I'm wondering -- were I to have the ring of gyges I very much doubt I'd post on a philosophy website about that possibility, unless we aren't all really bad people deep down.

So, if you make a thread on the thought then you are not a really bad person deep down.

If at least one person is not a really bad person deep down then not all people are all really bad people deep down.

QED.

The bet is just a portrayal of any act. The philosophical move is from the action representing the belief to the action constituting the belief. — Banno

OK, fair.

So, bets, promises, posts on one hand and paying up, following through, and reading on the other.

Who will take my bet, and at what odds? Should I be prepared to trust anyone who did take it? — Ludwig V

I'll bet the same against you, on the odds that it doesn't -- given I have nothing and I could win on the bluff I might as well.

That's what I meant to imply by the 1 million dollar buy in before. Maybe it's stupid. I ought read Ramsey that @Banno linked to judge either way.

I distrust betting on the whole. It's a test of who is right and who is wrong -- so I can persuade a person to bet against that the LNC* is false in at least one circumstance, and then provide the argument from the liar's sentence (which will certainly not persuade), and we'd be right back doing philosophy again rather than betting.

*EDIT: I think going for the LEM is much easier but that'd undermine my point: that at a certain spot we'd stop betting and start talking philosophy

Got it: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4280/pg4280-images.html#chap105

A few paragraphs into that section.

To be fair I didn't know the passage I just guessed it was Kant, and had some help.

The usual test, whether that which any one maintains is merely his persuasion, or his subjective conviction at least, that is, his firm belief, is a bet. It frequently happens that a man delivers his opinions with so much boldness and assurance, that he appears to be under no apprehension as to the possibility of his being in error. The offer of a bet startles him, and makes him pause. Sometimes it turns out that his persuasion may be valued at a ducat, but not at ten. For he does not hesitate, perhaps, to venture a ducat, but if it is proposed to stake ten, he immediately becomes aware of the possibility of his being mistaken—a possibility which has hitherto escaped his observation. If we imagine to ourselves that we have to stake the happiness of our whole life on the truth of any proposition, our judgement drops its air of triumph, we take the alarm, and discover the actual strength of our belief. Thus pragmatical belief has degrees, varying in proportion to the interests at stake.

Cuz we like how they look and select which of them get to count which way.

When we look at the entire tree of life then it gets a bit uglier.

I'll maintain that our aesthetic is shown in our choices. But we do expect others to agree with our aesthetic choices, and are surprised at the choices others make... — Banno

Yes, much to do here, I agree.

Somehow we expect others to agree, and are surprised by the choices others make.

Is there a way of talking about that in* in the space of reasons?

*EDIT: I had a notion of "in", but then upon rereading I thought not to emphasize it because it looked confusing.

if what I'm recording is meant to sound like a superb bass guitar, and I achieve this using my dozen post-production devices, the fact remains that I'm representing myself as having the technique of Paul McCartney when I really don't. That's uncomfortable. It's also uncomfortable because it makes me lazy. Rather than practice the damn part till I get it right, I know I can fix it in post. — J

I'd say the historical approach makes sense of the difference here -- you can make the same "product" (I wanted to use scare quotes for "the same", but thought it excessive). But the only reason you're representing yourself in that manner is that we're in a time when post-production hasn't become part of the way people hear music, yet.

I can't think of any other reason why Kanye West is so well loved :D

Post production has a magic to it because we live in a time when you can replicate what was once thought of as "the real deal"

In a way, though I may be wrong about this, post-production is a bit like Warhol? Though I'm leaping there and wondering if you see it or think it different.

I Can't figure it out.

(Tho I did the google, and wouldn't mind a A/B reference)

Thanks. I felt we were diverging far, and so I appreciate the tie-in back. (though I ought say I'm responsible for that divergence, too)

Also, your general description here:

Now a point of indifference in a philosophical debate is a point of agreement.

An alternative method might be, rather than demanding an absolute resolution, begin with points of indifference or agreement — shared constraints, overlapping commitments, common ground. From these, construct a framework of reasoning that remains coherent, though incomplete or evolving.

