Current standardised IQ tests do accurately and reliably measure general intelligence ("g-factor") as I defined it above. — Dachshund

I recently read an excellent paper(*) by Clark Glymour, and reread another one(**), regarding the widespread misuse of factor analysis and multiple regression in social sciences. Regarding the former method, Glymour argues convincingly that Spearman made unwarranted statistical and causal assumptions while arguing for the existence of a unique g factor that would account for the correlations between results of tests of various cognitive abilities.

Moreover, these measures of IQ have a very high predictive validity.

Yes, they do. But there is an step from this constatation to the inference that what it is that they measure is the cause of what it is that they predict. Herrnstein and Murray, in The Bell Curve, purported to show by means of multiple regression that a variety of social ills, behaviors and outcomes likely were caused by heritable components of cognitive abilities. In order to make causal claims on the basis of observed sets of correlations, though, regression models must, here also, be supplemented with a range a statistical and causal assumptions. Glymour argues that Herrnstein and Murray, just like Spearman, made several unwarranted assumptions.

These are hard, incontrovertible facts. IQ tests DO NOT merely measure the ability to do IQ tests. Full Stop.

Only some of those facts are hard. And among those that are hard, they is much room for discussing what it is that they really mean and what it is that can be validly inferred from them.

(*) This paper appeared a chapter 12 -- "Social Statistics and Genuine Inquiry: Reflections on
The Bell Curve" -- in the book Intelligence, Genes and Sucess: Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve, Sptinger-Verlag 1997

(**) This one is available on Glymour's Carnegie Mellon University webpage: What Went Wrong: Reflections on Science by Observation and The Bell Curve, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), 1-32.

Back to Peterson and white privilege...

I thought some of you might be interested with those two recent pieces about Peterson, the first one by Žižek:

Why do people find Jordan Peterson so convincing? Because the left doesn't have its own house in order

And the second one (a little bit older), by Gyrus, packs an amazing number of insights, especially towards the end, not just about Peterson but also about the ways in which both the right and the left often tend to problematize humankind's relation to nature:

The Black Truths of Jordan Peterson

Yeah, I don't care to change anyone's mind on the matter. You can lookup Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, the multiple testimonials of loud explosions going off from within both WTC's, traces of nano-thermite around the area. — Posty McPostface

I am very familiar with the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Several years ago I was very much involved in online fora discussing 9/11 conspiracy theories. Discussing the technical and scientific aspects of the events surrounding 9/11 provided a recreation from more serious philosophical work. Later on I moved on to discussing climate science with AGW-skeptics since this topic has more profound societal impacts. I think both of those conspiracies thrive on similar combinations of cherry-picked data, hyped and decontextualized "anomalies", poor technical understanding, lack of focus, and too much tolerance for fringe "science".

The rebuttal is that the building was structurally "magically" damaged from falling debris from the north or south tower. — Posty McPostface

Look up the NIST report devoted specifically to WTC7. WTC7 had a very peculiar structure, owing to its having been built on top of a preexisting Con-Ed substation. It was hosting large diesel tanks. The documented damage and massive fire, together with its structural peculiarities, account for the catastrophic failure with no magic involved.

The existence of Big Foot indeed may have the most circumstantial evidence going for it. One piece of circumstantial evidence that is almost decisive is the recent find by a group of trekkers of a three feet long toenail clipper.

I apologise unreservedly, wholeheartedly and ashamedly for mentioning the placard on the lectern of Jordan Peterson (remember him?). It seems to have derailed the thread for the last two pages, which was not my intention. — andrewk

I hope you didn't miss fdrake's brilliant interlude to the interlude.

— Gerald47

Welcome to the forum, Gerald the 47th,

Your very first post is one of the best things that I have read here since I joined. I hope you'll stick around.

Aaah so much interesting looking stuff here! Got a top 3? — StreetlightX

Selecting only three would be tough but I'll limit myself to the five items that I judged to be outstanding. As you may guess, I've been quite impressed with Alan Costall who I only discovered recently thanks to Louise Barrett having referenced him in her book Beyond the Brain: How Body and Environment Shape Animal and Human Minds.

---

Bitbol Michel, Decoherence and the Constitution of Objectivity
in Constituting Objectivity: Transcendental Perspectives on Modern Physics (2009)

Bauer Nathan, A Peculiar Intuition: Kant's Conceptualist Account of Perception (2012)

Costall Alan, From Darwin to Watson (and Cognitivism) and Back Again: The Principle of Animal-Environment Mutuality (2004)

Costall Alan, The 'Meme' Meme Revisited
(Chapter 4 in Epistemological Dimensions of Evolutionary Psychology, Thiemo Breyer, Ed. 2015)

Costall Alan, From Direct Perception to the Primacy of Action: A Closer Look at James Gibson’s Ecological Approach to Psychology
(Chapter 3 in Theories of Infant Development, Gavin Bremner & Alan Slater eds, 2004)

Test. It says "latest gurugeorge" but Michael's comment was last. — Benkei

This seems to be happening occasionally. It looks like an 'end of page' related bug. When it occurs and I want to see the last message that was posted, I go to the profile page of the poster and look at his/her messages there.

