For sure. :up:

I've also tried to help his parents in their quest to keep him well-fed by utilizing philosophy. "When you eat food, your stomach transforms it into you, and you get bigger and stronger and faster. What goes into the toilet is just leftover waste from that process. Therefore it is good to eat food!" His response, translated, was, "You're full of shit, uncle Leontiskos!" :lol:

Banno's position here is interesting because he is strongly committed both to the primacy of natural language and the usefulness of classical logic. The argument he often makes is that classical logic is not something you find implicit in ordinary language, as its hidden structure, say, but you can choose to conform your language use to it.

I think that view actually rhymes quite well with the description I've been trying to develop of how formal, technical language can be embedded in natural language, much as mathematical language is and must be embedded in natural language. — Srap Tasmaner

But isn't the claim that "mathematical language is and must be embedded in natural language," actually contrary to the claim that, "classical logic is not something you find implicit in ordinary language"? At least if mathematics is on par with classical logic? At the very least, you are claiming that some kind of formalism (mathematics) is implicit in ordinary language.

Let me try for two birds with one stone: both this question and the question of philosophical "rigor" or "discipline."

My nephew is four years old. At Halloween we were playing with figurines who had interchangeable costumes. One of the costumes had eight legs. During our taxonomy my nephew claimed that it was an octopus. I disputed his claim and said that it was a spider.

• Nephew: "This one is an octopus."
• Leontiskos: "I think it's a spider."
• Nephew: "I don't think so."
• Leontiskos: "Octopus have suckers, but this one has no suckers."
• Nephew: "Hmm... I still think it's an octopus."
• Leontiskos: "Why?"
• Nephew: "Because it has eight legs."
• Leontiskos: "How many legs does a spider have?"
• Nephew: "Six."
• Leontiskos: "I thought spiders had eight legs?"
• Nephew: "No, octopus have eight legs."

My initial argument was clear enough:

1. All octopus have suckers
2. This thing has no suckers
3. Therefore, this thing is not an octopus

He considered my argument, but he wasn't altogether convinced of my first premise. His rejoinder was also clear enough, and valid:

4. No "animal" has the same number of legs as another animal
5. Therefore, because an octopus has eight legs, therefore a spider does not have eight legs
6. This animal we are playing with has eight legs
7. Therefore it must be an octopus and not a spider

My next argument was as follows:

8. Some "animals" (species) have the same number of legs
9. Therefore, Octopus and spiders might have the same number of legs
10. Therefore, this eight-legged animal might be a spider

My task was to justify (8), but that wasn't too hard since he knows that dogs and lions and giraffes all have four legs, and from this he was able to see that (4) is false. It still took awhile to clear away the certitude-debris that had accumulated from his former way of thinking, but clear away it did. It's also worth noting that (4) is not wholly wrong, insofar as it flows out of the fact that each species is different. It's just that they aren't necessarily different qua number of legs.


Now here's the question: Was my nephew doing philosophy? Was it rigorous? Was it disciplined? Was there logical inference at play, even at four years old? It seems clear to me that he was doing philosophy (and logic, and zoology), perhaps not unlike the budding geometrician in the Meno. Note that my argument is not, "He was doing philosophy because we aren't allowed to say that some putatively philosophical things are not in fact philosophy." Rather, my argument is, "He was doing philosophy because he was involved in the mental rigor and discipline that philosophy requires." If he was not doing philosophy, then what did he lack?

Absolutely. It’s hard to explain to someone , especially if their standards of clarity are shaped by the corporate world, how a set of ideas can be rigorous yet not instantly accessible. — Joshs

Yes, and also "fruitful" alongside "rigorous."

I think we have to call the "setting up" work philosophy; Williamson adds a stricture on the aim of setting up, a way to compare different ways of setting up a problem, and a criterion of success or at least improvement. — Srap Tasmaner

I want to say that the crux of the paragraph on page 10, along with @Count Timothy von Icarus ideas about wisdom being determinate, as well as my thread on transparency, all get at a central concern.

The concern is that if something is to be philosophy then it must say something. To "say something" is to offer up something which one believes, which one is willing to defend, and which someone else might deny. Even Williamson's very minimal criterion of "disciplined by something," generates this "saying something." If one offers something that is conditioned and answerable to no discipline whatsoever, then one is not actually saying something.

That's a low water-mark for philosophy, but I find it not only helpful, but also commonly accepted and commonly deployed. A common critique of, say, Heidegger, is that he is just engaging in word-salad without saying anything at all. The rejoinder is never, "Oh, well I agree that he is engaged in mere word-salad, but that's a-ok!" Rather the rejoinder is, "No, he is not engaged in mere word-salad (and if he were then I agree that would be a problem)."

I want to say that this minimal criterion can run much farther than might at first seem possible. This is why the questions, "But what are you saying?," or, "But why does that matter?," are so often helpful. Further, definitions, formal argumentation, and obiter dicta are all aids to saying something, albeit not necessary aids. If they were necessary then I would agree that philosophy could not be done without them.

@Count Timothy von Icarus, @Joshs

There is a tendency in this thread to use "continental philosophy" as a foil to rigorous philosophy, but that does seem odd to me. Do continental philosophers lack rigor? Not usually. But the key may be that the person who reads them casually lacks rigor, and this reflects back on them. It's almost like the phenomenon where the casual reader who tries to express Einstein's theory of general relativity lacks rigor and precision, and then the listener assumes that Einstein himself must also have lacked rigor and precision.

This also accounts for why analytic-type philosophy is popular on philosophy forums such as this one: because it is easier to understand and learn. It's not a coincidence that Russell gets discussed more than Heidegger. Russell is much more accessible. This presents a problem for continental philosophy, at least if it wishes to be discussed in popular circles.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

My point that a philosophy which places natural language above formal language is more robust than a philosophy which does not was serious, and I am willing to defend that point. This is a thread about scrutinizing philosophical quality, after all.

