11/20/2009
Analysis, Vol 69 No 2 April 2009
This article attempts to change the conception of a belief as a propositional attitude. 'Propositionalists', as author calls them, believe that believing is primarily a relation between a believer and a proposition. Author also considers Fodor a propositionalist even though he gives a three-part relation, a believer, a sentential expression, and a proposition. Author's proposal is different: believing is a relation between a believer and the world. This view author dubs the 'mondialist' view, and believes it can account for so-called 'dissonant beliefs', which are beliefs where a person seems to believe a contradiction (or an inconsistency, since 'contradiction' may imply propositions)
Author lays out the standard two kinds of belief: de re and de dicto. He wants to add a third: de mundo, which takes the world to be 'xish'. Here is how the progression might work:
-Formation of a de re belief about the ringing of a smoke alarm
-Formation of a de mundo belief: the world is smoke-alarm-ish
-Possible, but not necessary or automatic: de dicto belief: 'There is a smoke alarm ringing'.
The separation between the first two and the third gives space for non-human animals to have beliefs, de re and de mundo, but not de dicto. (pg270)
In order to make this work, 'the world' needs a bit of a specialized understanding. Author gives it: 'the world is characterized by what is and is not in it.' (pg268-9) So, our world is 'elk-ish' and not 'elf-ish' since there are elks in the world but not elves. The second understanding is that there is a context that constrains mondial beliefs-- a 'Domain under Consideration' (DC). We use this when we say things like "it's raining". It isn't raining in the whole world-- just in our DC-- in our DC the world is rain-ish.
Author believes that mundial beliefs are more primitive than propositional belief-- he loosely translates mundial beliefs as 'being aware of something'. (pg270) The two advantages of having them is that they are good fits for non-human animal beliefs and also that they can account for 'dissonant beliefs'.
Author takes dissonant beliefs to be commonplace in our world. For the well-educated, dissonant beliefs come when we believe a proposition (de dicto) like E=mc2 but have no idea what the world is like because of it, or what it would be like if it weren't true. Author thinks it is rational to keep your mundial and your de dicto beliefs in line, but it may be very difficult given the amount of arcane scientific knowledge we are exposed to. (pg272) But a more mundane example is where someone who doesn't believe in the afterlife still feels as though her dead relative is checking in on her. Here a mundial belief of 'the world is father-ish' is inconsistent with the propositional belief 'my father is dead and gone'. (pg271)
Lastly, author advocates that treating beliefs as primarily non-propositional will allow for uncomplex analyses of difficult examples. The one he uses is of a man who sees a reflection through a window of a man with his pants on fire. He believes de dicto 'there is a man with his pants on fire', but does he believe this man is himself? Propositionalists, author claim, need to do cart in the concept of a 'presenting sentence' ('my pants' or 'somebody's pants'). Author simply says that the man can have two different mundial beliefs: 'the world is my-pants-on-fire-ish' or 'the world is somebody's-pants-on-fire-ish'.
11/13/09
Berlin, Isiah - The Pursuit of the Ideal
11/13/2009
Chapter from The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Henry Hardy ed., Alfred Knoph pub, 1991
This chapter gives an account of author's (autobiographical) progression from believing in one true ideal for the human condition to believing in a relativistic plurality of objective values. Author wants to avoid isolationist or absolute relativism, where the two parties can't come to understand each other. Author believes that with imagination and creativity we can understand the objective ends of other cultures, civilizations and people. (pg11) Author also understands 'objective values' to be things that humans pursue 'for their own sakes' (pg11).
The chapter is more story-oriented than full of argumentation: it starts with the reading of the great Russian writers, specifically Tolstoy, who were engaged in the struggle to find objective values and a way of living that supported them. This jibed well with the Greeks, at least Plato, and also with Hegel and Marx. The idea was that history was a set of progressive stages, some errors, but ultimately leading to a set of practices and principles that, if followed, would result in a utopian-type society. (II-IV, pg2-7)
Author began to change his mind about the unity of one ideal as the objective value for mankind when he started Machiavelli. It wasn't the political experience that started to crack this idealistic facade-- it was the observation that the Christian virtues were, inherently, at odds with the Roman ones. Further exploring the possibility of incompatible objective values, author took up Giambattista Vico's La Scienza Nuova, which discussed the various irreconcilable cultural ideals that have existed in the course of human history. (pg8-9) Author came to believe that there is no one ascendant objective value, but a pluralistic set of them, some mutually exclusive. And some are less acceptable than others-- e.g. ritualistic murder, slavery, torture for pleasure. (pg18)
The best (only?) way to get into an acceptable level of civilization is to pick a set of priorities that are mostly agreeable-- like reducing poverty, premature death, disease, suffering-- and use skill and wisdom to create a society that accomplishes them. But author also continually reminds that even these goals have unintended consequences, which will create additional problems that require further work-- utopia is unattainable. Author also states that the 'perfect whole, the ultimate solution, in which all good things coexist... [is] conceptually incoherent' (pg13) This is because there is a multitude of valid objective values and they 'collide'.
Chapter from The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Henry Hardy ed., Alfred Knoph pub, 1991
This chapter gives an account of author's (autobiographical) progression from believing in one true ideal for the human condition to believing in a relativistic plurality of objective values. Author wants to avoid isolationist or absolute relativism, where the two parties can't come to understand each other. Author believes that with imagination and creativity we can understand the objective ends of other cultures, civilizations and people. (pg11) Author also understands 'objective values' to be things that humans pursue 'for their own sakes' (pg11).
