An apparent dig at Austin...? — Banno

I find that hard to believe. Austin puts a lot of emphasis on the inter-connectedness of words. Austin would certainly consider "cause" and all sorts of related words at the same time, bringing out their differences and similarities, wouldn't he?

But then, a dig doesn't have to be fair.

I've been unable to follow what Ryle means here by "general" and "singular". — Banno

Ryle does preface his articulation of the idea with "roughly", so it wouldn't be surprising to find deficiencies.

I got worried about that and came up with this:-

I'm bothered about someone having a heart attack, and getting to hospital where they prevent his death. Can we not say that his death was averted? Perhaps we can say that it was averted last Sunday, but not that his death last Sunday was averted. — Ludwig V

But I can't work out a similar tactic for the lunar eclipse. The best I can do is a gesture. The eclipse is predictable, but does not yet exist (is not actual). When it happens, it will become real/actual and when it is over it will have been real/actual.

(My apologies to Austin. I couldn't think of a better way of putting that.)

If you do a search you will find several articles that credit Zeno. — Fooloso4

OK. It is certainly possible that he was, and it is hard to be sure of anything about those very early philosophers. It just seems so odd that an argument that seems quite clearly to establish a conclusion should actually be intended to keep ideas in play. I suppose an argument for an absurd conclusion could be intended to provoke a response, rather than to establish a truth. But we'll never really know what Zeno intended.

But I can't work out a similar tactic for the lunar eclipse. — Ludwig V

Because of the lack of volition?

I think it true that there will be an eclipse in March, 2025. I might be wrong, but tif so the circumstances would be so extraordinary that the lack of an eclipse would be of little consequence. We'd have other problems. I think it true your companion's death last Sunday was averted. I don't think talking in this way invokes any ontological mystery.

If the link is causal, it is empirical. Which means it is not necessary. — Ludwig V

Since Kripke, It ain't necessarily so.

I don't think talking in this way invokes any ontological mystery. — Banno

Well, if my attempt involves ontological mystery, I'll give up on it.

I think it true that there will be an eclipse in March, 2025. — Banno

I'm glad that you don't think that it is like Hume's failure of the sun to rise tomorrow morning, which, it seems, will affect nothing else.

I agree that it is true that there will be an eclipse in March 2025. I suggest however, that the prediction that there will be an eclipse in March 2025 is neither correct nor incorrect, neither fulfilled or unfulfilled until April 2025. Will that do?

Because of the lack of volition? — Banno

I've been thinking about precious little else for hours.

Since Kripke, It ain't necessarily so. — Banno

Very good. The prospect of an infinite regress of necessities is positively intimidating.

But seriously, who invented this idea, and is it proof against Humean scepticism? If not, why not?

It just seems so odd that an argument that seems quite clearly to establish a conclusion should actually be intended to keep ideas in play. — Ludwig V

The problem is that Zeno's writings do not exist except for fragments. There are various conflicting claims about what is was doing. I agree with your conclusion:

But we'll never really know what Zeno intended. — Ludwig V

I suggest however, that the prediction that there will be an eclipse in March 2025 is neither correct not incorrect, neither fulfilled or unfulfilled until April 2025. Will that do? — Ludwig V

Oh, I'll say it is correct - it's not wrong. But unfulfilled - yeah, ok.

But seriously, who invented this idea, and is it proof against Humean scepticism? If not, why not? — Ludwig V

Thereby hangs a PhD - or a career.

$0.\dot9 = 1$

After the cake has been passed around the family circle so that an infinite number of slices have been removed, there will be no cake left.

Achilles will pass the tortoise after an infinite number of steps, but after a finite time.

I'm just not seeing a problem here.

The tortoise will not have taken an infinite number of steps. The purported paradox consists in the infinite divisibility of the distance between the tortoise and the hare, with the claim being that if the tortoise is in front the hare cannot pass her in a finite amount of time. What is missed is that if the finite distance between the tortoise and hare is infinitely divisible, then so is the finite amount of time it takes the hare to pass the tortoise. Thus, there is no problem.

Thereby hangs a PhD - or a career. — Banno

Thank you. I'm not the person to do that work. I think I'll remain respectfully sceptical.

Oh, I'll say it is correct - it's not wrong. But unfulfilled - yeah, ok. — Banno

Correct/wrong is a very intricate issue. Complete agreement is hard to find. But is his doctrine right enough to resolve the fatalist's argument?


