Husserl Introduces Shestov to Kierkegaard

Lev Shestov and Kierkegaard have much in common. Both are irrationalists, to mention the deepest commonality. Husserl and Kierkegaard have almost nothing in common except that both are passionate truth-seekers each in his own way. So I find it amazing that it was Edmund Husserl, of all people, who introduced Shestov to Kierkegaard's writings. As Shestov explains in In Memory of a Great Philosopher:

. . . during my visit to Freiburg [im Breisgau, where Husserl lived], learning that I had never read Kierkegaard, Husserl began not to ask but to demand – with enigmatic insistence – that I acquaint myself with the works of the Danish thinker. How was it that a man whose whole life had been a celebration of reason should have led me to Kierkegaard's hymn to the absurd? Husserl, to be sure, seems to have become acquainted with Kierkegaard only during the last years of his life. There is no evidence in his works of familiarity with any of the writings of the author of Either-Or. But it seems clear that Kierkegaard's ideas deeply impressed him.

It testifies to the stature of both men that they sought each other out for dialogue despite the unbridgeable gulf that separated them.

Can Existence Be Analyzed in Terms of Power? Commentary on Sophist 247e

At Sophist 247e, Plato puts the following into the mouth of the Eleatic Stranger:

I suggest that anything has real being that is so constituted as to possess any sort of power either to affect anything else or to be affected, in however small a degree, by the most insignificant agent, though it be only once.  I am proposing  as a mark to distinguish real things that they are nothing but power. (Cornford tr.)

The gist of the passage is that what makes a thing real or existent is its (active) power to affect other things or its (passive) power to be affected by them.  In sum,

D. For any x, x exists =df x is causally active or passive.

Thus everything causally active/passive exists, and only the causally active/passive exists.  The definition rules out of existence all 'causally inert' items such as propositions as Frege construes them, namely, as the senses of context-free indicative sentences. And of course it rules out sets of Fregean propositions.  But what about the mathematical (as opposed to commonsense) set of the books on my desks?  Each of the books is existent or real by (D) and so is the object resulting from the bundling of the books together; but the set of these books is arguably abstract and thus causally inert.  So if (D) is true,  we cannot admit mathematical sets into our ontology.  For such items do not enter into causal relations.  Fregean propositions and mathematical sets are therefore putative counterexamples to (D).  If these counterexamples are genuine then (D) fails extensionally: the extension of the existent is wider than the extension of the causally active/passive.

But what interests me at the moment is not the extensional correctness of (D) but  a deeper question.  Even if we assume that (D) is extensionally correct, i.e., that all and only  existents are causally active/passive, does (D) tell us what it is for an item to exist?  When we say of a thing that it exists, what are we saying about it?  That it is causally active/passive?  My answer is in the negative — even if we assume that all and only existents are causally active/passive.

My reason is quite simple.  For an item to be capable of acting or being acted upon it must 'be there' or exist!  'Before' it can be a doer or a done-to it must exist. (The 'before' is to be taken logically not temporally.) The nonexistent cannot act or be acted upon.  There is no danger that winged horses will collide with airplanes.  The reason is not that winged horses are abstract or causally inert objects; the reason is that they do not exist.  Winged horses, if there were any, would belong to the category of the causally active/passive.  But they don't exist — which is the reason why they cannot act or be acted upon.  They are not abstract items but nonexistent concrete items.  Existence, therefore, is a necessary condition of an item's being a causal agent or patient.  It follows that existence cannot be explicated in terms of power as per the Eleatic Stranger's suggestion.  Existence is too fundamental to be explicated in terms of power — or anything else.

If you are having trouble seeing the point consider the winged horse Pegasus and his singleton {Pegasus}.  Both of these items are nonexistent.  One is concrete (causally active/passive) while the other is abstract.  But neither can enter into causal relations.  To say that Pegasus is concrete is to say that Pegasus, were he to exist, would belong among the causally active/passive.  What prevents him from being such is his nonexistence.  His existence, therefore, cannot be explicated in terms of causal activity/passivity.

There is a tendency to conflate two different questions about existence.  One question about existence concerns what exists.  Answers to this question can be supplied in the form of definitions like (D) above.  But there is a  deeper question about existence, namely, the question as  what it is for an existing thing to exist.  What I have just argued is that this second question cannot be answered with any definition like (D).  For even if you find a definition that is extensionally correct and immune to counterexamples, you will at the very most have specified the necessary and sufficient conditions for a thing's  being among existing things.   You will have not thereby have put your finger on what it is for an existing item to exist. 

Suppose you say that, for any x, x exists  =df x has properties.  This proposal has an excellent chance of being extensionally correct: necessarily, everything that exists has properties, and everything that has properties exists.  But the proposal does not get at the existence of an existing thing precisely because it presupposes the existence of existing things.  This is because all such definitions are really circular inasmuch as they have the form:

For any x, x exists =df x is ____ and x exists.

