09/04/2009
The Philosophy of Time, Oxford Readings in Philosophy, Poidevin & MacBeath, eds
This is a reprint of an old (1908) essay that seeks to show two things: first that time is essentially a matter of past, present and future, and second that these notions are contradictory. Since they contradict, time can't be real. Author starts by making a distinction between two positions of time, the, indicated by an A series and the B series. The A series involves the past, present and future, and things passing from the future to the present into the past. The B series involves things that are earlier, contemporaneous, and later, where events are related to each other along that scale. It may be tempting to believe that the B series is objective and the A series subjective, therefore time is essentially a B series matter. But author disagrees and set about claiming that the A series is the essential element to time, not the B series. (pg24-5)
Author submits that 'time involves change' and that 'there could be no time if nothing changed' (pg25). The next matter is to ask whether you can have change without the A series-- that is, if the A series is just accidental, subjective, or inessential to the nature of time. Author approaches the problem first by looking at whether you can have change using solely the B series. Here author claims that there is no change if there is solely the B series version of events. The argument goes as follows: (pg25-6)
1. For time to exist, events must change
2. Change is one event M ceasing and another N beginning
3. In the B series, event N follows event M
4. In the B series, event N always and forever follows event M
5. Therefore, the relations between N and M are permanent
6. Therefore, in the B series, N always exists after M (which also always exists)
7. If N always exists, it does not cease or begin (likewise for M)
8. Therefore there is no change in the B series
9. Therefore, there is no time in the B series
The solution, author suggests, is to make one of the relations between M and N change. That relation is the A series relation, of M being, at one point, in the present and N the future, and then eventually making M the past and N the present. This A series possibility changes the relations between the events, making change possible and thus being an essential element to time. (pg26-7)
Author then considers various objections to this view, starting with Bertrand Russell (pg27-8), who claims that the A series is merely a subjective aspect of time. The second objection is that time exists in fictitious works (like stories) but there is clearly no A series. (pg29) The upshot here is that author posits that 'time only belongs to the existent'. (pg29) The third objection is that it may be possible that time has several real and independent time-series. Meaning there could be more than one 'present', but just in different 'series'. This seems to be an objection to both the B and the A series, so author leaves it as showing that there wouldn't be 'the present', but 'the present of a certain aspect of the universe' (pg30).
The second part of the paper is devoted to showing that the A series involves a contradiction and therefore cannot exist. (pg31) The author starts by reminding us that the B series is insufficient to underwrite time, but that the A series needs to stand in relation to something outside the time series (pg31-2) 'If, then, anything is to be rightly called past, present, or future, it must be because it is in relation to something else.' Finding what that something else is 'would not be easy'. (pg32) But the real difficulty is that the terms 'past', 'present', and 'future' are incompatible predicates to apply to an event, yet each event has at least two. (pg32) Author argues that there is no way to dispel this inconsistency without an infinite regress into additional time predicates, which are all based around those initial three terms. (pg32-3)
Author ends by claiming that time is unreal and that our view of it is erroneous.
8/28/09
Dummett, Michael - A Defense of McTaggart's Proof of the Unreality of Time
08/28/2009
Truth and Other Enigmas, Harvard University Press 1978
This article gives a lengthy explication of McTaggart's argument for there being a contradiction in time. Author reconstructs the argument:
a) an event M is past, present or future
b) an event M is before, at the same time as, or after another event N
Crucial here is that the facts of kind a) cannot be reducible to facts of kind b). Apparently McTaggart's reasoning for this is that change is essential to time, but there is no change in the truth function of the fact 'M comes after N', or 'M came before N'. Such facts, if true, are eternally true and therefore don't involve change. (pg351) Now the problem is that an event M can be described using three mutually incompatible predicates (past, present, future). This leads to a contradiction in describing the event, thus time is an unreality.
Author considers a possible response: the predicates applying to event M isn't just 'past', 'present', 'future', but 'will be past', 'is present', and 'was future'-- building tenses into the predicate. But adding tense verbs into the predicates only pushes the further back, since now there are 9 different predicate combinations: 'was past', 'is past', 'will be past' and so on for 'present' and 'future'. In any case the contradiction can be generated again. (pg351-2)
A more sophisticated response employs 'token-reflexive' expressions (e.g. 'I', 'here', 'now'), which are like indexicals that change a sentence's truth conditions according to context. We then specify that token-reflexive expressions are essential to time-facts and resolve the apparent incompatibility (pg353). This response, author points out, trivializes McTaggart's argument since it could also be made for space or personhood, just as it was for time. Yet McTaggart doesn't make analogous arguments about space or personhood, so author thinks there is more to his argument.
The difference, author claims, between the argument about time and an analogous one about space is that token-reflexivity is essential to time but it isn't to space. (pg354) Author discusses how it is possible to have a description of objects in space that doesn't include the describer-- that has no 'spatially token-reflexive expressions in giving a description of the physical uinverse' (pg354)-- but the same is not possible for time. Author argues that any account of a sequence of events without token-reflexive expressions will leave the question 'but what is happening right now' unanswered, therefore the account will be incomplete. Another possibility is to think of an external observer seeing time as a fourth dimension that is static, similar to how a full spatial description of the world would be a static image in 3 dimensions. In a weird turn, author argues that what would be observed would be a 'model' of events, not the events themselves. (pg355)
The possible response to this essential aspect of time is to jettison the notion that there is one complete description of reality (pg356), but author admits he is partial to this. Instead, it appears the unreality of time is self-defeating, since our apprehension of the world is certainly temporal.
Truth and Other Enigmas, Harvard University Press 1978
This article gives a lengthy explication of McTaggart's argument for there being a contradiction in time. Author reconstructs the argument:
a) an event M is past, present or future
b) an event M is before, at the same time as, or after another event N
Crucial here is that the facts of kind a) cannot be reducible to facts of kind b). Apparently McTaggart's reasoning for this is that change is essential to time, but there is no change in the truth function of the fact 'M comes after N', or 'M came before N'. Such facts, if true, are eternally true and therefore don't involve change. (pg351) Now the problem is that an event M can be described using three mutually incompatible predicates (past, present, future). This leads to a contradiction in describing the event, thus time is an unreality.
Author considers a possible response: the predicates applying to event M isn't just 'past', 'present', 'future', but 'will be past', 'is present', and 'was future'-- building tenses into the predicate. But adding tense verbs into the predicates only pushes the further back, since now there are 9 different predicate combinations: 'was past', 'is past', 'will be past' and so on for 'present' and 'future'. In any case the contradiction can be generated again. (pg351-2)
A more sophisticated response employs 'token-reflexive' expressions (e.g. 'I', 'here', 'now'), which are like indexicals that change a sentence's truth conditions according to context. We then specify that token-reflexive expressions are essential to time-facts and resolve the apparent incompatibility (pg353). This response, author points out, trivializes McTaggart's argument since it could also be made for space or personhood, just as it was for time. Yet McTaggart doesn't make analogous arguments about space or personhood, so author thinks there is more to his argument.
The difference, author claims, between the argument about time and an analogous one about space is that token-reflexivity is essential to time but it isn't to space. (pg354) Author discusses how it is possible to have a description of objects in space that doesn't include the describer-- that has no 'spatially token-reflexive expressions in giving a description of the physical uinverse' (pg354)-- but the same is not possible for time. Author argues that any account of a sequence of events without token-reflexive expressions will leave the question 'but what is happening right now' unanswered, therefore the account will be incomplete. Another possibility is to think of an external observer seeing time as a fourth dimension that is static, similar to how a full spatial description of the world would be a static image in 3 dimensions. In a weird turn, author argues that what would be observed would be a 'model' of events, not the events themselves. (pg355)
The possible response to this essential aspect of time is to jettison the notion that there is one complete description of reality (pg356), but author admits he is partial to this. Instead, it appears the unreality of time is self-defeating, since our apprehension of the world is certainly temporal.
8/14/09
Farley, John - The Scientific Case for Modern Anthropogenic Global Warming
08/14/2009
Monthly Review, July-August 2008
This article tries to give some general scientific background for understanding the human causes of global warming, and rebut a series of arguments made by Alexander Cockburn that anthropogenic global warming is a myth.
The evidence for human-made global warming presented by author is fairly straightforward: when the sun's rays hit the earth, some is radiated back into the atmosphere, mostly as infrared light. This light gets trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, which are opaque to this light. The three gasses are water vapor, CO2, and methane. This undisputed greenhouse effect is already responsible for heating the planet from a surface temperature of -1F to 60F. The experimental data collected by Keeling in Hawaii since 1959 shows a steady increase in CO2 into the atmosphere, which is also undisputed. Further, it is possible to examine air bubbles in arctic ice that shows a rise in CO2 around the industrial revolution, after holding relatively steady for the last 10,000 years. Author claims the reason for the recent rise is the anthropogenic burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Author admits that water vapor is the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect, but CO2 represents from 9-26% depending on how the counting is done. Another aspect to consider is that adding to infrared opacity in the atmosphere might have no effect if the opacity is already 100%. Instead, increasing CO2 will affect the 'wings', the areas where opacity is lower. Author likens increasing CO2 in those areas to closing the windows in a hot house.
According to author, the major debate among scientists isn't whether 'climate forcing' by humans is happening (increasing the atmospheric temperature by 2.2-2.3F), but what the 'climate response' will be-- the feedback from the earth that may increase or decrease our forcing. Author presents evidence for the possibility of negative feedback (e.g. decreasing the temperature) and positive feedback (e.g. increasing the temperature). Author reports the general consensus to be for positive feedback, somewhere from 2.7 to 8.1F. Two effects might indicate positive feedback:
(P1)- Ice-albedo effect-- as the temperature rises, ice near the poles melts and exposes more earth, decreasing the earth's reflectance of ultraviolet and visible light, heating it.
(P2)- Increased water vapor-- warmer air can hold more water vapor than cool air can, increasing the opacity for infrared light and causing an additional greenhouse effect.
Then there is some evidence for possible negative feedback:
(N1)- If warmer temperatures create more clouds and clouds have a net cooling effect, this could reduce the anthropogenic effects of increasing CO2.
(N2)- Richard Lindzen's "adaptive iris" effect, which suggests that greater temperatures in the tropics will create fewer cirrus clouds that increase the "leakage" of infrared radiation, resulting in cooling.
The state of science makes it difficult to predict a priori whether there will be net positive or negative feedback, but author argues that if we can take the long-term historical evidence as accurate, the warming temperatures were higher than one would predict without positive feedback. So positive feedback is consistent with previous periods of non-anthropogenic global warming. Author gives evidence from the earth's past ice ages, which are 'almost unanimously' agreed to be because of changes in the earth's axis tilt (Milankovich cycle). Yet simple changes in sunlight doesn't result in the amount of cooling (or, later, warming) that took place-- suggesting positive feedback played a part in those cases. Author also discusses the modes temperatures changes that took place from 1600-1800.
Author then directly addresses Cockburn's 6 main arguments:
1- During the economic depression of the 1930s, burning of fossil fuels decreased 30%, but there was no decrease of CO2 in the atmosphere, thus the two are unrelated.
Response: If CO2 entering the atmosphere decreases by 30%, that means the rate of CO2 'flux' decreases 30%, not the CO2 'reservoir' that is already in the atmosphere. Cutting CO2 flux to zero would mean there would be an eventual lowering of the CO2 reservoir, but that didn't happen so we should not have expected it.
2- Water vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas and the effects from CO2 are negligible.
Response: Yes it is true that water vapor is a larger effect than CO2. But the CO2 effect is appreciable.
3- Earth's last ice age ended when the the earth tilted slightly on its axis, temperatures rose and then CO2 in the atmosphere rose. CO2 rises as a result of global temperature, not as a cause of it.
Response: That is a true account of 10,000 years ago. But there are many ways to increase temperatures in the climate, and in the last 200 years, CO2 rises preceded temperature rises.
4- The increase of CO2 comes naturally from the oceans, not the man-made burning of fossil fuels.
Response: Yes the ocean has lots of CO2 in it. But there are two kinds of CO2 molecules, since there are two carbon isotopes (heavy ones have one extra neutron)-- the heavy ones are about 1% of the total carbon atoms. In turns out that plants prefer the regular 12-weight-carbons when adding to their biomass (growing). Thus you'd expect to find fewer 13-weight-carbons in plants and their derivatives, fossil fuels; and that is what experiments have found. The CO2 in the atmosphere contains a lower concentration of 13C than the norm, suggesting that the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from lower 13C sources (e.g. fossil fuels). On ocean surfaces there is a higher concentration of 13C, and in the deep oceans a depleted amount of 13C. Moreover, evidence from the Maua Loa observatory in Hawaii shows an increase of 12C in the atmosphere.
5- Any addition of CO2 to the atmosphere by humans will be dissolved into the ocean within a year or two, making anthropogenic effects short-lived if at all.
Response: This is an old, persistent belief that CO2 will easily and quickly dissolve into ocean waters since it does so in pure water. Author argues that it isn't an issue of whether all the CO2 in the atmosphere can get into the oceans, it's an issue of how long it will take-- a 'transient' problem rather than a 'equilibrium' problem. Estimates from ocean chemists suggest it will take from 60 to 360 years for the biggest percentage of CO2 to dissolve into the oceans-- and that is talking about the reservoir-- not the flux!
6- Global warming forecasts are largely dependent on computer models, which are easily manipulated to show whatever scary but unrealistic outcome you want to get.
Response: Yes, computer models are suspect, but much of our evidence doesn't come from models but instead from historical observations and old-fashioned theory. Moreover, much of the controversy is about what kind of feedback there will be-- the climate response-- not the climate forcing evidence (that doesn't rely on computer models). If the climate response is a positive feedback like there was during ice-age transitions, this is more evidence for the IPCC's estimates that don't rely on computer models.
Monthly Review, July-August 2008
This article tries to give some general scientific background for understanding the human causes of global warming, and rebut a series of arguments made by Alexander Cockburn that anthropogenic global warming is a myth.
The evidence for human-made global warming presented by author is fairly straightforward: when the sun's rays hit the earth, some is radiated back into the atmosphere, mostly as infrared light. This light gets trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, which are opaque to this light. The three gasses are water vapor, CO2, and methane. This undisputed greenhouse effect is already responsible for heating the planet from a surface temperature of -1F to 60F. The experimental data collected by Keeling in Hawaii since 1959 shows a steady increase in CO2 into the atmosphere, which is also undisputed. Further, it is possible to examine air bubbles in arctic ice that shows a rise in CO2 around the industrial revolution, after holding relatively steady for the last 10,000 years. Author claims the reason for the recent rise is the anthropogenic burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Author admits that water vapor is the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect, but CO2 represents from 9-26% depending on how the counting is done. Another aspect to consider is that adding to infrared opacity in the atmosphere might have no effect if the opacity is already 100%. Instead, increasing CO2 will affect the 'wings', the areas where opacity is lower. Author likens increasing CO2 in those areas to closing the windows in a hot house.
According to author, the major debate among scientists isn't whether 'climate forcing' by humans is happening (increasing the atmospheric temperature by 2.2-2.3F), but what the 'climate response' will be-- the feedback from the earth that may increase or decrease our forcing. Author presents evidence for the possibility of negative feedback (e.g. decreasing the temperature) and positive feedback (e.g. increasing the temperature). Author reports the general consensus to be for positive feedback, somewhere from 2.7 to 8.1F. Two effects might indicate positive feedback:
(P1)- Ice-albedo effect-- as the temperature rises, ice near the poles melts and exposes more earth, decreasing the earth's reflectance of ultraviolet and visible light, heating it.
(P2)- Increased water vapor-- warmer air can hold more water vapor than cool air can, increasing the opacity for infrared light and causing an additional greenhouse effect.
Then there is some evidence for possible negative feedback:
(N1)- If warmer temperatures create more clouds and clouds have a net cooling effect, this could reduce the anthropogenic effects of increasing CO2.
(N2)- Richard Lindzen's "adaptive iris" effect, which suggests that greater temperatures in the tropics will create fewer cirrus clouds that increase the "leakage" of infrared radiation, resulting in cooling.
The state of science makes it difficult to predict a priori whether there will be net positive or negative feedback, but author argues that if we can take the long-term historical evidence as accurate, the warming temperatures were higher than one would predict without positive feedback. So positive feedback is consistent with previous periods of non-anthropogenic global warming. Author gives evidence from the earth's past ice ages, which are 'almost unanimously' agreed to be because of changes in the earth's axis tilt (Milankovich cycle). Yet simple changes in sunlight doesn't result in the amount of cooling (or, later, warming) that took place-- suggesting positive feedback played a part in those cases. Author also discusses the modes temperatures changes that took place from 1600-1800.
Author then directly addresses Cockburn's 6 main arguments:
1- During the economic depression of the 1930s, burning of fossil fuels decreased 30%, but there was no decrease of CO2 in the atmosphere, thus the two are unrelated.
Response: If CO2 entering the atmosphere decreases by 30%, that means the rate of CO2 'flux' decreases 30%, not the CO2 'reservoir' that is already in the atmosphere. Cutting CO2 flux to zero would mean there would be an eventual lowering of the CO2 reservoir, but that didn't happen so we should not have expected it.
2- Water vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas and the effects from CO2 are negligible.
Response: Yes it is true that water vapor is a larger effect than CO2. But the CO2 effect is appreciable.
3- Earth's last ice age ended when the the earth tilted slightly on its axis, temperatures rose and then CO2 in the atmosphere rose. CO2 rises as a result of global temperature, not as a cause of it.
Response: That is a true account of 10,000 years ago. But there are many ways to increase temperatures in the climate, and in the last 200 years, CO2 rises preceded temperature rises.
4- The increase of CO2 comes naturally from the oceans, not the man-made burning of fossil fuels.
Response: Yes the ocean has lots of CO2 in it. But there are two kinds of CO2 molecules, since there are two carbon isotopes (heavy ones have one extra neutron)-- the heavy ones are about 1% of the total carbon atoms. In turns out that plants prefer the regular 12-weight-carbons when adding to their biomass (growing). Thus you'd expect to find fewer 13-weight-carbons in plants and their derivatives, fossil fuels; and that is what experiments have found. The CO2 in the atmosphere contains a lower concentration of 13C than the norm, suggesting that the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from lower 13C sources (e.g. fossil fuels). On ocean surfaces there is a higher concentration of 13C, and in the deep oceans a depleted amount of 13C. Moreover, evidence from the Maua Loa observatory in Hawaii shows an increase of 12C in the atmosphere.