Ramsey shows the formal consistency of such a method, given the axioms of his system. — Banno

I get along with. The social reality of betting is what caused doubt in me, which is why I asked how literal you meant.

Any thoughts on this @Srap Tasmaner?

I'm mostly relying on you to get an understanding of Williamson, while attempting to put in enough work to make sure I'm not just missing something obvious.

In the most literal sense I suppose we'd have to ask ourselves here in the conversation what we're willing to bet on anything we say. (I bet 1 million dollars as a buy in)

:lol: OK, fair enough.

I'll admit I didn't expect that answer.

but a framework for what it would be to act coherently, given one’s own beliefs and preferences. — Banno

I suppose I'm a still skeptical of the framework, but I have little else to say as to why.

I'm fine with going along with the framework.

Is it possible to tie it into Williamson's concerns?

On the other hand I'll acknowledge that you gave a theory of aesthetics that's general in the same way I'm attempting to.

It's very clear so I'm fine with proceeding with that idea, given you're distaste for the categorical question.

In that case I have problems thinking about it as a model of rationality for reasons so far said.

It's just a game. A good inference involves conversation and dialogue and time -- a bet thrives on forcing someone to make a choice with what they have.

Does it have to be one thing? Does it even have to be specified? — Banno

I think a little bit it does. Even ostensively.

what is it we are judging when judging a flavour on aesthetic grounds? — Banno

From the way I'm thinking about it right now I'd say it's me trying to judge whether someone else will like that flavor, given what they've said about what they like about flavor.

It bypasses induction - it doesn't make use of induction.

Induction tries to show that, given some beliefs f(a), f(b), and so on, we can induce Ux(fx) for some domain. This is invalid.

Ramsey instead says given f(a) and f(b), how much would you bet that f(c)? and develops a logic around this.

There's no claim that U(x)f(x) is true - no induction.

It replaces belief in a general law with a degree of belief, as used for an action. — Banno

Ok. Then I'm not understanding it well enough.

Your explanation of induction is clear. I'm hesitant about the literal betting expression -- is it a metaphor or a mechanism?

This parallels the other discussion in this thread, again showing that we need not work with the general law, but can instead work with the local belief, contra Tim's apparent suggestion. — Banno

Here I believe we agree -- we can work with local belief.

Transcendentally, since there is no other way to work.... :D

Anyway, here we are moving into the whole area of Bayesian epistemology, not a small step. — Banno

I'm likely in error -- but when I think of Bayesian epistemology I think that it's the attempted "cure" to induction. So rather than a truth it's part of the myth.

That sometimes folk sometimes bet poorly is as relevant as that folk sometimes will argue invalidly.

Fair.

I suppose it's the notion of competition of winning that I thought I saw, but it could be wrong to say of Ramsey -- I'll certainly take your word on what he says.

The degree of a belief is measured by the degree to which we are prepared to act on it. — Banno

Here I'd go to the facts of betting behavior. There are those who show up for fun and behave in the manner Ramsey says.

But betting behavior isn't about the truth as much as it's about the thrill of winning.

I doubt philosophers would fare better here. As soon as money is involved we're speaking about an extrinsic motivation -- something done for the sake of whatever -- rather than an intrinsic motivation -- such as, what I take you and I to agree upon, the desire for clarity for its own sake.

While this sounds like a toy, I'm thinking there's an analogy to science here -- how the desire to be The Scientist actually interferes with the process of science. So it'd go with the gambler who believes they can outsmart others on their bets.

If I could persuade people to sign a contract that somehow, through a series of deductions, proved to a judge that they all really agreed to the consequences of "The sun will not rise tomorrow", then it doesn't matter much what the truth of people's beliefs are. What matters is winning.

Alright, thanks. That helps me understand the paragraph better.

@J -- afterthought on electronic music.

One thing that comes to mind is that electronic music has its own technique. It could include trying to emulate the most "dirty and real" sounding recording out there, but it would not, for all that, be a recording of that.

Looking at the particular history here again.

