D.C. Schindler might be my favorite philosopher currently putting out regular material (and he puts out a lot). I will say though that he has a tendency to sometimes be a bit too polemical on some issues, which I'm afraid might turn some people off. He also tends to be fairly technical, although I've only found his first book on Von Balthasar to be really slow going. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I was looking at his books. What books or articles would you recommend as a starting point?

But if "not anything goes," then how is one not making a claim to a "true narrative?" Apparently certain narratives can be definitively excluded. In virtue of what are they excluded and why isn't this exclusion hubris?

Second, either all true narratives avoid contradiction or they don't. If they don't contradict each other, then they are, in a sense, one. If they do contradict one another, you need some sort of criteria for when contradiction is allowed (which all serious dialtheists try to provide) because otherwise, if contradiction can occur anywhere, then "everything goes" (and doesn't go). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Clear and important points. :up:

Moreover, if the principles contain moral elements, this will collapse the idea of "being wrong" as mistaken and "being wrong" as immoral, definitely an authoritarian move. — J

Here is a general claim you make:

• <One should not accuse anyone of a moral deficiency which bears on their argumentation>

You see this as "authoritarian," and both of these claims of yours are moral claims.

You also hold to this:

• <Anything which systemically favors [accusations of moral deficiency which bear on the deficient person's argumentation] is "authoritarian" in structure>

The problem here is that, by your own criteria, your own claims are "authoritarian," and therefore you are involved in hypocrisy or performative self-contradiction. You castigate "authoritarians" as suffering from a moral deficiency which bears on their argumentation, and therefore violate your own rule. You say, "You can't accuse the wielder of an argument of immorality," and yet this is precisely what you are doing with your ongoing "authoritarianism" diatribe.

And stretching a point, you can even call this authoritarian: If you say otherwise on a test, the teacher will flunk you! But there's nothing pernicious about any of this. It comes with the territory of an accepted formal system. — J

Is it authoritarian or isn't it? And is authoritarianism pernicious or isn't it? Do you see how you are unable to answer such simple questions?

The other problem here is that, even in the first place, you are not able to say what "authoritarianism" is and why it is bad. This goes directly to my Beyond the Pale thread, where you are confronted with the question, "What is authoritarianism and why is it beyond the pale?"

That juncture between the intellect and the will when it comes to assent is a neuralgic point which seems to underlie a lot of the instability of these discussions. The great boon of a doctrine about how assent relates to both intellect and will, such as the Medieval doctrine, is that it allows us to think more carefully and countenance more honestly those assents of ours which are strongly volitional. — Leontiskos

The intellectually honest person would say to themselves, "Yes, my claims about authoritarianism are moral claims, and moral claims require defense. Therefore I will accede to defending my moral claims."

By this point I fully expect you to continue evading such simple questions and to persist in your incoherence.

The critic criticizes themself. They don't have to learn how to build in order to do that. — Moliere

So the critic is actually a builder? That's your solution? "Critics don't need any builders, because they are builders too!"

You are conceding my point, namely that builders are necessary. You've merely conceded it by magically making the critic a builder. You are not contesting my point that critics cannot exist without builders.

Note too that in the past you have claimed that, "This sentence is false," is an example of a sentence that is both false and true simultaneously. So in that case it fails the criterion of presupposing no truths. If you now want to change your analysis to say that it involves falsity but no truth (and therefore does not violate the LEM after all), then that looks like an ad hoc attempt to try to answer my challenge. The Liar's Sentence can't be true and false when you want to disprove the LEM, and then merely false when you want to object to a claim about the primacy of truth. Changing your mind in this ad hoc way is unprincipled reasoning. — Leontiskos

I don't see it as unprincipled when I'm directly telling you why I'm thinking what I'm thinking. I think we really can use different metrics at different times -- different solutions to the Liar's Paradox are valuable to know. There isn't a single way to respond to the Liar's Paradox as evidenced by the philosophical literature on the Liar's Paradox. There are times when dialethia are appropriate and times when the simple logic of objects is appropraite. — Moliere

This is nonsense, Moliere. :roll:

• Leontiskos on Tuesday: The LEM holds.
• Moliere on Tuesday: No it doesn't, because the Liar's Sentence is both true and false at the same time. So the LEM doesn't hold.
• Leontiskos on Wednesday: Truth has a primacy over falsehood.
• Moliere on Wednesday: No it doesn't, because the Liar's Sentence is false but not true. So truth doesn't have a primacy.
• Leontiskos on Thursday: You just contradicted yourself. The Liar's Sentence can't be true on Tuesday and not-true on Wednesday, depending on what proposition your passions want to contradict.
• Moliere on Thursday: No, I can switch back and forth like that. No big deal!

You are showcasing the incoherence of extreme skepticism, where your goal is just to contradict people, Monty Python-style, with no regard for your own incoherence and self-contradictions. This is a prime example of someone who is not interested in real philosophy; who won't even shy away from the fact that they contradict themselves without shame. You are apparently content to flip-flop back and forth like this for all eternity, so long as you are able to contradict everything at once. Good luck with that approach! Really - it will destroy you.

These are excellent quotes from D. C. Schindler both here and in your previous post. :up:
I will have to look into him more closely.

I don't think these folks understand how completely they are destroying the philosophical enterprise and the things they believe they are saving. On the other hand, there is also a thread of misology that has erected this so-called "epistemic humility" as its god, and cares not what happens.

See also:

The choices are "monism" or "pluralism," where the common individualistic rule is that argument and contention is not permitted. — Leontiskos

What happens is that there is a dichotomy set up between "monism" and "pluralism," where both share the premise that the individual is immune to rational influence. The "monistic" individual is immune via his own "authoritarianism," whereas the "pluralistic" individual is immune via pluralism. They are two sides of the same coin, and both undercut the notion of truth, transcendence, and the ability to influence one another via rational considerations.

- Sure, but is existence a form received by an essence? If existence is a form and an angel receives the form of existence, then the angel must have matter, but I wouldn't really want to describe it that way. This also obscures the position which objects to Aquinas and says that angels do have proper (spiritual) matter.

