A Defense Against an Eliminativist Argument

Here's a quick (eliminativist) argument that there are no chairs (I've seen similar arguments):

1. Atoms arranged chair-wise can do all the same causal work that chairs would do if there were chairs over and above atoms arranged chair-wise (swivel, keep your butt from hitting the floor, etc.)
2. Ockham's Razor.
3. Thus no chairs, buildings, arms, scissors....

Most people believe that chairs exist. It's just a Moorean fact for the vast majority of people. They think they *know* that there are chairs. "Of course there are chairs!" So what should most people think about the above argument, particularly premise 1?

I think they should reject it if they also hold the following causal-epistemic principle:
C: If S knows about some x, x plays a causal role in the knowledge of x.

C is plausible--especially if we allow for more than efficient causation. If I walked into a room and saw a hologram of a telephone, forming the belief that there is a phone in the room, I don't have knowledge that there is a phone in the room even if there is one (e.g. on the other side of the room where I haven't observed). I have made no epistemic or psychological contact with the phone.

So if you think that you know there is a chair and accept C, you should think there *is* something for the chair to do in addition to the atoms arranged chair-wise, namely, play a causal role in your knowing that there are chairs. Of course this isn't an argument for the existence of chairs against the eliminativist but it neutralizes the above argument.

Trenton Merricks' reply to a similar defense against the eliminitivist is to say that once one realizes that atoms arranged chair-wise can do all that a chair could do, one's justification for believing in chairs is undermined.  To that I say that one has no justification for the existence of chairs in the first place, at least not in terms of any argument. It just seems that there are chairs. Moreover it just seems that one knows that there are chairs. How is one's justification or warrant undermined? Why is one still not entitled to this belief?

New Conversative Philosophy Blog!

Here it is.  Looks promising.  I hope they succeed in beating back the leftist hegemony in academia; or at least going down gloriously in battle.

Why Should You Trust Philosophers?

A group of fifteen philosophers and bioethicists gathered in Switzerland and came up with this document outlining their public policy proposal to severely limit doctors being allowed to opt out of certain procedures and practices which violate their conscience (some among the group being notorious advocates of infanticide). The statement is called "Consensus Statement on Conscientious Objection in Healthcare."

My question is a simple one: why should we trust them?  The document does not outline any detailed arguments, it simply lists their recommendations and (implicitly) asks us to take their word for it--that is, the word of the consensus of fifteen philosophers.

But we shouldn't take their word for it without either knowing a lot more about each of them or their arguments.  Here is why:

1. Whatever expertise philosophers have is over matters wherein there is (a) rational disagreement, (b) no consensus among philosophers, or (c) both.  This follows from the nature of philosophy.
2. This being the case, if (e.g.) fifteen philosophers agree about some proposition p, there will be c.fifteen who disagree about p (or at least there will either be rational disagreement, no consensus, or both about p).
3. If 2 is the case, no one should take any fifteen philosophers' testimonies (without additional knowledge) as justification about something of which they claim to be experts. For that matter, one has reason for doubt about the testimony, since the philosophers have delusions of grandeur, (implicitly) asking the public to take their word for something about which there is rational disagreement, no consensus, or both.
4. ...therefore, etc., this document is rubbish as a matter of public evidence for shaping public policy.  At best it is simply a political document.

But don't take my word for it.

Either Philosophy or Indoctrination

A teaching and learning environment is either philosophical or indoctrinational.  To be philosophical is to follow the argument wherever it leads, to be prepared to question and challenge one's basic assumptions and to have a spirit of unbridled inquiry.  Motto of the Philosopher: Question everything including that you should question everything!  (Or do you disagree?)

With indoctrination there is no serious debate. Many questions are off the table.  There is a received body of (at least alleged) knowledge or wisdom--the dogma--to be learned by repetition, rote memory, or unquestioned methodology.

A teacher can, of course, be both a philosopher and a dogmatist (in the sense of someone who indoctrinates) depending on the subject and the purpose of the discourse.  One can switch back and forth.  Some scientists, for instance, are more philosophical than others.  No one is purely philosophical though many are mostly dogmatic.

