Here's my hypothesis: When I'm saving a present event in my neuronal network, the stored event gets a timestamp and a "true event"-mark. — Quk

Maybe there are certain qualia that accompany such marks. — Quk

That's a good filling-out of my "feature" idea. I wish I could identify the qualia, though. The problem is that I know what I'm talking about when I refer to a "yellow quale" (controversial though this may be), but I really don't know what the "self-quale" is. Do you have any idea?

Thank you, very good article. I hope we can use it as a touchstone on TPF to ground discussions of positivistic metaphysics, as it's very fair. Looking at the six "enduring influences," at least two -- #1 and #5 -- seem like a good thing to me, on balance. That is, more likely to do good than harm, in their normal uses. My main gripe, personally, is with scientism. I love science, and hate to see it misunderstood in the way that scientism does.

The law of identity refers to the thing, not its parts. — Metaphysician Undercover

OK, but this again is assuming that what constitutes "thing" and "parts" is uncontroversial and obvious. Do you want to say that Jill is a different "thing" if a couple of the microbes in her biome die between T1 and T2? What would make such an interpretation of "thing" attractive? The point is that we have to interpret it, because nothing in "A = A" will tell us how to do it.

I haven't read the Malcolm essays. Does he suggest "supervenience" as another possible way of cashing out the notion of "identity"? Probably not, since I'm not sure the term was current at the time. But it's a good alternative to both "brute identity" and mere "correlation." On this view, heat would be the experience we humans (usually) have when coming into contact with the specified molecular activity. The heat experience depends on the molecular activity, it isn't only correlated with it. And it's also distinct, in that we can meaningfully talk about the molecular situation without having to claim that something is hot.

When Kripke talks about "the statement 'Heat is the motion of molecules'" and says, "First, science is supposed to have discovered this," I wonder how strictly he means this. Stipulating an identity is, I agree, not something science can do. My suggestion is that, in this case, philosophers shouldn't do it either, but instead opt for something like the more common-sensical "supervenience."

I don't think anyone here has denied that there are true sentences.

Certainly not I.

@J? — Banno

Yes, there are true sentences. They are true because we have a context in which they appear. I think what bothers some people is that "true in a context" is seen as some inferior species of being Truly True. It's hard, perhaps, to take on board the idea that context is what allows a sentence to be true at all. If a Truly True sentence is supposed to be one that is uttered without a context, I don't know what that would be.

I'm trying to decide if I have anything helpful to add here. I quite understand that if you think in terms of "theoretical reason (truth)," it's going to make a pluralist perspective hard to engage with. Do you see that the very question under consideration is whether theoretical reason is truth?

This may have no appeal for you, but I was quite pleased with the papers cited (by Chakravartty and Pincock) in the "Epistemic Stances . . . " thread. I thought those two philosophers did an excellent job making big issues clear within a smaller, manageable discussion. Would you be willing to read them, perhaps guided by some of the comments in the thread? At the very least, you'd see that the "either it's foundationally true or it's merely useful" binary is not the only stance available.

I apologize, but I just don't know how to make the larger case that these perspectives are worth understanding. As you know, I don't think the argumentative back-and-forth on such large questions does much good, since the problem is rarely one of bad argument. My preference has always been to adduce the pros and cons of a position by seeing how it works with an actual philosophical question -- such as whether there can be voluntary epistemic stances if you're a scientific realist.

This may be no consolation, but our difficulty finding common ground is helping me quite a bit in something I'm trying to write, concerning the persistence of fundamental disagreement as a characteristic of philosophy! I suspect we would each describe the reasons in this case quite differently, and that is part of (I shall argue) why it's so hard to overcome. Finding agreement about how to describe a disagreement is itself often elusive.

By the law of identity, "same" means having all the same properties, essential and accidental. — Metaphysician Undercover

(I stopped following this carefully, so if what I'm saying has already been addressed, please ignore)

About the "law of identity": You do realize you're begging the question of what the entity is that's supposed to be "the same"? If you understand "Jill" to refer to every single component and property of the person designated as Jill -- "all properties, essential and accidental" -- at the time of designation, T1, then yes, anything that isn't that "Jill" will not be "the same." But that isn't in any way a proof that there are no other ways to understand what "Jill" refers to. You can't say this is true "by the law of identity." And indeed, this extreme version -- molecule-to-molecule identity -- is most unlikely to be invoked in any ordinary discourse I can think of.

I think you've been seduced by the apparent simplicity of the Law of Identity (capitalized, to indicate its usual formulation) that says only "A = A" without any further indication of what can count as an A.
It's up to us; the so-called Law is neutral on the subject. The problem is that, depending on the context, what counts as an A in good standing will vary quite a bit. With persons, the variation is enormous, though as you know, I think Kripke got the right handle on it with his idea of what a proper name may be said to name.

On the one hand: Yes, the memory is independent of the prompt. But if I don't have the prompt, how will I access the memory? — BC

Yes, and even more concerning: if the prompt is a photograph, will I come to substitute the face that is pictured for my memory of the beloved's actual face?

