A few ideas about your recent post on defining political correctness. First, there's a questionable suppressed premise in the argument below:
"To be politically correct, then, is to support the leftist worldview and the leftist agenda. It follows that a conservative cannot be politically correct. P.C. comes from the C.P. The P. C. mentality is a successor form of the Communist mentality. To be politically correct is to toe the party line. It is to support leftist positions and tactics, including the suppression of the free speech rights of opponents."
That PC involves supporting leftism implies that conservatives cannot be politically correct only if conservatives cannot support leftism. But if conservatives are those people who are nowadays usually called 'conservatives', the suppressed premise is probably false. Conservatives (in that sense) often support at least some of the same general principles and policies and institutions as leftists. Mainstream conservatives today support general principles of non-discrimination and equality, for example, which naturally lead to key elements of 'the leftist worldview and the leftist agenda'. I will bet you anything that in just a few years mainstream Republicans will tend to agree that it's wrong for men and women to have separate bathrooms. Just as many of them now think that gay marriage is fine, or that, at any rate, it would be pointless to argue against it. Just as they now accept views on sex and race and immigration that were considered far left just a few decades ago. So as a matter of fact these people just do seem to support the leftist worldview and agenda up to a point and in some respects, and they seem generally to move ever more to the left and never more to the right. They do toe the party line, much of the time, and they tend to police those who reject leftism at a more fundamental level; consider what happened to John Derbyshire at NR, for example. Alternatively we might say that no true conservative can be politically correct, and also say that most of those called 'conservatives' are not true conservatives. Or we might say that PC involves toeing the leftist party line to some very high *degree* at a given time, such that conservatives toe the line and support leftism to some degree but not to that very high degree.
BV: We need to distinguish among true conservatives, conservatives-in-name-only (CINOs, my coinage, to be pronounced chee-nos), and members of the Republican Party. Most Republicans are CINOs. Lindsey Graham, for example, attacked Donald Trump as a 'xenophobe' for proposing a moratorium on Muslim immigration. Of course, Trump's reasonable proposal and his call for a wall on the southern border do not make him a xenophobe. Graham's attack was no different in content from what a leftist like Elizabeth Warren would say. As you rightly guessed, when I said that conservatives cannot be politically correct, I was referring to true conservatives. We agree on this.
What exactly a true conservative is and whether such an animal can take on board any idea of the classical liberals is a further question, and one on which I fear we will disagree. You will recall that we clashed over the role of toleration in our political life.
For my four or so John Derbyshire entries, see here.As for the NR boys, I refer to them as the 'bow-tie brigade.' High-level talk, erudite discussion, but no action. They are establishment types, urbane, gentlemanly, who want to be liked and respected, which is why they distance themselves from the likes of Derbyshire, Buchanan, and Trump. They desperately fear being called racists, xenophobes, nativists, sexists, isolationists, bigots, etc. though they of course will be called some of those names by leftists.
Second quibble: Do leftists really practice a double standard when they insist on their own free speech while denying the free speech rights of others? I'm not sure that the real hardcore leftists believe in free speech rights in the first place. Some of them are even pretty open about it. They think the 'oppressed' and 'marginal' should be free to speak, but they don't think that everyone has that right. (Or they think that everyone will have it only when some impossible scenario of total equality and non-oppression has been achieved.) I suspect the double standard is present only in the slightly less extreme liberal-leftism of institutions and ordinary people who do have some semi-conscious belief in the right to free speech.
BV: Are you saying that hard-core leftists do not insist on free speech rights for themselves? That's news to me. Any references? Most leftists are not 'oppressed' and 'marginal' — I approve of your sneer quotes by the way – they are in fact highly privileged and yet they surely will insist on their right to speak what they think is true, while working to suppress the free speech of their opponents. So there is a double standard at work here.
Greetings from a long time reader and fan of your blog.
I'm often struck by the difference in tone (representing a difference in your doxastic stance?) when you discuss ontological issues and when you discuss political issues. This was brought home forcibly by 'Does Evil Disprove the Existence of God’ and your ongoing commentary on US politics.
When discussing ontology and philosophical theology you often insinuate that the existence of multiple rationally tenable answers to a given problem gives cause to question the very possibility of finding a solution, and thus that one should be at least cautious about claiming to have the correct answer. Yet, when commenting on politics you freely make moral condemnations and normative announcements [pronouncements].
What explains this discrepancy? Are you of the opinion that political philosophy questions have easier answers than those of the 'Ontology Room'? As you have admitted that politics' meta-ethical foundations largely depend on metaphysics one adopts, I find that hard to believe. Or do you hold that in principle the same qualifications apply, albeit for the sake of every day communication don't give them every time you comment? (I had assumed it was something along the lines of the latter).
As one of the things that drove me to Philosophy was the realisation that many people dogmatise about every-day social/political issues, but often throw up their hands—becoming skeptics, agnostics, or contradicting themselves—when faced with fundamental metaphysical or existential questions, I'm interested to hear your answer.
Best wishes from the land of Ockham and Whitehead,
D. C.
My reader accurately observes that my tone is very different when discussing philosophical questions and when engaging in political commentary. When discussing philosophy the position I take is often that of a solubility skeptic. To simplify my view and present it in the form of a slogan:
The classical problems of philosophy are all of them genuine, some of them humanly important, but none of them humanly soluble.
And of course I hold this view tentatively and non-dogmatically. This implies that my solubility skepticism extends to the meta-philosophical problem of the solubility of philosophical problems. I don't claim to have solved it! I claim only that a very strong rational case can be made for my slogan, or rather, for my slogan properly 'exfoliated,' i.e. properly unwrapped and unpacked and qualified with all key terms defined.
Of course, one doesn't have to subscribe to my solubility skepticism to think that philosophical questions should be discussed carefully, cautiously, and calmly.
When it comes to politics, however, my stance is more often than not partisan and polemical. I have been know to say things like, "Anyone who holds such-and-such a view is moral scum and ought to be morally condemned." But of course I would never accuse a philosopher of moral turpitude should he adopt a regularity theory of causation or accept a Meinongian semantics. Subject to some qualifications, there is no place for polemics in philosophy proper. There is also not much need for it since the problems that fascinate us professional philosophers are often not exactly 'pressing.'
Now one distinction that needs to be made, and that my reader seems not to be making, is between political philosophy and politics. The first is philosophy, the second is not. The philosopher aims at understanding the world in its deepest and most pervasive features. His task is theoretical, not practical. Politics, however, is practical, a matter of action. To borrow a beautiful line from Plato's Republic at 486a, the philosopher is a "spectator of all time and existence." The state and the political in general are among the objects of the philosopher's calm and unhurried contemplation. But of course no human being is a pure transcendental spectator, not even the philosopher who meets the stringent Platonic demands and possesses magnificence of mind and a proper sense of the relative insignificance of human affairs; he is also an animal embedded in nature. As indigent, at-risk participants in natural and social life, as possessing what Wilhelm Dilthey called a Sitz im Leben, we must act to ward off threats and secure our continuance. And we must act in 'Cave-like' conditions where the lighting is bad and much is unclear. Here is the province of politics. As Schopenhauer observes, the world is beautiful to behold, but terrible to be a part of. We are both: spectators and participants. We are beholders of it and beholden to it. As participants, we must act to secure our material existence so that we can engage in the higher pursuits.
