Ah, well that is helpful to know. Sorry, I must have misunderstood you.

No problem! This is such a recurring difficulty in our scientific culture that I was sure I would get pulled into these sorts of discussions eventually. :razz:

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Quixodian's post was about Buddhism, not Christianity, and I think Buddhism provides the easier case. As far as the Buddha is concerned, 'the deathless' can be seen and known by those who have been properly initiated, just as is the case with scientific knowledge. So I think there is parity here. I grant that your belief that planes fly is not a matter of faith, but of knowledge. But I am not going to enter into the question of Christian faith at this point, in large part because I will be out for the next four or five days.

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My claim is that the only definitive intersubjective testability we have of human knowledge is in relation to empirical observations, mathematical results and logic. This has nothing at all to do with the "hoi polloi". — Janus

It has everything to do with the hoi polloi. When you say that a scientific claim is testable you mean that you would subject it to the scientific expert for confirmation. You don't mean that you would find the average guy on the street and ask him if it is true. Yet when it comes to the Buddha's claim you are apparently content with the average guy on the street.

Much of it will come down to this claim of yours:

...and the competency itself can also be publicly demonstrated. — Janus

As Quixodian has pointed out, this sort of claim is circular. It is only demonstrable to those with the relevant presuppositions and training, and whether such presuppositions and training count as competence merely depends on who you ask.

If you are concerned with intersubjective agreement, then there can be little question that there is significant intersubjective agreement among Buddhists about the various states of consciousness, and that this is based on independent 'experimentation'. Or in other words, I don't think you will be able to sustain a coherent account of your, "definitive intersubjective testability." What you are reaching for is something beyond intersubjectivity.

Yes, I think that's right, and I think that idea is at the bottom of a lot of the back-and-forths in this thread. It's an important point that probably needs to be addressed more explicitly.

Regardless, usually when someone claims that the object of a science does not exist they have invalidated the science. This is how pseudo-sciences such as astrology were invalidated.

Now a subjective act or intention of invalidation need not objectively invalidate a science. The science may survive the attack, and perhaps in some cases (such as metaphysics) the science survives in the attacker's own thought despite the attacker's belief that it has been invalidated and expunged.

All the same, I would say that if positivism or some positivist has explicitly denied the existence of metaphysics, and has attempted to replace it with a positivistic approach, they have invalidated metaphysics. Similarly, if someone denies that astrology exists and then replaces it with psychology, they have invalidated astrology. Not objectively, but in their own thought. Objective changes are an accumulation of individual actions.

Didn't you coin the term in this thread? (See: )

the "abandonment" is typically presented during the advancement of a theory of what is important now. — Paine

Yes, I agree.

Your position is some version of an historical claim. — Paine

You continue to make that assumption, though at this point I cannot fathom why. You seem to think that when I use the term "first philosophy" I have a particular historical tradition in mind, despite my constant denials.

But those arguments take so many forms and argue against others who have starkly different views of history that it seems reasonable to pause before signing the death certificate. — Paine

Of course, but I'm sure we have a different idea of what a "reasonable pause" is. :wink:

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But have you then made invalidation an impossible errand? How might one go about invalidating metaphysics?

I don't believe the kind of inter-subjective verification at work in such contexts is in the same class as the inter-subjective verification that operates in empirical observations, mathematical proofs and logic, because the latter kind of verification is such that it will definitely convince any suitably unbiased and competent agent, and the competency itself can also be publicly demonstrated. The same lack of public demonstrability applies to aesthetics; it can never be definitively shown that a creative work is great for example. — Janus

I think 's post was accurate. You seem to be taking a least-common-denominator approach. "If the hoi polloi cannot verify a claim, then it doesn't possess intersubjective agreement."

For example, we could limit intersubjective agreement to empirical realities that can be seen and touched (by even a 5 year-old). I don't think anyone would object to the claim that such realities are objects of intersubjective agreement, but there are other intersubjective domains that transcend the capacity of 5 year-olds. Mathematics and physics are two that come to mind.

Now when the Buddha exposits the different forms of jñāna and claims that they are accessible, he is not saying that they are accessible to the hoi polloi in their current state. Just as geometry is not accessible to the 5 year-old and differential equations are not accessible to the average adult, so too the states that Quixodian was referring to are not accessible to the average person. So what? What does this have to do with intersubjective verification?

Note too, that faith is the reason the 5 year-old believes in geometry and the average adult believes in calculus. The vast majority of our scientific knowledge and beliefs are faith-based. The percentage of people who have first-hand knowledge or understanding of any given scientific theory is slim to none, and yet these same people will often know the names and the gist of these theories and will assent to them as being true.

But if positivism replaces metaphysics and then "denies that there is metaphysics," hasn't it invalidated metaphysics? I agree that not all positivism aims at direct invalidation of metaphysics, but I would also want to say that denying the existence of metaphysics counts as a significant form of invalidation.

, thanks for setting out the shape of your thought in this area.

My general approach, coming from Christianity, is wary of utopianism and scapegoating. It seems to me that often when we encounter a problem we are liable to blame it on the nearest available thing to hand. Then we eliminate the obstacle or achieve the means that we believed would be sufficient to overcome the problem, and yet the problem persists. We inevitably find that the problem was not caused in the way we supposed, and that it is much more complex and intractable. In the end this mentality is a form of scapegoating for the sake of some ideal (utopia). I mostly theorize that communism and socialism have taken this approach and elevated it to a societal key.

