Haven't you said (elsewhere) that you believe that metaphysical realism comes down to the theory truth?

I wouldn't say that that's what "mutually exclusive" refers to, by the way. Mutual exclusivity obtains when insofar as we have A, we can't have B, and vice versa. — Terrapin Station

The way I expressed it was misleading. For Descartes the concept of thought literally excludes the concept of extension (and vice versa). Nothing is ever both a thinking substance and an extended substance, as evidenced by his complete inability explain how mind and body interact.

That part I certainly do not agree with. For one, I don't really agree with there being normative rules of rationality. — Terrapin Station

That's interesting. Do you not hold people responsible for their claims, or tell people that they "ought" to believe A if they believe B? How do you interpret the meaning of these actions?

And this part seems to be positing the same old realist view rather than there being anything "deflationary" about it. — Terrapin Station

That's the same thing Michael is arguing, and it may very well be right. See my response to Michael here.

A sense other than the deflationary sense that you're trying to explain. — Michael

Hmm. Not sure that helps much.

Here's what I'll say, then: Brandom is not a correspondence-theorist with regard to truth or reference. When Brandom says the the world causally constrains rational discourse he's talking about the world qua conceptual content. The "trick" is that he thinks that conceptual content can be "objective", in the sense of existing independently of anyone's mind.

Is the "independent existence of the world" here to be understood in a deflationary sense or in a non-deflationary sense? — Michael

Could you explain what you, specifically, mean by "non-deflationary"? There's a few different things this could mean, so I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying before responding.

Can you elaborate on what you, specifically, mean by "a strong metaphysical sense"?

Brandom's conception of reality is thick and epistemological. — Cavacava

Yep. It attempts to be epistemologically "thick" while being ontologically "thin".

Is this just gearing up to support ordinary existence claims? If so, there are no ontological issues on the table. I'm not quite sure how that escapes essentially being anti-realism. Why else would one ignore ontological existence claims unless it's because they aren't considered to be truth-apt? — Mongrel

To be fair, I am presenting Brandom's deflationary realism as a response to something more like Berkeleyan Idealism rather than to what Chalmers has called "Ontological Anti-Realism".

What does it mean for a concept to apply to something? — Michael

In Brandom's account reference to objects is cashed out in terms of the semantics of singular terms, which is cashed out in terms of the semantics of claims, which is cashed out in terms of his score-keeping pragmatics*. So what it means for a concept to apply to something is that a rational actor is using singular terms in accordance with the communal rules of rationality.

That seems like smoke and mirrors, right? Doesn't Brandom's system "lose the world" if reference amounts to nothing more than correctly making inferential moves within the communal "game of giving and asking for reasons"?

Brandom's response to this is equal parts Wittgenstein and Sellars. Like Wittgenstein, Brandom is going say that rationality is intrinsically world involving, and really can't be understood in any other way. Actors who are incapable of acknowledging the independent existence of the world literally won't be capable of playing the game, because playing the game involves recognizing the independent existence of other agent's who commitments are not your own, and yet who are able to play the game by a set of shared rules. So the world is "baked in" from the very start.

Furthermore, (and harkening back to Sellars) Brandom will say that human discourse is contingently wedded to the world in yet another way: through the empirical content of perception/observation. This post is getting really long so I'm not going to go into the details, but the basic idea is that empirical discourse is is inferentially grounded in a particular class of claims called "observations", and this helps cash out the sense in which the semantics of human discourse is causally constrained a mind-independent physical world.

*NOTE: As an aside, it is useful to note that Brandom's system basically inverts the typical order of explanation in the philosophy of language, which tries to explain the semantics of terms via an independent theory of representation and/or truth, and to explain the semantics of statements in terms of the semantics of terms, and to explain pragmatics in terms of the semantics of statements, etc. Brandom takes the opposite path, starting with pragmatics and working his way down from there.