There's nothing wrong with dogmatism and indoctrination, per se.  We'd be lost without it.  Most disciplines at the university are dogmatic and most students learn by indoctrination.  Biology, Chemistry, Math, Greek, Latin, Computer Science---all are mostly dogmatic.  There's little to no serious debate in a course in how to read and write Latin.  You learn paradigms and memorize words.  A biology class might veer off into philosophical speculation on whether science is compatible with the book of Genesis, but biology qua the science of biology passes on a received body of knowledge through textbooks, lecture, and methods of tried and true experimentation.

Where there is a great deal of rational disagreement and uncertainty is where one typically finds philosophy; and where there is a topic of wide disagreement discussed in a university is where one should find philosophy.  Religion, politics, death, taxes, justice, (social "justice")...all should be approached philosophically, at least for part of the time, that is, if one thinks that where there is rational disagreement one should not treat the issue dogmatically.

My Philosophical Family Tree

Below is a chain of dissertation directors/advisers starting with my own, Jeff Brower, his, Scott MacDonald, etc.  Source.

Turns out Copernicus is my Great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather of philosophy.  I decided to stop at Copernicus.  I also only tracked a single familial line; that is, I omitted other branches where there were co-directors/advisers.

1. Jeffrey Brower
2. Scott MacDonald
3. Norman Kretzmann
4. Albert Hammond
5. Arthur Lovejoy
6. Josiah Royce
7. George Sylvester Morris
8. Friedrich Adolph Trendelenburg
9. Karl Reinhold
10. Immanuel Kant













11. Martin Knutzen
12. Christian Wolff
13. Gottfried Leibniz

14. Erhard Weigel
15. Philip Muller
16. Christoph Meurer
17. Moritz Valentin Steinmetz
18. Georg Joachim von Leuchen Rheticus
19. Nicolaus Copernicus

On "Throwing Your Vote Away"

Suppose it comes down to a three man race between Cruz the Conservative, Fabio, and Donald Chump. Trump is in the lead and Rubio is sizably ahead in second place.  You are a Cruz supporter, inclined to stick to your guns.  Would you be throwing your vote away if you voted for Cruz?

Of course not.  Your vote is already destined not to change the course of the campaign.  As far as deciding the course of history, your vote is worthless. 

"But if you don't vote for Rubio, Rubio won't be elected and Trump will.  The horror!  You'll be throwing your vote away!"

But if YOU don't vote Cruz, Cruz won't win either.  In general, if not enough vote for candidate x, candidate x won't win.  Why aren't you--the Rubio supporter--throwing your vote away?  If you (y'all) vote for Cruz, Cruz would win!

I never got into philosophy to be liked or to be popular.  Whoever gets into philosophy to be on the winning team never gets into philosophy.  Philosophy is a failure.  Philosophy chooses first place or no place at all; and sometimes it is said that the first shall be last.  But there is no fear in failing when one fails with honor.  Socrates chooses to be an Olympic hero and failing that, death. 

You can be a sheep.  Sheep are stronger in number.  The world needs sheep.  Democracies need sheep.  But the world also needs shepherds.  And sometimes it even needs a few more wolves.

Harvard Med School Professor on Liberal Arts and Philosophy

Excerpt:

Recently, when philosophy and America’s higher education system were devalued by Sen. Marco Rubio during the Republican presidential debate and in subsequent statements, my thoughts returned to my sophomore year at Dartmouth, when I went back to my childhood dentist during a school break.

In the chit-chat of the checkup, as I lay back in the chair with the suction tube in my mouth, he asked: “What are you majoring in at college?” When I replied that I was majoring in philosophy, he said: “What are you going to do with that?”


“Think,” I replied.

Infinite Number of Contingent Truths

Suppose there are an infinite number of necessary truths (presupposing of course that there can be an actual infinite number of Fs).  Then there are also an infinite number of contingent truths.

For let p be a contingently true proposition (for example the proposition that Tully types on Tuesdays).  Then
1. p and 2+2=4
is a contingently true proposition, since any conjunction which has a contingent truth as a conjunct is also a contingently true proposition.

But then
2. p and 2+2=4 and 2+3=5
is a contingently true proposition.

And so on ad infinitum.  So if there are an infinite number of necessary truths, there are an infinite number of contingent truths.  What there may not be is an infinite number of contingently true, simple propositions or an infinite number of Fs.

Advice for Future Philosophers

Rob Koons offers sage advice for future philosophers.

