05/03/2013
Mathematics, Matter and Method
This article tries to take apart the "received view" about the relationship between scientific theories and observations, and between theoretical terms and observational ones. For author, there are two two-part distinctions: observation/theoretical terms and then observational/theoretical statements. Author asserts that the supposed problems that these distinctions are meant to fix are not really problems: (1) how to understand theoretical terms? (2) how do you make sure theories aren't fulfilling the evidence, rather than how it's 'supposed' to go? (pg216). And finally, that the distinctions are "broken-backed", meaning that they fail to distinguish (pg216-7).
Author starts with Carnap in his Testability and Meaning. Carnap's idea is that there is an "observation language" or vocabulary, and that these correspond to observable qualities; author then pushes Carnap about whether the terms could also apply to unobservable qualities. The problem: if the observation terms can only refer to observable things, author argues that "there are no observable terms" (pg218); or if they can, then there isn't a problem with talking about unobservables that can be solved with vocabulary. What is really happening here, according to author, is that unobservables are being conflated with theoretical ones. This is a mistake (pg219) and misses what is important about theories.
Author then takes a small interlude to move to discuss the "notion of 'partial interpretation'", first giving Carnap's assertion about it and then discussing how it has been "applied indiscriminately" to terms, theories, and languages (pg220-1). Author discusses various ways a "partial interpretation" could be employed (pg221) and proceeds to dissect each possible understanding in the following pages (pg222-4). Author employs an extended discussion of a common understanding of "soluble". The discussion is meant to ridicule Carnap's understanding of a "partial interpretation": for Carnap, when sugar cubes dissolve in water, what we should do is respecify the meanings of theoretic terms based on observation.
Author returns to what he considers to be the ersatz problem: giving meanings for theoretic terms. Author asks: why assume they should get their meanings from only observation terms? The worry about circularity is a worry that occurs in any language. Perhaps the worry is about how theoretic terms become used in a language: author explores these worries as well (pg225). Interestingly, author claims that language can introduce more refined expressions using less refined ones: "we use less-refined tools to manufacture more-refined ones" (pg226). The argument here is that it is simply not possible to introduce a term into a language that neither relies on imprecise "primitives" or other terms whose precise definition at some point doesn't rest on primitives (pg226).
4/19/13
Schaffner, Kenneth - Ernest Nagel and Reduction
04/18/2013
The Journal of Philosophy, Aug/Sept 2012
This is a long paper that explores Nagel's theory of reduction; how it has changed over time and how it relates to a current example. The author first gives Nagel's theory of reduction and its motivations. Nagel was following in the scientific tradition that was able to "absorb" other branches of science into mechanical models. Nagel's prototypical example is the reduction of "classical thermodynamics to statistical mechanics (SM)" (pg535). There were two types of reduction:
-homogeneous: no novel properties are introduced
-heterogeneous: properties are explained in terms of other ones: e.g. temperature to molecular energy
It was the heterogeneous reductions that were the more interesting, though they do not eliminate the earlier "folk" categories. (pg535-6)
Author recaps the various conditions that Nagel placed on theory reduction:
-That hypotheses and axioms take the form of explicit statements whose meanings are fixed by the discipline (pg536-7) (these were Nagel's first and second conditions; author calls them "0").
-Deriviability: the laws of the reduced science are the logical consequence of the reducing science's "theoretical assumptions" (pg537).
-Connectability: terms in the reduced science must be connected somehow to the reducing science using additional "assumptions" (pg537-8).
Author then discusses the extensions and revisions to Nagel's model, first from his own work in creating the "Generic Reduction Replacement" system, in which obsolete or discredited theories could also be reduced (pg540). Also discussed were alternatives like Wimsatt's claims that it isn't theories that should be reduced but "mechanisms" (pg541-2) or a kind of eliminatist-reconstruction "New Wave" advocated by the Churchlands (pg542). Finally, author talks about the functionalist approach to mind and the complications brought on by arguments about multiple realizability (pg543-4). The next section talks about the response to Nagel's model in the 21st century, starting with Hartmann's and (separately) Butterfield's defense of Nagel. The first part of this discussion is about derivability where the concern is over whether the reducing theory's connections can be stronger than a "strong analogy" to the reduced theory (pg545-6). The emerging defenses mainly argue that there is no need to have an overarching concept or definition of "analogy", and that reducing theories need only have an analogy to the reduced (pg545-8). Next is a discussion of connectability, specifically about the nature of the "bridge-laws" or "connectability assumptions". Here author defends his own view that these are synthetic, extensional connections against the two-part analysis of Dizadji-Bahmani that argues that identity statements are internal to a reducing theory, but bridge laws are external to that reducing theory (pg548).
Because "actual reduction is hard to do", there has been a rise in discussions about partial reduction (pg549). Author advocates that the more common types of reduction are 'patchy/local/creeping', at least in the e.g. biological or neurosciences (pg550). However, author gives a lengthy summary in the next section of a systematic reduction of optics undertaken by Sommerfeld (pg551-9). The extended example begins with stressing the importance of Nagel's first condition, that the formulations for both reduced and reducing theories be explicitly stated and connected. Another primary take-away is that the equations used for reduction are more simple than the more "complex and rigorous" (pg556) Maxwell ones, and that in some places, notably when experimenting with diffraction, the Maxwell equations do not provide a rigorous reduction (pg557-8). But author's reading of this, backed up by successive analyses from e.g. Boooker & Jackson, Saatsi & Vicker is that this is a good case of his GRR, where the reducing theory corrects the reduced but does not give a rigorous reduction because it relies on analogy (pg558). However, all-told, even in sciences where there can be significant reduction, there are failures "at the margins" (pg559).
In the penultimate section author talks about the conditions for partial reduction. Author gives a general suggestion: partial reductions should be treated as completed reductions but ones that have exceptions (pg562-3). Author also adds another condition to his GRR that is much like Nagel's original condition of explicit formulations, roughly, that there must be enough codification of hypotheses and theories that can allow for a judgment about whether reduction is successful (pg563).
The Journal of Philosophy, Aug/Sept 2012
This is a long paper that explores Nagel's theory of reduction; how it has changed over time and how it relates to a current example. The author first gives Nagel's theory of reduction and its motivations. Nagel was following in the scientific tradition that was able to "absorb" other branches of science into mechanical models. Nagel's prototypical example is the reduction of "classical thermodynamics to statistical mechanics (SM)" (pg535). There were two types of reduction:
-homogeneous: no novel properties are introduced
-heterogeneous: properties are explained in terms of other ones: e.g. temperature to molecular energy
It was the heterogeneous reductions that were the more interesting, though they do not eliminate the earlier "folk" categories. (pg535-6)
Author recaps the various conditions that Nagel placed on theory reduction:
-That hypotheses and axioms take the form of explicit statements whose meanings are fixed by the discipline (pg536-7) (these were Nagel's first and second conditions; author calls them "0").
-Deriviability: the laws of the reduced science are the logical consequence of the reducing science's "theoretical assumptions" (pg537).
-Connectability: terms in the reduced science must be connected somehow to the reducing science using additional "assumptions" (pg537-8).
Author then discusses the extensions and revisions to Nagel's model, first from his own work in creating the "Generic Reduction Replacement" system, in which obsolete or discredited theories could also be reduced (pg540). Also discussed were alternatives like Wimsatt's claims that it isn't theories that should be reduced but "mechanisms" (pg541-2) or a kind of eliminatist-reconstruction "New Wave" advocated by the Churchlands (pg542). Finally, author talks about the functionalist approach to mind and the complications brought on by arguments about multiple realizability (pg543-4). The next section talks about the response to Nagel's model in the 21st century, starting with Hartmann's and (separately) Butterfield's defense of Nagel. The first part of this discussion is about derivability where the concern is over whether the reducing theory's connections can be stronger than a "strong analogy" to the reduced theory (pg545-6). The emerging defenses mainly argue that there is no need to have an overarching concept or definition of "analogy", and that reducing theories need only have an analogy to the reduced (pg545-8). Next is a discussion of connectability, specifically about the nature of the "bridge-laws" or "connectability assumptions". Here author defends his own view that these are synthetic, extensional connections against the two-part analysis of Dizadji-Bahmani that argues that identity statements are internal to a reducing theory, but bridge laws are external to that reducing theory (pg548).
Because "actual reduction is hard to do", there has been a rise in discussions about partial reduction (pg549). Author advocates that the more common types of reduction are 'patchy/local/creeping', at least in the e.g. biological or neurosciences (pg550). However, author gives a lengthy summary in the next section of a systematic reduction of optics undertaken by Sommerfeld (pg551-9). The extended example begins with stressing the importance of Nagel's first condition, that the formulations for both reduced and reducing theories be explicitly stated and connected. Another primary take-away is that the equations used for reduction are more simple than the more "complex and rigorous" (pg556) Maxwell ones, and that in some places, notably when experimenting with diffraction, the Maxwell equations do not provide a rigorous reduction (pg557-8). But author's reading of this, backed up by successive analyses from e.g. Boooker & Jackson, Saatsi & Vicker is that this is a good case of his GRR, where the reducing theory corrects the reduced but does not give a rigorous reduction because it relies on analogy (pg558). However, all-told, even in sciences where there can be significant reduction, there are failures "at the margins" (pg559).
In the penultimate section author talks about the conditions for partial reduction. Author gives a general suggestion: partial reductions should be treated as completed reductions but ones that have exceptions (pg562-3). Author also adds another condition to his GRR that is much like Nagel's original condition of explicit formulations, roughly, that there must be enough codification of hypotheses and theories that can allow for a judgment about whether reduction is successful (pg563).
4/12/13
Suppes, Patrick - Reflections on Ernest Nagel's 1977 Dewey Lectures Teleology Revisited
04/12/2013
The Journal of Philosophy, Aug/Sept 2012
This paper is a summary and examination of Nagel's 1961 chapters on biological teleology and Nagel's further arguments in the 1977 Dewey lectures. In the first section, author reviews Nagel's 1961 arguments against teleological explanation being "essential" to biology: (1) the teleological can be given analogues with the mechanical, (2) the teleological used to be the account for most physical processes, which have since been replaced by the mechanical (thus teleology in biology might be only provisional). Nagel's point is that a type of system theory will also do for biological explanation, that that biology doesn't require "a radically distinctive logic of inquiry". (pg506)
In the next section, author skips to Nagel's 1977 discussions of the various shortcomings of newer theories about explanation in biology. One analysis is of Mayr's "program" view, which separates some biological functions into the "teleomatic" and the "teleonomic" (pg507). The teleomatic is "automatic, as is the case for many human habits" and the teleonomic is more in line with the teleological. Author summarizes Nagel's main objections: That just because a process is controlled by a program does not mean it's teleological, and finding a good criterion to distinguish between the supposed two kinds of programs is not possible. The last part of this section includes Nagel's restatement of his theory which is now called the "system-property view", which includes a difficulty with variables that are not "determinantly connected by known laws of nature" (pg508).
Section III examines the second half of chapter 12 in Nagel's The Structure of Science. In it, Nagel responds to the arguments offered by biologists resisting reduction of biology to physics. Nagel concludes that though this is not possible (yet), there must remain this possibility (pg509). The next section author shows Nagel's discussion of functional explanations and focuses on Nagel's criticisms of functional explanations that may smuggle in teleology, such as: "blood contains leucocytes for the sake of defending the body against invading bacteria." (pg510). Nagel deals with Hempel's analysis of the possibility of multiple causes (pg511) and also a view Nagel is sympathetic to in Michael Ruse's "welfare" view. Nagel's views are summarized on the bottom of pg512. The final section of the paper is author's comments on biological explanation with particular extended discussion on how solving the problem of consciousness will lead to ever more intermixing of physics, chemistry, and biology.
The Journal of Philosophy, Aug/Sept 2012
This paper is a summary and examination of Nagel's 1961 chapters on biological teleology and Nagel's further arguments in the 1977 Dewey lectures. In the first section, author reviews Nagel's 1961 arguments against teleological explanation being "essential" to biology: (1) the teleological can be given analogues with the mechanical, (2) the teleological used to be the account for most physical processes, which have since been replaced by the mechanical (thus teleology in biology might be only provisional). Nagel's point is that a type of system theory will also do for biological explanation, that that biology doesn't require "a radically distinctive logic of inquiry". (pg506)
In the next section, author skips to Nagel's 1977 discussions of the various shortcomings of newer theories about explanation in biology. One analysis is of Mayr's "program" view, which separates some biological functions into the "teleomatic" and the "teleonomic" (pg507). The teleomatic is "automatic, as is the case for many human habits" and the teleonomic is more in line with the teleological. Author summarizes Nagel's main objections: That just because a process is controlled by a program does not mean it's teleological, and finding a good criterion to distinguish between the supposed two kinds of programs is not possible. The last part of this section includes Nagel's restatement of his theory which is now called the "system-property view", which includes a difficulty with variables that are not "determinantly connected by known laws of nature" (pg508).
Section III examines the second half of chapter 12 in Nagel's The Structure of Science. In it, Nagel responds to the arguments offered by biologists resisting reduction of biology to physics. Nagel concludes that though this is not possible (yet), there must remain this possibility (pg509). The next section author shows Nagel's discussion of functional explanations and focuses on Nagel's criticisms of functional explanations that may smuggle in teleology, such as: "blood contains leucocytes for the sake of defending the body against invading bacteria." (pg510). Nagel deals with Hempel's analysis of the possibility of multiple causes (pg511) and also a view Nagel is sympathetic to in Michael Ruse's "welfare" view. Nagel's views are summarized on the bottom of pg512. The final section of the paper is author's comments on biological explanation with particular extended discussion on how solving the problem of consciousness will lead to ever more intermixing of physics, chemistry, and biology.
4/5/13
Adams, Robert Merrihew - Involuntary Sins
04/05/2013
The Philosophical Review, Vol 44, No 1 (Jan 1985)
Author has a thesis that there can be moral wrongdoing that is non-voluntary. The paradigm example is of improper or disproportionate anger, that doesn't manifest itself in voluntary action. Just the mental state itself is morally culpable or wrong.
Author first addresses the alternatives to the theory that there are "involuntary sins". The first alternative is that involuntary acts like disproportionate anger is only wrong due to tending to be displayed in voluntary actions (pg 4-6). If this were possible then the counter-example of (involuntary) self-righteousness would not be morally offensive because the voluntary actions stemming from those motivations are all exemplary. It is instead the attitude or motivation that is offensive, and author argues that such an attitude for self-righteousness is non-voluntary (pg6).
The second alternative understands mental states to be blameworthy, but re-interprets all such states to be voluntary (pg6-11). For author, this argument may possibly work if one equates operations of the will to be the same as "voluntary", but really what author is getting at is activity under the subject's control-- a subset of the will but one author finds no "simple matter" to explain (pg6-7). Author undertakes this explanation (pg 8-9) and the analysis contains as its key a "trying" or meaning to do something; in other words: you can't try to do something you don't have any control over. Of course this analysis largely excludes desires and emotions since such are commonly understood as reactive and not apt to be tried to be had (pg9-10). After this understanding, author talks about the virtues of having a soul to be ordered like the American system of government: with checks, balances, and different parts working independently but all for the benefit of the same entity.
The third alternative is that we can be blameworthy for mental states only due to the indirect control we have over them: through "self-culture" (pg11-14). Author uses an example of unconscious ingratitude toward a benefactress as being blameworthy despite no indirect control or even consciousness over the attitude (pg12-13).
Author next tries to clarify the affirmative position: it does not preclude moral approbation for striving to have the right attitudes, but it does go further to find it morally wrong to have the wrong ones-- even when they are out of a subject's control (pg14-15). Interestingly, author talks about taking responsibility for having a bad attitude, as a kind of ownership-taking, not essentially tied to voluntary action (pg15-16). The next section explores the nature of "cognitive sins": it doesn't matter if you're conscious of having them, or that you may be ignorant of your propensity or having of them (pg17-18). Author takes some time to combat Donagan's claims about negligence around moral beliefs and attitudes (pg19-20).
Author tries to confront what seems like a reasonable account from Blum, which argues that while attitudes can be morally bad/good, involuntary ones aren't blameworthy but do underwrite being thought of "poorly". In other words, the ingrate isn't blameworthy but considered poorly. (pg21- ) Author believes that the theory can accommodate some of this intuition by varying the kinds of appropriate responses to involuntary sins: they aren't punishable as voluntary ones are (pg21), but instead subject to reproach, which is a form of blaming (pg22).
Another objection comes from a kind of slippery slope argument, that asserts that if humans can be blameworthy for non-voluntary factors, why can't we also be blameworthy for things that don't seem moral: like not being athletic or musical. Author suggests that a cognition of moral relevance will partly do the work, and also proposes some general guidelines: (1) these are states of mind (2) directed at intentional object(s) (3) that have their causes within a rich-enough psychology to appreciate moral relevance, (4) and have alternatives that can be grasped by the intellect. (pg25-7). What is also part of this theory is that it is not wrong to desire something that is not inherently bad-- in other words bad only if acted upon, or due to bad consequences (pg27-8). Next, author tries to clarify his theory with determinism; the theory would fit with both compatibilism or incompatibilism with some sort of agent or "substance" causation.
The Philosophical Review, Vol 44, No 1 (Jan 1985)
Author has a thesis that there can be moral wrongdoing that is non-voluntary. The paradigm example is of improper or disproportionate anger, that doesn't manifest itself in voluntary action. Just the mental state itself is morally culpable or wrong.
Author first addresses the alternatives to the theory that there are "involuntary sins". The first alternative is that involuntary acts like disproportionate anger is only wrong due to tending to be displayed in voluntary actions (pg 4-6). If this were possible then the counter-example of (involuntary) self-righteousness would not be morally offensive because the voluntary actions stemming from those motivations are all exemplary. It is instead the attitude or motivation that is offensive, and author argues that such an attitude for self-righteousness is non-voluntary (pg6).
The second alternative understands mental states to be blameworthy, but re-interprets all such states to be voluntary (pg6-11). For author, this argument may possibly work if one equates operations of the will to be the same as "voluntary", but really what author is getting at is activity under the subject's control-- a subset of the will but one author finds no "simple matter" to explain (pg6-7). Author undertakes this explanation (pg 8-9) and the analysis contains as its key a "trying" or meaning to do something; in other words: you can't try to do something you don't have any control over. Of course this analysis largely excludes desires and emotions since such are commonly understood as reactive and not apt to be tried to be had (pg9-10). After this understanding, author talks about the virtues of having a soul to be ordered like the American system of government: with checks, balances, and different parts working independently but all for the benefit of the same entity.
