When I make a decision, or act in any way it is determined by who and what I am; and through my needs, motivation and volition.. — charleton

If who I am at a given moment is completely determinate then is any choice possible?

David Hume is wrong. Empiricism is wrong. — René Descartes

Could you give a bit more info, in what respect do you regard them to be wrong?

Yes and the point is that insofar as the conclusions are contained in the premises of all valid deductive arguments they are all, in a certain sense, tautologies.

Basically Hume's criticism of inductive arguments amounts to saying they are not rationally justified because they are not tautologous in this sense.

However by making explicit the implicit premises in inductive arguments I.e. regularity, invariance, you can render them as tautologies.

Example:

1. All observed swans have been white
2. There is a natural law that ensures that swans must be white
C. Therefore all swans are white

A more truly tautologous form which basically says the same thing would be:

• If there is a natural law that ensures that swans must be white then all swans must be white.

It does depend on the definition of 'tautology' though. Are tautologies simply true by definition?

Example:

1. All observed swans have been white
2. There is a natural law that ensures that swans must be white
C. Therefore all swans are white

A more truly tautologous form which basically says the same thing would be:

If there is a natural law that ensures that swans must be white then all swans must be white.

It does depend on the definition of 'tautology' though. Are tautologies simply true by definition? — Janus

But this puts it all back to deduction, since you are not drawing out a generality from the particularities. You are using a generalism -point 1 (above) is redundant, C the conclusion is a tautology of 2.

FYI there are black swans BTW.

If who I am at a given moment is completely determinate then is any choice possible? — Perplexed

Yes, all choices are determined by antecedent conditions. What makes them different from the automatic consequences of inanimate cause and effect is that outwardly the choice emerged from an agent whose condition is unknowable to an observer. Each of us (agents) are a universe unto themselves, a black box of complexity.

If a probabilistic determinism allows space for free will then that enough of a compromise for me. — Perplexed

This just reduces free choice to a roll of the dice.
I prefer to determine my choices. They have more meaning that way.

What makes them different from the automatic consequences of inanimate cause and effect is that outwardly the choice emerged from an agent whose condition is unknowable to an observer. — charleton

Do you say that the condition is unknowable to the agent themselves?

This just reduces free choice to a roll of the dice. — charleton

Then this hasn't allowed space for free will and is not the compromise I was speaking about.

I prefer to determine my choices. They have more meaning that way. — charleton

What role do you play in determining them?

However by making explicit the implicit premises in inductive arguments I.e. regularity, invariance, you can render them as tautologies. — Janus

And in doing so two things happen. The first is that it is no longer an inductive argument, but an deductive one. The second is that the premise used is itself dubious.

1. All observed swans have been white
2. There is a natural law that ensures that swans must be white
C. Therefore all swans are white — Janus

The second premise is not just dubious, but wrong, as is the conclusion. And indeed, at least in my case, so is the first premise.

FYI there are black swans BTW. — charleton

Really? :-}

The first premise is deductively redundant, but there would not be any motivation to make the assumption that forms the second premise if no white swans had ever been observed.

It is true that the second premise does not deductively follow from the first, but the first does deductively follow from the second. It is not essential to the validity of a deductive argument that premises follow from one another; the important criterion is that they cannot be inconsistent with one another, and that the conclusion cannot be false if the deductively salient premises are true.

It could be better put into this simpler form:

If it is a consequence of natural law that all swans must be white, then all observed swans will be white.

Banno always likes to argue from a trancendental absolutist perspective - that there is a fact of the matter. — apokrisis

What a dreadful creature is Banno! Speaking things that cannot be spoken, such as "it is true that there are black swans"! He says that some statements can be true!

See him use the trancendental absolutist perspective! "It is true that this sentence is in English"! "It is true that I have two hands"!

I was in a similar position. Via cognitive neurobiology, theoretical biology and paleoanthropology, I had arrived at a generally semiotic position. And then decent digests of Peirce's voluminous unpublished thoughts began to pop up. Along with a whole circle of biologists and systems scientists, it just became obvious that Peirce had sorted out the metaphysics 100 years earlier. Within a few years, we were all calling ourselves biosemioticians. — apokrisis

Do you gather together for Sunday worship?

And in doing so two things happen. The first is that it is no longer an inductive argument, but an deductive one. The second is that the premise used is itself dubious. — Banno

Exactly, that is just the point I have been trying to drive home! Your second point is irrelevant, though, because the dubiousness of premises is irrelevant to the validity of deductive arguments.

The second premise is not just dubious, but wrong, as is the conclusion. And indeed, at least in my case, so is the first premise. — Banno

Yes, I know; I am Australian, after all. I go drawing in Centennial Park most Saturdays and every swan I see is black (or grey in the case of the young ones).

But, again, I am only addressing the issue of validity.

So far as I can see then, we agree that there is not actually a form of rational discourse that might reasonably be called induction...

It is either invalid or it reduces to deduction.

Is that right?

On the other hand why not simply: "there are black swans" and "this sentence is in English"?

Does anyone else find it odd that Apo can't actually say that his metaphysics is true? He acts as if it is true, and speaks as if it is true; but it binds him never to utter that truth. Indeed, he can't make any truth claims.

On the other hand why not simply: "there are black swans" and "this sentence is in English"? — Janus

Yes, indeed. "there are black swans" and "It is true that there are black swans" are truth functionally equivalent. You and I can say either. Apo is restricted to one but not the other by his metaphysics.

