I'm fine with the concept of existence; you can even use it in logic as long as you confine it to existential predication. What I'm urging (tongue a bit in cheek, obviously, since it will never happen) is to retire the term "exist". I'm recommending a separation of term from concept and/or content.

The words "exist" and "existence" cause nothing but trouble, because they call like Sirens to philosophers, inviting us to argue about which use of the word is correct. "My use is correct!" says one group, "because when I use it, I mean concept A." "No, my use is correct!" says another group, "because when I use it, I mean concept B." "Well, Plato used it for concept A." "Well, Kant used it for concept B."

Oh dear, which concept is the right one to be called "existence"? The answer is, Neither, none, because the word doesn't matter. What matters -- and it matters a great deal, if you believe metaphysics is worthwhile -- is getting straight on the conceptual territory, on concepts A, B . . . n. But you can do that with any vocabulary you please. So pick one that doesn't bring 2,000 years of ambiguity and dispute along with it.

It just says that one cannot be certain as to which name refers to which thing. — Banno

Yes, it's not a very exciting result when applied to things like rabbits, because, as has been said, we can be pretty damn confident.

I think it gets interesting when we move to names for more ambiguous or abstract items. There is a strong tendency among some philosophers to attach a name to a thing or a concept with metaphysical Superglue, such that, if there is a question about translation or clarification, we’re told we can't suggest a name change without also changing the thing named. In the case of the rabbit, that seems wrong. If for some reason we decided we needed a new (better?) name for Leporidae, that could be effected with minimum difficulty, since we could always point to the creature itself if anyone had doubt, and say, “No, the object remains the same. This is only a recommendation for a terminological change.”

This is much harder with abstracta. If A says, "Let's change the name of Goodness to 'Rational Self-Interest'," it's unclear what B, who objects, can point to in protest. B can say, "That is not how Goodness has traditionally been used” or perhaps even “That is not what Goodness means” but if A’s reason for wanting to make the change is because A believes the previous usage was mistaken, what are we to say? I think the best response is a straightforward, “No, it’s you who are mistaken,” and allow the argument to be a legitimate one that can sensibly continue. But the type of philosopher I referred to above (call them C) wants to disallow the argument, on the grounds that it isn’t coherent to change the name of Goodness to something else. If you do that, C urges, you’re no longer talking about Goodness. Name and concept are metaphysically wedded together.

I suggest that it’s this sort of intransigent approach that can benefit from considering Quine’s point about gavagai. There is no certainty (or necessity) about the connection of name and thing-named. Often enough – perhaps usually – we’re pretty damn sure. But not always, especially in philosophy. I don’t know how general the inscrutability of reference is; whether it goes “all the way down,” so to speak. What if Quine had used “truth” instead of “rabbit,” e.g., as the thing being referenced as “gavagai”? The linguist visiting the tribe could be supposed to follow a simple if-then argument between speakers, using words she already knows, and then a native listener smiles, nods, and says “Gavagai!” Our linguist wants to ask “Do you mean ‛That’s true’?” but since that’s impossible to ask, what should she do next?

if a cause necessarily leads to its effect, it makes sense how two and two necessarily lead to four, while two by itself does not necessarily lead to it at all. So the bringing together of 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 is the cause of 4, but 1, 2, 3, or any other smaller number by themselves can’t cause 4 — Pretty

That would be one answer to what I was calling a more interesting question, yes. Addition does seem a more plausible candidate for causal efficacy than mere sequence. But does any of this really work? You use the term "lead to" to describe what a cause does, re its effect, but I think we have to make it stronger, and say forthrightly that a cause causes the effect, it doesn't just "lead to it" in some weaker way. On that understanding, I don't see numbers, even when added, multiplied, etc., causing their results. This may just be a spade-turning commitment on my part to viewing cause as separated in time from effect.

But that was why I then moved on to thoughts as causes. In a functionalist, psychological way, we can talk about thought A (viewed as a brain-event) causing thought B, even though as yet our science doesn't really know what this means. The question is, is that the same kind of "causing" that we mean when we say that "my thought of A" causes B? We want to say that thought A justifies or explains, rather than causes, thought B -- but that is to bring in the Fregean notion of a thought/proposition that can be abstracted from any given instance of its occurrence in a brain.