The third alternative is that we can be blameworthy for mental states only due to the indirect control we have over them: through "self-culture" (pg11-14). Author uses an example of unconscious ingratitude toward a benefactress as being blameworthy despite no indirect control or even consciousness over the attitude (pg12-13).
Author next tries to clarify the affirmative position: it does not preclude moral approbation for striving to have the right attitudes, but it does go further to find it morally wrong to have the wrong ones-- even when they are out of a subject's control (pg14-15). Interestingly, author talks about taking responsibility for having a bad attitude, as a kind of ownership-taking, not essentially tied to voluntary action (pg15-16). The next section explores the nature of "cognitive sins": it doesn't matter if you're conscious of having them, or that you may be ignorant of your propensity or having of them (pg17-18). Author takes some time to combat Donagan's claims about negligence around moral beliefs and attitudes (pg19-20).
Author tries to confront what seems like a reasonable account from Blum, which argues that while attitudes can be morally bad/good, involuntary ones aren't blameworthy but do underwrite being thought of "poorly". In other words, the ingrate isn't blameworthy but considered poorly. (pg21- ) Author believes that the theory can accommodate some of this intuition by varying the kinds of appropriate responses to involuntary sins: they aren't punishable as voluntary ones are (pg21), but instead subject to reproach, which is a form of blaming (pg22).
Another objection comes from a kind of slippery slope argument, that asserts that if humans can be blameworthy for non-voluntary factors, why can't we also be blameworthy for things that don't seem moral: like not being athletic or musical. Author suggests that a cognition of moral relevance will partly do the work, and also proposes some general guidelines: (1) these are states of mind (2) directed at intentional object(s) (3) that have their causes within a rich-enough psychology to appreciate moral relevance, (4) and have alternatives that can be grasped by the intellect. (pg25-7). What is also part of this theory is that it is not wrong to desire something that is not inherently bad-- in other words bad only if acted upon, or due to bad consequences (pg27-8). Next, author tries to clarify his theory with determinism; the theory would fit with both compatibilism or incompatibilism with some sort of agent or "substance" causation.
3/29/13
Dworkin, Ronald - Religion Without God
03/29/2013
The New York Review, April 4, 2013
This is an excerpt of the first chapter of author's posthumously published book. Author starts by arguing that the divide between the non-religious and the religious is too crude. Plenty of people who don't believe in a personal god have beliefs that there is a "force" that is "bigger than themselves". This can be available to the atheist as well as the theist. Author argues that there can be such a thing as a religious atheist, and uses Einstein as an example: "It was Einstein's faith that some transcendental and objective value permeates the universe, value that is neither a natural phenomenon nor a subjective reaction to natural phenomena." But then if there is a religious atheist, there needs to be a good definition of "religion", which is difficult, according to author, since use of the word is partially meant to define it-- an "interpretative concept". Instead, author opts to look for a "revealing" ideal use of the word. What is the point of such an exercise? For author, it could perhaps help separate questions of science from questions of value; shrinking the impetus for cultural and value wars.
Author attempts to give some structure to a "religious attitude" by claiming it involves making both the "biological and biographical" sources of intrinsic value: that to be religious entails believing there are intrinsic values relating to both human life and the world we inhabit. Of course the problem now is to find out what those values are, and how they are known (hint: traditionally, a god told them to us).
First off, there is a dichotomy between the religious and the naturalist-- for author-- someone who believes that all there is can be revealed by the natural sciences. Another thing the religious attitude is not: it isn't "grounded realism", which takes values to be real but only due to some natural capacity to reason about them. For author, the religious means that value is both "self contained and self-certifying". During this discussion, author defines the term "faith" as well, as, in the first order, that "we accept a felt, inescapable conviction rather than the benediction of some independent means of verification as the final arbiter of what we are entitled to responsibly believe". Author means to include mathematics, logic, and science into what is fundamentally taken on faith. Faith when it comes to value contains another layer, since emotion is part of convictions about value. The point here for author is that the realm of value is about objectively true things (for the religious person) and it is self-justifying. It is not, as some theists believe, that god underwrites values. Author embarks on a description of the 3 abrahamic religions as two-parted: one is a science part and the other is a value part. The science part gives answers to tough questions, and god is included in the story. But, author claims, the science part cannot ground the value part, since they are conceptually distinct. "The universe cannot be intrinsically beautiful just because it was created to be beautiful". Ultimately, author says that values justify themselves within a larger scheme of value, and that a god is conceptually distinct from this.
The New York Review, April 4, 2013
This is an excerpt of the first chapter of author's posthumously published book. Author starts by arguing that the divide between the non-religious and the religious is too crude. Plenty of people who don't believe in a personal god have beliefs that there is a "force" that is "bigger than themselves". This can be available to the atheist as well as the theist. Author argues that there can be such a thing as a religious atheist, and uses Einstein as an example: "It was Einstein's faith that some transcendental and objective value permeates the universe, value that is neither a natural phenomenon nor a subjective reaction to natural phenomena." But then if there is a religious atheist, there needs to be a good definition of "religion", which is difficult, according to author, since use of the word is partially meant to define it-- an "interpretative concept". Instead, author opts to look for a "revealing" ideal use of the word. What is the point of such an exercise? For author, it could perhaps help separate questions of science from questions of value; shrinking the impetus for cultural and value wars.
Author attempts to give some structure to a "religious attitude" by claiming it involves making both the "biological and biographical" sources of intrinsic value: that to be religious entails believing there are intrinsic values relating to both human life and the world we inhabit. Of course the problem now is to find out what those values are, and how they are known (hint: traditionally, a god told them to us).
First off, there is a dichotomy between the religious and the naturalist-- for author-- someone who believes that all there is can be revealed by the natural sciences. Another thing the religious attitude is not: it isn't "grounded realism", which takes values to be real but only due to some natural capacity to reason about them. For author, the religious means that value is both "self contained and self-certifying". During this discussion, author defines the term "faith" as well, as, in the first order, that "we accept a felt, inescapable conviction rather than the benediction of some independent means of verification as the final arbiter of what we are entitled to responsibly believe". Author means to include mathematics, logic, and science into what is fundamentally taken on faith. Faith when it comes to value contains another layer, since emotion is part of convictions about value. The point here for author is that the realm of value is about objectively true things (for the religious person) and it is self-justifying. It is not, as some theists believe, that god underwrites values. Author embarks on a description of the 3 abrahamic religions as two-parted: one is a science part and the other is a value part. The science part gives answers to tough questions, and god is included in the story. But, author claims, the science part cannot ground the value part, since they are conceptually distinct. "The universe cannot be intrinsically beautiful just because it was created to be beautiful". Ultimately, author says that values justify themselves within a larger scheme of value, and that a god is conceptually distinct from this.
3/22/13
Guyer, Paul - Passion for Reason: Hume, Kant, and the Motivation for Morality
03/22/2013
Proceedings and Addresses of the APA Vol 86 Issue 2 (Eastern Div)
This is a paper that tries to find some common ground between Hume's conception of morality as grounded in the passions and Kant's as grounded in a duty to law. The first part starts with an examination and summary of Hume's conception of moral principles as motivational, and thus not the sort of thing that reason, analyzed as "relations of ideas" and "matters of fact" is suited to provide (pg5-6). In order to be moved to action we must first have a preference; reason doesn't play that part (pg6).
After this familiar distinction between reasoning and moral sentiment, Hume still tries to explain why we elide them so much: it is because reasoning is a calm activity, as is the realization of moral sentiment-- it too is mostly done calmly (pg7). Author argues further that Hume is offering a more substantive theory: that humans deeply prefer calm and tranquility. Here author reasons that the opposite of a calm passion is a violent one, and a preference for calm would be a preference for freedom from a violent passion, hence humans can have a calm preference for calm freedom (pg7). Author then takes some time to unpack Hume's discussion on the different preferential qualities, focusing specifically on "tranquility" as very highly regarded. Hume means to have the passion for tranquility as both other- and self-regarding, and also argues that this passion must be a calm passion, since it seems absurd to have a violent passion for tranquility (pg8). Thus, according to Hume, we have a strong calm passion for tranquility, the freedom from importune passions.
The next discussion is about Kant, and starts with his famous claim about moral motivation having nothing to do with personal gratification or inclination (pg9). But author argues that Kant believed that reason was not an ultimate end but an instrumental one to attain freedom (pg10-11). The idea author argues for is that, for Kant, we have a passion for our own individual freedom, but reason recognizes that this is universalizeable and thus the passion for (individual) freedom is transformed through reason into some kind of non-passionate motivation for universal freedom (pg11-2). Author first reads Kant's two major formulations in the Groundwork to be relating to securing freedom of choice for all rational actors (pg13). Interestingly, author acknowledges that Kant's version of freedom isn't the negative version of freedom from urgent passions but a positive version of freedom to set one's own ends (pg14). Then, author reads portions of Kant's Critique to suggest that once reason has determined the will to the proper course, it has to pass through the eye of pleasure/pain in motivation before it gets to action (pg14-5). Author goes on to talk about how Kant lists a 'panoply' of aesthetic and/or emotional ways in which humans susceptible to duty (reason) in action (pg15-6). The conclusion is that, for Kant, the self-regarding passion in freedom is molded by reason into a universal concern for the freedom of all (pg17), and becomes a type of "enthusiasm".
Proceedings and Addresses of the APA Vol 86 Issue 2 (Eastern Div)
This is a paper that tries to find some common ground between Hume's conception of morality as grounded in the passions and Kant's as grounded in a duty to law. The first part starts with an examination and summary of Hume's conception of moral principles as motivational, and thus not the sort of thing that reason, analyzed as "relations of ideas" and "matters of fact" is suited to provide (pg5-6). In order to be moved to action we must first have a preference; reason doesn't play that part (pg6).
After this familiar distinction between reasoning and moral sentiment, Hume still tries to explain why we elide them so much: it is because reasoning is a calm activity, as is the realization of moral sentiment-- it too is mostly done calmly (pg7). Author argues further that Hume is offering a more substantive theory: that humans deeply prefer calm and tranquility. Here author reasons that the opposite of a calm passion is a violent one, and a preference for calm would be a preference for freedom from a violent passion, hence humans can have a calm preference for calm freedom (pg7). Author then takes some time to unpack Hume's discussion on the different preferential qualities, focusing specifically on "tranquility" as very highly regarded. Hume means to have the passion for tranquility as both other- and self-regarding, and also argues that this passion must be a calm passion, since it seems absurd to have a violent passion for tranquility (pg8). Thus, according to Hume, we have a strong calm passion for tranquility, the freedom from importune passions.
The next discussion is about Kant, and starts with his famous claim about moral motivation having nothing to do with personal gratification or inclination (pg9). But author argues that Kant believed that reason was not an ultimate end but an instrumental one to attain freedom (pg10-11). The idea author argues for is that, for Kant, we have a passion for our own individual freedom, but reason recognizes that this is universalizeable and thus the passion for (individual) freedom is transformed through reason into some kind of non-passionate motivation for universal freedom (pg11-2). Author first reads Kant's two major formulations in the Groundwork to be relating to securing freedom of choice for all rational actors (pg13). Interestingly, author acknowledges that Kant's version of freedom isn't the negative version of freedom from urgent passions but a positive version of freedom to set one's own ends (pg14). Then, author reads portions of Kant's Critique to suggest that once reason has determined the will to the proper course, it has to pass through the eye of pleasure/pain in motivation before it gets to action (pg14-5). Author goes on to talk about how Kant lists a 'panoply' of aesthetic and/or emotional ways in which humans susceptible to duty (reason) in action (pg15-6). The conclusion is that, for Kant, the self-regarding passion in freedom is molded by reason into a universal concern for the freedom of all (pg17), and becomes a type of "enthusiasm".
3/15/13
Railton, Peter - That Obscure Object, Desire
03/15/2013
American Philosophical Association Proceedings, Vol 86 Issue 2 (2012)
Author starts by recounting some damaging attacks on the concept of desire. It used to be thought that desire + belief could rationalize action, but Quinn, Scanlon, and Parfit all attacked this notion, saying it was too primitive to be counted: a desire as a disposition to bring about P (if the appropriate beliefs were true), is not enough to give a reason for the action: there needs to be something more, something about the P or the subject that explains or gives reason for P (a "desirability characteristic")(pg22-3). Author aims to reply to these attacks here.
Author first considers whether a desire as merely a disposition to act is too bare, and revisits Hume's original formulation of a non-normative passion, something not subject to reasoning (pg23). Author takes a biographical interlude to discuss advertising and how it hopes to affect its viewer: "by liking an image, we could come to want what it represents" (pg24). This first formulation is the simple Humean or neo-Humean model of having a disposition toward effecting P (pg25). One upshot of this understanding of the installation of a disposition toward P (through advertising) is that, to author, desire is "creative". Not just in the instrumental sense but in the sense that thoughts, beliefs, and experiences can create new desires in the subject. Secondly, contra the behaviorists, desire is teleological (pg26-7). Thus, this first formulation is rationally intelligible. Author goes over the etymology of the words desire, want, and like (pg28). Upon revisiting the counterexample offered by Quinn, the Radio Man, who has a "desire" by having the disposition to turn on radios whenever he is near them, author seems to agree with Quinn that what is lacking is the desire (pg29). Author proceeds to the instrumental elements of desire that rhyme with an Aristotelian schema (pg30-1), calling it "appetitive intellect" or "intellectual appetition". But author also shows the two-fold character of desire: one is the "positive affective attraction" and the other is "focused appetitive striving" (pg31).
Author comes around again to the problem with the formulation of desire as a disposition toward P: it fails to capture that desire is a "pro-attitude" (pg32). It is an attitude that is like other emotions, it is regulative on our actions, and also our actions provide feedback to our emotions. Author explores this feed-back relationship through a proxy discussion of fear and confidence (pg33-5). Author incorporates the feedback related to desire into a newer formulation (pg36).
After the more inclusive focumlation, author takes a look at the empirical side of desire in a modern-day psychology course. There, the old categories of want/preference/desire and models of drives and satiation were significantly outdated (pg36-7). The inadequacy of the philosophical formulation, even the prospective/retrospective one author had come to recently, was brought out in the discussion of addiction. In addiction, the pleasure in the experience attenuates and even can become nil but the compulsion to engage in the experience persists. There was a distinction between affect and "incentive salience" (pg37), or wanting (a difference between appreciating P and wanting P). Addictive drugs operate directly on the 'wanting' system, skipping the recalibration and influence of the 'liking' system (pg37). Author goes further into the science of affect, and comes away with 2 broad conclusions: (1) Affect permeates perception and cognition, as well as decision-making (pg38), and (2) any possible distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive affect is not possible. "Cognitive appraisal" is relevant to all affective states, and affect itself is information-giving and proto-normative (pg39).
Returning to meld the psychology of desire with its updated philosophy, author first talks about a 'prospective model' of the world that (constitutionally?) involves affect (pg39-40). Another lesson brought out by talking about modeling the environment to shape expectations and affect, is that desire does not aim baldly, but "under a favorable representation" (pg41). What emerges is that desire is good at aiming at (evolutionary) goods, just like perception is good at aiming at (evolutionarily relevant) truths (pg41). Author walks through a series of disputes in the philosophy of desire and motivation using the prospective model formulated earlier, discussing Parfit, Frankfurt, Williams and finally squaring it with Hume (pg42-5).
American Philosophical Association Proceedings, Vol 86 Issue 2 (2012)
Author starts by recounting some damaging attacks on the concept of desire. It used to be thought that desire + belief could rationalize action, but Quinn, Scanlon, and Parfit all attacked this notion, saying it was too primitive to be counted: a desire as a disposition to bring about P (if the appropriate beliefs were true), is not enough to give a reason for the action: there needs to be something more, something about the P or the subject that explains or gives reason for P (a "desirability characteristic")(pg22-3). Author aims to reply to these attacks here.
Author first considers whether a desire as merely a disposition to act is too bare, and revisits Hume's original formulation of a non-normative passion, something not subject to reasoning (pg23). Author takes a biographical interlude to discuss advertising and how it hopes to affect its viewer: "by liking an image, we could come to want what it represents" (pg24). This first formulation is the simple Humean or neo-Humean model of having a disposition toward effecting P (pg25). One upshot of this understanding of the installation of a disposition toward P (through advertising) is that, to author, desire is "creative". Not just in the instrumental sense but in the sense that thoughts, beliefs, and experiences can create new desires in the subject. Secondly, contra the behaviorists, desire is teleological (pg26-7). Thus, this first formulation is rationally intelligible. Author goes over the etymology of the words desire, want, and like (pg28). Upon revisiting the counterexample offered by Quinn, the Radio Man, who has a "desire" by having the disposition to turn on radios whenever he is near them, author seems to agree with Quinn that what is lacking is the desire (pg29). Author proceeds to the instrumental elements of desire that rhyme with an Aristotelian schema (pg30-1), calling it "appetitive intellect" or "intellectual appetition". But author also shows the two-fold character of desire: one is the "positive affective attraction" and the other is "focused appetitive striving" (pg31).
Author comes around again to the problem with the formulation of desire as a disposition toward P: it fails to capture that desire is a "pro-attitude" (pg32). It is an attitude that is like other emotions, it is regulative on our actions, and also our actions provide feedback to our emotions. Author explores this feed-back relationship through a proxy discussion of fear and confidence (pg33-5). Author incorporates the feedback related to desire into a newer formulation (pg36).
After the more inclusive focumlation, author takes a look at the empirical side of desire in a modern-day psychology course. There, the old categories of want/preference/desire and models of drives and satiation were significantly outdated (pg36-7). The inadequacy of the philosophical formulation, even the prospective/retrospective one author had come to recently, was brought out in the discussion of addiction. In addiction, the pleasure in the experience attenuates and even can become nil but the compulsion to engage in the experience persists. There was a distinction between affect and "incentive salience" (pg37), or wanting (a difference between appreciating P and wanting P). Addictive drugs operate directly on the 'wanting' system, skipping the recalibration and influence of the 'liking' system (pg37). Author goes further into the science of affect, and comes away with 2 broad conclusions: (1) Affect permeates perception and cognition, as well as decision-making (pg38), and (2) any possible distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive affect is not possible. "Cognitive appraisal" is relevant to all affective states, and affect itself is information-giving and proto-normative (pg39).
