‘Blacklisted’ Blacklisted

Here: "POLICE chiefs have banned IT staff from using the word blacklist over fears it is RACIST." (Via VFR)

This sort of thing is insane, of course. And so I suspect that to argue against it is foolish: it only lends credibility to a view that ought to be mocked and derided. 

But I do argue it out here.  One late-night comic lampooned the 'crispy critter' tanning lady (who brought her child into the tanning booth with her) by saying that the she is so dark it's racist!  That's the way to go.  You PeeCee liberals are so stupid it's racist! What is the antecedent of the last two occurrences of 'it'?  Don't worry, we be in PeeCee land now.  We don't need to talk no sense.

Cosmologists are going to have to be careful what with their talk of black holes.  Someone might take that as 'code' for 'black ho' a phrase that in PeeCee logic (and no, I'm not talking about the propositional calculus) implies that all black females are whores.

Tanning%20Lady

Wittgenstein and Rejectionism

I characterized Rejectionism with respect to the question why there is anything at all as follows:  "The rejectionist rejects the question as ill-formed, as senseless."  London Ed suggests that Wittgenstein may be lumped in with the rejectionists.  He has a point, though I do insist on the distinction between taking 'Why is there anything at all?' as an explanation-seeking why-question and taking it as a mere expression of wonder at the sheer existence of things.  We know that Wittgenstein was struck with wonder at the sheer existence of things.  What is now to be discussed is whether Wittgenstein can be read as making a rejectionist response to the ultimate explanation-seeking why-question.

 Ed quotes from Anthony Kenny's book, Wittgenstein:

Logic depends on there being something in existence and there being facts; it is independent of what the facts are, of things being thus and so. That there are facts is not something which can be expressed in a proposition. If one wants to call there being facts a matter of experience, then one can say logic is empirical. But when we say something is empirical we mean that it can be imagined otherwise; in this sense every proposition with sense is a contingent proposition. And in this sense the existence of the world is not an empirical fact, because we cannot think it otherwise.

This passage cries out for commentary.

1. Does logic depend on there being something in existence?  Yes, if we are talking about the Frege-Russell logic that young Ludwig cut his teeth on.    In 'Fressellian' logic, existence is instantiation.  To say that cats exist is to say that something is a cat.  (The concept cat is instantiated.)  To say that dragons do not exist is to say that nothing is a dragon. (The concept dragon is not instantiated.)  This works nicely – but only on the assumption that individuals exist.    So Kenny is surely right that (Frege-Russell) logic requires that something exists, in particular that individuals exist.

2. But can this presupposition be expressed (said) in this logic? Here is a little challenge for you Fressellians: translate 'Something exists' into standard logical notion.  You will discover that it cannot be done.  Briefly, if existence is instantiation, which property is it whose instantiation is the existence of something?  Same problem with 'Nothing exists.'  If existence is instantiation, which property is it whose non-instantiation is the nonexistence of anything?  Similarly with 'Everthing exists' and 'Something does not exist.'

3. I surmise that this is one of the motivations for Wittgenstein's infamous and paradoxical saying/showing distinction. What can be said can be said clearly.  But not everything can be said.  It cannot be said that there are beings or that there are objects or that there are individuals.  For again, how does one express (say) that there are beings (existents) in Frege-Russell logic?  This system of logic rests on presuppositions that cannot be expressed within the system.  The presuppositions cannot be said but thay can be shown by the use of variables such as the individual variable 'x.'  That is the Tractarian line.

4. Kenny also says that logic depends on there being facts.  That's not clear.  Near the beginning of the Tractatus, LW affirms the existence of facts.  He tells us that the world is the totality of facts (Tatsachen) not of things (Dinge).  But does the Frege-Russell logic require that there be facts?  Not as far as I can see.  The mature Frege certainly did not posit facts.  Be that as it may.

5. Is Wittgenstein a rejectionist?  Does he reject the question 'Why is there anything at all?' as senseless or ill-formed? The case can be made that he does or at least could within his framework.

When I raise the question why anything at all exists, I begin with the seemingly empirical fact that things exist: me, my cat, mountains, clouds . . . .   I then entertain the thought that there might have been nothing at all.  I then demand an explanation as to why there is something given (a) that there is something and (b) that there might not have been anything.

A Wittgensteinian rejection of the question might take the following form. "First of all, your starting point is inexpressible: it cannot be said that things exist.  That is a nonsensical pseudo-proposition. You can say, sensibly, that cats exist, but not that things exist. That things exist is an unsayable presupposition of all thinking.  As such, we cannot think it away.  And so one cannot ask why anything exists."