5- Any addition of CO2 to the atmosphere by humans will be dissolved into the ocean within a year or two, making anthropogenic effects short-lived if at all.
Response: This is an old, persistent belief that CO2 will easily and quickly dissolve into ocean waters since it does so in pure water. Author argues that it isn't an issue of whether all the CO2 in the atmosphere can get into the oceans, it's an issue of how long it will take-- a 'transient' problem rather than a 'equilibrium' problem. Estimates from ocean chemists suggest it will take from 60 to 360 years for the biggest percentage of CO2 to dissolve into the oceans-- and that is talking about the reservoir-- not the flux!
6- Global warming forecasts are largely dependent on computer models, which are easily manipulated to show whatever scary but unrealistic outcome you want to get.
Response: Yes, computer models are suspect, but much of our evidence doesn't come from models but instead from historical observations and old-fashioned theory. Moreover, much of the controversy is about what kind of feedback there will be-- the climate response-- not the climate forcing evidence (that doesn't rely on computer models). If the climate response is a positive feedback like there was during ice-age transitions, this is more evidence for the IPCC's estimates that don't rely on computer models.
7/31/09
Westphal, Jonathan - An Aristotelian Solution to the Problem of the Measuring of Time
07/31/2009
Unpublished paper
This article starts with a particular problem found in Augustine's Confessions, regarding measurement of time. The idea goes as follows:
-What is past no longer exists, so it can't be measured, what is future has yet to exist, so it too can't be measured. And the present has no extension, so it also can't be measured.
Author points out this is a different problem from Aristotle's, who questions the very existence of time in the first place. Augustine's problem is about both measurement and ontological status. (pg1)
The solution given starts with a Wittgenstein-esque 'diagnosis' of the problem; the problem is that we think that the only kind of measurement is the kind that measures length along a 'traveling band' with a beginning point and and end point, yet all we can see is a small fraction of the middle (the present). The problem, then, is not with time but with our grammatical understanding of 'measurement', that the prototypical kind of measurement, that of length, becomes an essential aspect of measurement. Instead, we should get a 'reminder' of what we do when we do measure time, so that we can get a suitable analysis. (pg2-3)
Author first presents a clarification: we don't measure 'time' but 'a time', a piece of time. Next, we need to look for an event, a happening through time that we want to measure. There are some rules: There needs to be a measurement device that moves at a regular and unchanging rate over a fixed and equal set of units. Now we set the device to '0' and proceed with the measurement. The key here is that a time is used to measure a time, just as a length is used to measure a length. We measure 'over a series of present moments ... rather than at a present moment' (pg4) So there isn't a good answer to the question "how long (time) is it?", but there is a good answer to "how long (time) was it?". In the latter case the measurement is co-extensional with the event in that one dimension (time). (pg4) The temporal measuring device extends through time just as a length-wise measuring device extends through space.
Unpublished paper
This article starts with a particular problem found in Augustine's Confessions, regarding measurement of time. The idea goes as follows:
-What is past no longer exists, so it can't be measured, what is future has yet to exist, so it too can't be measured. And the present has no extension, so it also can't be measured.
Author points out this is a different problem from Aristotle's, who questions the very existence of time in the first place. Augustine's problem is about both measurement and ontological status. (pg1)
The solution given starts with a Wittgenstein-esque 'diagnosis' of the problem; the problem is that we think that the only kind of measurement is the kind that measures length along a 'traveling band' with a beginning point and and end point, yet all we can see is a small fraction of the middle (the present). The problem, then, is not with time but with our grammatical understanding of 'measurement', that the prototypical kind of measurement, that of length, becomes an essential aspect of measurement. Instead, we should get a 'reminder' of what we do when we do measure time, so that we can get a suitable analysis. (pg2-3)
Author first presents a clarification: we don't measure 'time' but 'a time', a piece of time. Next, we need to look for an event, a happening through time that we want to measure. There are some rules: There needs to be a measurement device that moves at a regular and unchanging rate over a fixed and equal set of units. Now we set the device to '0' and proceed with the measurement. The key here is that a time is used to measure a time, just as a length is used to measure a length. We measure 'over a series of present moments ... rather than at a present moment' (pg4) So there isn't a good answer to the question "how long (time) is it?", but there is a good answer to "how long (time) was it?". In the latter case the measurement is co-extensional with the event in that one dimension (time). (pg4) The temporal measuring device extends through time just as a length-wise measuring device extends through space.
7/24/09
Singer, Peter - Why We Must Ration Health Care
07/24/2009
New York Times, July 19 2009
This is a magazine article for the popular press dealing with the ways to assign value to public health. The article concludes that health care rationing already takes place and that instead we should enter into a conscious public conversation about how to find value with health-care dollars.
The article starts with an example of a drug that had been developed extend the life of terminal kidney cancer patients by maybe 6 months or so. The cost was $54,000. Would you pay for it? Would you want to be paying premiums for an insurance plan that pays for it? The article plays on the difference between the personal choice that you might make compared to the public-health choice that we collectively make. When using public funds to pay for treatments, author argues that it is 'crazy' not to ask for good value, which is equivalent to rationing.
The other argument here is that the US system also rations, but instead of doing so through a bureau, through one's ability to pay for treatment privately. This 'rationing' also leads to increased mortality and morbidity among the poor and uninsured.
The idea of weighing public policy against cost is not new. Author points out that the US does it in public safety frequently: where the costs to implement some new safety measure would be too expensive for the lives it would save. In order to extend the issue to public health, there needs to be a standard measurement that money buys: author talks about the QALY, or Quality Adjusted Life Year. To reflect the difference between treating a 20-yr old vs an 85-yr old, this measurement uses life expectancy to assign more value to the young. The QALY approach runs into prejudicial or adverse discriminatory issues when it tries to deal with more fine-grained issues, e.g. deafness, quadriplegia, etc. The issue here is that disabled people may not want to be treated as second-class compared to healthy ones. Healthy people might claim that they would rather live shorter lives than be quadriplegic, but this might just be an inherent healthy-person bias. Author points out the double-standard here-- if it is just fine to be disabled (according to the disabled group) then why bother curing it?
The remainder of the article discusses the options that the US has in making a public option and that it can take many forms than the supposedly-reviled Canadian and British system.
New York Times, July 19 2009
This is a magazine article for the popular press dealing with the ways to assign value to public health. The article concludes that health care rationing already takes place and that instead we should enter into a conscious public conversation about how to find value with health-care dollars.
The article starts with an example of a drug that had been developed extend the life of terminal kidney cancer patients by maybe 6 months or so. The cost was $54,000. Would you pay for it? Would you want to be paying premiums for an insurance plan that pays for it? The article plays on the difference between the personal choice that you might make compared to the public-health choice that we collectively make. When using public funds to pay for treatments, author argues that it is 'crazy' not to ask for good value, which is equivalent to rationing.
The other argument here is that the US system also rations, but instead of doing so through a bureau, through one's ability to pay for treatment privately. This 'rationing' also leads to increased mortality and morbidity among the poor and uninsured.
The idea of weighing public policy against cost is not new. Author points out that the US does it in public safety frequently: where the costs to implement some new safety measure would be too expensive for the lives it would save. In order to extend the issue to public health, there needs to be a standard measurement that money buys: author talks about the QALY, or Quality Adjusted Life Year. To reflect the difference between treating a 20-yr old vs an 85-yr old, this measurement uses life expectancy to assign more value to the young. The QALY approach runs into prejudicial or adverse discriminatory issues when it tries to deal with more fine-grained issues, e.g. deafness, quadriplegia, etc. The issue here is that disabled people may not want to be treated as second-class compared to healthy ones. Healthy people might claim that they would rather live shorter lives than be quadriplegic, but this might just be an inherent healthy-person bias. Author points out the double-standard here-- if it is just fine to be disabled (according to the disabled group) then why bother curing it?
The remainder of the article discusses the options that the US has in making a public option and that it can take many forms than the supposedly-reviled Canadian and British system.
7/17/09
MacDonald, Scott - Primal Sin
07/17/2009
The Augustinian Tradition, G Matthews ed. University of California Press, 1999 Ch 6
This paper tries to give a satisfactory account of St Augustine's concept of the primal sin of Adam & Eve and of the angels who turned against God. For Augustine, primal sin had to be voluntary, which meant it had to be a free act of will. The difficulty here is that a free act of will to sin suggests a bad will, or some bad efficient explanation. Augustine is constrained because of his debate with the Manichaeans, a sect that believed that there were two powers in the universe, one good and one evil. Augustine believes that there is only one power: God's, and it is supremely good. So Augustine does not want to admit that there is such a thing as a bad efficient cause to a free act of the will. Instead he claims that primal sin (turning away from the perfect goodness of God for an imperfect, lesser good) is a deficient act of the will-- a failing-- rather than one that was properly motivated. Yet this leaves Augustine in a difficult position: that of claiming that primal sin involved a free act of will that has no efficient origin. The unpleasant alternative is to admit that primal sin had origins in a bad will, but such an admission could implicate the creator (God) in the sin, since God created everything and God is only good (pg114-5). The author tries to resolve these problems. Note: this is not an attempt to deal with 'original sin', which is transmitted through the generations from the first sinful human beings. Instead it is an attempt to show how good creatures like angels and Adam & Eve can, through a deficiency, take a voluntary action of turning from God. (pg114)
Augustine's famous resolution of the problem of evil lies in its being a corruption from essence, having no actual essence of its own. Since God made everything good, evil must not be a thing but instead a 'privation' (pg114) or defection from good nature. In the same vein, for Augustine primal sin is corruption of 'rational nature' (pg115) that is done voluntarily and solely by the agent. The cause of primal sin must reside solely with the angels or humans; God must be totally blameless (e.g. God didn't make a faulty product) (pg115-6). Furthermore, primal sin must not be coerced or the result of some irresistible impulse-- the agents must have had the capacity to choose otherwise from what they did do. (pg117-8) Author couples this with Augustine's conception of sin here, which is a turning away from the ultimate, unchanging good (God's) to a lesser, temporal good-- this is a 'disordered' act of the will. (pg118) What explains this disorder, since it is irrational to turn away from God's goodness (and God didn't make humans to be irrational), and the angels and Adam & Eve weren't ignorant in any sense (if they were, they couldn't have full responsibility for their choices). (pg119-120)
Author argues that it must be a carelessness of practical reasoning that was the source of primal sin. (pg121) The carelessness consists in failing to attend to the goodness of God and attending instead to other good things. Primal sinners may still harbor the belief of God's ultimate goodness, but fail to attend to the fact when deciding to commit the primal sin. Author gives an example from modern life: about to go home from work, asks you to coffee; even though you had promised to take your children to the park, you fail to consider your other desires/beliefs and agree to go to coffee. Essentially, you fail to attend to all the reasons you have for going home instead of going for coffee. (pg123) If you managed to consider all your concurrently-held beliefs/desires, you would go home, but you have a failure in practical reasoning and you go to coffee instead. (pg124). Author considers this failure to be not an efficient reason but a deficient reason for willful action. This limitation isn't a defect, but a side-effect of the 'flow of conscious experience' that 'cannot help but make certain of [our] reasons more and others less immediate at any given moment.' (pg127) And the limitation is due to the fact that angels and Adam & Eve were created 'ex nihilo', from nothing (pg127).
There are two objections to this explanation that the author addresses:
1) This kind of failure might be possible, but it only represents momentary lapses or small errors and don't represent some sort of deep-seated corruption, the kind of corruption required for the gravity of primal sin. (pg128)
Reply: small lapses can build up into a pattern of the same behavior, small peccadilloes can create a pattern of thought that results in a characteristic lapse. (pg129-130)
2) This explanation still doesn't give the reasons for primal sin-- now you need to explain why the primal sinners had the motives and desires to fail in their practical reasoning.
Reply: while perhaps every willful action must be explained by appeal to reasons/beliefs/desires/motives, we don't insist on the same for every time we don't do something. And this explanation for primal sin entails a failure to act-- a not-doing of something-- not an action. (pg130-2)
Author ends the paper by broadening the account of primal sin into a genuine explanation of culpable irrationality that can be added to the cannon of moral decision-making.
The Augustinian Tradition, G Matthews ed. University of California Press, 1999 Ch 6
This paper tries to give a satisfactory account of St Augustine's concept of the primal sin of Adam & Eve and of the angels who turned against God. For Augustine, primal sin had to be voluntary, which meant it had to be a free act of will. The difficulty here is that a free act of will to sin suggests a bad will, or some bad efficient explanation. Augustine is constrained because of his debate with the Manichaeans, a sect that believed that there were two powers in the universe, one good and one evil. Augustine believes that there is only one power: God's, and it is supremely good. So Augustine does not want to admit that there is such a thing as a bad efficient cause to a free act of the will. Instead he claims that primal sin (turning away from the perfect goodness of God for an imperfect, lesser good) is a deficient act of the will-- a failing-- rather than one that was properly motivated. Yet this leaves Augustine in a difficult position: that of claiming that primal sin involved a free act of will that has no efficient origin. The unpleasant alternative is to admit that primal sin had origins in a bad will, but such an admission could implicate the creator (God) in the sin, since God created everything and God is only good (pg114-5). The author tries to resolve these problems. Note: this is not an attempt to deal with 'original sin', which is transmitted through the generations from the first sinful human beings. Instead it is an attempt to show how good creatures like angels and Adam & Eve can, through a deficiency, take a voluntary action of turning from God. (pg114)
Augustine's famous resolution of the problem of evil lies in its being a corruption from essence, having no actual essence of its own. Since God made everything good, evil must not be a thing but instead a 'privation' (pg114) or defection from good nature. In the same vein, for Augustine primal sin is corruption of 'rational nature' (pg115) that is done voluntarily and solely by the agent. The cause of primal sin must reside solely with the angels or humans; God must be totally blameless (e.g. God didn't make a faulty product) (pg115-6). Furthermore, primal sin must not be coerced or the result of some irresistible impulse-- the agents must have had the capacity to choose otherwise from what they did do. (pg117-8) Author couples this with Augustine's conception of sin here, which is a turning away from the ultimate, unchanging good (God's) to a lesser, temporal good-- this is a 'disordered' act of the will. (pg118) What explains this disorder, since it is irrational to turn away from God's goodness (and God didn't make humans to be irrational), and the angels and Adam & Eve weren't ignorant in any sense (if they were, they couldn't have full responsibility for their choices). (pg119-120)
Author argues that it must be a carelessness of practical reasoning that was the source of primal sin. (pg121) The carelessness consists in failing to attend to the goodness of God and attending instead to other good things. Primal sinners may still harbor the belief of God's ultimate goodness, but fail to attend to the fact when deciding to commit the primal sin. Author gives an example from modern life: about to go home from work, asks you to coffee; even though you had promised to take your children to the park, you fail to consider your other desires/beliefs and agree to go to coffee. Essentially, you fail to attend to all the reasons you have for going home instead of going for coffee. (pg123) If you managed to consider all your concurrently-held beliefs/desires, you would go home, but you have a failure in practical reasoning and you go to coffee instead. (pg124). Author considers this failure to be not an efficient reason but a deficient reason for willful action. This limitation isn't a defect, but a side-effect of the 'flow of conscious experience' that 'cannot help but make certain of [our] reasons more and others less immediate at any given moment.' (pg127) And the limitation is due to the fact that angels and Adam & Eve were created 'ex nihilo', from nothing (pg127).
There are two objections to this explanation that the author addresses:
1) This kind of failure might be possible, but it only represents momentary lapses or small errors and don't represent some sort of deep-seated corruption, the kind of corruption required for the gravity of primal sin. (pg128)
Reply: small lapses can build up into a pattern of the same behavior, small peccadilloes can create a pattern of thought that results in a characteristic lapse. (pg129-130)
2) This explanation still doesn't give the reasons for primal sin-- now you need to explain why the primal sinners had the motives and desires to fail in their practical reasoning.
Reply: while perhaps every willful action must be explained by appeal to reasons/beliefs/desires/motives, we don't insist on the same for every time we don't do something. And this explanation for primal sin entails a failure to act-- a not-doing of something-- not an action. (pg130-2)
Author ends the paper by broadening the account of primal sin into a genuine explanation of culpable irrationality that can be added to the cannon of moral decision-making.
7/10/09
Urquhart, Brian - What You Can Learn From Reinhold Niebuhr
07/10/2009
The New York Review of Books, March 26, 2009
This is a book review of three books, one reprint from Niebuhr 'The Irony of American History', and one from Andrew Bacevich 'The Limits of Power', and finally from James Traub 'The Freedom Agenda'. The reviews are fairly straightforward and largely summarize the main theses. Many of the points are put into the context of being vindicated by the post-Iraq GW Bush presidency.
1. Niebuhr 'The Irony of American History'
This review of a book written in 1952 talks about the US dream of 'managing history' and succumbing to the temptation of applying our socio-polictical concepts across the globe. Niebuhr also talked about the lack of stability of the US economic system and of the 'pretensions of virtue' that blind a nation like the US into seeing world affairs as black-and-white, good-vs-evil. An overarching theme here is the inscrutable nature of world political events and the pathos of such a powerful nation (the US) to attempt to control and mold such events.
2. Bacevich 'Limits of Power'
Bacevich's book carries much of Niebuhr's theme, talking specifically about the grand delusions that the Bush administration had about the military capabilities in Iraq. The review also contains a shortened version of Bacevich's analysis of the decline of US power since the 1950s. In the economic analysis, the US went into importing of much of its needed oil and going from being a creditor to being a debtor. Also since then the US has taken the position that it is in a permanent crisis-- or on the brink of it-- of national security. This has created the strong presidency to ascend over the congress and the permanent militarization of the US. The conclusion? The US doesn't need a bigger army, but a more modest foreign policy.
3. Traub 'The Freedom Agenda'
The review of this book casts it as a practical tome dedicated to posing and working on the tough questions of the US's foreign policy. Again Niebuhr is echoed in the discussion of the failure of Bush's 'Freedom Agenda' of bringing democratic regimes to other lands. The book is full of analysis and critiques of such attempts, e.g. Somalia and Bosnia, and unintended consequences like Hamas' election in the Gaza strip.