For example, a socialist might look at wealth disparity or the exploitation of the poor and point to capitalism as the culprit. But is it really true that significant wealth disparity and exploitation or the poor was absent before the industrial age and the rise of capitalism? If we slay capitalism on the hill will these problems really disappear? I am doubtful.

But Democratic Socialism is interesting insofar as it is a hybrid. It seeks to wed capitalism to social justice, and is therefore not as prone to making of capitalism an easy scapegoat. But again, I wonder whether the poles of this hybrid are symbiotic or competitive. For example, if the socialist aims at an equal distribution of wealth, and capitalism produces a disparity of wealth, then it is not clear that socialism can leverage capitalism on that score. In general I think that neoliberalism and libertarianism are unworkable, but I am not yet convinced that socialistic approaches are the proper alternative.

...Anyway, I just wanted to place a few of my cards on the table.

More or less.

That describes neoliberalism -- weak state, strong corporations, minimal regulation, few benefits, everybody is on their own. — BC

Alright, we are on the same page with this.

Why would capitalism convert to any form of democratic socialism? Survival and crudely obvious necessity. — BC

Because if no change occurs then class warfare would lead to the demise of the capitalist system?

The meta-narrative here is surely Marxist, is it not? The orbit is around class warfare, economic factors, the means of production, etc.?

During the years between 1945 and 1974 the US was roughly democratic socialist -- high taxes, very generous benefits, good wages and cooperative labor agreements, and so on. — BC

Okay. :up:

What do you make of the alternative narrative which sees the United States as a country where competition drives industry and social welfare is achieved by private institutions, such as churches, communities, voluntary institutions, and colleges, rather than by government intervention? Do you see this as historically accurate? Is there a value in subsidiarity?

It has not been sustainable in the USA -- perhaps the least fertile soil for socialism of any kind. Europe has maintained its democratic socialist systems much better. Seems like part of Brexit was an effort to get out from under the democratic socialism of the EU.

Whether the EU can maintain its democratic socialist programs during the more turbulent times ahead--increased pressures from climate refugees, global heating problems at home, war next door, god knows what else, remains to be seen. I hope they can for their sake. — BC

From my limited knowledge, it would seem that Democratic Socialism requires something of an insular mentality, because its foundation is a robust collectivism. But then Democratic Socialism and anti-insular mentalities, such as the "open borders" movement, get lumped together under the 'progressive' banner, even though one is the death knell of the other. If this is right, then immigration is an intrinsic danger to collectivisms, and it is also perhaps the most serious internal danger to these arrangements in Europe, including the EU.

Good points. Comte was an important historical stage towards positivism.

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Are you of the opinion that Comte ignored metaphysics but did not attempt to invalidate it?

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To repeat what I said earlier, the claim that there is a first philosophy and the claim that one has it in their hand are two different things. Similarly, the claim that some attempt at first philosophy is inadequate and the claim that first philosophy is per se impossible are two different things. My thesis is that when first philosophy is abandoned as impossible philosophy has died. Which philosophers and traditions have contributed to this decay of philosophy is an open question, and one that we have not engaged much in this thread. We are speaking in generalities.

Hello BC,

Democratic Socialism is not communism at all, and it's not classic socialism, either, because profit making corporations are a key part of the system -- just not quite as much profit making. — BC

So is the idea basically that Democratic Socialism proffers a welfare state with higher taxes, along with a non-profit government?

I am trying to understand the foil to Democratic Socialism. I think everyone agrees that the government should be non-profit, so it probably isn't that. Presumably the foil is a laissez-faire scheme with limited government, low taxes, and no welfare benefits coming from the state?

The other thing I often do not understand with respect to socialism or Democratic Socialism is how the change is supposed to be effected. For example, what is the motivation by which a capitalist society would transform itself into a Democratic Socialist society?

In Catholic social thought the closest thing to socialism is an emphasis on the common good,* but this emphasis would be understood to be homogenous throughout the society, affecting both the governmental and non-governmental spheres. The odd thing about Democratic Socialism, prima facie, is that it is some sort of hybrid. It requires a business sector that is strongly for-profit, a government that is strongly non-profit, and a tax scheme that provides a sort of distributive equality. I suppose I am not convinced that the tensions of a hybrid model are ultimately sustainable.

* And a preferential option for the poor, but let's leave that aside for now because it is more explicitly religious.

But I’m interested in what others have to say about it. — Quixodian

I think philosophy erred in taking Hume too seriously, and this had a big impact on Kant and (apparently) Wittgenstein. A related problem is that such individuals basically started with a critique, and then interpolated their more systematic views on that basis of that critique. This is a particularly poor way to do philosophy. A critique or a problem is not the basis for a systematic approach.

