It would take us a while to sort out the differences in our terminology (potency, "determined by being", "moved to actuality by prior actuality," et al.) but that's all right, I just wanted to help you and @Banno disagree constructively -- may have failed completely! The leap from "no determinate causes" to "no reason at all" in particular still eludes me.

Oh, about the bent key: Surely it's just terminology? Sometimes we think of a key as something that opens X. Other times we think of it as a thing that used to open X, or ought to open X. If we favor the "working model," so to speak, then it's perfectly sensible to say of a bent key that it used to be the key to my house, but now isn't a key to anything, and that when it's bent back, it is so again. I didn't mean any of this to be controversial, sorry.

The leap from "no determinate causes" to "no reason at all" in particular still eludes me.

"Act follows on being." What a thing does, how it interacts with other things or parts of itself depends upon what it is. Otherwise, anything could be essentially be (and act as) anything else.

For something to have no determinant cause would mean that it is caused by "nothing in particular" as opposed to some determinant being that acts in a determinant way. But nothing in particular doesn't act in any determinant way for any reason. Being nothing, it cannot act according to its being, but must act for "no reason at all."

This doesn't rule out stochastic action (e.g. some interpretations of quantum mechanics), but it does rule out action that is not determined by prior actuality. Defaulting on this would be defaulting on things having causes and the world being intelligible. If potency can move to act for no reason at all, then there is no limit on how much this can occur, since it is completely undetermined. This gets at the whole: "what if we and our memories just popped into existence randomly 5 seconds ago and will vanish the same way in another five seconds," concern of the radical skeptic. If potency moves itself, the skeptic has reason to be concerned.

It's also the case that things are only knowable through their interactions. If interactions are not determinant, then neither is knowledge. The being itself being unintelligible implies epistemic nihilism.

it does rule out action that is not determined by prior actuality. Defaulting on this would be defaulting on things having causes and the world being intelligible. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I can just about imagine this, in the physical world, though the determinism is breathtakingly thorough. But does this principle also mean that everything you and I think and do is similarly poised between "determined by prior actuality" and "having no reasons at all"? Apart from the metaphysical difficulties around causes versus reasons, it also raises the unpleasant specter of there being only one reasonable way to think and do.

But does this principle also mean that everything you and I think and do is similarly poised between "determined by prior actuality" and "having no reasons at all"?

Sure. Thinking is an act, a change. It either occurs for some reason or it doesn't. Thinking is a move from potentially thinking something to actually thinking it. If something is thought (or perceived) for no reason, there is no reason why it should be any one thought instead of any other.

Apart from the metaphysical difficulties around causes versus reasons

Here is a potential confusion. We might say we think or do something "for no reason at all," when what we really mean is "we acted without any rational deliberation." These aren't the same thing. While we might affirm something because we are angry, hungry, or to curry favor, etc., and call this irrational, yet it would not be acting for no reason at all. Acting according to one's appetites is still acting for a reason. Just because there is a reason that someone does something (e.g. stealing because one is a kleptomaniac due to one's personal history, chemical imbalances, etc.) doesn't make it "reasonable."

Causes and reasons are fairly synonymous is some senses. If by "reasons" you have "rational justifications" in mind, these two wouldn't occur spontaneously either.

As Kenneth Gallagher puts it for mobile, changing being:

"For no being insofar as it is changing is its own ground of being. Every state of a changing being is contingent: it was not a moment ago and will not be a moment from now. Therefore the grasping of a being as changing is the grasping of it as not intelligible in itself-as essentially referred to something other than itself."

it also raises the unpleasant specter of there being only one reasonable way to think and do.

I am not sure how it directly relates to this. A metaphysics of act wouldn't, in general, tend to suggest this in any rigid sense. What it would suggest is that there are unreasonable ways to think.

All reasonable ways of thinking either share something in common or they don't. If they share nothing in common, in virtue of what would they all be called reasonable? More to the point, what would these multiple, sui generis "types of rationality" look like? How do they relate differentially to truth?

On the other hand, if all ways of thinking and acting are reasonable, then being unreasonable (or incorrect) is impossible, and being "reasonable" doesn't seem to mean much of anything. To think of act is to be reasonable.

It just doesn't seem all that far from saying "they would not be participating in the same activity" to saying they would not have the intuitions—the experience of the agreement of logic with what we do—that people have when they successfully do x and y. — Jamal

Interesting, and methodologically sound, to have a think about such counter instances.

It's uncomfortable to do what is counterintuitive, of course, so we gravitate to what is intuitive. But also, we begin to intuit by learning an activity. Consider how intuitive driving is, compared to when you were learning.