Excerpt:

I write to a “future philosopher” and not to a “future philosophy professor”, because I don’t want to presume that the latter is the only possible career for the former. That being said, I have found the life of the philosophy professor to be a remarkably rewarding one. First, because you can spend almost all of your time thinking about the most interesting subject of all. Philosophy is a field that can barely be mastered in a lifetime, much less in the few years one can spend in college and graduate school. And, second, because of the astonishing degree of autonomy one enjoys as a tenured professor. One is held accountable by one’s peers, but it is a fairly large group to whom one is accountable, and one can to a very large extent define that group for oneself. There is no one who can dictate to you what to focus on or what to say on your chosen subjects.

As a field, philosophy has done relatively well resisting the worst of the trends toward political correctness, dogmatic multiculturalism, and fashionable Franco-German agitprop disguised as serious scholarship. A strong tradition of clarity in writing and rigor in argumentation creates opportunities for the exceptionally bright young person.

[...]

What can you do with a philosophy Ph.​D. if you can’t find a tenure-track position in academia? Fortunately, there are alternatives. First, there are many secondary schools, especially private and charter schools, that will look favorably on your application. With a Ph.​D. in hand, you will be well qualified to advance to a headmastership. Even if you can’t teach technical philosophy, you can teach logic, political thought, and intellectual history at a high level.

You can pursue work with think tanks and academically oriented foundations (many in the conservative constellation). There is also journalism, political and business consulting, software engineering, and writing (at least as a supplement to one’s regular income).

It is very likely that higher education will succumb in the next thirty years to significant disruptions from innovation, partly driven by communication technology. It will become far easier to re-create the proverbial ideal situation for philosophy: Socrates sitting on one one of the log, a student on the other. Thanks to the internet, the two ends of this log can now be half a world apart. Investigate and strategize about ways to be on the winning side of future disruption. This might include: MOOCs targeted on introducing Western philosophy or culture to students in developing countries, quality distance learning in philosophy for adults (including retirees), or the developing of certificate or badges in philosophy and other liberal arts.

Short of an apocalyptic disaster, interest in Western philosophy will endure. You have formidable allies: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Russell. Be hopeful but be well prepared for some adversity.

Determinism

In Earl Conee and Ted Sider's Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics, Chapter Six: Free Will and Determinism, towards the beginning they say

Here is a fact: every event has a cause.  This fact is known as determinism.

A little internet searching and one can find a few others defining determinism in this way.  But that definition seems to me odd.  For one, simply having a cause is not sufficient for an event to be determined, for it is broadly logically possible that an event might have a contributory cause but no necessitating cause.

The common definition of determinism is not that every event has a cause, rather it is the following: For any event or state of affairs, given some event E or state of affairs S at time T1 and the laws of nature, another event E2 or S2 must (nomologically) occur or (in the case of states of affairs) obtain. 

This definition (or something close to it) is what compatibilists have in mind when they say that free will is compatible with determinism.  This definition also leaves open that the first event (or initial state of affairs) has no cause, which Conee and Sider's definition does not, and so has the virtue of being consistent with what many determinists actually believe, namely that determinism holds in our universe even if there is no cause of the first event. 

Their statement above is also problematic because of the claim that determinism is a known fact.  Kant spends a good deal of the Critique of Pure Reason trying to establish that every event has a cause (as do others recently such as Alexander Pruss in The Principle of Sufficient Reason.)  If it is a known fact (I think it is a fact) it is certainly not the sort of known fact to be included in an introductory philosophical work stated as a known fact.  Especially when it is stated as determinism.  Determinism, properly defined, is certainly not a known fact.

Philosophy

Question everything, including that you should question everything.

Great Paper Abstract

I doubt this is legit (the source is a legitimate publishing website but you can't download the paper which makes me suspicious), but this paper looks promising.

Can Philosophy Be Justified in a Time of Crisis?

Nathan J Robinson 

Harvard University
September 3, 2015

Abstract:      

In this paper, I take the position that a large portion of contemporary academic work is an appalling waste of human intelligence that cannot be justified under any mainstream normative ethics. Part I builds a four-step argument for why this is the case, while Part II responds to arguments for the contrary position offered in Cass Sunstein’s “In Defense of Law Reviews.” First, in Part I(A), I make the case that there is a large crisis of suffering in the world today. (Part I does not take me very long.). In Part I(B), I assess various theories of “the role of the intellectual,” concluding that the only role for the intellectual is for the intellectual to cease to exist. In Part I(C), I assess the contemporary state of the academy, showing that, contrary to the theory advanced in Part I(B), many intellectuals insist on continuing to exist. In Part I(D), I propose a new path forward, whereby present-day intellectuals take on a useful social function by spreading truths that help to alleviate the crisis of suffering outlined in Part I(A).