And in the case of me dressing up as Harry Potter, how do thoughts apply (in a way that they don't when I dress up as Obama)? — Michael

The difference is that Obama is not a fictional character.

As my own take on deflationary realism, I think it just amounts to rejecting the metaphysics of realism but nonetheless insisting on talking about things as if metaphysical realism is true. — Michael

If by "metaphysics of realism" you mean "correspondence theory of truth" then, yes, I believe you're right.

Let's refine the formulation of sense-dependency and reference-dependency, since my original formulation completely sucked:

1. A is sense dependent on B iff one cannot count as having grasped A unless one counts as having grasped B.

2. A is reference dependent on B iff B cannot apply to something unless A applies to it.

Brandom claims that "thought" and "world" are reciprocally sense-dependent, meaning that one can't understand one without also understanding the other. For concrete example, he would say that we can't understand what a fact is without understanding what a true sentence is (and vice versa). But he also thinks that this does not imply that there could be no facts without true sentences.

So for the Harry Potter example, Brandom's going to argue that "Harry Potter" is reference-dependent on "thought" because the concept "Harry Potter" applies to something iff the concept "thought" applies to it as well. But the concept "hammer" does not apply to something iff the concept "thought" applies, therefore "hammer" is not reference dependent on "thought".

Interesting. Most here seem to agree that the argument either fails or is not decisive, and for similar reasons. I thought we'd see more defenders of the argument (or some variation of it). Ah well.

For my part, I don't think it works either, for reasons similar to those provided above. I thought 's analysis provided in his "conclusion" was particularly pithy.

You might then say, "and, one ought not do wrong things."
But why? — dukkha

The statement that "one ought not do wrong things" is practically a tautology. You can query whether a particular action is wrong, but asking why wrong things out not be done is like inquiring into whether all bachelors are unmarried men.

But I think that the role of philosophy is intended to subvert that order, or at least the very least call it into question. — Wayfarer

Is part of philosophy's role also to find answers to the questions that philosophy poses? In your opinion, would you say that the defense of the accepted order is necessarily an anti-philosophical enterprise?

So let's take stock:

The common thread running through many of the replies (with some exceptions) is that dogmatism errs insofar as it sacrifices "reason" at the alter of common sense, cultural prejudice, personal bias, etc.

Questions:

1. Is it ever ok to remain skeptical of an "absurd" conclusion to a clever argument even when one can't pin-point the exact flaw in the reasoning?

2. How long can one hold out in search of a rebuttal before they are transgressing the norms of rational discourse?

NOTE: "Absurd" is another one of those words that is tossed around fairly liberally but, again, no one seems to know exactly what it means. What I have in mind is this: a claim seems absurd to someone in proportion to number of that person's "core" beliefs that it contradicts.

Roughly, the idealist is motivated by some variant of the dreaming argument to show that even the realist, on his own terms, is more convinced that he experiences than that something causes these experiences. — The Great Whatever

More convinced, perhaps, but not unconvinced as a consequence. I’m more convinced that 2 + 2 = 4 than that Fermat’s Theorem has been proven, but I don’t reject the latter claim as a result.

So given my firm intuition that I find myself in a world not of my own making, I’m going to devote my efforts toward making intelligible the notion of an independent cause of my experience, since it’s my preference that such be the case anyway. I mean, why throw in the towel just because “I could be dreaming”? Amirite?

But I suspect for a lot of people interested in metaphysics, there is the nagging question of whether one's preferred metaphysics is true. — Marchesk

The dogmatic realist believes realism is true, and will attempt to justify it when pressed. But at the end of the day he admits that no metaphysical system can be proven to certainty. If someone doesn’t want to be a realist, then they’ll inevitably find some reason not to be. The dogmatic realist thinks that if the consequences of idealism aren’t reason enough to reject it, then nothing is.