And the same is the case with logic. You might recall long conversations in introductory logic classes in which folk puzzle over simple syllogisms. Consider:

All roses are flowers.
Some flowers fade quickly.
∴ Some roses fade quickly.

A student says "That seems right—roses are flowers, and some flowers fade quickly, so it makes sense that some roses might be among those that fade quickly." But the intuition that the argument is valid, is misplaced.

Or alternately,

All unicorns have horns.
Charlie is a unicorn.
∴ Charlie has a horn.

were the student replies “But unicorns don’t exist! How can Charlie have a horn?” - examples such as this can be found on these forums. The argument is valid, but for some, counterintuitive.

Point being, what is intuitive is not fixed. Our practices change our intuitions.

So it remains quite problematic to attempt to ground logic on an intuition. Much clearer to ground it on practice.

Also important here, and perhaps this cannot be emphasised enough: while intuition is private, practice is public. We share our practices more easily than out intuitions.

So we might grant your point and still find intuition wanting as a grounding for rationality.

(p v ~p) appears to fit -- to "be the key" -- to two types of phenomena. It appears to be a law of thought, perhaps normative, perhaps transcendentally descriptive, perhaps psychological, depending on how we rate Frege. It also appears to describe necessary facts about objects in the world, all things being equal. My puzzle is: How is it that these are two phenomena, which resemble each other so closely yet have such different objects? Or am I wrong about that? Must I simply accept that the "key" of logic fits the "lock" of the world? — J

I think you need to try to figure out what you are referring to with the term, "different objects," or the term, "two phenomena."

Is a law of thought a phenomenon? Is a description of necessary facts about objects in the world a phenomenon?

What is the object of a law of thought? What is the object of a description of necessary facts about objects in the world?

The characteristically modern error is to posit two substances, such as the mind and the body, and then wonder how two "simples" could ever interact. In order to throw that approach into relief one must begin to query their categorizations, such as their "phenomena" and their "objects." One needs to abandon the mechanistic paradigm at its root, and to stop presuming that everything is of a level.

It's interesting that both the time-honored view of mind as reflecting the structure of reality -- a "unique fit" if there ever was one -- and the contemporary Witt-based view that questions about the relation of mind and reality are defective, aim at resolving the same question, the question I'm posing. I don't find either view persuasive on the merits. — J

I'm not convinced that you are posing a question of sufficient clarity.

Are you asking about the relation between logic and world? But what do you mean by "logic"? It will help if you get more specific. Is "logic" something different than, "the human capacity to understand the world"? If so, what is it?

Thanks for a considered and sympathetic response.

Here are a few points I've taken form what you said:

1. that p v ~p is a logical law. There's of course a large literature on the nature of laws or rules, but perhaps there is some consensus that Wittgenstein was correct in pointing out the vicious circularity of claiming that our actions are determined by a rule. Now I'll go along with the tradition that says that the answer here is that ultimately a rule is grounded in a practice, in what we do. I think this is both found in the PI and an adequate answer to Kripke's scepticism.

So better, perhaps, to say that agreeing with either p or ~p is what we do, rather than a rule.

2. There's this, about (p v ~p): "My puzzle is: How is it that these are two phenomena, which resemble each other so closely yet have such different objects?" The trite response is that p and ~p are not phenomena. What they are has been answered at length and in different ways. But further, what is salient, and what we discussed in our previous conversations concerning Frege, is that we read (p v ~p) as about one thing, not two. That's part of the function of "⊢" in Frege.

Now there are puzzles here - perhaps most recently presented in 's recent thread. But I'll stand by this interpretation.

Our difference may be that I think there is a point at which our spade is turned, a point at which the only answer is "It's what we do", but that you would try to dig further. I take the "counts as..." function to be sufficient, so that putting the ball in the net counts as a goal, no further explanation being possible. You seem to me to want to ask why it counts as a goal, to which the answer is it just does.

Does this seem a fair characterisation?

So I'll throw the ball back - can you convince me that there is a further issue here that remains unanswered?

That would be very interesting.

You're attempting to ground logic itself in a notion of what is "logically compatible." This is circular without intuition. This is just an appeal to LNC as being intuitive. This seems like: "no intuition is required because the LNC is self-evident." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. :up:

but that's precisely the issue. The claim about intuitions is that we do know. And the debate is about whether such self-credentialing knowledge, absent either self-evidence or rational argument, is possible. — J

What do you mean by "self-evident" and what do you mean by "intuition," and how do they differ?

Intuition is knowing without knowing how you know. That, anyway, is my intuition.

