Internet Batman?

I report, you decide.

Do All Valid Arguments Have an Invalid Form?

The caption reveals a poor argument.  Not knowing something is not a good reason to believe that there are aliens.  Among other things the argument is invalid.
It is of the clearly invalid form
p
therefore, q

With that in mind here are some thoughts in light of a recent series of emails between a few friends on invalidity and validity.

A valid argument is a deductive argument such that if the premises were true then the conclusion must be true.  An invalid argument is a deductive argument such that if the premises were true it's still possible that the conclusion is false.

Take the following instance of the invalid argument form known as Affirming the Consequent:

If Tully is a woman, then Tully is a human.
Tully is a human.
Thus, Tully is a woman.

The form of the argument is clearly invalid:
If p, then q
q
Thus, p

If the premises were true, the conclusion could still be false.

Now note that an argument can instantiate more than one form and that no invalid argument instantiates a valid form.

For instance, the above argument also apparently instantiates the following form which is also invalid:
p (premise 1)
q (premise 2)
r (conclusion)

Moreover, it appears to instantiate the following form as well:

p (premises)
q (conclusion)

Again, this is also an invalid form.

My question is: do all valid arguments also instantiate an invalid form?  On a first glance it would seem that they do since every argument appears to take the form:

p (premise/premises)
q (conclusion)

Maybe that's right.  We then say that an invalid argument instantiates no valid forms but a valid argument instantiates at least one valid form.

Nonetheless, I raise a question about this.

Too Many Old White Men at School

A reader of the blog (a faculty member at a university) chimes in with the following story:

I was in a Dean’s office earlier today, meeting about some matter, when an email arrived in her in-box detailing the following: another Dean was stepping down. Let’s call the Dean I'm in the office with “Dean.” Here is our commentary about the email starting with what "Dean" said:

Dean: “Awwww…that’s sad.”

Me: “Why?”

Dean: “Well, because she’s like the only non-old-white-male Dean we have.”

Me: “Uhhh…so?”

"Dean" then goes to her computer, looks up all of the Academic Deans and goes down the list, saying (repeatedly): “White man. White man. White man. White man…”

Me (again): “And your point is…?”

Dean (looking at me incredulously): “You seriously don’t think that’s a problem?!?!”

Me: “Nope. Not at all.”

Dean: “Yep, that’s what any white man would say.”

Me: “Stereotype much?”

Note from TB: The Dean thinks there is a problem.  Is there a problem?  Is the problem with the school or with the Dean?  What is the problem exactly?  Exercise for the reader: precisely explain what the problem is and then give a cogent argument that there is a problem here.

Love Me for Me

When I hear people say "Love me for me" what I often hear is, "Love me because I'm really awesome in spite of everything obviously bad about me."

Can we love people without loving something about that person?  I sometimes jokingly tell my four-year-old son that I don't love him.

Johno: "No, Dad, you love me!"
Me: "Why would I love YOU?"
Johno: "Because I'm your son!"  [or sometimes "I don't know.  But you love me."]

Loving my son because he's my son is loving him because of something about him--he's my son.  Could I love my son Jonathan stripped down of everything about him?  What would that be like?  It would be like loving a haecceity. But one can't cognize haecceities (if there are such things) for there is no "aboutness" to them.  And one presumably can't love what can't be cognized.

Loving someone because of certain qualities, though, shouldn't be confused with loving those qualities.  It is someone with certain qualities that I love; I might love certain of those qualities as well, but one loves the person with qualities and the person is not a mere collection of qualities.

Atheists a Dying Breed?

'it's': these atheists can't spell

When I was a young, militant anti-Catholic, my good Catholic buddy would often remind me: "Sorry, friend.  We will always outnumber you because we have more children."

He had me.  The only way we'd overtake the Catholics, it seemed, was by out-converting them at a high rate.