I think that statement would make you a neutral apologist. To be a realist apologist, you'll have to make the case that realism is more successful or explains more.. or explains better... right? — Mongrel

Yeah, I mean a common refrain you’re going to hear from the dogmatic realist is that idealism collapses into solipsism when taken to its logical conclusion. Assuming that solipsism can’t be decisively refuted, that it is internally consistent, that it is consistent with everything we could possibly experience, etc., then one is simply faced with a choice that amounts to a matter of preference. So either bite the bullet and accept solipsism, or try to find an intelligible alternative.

Or so the story goes…

What's the difference between realism and materialism, btw? — Mongrel

Materialism – the doctrine that everything is physical or supervenes on the physical.

Realism – the doctrine that the world is as it is independently of how inquiring agents take it to be.

Realism seems broader.

NOTE: No one seems to be able to agree on what exactly the word “realism” actually means.

I was really not trying to cast aspersions. — Wayfarer

No worries, I was just being a bit cheeky.

Sorry for three posts in a row, but here are some additional thoughts regarding the OP:

Generally speaking, I think that there are three main approaches to responding to idealism (here I mean subjective idealism):

1. Dogmatic Realism - simply refuse to accept the burden of proof. Those who take this approach typically believe that you simply can't reason your way to realism starting from idealistic premises, and so the only option is to refuse to play on the idealist's home turf. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and idealistic meals are simply too unsavory to try to choke down. Instead, of trying to refute idealist metaphysics, focus on improving realist metaphysics. The idealist obviously won't be convinced, but good riddance!

2. Transcendental Realism - try to show that realism falls out of an analysis of thought/reason itself. If you can show that the very act of making of an assertion or the asking of a question presupposes realist premises then the idealist is check-mated from the very start!

3. Deflationary Realism - try to show that the idealism/realism debate doesn't make sense because nobody knows what they mean by the word "real". Instead, you'll propose a suitable deflationary definition of the word "real" that undercuts the entire debate and ends the confusion once and for all!

In my opinion, Harman's object-oriented realism ends up collapsing back into Kantian noumenalism wherein the "in-itself" (i.e. "real objects") is simply posited and ends up trapped under a sensual crust that no mind can penetrate, whether rationally or empirically. As far as I can tell, (and despite the pomp and circumstance) Harman's realism amounts to little more than a lazy dogmatism, with unsavory consequences with regards the use of reason. Not that I am totally against dogmatism in matters philosophical, but if you're looking for a knock-down response to idealism, I'd say to look elsewhere.

Thanks for the link to the Murti book. Looks like a worthwhile read.

As you can probably tell, I am one of those unsophisticated ignoramuses that tends to lean in the direction of "there anyway" realism. I don't support the notion that we can uncritically read the content of the "in-itself" directly off of our every experience, but I do think that we can achieve some genuine communion with a world "not of our own making" through the processes of rational and empirical inquiry. Whether and to what extent quantum mechanics supports any particular philosophical outlook is a hotly contested question, as I am sure you well know, and is (as you mention) worthy of a thread all its own. Maybe I'll actually get around to starting it one day (probably not). :)

So I think distinction between phenomena and noumena is descended from the Platonic differentiation between appearance and reality. But it's not a dichotomy or an absolute dualism; it's more that the phenomenal domain is how the noumenal realm manifests on the level of appearances; its 'sensible form', as Kant would say. — Wayfarer

I agree with you regarding the etymological point, but I'm not sure there textual evidence supports your interpretation of Kant's own use of the word. Kant distinguishes between positive and negative senses of "noumenon":

If by a noumenon we understand a thing insofar as it is not an object of our sensible intuition, because we abstract from the manner of our intuition of then this is a noumenon in the negative sense. But if we understand by that an object of a non-sensible intuition then we assume a special kind of intuition, namely intellectual intuition, which, however, is not our own, and the possibility of which we cannot understand, and this would be the noumenon in a positive sense. — Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

In the positive sense, a noumenon would be the object of a purely intellectual intuition, which is a faculty that Kant believes we do not possess. On the negative side, the noumenon is to be understood as the object in abstraction from sensible intuition which, by his own theory, leaves us with a "concept" that is devoid of any cognitive content and, as such, is not really a concept at all. Noumena, in the negative sense, are literally the contradiction of sense intuitions and, as such, mutually exclusive with the content of cognition. It's a sort-of modernistic return of the medieval "via negativa".