I don't want it to be aporetic at all. — J

:smile:

Whereas I don't much mind. Better to not reach a conclusion than to jump to the wrong one.

Oh, and the obvious reason that LNC is taken as a metaphysical or epistemic principle is that it is a grammatical principle, and our language is common to both. Language underpins both.

The leap from "no determinate causes" to "no reason at all" in particular still eludes me, too, and in particular becasue it "raises the unpleasant spectre of there being only one reasonable way to think and do". The idea that the world would be unintelligible without strict casual explanations ignores the great difficulty of setting out exactly what a casual explanation is. It seems arse about; the way the world is, is not intelligible thanks to causation, so much as that causation is intelligible thanks to the way the world is. Perhaps it's not that the world becomes intelligible because we uncover its causes; rather, we see things as caused because the world is already intelligible to us. Causation is not the ground of intelligibility, but an expression of it.

Good chat.

So it remains quite problematic to attempt to ground logic on an intuition. Much clearer to ground it on practice.

I am not sure if any philosopher has ever tried to ground logic in "intuition" in the sense you are using the term. This would make logic simply a matter of habit or sentiment.

When people want to "ground logic in intuition" I would presume they are referring to "intuition" as an imperfect translation of noesis/intellectus, or "intellectual consideration." That was, at least, how I was introducing the term.

Without intellectus, reason seems to become mere contentless rule following, with no intelligible content. There are perhaps two distinct issues here. The first is the absence of intelligible content re discursive knowledge if it is all ratio (rule following) no understanding. This shows up in examples like Mary's Room, the Chinese Room, the symbol grounding problem, etc.

The second issue involves first principles. Without first principles, or some form of apprehension/intellectual consideration, the rules of discursive reasoning (as rule following) become arbitrary, based on what is not known. Hence, the elevation of "use," which is really just the old elevation of the will as prior to the intellect that the denial of first principles has always caused, since days of yore. This also leads to a self-refuting relativism.

Intellectus is the faculty of intuitive understanding; it is contemplative, receptive, and rooted in insight. The idea is that reasoning must begin with this sort of understanding, otherwise it would simply be a sort of rule following divorced from intelligible content. Ratio is
the means by which we move from truth to truth and come to “encircle” new truths. The acquisition of human
knowledge begins and ends in intellectus, but proceeds by discursive ratio. The difference between ratio and
intellectus is thus the difference between motion towards some end and rest in that end between acquisition and possession (as St. Thomas and Ibn Rushd put it), or as “time is to eternity” and “circumference is to center" (as Boethius puts it in the Consolation, or as Dionysius the Areopagite puts it in De Divinis Nominibus). It is not equivalent with habit.

Anyhow, that might be the discrepancy.

I meant to suggest something similar, when I wrote about the trustworthiness of people's intuitions. Your intuition about the job candidate is private and, in an extreme case, unjustifiable to anyone but yourself. But my choice to trust your intuition can be justified fairly easily -- again, not with any absolute certainty. — J

I think this kind of intuition―your intuition about the job candidate and my intuition about the soundness of your intuition are both based on our accumulations of our prior experience and our expectations based on that. This is kind of like inductive reasoning―or it even is inductive reasoning. As Hume pointed out we have no deductive certainty in those cases, as we don't when it comes to the regularities of nature (although the latter may be far more reliable than humans).

Yes. This takes us to the question of meaning, of interpretation. My sense is that those who are firmly opposed to the idea of religious or mystical experiences believe that no conceivable interpretation of experience that include references to godlike entities could be correct. That, I'm sure we both agree, needs independent argumentation. — J

Well I don't want to say that interpretations of mystical or religious experience cannot be correct, but I would say that there is no way of determining whether or not they are correct. It seems we have three sources of grounding for our beliefs, or if you prefer, the premises upon which we base our (hopefully) consistent reasoning―logic, perceptual observation and reflection on and generalization from experience. The latter is what I would say phenomenology at its best consists in. I see analytic philosophy, philosophy of language as phenomenology in this sense―it consists in reflection on, analysis of and generalization about our uses of language.

Likewise we have no way of determining whether our beliefs about the reliability of others' judgements, or our scientific theories are correct, even though it seems reasonable to think we have a better idea about the veracity of those based on whether the predictions they yield are observed.

The only certainties would seem to be the logical, including mathematics, and the directly observable.

Reason is simply consistent thinking. You start with premises, and then work out what they entail.

