- You've been asking a lot of good questions, even if no answers are forthcoming. :up:

There honestly isn't much point in "taking his side" here or not because the paper itself, as he acknowledges, is pretty handwavy. As philosophy, it's pretty weak tea, but it might be strong medicine for philosophers. — Srap Tasmaner

Very true. Still, we can find things to agree or disagree with, and @J has disagreed with a few things:

I know what you mean, and the mathematical analogy makes clear what "actual philosophical work" might look like, on this view. But I think -- and don't you? -- that this view is wrong. Two reasons... — J

Yes, and this comes too close for my liking to "flaw-based" resolution of a difficult issue. The anti-realists "refuse to get in the game" -- hmmm. — J

I think that even if we can attribute to Williamson the simple claim that <Philosophy must be disciplined by something>, then @J (and also @Banno to a lesser extent) will disagree.

@J's disagreement could be phrased in different ways, but this would be one of them:

1. If we place a necessary condition on philosophy, then we run the risk of disqualifying some would-be philosophers.
2. We should not run the risk of disqualifying some would-be philosophers.
3. Therefore, we should not place any necessary conditions on philosophy.

This theme underlies @J's thinking from his very first threads, and perhaps you can see how from that form of exclusion or disqualification we get the label, "authoritarian." It's the very same issue, and it comes up every time someone proscribes a philosophical move or approach. It is the position which says that philosophical proscription is per se inadmissible, and the natural effect is 's "Anything goes."

But wouldn't a robot that could mechanistically grow, heal, etc. be self-unified towards certain ends? — Bob Ross

If I write a computer program that starts with an integer and adds 1 every second, is it self-unified towards the end of larger sums? The crucial point here is that the program or the robot is not self-moving, given that it is a human artifact which is being moved by the instructions given to it by a human.

What I wondering is how would a material soul ever be begotton by another material soul if the soul is a unity which is not merely received by the matter in the same way a chair's matter receives unity from the form bestowed onto it by its creator. — Bob Ross

Put differently, you seem to be saying, <If the soul is a unity which is not merely received by the matter in the same way a chair's matter receives unity from the form bestowed onto it by its creator, then it is hard to see how a (non-human) substance could ever beget another substance>.

I don't follow. I don't understand why that would make the possibility of begetting "hard to see."

I was envisioning that all Aristotle meant by a material soul (viz., non-subsisting soul), like a vegetative soul, is that it is analogous to how a chair receives its form but that it is a form when received that self-actualizes. — Bob Ross

I suspect not. Aristotle would see quite a difference between an artifact and a substance. The generation of a new substance is a rather mysterious thing, I grant you that. But I think it is mysterious on any account, not just Aristotle's.

I was thinking the material soul is baked into the matter like the form of a chair is baked into a chair; but it sounds like in your view that is not true. The material soul is not merely baked into the matter as a way materials are arranged to self-actualize: instead, there's a quasi-subsistent unity that directs its self-actualization. — Bob Ross

Yes, I think that's right. First I don't want to deny that a plant is subsistent. It is. Substances are precisely subsistent, and a plant is a substance. By "subsistent" you apparently mean, "subsistent apart from matter," and it is true that this does not occur with plants. Second, I'm not sure I would want to call a plant's substantial form "material." Forms in general are not material. Presumably this again comes back to the fact that the plant's form does not subsist apart from matter.

The more general difficulty here is the question of whether and how the human soul exists apart from the body. For Aquinas this gets rather complicated. He would basically say that the human soul can exist apart from the body, but only unnaturally and imperfectly. The eventual resurrection of the body remedies the imperfect situation for him.

To clarify, are you saying that a robot that has an inward self-actualizing principle towards specific ends (which provide its whatness) does not thereby have a soul? — Bob Ross

I would say that a robot has no inward self-actualizing principle towards specific ends. It has no substantial form because it is not a substance. It is a mere aggregate of parts and instructions.

Do you believe, then, that the soul, even in material souls (viz., non-subsistent souls), is a unity that directs the organism (and this unity is not merely how the parts behave in unison together)? — Bob Ross

Yes, I think so.

If so, then how does, e.g., an oak tree produce another oak tree with an oak tree soul? I was thinking it would just provide it with the intial spark to get it's parts self-actualizing towards the natural ends of an oak tree. — Bob Ross

Let's call the act of procreating "begetting." I don't know precisely how an oak tree begets an acorn. Does it bear on your point about whether the soul is a unity?

I think you are going to deny this on grounds that I am implicitly thinking in terms of reverse mereology again; — Bob Ross

Right.

but if an unsubstantial form, like that of a chair, is reducible to way the material and organization of parts suit the natural end(s) of 'chairness', then a substantial form is the same but the addition that it is organized to self-organize: this doesn't seem to entail some sort of subsistent unity that directs the self-movement. Let me know what you think. — Bob Ross

Without trying to parse your argument too closely, what I would say is that "chairness" is not a natural end. It is an artificial end, imposed by humans. On the other hand, the acorn's end of oakness is a natural end, given that acorns are ordered to oak trees whether or not humans decide that they are.