That said, I like where you are going with most of your post, and I don't deny the basic notion that the faculties of the mind color our experience of the world, but not to the exclusion of the possibility of knowing the world as it is in itself. As such, I don't think Kant is "where it's at" philosophically speaking. That is, admittedly, a bias of mine that I won't pretend to be able to justify to everyone's satisfaction.

So you can know a great deal about it, while still not knowing what it really is. — Wayfarer

But in Kant's system, knowledge only occurs at the level of judgement, right? Since the noumenal world (i.e. the world in itself) epistemologically and ontologically precedes the functions of judgment, it literally can't be known. Kant is then faced with the seemingly intractable problem of having to explain how we can know both that noumena exist and that they cause our sense impressions, given that both "causality" and "existence" only have meaning within the context of the content generated by the operations of the mind.

There is no such thing as the world in itself. You don't get to take anti-realist assumptions for granted. — jkop

Plenty of realists would disagree. "In itself" need not denote Kant's "ding an sich", which is just his particular take on the concept.

I think that any realism worth the name will require a metaphysics that can explain how it's possible for the world as known and the world as it is in itself to be partially identical. Without that you are left with indirect realism which, as modern philosophy since Descartes has amply demonstrated, inevitably collapses into either subjective or transcendental idealism.

Explain why it makes sense for someone who knows he will soon be tortured - but isn't being tortured yet - to fear the impending event. — csalisbury

What do you mean by "makes sense"? I mean, there's a fairly cogent story we can tell rooted in evolutionary theory that "makes sense" of why organisms feel, anticipate and attempt to avoid pain. Do we need more than that?

I think pansemiosis has to be more subtle than that. — apokrisis

It is, generally speaking, I was just simplifying for the sake of discussion.

If they're not focusing on people mentally judging the relation, that would require some sort of mapping or comparison mechanism, too. — Terrapin

Yep, that’s usually where appeals are made to second-order perceptual capacities and/or defeasible/non-monotonic reasoning processes. “Error” is what occurs when the content of one perception/belief contradicts another, and the agent has to make a choice between designating one belief as true and another as false. The content of a false belief is then flagged as “subjective” insofar as the justification for it’s contradiction is considered to be decisive.

But more importantly than that, what are they taking to be evidence that "the structure of the world" in general matches "the structure of thought"? — Terrapin

The arguments are not based on empirical evidence, but on a priori reasoning (purportedly) demonstrating the incoherence, absurdity or undesirability of alternative theories.

Obviously "the structure of thought" would match "the structure of the world" insofar as we're talking about that part of the world that consists of thought--since they're identical in that case, but re the world outside of thought, what's the evidence or argument for that? — Terrapin

The argument is basically this: if the “outside” world is not in conceptual shape (or equivalent) then it is literally unintelligible and knowledge of it is impossible. Why choose an epistemology that makes knowledge of the world impossible from the outset? Because of science? Usually these folks are not convinced by the claim that science supports skeptical epistemologies.

Yes, the very notion that the world could somehow not be conceptually articulated is, when you look at it closely, utterly unintelligible. — John

Yes, or so the argument goes. Not everyone agrees, of course. My understanding is that Ray Brassier, for instance, would consider such a view to be nothing more than a thinly veiled anthropomorphism, and of course many post-Heideggerian phenomenologists would take issue with the notion that reality is exhausted by the conceptual.