Philosophers by Subject Area

Here.  This is more or less what I expected.  Even though areas like medical ethics are fairly popular in graduate school these days, almost all programs have to teach history, metaphysics, and ethics.  I'm surprised that analytic philosophy is so high, but perhaps that category is broad and not "history of analytic" (Russell, Moore, Frege, etc.)

Either Agent Causation is Conceptually Prior to Event Causation or Causality is Known A Priori

Some people believe that events are causes.  What caused the event of the Twin Towers collapsing?  The event of the planes crashing into the buildings.  Events cause other events or states of affairs.

I'm suspicious that events are causes at all.  But suppose events are causes.  Could they be the only causes?  Could one reasonably hold that there is only event causation but not agent causation?

I doubt it.  It seems that our concept of agent causation is more fundamental than event causation.  If you have the concept of an event as a cause you also have the concept of an agent cause.

Imagine that you are a sentient rock or tree.  Let's say you are a rock that can think but that's all you can do.  You are a completely passive observer of the world.  Perhaps you have eyes and ears but they don't move.  For if you were to move your eyes to the right or left, up or down, you would no longer be simply a passive observer; you would also be able to do something which would affect what you observed.

So you sit, inert, observing the world around you.  Would you ever acquire the idea of a cause?  You would see regularities in nature.  You would see the sun rising each day and setting, you would see leaves falling after they changed colors, you would see mice dying after being bitten by cats, but from your observations you would have no basis to distinguish between causal and non-causal regularities.

Generally, when one wants to distinguish between a non-causal correlation and a causal one, one runs an experiment.  But then one has the concept or belief that one can do something such that one will be in a better position to determine the difference between a non-causal correlation and a causal one.

Perhaps, though, an inert, thinking rock could come equipped with a priori knowledge about which regularities would be genuinely causal regularities and which would not.  But is it known a priori that events are causes but there are no agent causes?

My Father the Philosopher

This essay by the daughter of philosopher Jonathan Adler is quite humorous.  Some of Jonathan Adler's views are a bit depressing--and I disagree about some of the implicit views of philosophy--but I invite the reader to read the whole thing.  Excerpt:

If the bed was here, if I touched it, lay down in it, walked away and came back, then it existed.

If it existed, then when I left for school and came back, it would still be there. If it was there today, then it would be there tomorrow. Right, Dad?

I touched the objects in the house. The bed and the Mickey Mouse light switch and the crumbling flower wallpaper. The Garbage Pail stickers. What about the office up in the attic? The porch? The sidewalk? I dashed over the slats, avoided the cracks.

My father smiled, pleased. “Well how can you know for sure? It's just like Descartes’s bad dream. What proves we’re not all living in a dream?”

Descartes's bad dream. What a lie. I bet Descartes loved his dream.

“Think about your first premise.”

“My first what?”

“Your first premise. Does it follow? If x, then p. Does touching something mean it exists? Are the conditions necessary and sufficient?”

If your father is a philosopher, then you should expect to lose many arguments. You will never lose “because life isn’t fair,” or because your dad “says so.” You will always lose on strict logical grounds.

For my friends and me, the best seats in my family’s station wagon were in the way-back. Sitting in the way-back, no parents could see us in the rearview mirror. When driving with friends, the absolute worst seat was in the front next to my dad. If I had to sit up there, then it was totally not OK for my friends to get the way-back.

But Adrianne and Christy widened their eyes when they asked him. "Can we sit in the way-back?"


I hated those faces. I knew what happened in the way-back. All the way at the other end of the station wagon, you make faces that are So Funny. You tell stories no one else is allowed to hear. By the time the car has stopped and you've piled out through the hatch, you two in the way-back are best friends and can forget about your friend who got stuck sitting in the way-front.

"Of course," my father said when they asked.

"NO Way!" I said. "That’s not fair. I can't sit back there, so they can't either."

"Who's going to sit back there if they don't?" my father asked.

"Nobody."

"And where are you going to sit no matter where they sit?"

"In the front."