Regarding premise 5:

5. A material thing and an immaterial thing cannot interact. — Bob Ross

Feser's point seems appropriate:

in fact Descartes’ account of matter as pure extension makes causal interaction even between corporeal substances themselves problematic — Edward Feser, Mind-body interaction: What’s the problem?

On Cartesian thinking it is no more obvious how corporeal things could interact with one another, than how corporeal things could interact with incorporeal things.

I think Williamson here says, this is how it's done. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that is a good example.

I'm going to let the thread simmer a bit before adding anything. You and I seem to agree with large portions of Williamson. I want to give those who disagree a chance to speak, given that many of us have been trying to argue this point for months and the naysayers always get quiet whenever the subject is broached directly.

That's right. In the previous thread I even focused a bit on the concept of goodness. "Why did you act in that way?" "Because it was a good way to act." Or, "Why did you act in that way rather than the other way?" "Because it was the better way to act." In philosophy one needs to actually explain why some course is good or better. The chess analogy would be, "It was the best move available," but then in order to substantiate that claim one would have to canvass the other possibilities, along with their inferiority.

So I definitely agree that "theories that produce something concrete" is a good metaphor. But @J is going to say, "But what about the guy who thinks it is better to produce something that isn't concrete? What about the possibility that someone might not prefer concreteness?" At this point I think Aquinas is helpful insofar as he moves us out of the metaphorical space. It is much harder to respond to Aquinas with, "But what about the guy who wants to aim at something he is not aiming at?" Or, "But what about the guy who wants to do philosophy purposelessly?"

And to be fair, "actual variations leading to a specific advantage," is not metaphorical, so we already have a non-metaphorical standard for the chess game.

- I agree. My only concern with Williamson is that he at times seems to conflate standards. He seems to say that any discipline is better than no discipline, and then moves on too quickly into a sort of discipline-hierarchy. I don't have any problem with that distinction, so long as we do not forget that a weak discipline is still better than nothing. I think it is important to single out that lowest common denominator standard of having some discipline, however insubstantial.

My memory is that that's how this whole things started: Dummett pointed out that some philosophers seemed to be playing a game that they did not realize was rigged against them, so they tended to flounder.

The solution he proposed was to recognize when you were inclined to deny that a specific type of statement within a given domain was bivalent. — Srap Tasmaner

Interesting.

(Dummett also had no truck with more than two truth values, so for him (and I believe Williamson agrees with him about this) intuitionistic logic becomes especially attractive: the sentential operator "not" is understood as "it has not been demonstrated that ..." Hence the double negative is merely "it has not been demonstrated that it has not been demonstrated that ..." ) — Srap Tasmaner

That sounds fine to me, though I don't see "undemonstrated" or "unjustified" as a truth value. I was trying to explain something similar <recently>, to little avail.

And you do all this so that the choice between theories or approaches is not "merely aesthetic". (@Moliere) — Srap Tasmaner

Right, and "disciplined" seems like a plausible way to do that. Or else @Count Timothy von Icarus' "determinate," specifically in the teleological sense.

This is why I think Aquinas' approach provides the universal condition:

Every agent, of necessity, acts for an end... — Aquinas, ST I-II.1.2.c - Whether it is proper to the rational nature to act for an end?

If a philosopher who is thinking about something is acting for a (determinate) end, then the discipline is already implicitly to hand. Those who claim not to be acting for any end when doing philosophy are just confused or lacking in self-knowledge. Williamson's "discipline" is one kind of end, and it is a rather foundational kind of end. So instead of asking, "What disciplines your thoughts/claims?," Aquinas might ask, "What end(s) are you acting for when you philosophize in this way?"

---

This also solves things such as this:

My first reaction is that of course there need be nothing in common between the various language games. My second, that not all language games involve justification. — Banno

All "language games" involve acting for ends.

Good posts all around. I sympathize with Williamson. :up:

To switch to another sorts metaphor, anti-realists won't step up to the plate, but hang around off to the side claiming they could easily get a hit if they wanted to. — Srap Tasmaner

Another way to phrase this would be to say that anti-realists claim to be playing a different game—they claim to be at a kind of intentional cross-purpose with the realist—but they won't lay out the game that they are playing. If they laid out their own game, then perhaps the realist could play that game for a stretch, or else compare the two different games. If they showed that they are engaged in a disciplined activity, then they would fulfill Williamson's most fundamental criterion.