Here are also most of my readings from last year, since February 2017 when I began reading and annotating pdf files mostly on my smartphone :

2017 December

SterelnyK Artifacts, Symbols, Thoughts
2017-12-31

CostallA The 'Meme' Meme Revisited
(Chapter 4 in Epistemological Dimensions of Evolutionary Psychology, Thiemo Breyer, Ed. 2015)
2017-12-11

MenaryR Cognitive integration, enculturated cognition and the socially extended mind (2013)
2017-12-31

SmitH Darwin’s Rehabilitation of Teleology Versus Williams’ Replacement of Teleology by Natural Selection (2011)
2017-12-01 (approximative date)


2017 November

KirchhoffMD Extended Cognition & the Causal-Constitutive Fallacy: In Search for a Diachronic and Dynamical Conception of Constitution (2015)
2017-11-23

PankseppJ (with Biven) The Archaeology of Mind
2017-11-28 (unfinished reading)

DennettD A Difference That Makes a Difference _Edge.org_
2017-11-17 (A conversation with Daniel Dennett)

GiuntiM (Simone Pinna) Toward a dynamical theory of human computation
2017-11-17 (unfinished reading)

PankseppJ (with peer commentaries in B&BS) Toward a general psychobiological theory of emotions
2017-11-13 (unfinished reading)

StoffregenTA Affordances Are Enough: Reply to Chemero et al.
2017-11-09 (First section only)

HackerPMS The Conceptual Framework for the Investigation of Emotions
(in Emotions and Understanding Wittgensteinian Perspectives, Ylva Gustafsson, Camilla Kronqvist and Michael McEachrane eds (2009)
2017-11-07

HackerPMS (with BennettM) Criminal Law as It Pertains to Patients Suffering from Psychiatric Diseases 2011
2017-11-09

HardcastleVG (with C. Matthew Stewart) What Do Brain Data Really Show? (2002)
2017-11-21

CostallA Socializing Affordances (1995)
2017-11-13

WellsAJ Cognitive Science and the Turing Machine: an Ecological Perspective
in Alan Turing_ Life and Legacy of a Great Thinker-Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg (2004)
2017-11-20

WellsAJ Gibson’s Affordances and Turing’s Theory of Computation
2017-11-19 (partially read)

WilsonRA Boundaries of the Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences (2004)
2017-11-20 (Second reasing of some sections)

BarrettL Beyond the Brain: How Body and Environment Shape Animal and Human Minds (2011)
2017-11-25

BechtelW Explanation: Mechanism, Modularity, and Situated Cognition
2017-11-22

RollsET (with peer commentaries in B&BS) Précis of The brain and emotion
2017-11-13 (unfinished reading)

SmitH Inclusive Fitness Theory and the Evolution of Mind
and Language (2016)
2017-11-22

SandelMJ Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do (2010)
2017-11-07 (chapter 9)


2017 October

CostallA From Darwin to Watson (and Cognitivism) and Back Again: The Principle of Animal-Environment Mutuality (2004)
2017-10-12

BarrettLF The Future of Psychology: Connecting Mind to Brain (2010)
2017-10-03

SmitH Popper and Wittgenstein on the Metaphysics
of Experience (2015)
2017-10-15

RollsET Emotion and decision making explained (2013)
2017-10-19 (read some sections only)

SmitH The Social Evolution of Human Nature: From Biology to Language (2014)
2017-10-26

ScrutonR My Brain and I (2014)
2017-10-14

PankseppJ How to Undress the Affective Mind An Interview with Jaak Panksepp
2017-10-19

LoveAC Hierarchy, causation and explanation: ubiquity, locality and pluralism
2017-10-05 (must reread)

LanceM (with WhiteWH) Stereoscopic Vision Persons, Freedom, and Two Spaces of Material Inference
2017-10-12

HackerPMS (with BennettM) Chapter 7 on emotions, in Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience
2017-09-28 (second reading)

BoullierDG Le danger du "débat" lancé par Bronner et Gehin sur les sociologies (2017)
2017-10-11


2017 September

PankseppJ Exchange with BarrettLF and IzardCE:

1- BarrettLF Are Emotions Natural Kinds (2006)
2017-09-25

2a- PankseppJ Neurologizing the Psychology of Affecs (2007)
2017-09-29

2b- IzardCE Basic Emotions, Natural Kinds, Emotion Schemas, and a New Paradigm (2007)
2017-09-26 (unfinished reading)

3- BarrettLF et al. Of Mice and Men: A Response to Panksepp and Izard (2007)
2017-09-28

4- PankseppJ Cognitive Conceptualism - Where Have All the Affects Gone (2008)
2017-09-29

5- BarrettLF & LindquistKA Corrections to Panksepp (2008)
2017-09-29

IsmaelJ Interview by Andres Lomena Cantos about How Physics Makes Us Free
2017-09-10

IsmaelJ Freedom and Determinism, chapter 5 in How Physics Makes Us Free
2017-09-10

IsmaelJ From Physical Time to Human Time, chapter 6 in How Physics Makes Us Free
2017-09-12

IsmaelJ Decision and the Open Future, chapter 8 in Adrian Bardon (ed.) The Future of the Philosophy of Time - Routledge (2011)
2017-09-14

BarrettLF (With Kristen A Lindquist) A functional architecture of the human brain: emerging insights from the science of emotion (2012)
2017-09-30

BlackmanR Why Compatibilists Need Alternative Possibilities (2015)
2017-09-04

AlbertDZ Time and Chance (2008)
Chapter 6: The Asymmetries of Knowledge and Intervention
2017-09-17

KhooJ Backtracking counterfactuals, revisited
2017-09-19

MenziesP The Consequence Argument Disarmed: An Interventionist Perspective
in Beebee, Hitchcock, Price (eds) Making a difference: Essays on the philosophy of causation - OUP (2017)
2017-09-10

PankseppJ (workshop with Stephen Asma, Glennon Curran, Rami Gabriel & Thomas Greif) The Philosophical Implications of Affective Neuroscience (2010)
2017-09-20

RestallG A cut-free sequent system for two-dimensional modal logic, and why it matters (2010)
2017-09-17


2017 August

ShafferJ Causal Contextualism
2017-08-28 Chapter 2 in BlauuwM (ed) Contrastivism in Philosophy

SinnottArmstrongW Free Contrastivism
Chapter 7 in BlauuwM (ed) Contrastivism in Philosophy
2017-08-31

SmallW Practical Knowledge and the Structure of Action
Chapter in Abel & Conant eds. Rethinking Epistemology Volume 2 (2012)
2017-08-14

HitchcockC Contrastive Explanation
2017-08-25 Chapter 1 in BlauuwM (ed) Contrastivism in Philosophy

HornsbyJ A Disjunctive Conception of Acting for Reasons
Chapter 10 in Macpherson and Haddock ed. Disjunctivism: Action, Perception, Knowledge
2017-08-04 (second reading)