The chapter is more story-oriented than full of argumentation: it starts with the reading of the great Russian writers, specifically Tolstoy, who were engaged in the struggle to find objective values and a way of living that supported them. This jibed well with the Greeks, at least Plato, and also with Hegel and Marx. The idea was that history was a set of progressive stages, some errors, but ultimately leading to a set of practices and principles that, if followed, would result in a utopian-type society. (II-IV, pg2-7)
Author began to change his mind about the unity of one ideal as the objective value for mankind when he started Machiavelli. It wasn't the political experience that started to crack this idealistic facade-- it was the observation that the Christian virtues were, inherently, at odds with the Roman ones. Further exploring the possibility of incompatible objective values, author took up Giambattista Vico's La Scienza Nuova, which discussed the various irreconcilable cultural ideals that have existed in the course of human history. (pg8-9) Author came to believe that there is no one ascendant objective value, but a pluralistic set of them, some mutually exclusive. And some are less acceptable than others-- e.g. ritualistic murder, slavery, torture for pleasure. (pg18)
The best (only?) way to get into an acceptable level of civilization is to pick a set of priorities that are mostly agreeable-- like reducing poverty, premature death, disease, suffering-- and use skill and wisdom to create a society that accomplishes them. But author also continually reminds that even these goals have unintended consequences, which will create additional problems that require further work-- utopia is unattainable. Author also states that the 'perfect whole, the ultimate solution, in which all good things coexist... [is] conceptually incoherent' (pg13) This is because there is a multitude of valid objective values and they 'collide'.
11/6/09
Westphal, Jonathan - The Indicative Conditional: An Amendment to Stalnaker
11/06/2009
Unpublished
This paper explores the indicative conditional and the material conditional. Author starts with this 'old familiar question' and thinks that Stalnaker's answer is nearly correct: the conditional "if p then q" is true if 'the consequent is true, not necessarily in the world as it is, but in the world as it would be if the antecedent were true'.
Author gives the case of Seabiscuit, and the conditional: if Seabiscuit runs, he will win. "If r then w". First author distinguishes between regular cases where the race is fair, and the conditional is picking out the salient features of the situation. The trouble here is that the truth table could have a weird outcome in the case of the antecedent being false and the consequent being true. How could Seabiscuit win and not have run? So there is a kind-of dependence between the 'guide propositions'. Author concludes that for the truth tables to apply, there must be genuine independence between them.
Author then considers what happens when there is genuine independence but the antecedent is false. In these cases, it seems that the conditional is true when the consequent is true, but it isn't the 'if p then q' setup that 'force[s] it true'. When the consequent is true, this 'allow[s]' the conditional to be true-- but the distinction between 'forcing' and 'allowing' is lost in the analysis.
Author revisits the Seabiscuit conditional, "If Seabiscuit runs, he will win":
If R then W
If the antecedent is true and the consequent is false, then the conditional is false no matter what Seabiscuit does-- whether he does run or not. Even in the weird case where the antecedent is false and the consequent is true (he doesn't run, but wins), the conditional is... false! This is a 'line-dependent' outcome that the author points out. If both the antecedent and the consequent is true, then the conditional is true no matter what Seabiscuit does. So the final two lines of the truth table (where the antecedent is false) depend on the the first two lines, where the truth of the consequent varies.
Author considers finally 'silly conditionals', like: 'if the moon is cheese, then 17 is prime'. He concludes that the material conditional is the correct analysis here.
Author concludes that in cases of the indicative conditional, when the antecedent is false the conditional is undetermined-- or at least dependent on the outcome of the consequent when the antecedent is true. This makes it an open question whether the 'if... then...' rule is equivalent to 'not p, or q' (~p v q).
Unpublished
This paper explores the indicative conditional and the material conditional. Author starts with this 'old familiar question' and thinks that Stalnaker's answer is nearly correct: the conditional "if p then q" is true if 'the consequent is true, not necessarily in the world as it is, but in the world as it would be if the antecedent were true'.
Author gives the case of Seabiscuit, and the conditional: if Seabiscuit runs, he will win. "If r then w". First author distinguishes between regular cases where the race is fair, and the conditional is picking out the salient features of the situation. The trouble here is that the truth table could have a weird outcome in the case of the antecedent being false and the consequent being true. How could Seabiscuit win and not have run? So there is a kind-of dependence between the 'guide propositions'. Author concludes that for the truth tables to apply, there must be genuine independence between them.
Author then considers what happens when there is genuine independence but the antecedent is false. In these cases, it seems that the conditional is true when the consequent is true, but it isn't the 'if p then q' setup that 'force[s] it true'. When the consequent is true, this 'allow[s]' the conditional to be true-- but the distinction between 'forcing' and 'allowing' is lost in the analysis.
Author revisits the Seabiscuit conditional, "If Seabiscuit runs, he will win":
If R then W
If the antecedent is true and the consequent is false, then the conditional is false no matter what Seabiscuit does-- whether he does run or not. Even in the weird case where the antecedent is false and the consequent is true (he doesn't run, but wins), the conditional is... false! This is a 'line-dependent' outcome that the author points out. If both the antecedent and the consequent is true, then the conditional is true no matter what Seabiscuit does. So the final two lines of the truth table (where the antecedent is false) depend on the the first two lines, where the truth of the consequent varies.
Author considers finally 'silly conditionals', like: 'if the moon is cheese, then 17 is prime'. He concludes that the material conditional is the correct analysis here.
Author concludes that in cases of the indicative conditional, when the antecedent is false the conditional is undetermined-- or at least dependent on the outcome of the consequent when the antecedent is true. This makes it an open question whether the 'if... then...' rule is equivalent to 'not p, or q' (~p v q).
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