The most common usage of "subjective/ objective" means "matter of opinion/ not matter of opinion" and that was, of course the usage I had in mind. So whether one feels cold or not is not a matter of opinion, and hence there is an objective fact of the matter. — Janus

So if you say "I feel cold" is not a subjective statement, then what is an example of a subjective statement?

In any case, I don't think the common usage of "subjective" means "matter of opinion." If someone gives their opinion they are not necessarily making a subjective claim. "In my opinion the U.S. should stay out of foreign wars," would not be seen as a subjective statement, for example. Usually, "In my opinion...," just means, "I assert this to be true, but with diminished certitude..."

It makes no sense to make this about "rational norm-following" — goremand

I simply do not think that non-rational norm following is coherent. So to talk about norm-following is to talk about rational norm-following. Because they are not rational, the ants are not following a norm. End of story.

I don't really see why it is much different. I believe human beings are rational by "mere instinct". — goremand

Even if humans are naturally rational, it remains true that a rational decision is different from an instinctual reaction.

Now if you also hand the guy a blanket, we really don't know what you're asserting. Is it more like the general version I was suggesting?: "You look cold to me." Or might you be claiming something stronger, like sime?: "You are cold" or "I judge you to be cold." Or some third thing, perhaps, "If I were you, I'd be feeling cold"? — J

You are doing the exact same thing you did here:

What happens if we change the designation to "The man over there who I think has champagne in his glass is happy"? That's where Kripke himself winds up: "The speaker intended to refer . . . to the man he thought had the champagne in his glass." Has the speaker still made a mistake in reference? I think we have to say no. — J

The answer is the . Switching from "You are cold" to "You look cold" makes no difference, especially given that the second-person claim was already sign-based from the first (and therefore fallible). Every such second-person claim will be fallible, namely an inference from a fallible sign. Lowering one's certitude does not produce a qualitatively different judgment.

I don't think that the question of determinism vs indeterminism is relevant to teleology. — SophistiCat

I agree. :up:

Right. Can they both frame assertions? I would say so. Then is "the proposition we're asserting," in the blanket example, really the same? How would we state that proposition? — J

compared two people—call them Jane and Sue—who both hand Joe a blanket, judging that Joe is cold. Jane and Sue are involved in the same judgment or assertion. You are asking about the difference between Jane's (or Sue's) judgment and Joe's judgment. Those judgments are different, insofar as the Jane's judgment is made indirectly via a sign (such as, for example, Joe's shivering), whereas Joe's judgment that he is cold is made directly.

She feels cold, you feel hot. Not merely subjective, but a fact of the matter about how different bodies feel. — Janus

It merely depends on what we mean by "subjective." If we mean by it "subject-relative," then such things are subjective. Note too that someone could distinguish between, "I am cold," and, "I feel cold." For example, someone may have a neurological disorder that makes them feel cold when their body is not cold, and if they are aware of the disorder they could easily say, "I feel cold but I am not cold." Note too that in this case it is simply false to deny the possibility of, "You feel cold but you are not cold."

Judgements about other minds should always be made relative to the person who is judging. — sime

I would say it depends, given that "judgments about other minds" is an ambiguous phrase. Subject-relative claims should be made relative to the subject. Non-subject-relative claims should not.

So if we take "Joe is hot" to mean "Joe feels hot," then our judgment must take into account what Joe feels. But if we take "Joe is hot" to mean "Joe's body is hot," then we would use some kind of thermometer to measure Joe's body temperature, and we would not need to take into account what Joe feels. Usually the two senses are interrelated, and therefore we don't get precise about which one we mean.

True, but my point is that the mind is not a form and it is immaterial and it is infused with the body that is material; so the question arises: "how does the mind interact with the body in this sort of fusion?". It may not be a hard problem like descartes', but it is still a problem. — Bob Ross

For Aquinas the intellect is a power of the soul. So it's not a separate "thing" from the body. It's not like we have three separate "things": a body, a soul, an intellect (and also a will), and then we have to figure out how to weld them all together.

(This is another instance where you are running up against reverse mereological essentialism, and want to place parts before wholes.)

Yes, I meant it in the way the OP problematized the issue: "no particular outcome is necessary." A species may experience selective pressures, but its successful adaptation is not guaranteed - it may just die out instead. Some individuals carry favorable variations, others don't, and even those who do will not necessarily leave more and more successful progeny. — SophistiCat

Fair enough. I would say that this is how all teleology works, namely that it is a final cause and not an efficient cause. The end-directedness produces no guarantee that the end will be reached.

In response to this, Darwin wrote to Gray: "What you say about Teleology pleases me especially and I do not think anyone else has ever noted that. I have always said you were the man to hit the nail on the head." (June 5, 1874) — Pierre-Normand

Very interesting.

- :up:

Evolution by natural selection is a good example of a teleological explanation that is indeterministic at every scale. It is teleological because evolution is directed towards a future state of greater fitness. However, success is not guaranteed, and many do fail, at species, population, and individual level. — SophistiCat

I added a few things to that post, but what do you mean when you say that it is "indeterministic at every scale"? Is it just that it is defeasible or fallible?