6. This form of rejectionism is as dubious as what it rests upon, namely, the Frege-Russell theory of existence and the saying/showing distinction.

Obama’s Historical Howlers

Here.  The funniest is Obama's reference to the construction of the "Intercontinental Railroad" in the 19th century.  That would be something, a railroad that crossed oceans.  Think of all the pontoons that would be needed to float the tracks on. 

The article documents Obama and his gang's unconcern with truth — as if we needed more evidence of that.

Cabinets Gone Wild

Another outstanding column by Victor Davis Hanson.  Excerpt:

Attorney General Eric Holder dropped charges against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation. That may explain why he said nothing when the same group put out a dead-or-alive bounty poster on George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin shooting case. Holder's department is suing the state of Arizona for passing a law to enforce the largely unenforced federal immigration law. Holder suggested that the Arizona law was racially inspired even as he admitted that he had never read it. Holder has praised the race-baiting Al Sharpton for his "partnership" and called the country "cowards" for not holding a national conversation on race on his terms. The attorney general has referred to African-Americans as "my people," and he has characterized congressional oversight of his office's failure to rein in the Fast and Furious scandal as racially motivated attacks on himself.

Some Inaccurate Negative Stereotypes About Stereotypes

• People ascribe a stereotype to everybody in the subject group. "All Germans are efficient." "All English people have bad teeth." In fact, these researchers were not able to locate anybody who believes that a stereotype is true of all members of the stereotyped group. Stereotypes are probabilistic tools, and even the most dull-witted human beings seem to know this. People who believe that Mexicans are lazy or that the French don't wash, understand perfectly well that there are lots of industrious Mexicans and fragrant Frenchmen.

• Stereotypes exaggerate group characteristics. No, they don't. Much more often, the opposite is true. For example, the racial stereotypes that white Americans hold of black Americans are generally accurate; and where they are inaccurate, they always under-estimate a negative characteristic. The percentage of black American families headed by a female, for example, was 21 at the time of one survey (1978): the whites whose stereotypes were being investigated offered estimates of from 8 to 12 per cent. It is not true that stereotypes generally exaggerate group differences. As in this example, they are much more likely to downplay them.

• Stereotypes blind us to individual characteristics. Nope. It is not the case that when we pass from a situation where we have nothing to go on but a stereotype (cab driver being hailed by young black male) to one where a person's individuality comes into play (interviewing a black job applicant), our stereotypes blind us to "individuating traits." On the contrary, researchers have found that the individuating traits are seized on for attention, and stereotypes discarded, with rather more enthusiasm than the accuracy of stereotypes would justify. Teachers' judgments about their students, for example, rest almost entirely on student differences in performance, hardly at all on race, class or gender stereotypes. This is as one would wish, but not as one would expect if the denigrators of stereotyping were to be believed.

• The real function of stereotypes is to bolster our own self-esteem. Wrong again. This is not a factor in most stereotyping. The scientific evidence is that the primary function of stereotypes is what researchers very prettily call "the reality function." That is, stereotypes are useful tools for dealing with the world. Confronted with a snake or a faun, our immediate behavior is determined by generalized beliefs — stereotypes — about snakes and fauns. Stereotypes are, in fact, merely one aspect of the mind's ability to make generalizations, without which science and mathematics, not to mention much of everyday life, would be impossible. Researcher Clark R. McCauley:

Standing next to the bus driver, we are more likely to ask about traffic patterns than about the latest foreign film. On the highway, we try to squeeze into the exit lane in front of the man driving a 10-year-old station wagon rather than trying to pull in on the man driving a new Corvette. Looking for the school janitor, we are more likely to approach a young man in overalls than a young woman in overalls. This kind of discrimination on the basis of group differences can go wrong, but most of us probably feel that we are doing ourselves and others a favor when we respond to whatever cues and regularities our social environment affords us.

Taken verbatim from John Derbyshire, Stereotypes Aren't So Bad

On the Word ‘Racism’ and Some of its Definitions

Racist'Racism' and 'racist' are words used by liberals as all-purpose semantic bludgeons.  Proof of this is that the terms are never defined, and so can be used in wider or narrower senses depending on the polemical and ideological purposes at hand.  In common parlance 'racism' and 'racist'  are pejoratives, indeed, terms of abuse.  This is why it is foolish for conservatives such as John Derbyshire to describe themselves as racists while attempting to attach some non-pejorative connotation to the term.  It can't be done.  It would be a bit like describing oneself as as an asshole, 'but in the very best sense of the term.'  'Yeah, I'm an asshole  and proud of it; we need more assholes; it's a good thing to be.'  The word has no good senses, at least when applied to an entire human as opposed to an orifice thereof.  For words like 'asshole,' 'child molester,' and 'racist' semantic rehabilitation is simply not in the cards.  A conservative must never call himself a racist.  (And I don't see how calling himself a racialist is any better.)  What he must do is attack ridiculous definitions of the term, defend reasonable ones, and show how he is not a racist when the term is reasonably defined.