And so we must battle our enemies. When one's liberties, way of life, or very existence are under threat one must take a stand. This involves what might be called the 'dogmatism of action.' There is a certain benign skepticism that is essential to the life of inquiry; doubt, I like to say, in the engine of inquiry. But one cannot suspend judgment and refrain from the necessary one-sidedness of action in the face of one's enemies.
The human condition is indeed a predicament. We must act even though we lack full insight into how we ought to act. And we must patiently inquire into how we ought to act and live even though calm inquiry can impede action. We have to avoid both a thoughtless decisionism and the paralysis that can result from excessive analysis.
If we distinguish, as we should, between political philosophy and political action, then the "discrepancy" my reader notes does not boil over into a contradiction within my 'system.' It would eventuate in a contradiction were I to maintain both of
a. Solubility skepticism is a rational position with respect to all classical philosophical problems
and
b. Solubility skepticism is not a rational position with respect to the problems of social and political philosophy.
But of course I don't maintain both of these propositions. I maintain (a) and the negation of (b). I would also be in trouble if I fell into a sort of performative inconsistency by upholding (a) while acting and writing as if I also uphold (b). But I don't think I am doing that. For when I do battle with political opponents I am operating in the political sphere, not the philosophical sphere, and therefore not in the political-philosophical sphere.
"But why battle your opponents? Why not get along with them?" Because they won't allow it. You cannot get along with someone who labels you a racist for opposing illegal immigration. You cannot get along with someone who thinks it perfectly legitimate to use the awesome power of the state to destroy the livelihoods of bakers and florists who refuse to violate their consciences by supplying goods and services to same-sex 'marriage' events. And so on through dozens of examples.
As I said, polemics has no place in philosophy. But politics is not philosophy and its is hard to imagine politics without a sizeable admixture of polemics. I wish it were not true, but politics is war conducted by other means. That is clearly how our opponents on the Left view it, and so that is how we must view it if we are to oppose them effectively.
As a culture warrior, I do battle with my enemies. As a philosopher, I seek truth with my friends.
Another very important distinction that is relevant here is that between philosophy-as-inquiry and philosophy-as-worldview. A worldview could be characterized as a system of ideas oriented toward action. Worldviews are action-guiding. Since we must act, and since we must act in some principled way, we need worldviews. But which worldviews are in the long run conducive to human flourishing? Here is where philosophy-as-inquiry comes into the picture.
My reader speaks of the Ontology Room; he should have spoken more broadly of the Philosophy Mansion in which there are many rooms, one of them being the Political Philosophy Room. In this mansion and in all of its rooms, polemics and invective are out of place. But the Philosophy Mansion can exist only if she is defended against her enemies. Manning the ramparts and minding the moats are the culture warriors who defend the mansion so that the acolytes of our fair mistress Philosophia can carry on as they have for millennia. (Similarly for churches and monasteries and synagogues and ashrams and zendos. Nazis and Commies and Islamists have a history of destroying them.)
As one of the things that drove me to Philosophy was the realisation that many people dogmatise about every-day social/political issues, but often throw up their hands—becoming skeptics, agnostics, or contradicting themselves—when faced with fundamental metaphysical or existential questions, I'm interested to hear your answer.
My reader is speaking of the average Joe and Jane. These types are not skeptical in my sense since they are not inquirers. They have no interest in the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters. They are, for the most part, bottom-of-the-Cave types who are lazy and thoughtless and simply want an excuse to not think about the so-called Big Questions. The are typically anti-philosophical: they think philosophy is hot air, word games, and mental masturbation. But when it comes to hot-button issues, they adopt absurd philosophical views that they are incapable of recognizing as philosophical. One hears, for example, the opinion that a human fetus is "just a bit of tissue."
To sum up.
There is no inconsistency in my position as far as I can see either logically or performatively. Political philosophy must be distinguished from politics. The first is a theoretical enterprise. It ought to be pursued non-polemically and non-tendentiously. Politics, however, is a form of action in which we must engage in order to preserve ourselves and our way of life. This involves battling enemies. Here polemics is not only admissible but unavoidable. One must act and one cannot be sure that one's actions are right. That is just the predicament we are in.
Philosophers who shirk their political responsibilities abdicate what little authority they have.
Comments enabled. But don't comment on my solubility skepticism. That's not the point of the post.
Herewith, some notes on Chapter 2 of William E. Mann, God, Modality, and Morality (Oxford UP, 2015), "Divine Simplicity." I have been invited to review the book for Faith and Philosophy. This entry, then, by way of warm-up. For an introduction to the topic of divine simplicity, see my Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry.
One of the entailments of the classical doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) is that God is what he has. (Augustine, The City of God, XI, 10.) Thus God has omniscience by being (identical to) omniscience. And similarly for the other divine attributes. The Platonic flavor of this is unmistakable. God is not an all-knowing being, but all-knowing-ness itself; not a good being, or even a maximally good being, but Goodness itself; not a wise being or the wisest of beings, but Wisdom itself. Not a being among beings, not an ens among entia, but self-subsistent Being (esse) itself. (Aquinas: Deus est ipsum esse subsistens.) To our ordinary way of thinking this sounds like so much nonsense: how could anything be identical to its attributes? Something that has properties is eo ipso distinct from them. Is that not obvious? But on another way of thinking, DDS makes a good deal of sense. How could God, the absolute, self-sufficient reality, be just one more wise individual even if the wisest? God is better thought of as the source of all wisdom, as Wisdom itself in its prime instance. Otherwise, God would be dependent on something other than himself for his wisdom, namely, the property of being wise. There is more on motivation in my SEP entry. I will say no more here about motivation. This post is for those who accept or are inclined to accept DDS but are worried about how rational sense can be made of it.
As Mann points out, the Platonic approach as we find it is the Augustinian and Anselmian accounts of DDS leads to difficulties a couple of which are as follows:
D1. If God = wisdom, and God = life, then wisdom = life. But wisdom and life are not even extensionally equivalent, let alone identical. If Tom is alive, it doesn't follow that Tom is wise. (23)
D2. If God is wisdom, and Socrates is wise by participating in wisdom, then Socrates is wise by participating in God. But this smacks of heresy. No creature participates in God. (23)
Property Instances
Enter property instances. It is one thing to say that God is wisdom, quite another to say that God is God's wisdom. God's wisdom is an example of a property instance. And similarly for the other divine attributes. God is not identical to life; God is identical to his life. Suppose we say that God = God's wisdom, and God = God's life. It would then follow that God's wisdom = God's life, but not that God = wisdom or that wisdom = life.