Put simply: Teleological explanation requires a fixed end or final cause. — tom111

To simplify what others have said: final causes are not ordered ad unum (to just one thing). For example, a cow will eat vegetation, but it is not "deterministically" ordered to eat just one kind of vegetation, and therefore it is probabilistically ordered towards many different kinds of vegetation.

Natural selection isn't a mechanism that renders teleological explanations otiose. — Pierre-Normand

I would go further and say that natural selection is itself a teleological explanation. It is a teleological explanation that covers all species instead of just one (i.e. it is a generic final cause). I would even venture that if an ur-cause like natural selection were not teleological, then the subordinate causal accounts could not be teleological, and perhaps this is the principle that some are grabbing onto (i.e. "Natural selection is not teleological, therefore the subordinate causal accounts cannot be teleological.").

The common objection would be, "But natural selection is not consciously seeking anything." The response is, "It doesn't have to. Such a thing is not required for teleology."

-

But then the question arises:

So shake any bag of degrees of freedom and they will arrive at some equilibrium value where continued change ceases to be meaningful change. You can describe the system simply in terms of its macrostate – its pressure and temperature, for example. — apokrisis

If natural selection were reducible to non-teleological parts—such as "random mutations," for example—then how is it that "the bag shakes out" into a teleological phenomenon? If one wishes to opt for random mutations, then one simple answer would be that once the "life" or "survival" criterion is introduced, the "random" mutations actually end up "favoring" life, even if only by "accident."

More simply, a god could create species by means of random mutations + a distinction between death and life, where the death/life criterion is the sieve through which the random mutations are filtered. From the vantage point of the isolated mutations, they are random. From the vantage point of the sieve, they are not.

But triangularity is a form: the mind isn't a form. — Bob Ross

You made a claim about "things," not "forms." In fact the very vagueness of that word "thing" is doing most of the work in your premise. For example, if you had used "substance" instead of "thing" the premise would not do any work (except against Descartes).

But, again, then that admits that there is interaction, not in the sense of merely participation in a form, by the mind and body. No? — Bob Ross

I think your basic idea here is correct. Whether or not we want to talk about brains, there will still be "interaction" between the material and the immaterial.

I am going to come back to page 10 again, because it is there that Williamson makes the point that some of us have been trying to make for a long time now. It is very close to ' claim that wisdom cannot be wholly indeterminate.

Williamson says in effect that philosophy must be disciplined by something! We cannot "produce work that is not properly disciplined by anything." Again:

The concern is that if something is to be philosophy then it must say something. To "say something" is to offer up something which one believes, which one is willing to defend, and which someone else might deny. Even Williamson's very minimal criterion of "disciplined by something," generates this "saying something." If one offers something that is conditioned and answerable to no discipline whatsoever, then one is not actually saying something.

That's a low water-mark for philosophy, but I find it not only helpful, but also commonly accepted and commonly deployed. — Leontiskos

On TPF we often find "philosophy" which is not disciplined by anything. There are three general candidates:

1. My position is [good]
2. Your position is [bad]
3. This philosopher is [good]
   
   • Or else: This philosopher should be read

When such "philosophy" is not disciplined by anything, we end up with this: "My position is important and worthwhile." "Why?" "I have no answer to that question."

This happens a lot. Here is an example of (3):

I find reading Kimhi pretty unpleasant — Srap Tasmaner

I have gotten so frustrated with Kimhi over the past month that I've literally screamed, trying to untangle him. But I insist it's worth it. — J

Whereas I think it's all horseshit, but it's an opportunity to explore what I find so ridiculous about this way of doing philosophy. — Srap Tasmaner

According to this lowest common denominator criterion that Williamson enunciates, one has ceased to do philosophy if they can say nothing more than, "I insist it's worth it." (Note that Kimhi is an interesting case, given that he was proposed as an alternative to Fregian/Analytic philosophy.)

This is related to the idea of "standards" from the previous thread. Note that we do not even have to talk about overarching standards. Any standard will do. As long as we are adhering to some standard(s), then we are being disciplined in some way, shape, or form. As Williamson notes, we don't even need to agree with one another on the importance of a standard, so long as we can see that it is being adhered to. Mere adherence achieves the minimum criterion, even if it is adherence to an absurd standard.

Too often on TPF (1), (2), or (3) are asserted without any standard at all; without any discipline at all. The moral accusation of "authoritarianism" was but one example of this.