Existence itself eludes definitional grasp.  Even if the existent can be defined, the Existence of the existent cannot be defined.  For more on this fascinating topic, see my A Paradigm Theory of Existence (Kluwer 2002), pp. 2-8. 

 

Rorty on the Idea of a Liberal Society: Anything Goes

Rorty is dead, but a thinker lives on in his recorded thoughts, and we honor a thinker by thinking his thoughts with a mind that is at once both open and critical, open but not empty or passive. In Chapter Three of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Richard Rorty writes:

It is central to the idea of a liberal society that, in respect to words as opposed to deeds, persuasion as opposed to force, anything goes. This openmindedness should not be fostered because Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake. A liberal society is one which is content to call 'true' whatever the upshot of such encounters turns out to be. That is why a liberal society is badly served by an attempt to supply it with 'philosophical foundations.' For the attempt to supply such foundations presupposes a natural order of topics and arguments which is prior to, and overrides the results of, encounters between old and new vocabularies. (pp. 51-52, italics in original, bolding added.)

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Van Jones Is Out!

And good riddance to him.  But no thanks to the miserable MSM who have failed to exercise due diligence in ferreting out this weasel.  (Nice piece of invective, eh?  'Ferreting out a weasel.' It just occurred to me.)  Michelle Malkin covers the story.  Follow her links.  Ron Radosh, who as a red diaper baby knows a thing or two about commies and their ways, weighs in here.

Advice for Hollywood Liberals

Robert M. Thornton, ed., Cogitations from Albert Jay Nock (Irvington-on-Hudson: The Nockian Society, 1970), p. 59:

If realism means the representation of life as it is actually lived, I do not see why lives which are actually lived on a higher emotional plane are not so eligible for representation as those lived on a lower plane. (Memoirs, 200)

Exactly. If the aim is to depict reality as it is, why select only the most worthless and uninspiring portions of reality for portrayal? Why waste brilliant actors on worthless roles, Paul Newman in The Color of Money, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in The War of the Roses, to take two examples off the top of my head from a potential list of thousands. The Grifters is another example. An excellent film in any number of respects. But imagine a film of the same cinematic quality which portrays in a subtle and intelligent manner a way of life — I avoid 'lifestyle' — that has some chance of being worth living. Notice I said "subtle and intelligent." I am not advocating Sunday School moralizing or hokey platitudinizing. And note that I am not opposing the above mentioned, but pointing out that a constant diet of dreck is both boring and unhealthy.

But I don't expect the folks in HollyWeird (Michael Medved's expression) to comprehend the simple point I have just made. They are too mesmerized by the color of money for that. Nor do I expect most liberals to be able to wrap their minds around it. So I'm preaching to the choir and to a few fence-sitters. But that has value: Maybe a fence-sitter or two will slide off to the Right Side; and perhaps the choirboys and girls are in need of a little extra ammo.

A deeper question concerns the purpose of art. To depict reality? That is not obvious. A good topic for someone else to take up. Conservative bloggers, get to it.

A. E. Taylor on F. H. Bradley on Religion

The following quotations are from A. E. Taylor's "F. H. Bradley" which is an account of his relation with the great philosopher, an account published in Mind, vol. XXXIV, no. 133 (January 1925), pp. 1-12. A. E. Taylor is an important philosopher in his own right whose works, unfortunately, are little read nowadays.

Bradley as a Religious Man

I am confident that no one who knew Bradley personally at any time would have supposed him to be anything but what he actually was, an intensely religious man, in the sense of a man whose whole life and thought was permeated by a conviction of the reality of unseen things and a supreme devotion to them.

Bradley on Bibliolatry

Once Again on Liberal Bias in Academe with Some Remarks on Indoctrination

A reader e-mails (my responses in blue):

I had a question regarding your blog post, From the Mail Pouch: Of Comments and Liberal Bias.  Does the intention to indoctrinate follow from the fact that academia has more registered Democrats than Republicans? 

No, it doesn't follow, but neither did I say that it followed.

Obviously, group think and unconscious bias can and does happen when you get like-minded people altogether. 

Yes indeed.

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Saturday Night at the Oldies: September in the Rain

In the Sonoran desert, September is still seriously summer.  But today's monsoon rains brought with them a merciful cool-down which put me in mind of this old standard written by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics) and first published in 1937.  It has been covered by everyone from the Beatles to Slim Gaillard, from Jo Stafford to Cilla Black.  For my money, however, the best version is Dinah Washington's (1961).  Sarah Vaughn's jazzily understated version dates from 1957.  And while we have Miss Vaughn in mind, here is her 1959 "Broken Hearted Melody."

Is Everything Always Continuously Changing in Every Respect?

Over lunch today the Buddhist claim that all is impermanent came up for discussion.   Let’s see how plausible this claim of impermanence is when interpreted to mean that everything is always continuously changing in every respect. We need to ask four questions. Does everything change? Do the things that change always change? Do the things that always change continuously change? Do the things that change change in every respect?