So if we construe identity with properties as identity with property instances, then we can evade both of (D1) and (D2). Mann's idea, then, is that the identity claims made within DDS should be taken as Deity-instance identities (e.g., God is his omniscience) and as instance-instance identities (e.g., God's omniscience is God's omnipotence), but not as Deity-property identities (e.g., God is omniscience) or as property-property identities (e.g., omniscience is omnipotence). Support for Mann's approach is readily available in the texts of the doctor angelicus. (24) Aquinas says things like, Deus est sua bonitas, "God is his goodness."
But what exactly is a property instance? If the concrete individual Socrates instantiates the abstract property wisdom, then two further putative items come into consideration. One is the (Chisholmian-Plantingian as opposed to Bergmannian-Armstrongian) state of affairs, Socrates' being wise. The other is the property instance, the wisdom of Socrates. Mann holds that they are distinct. All states of affairs exist, but only some of them obtain or are actual. By contrast, all property instances are actual: they cannot exist without being actual. The wisdom of Socrates is a particular just as Socrates is and is concrete (in space and/or time) just as Socrates is. If we admit property instances into our ontology, then the above two difficulties can be circumvented. Or so Mann maintains.
Could a Person be a Property Instance?
But other problems loom. One is this. If the F-ness of God = God, if, for example, the wisdom of God = God, then God is a property instance. But God is a person. From the frying pan into the fire? How could a person be a property instance? I will display the problem as an inconsistent triad:
a. God is a property instance. b. God is a person. c. No person is a property instance.
Mann solves the triad by denying (c). (37) Some persons are property instances. Indeed, Mann argues that every person is a property instance because everything is a property instance. (38) God is a person and therefore a property instance. If you object that persons are concrete while property instances are abstract, Mann's response is that both are concrete. To be concrete is to be in space and/or time. Socrates is concrete in this sense, but so is his being sunburned. (37)
If you object that persons are substances and thus independent items while property instances are not substances but dependent on substances, Mann's response will be that the point holds for accidental property instances but not for essential property instances. Socrates may lose his wisdom but he cannot lose his humanity. Now all of God's properties are essential: God is essentially omniscient, omnipotent, etc. So it seems to Mann that "the omniscience of God is not any more dependent on God than God is on the omniscience of God: should either cease to be, the other would also." (37)
Mann's argument for the thesis that everything is a property instance involves the notion of a rich property. The rich property of an individual x is a conjunctive property the conjuncts of which are all and only the essential and accidental properties, some of them temporally indexed, instantiated by x throughout x's career. (38) Mann tells us that for anything whatsoever there is a corresponding rich property. From this he concludes that "everything is a property instance of some rich property or other." (38) It follows that every person is a property instance. The argument seems to be this:
A. For every concrete individual x, there is a corresponding rich property R. Therefore,
B. For every concrete individual x, x is a property instance of some rich property or other. Therefore,
C. For every concrete individual x, if x is a person, then x is a property instance.
I am having difficulty understanding this argument. The move from (A) to (B) smacks of a non sequitur absent some auxiliary premise. I grant arguendo that for each concrete individual x there is a corresponding rich property R. And I grant that there are property instances. Thus I grant that, in addition to Socrates and wisdom, there is the wisdom of Socrates. Recall that this is not to be confused with the abstract state of affairs, Socrates' being wise. From what I have granted it follows that for each x there is the rich property instance, the R-ness of x. But how is it supposed to follow that everything is a property instance? Everything instantiates properties, and in this sense everything is an instance of properties; but this is not to say that everything is a property instance. Socrates instantiates a rich property, and so is an instance of a property, but it doesn't follow that Socrates is a property instance.
Something is missing in Mann's argument. Either that, or I am missing something.
There is of course no chance that Professor Mann is confusing being an instance of a property with being a property instance. If a instantiates F-ness, then a is an instance of the property F-ness; but a is not a property instance as philosophers use this phrase: the F-ness of a is a property instance.
So what do we have to add to Mann's argument for it to generate the conclusion that every concrete individual is a property instance? How do we validate the inferential move from (A) to (B)? Let 'Rs' stand for Socrates' rich property. We have to add the claim that there is nothing one could point to that could distinguish Socrates from the property instance generated when Socrates instantiates Rs. Rich property instances are a special case. Socrates cannot be identical to his wisdom because he can exist even if his wisdom does not exist. And he cannot be identical to his humanity because there is more to Socrates that his humanity, even though he cannot exist wthout it. But since Socrates' rich property instance includes all his property instances, why can't Socrates be identical to this rich property instance? And so Mann's thought seems to be that there is nothing that could distinguish Socrates from his rich property instance. So they are identical. And likewise for every other individual.
But I think this is mistaken. Consequently, I think it is a mistake to hold that every person is a property instance.
Argument One: rich properties and haecceity properties
Socrates can exist without his rich property; ergo, he can exist without his rich property instance; ergo, Socrates cannot be a rich property instance or any property instance. The truth of the initial premise is fallout from the definition of 'rich property.' The R of x is a conjunctive property each conjunct of which is a property of x. Thus Socrates' rich property includes (has as conjunct) the property of being married to Xanthippe. But Socrates might not have had that property, whence it follows that he might not have had R. (If R has C as a conjunct, then necessarily R has C as a conjunct, which implies that R cannot be what it is without having exactly the conjuncts it in fact has. An analog of mereological essentialism holds for conjunctive properties.) And because Socrates might not have had R, he might not have had the property instance of R. So Socrates cannot be identical to this property instance.
What Mann needs is not a rich property, but an haecceity property: one that individuates Socrates across every possible world in which he exists. His rich property, by contrast, individuates him in only the actual world. In different worlds, Socrates has different rich properties. And in different worlds, Socrates has different rich property instances. It follows that Socrates cannot be identical to, or necessarily equivalent to, any rich property instance. An haecceity property, however, is a property Socrates has in every world in which he exists, and which he alone has in every world in which he exists. Now if there are such haecceity properties as identity-with-Socrates, then perhaps we can say that Socrates is identical to a property instance, namely, the identity-with-Socrates of Socrates.
Unfortunately, there are no haecceity properties as I argue elsewhere.
So I conclude that concrete individuals cannot be identified with property instances, whence follows the perhaps obvious proposition that no person is a property instance, not God, not me, not Socrates.
Argument Two: The Revenge of Max Black
Suppose we revisit Max Black's indiscernible iron spheres. There are exactly two of them, and nothing else, and they share all monadic and relational properties. (Thus both are made of iron and each is ten meters from an iron sphere.) There are no properties to distinguish them, and of course there are no haecceity properties. So the rich property of the one is the same as the rich property of the other. It follows that the rich property instance of the one is identical to the rich property instance of the other. But there are two spheres, not one. It follows that neither sphere is identical to its rich property instance. So again I conclude that individuals are not rich property instances.
If you tell me that the property instances are numerically distinct because the spheres are numerically distinct, then you presuppose that individuals are not rich property instances. You presuppose a distinction between an individual and its rich property instance.
