Bill, great web site! The address of mine should be corrected. It's
http://myweb.uiowa.edu/butchvar/
No "www" in it.
Best,
Butch
Make Luft Not War
An excellent saying for chess players and Luftmenschen alike. Especially apropos for those of us who are both.
Peikoff on the Supernatural
Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Meridian 1993, p. 31:
"Supernatural," etymologically, means that which is above or beyond nature. "Nature," in turn denotes existence viewed friom a certain perspective. Nature is existence regarded as a system of interconnected entities governed by law; it is the universe of entities acting and interacting in accordance with their identities. What then is a "super-nature"? It would have to be a form of existence beyond existence; a thing beyond entities; a something beyond identity.
The idea of the "supernatural" is an assault on everything man knows about reality. It is a contradiction of every essential of a rational metaphysics. It represents a rejection of the basic axioms of philosophy . . . .
Is this a good argument? That alone is the question.
One Fallacy of Objectivism
The following comment is by Peter Lupu. It deserves to be brought up from the nether reaches of the ComBox to the top of the page. Minor editing and highlighting in red by BV.
One Fallacy of Objectivism
1) Objectivists seem to hold two theses:
Thesis A: There is a fundamental conceptual distinction everyone does or ought to accept between “metaphysical facts” vs. “volitional or man-made facts”; for the sake of brevity of exposition I shall occasionally refer to this distinction as the ‘Randian distinction’.
Thesis B: The content of the traditional philosophical distinction between contingent vs. necessary facts is either reducible to the Randian distinction or to the extent it is not so reducible it is conceptually incoherent, superfluous, or cannot be clearly demarcated; for the sake of brevity I shall occasionally refer to the distinction between contingent (and possible) vs. necessary facts as the ‘Modal distinction’.
Modalities of Sin
Horace Jeffery Hodges asked me to comment on his post Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom. Inasmuch as such commentary would require exegetical skills I do not possess, not to mention time I do not have — I am under the gun to finish an article for The Monist — I shall have to beg off. Perhaps others can join in the discussion at Jeff's place. But given my longstanding interest in matters modal, I was intrigued by the following quotation from Thomas Boston, courtesy of David C. Innes:
State of Innocence – posse peccare (able to sin)
State of Sin – non posse non peccare (not able not to sin)
State of Grace – posse non peccare (able not to sin)
State of Glory – non posse peccare (not able to sin)
Imaginable, Conceivable, Possible: How Justify Modal Beliefs?
As I use them, 'imaginable' and 'conceivable' mean the following. Bear in mind that there is an element of stipulation and regimentation in what I am about to say. Bear in mind also that the following thoughts are tentative and exploratory, not to mention fragmentary. The topics are difficult and in any case this is only a weblog, a sort of online notebook.
To imagine X is to form a mental image of X. To imagine a two-headed cat is to form a mental image of (more cautiously: as of) a two-headed cat. To say that X is imaginable is to say that someone has the ability to imagine it. To envisage is to visually imagine. Not all imagining is visual.
To conceive X is to think X. To say that X is conceivable is to say that someone can think it, that is, has the ability to make it an object of thought. Trading Latin for good old Anglo-Saxon, conceivability is thinkability. Therefore, a round square is conceivable in that I now have it as an object of my thought, hence someone can have it as an object of his thought. If you balk at this, then you are probably confusing conceivability with conceivability without contradiction. Admittedly, round squares are contradictory objects. Still, one can think them. They are therefore thinkable or conceivable. If you weren't able to think of the round square you would not be able to judge that there cannot be a round square.
Continue reading “Imaginable, Conceivable, Possible: How Justify Modal Beliefs?”
Till Eulenspiegel and Heraclitus
What do Till Eulenspiegel and Heraclitus have in common? I thought about them near the end of a recent hike. I am an uphill specialist. I love the upgrade, the pull, gravity's testing of legs and lungs, the depth of breath, the honest sweat. The downclimb is less to my liking. Fearing a fall, I am too cautious to go with the flow.
So my mind turned to Till Eulenspiegel, described by Theodor Reik as follows:
German folklore tells many tales of the peculiar behavior of the foolish yet clever lad Till Eulenspiegel. This rogue used to feel dejected on his wanderings whenever he walked downhill striding easily, but he seemed very cheerful when he had to climb uphill laboriously. His explanation of his behavior was that in going downhill he could not help thinking of the effort and toil involved in climbing the next hill. While engaged in the toil of climbing he anticipated and enjoyed in his imagination the approach of his downhill stroll.
The "foolish yet clever lad" put me in mind of Heraclitus the Obscure of Ephesus. Philosophically considered, it matters not at all whether one is climbing or descending. "The way up and the way down are the same." (Fragment 60) The interdependence of opposites is a rich and fascinating topic. We shall have more to say about it later.