The New York Review of Books, March 26, 2009
This is a book review of three books, one reprint from Niebuhr 'The Irony of American History', and one from Andrew Bacevich 'The Limits of Power', and finally from James Traub 'The Freedom Agenda'. The reviews are fairly straightforward and largely summarize the main theses. Many of the points are put into the context of being vindicated by the post-Iraq GW Bush presidency.
1. Niebuhr 'The Irony of American History'
This review of a book written in 1952 talks about the US dream of 'managing history' and succumbing to the temptation of applying our socio-polictical concepts across the globe. Niebuhr also talked about the lack of stability of the US economic system and of the 'pretensions of virtue' that blind a nation like the US into seeing world affairs as black-and-white, good-vs-evil. An overarching theme here is the inscrutable nature of world political events and the pathos of such a powerful nation (the US) to attempt to control and mold such events.
2. Bacevich 'Limits of Power'
Bacevich's book carries much of Niebuhr's theme, talking specifically about the grand delusions that the Bush administration had about the military capabilities in Iraq. The review also contains a shortened version of Bacevich's analysis of the decline of US power since the 1950s. In the economic analysis, the US went into importing of much of its needed oil and going from being a creditor to being a debtor. Also since then the US has taken the position that it is in a permanent crisis-- or on the brink of it-- of national security. This has created the strong presidency to ascend over the congress and the permanent militarization of the US. The conclusion? The US doesn't need a bigger army, but a more modest foreign policy.
3. Traub 'The Freedom Agenda'
The review of this book casts it as a practical tome dedicated to posing and working on the tough questions of the US's foreign policy. Again Niebuhr is echoed in the discussion of the failure of Bush's 'Freedom Agenda' of bringing democratic regimes to other lands. The book is full of analysis and critiques of such attempts, e.g. Somalia and Bosnia, and unintended consequences like Hamas' election in the Gaza strip.
7/3/09
Mameli, Matteo - On Innateness: The Clutter Hypothesis and the Cluster Hypothesis
07/03/2009
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol 60 Num 12 Dec 2008
This paper discusses the various problems with specifying what it is for something to be innate and a proposed meta-analysis (Clutter or Cluster) of the concept.
The analysis starts with the 'minimal condition' which is that something that is innate is not learned, and what is learned is not innate. (pg721). Examples of this are Plato's Meno and Chomsky's poverty of stimulus argument about the deep rules of grammar. Author argues that even the minimal condition is too strong since it calls the sex of a particular reptile non-learned (innate) when in actuality it was merely the result of the temperature while being incubated. (pg722) Perhaps, though, 'learning' can be reinterpreted to being a subset of larger 'MAPS', or 'Mechanisms for Adaptive Plasticity', which can be employed without using a psychological process. Under this fix, what is innate is what is not the result of the developmental outcome of a MAP. But author claims this goes awry too because of developmental maladies that aren't acquired through MAPS, but are nonetheless not innate. (pg723)
Author then considers multiple attempts at giving an analysis of innateness. The first is that what is genetically encoded is what is innate (pg724). The difficulty here is that genetic encoding creates things like proteins, not 'whole organism phenotypic traits' like sexual preference, ability to speak a language, obesity. There is a supposed consensus that such traits develop through causal processes that 'involve genetic and non-genetic factors' (pg725). In this way, whole-organism traits cannot be innate, if innate means 'genetically encoded'. The fix here might be to say that for innateness, genes must affect the developmental process relative to the emergence of an innate trait. But author invents a thought experiment that supposedly involves a learned trait that still satisfies this condition. The trait is the ability to understand the theory of Special Relativity-- author argues that this trait is learned but also could be the result of genes that affect the developmental process. (pg725-6) This thought experiment can combat simple genetic encoding analyses and also an account of innateness that specify a certain type of genetic encoding: evolutionary adaptation by natural selection. (pg726-7)
Another possible analysis of innateness is high degree of broad heritability. In this account, high heritability means that variation is mostly due to genetic factors. Author argues that this concept is ill-suited for innateness, since it doesn't have the tools to account for traits like 'having one head' (too universal to count), and it also misses universal traits that are altered by accident, like the trait 'having 10 fingers'. If most of the people without 10 fingers have lost them due to accidents, then the variation is due largely to non-genetic factors, putting the heritability of 'having 10 fingers' on the low end of the scale. (pg728)
The final analysis of innateness is that it involves invariance or canalization, that is, emergence of a trait given most environments-- or a certain degree of developmental 'buffering' against environmental variation. The problem here is that clearly learned traits like 'the belief that water is a liquid' are highly invariable and canalized. (pg729-730)
Author proposes two meta-analyses for the concept of innateness. The first is the Clutter hypothesis, the second is the Cluster hypothesis. The clutter hypothesis is that innateness is a mix of useful concepts that we have just started to pull apart with science, though previously we didn't have the capacity to do so. Therefore the concept is a clutter of different distinct ones and (probably) should be dissolved. (pg730-4) Ironically, author claims that some work has been done that shows that the concept of innatenes 'comes naturally' to humans (pg733). The Cluster hypothesis instead argues that the various aspects of innateness-- canalization, heritability, genetic encoding-- are properties that cluster around a deeper causal process of innateness. In some circumstances we should expect each property of innateness to emerge, but in others, only one property may be present. Those who advocate the cluster analysis will be required to tell the story about this deep causal process, but it is still open as a possibility. (pg735-6) Author claims that it is an empirical question which analysis is true.
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol 60 Num 12 Dec 2008
This paper discusses the various problems with specifying what it is for something to be innate and a proposed meta-analysis (Clutter or Cluster) of the concept.
The analysis starts with the 'minimal condition' which is that something that is innate is not learned, and what is learned is not innate. (pg721). Examples of this are Plato's Meno and Chomsky's poverty of stimulus argument about the deep rules of grammar. Author argues that even the minimal condition is too strong since it calls the sex of a particular reptile non-learned (innate) when in actuality it was merely the result of the temperature while being incubated. (pg722) Perhaps, though, 'learning' can be reinterpreted to being a subset of larger 'MAPS', or 'Mechanisms for Adaptive Plasticity', which can be employed without using a psychological process. Under this fix, what is innate is what is not the result of the developmental outcome of a MAP. But author claims this goes awry too because of developmental maladies that aren't acquired through MAPS, but are nonetheless not innate. (pg723)
Author then considers multiple attempts at giving an analysis of innateness. The first is that what is genetically encoded is what is innate (pg724). The difficulty here is that genetic encoding creates things like proteins, not 'whole organism phenotypic traits' like sexual preference, ability to speak a language, obesity. There is a supposed consensus that such traits develop through causal processes that 'involve genetic and non-genetic factors' (pg725). In this way, whole-organism traits cannot be innate, if innate means 'genetically encoded'. The fix here might be to say that for innateness, genes must affect the developmental process relative to the emergence of an innate trait. But author invents a thought experiment that supposedly involves a learned trait that still satisfies this condition. The trait is the ability to understand the theory of Special Relativity-- author argues that this trait is learned but also could be the result of genes that affect the developmental process. (pg725-6) This thought experiment can combat simple genetic encoding analyses and also an account of innateness that specify a certain type of genetic encoding: evolutionary adaptation by natural selection. (pg726-7)
Another possible analysis of innateness is high degree of broad heritability. In this account, high heritability means that variation is mostly due to genetic factors. Author argues that this concept is ill-suited for innateness, since it doesn't have the tools to account for traits like 'having one head' (too universal to count), and it also misses universal traits that are altered by accident, like the trait 'having 10 fingers'. If most of the people without 10 fingers have lost them due to accidents, then the variation is due largely to non-genetic factors, putting the heritability of 'having 10 fingers' on the low end of the scale. (pg728)
The final analysis of innateness is that it involves invariance or canalization, that is, emergence of a trait given most environments-- or a certain degree of developmental 'buffering' against environmental variation. The problem here is that clearly learned traits like 'the belief that water is a liquid' are highly invariable and canalized. (pg729-730)
Author proposes two meta-analyses for the concept of innateness. The first is the Clutter hypothesis, the second is the Cluster hypothesis. The clutter hypothesis is that innateness is a mix of useful concepts that we have just started to pull apart with science, though previously we didn't have the capacity to do so. Therefore the concept is a clutter of different distinct ones and (probably) should be dissolved. (pg730-4) Ironically, author claims that some work has been done that shows that the concept of innatenes 'comes naturally' to humans (pg733). The Cluster hypothesis instead argues that the various aspects of innateness-- canalization, heritability, genetic encoding-- are properties that cluster around a deeper causal process of innateness. In some circumstances we should expect each property of innateness to emerge, but in others, only one property may be present. Those who advocate the cluster analysis will be required to tell the story about this deep causal process, but it is still open as a possibility. (pg735-6) Author claims that it is an empirical question which analysis is true.
6/26/09
Frankel, Charles - The Rediscovery Of Sin
06/26/2009
The Case For Modern Man, Harper & Brothers 1956, Ch 6
This is a review of Niebuhr's main philosophies regarding the human condition. The discussion takes the form of a detailed exposition of Niebuhr's philosophy, and then a longer refutation of it. Niebuhr's main points are as follows:
-Humanity is trapped between ideal infinity and its finite nature, creating the defining emotion of anxiety.
-Anxiety in relation to unattainable perfection tends toward considering human finite nature to be the only worthy attainment, e.g. sin.
-The concept of original sin in the human condition plays a powerful explanatory role in human history. The concept works in this manner: because humanity does not recognize its finite nature it continually oversteps what it is capable of, ending in great disappointments (pg90).
-Liberalism attempts to deny that humanity has original sin and is therefore misguided and prone to failure.
-Original sin isn't a psychological phenomenon; it is somehow more: some sort of metaphysical condition on humanity that is insoluble (pg93-5). The insolubility comes from a fundamental 'paradox of human freedom', that humanity is free to choose yet bounded by causal necessity.
Author claims that this paradox is actually a logical mistake: there is no contradiction between being subject to the laws of nature and having freedom. Being predictable (subject to causal laws) doesn't entail lacking freedom (being able to choose based on your judgment). (pg96-98) Further, author claims that adding 'original sin' to human history does little to offer a better explanation, since sin is (1) ever present and (2) is a side-effect of the finite nature of humanity, though it has yet to be seen how finite humanity is. (pg100)
The next discussion relates to Niebuhr's indictment of liberalism's hope for man's progress. Yet Niebuhr makes a straw man out of liberalism; modern liberals were intimately familiar with humanity's self-interested motives and egoism. Author takes an extended look at the writings of Condorcet, whose writings, when translated into English, had the targeted term "the indefinite perfectibility of man'. (pg101-106) Condorcet was talking about how there are definite limits on how knowledge and social structures can improve mankind, but we aren't in a position to know what those limits are (until we reach them?). Really, it was a belief in the indefinite improvability of man'.
More importantly, author argues that the shift from 'man's sinfulness' to 'the goodness of man' wasn't a fundamental contradiction but instead a shift in focus. It wasn't an attempt to claim that the human condition was essentially good, but instead an attempt to redefine the focus of debate from soul/redemption-talk to social/societal-talk. (pg107-8) What the 'goodness of man' stance tries to get right is the primacy of social structures, government and knowledge in human flourishing, as opposed to the primacy of personal salvation in humanity's redemption.
The last discussion is an analysis of the context of Niebuhr's writings: they come at a time where 'everything seems to have contrived to make ... heightened moral impulses appear irrelevant' (pg112) and modern society experiences increasing alienation. Niebuhr's writings then make this experience a deep-seated, widespread metaphysical one, yet author argues that it explains little other than what we already know-- that humanity involves a struggle of ideals in a finite world. (pg113-5)
The Case For Modern Man, Harper & Brothers 1956, Ch 6
This is a review of Niebuhr's main philosophies regarding the human condition. The discussion takes the form of a detailed exposition of Niebuhr's philosophy, and then a longer refutation of it. Niebuhr's main points are as follows:
-Humanity is trapped between ideal infinity and its finite nature, creating the defining emotion of anxiety.
-Anxiety in relation to unattainable perfection tends toward considering human finite nature to be the only worthy attainment, e.g. sin.
-The concept of original sin in the human condition plays a powerful explanatory role in human history. The concept works in this manner: because humanity does not recognize its finite nature it continually oversteps what it is capable of, ending in great disappointments (pg90).
-Liberalism attempts to deny that humanity has original sin and is therefore misguided and prone to failure.
-Original sin isn't a psychological phenomenon; it is somehow more: some sort of metaphysical condition on humanity that is insoluble (pg93-5). The insolubility comes from a fundamental 'paradox of human freedom', that humanity is free to choose yet bounded by causal necessity.
Author claims that this paradox is actually a logical mistake: there is no contradiction between being subject to the laws of nature and having freedom. Being predictable (subject to causal laws) doesn't entail lacking freedom (being able to choose based on your judgment). (pg96-98) Further, author claims that adding 'original sin' to human history does little to offer a better explanation, since sin is (1) ever present and (2) is a side-effect of the finite nature of humanity, though it has yet to be seen how finite humanity is. (pg100)
The next discussion relates to Niebuhr's indictment of liberalism's hope for man's progress. Yet Niebuhr makes a straw man out of liberalism; modern liberals were intimately familiar with humanity's self-interested motives and egoism. Author takes an extended look at the writings of Condorcet, whose writings, when translated into English, had the targeted term "the indefinite perfectibility of man'. (pg101-106) Condorcet was talking about how there are definite limits on how knowledge and social structures can improve mankind, but we aren't in a position to know what those limits are (until we reach them?). Really, it was a belief in the indefinite improvability of man'.
More importantly, author argues that the shift from 'man's sinfulness' to 'the goodness of man' wasn't a fundamental contradiction but instead a shift in focus. It wasn't an attempt to claim that the human condition was essentially good, but instead an attempt to redefine the focus of debate from soul/redemption-talk to social/societal-talk. (pg107-8) What the 'goodness of man' stance tries to get right is the primacy of social structures, government and knowledge in human flourishing, as opposed to the primacy of personal salvation in humanity's redemption.
The last discussion is an analysis of the context of Niebuhr's writings: they come at a time where 'everything seems to have contrived to make ... heightened moral impulses appear irrelevant' (pg112) and modern society experiences increasing alienation. Niebuhr's writings then make this experience a deep-seated, widespread metaphysical one, yet author argues that it explains little other than what we already know-- that humanity involves a struggle of ideals in a finite world. (pg113-5)
6/19/09
Neibuhr, Reinhold - The American Future
06/19/2009
The Irony of American History, Ch 7 University of Chicago Press, 2008
This chapter (written in 1951) discusses the prospects of the US in relation to itself and other nations. 1. Author first points out that the US was isolationist for a long time until WWII, where the US realized that technology had connected the world enough so that it couldn't 'be secure in an insecure world' (pg131). So in rising to the occasion and admitting to its abilities to lead and exercise its power, the US also employs its idealism, which author considers too 'oblivious' and needs to come 'to terms with the limits of all human striving, the fragmentariness of all human wisdom, the precariousness of all historic configurations of power...' etc. (pg133)
2. The US's idealism is bolstered by what author sees as two factors, the first being that the US's power is very high on the world stage. While there are some advantages to concentrations of power in uniting states, the negative side is the resentment it can breed, as well as the temptation of the powerful side to abuse its power (pg135). Tempering power 'into the service of justice' has come in three ways: (a) redistribute power, (b) bring power 'under social and moral review', or (c) use religion to keep it in check. (pg135) Author argues that (a) is not relevant in the international community; it's just a fact of history. Option (b) is happening in the form of the United Nations, which author believes is salubrious, especially because 'it is impossible for any nation or individual fully to understand the peculiar circumstances and the unique history of any other nation or individual, which create their special view of reality.' (pg137) In this section author predicts that once the US realizes it must spend enormous efforts to upgrade its war preparedness with new technology, it may come to the UN more willing to work out a solution to the communist conflict. Strategy (c) involves humility and recognizing the 'other' is worthy of respect. (pg139)
3. The second factor that supposedly reinforces the US's idealism is that there seems to be no easy solution to the struggle against the communists. (pg140) This frustrates the US's liberal idealism that holds that a superior way of life should triumph without needing to compromise. What this misses is that 'human communities are never purely artifacts of the human mind and will' (pg142) and humans are creatures of history (pg141)-- meaning that it is sometimes difficult, sometimes impossible to wholly do away with undesirable powers and forces. (pg143) The argument seems to be that because of the US's idealism, it misinterprets this hard lesson as stubbornness or ignorance. (pg143)
4.-5. Author compares individual heroism with national heroism, pointing out the most dramatic difference is that individual heroism can be willingly self-sacrificing and pursue an end without much probability of achieving it, while a nation cannot reasonably do so-- there must be some decent probability of success. Author also states that a democracy could never engage in an 'explicit preventive war' (pg146). In the following section author discusses the tensions in the US and rejects one of the solutions offered: Kennan argues that the US too eagerly extends its moralistic constitutional scheme to other nations, intending to remake them in its own image. This brings out another source of US idealism: that its 'technocratic' mastery of physical nature encourages the same approach toward human nature. (pg147-8) Author rejects Kennan's solution, namely that the US should become solely self-interested. What is needed is true humility regarding the US's abilities and charity regarding other nations.
The selected introduction to Neibuhr's "Moral Man and Immoral Society" involved a polemic against social scientists, modern educators and moralists who seek to better society by doing social science. Author's principal arguments are as follows:
-humans have parts that belong to the 'order of nature' (pgxii) that cannot ever be fully controlled by reason and conscience
-Social change, unlike changes in knowledge (science), involves conflict between the haves and have-nots; therefore the exercise of power is vitally important to changing social situations. This makes the retardation of social sciences compared to the advancement of the natural sciences not a product of 'ignorance' (pgxiv-xv) but of social-structure maintenance.