But things are even worse for atheists in this regard it appears.  Though we are often told by atheism and scientism proselytizers that the "Enlightened" future will look grim for those of the "superstitious" persuasion, if the article linked to is correct (and based on my anecdotal evidence it sure seems likely), atheists have an evolutionary disadvantage--they just don't produce as many kids as people who are religious.  (Of course, the Christian faith also holds that the gates of hell will never prevail against the Church, but it doesn't hurt to have science on one's side).

Professor Jesse Bering, director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen's University, Belfast, who has just published "The God Instinct", a book on the origins of religion, said such an approach missed the basic point, that in practical terms evolution was reinforcing religion with every new generation.

He said: "Secular, nonreligious people are being dramatically out-reproduced by religious people of any faith. Since religiosity is to some degree a heritable trait, offspring born to religious parents are not only dyed in the wool of their faith through their culture, but may also be genetically more susceptible to indoctrination than children born to nonreligious parents."

He added: "As a childless gay atheist I suspect my own genes have a very mortal future ahead. But for any godless hetero-couples reading this, toss your contraceptives and get busy in the bedroom. Either that or, perish the thought, God isn't going anywhere anytime soon."

Life After Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism

Alvin Plantinga reviews Philip Kitcher's new book:

"The central purpose of this book," according to the preface, "is to show how a thoroughly secular perspective can fulfill many of the important functions religion, at its best, has discharged" (p. xiii). Philip Kitcher concedes that this may take a while: "a fully rewarding secular world cannot be built in a day" (p. 2). Kitcher seems genuinely sympathetic to religious concerns, and genuinely concerned to understand them. He writes with sensitivity and insight. He has an attractive style and writes well (although it isn't always easy to tell precisely what he means to say).

Kitcher begins (chapter 1) by explaining why he rejects religion. Here he is more nuanced and less bombastic than the dreaded new atheists, who, as he suggests, overlook the central role religion plays in the lives of most of the world's population: "Yet the atheist movement today often seems blind to the apparently irreplaceable roles religion and religious community play in millions if not billion, of lives" (p. xiii). Nevertheless, he claims, religious beliefs, beliefs about "the transcendent" as he takes them to be, are "almost certainly false" (p. 105). I'll begin by outlining his suggestions as to how a secular outlook can serve the same functions and goals as religion; then I'll examine his arguments for atheism.

Why the Left WIll Not Admit the Threat of Radical Islam

MavPhil one more time

Why the Left Will Not Admit the Threat of Radical Islam

My philo cronies and I were discussing this over Sunday breakfast.  Why don't leftists -- who obviously do not share the characteristic values and beliefs of Islamists -- grant what is spectacularly obvious to everyone else, namely, that radical Islam poses a grave threat to what we in the West cherish as civilization, which includes commitments to free speech, open inquiry, separation of church and state, freedom of religion, freedom to reject religion, and so on?   Why do leftists either deny the threat or downplay its gravity?

Here is a quickly-composed  list of ten related reasons based on my own thinking and reading and on the contributions of my table mates Peter Lupu and Mike Valle.  A work in progress.  The reasons are not necessarily in the order of importance.  ComBox open!

 

1. Many leftists hold that no one really believes in the Islamic paradise.  The expansionist Soviets could be kept in check by the threat of nuclear destruction because, as communists, they were atheists and mortalists for whom this world is the last stop.  But the threat from radical Islam, to a conservative, is far more chilling since jihadis murder in the expectation of prolonged disportation with black-eyed virgins in a carnal post mortem paradise.  For them this world is not the last stop but a way station to that garden of carnal delights they are forbidden from enjoying here and now.  Most leftists, however, don't take religion seriously, and, projecting, think that no one else really does either despite what they say and pretend to believe.  So leftists think that jihadis are not really motivated by the belief in paradise as pay off for detonating themselves and murdering 'infidels.'  In this way they downplay the gravity of the threat.