"So how is it not fair? The improvement of their situation in no one way worsens your situation. It is fair."

But my situation would be worsened. By the time we all got out of the car, I would be a blip in their collective, best friend memory.

"NO, IT'S NOT FAIR!"

"Adrianne. Christy. Get in the way-back. We're leaving."

And so I learned utilitarianism. The greatest good for the greatest number. The way-back for some, not for all.

More Philosophy Sayings

Here.

• We have to be realistic about how realistic we can be.
• The unlived life is not worth examining.
• The statue and the clay, one, and yet not one.
• Act so as to make the world the way you ought to want it to be.
• Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.  I teach ethics.
• Coercive paternalism: it's not as bad as it sounds.
• A Philosopher is someone who worries that what works in practice will not work in theory.

"Oh, you're a philosopher. What is one of your sayings?"

Occasionally the dreaded small talk arises and I am asked what it is that I do by someone I do not know.  I usually try to avoid having this question come up because it almost always leads to awkward silence, or even more awkward small talk, or friendly abuse.  So if I can't get away with saying "I'm a father" or "I'm a teacher," I will say that "I'm a teacher; I teach philosophy classes."

Are Philosophers Too Negative?

If we take Socrates as our model and take his constant tearing down of bad arguments as our example, then, yes, they do tend to be negative.  But right now I'm saying something positive, namely, that philosophers tend to be negative.  I say this in response to my wife's (Eshet Chayil) prompting that not all my blog posts should be negative.

       

Is THIS a joke?

"This" being this.

Brian Leiter: Beardless "philosopher" without arguments (females and follicly challenged males w/arguments avoiding the ad hominem).  Compare what Leiter says to what Vitale says, or what is said about him here.  As a relative of mine mentions, Leiter will be remembered only for his gossip column.   

The  

Sprinkle's Book "Fight" and Double Effect

This is the third post on Preston Sprinkle's book, Fight: A Christian Case for Nonviolence.

In a prior post I discussed how Sprinkle's definition of violence includes an intent to harm and I mentioned how he appears not to stick with this definition throughout.  I ended by briefly noting how a discussion of the "Principle of Double Effect" would have mitigated this problem.  Here I want to discuss that principle and how it bears on his book.

The Principle of Double Effect (its earliest robust formulation often attributed to Aquinas) holds that some action A that has some evil E as a consequence is (at least) permissible if and only if the (a) action is itself neutral or good (b) there is some good G intended (c) E is not disproportionately evil compared with the goodness of G and (d) E is not intended as an end or a means of bringing about G.

Clause (a) rules out actions which, by their very nature, are evil.  Clause (b) rules out there being no good intention.  Clause (c) rules out cases where the evil consequences of an action outweigh the good. And clause (d) specifies that an evil not be intended as the means to the good or an intended result of the action. This last clause, though, allows that E is the means (or a means) to bring about G, but E cannot be intended as a means of E.

Now consider the following two cases where the Principle is applied:

Case #1: Harvesting organs
Dr. Smith knows that Jones will not survive unless he has another heart and a liver.  Sally has a good heart and Mary has a good liver.  Dr. Smith murders Sally and Mary so that he can harvest the organs for Jones.  The action in this case was not permissible.  It violated clauses (c) and (d) and probably clause (a) as well (depending on how the action is to be described).

Case #2: Upping the Speed Limit
Governor Smith is considering whether to sign or veto a bill upping the speed limit on certain roads.  He receives good evidence that upping the speed limit from 60 mph to 65 mph will increase the state's economy.  In addition, 95% of the population are for it.  Nonetheless, he also has good evidence that upping the speed limit will result in 20-30 more traffic fatalities per year.  After weighing the costs and benefits, Governor Smith signs the bill, intending the effect of improving the economy and pleasing his constituents while foreseeing (in all likelihood) that there will be more traffic fatalities but not intending either those fatalities or that the legislation as a means to that end.  Governor Smith has acted in way that is at least permissible (but perhaps has also acted justly).

I believe in the Principle of Double Effect, in part because I'm a deontologist and think that one's intentions matter and not just the consequences.  In addition, because so many of our actions/inactions do have foreseeable evil effects (like the one above), rejecting the principle would seem to me to result in moral paralysis, wherein moral deliberation about whether to act or not would become darn near impossible.

Application to Sprinkle's "Fight":