Aquinas is claiming that an angel does not have matter, and therefore has no material parts, but that it does have a composition of essence + existence, which differentiates it from Pure Act:

Reply to Objection 3. Although there is no composition of matter and form in an angel, yet there is act and potentiality. And this can be made evident if we consider the nature of material things which contain a twofold composition. The first is that of form and matter, whereby the nature is constituted. Such a composite nature is not its own existence but existence is its act. Hence the nature itself is related to its own existence as potentiality to act. Therefore if there be no matter, and supposing that the form itself subsists without matter, there nevertheless still remains the relation of the form to its very existence, as of potentiality to act. And such a kind of composition is understood to be in the angels; and this is what some say, that an angel is composed of, "whereby he is," and "what is," or "existence," and "what is," as Boethius says. For "what is," is the form itself subsisting; and the existence itself is whereby the substance is; as the running is whereby the runner runs. But in God "existence" and "what is" are not different as was explained above (I:3:4). Hence God alone is pure act. — Aquinas, ST I.50.2.ad3 - Whether an angel is composed of matter and form?

"Hence the nature itself is related to its own existence as potentiality to act." I.e.:

• Essence/nature : Potentiality :: Existence : act

So Aquinas posits a potency-act distinction in angels (and every created being), by positing the essence-existence distinction. For Aquinas although the standard sort of potency-act distinction is indeed matter-form, there is nevertheless a second potency-act distinction within substances, namely essence-existence, and this applies not only to material substances but also to immaterial substances.

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

• R → P
• R
• ∴ P

Our refutation is a refutation of R:

• R → P
• ~R
• ∴ ?

Solve for '?' Are you saying that the conclusion is, "∴ ~P" ?

The result is that P does not follow, i.e. "P is not (necessarily) true." They have moved from, "P is true," to, "P is not true," without going all the way to, "P is false." Ergo:

Indeed, it is arguable whether, upon convincing someone that their belief is not true, we should have "falsified" their belief. If they move from "true" to "not true" without going all the way to "false," has falsification occurred? — Leontiskos

But I do think that deductive, foundationalist philosophies run a higher risk of being trapped in a method that, for structural reasons, cannot see a different viewpoint as anything other than a deductive mistake or misunderstanding. — J

That's the thesis, and you haven't defended it. You've just imputed bad ("authoritarian") motives wherever you like. I was hoping for more from that post of yours. Note that if you are actually looking for structural phenomena that predispose towards authoritarianism, then mathematics is certainly authoritarian! Do you think mathematics is authoritarian? Because two people can't have different answers and both be correct, or both be mathematically validated?

Now let's take music. Is musical creativity authoritarian? Does it preclude objection? I admit it's not clear just what that might mean, but something like: Is there a right and a wrong way to write music, are some musics intrinsically beautiful, apart from context, and others not? etc. Surely not, because creative work is not deductive. You can't start from some axioms and work out what's going to be great music. — J

This is more strained reasoning. "Surely not"? Almost everyone agrees that some sounds are not music; some music is more musical; some music is more beautiful; and some music is more objectionable. So if we use your own criterion of "intersubjective agreement," then music is "authoritarian" (according to your curious definition). The reason John Williams was given the score for Harry Potter instead of you or I is because John Williams is a better musician, who produces better music. Similarly, anyone with even a vague familiarity with music is capable of creating a shit piece of music, that everyone will agree is shit. So the idea that there are no criteria for good music is obviously false.

Surely not, because creative work is not deductive. — J

"Creative work is not deductive, therefore there is no right or wrong way to make music, and no good or bad music." That's a wild non sequitur.

The whiplash that your post produces occurs because there are no real inferences utilized in order to arrive at your conclusions about "deductive reasoning," or, "authoritarianism." You have some conclusions in search of an argument. Your beginning was promising insofar as you tried to identify an authoritarian pole (mathematics) and a non-authoritarian pole (music), but after that it went downhill.

Note your argument:

1. Any discipline in which quality is measurable is authoritarian
2. In mathematics the quality of contributions is measurable
3. Therefore, mathematics is authoritarian

Both - but our most recent exchange has jaded me on the latter. No hard feelings - just an explanation. — AmadeusD

Well that makes two of us.

Yeah - i found that discussion helpful and pretty decent as it's something I've not thought too much about. — AmadeusD

Okay - good to hear.

But hte conclusion seems to say something other than the discussion concludes with. — AmadeusD

Well how do you answer this question?

Indeed, it is arguable whether, upon convincing someone that their belief is not true, we should have "falsified" their belief. If they move from "true" to "not true" without going all the way to "false," has falsification occurred? — Leontiskos

I do think that James creates criteria to limit the amount the will allows one to create one's own reality, — Hanover

Yes, that's fair and I noticed you pointing that out.

but I do think there is merit to the position that the will is a dominant force in one's life, enough so that it can significantly change one's outlook and perspective. It's especially noticable on website like this, where I often detect an over-riding sense of doom, this idea that if you don't accept a certain pessimism, then you're looked upon as blissfully ignorant. And the point is that it's not ignorance. It's a choice. — Hanover

Interesting. I noticed it when I joined. Now I take it for granted. :grin:

What's not an aside is that everyone's personal beliefs form their worldview, which is what I think the OP doesn't address as closely. What it actually addresses is the fact that there are two ways of philosophizing within the analytic tradition, and some do it rigorously and some do it sloppily.

...

When we truly have different views of the world (i.e. not a shared view), then rejection of the results brought about by the tools of other traditions isn't inconsistent. If my world is not conducive to examination by an atomic microscope, it doesn't bother me what results it might show. — Hanover

I think that's well said.

When I wrote the post you are responding to I had no internet, and was working from memory. When I revisited the actual conversation I realized that your quotes from James were fairly conservative. My impression was that James at times went farther than that, but maybe that is incorrect.

I am wary of bringing up Pascal's Wager, but an argument similar to it could help illustrate a more "pragmatic" option:

"Belief in God will make me happy. Disbelief in God will make me unhappy. Therefore I choose to believe in God."
"Do you believe it is true that God exists?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it will make me happy." — Option 1

Now compare this to something more conservative:

"I saw that belief in God would make me happy, therefore I investigated the issue and was persuaded, on intellectual grounds, that God truly does exist."
"Do you believe it is true that God exists?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because of sound arguments. But I investigated the arguments in the first place because I was searching for happiness." — Option 2

Now those are merely two approaches, and there are doubtless countless others, including in between.