Please just stop doing this. No one wants to hear it. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm quite serious. But while we're at it, please stop with your condescending posts where you instruct other people how to behave, what to write, and how to rewrite their posts to adhere to your own standards. No one wants to hear it.

Or, for a more direct example, we might consider how someone like Plantinga goes about showing how "God cannot create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it," is merely logically equivalent with "God can lift any rocks." Does this bit of work resolve the issue?

Not really, it simply misinterprets the problem by trying to squeeze it into formalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would sum this up by saying that natural language is much more powerful than artificial languages, such as formal languages (which in fact depend on natural language). I would go back to this:

So how does one offer an argument against logical presuppositions? The most obvious way is to argue that the presupposition fails to capture some real aspect of natural logic or natural language, and by claiming that natural propositions possess a variety of assertoric force that Frege's logic lacks, this is what you are doing. Yet this is where a point like Novák's becomes so important, for logicians like Russell, Frege, Quine, et al., presuppose that natural language is flawed and must be corrected by logic. This moots your point. Further, Quine will set the stage for a "pragmaticizing" of logic, which destroys the idea of ontologically superior logics at its root: — Leontiskos

This is why Scholasticism's rigor is so much more robust than Analytic Philosophy's rigor:

In scholasticism the matters are rather more complicated. Generally speaking, the scholastics lacked the Russellian revisionist attitude towards natural language, and therefore they rarely explicitly challenged the obvious capacity of the natural language to refer to non-existents. Their approach was, generally, to explain and analyse, not to correct language... — Lukáš Novák, Can We Speak About That Which Is Not?, 168

I've grown used to thinking of what you're calling technical work as simply "semantical or logic-derived analytic phil." A bit cumbersome, maybe, but as you say, we all more or less know what we're talking about.

...interest or rigor or clarity — J

I think the elephant in the room is that we don't know what we mean by "technical work," or, "professional work." We can agree that philosophy requires rigor, but we don't know what we mean by "rigor." That's what is trying to be deciphered.

2. How does Aquinas argue for the soul being immaterial? — Bob Ross

Apparently there is a whole book on the subject, "Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect," by Adam Wood.

Here is one of Aquinas' arguments for the incorporeality of the intellect:

I answer that, It must necessarily be allowed that the principle of intellectual operation which we call the soul, is a principle both incorporeal and subsistent. For it is clear that by means of the intellect man can have knowledge of all corporeal things. Now whatever knows certain things cannot have any of them in its own nature; because that which is in it naturally would impede the knowledge of anything else. Thus we observe that a sick man's tongue being vitiated by a feverish and bitter humor, is insensible to anything sweet, and everything seems bitter to it. Therefore, if the intellectual principle contained the nature of a body it would be unable to know all bodies. Now every body has its own determinate nature. Therefore it is impossible for the intellectual principle to be a body. It is likewise impossible for it to understand by means of a bodily organ; since the determinate nature of that organ would impede knowledge of all bodies; as when a certain determinate color is not only in the pupil of the eye, but also in a glass vase, the liquid in the vase seems to be of that same color.

Therefore the intellectual principle which we call the mind or the intellect has an operation per se apart from the body. Now only that which subsists can have an operation "per se." For nothing can operate but what is actual: for which reason we do not say that heat imparts heat, but that what is hot gives heat. We must conclude, therefore, that the human soul, which is called the intellect or the mind, is something incorporeal and subsistent. — Aquinas, ST I.75.2.c - Whether the human soul is something subsistent?

And so I think it is with philosophy. It's not really a matter of formalism at all, but more like the distinction in a legal opinion between the actual decision, the language of which is binding on parties, and obiter dicta, which could be important to understanding the decision and complying with it, but which does not have the force of law. (Maybe I should have gone for this analogy first.) — Srap Tasmaner

That all seems fine to me, and relates to what I said here:

In fact good logic courses incorporate a lot of translation between formal languages and natural language... — Leontiskos

But I don't see why anything you are saying would entail that, "no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread." I think that if we move away from a focus on formalisms or professional methodologies, then philosophy is taking place in the commonest of places.

To be clear, are you claiming that there is no distinction being made in this thread between the "legal opinion and the actual decision," and therefore there is no philosophy occurring? If so, I would have to think more about the claim.

What follows wasn't intended as a bit of silliness as I began writing it, but I think that's what it turned out to be. It may provide amusement if not insight. — Srap Tasmaner

Okay.

Then (P) is the claim that philosophy is disciplined when both (D/s) and (D/o) hold. — Srap Tasmaner

It seems to me that we do not need (D/o) at all, and that this is the point of (P). (P) is the claim that, "Discipline from semantics is by itself sufficient..." If (D/o) were necessary then (D/s) would not be sufficient.

But that means there are two ways for (D/s-) to hold: failure of (D/s), or failure of (D/o). — Srap Tasmaner

I think I understand what you are trying to say here. I think you are trying to say that, "failure of (D/s), or failure of (D/o)," result in a non-philosophical approach. I would simplify this whole thing and just say that philosophy must be disciplined by something, whether that is semantics or something else. "But that is no reason to produce work that is not properly disciplined by anything."

There's a bit of a muddle at the beginning — Srap Tasmaner

I agree with this, by the way. Those sorts of muddles are why I am not fixating on the paper itself.

I think part of the problem here is that "disciplined" is being used in two different ways — Srap Tasmaner

Or else "semantics" is being used in two different ways.