-Those educators (author uses Dewey as a target) seem to miss the class-struggle aspect of social change and are fraught with 'middle-class prejudices'(pgxiii-xiv)
The Irony of American History, Ch 7 University of Chicago Press, 2008
This chapter (written in 1951) discusses the prospects of the US in relation to itself and other nations. 1. Author first points out that the US was isolationist for a long time until WWII, where the US realized that technology had connected the world enough so that it couldn't 'be secure in an insecure world' (pg131). So in rising to the occasion and admitting to its abilities to lead and exercise its power, the US also employs its idealism, which author considers too 'oblivious' and needs to come 'to terms with the limits of all human striving, the fragmentariness of all human wisdom, the precariousness of all historic configurations of power...' etc. (pg133)
2. The US's idealism is bolstered by what author sees as two factors, the first being that the US's power is very high on the world stage. While there are some advantages to concentrations of power in uniting states, the negative side is the resentment it can breed, as well as the temptation of the powerful side to abuse its power (pg135). Tempering power 'into the service of justice' has come in three ways: (a) redistribute power, (b) bring power 'under social and moral review', or (c) use religion to keep it in check. (pg135) Author argues that (a) is not relevant in the international community; it's just a fact of history. Option (b) is happening in the form of the United Nations, which author believes is salubrious, especially because 'it is impossible for any nation or individual fully to understand the peculiar circumstances and the unique history of any other nation or individual, which create their special view of reality.' (pg137) In this section author predicts that once the US realizes it must spend enormous efforts to upgrade its war preparedness with new technology, it may come to the UN more willing to work out a solution to the communist conflict. Strategy (c) involves humility and recognizing the 'other' is worthy of respect. (pg139)
3. The second factor that supposedly reinforces the US's idealism is that there seems to be no easy solution to the struggle against the communists. (pg140) This frustrates the US's liberal idealism that holds that a superior way of life should triumph without needing to compromise. What this misses is that 'human communities are never purely artifacts of the human mind and will' (pg142) and humans are creatures of history (pg141)-- meaning that it is sometimes difficult, sometimes impossible to wholly do away with undesirable powers and forces. (pg143) The argument seems to be that because of the US's idealism, it misinterprets this hard lesson as stubbornness or ignorance. (pg143)
4.-5. Author compares individual heroism with national heroism, pointing out the most dramatic difference is that individual heroism can be willingly self-sacrificing and pursue an end without much probability of achieving it, while a nation cannot reasonably do so-- there must be some decent probability of success. Author also states that a democracy could never engage in an 'explicit preventive war' (pg146). In the following section author discusses the tensions in the US and rejects one of the solutions offered: Kennan argues that the US too eagerly extends its moralistic constitutional scheme to other nations, intending to remake them in its own image. This brings out another source of US idealism: that its 'technocratic' mastery of physical nature encourages the same approach toward human nature. (pg147-8) Author rejects Kennan's solution, namely that the US should become solely self-interested. What is needed is true humility regarding the US's abilities and charity regarding other nations.
The selected introduction to Neibuhr's "Moral Man and Immoral Society" involved a polemic against social scientists, modern educators and moralists who seek to better society by doing social science. Author's principal arguments are as follows:
-humans have parts that belong to the 'order of nature' (pgxii) that cannot ever be fully controlled by reason and conscience
-Social change, unlike changes in knowledge (science), involves conflict between the haves and have-nots; therefore the exercise of power is vitally important to changing social situations. This makes the retardation of social sciences compared to the advancement of the natural sciences not a product of 'ignorance' (pgxiv-xv) but of social-structure maintenance.
-Those educators (author uses Dewey as a target) seem to miss the class-struggle aspect of social change and are fraught with 'middle-class prejudices'(pgxiii-xiv)
6/12/09
Rorty, Richard - Religious faith, intellectual responsibility, and romance
06/12/2009
The Cambridge Companion to William James, Ch 5, RA Putnam ed, 1997
This article is an overview of James' commitments to utilitarianism and pragmatism and how it provided the basis for James' view of religion. Author also suggests an alternate strategy of argumentation that he believes might have been more effective, using the same basic commitments. According to author, there are two major aspects of James' philosophy that provides space for the Will to Believe: (1) is that Mill's version of utilitarianism features the Harm principle, which is the principle that if a subject s does action x and x is not hurting anybody else, only s is the judge on whether to do x; and (2) that scientific pragmatism holds that intellectual responsibility is primarily to other people in a joint project of creating a workable description of the world. If you sufficiently privatize religion to isolate it from such a joint project, there is some room for it regardless of the scientific justification or evidence. (pg85)
Author reviews Clifford's main claims about evidence and justification, suggesting that there are two minimal ways to take Clifford: (1) that the meaning of a belief is what inferences it creates to other beliefs-- a kind of holism-- making any one belief inseparable from the social project; (or even more generally) (2) that to be rational is to submit belief to scrutiny, to intersubjective confirmation-- a belief that is not open for testing is not really a belief. (pg87-8) Clifford argues that without evidence then it is one's responsibility not to hold a belief, yet James 'resists', and creates a kind of forced, momentous and live choice as a result. (pg88) Author finds this unsatisfying (pg90) and suggests that James take another approach: instead of agreeing on a firm distinction between (public) beliefs and (private) desires/hopes, to cash out cognitive states in terms of actional consequences, using utilitarianism to talk about intellectual obligations to others, and areas where there are no such obligations. (pg89) Thus if religion is private action, then it can be pursued without obligation to others. While privatizing religion might make accepting religion not, strictly speaking, a belief, author argues it should make little difference to James. (pg90-1)
Privatization of religion is unsatifying to many (e.g. MacIntyre), since it seems to remove most actional elements (ex hypothesis) and talks vaguely about "the eternal". Author tries to distinguish pragmatists from instrumentalists: pragmatists are realists about theoretic entities but also believe that justification for any entity takes place within a human-interest context. Such a position allows for the justification of macro-objects like tables, micro entities like atoms, and perhaps even social institutions. (pg92) Author tries to show that pure scientific realists and religious fundamentalists 'are products of the same urge.... private projects which have gotten out of hand.' (pg93)
James' focus of the religious hypothesis 'perfection is eternal' can be unsatisfying since it removes much of the specific actional elements of a creed. Author tries to compare the private religious pursuit to that of love of another human. (pg94) Loving another certainly has actional consequences, but not because you are trying to 'predict or control' them or their behavior. (pg94) (Further, we commonly do not ask for justification for such love.) This sort of life-area carve-out threatens the theory that we can reduce all intentional states into belief-desire pairs with definite inferences and actional consequences. Without this reduction, pragmatism might be unable to support its claim of the inextricable nature of desire and beliefs, making it difficult to substitute intersubjective justification for so-called objective verification. (pg95) Luckily there is an externalist interpretation of the behavior of someone in love (or religious) that imputes beliefs and desires onto them based on their actions, though the beliefs might be unjustifiable intellectually. Author states that even though such belief-desire imputations might not fit into a scheme of justification that other beliefs of the subject would, they are still explanatory.
Author lastly discusses what he believes should have been the religious focus for James-- not in something external to human life (eternal things), but in the 'future possibilities of mortal humans', a faith that looks a lot like hope, love, or Romantic commitments. (pg96-7) Author tells a story about how we used to look to external forces for something better but now we should be looking only to our own human future. (pg97)
The Cambridge Companion to William James, Ch 5, RA Putnam ed, 1997
This article is an overview of James' commitments to utilitarianism and pragmatism and how it provided the basis for James' view of religion. Author also suggests an alternate strategy of argumentation that he believes might have been more effective, using the same basic commitments. According to author, there are two major aspects of James' philosophy that provides space for the Will to Believe: (1) is that Mill's version of utilitarianism features the Harm principle, which is the principle that if a subject s does action x and x is not hurting anybody else, only s is the judge on whether to do x; and (2) that scientific pragmatism holds that intellectual responsibility is primarily to other people in a joint project of creating a workable description of the world. If you sufficiently privatize religion to isolate it from such a joint project, there is some room for it regardless of the scientific justification or evidence. (pg85)
Author reviews Clifford's main claims about evidence and justification, suggesting that there are two minimal ways to take Clifford: (1) that the meaning of a belief is what inferences it creates to other beliefs-- a kind of holism-- making any one belief inseparable from the social project; (or even more generally) (2) that to be rational is to submit belief to scrutiny, to intersubjective confirmation-- a belief that is not open for testing is not really a belief. (pg87-8) Clifford argues that without evidence then it is one's responsibility not to hold a belief, yet James 'resists', and creates a kind of forced, momentous and live choice as a result. (pg88) Author finds this unsatisfying (pg90) and suggests that James take another approach: instead of agreeing on a firm distinction between (public) beliefs and (private) desires/hopes, to cash out cognitive states in terms of actional consequences, using utilitarianism to talk about intellectual obligations to others, and areas where there are no such obligations. (pg89) Thus if religion is private action, then it can be pursued without obligation to others. While privatizing religion might make accepting religion not, strictly speaking, a belief, author argues it should make little difference to James. (pg90-1)
Privatization of religion is unsatifying to many (e.g. MacIntyre), since it seems to remove most actional elements (ex hypothesis) and talks vaguely about "the eternal". Author tries to distinguish pragmatists from instrumentalists: pragmatists are realists about theoretic entities but also believe that justification for any entity takes place within a human-interest context. Such a position allows for the justification of macro-objects like tables, micro entities like atoms, and perhaps even social institutions. (pg92) Author tries to show that pure scientific realists and religious fundamentalists 'are products of the same urge.... private projects which have gotten out of hand.' (pg93)
James' focus of the religious hypothesis 'perfection is eternal' can be unsatisfying since it removes much of the specific actional elements of a creed. Author tries to compare the private religious pursuit to that of love of another human. (pg94) Loving another certainly has actional consequences, but not because you are trying to 'predict or control' them or their behavior. (pg94) (Further, we commonly do not ask for justification for such love.) This sort of life-area carve-out threatens the theory that we can reduce all intentional states into belief-desire pairs with definite inferences and actional consequences. Without this reduction, pragmatism might be unable to support its claim of the inextricable nature of desire and beliefs, making it difficult to substitute intersubjective justification for so-called objective verification. (pg95) Luckily there is an externalist interpretation of the behavior of someone in love (or religious) that imputes beliefs and desires onto them based on their actions, though the beliefs might be unjustifiable intellectually. Author states that even though such belief-desire imputations might not fit into a scheme of justification that other beliefs of the subject would, they are still explanatory.
Author lastly discusses what he believes should have been the religious focus for James-- not in something external to human life (eternal things), but in the 'future possibilities of mortal humans', a faith that looks a lot like hope, love, or Romantic commitments. (pg96-7) Author tells a story about how we used to look to external forces for something better but now we should be looking only to our own human future. (pg97)
6/5/09
Clifford, William - The Ethics of Belief
06/05/2009
Lectures and Essays, 2nd edition, Macmillan & Co 1886
This paper inveighs against belief with insufficient evidence, calling it wrong in the moral/ethical sense, not just the epistemological. Author starts with a lengthy example of a shipowner who has some reason to believe his ship isn't seaworthy but nevertheless convinces himself to let her sail; on the seas she does down and the passengers die. Author takes a deonotological view of the morals of belief, arguing that it is morally wrong to believe on insufficient evidence no matter what the consequences were (pg340). After presenting another example relating to public defamation, author also argues that it is morally wrong to believe even a true proposition on insufficient evidence. (pg341)
Author entertains an objection: that what is morally wrong is the action taken that was based on the (epistemically) wrong belief, not the wrong belief itself. While author agrees that there are additional obligations that extend to action, he also argues that 'it is not possible to sever the belief from the action it suggests as to condemn the one without condemning the other'.(pg342) Here the argument is that if you already believe that p is true, you're not going to do a thorough investigation of whether you should act as though p is false. Furthermore, author claims that if p really is to count as a belief and not just some fantasy, it takes some role, somewhere or other, in action. (pg342) Finally, author argues that 'no one man's belief is in any case a private matter which concerns himself alone', arguing that our common culture on which we all depend (and have all inherited) is strengthened by the successes of our ancestors-- an 'heirloom' into which everything we've said and done will be woven and passed down to succeeding generations-- thus an obligation to pass on only evidentially supported beliefs. (pg342-3)
Author discusses how withholding belief in cases where there isn't enough evidence can be unsettling (pg344), but the alternative of giving belief without the evidence is far worse for your own moral character ('weaken our powers of self-control') and for the society at large. Society at large is threatened by a credulous character in the same way as it is by thievery. To steal is wrong enough, but the real problem is that society can become a 'den of thieves'; in the same way being credulous is bad enough, but if it is a permanent character trait among the people, society might 'sink back into savagery'. (pg345)
II. The next matter author takes up is how to go about believing something for which you have no personal experience-- how to rely on authority. (Author also mentions in passing that it is permissible to act upon probability if there is not enough evidence to fully justify belief and action must be taken. pg347) In the case of accepting the word of another, we must be concerned with her truthfulness and her knowledge. (pg348-350) Author seems to put forth some version of a verification principle; if the evidence for a belief isn't capable of being retrieved by humans, then you should not believe it. (pg353-4)
Author uses the case of Mohammed, who spoke honestly but author doubts his ability to know-- his divine knowledge. Even though his precepts are adopted by thousands and they live happily only shows, according to author, that the belief system is 'comfortable' and 'pleasant to the soul', not that it is true. What may be confirmed instead is that the prophet had 'knowledge of human nature', not that he had divine inspiration or celestial knowledge. (pg351) Author supposes that there is a 'celestial visitor' who makes prophesies, some of which are verified. This still would give no grounds for believing those prophesies yet untested (or currently untestable). (pg350) Author also attacks beliefs passed down through traditions, and takes as an example the modern liberal belief that it is good to give to beggars. Instead, it is good to give them work, not to encourage idleness. (pg356)
III.Further along the lines of what to believe and when, author discusses the limits of inference. Author first points out that whenever we direct our thinking toward the future (or toward actions), we go beyond our experience and infer the continuity and uniformity of nature-- that the past is similar to the future. (pg360) Author argues that in cases where we are required to infer things about, e.g. the sun, based on our observations on the earth, all we need to use is the assumption of the uniformity of nature. (pg361)
Lectures and Essays, 2nd edition, Macmillan & Co 1886
This paper inveighs against belief with insufficient evidence, calling it wrong in the moral/ethical sense, not just the epistemological. Author starts with a lengthy example of a shipowner who has some reason to believe his ship isn't seaworthy but nevertheless convinces himself to let her sail; on the seas she does down and the passengers die. Author takes a deonotological view of the morals of belief, arguing that it is morally wrong to believe on insufficient evidence no matter what the consequences were (pg340). After presenting another example relating to public defamation, author also argues that it is morally wrong to believe even a true proposition on insufficient evidence. (pg341)
Author entertains an objection: that what is morally wrong is the action taken that was based on the (epistemically) wrong belief, not the wrong belief itself. While author agrees that there are additional obligations that extend to action, he also argues that 'it is not possible to sever the belief from the action it suggests as to condemn the one without condemning the other'.(pg342) Here the argument is that if you already believe that p is true, you're not going to do a thorough investigation of whether you should act as though p is false. Furthermore, author claims that if p really is to count as a belief and not just some fantasy, it takes some role, somewhere or other, in action. (pg342) Finally, author argues that 'no one man's belief is in any case a private matter which concerns himself alone', arguing that our common culture on which we all depend (and have all inherited) is strengthened by the successes of our ancestors-- an 'heirloom' into which everything we've said and done will be woven and passed down to succeeding generations-- thus an obligation to pass on only evidentially supported beliefs. (pg342-3)
Author discusses how withholding belief in cases where there isn't enough evidence can be unsettling (pg344), but the alternative of giving belief without the evidence is far worse for your own moral character ('weaken our powers of self-control') and for the society at large. Society at large is threatened by a credulous character in the same way as it is by thievery. To steal is wrong enough, but the real problem is that society can become a 'den of thieves'; in the same way being credulous is bad enough, but if it is a permanent character trait among the people, society might 'sink back into savagery'. (pg345)
II. The next matter author takes up is how to go about believing something for which you have no personal experience-- how to rely on authority. (Author also mentions in passing that it is permissible to act upon probability if there is not enough evidence to fully justify belief and action must be taken. pg347) In the case of accepting the word of another, we must be concerned with her truthfulness and her knowledge. (pg348-350) Author seems to put forth some version of a verification principle; if the evidence for a belief isn't capable of being retrieved by humans, then you should not believe it. (pg353-4)
Author uses the case of Mohammed, who spoke honestly but author doubts his ability to know-- his divine knowledge. Even though his precepts are adopted by thousands and they live happily only shows, according to author, that the belief system is 'comfortable' and 'pleasant to the soul', not that it is true. What may be confirmed instead is that the prophet had 'knowledge of human nature', not that he had divine inspiration or celestial knowledge. (pg351) Author supposes that there is a 'celestial visitor' who makes prophesies, some of which are verified. This still would give no grounds for believing those prophesies yet untested (or currently untestable). (pg350) Author also attacks beliefs passed down through traditions, and takes as an example the modern liberal belief that it is good to give to beggars. Instead, it is good to give them work, not to encourage idleness. (pg356)
III.Further along the lines of what to believe and when, author discusses the limits of inference. Author first points out that whenever we direct our thinking toward the future (or toward actions), we go beyond our experience and infer the continuity and uniformity of nature-- that the past is similar to the future. (pg360) Author argues that in cases where we are required to infer things about, e.g. the sun, based on our observations on the earth, all we need to use is the assumption of the uniformity of nature. (pg361)
5/29/09
Hollinger, David - James, Clifford, and the scientific conscience
05/29/2009
The Cambridge Companion to William James, Ch 4, RA Putnam ed, 1997
Though mostly an overview, this paper argues that the WK Clifford quoted in James' Will to Believe was largely misrepresented by James, in particular regarding the willingness of someone who guides her beliefs only with sufficient evidence to act without enough of it. James seems to cast Clifford as staunchly opposed to it, when author claims instead that Clifford was more reasoned and sophisticated. Clifford wrote The Ethics of Belief, which (according to author) took as the root concern the 'structure of plausibility' (pg70)-- meaning what those with intellectual (scientific) mindsets would consider acceptable additions to their worldview prior to receiving the evidence.
Most of the paper explores the arguments given by Clifford and James and gives their context. James suggests in Will to Believe that in the two scientific passions-- the desire to find truth and avoid error-- the desire to avoid error will paralyze you in times where action is required (forced choice) but there isn't sufficient evidence to fix a belief. James quotes Clifford as an example of the passion to avoid error: a reasonable conclusion is that Clifford would advocate withholding action. But Clifford understood this problem well and suggested instead that we act on probabilities in such cases. (pg71) Other misrepresentations occurred with James' discussion of the uniformity of nature. (pg72-3) Author grants that in some respects the impression James left was fair: Clifford was more hostile to religion and more positive about the previous advancements of scientific knowledge than James was (pg73, 75).