Fortunately, the memory is of the imagining, not an actual kidnapping. — Patterner

I was moved by your story, and appreciate your telling it to us. Beyond that, you raise a point that is often overlooked about memory. What makes something memorable -- indeed, what is really the point or subject of the memory -- may be what we thought or felt about X, not X itself. In your case, the image of the blond-haired boy was quite unimportant, quite unmemorable. But you vividly recall the chain of imaginings and associations that came with that image, so it's become indelible. My guess is that, in some rough categorization of memories, you'd file this under "Time I had a horrible bout of fearful imagining" rather than "Time I saw a blond-haired boy in van."

for all the Americans, Happy Memorial Day! — Fire Ologist

I've known happier, but thank you. Our new Dear Leader is planning a YUGE military parade on his upcoming birthday, the largest for more than 40 years. That's the sort of memorial we're meant to celebrate now, God help us.

I think you'd see, rereading, that this isn't accurate.

How so? I'm genuinely confused here? What exactly would be your explanation of why relativism and pluralism re truth is wrong? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ah, I think I see the misunderstanding. You're using "pluralism" and "relativism" interchangeably and synonymously, where I'm drawing a distinction. Do you think I shouldn't do so? Pluralism, as I understand it, allows different epistemological perspectives, with different conceptions of what is true within those perspectives. It also encourages discussion between perspectives, including how conceptions of truth may or may not converge. Relativism (about truth) would deny even this perspectival account as incoherent. (A very broad-brush picture of a hugely complicated subject, of course.)

What is your own theory of memory recall or memory recognition? — Leontiskos

I don't think I have one. Certainly not a psychological one, as that's not my field. The phenomenological question I'm posing might lend itself to a theoretical underpinning, if given a convincing answer, but I can barely formulate the question sharply, much less answer it. Hence this helpful discussion.

If I go by memory alone, there were long stretches of time when I didn't shop for groceries, did not do laundry, and never swept the floor. There were no servants doing the work, so I must have. — BC

I'm fond of this conundrum too. Daniel Dennett, in "Are Dreams Experiences?", (tm70n6786.pdf) lays out the difference between four possible answers to the question "Do you remember whether X was there in the room?":

1. No.
2. I can't recall his being there.
3. I distinctly remember that he was not there.
4. I remember noticing at the time that he was not there.

I'm willing to say that the last two are memories, the first two are not. What do you think?

This is a great citation. I'd been looking at another Malcolm piece, in fact, the one about sleeping and dreaming, to see if I could find his overall position on memory, so thank you.

Many of Malcolm's (rhetorical?) questions pertain to my own worry that trying to find a "feature" of a memory that identifies it as such, is multiplying items unnecessarily. Yet, as @Fire Ologist points out, my OP question comes in at a slightly different angle than Malcolm. I'm happy to agree with most of what Malcolm wants to say about the brute-factness of how memories allow us to do the things we do. But:

[J is] just looking at what something like “connections between past experience and our memory responses“ really means, or how that “brute fact” phenomenological moment of recalling a memory might be better understood. — Fire Ologist

I would amend that slightly to say "'brute fact' phenomenological moment of experiencing a mental event that I identify as a memory." I'm trying to slow down and re-examine my own experience of "having a memory" to see if there is some moment of perception or recognition that it is, purportedly, a memory. I think Malcolm would say that there is not, don't you?

So:

The memory theorist makes a useless movement. He invents a memory process to fill what he thinks is an explanatory gap; but his own explanation creates its own explanatory gap." — Richard B

My "gap" is a different one. Malcolm's analysis assumes that the remembering subject is already in a position to know the content of his mental experience -- that is, an allegedly veridical moment of past personal experience -- whereas I'm asking how this happens in the first place. If I could converse with Malcolm, I think I'd start by trying to see just what he conceived a memory to be, and whether I was using the word the same way. That might show why our "spades turn" at different points.

Yes, welcome to Wittgenstein's therapy and watch your philosophical problems dissolve away. — Richard B

Indeed! If only. And the therapy can work, on certain puzzles. I'm not yet sure this is one of them.

Like a spider's web, if you pull on one thread the whole thing starts to move, because it is a part of an integrated whole. We know what it's like to pull on that sort of thing as opposed to pulling on the silk thread of a larvae. It's different. — Leontiskos

Yes. My only objection here would be to ask whether this happens fast enough to constitute the complete explanation of recognizing a memory. But as @T Clark and I were discussing, this stuff can happen very quickly beneath conscious awareness.

If you see two photographs of two different Christmas parties, and you are not allowed to survey anything other than the two photographs, then it will not be possible to determine whether you were at one of the parties. Only if you are allowed to contextually inform the photographs will you be able to recognize one or both. — Leontiskos

I think I agree with this, but let me clarify: "not allowed to survey anything [else]" means you could look at the photographs but, per impossibile, not allow any associations to form in your mind? And "contextually inform" means respond as we normally do, with a fully functioning mind? If so, then yes, this seems right.

