I cannot be reasonably disappointed if I fail to achieve what was never in my power to achieve.
The Realist Speaks
Most people are basically decent. Just don't put them under too much moral pressure.
Ubi Amor, Ibi Oculus
They say that love is blind. But if love blinds, is it love? Or is it rather infatuation? "Where there is love, there is sight." I found this fine Latin aphorism in Josef Pieper, Death and Immortality (Herder and Herder, 1969, p. 21). The translation is mine. Pieper credits Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences 3 d. 35, I, 21. Pieper adds that "The dictum comes from Richard of St. Victor." (Pieper, p. 133, n. 29.)
Only to the eye of love is the ipseity and haecceity of the beloved revealed, and only the eye of love can descry the true nature and true horror of death. That is my gloss on the aphorism and its context. I should arrange a confrontation between Pieper and Epicurus who Pieper views as a sophist. (p. 29)
Know Thyself!
"OK," says the Buddhist, "But what's to know?"
Terror Attack at Moscow’s Main Airport
NYT account here. "Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, said the attack was probably carried out by a male suicide bomber, and that authorities were trying to identify him."
Was he a Confucian perhaps, a Buddhist, or a Christian? The Gray Lady provides no clue. Maybe he was a generic faith-based bomber. After all, everyone knows that all religions are equal and so equally likely to inspire terrorist acts.
Jack LaLanne Dead at 96
An inspiration. Brother Jackass will carry you over many a pons asinorum for many a year if properly fueled and disciplined. Reform your diet and set aside two to three hours per day for vigorous exercise. Lalanne swam an hour a day and lifted weights for two. Right up until the end. And he always 'went to failure' doing his reps until he could do no more.
Bill Muehlenberg’s Culture Watch
I happened upon this site today, and it looks good based on the one article I read, Shariah and Democracy. You decide.
Thilo Sarrazin and Muslim Integration
A friend gave me a copy of Thilo Sarrazin, Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab (Germany Does Away With Itself), but I haven't had time to read it. So I found this summary of some of Sarrazin's points useful. I cannot vouch for its accuracy.
A Memorable Weekend 40 Years Ago This Weekend
We have it on good authority that the unexamined life is not worth living. The same goes for the unrecorded and the unremembered life. So I pause to remember my best pal (at the time) and my best gal (at the time) and the trip we took in my 1963 Karmann Ghia convertible up the California coast to my favorite city (at the time). Van Morrison, Brown-Eyed Girl. Thelonious Monk, 'Round Midnight. Scott MacKenzie, San Francisco. While I was with the girl, Tom, fellow Kerouac aficionado and memory babe, stumbled upon a Monk gig, dug him and met his wife. Tom tells me that his remembrances of things past play like movies in his head. Me, I have to keep a journal.
My Intentionality Aporia ‘Ockhamized’
Edward of London proposes the following triad
O1. The proposition ‘Bill is looking for a nonexistent thing’ can be true even when there are no nonexistent things.
O2. The proposition ‘Bill is looking for a nonexistent thing’ expresses a relation between two things.
O3. Every relation is such that if it obtains, all of its relata exist.
as a nominalistic equivalent to my
W1. We sometimes think about the nonexistent.
W2. Intentionality is a relation between thinker and object of thought.
W3. Every relation R is such that, if R obtains,then all its relata exist.
Edward imposes the following contraint on aporetic polyads: "The essence of an aporetic polyad is that any proper subset of statements (including the singleton set) should be consistent on its own, and only the whole set being inconsistent." I accept this constraint. It implies that nothing can count as an aporetic polyad if one of its limbs is self-contradictory.
My definition runs as follows. An aporetic polyad is a set S of n self-consistent propositions (n>1) such that (i) any n-1 members of S, taken in conjunction, entail the negation of the remaining member; (ii) each member of S has a strong claim on our acceptance. Edward's constraint follows from this definition. For if any member is self-inconsistent, then it cannot have a strong claim, or any claim, on our acceptance.
If I understand Edward, he is urging two points. His first point is that my formulation of the triad is inept because (W1), unlike (O1), is self-contradictory. If this charge sticks, then my formulation does not count as an aporetic polyad by my own definition. His second point is that his version of the triad has a straightforward and obvious solution: reject (O2).
Reply to the First Point. There is nothing self-contradictory about 'We sometimes think of the nonexistent.' As I made clear earlier, this is a datanic, not a theoretical, claim. On this score it contrasts with the other two limbs. It is meant to record an obvious fact that everyone ought to grant instantly. Because the fact is obvious it is obviously self-consistent. So if Edward denies (W1), then it is not profitable to to continue a discussion with him.