This second argument assumes that Black's world is metaphysically possible and thus that the Identity of Indiscernibles is not metaphysically necessary. A reasonable assumption!
Argument Three: Love is of the individual qua individual, qua essentially unique. The revenge of Josiah Royce.
Suppose Phil is my indiscernible twin. Now it is a fact that I love myself. But if I love myself in virtue of my instantiation of a set of properties, then I should love Phil equally. For he instantiates exactly the same properties as I do. But if one of us has to be annihilated, then I prefer that it be Phil. Suppose God decides that one of us is more than enough, and that one of us has to go. I say, 'Let it be Phil!' and Phil says, 'Let it be Bill!' So I don't love Phil equally even though he has all the same properties that I have. I prefer myself and love myself just because I am myself. My Being exceeds my being a rich property instance.
This little thought-experiment suggests that there is more to self-love than love of the being-instantiated of an ensemble of properties. For Phil and I have the same properties, and yet each is willing to sacrifice the other. This would make no sense if the Being of each of us were exhausted by our being instances of sets of properties. In other words, I do not love myself solely as an instance of properties but also as a unique existent individual who cannot be reduced to a mere instance of properties. I love myself as a unique individual. And the same goes for Phil: he loves himself as a unique individual. Each of us loves himself as a unique individual numerically distinct from his indiscernible twin.
Classical theism is a personalism: God is a person and we, as made in the image and likeness of God, are also persons. God keeps us in existence by knowing us and loving us. God is absolutely unique and each of us is unique as, and only as, the object of divine love. The divine love penetrates to the very ipseity and haecceity of me and my indiscernible twin, Phil. God loves us as individuals, as essentially unique (Josiah Royce). But this is not possible if we are reducible to rich property instances.
I detect a tension between the personalism of classical theism and the view that persons are property instances.
The Dialectic in Review
One of the entailments of DDS is that God is identical to his attributes, such defining properties as omniscience, omnipotence, etc. This view has its difficulties, so Mann take a different tack: God is identical to his property-instances. This implies that God is a property-instance. But God is a person and it is not clear how a person could be a property instance. Mann takes the bull by the horns by boldly arguing that every concrete individual is a property instance — a rich property instance — and that therefore every person is a property instance, including God. The argument is found to be uncompelling for the three reasons given.
Causal theories of reference strike me as hopeless, which is not to say that descriptivist theories are in the clear. (There are also hybrid theories that we ought to discuss.) For now let's see how causal theories fare with the problem of negative existentials. Not well, I shall argue. In particular, how might a causal theorist makes sense of the negative existential, 'God does not exist'?
There are clear cases in which 'exist(s)' functions as a second-level predicate, a predicate of properties or concepts or propositional functions or cognate items, and not as a predicate of individuals. The affirmative general existential 'Horses exist,' for example, can be understood as making an instantiation claim: 'The concept horse is instantiated.' Accordingly, the sentence does not predicate existence of individual horses; it predicates instantiation of the concept horse.
This sort of analysis is well-nigh mandatory in the case of negative general existentials such as 'Flying horses do not exist.' Here we have a true sentence that cannot possibly be about flying horses for the simple reason that there aren't any. (One can make a move into Meinong's jungle here, but there are good reasons for not going there.) On a reasonable parsing the negative existential in question is about the concept flying horse, and says of this concept that it has no instances.
The same analysis works for negative singular existentials like 'Pegasus does not exist.' Pace Meinong, everything exists. So, given the truth of 'Pegasus does not exist,' 'Pegasus' cannot be taken as naming Pegasus. Since 'Pegasus' has meaning, contributing as it does to the meaning of the true sentence, 'Pegasus does not exist,' and since 'Pegasus' lacks a referent, a natural conclusion to draw is that the meaning of 'Pegasus' is not exhausted by its reference: it has a sense whether or not it has a referent. So, along Russellian lines, we may analyze 'Pegasus does not exist' as, 'It is not the case that there exists an x such that x is the winged horse of Greek mythology.' Or we can take a page from Quine and say that nothing pegasizes. What we have done in effect is to treat the singular term 'Pegasus' as a predicate and read the sentence as a denial that this predicate applies to anything.
In this way the paradox attaching to singular negative existentials is removed. But the Russell-Quine analysis is based on the assumption that names are definite descriptions in disguise (Russell) or else transformable into predicates (Quine). But how does one deal with the problem of negative existentials if one denies the Russell-Quine approach to proper names, holding instead that they refer directly to their nominata, and not via the sense of a definite description or Searlean disjunction of definite descriptions?
Keith Donnellan tackles this problem in "Speaking of Nothing" (reprinted in S. P. Schwarz, ed., Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds, Cornell UP, 1977, pp. 216-244).
Consider 'Santa Claus does not exist.' What does a child come to learn when he learns this truth? He does not learn, as a Russellian would have it, that nothing in reality answers to (satisfies) a certain description; what he learns is that the historical chain leading back from his use of 'Santa Claus' ends in a 'block':
When the historical explanation of the use of a name (with the intention to refer) ends in this way with events that preclude any referent being identified, I will call it a "block" in the history. In this [Santa Claus] example, the block is the introduction of the name into the child's speech via a fiction told to him as reality by his parents. (237)
Having defined 'block,' Donnellan supplies a rule for negative existence statements, a rule which he says does not purport to supply the meaning of negative existentials but their truth-conditions:
If N is a proper name that has been used in predicative statements with the intention to refer to some individual, then 'N does not exist' is true if and only if the history of those uses ends in a block. (239)
'God' would appear to satisfy the antecedent of this conditional, so Donnellan's theory implies that 'God does not exist' is true if and only if the history of the uses of 'God' ends in a block.
There is something wrong with this theory. If 'God does not exist' is true, then we may ask: what makes it true? What is the truth-maker of this truth? The most natural answer is that extralinguistic reality makes it true, more precisely, the fact that reality contains nothing that could be referred to as God. Reality is godless. There is nothing linguistic about this truth-maker. Of course, if 'God does not exist' is true, then 'God' does not refer to anything, and if 'God' does not refer to anything then the sentence 'God does not exist' is true. But the wholly nonlinguistic fact of God's nonexistence is not identical to the partially linguistic fact of 'God''s not referring to anything. Why not? Consider the following modal argument:
1. God's nonexistence, if it obtains, obtains in every possible world. 2. The fact of 'God''s not referring to anything obtains in only some possible worlds. (Because the English language exists in only some worlds.) Therefore 3. The two facts are distinct.
The argument just given assumes in its initial premise Anselm's Insight: if God exists, then he necessarily exists, and if he does not, then he is impossible. But I don't need this assumption. I can argue as follows:
5. God's nonexistence, if it obtains, obtains in some possible worlds. 6. Among these possible worlds, some are worlds in which English does not exist. Therefore 7. There is at least one world in which neither God nor the English language exists, which implies that God's nonexistence in that world cannot have as truthmaker any fact involving the name 'God.'