But the funny thing is that many if not all of us really do seem to hold to assents based on something like option 1. Many if not all of us are involved in assents that, were we to trace back the justificatory structure when asked why we hold them, we would have to admit, "Because it is good to so believe," or, "Because what is believed is good/desirable/choice-worthy." For example, "Do you think the tornado is going to hit your house?," or, "It's late and she hasn't come home yet. Do you think your wife is cheating on you?" It strikes me as implausible that a negative answer to such questions is purely intellectual, and does not strongly involve one's desire for what is good.* ...Eventually we will want to ask what extent of volition is rationally permissible, if any.

(Obviously the Analytic temptation here is to make a distinction between two different senses of the question about the tornado or the adultery, but in reality those two putative senses really do seem merged and melded together.)


* Curiously, Aquinas singles out one form of assent as, "to incline to one side yet with fear of the other." The tornado or adultery questions represent that variety of assent. We could also give examples where there is volition and uncertainty but not necessarily any fear, such as, "Do you think the sun will come out tomorrow?"

One idea here in the medieval context is that, because we only ever encounter finite goods, the will is always underdetermined. Thus, there is always a "choice factor" in our pursuits — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I think that's right.

A closely related point, made by many authors, is that the masses do not reason in the way that philosophers reason. For example, whereas a philosopher would uphold liberalism on intellectual grounds, the masses will tend to uphold liberalism on volitional grounds. They tend to view liberalism as good, not as true (although liberalism may not be the best example since some of the proponents such as Rawls eventually admitted that their own grounds are largely volitional). The same argument could be made for something like the existence of God, and it is worth recognizing how the philosophers—or else those with more direct knowledge—lead the way and the masses follow in their wake.

When push comes to shove, @J is a volitional reasoner. He wonders if we should avoid truth-claims because they are immoral. @Banno is starting to lean in that direction as well, as can be seen by his recent post/diatribe against "authoritarianism." The first thing I would say here is that this is okay, so long as they recognize what they are doing. J has certainly begun to recognize it and he has a less intellectualist bent than Banno, but Banno is more schizophrenic, vacillating between intellectualism and will-based assent.

That juncture between the intellect and the will when it comes to assent is a neuralgic point which seems to underlie a lot of the instability of these discussions. The great boon of a doctrine about how assent relates to both intellect and will, such as the Medieval doctrine, is that it allows us to think more carefully and countenance more honestly those assents of ours which are strongly volitional. So I think @Hanover has put his finger on something important with his William James' quotes.

I think this goes too far. There are at least some things that can be known as good vis-á-vis human nature, particularly ceteris paribus, and if the good is more choice-worthy than the bad, then we have a clear intellectual line to the preferability of at least some habits, i.e., the virtues (intellectual and moral). But I'll certainly grant that this does not apply to every case, and is not without difficulties in particular applications. Nor do I think this suggests the absolute priority of the intellect in the pursuit of virtue, in that the appetite for knowledge, including knowledge about what is truly best, always plays a role. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right, and when we think about the intellect/volition problem in specifically "moral" terms (in the modern sense), the question immediately arises, "Is the good communicable and universally binding, in the way that the true is?" This is probably a large part of @J's concern. He worries that objective claims of goodness lead to imposition and coercion.

Although I haven't looked at this problem in awhile, it seems clear to me that the intellect and the will are tightly knit, and that the true is good. The difficulty is the reversal, namely the claim that the good is true. Can we say that what is good is also what is true? How does the convertibility in that direction work? Although the mushroom case is interesting, nevertheless the will is only a motive for knowing that truth, not a proper grounds for the truth. Thomists lean towards intellectualism, so it is natural that I have more difficulty with this direction.

the act of understanding closes of critique. — Banno

OK, so where does philosophy fit between these two extremes? — J

This could be an interesting discussion. For now I will only add:

As Spinoza said, "Omnis determinatio est negatio." — Leontiskos

Every determination is a negation, including the determination involved in the act of understanding. If such "closing" is necessarily authoritarian, then mathematics is authoritarian, and we actually have some nutty folk in universities saying precisely that.

In today's climate what is needed is philosophy rather than diatribes, ideology, and virtue signaling — Leontiskos

I think such remarks are self refuting and mischaracterise both mathematics and philosophy by falsely implying that they are separate language games. Indeed, formalism fails to explain the evolution of mathematlcs and logic. There's nothing therapeutic about mischaracterising mathematics as being a closed system of meaning. — sime

It would be hard to overemphasize the importance of what you say here. :up: :fire:

No thanks, C.S. Peirce is my go to American. Pragmaticism, not pragmatism, thank you :grin: — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree, but let’s give the devil his due. I think it will be helpful, and it will also afford an opportunity to give an example of how to constructively interact with a thesis rather than dissect it.

"James’s central thesis is that when an option is live, forced and momentous and cannot be settled by intellectual means, one may and must let one’s non-rational nature make the choice. One may believe what one hopes to be true, or what makes one happiest;" — Hanover

There is a very interesting and ubiquitous philosophical problem that is being confronted by Hanover. I touched on it <here>. Consider this argument:

1. Supposition: The only rational assents are those that are entirely derived from the intellect (and not at all derived from the will)
2. But (most) everyone is involved in a great number of assents which are not entirely derived from the intellect
3. Not all of these assents are irrational
4. Therefore, (1) is false

Our most familiar instantiation of this problem is the debate over moral realism, where the anti-realist holds to (1) and claims that moral assents are not rational (because they are derived from the will, whether in the case of ‘oughts’ or values). But we faced another acute instantiation of the problem in the recent <thread on faith>, where we saw that faith-assents are common and rational even though they involve the will. For example:

Such faith is rational, but it is also an act of choice. The evidence, because it is about the trustworthiness of the authority and not about the things the authority says, does not convince the mind of the truth of these things, but only of their trustworthiness. To believe their truth, the mind must be moved to do so by an act of trust. But an act of trust is an act of will. We can, if we like, refuse to believe the doctor or the chemist, however convincing the evidence of their trustworthiness may be. We cannot, by contrast, refuse to believe that the angles of a triangle equal two right angles once we have seen the proof, though we can contradict it in words if we like, for speech is an act of will. — Peter L. P. Simpson, Political Illiberalism, 109

Consider an example of a conservative argument against (1) which does not go so far as William James’ voluntarism:

If someone is starving and they decide to eat a mushroom, knowing that it might be poisonous, then I can see how the act has value and reason. — Leontiskos

The conclusion—whether belief or opinion—that the mushrooms are edible is not motivated purely by the intellect. In fact such a belief would never have been formed if one were not starving and desirous of food. One would never have had occasion to judge the mushrooms edible if not for that hunger. The will is necessary for such an assent, but this does not render the assent irrational.