I think part of the problem here is that "disciplined" is being used in two different ways ― not quite two different senses. It's rather like the way we use the word "hot" in two ways: you can ask if something is hot or cold, and you can ask how hot something is (or similarly, how cold). Similarly, discipline seems to be, on the one hand, a matter of how firmly your inquiries are guided by other disciplines, and by how many; but on the other seems to be something that can be achieved, and that stands as the contrary of "undisciplined".

This is rather unfortunate. — Srap Tasmaner

Why is it unfortunate? I don't see a problem with using "disciplined" in that way, just as I do not see a problem with using "hot" in that way. This is a form of analogical predication, where we simply do not have any obvious "unfortunate" equivocation occurring.

Why does it sound like he wants to say "Be disciplined rather than undisciplined" when it will turn out, quite soon, that he means "Be more disciplined by more things, rather than less disciplined by fewer things"? — Srap Tasmaner

I don't find his point hard to understand. "Be disciplined, not undisciplined. That means adhering to at least one standard, and hopefully more than one (e.g. semantics, syntax, logic, common sense...)." This will of course involve rigorously adhering to the standards one adopts (for rigor is a form of discipline). It also involves adhering to more than one standard, supposing this is what discipline requires. The wrinkle is that, depending on how one views 'semantics', it could be a necessary standard that cannot be done without. Either way, the point he is making seems clear to me.

Now what about discipline? Here again, he seems to want to stake out what we might call "realism about discipline" ― i.e., that there is a fact of the matter about whether you are or aren't ― but where he ends up is with this scale of gradations between being disciplined and undisciplined.

Now what you'd expect from his other work (I believe this paper falls between vagueness and knowledge) is that the important corollary to the discovery of this area of gradation between disciplined and undisciplined, is that we cannot know for sure where we fall on it! We may indeed be doing proper disciplined philosophy, but we cannot know it. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't find his ideas here uncongenial. I would phrase it this way: <Everyone agrees that we should be disciplined and not undisciplined, and everyone knows what it means to be extremely disciplined and what it means to be extremely undisciplined>. This is a sufficient starting point. The notion that we need perfectly nailed down lines of where "undisciplined" stops and "disciplined" begins is incorrect.

This is extremely close to an Aristotelian or Thomistic understanding of goodness and badness. It provides the proper initial orientation without foreclosing on the conclusion (e.g. see my post <here> where I answer Banno's charge that if we have a vague target then we already have a conclusion).

So this is the odd thing: Williamson is a diehard realist of the first order, all of whose work seems to force on him a recognition of degrees and weights... — Srap Tasmaner

Why in the world would someone think degrees and weights are incompatible with realism? Realism and teleology have always gone hand in hand, and you don't have teleology without degrees and weights.

All I've set up here, is that you can falsify a belief without falsifying hte state of affairs in the belief, and vice verse. — AmadeusD

I agree that one can "falsify" a belief (the whole question is about whether that is the correct word) without falsifying the proposition/belief. Namely, one can show that a belief is unjustified without showing that it is false.

But if Trump actually had dyed his hair, aside from this video fiasco, then the state of affairs hasn't be falsified if the belief is restricted to the result, not the process. You could even go as far as to say that A's belief in this video has now been falsified. — AmadeusD

I could simplify that first sentence and just say that the state of affairs hasn't been falsified. It doesn't matter whether Trump actually had dyed his hair, nor whether the belief is restricted to the result. Either way the "state of affairs" has not been falsified.

The difficulty with your position as I see it, is that it posits the falsification of "states of affairs" apart from the falsification of beliefs. I don't think there is ever a state of affairs that is falsified, except for when a belief is simultaneously falsified. Humans cannot access "states of affairs" without beliefs, and since falsification is a human act, therefore there is no falsification of a state of affairs without a falsification of beliefs. Humans never hold that something is false while not believing that it is false.

Someone can have their belief falsified, but not disbelieve the content of that belief. Someone can believe x, even when there exists incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. You're right - these are somewhat vacuuous. I somewhat noted this earlier, and tried to boil it down. Here we are - you seem to be very nearly getting it in the next part of your reply. Let's see,... — AmadeusD

Okay...

Yes. For reasons I've put forward, but again, this just illustrates exactly what my above is somewhat impatient about: You don't like the sentence I use to describe what's happening for A - I don't like yours/ I don't think we're saying something different from one another. I would only note I don't think it can rightly be called 'implausible' to use words in various ways. — AmadeusD

Here is what I said before that:

Consider the person before it was pointed out to him that the video is a deepfake. I want to say, "At that point his belief was justified but false." You apparently want to say, "At that point his belief was true but the state of affairs was false." Do you really think we should describe his belief as "true" rather than "justified but false"? — Leontiskos

Why would we call his belief "true"? And which belief do you want to call "true"? Here is the exchange:

"Trump dyed his hair brown!"
"Why do you say that?"
"Because I saw it on the news, from *this video*."
"That video is a deepfake."
"Oh, okay. I guess _____" — Leontiskos

I don't see the first speaker saying anything true here (except perhaps that he saw a video, but that is not a distinct premise - the premise involves the veracity of the video).

I don't particularly think the JTB schema is a great one — AmadeusD

Me neither, but the "truth" part doesn't strike me as controversial.

It just doesn't make me at all intuitively uncomfortable to say belief in a false state of affairs can be called true belief (this, i suppose, in contrast to 'belief in something true' which would make some of what we're saying redundant). — AmadeusD

I think belief in a false proposition should not be called true. Take a false proposition, "2+2=5." Curt says, "I believe that proposition." You say that Curt's belief is true. How so? It doesn't seem strange to you to say that Curt's belief that 2+2=5 is true?

