The Cartesian Dream Argument and an Austinian Contrast Argument

J. L. Austin, in a footnote to p. 49 of Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford, 1962), writes of ". . . the absurdity of Descartes' toying with the notion that the whole of our experience might be a dream." In the main text, there is a sort of argument for this alleged absurdity. The argument may be set forth as follows:

1. "If dreams were not 'qualitatively' different from waking experiences, then every waking experience would be like a dream . . ." (49)

2. If the phrase 'dream-like quality' were "applicable to everything," then "the phrase would be perfectly meaningless." (49)

Therefore

3. If dreams were not qualitatively different from waking experiences, then the phrase 'dream-like quality' would be perfectly meaningless. (From 1 and 2 by Hypothetical Syllogism)

4. The phrase 'dream-like quality' is not perfectly meaningless.

Therefore

5. Dreams are qualitatively different from waking experiences, and "the notion that the whole of our experience might be a dream is an "absurdity." (From 3 and 4 by Modus Tollens)

This is what is called a Contrast Argument. The idea is that a term cannot be meaningful unless there are items to which it does not apply. The idea has some plausibility: if a term applies to everything, or everything in a specified domain, then there is a 'failure of contrast' that might seem to drain the term of all meaning. So if every experience were dream-like, then it could seem meaningless to say of any experience that it is dream-like.

But I see no reason to accept premise (2) above and the contrast principle on which it rests. The principle is

CP. If a term T applies to everything, then T is meaningless.

(CP) readily succumbs to counterexamples. 'Self-identical' applies to everything without prejudice to its meaningfulness. The fact that nothing is self-diverse does not make it meaningless to say that everything is self-identical. Or consider a nominalist who claims that there are no universals, that everything that exists is a particular. Is our nominalist saying something meaningless? Clearly not.

Or if a Buddhist maintains that all is impermanent, is he maintaining something meaningless? Must there be permanent entities for it to be meaningful to say of anything that it is impermanent? I say no. It would be a cheap and feeble response to the Buddhist to allege that the very sense of 'All is impermanent' requires the existence of one or more permanent entities. It is not even required that it be possible that there be permanent entities. If it is necessarily the case that all is impermanent, then there cannot be any permanent entities. Nevertheless, it is meaningful to make this strong impermanence claim. One understands what is being said.

There are philosophers who hold that every being is a contingent being. Surely this cannot be refuted by claiming that the very sense of the thesis that all beings are contingent requires the existence of at least one necessary being. It is true that 'contingent being' has sense only by contrast with the sense of 'necessary being': one cannot understand the one term without understanding the other. But it does not follow that 'contingent being' has sense only if there are necessary beings.

The senses of 'good' and 'evil' are mutually implicative. But it does not follow that there cannot be good without evil.

Returning to the Cartesian Dream Argument, could the whole of my experience be dream-like? This supposition may at the end of the day be absurd; but it cannot be shown to be absurd by Austin's contrast argument.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Jim Morrison

Tomorrow it will have been 40 years since Jim Morrison of the Doors broke on through to the other side expiring in a Paris bath tub.  A too intense celebration of the Dionysian can lead to a premature exit from life's freeway, as more than one 60's 'icon' discovered.  The year before saw the drug- and alcohol-fueled deaths of  both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

Riders on the Storm, into this world we're thrown, brings a little Heidegger to the rock masses.

Roadhouse Blues:

Well, I woke up this morning, I got myself a beer
Well, I woke up this morning, and I got myself a beer
The future's uncertain, and the end is always near.

Beer for breakfast is contraindicated and may hasten the end which is indeed near in any case.  Forty years on, the cult continues.  Supply your own critique and be careful who you choose as role model.

Flannery O’Connor

Bukowski was my last binge, literarily speaking.  I feel a Flannery binge in the offing.  How's that for catholic tastes?  I found a copy of her first novel, Wise Blood, in a used bookstore back in December while on the hunt for Bukowski materials.  But I just recently started in on it.  Repellent and boring at first, dismal and gothic, but she is clearly a talent of a very high order — unlike Buk — so I will press on. 

My best piece of scribbling during my Bukowski binge was Charles Bukowski Meets Simone Weil.  I note that Flannery was intrigued by Simone, which is not surprising, and discusses the latter in her letters.  That will have to be looked into.  All in good time.  Study everything, join nothing.  Nihil humanum, et cetera.

Here is a worthwhile essay on O'Connor.