Let's run through some candidate definientia of 'racism':

1. The view that there are genetic or cultural differences between racial groups and that these differences have behavioral consequences.

Since this is indeed the case, (1) cannot be used to define 'racism.'  The term, as I said, is pejorative: it is morally bad to be a racist.  But it is not morally bad to be a truth-teller.  The underlying principle here is that it can't racism if it is true.  Is that not obvious?

Suppose I state that blacks are 11-13% of the U.S. population.  That cannot be a racist statement for the simple reason that it is true.  Nor can someone who makes such a statement be called a racist for making it.  A statement whose subject matter is racial is not a racist statement.  Or I inform you that blacks are more likely than whites to contract sickle-cell anemia.  That too is true.  But in this second example there is reference to an unpleasant truth.  Even more unpleasant are those truths about the differential rates of crime as between blacks and whites.  But pleasant or not, truth is truth, and there are no racist truths. (I apologize for hammering away at these platitudes, but in a Pee Cee world in which people have lost their minds, repetition of the obvious is necessary.)

2. The feeling of affinity for those of one's own racial and ethnic background.

It is entirely natural to feel more comfortable around people of one's own kind than around strangers.  And of course there is nothing morally objectionable in this. No racism here.

3. The view that it is morally justifiable  to put the interests of one's own race or ethnic group above those of another in situations of conflict or limited resources.  This is to be understood as the analog of the view that it it morally justifiable to put the interests of oneself and one's own family, friends, and neighbors above the interests of strangers in a situation of conflict or limited resources.

There is nothing morally objectionable in his, and nothing that could be legitimately called racism.

4. The view that the genetic and cultural differences between races or ethnic groups justifies genocide or slavery or the denial of political rights.

Now we arrive at an appropriate definiens of 'racism.'  This is one among several  legitimate ways of defining 'racism.'  Racism thus defined is morally offensive in the extreme.  I condemn it and you should to.  I condemn all who hold this. 

Siger of Brabant on Why Something Rather Than Nothing

London Ed offers this quick, over-breakfast but accurate as far as I can tell translation from the Latin (available at Ed's site):

For not every being has a cause of its being, nor does every question about being have a cause. For if it is asked why there is something in the natural world rather than nothing, speaking about the world of created things, it can be replied that there is a First immoveable Mover, and a first unchangeable cause. But if it is asked about the whole universe of beings why there is something there rather than nothing, it is not possible to give a cause, for it's the same to ask this as to ask why there is a God or not, and this does not have a cause. Hence not every question has a cause, nor even every being.

Ed comments, "I'm not sure how Siger's reply falls into the categories given by Bill."  Note first that the question that interests me is in the second of Siger's questions, the 'wide-open' question: not the question why there are created things, but the question why there is anything at all.   To that wide-open question Siger's response falls under Rejectionism in my typology of possible responses.  Siger rejects the question as unanswerable when he says, idiosyncratically to our ears, "it is not possible to give a cause," and "not every question has a cause."  That could be read as saying that not every interrogative form of words expresses a genuine question.

Ed also mentions Wittgenstein and suggests that he "had a go" at the Leibniz question.  I don't think so.  We must distinguish between 'Why is there anything at all?' as an explanation-seeking why-question and the same grammatically interrogative formulation as a mere expression of wonderment equivalent to 'Wittgenstein's "How extraordinary that anything should exist!"  Wittgenstein was not raising or trying to answer the former.  He was merely expressing wonder at the sheer existence of things.

I would be very surprised if someone can find in the history or philosophy, or out of his own head, a response to the wide-open explanation-seeking Leibniz question that cannot be booked under one of my rubrics.  (Credit where credit is due: my catalog post is highly derivative from the work of N. Rescher.)

Maverick Philosopher Eighth Blogiversary

I began this weblog eight years ago today in 2004.