Returning to meld the psychology of desire with its updated philosophy, author first talks about a 'prospective model' of the world that (constitutionally?) involves affect (pg39-40). Another lesson brought out by talking about modeling the environment to shape expectations and affect, is that desire does not aim baldly, but "under a favorable representation" (pg41). What emerges is that desire is good at aiming at (evolutionary) goods, just like perception is good at aiming at (evolutionarily relevant) truths (pg41). Author walks through a series of disputes in the philosophy of desire and motivation using the prospective model formulated earlier, discussing Parfit, Frankfurt, Williams and finally squaring it with Hume (pg42-5).
2/22/13
Dewey, John - What I Believe
02/22/2013
The Forum, Living Philosophies VII, March 1930
This article was written as a summary of Dewey's outlook and perspective, not necessarily the development of a particular argument. Author starts by discussing the change in connotation that the concept of "faith" has taken on, from an acceptance of a definite body of beliefs-- a creed-- to a "tendency toward action". This is reflective, author argues, of the change in the culture from the search for unchangeable, immutable substance to an acceptance of change and context-dependent values. This was started with the scientific method and was outwardly manifested with the industrial revolution. Author's pitch is to use the broad term "experience" as the basis for a new set of human values. Interesting: "Search for a single, inclusive good is doomed to failure. Such happiness as life is capable comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situation of experience its own full and unique meaning." (pg179).
Author does not believe that this change in perspective will be a death-knell for religion. Instead, religion will adapt and form onto this new way of approaching values and still be a source of meaning. The main problem, as author sees it, is that religion has become "so respectable", that is, largely ensconced in the social construction. Author takes some time to decry the current system of economic organization, from wage-slavery to the unhealthy distribution of wealth, and further talks about how cynicism or modernity has imperiled the possibility of a systematic philosophy.
The Forum, Living Philosophies VII, March 1930
This article was written as a summary of Dewey's outlook and perspective, not necessarily the development of a particular argument. Author starts by discussing the change in connotation that the concept of "faith" has taken on, from an acceptance of a definite body of beliefs-- a creed-- to a "tendency toward action". This is reflective, author argues, of the change in the culture from the search for unchangeable, immutable substance to an acceptance of change and context-dependent values. This was started with the scientific method and was outwardly manifested with the industrial revolution. Author's pitch is to use the broad term "experience" as the basis for a new set of human values. Interesting: "Search for a single, inclusive good is doomed to failure. Such happiness as life is capable comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situation of experience its own full and unique meaning." (pg179).
Author does not believe that this change in perspective will be a death-knell for religion. Instead, religion will adapt and form onto this new way of approaching values and still be a source of meaning. The main problem, as author sees it, is that religion has become "so respectable", that is, largely ensconced in the social construction. Author takes some time to decry the current system of economic organization, from wage-slavery to the unhealthy distribution of wealth, and further talks about how cynicism or modernity has imperiled the possibility of a systematic philosophy.
2/8/13
Dewey, John - Philosophies of Freedom
02/08/2013
On Experience, Nature, and Freedom: Representative Selections, Richard Bernstein, ed. Bobbs-Merrill, 1960
This article was originally published in 1928 and uses as its starting point a "recent book on sovereignty" as a springboard for an investigation into the concept of freedom and choice. Author first makes the point from the book, that political ideas (like "freedom" or "sovereignty") are not necessarily "true" but expedient or serve a utility in a social context (pg262). From here author explores a rough, abstract recounting of the association between the concepts of choice and freedom, claiming that freedom is used to underwrite choice so that norms of behavior can be enforced using punishment and liability (pg262-3). To provide the link between punishment and choice, or more broadly just deserts and choice, author argues there was the development of freedom of the will, or the concept that humans had the power to make indifferent choice; the morally wrong one being blameworthy due to the right one being available to the will. Author finds these acrobatics still not up to the challenge of justifying liability, since the punishment is meted to the concrete individual, when it is the will that is supposed to be punished (pg264).
Author instead looks at responsibility as a forward-looking enforcement, meaning that the concept should be employed to influence future behavior, not to punish past. But then without the doctrine of free will, how is the concept of choice to be understood? Author takes that up next, first starting at a very basic level, discriminating between random and selective behavior. Selective behavior, even in inorganic matter, is "evidence of at least a rudimentary individuality or uniqueness in things" (pg265). The starting point is that selective behavior is an expression of the nature a thing. The next step involves the psychology of humans, and author claims that humans have a greater sensitivity to varied and opposing experiences; humans collect them into complexes of experience, which contributes to responses to situations by varying them and not making them deterministic or mechanical (pg266). The point here is that because humans witness and collect and experience varied responses to situations, there is no one determined behavior for any particular set of circumstances. With the variation of experience, author asserts that human choice is the individual's formation of a new preference from competing and varied ones (pg266-7).
Author takes a break from this discussion to go through the political concept of freedom as being free from external constraints (pg267-8) and ties it to the classic Lockean Liberal economic concept of property and freedom of constraint over types of industry. These economic notions invaded the psychological realm with the philosophy of "self-expression", author argues. Despite one's self-expression conceivably at odds with another's, author argues there is a pernicious link between human's instincts and impulses (self-expression) and naturalness or "native" originality (pg269). Author's conclusion here: classical Liberalism is flawed if it was to suppose that individuals simply needed to be set free from external constraints in order to solve political and economic problems (pg270), while it also simultaneously provided important emancipating work. The work of emancipation, however, was also flawed in that it freed up the economic interests of some emerging classes (merchants, industrialists) at the expense of failing to free individuals across classes (pg271). This failure is traceable to the idea that individuals have powers and rights that simply need to be "freed" in order to be exercised properly, without regard to prior economic conditions, education levels, or other forms of capital. The response, then, to a call for political freedom and for individual freedom of choice, is in "positive and constructive changes in social arrangements" (pg272).
Author then examines the conception of freedom as it relates to power in action, and uses Spinoza as a lens. In Spinoza, author interprets a certain powerlessness in action, but a power to bend one's actions into conformity with the whole, which humans can understand through the intellect (pg273-4). This seed germinated in Hegel, whom author explores next (pg274-5). The point is to unpack a different notion of freedom: power in action, in accordance with law or "manifestation".
The resolution between the two conceptions, freedom from external constraint to make choices or freedom as having power behind one's actions, is what author gives next (pg275-6): an intelligent choice that manifests individuality enlarges the range of action from an individual, increasing her power. Even if a plan of action is thwarted by external events, author holds that the subject who performs the action gains power and freedom. If one does not believe this, author enlists the help of the "moralists" who claim that freedom and personal power can always be exercised in the realm of the moral, no matter what external circumstances do (pg278). Author uses an example of a child who could have her preferences all attended to, or inhibited. Neither is the way to develop personal freedom (pg278-80).
Author assesses this formula against Kant, who found a particular problem with freedom because his belief that all behavior is causally determined. Author finds this a misguided problem too focused on antecedents rather than consequences (pg281-2). In other words, if intelligent choice is the product of causal forces, who cares? Author also looks at what kind of information science gives about causation and claims it gives how things relate to each other, not how they are, intrinsically (pg283). The individuality of things in themselves is open to house choice (pg284), apart from "scientific law". Author ends with a thorough take-down of classical Liberalism.
On Experience, Nature, and Freedom: Representative Selections, Richard Bernstein, ed. Bobbs-Merrill, 1960
This article was originally published in 1928 and uses as its starting point a "recent book on sovereignty" as a springboard for an investigation into the concept of freedom and choice. Author first makes the point from the book, that political ideas (like "freedom" or "sovereignty") are not necessarily "true" but expedient or serve a utility in a social context (pg262). From here author explores a rough, abstract recounting of the association between the concepts of choice and freedom, claiming that freedom is used to underwrite choice so that norms of behavior can be enforced using punishment and liability (pg262-3). To provide the link between punishment and choice, or more broadly just deserts and choice, author argues there was the development of freedom of the will, or the concept that humans had the power to make indifferent choice; the morally wrong one being blameworthy due to the right one being available to the will. Author finds these acrobatics still not up to the challenge of justifying liability, since the punishment is meted to the concrete individual, when it is the will that is supposed to be punished (pg264).
Author instead looks at responsibility as a forward-looking enforcement, meaning that the concept should be employed to influence future behavior, not to punish past. But then without the doctrine of free will, how is the concept of choice to be understood? Author takes that up next, first starting at a very basic level, discriminating between random and selective behavior. Selective behavior, even in inorganic matter, is "evidence of at least a rudimentary individuality or uniqueness in things" (pg265). The starting point is that selective behavior is an expression of the nature a thing. The next step involves the psychology of humans, and author claims that humans have a greater sensitivity to varied and opposing experiences; humans collect them into complexes of experience, which contributes to responses to situations by varying them and not making them deterministic or mechanical (pg266). The point here is that because humans witness and collect and experience varied responses to situations, there is no one determined behavior for any particular set of circumstances. With the variation of experience, author asserts that human choice is the individual's formation of a new preference from competing and varied ones (pg266-7).
Author takes a break from this discussion to go through the political concept of freedom as being free from external constraints (pg267-8) and ties it to the classic Lockean Liberal economic concept of property and freedom of constraint over types of industry. These economic notions invaded the psychological realm with the philosophy of "self-expression", author argues. Despite one's self-expression conceivably at odds with another's, author argues there is a pernicious link between human's instincts and impulses (self-expression) and naturalness or "native" originality (pg269). Author's conclusion here: classical Liberalism is flawed if it was to suppose that individuals simply needed to be set free from external constraints in order to solve political and economic problems (pg270), while it also simultaneously provided important emancipating work. The work of emancipation, however, was also flawed in that it freed up the economic interests of some emerging classes (merchants, industrialists) at the expense of failing to free individuals across classes (pg271). This failure is traceable to the idea that individuals have powers and rights that simply need to be "freed" in order to be exercised properly, without regard to prior economic conditions, education levels, or other forms of capital. The response, then, to a call for political freedom and for individual freedom of choice, is in "positive and constructive changes in social arrangements" (pg272).
Author then examines the conception of freedom as it relates to power in action, and uses Spinoza as a lens. In Spinoza, author interprets a certain powerlessness in action, but a power to bend one's actions into conformity with the whole, which humans can understand through the intellect (pg273-4). This seed germinated in Hegel, whom author explores next (pg274-5). The point is to unpack a different notion of freedom: power in action, in accordance with law or "manifestation".
The resolution between the two conceptions, freedom from external constraint to make choices or freedom as having power behind one's actions, is what author gives next (pg275-6): an intelligent choice that manifests individuality enlarges the range of action from an individual, increasing her power. Even if a plan of action is thwarted by external events, author holds that the subject who performs the action gains power and freedom. If one does not believe this, author enlists the help of the "moralists" who claim that freedom and personal power can always be exercised in the realm of the moral, no matter what external circumstances do (pg278). Author uses an example of a child who could have her preferences all attended to, or inhibited. Neither is the way to develop personal freedom (pg278-80).
Author assesses this formula against Kant, who found a particular problem with freedom because his belief that all behavior is causally determined. Author finds this a misguided problem too focused on antecedents rather than consequences (pg281-2). In other words, if intelligent choice is the product of causal forces, who cares? Author also looks at what kind of information science gives about causation and claims it gives how things relate to each other, not how they are, intrinsically (pg283). The individuality of things in themselves is open to house choice (pg284), apart from "scientific law". Author ends with a thorough take-down of classical Liberalism.
2/1/13
Smith, John - The Reconception of Experience in Peirce, James and Dewey
02/01/2013
America's Philosophical Vision, Ch 1, University of Chicago, 1992
This is a paper given as an address at a conference and is basically a summary of the three conceptions of the concept of experience given by Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. The goal is to show their reactions to and departures from the British Empiricist tradition and Kant. Author first gives a summary (or caricature) of traditional empiricism (pg18-19) and then a congealed response from the Pragmatists (pg19-20).
Author reviews and condenses the views on "experience" starting with Peirce (pg20-25), then James (pg25-29), and then Dewey (pg29-34). Generally, the main contentions against British Empiricists are as follows: "experience" isn't a passive exercise but an active process between the self and the world, perhaps even eliminating the subject/object distinction, and: "experience" is best conceptualized not as atomistic bits to be used as a foundation for knowledge but instead as a rich mix of the sensory and the rational.
America's Philosophical Vision, Ch 1, University of Chicago, 1992
This is a paper given as an address at a conference and is basically a summary of the three conceptions of the concept of experience given by Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. The goal is to show their reactions to and departures from the British Empiricist tradition and Kant. Author first gives a summary (or caricature) of traditional empiricism (pg18-19) and then a congealed response from the Pragmatists (pg19-20).
Author reviews and condenses the views on "experience" starting with Peirce (pg20-25), then James (pg25-29), and then Dewey (pg29-34). Generally, the main contentions against British Empiricists are as follows: "experience" isn't a passive exercise but an active process between the self and the world, perhaps even eliminating the subject/object distinction, and: "experience" is best conceptualized not as atomistic bits to be used as a foundation for knowledge but instead as a rich mix of the sensory and the rational.
1/25/13
Dewey, John - An Empirical Survey of Empiricisms
01/25/2013
This article is an examination of the concept of experience, as it evolves throughout philosophical history: Plato & Aristotle, Locke, and the more modern view. Author sets as the goal to actually be reviewing the different notions of empiricism, but takes the firm subject matter to be the concept of experience (pg71).
Author takes the Greek philosophers to consider experience as a 'know-how', not a 'know-why' matter. Experience can give you the know-how, but the know-why was reserved for reason, and/or understanding causal forces. (pg71-3) Author reviews Aristotle's theory on the progression of experiential knowledge: first there's sensation, then perception, then memory and imagination, finally ending in knowledge in generality, and habituation regarding the subject matter. (pg73) But this is all without applying reason or method to experience: reason was reserved for the pure intellect and universal or necessary truths. In this light, author discusses a difference between Plato and Aristotle in that Aristotle was willing to let politics and society be subject to generalities and intricacies only noticed by the wise and those with practical knowledge, while Plato attempted to sketch out what a rational basis for these institutions would be in The Republic (pg74-5). Author summarizes the Greek thinking on pg77: the contrast is between knowledge (intellect) and opinion or belief (experience), and experience is limited to a subject matter (e.g. farming, crafting) while theoretical knowledge is not. These distinctions are underpinned by the distinction between phenomena and a deeper reality.
The second conception of experience author considers is propounded by Locke. Author admits to skipping intermediary steps, but wants to capture a "typical" conceptual difference from the Greeks. Locke reshaped experience as observation, which gave it a much more direct connection to nature (pg79). Locke then argued that observation is the test of knowledge, thus making the ideas that came from observation the fundamental sources of knowledge. Author summarizes Locke's argument against innate ideas (pg79-80), but shows that Locke did admit to some universals, for instance in the realm of mathematics and morals (pg80-1). The next "stage" author discusses was Locke's move to reduce much of human mentality to sensations or associations with sensations (pg81). Author reviews the effect that this philosophy had on institutions and culture (pg82-3), specifically the skeptical and critical demands it had on old, established institutions, and also on creating new ideals in education and legislation. Author then talks about JS Mill's further refinements on this kind of associational empiricism (pg84-5) and Mill's interest in logic taken from the natural sciences into the social ones.
The last discussion is about some of the primary differences the third "view" of experience has had from the past one(s). Author starts with James and illustrates the pragmatist approach to confirming the validity of ideas: through their consequences (pg86). This directly conflicts with Locke, who wanted ideas to be justified through their antecedents: through what implanted or begat them. Another difference is the development of a biological basis for psychology rather than an introspective or phenomenological one (pg86-7). This seems to be a move back toward Aristotle, author suggests. Author concludes this new view of experience is still "inchoate", and in progress.
This article is an examination of the concept of experience, as it evolves throughout philosophical history: Plato & Aristotle, Locke, and the more modern view. Author sets as the goal to actually be reviewing the different notions of empiricism, but takes the firm subject matter to be the concept of experience (pg71).
Author takes the Greek philosophers to consider experience as a 'know-how', not a 'know-why' matter. Experience can give you the know-how, but the know-why was reserved for reason, and/or understanding causal forces. (pg71-3) Author reviews Aristotle's theory on the progression of experiential knowledge: first there's sensation, then perception, then memory and imagination, finally ending in knowledge in generality, and habituation regarding the subject matter. (pg73) But this is all without applying reason or method to experience: reason was reserved for the pure intellect and universal or necessary truths. In this light, author discusses a difference between Plato and Aristotle in that Aristotle was willing to let politics and society be subject to generalities and intricacies only noticed by the wise and those with practical knowledge, while Plato attempted to sketch out what a rational basis for these institutions would be in The Republic (pg74-5). Author summarizes the Greek thinking on pg77: the contrast is between knowledge (intellect) and opinion or belief (experience), and experience is limited to a subject matter (e.g. farming, crafting) while theoretical knowledge is not. These distinctions are underpinned by the distinction between phenomena and a deeper reality.
The second conception of experience author considers is propounded by Locke. Author admits to skipping intermediary steps, but wants to capture a "typical" conceptual difference from the Greeks. Locke reshaped experience as observation, which gave it a much more direct connection to nature (pg79). Locke then argued that observation is the test of knowledge, thus making the ideas that came from observation the fundamental sources of knowledge. Author summarizes Locke's argument against innate ideas (pg79-80), but shows that Locke did admit to some universals, for instance in the realm of mathematics and morals (pg80-1). The next "stage" author discusses was Locke's move to reduce much of human mentality to sensations or associations with sensations (pg81). Author reviews the effect that this philosophy had on institutions and culture (pg82-3), specifically the skeptical and critical demands it had on old, established institutions, and also on creating new ideals in education and legislation. Author then talks about JS Mill's further refinements on this kind of associational empiricism (pg84-5) and Mill's interest in logic taken from the natural sciences into the social ones.
The last discussion is about some of the primary differences the third "view" of experience has had from the past one(s). Author starts with James and illustrates the pragmatist approach to confirming the validity of ideas: through their consequences (pg86). This directly conflicts with Locke, who wanted ideas to be justified through their antecedents: through what implanted or begat them. Another difference is the development of a biological basis for psychology rather than an introspective or phenomenological one (pg86-7). This seems to be a move back toward Aristotle, author suggests. Author concludes this new view of experience is still "inchoate", and in progress.
