Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

  • Rod Dreher: Floating Above the Fray as Usual

    Here:

    We are somewhat insulated from this in America because we don't face the hideous energy crunch that Europeans do. Do you really think, though, that the US is going to be fine when one of our largest trading partners goes belly up? We are going to crash too, and crash hard. A word to my fellow conservatives: if you think the return of the buffoonish Donald Trump is going to be sufficient to deal with what is here, and what is coming, you are almost as deluded as the libs. You are as much a prisoner to emotionally satisfying Narrative as they are. We are in bad, bad trouble, and it's going to get far worse before it gets better. (Emphasis added)

    What is your solution, Rod? I have just read your three most recent articles and all I get is more analysis, lamentation, and hand-wringing. What is to be done, my man? And which side are you on? Do you disagree with the policies Trump implemented? Calling the man a buffoon won't cut it; I want to hear a reasoned, fact-based case against Trump.

    For some reason, Dreher, blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome, and perhaps in the grip of the womanish side of his personality, cannot look past Trump's somewhat repellent style of self-presentation, his lack of gravitas, his alpha-male strut and stride, to see Trump's virtues.   (Please follow the hyperlink to Tom Klingenstein's sober and superb presentation.)  In consequence, Dreher cannot grasp that Trump is our only hope for turning things around.  This is a well-founded hope because of Trump's accomplishments while in office. He has proven himself as Dick Morris amply explains. De Santis has not proven himself to the same extent, and his being a career politician makes him more likely to cave under pressure. And yet Dreher does command a very clear view of the nasty predicament we are in:

    Our leaders are liars and ideologues who are destroying the West. The ruling class — the State, the media, the financial sector, woke capitalism, the universities, every institution — is actively betraying the people they are meant to serve. This is not just crackpot Internet speculation. It is actually happening, right now — and as far as I can tell, the American people are being kept in the dark, figuratively. It's about to become literal in Europe. Watch this clip from Tucker Carlson, one of the few major journalists who tell the truth. He's pointing out that Americans aren't being told that Europeans are teetering on the edge of catastrophe.

    Very good, Rod. I couldn't agree more with your description of the present state of affairs. But it is just more talk. What do you propose we do?  

    The other side of the argument, of course, is that Trump is so repellent to so many that the net effect of supporting him will hurt the conservative cause. And of course it is the cause that matters, not the man Trump.  But unless it can be shown that there is someone more likely to succeed in implementing the cause, we should support Trump.

    A political cause that is not implemented is practically nothing. Politics, though informed by theory, is practical, not theoretical. Is that not blindingly evident?

     

    Bill Vallicella

  • Words of the Day: ‘Claque’ and ‘Clique’

    Definitions and differentiation here.

    Bill Vallicella

  • God as Human Projection?

    What could be logically weaker than the theory that God is a projection of human needs? Supposedly God does not exist because his existence reflects human exigencies. This argument presupposes that God could exist only if man did not need Him. What could be more absurd? But then, why is this idea so widespread?
    Augusto Del Noce, in The Crisis of Modernity edited and translated by Carlo Lancellotti, (MQUP, Kindle Edition), p. 299. HT: Michael Liccione, Facebook, 12/16/21.
    Augusto_del-noce-2343201140The Continental philosopher will often say in an obscure and confusing way what the analytic philosopher can say clearly.  Allow me to demonstrate.
     
    God cannot be a human projection. This follows directly from what we mean by 'God' and what we mean by 'projection.' By 'God' we mean a being whose existence does not depend on the existence of anything else.  Of course, that is not all we mean by 'God,' but it is an essential part of what we mean. So if God exists, he exists in splendid independence of humans and their wants and needs. By 'projection' we mean either a projecting or that which is projected in a projecting. Either way a projection cannot exist without a projector. It follows that God cannot be a human projection.  We know this by sheer analysis of the terms 'God' and 'projection.' For nothing that is a projection could satisfy the concept God.
     
    Does it follow that God exists? No.  But that is not the point. The point is that God cannot be a human projection, pace Ludwig Feuerbach and his followers.  God obviously cannot be a human projection if he exists. Suppose God does not exist. Then there is nothing in reality to which the term 'God' applies. The nonexistence of God leaves both the meaning of 'God' and the concept God intact.  So it is not the case that if God does not exist then the concept God becomes the concept of a human projection. The concept God remains the concept of something such that, if it existed, it would not be dependent on anything else for its existence, and therefore, the concept of something such that, if it existed, it could not be a human projection.
     
