap my head around it.

Sense (iii) is not philosophical trash-talk. It is typically stated by a philosophical novice who really does not yet grasp the nature of philosophical positions or by a professional who is grappling with a genuinely difficult position and attempts to make sense of it.

Senses (i) and (ii), on the other hand, are too often used by opponents of a position as philosophical trash-talk. Their purpose is to intimidate the proponents of a position. The method goes something like this.

Example of Philosophical Trash-Talk:

"You and I agree that I am not a philosophical novice; given this assumption, if your position were not irreparably obscure, I would understand it; I do not understand it; therefore, it is irreparably obscure."

Now the proponent of the position so challenged has two options: he can defend the coherence of his position or else he must challenge the credentials of the opponent who uses a version of trash-talk exemplified above. Since many gentle souls would prefer not to opt for the later option, they are forced to defend the coherence of their position against challenges not yet stated. This achieves the intended purpose of the opponent to turn the burden on the proponent without having to do much except trash-talk.

Trash-talk has no place in philosophical discourse. A phrase such as "I do not understand" should be used only in sense (iii) either by a philosophical novice or by a professional who uses it to express their genuine effort to understand a difficult position and give it the most charitable reading. If a professional uses it in any other sense, they are trash-talking which, I hope we all agree, betrays the essence of philosophical inquiry.

Mary Midgley in The Owl of Minerva: A Memoir, Routledge, 2005, p. 13, reminisces about her headmistress, Miss Annie Bowden:

I also remember something striking that she had said when I had complained that I knew the answer to some question but I just couldn't say it clearly. 'If you can't say a thing clearly,' she replied, 'then you don't actually know what it is, do you?' This is a deep thought which I have often come back to, and it is in general a useful one. It lies at the heart of British empiricism. Though it is not by any means always true, I am glad to have had it put before me so early in life. It's a good thought to have when you are trying to clarify your own ideas, but a bad one when you are supposed to be understanding other people's. Philosophers are always complaining that other people's remarks are not clear when what they mean is that they are unwelcome. So they often cultivate the art of not understanding things — something which British analytic philosophers are particularly good at. (Bolding added.)

My added emphasis signals my approbation.

We owe it to ourselves and our readers to be as clear as we can. But the whole point of philosophy is to extend clarity beyond the 'clarity' of everyday life and everyday thinking. The pursuit of this higher clarity, the attempt to work our way out of Plato's Cave, results in a kind of talking and thinking that must appear obscure to the Cave dweller. Well, so much the worse for him and his values. To demand Cave clarity of the philosopher is vulgar and philistine.

The Use and Abuse of Occam’s Razor: On Multiplying Entities Beyond Necessity

Self-styled neo-Aristotelian Richard Hennessey's response to my three posts concerning his theory of accidental predication is now online.

He graciously declines my suggestion that he make use of accidental compounds or accidental unities in his theory despite the excellent Aristotelian pedigree of these items, a pedigree amply documented in the writings of Frank Lewis and Gareth Mathews. Following Mathews, I characterized accidental compounds as 'kooky' objects with as little pejorative intent as I found in Mathews who defends these items. Hennessey, however, apparently takes the label pejoratively:

I cannot help but agree that the seated-Socrates in question, as a being other than Socrates, is a “‘kooky’ or ‘queer’ object.” And I cannot help but wonder how anyone who rejects universals could be tempted to multiply entities and accept such a “‘kooky’ or ‘queer’ object.”

So before examing the meat of Hennessey's response to me, in a later post, we must first tackle some preliminary matters including the nature of Occam's Razor, its use and abuse, and the role of explanation and explanatory posits in philosophy.

On Brandishing the 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.

Thus 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 Ed over at Beyond Necessity often 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 shabby tactic best left to the ideologues.

Hennessey is perhaps not guilty of any name-calling or entity-shaming but I note that he too seems to think that merely waving the Razor about suffices as a technique of refutation. One piece of evidence is the quotation above where he states in effect that to posit accidental compounds such as seated-Socrates is to multiply entities. But this is to ignore the crucial question whether there is any need for the positing.

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.

Hennessey eschews universals in the theory of predication, and elsewhere. Fine. But he cannot justify that eschewal solely on the basis of Occam's Razor which is a purely methodological principle. In other words, the Razor 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. Hennessey 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. Thus the following argument which is suggested by Hennessey's remarks is invalid:

1. OR**
2. Accidental compounds are a category of particular distinct from both substances and accidents.
Ergo
3. There are no accidental compounds.

Non sequitur! He needs a premise to the effect that the positing of accidental compounds is otiose since the explanatory job can be adequately done without them. He needs such a premise, and of course he needs to defend it.

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.

Is Philosophy the Most Practical Major?

Here. Via the indefatigable Dave Lull. Here is my little tribute to Lull from earlier this year:

If you are a blogger, then perhaps you too have been the recipient of his terse emails informing one of this or that blogworthy tidbit. Who is this Dave Lull guy anyway? Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence provides an answer:

As Pascal said of God (no blasphemy intended) Dave is the circle whose center is everywhere in the blogosphere and whose circumference is nowhere. He is a blogless unmoved mover. He is the lubricant that greases the machinery of half the online universe worth reading. He is copy editor, auxiliary conscience and friend. He is, in short, the OWL – Omnipresent Wisconsin Librarian.

For other tributes to the ever-helpful Lull see here. Live long, Dave, and grease on!

Addendum (20 October, 5:20 AM): I just corrected a typo. I had 'indefagitable' instead of indefatigable.' Perhaps I was subsconsciously thinking that that one who is indefatigable cannot be fagged out. Hence: indeFAGitable.

Philosophy, Debate, and Dialog

The proprietor of Beyond Necessity tells us that he is thinking of attending the London debate between William Lane Craig and atheist philosopher Stephen Law on 17 October. I hope he attends and files his report.

But can philosophy be debated? In a loose sense, yes, but not in a strict sense. I say that if debate is occurring in a certain place, then no philosophy is occurring in that place. Philosophy is not a matter of debate. That is a nonnegotiable point with me. So I won't debate it, nor can I consistently with what I have just said. It is after all a (meta)philosophical point: if philosophy cannot be debated then the same goes for this particular philosopheme. But though I won't debate the point, I must in my capacity as philosopher give some reasons for my view. My view is a logical consequence of my view of debate in conjunction with my view of philosophy.

Debate is a game in which the interlocutors attempt to defeat each other, typically before an audience whose approbation they strive to secure. Hence the query 'Who won the debate?' which implies that the transaction is about attacking and defending, winning and losing. I don't deny that debates can be worthwhile in politics and in other areas. And even in philosophy they may have some use. Someone who attends the Craig-Law debate will come away with some idea of what sorts of issues philosophers of religion discuss. What he won't come away with is any understanding of the essence of philosophy.

Why is philosophy — the genuine article — not something that can be debated?

Philosophy is inquiry. It is inquiry by those who don't know (and know that they don't know) with the sincere intention of increasing their insight and understanding. Philosophy is motivated by the love of truth, not the love of verbal battle or the need to defeat an opponent or shore up and promote a preconceived opinion about which one has no real doubt. When philosophy is done with others it takes the form of dialog, not debate. It is conversation between friends, not opponents, who are friends of the truth before they are friends of each other. Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.

There is nothing adversarial in a genuine philosophical conversation. The person I am addressing and responding to is not my adversary but a co-inquirer. In the ideal case there is between us a bond of friendship, a philiatic bond. But this philia subserves the eros of inquiry. The philosopher's love of truth is erotic, the love of one who lacks for that which he lacks. It is not the agapic love of one who knows and bestows his pearls of wisdom.

There is nothing like this in a debate. The aim in a debate is not to work with the other towards a truth that neither claims to possess. On the contrary, each already 'knows' what the truth is and is merely trying to attack the other's counter-position while defending his own. Thus the whole transation is ideological the two sides of which are polemics and apologetics. Debate is verbal warfare. This is why debaters never show doubt or admit they are wrong. To show doubt is to show weakness. To prevail against an enemy you must not appear weak but intimidating.

There is no place for polemics in philosophy. To the extent that polemics creeps in, philosophy becomes ideology. This is not to say that there is no place for polemics or apologetics. It is to say that that place is not philosophy.

Discussions with ideologues, whether religious or anti-religious, tend to be unpleasant and unproductive. They see everything in terms of attack and defense. If you merely question their views they are liable to become angry or flustered. I once questioned a Buddhist on his 'no self' doctrine. He became hostile. His hostility at my questioning of one of the beliefs with which he identifies proved that his 'self' was alive and kicking despite doctrinal asseverations to the contrary.

Should One Stoop to a Defense of Philosophy or the Humanities?

The place of philosophy in college curricula is often defended on the ground that its study promotes critical thinking.

Now I don't doubt that courses in logic, epistemology, and ethics can help inculcate habits of critical thinking and good judgment. And it may also be true that philosophy has a unique role to play here. So, while it is true that every discipline teaches habits of critical thinking and good judgment in that discipline, there are plenty of issues that are not discipline-specific, and these need to be addressed critically as well.