1/18/13
Strawson, Galen - Real Naturalism
01/18/2013
Proceedings and Addresses of the APA, Vol 86 Issue 2 Nov 2012
Author starts by claiming that author is a thorough-going naturalist. But what is the substantive conception of the natural? For author, it is that all reality is entirely physical. So this makes author a physicalist or materialist naturalist (pg126). Author takes there to be a conflict, however, with other sorts of physicalists/naturalists when it comes to the philosophy of mind. The problem is that humans are directly knowledgeable about experience, and only indirectly knowledgeable about non-experiential properties of physical objects. Author thinks the move in 20th century philosophy to question whether experience is real when compared to other physical properties has been a wrongheaded evolution, going from a methodological commitment to behaviorism to a ontological commitment against experience (pg127). Author highlights Quine and Smart here.
In section 2, author treats the term "physical" as a natural-kind term, one that denotes a natural kind, and one whose content we can be wrong about. Author briefly discusses the persistent ignorance about the world that plagues physicalism, but also acknowledges that equations like f = ma are likely good approximations of the truth. But the problem with such equations is that they are structural descriptions, where content still needs to be cashed out (pg128-130). Author considers the structural and mathematical elements of the physical sciences to be their strong suit, not because humans know so much about the world, but because they know so little. Author distinguishes between the "intrinsic nature" of reality and its structure, and that logico-mathematical representations of the world do not illuminate its intrinsic nature. In other words, physics has structural descriptive content, and even structural transcendent referential content, but does it have structural transcendent descriptive content? (pg130) If a self-professed physicalist/naturalist is tempted to say "yes", then author objects that physicalism, thus far, has left out consciousness, or qualia, from it description (pg131-2). So, the dilemma is as follows: (1) admit that physics only has Purely Logico-Mathematical Structural Description (PLM) and thus misses the non-structural intrinsic nature of reality, or (2) argue that the Causal-Spatio-Temporal Structural Description given by physics is all that remains to reality and thereby deny that experience is part of reality.
Author briefly summarizes the points made: that physicalism doesn't escape the Locke-Hume-Kant arguments about not knowing the thing-in-itself or understanding causation only by constant conjunction (pg133). Author considers those who think physics is the full fundamental description of the universe to be "not serious ... physicSalists". (pg134) Author uses the concepts of ignorance and knowledge-- what humans are ignorant about and what they know about-- in this discussion. The first and most certainly generally known fact is that there is experience. Naturalism must be "realistic", in that it must include this known fact (pg135). Author discusses prototypical examples of pre-philosophical understandings of experience: the kind of stuff you have when you're 6 years old: in short, having an experience is the knowing of the experience. (pg135-6) Author argues that there is no is/seems distinction when it comes to qualia, and that there are no arguments that can destroy the "real realism" of experience (pg137-8).
Interestingly, author claims that a "reduction" for the identity theorist, who claims that experiential states are identical to brain states, isn't reducing two entities to one in the ontological sense, just the epistemological one (pg138-9). The next discussion changes from defense to offense: is it known that anything non-experiential exists? To assume it does is unwarranted, according to author (pg140-1). Here, physicalism is compatible with panpsychism, which author explores (pg141-2). In conclusion, author asserts that if indeed this was widely accepted by philosophers, panpsychism would be widely acknowledged as a real possibility, which does not seem to be the case (pg143). Author runs through the arguments against false naturalists and finishes by asserting that it is not theoretically or ontologically cheaper to postulate the fundamental constituents of reality aren't experiential; it's either more expensive or, at best, equally pricey (pg146).
Proceedings and Addresses of the APA, Vol 86 Issue 2 Nov 2012
Author starts by claiming that author is a thorough-going naturalist. But what is the substantive conception of the natural? For author, it is that all reality is entirely physical. So this makes author a physicalist or materialist naturalist (pg126). Author takes there to be a conflict, however, with other sorts of physicalists/naturalists when it comes to the philosophy of mind. The problem is that humans are directly knowledgeable about experience, and only indirectly knowledgeable about non-experiential properties of physical objects. Author thinks the move in 20th century philosophy to question whether experience is real when compared to other physical properties has been a wrongheaded evolution, going from a methodological commitment to behaviorism to a ontological commitment against experience (pg127). Author highlights Quine and Smart here.
In section 2, author treats the term "physical" as a natural-kind term, one that denotes a natural kind, and one whose content we can be wrong about. Author briefly discusses the persistent ignorance about the world that plagues physicalism, but also acknowledges that equations like f = ma are likely good approximations of the truth. But the problem with such equations is that they are structural descriptions, where content still needs to be cashed out (pg128-130). Author considers the structural and mathematical elements of the physical sciences to be their strong suit, not because humans know so much about the world, but because they know so little. Author distinguishes between the "intrinsic nature" of reality and its structure, and that logico-mathematical representations of the world do not illuminate its intrinsic nature. In other words, physics has structural descriptive content, and even structural transcendent referential content, but does it have structural transcendent descriptive content? (pg130) If a self-professed physicalist/naturalist is tempted to say "yes", then author objects that physicalism, thus far, has left out consciousness, or qualia, from it description (pg131-2). So, the dilemma is as follows: (1) admit that physics only has Purely Logico-Mathematical Structural Description (PLM) and thus misses the non-structural intrinsic nature of reality, or (2) argue that the Causal-Spatio-Temporal Structural Description given by physics is all that remains to reality and thereby deny that experience is part of reality.
Author briefly summarizes the points made: that physicalism doesn't escape the Locke-Hume-Kant arguments about not knowing the thing-in-itself or understanding causation only by constant conjunction (pg133). Author considers those who think physics is the full fundamental description of the universe to be "not serious ... physicSalists". (pg134) Author uses the concepts of ignorance and knowledge-- what humans are ignorant about and what they know about-- in this discussion. The first and most certainly generally known fact is that there is experience. Naturalism must be "realistic", in that it must include this known fact (pg135). Author discusses prototypical examples of pre-philosophical understandings of experience: the kind of stuff you have when you're 6 years old: in short, having an experience is the knowing of the experience. (pg135-6) Author argues that there is no is/seems distinction when it comes to qualia, and that there are no arguments that can destroy the "real realism" of experience (pg137-8).
Interestingly, author claims that a "reduction" for the identity theorist, who claims that experiential states are identical to brain states, isn't reducing two entities to one in the ontological sense, just the epistemological one (pg138-9). The next discussion changes from defense to offense: is it known that anything non-experiential exists? To assume it does is unwarranted, according to author (pg140-1). Here, physicalism is compatible with panpsychism, which author explores (pg141-2). In conclusion, author asserts that if indeed this was widely accepted by philosophers, panpsychism would be widely acknowledged as a real possibility, which does not seem to be the case (pg143). Author runs through the arguments against false naturalists and finishes by asserting that it is not theoretically or ontologically cheaper to postulate the fundamental constituents of reality aren't experiential; it's either more expensive or, at best, equally pricey (pg146).
1/11/13
Nagel, Thomas - Value
01/11/2012
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 5, Oxford University Press, 2012
In this final chapter, author considers how the possibility of objective value (value realism) invalidates Darwinian physicalism. Part of the chapter is spent presenting the case for value realism as opposed to value subjectivism. A significant problem for author is that value subjectivism is a potent and coherent alternative to value realism. Author's strategy seems to be to argue that value realism is incompatible with Darwinian physicalism (similar to Street's argument), and so much the worse for Darwinian physicalism.
Author begins the discussion by assuming that practical reasoning is indispensably conscious. This already casts a shadow (according to author) over the possibility of practical reasoning and judgments being subject to materialist reduction, but author sets that aside for the time being. Author discusses the conflict between value subjectivism and value realism, and admits that value subjectivism is a valid alternative (pg98-100). In this context, "value realism" is the position that "our responses to moral situations try to reflect the evaluative truth and can be correct or incorrect by reference to it." (pg98). Author also defends value realism from the challenge that it needs metaphysical 'baggage', in other words, that something must be real in the world for value realism to be about. Author denies this: what value realism treats as its subject matter are the same worldly facts that we all use, like: there is a dog I might run over with a car if I do not brake (pg101-105). Interestingly, author argues that the best evidence for value realism is "the fruitfulness of evaluative and moral thought in producing results, including corrections of beliefs formerly widely held..." (pg104).
In section 3 author paraphrases the arguments of Sharon Street that moral realism is incompatible with Darwinian physicalism. For Street, this invalidates moral realism. For author, Darwinian physicalism must be re-thought (pg105). Author defends using a philosophical argument to refute empirical findings, arguing that human capabilities (presumably, to find objective moral values) are part of what needs explaining by science (pg106). Author outlines Street's argument, which basically points to a disanalogy between a survival value to having perceptual nodes that get at (some) physical reality and value/judgment nodes that get at (some) value/moral reality. In the first case, abilities that link to physical facts is adaptive. In the second, abilities that link to moral facts is not necessarily adaptive; what is far more adaptive is a co-evolution of species-specific inter-subjective values (pg107-8).
Author takes time to discuss the case for value realism using moral simples like pleasure and pain (pg110-1), and then moves to a positive account of the capacities for recognizing value, including free will (pg112-3). In short, humans can be "motivated by their apprehension of values and reasons, whose existence is a basic type of truth, and that the explanation of action by such motives is a basic form of explanation, not reducible to something of another form, either psychological or physical." (pg114) The idea author has in mind is that human action is explainable by "judgments", and those are irreducible or 'emergent' properties of a unified, conscious, mind. It is here when author states that epiphenomenalism in consciousness is incompatible with value realism (pg115-6).
Author then looks through the familiar lens of asking for both a constitutive and an historical account of a capacity to appreciate objective value. Author admits the historical account is 'obscure' or sketchy, but outlines how it might go, broadly as part of the development of life story (pg117-8). If value is tied to life, and to specific things that make certain lives go better and worse, then it is acceptable to treat value realism as life-dependent, or even species-dependent. Or perhaps even organism-relative. (pg119-120) Author discusses how the causal historical explanation seems implausible and turns instead to a teleological one that aims at a multiplicity of values (pg121-2). Author then defends teleology on its own, and compares it to the causal account, which author charges still cannot account for the evolution of the cell (pg123-4). Author concludes by saying that though this theory seems bizarre, so too do older theories when viewed through today's lens, and that the future remake of Darwinian physicalism will make the current en vogue theory also look ridiculous.
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 5, Oxford University Press, 2012
In this final chapter, author considers how the possibility of objective value (value realism) invalidates Darwinian physicalism. Part of the chapter is spent presenting the case for value realism as opposed to value subjectivism. A significant problem for author is that value subjectivism is a potent and coherent alternative to value realism. Author's strategy seems to be to argue that value realism is incompatible with Darwinian physicalism (similar to Street's argument), and so much the worse for Darwinian physicalism.
Author begins the discussion by assuming that practical reasoning is indispensably conscious. This already casts a shadow (according to author) over the possibility of practical reasoning and judgments being subject to materialist reduction, but author sets that aside for the time being. Author discusses the conflict between value subjectivism and value realism, and admits that value subjectivism is a valid alternative (pg98-100). In this context, "value realism" is the position that "our responses to moral situations try to reflect the evaluative truth and can be correct or incorrect by reference to it." (pg98). Author also defends value realism from the challenge that it needs metaphysical 'baggage', in other words, that something must be real in the world for value realism to be about. Author denies this: what value realism treats as its subject matter are the same worldly facts that we all use, like: there is a dog I might run over with a car if I do not brake (pg101-105). Interestingly, author argues that the best evidence for value realism is "the fruitfulness of evaluative and moral thought in producing results, including corrections of beliefs formerly widely held..." (pg104).
In section 3 author paraphrases the arguments of Sharon Street that moral realism is incompatible with Darwinian physicalism. For Street, this invalidates moral realism. For author, Darwinian physicalism must be re-thought (pg105). Author defends using a philosophical argument to refute empirical findings, arguing that human capabilities (presumably, to find objective moral values) are part of what needs explaining by science (pg106). Author outlines Street's argument, which basically points to a disanalogy between a survival value to having perceptual nodes that get at (some) physical reality and value/judgment nodes that get at (some) value/moral reality. In the first case, abilities that link to physical facts is adaptive. In the second, abilities that link to moral facts is not necessarily adaptive; what is far more adaptive is a co-evolution of species-specific inter-subjective values (pg107-8).
Author takes time to discuss the case for value realism using moral simples like pleasure and pain (pg110-1), and then moves to a positive account of the capacities for recognizing value, including free will (pg112-3). In short, humans can be "motivated by their apprehension of values and reasons, whose existence is a basic type of truth, and that the explanation of action by such motives is a basic form of explanation, not reducible to something of another form, either psychological or physical." (pg114) The idea author has in mind is that human action is explainable by "judgments", and those are irreducible or 'emergent' properties of a unified, conscious, mind. It is here when author states that epiphenomenalism in consciousness is incompatible with value realism (pg115-6).
Author then looks through the familiar lens of asking for both a constitutive and an historical account of a capacity to appreciate objective value. Author admits the historical account is 'obscure' or sketchy, but outlines how it might go, broadly as part of the development of life story (pg117-8). If value is tied to life, and to specific things that make certain lives go better and worse, then it is acceptable to treat value realism as life-dependent, or even species-dependent. Or perhaps even organism-relative. (pg119-120) Author discusses how the causal historical explanation seems implausible and turns instead to a teleological one that aims at a multiplicity of values (pg121-2). Author then defends teleology on its own, and compares it to the causal account, which author charges still cannot account for the evolution of the cell (pg123-4). Author concludes by saying that though this theory seems bizarre, so too do older theories when viewed through today's lens, and that the future remake of Darwinian physicalism will make the current en vogue theory also look ridiculous.
1/4/13
Nagel, Thomas - Cognition
01/04/2012
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 4, Oxford University Press, 2012
This chapter focuses on cognition, specifically the use of reason, as a feature of mind that is incapable of being considered valid by an evolutionary account of how it evolved. The general argument leveled by author is as follows:
1) modes of getting at true facts (that have been developed by evolution) are prone to certain kinds of errors, and/or are adaptations that are useful only in some local conditions (e.g. perception)
2) use of reason is not prone to error when used, and is not contained to only local applications (pg81)
3) Therefore, for reason to be a mode developed by evolution for getting at true facts, it is extraordinary.
Author starts by setting aside the possibility that computers can have knowledge, or that "higher-level cognitive capacities" can be done without consciousness. (pg71) Author then proceeds to take a common-sense approach to epistemology: there are true, objective facts about the world and most of the time perceptual and primitive minds have access only to how those facts appear, not their objective features (pg72-3). (This contrasts with some instrumentalist or nominalist 'anitrealist' theories of science and epistemology (pg74-5)) For author, appreciating the difference between appearance and reality is a higher-level cognitive capacity and is a rare ability in the animal kingdom (pg73), possibly partially attributable to language use. Author raises two questions: (pg74)
1. is it likely that evolution could have created a faculty that gets at the objective truth of the world using the faculty of reason?
2. can the faculty of reason be understood as an evolved mechanism?
Author first sketches out what an answer to the first question might be (pg76-78), with emphasis on language use, theory of mind, and cultural transmission of knowledge. What is distinctive about author's "just-so" story is that author is a realist: the objective facts of science and morals are there to be discovered and thus the faculty that develops in humans is one that reaches "discovers" those facts.
Author then moves to the second question: is the faculty of reason at all similar to other evolved faculties? Surely there are biases and distortions with our perceptual apparati, as there are also with emotional responses and intuitive probability calculations and value judgments (pg79). And yet the appreciation (and correction) of these distortions is not further subject to bias or distortion: it is taken as valid and justified. Further, the authority of reason isn't due to cultural history (pg70-80). A key difference for author here is that beliefs formed about objective truths using perceptual nodes are done through inference, while beliefs formed using reason are 'grasped directly' (pg80, pg82-3). Because of this, author asserts the inferential truth of evolutionary theory is only backstopped by reason, not the other way around, and thus cannot independently give validity to reason. (pg81) Author claims that the attempt to understand ourselves as creatures of evolution must "bottom out" in something recognized as "valid in itself" (pg81), which can only be reason and not evolutionary theory since that theory is itself held to the standards of reason.
The ability to reflect on modes of perception and intuition using reason is a kind of freedom (pg84), and one that author claims is not compatible with a "purely physical analysis". Author also wonders aloud as to whether language use is also not a radical development that is difficult to account for using evolution (pg84-5). Author reiterates the call that a historical explanation for the emergence of reason not show it to be "a complete accident" (pg86-8). Author then talks about the possibilities for a constitutive account (using the same language as in previous chapters: a call for a constitutive account and an historical one). Author is skeptical that a reductive account of reason is possible, thus a holistic or emergent one is more likely (pg87-8).
In the last two sections of the chapter, author explores the possibility of a teleological explanation as one for the development of mind. For author, this is a third option to a Darwinian physicalism or a theistic intentionalism. For author, the world would have to be probabilistic, not deterministic, and of the probabilities, one would have to be more likely than the rest based on its outcome fulfilling some sort of value or telos (pg92-3).
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 4, Oxford University Press, 2012
This chapter focuses on cognition, specifically the use of reason, as a feature of mind that is incapable of being considered valid by an evolutionary account of how it evolved. The general argument leveled by author is as follows:
1) modes of getting at true facts (that have been developed by evolution) are prone to certain kinds of errors, and/or are adaptations that are useful only in some local conditions (e.g. perception)
2) use of reason is not prone to error when used, and is not contained to only local applications (pg81)
3) Therefore, for reason to be a mode developed by evolution for getting at true facts, it is extraordinary.
Author starts by setting aside the possibility that computers can have knowledge, or that "higher-level cognitive capacities" can be done without consciousness. (pg71) Author then proceeds to take a common-sense approach to epistemology: there are true, objective facts about the world and most of the time perceptual and primitive minds have access only to how those facts appear, not their objective features (pg72-3). (This contrasts with some instrumentalist or nominalist 'anitrealist' theories of science and epistemology (pg74-5)) For author, appreciating the difference between appearance and reality is a higher-level cognitive capacity and is a rare ability in the animal kingdom (pg73), possibly partially attributable to language use. Author raises two questions: (pg74)
1. is it likely that evolution could have created a faculty that gets at the objective truth of the world using the faculty of reason?
2. can the faculty of reason be understood as an evolved mechanism?