This is a very dangerous mistake based on a very foolish sort of psychological projection!  Conservatives know better than to assume that everyone shares the same values, attitudes, and goals. See Does Anyone Really Believe in the Muslim Paradise? which refers to Sam Harris's debate with anthropologist Scott Atran on this point.

 

2. Leftists tend to think that deep down everyone is the same and wants the same things. They think that Muslims want what most Westerners want: money, cars, big houses, creature comforts, the freedom to live and think and speak and criticize and give offense as they please, ready access to alcohol  and other intoxicants, equality for women, same-sex 'marriage' . . . . 

This too is a very foolish form of psychological projection.  Muslims generally do not cherish our liberal values.  What's more, millions of Muslims view our in some ways decadent culture as an open sewer.  I quote Sayyid Qutb to this effect in What Do We Have to Teach the Muslim World?  Reflections Occasioned by the Death of Maria Schneider.

 

3. Leftists typically deny that there is radical evil; the bad behavior of Muslims can be explained socially, politically, and economically.  The denial of the reality of evil is perhaps the deepest error of the Left. 

 

4. Leftists tend to think any critique of Islam is an attack on Muslims and as such is sheer bigotry.  But this is pure confusion.  To point out the obvious, Islam is a religion, but no Muslim is a religion.  Muslims are people who adhere to the religion, Islam.  Got it?

When a leftist looks at a conservative he 'sees' a racist, a xenophobe, a nativist, a flag-waving, my-country-right-or-wrong jingoist, a rube who knows nothing of foreign cultures and reflexively hates the Other simply as Other.  In a word, he 'sees' a bigot. So he thinks that any critique of Islam or Islamism -- if you care to distinguish them -- is motivated solely by bigotry directed at certain people.  In doing this, however, the leftist confuses the worldview with its adherents.  The target of conservative animus is the destructive political-religious ideology, not the people who have been brainwashed into accepting it and who know no better.

 

5. Some leftists think that to criticize Islam is racist.  But this too is hopeless confusion.  Islam is a religion, not a race.  There is no race of Muslims. You might think that no liberal-leftist is so stupid as not to know that Islam is not a race.  You would be wrong.  See Richard Dawkins on Muslims.

 

6. Many leftists succumb to the Obama Fallacy: Religion is good; Islam is a religion; ergo, Islam is good; ISIS is bad; ergo, ISIS -- the premier instantiation of Islamist terror at the moment -- is not Islamic.  See Obama: "ISIL is not Islamic."

 

7. Leftists tend to be cultural relativists.  This is part of what drives the Obama Fallacy.  If all cultures are equally good, then the same holds for religions: they are all equally good, and no religion can be said to be superior to any other either in terms of truth value or contribution to human flourishing.  Islam is not worse that Christianity or Buddhism; it is just different, and only a bigot thinks otherwise.

But of course most leftists think that all religions are bad, equally bad.  But if so, then again one cannot maintain that one is superior to another.

 

8. Leftists tend to be moral equivalentists.  And so we witness the amazing spectacle of leftists who maintain that Christianity is just as much, or a worse, source of terrorism as Islam. See Juan Cole, Terrorism, and Leftist Moral Equivalency.

Leftists are also, many of them, moral relativists, though inconsistently so.  They think that it is morally wrong (absolutely!) to criticize or condemn the practices of another culture (stoning of adulterers, e.g.) because each culture has its own morality that is valid for it and thus only relatively valid.  The incoherence of this ought to be obvious.  If morality is relative, then we in our culture have all the justification we need and could have to condemn and indeed suppress and eliminate the barbaric practices of Muslims.

 

9. Leftists tend to deny reality.  The reality of terrorism and its source is there for all to see: not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terroists at the present time are Muslims.  Deny that, and you deny reality.  But why do leftists deny reality?