Note too that often enough there are accepted standards that are being fulfilled, such as the principle of non-contradiction (PNC). Usually in a dialogue the PNC is being accepted and adhered to as a standard, and therefore there is philosophical discipline. But usually (1), (2), and (3) are not related to the PNC. Most of the time, for example, both parties agree that Kimhi has not contradicted himself, and therefore this standard will not suffice as a standard to discipline the further discussion. This means that we could have a discussion about whether Kimhi fulfills the PNC, and that discussion would have philosophical discipline, but once that discussion comes to a conclusion the dialogue must find a new standard to discipline the discussion. If the dialogue continues with no discipline, then we become aimless wanderers. I will only add the caveat that, "A vague standard is still a standard."

-

But it will make a difference when it comes time to debate the standards he is proposing, and the justifications he (or anyone else) is prepared to offer for those standards. I was going to say there are conditional and unconditional options, but really it's just a difference in the antecedent class: "if you want to do analytic philosophy then ..." versus "if you want to do philosophy then ..." — Srap Tasmaner

I think it is clear that he is intending to provide a standard for all philosophy, and not just Analytic philosophy. At least when it comes to these most basic standards.

What I am arguing is more like this: — Bob Ross

Okay.

5. A material thing and an immaterial thing cannot interact. — Bob Ross

Why think that?

Is the concept of triangularity material? No. Do we interact with it? Yes.

- Yes. :up:

-

- Thanks. :up:

- Okay, well I think that's probably as far as we will get for now. Thanks for your thoughts. :up:

When you say 'man can have knowledge of all corporeal things', is this in the sense that if the a particular of any kind of given to the senses that the mind could abstract out it's form? Or are you saying the mind can know all corporeal things indirectly through testing and self-reflective reason? — Bob Ross

Either one. Obviously some things require instruments, and are therefore known indirectly.

I haven't found a Thomist that addresses tbh. I read Ed Fezer's elaborations and his doesn't focus on how the immaterial mind interacts with the material body. He just vaguely states that there is no interaction problem for hylomorphisists because the soul is the form of the body. The problem I have with that is that it ignores the fact that the immaterial mind is not the soul: the soul would be the form of the body and the mind (together unified); so how could they interact or be unified together like that? — Bob Ross

I think Feser is wondering why, as a non-Cartesian, a critique of Cartesian dualism would stick to him.

But let's try to identify your argument. Is it this?

1. The mind is not the soul
2. The soul is the form of the unified body-mind composite
3. Therefore, the soul and the mind cannot interact or be unified together

I don't see how (3) follows. The question here asks what is supposed to be objectionable about Aquinas' view.

So, this sort of thing is maybe a broader trend. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, that's a good point.

And yes, the series I mentioned skew analytic and recent, but it's not like their epistemology texts don't mention Plato, Descartes, Kant, etc. So too for other topics like philosophy of mind or free will. Philosophy of language really struck me as an outlier, having checked out several titles. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Interesting.

...but more damningly, that the tyranny of the same, the monochrome paintbrush, is relied upon heavily for the dismissal of vast tracts of thought. Kant was at least contentious enough to only call the bulk of prior thought "twaddle" in a private letter, not so for the Masters of Suspicion and Hume's library bonfire. There is certainly something of the Reformarion-era iconoclasm here, as opposed to a transcending of modernity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right, and that attitude comes across in a multitude of areas, as you imply.

The point here re method is that an absolutization of method leads towards the endless "restarting" of the entire philosophical project, which also lends itself to a cheaping and forgetfulness of history, even as historicism becomes absolutized (indeed, the two are related). I have pointed out how this tends to make philosophy chaotic, "highly sensitive to initial conditions" (i.e. the new methodology and its presuppositions). This is, of course, not really "post-modern," but in a way the definition of modernity, which begins with a similar move, the Reformer's attempt to sweep away the history of the Church, theology, philosophy, etc. and to recover that mythic, original, untainted outlook—first the Church of the first century, later Western rational culture before the "Christian Dark Ages," or "philosophy before Plato—prior to metaphysics and presence." In a way, it is philosophy trying to turn itself into one of the very many sciences it has birthed, with a clear starting point in history and structure. But I'd argue that philosophy still contains all that it has birthed, and hence can never shrink itself down properly to become one of its own parts, since wisdom itself always relates to the whole. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Great points. I definitely agree. :up:
Note too that we are seeing the same thing with institutions, where everything must be rebuilt or re-envisioned from scratch.

I don't want to take the thread too far afield, but I do think this is something that every part of our society has to confront, namely the desire for absolute beginnings and the need to recognize our historical antecedents. Language itself is a deeply historical reality, and so there is great irony in limiting a linguistic scope or even a survey of philosophy of language to a recent epoch. Perhaps at the bottom of much of this is the stress on the individual, and the consequent desire not to "ride on the coattails" of those who have come before. There is this idea that we must "forge our own way."

Disagreed [...]. So maybe there's a deeper disagreement :) — AmadeusD

Okay.

