We bring one and two into existence, by an intentional act - it's something we do. Some important aspects of this. First, its we who bring this about, collectively; this is not a private act nor something that is just going on in the mind of one individual. Hence there are right and wrong ways to count. — Banno

I agree with the emphasis on the collective creation of counting (if the non-Fregean story is correct). I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that intersubjective agreement results in the idea of "being right about counting." One can imagine mistakes in math that are widely accepted, but then corrected by reference to some Popperian discovery in the 3rd world. Wouldn't we say that it was that discovery that now made us "right," rather than the fact that everyone now agrees? After all, we agreed before, too.

Next, the existence had here is that of being the subject of a quantification, as in "Two is an even number". — Banno

Extremely important. @Michael and I are having a related conversation about what role "existence" plays in descriptions of platonism, and it hinges on a similar point. In the case you describe later in your post, the moral of the story would be: "P" is brought into existence depending upon an interpretation of (ideal logical) language; there are no facts in the world that change as a result of that interpretation. If -- as I do -- I lean toward the quantificational interpretation that allows P to be a "new thing," and if you dispute it, we aren't offering arguments pro and con about the object of the concept "to exist". We are specifying that very concept, rather than assuming it, in our differing interpretations. Or so it seems to me. And I think it's the gist of your comment here:

the account I gave above indicates how stuff like numbers and property and so on are constructed, by modelling that construction in a higher order logic. — Banno

I'm not a best-friend of formalism, but this is the kind of case where formal models really excel.

I read the Tyler Burge paper. It gives a convincing case for viewing Frege as a pure mathematical platonist. I hadn't known that Frege used the term "third realm" in such a similar way to Popper.

The key difference between Frege and Popper here is, as both @Banno and @Janus allude to, whether the 3rd realm exists independently of human thought, or is created by our thought. If Burge is right, then there's no doubt what Frege believed: complete independence. Popper stakes out a middle ground. In Objective Knowledge, Popper says:

The idea of autonomy is central to my theory of the third world: although the third world is a human product, a human creation, it creates in its turn . . . its own domain of autonomy. — Objective Knowledge, 118

And in fact, he chooses natural numbers as his example for how this works:

The sequence of natural numbers is a human construction. But although we create this sequence, it creates its own autonomous problems in its turn. The distinction between odd and even numbers is not created by us; it is an unintended and unavoidable consequence of our creation. — Objective Knowledge, 118

This is odd (sorry!) at first, but Popper goes on to explain that there are "facts to discover" about our human 3rd-world products. I think his use of "unintended" is key to understanding what he means. Just because I have created or invented something, it doesn't mean that in the act of doing so, I find myself in complete command, or complete awareness, of every single fact about my creation. And this does seem plausible with regard to numbers. If the number series is indeed invented, pace Frege, it's easy enough to imagine that early users would then discover that certain numbers -- invented merely for counting purposes -- had the quality of being either odd or even. This was never intended, but is certainly a fact for all that. Same with multiples, and primes, and on and on.

It's even more intuitively clear with regard to products we tend to agree are human creations. When I write a piece of music, I am very far from "intending" everything the music contains. In the process of (hopefully) improving what I write, I absolutely do discover things that are really there, but that I was not aware of when I wrote the music. Often enough, the discoveries are unpleasant, and I have to revise accordingly. But sometimes I find connections or implications that are fruitful and aesthetically interesting; they feel like genuine, "autonomous" facts about the music. Yes, I created the whole thing, but no, that doesn't mean I understand it completely. Only God, one supposes, creates in that fashion.

So anyway, Popper demonstrates that we can believe in all sorts of abstracta without needing to be platonist about it, and also without giving up the sense of discovery that goes along with exploring the 3rd realm.

If anyone is spending their holiday on TPF, poor devils, then Merry Christmas!

And I just noticed that "sense act" probably doesn't refer to what, in English, we mean by "sense perception," but rather to an "act of making sense."

Good. Interesting that he includes psychical, abstract, and imaginary objects. I would have thought that contradicted the idea of "concrete data," but God knows how the German reads. The point is clear, in any case.

A very helpful explication, thanks for taking so much trouble with it.

I think my question gets addressed in this passage:

The first step of constitution of a multiplicity is the awareness of the temporal succession of parts, each of which we are made aware of as elements “separately and specifically noticed”. In the case of numbers, one must abstract away everything else about those elements (color, size, texture) other than that they have been individually noticed as an empty ‘unit’. — Joshs

This helps me imagine the process Husserl is speaking of, but I'm still left wondering what counts as a "part" or "element" (and these would presumably also be the "concrete contents" mentioned earlier). It is from these parts or elements that we must first abstract away qualities like color, size, and texture, and then engage the remainder -- the empty "unit" -- in the multiplicity-constituting process.

So . . . can this process take place with any physical series? Would Husserl countenance using an apple, say, as the starting part or element? Does it matter where we start? I think the answer is, "Sure, anything at all will do, as long as its perception counts as a 'sense act'," but I want to get your take on it.

Here's how to raise the issue of "further distinguishing" the SEP definition:

"There are abstract mathematical objects whose existence is independent of us" etc.

You simply ask, "What do you mean by 'existence'?" There is no one obvious reply. What are we supposed to say? -- "You know, exist, be. The opposite of not-exist. Case closed." Hopeless, and to make it worse, this so-called definition acts as if it is settling the matter, just by using the word and expecting readers to import their own concept of 'existence'. It looks like it is defining a certain kind of existence -- platonic existence -- but that's not possible without first knowing how existence itself is being construed.