Author first sketches out what an answer to the first question might be (pg76-78), with emphasis on language use, theory of mind, and cultural transmission of knowledge. What is distinctive about author's "just-so" story is that author is a realist: the objective facts of science and morals are there to be discovered and thus the faculty that develops in humans is one that reaches "discovers" those facts.
Author then moves to the second question: is the faculty of reason at all similar to other evolved faculties? Surely there are biases and distortions with our perceptual apparati, as there are also with emotional responses and intuitive probability calculations and value judgments (pg79). And yet the appreciation (and correction) of these distortions is not further subject to bias or distortion: it is taken as valid and justified. Further, the authority of reason isn't due to cultural history (pg70-80). A key difference for author here is that beliefs formed about objective truths using perceptual nodes are done through inference, while beliefs formed using reason are 'grasped directly' (pg80, pg82-3). Because of this, author asserts the inferential truth of evolutionary theory is only backstopped by reason, not the other way around, and thus cannot independently give validity to reason. (pg81) Author claims that the attempt to understand ourselves as creatures of evolution must "bottom out" in something recognized as "valid in itself" (pg81), which can only be reason and not evolutionary theory since that theory is itself held to the standards of reason.
The ability to reflect on modes of perception and intuition using reason is a kind of freedom (pg84), and one that author claims is not compatible with a "purely physical analysis". Author also wonders aloud as to whether language use is also not a radical development that is difficult to account for using evolution (pg84-5). Author reiterates the call that a historical explanation for the emergence of reason not show it to be "a complete accident" (pg86-8). Author then talks about the possibilities for a constitutive account (using the same language as in previous chapters: a call for a constitutive account and an historical one). Author is skeptical that a reductive account of reason is possible, thus a holistic or emergent one is more likely (pg87-8).
In the last two sections of the chapter, author explores the possibility of a teleological explanation as one for the development of mind. For author, this is a third option to a Darwinian physicalism or a theistic intentionalism. For author, the world would have to be probabilistic, not deterministic, and of the probabilities, one would have to be more likely than the rest based on its outcome fulfilling some sort of value or telos (pg92-3).
12/21/12
Nagel, Thomas - Consciousness
12/21/2012
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 3, Oxford University Press, 2012
This is chapter 3 of author's book arguing against current versions of Darwinian reductive materialism. In this chapter, author takes phenomenal consciousness to be the major irreducible element for reductive materialists. Because this kind of materialism cannot account for such a "striking" element of life, a new theory that encompasses such a phenomenon will not be identical to neo-Darwinian materialism, thus neo-Darwinian materialism is false.
Author starts with a brief sketch of some historic attempts to solve the mind/body problem using materialism, and calls for a new theory to try to solve it (pg42). Next, author considers the failure of 'psychophysical reductionism' to be an "essential component of a broader naturalistic program, which cannot survive without it'. (pg42-3) Author's argument that the failure of psychophysical reductionism "infects" the entire naturalistic materialist understanding (pg43). Author calls for evolution to account for the appearance of not just qualia but of a 'subjective individual point of view' (pg44), a call which author believes cannot be answered by evolutionary theory as it currently stands. Evolutionary theory, of course, could show how consciousness is a "bonus" (pg47) of an organic, highly-complex, information-processing system, but this would make consciousness a 'brute fact' , which does not 'provide a significant explanation'. (pg45) Interestingly, author continues to claim that mind is a 'biological phenomenon'-- suggesting that a new conception of the biological, not a dualist conception of mind-stuff, is needed. (pg45)
The need for intelligible explanations is a fundamental component of author's argument, so author takes some time outlining the call for them. First off, there is a difference between an "immediate" cause and an explanation: the immediate cause of consciousness is brain activity but it is not an explanation. Author insists that evolutionary explanations show why conscious organisms, not just complex ones, are "likely" (pg48-50). Author also rejects epiphenomenalist accounts of consciousness (pg50) as not being a satisfactory explanation. Author does not want even to have an explanation of why a particular organism has a conscious life, or the particular conscious life it has; author also wants to know why such an organism has evolved on this planet. (pg50-1) This is a call for both an 'ahistorical account' of the constitution of consciousness, and also a 'historical account' of how such systems arose from the universe.
Author spends time considering options for the ahistorical account (pg54-8). Author discusses dualistic conceptions, a conception of consciousness where it is an emergent property of certain complex systems (author rejects this), and looks for "neutral monism" (pg57), which can also be conceived of as panpsychism.
In section 5 author looks at the historical account, offering three broad options: causal, teleological, or intentional. The causal account seems favorable to reductionism, so author focuses on that first (pg59-). Author allows for the emergence of consciousness through purely physical evolution, but does not like the theory since it utilizes the brute fact of emergence (through a causal outcome of a certain level of complexity) (pg60-1). Author also considers a panpsychic reductionism, claims it is 'form but no content' (pg62), but nevertheless applauds the form (pg62-3) and likes the ahistorical version of it (pg64). Both the emergent and the panpsychic reductive projects fail to provide a suitably explanatory historical account of the evolution of consciousness, according to author (pg65). Thus, author moves to teleological and intentional alternatives in section 6. While the intentional option is live, author talks more about a teleological natural law, one that guides change in material states to certain types of outcomes. These can be either value-free or self-fulfilling values (pg67), and author wants it to be realistically considered, though does not endorse it.
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 3, Oxford University Press, 2012
This is chapter 3 of author's book arguing against current versions of Darwinian reductive materialism. In this chapter, author takes phenomenal consciousness to be the major irreducible element for reductive materialists. Because this kind of materialism cannot account for such a "striking" element of life, a new theory that encompasses such a phenomenon will not be identical to neo-Darwinian materialism, thus neo-Darwinian materialism is false.
Author starts with a brief sketch of some historic attempts to solve the mind/body problem using materialism, and calls for a new theory to try to solve it (pg42). Next, author considers the failure of 'psychophysical reductionism' to be an "essential component of a broader naturalistic program, which cannot survive without it'. (pg42-3) Author's argument that the failure of psychophysical reductionism "infects" the entire naturalistic materialist understanding (pg43). Author calls for evolution to account for the appearance of not just qualia but of a 'subjective individual point of view' (pg44), a call which author believes cannot be answered by evolutionary theory as it currently stands. Evolutionary theory, of course, could show how consciousness is a "bonus" (pg47) of an organic, highly-complex, information-processing system, but this would make consciousness a 'brute fact' , which does not 'provide a significant explanation'. (pg45) Interestingly, author continues to claim that mind is a 'biological phenomenon'-- suggesting that a new conception of the biological, not a dualist conception of mind-stuff, is needed. (pg45)
The need for intelligible explanations is a fundamental component of author's argument, so author takes some time outlining the call for them. First off, there is a difference between an "immediate" cause and an explanation: the immediate cause of consciousness is brain activity but it is not an explanation. Author insists that evolutionary explanations show why conscious organisms, not just complex ones, are "likely" (pg48-50). Author also rejects epiphenomenalist accounts of consciousness (pg50) as not being a satisfactory explanation. Author does not want even to have an explanation of why a particular organism has a conscious life, or the particular conscious life it has; author also wants to know why such an organism has evolved on this planet. (pg50-1) This is a call for both an 'ahistorical account' of the constitution of consciousness, and also a 'historical account' of how such systems arose from the universe.
Author spends time considering options for the ahistorical account (pg54-8). Author discusses dualistic conceptions, a conception of consciousness where it is an emergent property of certain complex systems (author rejects this), and looks for "neutral monism" (pg57), which can also be conceived of as panpsychism.
In section 5 author looks at the historical account, offering three broad options: causal, teleological, or intentional. The causal account seems favorable to reductionism, so author focuses on that first (pg59-). Author allows for the emergence of consciousness through purely physical evolution, but does not like the theory since it utilizes the brute fact of emergence (through a causal outcome of a certain level of complexity) (pg60-1). Author also considers a panpsychic reductionism, claims it is 'form but no content' (pg62), but nevertheless applauds the form (pg62-3) and likes the ahistorical version of it (pg64). Both the emergent and the panpsychic reductive projects fail to provide a suitably explanatory historical account of the evolution of consciousness, according to author (pg65). Thus, author moves to teleological and intentional alternatives in section 6. While the intentional option is live, author talks more about a teleological natural law, one that guides change in material states to certain types of outcomes. These can be either value-free or self-fulfilling values (pg67), and author wants it to be realistically considered, though does not endorse it.
12/14/12
Nagel, Thomas - Anti-Reductionism and the Natural Order
12/14/2012
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 1-2, Oxford University Press, 2012
This is the first two chapters of author's most recent book, which disputes that 'psychophysical reductionism' is the only possible unifying naturalistic understanding of the universe. For author, the key rub is the development of life, and especially the development of reason and consciousness. If this reductionism can't account for consciousness or reasoned action, author claims it is reasonable to think of mind as a fundamental feature of the universe-- irreducibly part of it-- and thus falsifying 'naturalistic reductionism'. Author admits to not having a fledged-out alternative. This attempt is more fundamentally skeptical than propositional.
In Ch 1 author claims the "neo-Darwinian account of the origin and evolution of life" (pg6) is incredible and is only a "schema for explanation, supported by some examples". Author has two questions: the first is about how life came about from dead matter at all, and the second is how reason and consciousness could have come about from then until now. Author acknowledges that there are much fewer conclusions about the first question than the second. In the following pages author states skepticism about the explanations offered by natural selection as they bear on both these questions. (pg9-10)
Author's most provocative statements about the completeness of psychophysical reductionism are on pg8, where author claims that the remarkable success of science had to do with "excluding mind from the physical world" (pg8). This must end "in the long run" if the mind is to become part of the world, thus author is seeking a more complete view. Author wishes to keep two standards during this discussion: first: that remarkable events should be considered non-accidental, and second: that there is one unifying 'single natural order' (pg7).
Author's general frame of argument seems to be to install the irreducibility of the mental into the world but simultaneously to avoid dualism, idealism, or theism (pg14-6). Author lays out the first issue to consider: the intelligibility of the world. It is a background assumption of science that the world is intelligible to our perceptual apparatus (at least some of that apparatus at some times under some conditions) (pg16). There are two options here: one is that we have limited ability to fully understand the world and will be left with mysterious brute facts (pg17). The other option is that the world's intelligibility is a 'deep' part of the explanation of the way the world works, something like a principle of sufficient reason. Here author aligns with Plato, Schelling and Hegel.
A response to this is to have the natural reductionist encompass the intelligibility of the world to the human mind into the physicalist/reductionist picture (pg18-20). Author is clearly not satisfied with this approach because it doesn't take meaning, value, mind, and consciousness to be fundamental elements of the universe (pg20), which doesn't include 'the evident facts about ourselves'. Author pauses to claim quite explicitly that there is no room for theism in this book (pg21-6), as it neglects the unification and explanation that author seeks, instead installing a being that is supernatural. As author revisits the issue of intelligibility, the theistic picture just gives brute facts and neglects the /why/, but the naturalistic picture is not 'reassuring enough' that our capacities for understanding are reliable (pg27-8). Further, author is troubled by objective moral truths that seem to be orphaned by the naturalistic reductionist account. Because of our certainty in these facts about the world, "it seems reasonable to run the test equally in the opposite direction: namely, to evaluate hypotheses about the universe and how we have come into existence by reference to ordinary judgments in which we have very high confidence." (pg29)
Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 1-2, Oxford University Press, 2012
This is the first two chapters of author's most recent book, which disputes that 'psychophysical reductionism' is the only possible unifying naturalistic understanding of the universe. For author, the key rub is the development of life, and especially the development of reason and consciousness. If this reductionism can't account for consciousness or reasoned action, author claims it is reasonable to think of mind as a fundamental feature of the universe-- irreducibly part of it-- and thus falsifying 'naturalistic reductionism'. Author admits to not having a fledged-out alternative. This attempt is more fundamentally skeptical than propositional.
In Ch 1 author claims the "neo-Darwinian account of the origin and evolution of life" (pg6) is incredible and is only a "schema for explanation, supported by some examples". Author has two questions: the first is about how life came about from dead matter at all, and the second is how reason and consciousness could have come about from then until now. Author acknowledges that there are much fewer conclusions about the first question than the second. In the following pages author states skepticism about the explanations offered by natural selection as they bear on both these questions. (pg9-10)
Author's most provocative statements about the completeness of psychophysical reductionism are on pg8, where author claims that the remarkable success of science had to do with "excluding mind from the physical world" (pg8). This must end "in the long run" if the mind is to become part of the world, thus author is seeking a more complete view. Author wishes to keep two standards during this discussion: first: that remarkable events should be considered non-accidental, and second: that there is one unifying 'single natural order' (pg7).
Author's general frame of argument seems to be to install the irreducibility of the mental into the world but simultaneously to avoid dualism, idealism, or theism (pg14-6). Author lays out the first issue to consider: the intelligibility of the world. It is a background assumption of science that the world is intelligible to our perceptual apparatus (at least some of that apparatus at some times under some conditions) (pg16). There are two options here: one is that we have limited ability to fully understand the world and will be left with mysterious brute facts (pg17). The other option is that the world's intelligibility is a 'deep' part of the explanation of the way the world works, something like a principle of sufficient reason. Here author aligns with Plato, Schelling and Hegel.
A response to this is to have the natural reductionist encompass the intelligibility of the world to the human mind into the physicalist/reductionist picture (pg18-20). Author is clearly not satisfied with this approach because it doesn't take meaning, value, mind, and consciousness to be fundamental elements of the universe (pg20), which doesn't include 'the evident facts about ourselves'. Author pauses to claim quite explicitly that there is no room for theism in this book (pg21-6), as it neglects the unification and explanation that author seeks, instead installing a being that is supernatural. As author revisits the issue of intelligibility, the theistic picture just gives brute facts and neglects the /why/, but the naturalistic picture is not 'reassuring enough' that our capacities for understanding are reliable (pg27-8). Further, author is troubled by objective moral truths that seem to be orphaned by the naturalistic reductionist account. Because of our certainty in these facts about the world, "it seems reasonable to run the test equally in the opposite direction: namely, to evaluate hypotheses about the universe and how we have come into existence by reference to ordinary judgments in which we have very high confidence." (pg29)
11/30/12
Burge, Tyler - Self and Self-Understanding III: Self-Understanding
11/16/2012
Journal of Philosophy, June-July 2011
This final lecture gets to the epistemic warrant for self-understanding, for the privileged access to apperceptively rationally accessible points of view. An epistemic warrant is an objectively good route to truth, implying "veridicality in normal conditions" (pg339). More importantly, such a warrant must also show why such routes are prone to truth. Here a warrant is a reliable procedure to truth but can be subject to "brute error", which is an error due to accidental or non-normal conditions. However, with the warrants for self-understanding, author claims some cases are immune to brute error (pg340). The strategy is that some self-understanding is immune to brute error, but these psychological states are not essentially immune. There are some that are immune, however, and these are the ones that ground self-applicability of norms (pg341). "Immunity of the self-understanding to brute error is constitutive to having an apperceptive core self." (pg341) This is a key argument by the author: that self-understanding that is prone to error cannot give the "buck-stopping status" to the attitudes to which norms are applied (by the individual) (pg341-2). Author capitalizes "Self-Understanding" to signal when the discussion is about this kind of self-understanding that is immune to brute error for the constitutive self-application of moral and rational norms.
Section II serves to flesh out some of author's claims about immunity from brute error: it doesn't apply generally, it is not tied to any subject matter, there are other errors that could be involved, thoughts aren't self-intimating or infallibly known. Author even states that there is no necessary connection between having representational states (even propositional attitudes) and an individual knowing what those states or attitudes are (pg345). Section II also divides author's views from some notable rivals or other thinkers. Author also takes some time to argue against Peacock's view that "the subject matters of self-knowledge constitute reasons for the knowledge" (pg345-6). Another claim author disputes is that self-knowledge is structurally like being aware of one's own physical actions: like knowing that you're raising your arm (pg346-7). Author's response: while agents do act, there is a lot of self-knowledge that isn't related to actions.
Section III moves forward with author's argument, first distinguishing between warrants that are based on reasons (justifications) and those not so (entitlements): warrants for Self-Knowledge are based on the latter. The warrants about the attitudes that constitute Self-Understanding are, according to author, immune to brute error (Wibe). Author goes through three ways in which a token propositional attitude could be in error even if it is of the kind that is Wibe. (pg348)
1: the attitude is warranted in some other way (not Wibe)
2: the attitude was formed in a way where Wibe does not apply (through a different route)
3: some pathology might influence the attitude that is normally Wibe
Much of author's discussion then turns to three other kinds of entitled warrants that are psychological and de re about propositional attitudes and are immune to brute error, like deductive reasoning's logical "transitions" (pg349-352). Then in Section IV expounds on the 4 features that "ground immunity" for these cases:
1: the competencies rest on "propositional understanding" (understanding what a proposition is about)
2: having a point of view requires Wibe
3: it all ties together within itself [what?]
4: there is no other place from which veridical Self-Understanding might come from
Author ties this together with a principle on warrant (pg353) and goes on to discuss the three other kinds in light of these new features. Author then contrasts these warrants with those that are subject to brute error, namely perceptual beliefs (pg356-9).
Turning back to Self-Understanding, author wants to take much of the lessons learned about other Wibe cases and apply them. Author takes a basic meta-representational attitude like: "I believe that X" and investigates it's structure. It involves three different understandings: indication understanding, betokening understanding, and attribution understanding (pg360). Author narrows in on Self-Understanding about propositional states; author believes that the betokening understanding (which is self-predication of a particular propositional attitude, e.g. "believe"-pg360&364) is immune to brute error when it is warranted. (pg361)
Author believes that purely preservative memory is 'at the heart' of warranted Self-Understanding that is immune to brute error, thus takes some time discussing it (pg362-5). Purely preservative memory is given powers to preserve de re, and also to preserve the attitude mode (belief, disbelief, wonder if, etc.) under which the representation was acquired (pg362). Author discusses the form of the "cogito" cases ("I am currently thinking about X"), and compares them to "impure" cogito cases: "I believe that X is the case". (pg363) The individual may have a meta-representational belief that she is doing a psychological computation (believing), but she may be mistaken that she is actually doing that believing. These cases are both warranted and immune to brute error, though the second could still be in error due to a 'pathology'. Author concludes Section 5 by claiming that using preservative memory (and preservative memory being as it is) is constitutive to being a self (pg365).