Perhaps a more interesting version of this question is to ask, "Does the addition of 2 and 2 cause the result 4?" That is certainly not how we speak about it ordinarily, probably because we limit our concept of causation to the spatio-temporal world. So what about this version?: "Does my thought of the addition of 2 and 2 cause me to conclude that the result is 4?" (if you're willing to accept "my thought" as an event in space and time, not as a Fregean proposition).

The deflationist stops at the schema structure, it's a barrier to all further inquiry. — fdrake

Got it, thanks. And I would say that the ban on connections between being and thought goes in both directions, so to speak. A deflationist won't entertain any modeling between thought, in general, and concept -- indeed, that wouldn't even be considered modeling -- and will likely also reject any talk about my thoughts or consciousness, since reference to such arcana aren't necessary to behavioral modeling, on this view.

So, yes, to understand this thread, the first thing is to understand that there will never be anything anyone can come up with that will force the functionalist to say "I can't model that." Never anything that has to be acknowledged as substance rather than behavior. — Srap Tasmaner

I think this is substantially right, but pressing the functionalist on what they mean by modeling can be useful, along the lines of @fdrake's "weak correspondence." The problem may be as much with the whole modeling project as with a functionalist approach to metaphysics.

Good. Your "weak idea of correspondence" is an excellent limit case, calling into question whether we would even use the term "model" for a mapping that perfectly matched B and B' but provided neither structural, pictorial, nor functional resemblance -- no "accuracy or internal coherence." In what would that perfect matching consist? A mere stipulation that "b' is to count as b"?

My earlier issue about whether a model of a duck could reproduce is, in contrast, a limit case in the opposite direction. It raises the same question about how b' and b relate, though. Is it reasonable to expect a modeling of B to not only mimic B perfectly, but also produce the same real-time results -- in this example, the fertilizing of an egg -- as B?

We may want to find a middle ground by being clearer about what counts as a behavior. Is it merely something I do? Do I "do" digestion? Blood circulation? These are strange ways of speaking, but what is it about the idea of behavior that seems to rule them out, and limit behavior to something that's . . . intended? deliberate? Is that the criterion?

I think where a deflationist who also enjoys the functionalist paradigm above would disagree with a functionalist simpliciter is whether metaphysical {and maybe even epistemological} questions can only concern specific instances of the mapping between true behaviours and our descriptions. In effect, they disagree on whether the only salient questions about objects and concepts are of the modelling form. Which is roughly describing how things work, or describing {how describing things work} works. — fdrake

Can you say more about this? I want to read you as saying that the deflationist doesn't countenance any abstract structural modeling but I'm not sure that's what you mean.

I'll take the liberty of repeating something I wrote previously:

No, my beef is with the term "existence", which I think we should retire from the field with all due honors. Same for "real". I believe we will learn a lot more about the concepts that those terms try to refer to, if we stop the endless, unresolvable bickering about them. — J

The posts on the last couple of pages make an excellent argument for my case. What would happen if we tried to reframe the "existence" question in terms of structure, grounding, and quantification, retaining full rights to claim metaphysical truth, but did so without once using the term "exist"?

Pretty good. So do we want to say that this example has met the challenge?:

OK, the challenge is to come up with something that is both a) inexpressible, and b) whose inexpressibility can be explained. It also ought to be something worth worrying about, — J

I'd be inclined to say yes. You? I suppose we could quibble about whether your account, above, really counts as an explanation, but I think it does. It's certainly an elucidation. Nor do I see us falling into the contradiction dilemma; we're not saying "ineffable" with one mouth while making it effable (is that a word?!) with the other.

Infinitesimals can be the subject of a quantifier, and in that way, they exist; they can be in the domain of discourse. If there is something more to their existence, some "platonic" existence, then it's up to the advocates to set out what that amounts to. — Banno

That's good, as far as it goes. But the other kind of "more" that some philosophers (I think including @Arcane Sandwich?) want to claim is physical or spatio-temporal existence. I think we agree that quantification is agnostic about that, as it is about platonic existence. So is there a case that can be made for preserving the term "existence" for that sort of thing? I'm saying no -- that this is still trying to privilege a particular word and make it do something we don't need it to do. We understand the concept of "something in space-time" -- isn't that good enough? Why do we need to praise it by additionally saying it "exists" in some superior way -- so superior that it casts doubt on whether other non-spatio-temporal items exist at all?