My guess is that the number of assents which involve the will in such a way is very large. It doesn’t seem to be practicable to avoid all such assents, which is probably why people like so often overreach their own intellectualist criteria. Janus is someone who gives a very idiosyncratic approach to this problem by positing a set of non-rational assents which are justifiable to oneself but not to others. Williams James seems to go too far in collapsing truth into will altogether. Pascal’s Wager represents an especially potent leveraging of the problem. But even after dissecting all of the errors, it is very hard to deny that there must be some rational assents which are not derived entirely from the intellect.

The Medieval answer to this philosophical problem is found in both a robust understanding of the relation between the intellect and the will, and also in the doctrine of the convertibility of the good and the true.

(Given that it is plain to us that there is a form of will which is inimical to intellectual honesty, presumably any thinker worth his salt who rejects (1) must follow Aristotle in distinguishing an upright will from a corrupt will.)

---

Austere criteria for knowledge and reason will result in a truncated philosophical sphere, and this is what @Banno’s view commits him to. He has a relatively narrow view of knowledge, philosophy, and reason, because of his more stringent criteria (with some exceptions). Something like (1) appeals to him, even though he is plagued by the same fact of incompleteness that plagued the Logical Positivists. Like his forebears, he has no principled way to exclude knowledge claims, given that he knows that his own system is incomplete. Such people can say with certainty, “If a rational assent is derived entirely from the intellect, then it is rational,” but they are constantly tempted to affirm the consequent and assert (1).

This austerity is given to dissection in one way, insofar as many knowledge claims will fail the stringent criterion and a tight logical system will be able to show why they are not theorems within the system. But in another way the negative judgments that naturally follow upon dissection are beyond its reach, even though it often deceives itself in denying this. Lacking completeness, the fact that something is not a theorem within the system does not prove that it is not true. Thus the adherent is consigned to the paradox of only being able to dissect and never being able to exclude; of only being able to say, “At least according to my incomplete system, what you say is not valid.” Gödel and reality itself beckons them onward to wider vistas, where the truths which elude them can be seen.

For these reasons I find Hanover’s approach too strong (although at this point he is only quoting James' more mild ideas). The intellect itself is sufficient to show that Banno’s approach is insufficient for the sake of truth.

You're again doing that thing where you ignore the central conversation where you are having the most difficulty:

Sure, but I never contested that and it doesn't intersect with what we were discussing in that line of the conversation. My question to you was literally, "Without builders what do you say that the critics criticize?" Do you have an answer to that question? — Leontiskos

We can't just paper over your invalid objection to my claim that without builders there can be no critics. That is the central and older part of the conversation, and it is the part that an auto-didact will have an easier time with. I focused on it for a reason.

"This sentence is false" seems to fit to me, but I'm not allowed to use it. :D — Moliere

Note too that in the past you have claimed that, "This sentence is false," is an example of a sentence that is both false and true simultaneously. So in that case it fails the criterion of presupposing no truths. If you now want to change your analysis to say that it involves falsity but no truth (and therefore does not violate the LEM after all), then that looks like an ad hoc attempt to try to answer my challenge. The Liar's Sentence can't be true and false when you want to disprove the LEM, and then merely false when you want to object to a claim about the primacy of truth. Changing your mind in this ad hoc way is unprincipled reasoning.

Do you see how it's correct for the critic to still say that they don't know? — Moliere

Sure, but I never contested that and it doesn't intersect with what we were discussing in that line of the conversation. My question to you was literally, "Without builders what do you say that the critics criticize?" Do you have an answer to that question?

So you want a circumstance where bill said some statement is false, and there is no truth that needs to exist in order for Bill to say that the answer is false.

Correct? — Moliere

Yep. I am saying that, "If you claim that something is false, then you must already hold to some truth in order to say so." The counterexample would be, "Here is an example where someone claims that something is false even though they do not hold to any truth in order to say so."

Sorry, I chose it for a reason last time and it's still the one that fits now. — Moliere

If you have to resort to the extremely controversial example of the Liar's Paradox then your answer is going to be highly implausible and controversial. I've already given you my thoughts on the Liar's Paradox and I obviously think your analysis is incorrect.

While they are contrary opposites, on the view of truth as a transcendental property of being, falsity is parasitic on truth for the same reason that evil is parasitic on good—it is an absence. If truth is the adequacy of the intellect to being then its lack is a privation. Likewise, without ends, goods, the entire concept of evil makes no sense, since nothing is sought and so no aims are every frustrated. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think that's right, but I think it is even easier for an Analytic to see that falsity presupposes truth by looking at arguments which attempt to demonstrate falsehoods.

I just don’t give analytic dissection the priority. We need to assert, and then dissect. — Fire Ologist

Right. Chronologically and logically, assertion precedes dissection. :up:

If nothing is built there is nothing to criticize. Without builders what do you say that the critics criticize? If the critics are to criticize themselves, they will first need to learn how to build. Hence my point. — Leontiskos

That's not true. Suppose you hire someone to build you a house. You don't know how to build the house, but your criticism is important to how the builder proceeds.

Now the builder could tell you "Look, if that's what you want, I'm telling you you aren't going to get a house, it will collapse" -- but the person would still be justified in their claim that they don't know how to build a house. — Moliere

I asked you what a critic is supposed to criticize if there is no builder, and in response you pointed to a critic who criticizes a builder. Do you see how you failed to answer my question?

This began when I said that if there are no builders then there can be no critics, and you responded by saying that in that case the critics would just criticize themselves. So again, your example of a critic who criticizes a house-builder is in no way an example of critics criticizing themselves, sans builders.

There's one solution to the liar's paradox which says there is no problem -- "This is false" is straightforwardly read as a false sentence, and not true.

For the other I'd point to our previous discussion on the dialetheist's solution to the liar's paradox where the solution is to recognize that the liar's sentence is both true and false.

Now, that's just co-occurrence to demonstrate a dyad between the two to the standards you laid out. But I think that "...is true" and "...is false" presuppose one another to be made sense of. That is, there is no "...is true" simpliciter, but rather its meaning will depend upon the meaning of "...is false", and vice-versa.