Honestly, this isn't meant to be merely verbal gymnastics. I'm trying to demonstrate what I think is an important and all-pervasive issue, namely that there is no such thing as a sentence using 'exist' which can settle the question within the sentence itself of what 'exist' means. Again, this could be written using quantificational language, but I think it comes up often enough in ordinary discourse. A discussion of platonism is a great example. I'll leave Harry and Sally alone and just say: One person thinks there are abstracta which exist independently of us; another person says there are not. Why should we think they are both working with the same concept of what it means to exist? Indeed, if they were, wouldn't the issue be quickly resolved? The SEP talks about abstracta "whose existence is independent of us." Very well; what does SEP mean by 'existence'? Does it refer to a dimensional embodiment? being the subject of a proposition? being rationally apprehendable? being thinkable? being the value of a bound variable? something non-contingent? etc. etc. Thus the definition of mathematical platonism has told us absolutely nothing about what it means to exist. It cannot, formally.

My claim is that it doesn't make sense to argue that both of these are true:

1. Quine atoms exist in the platonistic sense
2. Quine atoms don't exist in the platonistic sense

One of them is true and one of them is false. — Michael

Is it likewise not sensible to argue that both of these are true?:

1. Sherlock Holmes exists.
2. Sherlock Holmes doesn't exist.

There is more than one way to construe 'exist' here, as I'm sure you'd agree. 1 & 2 can't both be true with the same construal, but that doesn't mean there is no genuine argument about it.

What you're wanting to say is that there is only one way to construe 'exist in the platonistic sense'. As evidence for this, you cite the ongoing disagreements among platonists, nominalists, etc -- they wouldn't make sense, or be to the purpose, without consensus on 'exists'. Indeed! -- and that may be the very problem. What I've tried to argue is that there is another way to understand what these disagreements are about, and why they are so intractable. It may be down to these different construals of 'exist platonically'.

In short, it isn't obvious that mathematical platonism necessitates a commitment to only one construal (one use of ∃) of what it means to exist.

But does each thing (or, what is equivalent here: does any thing at all) have such an essence of its own in the first place? Or is the thing, as it were, always underway...?

Husserl's answer seems be that there is no such essence, and each "thing" is indeed always underway (a nice phrase) as a phenomenon to/for our consciousness. I'm wondering, though, whether trying to invoke an essence somewhat prejudices the discussion. My question concerning numbers, for instance, wasn't about whether there was some "essence" of number that is pre-theoretical for us. The question was much more ordinary: What are the concrete contents or data of which Husserl speaks, that allow us to form our idealization of numbers? Can you give an example of how this might work?

drawing from encounters with concrete data — Joshs

activities exercised upon concrete contents

What might be some examples of the concrete contents or data? Is the implication that there is some level of sense impression which is not mediated by ideas or "abstractive idealization"? This connects with the thread awhile back about scheme/content distinctions, especially this:

The alternative, more robust scheme-content distinction Wang proposes involves what he calls “common-sense experience” (this plays the role of content) and whatever conceptual scheme may be in play among a given community. What is key here is that, for Wang, common-sense experience (which he also calls “thick experience,” drawing from James) is not “innocent” of theoretical influence. It is not the same thing as a Kantian/Quinian uninterpreted world of sense-data or things-as-they-are. Our basic experience, the most basic one possible (and this will prove to be crucial), is already theory-laden. — J

So the question I'm posing is whether the "concrete data" are pre-theoretical, which Wang thinks is not possible. Personally, I think it is possible, but I'm wondering how you think Husserl understood this in relation to numbers.

Count T's answer -- that Harry and Sally need to define their terms -- is the direction in which I was going. With all respect to Michael, we have no way of knowing whether H & S are disputing platonism until we get an answer to the question I posed. I was hoping to develop this thought in a dialogic fashion, but I'll go ahead and just say what I mean.

Two accounts of the Harry/Sally dispute are possible.

In the first, H & S share a common understanding of how they're going to use the term 'exist'. Either they live in a cultural community in which this is taken for granted, or -- better, for our purposes -- they have a preliminary conversation in which they discover that they do indeed mean the same thing by 'exist'. So if they're having a dispute, as we imagine them doing, it must be over what a proposition is. They're in full agreement about what it means for something to exist, but they differ about what sort of thing a proposition is -- what its characteristics and qualities are. Thus, Harry, using his ideas about propositions, makes the case that they exist; Sally, using hers, that they don't.

In the second, the reverse is the case. H & S share a common understanding of what a proposition is -- again, we can picture them determining this beforehand. So if a dispute is occurring, it must be over what it means for something to exist. They're in full agreement about the "characteristics and qualities" of a proposition -- how to use the word, how to recognize one, what functions it serves -- but they differ about whether existence can be ascribed to that sort of thing.

(Yes, this little story is about the existential quantifier, ∃, and quantifier variance, but I'm trying to avoid Logicalese so as to keep it accessible.)

So what does this have to do with platonism, and in particular with the idea that only one type of quantification could be countenanced in a world of mathematical platonism?

Let's look again at Michael's suggestion that, depending upon which version of logic/math you're using, certain items would either exist or not exist:

We can only take the approach of mathematical fictionalism and say that they [the items in question] exist according to New Foundations but not according to ZFC. — Michael

Now apply the "Harry and Sally question": Is the mathematical fictionalist saying that New Foundations and ZFC share the same meaning for 'exist' but differ about whether the items in question qualify? That, I think, is Michael's meaning. But we can now see that it's equally possible for the mathematical fictionalist to claim that New Foundations and ZFC differ about what 'exists' means. They may share the same understanding of, say, what a Quine atom is, but because they don't agree about existence, their conclusions are different.