Hinge propositions are said, but never quite rightly. "Here is a hand" isn't justified, at least not by other propositions. It's shown. "If you do know that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest". — Banno

Let's lean into that a little. "Here is a hand" is certainly expressible. It's a proposition that states a fact about the world. You now say of it, "But it isn't justified by other propositions." Fair enough. Have we reached inexpressibility -- what "can't be spoken"? How, exactly? Is it the alleged justification that is supposed to be inexpressible? That doesn't sound quite right. I would have thought the (propositional) justification was simply absent or non-existent, rather than inexpressible.

Or is this a blind alley? I may not yet be quite seeing the expressibility problem here.

Slow down thar, pardner! You say "Whatever they may be (the epistemic rights)" so let's start there. What are they meant to be?

There is no epistemic difference between the epistemic rights of professional physicists and the epistemic rights of professional philosophers. — Arcane Sandwich

This needs a lot of expansion. What exactly is at stake with this premise?

Yeah, that might be a little strong, but as a contrast to pure formalism, the point is useful. I realize that my own comments might lead one to think that I regard formalism as the only legitimate language for philosophy. I don't. Formalization is a brilliant tool, and often a necessary one, but we can certainly do many important philosophical tasks without it -- if not quite in genuinely "ordinary" language. No, my beef is with the term "existence", which I think we should retire from the field with all due honors. Same for "real". I believe we will learn a lot more about the concepts that those terms try to refer to, if we stop the endless, unresolvable bickering about them.

Perhaps until we have a clear idea of what sorts of things are ineffable, we don't have a clear answer to the issues being discussed around ineffability. Trouble is, we don't have a way of saying what it is that is ineffable without the danger of thereby contradicting ourselves. — Banno

Your exploration of the high-C example is helpful. I know it was my own example, but I'm no longer happy with it because I don't think it's to the point of what Witt meant. What you write above puts it quite well -- words like "inexpressible" and "ineffable" and "indescribable" run a double risk. Not only are they like fly-paper for the flies of ambiguity, but there's a legitimate question whether even merely indicating or pointing to the inexpressible makes it no longer inexpressible.

Staying with that last point (which was the one I originally indicated doubt about), we still want an example. Two possible paths to take: We could try to state (try to!) what Witt himself had in mind when he referred to "that which cannot be spoken." I do not believe he was only making a formal point. I think he had a large range of such items in mind, having to do with values, God, and bedrock metaphysics. We could also take your suggestion about how such expressions are used in ordinary language. This dovetails with a theme that @Arcane Sandwich has taken up: whether ontology can be sensibly expressed in ordinary language.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about what might be "inexpressible in Wittgensteinese." And as an example of common usage, how about this: "We have a sense that life has a purpose, a meaning, that there is more to my existence than birth and death. But what that deeper sense may be, we find impossible to express -- not because it is incoherent, but because we don't know how to conceptualize what it is we are intuiting when we speak of 'the meaning of life.'" Might this be an example of something that's more or less describable, yet remains inexpressible?

Again, the question of what is expressible in ordinary language. Let me see what I come up with for @Banno.

existence itself, is a physical "thing", if you will. And in being a physical "thing", it cannot be formal. — Arcane Sandwich

Thanks, I see where you're coming from now. I think equating "existence" with "physical 'thingness'," no matter how many scare-quotes we use, is debatable, though not for the reasons you suggest. I don't know whether forms or concepts are really "out there," but I'm pretty sure that the term "existence" only takes on meaning when given the sort of contexts you and @Banno are discussing. But what about Existence?!, we of course want to know. Yes, well . . . that takes us out of the Philosophy Room entirely.

No formal language can deal coherently with the problem of the meaning of existence. The concept of existence is not a concept of a formal language. — Arcane Sandwich

I’m going to assume you meant “the meaning of ‛existence’” as in “what the term means,” as opposed to “the meaning of existence” in the more existential, what-is-my-life about? sense. If that’s right, can you explain how “existence” could be anything other than a concept of a formal language? The question connects, surprisingly, with my convo with @Banno about inexpressibility, which I’m about to try to continue.

First of all, good OP! You've got your eye on something important in philosophical method.

the question is whether the duck being modelled could possibly exhibit any behavior that could not be modelled. That is, whether there is any reason, in principle, not to expect that the models can be kept in synch.