Okay, but then there's a problem with the idea of natural language somehow being either the same or at least mappable to facts aside from judgments that we make about that relationship — Terrapin

Right, so that's where you have guys like McDowell, Brandom and Haugeland arguing that the world itself is "in conceptual shape". I think it was McDowell who said "there is no 'outside' the concept", or something to that effect. See also the notion of "pansemiosis" that has become in-vogue among some of Peirce's successors in contemporary semiotic theory. The story being told in both cases goes something like this: there's no problem of how thought maps to the world because the structure of the world matches the structure of thought.

"What is the case" would normally be another way of saying "fact" or "state of affairs." — Terrapin

There's an ambiguity here that needs to be clarified. "What is the case" here refers to the form of truth as a concept or an idea governing discursive practice, not as some specific content or "thing" in the world.

Agree with @John that truth is just "what is the case". In my opinion, objectivity has to do with justification, and not with truth per se.

Here is where things get complicated, but I'll try and do my best to explicate the ideas. If you recall that what's at stake is a 'critique of pure logic', then the idea is to introduce 'extra-formal’/‘real' constraints on the the exercise of what might otherwise be purely syntactic logical manipulations which might simply follow transitively from an established set of axioms. For Deleuze, intensive differences are precisely what force 'real life' (extra-formal) constraints of 'existence' on logic, making logic no longer a formal and arbitrary play of symbolic manipulation, but beholden to a specific existential situation, as it were. — StreetlightX

I would like to suggest that what you're calling "the critique of pure logic" really boils down this: pointing out that classical accounts of represenatation do not (and cannot) account for the processes of concept creation and/or concept revision (e.g. "creative problem solving", "learning", ect.). The failure of classical logic in this regard is in turn grounded a failure to deal with what you have called (via Deleuze) "the encounter" - which is the event in which some schema of representation is forced to change through confrontation with "the world" via sensation and perception. The encounter confronts us with "the problem", prompting the revision of representation that is "the solution" to the problem.

So in Deleuze we have this thread of ontological duality running through his philosophy, and manifesting in the interrelated dichotomies of problem and solution, sub-representation and representation, intensive and extensive, and (ultimately) virtual and actual. On this account, what we call "experience" is just what happens in the "in between" space of the interminable systole and diastole (i.e. "the eternal return") of the dynamics of these mutually immanent "poles" of reality.

I'm on board with the critique as far as it goes, but am not so sure about the alternative being provided. Again, one has to wonder as to the epistemological status of the virtual given that it must necessarily remain "papered over" by representation. If we subtract out the contents of our representations of the virtual, what's left? The noumena? The shadowy realm about which we can know nothing more than that it causally constrains our representation of it?

Personally, I prefer the Perceian strategy for dealing with the noumena by interpreting it in primarily epistemological rather than ontological terms. So instead of being the shadowy, causal underbelly of the world, it is transposed into the content of the ideal limit of inquiry (e.g. regulative rather than constitutive). It is still a limit concept, but it no longer entices us towards the intellectual bankruptcy of mysticism, and instead pushes us toward the satisfaction of the insatiable desire to know. On this view, the world that causally constrains thought is just the world as we have come represent it so far (what else could it be?) - that is, the world as described by science and (where science fails) common sense. This position is not free from problems, but what position is?

And in that vein, I'll also state that the more I engage in these kinds of discussions the more it seems that the selection of one's metaphysics and epistemology reduces to a matter of personal taste and temperament. Every metaphysics/epistemology has it's strengths and weaknesses. None is immune from the confrontation of certain vexing problems that seem to be inherent within the structure of thought itself. I'm rambling now, so I am going to end on that slightly pessimistic note.