So there is no prioritizing one over the other. — Moliere

There is no prioritizing truth over falsity because of some obscure gesturing towards the Liar's Paradox?

I'm just asking you to give me an example of an assertion of falsehood which presupposes no truths. Can you do that?

"John wrote 2+2=5 on his paper. Bill said that his answer was false. But no truth needs to exist in order for Bill to say that the answer is false."

Something like that. Something straightforward. An example.


You seem to be saying that without a counterfactual understanding of falsehood there can be no claims of truth, and without a counterfactual understanding of truth there can be no claims of falsehood. That's fine, but it doesn't establish parity. I am saying that every claim of falsehood presupposes at least one actual truth, but not so with claims of truth. I am saying that if Bill does not know some truth then he cannot say the answer is false. So even if there is parity on the counterfactual consideration, there is still a lack of parity on the consideration I have presented.

The builders can exist without the critics. The critics cannot exist without the builders. — Leontiskos

But the critics can criticize themselves! — Moliere

If nothing is built there is nothing to criticize. Without builders what do you say that the critics criticize? If the critics are to criticize themselves, they will first need to learn how to build. Hence my point.

"This is false" presupposes some truth, whereas, "This is true," does not presuppose any falsehood. — Leontiskos

Though if this be the analogy I'd just say truth and false form a dyad: You don't understand the one without the other. — Moliere

Then provide a response to my argument. Provide an example where "this is false" presupposes no truth, and explain why "this is true" presupposes falsehood.

But I think it's important to maintain the ability to say "I don't know", and reassess our beliefs because of our ability to make errors, or at least miss some things. — Moliere

Sure, but dissection is not the same as saying, "I don't know."

But I find "I don't know" to be a far more productive realization, because it'll lead me to something else. — Moliere

Exactly. It is productive. "I don't know," leads precisely to building. "I know that you are wrong," (dissection) is an opposite of, "I don't know."

Note too that the act of dissecting is an intrinsically negative act, insofar as it is a search for falsehood. The dissector is therefore someone in search of error; a kind of inquisitor who comes to fall in love with the discovery of error in others.

I'd make the case that the builders need the critics -- else you get back arguments. — Moliere

Even on your premises, it remains true that bad arguments are better than nothing at all. The builders can exist without the critics. The critics cannot exist without the builders. So I think my thesis stands.

This is related to what I said to you here:

Okay, interesting. Such negatives are pretty slippery. I won't speak to practical prohibitions, but, "This is false," is an incredibly difficult thing to understand. Usually we require, "This is true" + PNC in order to arrive at a judgment of falsehood. I am not at all convinced that a falsehood can be demonstrated directly. — Leontiskos

Just as the critic lacks parity with the builder, so too does falsehood lack parity with truth. "This is false," presupposes some truth, whereas, "This is true," does not presuppose any falsehood. This is why your fundamental approach to knowledge based on judgments of falsehood is mistaken:

In a lot of ways I think of knowledge as the things I know are false -- don't do this, don't do that, this is false because, this is wrong cuz that... — Moliere

Note too that the act of dissecting is an intrinsically negative act, insofar as it is a search for falsehood. The dissector is therefore someone in search of error; a kind of inquisitor who comes to fall in love with the discovery of error in others.

and I'd say you can't have one without the other, really. — Moliere

Right, which turns out to be a problem for an OP that wants to prefer one over the other.

While world-building is part of philosophy, so is the skeptics. Pyrrho comes to mind here for me as a kind of arch-nitpick, with a moral cause to justify it even so it fits within that ancient mold of philosophy as a life well lived, even. — Moliere

First, I would point back to the twins. Again, one's activity is parasitic and one is not. Philosophy does not exist without those who construct, but it does exist without those who deconstruct. Therefore deconstruction is not as fundamental to philosophy as construction; falsity not as central to philosophy as truth.

Picking-nits is very much part of philosophy, and one need not have a replacement answer -- "I don't know" is one of those pretty standardly acceptable answers in philosophy. Aporetic dialogues having been part of philosophy as well. — Moliere

I don't think it is plausible to combine "nitpicking" with "aporia." Aporia requires more than nitpicking.

I think this thread was partially motivated by my emphasis on something represented in my bio, "And don't just say why [he's wrong]; say what you think is right" (Hopko). I think it is incorrect to try to place nitpicking on a par with providing constructive alternatives. "It takes a plan to beat a plan." The Monty Python argument skit is apropos, where someone engaging in sheer contradiction believes that they are engaging in argument, or in our case, philosophy.

When someone is doing the Monty Python thing their telos is a kind of agonstic opposition, and this is not yet philosophy. Of course, there is a very significant difference between these two options:

• "After dissecting your claims I have found that you are wrong, and I utterly refuse to try to say what I think is alternatively right."
• "After dissecting your claims I have found that you are wrong, and I am open to trying to constructively work out a better option."

"I don't know" could represent the first or the second. The Monty Python thing is a comical instance of the first.

Only things which have parts have potency; otherwise, there is nothing that can be affected. So Angel’s must have parts if they have potency. — Bob Ross

In his reply Aquinas says that material things have a twofold composition, and immaterial things (namely creatures) have a "onefold" {my word} composition. So he is explicit that an angel possesses a kind of composition.

Such arrogance. — J

It's the same "arrogance" at play when you decide not to read or respond.

Trouble is of course that if something is beyond discursive thought then it cannot be said. — Banno

Why?

Does poetry exist? Film? Music?

The leap from aporia to closure cannot be justified. — Banno

The irony is that you are a highly "mystical" thinker. Analytic philosophy allows so little to be said that analytic philosophers often "leap" to saying things that their own approach does not support. The claim here is an example of that. According to your own criteria, there is no justification for your claim that such a leap can never be justified. Russell's performative self-contradiction was not incidental, nor are the performative self-contradictions of those who follow his tradition. If one were to limit themselves to what can be said according to the analytic approach, then there would be precious little that they could to say.

Did you have a point to make, or are you just gesturing without taking the risk of saying anything substantial?

Edit:

Thus, running roughshod over most of the previous comments. — AmadeusD

Ah presumably you are talking about the previous comments within my post, not the previous comments within the thread?