HornsbyJ Knowledge How in Philosophy of Action (2017)
2017-08-03

BlauuwM (ed) Contrastivism in Philosophy - Routledge (2013)
2017-08-31 Introduction

FrostK Action as the exercise of a two-way power
2017-08-18 Second reading


2017 July

ClarkeR Dispositions, Abilities to Act, and Free Will: The New Dispositionalism - clarke2009
2017-07-14

SmallW Agency and Practical Abilities
2017-07-27

SøvikAO (partial reading) Free Will, Causality and the Self
2017-07-22

SmithM Rational Capacities, or: How to Distinguish Recklessness, Weakness, and Compulsion
Chapter 1 in Stroud & Tappolet eds. Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality OUP (2003)
2017-07-06

TuckerC Agent Causation and the Alleged Impossibility of Rational Free Action
2017-07-20

VihvelinK Free Will Demystified: A Dispositional Account
2017-07-11

WallerBN A Metacompatibilist Account of Free Will, Making Compatibilists and Incompatibilists More Compatible
2017-07-20

StewardH Action as Downward Causation
2017-07-21

KannistoT Freedom as a Kind of Causality
2017-07-18

MarcusE (second reading) Events and States
Chapter 5 in Rational Causation HUP (2012)
2017-07-12

LeviDonS The Trouble with Harry
2017-07-08


2017 June

RankinWK Ifs as Labels on Cans
2017-06-13

Carl Ginet's review of Rankin's Choice and Chance
2017-06-12

SchmidtJH Newcomb's Paradox Realized with Backward Causation
2017-06-10

SpohnW Reversing 30 years of discussion: why causal decision theorists should one-box
2017-06-06

RottschaeferWA The Biology and Psychology of Moral Agency
Chapter 7: The neurophysiological bases of moral capacities: Does neurophysiology have room for moral agents?
2017-06-01

SainsburyRM Paradoxes CUP (Section on Newcomb's Probelm)
2017-06-08

AyersMR Reviews of The Refutation of Determinism by

Elizabeth Telfer (review of TROD)
2017-06-12

John W Yolton (review of TROD)
2017-06-12

K W Rankin (review of TROD)
2017-06-12

BerowskyB
Curd's review of Freedom From Necessity: The Metaphysical Basis of Responsibility
2017-06-17

John Martin Fischer's of Freedom From Necessity
2017-06-17

Widerker and Katzoff's review of Freedom From Necessity
2017-06-18

Mark Ravizza's review of Freedom From Necessity
2017-06-19

MayrE (Erasmus) Understanding Human Agency OUP (2011)
2017-06-22 to 2017-07-18

Stewart Goetz's review of Understanding Human Agency
2017-05-23

CraigWL Divine Foreknowledge and Newcomb's Paradox
(Only re-read the beginning on 2017-06-08 but found references therein to interesting one-boxing papers by GrandyRE and GalloisA)
2017-06-08

FaraM Masked Abilities and Compatibilism (2008)
2017-06-21

SpohnW Reversing 30 years of discussion: why causal decision theorists should one-box
2017-06-06

SobelJH Critical Notice John Martin Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free Will
2017-06-03

SobelJH Puzzles for the Will, chaper 2 -- Predicted Choices
2017-06-04 (About Newcomb's problem)

MenziesP (with Huw Price) Causation as a Secondary Quality (1993)
2017-06-02 (unfinished reading)

NoonanHW Two-Boxing is Irrational
2017-06-05

RobertsonLH The infected self: Revisiting the metaphor of the mind virus (2017)
2017-06-16

GrandyRE What the Well-Wisher didn't Know
2017-06-10

GalloisA How Not to Make a Newcomb Choice
2017-06-09

BurgessS The Newcomb Problem: an Unqualified Rresolution (2004)
2017-06-05

AltshulerR Character, Will, and Agency
2017-06-02

BishopJ Is Agent-Causation a Conceptual Primitive
2017-06-18


2017 May

VargasM Precis of Building Better Beings
2017-05-16

Tamler Sommers' review of Building Better Beings
2017-05-16 (To be revised; the NDR of his book BBB seems to be missing the first part)

Desert, responsibility, and justification: a reply to Doris, McGeer, and Robinson
2017-05-17 (Incomplete reading)

MumfordS (with AnjumRL) Freedom and Control: On the Modality of Free Will
2017-05-04

(with AnjumRL) Getting Causes from Powers (2011)
2017-05-15 (second reading, first chapter)

Powers, Non-Consent and Freedom
2017-05-07

ThalosM The gulf between practical and theoretical reason
2017-05-25 (Incomplete reading)

(Also read two reviews of her book: Without Hierarchy, 2017-05-24)

ListC Non-Reductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion Principle
2017-05-28

Free Will, Determinism, and the Possibility of Doing Otherwise
2017-05-30

What's wrong with the consequence argument
2017-05-31

DorisJM Doing without (arguing about) desert
2017-05-16 (Comment about Vargas' Building Better Beings)

McGeerV Building a better theory of responsibility
(Comment on Vargas' Building Better Beings)
2017-05-16

MerricksT Against the Doctrine of Microphysical Supervenience
2017-05-15

MooreD Supervenient Emergentism and Mereological Emergentism
2017-05-13

MeleAR Weakness of Will
in 'Donald Davidson', Kirk Ludwig ed. (2003)
2017-05-24

BishopRC The Hidden Premise in the Causal Argument for Physicalism
2017-05-10

BalaguerM A Coherent, Naturalistic, and Plausible Formulation of Libertarian Free Will
2017-05-18

LavinD Action as a form of temporal unity: on Anscombe’s Intention
2017-05-21

RigatoMJ Reductionism, Agency and Free Will
2017-05-08

RigatoMJ The Agent as Her Self
2017-05-09

RobinsonM Revisionism, libertarianism, and naturalistic plausibility
2017-05-16 (Comment on Vargas' Building Better Beings)