Really? You can't understand having the reasons for your belief removed, without necessarily having hte state of affairs affected? — AmadeusD

That's the whole thing I've been at pains to demonstrate, for example in <this post>. But the point is:

Do you see how my scenario included a separate reason for belief, and why the separation of that reason is necessary? — Leontiskos

-

Gettier cases are prime examples. If after passing the field with the sheep statue (which had a real sheep behind it), you are then later told it was statue, your 'knowledge' doesn't change but the reasons for at least thinking you have it have changed. There was a sheep in the field. But you would have considered it false unless also told "but there was a real sheep behind the statue". The point here being completed different reasons result in the same 'knowledge' despite one being 'false' on that account. — AmadeusD

Here is what I said about the Gettier case, and I stand by it:

The Gettier case is one where the conditions for justified true belief (JTB) are satisfied and yet knowledge does not obtain. What we are talking about here is a case where one sees that the reasons for their belief are false, and nevertheless the belief itself (and the proposition, if you like), remains undecided. — Leontiskos

That they would be "good ants" if I judge them according to my framework, and that this does not require that they have any understanding of said framework. Similarly, people can be rational without understanding the normative framework used to judge them as such. — goremand

Well we agree that ants protect their queen, do we not? And we agree that ants are not rational, and therefore do not engage in rational norm-following, do we not?

Every agent, of necessity, acts for an end. For if, in a number of causes ordained to one another, the first be removed, the others must, of necessity, be removed also. Now the first of all causes is the final cause. The reason of which is that matter does not receive form, save in so far as it is moved by an agent; for nothing reduces itself from potentiality to act. But an agent does not move except out of intention for an end. For if the agent were not determinate to some particular effect, it would not do one thing rather than another: consequently in order that it produce a determinate effect, it must, of necessity, be determined to some certain one, which has the nature of an end. And just as this determination is effected, in the rational nature, by the "rational appetite," which is called the will; so, in other things, it is caused by their natural inclination, which is called the "natural appetite."... — Aquinas, ST I-II.1.2.c - Whether it is proper to the rational nature to act for an end?

For the record, of course I didn't say that, even inadvertently. — Srap Tasmaner

Well I gave the quote where you seem to say that implicitly, and in the context of comments about Analytic philosophy.

This, on the other hand -- I'll admit I was trying to coax someone into saying exactly this. Not with any particular goal in mind, it's just that this is what people always say about philosophy in the analytic tradition, so I wanted to sort of set a place at the table for this view. — Srap Tasmaner

:up:

Those are two well-represented views on TPF.

Anyway, that's the hard view. I'd like to be able to state the opposing view as clearly, but it's quite a bit more difficult. — Srap Tasmaner

The opposing view that I favor can be brought into view by looking at amateurs rather than "professionals." It's not as easy to tell the difference between an amateur who is engaging in "chit-chat" (or else unprincipled reasoning), and an amateur who is engaging in philosophy.* Nevertheless, that difference is still crucial in the case of the amateur, and yet it cannot turn as heavily on what are essentially professional methodologies. More simply: just because the amateur is not capable of understanding or utilizing professional methodologies, he is not therefore barred from true philosophy. This is precisely where I see Williamson faltering. He highlights very well the crux in the paragraph I pointed out, but then he seems to at least partially fall away from that clear insight, into a preference for specific methodologies.

(In Plato we see clearly the idea that the "professional" is not necessarily the most philosophical.)


* In fact I think it is also hard to tell in the case of the "professional," but I am leaving this aside for the sake of argument.

So thinking being the male and its object being the female?

Metaphorically. Or maybe archetypally. — Srap Tasmaner

More simply, the idea that beauty and intelligence seek out beauty and intelligence. Thinking well will seek out a high object of thought, and a high object of thought will attract strong thinking. It doesn't really matter which is associated with male or female, but even sociologically we see that males tend to take on the role of pursuer, and therefore it is natural to compare the beautiful and intelligent man seeking out a beautiful and intelligent wife to the "thinking well" seeking out a beautiful object.

Another way to say this might be that good thinking is portable, which I think most of us want to believe, but I suspect the evidence there is a little mixed. Right from Socrates we get, "If you want to know about horses, do you ask a physician or a horse breeder?" — Srap Tasmaner

I don't find that mixed. Anyone who thinks well about one thing will therefore—ceteris paribus—think well about other things. It doesn't follow that the physician knows more about horses than the horse breeder. What follows is that the physician will think better about horses than the non-physician (i.e. ceteris paribus).

Maybe the point you are making is that generalists tend to be better all-around thinkers than specialists? I agree with that too.

Yet another way to put this might be that the good reasoning that went into a good piece of thinking, or the good thinking that went into a good decision, ought to be 'extractable', that you in your field (or life) could learn from someone else doing something else. — Srap Tasmaner

Right. :up:

And that again relies on a distinction between the movements of a mind and its object. To draw them back together, as you are inclined to do, would be instead to distinguish reason from instrumental rationality, giving to reason not only the expertise in reaching the desired result but something like the 'proper' selection of a goal, or of an object of thought. Instrumental rationality would then be only part of reason, not the whole thing.

Is that close to your view? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that seems fair. But I don't think I've said that explicitly, and I would be wary about how someone is inferring that view.

For example, when you say, "philosophy is thinking well about what it is important to think about," you have already drawn together thought and object according to the very definition of philosophy. So I feel as though I can also draw them together simply in virtue of your own definition. In fact the whole notion of "what is important to think about" is presumably going to be troublesome for any view which resists the thesis that some things are more important than others—for any view that privileges methodology over object.

-

If we take a step back I think we have this:

• Leontiskos: The most uncontroversial point of departure for philosophy is Socrates and Plato.
• Srap Tasmaner: I agree, and therefore philosophy is "thinking well about what it is important to think about."
• Leontiskos: I agree.
• Srap Tasmaner: I would say that non-Analytic philosophy does think about what is important, but it does not think well.*
• Leontiskos: I would say that Analytic philosophy does think well, but not about what is important.