The next discussion is about warrant to the betokening understanding. It seems author is intent on resting epistemic warrant that is Wibe on the reliability of purely preservative memory (PPM) (pg365-7). Author then elaborates the claim and defends it. Author claims first that purely preservative memory is "naturally reliable" (pg367) and is a condition of a "functioning representational psychology". Author claims that when PPM fails it is due to malfunctioning; thus maintains simultaneously that relying on its proper functioning creates a warrant that is immune to brute error. Author acknowledges some constructive features of memory (pg368) and seeks to separate episodic memory and PPM, but still wants to preserve immunity from brute error for even episodic memory (pg368-370).
Author talks further about PPM by clarifying that it does not represent either mode type (belief, thought, etc) or the representational content it preserves (pg370). Thus, it takes a betokening understanding to access this content and also to represent it. It is this representation that is immune to brute error (in some cases) (pg371). The key point author seeks to defend is that betokening understanding of a PPM will correctly pick up on the attitude mode (believe, think, wonder) that is supposedly stored there (pg372). Author introduces a norm of critical reason that involves preservation of reasonable beliefs: if an individual judges a psychological state as reasonable, the individual has reason to preserve that state. This norm, if it could not be applied reliably (that is, if it were subject to the proviso: 'though I may not reliably be able to do so') would undermine the "buck-stopping status" of lower-level psychological states and would undermine the critical reason of selves (pg372-3). Author takes stock of the state of the argument on page 375.
In Section 7, author tries to argue that reason-supporting claims can also be immune to brute error (e.g. X is reason for Y) (pg376-8). In Section 8, author discusses perceptions and sensations as they are betokened in the Self-Understanding. Finally, author summarizes author's claims and responds to some brief counter-examples.
Journal of Philosophy, June-July 2011
This final lecture gets to the epistemic warrant for self-understanding, for the privileged access to apperceptively rationally accessible points of view. An epistemic warrant is an objectively good route to truth, implying "veridicality in normal conditions" (pg339). More importantly, such a warrant must also show why such routes are prone to truth. Here a warrant is a reliable procedure to truth but can be subject to "brute error", which is an error due to accidental or non-normal conditions. However, with the warrants for self-understanding, author claims some cases are immune to brute error (pg340). The strategy is that some self-understanding is immune to brute error, but these psychological states are not essentially immune. There are some that are immune, however, and these are the ones that ground self-applicability of norms (pg341). "Immunity of the self-understanding to brute error is constitutive to having an apperceptive core self." (pg341) This is a key argument by the author: that self-understanding that is prone to error cannot give the "buck-stopping status" to the attitudes to which norms are applied (by the individual) (pg341-2). Author capitalizes "Self-Understanding" to signal when the discussion is about this kind of self-understanding that is immune to brute error for the constitutive self-application of moral and rational norms.
Section II serves to flesh out some of author's claims about immunity from brute error: it doesn't apply generally, it is not tied to any subject matter, there are other errors that could be involved, thoughts aren't self-intimating or infallibly known. Author even states that there is no necessary connection between having representational states (even propositional attitudes) and an individual knowing what those states or attitudes are (pg345). Section II also divides author's views from some notable rivals or other thinkers. Author also takes some time to argue against Peacock's view that "the subject matters of self-knowledge constitute reasons for the knowledge" (pg345-6). Another claim author disputes is that self-knowledge is structurally like being aware of one's own physical actions: like knowing that you're raising your arm (pg346-7). Author's response: while agents do act, there is a lot of self-knowledge that isn't related to actions.
Section III moves forward with author's argument, first distinguishing between warrants that are based on reasons (justifications) and those not so (entitlements): warrants for Self-Knowledge are based on the latter. The warrants about the attitudes that constitute Self-Understanding are, according to author, immune to brute error (Wibe). Author goes through three ways in which a token propositional attitude could be in error even if it is of the kind that is Wibe. (pg348)
1: the attitude is warranted in some other way (not Wibe)
2: the attitude was formed in a way where Wibe does not apply (through a different route)
3: some pathology might influence the attitude that is normally Wibe
Much of author's discussion then turns to three other kinds of entitled warrants that are psychological and de re about propositional attitudes and are immune to brute error, like deductive reasoning's logical "transitions" (pg349-352). Then in Section IV expounds on the 4 features that "ground immunity" for these cases:
1: the competencies rest on "propositional understanding" (understanding what a proposition is about)
2: having a point of view requires Wibe
3: it all ties together within itself [what?]
4: there is no other place from which veridical Self-Understanding might come from
Author ties this together with a principle on warrant (pg353) and goes on to discuss the three other kinds in light of these new features. Author then contrasts these warrants with those that are subject to brute error, namely perceptual beliefs (pg356-9).
Turning back to Self-Understanding, author wants to take much of the lessons learned about other Wibe cases and apply them. Author takes a basic meta-representational attitude like: "I believe that X" and investigates it's structure. It involves three different understandings: indication understanding, betokening understanding, and attribution understanding (pg360). Author narrows in on Self-Understanding about propositional states; author believes that the betokening understanding (which is self-predication of a particular propositional attitude, e.g. "believe"-pg360&364) is immune to brute error when it is warranted. (pg361)
Author believes that purely preservative memory is 'at the heart' of warranted Self-Understanding that is immune to brute error, thus takes some time discussing it (pg362-5). Purely preservative memory is given powers to preserve de re, and also to preserve the attitude mode (belief, disbelief, wonder if, etc.) under which the representation was acquired (pg362). Author discusses the form of the "cogito" cases ("I am currently thinking about X"), and compares them to "impure" cogito cases: "I believe that X is the case". (pg363) The individual may have a meta-representational belief that she is doing a psychological computation (believing), but she may be mistaken that she is actually doing that believing. These cases are both warranted and immune to brute error, though the second could still be in error due to a 'pathology'. Author concludes Section 5 by claiming that using preservative memory (and preservative memory being as it is) is constitutive to being a self (pg365).
The next discussion is about warrant to the betokening understanding. It seems author is intent on resting epistemic warrant that is Wibe on the reliability of purely preservative memory (PPM) (pg365-7). Author then elaborates the claim and defends it. Author claims first that purely preservative memory is "naturally reliable" (pg367) and is a condition of a "functioning representational psychology". Author claims that when PPM fails it is due to malfunctioning; thus maintains simultaneously that relying on its proper functioning creates a warrant that is immune to brute error. Author acknowledges some constructive features of memory (pg368) and seeks to separate episodic memory and PPM, but still wants to preserve immunity from brute error for even episodic memory (pg368-370).
Author talks further about PPM by clarifying that it does not represent either mode type (belief, thought, etc) or the representational content it preserves (pg370). Thus, it takes a betokening understanding to access this content and also to represent it. It is this representation that is immune to brute error (in some cases) (pg371). The key point author seeks to defend is that betokening understanding of a PPM will correctly pick up on the attitude mode (believe, think, wonder) that is supposedly stored there (pg372). Author introduces a norm of critical reason that involves preservation of reasonable beliefs: if an individual judges a psychological state as reasonable, the individual has reason to preserve that state. This norm, if it could not be applied reliably (that is, if it were subject to the proviso: 'though I may not reliably be able to do so') would undermine the "buck-stopping status" of lower-level psychological states and would undermine the critical reason of selves (pg372-3). Author takes stock of the state of the argument on page 375.
In Section 7, author tries to argue that reason-supporting claims can also be immune to brute error (e.g. X is reason for Y) (pg376-8). In Section 8, author discusses perceptions and sensations as they are betokened in the Self-Understanding. Finally, author summarizes author's claims and responds to some brief counter-examples.
11/9/12
Burge, Tyler - Self and Self-Understanding II: Self and Constitutive Norms
11/09/2012
The Journal of Philosophy, June-July 2011
In this paper author talks about norms, specifically norms of critical reason and those of morality or intentional action. The idea here, as with the previous lecture, is to show how capacities of an individual can be constitutive to creating a self and having self-understanding. For author, self-understanding is constitutive to having a self. In this paper, author focuses on the meta-psychological ability to evaluate psychological states and apply norms of critical reason and morality to them.
Author starts by defining a "norm", which is "teleological", a "standard that governs good or optimal ways of fulfilling some function" (pg316). Norms can be followed without consciousness, or even understanding, even some rational ones like inferences using propositions. Author goes further to define moral norms and norms of critical reason, and then argues that an understanding of 'having reasons' and 'moral wrongness' are constitutive to being a self (pg318). The argument is roughly:
-an individual must be able to instantiate in her psychology objects to which the norms of critical reason and morality apply
-for an individual to apply these norms, she must first (1) understand that she has relevant propositional attitudes in her psychology and (2) understand the norms themselves. (pg318-9)
-the individual must have a meta-psychological ability to apply norms to her own psychological states
-that ability requires self-understanding (pg320)
Author talks about what it means to understand a moral norm: it means the individual can evaluate "psychological motivations", since moral norms are essentially about those (pg319-320). For author, this involves an understanding of oneself "from the inside" (pg321), having proprietary "point of view" access to psychological attitudes that isn't inferential from action or behavior (pg325).
In section II author examines the application of moral norms and critical reason. Author looks into the psychological roots for understanding moral norms: motivation, intention, negligence, should-have-known-better, etc (pg321-323). Critical reason applications come next, and it is here where author divides the individual's psychology into rationally accessible and inaccessible: the areas of the unconscious, self-deception, beliefs hidden by emotion, etc. These are not subject to the application of critical reason in the individual with the same propriety; they "have a fundamentally different status" (pg323-325).
Section III discusses a baseline concept of the "rationally accessible point of view", and adds "apperceptive" to the front of it to indicate that this is first-personal access to psychological states of an individual. The "rationally accessible" excludes the Freudian unconscious, self-deception, and other states that need "extensive priming" to be recognized; in general it is all memory, representational states, psychological events, and conscious sensations, feelings, and beliefs (pg326). The contents of this point of view have a "privileged status" when it comes to applying moral and rational norms: it is here where the individual does so (pg327). This status is the "buck-stopping status" that author uses as a term: it is the end of where an individual applies norms of moral responsibility and rationality (pg327). [This is not to say that once an individual abides by all norms in this point of view that she is perfectly rational or good, but just that's where her evaluations end.] From this privileged point of view is where inferences begin, since the apperceptive rationally accessible point of view is an "immediate, non-inductively accessible" baseline (pg327).
The place where you apply norms is to the psychological antecedents of action, and author argues that accountability to norms depends on having a self-understanding of one's own psychology in a "from the inside" way (pg328-9).
Section IV is a discussion of how self-understanding in the ability to apply norms is constitutive of selves, and in particular relating (again) to memory. This time author turns to diachronic understanding of motivations and the individual's own psychology: a meta-psychological influence. The argument runs roughly as follows:
-selves must be able to make inferences about the contents of propositions (pg330-1)
-selves must be able to apply rational standards (minimally) to the contents of propositions. In effect, this means having privileged access to the contents of their psychology so that beliefs or attitudes can be evaluated and shed (pg331)
-making inferences means an individual must have the capacity to remember (autobiographically, not just storing propositions) (pg332-4)
Section V is a very useful summary of author's position thus far.
The Journal of Philosophy, June-July 2011
In this paper author talks about norms, specifically norms of critical reason and those of morality or intentional action. The idea here, as with the previous lecture, is to show how capacities of an individual can be constitutive to creating a self and having self-understanding. For author, self-understanding is constitutive to having a self. In this paper, author focuses on the meta-psychological ability to evaluate psychological states and apply norms of critical reason and morality to them.
Author starts by defining a "norm", which is "teleological", a "standard that governs good or optimal ways of fulfilling some function" (pg316). Norms can be followed without consciousness, or even understanding, even some rational ones like inferences using propositions. Author goes further to define moral norms and norms of critical reason, and then argues that an understanding of 'having reasons' and 'moral wrongness' are constitutive to being a self (pg318). The argument is roughly:
-an individual must be able to instantiate in her psychology objects to which the norms of critical reason and morality apply
-for an individual to apply these norms, she must first (1) understand that she has relevant propositional attitudes in her psychology and (2) understand the norms themselves. (pg318-9)
-the individual must have a meta-psychological ability to apply norms to her own psychological states
-that ability requires self-understanding (pg320)
Author talks about what it means to understand a moral norm: it means the individual can evaluate "psychological motivations", since moral norms are essentially about those (pg319-320). For author, this involves an understanding of oneself "from the inside" (pg321), having proprietary "point of view" access to psychological attitudes that isn't inferential from action or behavior (pg325).
In section II author examines the application of moral norms and critical reason. Author looks into the psychological roots for understanding moral norms: motivation, intention, negligence, should-have-known-better, etc (pg321-323). Critical reason applications come next, and it is here where author divides the individual's psychology into rationally accessible and inaccessible: the areas of the unconscious, self-deception, beliefs hidden by emotion, etc. These are not subject to the application of critical reason in the individual with the same propriety; they "have a fundamentally different status" (pg323-325).
Section III discusses a baseline concept of the "rationally accessible point of view", and adds "apperceptive" to the front of it to indicate that this is first-personal access to psychological states of an individual. The "rationally accessible" excludes the Freudian unconscious, self-deception, and other states that need "extensive priming" to be recognized; in general it is all memory, representational states, psychological events, and conscious sensations, feelings, and beliefs (pg326). The contents of this point of view have a "privileged status" when it comes to applying moral and rational norms: it is here where the individual does so (pg327). This status is the "buck-stopping status" that author uses as a term: it is the end of where an individual applies norms of moral responsibility and rationality (pg327). [This is not to say that once an individual abides by all norms in this point of view that she is perfectly rational or good, but just that's where her evaluations end.] From this privileged point of view is where inferences begin, since the apperceptive rationally accessible point of view is an "immediate, non-inductively accessible" baseline (pg327).
The place where you apply norms is to the psychological antecedents of action, and author argues that accountability to norms depends on having a self-understanding of one's own psychology in a "from the inside" way (pg328-9).
Section IV is a discussion of how self-understanding in the ability to apply norms is constitutive of selves, and in particular relating (again) to memory. This time author turns to diachronic understanding of motivations and the individual's own psychology: a meta-psychological influence. The argument runs roughly as follows:
-selves must be able to make inferences about the contents of propositions (pg330-1)
-selves must be able to apply rational standards (minimally) to the contents of propositions. In effect, this means having privileged access to the contents of their psychology so that beliefs or attitudes can be evaluated and shed (pg331)
-making inferences means an individual must have the capacity to remember (autobiographically, not just storing propositions) (pg332-4)
Section V is a very useful summary of author's position thus far.
11/2/12
Burge, Tyler - Self & Understanding Lecture I: Some Origins of Self
11/02/2012
The Journal of Philosophy, June/July 2011
This lecture is devoted to understanding the self and its psychological functions. Author begins with some clarifying remarks: the discussion is about the psychology of the self, not its ontology (Strawson is brought up as someone who provides a useful concept but does not manage to prove that the concept "person" can only be physical). Also, author takes care to distinguish between concepts of person-hood, and self-hood, which is more about critical self-reflection. (pg290) Interestingly, author claims that a person has a self if it has it while in its mature state, even before it realizes that state. (pg290) Further, author claims that unconscious elements of psychology only are "constitutively relevant to selves" when they are conscious. (pg291-2) This comes when introducing a technical term: a "point of view": representational states and occurrences that are imputable to the individual (pg292). A self/individual realizes a multi-tiered structure of itself (self-reference) by taking objects within it's point of view as further objects to be represented. (pg292)
In section II author discusses the difference between perception and sensory systems: not all sensory systems are perceptual. Perception involves representation of objects in the world, while other sensory systems might be more or less successful at getting what the living thing needs/wants, but there is no test of veridicality. (pg292-3) For author, the "mark" of the perceptual is "perceptual constancy": that objects perceived retain their features even through shifting contexts. (pg293) Prior to self-representation is another, more primitive form of representation outlined by the term "egocentric index": a spatio-temporal representation that 'indexes' an origin as an individual's point of view; it is "immune to failure" (pg294). There are two functions (constitutive) of an egocentric index: (1) an origin/index for representations and (2) a provider of ego-relevance when it comes to the individuals own goals, needs, and perspective. (pg294-5)
Author moves into talking about developmental ontogeny for self-representation, specifically four capacities:
1. Coupling of visual representations of a body and kinesthetic movements (the mirror test), and attribution of the body as one's own. (pg296-300) Author does not believe this is self-consciousness or self-awareness since no psychological states are involved in the proprioception. Author instead states this is a version of 'double indexing', where the object seen in the mirror is indexed again as the individual's own body (pg298).
2. Copying and imitation capacities.(pg301-30) This is considered more advanced than the mirror test since it requires adjustment to activity the individual cannot control. (pg303) Further, author argues that imitation and joint attention are not psychological understandings of others but instead teleological understandings of them. This is still not yet self-representation or even theory of mind (pg304),
3. Joint Attention (pg303)
4. Memory. Author takes a long tour through a taxonomy of memory. Author is interested first in Long-Term Experiential Episodic memory, a subspecies of Long-Term Experiential memory. Episodic memory must be conscious, and is time-specific to picking out objects as they were at the time (pg306), and revisiting them is like re-living them (pg307). This is different from non-episodic experiential memory, where one has access to the content of a belief based on the past but does not have access to how the particulars were experienced. These kinds of memories locate the remember in the situation (pg308). Episodic and generic long-term memory is considered 'de re' by author (pg305-6), because it must be conscious and noninferential (pg213). Author develops Autobiographical Experiential Memory as a kind of memory "from the inside", which preserves the perspective of the individual within the memory (pg309). The importance of this kind of memory is that it is extended over time in ways that imitation, joint attention, and the mirror test have do not. (pg310)
Author ends this discussion with looking at the Kantian and Lockean conception of selfhood through the lenses of memory author just sketched.