All I can do at this point is speculate as to why Edward fails to get the point. I suppose what he is doing is reading a theory into (W1), a theory he considers self-contradictory. But (W1) simply records a pre-theoretical fact and is neutral with respect to such theories as Meinong's Theory of Objects. Suppose I am imagining a winged horse. If so, then it would be false to say that I am imagining nothing. One cannot simply imagine, or just imagine. It follows that I am imagining something. We are still at the level of data. I have said nothing controversial. One moves beyond data to theory if one interprets my imagining something that does not exist as my standing in a relation to a Meinongian nonexistent object. That is a highly controversial but possible theory, and it is not self-contradictory contrary to what Edward implies. But whether or not it is self-contradictory, the main point for now is that
1. BV is imagining a winged horse
Is neutral as between the following theory-laden interpretations
2. BV (or a mental act of his) stands in a dyadic relation to a Meinongian nonexistent object.
and
3. BV is imagining winged-horse-ly.
The crucial datum is that one cannot just imagine, or simply imagine. We express this by saying that to imagine is to imagine something. But 'imagine something' needn't be read relationally; it could be read adverbially. Accordingly, to imagine Peter (who exists) is to imagine Peter-ly, and to imagine Polonious (who does not exist) is to imagine Polonious-ly. I am not forced by the crucial datum to say that imagining involves a relation between subject and object; I can say that the 'object' reduces to an adverbial modification of my imagining.
So even if the relational reading of (1) were self-contradictory — which it isn't – one is not bound to interpret (1) relationally. Now (1) is just an example of (W1). So the same goes for (W1). (W1) is obviously true. He who denies it is either perverse or confused.
Reply to the Second Point. One can of course solve Edward's triad by denying (O2). But the real question is whether one can easily deny the distinct proposition (W2). I say no. For one thing, the alternatives to saying that intentionality is a relation are not at all appetizing. All three of the limbs of my triad lay claim to our acceptance, and none can be easily rejected – but they cannot all be true. That is why there is a problem.
Intentionality in Locks and Keys?
The mind-body problem divides into several interconnected subproblems. One concerns the relation of consciousness to its material substratum in the brain and central nervous system. A second concerns the aboutness or intentionality of (some) conscious states. A third problem is how a physical organism can be subject to the norms of rationality: How does an abstract argument-pattern such as Modus Tollens 'find purchase in' and 'govern' the transitions from one brain state to another? A fourth subproblem has to do with mental causation. Obviously, mental states are causally efficacious in bringing about physical states and other mental states. My desire for another cup of java is part of the causal chain that eventuates in the physical process of ingesting caffeine. Note also that knowledge of the physical world would presumably not be possible unless physical states could enter into the etiology of mental states. (I say 'presumably' because my formulation begs the question against idealism. And don't let anyone tell you that idealism is not a live option! The fact that it is not much discussed these days doesn't mean anything. Academic philosophers can be as fashion-conscious as teenage girls, and as worried about how they appear; idealism is currently not discussed in the more fashionable salons.)
Divide and conquer is one approach to any complex problem: separate out the subproblems and try to solve them separately. For example, separate the 'qualia' problem — which is part of the first subproblem mentioned — from the intentionality problem.
It might be that there is nothing specifically mental about intentionality at all. Perhaps intentionality is to be found in nature and in artifacts below the level of mind. If so, it may be possible to understand intentionality at the level of mind by working up to it 'from below.' It may be possible to build a 'gradualist bridge' from mindless intentionality to minded intentionality. One might then come to understand how intentionality in us has 'evolved.'
Now one very serious question is whether intentionality can be prised apart from consciousness and treated separately. This is a question Colin McGinn raises with great skill. It deserves a separate post. In this post, however, I will examine a passage from Daniel Dennett in which our man, having separated the qualia and intentionality problems, tries to get from mindless intentionality to the minded variety. The passage is from Kinds of Mind, p. 35:
Intentionality in the philosophical sense is just aboutness. [. . .] A lock and key exhibit the crudest form of intentionality; so do the opioid receptors in brain cells — receptors that are designed to accept the endorphin molecules that nature has been providing in brains for millions of years. [. . .] This lock-and-key variety of crude aboutness is the basic design element out of which nature has fashioned the fancier sorts of subsystems that may more deservedly be called representation systems, so we will have to to analyze the aboutness of these representations in terms of the (quasi?) aboutness of locks-and-keys in any case.
If I am thinking about Jude Acers, my thought is about him: he is not about my thinking. Generalizing, we can say that intentionality is an asymmetrical relation: if X stands in the intentional relation to Y, then Y does not stand in the intentional relation to X. (Brentano rightly pointed out long ago that intentionality is not a relation, strictly speaking, but ein Relativliches, something relation-like; but this nuance does not harm my point.)
Now in Dennett's example, is the lock about the key or the key about the lock? Well, there is a sense in which each is about the other. By studying the key, I can infer something about the lock, and by studying the lock I can infer something about the key. Each provides information about the other, and to a locksmith, a great deal of information.
There are many cases like this. Animal droppings on the trail provide information about what manner of critter has been by recently. Bear scat 'means' bears have been around. One sort of footprint 'indicates' that a coyote has passed by, another sort a mountain lion. The paw of a coyote provides information about the type of print it would leave if it were to leave a print, and a footprint provides information about the design of the paw. (Here 'design' just means pattern.)