Feser on Vallicella on Rand
I just discovered this post at Edward Feser's weblog. Excerpt:
Bill also evaluates Rand’s argument to the effect that “to grasp the axiom that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence.” He sees in this an inadvertent echo of modal Spinozism, and not implausibly. But to me it is even more reminiscent of the even more extreme metaphysics of Parmenides . . . .
The Parmenides connection is very interesting. When I asked Harry Binswanger why he thinks that the existence of nature is logically necessary, he replied,
Well, the first part is axiomatic: "existence exists." What makes that logically necessary? The fact that "existence doesn't exist" is a contradiction. "What is, is; what is not, is not" Parmenides wisely said.
Ernst Haeckel said that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, that the development of the individual recapitulates the development of the species. Whether or not this is true in biology, it is often true with amateur philosophers: these members of the Philo-phylum have a tendency to 'reinvent the wheel' while at the same time failing to appreciate the defects of their primitive reinvented 'wheel.'
Now you might want to dismiss what I just wrote as a cheapshot, but you will see that it is not if you study what I say here and here and here. There is no 'Rand-bashing' here, contra what some opine; there is the careful and critical examination of ideas. That is part of what philosophy is.
Back to Parmenides: Binswanger’s Defense of Rand’s Block Universe
In response to Harry Binswanger, I wrote:
My diagnosis of our disagreement is as follows. You think that what is causally necessitated (e.g. the lunar craters) is broadly-logically necessary (BL-necessary) whereas I think that what is causally necessitated is broadly-logically contingent. Because you think that what is causally necessitated is BL-necessary, you naturally think that my having my hat on is not causally necessitated. If I've understood you correctly, you do not deny that there are BL-contingent events, an example being my freely choosing to put on my hat. What you deny is that there are any BL-contingent events in nature (the realm of the non-man-made).
Your scheme makes sense if (i) time is [metrically] infinite in the past direction; (ii) nature always existed; (iii) nature exists of BL-necessity (also known in the trade as metaphysical necessity) and nothing about nature is BL-contingent. On these assumptions, every event is BL-necessary. Add to that the assumption that every event in nature is causally determined, and we get the extensional equivalence of the causally necessitated and the BL-necessary. Man-made facts, which you grant are BL-contingent, are not causally necessitated because, for you, X is causally necessitated if and only if X is BL-necessary.
If the foregoing expresses your view, then I think I have isolated the source of our disagreement: we disagree over (iii). I see no reason to accept it. Do you have an argument?
Binswanger responded:
Your "diagnosis" is correct in spirit. I have quarrels over formulation, but there's no need to discuss them here. So we disagree about (iii): the existence of nature is logically necessary and nothing about nature is logically contingent.
You ask for an argument for that. Well, the first part is axiomatic: "existence exists." What makes that logically necessary? The fact that "existence doesn't exist" is a contradiction. "What is, is; what is not, is not" Parmenides wisely said.
The second part is non-axiomatic, and derives from causality. Objectivism holds that causality is the application of the law of identity to action. Things do what they do because they are what they are. For the fragile to act as non-fragile would be the same kind of contradiction as for glass to be not glass. This view of causality rejects the Humean event-to-event idea of causation (which actually originated with Telesio, I believe). We go back to the pre-Renaissance (broadly Greek) view of causation as a relation between entities and their actions.
Continue reading “Back to Parmenides: Binswanger’s Defense of Rand’s Block Universe”
Stupor Bowl Sunday Refused, Yet Again
Herewith, my annual Stupor Bowl Sunday post, supplemented with a properly curmudgeonly quotation from Edward 'Cactus Ed' Abbey for your reading enjoyment. Things were bad last year: the damn thing transpired in Phoenix. Luckily, it was far from where I dwell safe and snug in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains. This year the game is far away, but the Arizona Cardinals are in contention. Funny name, 'Cardinals.' What does football have to do with little birdies? Will I sneak a peek this year? Maybe. But I won't be able to take more than a few minutes of it. In any case, here is last year's post. I am tempted to add a rant about the misuse of taxpayer money for the construction of stadiums that are used only by some, but that can wait for next year.
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I won't be watching the game. I don't even know which teams are playing. Undoubtedly there is more to football than I comprehend. But the games are nasty, brutish, but not short, and I know all I need to know about the implements of shaving.
As for the buxom wenches who strut their stuff during the half-time show, the less I stoke the fire below the better.
I am no fan of spectator sports in general. We have too many sports spectators and too many overpaid professional louts. I preach the People's Sports, despite the leftish ring of that.
Remove your sorry tail from the couch of sloth and start a softball league with your friends and neighbors. Play volley ball whether in a pool or on dry land. Engage your fellow paisani in a game of bocce. (But don't call it bocce ball. Do you call tennis tennis ball?)