I do think its odd. That doesn't make it wrong. Your "How so?" would require that Curt has given me his reasons for believing it, and I cannot find a way to falsify his reasons for belief. — AmadeusD

Right, so:

we are talking about refuting someone's reason(s) (R) for belief (P). They begin:

R → P
R
∴ P — Leontiskos

If I cannot falsify his reasons (R) then I would say P is not implausible (ceteris paribus). But if I know that P is false (such as in the case of 2+2=5), then presumably I can provide reasons which demonstrate that P is false. In that case the reasons I offer would be in competition with his reasons, R.

In this case where I cannot falsify R, I would say, "Your argument is valid and I don't know how to falsify your premises," but I would not claim that his belief is therefore true. Again, I would say that it is justified.

I understand that your view is that the belief should be considered false, as long as the state of affairs doesn't obtain. I don't think that is the best use of these words, myself. — AmadeusD

If I know the proposition is false then I would call the belief false. But to merely tell him that the belief is false is to beg the question. I must provide him with a reason to believe it is false, and that reason must go beyond merely falsifying his own reasons.

Weirdly, the exact point I have made (but I guess I'm separating them in the opposite scenario - i.e, state of affairs false=/=belief false). Does this not seem so to you? — AmadeusD

I think a belief is true when it matches the state of affairs, and false when it fails to match the state of affairs. I think that's basically what "true" and "false" mean. Generally speaking, a state of affairs is not true or false, but rather existent or non-existent. Or else it is said that a state of affairs either obtains or does not. "True" and "false" pertain to thoughts or beliefs. So if I say that a state of affairs obtains when it in fact does obtain, then what I say is true. If not then what I say is false.

Someone can have a 'true' belief in the sense I mean, despite the facts not being true. — AmadeusD

This also strikes me as strange, namely your idea that some facts are true and some facts are false. I would say that facts, like states of affairs, are not true or false.

But the truth of things is in the person who knows these things. — Fire Ologist

Right, and therefore a formal argument written out on a piece of paper is not true (or even valid) in the most primary sense. Truth primarily exists in the mind. The formal argument is just an aid to get truth into the mind.

Yeah, there is something I like to call the "Anna Karenina Principle," based on the opening of Tolstoy's novel: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in his own way." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Cf:

Again, there are many ways of going wrong (for evil is infinite in nature, to use a Pythagorean figure, while good is finite), but only one way of going right; so that the one is easy and the other hard—easy to miss the mark and hard to hit. — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, II.6

I came across a great explanation by Rowan Williams — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

Where did you come across it?

Consider the phrase, "I am politically nonbinary.". Do you discern the speaker's intent differently if they are liberal or conservative? — David Hubbs

Yes. In that case I would know they are lying. :razz:

My point here is that defining progress in formal terms can sometimes prove illusory. I am not sure about the claim that we "know much more about truth then we did decades ago," unless it is caveated for instance... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Great post. :up:

I am just going to comment on one small part:

The other issue is that people very quickly learn to game metrics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right. The object which was originally tied to premise/evidence is eventually made into the conclusion/desideratum, once it is seen to be socially persuasive. This is another case of mixing up means and ends.

The odd thing here is that philosophy is a strange dance between reasoning from and reasoning towards (and also reasoning away from). Once meta-criteria are introduced it is possible to mistake a legitimate form of teleological reasoning with post hoc rationalization (and this question came up very explicitly in the recent Supreme Court case, Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton).

For instance, is "p-hacking" permissible? Yes and no. It is very hard to identify when teleological reasoning favoring acceptable p-values crosses over into "p-hacking." It would be a bit much to try to convince someone to never calculate their p-value before finishing an experiment.

Similarly, is gerrymandering permissible? Again, yes and no. Grouping districts together according to culture or ideology is not in itself impermissible. In fact you can't have representation without doing that. But doing it for the wrong reasons or with the wrong intent is impermissible. These sorts of puzzles go deep. They would be great candidates for the Beyond the Pale thread.

Note, however, that some of the responses to this sort of thing seem deficient. For example, simply pointing to seemingly incoherent analytic or scholastic philosophy. This doesn't say much; presumably there can be bad scholastic philosophy, bad theoretical physics, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is right, and it should go without saying that I agree with it. Let me bold something in my original quote:

In scholasticism the matters are rather more complicated. Generally speaking, the scholastics lacked the Russellian revisionist attitude towards natural language, and therefore they rarely explicitly challenged the obvious capacity of the natural language to refer to non-existents. Their approach was, generally, to explain and analyse, not to correct language... — Lukáš Novák, Can We Speak About That Which Is Not?, 168

The idea here is that there is a difference in approach to natural language, and that this difference is explicit in Russell, Quine, and many influenced by them. The point is not that there is no nuance to be had.