So in the coyote case as in the lock and key case we have symmetrical aboutness: lock is about key, and key about lock; paw is about footprint, print is about paw. Or consider a compass needle. It is about magnetic North in the sense that one can infer where magnetic North is from the direction in which the the needle is pointing. But equally, one can infer from the location of magnetic North where a properly functioning compass needle will point.
The symmetry of this sort of aboutness — call it aboutness1 — gives us excellent reason to distinguish it from intentionality, or aboutness2, which is asymmetrical.
From this one can see that Dennett is completely mistaken in his claim that lock-and-key aboutness is a "form of intentionality." It is not a form of intentionality, and to think that it is is to confuse the the two senses of 'aboutness' lately distinguished. Dennett himself seems to be aware of this since at the end of the passage quoted he shifts his ground and speaks of "quasi-aboutness." This fudge is very telling. No doubt there is some likeness as between lock-and-key aboutness and intentional aboutness, but that proves nothing since everything is like everything else in some respect.
The point is that one gains no insight at all into how intentionality emerges — if it does emerge — by having it compared with locks and keys. Note also that to infer something about the lock from the key presupposes genuine intentionality on the part of the locksmith.
To sum up. To build his gradualist bridge, Dennett looks for a form of primitive intentionality below the level of mind or consciousness. He thinks he has found it in his lock and key example. But what I have just shown is that the symmetrical aboutness in the lock and key case is not, and cannot be, a form or type or species of intentionality — which is asymmetrical. The former merely resembles the genuine article. But if A resembles B, it does not follow that A is a form of B. A decoy duck resembles a duck but is not type of duck.
Ockhamite Advice for Leftists
Do not multiply enemies beyond necessity! By libeling those who disagree with you, for example. Making enemies for no good reason is generally foolish. It can come back to bite you.
Nick Gillespie on Cartoonist Steve Benson
There are several reasons why I don't subscribe to the Arizona Republic, and Steve Benson is one of them. Here. Editorial cartooning is indeed the lowest of art forms.
They Have Our Soul Who Have Our Bonds
Just one of the thoughts in this outstanding piece by Mark Steyn.
Posits or Inventions? Geach and Butchvarov on Intentionality
One philosopher's necessary explanatory posit is another's mere invention.
In his rich and fascinating article "Direct Realism Without Materialism" (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 1994), Panayot Butchvarov rejects epistemic intermediaries as "philosophical inventions." Thus he rejects sense data, sensations, ways of being appeared to, sense experiences, mental representations, ideas, images, looks, seemings, appearances, and the like. (1) Curiously enough, however, Butch goes on to posit nonexistent or unreal objects very much in the manner of Meinong! Actually, 'posit' is not a word he would use since Butch claims that we are directly acquainted with unreal objects. (13) Either way, unreal objects such as the proverbial hallucinated pink rat are not, on Butchvarov's view, philosophical inventions.
But now consider the following 1961 passage from Anscombe and Geach's Three Philosophers, a passage that is as if directed against the Butchvarovian view:
But saying this has obvious difficulties. [Saying that all there is to a sensation or thought of X is its being of X.] It seems to make the whole being of a sensation or thought consist in a relation to something else: it is as if someone said he had a picture of a cat that was not painted on any background or in any medium, there being nothing to it except that it was a picture of a cat. This is hard enough: to make matters worse, the terminus of the supposed relation may not exist — a drunkard's 'seeing' snakes is not related to any real snake, nor my thought of a phoenix to any real phoenix. Philosophers have sought a way out of this difficulty by inventing chimerical entities like 'snakish sense-data' or 'real but nonexistent phoenixes' as termini of the cognitive relation. (95, emphasis added)
Butchvarov would not call a nonexistent phoenix or nonexistent pink rat real, but that it just a matter of terminology. What is striking here is that the items Geach considers chimerical inventions Butchvarov considers not only reasonably posited, but phenomenologically evident!
Ain't philosophy grand? One philosopher's chimerical invention is another's phenomenological given.
What is also striking about the above passage is that the position that Geach rejects via the 'picture of a cat' analogy is almost exactly the position that Butch maintains. Let's think about this a bit.
Surely Anscombe and Geach are right when it comes to pictures and other physical representations. There is a clear sense in which a picture (whether painting, photograph, etc.) of a cat is of a cat. The intentionality here cannot however be original; it must be derivative, derivative from the original intentionality of one who takes the picture to be of a cat. Surely no physical representation represents anything on its own, by its own power. And it is also quite clear that a picture of X is not exhausted by its being of X. There is more to a picture than its depicting something; the depicting function needs realization in some medium.
The question, however, is whether original intentionality also needs realization in some medium. It is not obvious that it does need such realization, whether in brain-stuff or in mind-stuff. Why can't consciousness of a cat be nothing more than consciousness of a cat? Why can't consciousness be exhausted in its being by its revelation of objects?
Bewusstsein als bewusst-sein. Get it?
But this is not the place to examine Butchvarov's direct realist conception of consciousness, a conception he finds in Moore, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Sartre, and contrasts with a mental- contents conception.