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.

Isn't the common thread of those cases where it is impossible is where the distinctions have been clearly defined and are in opposition (law of the excluded middle)? Atheism is the antithesis of theism. There is no middle ground, but there could be an absence of both (agnosticism). The cases where it is possible are cases where there isn't a clear distinction and\or the ideas are not contradictory - meaning that opposite sides can actually be integrated into a consistent middle ground. — Harry Hindu

Yes, I think that's a good way of putting it. You wanted real-world application, so let's come back to the thread now, using your tool of the LEM. This is the central counter-claim of the thread:

Either all narratives are acceptable/true/valid, whatever you want to call it, or they aren't. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Note the form: <Either all narratives are [X], or else some narratives are not [X]>. "Which do you believe it is?"

@Banno, @J, and @Srap Tasmaner have no ability to answer that question, and they failed to answer it for 20 pages, making all sorts of weird excuses.

@J and @Srap Tasmaner in particular tried to say, "Let's take a step back into a neutral frame, so that we can examine this more carefully. Now everyone lives in their own framework..." Their "step back" was always a form of question-begging, given that it presupposed the non-overarching, framework-view. That's what happens when someone falsely claims to be taking a neutral stance on some matter on which they are not neutral* (and, in this case, on a matter in which neutrality is not possible). In general and especially in this case, the better thing to do is simply to give arguments for one's position instead of trying to claim the high ground of "objectivity" or "neutrality."

Note that if one holds that all narratives or frames are equal, then they should just say that. They should be honest about it. The problem here is that it is evident to everyone that not all narratives are equal, and this is why such people refuse to answer the question in that way. We could sum up this part of the thread as, "There is an obvious truth that some people refused to admit, and their avoidance of dialogue was part and parcel of that refusal."


* And this is related to the deceptive genus I am discussing with @Joshs

So Haidt compared video games to marbles and says that the video game is inferior to marbles because Piaget would play marbles with children and intentionally break the rules to see what the children did, which was to somehow negotiate the rules of the game in order to keep playing. — Moliere

Right, good.

There is a video game called MineCraft which doesn't exactly have rules to play by. There are rules in the sense that it is a physics engine where different simulations of objects interact within some set of rules which are apparently deterministic. But there's no reason to do one thing over the other. I've watched children play video games in the exact manner that Haidt praises the negotiation of rules for marbles -- the children are in fact still children even with different technology, and they negotiate all kinds of rules all the time. — Moliere

Are you truly unable to see Haidt's point? Have you ever watched children at recess, playing a game and disputing the rules? Minecraft is not a counterexample. It's just a game with loose rules. The only time Haidt's point comes up in video games is when there is a bug, and then some people exploit the bug, and then there is an argument over whether the bug ought to be exploited. But it is almost always fair game to exploit a bug in a video game, and that's no coincidence.

When I worked at a school there was one game in particular that the children played, which I believe they called "wall ball." But the rules were extremely complicated, and despite this the children understood them remarkably well (although I don't think they would have been able to articulate them clearly). I had a co-worker who I would sometimes lunch with, and she was never able to discern the rules of the game in the years she worked there.* That sort of phenomenon would never occur with video games. The rules of a video game are defined by the code, and they cannot be bent or broken.

Indeed, when adults play children's games with children, they are often convicted of transgressing the rules, and there will be a large number of infractions before they begin to understand how to play. That's normal, and also funny. Contrariwise, when an adult plays a video game with children, they get their ass beat, but they are never accused of breaking rules. They are just laughed at because they are so bad.


* One of the rules of this game was that, if you tried and failed to catch the ball after it bounced off the brick wall, then you were inactivated. You were unable to play again until the ball hit the wall. Even if every player missed the ball, there was no exception (and this fascinated me). At that point the whole game went into stasis, and could not be continued until an outside party joined the game, picked up the ball, and threw it against the wall. If no one came to renew the game, it would end and the children would veer off into other games, like basketball or kickball. That combination of competition, cooperation, fault/blame, and consequences—both individual and communal—has everything that a good game needs, for it mimics the complexities of reality and life.

Not being either would qualify one as agnostic - which I think is a cop-out. — Harry Hindu

If you think that's a cop-out then we are on the same page. I am saying that there are some cases where it is impossible to say, "I am neither black nor white. I am perfectly neutral." If you think the theist/atheist case is one of those cases, then that is the sort of thing I am talking about.

"I am neither a framework-relativist nor a realist. I am perfectly neutral between the two."

I am thinking of situations where, as you say, two gensuses ( genera) differ subtly enough that the second can be reasonably mistaken for the first. — Joshs

Right, and that is what I was talking about in the quote. I think you actually mean "innocuously" rather than "reasonably."

Your characterization of such situations seems to assume that nothing stands in the way of our recognizing and properly interpreting the meaning of the second genus, save for circumstances where the other intends to mislead. — Joshs

That post I quoted is literally identifying "being at cross-purposes" as one central cause of dismissal, and then going on to claim that dismissals of that kind can be either correct or incorrect. An example of an incorrect case would be the false attribution of blame, which is what you are thinking of.

In the situation where someone tries to exterminate Jews and another tries to stop them, can we really say that they are engaged in a common pursuit of practical execution before we understand WHY they are doing what they are doing f from their own perspective? — Joshs

Maybe try reading the OP of that thread, especially where I talk about "material positions." That is what you are talking about here, and it is taken for granted given the OP.

Opponents in a football game can easily switch sides because the game is understood in the same way by all. But the rescuer and exterminator of jews are not on opposing sides of the same game. They are playing different games, and neither side’s position appears justifiable to the other. — Joshs

I would argue that in both cases each side knows what the other is attempting to do, and that each is trying to thwart the other. That's why they are not at cross-purposes in the relevant sense. If we think of "being at cross-purposes" differently, then even the footballers are at cross-purposes simply in virtue of the fact that they are on different sides.