If the objection is that someone holding such a belief is immune from counter-argument, then my post is coherent. If the objection is that someone holding such a belief is amenable to counter-argument even though the proposition itself, considered independently of their belief, is unfalsifiable, then my post is contradictory. But obviously I take the former view, and I think that view correctly captures this thread at large. The complaint/crux has been that the belief is irrefutable, not that the proposition upon which it bears is unfalsifiable. If the objector were to see that an unfalsifiable proposition is refutable qua belief then presumably they would be satisfied, and that is what my post endeavors to argue. The unfalsifiable/irrefutable equivocation is not uncommon. Indeed, it is arguable whether, upon convincing someone that their belief is not true, we should have "falsified" their belief. If they move from "true" to "not true" without going all the way to "false," has falsification occurred?

The thread required more energy and research than I possessed, but this synopsis was helpful. This post will be a bit tangential, and inevitably simplistic in comparison with the OP.

There is an interesting trend on TPF of late which focuses on the notion of true/beneficial freedom vs false/detrimental freedom, along with the societal and political implications. This topic is something that I am interested in.

In each case it becomes particularly difficult for the author to generate motivation in favor of the true/beneficial freedom, given that the false/detrimental freedom is both taken for granted and viewed as good. Baden's essay stands out in the way that it packages this difficult task into the "EKM."

First, suppose the EKM does exist. Would it help us? I am thinking of two questions here. First, would we be able to make a strong case that the EKM should be utilized and "obeyed"? Second, would the tools at our disposal be sufficient to "shift the tide" with respect to nominal freedom and move the society in a significantly better direction? A third question might ask whether success on these fronts would create meta-problems of its own (and the OP seems to be sensitive to this question).

Second, given that the EKM does not exist, what is the best way forward? How should it be approximated?

A theory as EKM then is an epistemic protective that aims to catalyze active reflection against passive reflexivity. In doing so, it offers resistance to subsumption by higher level systemic processes through the establishment of thought and behaviors that enhance and intensify contextual understanding and creative activity on the autopoietic level of subjectivity. This creative activity, or ethic, amounts to subjectivity taking a stand as a system in the hierarchy of systems by consciously situating itself as a locus around which other systems ought revolve rather than submitting fully to their pull. Here, freedom is leveraged to protect against its instrumentalization at the level of hierarchy in which it sits as system. It resists hijacking by technocapitalist consumerism to maintain its ontological force in its refusal to be defined by “freedoms” whose exchange-based forms merely stage us as players in a game that is not played for our benefit and that we can never win. — Moliere

I read this as the idea that the EKM promotes individual agency and sovereignty. Is that completely off or just partially off?

And is capitalism bad because everything which overpowers individual agency and sovereignty is bad, or is there some further reason that capitalism is bad? I ask because there are all sorts of things that seem to overpower individual agency and sovereignty, but many of them are not seen as bad (e.g. culture, traditions, intermediate institutions, law, etc.). It seems like the OP is saying that capitalism is bad precisely because it reduces human value to a single criterion in a way that is not organic or natural with respect to the human mode of being. If that is right, then presumably the EKM must be able to identify things which overpower individual agency and sovereignty in this particular way.

But this is a philosophy forum, not a Vanity Press. If you present your thoughts here you must expect them to be critiqued. In a very central and important sense, this is what we do. — Banno

I have a friend with twins. One loves to build things and the other loves to destroy things. The second is parasitic, and is out of luck if no one is building.

I mostly think that a philosophy forum should require users to make new threads occasionally, and not just dissect and criticize the threads of others. That practice seems important both individually and communally.

I am not saying that you never build anything or that you never make new threads. But the tendency towards criticism rather than construction is pretty easy to understand on a number of different levels. In fact that tendency seems more intelligible than any connection between discourse/construction and foolhardy comprehensiveness or completeness. I am not convinced that such a connection holds.

Dissecting vs. comprehensive seems like a false dichotomy. True dichotomies would include things like analytic/synthetic, hedgehog/fox, forest/trees, cased-based*/systematic, or critical/constructive.

What I find is that many users on TPF aren't capable of close readings of texts, and this means that they lack a capacity for dissection. They focus on big themes ("forest-thinking") and are not really able to respond to more precise points or critiques ("tree-analysis"). The first thing I would want to teach them is how to "table" an objection; how to say, "I see and understand your tree-based objection; I don't know how to answer it; I will have to think more about it and get back to you." Or else something like, "I see that you have a valid objection, but I don't currently have the energy to try to address it." Once they can do that then the fear of countenancing such objections dissipates, and they can begin to contemplate them more seriously.

* I.e. casuistry in the true sense

Thanks, that seems fair to me. Sorry if I was impatient - I did not appreciate that you were thinking through some of this for the first time.

As an endnote I just want to note that there is a parallel to the point I am making. The parallel is this: if something "undecidable" bears on something which is decidable, then the former thing is decidable (via the latter). For example, something that cannot be directly decided (Jesus' resurrection) can often be indirectly decided (via, for example, historical arguments, even if these arguments are limited to probabilistic reasoning).

These sorts of points are really the crux of why someone like @Janus is mistaken. We can take it a step further by noting that whenever someone believes something, they have a reason for believing, and that reason will (almost) always be falsifiable. Ergo, given that the psychological PSR holds, there is no such thing as an unfalsifiable belief. The notion of an "unfalsifiable belief" turns on prescinding from the psychological manner in which beliefs are formed.

So for example, if someone believes in Russell's teapot, then on my theory the belief is not unfalsifiable. This means that we can falsify the belief even if we cannot falsify the proposition. So instead of independently investigating whether there is a teapot between Earth and Mars, we would ask the person holding the belief why they believe it, and by falsifying their reasons or inferences for belief we would have undermined the belief. So perhaps it would be better to say that the belief can be shown to have insufficient grounds, rather than be falsified per se.

- I agree. Good points and good posts. :up:

The OP made me think of Isaiah Berlin's idea of, "The Hedgehog and the Fox," although it doesn't fit quite right. Berlin is separating the "forest from the trees," not discourse from dissection.