I agree with what you say. My version of this is that Achilles may have to pass an infinite number of points to pass the tortoise, but he has the advantage that he can pass each point in an infinitesimal amount of time.

:up: What you say there is a more succint way of putting it.

Would "Achilles runs faster past smaller distances" cover it?

Right it was Achilles not the hare; I'm mixing up the stories.

It doesn't make any logical difference.

I think it's time to move on to the next lecture - "Pleasure". I'll post it as soon as I can.

Here's my summary of Lecture IV on Pleasure.

This lecture is a new departure. The previous two, it turns out, were exercises, now we get serious.

The last paragraph arrives at the expected conclusion that “category mistakes” are at the root of the issues. There is a new general moral “Dilemmas derive from wrongly imputed parities of reasoning.” (pp. 66-67)

There’s a qualification. “But we must not be ungrateful to either of these borrowed trappings. We learn the powers of a borrowed tool side by side with learning its limitations, and we find out the properties of the material as well when we find out how and why the borrowed tool is ineffectual upon it, as when we find out how and why it is effectual. In the end we design the tool for the material-in the end, but never in the beginning.” (p. 66) This is something rather different from the “Concept of Mind”, which seems to find no redeeming feature in the category mistake he is discussing there.

His aims also imply a more tolerant attitude to category mistakes. “I want … to exhibit how, at the level of thought on which we have first to think not just with but about even a quite commonplace concept or family of concepts, it is natural and even inevitable for us to begin by trying to subject it to a code or standard, which we know how to operate elsewhere. Dilemmas result when the conduct of the new conscript diverges from the imposed standard.” (p. 55)

The first (and probably the most important) problem is:- “I begin by considering a piece of theoretical harness which some pioneers in psychological theory, with natural over-confidence, formerly tried to hitch on to the notion of pleasure. Thinking of their scientific mission as that of duplicating for the world of mind what physicists had done for the world of matter, they looked for mental counterparts to the forces in terms of which dynamic explanations were given of the movements of bodies.” (p. 56)

This turns out to mean:- “Hence it seemed reasonable to set up as axioms of human dynamics such plausible, yet also unplausible, propositions as that all desires are desires for pleasure; that all purposive actions are motivated by the desire for a net increase in the quantity of the agent's pleasure or a net decrease in the quantity of his pain; and that the dynamic efficacy of one pleasure differs from that of another only if the former is bigger, i.e. more intense or more protracted or both than the latter.” (p. 57)

The critique here centres on the comparison of pleasure with pain and hence the idea that is a sensation.

There is one other major target:- “The problem in what sorts of terms human nature is to be described was at one time thought to be solved or half-solved by deliberately borrowing the idioms of politics.” (p. 64) He admits that the metaphor is less popular than it used to be:- "This parallel strikes us nowadays as not much more than a striking and picturesque metaphor.” (p. 64).

I can’t resist commenting that there is also a tradition of running the metaphor the other way – comparing the state to the individual rather the individual to a state. This makes it a most unusual example of metaphor. Whether this is explaining the unknown by appealing to something even more unknown or each casting light on the other, I cannot say. Teamwork, authority, and balance seem to be the themes either way.

The critique here is much briefer that the critique of the first idea. It centres on the idea that pleasure is an emotion.

Ryle doesn’t explicitly discuss pleasure very much. He focuses instead on two other concepts which are, admittedly, closely related to pleasure - enjoyment or disliking:- “The notions of enjoying and disliking are not technical notions.” (p. 55) Enjoyment doesn’t seem to have a single convenient opposite, and this may be why he chooses such an odd pairing.

His focus isn’t obviously wrong, but one might wonder about other concepts in this family - “delight”, “happiness”, “satisfaction”, “bliss”, “gratification”, “contentment”, “gladness”, “delectation”. These, or at least some of them, might have broadened the discussion in a helpful way. On the other hand, he does mention the variety of contexts in which pleasure is discussed:- “There are many overlapping fields of discourse in which, long before philosophizing begins, generalities about pleasure are bound to be mooted and debated.” (p. 56). I’m not sure how significant these points may be.

True.