Let me put it another way. If 'God does not exist' is true, then the same fact can be expressed in German: 'Gott existiert nicht.' This is one fact expressible in two different languages. But the fact of 'God''s not referring to anything is a different fact from the fact of 'Gott''s not referring to anything. The facts are different because they involve different word-types. Therefore, neither fact can be identical to the fact of God's nonexistence.
Since the two facts are different, the wholly nonlinguistic fact of God's nonexistence cannot have as a truth-condition the partially linguistic fact of the history of uses of 'God' ending in a block, contrary to what Donnellan says. If one assertively utters 'God does not exist,' and if what one says is true, then extralinguistic reality must be a certain way: it must be godless. This godlessness of reality, if it indeed obtains, cannot be tied to the existence of any contingent language like English.
Note that the descriptivist need not fall into Donnellan's trap. When he assertively utters 'God does not exist' he says in effect that all or most of the properties associated with the use of 'God' — such properties as omniscience, etc. — are not instantiated: nothing in extralinguistic reality has them. Since these properties can be viewed as having an objective, extralinguistic existence, the descriptivist needn't tie the existence/nonexistence of God to the existence of any contingent language.
The other night I caught a bit of the debate in the House of Commons about whether Donald Trump should be let into the U. K. for a visit. That's rich. A bizarre straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel of unassimilable elements who spell the eventual doom of the host culture. Am I exaggerating? By how much? Am I just plain wrong? I hope so!
In other news, in the land of poets and thinkers, an imam in Cologne blames the rapes and assaults of women and girls on their mode of dress and olfactory attractiveness. "They were half-naked and wearing perfume." That Koelnisch Wasser will do it every time.
Sami Abu-Yusuf agrees with Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker, who also blamed the victims and promised to give the women of Cologne “guidance” so they could “prepare” next time. Presumably she will direct them not to be “half naked and wearing perfume.” A hijab might set off their ensemble quite nicely, and avoiding provoking the poor Muslim migrants.
We'll have to see what happens. Perhaps as Europe and the U. K. go under, we will wake up in time. If the hate-America leftists let us.
It is actually a great time for a philosopher to be alive. Grist for the mill, owl of Minerva, all those by now overworked MavPhil tropes.
Michael Rea, no slouch of a philosopher, makes the following surprising claim in the Huffington Post:
Christians and Muslims have very different beliefs about God; but they agree on this much: there is exactly one God. This common point of agreement is logically equivalent to [the] thesis that all Gods are the same God. In other words, everyone who worships a God worships the same God, no matter how different their views about God might be.
I am having trouble understanding this; perhaps the esteemed members of the MavPhil commentariat can help me. Doesn't Rea's claim succumb to an elementary counterexample?
Suppose there is exactly one God, but that Tom worships a nonexistent God. (Tom is perhaps a Mormon, or a Manichean, or a 'pastafarian.') It would then not be the case that "everyone who worships a God worships the same God." This is because the one existent God cannot be identical to a nonexistent God. Therefore, if there is exactly one God it does not follow that all Gods are the same God. What follows is merely that all existent Gods are the same God. But that is surely trivial. It is as trivial as saying that if I own exactly one house, then all the houses I own are the same house. (It is relevant to point out that if one owns x, then x exists whereas if one desires x, it does not follow that x exists. The relevance will emerge in a moment.)
How is the above trivial truth — There is exactly one God if and only if all existent Gods are the same God — supposed to help us with the question whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God? It does not help at all: it may be that the God Muslims worship does not exist while the God Christians worship does exist. Or the other way around.
Surely this is a logically consistent trio of propositions:
The Christian (triune) God exists. The Muslim (non-triune) God does not exist. There is exactly one God.
And this one as well:
The Christian (triune) God does not exist. The Muslim (non-triune) God does exist. There is exactly one God.
So it could be that while there is, i.e., exists, exactly one God, Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God. It could be that Muslims worship a nonexistent God. Or it could be that Christians worship a nonexistent God. Bear in mind that the one existent God cannot be both triune and not triune. Cannot be: if God is triune, then essentially triune, and if essentially triune, then necessarily triune given that God is a necessary being. The same modal upshot if God is not triune but unitarian.
So What Was Rea Thinking?
That 'worships' is a verb of success? If 'worships' is a verb of success, then Rea's claim is true. To say that 'worships' is a verb of success is to say that it follows from x's worshiping y that both x and y exist. But if Rea assumes that 'worships' is a verb of success, then he simply begs the question. The question is whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God on the assumption that they both hold, namely, that there is exactly one God. To assume that whatever one worships exists is equivalent under the just-named assumption to assuming that the Christian and Muslim must be worshiping the same God. But then the question is begged.
A Dilemma
Either 'worships' is a verb of success or it is not. If it is a verb of success, then Rea begs the question. But if he holds that 'worships' is not a verb of success, then he allows the possibility that either the Muslim or the Christian worships a God that does not exist. Ergo, etc.
'Worships' is not Reasonably Viewed as a Verb of Success
'Sees' has both a phenomenological use according to which it is not a verb of success and a use as a verb of success. It is reasonably taken to have both uses. But all I need for present purposes is the point that 'sees' is reasonably used as a verb of success: if I see x, then x exists. On this use of 'see,' one cannot see what does not exist. What's more, it is reasonable to say that there is a causal explanation of my being in a state as of seeing a tree. The explanation is that the state is caused (in part) by the tree which would not be the case if the tree did not exist. Why do I know have a visual experience as of a tree? Becuase there really is a tree that is causing me to have this very experience. This makes some sense.
Does 'worships' have a reasonable use as a verb of success? I say No. God, being a pure spirit, is not given to the senses; nor is he 'giveable' to the senses: he is not a possible object of sinnliche Anschauung in Kantian jargon. We have no direct sensory evidence of the existence of God. So it doesn't make much sense to try to explain my being in a worshipful state by saying that my being in this state is caused by God. Nor does it make much sense to say that my use of 'God' succeeds in referring to God because God caused my use of the name.
Worship as an Intentional (Object-Directed) State
In any case, to worship is to worship something, with no guarantee that the item worshiped exists. In this respect worship is like belief: to believe is to believe something with no guarantee that what one believes is the case. If S knows that p, it follows that p is true; if S believes that p, it does not follow that p is true. The proposition believed may or my not be true without prejudice to one's being in a state of belief.
I say the same is true of worship/worshiping. The object of worship may or may not exist without prejudice to one's being in a worshipful state with respect to it. So it could be that Muslims worship a God that does not exist. How might this come about? It would come about if nothing in reality satisfies the definite description that they associate wth their use of 'Allah' and equivalents. And how could that be? That would be so if the true God is triune.
Interim Conclusion
There are very deep issues here and I am but scratching the surface in bloggity-blog style. But one thing is clear to me: one cannot resolve the question whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God with "a flick of the philosophical wrist" to borrow a cute phrase from Lydia McGrew (my only distaff reader?) who dropped it in an earlier comment thread.
There is no 'quickie' solution here, with all due respect to Michael Rea and Francis Beckwith and Dale Tuggy et al.