Srap responds:

Banno's position here is interesting because he is strongly committed both to the primacy of natural language and the usefulness of classical logic. The argument he often makes is that classical logic is not something you find implicit in ordinary language, as its hidden structure, say, but you can choose to conform your language use to it.

I think that view actually rhymes quite well with the description I've been trying to develop of how formal, technical language can be embedded in natural language, much as mathematical language is and must be embedded in natural language. — Srap Tasmaner

First, I would note that there is a substantial difference even here:

But isn't the claim that "mathematical language is and must be embedded in natural language," actually contrary to the claim that, "classical logic is not something you find implicit in ordinary language"? At least if mathematics is on par with classical logic? At the very least, you are claiming that some kind of formalism (mathematics) is implicit in ordinary language. — Leontiskos

Second is the practical fact that in the very thread from which these two have come, @Banno was deeply uninterested in ordinary language use. Indeed, Banno regularly argues against the very possibility of defining words and tends to appeal to "use" in a question-begging manner. So I don't see Banno as some sort of counterexample. I don't see that Wittgenstenians have any rigorous methodology in favor of their putative stand in favor of ordinary language. Philologists and linguists are usually not Wittgenstenians.

The so-called "ordinary language philosophy" was a reaction against an excessive flight from ordinary language, and what this effectively means is only that the "ordinary language philosophers" were more interested in ordinary language than their immediate antecedents. They were in no way part of a millennia-old tradition which honored ordinary language. It would be like if a whole generation eschewed headlights, and then the next generation dubs themselves "the pro-headlight people," placing a rather dim bulb in the headlight of their cars. It is true that they have headlights, but the strength of their headlight is measured against the previous generation which eschewed them altogether. The reason scholasticism is so bound up with ordinary language is because they were developing headlights non-stop for 1500 years.

Edit: I think one very sound criterion for measuring this "organic" merging of ordinary language with philosophy can be found in looking at how much someone distinguishes the meta-language from the language (for this is what Srap's "obiter dicta" vs. "decision" gets at). They were not separate for Scholasticism, and folks like Buridan even explicitly rejected their separation. For Analytic Philosophy they are much more separate; and for some, such as Russell, there is a strong cleavage.

Of course, one area where you get a lot of specificity is in scientific terms and jargon, and a common charge against Continental philosophy is that it uses these in cases that seem to fail to understand the original usage, while also not clarifying any alternative usage, which is, so the charge goes, at best a misunderstanding and at worst obscurantistism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

We have an interesting mini-case of this in the thread, directed towards Williamson:

I think part of the problem here is that "disciplined" is being used in two different ways ― not quite two different senses. It's rather like the way we use the word "hot" in two ways: you can ask if something is hot or cold, and you can ask how hot something is (or similarly, how cold). Similarly, discipline seems to be, on the one hand, a matter of how firmly your inquiries are guided by other disciplines, and by how many; but on the other seems to be something that can be achieved, and that stands as the contrary of "undisciplined".

This is rather unfortunate. — Srap Tasmaner

Why is it unfortunate? I don't see a problem with using "disciplined" in that way, just as I do not see a problem with using "hot" in that way. This is a form of analogical predication, where we simply do not have any obvious "unfortunate" equivocation occurring. — Leontiskos

1. "Disciplined" has two interrelated meanings
2. Williamson's argument leverages both of them
3. This is unfortunate

(This is a classical case of preferring univocal predication.)

My point is that it's easy to "reverse-engineer" a normative framework just by observing how some entity tends to act (humans, ants, clouds, whatever) — goremand

And my point is that it is absurd to claim that ants are engaged in rational norm-following, so this is a massive strawman you are wielding.

Isn't the "rational appetite" just another type of "natural appetite"? Certainly most people are inclined to be rational. — goremand

In the context of that quote, acting for an end via the will is much different than acting for an end via mere instinct. This is why, for example, animals do not have any developed language.

And I have some sympathy with that view, and have said before that the overwhelming majority of my own posts are just chitchat, sometimes gossip, like talk in the faculty lounge or at a bar. Now and then I've done some actual work here, but not often. There is, for example, no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread. At least on this view. Strictly speaking. — Srap Tasmaner

I'd say the only difference between "chit chat" and "work" is the level of assertion involved. The fact that both are necessary is an example of the necessity of certitude-shifting. When professors chat in the faculty lounge they are "floating" ideas or theories. They are proferring possible hypotheses and looking to see how others might test them. It is like testing a foothold before continuing to climb, or feeling out one's opponent before the match actually begins, or surveying stones on the beach before gathering them and taking them to the polisher. All of this involves micro-assertion and preparatory assertion.

But it all aims and builds towards actual assertion, towards actually . Those who are never ultimately willing to say anything are constantly prepping cakes that will never be baked. Those who are most interested in the preparatory work or the syntax have placed the means above the end.