The Jamesian program was to give an essentially personal defense of a theistic religious commitment, though particular pillars of such a belief were largely unexplored (pg74-5). The break with Clifford was that Clifford put religious belief in the same sphere as all other beliefs-- there wasn't a special realm for religious ones. One of Clifford's main tenets was that beliefs had actional and therefore (probably) social consequences, making it a general moral concern that you avoid errors in your beliefs. Clifford used an example of a ship-owner who uncritically believed (falsely) that his ship was sea-worthy, sent it out and it sunk, killing the passengers. (pg76) While James did also emphasize the behavioristic consequences of belief, he leaves religious belief personal and isolated, and does not discuss what actional results it would take; author calls this 'obscurantist'. (pg77) James made a distinction between questions that could be settled 'on intellectual grounds' and those that 'by nature' could not; this was a distinction that allowed for the freedom of belief, and one Clifford did not abide. (pg79) Author takes this divide to be at odds with Peirce, and eventually the later James in his work Pragmatism.
This paper also gives attention to the context and concerns of the writers. Clifford wrote in England and perceived a milieu of wary skepticism about the abilities and worth of science, while James wrote in America and echoed a concern that science was intimidating the laymen.(pg78, 80-1)
The Cambridge Companion to William James, Ch 4, RA Putnam ed, 1997
Though mostly an overview, this paper argues that the WK Clifford quoted in James' Will to Believe was largely misrepresented by James, in particular regarding the willingness of someone who guides her beliefs only with sufficient evidence to act without enough of it. James seems to cast Clifford as staunchly opposed to it, when author claims instead that Clifford was more reasoned and sophisticated. Clifford wrote The Ethics of Belief, which (according to author) took as the root concern the 'structure of plausibility' (pg70)-- meaning what those with intellectual (scientific) mindsets would consider acceptable additions to their worldview prior to receiving the evidence.
Most of the paper explores the arguments given by Clifford and James and gives their context. James suggests in Will to Believe that in the two scientific passions-- the desire to find truth and avoid error-- the desire to avoid error will paralyze you in times where action is required (forced choice) but there isn't sufficient evidence to fix a belief. James quotes Clifford as an example of the passion to avoid error: a reasonable conclusion is that Clifford would advocate withholding action. But Clifford understood this problem well and suggested instead that we act on probabilities in such cases. (pg71) Other misrepresentations occurred with James' discussion of the uniformity of nature. (pg72-3) Author grants that in some respects the impression James left was fair: Clifford was more hostile to religion and more positive about the previous advancements of scientific knowledge than James was (pg73, 75).
The Jamesian program was to give an essentially personal defense of a theistic religious commitment, though particular pillars of such a belief were largely unexplored (pg74-5). The break with Clifford was that Clifford put religious belief in the same sphere as all other beliefs-- there wasn't a special realm for religious ones. One of Clifford's main tenets was that beliefs had actional and therefore (probably) social consequences, making it a general moral concern that you avoid errors in your beliefs. Clifford used an example of a ship-owner who uncritically believed (falsely) that his ship was sea-worthy, sent it out and it sunk, killing the passengers. (pg76) While James did also emphasize the behavioristic consequences of belief, he leaves religious belief personal and isolated, and does not discuss what actional results it would take; author calls this 'obscurantist'. (pg77) James made a distinction between questions that could be settled 'on intellectual grounds' and those that 'by nature' could not; this was a distinction that allowed for the freedom of belief, and one Clifford did not abide. (pg79) Author takes this divide to be at odds with Peirce, and eventually the later James in his work Pragmatism.
This paper also gives attention to the context and concerns of the writers. Clifford wrote in England and perceived a milieu of wary skepticism about the abilities and worth of science, while James wrote in America and echoed a concern that science was intimidating the laymen.(pg78, 80-1)
5/22/09
James, William - The Will To Believe
05/22/2009
Essays In Popular Philosophy, Ch 1 Longmans Green & Co 1911
This well-known paper is about the permissibility of belief in religion, probably considered now to be a stand-in for belief in the divine. The main argument is that when you are forced to make a momentous choice where there is some credibility for either option, making either choice is beyond rebuke. Author first spends time investigating kinds of hypotheses and the nature of science and scientific investigation.
The first move is to discuss different kinds of hypotheses-- live or dead, forced or unforced, momentous or trivial. The most interesting is the live or dead hypothesis: a live hypothesis is subjective and relative-- if the hypothesis proposed 'appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed' (I) then it is live. A dead hypothesis isn't considered a possibility related to action-- something that individual would take up as true. (A momentous hypothesis is also subjective and relative). Author readily concedes that as a matter of psychology choosing to believe A over B simply for expediency or for the benefits (e.g. Pascal's wager) isn't possible. (II) However, author interprets this as largely applicable for dead hypotheses, not necessarily live ones. Instead, he believes that our passions do influence what beliefs we readily keep. He points out that many of our beliefs we accept on 'authority' or because they carry 'prestige' (e.g. that democracy or progress is worthwhile); such beliefs would not hold up to serious skeptical challenge. (III)
The next distinction to draw is between an 'empiricist' and an 'absolutist' approach to truth. Roughly, the absolutist contends that once we've made a hypothesis T covering cases A, and experiment E confirms T, we will also be able to tell whether T is the final and true characterization for A. In other words, we can know that we know T. The empiricist-- once E confirms T-- says that T is the current knowledge on A but we do not know for sure that it is the final and irrevocable characterization. (V) According to author, most of science has adopted the empiricist bent, while most of philosophy is absolutist. Moreover, being absolutist is mostly our tendency-- we are only empiricists (if we ever are) 'on reflection'. Author endorses empiricism, even though 'objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals', we have no good procedure to determine what underwrites an absolutist's claim. (VI) More importantly the the purpose of this argument, the empiricist acknowledges that what may be true will not necessarily announce itself to us as true-- we may believe it for whatever reason (or for good reasons) but we understand that we are not waiting for some additional level of certitude to appear.
The last bit of preliminaries author discusses (VII) are the ideals (passions) that abide in scientific life: those of finding truth or avoiding error. While the two sound similar, author argues that they are 'two materially different laws', one of which must be given priority in belief-fixing pursuits. For James, he prefers the seeking of truth as primary. More importantly, for live momentous forced choices, the ideal/passion of avoiding falsehood will lead to withholding a decision, which in forced choices is equivalent to making one. (VIII) An example of such choices are questions of the truth of morals-- that is whether arguments to be moral are 'true' or binding. A skeptical approach or withholding judgment 'until all facts are in' will result in opting out of morality. Author uses the example of building friendship. (IX) In the case of becoming a friend to someone, I must first act as though I like her, and/or act as though she likes me. I can't 'stand aloof, and refuse to budge an inch until I have objective evidence' that the other wants to befriend me-- this will probably lead to failure. This is considered a matter of faith helping to create the fact it is looking to find. (IX)
In the case of religious belief, we see also that it is a momentous forced choice. For those for whom it is live, and who take the pursuit of truth to be a higher value than avoidance of error, believing in religion is justified. Since the hypothesis is momentous (very important to the individual making the decision), author argues that whatever choice we make we are entitled to make. Author argues that taking avoidance of error as a higher ideal in this case will also lead to the same conclusion-- since it is a forced choice-- as disbelieving. Moreover, author argues that the absolute approach to truth may easily result in withholding judgment (=disbelieving) since in such matters there is no scientific resolution available and therefore no certitude given from that quarter. (X) The abstract conclusion is that 'we have the right to believe at our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough to tempt our will'. While this may sound silly, it is because we forget that a live hypothesis is something that is legitimately tempting to believe (and is therefore not ruled out by the whole of science and rational argument). If a particular hypothesis isn't legitimately possible (living), then this whole endeavor will appear to be Pascal's wager. Yet if it is alive for an individual, and since it is a momentous forced choice, the individual is given the freedom to believe.
Essays In Popular Philosophy, Ch 1 Longmans Green & Co 1911
This well-known paper is about the permissibility of belief in religion, probably considered now to be a stand-in for belief in the divine. The main argument is that when you are forced to make a momentous choice where there is some credibility for either option, making either choice is beyond rebuke. Author first spends time investigating kinds of hypotheses and the nature of science and scientific investigation.
The first move is to discuss different kinds of hypotheses-- live or dead, forced or unforced, momentous or trivial. The most interesting is the live or dead hypothesis: a live hypothesis is subjective and relative-- if the hypothesis proposed 'appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed' (I) then it is live. A dead hypothesis isn't considered a possibility related to action-- something that individual would take up as true. (A momentous hypothesis is also subjective and relative). Author readily concedes that as a matter of psychology choosing to believe A over B simply for expediency or for the benefits (e.g. Pascal's wager) isn't possible. (II) However, author interprets this as largely applicable for dead hypotheses, not necessarily live ones. Instead, he believes that our passions do influence what beliefs we readily keep. He points out that many of our beliefs we accept on 'authority' or because they carry 'prestige' (e.g. that democracy or progress is worthwhile); such beliefs would not hold up to serious skeptical challenge. (III)
The next distinction to draw is between an 'empiricist' and an 'absolutist' approach to truth. Roughly, the absolutist contends that once we've made a hypothesis T covering cases A, and experiment E confirms T, we will also be able to tell whether T is the final and true characterization for A. In other words, we can know that we know T. The empiricist-- once E confirms T-- says that T is the current knowledge on A but we do not know for sure that it is the final and irrevocable characterization. (V) According to author, most of science has adopted the empiricist bent, while most of philosophy is absolutist. Moreover, being absolutist is mostly our tendency-- we are only empiricists (if we ever are) 'on reflection'. Author endorses empiricism, even though 'objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals', we have no good procedure to determine what underwrites an absolutist's claim. (VI) More importantly the the purpose of this argument, the empiricist acknowledges that what may be true will not necessarily announce itself to us as true-- we may believe it for whatever reason (or for good reasons) but we understand that we are not waiting for some additional level of certitude to appear.
The last bit of preliminaries author discusses (VII) are the ideals (passions) that abide in scientific life: those of finding truth or avoiding error. While the two sound similar, author argues that they are 'two materially different laws', one of which must be given priority in belief-fixing pursuits. For James, he prefers the seeking of truth as primary. More importantly, for live momentous forced choices, the ideal/passion of avoiding falsehood will lead to withholding a decision, which in forced choices is equivalent to making one. (VIII) An example of such choices are questions of the truth of morals-- that is whether arguments to be moral are 'true' or binding. A skeptical approach or withholding judgment 'until all facts are in' will result in opting out of morality. Author uses the example of building friendship. (IX) In the case of becoming a friend to someone, I must first act as though I like her, and/or act as though she likes me. I can't 'stand aloof, and refuse to budge an inch until I have objective evidence' that the other wants to befriend me-- this will probably lead to failure. This is considered a matter of faith helping to create the fact it is looking to find. (IX)
In the case of religious belief, we see also that it is a momentous forced choice. For those for whom it is live, and who take the pursuit of truth to be a higher value than avoidance of error, believing in religion is justified. Since the hypothesis is momentous (very important to the individual making the decision), author argues that whatever choice we make we are entitled to make. Author argues that taking avoidance of error as a higher ideal in this case will also lead to the same conclusion-- since it is a forced choice-- as disbelieving. Moreover, author argues that the absolute approach to truth may easily result in withholding judgment (=disbelieving) since in such matters there is no scientific resolution available and therefore no certitude given from that quarter. (X) The abstract conclusion is that 'we have the right to believe at our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough to tempt our will'. While this may sound silly, it is because we forget that a live hypothesis is something that is legitimately tempting to believe (and is therefore not ruled out by the whole of science and rational argument). If a particular hypothesis isn't legitimately possible (living), then this whole endeavor will appear to be Pascal's wager. Yet if it is alive for an individual, and since it is a momentous forced choice, the individual is given the freedom to believe.
5/15/09
Putnam, Hilary - A Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy
05/15/2009
Renewing Philosophy, Harvard Press 1992 Ch 9
This chapter tries to establish Dewey's defense of democracy as an argument for social morality. Author beings by quoting Bernard Williams when it comes to giving a justification of moral claims-- forget trying to convince someone to be moral and instead try to justify the concepts and particulars to someone already committed to being moral. Williams' shortfall however was in giving an objective justification for ethics as an individual case of having a personally deleterious moral character-- a justification coming from psychology. This is considered a personal, ontological justification, which is orthogonal to Dewey's social, epistemological one (pg182). It is social because it addresses society and societal problems. It is epistemological in that it posits that intelligent empirical investigation is the best chance at finding effectual strategies for fixing social problems.(pg186) Author considers this anti-metaphysical because it doesn't presuppose that there is one 'absolute' answer outside of whatever we can find in scientific investigation. (pg187) So the grounds of moral activity comes from the shortcomings of the current social situation and the likelihood that science will find a solution. This jointly justifies 'democratic institutions as freedom of thought and speech' (pg188). One important factor in this argument is that Dewey doesn't leave it to the 'experts' (pg189) to show us progress, since privilege can easily create privileged interests and 'cognitive distortion' about the good. Instead, social progress must be done in the same way (by analogy) that scientific progress is done: with open, informed, free democratic investigation and thus justification.
The worth of democracy is occasionally objected two by two different sources, according to author. They include extreme relativists who object to interventions into any other culture's traditions, even the most undemocratic (pg183-5). They also include the reactionaries who believe that society begins to regress once democracy is established-- author considers Alasdair MacIntyre as an example (pg185-6).
One criticism author levels at Dewey's approach is that it lacks the content required to settle personal ontic anxiety-- existential moral questions-- such as the one posed by Sartre about staying at home to help your elderly mother or going off to join the anti-fascist revolution. (pg190-2) More importantly, James extends this criticism (in The Will To Believe) to be against scientific inquiry when it comes to many deep personal decisions-- you can't try both and see which suit you better. (pg192-6)
The chapter (and book?) ends with a conclusion and discusses how important true equality is in a liberal democracy-- so that everyone can partake in the free play of their natural endowments. (pg198-199)
Renewing Philosophy, Harvard Press 1992 Ch 9
This chapter tries to establish Dewey's defense of democracy as an argument for social morality. Author beings by quoting Bernard Williams when it comes to giving a justification of moral claims-- forget trying to convince someone to be moral and instead try to justify the concepts and particulars to someone already committed to being moral. Williams' shortfall however was in giving an objective justification for ethics as an individual case of having a personally deleterious moral character-- a justification coming from psychology. This is considered a personal, ontological justification, which is orthogonal to Dewey's social, epistemological one (pg182). It is social because it addresses society and societal problems. It is epistemological in that it posits that intelligent empirical investigation is the best chance at finding effectual strategies for fixing social problems.(pg186) Author considers this anti-metaphysical because it doesn't presuppose that there is one 'absolute' answer outside of whatever we can find in scientific investigation. (pg187) So the grounds of moral activity comes from the shortcomings of the current social situation and the likelihood that science will find a solution. This jointly justifies 'democratic institutions as freedom of thought and speech' (pg188). One important factor in this argument is that Dewey doesn't leave it to the 'experts' (pg189) to show us progress, since privilege can easily create privileged interests and 'cognitive distortion' about the good. Instead, social progress must be done in the same way (by analogy) that scientific progress is done: with open, informed, free democratic investigation and thus justification.
The worth of democracy is occasionally objected two by two different sources, according to author. They include extreme relativists who object to interventions into any other culture's traditions, even the most undemocratic (pg183-5). They also include the reactionaries who believe that society begins to regress once democracy is established-- author considers Alasdair MacIntyre as an example (pg185-6).
One criticism author levels at Dewey's approach is that it lacks the content required to settle personal ontic anxiety-- existential moral questions-- such as the one posed by Sartre about staying at home to help your elderly mother or going off to join the anti-fascist revolution. (pg190-2) More importantly, James extends this criticism (in The Will To Believe) to be against scientific inquiry when it comes to many deep personal decisions-- you can't try both and see which suit you better. (pg192-6)
The chapter (and book?) ends with a conclusion and discusses how important true equality is in a liberal democracy-- so that everyone can partake in the free play of their natural endowments. (pg198-199)
5/8/09
Dewey, John - Antinaturalism In Extremis
05/08/2009
Naturalism & The Human Spirit, ch 1 Columbia University Press, 1944
This paper is more polemical and rhetorical than many current philosophy papers usually are. The main point is to defend naturalism from criticism leveled by 'supernaturalists'. Author argues against what he considers to be the orthodox position that moral virtue is only acquired through supernatural means, instead arguing that all virtues we find worthwhile come solely from human nature. Author considers this the 'Pauline' and 'Augustinian' doctrines of natural degradation and supernatural salvation. (pg2)
Author points out the tremendous advancement that naturalism (in this case considered scientific materialism) has made through the centuries and how the same scientific inquiries relating to humans have been blocked by a religion's supernaturalist doctrines (pg3-4).
The main bulk of the paper is devoted to taking examples of anti-naturalist statements and rebutting or attacking them. (part II) Notably GK Chesterton writes that democracy would not survive if it didn't have a catholic or christian underpinning (pg8), to which author responds with a fundamental thesis: 'naturalism finds the values in question, the worth and dignity of men and women, residing in human nature itself, in the connections, actual and potential, that human beings sustain to one another in the natural environment.' (pg9)
The consequences of being an anti-naturalist, author argues, is to discount the natural resources available for the betterment of humans and to discount the possibility of gains made by the sciences into human nature. (pg10-11) The biggest rub comes from the problem of whether to accept the numerous biological findings placing humankind 'squarely within the natural world' (pg11). Yet at the same time (some) anti-naturalists wish to deny that humans are 'simply a highly developed animal' (pg7). This tension leave anti-naturalists in a contradictory position when it comes to accepting scientific discovery.
The final discussion is about moral virtue and normative standards; anti-naturalists hold that naturalism cannot provide for them. (pg12-15) Author finds this is a deeply pessimistic view of human nature, and of scientific progress.