How do we adjudicate this question? I would point to all of the non-Analytic philosophers who think well about what is most important. First and foremost, we have again Socrates and Plato. After that I am thinking of people like Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Thomas Aquinas, Jacques Maritain, Charles De Koninck, Peter Simpson, Gyula Klima, etc. (I could also add continental thinkers, but I omit them for the sake of argument). Analytic and rigorous methods have been used for millennia, and I myself was trained in a kind of Analytic Thomism which was very comfortable with ethical, political, metaphysical, and religious reasoning. This whole notion that one must choose between rigor of method and import of subject matter strikes me as a non-starter.

Gödel is a very interesting example. A theist who thinks well, applies his thinking to God, and thinks quite a bit better than the Logical Positivists (in virtue of his incompleteness theorems). He is the guy who does Analytic philosophy better than the Analytic philosophers, and who also does not limit himself to the objects of thought to which Analytic philosophers tend to limit themselves. I don't see that as coincidental or uncommon.

and it seems to be a distinction Williamson believes in, so there's that. — Srap Tasmaner

For my money, Williamson strikes his best chord in the second paragraph on page 10, beginning, "Discipline from..." That is all spot-on, and it is very closely related to ' idea that wisdom must have some determinate content.

Not to be "Mr Woke" but do you want to try another simile here? — Srap Tasmaner

Nope, I don't. Why would I? I am thinking of the male/female synergy, and I see nothing wrong with male/female similes.

Is this to say that the most important objects of thought are only accessible to the best thinking? — Srap Tasmaner

Sure, that would follow in its own way.

Maybe I get where you're headed, but maybe you have another way you could explain it. — Srap Tasmaner

So one theorem which flows out of what I said is this: if an analytic philosopher claims that any subject which his analytic philosophy cannot handle is eo ipso unimportant, then his understanding of "thinking well" will be limited and incomplete at best, particularly when such a subject is widely recognized to be important. This is pretty common among analytic philosophers.

(1) this is almost literally the goal with spending time on logic — Srap Tasmaner

That's right, but I actually define logic as the art of thinking or else reasoning well, so I don't think it has a specific object. In fact good logic courses incorporate a lot of translation between formal languages and natural language, and they naturally use examples that are of interest to students. Showing a student that she can reason well about important things is the best way to teach her how to reason. Indeed, if the student does not understand the applicability of logic, then she arguably isn't even learning logic (as opposed to symbol-manipulation).

but people who work on "logic" are actually mostly people who work on metalogic, which to me is, well, a different thing. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree.

(2) The other way round is important too, maintaining exposure to other fields or at least subfields, other disciplines and pursuits entirely. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, and I think that's sort of the same thing. It's something like, "Anyone who thinks well about one thing also thinks well about other things." Or else:

This is vague, but one way it cashes out would be in my claim that someone will improve their own thinking in their own particular field just by reading an excellent philosopher who is speaking to a different field, though they may not know exactly how the improvement came about. — Leontiskos

None of these points would hold if "thinking well" in one field were entirely different and disconnected from "thinking well" in another field.

True. But surely Williamson's is proposing no such definition, is he? — Srap Tasmaner

No, I don't think so, though I do think he tends to overemphasize the "thinking well" side of the equation. Or perhaps he is focused on a particular kind of "thinking well."

Not "has to", no, but might. Not everyone writes about everything, or even thinks about everything. — Srap Tasmaner

I actually want to say that if someone thinks well about some subject, then their "thinking" can be transposed into other areas. Contrariwise, if their "thinking" cannot be transposed into other areas, then I would doubt that they were truly thinking well about their particular subject. This is vague, but one way it cashes out would be in my claim that someone will improve their own thinking in their own particular field just by reading an excellent philosopher who is speaking to a different field, though they may not know exactly how the improvement came about.

But I should add that your insistence on pulling the object of the verb into your interpretation of the adverb sails right past the distinction I was trying to offer.

It's a somewhat tenuous distinction, but I think if used cautiously it could be useful. — Srap Tasmaner

I definitely doubt how separable they are. I would say that the quality of thinking will naturally correlate to the importance of the object, in much the same way that a beautiful and intelligent man will want to marry a beautiful and intelligent woman. If this is right then a culture which focuses on the highest objects of thought will develop the best ways of thinking. At the same time, a culture's mode of thinking will always be related to the objects it chooses and desires to think, whether these are low or high.

But I will end by highlighting the importance of this, lest we go too far astray:

So I'll give a simple definition of what they were trying to do, which I hope is not controversial: philosophy is thinking well about what it is important to think about. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree with Leontiskos that one particularly appealing way to figure out what philosophy is, is to look at Socrates and Plato. Whatever they're trying to do, it's what we call "philosophy". — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. I am not opposed to that thesis, which is a much softer form of Gerson's. Still, I was trying to be more conservative and say <If someone's definition of philosophy excludes Socrates and Plato, then it is a bad definition>.

So I'll give a simple definition of what they were trying to do, which I hope is not controversial: philosophy is thinking well about what it is important to think about. — Srap Tasmaner

Good enough for me. :up:

The work of philosophers lands somewhere in a space measured by these two axes. Those most concerned with the "thinking well" part tend to focus on logic and language, moving a bit along the other axis into metaphysics and epistemology. All of this together is the territory most strongly associated with academic analytic philosophy. If it's technology, it's the technology of philosophy.