The rumors of blogging's demise have been vastly exaggerated.  What has happened is that those whose purposes all along were more social and less serious have moved on to the so-called social media, Facebook and Twitter.   Read or unread, whether by sages or fools, I shall blog on. A post beats a tweet any day, and no day without a post. Nulla dies sine linea. It is too early to say of blogging what Etienne Gilson said of philosophy, namely, that it always buries its undertakers, but I am hopeful. After all, a weblog is just an online journal, and journal scribbling has flourished most interestingly for centuries.

To put it romantically, blogging is a vehicle for the relentless, quotidian sifting, seeking, and questing for sense and truth and reality without which some of us would find life meaningless.

This, the fourth version of Maverick Philosopher, was begun on 31 October 2008. Traffic is good, with 1.3 million total pageviews for this version alone.  That averages out to 1024 page views per day since Halloween 2008. This incarnation sports 3,333 posts.  I thank you for your patronage.

A Catalog of Possible Types of Response to ‘Why Is There Anything At All?’

By my count there are seven possible types of response to the above question, which I will call the Leibniz question.  I will give them the following names: Rejectionism, Mysterianism, Brutalism, Theologism, Necessitarianism,  Nomologism/Axiologism, and Cosmologism.  As far as I can see, my typology, or rather my emendation of Rescher's typology,  is exhaustive.  All possible solutions must fall under one of these heads.  You may send me an e-mail if you think that there is an eighth type of solution.

Either the Leibniz question is illegitimate, a pseudo-question, or it is a genuine question.  If the   former, then it cannot be answered and ought to be rejected.  Following Rescher, we can call this first response  

Rejectionism.  The rejectionist rejects the question as ill-formed, as senseless.  Compare the question, 'How fast does time flow?'  The latter is pretty obviously a pseudo-question resting as it does on a false presupposition, namely, that time is a  measurable process within time.  Whatever time is, it is not a process in time. If it flows, it doesn't flow like a river at some measurable rate.  One does not answer a pseudo-question; one rejects it.  Same with such complex questions as 'When did you stop smoking dope?' The Leibniz question in its contrastive formulation — Why is there something rather than nothing? — may well be a pseudo-question. I gave an argument for this earlier.

If the the Leibniz question is legitimate, however, then it is either unanswerable or answerable.  If unanswerable, then the question points to a mystery.  We can call this response

Mysterianism.  On this approach the  question is held to be genuine, not pseudo as on the rejectionist approach, but unanswerable.  The question has a clear sense and does not rest on any false presupposition.  But no satisfying answer is available.

If the question is answerable, then there are five more possible responses.

Brutalism or Brute Fact Approach.  On this approach there is no explanation as to why anything at all exists.  It is a factum brutum.  As Russell said in his famous BBC debate with the Jesuit Copleston, "The universe is just there, and that is all." (Caveat lector: Quoted from memory!)  A brute fact may be defined as an obtaining state of affairs that obtains without cause and without reason.  If the Principle of Sufficient Reason holds, then of course there are no brute facts.  The principle in question, however, is contested.

Theologism or Theological Approach.  There is a metaphysically necessary and thus self-explanatory  being, God, whose existence and  activity explains the existence of everything other than God.  Why is there anything at all?  Because everything is either self-explanatory (causa sui) or caused to exist by that which is self-explanatory.

Necessitarianism.  On this approach, the metaphysical necessity that traditional theology ascribes to God is ascribed to the totality of existents: it exists as a matter of metaphysical necessity.  It is necessary that there be some totality of existents or other, and (what's worse) that there be precisely this totality and no other. There is no real contingency. Contingency is merely epistemic.  Why is there anything at all?  Because it couldn't have been otherwise!

Nomologism/Axiologism. Theories of this type have been proposed by A. C. Ewing (Value and Reality, 1973), John Leslie (Universes, 1989), and Nicholas Rescher, The Riddle of Existence, 1984).  I will provide a rough sketch of Rescher's approach. 

For Rescher, there is a self-subsistent realm of real possibilities or "proto-laws" whose mode of being is independent of the existence of substances.  This realm of real possibilities is  not nothing, but it is not a realm of existents.  Rescher's claim is that the proto-laws account for the existence of things "without being themselves embodied in some existing thing or things." (27)  Some facts, e.g., that there are things (substances) at all, is "Grounded in the nature of possibility." (27)  What is the nature of this grounding? R. speaks of "nomological causality" as opposed to "efficient causality." (21)  Somehow — and I confess to finding this all rather murky — the proto-laws nomologically cause the existence of physical substances.  How does this explain why there is something rather than nothing?