To simplify, we can either hold X steady and differ about existence, or we can hold 'existence' steady and differ about X.

So what I'm saying is that one version of mathematical platonism will indeed have room for only one correct logic, because it will be a logic that debars certain entities from existing at all. Those other, renegade logics would have to be "man-made." But another, equally reasonable version of math platonism will be liberal or agnostic about different uses of 'exist', so that both New Foundations and ZFC, e.g., may be "found" in the platonic world.

This all circles back to my question about how correctness has a bearing on the plausibility of mathematical platonism -- whether math platonism requires a single correct logic for it to be plausible. It seems that two incompatible logics could both be found as objects of mathematical platonism. For:

I don't think it makes any sense to say that they platonistically exist in New Foundations but don't platonistically exist in ZFC. — Michael

but if my argument is sound, then it does make sense after all. That's because now we're no longer fooled by seeing the word 'exist' occurring twice and believing it must mean the same thing each time. It may or it may not. But if the use of 'exist' itself is not consistent, then anything goes, platonically. We can't put a fence around it by using an operator like "according to Y" or "to Z" because we don't know Y and Z's account of existence. Either, or both, of them may be claiming that its own version is compatible with quantifier variance.

Well, let's fill it in.

Harry: According to me, propositions exist.
Sally: According to me, propositions do not exist.

Is their dispute about propositions, or about the meaning of 'exist'? For the moment, let's not worry about which way of seeing it is closer to what mathematical fictionists are saying. What answer would you be inclined to give?

I don't think it makes any sense to say that they platonistically exist in New Foundations but don't platonistically exist in ZFC. We can only take the approach of mathematical fictionalism and say that they exist according to New Foundations but not according to ZFC. — Michael

I see where you're going with this. But I don't think that what you're calling the "only approach" is quite so straightforward.

Suppose I say, "x exists according to Harry." You say, "x does not exist according to Sally." What is the subject of the dispute between Harry and Sally? Are they in disagreement about x, or about what 'exists' means?

Tell me how you'd be inclined to answer that, and I'll develop the thought further.

Thanks, I'll read it. I too find Popper's "Three Worlds" concept helpful. It's an interesting question, whether a commitment to World 3 items necessarily involves a commitment to some form of platonism.

How does the issue of correctness arise? As I understand it, intuitionistic logic doesn't contradict classical logic, it only uses different semantics. Couldn't both types of logic exist platonically -- awaiting discovery by sentient beings? To put it another way, if you believe that any abstracta can exist platonically, why draw the line at a single, putatively correct logic?

You can believe that numbers and other abstracta really and truly exist without being a mathematical platonist. You merely assert that they exist because we have created them, and they will cease to exist if we also cease.
— J

What about the laws of logic, like the law of the excluded middle? Does that cease to obtain in the absence of rational sentient beings? — Wayfarer

Right, what I was describing as a possible position about numbers was meant to sharpen the question: Are we disputing whether abstracta as such can be said to exist, or is the dispute about whether they can exist independently of us? Like you, I find the "existing, but not independently" position re numbers to be unconvincing. Some abstracta probably have that characteristic -- the rules of chess, perhaps? -- but logic and math do not seem arbitrary in that same way. If personal testimony counts, the two mathematicians I have known well are both committed platonists, and speak fervently about the experience of math as one of discovery, not invention. But that's hardly decisive.

Meaning whatever reality they possess is contingent - so they can’t ‘really and truly exist’. — Wayfarer

It's hard to talk about existence without presupposing a certain use of the term. So I'll just point out that you're wanting "exist" to mean "not depend on something else". Or perhaps it's "really and truly exist" that has the characteristic of non-contingency? I'm not making fun; these are perfectly legitimate lines to draw, it's just that there's no agreement about which terms to assign to the resulting map.

I tend towards objective idealism - that logical and arithmetical fundamentals are real independently of any particular mind, but can only be grasped by an act of rational thought. — Wayfarer

I like this too. It suggests a useful map, one which shows some existing things as graspable by reason, others by perception (or however you want to characterize what we do with stuff in space/time). We might also want a third location on the map for imaginary things -- maybe this would be a region of non-existence. Now of course someone is going to come along and say, "Yes but what is existence really? You can't just reduce it to a dispute about terminological conventions!" To which the only reply I know is -- all together now! -- "To be is to be the value of a bound variable." In other words, it all depends what you're talking about. But how you talk about it is not arbitrary at all. There really is privileged metaphysical structure; we're just not sure about the terms to use.

Platonism about mathematics (or mathematical platonism) is the metaphysical view that there are abstract mathematical objects whose existence is independent of us and our language, thought, and practices.

I just want to point out that the bolded phrase is what's at stake. You can believe that numbers and other abstracta really and truly exist without being a mathematical platonist. You merely assert that they exist because we have created them, and they will cease to exist if we also cease. Whether you want to say this or not will depend on how you wish to use the word "exist." Clearly, if you are a friend of "existence = spatiotemporal objects or arrangements thereof", then you won't want to claim even a human-made existence for numbers.

Sebastian Rödl
— J

I've read about his books and tried to tackle some of his papers, but I'm finding him difficult reading. I would be pleased if there was another here with some interest. — Wayfarer

Me, definitely. Working my way through Self-Consciousness and Objectivity now.