Does it leave untouched important areas? Morality, politics, spirituality, art, culture? Of course. But thinking poorly about those important areas of human experience doesn't deserve the name "philosophy". — Srap Tasmaner

This is all very good and very helpful, but I am going to disagree with the bolded. I don't think "thinking well" has any need to leave untouched areas of importance. Crucially, I would say that if (say) Wittgenstein's approach to thinking well does not allow us to think well about those important areas, then it is not a sufficient or complete approach to thinking well. I would even say that if a kind of "thinking well" is incapable of thinking about any important things, then it fails even as a "thinking well." It would be like if I created a measurement tool that simply cannot measure anything worth measuring. "It's capacity for accurate measurements is unprecedented, but unfortunately it simply cannot measure any of the things that most need to be measured."

So If I invented a normative framework for say, ants, with rules like "ants should protect their queen", "ants should walk in a line", "ants should utilize a caste system" etc. and most ants acted in accordance with it, it must be the case that the ants have an understanding of my normative framework? — goremand

How would you answer your own question?

I’ve been forced out of the neighborhood at this point. Like an undocumented migrant philosopher. Don’t speak the language.

You have the property developer, the architect, and the carpenters and builders. You even have the folks down at Home Depot. I never have any problems speaking with any of them. Analytic philosophers seem like code enforcement - all post hoc and redundant when they don’t point to some rule book violation that usually only actually matters to other code enforcement officers. — Fire Ologist

:lol:

We need code enforcement, but we need all the rest. And so do code enforcers. — Fire Ologist

Yes, well said. :up:

Not wrong, but not grounding questioning and thus not genuine philosophy, just the regurgitation of an unexamined technical method. — Joshs

This is basically correct. If Williamson or others refuse questioning and refuse to examine their premises, they are failing to do philosophy. A superstructure with no capacity to examine the foundation is an example of that. The Wittgenstenian who refuses to go beyond their "hinge propositions" and tries to end the argument with "it just is" is another example of a non-philosopher.

Is this necessarily the case (i.e. do they need to)? — goremand

Else, you are using the word 'need'. I would ask, "Need for the sake of what?" Your phrasing is implicitly instrumental. — Leontiskos

-

Why can't I act in accordance with rational norms without understanding those norms? — goremand

Because if you are acting in accordance with a norm then you must have an understanding of that norm at some level. If you have no understanding of a norm then you cannot act in accordance with it.

I see your point which is why I pointed out that the word, "some" was not used. If it were then it would be obvious what you are saying. — Harry Hindu

I think it is obvious. In philosophy it is called the Square of Opposition, and I have mentioned it often in this thread. To negate the claim "All X are Y" is to affirm the claim "Some X are not Y." To say, "Not all are that way," is to say, "Some are not that way." My "some" interpretation is the obvious interpretation.

Saying "All X are not Y" also contradicts "All X are Y," but it does so gratuitously. The charitable and minimal interpretation requires interpreting what is necessary, and to deny "All X are Y" it is necessary to affirm "Some X are not Y." It is not necessary to affirm "All X are not Y" in order to deny "All X are Y." This is a classic case of trying to push one's opponent into an extreme position in order to make them easier to refute (i.e. the informal fallacy of the strawman).

What if one were to say, "All fish are swimmers, or all fish are not swimmers"? How would that be different, if at all? — Harry Hindu

Do you interpret, "Either all fish are swimmers, or they aren't," as, "All fish are swimmers, or all fish are not swimmers"? It's the same issue.

Just on it's face, "All narratives are true" simply does not fit observation when we are aware of narratives that contradict each other. — Harry Hindu

If not all narratives are [X] then some narratives are not [X]. That's exactly what @Count Timothy von Icarus was pointing out. It is not a controversial claim, to say the least. The more interesting question asks why it has been evaded for 20 pages.

Or more simply, on the narrow view, are Nietzsche and Dostoevsky even philosophers anymore? — Count Timothy von Icarus

(@Fire Ologist)

What is one to say to the claim that philosophy studies language, or is engaged in plumbing, or “leaves things as they were”, or must focus on precise tools? I think the response is simply that, more than anything else, we know that philosophy and Plato go together. When one wrestles with Plato’s dialogues he is most surely doing philosophy. This does not exhaust philosophy, but it is the most certain orientation for an understanding of philosophy.

Now if Wittgenstein was right, or if philosophy only studies language, or is only engaged in plumbing, or “leaves things as they were,” then Socrates and Plato were not philosophers at all. But this is absurd, just as it is absurd to claim that Wittgenstein was a more paradigmatic philosopher than Socrates or Plato. It would be absurd to claim that things like Plato’s Republic or his Symposium are not philosophy, and what this means is that none of this about “plumbing” is remotely correct. Philosophy can do lots of things. It can even do “plumbing” if it likes. But the idea that it is restricted to such menial work is not at all plausible. Such theories are parochial, both temporally and geographically.

There is virtually no disagreement on the fact that Socrates and Plato are paradigmatic philosophers, and therefore I think this is the most decisive argument against strange reductionisms regarding language or “plumbing.”

- Glad you've changed your mind. :up:

(The issue strikes me as substantial.)

Deciding to conform to such a thing is a normative judgment, yes. That's not what you said. You said, "that there is such a thing is itself a normative judgement."

You (or Tim) may argue that we need something external or absolute or a platonic form or some such to fix the judgement. But that there is such a thing is itself a normative judgement. — Banno

No, it's not. For example, Plato's belief that the Forms exist was not a normative judgment.

Saying "all x are y or they aren't" is a simple disjunct between affirmation and negation of "all x are y." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. I await the day when "natural language philosophers" finally begin to understand natural language. :smile:

Well, this is "contradiction" in the context of Hegelian dialectical, which starts off pretty clear in the Logic with being/nothing -> becoming, but becomes less clear cut in historical analysis. The basic idea is that a historical moment (e.g. early liberal republicanism) comes to negate itself, making itself what it is not precisely because of what it is. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So every substantial change is a contradiction, on that reading?