@Banno @Ludwig V

I continue to struggle with Chapter 2 unfortunately. I can’t seem to see the truth or confused conflict between the two “positions”. I feel like Ryle does not do sufficient justice to developing the position of Determinism, even by drawing it out, as Austin does, only on the terms of ordinary criteria, nor by getting at why the Determinist wants or needs to hold the view they do, as Wittgenstein would. Ryle appears simply to subject Determinism to the judgment of common opinion, as a refutation, which simply overlooks what is important about or to Determinism. It does seem he thinks it is small potatoes; however, if Determinism is of little import, Free Will is trivialized as well (and isn’t the real dilemma between those two?). Maybe I will come back to it, as I am at a loss to tie the discussion to any greater point, even though he did promise that the argument between the dilemmas themselves were not the matter at hand.

Ryle himself is uncharacteristically cautious about his arguments in this lecture - “I have produced quite an apparatus of somewhat elaborate arguments, all of which need expansion and reinforcement. I expect that the logical ice is pretty thin under some of them.” p.29

I do think he is fairly explicit that this problem is a problem of logic, not of causality. So Free Will is probably not at stake here. Here are two quotations:-

"A large part of the reason is that in thinking of a predecessor making its successor necessary we unwittingly assimilate the necessitation to causal necessitation. Gunfire makes windows rattle a few seconds later, but rattling windows do not make gunfire happen a few seconds earlier, even though
they may be perfect evidence that gunfire did happen a few seconds earlier. We slide, that is, into thinking of the anterior truths as causes of the happenings about which they were true, where the mere matter of their relative dates saves us from thinking of happenings as the effects of those truths about them which are posterior to them. Events cannot be the effects of their successors, any more than we can be the offspring of our posterity." p. 21

"It is quite true that a backer cannot guess correctly that Eclipse will win without Eclipse winning and still it is quite false that his guessing made or caused Eclipse to win." p.22

As to conclusions, some of us got quite excited about this generalization of some of his arguments: - "Roughly, statements in the future tense cannot convey singular, but only general propositions, where statements in the present and past tense can convey both." p.27 I'm not sure than anyone thinks it is right, but it is quite persuasive in its context. I do think there is something in it.

"Certain thinkers, properly impressed by the excellent logical discipline of the technical concepts of long-established and well consolidated sciences like pure mathematics and mechanics, have urged that intellectual progress is impeded by the survival of the unofficial concepts of unspecialized thought...... It is, of course, quite true that scientific, legal or financial thinking could not be conducted only in colloquial idioms. ....... the specialist when he comes to use the designed terms of his art (sc. does not) cease to depend upon the concepts which he began to master in the nursery, any more than the driver, whose skill and interests are concentrated on the mechanically complex and delicate works of his car, cease to avail himself of the mechanically crude properties of the public highway. He could not use his car without using the roads, though he could, as the pedestrian that he often is, use these same roads without using his car." p. 35

But you say that you are giving up on this lecture. I'm now a bit uncertain what to do for the best. Lecture IV on pleasure has not attracted any comment or debate. I was thinking of posting a summary of lecture V "The world of science and the everyday world" which might attract more interest. But if you would like me to wait for you, I doubt anybody will be inconvenienced. What do you think?

I'm still interested - working through IV. It's a time of year that is full of distractions.

You don't say! I can't imagine what you have in mind. But thank you. I'll hold off on introducing the next lecture.

Chapter Five is most amusing; and pertinent to several recent threads.

It is classic Ryle. And yes, it's about a battle that is very much pertinent to-day. It's refreshing to see something a bit more impartial that usual. Am I right in thinking that you found IV disappointing. To be honest, I did. But Ryle sort of admits that this isn't the peak of the book (in the penultimate paragraph, p. 66/7. That, it seems is VII. I'm looking forward to that.

Yeah, IV didn't bite.

Ch. V is pretty much the same point I was making in 's recent thread, which is not surprising since I stole it from Midgley and Anscombe and co, who presumably were also influenced by Ryle.

First, even if it is true that physical theory cannot accommodate mentions of the colours or tastes of things, this does not by itself prove that mentions of the colours and tastes of things are to be construed as mentions of things existing or happening in people's physiological or psychological insides. — p. 83

Oooh. Goodby, qualia.

I ran a thread once in which I argued that adding qualia to the discussion was detrimental; that we ought talk instead of colours and sounds, since they were sufficient. Ryle seems to agree.

Sadly, not good-bye. The argument still rages - in exactly the traditional format, which I thought had been banished. Which drives me back to Cavell's idea that philosophical ideas are not put away, because their roots are deeper even than philosophy.