R. argues, p. 31: (a) If every R-possible world is F, then the actual world is F. (b) Every R-possible world is nonempty. Therefore, (c) The actual world is nonempty: there is something rather than nothing (31).  That is, only nonempty worlds are really possible. As R. remarks, the reasoning here is like the ontological argument: only an actual God is really possible.  Rescher's view seems to be that, while there is a plurality of possible worlds, there is no possible world empty of physical existents.  But how does Rescher support premise (b): Every R-possible world is nonempty?  He gives a ridiculous question-begging argument (p. 32) that I won't bother to reproduce.

Cosmologism.  The above six approaches are listed by N. Rescher (The Riddle of Existence, 1984, Ch. 1).  But I believe there is a seventh approach which I learned from my old friend Quentin Smith. (A later post will deal with this in detail.)    On this approach the Leibniz question is genuine (contra Rejectionism) and has an answer (contra Mysterianism).  Moreover, the answer has the form of an explanation (contra Brutalism).  But the answer do not involve any necessary substance such as God, nor does it take the line that the universe itself exists of necessity.  Nor does the answer ascribe any causal efficacy to abstract laws or values.  The idea is that the universe has the resources to explain its own existence:  it caused itself to exist.  Roughly, everything (space-time, matter, laws) came into existence 13.7 billion years ago; it was caused to come into existence; but it was not caused to come into existence by anything distinct from the universe.  How?  Well, assume that the universe is just the sum total of its states.   Assume further that if each state has an explanation, then this suffices as an explanation of the sum total of states.  Now each state has a causal explanation in terms of an earlier state.  There is no first state despite the fact that the universe is metrically finite in age: 13.7 billion years old.   There is no first state because of the continuity of time and causation: for every state there are earlier states in its causal ancestry.  Because every state has a cause, and the universe is just the sum-total of its states, the universe has  a cause.  But this cause is immanent to the universe.  So the universe caused itself to exist!

Liberals and Leniency

One of dozens of reasons not to be a liberal is that liberals have a casual toward crime.  The best writer on this topic that I know of is Theodore Dalrymple.  His latest is Leniency and Its Costs.  Get thee hence!

I feel sorry about the decline of the mother country, but I'm glad that the consequences of liberalism are playing out there more quickly and dramatically than here, so that we Americans may learn something before it is too late. Excerpt:

What, you might ask, was such a man doing at liberty? Well, most importantly, he was providing a living for the lawyers who defended him when he was caught: he was what one might call a criminal Keynesian. And he was providing ammunition for penological liberals who argue that prison doesn’t work. After all, he had been to prison and still he set fire to the furniture store, endangering the lives of so many people! On this argument, of course, he shouldn’t be sent to prison even now, for it will not “cure” him of his “disease,” and he will learn nothing from it. Among the penological liberals, alas, are to be counted more than one chief justice and our current minister of justice (an Orwellian term unknown to British government until that of Prime Minister Blair): the consistently careerist Kenneth Clarke, who values his reputation with the Guardian, our principal liberal newspaper, more than he does the lives and property of the people of Croydon.

 

Politics: Would That I Could Avoid It

Using 'quietist' in a broad sense as opposed to the Molinos-Fenelon-Guyon sense, I would describe myself as a quietist rather than as an activist. The point of life is not action, but contemplation, not doing, but thinking. (I mean 'thinking' in a very broad sense that embraces all forms of intentionality as well as meditative non-thinking.)  The vita activa is of course necessary (for some all of the time, and for people like me some of the time), but it is necessary as a means only. Its whole purpose is to subserve the vita contemplativa. To make of action an end in itself is absurd, and demonstrably so, though I will spare you the demonstration. If you are assiduous you can dig it out of Aristotle, Aquinas and Josef Pieper.  I recommend his Leisure: The Basis of Culture.

So the dominant note of my personality is quietism in the sense just sketched. The Big Questions turn my crank, not this foreground rubbish about abortion, illegal immigration, social security, misuse of eminent domain, leftist race-baiting, etc. It would be nice to be able to let the world and its violent nonsense go to hell while cultivating my garden in peace.

Unfortunately, my garden and stoa are in the world and exposed to its threats. So politics, which has too little to do with truth and too much to do with power, cannot be ignored. This world is not ultimately real, but it is no illusion either, pace some sophists of the New Age, and so some battling within it, ideological or otherwise, cannot be  avoided.  Besides, the issues of the day all have roots in the Big Questions.  So an assiduous and deep-going application to the issues of the day will lead one to the Big Questions.  An excellent example is abortion.