A good part of the answer is that they deny it because reality does not fit their scheme.  Leftists confuse the world with their view of the world. In their view of the world, people are all equal and religions are all equal --  equally good or equally bad depending on the stripe of the leftist.  They want it to be that way and so they fool themselves into thinking that it is that way.  Moral equivalency reigns.  If you point out that Muhammad Atta was an Islamic terrorist, they shoot back that Timothy McVeigh was a Christian terrorist -- willfully  ignoring the crucial difference that the murderous actions of the former derive from Islamic/Islamist doctrine whereas the actions of the latter do not derive from Christian doctrine.

And then these leftists like Juan Cole compound their willful ignorance of reality by denouncing those who speak the truth as 'Islamophobes.' That would have been like hurling the epithet 'Naziphobe' at a person who, in 1938, warned of the National Socialist threat to civilized values.  "You, sir, are suffering from a phobia, an irrational fear; you need treatment, not refutation."

When a leftist hurls the 'Islamophobe!' epithet that is his way of evading rational discussion by reducing his interlocutor to someone subrational, someone suffering from cognitive dysfunction.  Now how liberal and tolerant and respectful of persons is that?

 

10. Leftists hate conservatives because of the collapse of the USSR and the failure of communism; hence they reflexively oppose  anything conservatives promote or maintain. (This was Peter Lupu's suggestion at our breakfast meeting.)  So when conservatives sound the alarm, leftists go into knee-jerk oppositional mode.  They willfully enter into a delusional state wherein they think, e.g., that the threat of Christian theocracy is real and imminent, but that there is nothing to fear from Islamic theocracy.

Posted by Bill Vallicella on Tuesday, October 14, 2014 at 11:06 AM in Islamism, Leftism and Political Correctness, Lupu, Peter | Permalink

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Comments

 

Lupu's suggestion was my first thought as well. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of thing. But the left is not known for its historical acumen or long-term memory (even leftists, as knee-jerk and impulsive as they are, adopted the conservative viewpoint about the threat of Islam on 9/12/2001), so I wouldn't be surprised if the "enemy of my enemy" part has been largely forgotten. Now the left's friendship with Islam is sustained by the shield of political correctness the former provides the latter.

Posted by: MAC | Tuesday, October 14, 2014 at 12:24 PM

11. Leftists have a shared loathing of the Great Satan.

Posted by: Tully Borland | Tuesday, October 14, 2014 at 01:02 PM

What Explains the Left's Toleration of Militant Islam?

MavPhil:

What Explains the Left's Toleration of Militant Islam?

From 1789 on, a defining characteristic of the Left has been hostility to religion, especially in its institutionalized forms. This goes together with a commitment to such Enlightenment values as individual liberty, belief in reason, and equality, including equality among the races and between the sexes. Thus the last thing one would expect from the Left is an alignment with militant Islam given the latter’s philosophically unsophisticated religiosity bordering on rank superstition, its totalitarian moralism, and its opposition to gender equality.

The F-Word in Our House

Johno (4-year-old):  "Mommy, I heard him say the F-word!"
Me (overhearing): "SAY WHAT?!"

Johno: "Mom, who made up the F-word?"
Me: "COME AGAIN???"

Johno: "Why is the F-word bad?"
Me: "WHAT DID HE JUST ASK??"

Amy (to me): "He doesn't mean that.  He means the word for 'toot.'"
Me: Ahhhh....(pheeeww).

A Lesson in 1984 Newspeak

Remember the book/film "1984"?  I have mentioned it in the current context here and here.  Well, The New Criterion has a perceptive list of 'new' Newspeak words that deserve at least a glance. Stay observant lest you succumb to stupefaction by the mindless memes of the left.  Below is a sample:

DIVERSITY: People who look different but think the same way. Diversity applies to race, sex, disability, and sexual orientation. It emphatically does not apply to opinion. Indeed, when it comes to political views, it has taken on more or less the opposite of its Oldspeak meaning.

