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?

For sure. :up:

I've also tried to help his parents in their quest to keep him well-fed by utilizing philosophy. "When you eat food, your stomach transforms it into you, and you get bigger and stronger and faster. What goes into the toilet is just leftover waste from that process. Therefore it is good to eat food!" His response, translated, was, "You're full of shit, uncle Leontiskos!" :lol:

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

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.

Let me try for two birds with one stone: both this question and the question of philosophical "rigor" or "discipline."

My nephew is four years old. At Halloween we were playing with figurines who had interchangeable costumes. One of the costumes had eight legs. During our taxonomy my nephew claimed that it was an octopus. I disputed his claim and said that it was a spider.

• Nephew: "This one is an octopus."
• Leontiskos: "I think it's a spider."
• Nephew: "I don't think so."
• Leontiskos: "Octopus have suckers, but this one has no suckers."
• Nephew: "Hmm... I still think it's an octopus."
• Leontiskos: "Why?"
• Nephew: "Because it has eight legs."
• Leontiskos: "How many legs does a spider have?"
• Nephew: "Six."
• Leontiskos: "I thought spiders had eight legs?"
• Nephew: "No, octopus have eight legs."

My initial argument was clear enough:

1. All octopus have suckers
2. This thing has no suckers
3. Therefore, this thing is not an octopus

He considered my argument, but he wasn't altogether convinced of my first premise. His rejoinder was also clear enough, and valid:

4. No "animal" has the same number of legs as another animal
5. Therefore, because an octopus has eight legs, therefore a spider does not have eight legs
6. This animal we are playing with has eight legs
7. Therefore it must be an octopus and not a spider

My next argument was as follows:

8. Some "animals" (species) have the same number of legs
9. Therefore, Octopus and spiders might have the same number of legs
10. Therefore, this eight-legged animal might be a spider

My task was to justify (8), but that wasn't too hard since he knows that dogs and lions and giraffes all have four legs, and from this he was able to see that (4) is false. It still took awhile to clear away the certitude-debris that had accumulated from his former way of thinking, but clear away it did. It's also worth noting that (4) is not wholly wrong, insofar as it flows out of the fact that each species is different. It's just that they aren't necessarily different qua number of legs.


Now here's the question: Was my nephew doing philosophy? Was it rigorous? Was it disciplined? Was there logical inference at play, even at four years old? It seems clear to me that he was doing philosophy (and logic, and zoology), perhaps not unlike the budding geometrician in the Meno. Note that my argument is not, "He was doing philosophy because we aren't allowed to say that some putatively philosophical things are not in fact philosophy." Rather, my argument is, "He was doing philosophy because he was involved in the mental rigor and discipline that philosophy requires." If he was not doing philosophy, then what did he lack?

Absolutely. It’s hard to explain to someone , especially if their standards of clarity are shaped by the corporate world, how a set of ideas can be rigorous yet not instantly accessible. — Joshs

Yes, and also "fruitful" alongside "rigorous."

I think we have to call the "setting up" work philosophy; Williamson adds a stricture on the aim of setting up, a way to compare different ways of setting up a problem, and a criterion of success or at least improvement. — Srap Tasmaner

I want to say that the crux of the paragraph on page 10, along with @Count Timothy von Icarus ideas about wisdom being determinate, as well as my thread on transparency, all get at a central concern.

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. A common critique of, say, Heidegger, is that he is just engaging in word-salad without saying anything at all. The rejoinder is never, "Oh, well I agree that he is engaged in mere word-salad, but that's a-ok!" Rather the rejoinder is, "No, he is not engaged in mere word-salad (and if he were then I agree that would be a problem)."

I want to say that this minimal criterion can run much farther than might at first seem possible. This is why the questions, "But what are you saying?," or, "But why does that matter?," are so often helpful. Further, definitions, formal argumentation, and obiter dicta are all aids to saying something, albeit not necessary aids. If they were necessary then I would agree that philosophy could not be done without them.

@Count Timothy von Icarus, @Joshs

There is a tendency in this thread to use "continental philosophy" as a foil to rigorous philosophy, but that does seem odd to me. Do continental philosophers lack rigor? Not usually. But the key may be that the person who reads them casually lacks rigor, and this reflects back on them. It's almost like the phenomenon where the casual reader who tries to express Einstein's theory of general relativity lacks rigor and precision, and then the listener assumes that Einstein himself must also have lacked rigor and precision.