What you can do instead is to check if your interlocutor formulates their reasons to believe via logic implications and go from there to review your interlocutors’ claims.
But even in this case we should not confuse reasons to believe with logic implications. — neomac

Why not? Do you have any valid arguments for this thesis? You say:

Indeed, one can use logic implications to convey the idea of a dependency between claims (and that is what you seem to be trying to do with your highlighting). But that doesn’t mean that our reasons to believe are all “claims” over how things are. Experiences are not claims over how things are. Concepts are not claims over how things are. Logic and arithmetic functions are not claims over how things are. Yet experiences, concepts, arithmetic and logic functions are very much part of the reasons why we believe certain things. For example, I believe true that if x is a celibate, then x is not married. What makes it true? The semantics of “celibate”, but “celibate” is a concept not a claim over how things are. — neomac

Suppose I ask someone why they believe P. They answer, "Because I hold to S and S implies P," where S is a "way of life."

What is your objection? Apparently it is that S is an "experience," and, "experiences are not claims over how things are."

So while I would say to them, "If P is truth-apt then S must also be truth-apt," you would say to them, "S is an experience, not an assertion, and therefore it cannot imply P." They would probably just tell you that they hold to S because they believe it is true, or else that they hold to it because it is good and what is good is true. S is not merely an experience; it involves a volitional and normative choice.

The reason I find this conversation so bizarre is because you are basically denying empirical facts. People do justify propositions on the basis of ways of life, including religions. It seems like you are committed to denying this fact. In Western countries with a right to religious freedom it is commonplace in law for someone to justify a belief or an action on the basis of a religious "way of life."

Judging from your reference later on, you classify mathematical propositions as a priori. — Ludwig V

Not true.

But since we seem to agree that "S implies P" is sometimes valid and sometimes not, depending what we substitute for S and P, I don't think there is any need to pursue that any further. — Ludwig V

No, not at all. My argument was never, "Every S implies every P." This is a strawman.

"Creation is good" is an evaluation. I expect you are an objectivist about ethics and so would claim that the statement is true. I won't argue with you. But value statements are a distinct category from factual statements such as "God exists", so I don't see how this helps your case. — Ludwig V

Is it decidable? That is the question we are asking.

"Care for the widow and orphan" and "Do not commit abortion or exposure" are not statements of any kind; they are imperatives and not capable of truth or falsity. They don't help your case. — Ludwig V

So you are a moral anti-realist? Most people aren't, so for most people these are decidable propositions.

"Jesus was resurrected from the dead" does appear to be truth-apt and, in principle, decidable. But it is not decidable now, so it doesn't help your case. — Ludwig V

"Decidable but not decidable now." Looks like more confusion. There are all sorts of arguments for and against historical events, but apparently you are forced to deny this fact.

I doubt if it is possible to equivocate with a phrase as ill-defined as "way of life". It's almost completely elastic and plastic. — Ludwig V

Why would it be hard to equivocate with a phrase that is "completely elastic and plastic"?

That's not quite what I meant. I meant that he did not abandon his way of life as a human being when he abandoned his way of life as a Jew. He cannot abandon his way of life as a human being without ceasing to be a human being. It is because he did not abandon the human way of life that he could preach the Gospel and be understood. — Ludwig V

And there is no reason I must claim that he abandoned his life as a human being as opposed to his way of life as a Jew. Why would you think that? It's pretty clearly a strawman. If he can abandon his way of life as a Jew, then my thesis is secured. You are falling into the same some/all fallacy here. "He didn't abandon every way of life, therefore he didn't abandon any way of life."

Let's pretend for a moment that the OP is not another diatribe against your bogey of “monism.”

What I want to propose is that there are two different ways of doing philosophy. — Banno

Does your OP give any reason to believe that there are only two ways of doing philosophy, and that you have identified them? It doesn’t. There is no argumentation to this effect. You’ve simply pulled two things out of a hat and declared that they are the two approaches to philosophy. It’s as if I made a thread, “The two approaches to exercise” (biking and swimming).

So what if we amend this problem? Then we would be talking about, “Two ways of doing philosophy, among others.” Well now the question arises: Why are we looking at these two ways in particular, and not others?

The rationale for your unsupported claim about completeness in identifying the two ways was a disjunctive syllogism: <There are two ways to do philosophy: the good way (my way) and the bad way (other people’s way). Choose the good way!>. Once we fix the false completeness of the disjunction the conclusion must be weakened to something like, “The ‘dissecting’ way of doing philosophy is better than the ‘discourse’ way of doing philosophy. Or it is at least defensible and choice-worthy.” That’s fine, for at least we now have a clear and coherent thesis. You want to argue for one way and against the other, and that is why you picked those two ways out of the hat.

But the deeper problem here is that the “dissecting/disagreeing/critiquing” way of doing philosophy presupposes the “discourse” way of doing philosophy. This is because in order to disagree philosophically one must provide an argument, and arguments will require positive claims and at least some level of discourse to support those claims. The possible exception is to merely charge someone with self-contradiction, in which case one needs only commit to the PNC, and this is usually taken to be a minimal commitment.

Less technically, the problem is that disagreeing and naysaying are not self-supporting. One cannot run around constantly disagreeing with others while pretending that they have no positive and substantial positions of their own. They cannot pretend that they argue only against positions and never for positions. Even if they somehow managed to only presuppose the PNC and never to disagree with anything that is not self-contradictory, their choice of what to disagree with would still reflect their own positive positions and predilections. No one is a robot which only disagrees on the basis of self-contradiction, and does so completely randomly. Indeed, no one on TPF comes anywhere near the approach which disagrees only on the basis of self-contradiction.

---

In my defence, the aim of those who's engagement with philosophy is primarily a discourse is completeness, while whatever world view I accept is certainly incomplete. My aim, in writing on these forums, and in applying the analytic tools we have at hand, is to achieve some measure of coherence. Those of us who see philosophy less as a doctrine and more as a practice of clarification—of untangling the knots in our shared language—inevitably work with fragments, revisable insights, and partial alignments.

While some approach philosophy as a quest for a complete worldview, my interest is in the practice of philosophical inquiry itself—how our language reveals, limits, or reshapes the positions we take. In that sense, coherence—not completeness—is my measure of success. — Banno

What does it mean to say that you seek coherence and not completeness? I think "completeness" is a pejorative representing a kind of strawman. If I'm wrong, then feel free to clearly lay out what it means to seek coherence and not completeness. Does the "coherentist" not seek to know more than they already do? Do they limit themselves to making the things they already know cohere?

One might be tempted to conclude that the best option is to return to the belief that tradition is good and reason omnipotent. — Ludwig V

What epoch do you believe we would be "returning" to in that case?