Is the idea here that just thinking something is asserting it? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not quite. Think of it in terms of Frege's "force" as equivalent to (one sense of) "assertion". The question is then: How does the "content" (of the force/content distinction) make itself known independently? If "p" is different from "I think p", how exactly does p come to be present to us? This quote from Rödl captures the problem:

Philosophers are in the habit of indicating the object of judgment by the letter p. There is an insouciance with respect to this fateful letter. It stands ready quietly, unobtrusively, to assure us that we know what we are talking about. For example, when we do epistemology, we are interested in what it is for someone to know—know what? oh yes: p. If we inquire into rational requirements on action or intention, we ask what it is to be obliged to—what? oh yes: see to it that p, intend that p, if p then q, and so on. However, if we undertake to reflect on thought, on its self-consciousness and its objectivity, then the letter p signifies the deepest question and the deepest comprehension. If only we understood the letter p, the whole would open up to us. — Self-Consciousness & Objectivity

This point of view is very congenial to yours, I would think, since Rödl is doubting whether "p" -- a proposition -- could possibly do the things, all by itself, that formalism says it can. A thinker is required.

So yes, the distinction you're making between contraries and contradictories is extremely important. The essential unity of the thinker with the thought, the knower with the world, can only be shown by rejecting, as Kimhi does, the idea that a proposition can be true or false in the absence of some context of assertion.

Agreed, although I don't know if "context of assertion" is the right framing. Beliefs can be true or false without being needing to be "asserted." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't much like "context of assertion" either, but the deeper challenge here is whether, in fact, a belief can be true or false without being asserted. I know that sounds absurd, but so much depends on how we construe "assertion," and the long thread on Kimhi a few months back revealed a lot of work to be done on this question.

Are we sure that thought and being exist in the sort of relationship that needs to be "conformed" or "adequated"?

Well, presumably we need to be able to explain false beliefs and false statements. There is adequacy in the sense of "believing the Sun rotates around the Earth" being, in important ways, inadequate. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. One problem for being/thinking monism a la Kimhi is that it seems to imply that any valid thought also has to be true. That can't be right, so we need to work out whether there really is a concept of validity independent of truth. Again, sounds absurd -- there has to be, right?! -- but stand-alone "validity" turns out to be very tricky. The monist wants to be able to say that there is no disjunction between truth and validity -- that there is something ill-formed or incoherent about "A thinks ~p", as opposed to "A doesn't think p". This is the problem from Parmenides that Kimhi begin T&B with, you may recall: How can we think that which is not?

Can we paint a plausible picture that is at bottom monistic?

Monistic in what sense? — Count Timothy von Icarus

"Thinking cannot be dependent for its success on anything that is external to it." — Kimhi, 23

Monism in that sense, a tall order. Rödl, another monist as far as I can tell, subtitles his book Self-Consciousness and Objectivity as "An Introduction to Absolute Idealism."

So, without having to make any commitments to any specific sort of correspondence or identity relationship between thought and being, we can simply leave it as "truth is the conformity or adequacy of thought to being." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Predating Tarski by several centuries! And the challenge to that, coming from people like Kimhi and Sebastian Rödl (who I'm now reading with great interest) is, Are we sure that thought and being exist in the sort of relationship that needs to be "conformed" or "adequated"? Can we paint a plausible picture that is at bottom monistic? I'm still working on that, and I want to do an OP soon that lays out some of Rödl's ideas about the Fregean force/content distinction.

A major difficulty for modern thought has been the move to turn truth and falsity into contradictory opposites, as opposed to contrary opposites (i.e. making truth akin to affirmation and negation). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I answer that, True and false are opposed as contraries, and not, as some have said, as affirmation and negation. (Aquinas)

Kimhi is helpful here:

A capacity meta logou is categorematic: it is specified by a verb -- say, to heal -- and its positive and negative acts are contraries. A logical capacity is syncategorematic: it is specified by a proposition, and its positive and negative acts are contradictories. — Thinking and Being, 61

He adds this footnote:

Capacities meta logou are two-way capacities because they involve logical capacities. It is because doctors must judge how best to heal their patients that they can also judge how best to poison them. — Thinking and Being, 61

On this understanding of Aristotle, a contrary pair will display positive and negative acts involving a verb, whereas a contradictory pair either affirms or denies the truth of a proposition. Roughly, (A thinks p, A thinks ~p) vs. (p, ~p).

So yes, the distinction you're making between contraries and contradictories is extremely important. The essential unity of the thinker with the thought, the knower with the world, can only be shown by rejecting, as Kimhi does, the idea that a proposition can be true or false in the absence of some context of assertion.

We say that the utterance is true if its propositional content "resembles" (for want of a better word) the landscape being described and false if it doesn't. — Michael

This helps point out the question I was asking. It's the matter of resemblance. I understand you're using that word because there isn't a more perfect one, and you're not claiming some literal resemblance between propositional content and a landscape. But that's the rub. We know what we mean when we say that the picture resembles the landscape, but the whole debate about propositions, utterances, and truth can only occur because we don't know what this resemblance is supposed to consist of, precisely. That's why I'm dubious about picture analogies -- they confer "borrowed certainty," if you will.

Even if we want to distinguish an utterance from its propositional content, an utterance is required for there to be propositional content. Propositional content, whether true or false, doesn't "exist" as some mind-independent abstract entity that somehow becomes the propositional content of a particular utterance. — Michael

Agreed, prop. content doesn't exist as a mind-independent entity. But I think we should be careful in saying that "an utterance" is required. Does my thought of p qualify as an utterance? It's tempting to say that I am simply thinking p, the prop. content itself -- utterance-free.