Obviously I will need to brush up on Hume since so many participants on forums such as this one take him for granted, but in general when presented with a Humean premise the response should just be, "Why think that?" The Humean premises are implausible and the conclusions are absurd, and at the end of the day the Humean ends up being schizophrenic because they want to have their cake and eat it, too (i.e. they want both their skeptical philosophy and the scientific enterprise that it undermines). I'd say that we need to be a bit more skeptical of Hume's skepticism, and that newcomers to philosophy need to feel free to question Hume or Wittgenstein when they say silly things.

On a related note, I have Jamal's piece on my reading list, "An Argument for Indirect Realism."

A necessity for one thing to happen because another has happened does not exist. There is only logical necessity. — Wittgenstein

It is fascinating to me that Wittgenstein sees himself, in saying this, as repudiating a modern error. Rather, it seems to me that he has captured the error of modernity in a remarkably pithy formula. But I would want to read more to further understand his context and intentions. He may be arguing against certain deformations.

To my point above, imagine saying something like this to a scientist, such as a biologist. It is a truly absurd claim to anyone familiar with reality. There is an important way in which the causal realities known to the biologist are much more real than the logical necessity of the logician. When one has no spectacles besides modal necessity with which to view the world, the majority of the world itself evaporates from before their eyes.

Does rule following entail intentionality? — Count Timothy von Icarus

If it does, then I think my point about the usage in (3) being metaphorical would hold. Are you thinking that if it does not entail intentionality, then (3) is therefore not metaphorical? That if something could follow rules without intention or agency, then (3) might not be metaphorical, and could therefore be a more central meaning of logic? I'm trying to be sure I understand how this relates to the OP.

Interesting, I'm not familiar with the term "causative rules." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh, I was only thinking of the underlying hardware of computing technology—the physical, causal mechanisms that underlie software. Basically we began with some rules of logic and we instantiated those rules into computer hardware so that software would then be able to appeal to those "rules" in order to manipulate the state of the machine. The basis of a computer is, I think, a (simple) formal system instantiated in hardware. But my point is that because all formal systems of logic have limitations, so too do computers (e.g. material implication).

Exactly! I feel like this is a big reason for the "Scandal of Deduction," the finding that deductive reasoning shouldn't be informative because all the information in any conclusion must be contained in the premises of a deductively valid argument. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would want to return to Aquinas' claim that logic is the art of human reasoning, and that it involves a movement from what is known to what is unknown. The reason this does not make sense in a computational paradigm is because it is not clear that computers can know, and therefore for a computer there can be no movement from known to unknown. The proper context of a deduction is the human mind (or at least a rational mind), and when it is removed from that context it becomes opaque.

More generally, this is the problem of the Meno that Aristotle takes up at the very beginning of Posterior Analytics.

Thinking through implications requires time, information processing, neurons firing. We don't have any thoughts in "no time at all." Any implications we understand, we understand through time, not as eternal relations. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's right, and Aquinas saw this because he was thinking in terms of God, angels, humans, animals, plants, and non-living matter. He would say that human knowledge is distinct because it is conditioned by time and movement, whereas angelic or divine knowledge is not conditioned in that way. This is why logic is a human art (or an art of temporal creatures). It would be of no use to angels or God.

But, if we think nature comes prior to the human, and that it shapes the human, then its the causal rule following that seems more fundamental. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I should look into the materials that Quixodian provided, but I tend to agree with him that logic and causation are different things. I would want to say that causal rule following, even in the higher animals, is not logic because it is not concerned with truth (or more strictly the truth-preservation that is validity). For example, even if we wish to attempt to make a non-metaphorical claim that natural selection follows rules, I think it would certainly be incorrect to go a step further and claim that natural selection follows the rules of logic. Natural selection is not following a set of rules related to truth, and this is one way to conceive of logic.

Thinking of a single philosophy that 'rules them all' (or something of that kind) is different from the plurality of attempts to arrange the world according to such a rubric. Asking what are "first principles" is not an argument that they exist. — Paine

But do not those rubrics presuppose first philosophy? And does not asking that question presuppose that there is an answer?

I would want to say that the claim that there is a first philosophy and the claim that one has it in their hand are two different things. It seems that in the tradition Aristotle and others affirmed the first point without necessarily affirming the second, whereas today it is very common to deny the possibility of a first philosophy altogether.

From that perspective, the 'end of metaphysics' theme is not a result of a natural death but is the result of arguments based upon what that tradition allowed to be considered. — Paine

Some who had "metaphysics" in their sights were only aiming at a particular tradition, but I should think that others really had metaphysics itself in their sights, and that it has not fared so well.

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It seems that what we mean by philosophy might be the glue that holds together all of the other formalizations of human understanding. [...] Hence philosophy exists to constantly challenge simplistic reductions and to chart the boundaries of the unknown, relative to the project of human existence. — Pantagruel

So would you say that the one who calls science (or any other field of knowledge) to account for its overreach is, by definition, a philosopher?

That sounds fair to me. But then suppose Moore said, "Because it makes sense to ask whether 'fitting object of a pro attitude' is good, therefore it must not be the definition of good." How would you answer?

Further on in the article:

The solution adopted by emotivists and prescriptivists (the two main schools that followed Moore) was that good was not a property at all, or not an object of cognition. It served rather to express attitudes or volitions or prescriptions. To say something was good was not a way of asserting something about it; it was a way of expressing one’s approval of it, or of commending it. Good was more properly a volitional than a cognitive term. According to this theory the naturalistic fallacy is committed when one tries to analyze value-judgments in factual or cognitive terms.