For the moment, I'm inclined to assume that there is not. — Srap Tasmaner

Do you think a model duck can eat, digest, excrete, and reproduce? These are all behaviors. For myself, I can just about imagine, in some future state of technology, a model duck doing the first three, or at least imitating them in a way that would be indistiguishable from what a live duck does, but not the fourth. And this connects with the deeper question you're raising, about whether behavioral models neglect "being," or life, or consciousness. It may turn out that consciousness is a feature only of living things, in which case the model won't have it. I suppose that would not be an issue if "behavior" is defined exclusively as what is visible to the naked eye. Is this a good definition, though?

Whenever a question is raised about what something is, it is immediately rewritten as a question about how that thing behaves, so that we can get started modelling that bundle of behavior. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm curious to know which philosophers you have in mind (not on TPF!). I don't seem to run into this approach very often, in my reading.

Quine is averse to it because he thinks that it does have ontological import. But he's just plain wrong. Deluded, even. Frege and Russell had the same problem. — Arcane Sandwich

Well, I'm glad we've got that straightened out! :smile:

You might be interested in a recent thread on quantifier variance that tackles this question from number of perspectives.

Quine meant, I suppose, that ¬∃x P(x), where P is the predicate corresponding to "Pegasus". Is your question about whether predicates need to be understood as verbs, a la "Pegasize"? Or is it the larger question of whether ∃x itself is a type of predication?

I am no expert either, but I understood that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein was concerned to make a distinction between what can be propositionally claimed and what cannot. I think that for him a coherent proposition just is a proposition which is truth-apt.
— Janus

↪J

I wonder whether you have a response to this — Janus

Thanks for checking -- I was sort of assuming you were right. It makes it easier to get a grip on what Witt meant, anyway. Talking about objects being "expressible" doesn't seem on target. I think Witt wanted to say something about what can and can't be said, sensibly. I'm not sure whether, for him, "sensibly" means "using truth-apt propositions," but it seems plausible. And there's the whole self-reflexive question about demonstration versus expression -- when Witt says that certain things can't be said, does he go on to show this or give it propositional expression?

EDIT - I meant, "give propositional expression to the impossibility of something being said."

I agree about the table, and I'm glad you spelled it out, because that's why I added the proviso that the desired "inexpressible something" should be worth worrying about. A mere category mistake -- which is what I think you've described -- isn't what we want. Nevertheless, we could look at the table example and ask, "Is there something we can learn from the kind of explanation that's being offered for the table's inexpressibility?" I suspect so, but we'll need to find an adequate example first. @Banno may not think the passage from Witt is any use in generating such an example.

That's what I'm not sure about. I don't think I'm asking for the inexpressible itself (call it P) to be expressed; that would indeed be impossible. Rather, I want to know why P is inexpressible. Call that explanation Q. Does it really follow that, if P is inexpressible, Q must be as well? — J

So give an example of something that is inexpressible... — Banno

OK, the challenge is to come up with something that is both a) inexpressible, and b) whose inexpressibility can be explained. It also ought to be something worth worrying about, I would add.
How about starting from the quoted Witt passage?:

The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen

.

Would it follow from this that the sense of the world is inexpressible, because it lies outside the world? I know what Witt means, more or less: sense, values, interpretation, none of these things are items in the physical world, which is only a collection of happenings, probably accidental. We import these items. So the question is, in doing so have we rendered “the sense of the world” expressible, or is it still inexpressible?

This is just a preliminary question. If you think we can express the sense of the world in this fashion, then my example won’t serve.

Can I whistle it in French?

Q. How many Wittgensteinians does it take to change a light bulb? A. Shut up and screw!

Yeah, the high-C example has problems with equivocation on "expressible" -- we can express the fact that she cannot express the note. I'll see if I can come up with a better example . . . tomorrow. (And yes, I perceive the fiendish trap that awaits me as I try to somehow denominate or refer to what I also claim is inexpressible! :wink: )

No need to apologize. We all jump in as the spirit moves us. And sure, the passage you quote is very germane.