The word “it” in the phrase “is it true?” refers to either an utterance or an utterance-dependent proposition, and so asking if an utterance or proposition is true before it is uttered is a nonsensical question, like asking if a painting is accurate before it is painted. — Michael

The word “it” in “Is it accurate?” in reference to a painting must, on this argument, refer to either a particular painting (“utterance”) or some other possible pictorialization of the “same thing” (p) that is “pictorialization-dependent”. Are you sure this makes sense as an analogy? I think the difference lies in the fact that utterances can have propositional content whereas paintings cannot. What we refer to, in the case of a possible utterance, is the propositional content. Thus, “utterance- (or pictorialization-) dependent” has two different meanings or implications, in the two cases. This makes the analogy appear more persuasive than it is.

Well, yeah, it’s pretty philosophical - that was kinda the idea! You can find good explanations of it on SEP and elsewhere, I’m sure. Just a suggestion.

True, we don’t usually get a consensus on this. Just to help the discussion along, suppose we took Quine’s formulation - “To be is to be the value of a bound variable” - and asked ourselves what that might say about the status of ideas and/or numbers?

OK, it's a sort of genealogy of ethics. As such, it's foreign to the questions of ethics as I understand them, but I appreciate your laying out your point of view for me.

Yes, but you have said that from your perspective the choices made by Boethius are better for them and "the best option they have available," and that it is better for them. But now you seem to think it is actually better for them to lack the strength of will to follow through on their convictions. Such a view also entails that Socrates, Boethius, etc. are simply wrong about what is truly to their benefit. Egoism is actually to their benefit. They are deluded in thinking it isn't. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't know how I can make any more compelling the idea that we're simply playing around with what "benefit" means. I don't think "the best option available" has to be beneficial for anyone; you do. I think it is a better thing for Socrates et al. to do right, but I don't equate this "better" with being beneficial for them; you do. If Socrates uses "benefit" the way I do, then he wouldn't say that doing the right thing is always necessarily a benefit. If he uses it your way, then he would. I would greatly like to know if there is a Greek word that discriminates here, allowing "beneficial" to break off into these two senses -- roughly, the benefit of personal goods and the benefit of acting well.

Which way is the "right" way to use the word? How do you think we should answer such a question?

Is there any way I can persuade you that we really aren't having a substantive disagreement here? This harks back to what I meant, earlier, when I said that all this discussion of "good" (and now "benefit") can only be coherent if there are different, equivocal meanings of "good" in play. It saddens me a bit, because it seems so clear that you and I are both on the side of the angels, as it were, and this kind of infighting when there is so much genuine ethical atrocity to call out, seems unfortunate.

I don't see how such a position doesn't require the presupposition that "benefit" means something like "egoistic pursuit of one's own pleasure," or something similar. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, it says nothing about motivation, and there are many things besides pleasure that are beneficial. It says that a benefit improves a person's lot in life, or something equally general. Again, I appeal to ordinary usage: If one's daughter is raped and murdered, she may have refused to give up a wanted man and been punished accordingly, and so acted virtuously, but what father would claim she had anything beneficial happen to her?

you seem to have stepped back from your previous positions to presupposing "morally good is a sui generis sort of good unrelated to other uses of the term. " — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, I think that's too strong. I don't believe the various usages of "good" are unrelated. Equivocation often occurs precisely because various usages are so closely related -- yet distinct. What I want is a union of these related goods, as do you.

Right, but now you seem to have stepped back from your previous positions to presupposing "morally good is a sui generis sort of good unrelated to other uses of the term. "

What's the justification for this? Where is the argument for it? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Continuing this thought, my argument for the idea that usages of "good" differ significantly has, I think, already been made. Better, perhaps, to say "I've given my reasons," because, as I acknowledged, arguments from usage are tricky. Is it even an argument? Could I argue for the fact that "phrasing," in music, has been used to mean both the performance intentions of the composer, as found in the score, and also the practice of a particular performer, such that a passage can be "phrased" in different ways? All I can do is point out how I think educated musicians use the word, and I will be either right or wrong depending on how they do use it. That's not exactly an argument, but I don't know what more one could do.

Stalin lived a fairly miserable life, a life defined by constant paranoia and a lack of close relations. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I was afraid, when I reached for Stalin as an example, that a biographer might reveal that he was actually miserable, confusing the issue. But that's beside the point -- unless you're wanting to say, with Plato, that every wicked person has to be miserable as a result. (I'm thinking of the tyrant in the Republic.) I'm sorry to say I've personally known a few exceptions. We're not talking about who's happy and who's miserable, because we both agree that these conditions aren't indicative of a virtuous life. What we want to know is whether the wicked person benefits from their wickedness. Well, certainly they do, especially if (unlike Stalin, evidently) they live a prosperous life and die happy. But then, I'm using "benefit" my way . . . part of why he's wicked is that he does act for his own benefit, rather than considering the welfare of others.

A prescriptive ethics ( we SHOULD avoid hostility ) only makes sense in a psychology which requires a separate motivational mechanism pushing or pulling us in ethical or unethical directions . But we don't need to be admonished to choose in favor of sense-making strategies that are optimally anticipatory, since this is already built into our motivational aims — Joshs

This is the claim that needs arguing, I think. When you speak about something being "built into our motivational aims," are you describing it from the point of view of psychology? That is, as a description of the human animal, of how we behave? Or do you mean "built in" as a sort of stand-in for a transcendental argument that would show it must be the case? I think it will make a big difference, which way we understand it, because if I want to go on to say that we do need a separate motivational mechanism, I need to know whether I'm arguing against an empirical or a conceptual claim.