And Flannery O'Connor Banned is yet another proof –as if we need one — of the Pee Cee dementia of  the liberal element. 

She Won’t ‘Bach’ Down

You can stand Michelle Bachmann up at the gates of hell and she won't back down.  (Or at least I hope not.) I thought she acquitted herself well on Hannity's show last night.  She talks sense unlike the blather mouth who is unfortunately our current POTUS. 

But the slimeballs of the Left are out in force against her.  Why doesn't that make them sexists by their own perverse 'logic'?  Criticize Obama's policies and they call you a racist.  Viciously attack Bachmann herself and you are not a sexist?

Requisites of Happiness

Edward Ockham at Beyond Necessity quotes Flaubert:  "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."

Witty, but false.  Comparable and  less cynical is this saying which I found attributed to Albert Schweitzer on a greeting card: Happiness is nothing more than good health and a poor memory.  (Whether the good Schweitzer ever said any such thing is a further question; hence my omission of quotation marks.)

I am inclined to agree with both gentlemen that good health is a necessary condition of happiness.  But happiness does not require a poor memory, it requires the ability to control one's memory, and the ability to control one's mind generally.  I am happy and I have an excellent memory; but I have learned how to distance myself from any unpleasant memory that may arise. 

An unhappy intellectual may think that stupidity is necessary for happiness, but then he is the stupid one.  A keen awareness of the undeniable ills of this world is consistent with being happy if one can control his response to those ills.  There is simply no necessity that one dwell on the negative.  But this non-dwelling is not ignorance.  It is mind control. 

As for selfishness, it is probably true that its opposite is more likely to lead to happiness than it.

The temptation to wit among the literary often leads them astray.

If You Are a Conservative, Don’t Talk Like a Liberal

I've made this point before but it bears repeating. We conservatives should never acquiesce in the Left's acts of linguistic vandalism. Battles in the culture war are often lost and won on linguistic   ground. So we ought to resolutely oppose the Left's attempts at linguistic corruption.

Take 'homophobia.'

A phobia is a fear, but not every fear is a phobia. A phobia is an  irrational fear. One who argues against the morality of homosexual practices, or gives reasons for opposing same-sex marriage is precisely — presenting arguments, and not expressing any phobia. The arguments  may or may not be cogent. But they are expressive of reason, and are intended to appeal to the reason of one's interlocutor. To dismiss them as an expression of a phobia show a lack of respect for reason and for the persons who proffer the arguments.

There are former meat-eaters who can make an impressive case against the eating of meat. Suppose that, instead of addressing their arguments, one denounces them as 'carniphobes.' Can you see what is wrong with that? These people have a reasoned position. Their reasoning may be more or less cogent, their premises more or less disputable. But the one thing they are not doing is expressing an irrational fear of eating meat. Many of them like the stuff and dead meat inspires no fear in them whatsoever.

The point should be obvious: 'homophobia' is just as objectionable as 'carniphobia.' People who use words like these are attempting to close off debate, to bury a legitimate issue beneath a crapload of PeeCee jargon. So it is not just that 'homophobe' and 'homophobia' are
question-begging epithets; they are question-burying epithets.

And of course 'Islamophobia'  and cognates are other prime examples.  Once again, a phobia is an irrational fear.  But fear of radical Islam is not at all irrational.  You are a dolt if us use these terms, and a double dolt if you are a conservative.

Language matters.

  

Crimes Against Blacks and Nazi Art Thefts

From a Boston reader:

I read your post titled, On Black Reparations after having spent a fair amount of time recently at one of my favorite places, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In the museum, there are signs next to some pieces indicating that their provenance may include Nazi-era acquisitions in World War II Germany. If it's determined that any piece was acquired as a result of theft, illegal sales, etc. then every attempt is made to return it to the rightful owner or to the owner's heir, and this is judged to be a moral obligation. This made me think about how your argument against reparations would apply to such cases. But to make the case analogous in terms of the time that has elapsed between the crime and the proposed method of restitution, suppose the following argument is being made in 2091:

1. All of the perpetrators of the crimes associated with Nazi-era thefts of art in World War II Germany (and areas occupied by Germany at the time) are dead.

2. All of the victims of the crimes associated with Nazi-era thefts of art in World War II Germany are dead.

3. Only those who are victims of a crime are entitled to reparations for the crime, and only those who are the perpetrators of a crime are obliged to pay reparations for it.

Therefore

4. No one now living is entitled to receive reparations for the crimes associated with Nazi-era thefts of art in World War ii Germany, and no one now living is obliged to pay reparations. (Assume anyone owning such a piece was not aware, when he purchased it, of its Nazi-era provenance).