This also accounts for why analytic-type philosophy is popular on philosophy forums such as this one: because it is easier to understand and learn. It's not a coincidence that Russell gets discussed more than Heidegger. Russell is much more accessible. This presents a problem for continental philosophy, at least if it wishes to be discussed in popular circles.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

My point that a philosophy which places natural language above formal language is more robust than a philosophy which does not was serious, and I am willing to defend that point. This is a thread about scrutinizing philosophical quality, after all.

Please just stop doing this. No one wants to hear it. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm quite serious. But while we're at it, please stop with your condescending posts where you instruct other people how to behave, what to write, and how to rewrite their posts to adhere to your own standards. No one wants to hear it.

Or, for a more direct example, we might consider how someone like Plantinga goes about showing how "God cannot create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it," is merely logically equivalent with "God can lift any rocks." Does this bit of work resolve the issue?

Not really, it simply misinterprets the problem by trying to squeeze it into formalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would sum this up by saying that natural language is much more powerful than artificial languages, such as formal languages (which in fact depend on natural language). I would go back to this:

So how does one offer an argument against logical presuppositions? The most obvious way is to argue that the presupposition fails to capture some real aspect of natural logic or natural language, and by claiming that natural propositions possess a variety of assertoric force that Frege's logic lacks, this is what you are doing. Yet this is where a point like Novák's becomes so important, for logicians like Russell, Frege, Quine, et al., presuppose that natural language is flawed and must be corrected by logic. This moots your point. Further, Quine will set the stage for a "pragmaticizing" of logic, which destroys the idea of ontologically superior logics at its root: — Leontiskos

This is why Scholasticism's rigor is so much more robust than Analytic Philosophy's rigor:

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

I've grown used to thinking of what you're calling technical work as simply "semantical or logic-derived analytic phil." A bit cumbersome, maybe, but as you say, we all more or less know what we're talking about.

...interest or rigor or clarity — J

I think the elephant in the room is that we don't know what we mean by "technical work," or, "professional work." We can agree that philosophy requires rigor, but we don't know what we mean by "rigor." That's what is trying to be deciphered.

2. How does Aquinas argue for the soul being immaterial? — Bob Ross

Apparently there is a whole book on the subject, "Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect," by Adam Wood.

Here is one of Aquinas' arguments for the incorporeality of the intellect:

I answer that, It must necessarily be allowed that the principle of intellectual operation which we call the soul, is a principle both incorporeal and subsistent. For it is clear that by means of the intellect man can have knowledge of all corporeal things. Now whatever knows certain things cannot have any of them in its own nature; because that which is in it naturally would impede the knowledge of anything else. Thus we observe that a sick man's tongue being vitiated by a feverish and bitter humor, is insensible to anything sweet, and everything seems bitter to it. Therefore, if the intellectual principle contained the nature of a body it would be unable to know all bodies. Now every body has its own determinate nature. Therefore it is impossible for the intellectual principle to be a body. It is likewise impossible for it to understand by means of a bodily organ; since the determinate nature of that organ would impede knowledge of all bodies; as when a certain determinate color is not only in the pupil of the eye, but also in a glass vase, the liquid in the vase seems to be of that same color.

Therefore the intellectual principle which we call the mind or the intellect has an operation per se apart from the body. Now only that which subsists can have an operation "per se." For nothing can operate but what is actual: for which reason we do not say that heat imparts heat, but that what is hot gives heat. We must conclude, therefore, that the human soul, which is called the intellect or the mind, is something incorporeal and subsistent. — Aquinas, ST I.75.2.c - Whether the human soul is something subsistent?

And so I think it is with philosophy. It's not really a matter of formalism at all, but more like the distinction in a legal opinion between the actual decision, the language of which is binding on parties, and obiter dicta, which could be important to understanding the decision and complying with it, but which does not have the force of law. (Maybe I should have gone for this analogy first.) — Srap Tasmaner

That all seems fine to me, and relates to what I said here:

In fact good logic courses incorporate a lot of translation between formal languages and natural language... — Leontiskos

But I don't see why anything you are saying would entail that, "no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread." I think that if we move away from a focus on formalisms or professional methodologies, then philosophy is taking place in the commonest of places.

To be clear, are you claiming that there is no distinction being made in this thread between the "legal opinion and the actual decision," and therefore there is no philosophy occurring? If so, I would have to think more about the claim.