The advantage of this solution was that it met at once all the objections raised against Moore. The ‘something more’ was explained, not as an independent property, but as an attitude to or a commendation of certain other properties. The connection with action was immediate because good already expressed a volitional commitment. The unexplained kind of knowing was avoided because there was nothing to know—making predications of goodness was all a question of willing, not knowing. This solution also had the advantage of leaving intact the claim that the natural and real are the province of value-free science. The facts of a thing never include goodness. Goodness is an attitude towards or a commendation of facts and not itself a fact.

Such is an account of the naturalistic fallacy as it appears in the principal protagonists... — Peter L. P. Simpson, On the Naturalistic Fallacy and St. Thomas, pp. 5-6 (footnotes omitted)

I don't see how you could maintain a differentiation between real and nominal definitions. Seems to me that all definitions are nominal; that is what definitions do. — Banno

Yes, of course all material definitions are nominal. But if you don't admit the existence of real definitions (or at least essences) then you cannot say that A is a better X than B, and you are obviously committed to saying such a thing. That is, you cannot say that one nominal definition is better than another.

Or we could return to my original point and talk about essences, ditching the notion of real definitions. If you say there is no determinate and normative notion of X, then you cannot say that A is a better X than B. And if you say that there is a determinate and normative notion of X, then you are committed to an essence or nature of X. Whether or not you want to label this notion a real definition is not important.

But here is the big question: do we think that these are all different things? That we use the same word out of a sort of confusion? Or is there actually a similarity between these types of "logic?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Two quotes that may be helpful:

The purpose of logic is to provide an analytic guide to the discovery of demonstrated truth and all its various approximations throughout the philosophical sciences. In the words of St. Albert the Great, logic “teaches the principles by which one can arrive at the knowledge of things unknown through that which is known” (De Praedicab., tr. I, c. 5, ed. Borgnet 1, 8b). St. Thomas defines logic as an art “directive of the acts of reason themselves so that man may proceed orderly, easily and without error in the very act of reason itself” (Foreword). Logic is thus a construct based on the natural processes of the mind invented for a very specific use, namely, scientific reasoning. — James A. Weiseipl, Preface

And the extended quote from Thomas Aquinas:

As the Philosopher says in Metaphysics I (980b26), “the human race lives by art and reasonings.” In this statement the Philosopher seems to touch upon that property whereby man differs from the other animals. For the other animals are prompted to their acts by a natural impulse, but man is directed in his actions by a judgment of reason. And this is the reason why there are various arts devoted to the ready and orderly performance of human acts. For an art seems to be nothing more than a definite and fixed procedure established by reason, whereby human acts reach their due end through appropriate means.

Now reason is not only able to direct the acts of the lower powers but is also director of its own act: for what is peculiar to the intellective part of man is its ability to reflect upon itself. For the intellect knows itself. In like manner reason is able to reason about its own act. Therefore just as the art of building or carpentering, through which man is enabled to perform manual acts in an easy and orderly manner, arose from the fact that reason reasoned about manual acts, so in like manner an art is needed to direct the act of reasoning, so that by it a man when performing the act of reasoning might proceed in an orderly and easy manner and without error. And this art is logic, i.e., the science of reason. And it concerns reason not only because it is according to reason, for that is common to all arts, but also because it is concerned with the very act of reasoning as with its proper matter. Therefore it seems to be the art of the arts, because it directs us in the act of reasoning, from which all arts proceed. — Thomas Aquinas, Foreword to Commentary on the Posterior Analytics

Looking at your categorization:

1. Logic is a set of formal systems; it is defined by the formalism.
2(a). Logic is a description of the ways we make good inferences and determine truth, or at least approximate truth pragmatically.
2.(b). Logic is a general description of the features or laws of thought. (This is more general than 2(a).
3. Logic is a principle at work in the world, its overall order. Stoic Logos, although perhaps disenchanted. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems to me that (2) is primary, and that (1) is derivative with respect to (2). A formal system is just an attempt to delineate the "laws of thought," and logic pertains more to the "laws of thought" (art of reasoning) than to any formal system.

But what about (3) and the question of computation that you eventually raise? I would say that to describe nature or computers in terms of logic is to use a metaphor. To talk about the "logic of natural selection" is to talk about the determinate and predictable nature of natural selection. It is metaphorical in the sense that it anthropomorphizes the process of natural selection as if it were an agent following rules of logic, and the case of computers is similar.

It may be worth noting that the causative rules we use for computation are not the same as logic. They were made to mimic logic, and this is very helpful, but (for example) philosophers seem convinced that material implication is at best a poor approximation of actual implication, and yet computers "make due" with material implication. Of course there has also been an interesting reciprocal causality between computers and the field of logic, such that it is more difficult to separate the two now than it was in the past.

Cool, thanks for the recommendations. :up:

Okay, thanks, that makes sense. I have had only limited exposure to Husserl, but maybe I will try to find an entry point when I have some extra time.