The question of why and to what extent a person embraces hostility should be seen as a matter of how much uncertainty that person's system is capable of tolerating without crumbling, rather than a self-reinforcing desire for hostile thinking. — Joshs

The last part is certainly true. Even people who believe they enjoy hostile thinking can probably be shown to lack a level of self-awareness that would reveal something more fear-based. I'm not sure, though, whether hostile behavior is only a matter of one's own system of concepts and values being in jeopardy. Can we use the word "hostile" without also meaning "aggressive toward others"?

Of more concern is where this stands vis a vis ethics. Are you wanting to say that, when we give a correct, or at least perspicacious, analysis of the person who has raped and killed someone, we are no longer in a position to describe the actions as wrong?

Nothing in virtue ethics suggests that we need to claim that being tortured "benefits us." This is a creation of your own invention you keep returning to, moving from "it is good to be virtuous," to "it is good to be tortured" seems a bit much, no?

It benefits us to possess the virtues. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Truly, we're disputing words now. We both agree that there is something of great value in standing up for a principle even if it means enduring a dreadful death. You want to call this "something" a benefit, I do not. But is there anything more to it than this? I don't really mind what words we use to describe the problem, I only ask that it be seen as a problem.

What's weird is, you accept that Socrates or Boethius choose the best possible option available to them. But then, on your view, choosing the best possible option doesn't benefit us. We would benefit more from choosing what is worse (e.g. fleeing and escaping for Socrates, or recanting and obsequiously pleading for mercy) in this case. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's exactly right. Virtue ethics commits you to finding a benefit in virtuous action, and I know it seems weird to you that virtue might not always be its own reward. (Maybe this is a bit of what MacIntyre was pointing to, in terms of the difficulty of building bridges between ethical systems.) But that's not at all the only way to see it. Deontology, as I've summarized it, asks us to ignore this question of self-benefit entirely. Or, if we must talk of benefits, let's stick to the ordinary usage and admire Socrates and Boethius precisely because they chose to forego any benefit for themselves by taking a virtuous course of action.

we have a case where "it is better/more to our benefit for us to choose what is worse?" and the "worse is better than the better." — Count Timothy von Icarus

So, again, this is only a contradiction if we insist on a link between "benefit" and "ethical goodness." From my point of view (which you may not agree with but I hope you will acknowledge is not unreasonable or ignorant), it makes perfect sense to say "It was greatly to Stalin's benefit [or substitute any wicked person who succeeded and died happy] to choose what was worse, that's part of why it was worse -- it was entirely selfish."

I'd like to invite us both to step back and consider this as a problem of the relation between personal and public goods. What I've been calling a "metaphysical union of goods" returns as an issue in political ethics. Or perhaps I shouldn't say "returns," since the Republic is full of discussion of this problem. We've been talking about this in highly abstract terms, but I submit that the issue is one of daily concern, as we attempt to navigate between personal, familial, community, national, human, and creation goods. I want to find a way to unite these goods, both philosophically and in my own life. Habermas opposes what he calls "a supposedly irreconcilable conflict between justice for all and the individual good"; when put this way, I think we can see that this is the same "benefit" problem, writ large. How do we further the goods or benefits of a life -- love, pleasure, family, achievement -- yet hold them in balance with our duties as citizens and members of a much larger ethical community?

This is a different subject, in some ways, but I thought I'd at least bring it up because I've found that, when sharp disagreements arise between intelligent people, it's often best to focus on their common beliefs and aims. I think we both want to keep searching for a resolution to this "supposedly irreconcilable conflict." Disputing how to use the word "benefit" probably isn't the way, and I apologize if I've encouraged too much logomachy.

Is your contention that it isn't beneficial for us to be virtuous? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quite often, that's correct. But more importantly, it doesn't matter whether it benefits us or not. We're supposed to do the virtuous thing regardless of whether it benefits us or not.

And here, in all simplicity, we see the difference between virtue ethics and deontological ethics. Virtue ethics is committed to the position that there simply must be a benefit to the individual from all virtuous action. So, to make this plausible in cases where by any normal use of language there is no benefit whatsoever, the virtue ethicist has to stipulate the definitions of words like "benefit," "good," and "virtue" so as to reveal that we are mistaken about what benefits us. We think being tortured in a good cause is merely the best alternative, the least of many evils? No, that won't do -- it also has to benefit us. This is because what I've been calling the "metaphysical union of goods" is assumed or stipulated by virtue ethics. It's a place to start, rather than a desideratum that needs to be argued for or explained.

Deontology, in contrast, says that what's good for me is neither here nor there. The purpose of the virtues is not to secure any sort of benefit, no matter how implausibly defined. We act virtuously in each case because it is the right thing to do, and this "right thing" can be discovered and described without any reference to what is good for me. It's essentially an other-directed ethics, I would say.

Now I'm not satisfied with that, because I think it's too austere. It ignores some basic facts about human beings and the things that make them flourish. But what I do like about deontological ethics is that it recognizes the supposed union of personal and universal goods as a problem, a very deep and difficult one. It doesn't begin by assuming that good acts must be good for the people who perform them. It is skeptical of all easy equations between the "good" of flourishing, say, and the "good" of standing up against injustice.

If I can lighten the mood for a moment, there was a cartoon from many years ago (National Lampoon?) showing some poor sods writhing in torment in some dreadful hellscape, being poked by devils, etc. One of them is saying, "Ah, but far worse than these torments is the knowledge that I shall never experience the Beatific Vision!" That's the problem, captured in a gag. It is worse, in some important way, to be deprived of the presence of God, but whatever way that is, it can't belong on a comparison scale with being tortured. That's why the caption is funny.