SpeakD Review of Four Wiews on Free-Will in NDPR
2017-05-18


2017 April

DeWallF Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved
with Robert Wright, Christine M. Korsgaard, Philip Kitcher and Peter Singer, EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY Stephen Macedo and Josiah Ober (2006)
2017-04-07

Andrew McAninch's review of Primates and Philosophers
2017-04-06

Zed Adams' review of Primates and Philosophers
2017-04-06

Wade L. Robison's review of Primates and Philosophers
2017-04-06

AllaisL Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and his Realism
Chapter 3: Things in Themselves Without Noumena
2017-04-22

BainJ Emergence in Effective Field Theories
2017-04-08

CrowtherK Decoupling emergence and reduction in physics (2013)
2017-04-10

GlymourC Android Epistemology for Babies: Reflection on Words, Thoughts and Theories (2000)
2017-04-27

KlaymanJ (with Young-Won Ha) Confirmation, Disconfirmation, and Information in Hypothesis Testing (1987)
2017-04-29

StanovichKE (with Richard F. West and Maggie E. Toplak) Intelligence and Rationality (Chapter 39 in the Cambridge Hanbook of Intelligence) (2011)
2017-04-28

HaackS Just Say "No" to Logical Negativism
chapter 12 in Putting Philosophy to Work: Inquiry and its Place in Culture
2017-04-26


2017 March

WeinbergS Reductionism Redux
Chapter 10 in Facing Up: Science and its Cultural Adversaries
2017-03-24

GroffRP Agents, Powers and Events: Humeanism and the Free Will Debate
Chapter 6 in Ontology Revisited Metaphysics in Social and Political Philosophy (2012)
2017-03-15

GroffRP Sublating the free will problematic: powers, agency and causal determination (2016)
2017-03-16

GroffRP Causal Mechanisms and the Philosophy of Causation (2016)
2017-03-19

BauerN A Peculiar Intuition: Kant's Conceptualist Account of Perception (2012)
2017-03-09

BauerN Kant's Subjective Deduction
2017-03-10

BitbolM (with Pierre Kerszberg and Jean Petitot eds) Constituting Objectivity: Transcendental Perspectives on Modern Physics (2009)
Introduction
2017-03-26 (or earlier)

BitbolM Decoherence and the Constitution of Objectivity
in Constituting Objectivity: Transcendental Perspectives on Modern Physics (2009)
2017-03-26 (or earlier)

DeutshD Constructor theory (2013)
2017-03-16 (incomplete reading)

MayrErnst Analysis or Reductionism
Chapter 10 in What Makes Biology Unique? Considerations on the autonomy of a scientific discipline (2004)
2017-03-24

MacbethD Responses to Brassier Redding and Wolfsdorf (2017)
(response to comments on her book Realizing Reason)
2017-03-01

RödlS Roedl Law as the Reality of the Free Will
2017-03-09

BonioloG Chapter 9 - Laws of Nature: The Kantian Approach (2009)
in Constituting Objectivity: Transcendental Perspectives on Modern Physics
2017-03-26 (or earlier)

HarréR Chapter 6: The Transcendental Domain of Physics (2009)
in Constituting Objectivity Transcendental Perspectives on Modern Physics
2017-03-26 (or earlier)

KauarkLeiteP Chapter 10: The Transcendental Role of the Principle of Anticipations of Perception in Quantum Mechanics (2009)
in Constituting Objectivity Transcendental Perspectives on Modern Physics
2017-03-26 (or earlier)


2017 February

BitbolM Quantum Mechanics as Generalised Theory of Probabilities (2014)
2017-02-22

EarleyJE Three Concepts of Chemical Closure and their Epistemological Significance (2010)
2017-02-23

EllisG How Can Physics Underlie the Mind: Top-Down Causation in the Human
Context (2014)
2017-02-11 (First chapter: Complexity and Emergence)

FeserE From Aristotle to John Searle and Back Again: Formal Causes, Teleology, and Computation in Nature (2016)
2017-02-21

HarréR (with Steen Brock) Nature’s affordances and formation length:
The ontology of quantum physical experiments (2016)
2017-02-21

PihlströmS Kant and Pragmatism
2017-02-24 (skipped third section)

A few interesting things that I am reading or have read this year. Sorry for the bad formatting of references; this is copied from a wikidPad page ('personal wiki'):

2018 February

Walsh Denis M Mechanism, Emergence, and Miscibility: The Autonomy of Evo-Devo
(in Functions: selection and mechanisms, Synthese Library, Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science vol. 363)
2018-02-03 (currently reading)

Moreno Alvaro (with Xabier Barandiaran) Adaptivity: From Metabolism to Behavior (2008)
2018-02-03 (currently reading)


2018 January

Bechtel William (with Adele Abrahamsen) Mental Mechanisms, Autonomous Systems, and Moral Agency
2018-01-29

Lennox James G Darwin was a Teleologist (1993)
2018-01-28

A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation
2018-01-27

Collins Arthur W The Nature of Mental Things (1986)
2018-01-26 (Second reading of chapter 6: Action and Teleology)

Noble Denis Evolution beyond neo-Darwinism: a new conceptual framework
2018-01-24

Bechtel William Explicating Top-Down Causation Using Networks and Dynamics (2016)
2018-01-24

Bateson Patrick The Nest’s Tale: A reply to Richard Dawkins
2018-01-23

Glenberg Arthur M (with Justin Hayes) Contribution of Embodiment to Solving the Riddle of Infantile Amnesia (2016)
2018-01-22

Sterelny Kim The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique (2012)
2018-01-20 (first two chapters)

Hacker PMS Shame, Embarrassment, and Guilt
Chapter 6 in The Passions: A Study of Human Nature Wiley-Blackwell (2017)
2018-01-19 (unfinished reading)

Sterelny Kim Dawkins Vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest (2001)
2018-01-16

David Cole's review of The Evolved Apprentice
2018-01-16

Costall Alan From Direct Perception to the Primacy of Action: A Closer Look at James Gibson’s Ecological Approach to Psychology
(Chapter 3 in Theories of Infant Development, Gavin Bremner & Alan Slater eds, 2004)
2018-01-12