But that does not then mean that the electronic musician doesn't have some sense of technique -- it's just a different set of techniques from the not-electronic (whatever happens to get to count there -- acoustic guitars on a mic not fit because there's an electronic amplifier? If so, then it may be the case that all rock and roll is not music, since that slam-in-your-face wow factor I think is largley tied to the technical ability to make it obscenely loud in concert)

Fair. No one's going about teaching wasp stings, nor is that really connected to a knowledge.

But look at the artist example instead of that one -- it's different enough.

But an art teacher cannot teach an art student "of" Derain's aesthetic, the visceral beauty of particular shapes and colours.

When stung by a wasp, I feel pain. I don't learn how to feel the pain.

When "stung" by a Derain, I feel an aesthetic, I don't learn how to feel the aesthetic. — RussellA

Why not?

It'd be cruel to do intentionally but a teacher can teach knowledge of a wasp sting by having a wasp sting the student.

More acceptably we might subject a student to difficult circumstances in order for them to grow and learn how to cope with failure and pain.

Art students will frequently study "the masters" and emulate them as part of their training. They can never be Derain, but they can learn his aesthetic through this process of emulation along with a technical enough vocabulary to describe the techniques by which the artwork was produced.

You learn in the process of the doing -- but having a teacher generally helps to accelerate that process rather than doing it all on your own, so there is something being taught from art teacher to art student, at least. Something quantifiable, even (number of weeks until able to emulate so and so or such and such)

:up: No worries. I found some time and motivation so started back in, but whenever whatever.

Even our reasoned deductions are based on aesthetic preferences. — RussellA

Yes. Or, what I'd rather say, is there's a difference between one's preference and one's aesthetic taste. The latter can be "trained" such that preference becomes something which can be judged from a distance: Rather than saying "I like this" I can say "if you like such and such or this and that then you may find something enjoyable in this other thing"

Think of a sommelier here. Though there's this "subjective" side of preference the trained sommelier can describe a wine from the perspective of anyone who might enjoy that kind of wine.

Broadly speaking I agree that passion is what starts us -- but I imagine it's possible to still end up in a place where we can partake in the giving and hearing of reasons about art, given enough training. And, obviously, I'd like to ply that -- if given enough agreement on the general idea -- with respect to understanding taste in philosophy.

Right, more a turn of phrase (mine, not Danto's). It's meant to suggest the usual circumstances under which someone will point and say, "That can't be art because it isn't made of the right stuff, or made correctly." Danto argues that Duchamp and his ready-mades began the demonstration against this view, and Warhol put it permanently to bed. Conceptual art, too. — J

Cool.

Conceptual art is something I don't really understand, but Warhol makes sense enough that I'm understanding. Perhaps the following might be conducive to this way of thinking?

This conclusion deeply annoys people who equate art with a craft or skill. And it leaves a serious question -- what is techne, in the arts, if it can't be equated with art itself? I've written about this in various posts, relating to my practice as a musician. I think Danto is right and I'm upset that I can now make music without mastering skills that used to be de rigueur. My "art object" is not "made of the right stuff," according to the old view. It may be indiscernible nonetheless, compared to something that is made of the right stuff, and isn't that enough? But the difference in process, in the act of creating, is damn well discernible to the artist, and I don't like it.

I might turn to the "What makes a great work of art a great work of art?" for this one -- at some point it's because it was painted by Van Gogh, or whomever, that ended up defining beauty in their own particular way.

Likewise if we say there's more to the art-object than the product, but includes the process as well, you could tie that to the similar sentiment people have with respect to great works of art: At some point it's the particular history of the art-object that's part of the art-object. And just as we think replicas of great works of art aren't the "real deal", and there's no property of the object that differentiates them (let's say it's a very good forgist who uses chemical techniques to replicate the exact places of the atoms in a painting) we still differentiate them on the basis of the art-objects process of production.

Looking back at the ending of Speculative Moment and I found its conclusion beautiful:

What in thought goes beyond that to which it is bound
in its resistance is its freedom. It follows the expressive urge of the
subject. The need to give voice to suffering is the condition of all truth.
For suffering is the objectivity which weighs on the subject; what it
experiences as most subjective, its expression, is objectively mediated.