FAIRNESS: State-enforced equality. It absolutely doesn’t mean reciprocity, proportionate reward, or just deserts. Note from TB: Correct. Justice [i.e. the real thing not the pretend thing which is "social justice"] is not fairness.  

PROFIT: Wickedness. Always a bad thing, but the severity of the term varies according to context. When talking about a supermarket, it simply means greed (q.v.) and exploitation. When discussing trains or hospitals, it means homicidal tendencies, and is thus used as an antonym to safety—which, of course, means more regulation.

POVERTY: Inequality. Poverty is officially defined in the U.K. as having an income less than 60 percent of the mean. A few people get rich and, even if you’re better off in absolute terms, you’re suddenly “poor.” Funnily enough, the recent recession, which saw incomes drop at every level, caused a fall in “poverty” by this definition, but Lefties were more upset than ever. There really is no pleasing some people.

COMMUNITY: The state—or, more precisely, the state’s bureaucracy. The one thing it emphatically doesn’t mean is a voluntary association of individuals. When people talk of “involving the community,” they invariably want more legislation.  Note from TB: Exactly.  Remember all the stories about Obama in his days as a "community organizer"?

Here is Obama teaching communist Saul Alinsky's principles: I think he accidentally left out "Senator," "Bureaucrat," and "President"

My Razorback Kid Has a Lot to Learn About the Buckeye State

In Ohio...

Jondo (4 yr. old): What is that stuff on the window?

Malea: That's ice, buddy.

Jondo: Is it poisonous?

Defending the Oppressed: Grandfather Saves Granddaughter From Rape

This is the sort of story that happens all the time that you also NEVER hear about in the mainstream media.  It goes hand-in-hand with this dismantling of Adam Gopnik's STUPID rant about gun-control at the New Yorker.

The granddad (who is not named in any news report) is a hero.  And he got his stolen Cadillac back to boot!

The last line below is priceless.

ARMED SELF-DEFENSE IN NORTH CAROLINA

Via Robert Stacy McCain, an inspiring story from North Carolina:

A Lumberton man traded gunfire with three men who forced their way into his home, robbed the family, tried to rape his granddaughter and stole his car Monday, Robeson County authorities said.

One of the men, identified as Jamie Faison, 20, was shot and found dead in the stolen Cadillac parked at his home on the 600 block of Singletary Church Road, Sheriff Kenneth Sealey said in a news release.

The two other men turned up at area hospitals with gunshot wounds. … The homeowner, Kenneth Byrd, 67, was shot multiple times, the release said. …

The family told them that a man came to the door and said he was having problems with his vehicle and needed water.

Here are the three criminals. I’m not sure which of the three rang the doorbell, and of course no one would ever recommend profiling of any sort, but if any of these guys came to your door, you should probably keep it locked:

Two men wearing black clothing, ski masks and gloves forced their way into the home and demanded money, Sealey said. All three of the men had guns.

The Byrds were pushed to the back of their home and instructed to open a safe.

When the men tried to rape the couple’s granddaughter, Byrd grabbed a gun and exchanged shots with the assailants, Sealey said.

The grandfather was shot multiple times, but prevailed. Hats off to him. I am pretty sure the granddaughter is thankful that he had a gun in the house and knew how to use it.

McCain adds this priceless observation:

Feminists had no comment, as these would-be rapists were not members of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism? Some Hypotheses From a Libertarian

I just read philosopher Robert Nozick's essay where he offers several hypotheses for social scientists to test.  Read the whole thing, it's short, clear, and an easy read.  (Too bad we know that social scientists won't be eager to take up that task.)

Here is an excerpt:

Is it that capitalism is bad, unjust, immoral, or inferior, and that intellectuals, being intelligent, realize this and therefore stand in opposition? This would be the straightforward answer. The straightforward explanation of why we believe something is that it is true, and we somehow know it. But even those of you who are not convinced, as I am, that capitalism is a morally justifiable system, perhaps can suspend your disbelief in it, at least temporarily, to follow me in my quest for an explanation of the intellectuals' opposition. For even if the intellectuals are right in their opposition, the explanation of their opposition need not be the straightforward one. Though what is believed is true, it might not be believed because it is true; the explanation of why it is believed need not or may not involve its being true.