I would rather say that there is a rational discourse that might reasonably be called induction, a rational discourse that is valid because it can always be framed in deductive form.

Deduction by itself tells us nothing about the world. Some valid deductive arguments have premises that are considered to be self-evident (like mathematics), some have premises that are motivated by inferences to what might be thought to be best explanations (like abductive conjectures and inductive inferences), and others have premises and conclusions which are simply nonsensical. (All glorps are purple. All twaddlewhackers are glorps. Therefore all twaddlewhackers are purple). Deduction is merely a form; a deductive argument is only as good, when it comes to soundness, as its premises.

I think apo could say that his metaphysics is true is he were to assert that his metaphysics fairly represents what the community of enquirers will ultimately come to believe at the culmination of human metaphysical speculation.

Yes, indeed. "there are black swans" and "It is true that there are black swans" are truth functionally equivalent. You and I can say either. Apo, is restricted to one but not the other by his metaphysics. — Banno

So, "there are black swans" is true iff "it is true that there are black swans" is true?

Deduction by itself tells us nothing about the world. Some valid deductive arguments have premises that are considered to be self-evident (like mathematics), — Janus

Think about that for a bit. Mathematics tells us nothing about the world?

I think apo could say that his metaphysics is true is he were to assert that his metaphysics fairly represents what the community of enquirers will ultimately come to believe at the culmination of human metaphysical speculation. — Janus

Which is to say he could claim it was true if he changed the meaning of "true".

OK, bottom line is I could not put my faith in any of the grand philosophical schemes of the nineteenth century. The analytic turn - which is now ubiquitous - offers instead a set of rational tools with which to take philosophical issues apart, in marked contrast to the fake grandeur of sandcastle pragmatism or transcendental realism.

I've never been decided about that question; it can depend on what you mean by "tell something about the world". It does seem as though mathematics must tell us something about the world or about ourselves. But it seems to be more the fact that we can do mathematics that seems to tells us something, rather than the math itself. Would you say mathematics per se tell us anything empirical about the world?

What about phenomenology or process philosophy? Have they nothing at all to offer to increase our overall understanding of human life and the world in your view? I tend to think that all possible avenues of intellectual enquiry and speculation should be explored; if possible without prejudice.

Deductive Logic is a bit like grammar. It gives a structure to what can be said.

Mathematics does much the same. So the answer to Zeno’s paradoxes are provided by the grammar of integral calculus, which sets out how we can talk about motion.

Least, that makes sense to me.

Speaking things that cannot be spoken, such as "it is true that there are black swans"! He says that some statements can be true! — Banno

But your spoken truths always rely on unspoken ambiguities.

Are we talking about adult black swans or their fluffy white goslings? Are we talking about "swans" as being generically Cygnus atratus, or Cygnus olor and Cygnus cygnus? Are we talking about black swans that include albino Cygnus atratus?

So we can resolve some of these ambiguities with more careful speech. We can say that is a member of the genus Cygnus. It is black.

Yet ambiguity is in principle irreducible in speech acts. We can only hope to constrain it. Which is where pragmatism comes in as it then only make sense to put so much effort into constraining the semantics of our utterances. The truths we tell turn out to have as least as much to do with our intentions as they do with "the facts of the world".

As a biologist, you could have a hearty debate about the genus Cygnus. Are geese really so different? Are they not just chubbier members of the tribe, Cygnini? Or perhaps we need to be more restrictive about the true swans. There are grounds to rule out the coscoroba swan as a proper member of the subfamily, Cygninae.

So as usual, you make your simplistic statements about objective truths and pretend to be amazed when sensible folk roll their eyes. Of course we can say that's just Banno, taking his furtive pleasure in waggling his naive realism in public again, hoping to scandalise.

Pragmatism is for serious grown-ups. But you play in the corner with your little thing if you want to.

The interesting point for me here is whether grammar, or calculus, are themselves deductively or intuitively derived. I think they as much the result of imaginative insight (abduction) than of sheer deduction. Even in analytical philosophy of language it ultimately comes down to what is intuitively obvious to us, no?

So, can we say it is deductively certain that grammar gives a structure to what can be said? Could we not equally say that analysis of the structure of what can be said gives us grammar?

what might be interesting and important is what can’t be said. We can’t say something and it’s negation; we can’t deduce a universal from a number of instances.

And what can be said. We can talk of infinitesimal motion.

But yes, imagination and creativity are paramount. Look at Kripke’s modal Logic.

Odd, also, that from what I understand Apo rejects the body of modern logic. But perhaps I misunderstand him, since that seems so absurd.

OK, bottom line is I could not put my faith in any of the grand philosophical schemes of the nineteenth century. — Banno

You mean like ... scientific inquiry. :D

The analytic turn - which is now ubiquitous - offers instead a set of rational tools with which to take philosophical issues apart... — Banno

You mean like whatever came after logical atomism sunk without trace as AP's grand philosophical scheme? >:O

The second premise is not just dubious, but wrong, as is the conclusion. And indeed, at least in my case, so is the first premise. — Banno

And yet the argument is valid. Curious.

Perhaps semantics is the basis of truth-telling more than syntax?

Does anyone else find it odd that Apo can't actually say that his metaphysics is true? He acts as if it is true, and speaks as if it is true; but it binds him never to utter that truth. Indeed, he can't make any truth claims. — Banno

So you have changed your position on hinge propositions all of a sudden. Curious.