When you recall something, you are consciously trying NOT to imagine, but trying to find what was already the case. You purposely want to be stuck with what you recall and can’t change, — Fire Ologist

This is a different aspect of the memory question, but worth dwelling on, because it suggests to me the "pastness" that @fdrake mentioned. What is past cannot be changed, at least not under the same description -- could this somehow be reflected or captured in the experience of a memory? When I identify X as a memory, am I identifying something about X that is necessarily past, in the sense of unchangeable? Whereas with an imagining or an image, I don't "see" the same intransigence. I dunno . . . I'm still concerned that I'm inventing "features" in a somewhat ad hoc manner.

the tradition is what gives context for understanding why a philosopher is responding how they are and whom, — Moliere

Yes, I greatly appreciated this aspect of his thought -- which he shared with its other leading exponent, Gadamer, and much interesting work has been done comparing the two.

I'm assuming there is some misunderstanding here — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure. I wonder whether you'd be willing to look back over my post and notice the different uses of "relativism" and "pluralism," and the ways in which I tried not to make blanket assertions about things like "the whole of logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and the philosophy of nature."

Just as a for-instance:

to the question of where relativism applies you say that this itself is subject to relativism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think you'd see, rereading, that this isn't accurate. Here's the exchange:

Is "which truths are pluralistic, context-dependent truths?" a question for which the answers are themselves "pluralistic, context-dependent truths?"
— Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, generally. — J

I think it's worth noting that this is a very specialized question, at least if what I say ↪here is correct (namely that "memories don't generally arrive unannounced" and unelicited). — Leontiskos

Yes, it's hard to know what is typical here. Perhaps I'm given to daydreaming! For whatever reason, the "unannounced or contextless memory" phenomenon is common for me, which is probably why I got curious in the first place about how we recognize a memory.

Well, to continue with the "strand in a spider's web" metaphor, I think it is recognizable. I think a strand-within-a-web is recognized as different from a strand-without-a-web. — Leontiskos

Or another metaphor: Let's say a memory is situated within its causal nexus in the same way as a rock that has been thrown. There it sits, on the ground, having been thrown. Another rock, nearby, is so situated as a result of having been excavated around. So, different causal stories and contexts, but we couldn't tell which was the case just by looking at the rock, or at least not readily. That's the question I was raising -- would the memory (rock #1) still be recognized as a memory if the only thing that differentiated it from an image (rock #2) was its causal context?

Not sure which of these metaphors is more like how it is with memories, especially the unbidden variety . . .

Is "which truths are pluralistic, context-dependent truths?" a question for which the answers are themselves "pluralistic, context-dependent truths?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, generally.

A "mistake." Are you saying it would be wrong to affirm this? Curious. Would this be another of those "non-serious" philosophies that we can dismiss? — Count Timothy von Icarus

You seem to have me confused with someone else. :smile: I am not a relativist about truth or, in most contexts, values. I do, however, believe that relativism can't be dismissed by pointing to the standard problems of self-reference. Nor do I think that acknowledging "pluralistic, context-dependent truths" makes someone a relativist. Anyway, being doubtful about "real" isn't at all the same as being doubtful about "true," at least not for me.

would truths about which philosophies are "wrong," "mistakes," or "unserious" be "pluralistic, context-dependent truths?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course, so much so that I'd hesitate to talk about "truths" here at all. Or maybe I don't understand what a non-context-dependent truth about a philosophy would be.

Second, what separates a pluralism that sees assertions of non-pluralism as mistakes from the "crude pluralism" discussed earlier? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not sure I understand this. Are you referring back to a characterization I gave of "crude relativism"?

@Count Timothy von Icarus often has interesting things to say about him.

Lively and interesting replies, thanks! A few general responses:

This is one of those questions -- as so often with phenomenology -- that sits on the borderline with psychology. Much of what everyone has written about the brain, about memory processing, about the quickness of interpretation, etc., is undoubtedly true. And where there are aspects we don't understand, that too may be a matter for scientific research, not philosophy.

I think we can still isolate the phenomenological question. I'm asking about the experience of having a memory come to mind. (To keep it manageable, let's say it's an unbidden mental performance that comes up at random, as I go through the day.) It appears to be the case that we can usually identify this mental item as a (purported) memory. My question is, how? By virtue of what aspect of the experience itself? I think my question rules out causal explanations of how memories are formed, though I'm not sure -- unless that causal explanation leaves some experiential imprint on the mental item (as some of you are suggesting?). It may also rule out contextual explanations, such as:

Memories are contextually situated, probably within a causal nexus, and this is what differentiates them from a mere mental image. — Leontiskos

This is probably true, but is the kind of differentiation such that it would be recognizable in experience? I'd like to see more discussion of this.