So I have not been trying to claim that real work can only be done in a more formal mode of expression, only that in other disciplines the choice of that formal mode is an indicator that we're working (or demonstrating, etc), rather than just talking about it. — Srap Tasmaner

"Indicator"? Perhaps. It's certainly not a sufficient condition. There is no escaping the question of intention in this matter. One can without a formal mode of expression, and they can fail to say something in a formal mode of expression. One can "chit chat" in logicalese. Indeed the way you and fdrake default to model-modes without defaulting to necessarily saying anything is an easy example of chit chat in formal notation. The "equals sign" in a math equation signifies assertion, but it can be intended quasi-assertorically. The "therefore sign" in a logical proof signifies assertion, but can be intended quasi-assertorically or hypothetically. In any case, the subject-predicate form of natural language also signifies assertion (and can also be intended quasi-assertorically).

For example, suppose that tomorrow we find a proof written by Gödel. It is just a block of formal notation. Has he "said something"? Is it "work"? Or is it "chit chat"? Apart from context and intention, we really don't know. It could be a draft or a tentative attempt to salvage someone else's work, or it might be something that he fully believed and wished to publish.

Who's the "we" tallying the results and scoring the competition? — Srap Tasmaner

The same ones who decide how much research is necessary before something is to count as philosophy?

But no, I was focusing more on the second sentence than the first. The second is more concrete. As to the first, the answer that is usually accepted somewhat unthinkingly is, "History decides."

For ways of seeing and ways of setting up problems that begin very far apart, I'm not sure it's much use at all. — Srap Tasmaner

He has the back-up:

...if different groups in philosophy give different relative weights to various sources of discipline, we can compare the long-run results of the rival ways of working. Tightly constrained work has the merit that even those who reject the constraints can agree that it demonstrates their consequences. — Williamson, 10-11

So the idea is that Russell and Wittgenstein could agree on what follows from a set of constraints, even if they disagree on the constraints. I.e. "This line is valid given these constraints, but because I reject the constraints I do not call it sound." That's the "step back" that is possible, and which retains some common ground.

Do you find his arguments compelling? — Bob Ross

I do, yes. I also think his premise is widely accepted, namely <If man can have knowledge of all corporeal things, then man's intellect is incorporeal>. Some people use this to affirm the immateriality of the intellect; others use it to deny that man can have knowledge of all corporeal things.

Also, if the form of an organism extends to some other substantial, immaterial aspect (of a thinking faculty), then how would that work with interacting with the body? It seems like this view loses that edge that Aristotle has of the form being nothing more than the self-actualizing principle of the body and ends up in Cartesian territory. — Bob Ross

Well even in your OP you point out that Aristotle holds that the mind is not "blended with the body," and therefore must apparently be somehow incorporeal. So he isn't altogether off the hook.

But what do Thomists say about "the interaction problem"? I would have to revisit the issue, to be honest. Feser offers accessible blog posts on Thomism, and he has at least four entries on the interaction problem (one, two, three, four). That's where I would begin. The fourth one looks like it is the most concise.

Well, one difficulty is perhaps a conflation between specificity and rigor. For instance, I love Robert Sokolowski's The Phenomenology of the Human Person, but one of my criticisms while reading it was that it didn't always specify what it was talking about as much as I would have liked. However, I came around on this, that this was actually a wise choice, in line with Aristotle's advice in the Ethics that we ought not demand greater specificity than our subject matter allows. Wittgenstein's appeal to a "family resemblance" is another good example (although it's funny to see this then sometimes transformed into an appeal to a sort of formal "concept of family resemblance"). Actually, I think this is one of the points Grayling (who is quite analytic) criticizes Wittgenstein on, being too vague in these ways.

I don't think that charge is totally without its merits in some cases. The degree of specificity needs to be in line with the subject matter, and it is possible to err in either direction. But it is easy to mistake a lack of specificity with a lack of rigor. The drive towards reductionism and atomism is a sort of pernicious demand for specificity in some cases, often paired with questionable metaphysical assumptions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right, and a kind of light bulb should go off once one realizes that Sokolowski's lack of specificity is intentional, and that it is intended precisely because it is most appropriate to the subject matter. Earlier I was pointing out that thinking is guided by subject matter, and it seems that the reason our current thinking is so one-dimensional is because the subjects that concern us are so one-dimensional. For example, a materialistic horizon creates thinking that is largely quantitative and empirical. When the domain of subjects is small, the preference for a very determinate and narrow form of thinking follows (in the case of the Analytic it is univocal thinking).

-

I think your nephew makes Socrates sound like a moron. — Fire Ologist

:lol:

So you claim:

1. If an approach is not disciplined by the decades of relevant research, then it isn't philosophy
2. Leontiskos' approach is not disciplined by the decades of relevant research
3. Therefore, Leontiskos' approach is not philosophy

Is that fair or do you want to tweak it before we examine whether it has any merit?