Goes to your noting that Adorno wants to give expression to the suffering @Jamal


EDIT: Just throwing another one in this same comment because I wanted to highlight it:

Great
philosophy was always accompanied by the paranoid zeal to tolerate
nothing but itself, and to pursue this with all the ruses of its reason,
while this constantly withdraws further and further from the pursuit.

EDIT2: Also I'm finding myself scratching my head in the first paragraph of Portrayal (Darstellung) -- Darstellung contrasts with Vorstellung, which is what I'm gathering to be the difference between the importance of Portrayal in philosophy, at the beginning, and how it is not just science at the end.

Vorstellung is usually translated as "Representation", and in Kant is important to scientific knowledge. So I understand that much. Darstellung is the "portrayal" -- expression, language -- of the representation. But I'm struggling to see how Darstellung, in Adorno, differentiates philosophy from science at the end somehow and that's what I'm puzzling over:

If the moment of expression tries to be anything more, it
degenerates into a point of view; were it to relinquish the moment of
expression and the obligation of portrayal, it would converge with
science.

Aesthetics and ethics involve a direction of fit such that we change the world to match how we want things to be. This should be read as the reverse of what we do when talking about how things are, when we change the words we use to match how things are.

So an aesthetic opinion. will amount to a choice we make in our actions. Vanilla over chocolate. The preference is individual - we do not expect others to agree, and are happy for her to have chocolate rather than vanilla.

Ethics differs from this in that we do expect others to comply. Not kicking puppies is not just a preference - not just my choice, but a choice I expect others to make, too.

Given this framing, we can address the place of aesthetics in philosophy,

Some bits of philosophy are about how things are. On these, we should expect some general agreement. Other bits of philosophy may be how we chose things to be. And we might variously expect that others will agree, an ethics of philosophy; or we might simply be expressing our own preference: an aesthetics of philosophy.

There's a start. — Banno

I think there's still one thing that needs answered here, still. Even if ice cream is an aesthetic judgment in the manner you propose we would not say that our judgment of ice cream is a philosophical judgment.

The descriptive category still needs something of an answer just to be able to say which of all the possible referents are the relevant ones when speaking an aesthetic opinion in philosophy?

I don't need strict conditions -- I imagine, if there is some statable principle that approximates our past judgments, it will likely involve some vague predicates. So "The sorts of writers one finds being talked about in a history of philosophy" is more than adequate for the categorical question.

But I'm wondering how you'd answer that part of the aesthetic question: Good, bad, indifferent, what is it we are judging when judging a philosophy on aesthetic grounds (as you put it, a preference where I don't hold others to have to share it with me)?

Mohism — Banno

It looks interesting, from the wikipedia page.

Briefly and dogmatically, we can be pretty sure about our deductions; induction is deductively invalid; calling induction "abduction" doesn't make it valid. — Banno

Agreed on both counts.

I'm prone to thinking of induction as a kind of myth. Not the bad kind, but the good kind -- that is still a myth.

But Ramsey's solution gives us something to work with. Instead of seeking justification for induction, he explains how we act as if inductive reasoning were valid. Wanna bet? If you say you believe the sun will rise tomorrow, wanna bet? How much? At what odds? Your willingness to stake something reveals your degree of belief, not some abstract epistemic warrant. Rationality, for Ramsey, isn’t about justifying beliefs from first principles, but about maintaining consistency between your beliefs and actions.

Davidson makes use of this in his latter work. — Banno

Let's take this model up with the idea Williamson seems to be presenting here -- suppose philosophers formed a sort of betting ring on their particular philosophical ideas.

Does this make for a rational activity? Or is it not the betting, but the conclusion that's important? I.e. no the story you started with, but rather the "Rationality...[is] about maintaining consistency between your beliefs and actions"

My thought is that rationality is a collective practice whereby we check one another's beliefs through some agreed upon rough notions. Would that even be contrary to Ramsey, or could it be framed in terms of maintaining consistency between beliefs and actions?

:D

You're not wrong.

But, descriptively, don't people sometimes reason in this manner? Or is it a philosopher's fiction?

For my part, I just don't much like Kant's transcendental arguments. Fraught.