Naturalism & The Human Spirit, ch 1 Columbia University Press, 1944
This paper is more polemical and rhetorical than many current philosophy papers usually are. The main point is to defend naturalism from criticism leveled by 'supernaturalists'. Author argues against what he considers to be the orthodox position that moral virtue is only acquired through supernatural means, instead arguing that all virtues we find worthwhile come solely from human nature. Author considers this the 'Pauline' and 'Augustinian' doctrines of natural degradation and supernatural salvation. (pg2)
Author points out the tremendous advancement that naturalism (in this case considered scientific materialism) has made through the centuries and how the same scientific inquiries relating to humans have been blocked by a religion's supernaturalist doctrines (pg3-4).
The main bulk of the paper is devoted to taking examples of anti-naturalist statements and rebutting or attacking them. (part II) Notably GK Chesterton writes that democracy would not survive if it didn't have a catholic or christian underpinning (pg8), to which author responds with a fundamental thesis: 'naturalism finds the values in question, the worth and dignity of men and women, residing in human nature itself, in the connections, actual and potential, that human beings sustain to one another in the natural environment.' (pg9)
The consequences of being an anti-naturalist, author argues, is to discount the natural resources available for the betterment of humans and to discount the possibility of gains made by the sciences into human nature. (pg10-11) The biggest rub comes from the problem of whether to accept the numerous biological findings placing humankind 'squarely within the natural world' (pg11). Yet at the same time (some) anti-naturalists wish to deny that humans are 'simply a highly developed animal' (pg7). This tension leave anti-naturalists in a contradictory position when it comes to accepting scientific discovery.
The final discussion is about moral virtue and normative standards; anti-naturalists hold that naturalism cannot provide for them. (pg12-15) Author finds this is a deeply pessimistic view of human nature, and of scientific progress.
5/1/09
Schaub, Edward - Dewey's Interpretation of Religion
05/01/2009
The Philosophy of John Dewey, Ch 13, Schilpp ed., 1951
This is a general review of Dewey's work on religion and also of the work of his students and followers; the conclusion is that they are more extreme than Dewey was. Author first tries to give a state-of-religion overview and then takes some time to develop the concept of religion as a human activity whose explanation should be 'less impersonal than the standpoint of functionalism and instrumentalism'(pg400-1).
Dewey's early exposition against religion as having a monopoly over the spiritual led many of his followers to take a decidedly anti-religion stance (pg401-4), yet author claims many were confused about whether it was naively naturalistic or fulfilling some specific practical human need.(pg401) The author concludes here that instrumentalism was inadequate to give an account of religion.(pg404)
In part III, author reviews the most sustained work Dewey did on religion in A Common Faith. Author claims that Dewey did not seriously attempt to work religion through the instrumentalist/utilitarian psychology that he had created, nor did he wish to critically engage with modern-day religious theology (pg406-7). Instead his major target is 'supernaturalism', a belief system author thinks is a strawman or at least very outdated. (pg407) Moreover, author claims Dewey levels an a priori argument against a kind-of remote supernaturalism, god(s) in another world apart from the natural one that we all live in. This doesn't account for the varieties of different religious beliefs that contradict that a priori analysis (pg409). Author then reviews Dewey's account of a religious outlook as opposed to 'a religion' (pg411-13) and specifically pinpoints the argument that the seat of religious attitudes is an imaginative ideal. Author argues that Dewey hasn't established that we can be sufficiently motivated by an ideal if we don't take it to be metaphysically active in the world (pg414-416). The argument offered by the author is that the terrifyingly finite, mortal aspects of humans have been the primary motivations for the establishing of religion, but these are metaphysical aspects of living in 'Nature'-- hence a metaphysical 'Reality' that is the proper seat of religious ideals.
Dewey Replies to Schaub in Experience, Knowledge and Value; he mostly argues that his earlier work that was quoted was taken out of context: it was a discussion that religion should not be taught in public schools, not a discussion on the general problems of religion.
The Philosophy of John Dewey, Ch 13, Schilpp ed., 1951
This is a general review of Dewey's work on religion and also of the work of his students and followers; the conclusion is that they are more extreme than Dewey was. Author first tries to give a state-of-religion overview and then takes some time to develop the concept of religion as a human activity whose explanation should be 'less impersonal than the standpoint of functionalism and instrumentalism'(pg400-1).
Dewey's early exposition against religion as having a monopoly over the spiritual led many of his followers to take a decidedly anti-religion stance (pg401-4), yet author claims many were confused about whether it was naively naturalistic or fulfilling some specific practical human need.(pg401) The author concludes here that instrumentalism was inadequate to give an account of religion.(pg404)
In part III, author reviews the most sustained work Dewey did on religion in A Common Faith. Author claims that Dewey did not seriously attempt to work religion through the instrumentalist/utilitarian psychology that he had created, nor did he wish to critically engage with modern-day religious theology (pg406-7). Instead his major target is 'supernaturalism', a belief system author thinks is a strawman or at least very outdated. (pg407) Moreover, author claims Dewey levels an a priori argument against a kind-of remote supernaturalism, god(s) in another world apart from the natural one that we all live in. This doesn't account for the varieties of different religious beliefs that contradict that a priori analysis (pg409). Author then reviews Dewey's account of a religious outlook as opposed to 'a religion' (pg411-13) and specifically pinpoints the argument that the seat of religious attitudes is an imaginative ideal. Author argues that Dewey hasn't established that we can be sufficiently motivated by an ideal if we don't take it to be metaphysically active in the world (pg414-416). The argument offered by the author is that the terrifyingly finite, mortal aspects of humans have been the primary motivations for the establishing of religion, but these are metaphysical aspects of living in 'Nature'-- hence a metaphysical 'Reality' that is the proper seat of religious ideals.
Dewey Replies to Schaub in Experience, Knowledge and Value; he mostly argues that his earlier work that was quoted was taken out of context: it was a discussion that religion should not be taught in public schools, not a discussion on the general problems of religion.
4/24/09
Dewey, John - A Common Faith Ch 3
04/24/2009
Yale University Press, 1934
This final chapter focuses mainly on the distinction that religions draw between two realms of living, the supernatural and the natural, or the sacred and the profane. The biggest current threat to religion, author claims, is the growing participation and involvement that humans have with those profane/natural realms of life: an involvement in science, technology, commerce, civics, etc. In the rise of these other engagements, the church-- or participation in a religion-- has become a special kind of institution within a secular community-- it has lost its supremacy over all realms of life (pg60-2). While science itself may have had little direct effect in this 'shift in the social center of gravity', author argues it has had a great indirect effect in changing many of the conditions that humans now live under (pg62-3). The problem for religions (but not a religious attitude) is this distinction between the supernatural and the natural, since now the natural has risen greatly in concern. However, a religious attitude, as previously defined as a life outlook motivated by ideals found in the imagination, needs to make no such distinction and is therefore free to permeate all realms of human social life. (pg66-68)
Author then discusses what he sees as the evolution of the supernatural that permeated human life (when it was invoked for explanations of natural events) to now its self-made relegation of a special mode of relating to the supernatural (pg69-70). Author also links this to the argument that humans need the supernatural for moral motivation and spiritual vitality and offers the alternative that our concrete relations provide us with the necessary motivations and experiences. (pg70-1)
Author takes some time to counter a possible objection from a religion: that those other realms of human social life are rife with corruption, cynicism, greed, sins, etc and therefore aren't worth investing in compared to religion and the church.(pg74) What this argument assumes, author argues, is that the current social institutions are the only ones possible for humans to have, or that the ones we have now are essentially this way, rather than accidentally this way. Once our social institutions are seen in a historical context, there is no reason to think they must continue in the way they operate now. (pg75-8) This kind of thinking makes the supernatural realm and the maintenance of the status quo 'twins'(pg78).
Thus the secular objection to religion is that it considers material conditions that are very changeable to be unchangeable or it has 'the tendency to dispose of social evils in terms of general moral causes' (pg77). (pg77-80) The argument is that the separated realm of religion often rails against the symptoms of social problems, rather than the causes (pg69), which are to be studied by social science, economics, politics, etc. Thus the churches find themselves in a difficult situation-- to the extent they wish to participate in working for social betterment they have to be involved in the natural world, yet in an awkward way must still hold their 'unique relation' to 'supreme values and motivating forces', making 'it impossible for the churches to participate in promotion of social ends on a natural and equal human basis'. (pg83) Author sees the salvation of the religious attitude to engage in the world through concerted effort that isn't diverted through a religion that claims a special realm of authority. Author draws a contrast between 'intelligence' and 'reason'; intelligence specifically can be infused with emotional support and passion, while reason is considered contrary to such an infusion. (pg79)
Yale University Press, 1934
This final chapter focuses mainly on the distinction that religions draw between two realms of living, the supernatural and the natural, or the sacred and the profane. The biggest current threat to religion, author claims, is the growing participation and involvement that humans have with those profane/natural realms of life: an involvement in science, technology, commerce, civics, etc. In the rise of these other engagements, the church-- or participation in a religion-- has become a special kind of institution within a secular community-- it has lost its supremacy over all realms of life (pg60-2). While science itself may have had little direct effect in this 'shift in the social center of gravity', author argues it has had a great indirect effect in changing many of the conditions that humans now live under (pg62-3). The problem for religions (but not a religious attitude) is this distinction between the supernatural and the natural, since now the natural has risen greatly in concern. However, a religious attitude, as previously defined as a life outlook motivated by ideals found in the imagination, needs to make no such distinction and is therefore free to permeate all realms of human social life. (pg66-68)
Author then discusses what he sees as the evolution of the supernatural that permeated human life (when it was invoked for explanations of natural events) to now its self-made relegation of a special mode of relating to the supernatural (pg69-70). Author also links this to the argument that humans need the supernatural for moral motivation and spiritual vitality and offers the alternative that our concrete relations provide us with the necessary motivations and experiences. (pg70-1)
Author takes some time to counter a possible objection from a religion: that those other realms of human social life are rife with corruption, cynicism, greed, sins, etc and therefore aren't worth investing in compared to religion and the church.(pg74) What this argument assumes, author argues, is that the current social institutions are the only ones possible for humans to have, or that the ones we have now are essentially this way, rather than accidentally this way. Once our social institutions are seen in a historical context, there is no reason to think they must continue in the way they operate now. (pg75-8) This kind of thinking makes the supernatural realm and the maintenance of the status quo 'twins'(pg78).
Thus the secular objection to religion is that it considers material conditions that are very changeable to be unchangeable or it has 'the tendency to dispose of social evils in terms of general moral causes' (pg77). (pg77-80) The argument is that the separated realm of religion often rails against the symptoms of social problems, rather than the causes (pg69), which are to be studied by social science, economics, politics, etc. Thus the churches find themselves in a difficult situation-- to the extent they wish to participate in working for social betterment they have to be involved in the natural world, yet in an awkward way must still hold their 'unique relation' to 'supreme values and motivating forces', making 'it impossible for the churches to participate in promotion of social ends on a natural and equal human basis'. (pg83) Author sees the salvation of the religious attitude to engage in the world through concerted effort that isn't diverted through a religion that claims a special realm of authority. Author draws a contrast between 'intelligence' and 'reason'; intelligence specifically can be infused with emotional support and passion, while reason is considered contrary to such an infusion. (pg79)
4/17/09
Dewey, John - A Common Faith Ch 2
04/17/2009
Yale University Press, 1934
This chapter 'Faith and Its Object' seeks to establish the problem with religion's claiming factual knowledge about the world based on supernatural truths or revelations. The early pages show the rift between scientific knowledge about the world and the tenets of theological belief (author wants to show a tension not between 'science' and 'religion' but between 'science' and 'theology' pg31). Author points out that each time science seems to provide an alternate, natural explanation for a particular article of theology, liberal theologians surrender that particular issue and simultaneously argue that it wasn't a crucial part of the theology (pg32). The problem is not this-or-that belief but the entire outlook of method and justification for non-scientific objective belief systems. (pg32-3)
One solution was to partition two realms: one of 'nature' and one of 'grace', or one for scientific experience and another for religious. (pg34) But remember that so-called mystical experience, according to author, is frequently interpreted through the lens of cultural practices and theology that one already has available (pg35-38). The distinction between two kinds of experience is just the old metaphysical distinction between two worlds, but remade into modern cultural sensibilities. (pg38) Author also defends science from those who misunderstand it, specifically that science is committed to a set of naturalistic doctrines. Instead, science is a method of acquiring knowledge about the world-- so far the best method (p38-9).
The next part of the discussion has to do with symbols-- that religious matters involve beliefs that are symbolic. Author argues that symbols can be interpreted in two ways-- as symbolic of another objective item (that we can't attain for some reason or other) or as symbolic of a truly ideal item. If theological beliefs are symbolic in the first sense, then they are intellectually dubious and aren't truly 'ideal'. But if they are in the second sense, then there is no reason to suppose the objective aspect of the symbolized items/people/events. (pg40-2) The suggestion then becomes that 'God' be the 'unification of ideal values that is essentially imaginative in origin'(pg43). Author further argues that trying to find the existence of the supernatural will distract humans and make them think that their betterment will come from an exterior source rather than from themselves (pg45-7).
The last part of the paper deals with arguing that ideals seated in the imagination are not 'imaginary stuff' but real and physical since they motivate us to act in particular ways in the world (pg49-51). The value of mystical experiences is to further one's commitment to the ideals they live by (pg52). Author discusses parallels that he sees between 'aggressive' atheism and traditional supernaturalism (e.g. Christianity) (pg52-3) in that they both view humans as separate from the natural world-- both are mistaken.
Yale University Press, 1934
This chapter 'Faith and Its Object' seeks to establish the problem with religion's claiming factual knowledge about the world based on supernatural truths or revelations. The early pages show the rift between scientific knowledge about the world and the tenets of theological belief (author wants to show a tension not between 'science' and 'religion' but between 'science' and 'theology' pg31). Author points out that each time science seems to provide an alternate, natural explanation for a particular article of theology, liberal theologians surrender that particular issue and simultaneously argue that it wasn't a crucial part of the theology (pg32). The problem is not this-or-that belief but the entire outlook of method and justification for non-scientific objective belief systems. (pg32-3)
One solution was to partition two realms: one of 'nature' and one of 'grace', or one for scientific experience and another for religious. (pg34) But remember that so-called mystical experience, according to author, is frequently interpreted through the lens of cultural practices and theology that one already has available (pg35-38). The distinction between two kinds of experience is just the old metaphysical distinction between two worlds, but remade into modern cultural sensibilities. (pg38) Author also defends science from those who misunderstand it, specifically that science is committed to a set of naturalistic doctrines. Instead, science is a method of acquiring knowledge about the world-- so far the best method (p38-9).
The next part of the discussion has to do with symbols-- that religious matters involve beliefs that are symbolic. Author argues that symbols can be interpreted in two ways-- as symbolic of another objective item (that we can't attain for some reason or other) or as symbolic of a truly ideal item. If theological beliefs are symbolic in the first sense, then they are intellectually dubious and aren't truly 'ideal'. But if they are in the second sense, then there is no reason to suppose the objective aspect of the symbolized items/people/events. (pg40-2) The suggestion then becomes that 'God' be the 'unification of ideal values that is essentially imaginative in origin'(pg43). Author further argues that trying to find the existence of the supernatural will distract humans and make them think that their betterment will come from an exterior source rather than from themselves (pg45-7).
The last part of the paper deals with arguing that ideals seated in the imagination are not 'imaginary stuff' but real and physical since they motivate us to act in particular ways in the world (pg49-51). The value of mystical experiences is to further one's commitment to the ideals they live by (pg52). Author discusses parallels that he sees between 'aggressive' atheism and traditional supernaturalism (e.g. Christianity) (pg52-3) in that they both view humans as separate from the natural world-- both are mistaken.
4/10/09
Dewey, John - A Common Faith Ch 1
04/10/2009
Yale University Press, 1934
This chapter tries to create an adjective 'religious' that is distinct from 'religion'. The first discussion is about how diverse and varied the practice of religion is (pg4-6) and how, once placed in the cultural and historical context, it isn't obvious that the current cultural context is the correct one. Yet to try to give a theory of religion so that it covers all of the practices around the world and throughout history will make it so abstract and disjointed to be unrecognizable. Author concludes that there are instead 'a multitude of religions'. (pg7-8)
The next move is to distinguish between 'religion' and 'religious', which does not have the institutional history or theology that a religion is committed to. A religious attitude is different from a 'religious experience' however. A religious experience as a kind separate from aesthetic or political experiences is not what author has in mind. (pg10-11) This kind of experience is characterized by its outcome but labeled according to whatever culturally/institutionally relevant categories the individual may have handy. (pg11-13) But what is important about the experience is the 'adjustment' made within a person's self; different religions will call it different things. The important experience that can underwrite a religious attitude is one whose effects are an enduring deep-seated adjustment or orientation. (pg16-17)
Author takes pains to articulate the meta-psychological underpinning of a religious attitude: the imagination has an ideal for the self to strive for as it strives for integration, since integration takes place with something external to the self-- an ideal. (pg19) The non-objective nature of an ideal-- the non-factual aspect of it-- is contrasted by author to 'faith', which has become an evidential claim, a part of metaphysics instead of human imagination. (pg20) Author suggests that once the moral (imaginative) ideal of the religious attitude was converted into a claim of objective metaphysics by religion, it actually diminished moral faith, since it was not discovered to be present objectively (pg20-22).
Going to the positive account of the religious attitude, it should not just be an intense emotional feeling but also a broadly inclusive self-unifying end-ideal.(pg22-23) In this way the religious attitude involves a willful submission. Further discussion about the history of religions to assist (or inhibit) with the religious attitude follows (pg24-25). Lastly, author gives a discussion the human condition and asserts that the religious attitude includes cooperation and seeing one's place in a larger whole (pg25).
Yale University Press, 1934
This chapter tries to create an adjective 'religious' that is distinct from 'religion'. The first discussion is about how diverse and varied the practice of religion is (pg4-6) and how, once placed in the cultural and historical context, it isn't obvious that the current cultural context is the correct one. Yet to try to give a theory of religion so that it covers all of the practices around the world and throughout history will make it so abstract and disjointed to be unrecognizable. Author concludes that there are instead 'a multitude of religions'. (pg7-8)
The next move is to distinguish between 'religion' and 'religious', which does not have the institutional history or theology that a religion is committed to. A religious attitude is different from a 'religious experience' however. A religious experience as a kind separate from aesthetic or political experiences is not what author has in mind. (pg10-11) This kind of experience is characterized by its outcome but labeled according to whatever culturally/institutionally relevant categories the individual may have handy. (pg11-13) But what is important about the experience is the 'adjustment' made within a person's self; different religions will call it different things. The important experience that can underwrite a religious attitude is one whose effects are an enduring deep-seated adjustment or orientation. (pg16-17)
Author takes pains to articulate the meta-psychological underpinning of a religious attitude: the imagination has an ideal for the self to strive for as it strives for integration, since integration takes place with something external to the self-- an ideal. (pg19) The non-objective nature of an ideal-- the non-factual aspect of it-- is contrasted by author to 'faith', which has become an evidential claim, a part of metaphysics instead of human imagination. (pg20) Author suggests that once the moral (imaginative) ideal of the religious attitude was converted into a claim of objective metaphysics by religion, it actually diminished moral faith, since it was not discovered to be present objectively (pg20-22).