Or take the Thoreauvian high road, leave the People behind, and sally forth solo into the wild. As Henry said, "A man sits as many risks as he runs." Old Henry puts me in mind of Cactus Ed, the Thoreau of the American Southwest.
In Vox Clamantis in Deserto Edward Abbey has it right:
Football is a game for trained apes. That, in fact, is what most of the players are — retarded gorillas wearing helmets and uniforms. The only thing more debased is the surrounding mob of drunken monkeys howling the gorillas on.
Epistemic/Doxastic Possibility
Recent forays into the metaphysics and epistemology of modality require us to be quite clear about the senses of 'possible,' necessary,' and the other modal words in play. In the contexts mentioned, these words are not being used epistemically or doxastically.
Is Joan in her office? If I ask you, you might reply, "It's possible." Or if I ask you, "Is Zorn's Lemma logically independent of the Axiom of Choice" you might reply, "It's possible." We need to clarify these uses of 'possible.'
The second example illustrates how a state of affairs can be epistemically possible but not really possible. If subject S has a limited knowledge of set theory, then it will be possible 'for all S knows' that the lemma and the axiom be independent. But as a matter of fact, they are provably equivalent. So in this case what is epistemically possible is really impossible.
Examples like this can be generated ad libitum. Can a set T have a proper subset that is the same size (same cardinality) as T? Many will say, "It's impossible." But that response reflects their ignorance of Cantorian set theory. Accordingly, their use of 'impossible' is epistemic. It is impossible for all they know, but possible nonetheless. It's possible because it's actual.
In the case of Joan, it may be possible 'for all you know' that she is in her office. But it will be really impossible if she died on her way to work. But suppose she didn't die, and suppose she is on campus near her office but the only thing preventing her from being in her office is her aversion to the place. Then, it will be epistemically possible for you that Joan be in her office, but also really possible that she be there.
So what do we mean by epistemic possibility? The examples suggest that epistemic possibilities are possibilities parasitic upon ignorance. I propose the following definition for discussion and possible refutation:
State of affairs X is epistemically/doxastically possible for subject S =df X is logically consistent with what S knows/believes.
My earlier talk about possibilities is to be understood as talk about real, not epistemic/doxastic, possibilities. I don't deny that there are outstanding puzzles about real (i.e., mind-independent)possibilities, what they are and how they are known. But the negative point that they are not to be confused with epistemic or doxastic possibilities is a step in the right direction.
This Site Will Not Harm Your Computer!
Using the Google search engine this morning, I noticed that every search I did brought up sites flagged with the 'This site may harm your computer' warning. I even Googled 'Google' and got the same result! Could Google be flagging every site brought up by its engine? That would be such an obvious piece of fear-mongering and traffic-reducing stupidity that I hesitate to impute it to them. Any thoughts from the computer cognoscenti?
Despite my catchy title, it is your responsibility take precautions whenever you connect with anything in any way. I am responsible for the content of this site, including in some measure the content of the comments, which is why I delete stupid and otherwise offensive comments and block those who send them. But I take no responsibility for what goes on at the server end.
UPDATE: 9:30 AM. Alexander Pruss informs me that the problem has been fixed.
UPDATE: 1:30 PM. Google explains the origin of the error.
From Possibilities to Possible Worlds
1. One cannot do modal logic, let alone modal metaphysics, without both modal concepts and 'modal intuitions.' One has to start from a pre-thematic understanding of modal concepts such as possibility and necessity and how they are interrelated and also from certain prior convictions about what counts as possible and necessary. (The same is true in other disciplines such as ethics: if you don't grasp the distinctions and interconnections among the permissible, the impermissible, the obligatory, and the supererogatory, and have some reasonably firm intuitions about what particular actions and ommissions fall under these categories, then there is no point in doing ethics.)
Is the Existence of God Entailed by Alternative Ways Natural Things Might Have Been?
This post is a sequel to Ayn Rand on Necessity, Contingency, and Dispositions. There we were examining this quotation:
What do you mean by "necessity"? By "necessity," we mean that things are a certain way and had to be. I would maintain that the statement "Things are," when referring to non-man-made occurrences, is the synonym of "They had to be." Because unless we start with the premise of an arbitrary God who creates nature, what is had to be. (IOE, 2nd ed., p. 299)
Rand's argument may be set forth as follows:
1. If there are alternative ways non-man-made things might have been, then an arbitrary (free) God exists.
2. It is not the case that an arbitrary (free) God exists. Ergo,
3. There are no alternative ways non-man-made things might have been.
I rigged the argument so that it is valid in point of logical form: the conclusion follows from the premises. But are the premises true? A more tractable question: Do we have good reason to accept them?
Notes on Van Inwagen on Modal Epistemology
Herewith, some interpretive notes and critical comments on Peter van Inwagen's paper, "Modal Epistemology" (Philosopical Studies 92 (1998), pp. 67-84; reprinted in van Inwagen, Ontology, Identity, and Modality, Cambridge UP, 2001, pp. 243-258.)