I wouldn't go that far either, it depends on the context, and there are many angles to consider. — Judaka

Good thoughts, Judaka. I think we are on the same page here. :up:

I agree with the spirit of your OP, but then what do you make of the all too common opposition to correspondence theories of truth? Do you think the objections have merit? Do you hold to a correspondence theory? Thanks.

Sorry for the late response. I've been traveling and otherwise preoccupied. — SophistiCat

No worries, I don't mind a slower conversation.

On the contrary, I wouldn't even know how to understand determinism other than in the context of a model (formal or informal, complete or partial). Even if we take your favored criterion of predictability, what would you make predictions from if not from a model? It's models all the way down when we talk about determinism or indeterminism. — SophistiCat

Determinism will itself utilize a model, but that is not what we were talking about. You spoke of an independent model which could then be examined to see whether it involves determinism:

On the other hand, if you are looking at a formal model, you may be able conclude whether or not it is deterministic without demonstrating predictability, simply by analyzing its structure. — SophistiCat

As I have granted, we might have an exhaustive formal model for an artificial reality. For example, we might have the schema and the code for a Roomba vacuum, and from this formal model we would be able to decide whether the vacuum is deterministic. But the determinist's claim is a claim about all of reality, and we do not have a formal model for all of reality (because it is not artificial). Because we cannot circumvent prediction without a formal (a priori) model, and there is no formal model for all of reality, therefore we cannot circumvent prediction with regard to determinism (which is concerned with all of reality). The epistemic route to claims of determinism will always, then, depend on prediction.

I suppose someone could draw up an equation that they claim formally models all of reality, but even in the rare case where we take them seriously, the equation will be accepted or rejected based on its predictive capabilities. I don't think there is the possibility of circumventing prediction when it comes to the epistemology of determinism.

The weak premise here is indeed (1), but not for the reason you give. As I already explained, "exhaustive (in-principle) comprehension" is not how I understand determinism, and I don't think this tracks with the general usage either. — SophistiCat

But you haven't provided any alternative to the objection I gave to premise (1), and that objection is based in large part on what you said against "exhaustive (in-principle) comprehension." Namely, you said earlier, "I don't need to know everything in order to know (or have an opinion about) something" ().

Again, "Just as a mind cannot comprehend itself, neither can a theory produced by a mind comprehensively explain minds." Do you deny that determinism is a theory which would comprehensively explain minds?

I suspect that your real concern here is not with necessitation in the sense of causal determination, but with sourcehood: being an autonomous and responsible agent, the true "owner" and originator of thought and action. — SophistiCat

No, that's not it, but that is another perfectly good argument and we can run with it. There is an argument which ties them together such that necessitation undermines "sourcehood." Here is a copy of an argument I gave elsewhere:

(Argument adapted from E. J. Lowe's A Survey of Metaphysics, starting on page 201):

1. Determinism is true
   
   • {Premise}
2. There are some free actions
   
   • {Premise}
3. My typing into the computer is a free action
   
   • {Premise}
4. All causation is event causation
   
   • {From 1}
5. All events have causes
   
   • {From 1}
6. My typing into the computer has an event cause, e¹
   
   • {From 3, 4, 5}
7. e¹ has an event cause, e⁰
   
   • {From 4, 5, 6}
8. e⁰ has an event cause...
   
   • {From 4, 5, 7}
9. e^-50 is an event cause prior to my birth
   
   • {Temporal reduction}
10. e^-50 is outside of my control
    
    • {From 9}
11. If x is outside of my control, and x causes y, then y is outside of my control
12. If y is outside of my control, then I do not cause it freely
13. Contradiction; 1, 2, or 3 must be false

For the purposes of our argument, (3) is outside of my control precisely because it is necessitated by (9), and therefore its source is external to me. The reason I prefer the other argument is because it cuts more directly at determinism by addressing the act of understanding or the act of theorizing, but of course it is also a more complicated argument.

Note that the first argument is based on the idea that the knowing subject transcends the known object; the second argument is based on the idea that the very act of understanding is not necessitated; and this third argument is based on the idea that the necessitation of determinism places all events outside of anyone's control.

but I will only say that the contrary position - that the world is indeterministic - may not be of much help to you — SophistiCat

The contrary position is not indeterminism (randomness), it is agent causation.

True, which is why I think that to be a determinist or indeterminist in the above sense you need to hold to a kind of totalizing reductionist view in which there is (in principle) one true theory that describes the world in its totality. That theory can then be either deterministic or indeterministic. If you don't hold to that view, then I don't see what the terms determinism and indeterminism could even mean to you. — SophistiCat

I agree with this with respect to determinism, but not with respect to indeterminism. I don't believe the two terms have parity in this context. Namely, indeterminism does not universally relate to reductionism in the same way that determinism does. (This holds whether or not you are simply equating indeterminism with randomness.)

Maybe we should turn to the gods:

Nemesis was the Greek goddess of vengeance, a deity who doled out rewards for noble acts and punishment for evil ones. The Greeks believed that Nemesis didn't always punish an offender immediately but might wait generations to avenge a crime. In English, nemesis originally referred to someone who brought a just retribution, but nowadays people are more likely to see simple animosity rather than justice in the actions of a nemesis (consider the motivations of Batman’s perennial foe the Joker, for example). — Merriam-Webster Word of the Day (Nemesis)

Edit: I am now seeing that there are other threads on this topic, including a somewhat recent thread by Jamal. Perhaps I am just touching on something that has been discussed in detail. If so, I will try to read up on some of the older threads before commenting further.