Going to the positive account of the religious attitude, it should not just be an intense emotional feeling but also a broadly inclusive self-unifying end-ideal.(pg22-23) In this way the religious attitude involves a willful submission. Further discussion about the history of religions to assist (or inhibit) with the religious attitude follows (pg24-25). Lastly, author gives a discussion the human condition and asserts that the religious attitude includes cooperation and seeing one's place in a larger whole (pg25).
4/3/09
Kennett, Jeanette & Smith, Michael - Synchronic self-control is always non-actional
04/03/2009
Analysis Vol 57 No 2 April 1997
This is a reply to Mele's previous article 'Underestimating self-control...' where authors lay out a strong case for the unintelligiblity of synchronic actional self-control. One of Mele's arguments was that it was very difficult to formulate exactly what the 'truism' of intentional aciton is: is it really that 'whenever people do something intentionall, they want to do that thing more than they want to do anything else the believe they can do at that time'? Mele argued against it, using the example of non-conflicting desires being mixed together into one action but at least some component desires perhaps not being intrinsically stronger than other desires that weren't being acted upon (e.g. drinking tea while reading article A, even though drinking tea was less strong than the desire to read article B). Authors re-write this counterexample to say that really, one doesn't have the desire to drink tea, read article A, or read article B, but instead to read A & drink tea, read B & drink tea, read A, or read B, or drink tea. Thus the truism is preserved. (pg125)
The next thing authors do is take up the case Mele describes about trying to use a second-order desire to reduce the strength of your first order desire as a case of synchronic actional self-control. (pg126) Authors argue that what happens here is either a case of losing control (e.g. eating a sweet while reducing the desire's strength) or diachronic self-control (e.g. eventually reducing the strength of your desire for sweets so that, eventually, you won't eat them). (pg126-7) And diachronic self-control can be actional and isn't a contradiction of the truism. The authors generalized that all synchronic self-control is non-actional. 'They are non-actional because there is no suitable strongest desire to cause an exercise of actional synchronic self-control'. (pg128)
The last part of the paper deals with the logical possibility of actional synchronic self-control. The possibility for such an action, authors claim, lies in the fact that the connection between desires and actions is a causal connection that happens over time, and it might be possible for a stronger cause-effect event to take place in between an earlier cause and its characteristic effect. (e.g., you desire sweets but before it causes you to take action to eat one, an faster desire for health intervenes and causes you to refrain.) Authors reply by further discussing what a desire-cause must do: not only must it initiate the action-effect, but if the action takes place over time (as most do), then the desire also has to sustain the action. (pg129) Authors consider this mechanic to set up a dilemma: either you prepare to defend yourself from your desire for sweets, or as soon as the desire for sweets arises, your previous desire can't 'causally sustain' itself. (pg130) Either the self-control is diachronic, or it isn't self-control. Authors comment that if you agree that thoughts last longer than 'an instant', you might have to believe that actional synchronic self-control is logically impossible.
Analysis Vol 57 No 2 April 1997
This is a reply to Mele's previous article 'Underestimating self-control...' where authors lay out a strong case for the unintelligiblity of synchronic actional self-control. One of Mele's arguments was that it was very difficult to formulate exactly what the 'truism' of intentional aciton is: is it really that 'whenever people do something intentionall, they want to do that thing more than they want to do anything else the believe they can do at that time'? Mele argued against it, using the example of non-conflicting desires being mixed together into one action but at least some component desires perhaps not being intrinsically stronger than other desires that weren't being acted upon (e.g. drinking tea while reading article A, even though drinking tea was less strong than the desire to read article B). Authors re-write this counterexample to say that really, one doesn't have the desire to drink tea, read article A, or read article B, but instead to read A & drink tea, read B & drink tea, read A, or read B, or drink tea. Thus the truism is preserved. (pg125)
The next thing authors do is take up the case Mele describes about trying to use a second-order desire to reduce the strength of your first order desire as a case of synchronic actional self-control. (pg126) Authors argue that what happens here is either a case of losing control (e.g. eating a sweet while reducing the desire's strength) or diachronic self-control (e.g. eventually reducing the strength of your desire for sweets so that, eventually, you won't eat them). (pg126-7) And diachronic self-control can be actional and isn't a contradiction of the truism. The authors generalized that all synchronic self-control is non-actional. 'They are non-actional because there is no suitable strongest desire to cause an exercise of actional synchronic self-control'. (pg128)
The last part of the paper deals with the logical possibility of actional synchronic self-control. The possibility for such an action, authors claim, lies in the fact that the connection between desires and actions is a causal connection that happens over time, and it might be possible for a stronger cause-effect event to take place in between an earlier cause and its characteristic effect. (e.g., you desire sweets but before it causes you to take action to eat one, an faster desire for health intervenes and causes you to refrain.) Authors reply by further discussing what a desire-cause must do: not only must it initiate the action-effect, but if the action takes place over time (as most do), then the desire also has to sustain the action. (pg129) Authors consider this mechanic to set up a dilemma: either you prepare to defend yourself from your desire for sweets, or as soon as the desire for sweets arises, your previous desire can't 'causally sustain' itself. (pg130) Either the self-control is diachronic, or it isn't self-control. Authors comment that if you agree that thoughts last longer than 'an instant', you might have to believe that actional synchronic self-control is logically impossible.
3/27/09
Kennett, Jeanette & Smith, Michael - Frog and Toad lose control ... Mele, Alfred - Underestimating self-control: Kennett and Smith on Frog and Toad
03/27/2009
Frog & Toad: Analysis Vol 56 No 2 April 1996
Underestimating self-control: Analysis Vol 57 No 2 April 1997
Kennett & Smith:
This paper is written about the philosophical problem of self-control, specifically synchronic resistance, which is considered here by the authors as 'not to do what we most want to do' at the same time as we want to do it. This is separate from diachronic self-control, which is taking action now to resist acting on what you anticipate will be your strongest desire in the future (pg67-8). The premise of the problem is that action is produced from intrinsic desires of a certain strength mixing with beliefs, being transmitted rationally over 'the means-ends relation' into extrinsic desires of the same strength, then the strongest extrinsic desire becoming an action. The question is how you could avoid doing your strongest intrinsic desire; how self-control is possible synchronically.
The first explanation (1.) from Kennett & Smith is that there can be a failure in transmitting intrinsic desires into extrinsic ones: thus a stronger intrinsic desire for good health doesn't become a stronger extrinsic desire to avoid eating cookies (compared to a weaker intrinsic desire for sweets becoming the strongest extrinsic desire). This they consider to be a failure in instrumental rationality.
The second explanation (2.) for self-control is to be 'orthonomous', which is a kind of action that results when one is fully rational, not just instrumentally. To be 'fully rational' one needs to have 'knowledge of all the relevant facts' (pg66). Being orthonomous (having orthonomy) means acting according to what your desires would be if you were fully rational. So since it is fully rational to intrinsically desire good health over sweets, even if one had no extrinsic desires for good health, one could override extrinsic desires for sweets. Authors tell a tale for how this might be psychologically possible (pg66).
The next part of the paper (3.) tries to avoid a contradiction of the following form: I want most to eat sweets and want even more (more than most?) to prevent myself from eating treats. The solution is to treat the exercise of self-control as not a contradictory action (or a contradictory trying) but instead as the occurrence of thoughts and dispositions that allow the transmission of the relevant intrinsic desires for health across the means-ends relation (e.g. having thoughts that picture sweets as disgusting things). This 'doing' is not an action because, authors claim, it doesn't satisfy the standard picture that an action is a caused by a desire to x and then beliefs about how to get x. (pg69) Instead, having such thoughts enable orthonomy or a fix to one's instrumental rationality. (pg69-70)
Mele:
This response takes the premise of the Kennett & Smith paper to task as being faulty. The problem is that it's quite difficult to formulate how exactly the connection between intrinsic desires and intentional action is made. Author argues that Kennett & Smith's claim that 'whenever we do something [and whenever we try do to something] we want to do that thing more than we want to do anything else we can do' (K&S pg63) is just false, and gives a counterexample of sipping tea while reading article x. Certainly he wanted to read article x more than article y, but he didn't want to sip tea more than read article y. Yet he sipped tea nonetheless. The key here is that it is tricky to specify when and how desires will conflict in action and when they won't, and the possibility of instrumental irrationality makes any sort of mix possible. (pg120-121) (Here it seems author argues that because instrumental rationality is possible, so is it possible to desire to eat sweets and also desire to reduce that desire.) So it is certainly possible to have an intrinsic desire to reduce the power of the extrinsic desire of eating sweets (this would count as a second-order desire).
Mele also argues that, given instrumental irrationality, one can have a desire to engage in a 'picturing technique' that then enables synchronic self-control. But this desire would have been intentionally actional, a 'trying', and therefore allows that synchronic self-control can also be actional. (pg122)
Frog & Toad: Analysis Vol 56 No 2 April 1996
Underestimating self-control: Analysis Vol 57 No 2 April 1997
Kennett & Smith:
This paper is written about the philosophical problem of self-control, specifically synchronic resistance, which is considered here by the authors as 'not to do what we most want to do' at the same time as we want to do it. This is separate from diachronic self-control, which is taking action now to resist acting on what you anticipate will be your strongest desire in the future (pg67-8). The premise of the problem is that action is produced from intrinsic desires of a certain strength mixing with beliefs, being transmitted rationally over 'the means-ends relation' into extrinsic desires of the same strength, then the strongest extrinsic desire becoming an action. The question is how you could avoid doing your strongest intrinsic desire; how self-control is possible synchronically.
The first explanation (1.) from Kennett & Smith is that there can be a failure in transmitting intrinsic desires into extrinsic ones: thus a stronger intrinsic desire for good health doesn't become a stronger extrinsic desire to avoid eating cookies (compared to a weaker intrinsic desire for sweets becoming the strongest extrinsic desire). This they consider to be a failure in instrumental rationality.
The second explanation (2.) for self-control is to be 'orthonomous', which is a kind of action that results when one is fully rational, not just instrumentally. To be 'fully rational' one needs to have 'knowledge of all the relevant facts' (pg66). Being orthonomous (having orthonomy) means acting according to what your desires would be if you were fully rational. So since it is fully rational to intrinsically desire good health over sweets, even if one had no extrinsic desires for good health, one could override extrinsic desires for sweets. Authors tell a tale for how this might be psychologically possible (pg66).
The next part of the paper (3.) tries to avoid a contradiction of the following form: I want most to eat sweets and want even more (more than most?) to prevent myself from eating treats. The solution is to treat the exercise of self-control as not a contradictory action (or a contradictory trying) but instead as the occurrence of thoughts and dispositions that allow the transmission of the relevant intrinsic desires for health across the means-ends relation (e.g. having thoughts that picture sweets as disgusting things). This 'doing' is not an action because, authors claim, it doesn't satisfy the standard picture that an action is a caused by a desire to x and then beliefs about how to get x. (pg69) Instead, having such thoughts enable orthonomy or a fix to one's instrumental rationality. (pg69-70)
Mele:
This response takes the premise of the Kennett & Smith paper to task as being faulty. The problem is that it's quite difficult to formulate how exactly the connection between intrinsic desires and intentional action is made. Author argues that Kennett & Smith's claim that 'whenever we do something [and whenever we try do to something] we want to do that thing more than we want to do anything else we can do' (K&S pg63) is just false, and gives a counterexample of sipping tea while reading article x. Certainly he wanted to read article x more than article y, but he didn't want to sip tea more than read article y. Yet he sipped tea nonetheless. The key here is that it is tricky to specify when and how desires will conflict in action and when they won't, and the possibility of instrumental irrationality makes any sort of mix possible. (pg120-121) (Here it seems author argues that because instrumental rationality is possible, so is it possible to desire to eat sweets and also desire to reduce that desire.) So it is certainly possible to have an intrinsic desire to reduce the power of the extrinsic desire of eating sweets (this would count as a second-order desire).
Mele also argues that, given instrumental irrationality, one can have a desire to engage in a 'picturing technique' that then enables synchronic self-control. But this desire would have been intentionally actional, a 'trying', and therefore allows that synchronic self-control can also be actional. (pg122)
3/18/09
Weinberg, Steven - Without God
03/20/2009
The New York Review of Books Vol 55 No 14 Sept 25, 2008
A short article for the popular press, the first section discusses the 4 tensions author sees between religion and science, then the second section talks about how we can live without the concept of a deity.
Importantly, author doesn't see a tension in how religion has historically made pronouncements on how natural events work (e.g. world created in 6 days). Instead:
1) Belief in god is often marshaled as the best explanation for mysterious phenomena. As science has had the most success in explaining these phenomena, the appeal of belief in god has receded.
2) Humans' role in the order of the cosmos seems rather contingent and haphazard-- not 'special'-- especially with the advancement of theories of evolution and cosmology. Author argues that that consciousness seems to be the last bastion on specialness.
3) The theory that the world has natural, unbreakable laws (discovered by science) is contrary to god being omnipotent. Author argues this is more a Muslim rather than Christian tension, but also suggests that this argument has significantly affected the Islamic world's interest in religion.
4) Religion relies on authorities for its truth, science on discoveries that follow a formal process. While science has its heroes, the pronouncements of them is open, not closed like they can be in religious discourse.
The second part suggests some ways to live given that there is no belief in god and that 'the worldview of science is rather chilling'. Author suggests humor, 'ordinary pleasures' or the flesh, aesthetic pleasures (though he claims that without religion-inspired art, art wouldn't have as much of a history). Also, he makes the case that moral decline will not result from non-belief. Author argues that the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient god is a non-sequitur to moral theory anyway-- you have to decide whether to do what that god says or not anyway. But the greatest problem we have without god is that there is no afterlife now; author suggests that the possibility of an afterlife was never really that comforting in the first place.
The New York Review of Books Vol 55 No 14 Sept 25, 2008
A short article for the popular press, the first section discusses the 4 tensions author sees between religion and science, then the second section talks about how we can live without the concept of a deity.
Importantly, author doesn't see a tension in how religion has historically made pronouncements on how natural events work (e.g. world created in 6 days). Instead:
1) Belief in god is often marshaled as the best explanation for mysterious phenomena. As science has had the most success in explaining these phenomena, the appeal of belief in god has receded.
2) Humans' role in the order of the cosmos seems rather contingent and haphazard-- not 'special'-- especially with the advancement of theories of evolution and cosmology. Author argues that that consciousness seems to be the last bastion on specialness.
3) The theory that the world has natural, unbreakable laws (discovered by science) is contrary to god being omnipotent. Author argues this is more a Muslim rather than Christian tension, but also suggests that this argument has significantly affected the Islamic world's interest in religion.
4) Religion relies on authorities for its truth, science on discoveries that follow a formal process. While science has its heroes, the pronouncements of them is open, not closed like they can be in religious discourse.
The second part suggests some ways to live given that there is no belief in god and that 'the worldview of science is rather chilling'. Author suggests humor, 'ordinary pleasures' or the flesh, aesthetic pleasures (though he claims that without religion-inspired art, art wouldn't have as much of a history). Also, he makes the case that moral decline will not result from non-belief. Author argues that the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient god is a non-sequitur to moral theory anyway-- you have to decide whether to do what that god says or not anyway. But the greatest problem we have without god is that there is no afterlife now; author suggests that the possibility of an afterlife was never really that comforting in the first place.
3/13/09
Coyne, Jerry - Seeing and Believing: The neverending attempt to reconcile science and religion, and why it is doomed to fail
03/13/2009
The New Republic, Feb 4 2009
This is a book review of two attempts to show how belief in god and evolution are compatible, one by Giberson "Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution" and other by Miller "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul". Author believes that these attempts are flawed, as are all attempts to try to have science and religion coexist. The first thing that author discredits is the weak 'god is nature' argument offered by Spinoza, who has a cousin in Einstein's 'god is bewildering wonder' conception. This makes god 'meaningless'-- according to author a true reconciliation must be not through the eyes of liberal theologians but of the common theistic, interactive deity religion.
Author gives his analysis of the 4 traits of creationists:
1) Devout belief in god
2) God miraculously intervened in the development of life
3) One of these interventions was the creation of humans
4) All have some sort of 'irreducible complexity' argument about how evolution couldn't have produced such a complex system incrementally.
Both Miller and Giberson reject the theory of Intelligent Design. They credit the origin of ordinary Americans trying to put this into schools as a type of anti-authoritarian strand in American culture. They also place much of the vehement culture wars around this issue on the virulent atheists like Dawkins and Dennett.
Author claims the biggest part of the argument for compatibility is the evolutionary convergence, the 'niche' that humans occupy-- using a known evolutionary theory that the world constrains practical developments to favor things like wings, eyes, endoskeletons. Yet author argues that humans are a very unlikely convergence, having only evolved 'once, in Africa'.
The other argument for creationists is the 'fine tuning of the universe', which employs the idea that the universe needs to be set up to be 'just right' to allow life to evolve and thrive-- the so-called 'anthropic principle'. Author's reply to this is that science is working on it, and that, so far as we know, it was pretty inefficient to create the entire universe so that 14bn years later, humans would evolve.
Next, author considers Gould's NOMA: Non-Overlapping Magisteria and argues that it would be nice for religion to not make any claims about the natural world, but in practice it does, all the time. Also, if religion offers a type of 'truth', is it falsifiable? Is it anything like the truths offered as explanations for the natural world given by science?