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Book Matters

Jackson Gypsy Scholar Horace Jeffery Hodges burrows deep into some borrowed Jackson.

Holbrook Jackson would find this development, a bookless library, nauseating. (Via Joel Hunter)  It is foolish  for a school to discard its books in order to go entirely digital given the fragility of electronic media.   More here.

The Denver Bibliophile e-mailed me today asking me what I think of his blog.  I would have to read more to have a firm opinion, but it looks promising. Pay him a visit.

Mirabile dictu, my visit to The Book Gallery in Mesa this morning  issued in no purchases, but I did drop a few bucks at Bookman's also in Mesa.  Laziness militates against the listing of my acquisitions.

On the Correct Usage of ‘Infers’ and ‘Implies’

Within the space of a few days, I caught two TV pundits and an otherwise competent writer misusing 'infer.' Why do people have such a  difficult time with the distinction between inference and implication?  I will try to explain the matter as simply as I can.

The test to determine whether a use of 'infer' is correct is whether or not the thing said to be inferring is a mind. If it is a mind, then the use is correct; if it is not a mind, then the use is incorrect.  Some examples:

  • The author's citations infer that Serling drew inspiration from a diverse group of authors and philosophers. This use of 'infer' is incorrect because a citation is not a mind, and so cannot engage in any such mental operation as inference. 'Imply' would be correct.
  • Seeing Tom's car in front of Sally's house, Bill inferred that Tom was visiting Sally. Correct. It is correct because the thing doing the inferring, Bill, is an entity capable of the mental operation of drawing a conclusion from one or more premises.
  • Pelosi's 'astroturf' remark inferred that protesters at town hall meetings are organized agitators. Incorrect. A remark is the content of a remarking; it is something that a person says. What a person says is not a mind but a proposition, and a proposition, not being a mind, cannot infer anything. 'Implied' would be correct.
  • Pelosi implied that town hall protesters are organized agitators when she made her 'astroturf' comment. This is a correct use of 'implied.' But note that 'imply' has two main uses. One is the strictly logical use according to which implication is a relation between propositions. The other is the nonlogical use according to which implication is a relation between a person (or a mind) and a proposition. Pelosi implied that the protesters are organized in the sense that she suggested that this is so. In most cases one can substitute 'suggests' for 'implies' when the latter is employed nonlogically.
  • Are you implying that I'm a liar? This is a correct use of 'implying.' The word is being used in the nonlogical sense just explained. One can replace the question salva significatione with 'Are you suggesting that I'm a liar?'
  • Are you inferring that I am a liar? This is also correct inasmuch as the addressee may indeed be inferring that the speaker is a liar. The addressee may be concluding from the speaker's shifty eyes and other 'body language' that he is not telling the truth.
  • What you said infers that I'm a liar. This is incorrect because what a person said cannot engage in any mental operations such as the operation of drawing a conclusion from a premise. 'Implies' would be correct. 'Implies' would then be being used to express a relation between two propositions.

In sum, inference is the mental operation of drawing a conclusion from one or more premises.  Only minds can infer.  So uses of 'infer' and cognates are correct only  in application to minds.  Any use of 'infer' that implies that a nonmind can engage in inference is incorrect.  So the following is incorrect: Any use of 'infer' that infers that a nonmind can engage in inference is incorrect.    Implication in its strictly logical sense in a relation between propositions.  Hence the slogan: Only minds infer; only propositions imply.

Unfortunately for the slogan, the water is muddied by the fact that 'implies' has the two distinct uses lately explained.  So here is a more accurate slogan: Only minds infer; only propositions logically imply, though persons can conversationally imply.

The Use of the Body

There is such a thing as excessive concern with the body's health and excessive fear of its destruction. The body is to be used — and used up. It is your vehicle here below; it is not you.  It is an experience mill, so grind away.  If thinking raises blood pressure, am I going to give up thinking? If reading weakens eyesight, will I give up reading? Physical health is a means, not an ultimate end. A healthy body aids the working out of my intellectual and spiritual salvation. But the point is to work out my intellectual and spiritual salvation.

Analogy. One takes good care of one's writing implements. But the point is to write something. The pencil achieves its end — in both senses of the term — by being used and used up. Similarly with the body and its organs.

So use the body, and use it up. You can't take it with you. But don't misuse it. Use it or lose it, but don't abuse it!

Reasons to Blog

Different bloggers, different reasons.  I see this weblog as

A Boomer and His Experiences

Do you help your neighbor to help your neighbor, or to add the experience of helping your neighbor to your collection of experiences?

From an advertisement: "Ever since we invented the first personal shredder, Fellowes has been dedicated to improving every aspect of the shredding experience."  The shredding experience?  Now we boomers have done all manner of wild and crazy things in quest of experience, but does anyone shred for the experience of it?

A culture of narcissism in which the focus is on the self and his experiences as opposed to the world and its objects.