You seem to be making use of some as yet unstated transcendental argument, along the lines of the only way one account is better than another is if it is closer to the essence... — Banno

How do you propose that we coherently claim that A is a better X than B if we have no determinate and normative notion of X? There is nothing "transcendental" here, only common sense.

But I will not pursue that here, not unless you are able to set out with much greater detail what sort of thing an essence might be. — Banno

The idea of essence is quite simple and intuitive. I don't think it is abstruse or "transcendental." Modern philosophers seem to think that if we don't have a crystal-clear conception of the essence of some thing then the notion of essence itself is a dead end. But I don't find this idea anywhere in Aristotle or his heirs such as Aquinas (i.e. they never believed that a nominal definition could perfectly capture the real definition or essence).

The basic idea is that there is a real essence, defined by a real definition, and the real definition is approximated by a nominal definition. So when someone says, "A is a better (definition) of X than B," they must be approximating some real essence with their nominal definition, A.

So if we take your interpretation of Searle then we get, "B(L, f(a)) is a better construal of belief than B(L,p)." Once we understand what a real definition and a nominal definition are, then this is just to claim that the nominal definition B(L, f(a)) better approximates the real definition of belief than the nominal definition B(L,p). If there is no real definition, then there can be no approximation or comparison.

Of course one might reply that there is no real definition of belief, and the meaning of the concept is purely stipulative. That might work in certain cases, but it won't suffice to uphold the final sentence of your quote from Searle:

It is impossible to exaggerate the damage done to philosophy and cognitive science by the mistaken view that "believe" and other intentional verbs name relations between believers and propositions. — Searle, my bolding

(This relates more directly to your thread on definitions, but I don't want to needlessly resurrect another thread.)

Exactly. Interesting quote!

However, with the diremption of philosophy and science since Bacon, and the ever-increasing hegemony of science (technology), has philosophy moved from being an "outlier" to a superfluous branch of study? — Pantagruel

I have been out of philosophical circles for some years now, but it seems to me that the confrontation between Hume and Kant dominates the philosophy that followed in its wake. In many areas there seem to be two incommensurable camps, Humeans and Kantians. Eventually philosophers tired of the interminable arguments between these two camps, and they effectively found ways to bracket that whole question (e.g. Peirce, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Ayer, Quine, Sartre).

This seems to have contributed to a strong divorce of philosophy from science, but it also split philosophy into a number of distinct subdisciplines, many of which are more or less disconnected from the others. Many of the subdisciplines are recognized as being valuable and relevant, but philosophy as a whole is treated with suspicion. Today there seems to be no "first philosophy," and therefore we have philosophies rather than philosophy. It's not clear to me that philosophy can prescind from metaphysics without either becoming irrelevant or else transforming itself into something else.

Interesting thoughts, thank you. I will have to think more about this. :smile: I am going to have a closer look at Philebus.

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Okay, interesting, so you would find philosophy's distinctiveness in the idea that it has a poetic admixture, whereas science does not?

That was an interesting and clarifying post.

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I don't see this approach as being of help here. It's a quagmire. — Banno

It seems to me that those who attempt to reject the old-school Aristotelian approach are often already presupposing the very things they putatively reject, only without realizing it. Of course you are right that if we wish to try to fit real essences into the straightjacket of modal relations we will be hard pressed. But this does not circumvent essences in our present conversation. If Searle says, "A is a better X than B,"* then he is already committed to the entailment that there is some essence of X that can be approximated with more or less success. That entailment cannot be avoided by pointing to difficulties that arise in accounts of essences. The only way to avoid it in our present context is to revoke the claim that A is a better X than B (simpliciter). Some philosophers do attempt such a maneuver.

* In this case X is an interpretation of belief

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Do you have something like this in mind?

What is the proof that the possible practical consequences of a concept constitute the sum total of the concept? The argument upon which I rested the maxim in my original paper was that belief consists mainly in being deliberately prepared to adopt the formula believed in as the guide to action.

If this be in truth the nature of belief, then undoubtedly the proposition believed in can itself be nothing but a maxim of conduct. That, I believe, is quite evident.

But how do we know that belief is nothing but the deliberate preparedness to act according to the formula believed?. . . — Charles Sanders Peirce, The Maxim of Pragmatism

By considering belief as, "the deliberate preparedness to act according to the formula believed," Peirce avoids the problems I am pointing to in your account, and yet he seems to retain much of the motivation of that account.

I would say that the action or act of sitting in a chair shows Mary's belief... — Sam26

But the difficulty is that you appear to be vacillating. Elsewhere you seem to want to claim that beliefs just are actions:

Again, so the ontology of belief refers to those things minds do in the world that can be said to be beliefs. — Sam26

("Things minds do that can be said to be beliefs," i.e. action = belief)

However, I would go further, viz., beliefs are relations between individuals and certain types of actions. — Sam26

Of course I can assent to the proposition that <Beliefs of others are only known through linguistic or nonlinguistic actions>. This is a claim about the epistemology of beliefs, not their ontology. Such a proposition does not get me to the conclusion that a belief is nothing more than a relation between an individual and an action, or that the epistemology and the ontology collapse into one another.