The gaps in what I'm not paying attention to are literally blank when imagining something; they don't come with a sense of "forgetting" - they come with a sense of "filling in". — Dawnstorm

This is particularly interesting, and seems to fit a phenomenological account of the difference between remembering and imagining. I'm fascinated, and rather appalled, by what it must be like to be an aphantasiac. Is it a bit like being asked to translate something into a language you don't speak?

Maybe I can sum this up by saying there is nothing creative about a memory.

Whereas when we imagine, we manipulate mental images much like memories, but not by recalling but by some creative function. — Fire Ologist

I'm going to think more about this, and the rest of your post. Lots there.

Maybe, and then I'd duck to avoid the brickbats! :wink: More fairly, I do read him as an anti-modernist, but his tone was rarely polemical. Also, I think he challenged us to either accept the original context of the Greek virtues or come up with something that doesn't claim merely to be talk about "the same" concepts.

And BTW, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? is really good, especially if you're somewhat put off by After Virtue.

We can talk about water because we learned what water is from our teachers, and they in turn from theirs. And so the reference to "water" is independent of any description, including finding out that water is H₂O.

On this account, the basis is a casual chain stretching back through time rather than any particular attribute of water.

Something like that. — Banno

I'd say: exactly like that. This is pure Kripke, and explains why he says things like "we don't need a telescope to identify the table" etc. This is a theory about what words identify, not about what things are. Kripke presumes a difference. As it happens, water is H₂O. The word "water" knows nothing of this. We would surely use the same word, just as our ancestors did, if water were something else. An account of what water actually is -- some sort of essence? -- is quite a different matter.

It is logically possible to describe a world in which a substance that is not H₂O is called ‘water’ and has none of the characteristics of actual water. But in doing so, we are no longer talking about water, strictly speaking, under rigid designation. — Banno

I think @Janus' question remains. "None of the characteristics" is quite a leap, even in terms of logical possibility. I can do without the characteristic of having two hydrogen atoms, but being clear and wet? Just how much "waterness" do we need in order to say, Ahah, this is what the causal chain is identifying?

if we call a substance that has nothing in common with water, "water", perhaps all we are doing is misusing the word. — Banno

I'd say so, leaving aside terminological ambiguities like whether ice should count as water.

So if "One Truth" (I guess I will start capitalizing it too) is "unhelpful," does that mean we affirm mutually contradictory truths based on what is "useful" at the time?
— @Count Timothy von Icarus

What I got from Banno seems to be that pluralistic or context-based truths don’t mean that every contradiction is true. Instead, truths depend on the situation, purpose, or point of view. When contradictions happen, it usually means they come from different ways of looking at things -not that truth doesn’t exist. — Tom Storm

I'd say further: In the context of "What is really real?" (the context in which @Banno said what he said), there is no truth, because the terms are hopelessly vague. Maybe the right way to say it is, There is no Truly True answer to the question of what is Really Real! Different philosophers and traditions will use "real" to occupy different positions in their metaphysics. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this; we often need some sort of bedrock or stipulated term to hold down a conceptual place, and "real" is a time-honored one. The mistake comes when we think we've consulted the Philosophical Dictionary in the Sky and discovered what is Really Real.

This is good. In drafting the OP, I found myself backing off further and further from my original claim, which would have been that we can always tell an (alleged) memory from an imagining. I'm fine with saying, instead, that it's only usually the case, as you show.

So, what can we say about these usual cases? "Clues in your thinking and your history" would be the sort of answer I'm looking for, but I question whether such clues are enough. I appeal to my own experience here: When something comes to mind and I (instantly, as far as I can tell) recognize it to be a memory, it all seems too fast and too assured to be accounted for by a sifting of thoughts and history. That's why I'm wondering whether there really is some feature we recognize -- not infallibly, but usually.

Another possibility would be that the sifting occurs subconsciously, beneath our awareness (and very fast).

What occurs, when an alleged memory comes to mind, that allows me to identify it as an alleged memory?
— J

It's a bit of a trite answer, but that it seems in the past. — fdrake

I imagine "pastness" comes along with what makes a memory autobiographical? — fdrake

Yes, this "pastness" may be the very thing I'm calling the "feature" of an alleged memory, by which we recognize it as such. But I'm asking further -- what is it? What is the experience of pastness? This may be one of those questions to which the only good answer is, "Oh shut up, it just is." Or maybe not. If I'm asked, what is it about a present sensual perception that allows me to recognize it as such, there are various things I can say in reply. Can similar things be said about "recognizing pastness"? Your idea about the different resolutions of visual impressions could be part of this.

Strictly speaking, the royal family are entitled to vote; it's just that they think it would be tactless to do so. — Ludwig V

:lol:

It seems likely that the real reason the practice survives is that "votes for criminals" does not look like a vote winner. — Ludwig V

Yes, and you really can't overestimate the degree to which the US is plagued by racist and classist assumptions. In depressingly large segments of the population, "votes for criminals" translates as "more so-called 'rights' for those people".