I think much of 20th century ethical thought is devoted to finding a way over the gap, and creating a genuine metaphysical union of goods. Has anyone come close? Perhaps I reveal my admiration for Kant (though not, I insist, my agreement with his conclusions) by saying that John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas seem to have made the most progress. Each is a neo-Kantian of sorts, Rawls explicitly and Habermas by courtesy. And anyway, there are modalities other than philosophy that are far more useful, if you really want to be a decent person. Or so I've found.

This is an interesting psychological picture of how people experience their connections with others, but isn't an awful lot of ethical talk being presupposed here, in order to give this analysis? As an example,

This is the hostile option. — Joshs

You are clearly not trying to present "hostile option" in an ethically neutral way. It is not to be preferred, on your account. We ought not to choose the hostile option. So how is that judgment arrived at, and is it meant to carry ethical weight?

We cannot get beyond this link between the lovable and the recognizable without losing the basis of any ethics, which is the ability to distinguish between, even if without yet defining, what is preferred and what is not. — Joshs

I liked what you said about the important connections between recognition and empathy. I might have put it a bit more directly -- it's hard to love, and stand up for, someone you can't even recognize as suffering.

But the quoted passage above seems out of phase with this. If the basis of ethics is only about distinguishing what's preferred, how does that create any impetus to change preferences? I would have said that that -- the desire to prefer what, to the best of our knowing, is truly empathetic, or just, or compassionate -- is central to ethics, not so much the act of preferring itself.

OK, thanks.

Ethical striving toward empathy, love and compassion are derivative modes of sense-making. — Joshs

Sorry, this is opaque to me. Could you expand? And, no offense, but in your own words if possible? I'm less interested in what other philosophers have said about this than I am in what you think.

intelligibility is socially constrained — Joshs

We need, in a word, hermeneutics.

I’m not trying to suggest that a single monolithic episteme underlies all forms of cultural creativity in a given era for a given community, but I am saying that these systems are interlocked, such that it makes sense to talk about Romantic painting, literature, music philosophy and science and mean more than just that these domains all belong to the same chronological period. — Joshs

Yes, with a heavy emphasis on your warning about simplistic "single monolithic episteme" talk. The interlocking is complicated, and the parallels are stronger or weaker from era to era. Also, the role of science here is, to my mind, by far the most problematic. "Romantic" science? I'd need to hear more about what that might be. We all remember the Sokal hoax . . .

More importantly, when we move from one era to the next a certain discontinuity and incommensurability is involved — Joshs

Put this carefully, I think you're right. . . .

An entire metaphysics of ethics is dependent on flattening and ignoring these discontinuities in intelligibility. — Joshs

. . . but this is very sweeping, and needs arguing for. Rather than simply assume these "discontinuities in intelligibility," why not put them in question? Again, a hermeneutical approach can help us understand the limits -- but also the strengths -- of interpretation across cultures. We need, at the least, a sophisticated understanding of the concept of intelligibility.

But if matters of fact depend for their understanding on systems of intelligibility which are contingently culture-bound, why should notions of the ethical good be any different? — Joshs

I think this is indeed the conclusion we'd be forced to draw, and I think it's the wrong one. So I'd want to go back to look more closely at the fact/system/intelligibility relationship. How much of this is cultural? Do all matters of fact really depend on such radically contingent systems? Is there no value in the distinction between the natural sciences and human sciences?

I think that Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Habermas have a lot to teach us here.

Why shouldn’t Socrates be able to understand Kant, the thinking goes, given a sufficiently thorough period of study? Why shouldn’t the Qanon -touting Trump voter sitting next to you be able to absorb the raw facts when conferences directly with them? — Joshs

The pairing of these two questions is a bit alarming! I think Socrates probably could understand Kant, if we could imagine the impossible situation of someone being magically transported back to Athens to explain it to him using the language of Greek thought. But the Qanoner is not in the business of trying to understand anything. Giving them "raw facts" (presumably about the lack of sinister conspiracies?) is not the same as introducing Socrates to the idea of the kingdom of ends.

According to this dualism of ethical value and matters of fact, the ethical disagreement between a neoliberal and a progressive socialist is based on considerations entirely different from those having to do with matters of fact. — Joshs

I've lost you here. I thought you were arguing the opposite -- that the problem is a lack of shared, mutually intelligible facts. Could you say more?

This flattening of discontinuities in intelligibility between eras, and between individuals, provides justification for the idea that there is such a thing a a universally shared notion of the ethical good that comprises not just the desire to be moral, but a shared conceptual content that is as transparent as matters of fact. — Joshs

This is interesting. The implication is that "the desire to be moral" can exist without some particular "conceptual content" -- that the desire can be present from era to era, but with a differing notion of the ethical good. Are you sure that's possible? What is this common denominator of desire? I'm not saying that there is no such common denominator, of course; I'm arguing, in the opposite direction, that in addition to such a common desire there is also ethical conceptual content that is translatable from era to era and individual to individual.

The other falls short of our ethical standards due to a failing of ‘integrity’, a ‘character flaw’ , dishonesty, evil intent , selfishness, etc. In doing so, we erase the difference between their world and ours, and turn our failure to fathom into their moral failure. — Joshs

To me, this describes the process of "othering," in which opponents or adversaries are assumed to be in disagreement with us due to certain traits they possess, rather than because there is genuine, potentially resolvable disagreement. Oddly, I see this as erasing the similarities between their world and ours, not the difference. But I think we may be getting at the same idea. Your point, perhaps, is that reducing ethical dispute to some sort of character failure makes the assumption not only that the other is wrong in ethical terms, but also that those terms are already quite clear to all concerned. And what would my ethical duty be, in such a case? Just as you say -- try harder, keep trying to stay in "communicative action" (Habermas), don't simply give up and start "othering."