Genreral structure:
The only way we can have A is if B
We have A
Therefore, B
And that first premise is very hard to substantiate, very easy to break. — Banno

I think if we weaken their universality it's something of a common theme amongst philosophers: instead of the form we often say things more loosely like "This presupposes that" -- it may not be the case, but insofar that we agree upon the presupposition then the argument tracks well enough. Rather than structuring thought I'd say this structures dialogue: Less ostentatiously we could say that the first premise, if agreed upon, is to acknowledge the importance of the priority between two concepts.

I've seen it cast as a kind of "inference to the best explanation" as well -- where the transcendental part is the tentative "Well... this is the best guess I can think of for now, so until you have a better one..."


Though, really, it is just my idiosyncratic way of thinking through a philosopher -- I look for relations and analogies and such. It may not be relevant after all. It's something of a stretch, except for when I was reading Adorno talking about Kant as a kind of philosophical positivist, and that gave me some food for thought. (not in the analytic/continental sense, but the older sense of philosophy being able to establish positive knowledge -- at the very least of the sort that can state "and this is where you can go no further")

You probably know that Danto, in addition to promulgating his theories about the artworld, offered a frankly Hegelian picture of what art is. — J

Actually, nope! I know precious little of him, and it's third-hand hearsay through George Dickie, basically. Ad it's not like I read everything of his, he just had some really cool ideas that I found useful in thinking through art.

It involves a move which is philosophical -- a process by which art comes to understand itself, to eliminate all the things that art is not. He showed, I think convincingly, that we can no longer equate art with any physical substrate, any thing which art must be in order to qualify. Art is a way of seeing; we declare what is art, we don't discover it. The "we" here is the subject of much debate, naturally. — J

I agree that we declare what is art, in a sense -- though the "we" is pretty dang communal from my perspective, involving audiences, critics, artists, historians, and even casual appreciators of some art.

(This applies to all the arts, not just visual arts, so substitute "way of hearing" for music.)

I should hope so!


I'm not sure I understand the showing you describe, though: That we can no longer equate art with any physical substrate, any thing which art must be in order to qualify. The latter part makes sense to me, it's the "any physical substrate" that has me wondering what that means, or if it's not that special and just a turn of phrase.

Don't you find that quite distasteful?

Davidson undermines this again, by denying one leg of the transcendental argument that leads to it. In this case, he'd say that it's not categories that are held constant, but truths. We interpret the utterances of others so as to maximise their truth. We don't need shared categories.

So it's not that we must think alike, but that we can try to understand others as if they were saying the same things we would. That’s a much more humane model of reason. — Banno

I hadn't thought about it like that until now. I was mostly looking for points of comparison.

The "must" in think alike is descriptive, I believe, rather than proscriptive though. The categories organized experience -- truths organize the world maybe? And given Kant's whole shtick about freedom and creativity I'd be hesitant to say his isn't humane: from a secular point of view Kant's is something of a humanistic rationalism.

But, then, I'm inclined to agree with you about how there's no need for shared categories, and even if Kant thought there was this one structure that structures all minds I'd be more inclined to ground these things in social practices that are shared with others -- a sort of intersubjectivity of practice.

What do you think about calling or treating or striving towards philosophy as a science, if we take Davidson's stance? At least, in the manner that Williamson seems to be indicating to go towards or achieve.

On Danto -- yes! That's a sort of "beginning" for my thinking on the categorical question of art. But my exposure to that idea is from George Dickie, and not reading Danto -- though Dickie nods to Danto approvingly.

I think I'd say, using that notion, there's more than one artworld by which things are included or judged by. Popular music is an artworld unto itself where sales are a dominant metric of worth. Not usually for "the best" stuff, but it's an undeniable standard in the sense that it's sought after approvingly.

But then there's this notion of having a refined taste which is practiced by exposure towards the finer objects of aesthetic appreciation that seems to make sense to me. And, given our post modern world, it's fairly easy to see how there could be different sorts of tastes that apply different sorts of standards of inclusion and evaluation -- i.e. different artworlds.

I'll try and give more detail, then.