The claim that "'I get wet and do not get wet' violates the law of noncontradiction" misunderstands how modal logic works. — Hanover

Thank you. This is the basic insight, as you go on to explain, "which is why modal logic exists."

When we say it will rain in #1, while that sounds like any old generic rain will do, if we were being more precise, we'd describe the exact identity of the rain that would strike you in #1 versus #2. — Hanover

Right. The point is that nothing is the same in different worlds. Trying to import something that's the same automatically dissolves what "possible world" means in this discourse, if I can put it that way.

In short:

contradiction applies only intra-universe and not inter-universe. — Hanover

Well, yes. Thought experiments and idealizations have their place. But so does hard, practical experience. — Ludwig V

Yes. Habermas has perhaps done better with this than Rawls, because much of what he's written about this has been in response to ongoing European issues about which there is real debate, and real concern about how to frame the debate. These are very much practical issues.

Sitting Members of the House of Lords.

I had no idea! Is this an outgrowth of the tradition (if I've got this right) that certain members of the royal family may not vote either?

I'm unclear whether the reason is that those in prison are regarded as unfit to vote or whether loss of the right to vote is part of the punishment. — Ludwig V

I realized I didn't know, and spent a bit of time consulting online sources. In the US, the answer appears to be "neither" -- felon disenfranchisement evidently began as part of the Jim Crow reaction to Black emancipation. The idea was that, because more Blacks spent time in prison (wonder why!), they could be further excluded from political influence once they got out. White felons were collateral damage, on this account.

As for current arguments, the answer appears to be "both": The idea of "civil death" as a punishment for certain crimes goes back many centuries, and is seen as both a just punishment for criminally harming the state, and a just precaution to make sure that such malefactors can't do further harm with their vote. The ethical connection between committing a felony and being unqualified to vote is, I guess, taken for granted.

It seems to me that the project of disentangling nature from nurture is extremely difficult, if possible at all. — Ludwig V

Sure, but isn't there a clear distinction to be made between "born with a speech impediment" and "born into poverty"? Most of the boundaries are fuzzier than that, agreed, but in principle I think it's a conception worth clarifying when we can.

I think we would do better to consider the ways in which we negotiate this issue in real life — Ludwig V

I vote for both/and rather than either/or. Theory + political realities.

Now liberal democracies believe that all adult citizens (with some troublesome exceptions) indeed have this right.
— J
Yes, they do. And it is a problem. — Ludwig V

Can you say more about what the problem is, as you understand it? (The exceptions I had in mind are the various state laws about convicted felons voting.)

it's very easy to accept economic differences when you're higher up, and not so easy when you're lower down. So even if we go with the veil of ignorance I suspect the people who roll snake-eyes will still feel bitter and want more out of life. — Moliere

As an observation about people, I completely agree. And that bitterness would have a special sting since, as discussed, no one need be born poor.

Rawls has been described, personally, as a rather unworldly fellow who didn't care much for his own comforts. Thomas Nagel talked about "his purity and his freedom from the distortions of ego," but also said that "my dominant sense of Jack was that he was a natural aristocrat." Not sure that's the praise he would have wanted, if it is praise! But it speaks to your point, in that one's life experiences can't help influencing what you find acceptable, and maybe even noticeable.

I wonder who does the specifying and adjusting? In real life I think that there is a great deal of consensus developing and then being enforce in the same kind of ways that the rules of etiquette are enforced - spontaneous, non-organized individual reaction. — Ludwig V

A good question, which can be asked of both Rawls and Habermas. Rawls has in mind a sort of ideal dialogue or dialectic, that seems clear, but there might be different answers about how it is realized by the state. Your analogy with etiquette is fine, but the problem is that we wouldn't tolerate etiquette police, whereas it seems we do need enforcement of these naturally occurring, non-organized forms of consensus.

I think the talk of capacities comes from Nussbaum. — Ludwig V

Yes, she's developed it in a particularly interesting way, but the quote does come from Rawls, who also used the term often.

As to economic capacity, I assume that means the capacity to earn money. — Ludwig V

At a minimum, but I also have in mind the various power-capacities that economic privilege endows one with. I don't need to spell this out, I'm sure; the fact that my parents were middle-class US citizens gave me some obvious unearned and unfair advantages over others. This is a problem for classical liberalism because, while there's arguably not much we can do about differences an individual is born with, the differences in economic status are systemic, not "natural," and could be ameliorated. Indeed, they might not exist at all, which is hard to imagine with differences of, say, gender or physical robustness or IQ-type intelligence.

in this case at least, it may be more a question of finding some capacity that each person has that people will pay money for — Ludwig V

An interesting alternative to guaranteeing a minimum standard of living. I suppose a more social-democratic view here would challenge the idea that economic viability needs to be deserved or earned at all. But I can easily see a capitalist society using your idea as a sort of bridge.