It is Christmas Eve. Time to punch the clock. I leave you with a fine rendition of Silver Bells.
The following just over the transom from 'Jacques' with responses in blue from BV:
I read your blog every day. Quite apart from the high level philosophizing, it's a rare bit of political sanity and rationality and decency. Academic philosophy is now thoroughly controlled by the most evil and insane factions of the Left. It's good to know that real philosophy, and real political philosophy in particular, is still alive in the hearts and minds of some individual people, even though the philosophical institutions are dead or hopelessly corrupt. Thank you!
BV: You're very welcome. I am happy to have you as a reader and correspondent. While academic philosophy is not thoroughly controlled by the Left, not yet anyway, you are not far from the truth.
"… As Socrates explains in Plato's Crito, we are what we are because of the laws. Our country and its laws have overseen our nurturance, our education, and the forming of our characters. We owe a debt of gratitude to our country, its laws, those who have worked to maintain and defend it, and especially those who have died in its defense."
This argument (if it's valid) must have a suppressed premise. The premise must be something like the following: "It is good that we are what we are", or "Some of the features of our characters that are due to our country and its laws are features for which we should be grateful".
BV: Right, that tacit assumption is in play, and without it the argument is invalid.
Of course, the inference would only be valid given some further assumptions, e.g., that our country and its laws have not also caused us to have other features that are so bad or regrettable that, all things considered, it would be reasonable to wish that our characters hadn't been shaped by our country and its laws in any way.
BV: I agree.
But in any case, I don't think that these suppressed premises are true. Not if they are meant to support the conclusion that, in general, patriotism is good–let alone that, in general, it is a virtue.
If my character was shaped by my experiences growing up in Maoist China, say, then it seems entirely possible that most or all of the features of myself that I came to have as a result of those experiences are bad. Or they might be features that just have no particular value or disvalue. At any rate there seems to be no reason to expect that, for any arbitrary person whose character was formed by any arbitrary country or legal system, the relevant features will be such that, on balance, this person ought to be grateful for whatever it was that caused him to have these features. To be sure, those who were lucky to have been formed within good countries or good legal institutions should probably be patriotic, for the kind of reason that Socrates gave; but this is not to say that patriotism in general is a duty or a virtue or even a good thing in any respect.
BV: Your critique up to this point is a good one and I accept it. I take you to be saying that I have not given a good argument for the thesis that in general patriotism is a good thing. For whether it is good or not will depend on the particular patria, the particular country, and its laws, institutions, and traditions. Presumably, citizens of North Korea, Cuba, Nazi Germany, and the USSR ought not be or ought not have been patriotic. But much depends on what the object of patriotism is. What exactly is that which one loves and is loyal to when one is patriotic? More on this below.
I would suggest that there is no basis for healthy patriotism beyond the fact that my country is MY country. The reason why I should have some loyalty to my country, or love for it, is just that it is mine. Not that, in being mine, it has shaped my character. Not that its laws are better than others, or that they encode certain 'propositions' which a rational being should believe, or anything like that. But if this is right, the proper object of healthy patriotism is not a country in the sense that you seem to have in mind, i.e., a government or set of political or legal arrangements or traditions. Because that kind of thing is not really mine, in any deep sense, and because that kind of thing is not something I can love or feel loyalty towards. So if this suggestion is right, the proper object is my 'country' in the sense of the concrete land and people, not the state or its laws. (And this distinction seems especially important nowadays. You would not want to confuse the real America that Americans may properly love with the weird, sick, soft-totalitarian state that now occupies America.)
BV: You rightly appreciate that a proper discussion of this topic requires a careful specification of the object of patriotic love/loyalty. You say it is "the concrete land and people, not the state and its laws." Suppose I grant that for the nonce. Why should I love/be loyal to my country just because it is mine? That is not obvious, indeed it strikes me as false. I take you to be making two separate claims. The first is that one should display some patriotism toward one's country. This first claim is a presupposition of "The reason why I should have some loyalty to my country, or love for it, is just that it is mine." The second claim is that that only reason for so doing is that the country is one's own.
But do you really want to endorse the first claim? Even if country = "concrete land and people," there are possible and perhaps also actual countries such that you wouldn't want to endorse the first claim. As for the second, if you endorse it, will you also say that the only reason you should be loyal to your spouse, your parents, your siblings, your children, your friends, your clan, your neighborhood, your gang, and so on is because they are yours? Should you be true to your school only because it is the one you attend?
The above doesn't sound right. That a friend is my friend is not the only possible legitimate reason for my being loyal to him, assuming it is a legitimate reason at all. A second legitimate reason is that when I was in trouble he helped me. (And so on.) That my country (concrete land and people) is my country is not the only possible reason for my loving it and being loyal to it; other legitimate reasons are that the land is beautiful – "purple mountain majesties from sea to shining sea" — and that the people are self-reliant, hard-working, frugal, liberty-loving, etc., although how many of these people does one encounter theses days?
You write, "The reason why I should have some loyalty to my country, or love for it, is just that it is mine." Do you intend the 'just' to express a biconditional relation? Are you proposing
1. One should have some loyalty for one's country or love for it if and only if it is one's own country
or
2. If one should have some loyalty for one's own country or love for it, then it is one's own country?
Is my country's being mine a necessary and sufficient condition of my legitimate patriotism, or only a necessary condition thereof? On a charitable reading, you are affirming (2).
What is a Country?
If patriotism is love of and loyalty to one's country, then we need to know what a country is. First of all, a country will involve
a. A geographical area, a land mass, with more or less definite boundaries or borders.
But this is not sufficient since presumably a country without people is no country in the sense of 'country' relevant to a definition of 'patriotism.' A backpacker may love the unpopulated backcountry of a wilderness area but such love of a chunk of the earth and its flora and (non-human) fauna is not patriotic love. So we add
b. Having a (human) population.
Are (a) and (b) jointly sufficient? I don't think so. Suppose you have a land mass upon which are dumped all sorts of different people of different races and religions, speaking hundreds of different languages, with wildly different habits and values and mores. That would not be a country in a sense relevant to a definition of 'patriotism.' It seems we must add
c. Sharing a common culture which will involve such elements as a common language, religion, tradition, history, 'national narrative,' heritage, a basic common understanding of what is right and wrong, a codification of this basic common understanding in law, and what all else.
I should think that each of (a), (b), and (c) are necessary to have a country. 'Jacques' apparently disagrees. He seems to be saying above that (a) and (b) are individually necessary and jointly sufficient. I say they are individually necessary but not jointly sufficient. I say further that the three conditions just specified are not jointly sufficient either, or not obviously jointly sufficient. For if the basic common understanding of right and wrong naturally evolves toward a codification and detailed articulation in written laws, then we are well on the way to 'the political.'
And isn't it obvious, or at least plausible, that if a country cannot exist without geographical borders, that these borders cannot be merely geographical in nature, but must also be political as well?