So the measure of psi - as a measure - is not intrinsic to the analog gradient that is a pressure gradient. While I appreciate that the two measures of psi at different points of a pressure gradient may stand in a relation of contrariety rather than contradiction, not even contrariety is, strictly speaking, an analog value. Hence Deleuze: "It is difference in intensity, not contrariety in quality, which constitutes the being 'of' the sensible. Qualitative contrariety is only the reflection of the intense, a reflection which betrays it by explicating it in extensive. It is intensity or difference in intensity which constitutes the peculiar limit of sensibility" (Difference and Repeition). — Streetlight

Sorry for the delayed reply, Streetlight. I have to be brief for lack of time, so here's a simple question to cut-to-the-chase: what precisely is our model of the "intensive"? How are we supposed to understand it?

I think that's the fundamental problem here, with Deleuze, and with the aesthetic approach to epistemology in general. Insofar as it purports to be a sub-representational account of thought, it cannot be represented - it literally cannot be thought or talked about. From what I have seen, this approach throws us either into the Myth of the Given (i.e. sense-certainty), or opens us up to charges of noumenalism (both of which you've encountered to some degree on this thread). Either we can "somehow" represent the sub-representational immediately (i.e. sense certainty), or we cannot represent it at all (noumenalism). Either way, we've come to a dead end.

Thoughts?

Are you just wanting to say that the potential for the digital is inherent in the analogical continuum and that the apparently binary nature of the distinction between digital and analogue is itself a hypostatization? — John

Yep, more or less.

I don't think this works: a pressure gradient still has no negative values: there is more pressure here, and less pressure there, but at no point is there a relation of exclusion between the two 'ends' of the gradient; the magnitude at point A is not that of ¬B and vice versa. — Streetlight

There is a relation of exclusion involved here, but (as others have alluded to) it's the exclusion of contrariety rather than contradiction. So for example, red and green are contraries whereas red and not-red are contradictories. The former is associated with "material" negation, the latter with "formal" negation. Interestingly, formal negation can be defined in terms of material negation: not-red is the just the set of all of red's contraries, etc.

Similarly, the sense in which the magnitude at point A is not the magnitude at point B (within the context of a gradient) also appears to be that of material negation. Having a psi of 40 at point A is materially incompatible with simultaneously having a psi of 50 at point A, and in that sense the former excludes the latter (and vice versa). Crucially, the magnitude at A is not the magnitude at B quite regardless of the activities or even the existence of ens vitae.

But in another sense, I do agree with you. The building of digital systems that depend upon formal negation still involve the "artificial imposition" of boundaries on natural continuums. So a digital computer leverages material differences in voltages as a foundation for binary computation (2V = "true", 5V = "false"). My point was simply (and hopefully uncontroversially) that nature provides the "raw materials" that make the imposition of binary distinctions possible in first place. If it didn't - if there were no materially exclusive differences already within nature to leverage - then the emergence of binary systems could never have occurred.

Yeah, exactly. I said elsewhere in the thread that got this train of thought going that what I'm kind of after is something like a "critique of pure formal logic" as it were. — StreetlightX

That's a delicate project, insofar as any such critique must itself take some logical form. While certainly not an impossible task, one must be careful not to cut off the branch upon which one sits (sorry for the overworn cliche).

I agree with this actually, although I would even refine it somewhat. I would in fact say that the emergence of the digital goes hand in hand with neither ens rationis nor ens reale but with ens vitae: that is, life. — StreetlightX

I'm not sure I can agree. Granted, it is only with the emergence of life that "the digital" can in some sense be recognized as such, and leveraged toward the achievement of some "end" (e.g. some natural system comes to be leveraged as a switch by some other living system). Still, it seems hard to deny that the "raw materials" are there in nature prior to the emergence of life. A pressure gradient between two points in space is still a binary difference in magnitude even when its not being leveraged as such by some living system, isn't it (in the sense that the magnitude at point A is not the magnitude at point B)?

It seems that you're real beef here is not with identity and categorization per se, but with the uncritical or dogmatic application of categories (especially those that imply socio-politoc-economic identities) upon individuals in nature. So a refugee is indeed a refugee, but make some far-reaching changes the socio-political context and perhaps the very category "refugee" disappears (or becomes irrelevant).