The above, rather rosy description, has an important caveat: Some people really are hateful and cruel. There is such a thing as moral failure. An entire society can even approach such a dreadful state. But to begin from such a premise, when in disagreement, is foolish and unjust.

Good questions. To the first, yes, I think an interlocutor of Socrates (let's call him Kantias) could have posed theories about the moral value of motivation, and whether in order for an act to be virtuous, it would have to be something that anyone would do in the same circumstances. Those two questions alone would get us quite deeply into Kantian ethics. Kant's emphasis on freedom would, I think, be harder for Socrates to understand, but if Kantias laid it out in terms of physis and nomos, and then led the discussion into whether there is a law for humans that we may freely follow, Socrates would probably have some good insights.

To the second, I'm not entirely sure what it would mean to "think up something similar." Socrates was more of a dialectician than an armchair thinker, so let's switch it from Socrates to Aristotle. Could Aristotle have come up with the idea that an act is only virtuous if it can be recommended as a universal maxim? I suppose so. I'm not sure the question would have interested him very much, but that's not the same thing as saying it would be opaque to him. He might not have cared whether the virtues were applicable to all people in all (similar) circumstances. His emphasis seems to be on how I may live a good life, not so much on whether living that good life involves defeating selfish motives and willing a universal "kingdom of ends." I'm not really entitled to an opinion here, as Aristotle isn't my forte. If someone can point me to something like "A Kantian interprets Aristotle," I'd love to read it.

I do want to affirm something you don't come right out and say, but that I think is implied in your questions. Creativity is socially constrained; it has a history and a context; and to ask "Would X have understood A?" is not the same as asking "Could X have created A?" In one of my fields, music, we often kick around stuff like "What would Bach make of Stravinsky?" Well, given enough time and examples to acclimate himself to Modernism, Bach might well have loved Igor. But there is absolutely zero chance he could have written Rite of Spring in 1725. So I read you here as pointing out, rightly, that we mustn't engage in some sort of "leveling of history" and imagine that Socrates, Aquinas, and Kant all spoke essentially the same creative language. They did not. And I suppose, if that is all MacIntyre's thesis amounts to, then I don't really disagree. I'm just troubled by this idea of incommensurability and decline, which seems too strong.

OK. I still see problems with equivocation, and unless I missed it, you haven't addressed the use of "good for me" as in "beneficial,"* but I will definitely spend more time on this.

*Unless, once again, we just have to accept that being virtuous is the most beneficial thing for me. I still think this is being set out as a conclusion without an argument, and that one is entitled to ask how it can be that death by torture benefits me.

Even J's approach seems to challenge this continuity, for he thinks that Kant's view is uniquely correct. If Kant's view is uniquely correct and is not a continuation of earlier moral philosophy, then how could Kant be continuous with earlier moral philosophy?
— Leontiskos

I've been reading along but not that closely.

What say you to this J ? — Moliere

Nonsense. I've been at pains to say that I do not agree with all of Kant's solutions to ethical problems. Just for starters, I don't think the categorical imperative can be stated in such a way as to do the ethical job Kant wanted it to do. I said that he "offers perspectives that I believe are central." They certainly are. He is for me the most important and impressive "modern" moral philosopher because he framed the problems with enormous originality and insight, raising questions that have been impossible to ignore ever since -- not because he always gets it right. This idea of philosophers being "uniquely correct" is a fantasy.

As for the continuity question, I see nothing in Kant's ethics -- apart from the Christian aspects -- that Socrates would not have both understood and been eager to debate.

I think the idea is something like modern thinking broke us off from ancient thinking to such a point that modern thought has lost the fundamental truth of philosophy -- wisdom -- in place of whatever it is pursuing right now (the idea here being that the ancients have a kind of "time tested" wisdom) — Moliere

I wish I knew what "modern thinking" consisted of, that supposedly made it either so unique or so pernicious. Anscombe doesn't persuade me. When I read Plato, I feel as if all those arguments might be occurring among my neighbors, they are so vivid and contemporary. (Well, if my neighbors were a little more philosophical!) The things that concerned Plato and Aristotle are right at the top of my list too -- to say nothing of Christian thought. As for wisdom, it's true that Aristotle often sounds to me as if he believes he's achieved complete wisdom in all matters -- but not Plato. So this is perhaps another instance of how there was important disagreement between ancient and ancient. And I bet I'm oversimplifying Aristotle's complacency as well.

The problem with "time-tested wisdom," of course, is that we are still in time, and the wisdom continues to be tested, and you could hardly maintain that no one has raised any important questions about Greek philosophy, or about ethics in general, since. I suppose there is an illusion of "time-tested-ness" because it started earlier, and for so many centuries had no serious challengers in Western culture. But I am not a historian of philosophy, so I'm guessing. I also think, as I wrote somewhere recently, that the "loss of fundamental truths" picture is meant to go hand in hand with a picture of actual moral decline, such that Western society is now supposed to be much worse, ethically, than it used to be.

This view of a continuity between ancient and modern ethics is similar to what I’ve been saying to Count T, if you’ve been following that conversation. I agree that the disagreements among ancient ethical systems may be evidence for this view. Even more striking, to me, is the fact that ethical discourse—and disagreement— has gone on, right into the present. If ethical truth had indeed been achieved in the context of virtue ethics, the continued dispute about it would need some explaining. I don’t remember — does MacIntyre offer some account of why things went so downhill? Why did Western culture end up in this “Canticle for Liebowitz” situation?