What I object to, however, is the notion that philosophy needs to justify itself in terms of an end external to it, and that its main justification is in terms of an end outside of it. The main reason to study philosophy is not to become a more critical reasoner or a better evaluator of evidence, but to grapple with the ultimate questions of human existence and to arrive at as much insight into them as is possible. What drives philosophy is the desire to know the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters. Let's not confuse a useful byproduct of philosophical study (development of critical thinking skills) with the goal of philosophical study. The reason to study English literature is not to improve one's vocabulary or to prepare for a career as a journalist. Similarly, the reason to study philosophy is not to improve one's ability to think clearly about extraphilosophical matters or to acquire skills that may prove handy in law school.

Philosophy is an end in itself. This is why it is foolish to try to convince philistines that it is good for something. It is not primarily good for something. It is a good in itself. Otherwise you are acquiescing in the philistinism you ought to be combating. Is listening to the sublime adagio movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony good for something? And what would that be, to impress people with how cultured you are?

To the philistine's "Philosophy bakes no bread" you should not respond "Yes it does," for such responses are patently lame. You should say, "Man does not live by bread alone," or "Not everything is pursued as a means to something else," or "A university is not a trade school." You should not acquiesce in the philistine's values and assumptions, but go on the attack and question his values and assumptions. Put him on the spot. Play the Socratic gadfly. If a philistine wants to know how much you got paid for writing an article for a professional journal, say, "Do you really think that only what one is paid to do is worth doing?"

Admittedly, this is a lofty conception of philosophy and I would hate to have to defend it before the uncomprehending philistines one would expect to find on the typical Board of Regents. But philosophy is what it is, lofty by nature, and if we are to defend it we must do so in a way that does not betray it.

It might be better, though, not to stoop to defend it at all, at least not before the uncomprehending. It might be better to show contempt and supercilious disdain. Not everyone can be reasoned with, and part of being reasonable is understanding this fact.

Three’s a Crowd

In a face-to-face philosophical discussion, three is a crowd.

If Al and Bill are talking philosophy, the first thing that has to occur, if there is is to be any forward movement, is that the interlocutors must pin each other down terminology-wise. Each has to come to understand how the other is using his terms. It is notorious that key philosophical terms are used in different ways by different philosophers. This terminological fluidity, though regrettable, is unavoidable since attempt to rigidify terminology will inevitably beg key questions.

The following is a partial list of terms used in different ways by different philosophers: abstract, concrete, object, subject, fact, proposition, world, predicate, property, substance, event.

Take 'fact.' For some, it is a matter of definition that a fact is a true proposition. But as I use the term, a fact is the truth-maker of a true proposition. Suppose you use 'fact' as interchangeable with
'true proposition.' Then I can accommodate you by distinguishing between facts-that and facts-of. Thus, the fact that Bill is blogging is made true by the fact of Bill's blogging. But we must sort out these definitional questions if we are to make any progress with the substantive issues. A substantive question would be: Are there facts? Obviously, we cannot make any headway with this until we agree on how we are using 'facts.' For more on this topic see Three Senses of 'Facts' and other entries in the Facts category.

And of course we can't stop here. If you say that a fact is a true proposition, then I will ask you how you are using 'proposition.' Do you mean the sense of a context-free declarative sentence? Are propositions for you abstract objects? But now we need to get clear about 'abstract' and 'object.' Do you use 'object' and 'entity' interchangeably? Or can there be objects that are not entities and entities that are not objects? (An hallucinated pink rat might count as an object that is not an entity, and a being that has never been the accusative of any intellect might count as an entity that is not an object.) Someone who uses 'object' in such a way that there is no object without a (thinking) subject is not misusing the word: that is a traditional use. But equally, a person who uses 'object' to mean entity is not misusing it either. So the use of 'object' needs clarification.

One might use 'abstract' and 'concrete' as follows: X is abstract (concrete) iff X is causally inert (causally active/passive). But I know of at least one name philosopher who uses 'abstract' interchangeably with 'nonspatiotemporal.' On this usage, God would be an abstract object, while on the first definition God would be concrete.

Note that an abstract entity on either of these two definitions can be a substance (another word with about ten meanings!), i.e., a being capable of independent existence. But 'abstract' is used by
philosophers as diverse as Hegel and Keith Campbell (the Aussie trope theorist) to refer to non-independent objects. And indeed, their use is the classical, and etymologically correct, use.

And so it goes. Suppose Carla is present at Al and Bill's discussion. Will she help or hinder? Experience teaches that, for the most part, three's a crowd: the third interlocutor, in her zeal to contribute to the discussion will only interfere with the protracted preliminary clarification that Al and Bill need before they can get to work on the substantive questions that interest them.

Note 1: The above applies to face-to-face discussions, not to on-line exchanges. Note 2: I seem to recall Roderick Chisholm making the 'three is a crowd' remark. So I may have picked up the thought from him.