For Hegel, who has a strong classic bent in this respect, the telos of history is the emergence of a truly self-determining human freedom (man becoming more wholly himself and more truly one). But freedom itself is subject to the dialectic. If we begin with freedom as "the absolute lack of constraint and determinateness," the "ability to choose anything," we run into the contradiction that making any choice at all implies some sort of determinacy, and is thus a limit on freedom. Yet the fact that, to sustain our perfect freedom, we need to never make any choices, while freedom is also "the capacity to choose," is a sort of contradiction. He identifies this sort of flight from all determinacy with the excesses of the French Revolution early in the Philosophy of Right, but you still see this in leftist and libertarian radicals all the time; they flee from any concrete, pragmatic policy because determination is a limit on liberty. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Interesting. :up:

With liberal democracies, I would like to say that the problem was that they were self-undermining. They allowed for, and indeed positively promoted their own collapse into non-democracy, which is a negation of the original term that promotes and expresses freedom. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, but I'm asking "why?" Why is liberalism thought to be incompatible with democracy? Or why is a "liberal democracy" thought to be self-undermining? What is the reasoning? Again, I don't necessarily doubt the conclusion, but I want to see some particular reasoning for it.

Also, some members do not come up in the search box.

Not sure why - "@I Like Sushi" and "@T Clark" do not come up, but "@Count Timothy" does. — Banno

Presumably every member with a single character followed by a space does not "come up" in the search box. You can still search for them by typing their name correctly.

No one has ever mentioned it to me. I don't mind changing my monicker if it improves functionality. — J

I was worried that your single-letter name would inhibit me from searching for your posts, given that the search engine here is a lil' wonky. But it seems to work, so I'm happy about that. — Leontiskos

10/7/2023 via PM :wink:

You can search J's posts just like anyone else's. But you cannot search for his name via textual string, either on the server or through ctrl-f.* So he is not unsearchable, but he is also not as searchable as other members.

* I mean, you can, but it will return everything with a 'j' in it.

And what does the honest philosopher (language plumber) think politics is? Total bullshit? — Fire Ologist

Perhaps he thinks that "political philosophy" is an oxymoron.

Sorry, "no, I disagree" or "no, there is no need"? Do object to me characterizing norms as something you subscribe to? — goremand

You were asking two different questions:

So would you agree with me that there is no need for the members of the rational community to understand or subscribe to rational norms? — goremand

1. So would you agree with me that there is no need for the members of the rational community to understand rational norms?
2. So would you agree with me that there is no need for the members of the rational community to subscribe to rational norms?

I would say that members of the rational community (i.e. everyone) do understand rational norms, but they do not subscribe nor need to subscribe to them.

Else, you are using the word 'need'. I would ask, "Need for the sake of what?" Your phrasing is implicitly instrumental.

I didn't see the word, "some" in the original quote and that seems to make a difference. The original quote seems to be saying "either all narratives are true or all narratives are false" — Harry Hindu

I've worked through this before in the thread, but we can do it again:

"Either all narratives are [X], or they aren't." (original quote)
∴ "Either all narratives are [X], or they are not."

1. "Either all narratives are [X], or they are not all [X]."
   
   • ∴ "Either all narratives are [X], or some are not [X]."
   • ∴ "p v ~p"
2. "Either all narratives are [X], or they are all not [X]."

I don't think (2) is a plausible interpretation. It looks like something which is clearly false, and something which does not fit the context, and also something which is an inherent stretch (namely to distribute the "all" in that way). It is also contrary to the other ways @Count Timothy von Icarus has phrased the point.

Beyond this, (2) looks like a strawman, and this is why. Accepting for the sake of argument that both interpretations are possible, nevertheless (1) results in a valid argument and (2) results in an invalid argument. So why interpret (2) rather than (1)? @J has accused Count of transgressing the principle of charity, but his interpretation is by definition uncharitable. "He might be saying something that is perfectly valid, but I am going to interpret him in a different way, such that his argument is invalid."

I mean, suppose a marine biologist says, "Either all the fish are diseased, or they aren't." Would you really interpret that as, "Either all the fish are diseased, or else all the fish are not diseased"? I.e. "Either every fish is diseased, or else every fish is not diseased"? I simply do not see that as a plausible interpretation.

Which position would we be adopting at this point if not one that says reason and logic are valuable methods for determining the truth of a claim? Is there another position one could take? Does it make sense to take the position that logic and reason are NOT methods for determining the truth of a claim? One might, but that would seem to undermine many of the other things that they have said. Is there a person alive that takes the position that logic and reason are NEVER useful methods for determining the truth of a claim? Could such a person survive in the world? — Harry Hindu

I think once we understand that (1) is being said rather than (2), then a lot of the things you point out here follow. The earlier iteration : "Well, in ruling out, 'anything goes,' you are denying some positions." I.e., "If we say that not anything goes, then we are saying that some things do not go."

The issue from that other thread is catalogued and addressed more completely in . An excerpt:

Suppose all possible stances are represented by the set {A, B, C, ..., X, Y, Z}. And suppose that Chakravartty's set of "rationally permissible" stances is {A, B, C, D} (and therefore 4/26 stances are rationally permissible). Given this, my construal of Pincock's argument pertains to "choosing among the subset of stances which are rational," i.e. {A, B, C, D}. Chakravartty can say that he has a reason to adopt C rather than F, and that he has a reason to adopt C simpliciter, but he apparently cannot say that he has a reason to adopt C rather than D (which is what he needs to say if he is to properly answer Pincock). — Leontiskos

Chakravartty is claiming that we should "encourage others... to see things our way" even if we both hold to one of the four non-adjudicable, rationally permissible stances. He says that if I claim that my stance is better than yours, this "adds nothing of rhetorical or persuasive power." Obviously he is wrong, given that moving from <my stance is better than yours> to <my stance is not better than yours> impacts the persuasive force, not to mention the whole foundation for a reason to discuss the matter in the first place.