This is just a restatement of "reason is nothing but discursive ratio" without addressing any of the problems it entails (mentioned in the post you are responding to). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Those "problems" are, in my opinion, merely imagined on account of looking for something which cannot be found. Reason just is consistent thinking. If we don't think consistently then we will hold beliefs which have no relation to their premises or we will contradict ourselves, thus cancelling out any cogent beliefs at all.

See my response to @J above―I think it answers all your questions. I don't want to waste time repeating myself, but if you think some questions remain then let me know what they are and why you think they remain unanswered.

It seems clear to me that of all our kinds of beliefs those based on religious and mystical experiences are the least grounded, are in fact groundless, and are thus purely matters of faith. I understand that it may be hard for some to admit this―however I don't see this as a bug, but rather a feature. If people generally understood this, there would be no evangelism, no religious indoctrination and no fundamentalism, and I think we would then have a better world.

I have the utmost respect for others' faiths. provided they don't seek to indoctrinate others. I have my own beliefs which are based on pure faith, but I don't want to argue for them because I see that it is pointless given that no intersubjectively determinate corroboration is possible in respect of them.

This is usually where I get (falsely) accused of being a positivist. Dismissal by labelling is so much easier than refutation by argument.

Well, perhaps there is some hope for our finding agreement.

The question surely remains as to what the posited "intellectual consideration" in an intuition might be. And the argument I gave previously convinces me that neither intuition nor self-evidence will provide a suitable "Intellectual consideration". In their place I'm offering those specifiable speech acts that inaugurate our language games - those involving "counts as...".

I gather this is all quite foreign to your way of putting things.

If your first point is that rule-following alone does not equate to content, then we might agree. I'd answer this problem by again pointing out that one's understanding of any rule is to be found in the actions seen in following it or going against it. And here we might add that the action is what you call "content".

And this is much the same as my answer to your second point. Whatever "first principles" you might cite will be secondary to what one does with them. The vital difference between action and the "elevation of the will" is that action is public, whereas what one wills is private. What one does can be seen by others, and so can be a suitable basis for the common action of providing explanations and accounts.

Human knowledge is shared. Which is why private intellectus on its own is inadequate.

Are there parts of this with which you might agree?

Without intellectus, reason seems to become mere contentless rule following, with no intelligible content. There are perhaps two distinct issues here. The first is the absence of intelligible content re discursive knowledge if it is all ratio (rule following) no understanding. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, but I think you were on the right track when you pointed out to Janus that he is taking the LNC as read. The same thing happens whenever one tries to exclude intellectus/understanding. There is no rule following without understanding; there is no modus ponens without understanding; there is no <PV~P> without understanding, etc.

If ratio pertains to "movement" then intellectus pertains to "location." There simply is no such thing as movement without location. Terms, inferences, and rules must all be understood before they can be used or manipulated.

To illustrate, we could train a dog to lick the consequent whenever he sees a modus ponens syllogism. He is arguably following a rule, but he is certainly not doing logic or carrying out a modus ponens. This is "contentless rule following." His rule is a quasi or pseudo instance of ratio, but without intellectus it can never rise to the true level of ratio at all. Rearranging symbols is not yet reasoning. Ratio without intellectus is not ratio.

For empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses. The fact which obliges a correct theory of knowledge to recognize this essential difference is simply disregarded. What fact? The fact that the human intellect grasps, first in a most indeterminate manner, then more and more distinctly, certain sets of intelligible features -- that is, natures, say, the human nature -- which exist in the real as identical with individuals, with Peter or John for instance, but which are universal in the mind and presented to it as universal objects, positively one (within the mind) and common to an infinity of singular things (in the real).

Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. He plays, he lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And his field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in man -- the potential infinity of knowledge.

Such are the basic facts which Empiricism ignores, and in the disregard of which it undertakes to philosophize. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

Human knowledge is shared. Which is why private intellectus on its own is inadequate. — Banno

This applies again:

I'm not sure that qualifies as an answer, even generously. — J

The basic starting point here is that human knowledge is both public/shared and private. The idea that because some human knowledge is shared therefore there is no private aspect or part of human knowledge is simply non sequitur. You're not even entertaining the problem that is being discussed.

Yes, very good. That was an impressive connection. :up:

And the sensory analogue is salutary. What @Janus wrestles with with intuition is more clearly seen and understood in the case of sense data or sense knowledge (i.e. sense knowledge is truth-apt without being publicly shared or discursive).

I should read more Maritain. He would be a good interlocutor for TPF.

Dogs don't know things? A bit harsh on the pup?

...he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

He doesn't use the words, perhaps; but his reactions show something....

So why are 'sugar' and 'intruder' in quotes?