A Piecewise Aggregation of (Some) Philosophers' and Biologists' Perspectives (review of Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings by Isabella Sarto-Jackson1, Miles MacLeod, Stephan Handschuh, Christoph Frischer, Julia Lang, Martin Schlumpp and Werner Callebaut)
2018-01-11

Wimsatt William C Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings (2007)
2018-01-10 (first 14 pages only)

Estany Anna (with Sergio Martínez) “Scaffolding” and “affordance” as integrative concepts in the cognitive sciences (2013)
2018-01-09

Wiegman Isaac Angry Rats and Scaredy Cats Lessons from Competing Cognitive Homologies (2016)
2018-01-08

I should point out that I haven't read all of the responses in this thread, so if my response has already been addressed, feel free to ignore this post or copy and paste the relevant response. — czahar

Your response isn't redundant but it's broadly compatible with the conception that I am advocating, which portrays 'reactive attitudes' broadly construed (such as praise and blame, gratitude and resentment, shame and pride, etc.) not as implying the mere acknowledgement of an agent's (or one's own) intrinsic freedom but rather, in part, as constituting this freedom through functioning as social scaffolds of rational and moral growth and competence.

In other words, I view most popular philosophical discussions of free will, determinism and responsibility to go wrong when they seek to establish the antecedent and objective criteria of freedom of choice on account of which an agent can reasonably be held responsible for her actions. I rather view the range of sentiments and social attitudes associated with the normative appraisal of other people's (and one's own) choices and actions to make up the essential cement necessary to hold various bits of human behavior together and thereby to make it possible for people's to behave rationally and morally at all.

But the way you constructed your post, was not incompatible with compatibilism. — charleton

I didn't mean to rule out compatibilism. Quite the contrary, I meant to point out that bahman's definition was too strict to accommodate many common conceptions free will, such as compatibilists ones, and also some libertarian ones (which don't all rely on the most restrictive and implausible understanding of the principle of alternative possibilities).

It is exactly that offered by compatibilists, except that the emphasis is different. To compatibilism free will is the ability to act determinedly in the absence of constraints. — charleton

For sure, but, as I had attempted to stress, the relevant compatibilist idea of a constraint on free will is much more restricted than the idea appealed to by bahman (or by some libertarians). Many compatibilists don't view 'internal' causal antecedents such as values or desires to constitute constraints on free will, whereas bahman seems to be defining free will as the absence of *any* sort of antecedent causal determination, including such things as values, desires or reasons (and not just external constraints such as threats, coercition or lack of resources and opportunities).

If I recall correctly, Aristotle was writing to and for a class of gentleman in Athens society, if so, then his position is not unexpected, and I think Kant's moral works were framed more towards the general public (poor people) of his time. I think their thoughts need to have modern interpretation. — Cavacava

The issue that I brought up concerns a conundrum regarding the ascription of moral praiseworthiness to the action of an agent. This connects to the topic of free will because of the connection between freedom and responsibility, on the one hand, and the connection between personal responsibility and praiseworthiness on the other hand. I dont think pointing out that Aristotle and Kant had different target audiences goes to the core of the issue. Both of their arguments seem to me to have intuitive appeal even if we bracket out prejudice and agree that all human beings, aristocrats or not, can justifiably be praised for their efforts in vanquishing bad temptation, or for their being able to do well effortlessly. I was attempting to show that the apparent inconsistency between the Aristotelian and the Kantian criteria of praiseworthiness is the result of a misconception regarding the nature of moral (or rational) praiseworthiness and that both the Aristotelian and the Kantian conceptions of ethics show in different albeit complementary ways why our modern 'metaphysical' conception of praiseworthiness is misguided.

I see. But lets back to our discussion. Do you believe that we could live the best if we always choose rationally, pick up the best, rather than choosing freely, pick up the worst? — bahman

This rather amounts to asking if our being less rationally or morally fallible would make us more or less free. I don't think there is a categorical answer to this question. There is an interesting conundrum that arises from comparing Aristotle's to Kant's idea of moral praiseworthiness. According to Aristotle's conception of a virtuous agent, someone who refrains effortlessly from acting selfishly, say, is more praiseworthy than someone who must make an effort since the first one is manifesting a more virtuous character. Kant, on the other hand, holds that the person who must overcome the most strongly felt temptation in order to refrain from acting selfishly is more praiseworthy since she displays a superior ability to have her reason control her passions. So, your question is rather similar to the question whether someone is freer accordingly whether she displays moral praiseworthiness in accordance to Aristotle's or to Kant's account of moral praiseworthiness.

I think there is a way to reconcile Aristotle's and Kant's intuitions, and this consists in construing moral praiseworthiness not as a metaphysical (intrinsic) attribute of an agent but rather as the normative dimension of a social reactive attitude the function of which is to scaffold moral growth. We praise the person who act virtuously (and/or rationally) effortlessly because she is an exemplar model of virtue (or wisdom or intelligence). And we also praise someone who effortfully emulates acts of virtue because such efforts promote moral (or intellectual) growth. In both case, the aim is the same -- virtuous action and dispositions -- and the achievement of this aim also is what constitutes the ability to act freely and responsibly.

To me constraint just limit options whether they are external or internal. You cannot do that because of shame then one option is gone. You cannot do that because of shortage of money then one option is gone. — bahman

Yes, I think a confusion over the concept of a constraint, such that it is viewed as a mere restriction or impediment on the exercise of free agency (and hence constitutes a mitigating factor for personal responsibility) lays at the root of some incompatibilist intuitions. Not everything that is a causal antecedent of an action is a constraint in this fashion. Some causal antecedents of someone's action are 'internal' not just in the sense that they can be traced to process or states that are located inside of the skull but also in the sense that they are part of the enablement of the agent's abilities to rationally deliberate about what to do. To be able to deliberate rationally, on that view, entails that one's deliberative process is suitably integrated with one's core values and commitments, for instance (and also enable one to rationally appraise the salient features of one's practical situation). It is somewhat incoherent to view such enabling causal antecedents of one's rational deliberative processes to constitute negative 'constraints' on one's freedom, since removing those so-called constraints just amounts to destroying what makes one into a free rational agent in the first place.