Chakravartty's work is helpful insofar as it codifies the incoherence of "pluralism" into a clearer position. Pincock's opposition is lackluster at times, and Chakravartty misrepresents him on things like "rational obligation," but I think Chakravartty's attempt makes it easier to see the incoherence of "pluralism." He is trying to give the clear position which no one on TPF is willing to offer. Once we steelman Pincock the rest is easy enough:

Let's construe Pincock's argument as saying that, "Chakravartty has no reason to adopt one stance rather than another, when choosing among the subset of stances which are rational." This looks to be the most charitable interpretation, and it precludes the response that, "Choosing one stance involves 'rational choice' because one can produce reasons in favor of that stance." — Leontiskos

The moral of the story is that if someone takes up Chakravartty's stance voluntarism, then they must give up their ability to "encourage others... to see things our way." By definition, the stance voluntarist has no reasons for why someone should "see things his way." More advanced ages could see this fact in the blink of an eye.

This is misleading. The example showed a third party falsifying the subjects belief on the basis of the facts by persuading the subject of their truth. But two different things are going on there, as noted so I think its a little misleading to simply state tha hte facts themselves are what brought S to change their belief (or, should have). — AmadeusD

The third party helped the person see the fact that the video was a deepfake, and the whole scenario I set up was premised on this shared knowledge of the state of affairs (about the deepfake). I don't see how that is misleading. You said, "So, the subject isn't involved in that knowledge-having." But he is. The possession of that knowledge is precisely what produces the two options I provided in the multiple choice question. If he didn't possess that knowledge then those two options would make no sense.

Presumably you are not just saying, "They truly/really believed something false." — Leontiskos

Why would you presume that? That is exactly what this entire exchange has been trying to set up. — AmadeusD

Because it strikes me as uncontroversial and even vacuous. "They truly/really believed something that was false." It's like saying, "They were not lying when they said that Trump dyed his hair." Of course not. Not everyone who is mistaken is lying. Did you think that I held such a thing?

A five-part exchange:

If you falsify the state of affairs, but hte person remains steadfast in a belief due to reasonable standards of evidence then the belief is 'true' and the state of affairs false. — AmadeusD

If I understand this, then I think we should say that the belief is justified but false. — Leontiskos

Yep, I can tell. Have been able too for a while now. That's why I said this: — AmadeusD

Maybe you don't, and that's the issue. If something crucial has been missed by me, I would assume it was something around this. — AmadeusD

The semantic schema is wrong, on my view. But that can't be any kind of objective claim, so sleeping dogs can lie. I don't think we're disagreeing on much here. — AmadeusD

I am going to press this, because I don't find your view at all plausible.

Consider the person before it was pointed out to him that the video is a deepfake. I want to say, "At that point his belief was justified but false." You apparently want to say, "At that point his belief was true but the state of affairs was false." Do you really think we should describe his belief as "true" rather than "justified but false"? For example, in the JTB schema is the assigning of a belief as 'true' compatible with the "state of affairs" being false? Does the fellow at that point in time have JTB? On your view he must, unless you think his belief is not justified.

A believes x.
B presents evidence against A's belief (not against x). — AmadeusD

How does B present evidence against A's belief without presenting evidence against x, given that A's belief is precisely x? Do you see how my scenario included a separate reason for belief, and why the separation of that reason is necessary?

A believes x, and
C (an audience, let's say) has direct, incontrovertible evidence that x obtains
but A is drawn away from their belief by B's evidence against the belief in x (not x) — AmadeusD

My criticism of your former scenario would have to be addressed before looking at this, because it relies on the same idea.

I guess in that example justification isn't open to S anyway, so that's fine hahaha. — AmadeusD

Why wouldn't justification be open to S? For the last few pages I have been presenting scenarios where justification is crucial, given that we are talking about reasons for belief. Maybe reread this post.

It sounds like you’re talking about the kinds of general social know-how that allows us to navigate in interpersonal situations without having to have in-depth knowledge of other persons’ motives and beliefs. Ordering in a restaurant, driving in busy traffic, dancing the tango or strategizing again enemy soldiers are all examples of this skillful coping. Blame would seem to mark the limit of the anticipatory usefulness of such coping, the point where a more in-depth understanding of the other’s perspective becomes necessary. — Joshs

Obviously we disagree on most all of this. If you want to give an argument for your positions, feel free.

Deceit would not appear to trigger blame unless it could not be accounted for as an element of the social practice. Misdirection is an expected strategy in football and war, but not in cooperative ventures. The enemy general who pulls off a successful subterfuge ( D-day) is to be admired, whereas the friend betrays one’s trust triggers rage and blame.

I agree with this part of your post. :up:

Regarding cross-purposes:

I wrote about topic-equivocation, for example <here> and especially <here>. — Leontiskos

The simple way this has churned out in this this thread is, "Oh, I thought we were forthrightly answering each other's questions. I see you're not doing that. So what game are you playing at instead?" Hence the deception.

I think that the video game is singled out with respect to marbles because there's a kind of nostalgia for an age that didn't exist, as if children were somehow better off then than now, and our modern technology is ruining their development. — Moliere

I've explained what you're unable to see. There was nothing in my explanation about "nostalgia for an age that didn't exist." There is a difference between video games and wall ball, believe it or not.

Take care, Moliere.