Take the Rio Grande. It is obviously not a social construct. It is a natural feature of the earth. But the southern border of the USA, its border with Mexico, is a social or socio-political construct. It is 'conventional' not 'natural.' The sorthern border might not have been the Rio Grande. But as things are, a river serves as the southern border.
My point is that, while a border must be naturally or physically realized by a river, or a coastline, or the crest of a mountain range, or by a wall or a fence (an electronic 'fence' would do) or whatever, borders are also political entities. Thus the Rio Grande is both a natural feature of the earth but also a political entity. And so what I want to say is that nothing can count as a country in the sense of 'country' relevant to a definition of 'patriotism' if it is not a political entity. Two countries bordering on each other cannot border on each other unless both are political entities.
Can I argue this out rigorously? I don't know. Let me take a stab at it.
A country is a continuant: it remains numerically the same over the period of time, however short, during which it exists. And while a country can gain or lose territory without prejudice to its diachronic numerical identity, it will cease to exist if it loses all its territory, or lets itself be invaded by foreigners to such an extent that its characteristic culture is destroyed (see point (c) above). So a country must defend its border if it wishes to stay in existence. But for the USA to defend its southern border is not for it to defend a river. It is to prevent non-citizens from crossing illegally into a country of which they are not a citizen. Am I begging the question? Perhaps. I'll have to think about it some more.
In any case it seems intuitively obvious to me that we need
d. Under the jurisdiction of a government.
But it is important to distinguish between a government and a particular administration of a government such as the Reagan administration or the Obama administration (regime?). Consider the bumper sticker:
What does 'government' mean here? It means either the current administration or some administrations, but presumably not every administration. It cannot mean the institutional structure, with its enabling documents such as the Constitution, which structure outlasts particular administrations. That is shown by the American flag above. What does it signify? Not the Nixon admin or the Obama admin. It signifies the ideals and values of America and the people who uphold them. Which values? Liberty and justice are named in the Pledge of Allegiance. But not social justice, or material equality (equality of outcome or result).
The person who would display a bumper sticker like the above does not fear the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence or the institutional structure of the USA or the values and ideals it enshrines. Take a gander at this sticker:
Someone who displays this supports the U. S. Constitution and the Second Amendment thereto in particular. What he fears is not the U. S. government in its institutional structure; what he fears are gun-grabbing administrations. What he fears are lawless, hate-America, gun-grabbing, liberty-infringing, race-baiting leftists like Barack Obama and Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton.
In sum, I suggest that an adequate definition of 'country' must involve all of (a)-(d) supra. But this is a very difficult topic and I am no expert in political philosophy.
A Pew survey last year found that 75 percent of Republicans believed it is more important to "protect the right of Americans to own guns" than to "control gun ownership."
This way of framing the issue shows left-wing bias. For it implies that Republicans are opposed to controlling gun ownership. But that is not the case. Almost everyone wants gun control laws some of which will regulate the acquisition and ownership of firearms. Name me a Republican who thinks that felons should be allowed to purchase firearms.
Either gun rights or gun control is a false alternative.
The point, once again, is that language matters. He who controls the terms of the debate controls the debate. You should always be on the lookout for linguistic mischief. Liberals excel at it, but there are examples across the political spectrum.
Part of my self-imposed task in these pages is to teach critical thinking.
This entry is a third response to Aidan Kimel. Fr. Kimel writes,
Reading through Vallicella’s article, I kept asking myself, Would Mascall agree with the proposition “existence exists”? I find the proposition odd. [. . .] What about the assertion of Pseudo-Dionysius that God is beyond all Being? Aquinas would certainly agree that the Creator transcends created being; but I suspect that Dionysius is trying to say something more. I wonder what the Maverick Philosopher thinks about “beyond Being” language (I can pretty much guess what Tuggy thinks about it).
I plan to discuss the strange question whether existence exists in a separate post. Here I will say something about whether God is beyond all Being.
Well, what would it be for God to be beyond Being? What could that mean?
First we must distinguish between Being and beings, esse and ens, das Sein und das Seiende. It is absolutely essential to observe this distinction and to mark it linguistically by a proper choice of terms. If we do so, then we see right away that Kimel's question is ambiguous. Is he asking whether God is beyond all beings or beyond all Being? Big difference! (Heidegger calls it the Ontological Difference.) I think what Kimel means to ask is whether God is beyond all beings. A being is anything at all that is or exists, of whatever category, and of whatever nature. Being, on the other hand, majuscule Being, is that which makes beings be. Now one of the vexing questions here is whether Being itself is, whether that which makes beings be is itself a being or else the paradigmatic being. Heidegger and Pseudo-Dionysius say No! Aquinas says Yes! (That is, Aquinas says that Being is the paradigmatic being from whch every other being has its Being.) Tuggy would presumably dismiss the question by maintaining that there just is no Being, there are only beings; hence the question lapses, resting as it does (according to Tuggy) on a false presupposition.
Now distinguish three positions. (A) God is a being among beings. (B) God is not a being among beings, but self-subsistent Being itself. (C) God is neither a being among beings, nor self-subsistent Being itself, but beyond every being. Tuggy, Aquinas, Pseudo-Dionysius. (You're in good company, Dale!)
I have already explained what it means to say that God is a being among beings. But to repeat myself, it it to say that the very same general-metaphysical scheme, the very same scheme of metaphysica generalis, that applies to creatures applies also to God. This implies, among other things, that God and Socrates (Socrates standing in for any creature whatsoever) exist in the same way. It implies that there are not two modes of Being, one pertaining to God alone, the other pertaining to Socrates. If, on the other hand, one denies that God is not a being among beings, then one is maintaining, among other things, that God and Socrates exist in different ways. The difference can be put by saying that God is (identically) his existence and existence itself while this is surely not the case for Socrates: he has existence but he doesn't have it being being it. In God there is no real distinction, no distinctio realis, between essence and existence while in Socrates there is a real distinction beteen essence and existence.
Equivalently, if God is a being among beings, then God is one member of a totality of beings each of which exists in the very same sense of 'exists' and has properties in the very same sense of 'has properties.' But if God is not a being among beings, then there is no such totality of beings each of which exists in the very same sense of 'exists' and has properties in the very same sense of 'has properties such that both God and Socrates are members of it.
How does (B) differ from (C)? On (B) God is (identical to) Being but also is. God is not a being, but the being that is identical to Being itself. (C) is a more radical view. It is the view that God is so radically transcendent of creatures that he is not! This is exactly what pseudo-Dionysius says in The Divine Names (Complete Works, p. 98) It is the view that God is other than every being. But if God is other than every being, then God in no way is.
This can also be explained in terms of univocity, analogicity, and equivocity. For Tuggy & Co. 'exists' in 'God exists' and 'Socrates exists' has exactly the same sense. The predicate is univocal across these two occurrences. For Aquinas, the predicate is being used analogously, which implies that while God and Socrates both are, they are in different ways or modes. But for Pseudo-Dionysius the predicate is equivocal.