We can notice how this thought developed in a related area. It used to be held that the right to vote was no such thing, but rather had to be earned, if you will, by being a member of a certain sex and racial and economic class. Now liberal democracies believe that all adult citizens (with some troublesome exceptions) indeed have this right. But the parallel with "right to be economically stable" hasn't been made yet. We still believe, by and large, that people should earn their living. There's been, at least, some movement toward thinking that those who are unable to do so can be supported by the state, but this rarely translates into anything you or I would recognize as economic stability. (I'm speaking now about the US, which lags so far behind in this area -- 16.3 % of children below the poverty line??? :cry: .)

The idea of justice includes classes of various kinds such that all the people, in the veil of ignorance, would agree to those classes before rolling the dice to find out which class they are in.

The big difficulty there is... well, whatever. — Moliere

Not sure about that last part? :smile: But yes, this is a huge problem with the veil of ignorance, for Nussbaum and many others. Rawls assumed a lot when he imagined what we could know and not know, accept and not accept, conceptualize and not conceptualize, from behind that veil. The idea is resilient, though, because you can correct and stretch it without breaking it and making it useless.

there's no discussion upon "just how low can the lower class go?", because he was not a member of the lower class. — Moliere

Not entirely fair. Rawls has all kinds of things to say about this, most famously his "Difference Principle":

The basic structure should allow organizational and economic inequalities so long as these improve everyone's situation, including that of the least advantaged, provided these inequalities are consistent with equal liberty and fair equality of opportunity. — Political Liberalism, 282

As for the ad hominem part -- well, maybe being a member of the lower class would be a necessary condition for seeing it differently, but certainly not a sufficient one. See Broke and Patriotic, by Francesco Duina.

Right now, too many people have very limited knowledge, and letting them loose is about like letting all the animals in a zoo loose. — Athena

Well, most of the US "founding fathers" agreed with you. These from Hamilton:

"The body of people … do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise."

"The history of ancient and modern republics has taught [us]… that popular assemblies are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sudden impulses and [by] the intrigues of ambitious men."

Nonetheless, I'd respectfully suggest that the next couple hundred years of US history represented an attempt to find a way to further democracy without treating vast sections of citizens as if they were animals who ought to be caged. I doubt even Hamilton went that far. Just curious: In the metaphor you employ, who are the zookeepers?

I would say that this is, very broadly, the "free institutions" enshrined in Western democracy.
— J
That's all very well. But doesn't he recognize that all these freedoms are heavily qualified? — Ludwig V

I think he does. In Political Liberalism, for instance, in the section called "Free Political Speech," he points out that "the basic liberties not only limit one another but they are also self-limiting" (341), and goes on to give a very nuanced discussion of how this is so. This section ends:

The discussion illustrates how freedom of speech as a basic liberty is specified and adjusted at later stages so as to protect its central range, namely the free public use of our reason in all matters that concern the justice of the basic structure and its social policies. — Political Liberalism, 348

I would call this "heavily qualified," if you think about what he's actually saying. The possibly ideal liberty to speak as one pleases becomes confined to its "central range," which appears to be reasonable political discussion about matters of justice as they relate to structure and policies. The use of "reasonable," alone, would force a discussion of what this means in terms of limits.

We arrive at “the property question”: is it reasonable to allow private ownership of society’s major means of production? If we agree to conceive political society as a fair cooperative system for mutual benefit, the answer must be No: these assets are such that private ownership inevitably endows the owner with inordinate political power.
Rawls was hesitant to state this conclusion. He wanted to leave open an alternative to liberal democratic socialism that he called “property-owning democracy.” These two “ideal regime-types,” as he called them, differ essentially only in how they answer the property question.

Excellent. This is just how I read him too -- though as I said, I'd need to do some rereading on this question to be sure. But we find him saying typical Rawlsian things such as:

I have assumed throughout . . . that while citizens do not have equal capacities, they do have, at least to the essential minimum degree, the moral, intellectual, and physical capacities that enable them to be fully cooperating members of society over a complete life. — Political Liberalism, 163

I call this typical because his conception of a "capacity" is usually individual, such that "economic capacity" might not qualify -- though I think it should. And the "essential minimum degree" bit has generated a lot of debate, which would certainly have to be extended into the economic area as well.

Maybe I should have expanded what I meant by “crude relativism.” It would be something like this:

“Everything is relative. There’s no true or false. There’s no right and wrong.”
“But I don’t agree with that.”
“Then you’re wrong!”

This is what I meant by a position no one could take seriously.

Reading over your responses here, though, I realize that I have a rhetorical habit of saying “anyone” or “no one” when what I really mean is “ . . . within the universe of competent philosophers.” You remind me that there are people willing to accept most any position, if it has some emotional appeal. I rarely encounter them, because I live my intellectual life largely in the company of the philosophers I’m reading (and TPF, of course). But you’re undoubtedly right – what I call “crude relativism” may present no problems whatsoever for some people. So I should amend what I just wrote, above, to read, “ . . . a position no one familiar with philosophical inquiry could take seriously.”