I wonder if such an argument could be run to refute the notion that such works should be returned to any living heirs, or to museums from which they might have been looted. It seems to me that counter this possibility, we might point out that one relevant disanalogy may be the fact that here we're dealing with concrete items — with property — and not with difficult (impossible?) to calculate contemporary harms caused by past wrongs. After all, it's easier to argue that Jones has been harmed by not owning a painting he would have plausibly (probably?) inherited were it not stolen than it is to argue that Smith has been harmed by the fact that his great-great-great grandfather was enslaved. But I'm not sure if this works, for the force of your argument doesn't come from pragmatic concerns like that, but from the moral issues involved, and they seem to apply with similar force to cases concerning whether one is obligated to return art of Nazi-era provenance to identifiable heirs. Do you think that the argument you've formulated would imply that, at least in 2091, Museums would not be obligated to return items acquired by Nazis and Nazi collaborators during World War II to identifiable heirs, and would you agree that if this is so, the conclusion minimally conflicts with our moral intuitions? Sorry for the length of the post, and thanks for taking the time to read it.

An interesting response.

I think the cases are disanalogous for reasons different from the one the reader mentions.  Suppose a piece was stolen by the Nazis from the Louvre in Paris and it ends up in the MFA in Boston.  Said piece is the property of the Louvre and ought to be returned there despite the fact that the Nazi thieves and the Louvre curators are all dead.  The wrong was committed against the Louvre which continues to exist.  And therein lies one point of disanalogy.  The blacks who were enslaved and maltreated no longer exist.   A second point of disanalogy is that when restitution is made nothing is taken from the MFA that it has a right to possess.  But when a present-day non-black is forced to pay reparations to blacks  he is having something taken from him that he has a right to possess.   

 

On Black Reparations

Warning to liberals: clear thinking, moral clarity, and political incorrectness up ahead! If you consider any part of the following to be 'racist' or 'hateful' then you are in dire need, not of refutation, but of psychotherapy.  Please seek it for your own good.

There is no question but that slavery is a great moral evil. But are American blacks owed reparations for the slavery that was officially ended by the ratification of the 13th Amendment of the U. S. Constitution over 145 years ago on 6 December 1865? I cannot see that any rational case for black reparations can be made. Indeed, it seems to me that a very strong rational case can be made against black reparations. The following argument seems to me decisive:

1. All of the perpetrators of the crimes associated with slavery in the U.S. are dead.
2. All of the victims of the crimes associated with slavery in the U.S. are dead.
3. Only those who are victims of a crime are entitled to reparations for the crime, and only those who are the perpetrators of a crime are obliged to pay reparations for it.
Therefore
4. No one now living is entitled to receive reparations for the crimes associated with slavery in the U.S., and no one now living is obliged to pay reparations.  

Continue reading “On Black Reparations”

How Does One Know that There Are Contingent Beings?

When I was writing my book on existence I was troubled by the question as to how one knows that there are contingent beings. For I took it as given that there are, just as I took it as given that things exist.  But one philosopher's datum is another's theory, and I was hoping to begin my metaphysical ascent from indubitable starting points.  So it bugged me:  how do I know that this coffee cup is a contingent being?  Given that it exists, how do I know that it exists contingently?    I satisfied my scruples by telling myself that I was writing  about the metaphysics of existence and that concerns with its epistemology could be reserved for a later effort.  What exactly is the problem?  Let's begin with a couple of definitions:

D1.  X is contingent =df possibly (x exists) & possibly (x does not exist).

The possibility at issue is non-epistemic and broadly logical.  And note that the definiens of (D1) is not to be confused with 'possibly (x exists & x does not exist)' which is necessarily false.

D2.  X contingently exists =df x exists & possibly (x does not exist).

Note that to say that x exists contingently is not to say that x depends for its existence on something else; it is merely to say that x exists and that there is no broadly logical (metaphysical) necessity that x exist.  Suppose exactly one thing exists, an iron sphere.  Intuitively, the sphere is contingent despite there being nothing on which it depends for its existence.  For though it exists, it might not have.