I don't know what exactly Banno has in mind with the hypostatization idea, but if we are to take everyday language as our guide then surely beliefs do have some sort of hypostatization. For example:

We know [a belief is not its effect] because one belief can cause multiple effects, and therefore a belief and its effect are not the same thing (even when it comes to thinking). — Leontiskos

For example, that I believe Bonabo is a gorilla explains both why I keep my distance and why I feed him bamboo shoots. It is the single belief which explains both actions, and thus beliefs must be hypostatized at least beyond actions.

That the term refers to things with specific, shared characteristics. — Judaka

Okay, that's a good definition.

I dispute that ideologies and religions are singular things... — Judaka

Ideologies and religions are things with "specific, shared characteristics," are they not?

Islam exists as "a religion", and nationalism exists as "an ideology" but these terms aren't unpinned by anything real that holds them in place. — Judaka

I think that once we know what a religion is, then we can say that Islam is that religion that was founded by Mohammed. Similarly, once we know what an ideology is, then we can say that nationalism is that ideology that privileges one's national citizenship.

There are a near-infinite number of ways to interpret and practice a religion or ideology... — Judaka

Sure, but one way to practice religion is Islam, and we are fairly clear on how this is different from the practice of Christianity or Buddhism.

There are no rules that prevent Islam from taking on new interpretations, new cultures, and new practices. — Judaka

I think the nature of Islam will determine which new interpretations are possible and which are not, and these possibilities will be different than those of other religions. For example, there was a debate in 20th century Japanese Buddhism about whether Buddhism is capable of grounding personal responsibility and individualism (i.e. whether Buddhism can accommodate Western values). The answer was not obvious. Masao Abe did not say, "Well religions can become whatever we want them to become, therefore Buddhism can accommodate Western values." So I would say that religions and ideologies have a great deal of plasticity, but they still have natures and boundaries.

It's like trying to conduct a critique on a book that changes each time it's opened. We need better tools for referencing that have stricter prerequisites, or else analysis is a wasted effort. — Judaka

I would say that at a scholarly level there is often an attempt to clarify what aspect of a religion is being considered, and this sometimes happens at lower levels as well. But at the same time, scholars are not altogether precluded from talking about Islam in itself.

I guess I agree with your central claim that umbrella terms are unwieldy and difficult, but I would not go so far as to say that they are impossible or meaningless.

For example, we can conclude as Mary sits in a chair that she believes there is a chair available to sit in. So the meaning of the concept belief is tied to the various uses of the word in our everyday language. — Sam26

But your analysis betrays you. You are inferring a cause (<Mary believes there is a chair available to sit in>) from an effect (<Mary sits in a chair>). The belief is not the effect, and our everyday language reflects this. If someone asks you, "Do you know any of Mary's beliefs?," you would not say, "Yes, one of Mary's beliefs is sitting in a chair." According to everyday language this response wouldn't make any sense. A belief can be inferred from an action, but a belief is not an action. A belief is a state of mind, or as Searle says, an intentional state.

You want to focus on this relation between beliefs and actions, but it seems that in the process you have actually conflated beliefs and actions.

To "It is impossible to exaggerate the damage done to philosophy and cognitive science by the mistaken view that "believe" and other intentional verbs name relations between believers and propositions" I might append "...in that they find themselves searching for that relation as if it were a thing in the mind, or worse, in the brain". — Banno

But Searle isn't only saying, "That's bad." He is also saying, "This is better." Therein lies the trouble.

The nature of belief... — Banno

Then belief has a nature. From Jonathan Barnes:

Aristotle's essentialism has little in common with its modern homonym. Aristotelian essences are what John Locke called 'real' essences: the essence of a kind K is that characteristic, or set of characteristics, of members of K upon which any other properties they have as members of K depend. That there are essences of this sort is at worst a trivial truth (if all the properties of K turn out to be essential), and at best a plausible formulation of one of the fundamental assumptions of some branches of scientific inquiry: one of the things a chemist does when he investigates the nature of a stuff is to seek an explanation of its superficial properties and powers in terms of some underlying structure; one aim of the psychologist is to explain overt behaviour by means of covert states or dispositions. There is nothing archaic or 'metaphysical' about the doctrine of real essences: that doctrine merely supposes that among the properties of substances and stuffs some are explanatorily basic, others explanatorily derivative. I do not deny that there are difficulties with such a doctrine (it must at least answer the old rumblings of Locke); but I leave the reader to form his own opinion of their relevance and cogency. — Introduction to Posterior Analytics, by Jonathan Barnes, p. xiii

Presumably Searle is committed to the claim that his own construal of belief is more explanatorily basic than the one he repudiates, and that the superficiality of the construal he repudiates is inadequate to convey the nature of belief.

No. Adding essence here doesn't make things clearer. It's just that there is an aspect that is shown better by other analysis. — Banno

If there is no essence, then what does it show better?