But what you're saying isn't a problem just for "foundational premises," it literally is a problem for affirming any proposition at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

By foundational premises, I meant to include not just the logical forms, but the bedrock propositions to which the reasoning applies. Foundational philosophy doesn't merely specify modus ponens, for instance, but also declares content for P and Q that is claimed as foundational. Or, if "content" is suspect, it stipulates the connection between logical form and the world.

3. I don't see what institutions are considered to be free here and what status the others might have. — Ludwig V

Coming back to this: The context here, for Rawls, is what he says about "reasonable pluralism" as the "inevitable outcome" of such institutions. What he has in mind, I think, are institutions such as a free press, freedom of speech, no state religion, and a "free market." Leaving the last one aside for the moment, we can see the degree of freedom he's picturing concerning speech and religion. Broadly, he's imagining institutions that exact no penalties for a pluralism of views, and place no barriers to the expression of such views, and prohibit the state from placing a hand on the scale when there is disagreement. I would say that this is, very broadly, the "free institutions" enshrined in Western democracy.

But . . . Rawls is on much shakier grounds if he also regards Western late capitalism as a free institution. I am not sure he does. He's aware that economic inequality is not only a matter of individual good or bad fortune, but is to some extent a feature of the system. But I don't know if he ever seriously considered socialistic reforms -- pretty sure there's no discussion of that in either Theory of Justice or Political Liberalism. I'd have to reread both him and Nussbaum to have an educated opinion one way or the other.

Just to tie up this loose end . . .

This wasn't meant as a refutation of relativism, it's just pointing out that it doesn't make people play nice or avoid disagreement. — Count Timothy von Icarus

OK, I see that. I guess I wasn't imagining relativism as trying to avoid disagreements. And I'm sure you're right that a "crude relativist" could leave a discussion worse off than they found it, by accusing people who aren't relativists of being wrong. I hope we agree that this doesn't characterize a position that anyone could take seriously.

I hardly see how it [philosophy] is the sort of thing than can be rendered a manner of taste without trivializing essentially everything — Count Timothy von Icarus

I may never understand your rhetorical habit of contrasting Position A with a Position B that no one has ever espoused! :smile: In this case . . . do you honestly think that the single alternative to foundational philosophy is to make philosophy a "manner/matter of taste"? Do you find any philosophers saying this? When thinkers like Habermas and Gadamer and RJ Bernstein devote their careers to trying to articulate a way of thinking about these issues that does them justice, do you really believe their arguments come down to "it's all a matter of taste"? I call this a rhetorical habit of yours because I don't think, at bottom, you actually believe it. You're too intelligent and sensible. Why the rhetoric, then?

Yes, a long literature on this one. I myself think it's important to keep reasons distinct from causes. If reasons "just are" causes, we'd need to revise a lot of our way of talking about them. Perhaps we should -- but the other issue that seems important here is the vexed notion of freedom. If I'm caused to do something, I wasn't free to do otherwise. Is this how it is with thoughts, beliefs, even perceptions? Again, this could be true, but now we'd need a big conceptual revision about ourselves.

I'm wondering when you say that we understand things in the human sciences you mean that we understand human behavior in terms of reasons not causes. If so I agree. But can this also apply to experiences? — Janus

Exactly. I think so, but I'm not sure. Let's go back to the dream, rather than a mystical experience. When I interpret my dream, have I explained it or have I understood it? This is fuzzy, of course, but wouldn't we want to say that the interpretation can take place with or without an explanation? Put it in terms of the question, "Why did you dream X?" If I answer this by giving my interpretation, that doesn't quite suffice. The "why" question seems to require a bigger background story, something more theoretical about how dreams occur in the first place, and why I might have dreamed X at the particular moment in my life that I did. Certainly this isn't separate from interpretation, but I do think it's different.

This is all to show that the original question of what it is to mean something is a very difficult one, especially when extended beyond sayings and into experiences.

There's an alternative to thinking that an argument is either right or wrong. Rather than framing disagreements as binary conflicts we might seek the underlying structure of the disagreement, which could lead to deeper agreement or at least mutual intelligibility.

This would involve some good will on the part of the participants, and the acceptance of what we might call "liberal" guidelines for discussion. — Banno

Of course. "Argument" as a zero-sum game with winners and losers. . . . I had a professor who used to talk about "the gladiatorial theory of philosophy," in which two arguments battle it out, giving no quarter, and the result is supposed to settle some issue. He didn't think it worked, usually, and that's been my experience. More deeply, I've come to see that the reasons why it doesn't work can tell us a lot about what philosophy is -- how it is distinct from other human pursuits, and what can be gained by engaging in it.

Interesting. No doubt the European religious wars and persecutions of the 16th-17th centuries made tolerance look more attractive. So a country that was, let's say, 99% Hindu, with no prospect of this changing, might not need to value religious freedom. Maybe so, and it helps highlight whether and why a core principle could develop on strictly ethical grounds.