Note also that to say that x exists contingently is not to say that x is actual at some times and not actual at other times.  (Even if everything that contingently exists exists at some times but not at all times, the contingency of what contingently exists does not consist in its existing at some but not all times.)  If one said that contingency is existence at some but not all times,  then one would have to say that x exists necessarily just in case x exists at all times.  Something that exists at all times, however, could well be contingent in a clear sense of this term, namely, possibly nonexistent.  For example, suppose the physical universe always existed and always will exist.  It doesn't follow that it necessarily exists (is impossibly nonexistent).  It would remain a contingent fact that it exists at all in the D2 sense.  And then there that are items that are not in time at all: numbers, Fregean propositions, and other 'abstracta.'  They exist necessarily without being temporally qualified.  Their necessity is not their existence at all times.

For example, my coffee cup exists now — how I know this is a separate epistemological question that I here ignore — but is possibly such that it does not exist now, where 'now' picks out the same time.  But how do I know that the cup is now possibly nonexistent?  That's my problem.

This is a variant of the problem of modal knowledge.  (See Notes on Van Inwagen on Modal Epistemology.) The cup is full, but it might not have been.  It is full of coffee, but it might have been full of whisky.  It is two inches from the ashtray, but it might have been three inches from it.  It exists now but it might not have existed now.  It has existed for 20 years; it might never have existed at all.  And so on.  I  can see that the cup is full, and I can taste that it contains coffee and not whisky.  But I cannot see or taste what doesn't exist (assuming that 'see' is being used as a verb of success), and the cup's being empty or the cup's containing whisky are non-obtaining states of affairs.  Thus there seems to be nothing for my modal knowledge to 'grab onto.'  

If I know that the cup exists contingently, then I know that it  is possibly nonexistent.  But how do I know the latter?

"You know it from your ability to conceive, without contradiction, of the cup's nonexistence."  This is not a good answer.  First of all, conceivability (without contradiction) does not entail possibility. Example here.  Does the conceivability of p raise the probability of p's being possible?  This is a strange notion.  Discussion here. 

If conceivability neither entails nor probabilifies possibility, then my question returns in full force: how does one know, of any being, that it is a contingent being?

"Well, you know from experience that things like coffee cups come into existence and pass out of existence. If you know that, then you know that such things do not exist of metaphysical necessity. For what exists of metaphysical necessity exists at all times, if it exists in time at all, and your coffee cup, which exists in time, does not exist at all times.  Now what does not exist of metaphysical necessity is metaphysically contingent.  Therefore, you know that coffee cups and such are contingent existents."

This argument may do the trick. To test it, I will set it forth as rigorously as possible.  To save keystrokes I omit universal quantifiers.

1. If x is a material thing, and x does not exist at all times, then x is not a necessary being (one whose nonexistence is broadly-logically impossible).
2. If x is not a necessary being, then x is either a contingent being or an impossible being.
Therefore
3. If x is a material thing, and x does not exist at all times, then x is either a contingent being or an impossible being.
4. My coffee cup is a material thing and it does not exist at all times.
Therefore
5. My cup is either a contingent being or an impossible being.
6. If x exists, then x is not impossible.
7. My cup exists.
Therefore
8. My cup is a contingent being.
9. I know that (8) because I know each of the premises, and (8) follows from the premises.

The inferences are all valid,  and the only premise that might be questioned is (1).  To refute (1) one needs an example of a material being that does not exist at all times that is a necessary being.  But I can't think of an example.

The argument just given seems to be a rigorous proof that there is at least one contingent (possibly nonexistent) existent.  But does it show that this existent is possibly nonexistent at each time at which it exists? (The latter is the question I posed above.) 

Would it make sense to say that my cup, though not a necessary being, is necessarily existent at each time at which it exists?  If that makes sense, then my cup is contingent in that it might not have existed at all, but not contingent in the sense that at each time at which it exists it is possibly nonexistent.  Are these two propositions consistent:

a. x is contingent in that it might not have existed at all

and

b. x is not contingent in the sense of being possibly nonexistent at each time at which it exists?

If (a) and (b) are consistent, then it appears that I have not proven that my cup is contingent in the sense of being possibly nonexistent at each time at which it exists.  For then the above argument shows merely that the cup is contingent in that it might not have existed at all. 

Further Left Than Chomsky

"There is no further left than Chomsky.  Further left than Chomsky is Stalin."  (Dennis Prager,  just now, on his radio show.)  And Chomsky gets paid to speak on college campuses, he doesn't get pie in the face, and doesn't need a body guard.  But Ann Coulter and David Horowitz need body guards.  (Prager made these obvious points as well.)

There is scumbaggery on the Right, but it is far, far worse on the Left.  Anyone who disagrees with this I would consider so delusional as to be not worth talking to.