    So what is Ludwig Feuerbach's signature sentence, "God is an unconscious anthropomorphic projection," about? Despite its surface grammar, the sentence cannot, given the cogency of the above reasoning, be  about God, but about our concept God. What it says about this concept is that nothing satisfies it. But then Feuerbach begs the question against the theist.
    Bill Vallicella

  • Accidental or Negligent?

    An important distinction:

    . . . an accidental discharge is when lightning strikes your firearm in such a way as to cause it to fire. Just about anything else is a negligent discharge.

    Any unintentional discharge of a firearm can usually be traced to negligence on some individual’s part. Not knowing the proper manual of arms for a certain gun. Not focusing on safety while handling it. Using the wrong ammunition. Failing to properly maintain a particular firearm. Leaving a firearm laying around where some unauthorized person might pick it up. And you can think of other examples of negligence that could lead to a discharge that often results in injury or death. Using the term “accident” sort of implies that it was really nobody’s fault, while “negligent” puts it right back on somebody who should have been more responsible.

    Which 'somebody' might the author have in mind?

    Bill Vallicella

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

    A mixed bag for your enjoyment, but mainly mine.  I post what I like and I like what I post. And I post what I've posted before. Links go bad, and even when they don't I never get tired of the old tunes I like. It's Saturday night, friends, pour yourself a stiff one and relax a little the bonds that tether us to the straight and narrow.  I am drinking the fermented juice of the agave cactus mixed with the Italian aperitivo, Aperol. Straight up, in a generous shot glass, three parts of Hornitos to one part Aperol. This combo is a synaptic lubricant nonpareil.  Schmeckt gut! What's your libation? Forget for a time the swine who have taken over our great country, and enjoy the moment.

    Thelonious Monk, I'm Getting Sentimental Over You

    Wes Montgomery, 'Round Midnight

    Cannonball Adderley, 74 Miles Away. In 7/4 time.

    Ry Cooder, I Think It's Going to to Work Out Fine

    Jeff Beck, Sleepwalk. The old Santo and Johnny instrumental from 1959.

    Danny Gatton, master of the Telecaster. Phenomenally good, practically unknown.

    Bob Dylan, Cold Irons Bound. When your name is 'Bob Dylan' you have your pick of sidemen. A great band. "The walls of pride, they're high and they're wide. You can't see over, to the other side."

    Joe Brown, Sea of  Heartbreak.  Nothing touches Don Gibson's original effort, but Brown's is a very satisfying version.

    Elvis Presley, Little Sister 

    Carole King, You've Got a Friend

    Buddy Guy, et al., Sweet Home Chicago. Looks like everyone is playing a Strat except for Johnny Winter.

    Ry Cooder, He'll Have to Go.  A fine, if quirky, cover of the old George Reeves hit from 1959.

    Marty Robbins, El Paso. Great guitar work.

    Bill Vallicella

  • A Minimum of Metaphysics for Meditation

    Substack latest, on this, the feast day of St Monica.

    Bill Vallicella

  • The Optics of Compassion

    We make a brave attempt at seeing the best in one another. The attempt is aided by not looking too closely.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Italicizing and Underlining

    The writer italicizes what he hopes the reader would underline were there no italicization.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Existence, Time, Property-Possession, and the Dead

    Here are four propositions that are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent. 

    1) For any x, temporal or atemporal, if x has a property, then x exists.

    2) For any temporal x, if x exists, then x exists at present.

    3) Frege, a temporal item, does not exist at present.

    4) Frege has properties at present.

    (1) is plausible: how could anything have a property if it is not 'there' to have it? This use of 'there' is non-locative.  I assume that to exist = to be, and that Meinongian nonentities, "beyond being and nonbeing," are unintelligible.

    (2) is plausible: the past is no longer, the future not yet; the present alone is real/existent!  It is important to note, however, that the plausibility of (2) is not that of a tautology. Tautologies are plausible in excelsis; substantive metaphysical claims are not. One cannot reasonably controvert a tautology; one can reasonably controvert a substantive metaphysical claim. What (2) formulates, call it 'presentism,' is somewhat plausible but surely not logically true. So the senses of 'exist(s)' and 'exist(s) at present' are distinct. If I say that a thing exists, I say nothing about when it exists; I say only that it is 'there' in the non-locative sense among the 'furniture of the world.' Indeed, 'x exists' leaves open whether the thing is in time at all. 'God exists' is noncommittal on the question whether God is temporal or atemporal. 