Fr. Kimel suspects that Pseudo-Dionysius is saying more than that God transcends every creature. The suspicion is correct. Whereas Aquinas is saying that God is, but transcends every creature in respect of his very mode of Being, Pseudo-Dionysius is saying more , namely that God is so transcendent that he is not.
My question for Fr. Kimel: Do you side with the doctor angelicus, or do you go all the way into the night of negative theology with Pseudo-Dionysus?
This is a revised post from September, 2009. Thanks to V.V. for his interest.
……………….
A great deal could be said on this topic. Here are a few thoughts that may be helpful. Test them against your own experience.
1. Make good use of the morning, which is an excellent time for such activities as reading, writing, study, and meditation. But to put the morning to good use, one must arise early. I get up at 2:00, but you needn't be so monkish. Try arising one or two hours earlier than you presently do. That will provide you with a block of quiet time. Fruitful mornings are of course impossible if one's evenings are spent dissipating. But it is not enough to avoid dissipation. One ought to organize one's evening so as to set oneself up for a fruitful morning's work. Alphonse Gratry makes some excellent suggestions in section V of his "The Sources of Intellectual Light" (1862), the last book of his Logic (trs. Helen and Milton Singer, Open Court, 1944). One of them is, "Set yourself questions in the evening; very often you will find them resolved when you awaken in the morning." (532) Gratry has in mind theoretical problems. His advice is compatible with Schopenhauer's: One should never think about personal problems, money woes, and other such troubles at night and certainly not before bed.
2. Abstain from all mass media dreck in the morning. Read no newspapers. "Read not The Times, read the eternities." (Thoreau) No electronics. No computer use, telephony, TV, e-mail, etc. Just as you wouldn't pollute your body with whisky and cigarettes upon arising, so too you ought not pollute your pristine morning mind with the irritant dust of useless facts, the palaver of groundless opinions, the bad writing of contemporary scribblers, and every manner of distraction. There is time for that stuff later in the day if you must have it. The mornings should be kept free and clear for study that promises long-term profit.
3. Although desultory reading is enjoyable, it is best to have a plan. Pick one or a small number of topics that strike you as interesting and important and focus on them. I distinguish between bed reading and desk reading. Such lighter reading as biography and history can be done in bed, but hard-core materials require a desk and such other accessories as pens of various colors for different sorts of annotations and underlinings, notebooks, a cup of coffee, a pot of coffee . . . .
4. If you read books of lasting value, you ought to study what you read, and if you study, you ought to take notes. And if you take notes, you owe it to yourself to assemble them into some sort of coherent commentary. What is the point of studious reading if not to evaluate critically what you read, assimilating the good while rejecting the bad? The forming of the mind is the name of the game. This won't occur from passive reading, but only by an active engagement with the material. The best way to do this is by writing up your own take on it. Here is where blogging can be useful. Since blog posts are made public, your self-respect will give you an incentive to work at saying something intelligent.
5. An illustration. Right now I have about a half-dozen projects going. One is an article for publication in a professional journal on the philosophy of Milton K. Munitz. What I have been doing very early in the morning is studying and taking notes on four of his books that are relevant to my project. I write these notes and quotations and criticisms into a journal the old-fashioned way. Like I said, no electronics early in the morning. Computer is off and internet connection as well. This eliminates the temptation to check e-mail, follow hyperlinks, and waste time. Later in the day I incorporate these hand-written notes into a long blog post I am writing. When that post is finished and published and I receive some comments, I will then write up the post as a formal article and send it to a journal.
The beauty of this is that one has something to show for the hours spent studying. One has a finished product in which one's thoughts are organized and preserved and to which one can refer later.
6. How keep track of a vast amount of resources? A weblog can be useful as an on-line filing cabinet. I also keep a daily journal.
It only got worse under his 'leadership.' David Harsanyi:
. . . the gratuitous groveling we do to allay the sensitivities of violence-prone Muslims (because who else are we attempting to placate?) has become a cringe-worthy aspect of American policy long before Barack Obama ever showed up. When the Bush administration, in the middle of the Danish carton controversy, claimed that “Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images or any other religious belief,” it was equally wrong. As far as the state goes, they’re all “acceptable.”
But only one of those can put you on kill lists.
After the deadly terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, France, it’s worth remembering that there is no amount of conciliating rhetoric that will stop attacks on our liberal values – even undermining them. Which is something we’ve done.
Remember Molly Norris whose name appears on the above poster? I wrote about her on 16 September 2010:
Cartoonist Molly Norris Driven into Hiding by Muslim Extremism
Among the great religions of the world, where 'great' is to be taken descriptively not normatively, Islam appears uniquely intolerant and violent. Or are there contemporary examples of Confucians, Taoists, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, or Christians who, basing themselves on their doctrines, publically issue and carry out credible death threats against those who mock the exemplars of their faiths? For example, has any Christian, speaking as a Christian, publically put out a credible murder contract on Andres Serrano for his despicable "Piss-Christ"? By 'credible,' I mean one that would force its target, if he were rational, to go into hiding and erase his identity?
UPDATE 9/19/2010. Commentary by James Taranto here.
This night in 1985 was Rick Nelson's last: the Travelin' Man died in a plane crash. Wikipedia:
Nelson dreaded flying but refused to travel by bus. In May 1985, he decided he needed a private plane and leased a luxurious, fourteen-seat, 1944 Douglas DC-3 that had once belonged to the DuPont family and later to Jerry Lee Lewis. The plane had been plagued by a history of mechanical problems.[104] In one incident, the band was forced to push the plane off the runway after an engine blew, and in another incident, a malfunctioning magneto prevented Nelson from participating in the first Farm Aid concert in Champaign, Illinois.
On December 26, 1985, Nelson and the band left for a three-stop tour of the Southern United States. Following shows in Orlando, Florida, and Guntersville, Alabama, Nelson and band members took off from Guntersville for a New Year's Eve extravaganza in Dallas, Texas.[105] The plane crash-landed northeast of Dallas in De Kalb, Texas, less than two miles from a landing strip, at approximately 5:14 p.m. CST on December 31, 1985, hitting trees as it came to earth. Seven of the nine occupants were killed: Nelson and his companion, Helen Blair; bass guitarist Patrick Woodward, drummer Rick Intveld, keyboardist Andy Chapin, guitarist Bobby Neal, and road manager/soundman Donald Clark Russell. Pilots Ken Ferguson and Brad Rank escaped via cockpit windows, though Ferguson was severely burned.
Imagine a German restaurant so named. Blood and Soil. My astute readers needn't be reminded of the provenience of this phrase. "Best blood sausage in the East Valley!" Or MOM's Diner of Mesa. "Fine Aryan cuisine served up right by members of the militia of Montana." Would you be offended? I just made up those examples.
But this is a real example: La Raza Steak and Ribs, a Mexican joint in Apache Junction, Arizona. When I mentioned this to a friend, he replied, "That would be like naming a German restaurant Die Rasse, The Race."
Once again, the double standard. And once again I ask: what would be left of the Left were they disembarrassed of every single one of their double standards?