The Journal of Philosophy, June/July 2011
This lecture is devoted to understanding the self and its psychological functions. Author begins with some clarifying remarks: the discussion is about the psychology of the self, not its ontology (Strawson is brought up as someone who provides a useful concept but does not manage to prove that the concept "person" can only be physical). Also, author takes care to distinguish between concepts of person-hood, and self-hood, which is more about critical self-reflection. (pg290) Interestingly, author claims that a person has a self if it has it while in its mature state, even before it realizes that state. (pg290) Further, author claims that unconscious elements of psychology only are "constitutively relevant to selves" when they are conscious. (pg291-2) This comes when introducing a technical term: a "point of view": representational states and occurrences that are imputable to the individual (pg292). A self/individual realizes a multi-tiered structure of itself (self-reference) by taking objects within it's point of view as further objects to be represented. (pg292)
In section II author discusses the difference between perception and sensory systems: not all sensory systems are perceptual. Perception involves representation of objects in the world, while other sensory systems might be more or less successful at getting what the living thing needs/wants, but there is no test of veridicality. (pg292-3) For author, the "mark" of the perceptual is "perceptual constancy": that objects perceived retain their features even through shifting contexts. (pg293) Prior to self-representation is another, more primitive form of representation outlined by the term "egocentric index": a spatio-temporal representation that 'indexes' an origin as an individual's point of view; it is "immune to failure" (pg294). There are two functions (constitutive) of an egocentric index: (1) an origin/index for representations and (2) a provider of ego-relevance when it comes to the individuals own goals, needs, and perspective. (pg294-5)
Author moves into talking about developmental ontogeny for self-representation, specifically four capacities:
1. Coupling of visual representations of a body and kinesthetic movements (the mirror test), and attribution of the body as one's own. (pg296-300) Author does not believe this is self-consciousness or self-awareness since no psychological states are involved in the proprioception. Author instead states this is a version of 'double indexing', where the object seen in the mirror is indexed again as the individual's own body (pg298).
2. Copying and imitation capacities.(pg301-30) This is considered more advanced than the mirror test since it requires adjustment to activity the individual cannot control. (pg303) Further, author argues that imitation and joint attention are not psychological understandings of others but instead teleological understandings of them. This is still not yet self-representation or even theory of mind (pg304),
3. Joint Attention (pg303)
4. Memory. Author takes a long tour through a taxonomy of memory. Author is interested first in Long-Term Experiential Episodic memory, a subspecies of Long-Term Experiential memory. Episodic memory must be conscious, and is time-specific to picking out objects as they were at the time (pg306), and revisiting them is like re-living them (pg307). This is different from non-episodic experiential memory, where one has access to the content of a belief based on the past but does not have access to how the particulars were experienced. These kinds of memories locate the remember in the situation (pg308). Episodic and generic long-term memory is considered 'de re' by author (pg305-6), because it must be conscious and noninferential (pg213). Author develops Autobiographical Experiential Memory as a kind of memory "from the inside", which preserves the perspective of the individual within the memory (pg309). The importance of this kind of memory is that it is extended over time in ways that imitation, joint attention, and the mirror test have do not. (pg310)
Author ends this discussion with looking at the Kantian and Lockean conception of selfhood through the lenses of memory author just sketched.
10/26/12
Leiter, Brian & Weisberg, Michael - Do You Only Have A Brain?
10/26/2012
The Nation, 9/2012
This is a review of Thomas Nagel's newest book "Mind And Cosmos; Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False". According to authors, there are two major arguments that Nagel levels. The first is the false promise that philosophers have about theoretical reductionism, in that all material facts in the sciences can ultimately be reduced to physical facts about the fundamental elements of the universe. The second is that many scientific discoveries are contrary to "common sense" and our natural understandings about ourselves. The authors discuss the first briefly, the second more thoroughly.
To Nagel's first objection to naturalism the authors generally concede the point: no one is working very hard in the sciences to provide reduction; it is unclear if there is much practical benefit to providing such a thing; it is unclear it is fully even possible. Regarding the second of Nagel's 'broadsides', the authors push back: Nagel's understanding is limited; common sense often is in error, even about ourselves. Nagel uses the supposition that there is an objective moral, mathematical, and logical truths to drive a wedge between human mentality/behavior and the 'Neo-Darwinian' conception. Authors represent Nagel as having "simplistic evolutionary reasoning" and focus more on the logical and mathematical truths rather than the supposed moral ones.
Nagel's argument: how would we know it is valid if all our methods of knowing have nothing to do with validity and more to do with evolutionary history?
Authors: Because when we use math, things work validly.
Author's use the analogy of Neurath's Boat, that validity is built as it continues to sustain solutions that work.
The last argument from Nagel that authors consider is one where it seems (currently) impossible for science to explain how consciousness came to be from evolutionary processes. Authors claim that some explanation is possible but to ask for prediction to accompany explanation is asking too much. There need not be predictive capabilities on a one-to-one basis with explanations, authors retort.
The Nation, 9/2012
This is a review of Thomas Nagel's newest book "Mind And Cosmos; Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False". According to authors, there are two major arguments that Nagel levels. The first is the false promise that philosophers have about theoretical reductionism, in that all material facts in the sciences can ultimately be reduced to physical facts about the fundamental elements of the universe. The second is that many scientific discoveries are contrary to "common sense" and our natural understandings about ourselves. The authors discuss the first briefly, the second more thoroughly.
To Nagel's first objection to naturalism the authors generally concede the point: no one is working very hard in the sciences to provide reduction; it is unclear if there is much practical benefit to providing such a thing; it is unclear it is fully even possible. Regarding the second of Nagel's 'broadsides', the authors push back: Nagel's understanding is limited; common sense often is in error, even about ourselves. Nagel uses the supposition that there is an objective moral, mathematical, and logical truths to drive a wedge between human mentality/behavior and the 'Neo-Darwinian' conception. Authors represent Nagel as having "simplistic evolutionary reasoning" and focus more on the logical and mathematical truths rather than the supposed moral ones.
Nagel's argument: how would we know it is valid if all our methods of knowing have nothing to do with validity and more to do with evolutionary history?
Authors: Because when we use math, things work validly.
Author's use the analogy of Neurath's Boat, that validity is built as it continues to sustain solutions that work.
The last argument from Nagel that authors consider is one where it seems (currently) impossible for science to explain how consciousness came to be from evolutionary processes. Authors claim that some explanation is possible but to ask for prediction to accompany explanation is asking too much. There need not be predictive capabilities on a one-to-one basis with explanations, authors retort.
10/12/12
Priest, Graham - What is Philosophy?
10/12/2012
The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 2006
Author starts the paper by stating that this question is itself a philosophical question, so it is not surprising that there has been disagreement and contention since it was first asked. Author believes that there are two views about the nature of philosophy that have wide acceptance: Wittgenstein's and Derrida's. Author goes through them both en route to author's own view.
Wittgenstein's later view of philosophy is rooted in his view of language, so author takes some time summarizing Wittgenstein's approach to language found in the Philosophical Investigations. The first discussion talks about how Wittgenstein rejected his previous view of language put forth in the Tractatus, and instead offered a rules-based "language game" that is partially arbitrary and justified by use. (pg190-1) Philosophical problems are what happens when terms from the language game are removed from it and tried to be examined out of context: they are meaningless without it and so philosophical problems go from "difficult" to "meaningless". (pg191) One case author uses is the case of free will: in this case the concept of "freedom" is employed, but outside of the normal context that gives the words their accepted usage. Author concludes the summary of Wittgenstein's view that philosophy is best re-characterized as a practice to un-metaphysicalize words and concepts (pg192).
For author, Wittgenstein's view of philosophy is a "disappointing one" (pg193). Author argues that even if Wittgenstein's view of language as put forth in the Investigations is correct, it does not follow from that view that philosophy is best employed as Wittgenstein sketches. The fundamental premise that author takes to be false is that: philosophical problems only arise when a "notion is pulled out of its linguistic home-game" (pg193). Author gives examples like ethical dilemmas and discussions as to the nature of time. More fundamentally, author objects to equating the meaning of terms within a language game with their truth: the truth they are trying to get at is a further matter (pg194).
Author now discusses Derrida's view of philosophy: beginning with his view of language. For Derrida, there is no determinate meaning for language since all searches for meaning end up with more language (pg195-6). The problem: clearly language is meaningful somehow: how? For Derrida, words get their meaning from contrasts with other words ("red" contrasted with "green"), but also by using references to other words from other contexts, a kind of promissory note or deference that Derrida called "differance" (pg196). One upshot of this theory is that no text has a determinate meaning.
Since it is unknown how Derrida believed his theories of deconstruction applied to philosophy, author instead looks at Rorty, who claims that his understanding of philosophy is from Derrida (pg197). When philosophers try to "get it right" about a determinate truth of ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, they are conducting a fools errand since if language has no determinate meaning, then how does one find its determinate truth? With Rorty channeling Derrida, philosophy is just another kind of writing. Just as author did with Wittgenstein, author grants that Derrida's views on language are correct. The first point against Rorty/Derrida's view of philosophy starts as follows: this doesn't just apply to philosophy. All linguistic enterprise finds no determinate truth, including science and mathematics. And yet there are standards within each discipline that lead to better and worse outcomes ("disagree at the risk of life and limb." pg199). Once philosophy is put into this category, "things are not so bad" (pg199). The second point is that just because language has no determinate truth doesn't mean there isn't a determinate truth: some enterprises seek that truth (and fail) and others don't even try (e.g. fictive writing). Indeed if the very enterprises that Derrida and Rorty use are not supposed to be truth-seeking, they are just fictions to be ignored or they are self-refuting (pg199-200).
Author claims that both Wittgenstein's and Derrida/Rorty's approaches are both self-refuting (giving a philosophical account of philosophy that denies that philosophy can give accounts) and are also dependent on a substantive theory of meaning. Instead, author puts forth the theory that philosophy is: critical, assumption-challenging, where "anything" can be scrutinized, subversive, unsettling, and universally applicable (pg201-3). On the positive side, philosophy is also constructive and creative with new theories and conceptions, author spends time arguing this is a corollary of the critical nature of philosophy (pg204-6).
The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 2006
Author starts the paper by stating that this question is itself a philosophical question, so it is not surprising that there has been disagreement and contention since it was first asked. Author believes that there are two views about the nature of philosophy that have wide acceptance: Wittgenstein's and Derrida's. Author goes through them both en route to author's own view.
Wittgenstein's later view of philosophy is rooted in his view of language, so author takes some time summarizing Wittgenstein's approach to language found in the Philosophical Investigations. The first discussion talks about how Wittgenstein rejected his previous view of language put forth in the Tractatus, and instead offered a rules-based "language game" that is partially arbitrary and justified by use. (pg190-1) Philosophical problems are what happens when terms from the language game are removed from it and tried to be examined out of context: they are meaningless without it and so philosophical problems go from "difficult" to "meaningless". (pg191) One case author uses is the case of free will: in this case the concept of "freedom" is employed, but outside of the normal context that gives the words their accepted usage. Author concludes the summary of Wittgenstein's view that philosophy is best re-characterized as a practice to un-metaphysicalize words and concepts (pg192).
For author, Wittgenstein's view of philosophy is a "disappointing one" (pg193). Author argues that even if Wittgenstein's view of language as put forth in the Investigations is correct, it does not follow from that view that philosophy is best employed as Wittgenstein sketches. The fundamental premise that author takes to be false is that: philosophical problems only arise when a "notion is pulled out of its linguistic home-game" (pg193). Author gives examples like ethical dilemmas and discussions as to the nature of time. More fundamentally, author objects to equating the meaning of terms within a language game with their truth: the truth they are trying to get at is a further matter (pg194).
Author now discusses Derrida's view of philosophy: beginning with his view of language. For Derrida, there is no determinate meaning for language since all searches for meaning end up with more language (pg195-6). The problem: clearly language is meaningful somehow: how? For Derrida, words get their meaning from contrasts with other words ("red" contrasted with "green"), but also by using references to other words from other contexts, a kind of promissory note or deference that Derrida called "differance" (pg196). One upshot of this theory is that no text has a determinate meaning.
Since it is unknown how Derrida believed his theories of deconstruction applied to philosophy, author instead looks at Rorty, who claims that his understanding of philosophy is from Derrida (pg197). When philosophers try to "get it right" about a determinate truth of ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, they are conducting a fools errand since if language has no determinate meaning, then how does one find its determinate truth? With Rorty channeling Derrida, philosophy is just another kind of writing. Just as author did with Wittgenstein, author grants that Derrida's views on language are correct. The first point against Rorty/Derrida's view of philosophy starts as follows: this doesn't just apply to philosophy. All linguistic enterprise finds no determinate truth, including science and mathematics. And yet there are standards within each discipline that lead to better and worse outcomes ("disagree at the risk of life and limb." pg199). Once philosophy is put into this category, "things are not so bad" (pg199). The second point is that just because language has no determinate truth doesn't mean there isn't a determinate truth: some enterprises seek that truth (and fail) and others don't even try (e.g. fictive writing). Indeed if the very enterprises that Derrida and Rorty use are not supposed to be truth-seeking, they are just fictions to be ignored or they are self-refuting (pg199-200).
Author claims that both Wittgenstein's and Derrida/Rorty's approaches are both self-refuting (giving a philosophical account of philosophy that denies that philosophy can give accounts) and are also dependent on a substantive theory of meaning. Instead, author puts forth the theory that philosophy is: critical, assumption-challenging, where "anything" can be scrutinized, subversive, unsettling, and universally applicable (pg201-3). On the positive side, philosophy is also constructive and creative with new theories and conceptions, author spends time arguing this is a corollary of the critical nature of philosophy (pg204-6).
9/28/12
Priest, Graham - Philosophy Sans Frontieres: Analytic and Continental Philosophy - A View from the East
02/28/2012
Author begins by considering the supposed distinction between Analytic and Continental philosophy, and points out that there is little of substance between them and that from the perspective from the philosophy of the East (Asia) it is just bickering within a family. Author admits that much of what follows is broad and misses details and distinctions, but assumes that the broad strokes author presents are true in some 'gross terms'.
Author believes the divide between Analytic and Continental in the 20th century had 3 phases: constructive, destructive, and fragmentation. The rebellion against German Idealism was led by Frege and Husserl, both concerned with representation in language and thought. Frege developed logic and semantic theories about sense, reference, objects, concepts. Husserl developed phenomenology and how consciousness 'presents itself'. The tools 'took on a life of their own' and the first half of the 20th century was filled with optimism about solving old problems with the new tools. Wittgenstein and Russell, then the logical positivists on the Analytic side, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty on the Continental. Then the destructive phase, Kuhn (Analytic) and Foucault (Continental) and the 'specter of relativism' from without, and the internal attacks from Quine, Derrida. Author states that the novel techniques that launched the constructive phase ended up 'collapsing under their own weight'. What followed was a variety of influential philosophers, each with separate goals and arguments: a fragmentation. The core of both traditions, states author, is a concern for representation and that in the fragmentation there are many more commonalities to be appreciated.
Author moves on to consider "Asian Philosophy" and discounts it as a coherent thing; there are at least two distinct traditions: from India and from China. This is different from Western Philosophy, which author states solely originates from ancient Greece. There are three barriers to westerners studying Eastern Philosophy: language, style, and culture. Author discusses first Indian, the Chinese philosophical history. Author focuses on Buddhism cross-pollinating with T(D)aoism to create Chan/Zen Buddhism, and briefly discusses the distinctions between Indian and Chinese Buddhism.
Author argues that from the Eastern perspective, the Analytic/Continental divide looks like an 'in-house debate', while the different origins, languages, and styles of Indian/Chinese philosophy are 'definitely very different'. Author concludes with a prediction that Asia will rise as the dominant political force of the world and that philosophy will migrate its center of gravity from the US to Asia, and perhaps create a global philosophical culture which will make the Analytic/Continental divide irrelevant.
Author begins by considering the supposed distinction between Analytic and Continental philosophy, and points out that there is little of substance between them and that from the perspective from the philosophy of the East (Asia) it is just bickering within a family. Author admits that much of what follows is broad and misses details and distinctions, but assumes that the broad strokes author presents are true in some 'gross terms'.
Author believes the divide between Analytic and Continental in the 20th century had 3 phases: constructive, destructive, and fragmentation. The rebellion against German Idealism was led by Frege and Husserl, both concerned with representation in language and thought. Frege developed logic and semantic theories about sense, reference, objects, concepts. Husserl developed phenomenology and how consciousness 'presents itself'. The tools 'took on a life of their own' and the first half of the 20th century was filled with optimism about solving old problems with the new tools. Wittgenstein and Russell, then the logical positivists on the Analytic side, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty on the Continental. Then the destructive phase, Kuhn (Analytic) and Foucault (Continental) and the 'specter of relativism' from without, and the internal attacks from Quine, Derrida. Author states that the novel techniques that launched the constructive phase ended up 'collapsing under their own weight'. What followed was a variety of influential philosophers, each with separate goals and arguments: a fragmentation. The core of both traditions, states author, is a concern for representation and that in the fragmentation there are many more commonalities to be appreciated.
Author moves on to consider "Asian Philosophy" and discounts it as a coherent thing; there are at least two distinct traditions: from India and from China. This is different from Western Philosophy, which author states solely originates from ancient Greece. There are three barriers to westerners studying Eastern Philosophy: language, style, and culture. Author discusses first Indian, the Chinese philosophical history. Author focuses on Buddhism cross-pollinating with T(D)aoism to create Chan/Zen Buddhism, and briefly discusses the distinctions between Indian and Chinese Buddhism.
Author argues that from the Eastern perspective, the Analytic/Continental divide looks like an 'in-house debate', while the different origins, languages, and styles of Indian/Chinese philosophy are 'definitely very different'. Author concludes with a prediction that Asia will rise as the dominant political force of the world and that philosophy will migrate its center of gravity from the US to Asia, and perhaps create a global philosophical culture which will make the Analytic/Continental divide irrelevant.
9/21/12
Putnam, Hilary - A Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy
09/21/2012
Renewing Philosophy, ch 9, Harvard University Press 1992
Author claims that Dewey's justification of democracy as a "form of social life" is epistemological, in contrast with Bernard Williams' discussion of ethical justifications as a "medical metaphor" and focused solely on the individual. For Williams, the justification for enforcing ethical rules, prototypically around flourishing, is that there is something objectively wrong with the individual who isn't flourishing: that individual is "ill" (pg180-2). Ethics would then be moved into some branch of human psychology, one that we have yet to fully flesh out (if at all). One chief problem author raises is that Williams' conception is 'radically individualistic' (pg182), and Dewey's is for a society in general. The problem is that the medical metaphor does not translate or anologize well into a societal picture.
Author goes on to talk about the problems in modern western society with critiquing other cultures. Besides the cultural relativism argument from anthropologists, there is a persistent idea of the "noble savage", which author tries to unpack as a belief that primitive cultures are superior to modern western ones (pg183-5). The other alternative is the "golden age" myth that points to a spot in history where society was rationally superior but that age is now gone (pg185). Both alternatives want to immunize that culture from suggestions of alternative ways of life, according to author.