There's at least two ways I can think of making a standard. One is some formal prescription which holds for all practitioners of some craft. So something like the 7 principles of art.

The other is ostensively -- to use Shakespeare as the standard of greatness in English poetry, for instance.

What makes it a standard is intersubjective agreement. Insofar that you and I agree that such and such holds for all practitioners -- in this case, judgers of visual art and poetry, respective to the examples of standards -- we'll be bound by the standard.

It's just a temporal agreement, but in order for a standard to function we'd both have to understand and agree to it.

Also, interesting thought with respect to standards in art -- the standards are sort of the "starting place" for what counts as "good art". Sometimes, though, breaking the standards is what produces the best art.

Because any standard will do as far as I'm concerned. I did use "lively" as a possible standard for concluding a composer is "good", but there's surely more to it than that for a person who is seriously pursuing the aesthetics of music, or even for a person who's seriously invested in how we judge music, like a musician or composer. I expect their conversations to be much more rich and complicated than my toy example of a standard.

There is no standard by which the judge these things. — Patterner

Sure there is. Let's say that a composer which is lively is a composer which is good. We'll have some identifying criteria for what we mean by "lively", and thereby come to judge a composer as good.

One way to think on this with your examples -- perhaps there's a way of understanding why someone would say "Vivaldi wrote the most beautiful Baroque music" and why someone would say "Bach wrote the most beautiful Baroque music". I may have a preference for one or the other, but there's an attitude I can adopt to both in seeing why they're the ones we are considering in the first place: they're both good! And what is this goodness? Why these people, and not the butchers of the same time period?

Page 30(Printed at bottom)/Page 31(PDF page)--

. It is not an end in itself at the latter’s expense, but carries it
off out of the thingly bad state of affairs, for its part an object of
philosophical critique

I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on what "thingly bad state of affairs" means. I was wondering if it's supposed to say "thinly" just as a first guess?

Yup, that's how I read it.

But with what came before I'd say a couple more things for a summation, I think. I think he's addressing the positivists skepticism, and it seems he even includes Kant in that family when he speaks of the resistance of Kant. That makes sense to me since he was exploring the scientific basis of philosophy, and much of philosophy after Kant is a reaction to attempt to somehow "overcome" his system, or demonstrate that it's not the architectonic which it purports to be.

Though Adorno notes that the responses have been obscure, he wants to speak up in favor of this speculative thinking, or a moment within thinking, whereby the facts, on their face or as read, do not determine thought, but rather produce a facade through his through which thought must push towards and outward from in order to get closer to the things themselves.

Only, without a category that determines the thing -- it's non-conceptual. In a way I think I can see the fantasm as the appearance, whereas negative dialectics wishes to get beyond the appearance of facts (themselves conceptual) to the thing.

Rather than "I Think..." as the only option in the transcendental argument, Davidson would reject a transcendental subject, having instead a triangulation between belief, world and meaning. — Banno

Excellent comparisons, all around.

A question popped to my mind on this just now: How would Davidson distinguish "belief" from "I think..." ?

Something that comes to mind for me is that we could reconcile their epistemologies, at least, by noting how language and world are always-already interpreted, much like the categories shape our experiences. Furthermore for Kant these are supposed to be universally applicable "rules" such that all thinkers will share the categories. That'd be meaning. "The world" would just be what we refer to in speaking to one another, or the intuition for Kant.

But I gather there really is supposed to be one world, at the end of the day. "The noumenal" could just as well be read as the "nonsensical", perhaps.


Also @Srap Tasmaner -- Kant might be more of an ally to Williamson than I had first thought. His whole thing is trying to discover the scientific basis of metaphysics, but only to conclude agnostically on the subject. It seems Williamson is open to the possibility of a science of philosophy, at least, if not metaphysics so the idea which Kant presents -- that a philosopher can state the boundaries of reason in a clear enough manner so as to be able to distinguish when reason has gone too far, and it's only a matter of doing philosophy to state these limits -- that seems to get along with the idea of trying to do better.

The difference would be in style -- rather than the Magnum Opus from a genius it seems like Williamson would adopt the more modern scientific approach of distributed cognition through shared practices.