That said, I still feel hesitant to deny that there is a legitimate distinction to be made between those identities that essentially depend upon contextual relations to "ens rationis" (e.g. the human lebenswelt) and those that essentially depend solely upon contextual-relations to "ens reale". Again, this seems to come part-and-parcel with the notion that some binary distinctions are naturally sustained (e.g. consider the evolution of "switches" in biological nature, and their fundamental role in processes of homeostasis, reproduction, sensation, etc.). The upshot is that I'm not entirely convinced of the notion that identity is merely transcendental in the sense of being confined merely to "ens rationis", while perhaps acknowledging that it is transcendental in the sense of being essentially context-dependent (I believe that medieval scholars actually referred to the fundamental sensitivity of finite, substantial being to environmental context "transcendental relativity").

A way to summarise all of the above is this: to the degree that nature is a continuum, there are no brute identities in nature. Or less provocatively, to the degree that there are identities in nature, they are constructed and derivative of analogic differences. — StreetlightX

Streetlight. I feel that the title of your thread is misleading, as you yourself seem to acknowledge in the quote above. For given all that you have said, it simply does not follow that there are no identities in nature but merely that such natural identities as there are must be parasitic upon "analogic" differences. One can wonder (as others have) whether or not there is any definitive evidence to support the conclusion that nature is "fundamentally" analog in nature, but I'll leave that line of inquiry for now.

If we are to start traveling down the path that you have set by relegating identity to the realm of "transcendental illusion" we'll inevitably encounter the question of whether the contents of such illusions are themselves a part of nature, and I would expect that you'd be loathe to answer in the negative on that score. But even if you stick to your guns on that point, we can also leverage your own line of reasoning to query the reality of the binary distinction that you have made between digital/analog systems in nature - is that distinction not, by your own lights, merely a transcendental illusion (and what of the binary distinction between natural/transcendental)? I'm not sure we're going to make it very far down this path before it becomes clear that we've made a wrong turn.

Thougths?

Then this "law" is itself either deduced from yet a more general "law" or itself has "just because" status. Infinite regress or bust, in other words. Hence the "shallowness if explanation." — Hoo

It seems that by "shallow" you simply mean "finite"? Is it surprising that finite reasoners would be limited to the construction and understanding of finite chains of explanation?

Asked why X occurred, we deduce X from a ascending chain of more and more general laws, but crucially from the just-because postulation at the top. Except that we usually stop before we get to that embarrassing or anti-climactic summit. — Hoo

Are we really limited to "just because"? How about simply "I don't know"? I am not sure why this should be considered embarrassing.

Or we could take the scholastic path and argue that the impossibility of infinite explanatory chains proves the existence of some necessary being that acts as the explanatory ground of everything else. Do you see this as equivalent to "just because"?

The genius of "why is there something rather than nothing?" is that it aims at this apex. — Hoo

We could just as legitimately say that the question "why is there something rather than nothing?" is asinine insofar as it asks after a reason for "everything". The possibility of explanation implies the postulation of context, but what is the context for "everything"?

On a less mystical note, I think this only supports the idea that reason is perhaps unavoidably instrumental. — Hoo

Not sure I understand the connection you're making here between instrumental and theoretical reason. Since theoretical reasons must terminate in "just because", therefore explanations are thinly (or thickly) veiled instruments for getting what I want? Maybe you can elaborate?

Dennett has a point, but we also have to take what he says with a grain of salt. It's a sad day when the only way to advance your career as an academic philosopher is to spend the first 10 years of your career publishing "solutions" to the Gettier problem or its equivalent. That said, Dennett has a well-known distaste for traditional problems in metaphysics and epistemology, problems that some people not committed to Dennett's brand of anti-metaphysical pragmatism find to be of immense value. So "yes", let's broaden the path into academic philosophy, but "no", let's not let Dennett dictate what is and what is not of philosophical value.