Free will however is ability to choose an option regardless of any constraint. — bahman

This is a rather contentious definition of free will. It certainly doesn't fit the conceptions of compatibilists. I don't think even most libertarian incompatibilists would be happy with such a definition. Most philosophers agree to distinguish between broadly external and internal constraints on agency and practical deliberation. External constraints limit the options that are open to you in any particular deliberative context while internal 'constraints', including the constraints of rationality and character, enable you to take ownership of the deliberative process.

Compatibilists, unlike libertarians, believe even the internal constraints are deterministic. It is true that some libertarians believe that whatever someone actually does freely, he or she ought to have been able to refrain from doing it (or to do something else) in the exact same circumstances regardless of the antecedent causal constraints on the action being internal or external to the process of deliberation and decision. This is the strongest possible version of the so called 'principle of alternative possibilities' (PAP). But that is a rather minority positions among defenders of the possibility of free will.

Sweden is a shithole. Rape, shooting, grenade exploding, car burning capital of Europe. — tom

Rape statistics can be misleading when comparing Sweden with other countries. The prevalence is 60 reported rapes per 100,000 population, compared to half as much in the U.S. and one third as much, on average, in European countries. But there are several factors that appear to bias this result. "In Sweden, once an act has been registered as rape, it retains this classification in the published crime statistics, even if later investigations indicate that no crime can be proven or if the offence must be given an alternative judicial classification." And also: "The Swedish police registers one offence for each person raped, and if one and the same person has been raped on a number of occasions, one offence is counted for each occasion that can be specified. For example, if a woman says she has been raped by her husband every day during a month, the Swedish police may record more than 30 cases of rape. In many other countries only a single offence would be counted in such a situation."

As for the murder rates, those statistics may be somewhat more reliable. In Sweden, it was 1.14/100,000 in 2015, compared with 4.9/100,000 in the U.S.A.

Does that mean that the U.S.A. is a sh*thole country as well? Donald Trump seems to think is is although he expresses it with the more politically correct "not great anymore", as implied by his MAGA campaign slogan.

Where in the equations does it talk about biological aging? — Rich

They don't because they're equations of physics and not biology. But they do tell you how much time will be elapsed on Earth, and on the ship, as measured by any clock that is governed by physical processes such as, say, an atomic clock or a clock based on local measurements of the travel time of a pulse of light. There is no reason, though, why there would be a mismatch between the rates of typical biological processes and the rates of the underlying physico-chemical processes that they normally are correlated with.

GTR — Rich

So, you are making use of the equations of the General Theory of Relativity? Those equations are Einstein's field equations. They will tell you how to relate the metric tensor (that describes the geometry of space-time) to the stress-energy tensor (that describes the density and flux of energy and momentum in space-time). From this, is should appear that the people who remain on Earth have a space-time path that follows closely a space-time geodesic (and might follow it even more closely if they were orbiting the Earth in 'free fall' rather than resting on its surface) while the travelling twin follows a path that deviates very sharply from this geodesic (because of the rockets). When you integrate the proper-time along the space-time path of the traveler, you should find out that this proper-time is shorter than the time elapsed along the path followed by people who stay on Earth.

Sorry, you can't stick spaceship engines in the equations. But I'll double check. — Rich

What equations are you talking about? Are you making any use at all of the Lorentz transformations (as you should?) In that case you surely should be aware that those equations apply to space and time coordinates as measured in *inertial* reference frames. The reference frame in which the Earth remains at rest and the reference frame in which the travelling rocket remains at rest can't both be inertial frames since there is a relative acceleration between them. So, you have to think again how you might be misusing the equations of special relativity to apply to accelerating reference frames.

Relativity is about RELATIVITY — Rich

Actually, I remember reading that Einstein had come to have some misgivings about his theory being named "Theory of Relativity". He thought this was unfortunate and had a tendency to give rise to misleading interpretations. That's because there is much more of an emphasis, in the so-called theory of "relativity", about *invariants*. The speed of light, for instance, in an invariant. Spatial distances between events, or the speeds of point particles, already had been regarded to be relative to a frame of reference in the framework of classical mechanics, but the frame relativity of (instantaneous) distance, duration, and simultaneity all are direct consequences of the invariant geometry of Lorentzian space-time (in special relativity) and of the invariant intrinsic curvature of space-time represented by the metric tensor (in general relativity).

When Rich says that there it no 't' in GR, I think he means to say that there is no time dependence of the invariant structure of the metric tensor (that is, of the geometry of space-time). That is true in a sense. It's just because space-time incorporates the temporal dimension and hence does not, as a whole, have a variable geometry as a function of time. This would just not make sense since there isn't a temporal dimension external to space-time. However, from an empirical standpoint, for finite creatures such a us who live in a particular moment in time and are interested in making predictions about the future (and explaining the past) the equations of General Relativity can be put to use operationally to factor out the time dimension relative to a specific local frame of reference relevant to us and predict how strong the gravitational field will be in each point of space relative to this specific frame of reference, and how it will vary as a function of time (as measured by local stationary clocks).

I browsed this thread rather quickly. It seems not to have occurred to many participants that the Lorentz transformations from which time dilation, space contraction, and the relativity of simultaneity all derive are transformation formulas that apply to *inertial* frames of reference only. An inertial frame of reference is a frame of reference within which test masses that aren't subjected to any external force move in straight lines at constant speed. The effects from gravity are neglected in the framework of Special Relativity.

The twin paradox that was alluded to earlier arises when one neglects that the traveler twin can't be considered at rest in one single inertial frame of reference if she is going to eventually turn around and come back to Earth. The situation must therefore be analysed with respect to at least three frames of reference: one in which the Earth (and the twin remaining at home) remains at rest at all times, a second one in which the traveling twin is at rest during the outward journey, and a third one in which she is at rest during the returning journey. (We can imagine, for simplicity, that the acceleration period when the travelling twin reverses course is very short).