Author believes that both Miller and Giberson eventually display 3/4 of the Creationist tennets: 1-3. The real conflict isn't between religion and science but between religion and 'secular reason'-- the kind of reason that believes that reason has to be shown in most other human pursuits-- and they are 'incompatible' as well. Perhaps they are compatible in the same sense you can commit adultery at the same time as being married, but this just shows that a person can keep contradictory concepts in mind, not that they are compatible, author quips. In the end, author argues that an endeavor that reconciles old-style religion (that includes creationism) is bound to be contradicted and defeated by, science.
The New Republic, Feb 4 2009
This is a book review of two attempts to show how belief in god and evolution are compatible, one by Giberson "Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution" and other by Miller "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul". Author believes that these attempts are flawed, as are all attempts to try to have science and religion coexist. The first thing that author discredits is the weak 'god is nature' argument offered by Spinoza, who has a cousin in Einstein's 'god is bewildering wonder' conception. This makes god 'meaningless'-- according to author a true reconciliation must be not through the eyes of liberal theologians but of the common theistic, interactive deity religion.
Author gives his analysis of the 4 traits of creationists:
1) Devout belief in god
2) God miraculously intervened in the development of life
3) One of these interventions was the creation of humans
4) All have some sort of 'irreducible complexity' argument about how evolution couldn't have produced such a complex system incrementally.
Both Miller and Giberson reject the theory of Intelligent Design. They credit the origin of ordinary Americans trying to put this into schools as a type of anti-authoritarian strand in American culture. They also place much of the vehement culture wars around this issue on the virulent atheists like Dawkins and Dennett.
Author claims the biggest part of the argument for compatibility is the evolutionary convergence, the 'niche' that humans occupy-- using a known evolutionary theory that the world constrains practical developments to favor things like wings, eyes, endoskeletons. Yet author argues that humans are a very unlikely convergence, having only evolved 'once, in Africa'.
The other argument for creationists is the 'fine tuning of the universe', which employs the idea that the universe needs to be set up to be 'just right' to allow life to evolve and thrive-- the so-called 'anthropic principle'. Author's reply to this is that science is working on it, and that, so far as we know, it was pretty inefficient to create the entire universe so that 14bn years later, humans would evolve.
Next, author considers Gould's NOMA: Non-Overlapping Magisteria and argues that it would be nice for religion to not make any claims about the natural world, but in practice it does, all the time. Also, if religion offers a type of 'truth', is it falsifiable? Is it anything like the truths offered as explanations for the natural world given by science?
Author believes that both Miller and Giberson eventually display 3/4 of the Creationist tennets: 1-3. The real conflict isn't between religion and science but between religion and 'secular reason'-- the kind of reason that believes that reason has to be shown in most other human pursuits-- and they are 'incompatible' as well. Perhaps they are compatible in the same sense you can commit adultery at the same time as being married, but this just shows that a person can keep contradictory concepts in mind, not that they are compatible, author quips. In the end, author argues that an endeavor that reconciles old-style religion (that includes creationism) is bound to be contradicted and defeated by, science.
3/6/09
Albert, David & Rivka, Galchen - A Quantum Threat
03/06/2009
Scientific American, March 2009
An article in a popular science magazine that gives a history and modern understanding on quantum physics and its relation to the theory of special relativity. The screwiest thing about quantum physics is its 'nonlocality', meaning that particles manage to affect each other without being next to each other, that is, without being local and having no intervening physical connection between them. This spooky action at a distance is what Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen declared, in their EPR argument, was the reason that quantum physics is an incomplete theory, missing part of reality. Bohr responded instead that this part of reality is just plain murky, and that physics should give up its quest to give a complete and finalized picture of the universe. This reply underwrote much of the philosophical approach of physics until the 1990s, when accurate models of the quantum realm began to gain strength. The drawback was that it seemed that Einstein's theory of special relativity was being theoretically threatened. Authors pinpoint Tim Maudlin's 1994 book Quantum Nonlocality and Relativity as one of the strongest challengers: entanglement of particles seems to involve 'absolute simultaneity' of causal or informational transmission, which is incompatible with the impossibility of faster-than-light transmissions postulated by special relativity.
The new science tries either to repair these problems for the two theories or to keep the tension and jettison a third 'primordial' assumption, for instance, that there is an exact physical condition of the world at a certain time.
Scientific American, March 2009
An article in a popular science magazine that gives a history and modern understanding on quantum physics and its relation to the theory of special relativity. The screwiest thing about quantum physics is its 'nonlocality', meaning that particles manage to affect each other without being next to each other, that is, without being local and having no intervening physical connection between them. This spooky action at a distance is what Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen declared, in their EPR argument, was the reason that quantum physics is an incomplete theory, missing part of reality. Bohr responded instead that this part of reality is just plain murky, and that physics should give up its quest to give a complete and finalized picture of the universe. This reply underwrote much of the philosophical approach of physics until the 1990s, when accurate models of the quantum realm began to gain strength. The drawback was that it seemed that Einstein's theory of special relativity was being theoretically threatened. Authors pinpoint Tim Maudlin's 1994 book Quantum Nonlocality and Relativity as one of the strongest challengers: entanglement of particles seems to involve 'absolute simultaneity' of causal or informational transmission, which is incompatible with the impossibility of faster-than-light transmissions postulated by special relativity.
The new science tries either to repair these problems for the two theories or to keep the tension and jettison a third 'primordial' assumption, for instance, that there is an exact physical condition of the world at a certain time.
2/27/09
Westphal, Jonathan - The future and the truth-value links: a common sense view
02/27/2009
Analysis, Vol 66 No 1 Jan 2006
This article gives an argument for the truth-value of future-tense sentences like 'I'm meeting with Johnson tomorrow.' Author's intention is to show that future events can make current ones about it true or false when uttered, though we have to wait until the future happens to determine which. He considers this the 'common sense view' that 'preserves bivalence' and also claims this conforms to Ockham's conception of time as given by Adams & Kretzman. This is contrary to the Aristotelean view that future-tense sentences have no truth value.
The problem with using the future to underwrite the truth-value of future-tense sentences is that you could get into trouble with a valid but unsound argument:
Let 'A' be a proposition about a future event E
1) if an event E is in the future, it isn't occurring now
2) E is in the future
3) E isn't not occurring
4) If A is true, E is now occurring
5) A is not true
6) A is false
Author believes that 4 is the false premise and wishes to re-write it to be:
4*) if A is true, E has occurred, or is occurring, or will occur.
Dummett offers a variety of views (that author expands upon) about the reality of the past, present, and future-- author likes this model, though it is 'still much too far away'. To bring out the value of eternalism for making future-tense sentences true, author discusses how a future-tensed sentence could be true when we have to wait for it (that is, wait until the future becomes the present) for it to be true. So 'I will meet Johnson' might be made true when I meet Johnson, except not really: the sentence 'I will meet Johnson' isn't made true when 'I meet Johnson', since the latter is a different sentence. The easy solution to the 'toy' problem is to claim that both sentences express the same proposition, namely '[I] [meeting] [Johnson] [date]'. This requires what Dummett calls 'truth-value links', which insist 'perforce' that if this proposition is true, it is true at all times, whether it has yet to occur, or has already occurred, or is now occurring.
The use of truth-value links bolsters only a conditional claim: if future-tense sentences can express true propositions, then present-tense sentences expressing the same proposition must be true once the future in question comes.
2/20/09
Westphal, Jonathan - The Retrenchability of 'The Present'
02/20/2009
Analysis, Vol 62 No 1 2002
This paper tries to undo the common problem of 'the present' as having no substance, no extension. St Agustine is quoted as framing the problem: the past just happened, the future is yet to happen. Anytime you look at a divisible section of time, some part is the future, some the past-- the present has no length. Author argues this is a fallacy of composition; Augustine insists that the whole of a unit of time must also be within one of its container units, e.g. the whole of 2001 must be within May 2001. Author argues this is an 'absurd' requirement, using a spatial analogy of 'here' in place of 'the present'. Yet the permissibility of using such a counter-example is disputed by GEL Owen, who defended the asymmetry of space to time for himself and Aristotle, on the argument that time past is irretreiveably closed while 'over there' and 'over here' is open, alterable. Author replies first by pointing out that he does not need to level symmerty between space and time for his analogy to be plausible. Secondly, author argues that 'the present' sometimes can count as a year, sometimes a month, depending on the context of use-- much like 'here'. Lastly, author points out that 'the present' is 'logically incomplete', requiring a determinant like 'day', 'epoch', 'election-cycle'. One curious problem might be that this doesn't seem to be the same with 'the future'.
Analysis, Vol 62 No 1 2002
This paper tries to undo the common problem of 'the present' as having no substance, no extension. St Agustine is quoted as framing the problem: the past just happened, the future is yet to happen. Anytime you look at a divisible section of time, some part is the future, some the past-- the present has no length. Author argues this is a fallacy of composition; Augustine insists that the whole of a unit of time must also be within one of its container units, e.g. the whole of 2001 must be within May 2001. Author argues this is an 'absurd' requirement, using a spatial analogy of 'here' in place of 'the present'. Yet the permissibility of using such a counter-example is disputed by GEL Owen, who defended the asymmetry of space to time for himself and Aristotle, on the argument that time past is irretreiveably closed while 'over there' and 'over here' is open, alterable. Author replies first by pointing out that he does not need to level symmerty between space and time for his analogy to be plausible. Secondly, author argues that 'the present' sometimes can count as a year, sometimes a month, depending on the context of use-- much like 'here'. Lastly, author points out that 'the present' is 'logically incomplete', requiring a determinant like 'day', 'epoch', 'election-cycle'. One curious problem might be that this doesn't seem to be the same with 'the future'.
2/13/09
Allen-Hermanson, Sean - Insects and the Problem of Simple Minds: Are Bees Natural Zombies?
02/13/2009
Journal of Philosophy, Vol 55 No 8 August 2008
This paper attempts to show that bees are natural zombies and lay out a kind of consciousness test for animals 'lower' on the phylogenetic scale from humans. The argument turns as follows: the phenomenon of blindsight can reasonably establish beliefs or proto-belief-like cognitive schemes without consciousness. Bees share analogous similarities with blindsighted chimpanzees, thus by analogy bees can be blindsighted-- like zombies. Author uses a representationalist theory of consciousness, which claims that the subjective nature of consciousness is exhausted by it's representational content. (pg390) There are two varieties of this theory, the FOT 'First-Order Thought' and the HOT 'Higher-Order Thought' theories. The major advantage of FOT is that it allows for non-human animals to have consciousness (pg391).
Author wants to use FOT but thinks that it is faced with a dilemma where it must either admit that anything that uses concepts/thinks/has beliefs is conscious, or that things that seem to employ proto-beliefs aren't doing so. (pg391) Author thinks that he can find a middle road where FOT doesn't fall into this trap by revising it into FOT*, where phenomenally conscious states are those sensory representations poised to construct first-order thoughts specific for action rather than conceptual adjustment and manipulation-- poised, 'abstract' [fuzzy?], non-conceptual 'dorsal-style'(pg406).
Author sketches FOT: phenomenal awareness depends on tokening first-order thoughts or judgments. FOT thinkers are Dretske, Tye, Kirk. (pg392-7) Author discusses the objection to the entire representationalist program is blindsight, which appears to give weird kinds of first-order thoughts but no consciousness. (pg397-408) The goal here is to discuss the problems with blindsight and conclude that though it is a difficult objection, it isn't devastating to FOT. One interesting discussion is about the 'two-systems' reply to blindsight where there is a 'ventral' and a 'dorsal' system of seeing, the former dealing with representing objects and the latter dealing with action with respect to those objects. (pg400)
Author moves to a study of purported blindsight in a monkey, where it is supposed to touch a button when there is 'no-stimulus' in the occluded field. Monkeys get this wrong by affirming 'no-stimulus' when there is one. But, on the other hand, under certain conditions they will also reliably find the stimulus when it is present (pg408-9) The next step is to imagine that there are some animals that are just like this naturally, 'natural zombies'. The honey bee is a possibility, something that shows world-mapping capabilities (proto-beliefs?) but probably couldn't distinguish whether there is a stimulus present or there is no stimulus, thus, author argues, establishing it as blindsighted, according to a theoretical scientific experiment he is proposing (pg410-413).
Journal of Philosophy, Vol 55 No 8 August 2008
This paper attempts to show that bees are natural zombies and lay out a kind of consciousness test for animals 'lower' on the phylogenetic scale from humans. The argument turns as follows: the phenomenon of blindsight can reasonably establish beliefs or proto-belief-like cognitive schemes without consciousness. Bees share analogous similarities with blindsighted chimpanzees, thus by analogy bees can be blindsighted-- like zombies. Author uses a representationalist theory of consciousness, which claims that the subjective nature of consciousness is exhausted by it's representational content. (pg390) There are two varieties of this theory, the FOT 'First-Order Thought' and the HOT 'Higher-Order Thought' theories. The major advantage of FOT is that it allows for non-human animals to have consciousness (pg391).
Author wants to use FOT but thinks that it is faced with a dilemma where it must either admit that anything that uses concepts/thinks/has beliefs is conscious, or that things that seem to employ proto-beliefs aren't doing so. (pg391) Author thinks that he can find a middle road where FOT doesn't fall into this trap by revising it into FOT*, where phenomenally conscious states are those sensory representations poised to construct first-order thoughts specific for action rather than conceptual adjustment and manipulation-- poised, 'abstract' [fuzzy?], non-conceptual 'dorsal-style'(pg406).
Author sketches FOT: phenomenal awareness depends on tokening first-order thoughts or judgments. FOT thinkers are Dretske, Tye, Kirk. (pg392-7) Author discusses the objection to the entire representationalist program is blindsight, which appears to give weird kinds of first-order thoughts but no consciousness. (pg397-408) The goal here is to discuss the problems with blindsight and conclude that though it is a difficult objection, it isn't devastating to FOT. One interesting discussion is about the 'two-systems' reply to blindsight where there is a 'ventral' and a 'dorsal' system of seeing, the former dealing with representing objects and the latter dealing with action with respect to those objects. (pg400)
Author moves to a study of purported blindsight in a monkey, where it is supposed to touch a button when there is 'no-stimulus' in the occluded field. Monkeys get this wrong by affirming 'no-stimulus' when there is one. But, on the other hand, under certain conditions they will also reliably find the stimulus when it is present (pg408-9) The next step is to imagine that there are some animals that are just like this naturally, 'natural zombies'. The honey bee is a possibility, something that shows world-mapping capabilities (proto-beliefs?) but probably couldn't distinguish whether there is a stimulus present or there is no stimulus, thus, author argues, establishing it as blindsighted, according to a theoretical scientific experiment he is proposing (pg410-413).
2/6/09
Read, Stephen - Monism: The One True Logic
02/06/2009
In this paper author attacks the logical pluralism of Beall and Restall, which tries to admit to classical, constructionist and situational logics as all equally valid. Author categorizes their argument as follows:
1. Validity (V) is defined as: (V) A conclusion 'A' follows from premises iff in any case the premises are true is also a case when A is true. (here cases are 'worlds' or 'constructions' or 'situations')
2. A 'logic' specifies the cases mentioned in (V)
3. There are at least two different specifications
(pg1)
Author represents Beall & Restall as reconstructing different times when (V) can be specified: in classical logic, (V) is preserved in 'complete and consistent situations' like 'worlds'. Constructive logic specifies (V) in possibly incomplete or indeterminate situations, and finally relevance logic specifies a logic that satisfies (V) in inconsistent situations. (pg1) Author now repeats Graham Priest's challenge to this account: take logic K1 and K2-- in K1 premises P imply conclusion C. In K2, P doesn't imply C. P is true. Is C true? Author argues this challenge forces the position that K1 is superior to K2 (K1 being classical logic here). (pg2-3)
Author believes that Beall & Restall's logical pluralism by trying to preserve truth under (V) will plunge into inconsistency (pg4), a major sticking point being the non-dialetheic paraconsistentist, who belives that Ex Falso Quodlibet (from a contradiction, anything follows) is invalid but also doesn't believe that contradictions can be true. (pg5-6) The Beall & Restall reply is to ask for not just truth-preservation but also relevance-preservation from (V), but author argues this doesn't fit the bill either (pg6).
The problem, author believes, is to try to write the semantics of non-classical logics in 'classical metalanguage'. This puts the classicist in an unfair advantage when evaluating validity (pg7). Author unravels this argument in the pages that follow (pg8-10), by the way examining the claims of Varzi and Yagisawa in trying to establish the coherency of possible impossible worlds. Author offers instead relevance logic as the one true logic and chastises Beall & Restall for 'combining non-classical theory with a classical metatheory' (pg9).
In this paper author attacks the logical pluralism of Beall and Restall, which tries to admit to classical, constructionist and situational logics as all equally valid. Author categorizes their argument as follows:
1. Validity (V) is defined as: (V) A conclusion 'A' follows from premises iff in any case the premises are true is also a case when A is true. (here cases are 'worlds' or 'constructions' or 'situations')
2. A 'logic' specifies the cases mentioned in (V)
3. There are at least two different specifications
(pg1)
Author represents Beall & Restall as reconstructing different times when (V) can be specified: in classical logic, (V) is preserved in 'complete and consistent situations' like 'worlds'. Constructive logic specifies (V) in possibly incomplete or indeterminate situations, and finally relevance logic specifies a logic that satisfies (V) in inconsistent situations. (pg1) Author now repeats Graham Priest's challenge to this account: take logic K1 and K2-- in K1 premises P imply conclusion C. In K2, P doesn't imply C. P is true. Is C true? Author argues this challenge forces the position that K1 is superior to K2 (K1 being classical logic here). (pg2-3)
Author believes that Beall & Restall's logical pluralism by trying to preserve truth under (V) will plunge into inconsistency (pg4), a major sticking point being the non-dialetheic paraconsistentist, who belives that Ex Falso Quodlibet (from a contradiction, anything follows) is invalid but also doesn't believe that contradictions can be true. (pg5-6) The Beall & Restall reply is to ask for not just truth-preservation but also relevance-preservation from (V), but author argues this doesn't fit the bill either (pg6).
The problem, author believes, is to try to write the semantics of non-classical logics in 'classical metalanguage'. This puts the classicist in an unfair advantage when evaluating validity (pg7). Author unravels this argument in the pages that follow (pg8-10), by the way examining the claims of Varzi and Yagisawa in trying to establish the coherency of possible impossible worlds. Author offers instead relevance logic as the one true logic and chastises Beall & Restall for 'combining non-classical theory with a classical metatheory' (pg9).
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