On another site, I'm watching, appalled, as the debate around Dennett rages on.

The problem is, I think, that Ryle's argument doesn't address the need to locate the technical in relation to the untechnical. I think, nowadays, Newtonian mechanics has found a comfortable place, but other sciences have not - notably, as Ryle says, the sub-atomic world, but now the neuro-physiological world as well. Which I why I'm looking forward to VII.

Do you think I should post a summary of V, in case others might want to contribute?

Maybe this thread is dead. But I'm going to post a summary of the next lecture, so see if that provokes any response. It is, perhaps a more recognizable difficulty than we have met so far, but it still doesn't seem to occupy much space. I think that, since he wrote these lectures, we have grown more comfortable with the weird world of quantum mechanics; which is not so say that we have got the matter sorted out. So here goes:-

Lecture V – The world of science and the everyday world.

As usual, Ryle identifies his target at the beginning: -
We often worry ourselves about the relations between what we call ‘the world of science' and ‘the world of real life ' or ‘the world of common sense'. Sometimes we are even encouraged to worry about the relations between 'the desk of physics’ and the desk on which we write. p.68

His answer is not difficult to predict: -
“In the way in which a landscape-painter paints a good or bad picture of a range of hills, the geologist does not paint a rival picture, good or bad, of those hills, though what he tells us the geology of are the same hills that the painter depicts or misdepicts.” p.80
He gets to his target in a somewhat roundabout way, by describing similar dilemmas. I’m not sure how far these diversions contribute to resolving the main problem; their contribution seems to be more to loosen our familiar patterns of thinking and prepare us to look at things differently.

The first of these is the dilemma between Economic Man – motivated primarily or exclusively by financial considerations and the market -and the “Everyday Man” for whom financial considerations are one amonst many preoccupations and far from his only concern. (p.69) Ryle maintains that the first of these is now a matter of history. It was very much alive in the 19th century. Certainly, it isn’t a live issue for us now.

There’s a brief consideration of the question who Aesop’s story of the dog who dropped his bone in order to secure the tempting reflection of the bone in a pool is aimed at. (p.70)

Then he returns to the main business – the “feud” between the world of physical science and the world of “real life”. p.71

He starts by deflating “two over-inflated ideas” – “science” and “world”:-
(a) There is no such animal as 'Science'. There are scores of sciences. (p.71)
(b) The other idea which needs prefatory deflation is that of world. (p.73)

Then he presents us with another analogy: - “An undergraduate member of a college is one day permitted to inspect the college accounts and to discuss them with the auditor.” (p.75). His discussion of this is detailed and careful and ends with: - “In fact, of course, physical theorists do not describe chairs and tables at all, any more than the accountant describes the books bought for the library.” (p.79)

He is surprisingly cautious about his conclusion: -
“I hope that this protracted analogy has satisfied you at least that there is a genuine logical door open for us; that at least there is no general logical objection to saying that physical theory, while it covers the things that the more special sciences explore and the ordinary observer describes, still does not put up a rival description of them….” (p.80)

But he seems clear enough about the source of the trouble – we should hesitate “to characterize the physicist, the theologian, the historian, the poet, and the man in the street as all alike producing ‘pictures', whether of the same object or of different objects. The highly concrete word ‘picture' smothers the enormous differences between the businesses of the scientist, historian, poet and theologian even worse than the relatively abstract word ‘description' smothers the big differences between the businesses of the accountant and the reviewer.” p.81

And so he leads us on to the next lecture by characterizing what he has said so far as “mere promise of a lifebelt”. (p.81)

Compare Anscombe's discussion of cause...

Is he moving his arm up and down? Pumping water? Doing his job? Clicking out a steady rhythm? Making a funny shadow on the rock behind him? Well, it could be that all of these descriptions are true. — SEP Anscombe

H'mm. I'm afraid you'll have to tell me more before I can see your point. (I looked at the SEP article before saying that.)
I'm inclined to wonder whether she is using a different sense of "cause" from the one intended by Hume and others. More related to "causa" in Latin and "aitia" in Greek. I'm not saying that's wrong, exactly, just that it's different.

Just the notion of an action being understood under a certain description. That idea is at least nascent in Ryle. The difference between squeezing clay between one's fingers and forming a sculpture. The same strategy I think applies to causation.