Remember your quote from Searle:

It is impossible to exaggerate the damage done to philosophy and cognitive science by the mistaken view that "believe" and other intentional verbs name relations between believers and propositions. — Searle, my bolding

I think that's right. Good posts. :up:

Thanks -

At the same time, his response is not the sort of inquiry demonstrated in the Philebus. — Paine

Right, and in the Posterior Analytics Aristotle would go that route directly and point to the intermediate, where learning involves a particular kind of potency.

Fast forward to Heidegger and his report that metaphysics is dead. Does this mean the tension brought into view by Plato has been overcome? — Paine

The tension between "what is given to us through our ancestors and what can be revealed through inquiry"? Isn't Heidegger's point that metaphysics is not the sort of thing that can be handed down, and also that we have lost our capacity to "inquire" into metaphysics? That being is concealed from us?

I can see how Meno and Philebus relate to this thread, but I'm still not clear on how Heidegger's report could be thought to indicate the overcoming of that tension.

So I think you are saying that "I believe X but I do not know X" expresses a view about the certainty of, or evidence for, X - that certainty is less than complete, or that evidence is less than conclusive.

Is that something like what you meant? — Ludwig V

Yes, but this also implies something about the propositionality of the belief. When the certainty is less than complete or the evidence is less than conclusive, then the belief becomes more intentionally propositional.

For example, you made a distinction between a first order belief and a second order belief, where a second order belief "believes something of a proposition." Lack of certainty/evidence brings us towards a second order belief, although not in the highly abstract manner of Searle's example of Bernoulli's principle. Namely, the "object" of this sort of belief may be a proposition, unlike first order beliefs.

My point is that this introduces a new and rather large category of belief (i.e. beliefs for which we have a conscious lack of certainty or evidence). If we accept Searle's dichotomy between first order beliefs and highly abstract second order beliefs, then his conclusion that most beliefs are first order beliefs holds. I am wondering if we ought to question that dichotomy and introduce an intermediate category (or else question the proportion between the two halves of the dichotomy and note that the second category contains this other sort of belief, which in turn means that the second category contains more instances of belief than Searle had supposed).

Around and around. Seems to me you talk as if the belief is something more than the behaviour, existing beyond that, until I push the point, then you agree with me that it isn't. — Banno

I think this is right. I think @Sam26 has confused an effect with a cause (link).

The scope of the belief statements surely makes explicit your quibble? — Banno

I'm going to let @Ludwig V take up your question about referential opacity, as I am somewhat pressed for time at the moment. I don't see Searle making any claims about the referential opacity of beliefs construed as first order relations, so I assume that's your thing.

And the quote form Searle seems to me to be making that point; that B(L,p) is somewhat inadequate, and that the belief is about the individual named "a" — Banno

Sure, I agree that Searle is saying that. I think I can see that better now.

What’s interesting to me is that Searle seems to be getting into the business of definitions and essences, much like Kit Fine in your other thread. To say that B(L,p) is inadequate is to say that there is some essence of belief that it misconstrues. Would you agree?

In your OP and elsewhere you seem to be implying that there is no real definition of belief, and formal logic merely models certain aspects of belief. This is on display in a recent comment:

It seems worth making the point that parsing natural languages into formal languages is not a game of finding the one, correct, interpretation. Rather one chooses a formalisation that suits one's purpose. — Banno

When Searle thinks of B(L,p) as inadequate he is then either claiming that it is an incorrect interpretation, or else that it does not suit his purpose. But I think he he saying the former. I think he is saying that the very nature of belief itself is obscured by B(L,p). But how can that be? Beliefs do involve a relation between the believer and a proposition. B(L,p) could easily be construed in a way such that it does not imply that the proposition is the object of the belief. In fact such a rendering would be quite useful if we are talking about beliefs from a strictly third-person vantage point, where we are concerned with the proposition rather than the object.* But according to Searle that rendering is itself inadequate and misleading. So it would seem that for Searle parsing natural language into formal languages really does involve finding the correct interpretation. Or more precisely, there are some interpretations that are more accurate than others, even when both interpretations are not false, and this implies an essence that underlies the inequality of the two interpretations.


* For example, when you say, "The statement sets out an aspect of the grammar of belief, as between an agent and a proposition" (), you are saying that this is a legitimate aspect of the grammar of belief, but at the same time you agree with Searle that presenting beliefs in this way tends to misrepresent them.

Everything you mention involves a determinate pull in a particular direction, and so promotes the thesis that philosophy does have a determinate pull in a particular direction. I am not particularly concerned with the question of whether an endpoint is ever reached.

Good post. Fair points.

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Very interesting. :up:

The standard way is to post an "intentional object" (in this case a proposition). But then, what's a proposition? The standard "meaning of a sentence" doesn't help much. I believe that Frege thinks it is something like thinking of a state of affairs without affirming or denying it. Are there no other proposals around. — Ludwig V

I think I understand what Searle is saying now. The clause, "...independent of any proposition," felt strange at first, but probably he is saying that the subjective act of belief prescinds from notions of propositionality or representation. ...And I have no problem with Frege's account of a proposition.

It is curious, though, that 'belief' insofar as it is distinguished from knowledge really is propositional in the way that Searle is talking about. If I say, "I believe X but I do not know X," then apparently there is an intentional propositionality, and one which is much more common than Searle's example of Bernoulli's principle.