1. Van Inwagen describes his position as "modal scepticism" (245) but a better name for it would be 'mitigated modal scepticism' since he does admit that we have modal knowledge: "I think we do know a lot of modal propositions . . . ." (245)
2. In one sense it is trivially true that we have modal knowledge. Here is an example of my own. Suppose I see that the cat has escaped into the backyard. The cat's escape is an actual fact. But whatever is actual is possible: ab esse ad posse valet illatio. Therefore, knowing that the cat has escaped, I know that it is possible that the cat has escaped. So I have modal knowledge.
But this knowledge of the possible from the actual is uncontroversial, and of course there is no special problem about its epistemology. What is controversial is whether we have knowledge of unrealized possibilities, knowledge of possibilities that have not been, are not now, and perhaps never will be actual. And if we do have such knowledge, it will presumably be difficult to explain how we have such knowledge.
3. Van Inwagen has no doubt that we do have knowledge of some unrealized possibilities. "I know that it is possible that . . . the table that was in a certain position at noon have then been two feet to the left of where it in fact was." (246) Van Inwagen also cites the possibility of John F. Kennedy having died from natural causes. In both of these cases, we have knowledge about an unrealized possibility that will forever remain unrealized.
But there is also modal knowledge of the impossible and the necessary: "it is impossible for there to be liquid wine bottles, and . . . it is necessary that there be a valley between any two mountains that touch at their bases." (246)
4. So we have (nontrivial) modal knowledge. But how is this possible? I know that JFK might have died from natural causes. But how do I know this? The proposition JFK died of natural causes is known to be false. So how can I know that it is possibly true? It isn't true and never will be true. There seems to be nothing for my knowledge to grab onto.
We need to rub our noses in the problem a bit longer. I know that my table is now two inches from the wall. How do I know this? By sense perception aided perhaps with a tape measure. But I also know that my table might now have been three inches from the wall. (Observe that the last two occurrences of 'now' pick out the very same time.) Van Inwagen insists (251) that in cases like this we have genuine knowledge: "We certainly do know" things like this. (251)
I find it hard to disagree with van Inwagen on this score. I am blogging now. But surely I might have been swimming now. My swimming now is a part of a total way things might have been. Surely there is nothing intrinsically impossible about my swimming now. Surely it cannot be logically necessary that I be blogging now. Or am I exaggerating with these three uses of 'surely'? How can I be so sure that what I am saying is possible is really possible and not just a reflection of my ignorance?
5. Unfortunately, van Inwagen supplies no answer to how we have modal knowledge. He finds it mysterious. (250) But of course, from the fact that we cannot explain how we have it, it does not follow that we do not have it. The following are logically consistent: I know that JFK might have died of natural causes and I do not know how I know this.
Still, if I cannot explain how I have modal knowledge, that casts some doubt on my possession of it. If I cannot explain how I have it, how can I be sure that I do have it?
6. Let me float a suggestion. Among my abilities is the ability to move furniture. Suppose I move my table, which is two inches from the wall, to a position three inches from the wall. Actually executing the action, I prove that this type of action is possible. Can I use this fact to understand the unrealized possibility of my table's being three inches from the wall at a time at which it is in fact two inches from the wall? What is wrong with this analysis: The unrealized possibility of the table's being in a different position from the one it is in is identical to the unexercised ability of an agent with sufficient power to move the table in question.
The idea is that some mere possibilities are unexercised abilities of agents. A merely possible state of affairs — the table's being three inches from the wall — is just my or someone's unexercised ability to move the table to that position.
I know that it is possible for the table to be three inches from the wall by knowing that I have the ability to move the table to that position. And I know I have that ability from my actually having moved pieces of furniture of similar size and shape.
Knowing a merely possible state of affairs, then, is knowing something actual, namely, an agent's actual, but unexercised, ability to bring about the state of affairs in question.
7. Unfortunately, this suggestion seems to presuppose the very thing it is supposed to be accounting for, namely, unrealized possibilities. My suggestion was that some unrealized possibilities are identifiable with unexercised abilities of agents. An unexercised ability is an ability the agent could exercise but does not. But an ability that could be exercised but is not is an unrealized possibility. So it seems that one moves in a circle if one tries to reduce unrealized possibilities to the abilities of agents. Perhaps we are forced to say that the concept of an unrealized possibility is a primitive or irreducible concept, one that cannot be illuminated in terms of anything more basic.
But then we seem left with an ontological and an epistemological puzzle. The ontological puzzle is that unrealized possibilities, though not nothing, are yet nothing actual. How can something be without being actual? The epistemological puzzle is to explain how one comes to know that there are unrealized possibilities in general and how one knows that a particular unrealized possibility is indeed an unrealized possibility.