If something is inexpressible, then by that very fact one cannot say why... Doing so would be to give expression to the inexpressible. — Banno

That's what I'm not sure about. I don't think I'm asking for the inexpressible itself (call it P) to be expressed; that would indeed be impossible. Rather, I want to know why P is inexpressible. Call that explanation Q. Does it really follow that, if P is inexpressible, Q must be as well?

In a certain sense, I agree with you (and Witt) that justification becomes pointless when what we do is interpreted as rule-following. Nor am I disagreeing that, often, rule-following is a good way to think about what we do. But I'm not convinced that this entire situation is opaque to explanation, or at least to elucidation.

Probably this all depends on whether one considers the Tractatus to be a demonstration or an explanation. Some of both, surely? I know Witt said very austere things about how not-philosophy his approach was, but I see a lot of explaining and justifying going on nonetheless.

This denotes a very particular approach to the tradition Wayfarer is talking about though. One cannot take a Meister Eckhart, a Rumi, or a Dogen as simply conveying "novel and perhaps inspiring experiences" and take their claims seriously. Indeed, since such "experiences" generally involve the claim to the apprehension of truth, and so demand to be taken exclusively, this would be sort of a contradiction in terms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I took the liberty of adding the bolded phrase, because leaving it out does make it appear that you're asserting that they succeeded in apprehending truth, which would beg the question.

I too think there's more to Eckhart et al. than "inspiring experiences" but again, let's be careful of the difference between "taking a claim seriously" and "believing it to be true on personal authority." I can be very impressed by a mystic's account without accepting it as somehow self-verifying.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "inexpressible". I take Wittgenstein to mean not expressible in a way that what is being said can be confirmed or disconfirmed. He applies this to ethics and aesthetics. For example, I can say that Beethoven was greater than Bach, but there is no determinable truth to that. So, do you think that by "inexpressible" he means "not truth apt"? — Janus

Others on TPF know the Tractatus a lot better than I do, but I think he meant something more than merely "not truth apt" or "not confirmable." I think it's closer to "incoherent" or "illusory." And he wasn't just thinking of ethics and religion, but also of certain supposedly bedrock metaphysical truths. In any case, what I meant by "inexpressible" was more like "unsayable save by metaphor and indirection."

It depends on what is meant by "justified." — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is more complicated than I intended. By "justified," I just meant "explained" or "given an account of." Whereas a demonstration would be simply to show that it is the case, without further explanation why.

Example: A singer attempts to hit a high C, but is unable to do so after repeated attempts. She has thus demonstrated that the note is inexpressible by her. But the question "Why?" remains, and would be answered in terms of anatomy and acoustics. Similarly with philosophy. We may demonstrate that a particular thought is inexpressible, either by argument or some other way, as Wittgenstein claimed to do, and in addition offer an "account" (what I called an explanation) of why that is so. Such an account wouldn't merely repeat the demonstration; it would try to tell us why the result makes sense, or was to be expected.

Well, isn't it reasonable to ask why it is? Granted, in some cases the answer will be obvious, but surely not always. The sorts of thing Wittgenstein had in mind as being inexpressible are hardly obviously so.

What troubles me is the presumption to knowledge - justified true beliefs - in the absence of a coherent way of providing a justification.

Which of course leads into the discussion of what is to count as a justification... — Banno

I think when it comes to matters of faith personal experiences may serve as justifications for one's own (but certainly not anyone else's) beliefs — Janus

It seems to me that "I had an experience of God" may be both true and justified, in terms of my own (reasonable) standards. But the degree of justification -- the standards involved -- are quite different from those I would use if someone asked me to justify my belief that my cat is on the mat. Different degrees of certitude, in other words. Arguments for God based on personal experience are arguments to the best hypothesis. That's why it's unreasonable to expect anyone else to treat my belief as knowledge.

But if something can't be said, it might be important to say why and surely philosophy has a role to play there. — Wayfarer

I . . . take [it] to be one of the main themes of the Investigations - that what cannot be said may be shown or done. — Banno

I just want to point out that these two views are not the same. You can indeed move on from inexpressibility to a demonstration or showing of what can't be expressed. But first (or conjointly) you can also say why, as Wayfarer suggests. Or would the claim be that inexpressibility itself can only be demonstrated, not justified?