The idea is that in order for cross-purposes to result in (moral) dismissal, there must be blame. And in order for there to be blame the other must be falsely representing his purpose.

These points are incredibly subtle, so you will have to try to understand the context. No one took me up on that point in the thread, probably because it is too much of a quagmire for most. For example, you might say, "Ah, but the rescuer of Jews morally dismisses the exterminator." The answer would be, "Not in the sense we are speaking about, given the fact that they continue to engage with them (militarily)." The exterminators are not being dismissed or written off militarily. They are both engaged in an activity which presupposes that the lives of Jews are important. Again, these are subtle puzzles. One can dismiss the exterminator's aim as hopelessly depraved without dismissing the exterminator's military efficacy. The exterminator is being depraved but he is not being deceitful with respect to his genus of activity (or, if he is, it is not a beyond-the-pale form of deceit given the expectations of war, spying, etc.).

It's just called On the Philosophy of History. Like a lot of his stuff, it's free online. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks. :up:

the internal contradiction between the idea of democracy and self-rule versus the tendency of capitalism to concentrate wealth such that elites become able to manipulate the system and lock out economic and political competition (which is essentially the system destroying itself, corrupting its own principles). — Count Timothy von Icarus

We're a little bit off topic, but this is obviously related to the Adorno thread. I am wondering what the contradiction here is said to be, in a precise way? Is it that democracies can turn into oligarchies, and once they do then they are no longer democracies? I think that's true, but it looks like a change rather than a contradiction.

Or perhaps we have here the idea that democracy is incompatible with liberalism, because liberalism is tied to capitalism and therefore tied to oligarchy? If so, then I would want to ask, "What is it about liberalism that is tied to capitalism"? I'm not disputing the thesis, but I want to see the reasoning.

That's how Solovyov resolved Hegel's oppressive focus on the universal and Providential. He sees a telos to history, an end, but not necessarily its attainment; just as an organisms has ends but might grow ill instead. History becomes the meeting ground of truth and falsity, the dramatic encounter in which the wheat is winnowed from the chaff, the blazing fire that reveals what man has built his work from (I Corinthians 3:15). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree. :up:

The problem that comes up in logo-skepticism is that nominalism and the elevation of the individual/particular has made it so that the logos must be embodied in Rome as it is, because culture and institutions are considered to be prior to any determinant logoi, the ground of their being. And so you get bad takes like: Virgil must be simply "writing propaganda," but then "sticking it to Octavian with his subtle skepticism" rather than the idea that Virgil (being exposed to Stoicism, Platonism, and the Peripatetics) simply recognizes that unities struggle to fully attain their form, and often fail, but that this struggle is needed for them to be anything (and anything good). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, very good. :up:

Saint Isaac the Syrian is a good example: — Count Timothy von Icarus

Great quote!

During compline, when we ask for God to strengthen and correct us that we might awaken to "hymn [His] incomparable glory all night long" the goal is not to be free of affect (it is rather to be filled with it) but of inappropriate affect (and presumably for monks and nuns, to not accidently sleep through the midnight service :rofl: ). There is less separation between emotion and thought in general though. The "heart" as the "eye of the nous" has both, there being a sort of intellectual emotion too. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Great - I think we agree on this. :up:

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

Oh no, not at all. That strikes me as saying, "Someone does not subscribe to breathing, therefore they do not breathe."

To be honest, I was just trying to be generous. Your understanding of that point in the thread does not seem overly strong. The point is that there is an equivocation on what "moral" means. The reason people act morally when they are not intending to act morally is because they have a strange understanding of "moral," which is what the thread was trying to address. But that point you singled out is admittedly tricky, and I would even say it was a relatively weak spot in the OP, which could not be ironed out without adding excessive length.

I think that's an opinion written from ignorance, honestly. — Moliere

Maybe check out the video and try to understand what is being said.

I don't complain about it -- I understand that guessing is a feature, and not a bug. — Moliere

The idea is not that guessing is a feature, but rather that a game which involves rule-negotiation is superior to a game which does not. Hence Haidt's claim that, "A video game is really like the junk food of games..."

Coward.

:lol:

Only a fool such as yourself would think that I was serious. (Don't imagine for a moment that I am being serious here or that I imagined you were being serious either, or your foolishness will be exponentially increased). — Janus

Then drink if you dare! And we will see who's who!

Knowledge held by a third party. So, the subject isn't involved in that knowledge-having. — AmadeusD

Even in my original scenario the knowledge that the video is a deepfake is shared by both parties. That was the whole premise of the multiple-question format:

We could think of a very simple example.

"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 _____"

Here are two options for the blank ("_____"):

A. Trump did not dye his hair brown
B. I have no good reason to believe that Trump dyed his hair brown — Leontiskos

I also said it explicitly:

The idea is that you convince the person who had held to R that R is false. — Leontiskos

-

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. That the subject has had this evidence given to falsify the state of affairs. And that's fine, it's not likely they would continue to believe the falsified state of affairs. This does not entail that they had a false belief (to me). They had a true belief, in a false state of affairs — AmadeusD

You are saying, "They had a true belief, in a false state of affairs." Can you give me the example where this claim would hold? Presumably you are not just saying, "They truly/really believed something false."

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.

Hence "Gettierrrrr (with bells and whistles)". — AmadeusD

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.

---

OK then, I agree that you respectfully disagree. :wink: — Janus

Only a moron such as yourself would agree with such nonsense. :rage: