Is Philosophy a Game of "Let's Pretend"?

Ciceronianus

Let's play.

I'll assume for the sake of this post that we're all familiar with the children's game of "Let's Pretend" or its equivalent. In it, children pretend that something they know not to be the case is the case. For example, they pretend they're birds, or frogs, or that one of them is something and not the others, or that they're adults and adults are children.

Is that game much the same as the "game" of philosophy? In other words, is philosophy, at least in some respects, an activity by which we pretend?

Consider the definition of "pretend" as a transitive verb (from Merriam-Webster Online):

1: to give a false appearance of being, possessing, or performing
// does not pretend to be a psychiatrist
2a: to make believe : FEIGN
// he pretended deafness
2b: to claim, represent, or assert falsely
// pretending an emotion he could not really feel.

I would say that venerable joker, Rene Descartes, was (in effect) playing "Let's Pretend" when he pretended an Evil Demon--evidently an even more practiced and accomplished joker than Descartes himself--was causing him to believe the entire world actually existed, thus leading him to try to convince himself that it did.

I hope we may agree that Playful Rene at the least was pretending when he summoned his Evil Demon (let's call him "ED") to aid him in his quest, i.e. that he didn't really think ED existed. But I think he was pretending, as well, that he had reason to doubt the existence of the world in which he lived. That's because in every respect he interacted with it from moment to moment, without doubt or hesitation. That's not something we do when we doubt something. If I truly doubted the existence of this keyboard, this computer, I wouldn't be using it or having used it, would have no reason to doubt it in that case. The word "reason" is significant here, dear reader. When we have no reason to doubt, we pretend to doubt.

Of course, philosophers necessarily play "Let's Pretend" when they engage in what are charmingly (though inaccurately) called "thought experiments." Though philosophers' thought experiments aren't similar to queries like "What would have happened if Napoleon had B-52s at the battle of Waterloo?" (which concern impossibilities) they almost by definition address hypothetical circumstances; ones we pretend exist for purposes of the "experiment."

Certain philosophical "questions" or "problems" seem to me to be grounded in pretended concerns. Any question beginning with "How" or "Why" (as philosophical questions often begin) presuppose an answer is sought and to be found or not found. We have some idea of what would be a satisfactory answer, normally. Otherwise, we wouldn't ask a question to begin with--unless an answer which would be satisfactory wasn't really sought, i.e. when the question isn't a question meant to be answered, but is posed for some other purpose. What satisfactory answer would there be to a philosophical question such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Presumably that isn't a question to which a scientific answer is sought. If it is, it is best left to scientists. What criteria would we use to determine the sufficiency of an answer to such a question if no scientific answer is adequate? What more are we doing than pretending there could be nothing instead of something? What does that even mean?

Here's another question: "How do I know what I know?" Again, I think no scientific answer is sought. What, then, is intended in asking the question? How do we know we don't know what we know? What would it mean to not know what we know? What would be different if we did know how we know what we know? What more are we doing than pretending we don't know what we know, and asking what would that mean or be like?

Perhaps it's unfair to characterize the discussion of some traditional philosophical discussions as mere "play." Perhaps it's kinder and more accurate to consider it to be a mental exercise. I think mental "muscles" are indeed exercised in addressing such questions, and such muscles may be beneficial. But also, perhaps, it sometimes distances itself too greatly from life and the world and becomes pretense.

Agent Smith

Let's Pretend — Ciceronianus

Bingo! You hit the bullseye!

Assumptions/Axioms: Let's assume/pretend such and such and find out what logically should follow.

Agrippa's trilemma:

1. Assume [Let's pretend]
2. Infinite regress [Let's <insert apposite children's game>]
3. Circularity [Let's <insert appropriate children's game>]

Outlander

Do you believe everything you've just pondered and written just now is "just pretend" or a child's game? If so, sounds like a personal problem. But whatever brings you joy.

Ciceronianus

Do you believe everything you've just pondered and written just now is "just pretend" or a child's game? — Outlander

Obviously, I believe what I've pondered and written about may just be play, or pretense, or an exercise. When we write about something being done, that doesn't mean we're doing it.

Cheshire

I think mental "muscles" are indeed exercised in addressing such questions, and such muscles may be beneficial. But also, perhaps, it sometimes distances itself too greatly from life and the world and becomes pretense. — Ciceronianus

I think a fair number of people argue for sport and enjoy the ego boost of imposing an argument they have learned to make; similar to studying a chess opening for traps and variations.

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" — Ciceronianus

Something was possible and time passed. Next question.

Joshs

↪Ciceronianus

Perhaps it's unfair to characterize the discussion of some traditional philosophical discussions as mere "play." Perhaps it's kinder and more accurate to consider it to be a mental exercise. — Ciceronianus

There are dozens of philosophers whose ideas
I find extremely valuable. I can’t think of a single one of them whose questions fit your category of a mere mental exercise.

Your choice to speak in generalities gives you the luxury of levelling accusations without having to back them up with an argument. Could you give an example of a question from a specific philosopher, and either show that they don’t answer it, or that their answer is either pretense or ‘distanced from life’? Quotes would be welcome.

Ciceronianus

Could you give an example of a question from a specific philosopher, and either show that they don’t answer it, or that their answer is either pretense or ‘distanced from life’? — Joshs

The reference to Descartes and ED was inadequate? Are you seeking quotes in which he wrote what I say he wrote, because you deny he wrote it?

T Clark

↪Ciceronianus

Descartes does not "pretend" that there is an evil demon that controls our perceptions of the world. He considers the possibility and hypothesizes consequences. He explicitly states that our everyday opinions about the world are reasonable. From the Meditations:

I am driven back to the position that doubts can properly be raised about any of my former beliefs....I don’t reach this conclusion in a flippant or casual manner, but on the basis of powerful and well thought-out reasons. So in future, if I want to discover any certainty, I must withhold my assent from these former beliefs just as carefully as I withhold it from obvious falsehoods.

It isn’t enough merely to have noticed this, though; I must make an effort to remember it. My old familiar opinions keep coming back, and against my will they capture my belief. It is as though they had a right to a place in my belief-system as a result of long occupation and the law of custom. These habitual opinions of mine are indeed highly probable; although they are in a sense doubtful, as I have shown, it is more reasonable to believe than to deny them.

Bolding is mine.

Ciceronianus

He explicitly states that our everyday opinions about the world are reasonable. — T Clark

He does this after he evokes ED, though. He pretends, and after pretending concludes he was correct from the beginning.

T Clark

He does this after he evokes ED, though. He pretends, and after pretending concludes he was correct from the beginning. — Ciceronianus

So, if I say "Suppose it rains tomorrow, will they still have the game," I'm pretending it will rain tomorrow. Is that correct?

Hanover

When we have no reason to doubt, we pretend to doubt. — Ciceronianus

We all have reflexive reactions to things that upon later thoughtful reflection we realize might not have been valid. Those who are most reflective and thoughtful are generally the ones we go to when we have a difficult problem. That something might seem immediately obvious should therefore not be a reason not to look closer. This matches well to Hume's distinction between the "vulgar view" and the "philosophical view," with the former being what is immediately accepted without consideration and the latter what has been arrived at by thought.

Your attack here was upon Descartes, but it would also be against Hume, as his result was to say that neither the direct realist view (i.e. the vulgar view) nor the indirect realist view (the philosophical view) are correct, but the truth lies in pure skepticism of the external world.

I'd also point out that your position is also opposed to Berkeley, who concludes there is no corporeal world. That is to say, the idea of skepticism and questioning what might seem at first glance to be indubitable is part of the fabric of philosophy generally, and good examples could be given in scientific inquiry as well (e.g. Ptolemy versus Copernicus or Newton versus Einstein). It is through doubt of the seemingly obvious that we arrive at new theories.

In any event, Descartes did have reason to doubt. He set out his reasons very clearly in the Meditations.
http://eddiejackson.net/web_documents/Descartes'%20Meditations%20on%20First%20Philosophy.pdf Saying he had no reason to doubt hand waves past all his arguments to the contrary. I'd think to make the argument that his reasons were not valid reasons would require actual laboring with the text.

In any event, I take the thrust of your objection to be that you don't believe Descartes when he says he had doubt, and you suggest he's dishonest at some level in having asserted the doubt he did. Your objection is therefore an ad hom because it hardly matters whether he specifically did doubt what he says to have doubted. The only question is whether the things he doubted were arguably doubtable. I don't follow how it's illogical to question the validity of the senses.

Since your objection does not rest on logical invalidity, it must rest upon some type of pragmatism, where you just don't think this matters at a practical level. That might be, but I don't see an objection that something might not have an impact on my life critical to the question of what is the truth about the world.

Ciceronianus

So, if I say "Suppose it rains tomorrow, will they still have the game," I'm pretending it will rain tomorrow. Is that correct? — T Clark

Come now. Are you seriously claiming this is comparable, or analogous, to saying this?

“I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity; I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things; I shall remain obstinately attached to this idea, and if by this means it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power [i.e. suspend my judgment], and with firm purpose avoid giving credence to any false thing, or being imposed upon by this arch deceiver, however powerful and deceptive he may be.”
― René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

Hanover

Come now. Are you seriously claiming this is comparable, or analogous, to saying this? — Ciceronianus

Isn't the nature of a hypothetical that we assume something for the sake of argument, regardless of truth? Hypotheticals themselves appear in the subjunctive, indicating they are not statements of fact, but are, as you say, "pretend" (e.g. "If I were you" versus "If I was you.").

Tom Storm

I've always thought that a large part of philosophy is a speculative and imaginative activity in order to challenge assumptions. This even includes banal thought experiments. I wonder if it's too limiting or ungenerous to dub this 'let's pretend'?

Joshs

↪Tom Storm

I've always thought that a large part of philosophy is a speculative and imaginative activity in order to challenge assumptions. This even includes banal thought experiments. I wonder if it's too limiting or ungenerous to dub this 'let's pretend'? — Tom Storm

I wouldnt know how to distinguish philosophical speculations and imaginings from scientific models in any categorical sense. I think the essential connection between the two disciplines becomes clearer with the mention of such empirical entities as phlogiston and the ether. Of course, the fact that for so many years the sciences could claim to wall off the domain of the empirical from the subjective side of consciousness meant that they have been oblivious to the essential role
of the imaginative and the speculative in not only the generating of theory but also in the the coherence of scientific facts.

baker

He does this after he evokes ED, though. He pretends, and after pretending concludes he was correct from the beginning. — Ciceronianus

That's because he wrote the Meditations as a series of ready-to-use arguments that Catholics could use to convert other people to Catholicism. He says as much in the preface, it's why the Church allowed the publishing of the book.

Ciceronianus

↪baker

Holy Mother Church has so much to answer for, I'm afraid.

Ciceronianus

In any event, Descartes did have reason to doubt. — Hanover

He had reason to doubt he had hands, eyes, blood, senses (though using them all to write that he doubted them)? Doubt the "external", the chair he sat on, the paper he wrote on, the pen or quill or whatever he used to write with? He had reason to doubt, in other words, that he was writing that he had reason to doubt? All this is what he claimed. You may consider the reasons he gave as adequate for him to doubt he had hands; I don't. Had he reached for something in the past and found he had no hand to grasp it? Try to clip his fingernails only to find he had no fingers?

I think the absurdity of such claims highlights the fact he never could have believed them in the first place.

I take the thrust of your objection to be that you don't believe Descartes when he says he had doubt, and you suggest he's dishonest at some level in having asserted the doubt he did. Your objection is therefore an ad hom because it hardly matters whether he specifically did doubt what he says to have doubted. — Hanover

I'm claiming only that he pretended something was the case in a misguided effort to "prove" something he had no need to prove. Children aren't dishonest when they play "Let's Pretend."

Isn't the nature of a hypothetical that we assume something for the sake of argument, regardless of truth? Hypotheticals themselves appear in the subjunctive, indicating they are not statements of fact, but are, as you say, "pretend" (e.g. "If I were you" versus "If I was you."). — Hanover

I don't think it can be said a hypothetical situation is one in which we're asked to assume that everything is an illusion. What would be the hypothetical situation in that case? There could be no situation at all. He's doing more than asking a hypothetical question.

Imagine yourself asking this question in court. "Doctor, assume that your patient didn't exist. Would it be your opinion in that case that he had sustained a permanent injury?"

T Clark

Come now. Are you seriously claiming this is comparable, or analogous, to saying this? — Ciceronianus

Yes. I think it is. Descartes says suppose our world is an illusion created by a demon. What if... He doesn't propose that it is or appears to be. He does acknowledge that it could be, but then goes on to say "These habitual opinions of mine are indeed highly probable... it is more reasonable to believe than to deny them."

Hanover

He had reason to doubt he had hands, eyes, blood, senses (though using them all to write that he doubted them — Ciceronianus

Yes, and not just him. Berkeley, Hume, Locke, and Kant did as well, some to more degrees than the other, just to name a few. If you'd like, I could create a long list of philosophers who have conteded that the hands, eyes, and blood they see aren't as they appear to be.

I appreciate you disagree with them, but to the extent your disagreement rests upon your claim that they were simply disingenuous, there's no proof of that, and the argument is entirely an as hom.

don't think it can be said a hypothetical situation is one in which we're asked to assume that everything is an illusion. What would be the hypothetical situation in that case? There could be no situation at all. He's doing more than asking a hypothetical question.

Imagine yourself asking this question in court. "Doctor, assume that your patient didn't exist. Would it be your opinion in that case that he had sustained a permanent injury?" — Ciceronianus

But your first paragraph here shifts from the second. In the first, you ask about illusions, in the second, you ask about existence itself. You can hypothesize about illusions, but not of existence. Existence is not a property that can be hypothesized about without entailing a contradiction.

To clarify between a meaningful hypothetical and a meaningless one:

Meaningful: "Officer, assume the witness claiming to observe the murder was a hallucinating paranoid schizophrenic, do you still believe him?

Meaningless: "Officer, assume the witness claiming to observe the murder didn't exist, do you still believe him?"

Janus

I think the absurdity of such claims highlights the fact he never could have believed them in the first place. — Ciceronianus

The point is Descartes did not believe he had no hands etc. He found himself capable of doubting he had hands etc, on the strength of the possibility that he might be dreaming, it might be a trick played on him by the ED and so on. He went through the process of identifying everything he could possibly doubt in order to see what he could not possibly doubt.

180 Proof

In other words, is philosophy, at least in some respects, an activity by which we pretend? — Ciceronianus

"Pretend" for the sake of speculation? contemplation? discussion? 'spiritual exercise'? Yes, of course.

What satisfactory answer would there be to a philosophical question such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

"Is there something rather than nothing"? (Re: 99.99% of every thing consists of empty space according to modern physics and ancient atomists pretend there are "atoms and void" (with the latter encompassing the former.)) Pseudo-question, if you ask me, that's been way too fashionable for too long.

What criteria would we use to determine the sufficiency of an answer to such a question if no scientific answer is adequate?

Category error, counselor. You just claimed it's a "philosophical question" and now you're implicitly comparing it (negatively) to a "scientific answer". No bueno, señor.

What more are we doing than pretending there could be nothing instead of something? What does that even mean?

It means we're using "nothing" is a non-ordinary way that requires some clarifying speciificity. Otherwise, "nothing" doesn't mean anything sensible.

Here's another question: "How do I know what I know?" Again, I think no scientific answer is sought. What, then, is intended in asking the question?

Do you have grounds to question "what you know"? Or grounds to reject "what you know"? If in both cases you don't, then the question is moot.

How do we know we don't know what we know?

Do we have grounds to question "we know we don't know what we know"? Or grounds to reject "we know we don't know what we know"? If in both cases we don't, then the question is moot.

What would it mean to not know what we know?

Perhaps "what we know" is subconscious or that we are mistaken that we know "what we know".

What would be different if we did know how we know what we know?

My guess is that our skills for learning would be more explicit, even reflective, and self-corrective.

What more are we doing than pretending we don't know what we know, and asking what would that mean or be like?

Dialectics (well, some of us ...) :wink:

Ciceronianus

Category error, counselor. You just claimed it's a "philosophical question" and now you're implicitly comparing it (negatively) to a "scientific answer". No bueno, señor. — 180 Proof

What I was trying to say is that if no scientific answer is sought, it would appear no real answer is sought, i.e. that it's a pseudo-question, as you note.

Do you have grounds to question "what you know"? Or grounds to reject "what you know"? If in both cases you don't, then the question is moot. — 180 Proof

Or, I think, that you "pretend" there are grounds, though there are none.

Perhaps, that "what we know" is subconscious or that we are mistaken that we know "what we know". — 180 Proof

But in that case we wouldn't know. But when we do know, how do we know we know? I don't think this is a real question unless it relates to the process by which we ascertained something is the case, or perhaps something like a neurological answer regarding what takes place.

Ciceronianus

I appreciate you disagree with them, but to the extent your disagreement rests upon your claim that they were simply disingenuous, there's no proof of that, and the argument is entirely an as hom. — Hanover

How's this then: They claim to have no hands (or eyes, etc.) or to doubt they do, despite the fact that the see them, feel them, use them, and in every way act as if they know they have them and do not doubt that they do. But perhaps you don't think they acted as if they had hands or believed they had them.

Regarding a pertinent hypothetical, I think this is more apt: "Doctor, assume an Evil Demon has caused you to think the plaintiff exists, and is your patient, and that you have treated him, but all this is but an illusion. In that case, would it be your opinion the plaintiff has sustained a permanent injury?"

_db

↪Ciceronianus

I think you're probably right that a lot of philosophy is the LARPing of ideas. Often it seems like philosophy is studied in a way that detaches itself from the banal reality it came from. For instance, there is evidence that philosophers like Karl Popper argued for his falsificationism not purely out of genuine conviction but because he wanted to be a maverick and it got him a lot of attention; he hated it when he started developing acolytes, because it meant that was no longer unique and special, people started to get bored with him.

Joshs

↪Ciceronianus

Regarding a pertinent hypothetical, I think this is more apt: "Doctor, assume an Evil Demon has caused you to think the plaintiff exists, and is your patient, and that you have treated him, but all this is but an illusion. In that case, would it be your opinion the plaintiff has sustained a permanent injury?" — Ciceronianus

Of course, Descartes isnt trying to find out if a person who is mentally deranged can perform a cognitive task(like determining if someone has suffered a permanent injury ) , when the derangement would
precisely preclude such a performance. Descartes isnt stupid, so why are you trying to make him sound stupid? Let’s elevate the ‘cognitive’ level of this discussion a bit, and update Descartes’ hypothetical. Schizophrenics, like perhaps the doctor in your example, often hear voices in their heads telling them to do things or making assertions of fact. One could say that such derangement is in some
respect what Descartes had in mind with his evil genius hypothetical. The question for Descartes is how deep such derangement runs. Is there nothing indubitable for the Schizophrenic, not even their sense of self? Research has shown that people can distinguish between a sense of agency and a sense of ownership of thoughts. That is , voice hearers may recognize that a voice is coming from their own head, but not believe that they willed the voice.
Some philosophers interpret this to mean that the sense of self is constructed and not indubitable. Others claim that even in the case of voice hearers there is an indubitable minimal feeling of self-consciousness. Something like this is what Descartes was after, a core notion self in the form of the ‘I think’ that could be considered immune to doubt.

If Descartes had used the modern example of a schizophrenic instead of a person deranged by an evil genius would you have no longer considered his example ‘pretend’?

Hanover

How's this then: They claim to have no hands (or eyes, etc.) or to doubt they do, despite the fact that the see them, feel them, use them, and in every way act as if they know they have them and do not doubt that they do. But perhaps you don't think they acted as if they had hands or believed they had them. — Ciceronianus

The question hinges upon the correlation between the perceived and the actual, so your questioning how hands, eyes, and any other object you might choose exists is ambiguous without clarifying which worldview you accept. If you accept the view of the direct realist, the two are the same (i.e. the hand you see is the hand there is). If not, you don't (i.e. the hand you see is distinct from the hand there is). Unless you are a direct realist, the question of doubt that exists between the perceived and actual remains critical and it for that reason you have a good number of philosophers who inject the skepticism you object to. Your objection arises entirely because you reject their worldview, but that does not make them disingenuous in their skepticism.

Your last sentence is a shift away from metaphysics insofar as you cease attempting to decipher the nature of reality and instead turn toward pragmatism. Again, I think that shift just ignores the question of what the composition of reality is and it instead asks how do we react to certain stimuli.

Regarding a pertinent hypothetical, I think this is more apt: "Doctor, assume an Evil Demon has caused you to think the plaintiff exists, and is your patient, and that you have treated him, but all this is but an illusion. In that case, would it be your opinion the plaintiff has sustained a permanent injury?" — Ciceronianus

That we don't engage in such extreme doubt in every day matters doesn't mean that asking such questions in other contexts doesn't yield important distinctions and understanding. It is conceded that no one delays their day to day interactions in order to reconfirm their corporeal existence, but that again is a reference to pragmatism. That is, the fact that attorneys don't try to reestablish reality as a foundational matter before asking more specific questions doesn't make me pause and wonder whether Descartes, Hume, Berkely, Locke, and Kant really had anything meaningful to say.

Ciceronianus

Something like this is what Descartes was after, a core notion self in the form of the ‘I think’ that could be considered immune to doubt. — Joshs

I'm with Peirce when it comes to Descartes, and I think the same criticism applies to others. He calls it self-deception, I call it pretending. It is of course done with a purpose in mind. That purpose may be very worthy. But see the last sentence of the following quote. That's what I feel philosophers have been doing, doubting while philosophizing what they don't doubt in their actual lives.

"We cannot begin with complete doubt. We must begin with all the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon the study of philosophy. These prejudices are not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which it does not occur to us can be questioned. Hence this initial skepticism will be a mere self-deception, and not real doubt; and no one who follows the Cartesian method will ever be satisfied until he has formally recovered all those beliefs which in form he has given up. It is, therefore, as useless a preliminary as going to the North Pole would be in order to get to Constantinople by coming down regularly upon a meridian. A person may, it is true, in the course of his studies, find reason to doubt what he began by believing; but in that case he doubts because he has a positive reason for it, and not on account of the Cartesian maxim. Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts." C.S. Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities

frank

We cannot begin with complete doubt. — Ciceronianus

That's what Descartes said. :rofl:

Paine

↪Ciceronianus

In supposing the Evil Deceiver, Descartes is presenting a counter to the logic of Anselm where we can only conceive of what we are given the ability to conceive. So, if there is a limit to the utility of doubt, it has to be approached from a different starting point than something like: 'we are not the source of our ideas.'
The purpose of having a method is that we actually are the source of some ideas.

Ciceronianus

We cannot begin with complete doubt.
— Ciceronianus

That's what Descartes said. :rofl: — frank

He also said this in his First Meditation, as I noted above.--"I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity; I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things"

I guess he was pretending, then.

Is Philosophy a Game of "Let's Pretend"?

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