Language is one of the things we do. Didn't Habermas reflect on this in his use of unavoidability and irreducibility? That it is action that has import? — Banno

I don’t recall what Habermas says about unavoidability and irreducibility (of language, I assume), but I have only read sections of the 1,000-page Theory of Communicative Action, along with a lot of secondary criticism, so I may have missed it entirely. I think it’s fair to say that Habermas sees rationality as procedural, and the procedure necessarily involves language. Anthony Giddens has a good overview of TCA in which he says that for Habermas, “rationality presumes communication, because something is rational only if it meets the conditions necessary to forge an understanding with at least one other person.” (“Reason Without Revolution?” in Habermas and Modernity, Richard J. Bernstein, ed.). In general, Habermas sees reason and communication as activities that we do together, which fits the picture of language (perhaps including logical and mathematical languages) as already given in the life-world we find ourselves born into. You can't fly solo.

there is an hierarchical ontology, meaning different levels of being or existence. — Wayfarer

Well, here we are again. That is absolutely one way to employ the terms "being" and "existence," a way with a distinguished history. If you were willing to say that the hierarchical organization may be an actual metaphysical structure but not necessarily described by the terms you've used (being, existence, ontology), I would be inclined to accept that. The map is not the labels.

That's a lovely display, thanks.

Lots to be said about Nagel and religion. Is he really open to religious belief? We know that he doesn't want religion to be true, and that he's provoked (in a good way) by the fact that so many philosophers he respects are deists of one stripe or another. Your distinction between belief in God and belief in a sacred dimension may be relevant here.

I've read a bunch of Habermas but as you say, there's a mega-bunch to read! You'd probably like Between Naturalism and Religion (2008), which addresses a lot of our topics here. His concept of a "detranscendentalized use of reason" is a real contribution. He is absolutely unwilling to give up the Nagelian position that reason is the "last word," and equally unwilling to accept the traditional foundationalist explanations for why this is so. In addition, several of the essays in the book are extremely sympathetic discussions of the role of religious belief -- and religious adherents -- in secular, liberal society.

Now, Quine took himself to be ridiculing the grand pronouncements of metaphysics. But it was hard not to hear that ‘bound variable’ stuff as itself an ontological theory according to which existence is dependent on language: — Sartwell, The post-linguistic turn

You can sense the parodic aspect of the Quinean formula, but I always took him to be saying, essentially, "There is no way to usefully define 'existence' such that all customers will be satisfied, so let's just limit existence-talk to what we do with quantification." And I don't think the resulting ontological "theory" says that existence is dependent on language -- it's dependent on a certain understanding of logical thought, which we're free to maintain is independent of language if we want to. See Frege the platonist.

So - they're the themes I'm exploring. But I agree that it is a different to the subject matter to philosophy per se. — Wayfarer

Sure. And Nagel is one of my favorites. I was raising a brow at the idea that fear of religion, specifically, accounts for the current interest in naturalized Explanations of Everything. The passage you cited -- and just about all of The Last Word -- articulates a position that I think is broadly correct, but you can hold it and still be an atheist to the core. Likewise, you can find it unconvincing on the merits, not because you're afraid you'll "cross the Tiber" (as they used to say) if you start believing that reason provides a privileged access to the world.

And yes, the Habermas discussion is very interesting. He's still alive, you know -- we could ask him what he thinks now (at 95!).

We can take Quine's joke seriously: to be is to be the subject of some quantification — Banno

Oh, I think he meant it! But more to follow.

Yes, these parallels with Augustine are good. Anyone who favors the idea of an intelligible realm is going to have to say whether there's anything populating it before we humans arrive; Plato, Augustine, and Frege opt for saying that it's full, and we encounter it as such.

Which leads to the passages from Peirce and Nagel. History of philosophy isn't my forte, and I defer to Nagel on this, though it does seem a little oversimplified? I suppose there is a generalized "fear of religion," especially in analytic phil., but anti-Platonists seem to be offering genuine justifications for their position, that have to be taken seriously in their own right. And though my own sympathies are with religious modes of life, I don't doubt for a minute that one can be an anti-Platonist and a non-believer without also subscribing to what you're calling "the relativization of reason." Nagel himself is a good example. So is Habermas. And really, so is (most of) analytic phil., which questions various points concerning reason but rarely abandons it to relativism; the questioning is itself usually done using entirely standard assumptions about reason and its grounding.

Which is maybe just to say that evolutionary explanations aren't the only game in town, if one is dubious about platonism.