Regarding the question about "one correct interpretation" of texts; I can't see how that could be supportable. What could it mean to say there is only one correct interpretation if we cannot have any idea what criteria could be used to identify it? That said, I suppose it could be argued that what the author had in mind determined what was written; but then it could be asked as to what 'What the author had in mind" could refer to beyond the actual words that were written.

I mean the author could have been experiencing all sorts of feelings and associations during the process of writing, but it is questionable whether even the author, let alone anyone else, could identify and describe them after the fact. — Janus

Yes, it's a headache, but I don't think we can just throw out the idea of a correct interpretation, if we limit "interpretation" to some version of "conscious intention." Again, I'd appeal to ordinary experience: When you say something and I say, "Oh, you mean Y," getting it completely wrong, you're going to stand on your right to reply, "No, that's not it, I meant X." And so you should. This is a version of "author's authority," and you're right that it certainly leaves out many cases in which we'd like to say we have a correct interpretation but can't appeal to any "author." It also leaves out the "feelings and associations" problem, where it's not clear that even the author is fully in charge of what they meant. Psychoanalytic interpretation would be the locus classicus here.

Is the meaning of a mystical experience the same thing as the explanation of it? — Janus

I think not, but it's far from clear. The traditional distinction is that we're supposed to understand things in the human sciences and explain things in the physical sciences. Where does this kind of experience fall?

Perhaps the Theory of Evolution is a more pertinent case. Apparently Popper at one time claimed it was not falsifiable and hence did not count as a scientific theory. If memory serves he later withdrew the claim. — Janus

Yes, I think he was persuaded that there are falsifiable predictions associated with evolutionary theory, namely that if X aspect of the theory is true, we would expect to find Y types of fossils at location Z, dating to time T. And this has been borne out many times, and never to my knowledge falsified. Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True is good on this. ("True," but perhaps not complete . . . see Nagel.)

Does tolerating different views necessarily mean reconciling them? — Ludwig V

I shouldn't think so. As you say, the tolerance presupposes that they won't be reconciled any time soon.

These don't look like objections to liberalism to me. — Ludwig V

Nor to me, frankly, but I'm trying to present what I've seen as typical objections. I should probably let those who hold them make the case.

3. I don't see what institutions are considered to be free here and what status the others might have. — Ludwig V

This point deserves a more thoughtful reply, as it speaks to both the strengths and weaknesses of Rawlsian theory. Pushed for time now but I'll come back to this . . .

But isn't the goal of the kind of philosophy you espouse to resolve those disputes? More, to claim that in principle they must be resolvable? This would make the history of philosophy, taken in toto, a story of failure, since the disputes live on. That's the part that I have trouble recognizing as my own experience of doing philosophy with others.

I don't see how this is a problem. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I guess it needn't be. As I say, it just doesn't fit my own experience of doing philosophy. I'm aware that, for some, philosophy is seen as a history of disputes that ought to have been resolved. You put it well:

it would not follow that one's own doctrine is undermined by the fact that some people are not perfected by these. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The idea that "some people are not perfected" by one's own presumably correct doctrine makes me smile, but I suppose it expresses the attitude you'd have to take if you saw philosophy as an attempt to make a single correct view triumph, and the failure to do so is down to the other guy, not the issue itself.

"The worry here is that the foundationalist philosopher who believes that everything of importance can be demonstrated apodictically, thus resolving all disagreements in favor of a position they hold, will treat those who disagree as if they must be doing something wrong, whether due to ignorance, stupidity, stubbornness, or malice.}

Wouldn't this just be true in general? If we think we know something, and people do not accept it, or affirm something contrary, we think they are ignorant in that matter (or I suppose acting in bad faith). — Count Timothy von Icarus

But when it comes to philosophical views? I would have said that one of the key differences between thinking philosophically and our ordinary ways of thinking about the world is the recognition that we don't propose ignorance or bad faith as a plausible explanation for someone's disagreeing with us. And I have to admit how difficult it is for me even to imagine carrying on as you suggest.

Third, while telling people they are wrong about closely held metaphysical or moral beliefs can produce friction, I don't see how other methods, i.e. explaining broad fields as pseudoproblems or declaring all sides of the debate "meaningless," claiming they involve merely relative truths, or that they deal in "fictions," etc. is necessarily any less so. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What would you think of the method that says, "Hmm, tell me more. Help me understand why you say this. Here's how I see it. Let's see what we can learn"? The difficulty that many people have with such a method, unlike all the ones you enumerate, including telling people they are wrong, is that it requires sincere curiosity and philosophical humility on the part of the inquirer. But if one is already sure enough about one's beliefs to declare someone else wrong, then curiosity and humility probably don't apply. BTW, I am far from a perfect exemplar of any of this. I too fall prey to arrogance and impatience.

I'll have to leave the relativism question for later. It's Sunday morning and -- I hope this doesn't shock or disappoint anyone :wink: -- I'm off to church.