Considering the mutual Lorentz transformations of time and space coordinates between those three frames of reference solves the paradox through highlighting the asymmetry between the situations of the two twins. The traveling twin must effectively "jump" from one frame of reference to another one between the two legs of her trip, and at that time (as measured by her local clock) the definition of simultaneity with the corresponding time on Earth shifts. This shift accounts for the fact that her local clock marks a shorter duration than the clock on Earth over the duration of the whole trip in spite of the fact that, as referred to her own reference frames (on both legs of the trip) less time elapse on Earth that does on the ship on each separate leg of the trip.

John McDowell by Tim Thornton — Marty

This is a fantastic introduction to John McDowell's thought. Maximilian de Gaynesford also wrote such an introduction, which is quite good though not as accurate as Thornton's one.

Didn't have Gulag Archipelago on Kindle. This is pretty good though. Also got a sample of Street's Oyama ontogeny of info recommend. — Baden

Gulag Archipelago is autobiographical, of course, and very good. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is awesome. You might enjoy Cancer Ward, also, which is semi-autobiographical and set towards the end of the Stalinist era.

Well, in this case, they most likely didn't realise that the forum has been fucked for the past two years right up to the present. — Sapientia

The old forum still has its use. It's a convenient place where not to post in case one is espousing an extreme form of Wittgensteinian quietism.

Some eight months ago, darthbarracuda wrote:

"What something is is not simply a question of its material constitution but of its relationship to other things as well."

This has become my philosophical motto. It's hard to pack more wisdom about metaphysics into one short sentence.

No. How does it go? — Bitter Crank

It goes like this: (Tutti: )Taaaah! (Solo:) Parapapa tatata parapapapa, parapapa tatata parapapapa, parapapa taratatatatata tilitilti tilitili tilitili titatata titatata titatata titatata titatata titatata titatata brrrrrrrrrrr... etc.

For an enjoyable introduction to ordinary language philosophy, you may consider:
John L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, OUP (1962)

For some more introductory reading on analytic philosophy, engaging yet deep:
Gregory McCulloch, The Mind and Its World, Routledge (1995)
and from the same author: The Game of the Name (1989)

By and large, it is unsurprising that the people who post on the site on average like the way it is run. It's a bit like asking meat eaters if they like meat. 'More meat or less meat, or just the right amount?'

A more interesting question would be, 'what are you trying to do on the site?' — unenlightened

This is indeed an apt analogy. Another question that it suggests would be: "Which fellow participant should we eat next?"

I use shotguns with some frequency, but have only fired one kind of handgun, a .357 Magnum, and I was shocked at how often I missed the target--the stationary target. Of course, with scatter guns your chances of hitting a target are much greater, but when you shoot trap or sporting clays your target is moving at a pretty good speed. The difference between a moving target and a stationary one is profound, and people have a tendency to move.

I suspect that most of the law abiding citizens carrying firearms for protection haven't spent much time being trained in their use. — Ciceronianus the White

This is a problem that the NRA is well aware of, and it motivates one of the very few gun regulations that they would approve of. They have thus endorsed a new regulation proposal that would make it illegal for people who are being shot at to move.

It was something you wrote about how there can never be too much virtue, Pierre-Normand, but forgive me if I've misread you, I've ended up reading things rather late and may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. — mcdoodle

No trouble. But this is indeed what I was saying. Once properly characterized, an Aristotelian virtue isn't something that anyone can have in excess. Any form of excess is a vice, per definition. And while a particular practical circumstance can make contrary ethical demands on one, and those demands would be made salient though the specific exercises of two different virtues, the rational ability to properly arbitrate between those two conflicting demands is a manifestation of both virtues rather than one of them being overruled by the other one.

This is one area where, while agreeing with Pierre-Normand on the whole, I would differ with him. Aristotle is famous for thinking there is some sort of mean in virtue and vice, with virtue as the mean and vice as the excess, so that for instance he doesn't think anger is wrong in itself: but the virtuous person will have the right sort of anger for the right reasons at the right object. Never to be angry would then be as non-virtuous as being irascible, for example. — mcdoodle

I don't see where it is that we have any disagreement. What you call "the right sort of anger" we might call the right sort of circumstance for expressing anger (the recognition of which is connected to the right sort of rational motivation, or virtue). There are four columns in an Aristotelian table of virtues. The first column label a form of behavior, or a sort of feeling. Corresponding to anger, there is the virtue of patience or good temper. To this virtue corresponds two vices, stemming from excess of deficit: irascibility or indifference ("lack of spirit"). My main point is that, owing to the fact of human virtue's internal connection with both practical wisdom (a practical cognitive ability) and practical deliberation, one can't have the virtue of good temper in excess relative to the demands from another virtue. The virtue of good temper is the general ability to strike a good balance in behavior between manifesting too much or not enough anger while the practically relevant features of the situation have been made properly salient in the mind of the agent by a proper exercise of all the other virtues of character.

Your post is confusing... — TheMadFool

As I said, Aristotle's practical "syllogism" only is a syllogism by analogy to the theoretical syllogism. Unlike the latter it doesn't have a deductive form. This is sometimes noted through saying that it is defeasible (e.g. by Anthony Kenny). But this is misleading. That's because many philosophers, since the early efforts of the scholastics, have attempted to formalize practical reason through providing explicit rules of inference, and through devising the operator "ought to..." or "it is good to..." in order to form the proposition that expresses the general end signified by Aristotle's major premise. They have noted, though, that a conclusion of the form "therefore, I ought to A" can never be derived "undefeasibly", whatever rules of inference those philosophers had come up with, because in actual exercises of practical deliberation there might always come up a new general premise of the form "I ought not to A" or "I ought to B", where doing B is incompatible with doing A. This is why, also, Aristotle insisted that the "conclusion" of a practical syllogism isn't a proposition by rather an action. You can express it verbally with the sentence "I ought to A" or "it is good to A", in the present circumstances, but the terms "ought to" or "good" do not mark a function in deductive reasoning. They rather signify the form of practical reason (as opposed to "true", which marks the form of theoretical reason). And it belongs to the form of practical reason that you can't deduce what to do from general premises. You must be sensitive to the particulars of the situation in order to wisely select *both* the major and minor premises of the practical "syllogism".