The approach Dewey takes is that there are "better and worse resolutions to human predicaments" (pg186), and that this is discoverable through inquiry, hypothesis, experimentation and analysis: an epistemological approach. Author claims this is distinct from, say, Williams, who must have a prior "fact of the matter" established ontologically at which these better or worse resolutions aim. Without that, the resolutions are just "local" truths, not "absolute" ones. (pg187) Dewey believed that philosophy had no specific content for itself other than what was available to common sense and science, thus freedom and information were crucial for resolving problems (pg188). Furthermore, there is no one way to live, thus a democracy is needed to be responsive to further discussion and experimentation (pg189). This does not entail just relying on experts, as Durkheim concluded.
Author argues that Dewey's shortfall is when it comes to moral dilemmas, specifically ones where experimentation and optimizing policies will not work: author gives the example from Sartre's Pierre, who has to decide between joining the resistance (in WWII) or caring for his sick mother (pg190-1). Author talks about William James' Will To Believe essay and how this kind of existential decision can be made "in advance of the evidence". (pg191-2) This line of argumentation for James was criticized since he took belief in God to be an existential choice like Pierre's. Author argues that James falls in line with Wittgenstein that religious belief is a-rational, not irrational or rational. Author gives an extended discussion of the choice of belief in theories even in science (pg192-3), and distinguishes it from religion and other existential choices, whose "rightness" cannot be publicly confirmed (pg194-5). The idea here is that consequential 'estimated utilities' is no way to live a meaningful human life (pg194). Author speculates that Dewey's problem on the individual moral decision has to do with his dualistic conception of human life: the social and the aesthetic (pg196).
The final pages are a conclusion for the entire book, which argues that philosophy is the practice that 'unsettles' prejudices and 'pet convictions' but also changes both our lives and our self-perceptions (pg198-200).
Renewing Philosophy, ch 9, Harvard University Press 1992
Author claims that Dewey's justification of democracy as a "form of social life" is epistemological, in contrast with Bernard Williams' discussion of ethical justifications as a "medical metaphor" and focused solely on the individual. For Williams, the justification for enforcing ethical rules, prototypically around flourishing, is that there is something objectively wrong with the individual who isn't flourishing: that individual is "ill" (pg180-2). Ethics would then be moved into some branch of human psychology, one that we have yet to fully flesh out (if at all). One chief problem author raises is that Williams' conception is 'radically individualistic' (pg182), and Dewey's is for a society in general. The problem is that the medical metaphor does not translate or anologize well into a societal picture.
Author goes on to talk about the problems in modern western society with critiquing other cultures. Besides the cultural relativism argument from anthropologists, there is a persistent idea of the "noble savage", which author tries to unpack as a belief that primitive cultures are superior to modern western ones (pg183-5). The other alternative is the "golden age" myth that points to a spot in history where society was rationally superior but that age is now gone (pg185). Both alternatives want to immunize that culture from suggestions of alternative ways of life, according to author.
The approach Dewey takes is that there are "better and worse resolutions to human predicaments" (pg186), and that this is discoverable through inquiry, hypothesis, experimentation and analysis: an epistemological approach. Author claims this is distinct from, say, Williams, who must have a prior "fact of the matter" established ontologically at which these better or worse resolutions aim. Without that, the resolutions are just "local" truths, not "absolute" ones. (pg187) Dewey believed that philosophy had no specific content for itself other than what was available to common sense and science, thus freedom and information were crucial for resolving problems (pg188). Furthermore, there is no one way to live, thus a democracy is needed to be responsive to further discussion and experimentation (pg189). This does not entail just relying on experts, as Durkheim concluded.
Author argues that Dewey's shortfall is when it comes to moral dilemmas, specifically ones where experimentation and optimizing policies will not work: author gives the example from Sartre's Pierre, who has to decide between joining the resistance (in WWII) or caring for his sick mother (pg190-1). Author talks about William James' Will To Believe essay and how this kind of existential decision can be made "in advance of the evidence". (pg191-2) This line of argumentation for James was criticized since he took belief in God to be an existential choice like Pierre's. Author argues that James falls in line with Wittgenstein that religious belief is a-rational, not irrational or rational. Author gives an extended discussion of the choice of belief in theories even in science (pg192-3), and distinguishes it from religion and other existential choices, whose "rightness" cannot be publicly confirmed (pg194-5). The idea here is that consequential 'estimated utilities' is no way to live a meaningful human life (pg194). Author speculates that Dewey's problem on the individual moral decision has to do with his dualistic conception of human life: the social and the aesthetic (pg196).
The final pages are a conclusion for the entire book, which argues that philosophy is the practice that 'unsettles' prejudices and 'pet convictions' but also changes both our lives and our self-perceptions (pg198-200).
8/24/12
Bandman, Bertram - Ultimate Questions, Extraordinary Religious Beliefs and Ordinary Criteria: The Case Against Fideism in Wittgenstein's Later Work
08/24/2012
From: Wittgenstein: Toward a Re-Evaluation; Fourteenth International Wittgenstein Symposium, Haller & Brandl, eds 1990
A Fideism is defined by author as someone who believes that faith overrides reason. Author does not believe Wittgenstein is a fideist but instead someone who tries to apply ordinary language to inner processes. Author first gives some examples of Wittgenstein's method and statements about the non-sense found in philosophy. But in the next section (3), author gives some examples, including "God's Eye sees everything", which author abbreviates "E". This E is taken not simply as a given but as being embedded in a system of other beliefs, attitudes and expectations, "some of which are rationally examinable".
Author discusses Wittgenstein's conception of a 'Framework Belief', or a belief that is part of the riverbed of one's belief system, like: "I have forebears". Only the insane could doubt such a belief, and such doubt is taken to be hollow. Someone who doubts that 'motorcars grow from the earth' doesn't even accept our system of verification. This is more evidence author uses to claim that Wittgenstein is looking for criteria for belief; not faith. Further than that, there is the problem that expressions of religious faith do not have obvious FBs to 'secure' them.
Another facet of Wittgenstein's work author brings to bear is his adaptation of Moore's Paradigm Case Argument (PCA). Moore's PCA claims that religious beliefs can be reasoned about, and are either true or false. A Fideist might claim that religious beliefs are not intended to be T/F, but this is exactly what PCA scrutinizes. Author conducts an extended analysis of religious belief statements under the supposition that they "fit into a scheme of value statements". In a conservative but charitable understanding of value statements, they are not T/F but reasoned and open to evaluation once given criteria. But furthermore there is the problem that if religious belief is not T/F then the practices that are based on their truth are similarly undermined. (pg342)
From: Wittgenstein: Toward a Re-Evaluation; Fourteenth International Wittgenstein Symposium, Haller & Brandl, eds 1990
A Fideism is defined by author as someone who believes that faith overrides reason. Author does not believe Wittgenstein is a fideist but instead someone who tries to apply ordinary language to inner processes. Author first gives some examples of Wittgenstein's method and statements about the non-sense found in philosophy. But in the next section (3), author gives some examples, including "God's Eye sees everything", which author abbreviates "E". This E is taken not simply as a given but as being embedded in a system of other beliefs, attitudes and expectations, "some of which are rationally examinable".
Author discusses Wittgenstein's conception of a 'Framework Belief', or a belief that is part of the riverbed of one's belief system, like: "I have forebears". Only the insane could doubt such a belief, and such doubt is taken to be hollow. Someone who doubts that 'motorcars grow from the earth' doesn't even accept our system of verification. This is more evidence author uses to claim that Wittgenstein is looking for criteria for belief; not faith. Further than that, there is the problem that expressions of religious faith do not have obvious FBs to 'secure' them.
Another facet of Wittgenstein's work author brings to bear is his adaptation of Moore's Paradigm Case Argument (PCA). Moore's PCA claims that religious beliefs can be reasoned about, and are either true or false. A Fideist might claim that religious beliefs are not intended to be T/F, but this is exactly what PCA scrutinizes. Author conducts an extended analysis of religious belief statements under the supposition that they "fit into a scheme of value statements". In a conservative but charitable understanding of value statements, they are not T/F but reasoned and open to evaluation once given criteria. But furthermore there is the problem that if religious belief is not T/F then the practices that are based on their truth are similarly undermined. (pg342)
8/10/12
Putnam, Hilary - Wittgenstein and Realism
08/10/2012
Philosophy in an Age of Science, Ch 22 Harvard University Press, 2012
Author starts with Wittgenstein's line from the Tractatus proposing an equivalence between solipsism and "pure realism". In figuring out what notion of solipsism Wittgenstein had in mind, author turns to an interpretation offered by Brian McGuinness, whereby Wittgenstein was trying to both contradict and reconcile Schopenhauer's 'famous dictum' that the world is "my idea". (pg340) The idea here is that language is used to express propositions about the world and how the world could be configured, and solipsistic (or realist) propositions are not changing or adding anything intelligible to the language (pg341-2).
The next discussion adds Carnap to the mix, as a representative of the Vienna Circle, which had thoroughly discussed Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Carnap considered the Tractatus to be not entirely free of metaphysics, specifically about the logical structure of propositions/the world. Author investigates what Carnap meant with the term "metaphysics", which firstly was seen as nonsense because it was opposed to verifiability, but later became nonsense because it was the pursuit of external-sentences using language-terms from an internal-language. (pg344-5) Here author claims that Quine's indictment of Carnap's position would be similar to Wittgenstein's. Later, Carnap points out a problem for Wittgenstein: if the solipsist propositions are equivalent to the realist ones, then mustn't their logical form be also equivalent? But even if the propositions can be made into having the same outcomes, their logical form can't be equivalent (author and Carnap argues), thus a tenet of the Tractatus falls (pg346-7).
Author then moves to Reichenbach and his analysis of the "choice" of either the realist language or an "egocentric language". Reichenbach justifies our use of the realist language because it helps justify a great many human actions, like buying life insurance (pg347-8). Author believes this "egocentric language" is a stand-in for Carnap's solipsistic one. Author also argues that it is unlikely this "egocentric language" is even intelligible. (pg349) This leads to an interesting approach to the private language argument in the later Wittgenstein; though author first talks about Wittgenstein's notion how a logic and grammar may be "rotated" around the real need to understand, e.g. intention (pg350-1).
Philosophy in an Age of Science, Ch 22 Harvard University Press, 2012
Author starts with Wittgenstein's line from the Tractatus proposing an equivalence between solipsism and "pure realism". In figuring out what notion of solipsism Wittgenstein had in mind, author turns to an interpretation offered by Brian McGuinness, whereby Wittgenstein was trying to both contradict and reconcile Schopenhauer's 'famous dictum' that the world is "my idea". (pg340) The idea here is that language is used to express propositions about the world and how the world could be configured, and solipsistic (or realist) propositions are not changing or adding anything intelligible to the language (pg341-2).
The next discussion adds Carnap to the mix, as a representative of the Vienna Circle, which had thoroughly discussed Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Carnap considered the Tractatus to be not entirely free of metaphysics, specifically about the logical structure of propositions/the world. Author investigates what Carnap meant with the term "metaphysics", which firstly was seen as nonsense because it was opposed to verifiability, but later became nonsense because it was the pursuit of external-sentences using language-terms from an internal-language. (pg344-5) Here author claims that Quine's indictment of Carnap's position would be similar to Wittgenstein's. Later, Carnap points out a problem for Wittgenstein: if the solipsist propositions are equivalent to the realist ones, then mustn't their logical form be also equivalent? But even if the propositions can be made into having the same outcomes, their logical form can't be equivalent (author and Carnap argues), thus a tenet of the Tractatus falls (pg346-7).
Author then moves to Reichenbach and his analysis of the "choice" of either the realist language or an "egocentric language". Reichenbach justifies our use of the realist language because it helps justify a great many human actions, like buying life insurance (pg347-8). Author believes this "egocentric language" is a stand-in for Carnap's solipsistic one. Author also argues that it is unlikely this "egocentric language" is even intelligible. (pg349) This leads to an interesting approach to the private language argument in the later Wittgenstein; though author first talks about Wittgenstein's notion how a logic and grammar may be "rotated" around the real need to understand, e.g. intention (pg350-1).
8/3/12
Putnam, Hilary - Wittgenstein: A Reappraisal
08/03/2012
Philosophy in an Age of Science, Harvard University Press, 2012
Author beings the chapter by mentioning some of the lessons author inherited from Wittgenstein that he believes are right; but the one that author takes as "quite wrong" is the notion that metaphysics is value-less, and should be cured by a type of therapy (pg483). Author first introduces the idea of what it is for things to not "make sense". For something to not make sense, author argues that it must be from the perspective of a philosophical argument or theory, not from an understanding of language or grammar (pg484). The idea here is to repudiate that the moniker "nonsense" can come about without using another (different) philosophical theory to justify its usage.
Author introduces two different interpretations of Wittgenstein, The New one embodied by Conant & Diamond, and the Orthodox, enumerated by Baker & Hacker. Both have different accounts of what a philosopher is doing when speaking nonsense, but both agree that philosophers speak nonsense most of the time, and both agree that this is a linguistic error. Author disagrees: these philosophers are making sense, though their metaphysics might lack "full intelligibility" since it may fail to show how something may be true (pg486).
There is a brief interlude about another way to answer skepticism, without claiming that skepticism is "nonsense" because it gets the grammar of the words "to know" or "to prove" wrong. Author believes that the skeptic can be answered by constructing an argument from premises that he must accept. That the skeptic does not accept them is not a concern; the premises are reasonable and therefore a suitable answer to the skeptic (pg488-9).
Author argues that Wittgenstein himself established the sort-of middle ground of "lacking full intelligibility" when it came to religious language; author suggests that had Wittgenstein taken an equally charitable approach toward philosophy he would allow metaphysics to be sensical though not fully intelligible (pg490). Author closes by giving a case of so-called scientists labeling a certain native tribe to be "soulless", though clearly there is no evidence for this. The question: are they making sense? Yes. But do they have a worldview that is alien (not fully intelligible) to us.
Philosophy in an Age of Science, Harvard University Press, 2012
Author beings the chapter by mentioning some of the lessons author inherited from Wittgenstein that he believes are right; but the one that author takes as "quite wrong" is the notion that metaphysics is value-less, and should be cured by a type of therapy (pg483). Author first introduces the idea of what it is for things to not "make sense". For something to not make sense, author argues that it must be from the perspective of a philosophical argument or theory, not from an understanding of language or grammar (pg484). The idea here is to repudiate that the moniker "nonsense" can come about without using another (different) philosophical theory to justify its usage.
Author introduces two different interpretations of Wittgenstein, The New one embodied by Conant & Diamond, and the Orthodox, enumerated by Baker & Hacker. Both have different accounts of what a philosopher is doing when speaking nonsense, but both agree that philosophers speak nonsense most of the time, and both agree that this is a linguistic error. Author disagrees: these philosophers are making sense, though their metaphysics might lack "full intelligibility" since it may fail to show how something may be true (pg486).
There is a brief interlude about another way to answer skepticism, without claiming that skepticism is "nonsense" because it gets the grammar of the words "to know" or "to prove" wrong. Author believes that the skeptic can be answered by constructing an argument from premises that he must accept. That the skeptic does not accept them is not a concern; the premises are reasonable and therefore a suitable answer to the skeptic (pg488-9).
Author argues that Wittgenstein himself established the sort-of middle ground of "lacking full intelligibility" when it came to religious language; author suggests that had Wittgenstein taken an equally charitable approach toward philosophy he would allow metaphysics to be sensical though not fully intelligible (pg490). Author closes by giving a case of so-called scientists labeling a certain native tribe to be "soulless", though clearly there is no evidence for this. The question: are they making sense? Yes. But do they have a worldview that is alien (not fully intelligible) to us.
7/27/12
Albert, David - On the Origin of Everything
07/27/2012
New York Times, March 23, 2012
Review of A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss
Author (Albert) reviews a cosmology book by Krauss and disputes that it actually does explain why there is something rather than nothing. Apparently Krauss claims the laws of quantum physics explain why there isn't nothing. The first question author asks is where the laws of quantum mechanics come from-- what makes them true and laws of nature-- and why those laws are the way they are. Furthermore, author argues that even quantum fields need to be explained as to why they even exist too, a feat Krauss does not do.
The explanation for why Krauss thought that his cosmological explanation was superior to previous ones was that quantum fields can theoretically be arranged to reflect a "vacuum" state, in other words, be 'nothing' (in terms of particles). Thus the arrangement of quantum fields can produce no particles, which could be considered "nothing". Author points out the problem that this misses the point: the quantum fields are the elementary physical stuffs, true "nothing" would be the absence of those fields.
Finally, there is the Krauss' objection that this is changing the game or "moving the goal posts" because "nothing" as it has been traditionally understood meant "no particles", and he has explained how particles can arise from a no-particle state (of quantum fields). Author just replies that this just goes to show that we now know better that the fundamental make-up of the universe are not particles but fields. It isn't the endgame Krauss is assuming he has, and furthermore, author chides Krauss for thinking of the dialectic in cosmology as some sort of game.
New York Times, March 23, 2012
Review of A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss
Author (Albert) reviews a cosmology book by Krauss and disputes that it actually does explain why there is something rather than nothing. Apparently Krauss claims the laws of quantum physics explain why there isn't nothing. The first question author asks is where the laws of quantum mechanics come from-- what makes them true and laws of nature-- and why those laws are the way they are. Furthermore, author argues that even quantum fields need to be explained as to why they even exist too, a feat Krauss does not do.
The explanation for why Krauss thought that his cosmological explanation was superior to previous ones was that quantum fields can theoretically be arranged to reflect a "vacuum" state, in other words, be 'nothing' (in terms of particles). Thus the arrangement of quantum fields can produce no particles, which could be considered "nothing". Author points out the problem that this misses the point: the quantum fields are the elementary physical stuffs, true "nothing" would be the absence of those fields.
Finally, there is the Krauss' objection that this is changing the game or "moving the goal posts" because "nothing" as it has been traditionally understood meant "no particles", and he has explained how particles can arise from a no-particle state (of quantum fields). Author just replies that this just goes to show that we now know better that the fundamental make-up of the universe are not particles but fields. It isn't the endgame Krauss is assuming he has, and furthermore, author chides Krauss for thinking of the dialectic in cosmology as some sort of game.
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