    (3) is plausible: (a) Frege is temporal in that he cannot exist without existing in time; (b) Frege does not now exist.

    (4) is plausible: Frege is now famous and he is dead. Those predicates are true of him: he has (instantiates) the properties they express. 

    The tetrad is collectively inconsistent. One way to solve the problem is by rejecting the least plausible proposition. By my lights, that proposition is (2). To reject (2) is to reject presentism. But if presentism is false, it does not follow that eternalism is true!  

    Bill Vallicella

  • Moral Progress

    A large part of moral progress is progress in the realization of how much you need it. So, initially at least, the recession of the goal as you approach it indicates progress toward it.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Cacoethes Scribendi

    Substack latest. 

    Bill Vallicella

  • Self-Deprecation

    A little self-deprecation is good, but more is not better. Nobody likes the boaster. Take self-deprecation too far, however, and people will have contempt for you.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Wife and Life, Truth and Practice

    My wife is easy-going, tolerant, forgiving, good-hearted, and unselfish. Hungry, she bought herself a Costco hot dog and then, without my asking,  gave me the lion's share,* concerned that I was hungry! I chose well in matters marital. 

    Human nature leaves a lot to be desired. And yet there is goodness and nobility in some people. The world is ugly, but there is also beauty in it. Life can seem meaningless, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," and yet it also at times appears under the aspect of ultimate Sense and Rightness.

    You will have to decide which of these seemings to live by. Try both and see which is more conducive to happiness. The one that makes you happier has a solid claim on being the truer. That the truth should in the end thwart us strikes me as implausible.  But the question cannot be resolved theoretically. You resolve it by living, thoughtful living, each for himself and by himself. 

    Titans once bestrode Harvard Yard.** Josiah Royce was one, William James the other. The latter held that truth is "the good in the way of belief." I commend that thought to your delectation, examination, and practical implementation. 

    James and Royce circa 1910

    ______________

    *Time was, when the lion's share of something was the whole of it. Despite my linguistic conservatism, I have acquiesced in the latter-day usage according to which the lion's share of something is most of it. If lions could speak, they would protest the semantic dilution.

    **Pygmies now rule.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Memory and Existence: An Aporetic Tetrad

    Try this  foursome on for size:

    1) Memory is a source of knowledge.

    2) Whatever is known, exists.

    3) Memory includes memory of wholly past individuals and events.

    4) Whatever exists, is temporally present.

    The limbs of the tetrad are collectively inconsistent: they cannot all be true.  To appreciate the logical inconsistency, note that 'exists' in (2) and in (4) have exactly the same sense, and that this is not the present-tensed sense.  It is the tense-neutral and time-independent sense. Something that exists in this sense simply exists: it is one of the things listed in the ontological inventory.  Hence talk in the literature of existence simpliciter.  In both of its occurrences above, 'exists' means: existence simpliciter.

    The limbs are individually plausible. But they are not equally plausible. (4) is the least plausible, and thus the most rejectable, i.e., the most rejection-worthy. Rejecting it, we arrive at an argument against presentism given that (4) is a version of presentism, which it is.

    1*) Some of what is remembered is known.

    2*) All that is known, exists.

    Therefore

    2.5) Some of what is remembered exists.

    3*) All of what is remembered is wholly past.

    Therefore

    3.5) Some of what exists is wholly past.

    Therefore 

    ~4*) It is not the case that whatever exists, is temporally present. (Presentism is false.)

    Bill Vallicella

  • All is Fleeting

    The 'is' gladdens; the 'fleeting' saddens. 

    Bill Vallicella

Latest Comments

  1. It’s unbelievable that people who work with the law are among the ranks of the most sophists, demagogues, and irrational…

  2. https://www.thefp.com/p/charles-fain-lehman-dont-tolerate-disorder-charlie-kirk-iryna-zarutska?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

  4. Hey Bill, Got it now, thanks for clarifying. I hope you have a nice Sunday. May God bless you!

  5. Vini, Good comments. Your command of the English language is impressive. In my penultimate paragraph I wrote, “Hence their hatred…

  6. Just a little correction, since I wrote somewhat hastily. I meant to say enemies of the truth (not from the…

  7. You touched on very, very important points, Bill. First, I agree that people nowadays simply want to believe whatever the…

  9. https://barsoom.substack.com/p/peace-has-been-murdered-and-dialogue?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=841240&post_id=173321322&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1dw7zg&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Categories

Philosophy Weblogs

Other Websites