General question: I have the idea that Aristotle's biology is what we would call 'holistic'. He identifies that there is an animating principle which determines how all of the parts are organised for the benefit of the whole. Is that fair? — Wayfarer

Yes! See what I say <here> about David Oderberg's, "Reverse Mereological Essentialism." But your phrasing is quite good.

The idea that matter is eternal seems false in the sense that prime matter could ever exist (yet alone eternally): if Aristotle thinks, as Leontiskos pointed out, that matter is eternal in the sense of never being created then he is using the idea of matter as if it is a separate substance and this eternal matter would be prime matter. — Bob Ross

Whether or not prime matter is said to exist, it could still function as a theoretical entity representing the conservation of matter (or in our terms, energy). Any such conservation principle requires something which is conserved, even despite the fact that everything observable changes. That "something" could be said to be prime matter for Aristotle. The most obvious objection here would be to say that there is no such thing as a conservation principle, but that objection does not seem overly plausible.

In this sense, Aquinas' idea of a pure form that is not purely actual is patently false; for parts have the potential to receive form and all beings other than the actus purus have parts. So Angel's have matter: just not material matter. — Bob Ross

It might be fun to consider a similar objection that Aquinas gives:

Objection 3. Further, form is act. So what is form only is pure act. But an angel is not pure act, for this belongs to God alone. Therefore an angel is not form only, but has a form in matter.

Reply to Objection 3. Although there is no composition of matter and form in an angel, yet there is act and potentiality. And this can be made evident if we consider the nature of material things which contain a twofold composition. The first is that of form and matter, whereby the nature is constituted. Such a composite nature is not its own existence but existence is its act. Hence the nature itself is related to its own existence as potentiality to act. Therefore if there be no matter, and supposing that the form itself subsists without matter, there nevertheless still remains the relation of the form to its very existence, as of potentiality to act. And such a kind of composition is understood to be in the angels; and this is what some say, that an angel is composed of, "whereby he is," and "what is," or "existence," and "what is," as Boethius says. For "what is," is the form itself subsisting; and the existence itself is whereby the substance is; as the running is whereby the runner runs. But in God "existence" and "what is" are not different as was explained above (I:3:4). Hence God alone is pure act. — Aquinas, ST I.50.2.ad3 - Whether an angel is composed of matter and form?

I think I've clarified it now: let me know if I am missing anything. — Bob Ross

I think that's good progress. I don't actually read Aristotle or Aquinas as having anything near the focus on "parts" that you have, so I wouldn't attribute such an emphasis on "parts" to them. Apart from that, I think you're beginning to understand Aristotle's matter/form hylomorphism better. :up:

I got to take a class once with Richard Bernstein, and I remember his credo, which was something like this: "You have to restrain your desire to respond and refute until you've thoroughly understood the philosopher or the position you're addressing. [And boy did he mean "thoroughly"!]. You really don't have a right to an opinion until you're sure you've achieved the most charitable, satisfying reading possible. Otherwise it's just a game of who can make the cleverer arguments." — J

There are at least two problems with Bernstein's advice. The first is that there are thousands of philosophers, and if we could not critique and dismiss any of them until we had "achieved the most charitable, satisfying reading possible," then we would be bound to read only a handful of them, precisely the ones we were accidentally introduced to first.

The second is that the quality of philosophical engagement is a mean, not an extreme. Bernstein errs in thinking that it is merely a function of the philosophical author, but in fact it is a mean between the reader and the philosophical author. Thus someone who is less intelligent ought to have a less stringent criterion for critiquing. To deny this is to misunderstand the nature of quality philosophical engagement, and it is also to hamstring the development of philosophy students. To simplify, if you are reading something that seems really dumb, then you should call it dumb and go find something that you find more intelligent. There is no need to lie to oneself and pretend that it isn't dumb. Maybe you will later find out that it wasn't dumb, but the better decision is still to admit what you believe to be the case and move on for now. To cling to that which has no rationale that you are able to articulate is a form of intellectual dishonesty. The capacity to admit that a position is irrational—whether your own or an author you are reading—is crucially necessary for intellectual honesty. If one cannot identify such irrationality in others, then, a fortiori, they will be blind to it in themselves. As always, there are errors on both sides: it is erroneous to fail to give credit where due, and it is also erroneous to give credit where it is not due.

What Bernstein is trying to do is to get his students to avoid sophistry, and that is a noble cause. If we pick up an author who we have reason to believe is worthwhile, then any refutation we give must be the refutation of a substantial thesis. If the author is worthwhile, then for anything we refute, it must be understandable why the author would hold to it.

Do you read what you write? “putative” means that the implication that is believed to hold, in fact it may not hold. So no implication. What’s so hard to understand? — neomac

If you want to distinguish so strongly between believed logical implications, and other logical implications, then why don't you point me towards a logical implication that is not believed? Because you seem to think that if "the implication is believed to hold, in fact it may not hold. So no implication." What this means is that in order for there to be a real implication it must not be believed to hold. You will have to point me towards that real implication, the kind that is not believed to hold. Where can I find that?

Stating a logic implication doesn’t make it true. — neomac

So you say:

Namely, 23 does not result from the arithmetic sum 2+3. — neomac

You stated an implication, but that doesn't make it true. So what does make it true?

Note that your focus on "objective implication" is beside the point. Here is my argument:

Suppose that S → P, and P is truth-apt. It follows that S is truth-apt. It doesn't really matter what kind of thing S is. — Leontiskos

We could write this as a conditional, "If S → P and P is truth-apt, then S is also truth-apt." That is "objectively true," if you like. We could adapt it for belief, "If someone believes that S → P and that P is truth-apt, then, logically speaking, they ought to believe that S is also truth-apt." Of course this is redundant, given that whenever we present an argument we are attempting to influence the beliefs of others.

Originally you were arguing that if S → P then both S and P must be truth-apt. Sure, I agree with that, but I want to specifically highlight the independently-derived truth-aptness of P given my interlocutors and the positions they are holding. In any case it seems that some of them would be tempted to say that if P is undecidable then it is not truth-apt.

That's what makes Aquinas, while very similar in some respects, quite different. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, Aquinas does depart from Aristotle occasionally. On this occasion he is hyper-aware of his departure. Metaphysically, when it comes to material existence Aquinas stays very close to Aristotle, whereas at the extremes he departs a bit (e.g. prime matter, God, angels, etc.).

(@Bob Ross)