Aristotle also characterized theoretical deliberation as a rational move from the specific towards universality (what is universally true in a general domain), whereas practical deliberation moves from the general (what is good in some respect) towards the specific (what must be done here and now). But an action never has been fully specified until it has been done (which is marked by the progressive/contrastive contrast in grammatical aspect). This is another reason why practical reason can't rest on deductively valid logical rules of inference. Actions are produced by ongoing practical reasoning and practical reasoning is a process of progressive rational specification that isn't over until the action has been done.

I think it may occasionally be a tad too strict, even though, to my knowledge, I haven't myself been moderated before. Maybe there ought to be a thread where "deleted" posts are relegated, unless they are grossly and intentionally offensive (or constitute spam)?

Perhaps I misunderstood Aristotle. — TheMadFool

Aristotle if frequently misunderstood. That's because he talks with a rather thick Greek accent.

What I'm particularly hoping and looking for are the premises, the obvious truths that are necessary for Aristotle's idea on morality to make sense. He said it's enough to be rational to be good. Doesn't that imply that there are objective facts about the world that will, on applying reason, lead everyone to goodness?

I think this way of framing the question would be unintelligible to Aristotle. It might be correct to say that Aristotle's conception of ethics is realist (it's not up to us, or up to our conventions, whether some action is good or bad) and cognitivist (it is either true or false that we ought to do this or that). But modern ethical theories often are foundationalist in the sense that they purport to deduce truths about value jugements, or about the moral goodness of actions, from general principles. This wouldn't make sense for Aristotle.

David Wiggins has explained Aristotle's conception of practical deliberation (in view of determining what one ought to do; or what it is good to do) through contrasting it with the "blueprint model" of ethical knowledge. According to the blueprint conception, when you know what to do in a particular situation it is because you have a general idea of what it is that ought to be done in situations of that kind. This general knowledge is derived from the ethical theory conceived as a blueprint (it can be derived in a complicated manner from several ethical axioms). And from this general knowledge, and your specific knowledge of the situation, you can derive logically (deductively) what it is that you ought to do.

But Aristotle's explanation of practical deliberation doesn't work like that at all. Aristotle's practical "syllogism" is merely analogous to a theoretical syllogism since it has a major premise (stating a general truth regarding an end pursued in action) and a minor premise (identifying a particular means and opportunity to achieving that end). The conclusion of the practical syllogism, though, isn't a proposition. It is an action (or an intention for the future), and it isn't arrived at deductively. In fact, it can't logically be arrived at deductively since actions don't have a propositional form. Rather, in order to be valid, the practical syllogism must reflect the wisdom of the agent in selecting both premises in accordance with the morally salient features of the situation (the end that ought to be pursued) and the reasonableness of the action (as a means to achieving that end). That is, among many potentially conflicting ends, the practically wise agent must judge which one of those ends has precedence over the other ones in light of, in part, the means available. And there is no general blueprint for doing that.

A solution that I thought of many years ago goes like this: amend the U.S. Constitution to say that every congressional district must be drawn with at least one right angle. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It would be more fair if each district were drawn with at least one right and one left angle.

What is the phrase "the unity of virtue" supposed to mean? — Cabbage Farmer

The idea simply is that you can't have a virtue if you don't have them all. This thesis is not as extravagant as it may seem. The reason why the thesis makes sense is because you can always imagine practical situations where the demands from two different virtues (courage and modesty, say) appear to conflict. But each virtue, considered in isolation, consists in one's having a motivation to act that is in proportion with the rational demands of the situation. Hence, to exhibit courage is to face danger when the situation demands it and neither to fear too much (cowardice) or not enough (rashness). But in some situations, what it is that determines "too much" fear or "not enough" fear, in a fearful situation, and hence what it is that determines if an act is cowardly or rash, may be the demands from the virtue of modesty (not being either too shy nor shameless). Hence if the agent lacks in her virtue of modesty, she will also be led, in some circumstances, to display cowardice or rashness.

Reason -- logos -- thus mediates between the various virtues of character and unifies them in practical deliberation. Too much of one virtue can never lead to an act that is vicious in another respect. Hence, there is no such thing as too much of a virtue. (By analogy, you can't have a heart that is too healthy. If the functioning of your heart damages the health of your kidneys, say, then it's not a healthy heart. But in this case the unity of organic health rests on the teleological organization of the body rather than the form of practical rationality.)

What does it mean to say "practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand"? I take it one who is virtuous has practical wisdom, but some agents with practical wisdom are not virtuous. Is every agent of the latter sort an akratic, and is every akratic an agent of that sort? — Cabbage Farmer

Akrasia is a very difficult concept and my thoughts about it are far from definitive. In fact, two of my favorite philosophers -- John McDowell and David Wiggins -- who are fine interpreters of Aristotle, have had a dispute about its meaning and I have not yet managed to grasp the full significance of this dispute. But in any case, I think it can be argued that someone who lacks in virtue necessarily lacks in practical wisdom. The reason why it might seem that this is not the case is because, as you notice, the akratic agent seems to know what it is that she ought to do, and yet she lacks the motivation to do it. This indeed demonstrates a flaw in her character, and hence a lack of virtue. But the fact that her practical judgment (which is a singular act of her capacity of practical wisdom) is correct in this singular instance doesn't entail that her capacity of practical wisdom is intact. It only illustrates that her flawed capacity sometimes yields a correct judgment that matches what an agent who has both virtue and practical wisdom would judge and do in the same circumstances. It is easy to imagine different circumstances, though, where the flaw in her character will lead her not to be behaving akratically but rather lead to her practical judgment being clouded and hence to her rationalizing away her own bad or irrational action.