There is reason to think that something more is at work in the opposition of intellectuals to capitalism than merely their realizing the truth about capitalism. Let me describe to you an experience I have often had. A particular complaint is made about laissez-faire capitalism, perhaps that it leads to monopoly, or pollution, or too much inequality, or involves exploitation of workers, or despoils the environment, or leads to imperialism, or causes wars, or thwarts meaningful work, or panders to peoples' desires, or encourages dishonesty in the marketplace, or produces for profit and not for use, or holds back progress to increase profits, or disrupts traditional patterns to increase profits, or leads to overproduction, or leads to underproduction, or whatever. Someone makes the particular complaint, and I discuss it in detail, probing it, showing its unexamined assumptions-mistakes of fact or logic or history or economics. In any case, the person concedes my particular point or at least becomes unsure about the validity of his or her particular complaint against capitalism. Does the individual then change his or her mind? No, the individual drops the point, and quickly leaps to another. "But what about child labor, or the racism built into it, or the oppression of women, or urban slums, or in simpler days we could do without planning but now things are so complex that ... ,or advertising seducing people into buying things or.... " And so it goes. We painstakingly discuss this next complaint and once again it cannot be sustained. The person leaps to yet another point, "But what about. ..?" Point after point after point is given up. One complaint after another is dropped. What is not given up, though, what is not dropped, is the opposition to capitalism. For the opposition is not based on those points and complaints, it does not depend on them and so it does not disappear when they do. There is an underlying animus against capitalism. This animus gives rise to the complaints, it generates them. The complaints rationalize the animus. After some resistance, the particular complaint will be dropped and, without a backward glance, tenfold others will surge forward to perform the same function, to rationalize and justify the intellectual's animus to capitalism.

[...some hypotheses...]

George Harrison's Death

I watched HBO's documentary on the Beatles' George Harrison last night.  Pretty interesting.  I guess I never realized that he died partly as a result of a knife attack (this is according to his son who said that he never fully recovered from the punctured lung and 40 plus stab wounds which complicated his cancer recovery). 

 On 30 December 1999, 36-year-old Michael Abram broke into the Harrisons' Friar Park home.  He and his wife heard glass breaking downstairs.  His wife went to looked and was attacked by Abram as he ran up the stairs.  Harrison came to her aid and Adams took after Harrison with a kitchen knife, puncturing a lung and causing head injuries before Olivia Harrison incapacitated the assailant by striking him repeatedly with a poker and a lamp.^[Following the attack, Harrison was hospitalized with more than forty stab wounds. He released a statement soon after regarding his assailant: "[he] wasn't a burglar, and he certainly wasn't auditioning for the Traveling Wilburys."

I'll bet Harrison wouldn't have gotten his lung punctured if he had had one of these in his bedroom:

My Kids Love This

Cousins: "Is this REAL!?!"
Me: "Of course it's real.  Everything is real."

My Favorite Christmas Present

Thanks Aunt Melody!  You are the best!

Two L.A. Cops Shoot Unarmed Mentally Ill Black Man in the Back

Have you heard about this story?  Another tragic death.  The story is also buried over at the L.A. Times local section here.

Let's see if this story gets as much media attention as Ferguson since (a) there was a round fired through someone's back, (b) the man was mentally ill, and (c) the police kept the autopsy under wraps as long as they could. I won't hold my breath.

Police officials say no officer was hurt in the incident. The Los Angeles Times has reported that the officers involved in the scuffle with Ford were Asian-American and Latino.

I bet Al Sharpton is flying to L.A. right now and Obama is gearing up for a press conference.