Dogs don't know things? A bit harsh on the pup? — Banno

Harsh? Is that supposed to be an argument? Try reading again:

[The dog] has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

More from Thomist psychology:

Everything in the universe is composed of matter and form. Everything is concrete and individual. Hence the forms of cosmic entities must also be concrete and individual. Now, the process of knowledge is immediately concerned with the separation of form from matter, since a thing is known precisely because its form is received in the knower. But, whatever is received is in the recipient according to the mode of being that the recipient possesses. If, then, the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the forms of objects in an immaterial manner. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.

Moreover, if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality. — From Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophical Analysis of the Nature of Man, by Robert E. Brennan, O.P.

For Aristotle, nous is the faculty that enables rational thought. It is distinct from sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals possess. Nous is the faculty that enables definitions so be set in a consistent and communicable way, and explains why humans are born with the innate ability to understand the same universal categories in the same ways (which enables language, that other animals lack.)

I'm kind of re-constructing all this from the debris of modern philosophy - rather like forensic pathology, working backwards from scattered remains to understand the cause of death.

Yes, good stuff. :up:

When claims that Wittgenstein and the "time-honored view" both dismiss the question at a bedrock level, it seems that he is plainly mistaken. Or else he has a very strange notion of the "time-honored view," one which begs to be revealed. The Aristotelian tradition is the elephant standing quietly in the room when it is pronounced that no spade has broken beneath the surface. Your quotes from primary sources are helpful in revealing gardeners who do more with their spades.

Point being, what is intuitive is not fixed. Our practices change our intuitions.

So it remains quite problematic to attempt to ground logic on an intuition. Much clearer to ground it on practice.

Also important here, and perhaps this cannot be emphasised enough: while intuition is private, practice is public. We share our practices more easily than out intuitions.

So we might grant your point and still find intuition wanting as a grounding for rationality. — Banno

Yep.

But practice changes too. I wonder if one of the criticisms of psychologism works against this Wittgensteinian view as much as it does against psychologism: if logic is relative to our practices then it's contingent.

EDIT: Also: is it quite right to say that logic is grounded in our practices, as if it is based on them, when in fact it is immanent to them?

The reason I'm thinking about this is that a couple of days ago I noticed that Adorno had written more about formal logic than I thought he had. In his critique of Husserl's critique of psychologism (Against Epistemology: A Metacritique), he agrees that psychologism is wrong but disagrees that it follows that logic is a priori, transcendental, quasi-Platonic. This is where Wittgenstein agrees and says it's about our practices (language games and our form of life), but Adorno says it's sociohistorical, though not reducible to sociohistorical facts.

EDIT: I was going to say something about intuition, which is different from psychologism and more in line with Husserl's transcendental answer---but I'll leave it.

This is where Wittgenstein agrees and says it's about our practices (language games and our form of life), but Adorno says it's sociohistorical, though not reducible to sociohistorical facts. — Jamal

Isn’t a lot of this just a tacit prohibition on anything that could be considered outside the scope of natural sciences, evolutionary biology, and so on? Don’t mention anything remotely platonic. Has to be something comfortably domesticated.

You almost remind me of Adorno himself, in that you see everything as ideological :wink:

But the answer is: not quite. There is room for social sciences like sociology and anthropology, which are empirical sciences which are not reducible to biology and physics. There is also room for philosophy. This is where W and A differ: for the former it's therapy, for the latter it's because emancipating human beings hasn't happened yet.

Yes, I have little exposure to Adorno, save some readings from his Dialectics of the Enlightenment, which overall I found congenial. So, one question that remark brings up for me is, is this 'emancipation' to be understood primarily in political terms?

Pretty much, but there's a sense---and this is probably a gross caricature---in which he retained the Marxian view that philosophy will be solved in a world free of domination. Also, he's definitely against praxis at the expense of theory.

So when Marx says the philosophers have only interpreted the world and the point, however, is to change it, Adorno interprets this as meaning that the point of philosophy is to change it, not that we should stop philosophizing, man the barricades, and roll our sleeves up. I think this is a correct interpretation.

Thank you. I'm continuing to learn how much philosophy feeds into politics and vice versa.

So when Marx says the philosophers have only interpreted the world and the point, however, is to change it, Adorno interprets this as meaning that the point of philosophy is to change it, not that we should stop philosophizing and man the barricades. — Jamal

Would you say that Adorno holds that theory itself can be a form of resistance?

It's a weird thing to me still, because I used to always separate the two in my mind, and it's amazing to see how Adorno, for example, connects the most abstract theories about epistemology and metaphysics with practical concerns. This is challenging but in the end I think the right way to go, the way I see it.